Spatial functions in relation to one another

Item

Title
Spatial functions in relation to one another
Description
Listing the categories of spatial function … is certainly misleading, even though convenient in terms of exposition. It does, as has already been remarked in connection with both textual space and thematic space, give a false impression of separation between categories that in fact have to be conceptualized as dynamically interactive, and it might also convey a notion of hierarchy (but should one be reading in descending or ascending order of importance?). The two dimensions of the printed page are notoriously inadequate as a means of illustrating the complexities of theatrical semiosis, and [the figure] is an attempt to modify the impression of linearity … by displaying the functions as a series of untidy, irregular shapes, enclosing and constructing one another.

The social reality of the theatre space, the relationship between the physical and the fictional that is central to the theatre experience, the modes of interplay derived from the central relationship, are all functions of one another; textual space is critical in the construction of the physical/fictional and in the placing of the fictional within the physical, but it is not exhausted by, nor does it exclusively control, these functions. Thematic space is here visualized as constructed by and emerging from all the other categories of spatial function.
Designer
McAuley, Gay
Date
1999
Source
Space in Performance: Making Meaning in the Theatre.
Bibliographic Citation
McAuley, Gay. 1999. Space in Performance: Making Meaning in the Theatre. University of Michigan Press. Figure 2, pages 33-34,

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