Abstract
This chapter will discuss Tower, a practice-research performance first staged in Elephant and Castle in 2017. Building upon the work of Dorita Hannah and her contention that scenography or performance design can critique architecture’s power structures (Theatr Perform Des 1:126–143. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322551.2015.1032501, 2015), to argue that the scenography in Tower exploits the notion of surveillance to go beyond the city-as panopticon, intervening into the spatiality of the site to underscore other power dynamics inherent in its architecture. By utilising the window as a tool of surveillance, the scenography of Tower draws attention to the blurred boundaries between public and private space in the city and the performativity of public selves even in seemingly private spaces. In Tower, the act of watching reveals the power dynamics of a space in flux. This chapter will explore how Tower’s scenography intervenes into the built environment, utilising surveillance to make visible the (fictive) bodies of the (real) people displaced by the regeneration, and confronting the audience with their own power as a gentrifying presence in the site.
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Thornett, L. (2019). Surveillance and Spatial Performativity in the Scenography of Tower. In: Flynn, S., Mackay, A. (eds) Surveillance, Architecture and Control. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00371-5_4
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