Title: Myriorama: Obsolete Technologies for a Contemporary Scenographic Practice and Thought
Stream: Visual Arts Practices
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation
Authors:
Aurora dos Campos, University of Porto, Portugal
Helder Gomes, University of Porto, Portugal
Sofia Ponte, , European University of Lisbon, Portugal
Abstract:
This article reflects on some of the conceptual, spatial, and narrative possibilities of the use of the Myriorama game, and its pre-cinematic technology, in contemporary artistic and scenographic practices. To this end, it takes under consideration the language of visual essays, which has been increasingly explored by artists, photographers, and filmmakers who seem to share a desire to “show things as they are”. More specifically, this analysis will consider the visual essay Myriorama nº1 (2021) by scenographer Aurora dos Campos and the historical contextualization of the first Myriorama decks. This “card game” was created by Jean-Pierre Brès, in 1824, in France. At the time the game was meant to inspire artists, create stories for children, and entertain a certain European elite. It became popular during the 19th century, with different versions in England, Italy, Austria, Germany, and Greece, for instance, but fell, as it began, quickly into oblivion. It is a game of portable dimensions, composed of hand-colored scenes, with human and animal figures, buildings, country landscapes, and everyday situations, which when combined and recombined create various visual narratives. The study relates the Myriorama game with the philosophical concepts of perspectivism and pluralism enunciated by Friedrich Nietzsche (1997), such as the ideas about the limits of interpretation proposed by Umberto Eco (2004), as well as the concept of visual essay. It is thus intended to contribute to unveiling tensions between the multiplicity of possible landscape representations and their interpretative limits in contemporary artistic practices.
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