{:en}Currently, the professorship is concerned with three central fields of work, each of which focuses on the interdependencies of theater, technology, and society from different perspectives:
History of Theater and Technology
The historical points of contact between theater and technology are researched. The focus is not only on stage technology in the narrower sense, but rather on questions of the fundamental technicality of theater art and its horizons under the technological conditionality of the present. So far, the focus has been on the electrification of theater in the late 19th century and, on the other hand, on digitalization in the early 21st century. Of central importance was the project, funded in two phases:
- Energies of the Spectacle. On the Theatricality of Electricity and the Electrification of the Theater, 1870-1930 (VolkswagenFoundation)
Currently, work is underway to formulate the theoretical and methodological consequences of the history of technology for theater historiography and to launch an initiative to network theater technology collections . An international conference is in preparation for 2024.
Praxeography and Sociology of Theatre
The focus is on the question of the practice and production of theater, as well as the multiple forms of knowledge that are encountered in the process. Inspired by ethnographic science studies and actor-network theory, among others, new approaches in the sociology of art have emerged in recent decades, developing new perspectives on the interactions of art and society. Following on from this, the question of the interconnectedness of the theater also arises anew, in particular of its operation and its participation in artistic processes, which will be investigated in the coming years in a DFG project:
With two doctoral positions and associated M.A. projects, the interplay of artistic, technical, and administrative processes will be investigated and methodologically reflected upon with the help of ethnographic strategies.
Digital Epistemology of Performance
The digital is currently shaping not only aesthetic and institutional discussions of theater, it also has far-reaching epistemological consequences for knowledge of theater in the form of, among other things, digital humanitarians. For in view of exponentially growing data stocks and the accompanying practices, not only new possibilities for research are opening up, but also increasingly new empirical, methodological as well as theoretical questions are arising. These have already been explored in an international and interdisciplinary panel series, which will be continued in the coming summer semester.
- Computational Methods for Theatre Studies? (Panel Serie SuSe 2022)
In addition, the media library of the Institute of Theater Studies at the LMU is currently being fundamentally revised and the project Networking Media Libraries of the Performing Arts is being accompanied in the steering group. Above all, two research proposals are currently in preparation.