Where is “The Centre of the World”?

Moving from the centre and the periphery, towards a Dramaturgy of Atten(ac)tion, based on the analysis of Ana Borralho and João Galante’s VR performance installation

Résumé

The world surrounding us is constructed through the constant dialogue between inside and outside, centre and periphery, public and private. “Where is The Centre of the World?” is the question suggested by the performance by Ana Borralho and João Galante, a performative installation that uses VR devices, which premiered in 2024 at Teatro do Bairro Alto, and that summons precisely this permanent communication between these binary axes, taking as its motif the "mirror" of the contemporary world. In what ways can these devices, when used in Theatre and Performance, promote or result in new forms of attention, or even in reverse, or disordered, forms of everyday attention — that is, what dramaturgies of attention (Georgelou, Protopapa, and Theodoridou 2017) are produced from the hybridisation of presence? Where does the spectator's self find itself in the chaos of perception produced in this hyper-mediated space?

In "The Centre of the World" (2024), the spectator's attention is invited to immerse itself in an augmented reality, which is constructed from a black space (Alston and  Welton 2017; Lepecki  2016), which is simultaneously an interactive space where editing takes place between the action proposed by the created characters and what we shall term "atten(ac)tion" (an attention-action) of the spectator. 

Starting from a methodological approach based on the analysis of the performance and interviews with the artists, we draw on the concepts of ‘centre’ (Shils) and the ‘disorder of attention’ (Bishop) to problematise a dramaturgical strategy that mimics characters and techniques from social media, where individual and collective attention is immeasurably and acceleratedly captivated, exposed and challenged. A continuous demand for action arises, creating an ambiguous and hybrid space that not only deconstructs but also seems to undermine the relationship between centres and peripheries in our world.