Revisioning the Story in Theater, Museum, and AI

From Chap. 9 on Care, connecting the story by revisioning, we can read different stories which are regenerated from the historical and contemporary ways of seeing, and those changes can be seen in theater, museum pieces, and AI. Hans-Thies Lehmann’s book Postdramatic Theatre indicates modern theatre has changed from conventional storytelling and the way of seeing, blurring the boundaries between different art forms, and encouraging a more sensorial and fragmented experience for the audience. Shakespeare’s play Macbeth is deconstructed and “regenerated” in the Immersive Theatre, exemplified by Punchdrunk’s eminent production Sleep No More (which I watched in 2012–2013) performed in the McKittrick Hotel in New York. The modern theatrical approaches, such as Bertolt Brecht’s “Epic Theatre” and the “Alienation Effect,” Antonin Artaud’s “Theatre of Cruelty,” Jerzy Grotowski’s “Poor Theatre,” Richard Schechner’s “The Environmental Theatre,” and Robert Wilson’s “Theatre of Image,” all lay the groundwork for a departure from traditional storytelling for more experimental contemporary theater. Wilson stages his “Theatre of Image,” for example, Einstein on the Beach in the U.S. and Europe. The museum performance, Wilson’s visual art “Living Rooms” exhibition (2013) with Lady Gaga’s posing videos, brings Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Marat and Ingres’ painting to life at the Louvre. Stories are presented by the tableaux vivants popular in the medieval form and Brecht’s “Epic Theatre.” Stories expand while the scenic montage leads to cinematic montage in the post-dramatic theatre, Wilson’s “Theater of Image” and visual art collaborated with Lady Gaga. Caesar’s Maze (Taipei, June 2024) revisions Shakespeare’s tragedy. Besides, via Netflix interactive film Black Mirror (2018) with computer games interactive with multiple stories, I argue that revisioning the story adapted or deconstructed from texts or without texts or ChatGPT aid is happening, developing, and regenerating in the heterogeneous space to expand the possibilities of storytelling by technology and artificial intelligence (AI).