Theatrical Illusion Research Articles

Teatr w XXI wieku - ku nowym definicjom

The article Theatre in 27” Century - Towards New Definitions deals with the problem of narrow understanding of theatre art that dominates not only common thought but also the scientific practise of Polish theatrologists. This traditional definition is based on five elements: theatrical illusion, close connection with drama, dramatic character, stage box and space/time community between actors and spectators. During the development of the theatre in 20,h century this distinctive features were disproved by the reformers and experimenters. At the same time such theatre categories as performance, role, stage etc. were widely used to describe "theatre of everyday life". In the last decades of the 20th century the new field of science - the performance studies - emerged. The reaction of the theatrology was one of defending the traditional borders and neglecting all that was different from the conventional theatre by calling it "paratheatrical" or "alternative". In the author's opinion this notion is false and causes real losses for the discipline, so he proposes to open the borders of theatrology by taking different activities into account. But it doesn't mean the full acceptation of performance studies' terminology and point of view, because there is a danger of substituting the term "theatre" by the wider term "performance". And the difference between one and the other seems to be important, because the theatre is a kind of consciously created performance which is marked as such. The ways and methods of this marking depend on the cultural and historical context, so they change in space and time. Only the exact act of marking is universal. It means, that in the scientific practise there is no universal group of definite "theatre factors". The definitions of theatre are always to be reached and that's why "towards" is the most important word in the article's title.

The Politics of Dancing: Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (nicknamed "The Trocks") have been performing "serious" ballets en travesti since 1974. Acclaimed worldwide, the Trocks are on tour forty weeks a year. Last time they performed in New York, Time Out New York listed them as "pick of the week," in three categories simultaneously: best dance performance, best gay & lesbian event, and best children's activity (Chung). What does all this popularity mean, politically? Is it necessary to concede that the Trocks are merely another lovably harmless manifestation of drag, just as well assimilated as Mrs. Doubtfire and Dame Edna, or can we trace from their double heritage - edgy 1970's gay performance tactics, and those monumentally iconic Russian prima ballerinas - an underlying political strategy of activism and cultural relevance? In this article, I will argue that political motivation is embedded in each of these traditions, in a number of different ways. The strategies of resistance employed by the Ballets Trockadero draw on each of these inherited histories in order to mount a camp performance that confronts the tenets of gender identity, of classical ballet, of issues of race and class in the performing arts, of enforced theatrical illusion - and even of drag itself.

Devolution of the Fisher Equation: Rational Appreciation to Money Illusion

In Appreciation and Interest Irving Fisher (1896) derived an equation connecting interest rates in any two standards of value. The original Fisher equation (OFE) was expressed in terms of the expected appreciation of money [percent change in E(1/P)] whereas the ubiquitous conventional Fisher equation (CFE) uses expected goods inflation [percent change in E(P)]. Since Jensen's inequality implies the non-equivalence of the two equations, the OFE is not subject to standard criticisms of non-rationality leveled against the CFE. The puzzling substitution of inflation for expected money appreciation in Fisher (1930) is resolved by taking into account Fisher s theory of money illusion.

The Convent of Pleasure (review)

Presented for the Sixth Biennial International Conference of the Margaret Cavendish Society at Convocation Hall, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. July 9, 2005. Produced and Directed by Gweno Williams. Assistant Directors Gillian Brownson, Monika Karpinska, Stephanie Morley, and Calli Armstrong. Music by Freddy Wilkes and Stephanie Wit-ten. Choreography by Monika Karpinska. With Gillian Brownson (Lady Happy), Ashley Petrovsky (Madame Mediator), Michael Atlin (Princess), Jayson Brown (Monsieur Advisor, Gentleman), Laura Pomeroy (Lady Amorous, Convent Lady), Calli Armstrong (Lady Vertue, Convent Lady), John Browning (Ambassador, Monsieur Facil, Gentleman), Peter Cockett (Mimick), Greg Cruikshank (Monsieur Courtly), Kristian Listrom (Gentleman, Dick), Amit Sharma (Gentleman, Monsieur Take-Pleasure), and Kathryn Allan, Max Goodie, Monika Karpinska, Kate Mackeracher, Kait MacMurray, Stephanie Morley, Stephanie Witten (Convent Ladies). Margaret Cavendish warned at the end of her 1662 volume of plays that believe I shall not go much further, finding my spirits of Fancy grown weak, and dull, and the vein of Wit empty, having lately writ 21 Playes, with 12 Epistles, and one Introduction, besides Prologues, and Epilogues. We can be thankful that she did persevere to write several more plays alongside her growing philosophical oeuvre. In fact, her greatest play, The Convent of Pleasure, was to be the penultimate work in the 1668 Playes Never Before Printed. Without the Convent (and a handful of other plays) it might be easier to argue that Cavendish did not write for performance. But with its concision, wit, and spectacular action, The Convent of Pleasure crystallizes all the dramatic talent scattered piecemeal in her other works. Its richness has generated in recent years a hefty volume of scholarship that has neither exhausted the play nor produced any major interpretive consensus. The Canadian premiere of The Convent of Pleasure took place at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario, 9 July 2005. The production by Gweno Williams, Reader in Early Modern Drama at York St. John University College, marked the highpoint of the Sixth Biennial International Conference of the Margaret Cavendish Society and brought together about one hundred audience members from the conference and the wider public. In 1999, Williams founded the Margaret Cavendish Performance Project and has developed, produced, and recorded on DVD and video six hitherto unperformed Cavendish plays. This conference production drew upon her experience over a decade conducting research and workshops on Cavendish and early modern dramatic performance. The Convent was staged in Convocation Hall on campus, in a simple, open playing space surrounded by the audience. This staging suggested a private production in the hall of a great house such as Bolsover or Welbeck, and emphasized the fact that with simple costumes, a few hand-held props, and minimal musical accompaniment, Cavendish had all the materials necessary to conjure a vivid theatrical illusion. Cavendish's insistent interrogation of norms of gender and sexuality was the guiding principle behind Williams's production. The play's precipitating event is the death of Lady Happy's father, which leaves her an orphan and the prey of fortune-hunting men. In this way, the play appears to open with a plotline common to countless Restoration comedies--one J. Douglas Canfield usefully termed the tricksters and estates plot--but it soon becomes clear that Cavendish disappoints any expectations of a standard sex farce. Inspired by the chance of successfully wooing the handsome, young, rich, and virtuous Lady Happy, the gentlemen in this production were all comic energy, increasingly drunk and desperate as their hopes were dashed by the yard-thick walls of the convent and the self-contained pleasures of the all-female space. In stylish period white blouses and black satin breeches, the men showed excellent comic timing and physical acumen. …

Pseudoneglect: Evidence for both perceptual and attentional factors

When neurologically normal individuals bisect a horizontal line as accurately as possible, they reliably show a slight leftward error. This leftward inaccuracy is called pseudoneglect because errors made by neurologically normal individuals are directionally opposite to those made by persons with visuospatial neglect ( Jewell & McCourt, 2000). In the current study, normal right-handed observers bisected horizontal lines that were altered to bias line length judgments either toward the right or the left side of the line. Non-target dots were placed on or near the line stimuli using principles derived from a theory of visual illusions of length called centroid extraction ( Morgan, Hole, & Glennerster, 1990). This theory argues that the position of a visual target is calculated as the mean position of all stimuli in close proximity to the target stimulus. We predicted that perceptual alterations that shifted the direction of centroid extraction would also shift the direction of line bisection errors. Our findings confirmed this prediction and support the idea that both perceptual and attentional factors contribute to the pseudoneglect effect.

The Power of Site-Unspecificity

In its narrowest, modernist definition, site-specificity would seem to imply that the artistic work has some integral connection to the location in which it is situated; that “to move the work is to destroy the work” (Serra 194; qtd. in Kaye 2). In a climate, however, in which such reductive thinking has been repeatedly challenged — that is, each and every work can be seen to have an integral connection to its venue insofar as it is received in its particular context – what can be said of site-specificity? Or, of particular interest here, what can be said of site-unspecificity or site-generic-ity? By this, I do not mean work in theatre venues like black boxes that strive for an unspecific quality, for to do so would be to accede to the inherited notion that the stage is an empty space (“Empty of what?” one might ask, with a whimsical smirk), waiting to be filled with the transformative magic of theatrical illusion. Rather, I am referring to theatrical situations in which a venue’s generic everydayness has equal or greater interpretive impact upon reception than the specific narrative or cultural baggage by which the venue is marked.1

Japanese Knowledge Creation and the Fundamental Illusion Theory: A Fresh Look

We propose the fundamental illusion theory to explain knowledge creation based on Japanese companies. This theory is a hearing illusion which explains that when two tones occur together a third lower pitched tone is heard, but this last perceived pitch is a frequency (fundamental) for which there is no actual source vibration. If we make an analogy between fundamental frequency and knowledge, between tones occurring together and learning + culture + leadership, we have a new management model.

Testing the Tilt-Constancy Theory of Visual Illusions

Prinzmetal and Beck (2001) Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 27 206 - 217) argued that a subset of visual illusions is caused by the same mechanisms that are responsible for the perception of vertical and horizontal a theory they referred to as the tilt-constancy theory of visual illusions. They argued that these illusions should increase if the observer's head or head and body are tilted because extra reliance would then be placed on the illusion-inducing local visual context. Exactly that result had previously been reported in the case of the tilted-room and the rod-and-frame illusions. Prinzmetal and Beck reported similar increases in the tilt illusion (TI), as well as the Zöllner, Poggendorff, and Ponzo illusions. In two experiments, we re-examined the effect of head tilt on the TI. In experiment 1, we used more conventional TI stimuli, more standard experimental methods, and a more complete experimental design than Prinzmetal and Beck, and additionally extended the investigation to attraction as well as repulsion effects. Experiment 2 more closely replicated the Prinzmetal and Beck stimuli. Although we found that head tilt did increase TIs in both experiments, the increases were of the order of 1 degrees -2 degrees, more modest than the 7 degrees reported by Prinzmetal and Beck. Significantly, the TI increase was larger when inducing tilts and head tilts were in the same direction than when they were in opposite directions, suggesting that the tilt-constancy theory may be oversimplified. In addition, because previous evidence renders unlikely the claim that the Poggendorff illusion can be explained simply in terms of misperceived orientation of the transversals, the question arises whether there might be some other explanation for the increase in the Zöllner, Poggendorff, and Ponzo illusions with body tilt that Prinzmetal and Beck reported.

The Plays of Juan Ruiz de Alarcon by Jules Whicker

874 Reviews depiction of don Amor's tent to be a dream, a thesis whose plausibility is endorsed by Haywood in her essay 'Palabra e imagen: algunos aspectos de la alegoria medieval', in Las metamorfosis de la alegoria: discurso y sociedad en la Peninsula Iberica desde la Edad Media hasta laEdad Contemporanea, ed. by Rebeca Sanmartin and Rosa Vidal (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2005), pp. I05-25. Martin Duffel demonstrates clearly that the Libro de buen amor is in fact well versified ifwe consider its rhythm to be accentual. Lawrance and de Looze persuade us of the importance of the notion of mouvance to an understanding of the history of this text, especially its changing and versatile nature. The Libro breaks the public's expectations, as de Looze shows, and the lack of amanuscript text for the erotic culmination of the Donia Endrina episode is 'a reminder both of earlier readers' reactions and of our own inability to fully understand manuscript texts' (p. I47), this absence in turn becoming part of the text's meaning. Vasvari's comparison of the Libro to a prostitute (both promiscuously open to manipulation) is extremely useful and offers awide range of new interpretations in different passages. The same is true of Drayson's use of chaos theory, which provides us with an enriching point of view, even though it does not tackle the relationship between the disorder of Ruiz's text and the saturated space of Gothic painting, lacking inwholeness and depth of perspective (the unitary vision of the spectator is something not achieved until the Renaissance). I should also point to the ambiguity of Drayson's quotation at the beginning of her article (is she quoting Barthes or Hayles in the end?-see p. I5 I). To sum up, the most important achievements of this book are, inmy opinion, a shift of scope from studying a product to studying the processes of its creation and reception; and, secondly, the freeing of the critic from the need to force an organic unity upon the book. The volume has the additional merit of including very useful subject and stanza indexes and a long bibliography with an impressive range of titles. For all the reasons given above, I regard it as an essential tool for all who wish to experience a fresh reading of an outstanding medieval author. UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID REBECA SANMARTiN BASTIDA The Plays of J7uanRuiz de Alarc6n. By JULES WHICKER. (Colecci6n T'amesis, Serie A: Monografias, 200)Woodbridge: Tamesis. 2003. viii + 212 pp. ?40. ISBN I 85566-093-8. This timely contribution to Alarc6n studies is focused on the issue of deception, its necessity, and in certain circumstances the ways inwhich it is not just justifiable but desirable. The notion and possibility of legitimate deceptions are closely linked by Alarcon to the moral and social legitimacy of the comedia per se. In this way, this study is significant not just in relation to Alarc6n's plays, but also for Baroque culture and aesthetics generally, offering the best single account of antitheatrical ist anxiety, its social and moral antecedents, as well as a fascinating consideration of the issue of legitimate deception in the social and political philosophy of early seventeenth-century Spain. Alarcon's work responds to the controversies surround ing the allegedly morally deleterious effects of theatre attendance on young noblemen and women by drawing a connection between honest deceptions, prominent through out his plays, and his own artifice as a creator of dramatic illusions. By manipulating contextual and structural features in his plays, he manages to subvert techniques and devices, like props and music, associated with arousing passion and the baser appetites of the vulgo. The titillation of spectacular visual effects, stage machinery, and cos tume, all of which feature prominently in his work, is redeployed as an opportunity to MLR, IOI.3, 2006 875 raise the audience's awareness of their passivity, and how they are being manipulated, deceived, and drawn in by theatrical illusion. By calling into question their status as signs, they become visual conceits of the unreliability of appearances. Linguistic and rhetorical flamboyance is similarly employed to underline the potential deceptiveness of poetic language. By distinguishing between extravagant lies...

Knowing your place: Self-perceptions of status in face-to-face groups.

Status is the prominence, respect, and influence individuals enjoy in the eyes of others. Theories of positive illusions suggest that individuals form overly positive perceptions of their status in face-to-face groups. In contrast, the authors argue that individuals' perceptions of their status are highly accurate--that is, they closely match the group's perception of their status--because forming overly positive status self-perceptions can damage individuals' acceptance in a group. Therefore, the authors further argue that individuals are likely to refrain from status self-enhancement to maintain their belongingness in a group. Support for their hypotheses was found in 2 studies of status in face-to-face groups, using a social relations model approach (D. A. Kenny & L. La Voie, 1984). Individuals showed high accuracy in perceiving their status and even erred on the side of being overly humble. Moreover, enhancement in status self-perceptions was associated with lower levels of social acceptance.

Retracing our footsteps: A revised theory of the footsteps illusion

Retracing our footsteps: A revised theory of the footsteps illusion

"Un fil visible": Poetry and Reportage in Stephane Mallarme's "Un Spectacle interrompu"

“Un fil visible”Poetry and Reportage in Stéphane Mallarmé's “Un Spectacle interrompu” Stacy Pies Stéphane Mallarmé lamented the vulgarity of the press, but the newspaper, with its increasing audience, awakened his desire to appropriate journalism's commercial power. In describing journalism's "theft" of literature, its invention of the feuilleton, in the poème critique "Étalages" (1892), he implies an uncharacteristic conclusion: popular culture must be reclaimed for poetry.1 The question of journalism's value, prominent in the poèmes critiques of the 1890 s, such as "Le Livre, instrument spirituel" (1895), enters Mallarmé's work in the 1870 s. The prose poem "Un Spectacle interrompu" (1875), first published when Mallarmé was in the midst of journalistic projects and recognized as a harbinger of his later prose style, exemplifies Mallarmé's experimentation with reportage. Anticipating both his 1880 s explorations of performance and the 1890 s poèmes critiques, Mallarmé's anecdote interrogates the poetic vision, the "recherche assoupie d'imaginations ou de symboles."2 Presenting itself as a report, and the poet as reporter, the poem announces the poet's spiritual authority and the hierarchy of poetry and journalism. Yet this poetic report linguistically and dramatically overturns the poem's hierarchies. In "Un Spectacle," encounters between the poet-reporter and reporters in general, poetry and reportage, reality and artifice, the poet's and the audience's interpretations of the spectacle, the poet and the clown, and the clown and the bear, implicitly question the distinction between the poetic and the popular, as well as the poetic and the real.3 Rather than establishing poetry's superiority over reportage, the prose poem seems an odd attempt at reconciliation. In showing how the accident that interrupts the spectacle produces meaning, this poetic [End Page 1] report interrogates the theatrical illusion to illustrate the interdependence of the figurative and the real. The poet's vision of the audience and their response to this spectacle hints at the desire for a ritual that reveals the poetic within the public. "Un Spectacle interrompu" foreshadows the possibility, entertained later in the poèmes critiques, of a rapprochement of poetry and the popular. In its exploration of the oppositions of poetry and journalism, reality and artifice, and the mythic and the public, "Un Spectacle interrompu" dramatizes one of Mallarmé's early attempts to capture the power of popular genres and discourse for poetry. The poem's opening is an avatar of Mallarmé's stance toward journalism. The speaker states that he seeks to write about the spectacle as a poet, not a reporter:4 "Je veux, en vue de moi seul, écrire comme elle frappa mon regard de poète, telle Anecdote, avant que la divulguent des reporters par la foule dressés à assigner à chaque chose son caractère commun" ( OC 276). The poet's account results in an understanding different from the vulgarized version reporters are required to provide, "divulguent," to the crowd. This remark, anticipating observations about reportage in "Crise de vers," starts to formulate the problem of defining poetic prose ( OC 386). In "Crise de vers," Mallarmé redivides the poetry/prose split, implicitly replacing it with a split between language that is musical, and thus poetic, and language that is not.5 This notion generalizes "poetry" into what Roman Jakobson called "the poetic function" of language. Jakobson acknowledged his debt to Mallarmé when he observed that "poeticalness is not a supplementation of discourse with rhetorical adornment but a total re-evaluation of the discourse and of all of its components whatsoever" (377). The tension of distinguishing and incorporating poetry and prose persists in Divagations (1897), where the section collecting this and other prose poems is entitled "Anecdotes ou poèmes." The anecdote relates how a person describing himself as a poet attends a popular spectacle in a theater. The performance consists of an actor—a clown—and a bear. Twenty pedestals, on which sylphs stand, opening their arms and smiling sympathetically at the bear, border the stage. The clown taunts the bear and then raises his arm in a gesture that the bear imitates. In doing so, the bear accidentally touches the clown's shoulder and then places his...

Seeing Things ("As They Are"): Coleridge, Schiller, and the Play of Semblance

1 COLERIDGE IS NOT BEST KNOWN AS A PLAYWRIGHT, OR EVEN AS A THEORIST of the stage, in spite of his sustained critical assessment of late eighteenth-century theater--itself familiar to readers chiefly through his lectures on Shakespeare (this is to gesture toward the alleged anti-theatricality of his general position). Nevertheless, Coleridge did make serious attempts to write plays, largely, it seems, in response to the abysmal state of English drama in the 1790s, as it was then perceived not only by Coleridge but by other public commentators as well, such as Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt. Contemporary plays were often dismissed as sentimental, gothic, formulaic, and highly melodramatic--or, as Wordsworth famously declared in his preface to Lyrical Ballads, sickly and stupid german tragedies. These comments need to be understood in terms of highly idealized sense of what theater could accomplish, in political as well as dramatic terms. To reinvigorate the productions of the English stage would be not only to elevate it again to the level of its golden age, in Elizabethan and Jacobean culture, but to fulfill an agenda related to nationalist impulse that, if not explicitly revolutionary, was politically reformist. (1) Thus the familiar narrative of Coleridge's involvement in the theater begins with his early radicalism (evident in so much of his work in the 1790s, not least in his 1797 play Osorio, and in The Fall of Robespierre, co-written with Robert Southey), and with sense of the theater as an ideal space not only to represent and engage current events (chiefly of course the French Revolution and the English reaction to it, and with it, issues of freedom and censorship), but also to educate the public response to those events. On the other hand, the political ambivalence of Coleridge's maturity, and the critical pronouncements he would later make on the state of the theater, did nothing to counter the general sense that highbrow Romantic theater was either fixated unproductively on old models (classical or Shakespearean), or obsessed by subjects that were fundamentally unsuitable for the stage--fit only for the closet, or specimens of what Byron was to call mental theater. (2) It is in this loosely-sketched context, though, that we may now consider the following event. In 1813, Coleridge's play Remorse, highly successful revision of his 1797 play Osorio, was performed to considerable acclaim, and ran for nearly three weeks at Drury Lane. As far and away the most financially rewarding production of Coleridge's career (he is thought to have made 400 pounds out of it), this turn of events was remarkable enough. But more remarkable still, though rarely mentioned in discussions of Coleridge's theory of dramatic illusion, is how play, written by such an adamant critic of Georgian stage-craft could unreservedly accept and deploy its conventions. (3) The paradox here draws from Coleridge's assertion that while Shakespeare's stage was effectively bare--merely a naked room, blanket for curtain--his appeal to the imagination fitted it out as 'A field for monarchs.' (4) Theater productions of Coleridge's day, on the other hand, including those of Shakespeare's plays, appealed not to the imagination, but to the senses, through an emphasis on visual display and special effects, and were thus deemed inappropriate not only for Shakespeare's genius, but for any serious drama. Meanwhile, the 1813 production of Coleridge's own play, at the newly rebuilt Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, was state of the art: the theater itself had been re-equipped with the latest in lighting and stage technology, and for Remorse, there were to be lavish sets and startling effects, in keeping with the kind of exotic popular fashion created by Byron's Eastern tales (Holmes 321, 325). The play may have been vilified by many critics for its awkward emphasis on description in place of action (what we might construe as an emphasis on the written over the visual) and for its attendant abstractions, but it was unanimously appreciated for its stage effects, and particularly for the coup d'oeil of the famous sorcery scene. …

:Theatre of the Book 1480-1880, Print, Text and Performance in Europe

Introduction I. PRINTING THE DRAMA 1. Experimenting on the page, 1480-1630 2. Drama as institution, 1630-1760 3. Illustrations, promptbooks, stage texts, 1760-1880 II. THEATRE IMPRIMATUR 4. Reinventing 'theatre' via the printing press 5. Critical law, theatrical licence 6. Accurate texts, authoritative editions III. THE SENSES OF MEDIA 7. The sense of the senses: sounds, gesture and the body on stage 8. Narrative form and theatrical illusions 9. Framing space: time, perspective, and motion in the image IV. THE COMMERCE OF LETTERS 10. Dramatists, poets, and other scribblers 11. Who owns the play? Pirate, plagiarist, imitator, thief 12. Making it public V. THEATRICAL IMPRESSIONS 13. Scenic pictures 14. Actor/author 15. A theatre too much with us Epilogue Notes Works Cited Index

Horizontal-Vertical Illusion: Continuous Decrement or the Deviant First Guess?

Numerous studies have reported that repetitive or extensive inspection leads to short-term decrement of the horizontal-vertical illusion. The present experiment explored whether this decrement reflects a gradual decline, as previously assumed, or is better described as a singular drop-off beyond the initial evaluation. 111 student participants adjusted vertical or horizontal lines such that they appeared equally long with a perpendicular standard. There were 8 successive adjustment trials for each subject. The results suggest that a substantial component of the illusion depends on the first impression assessment. The earlier anatomical and cognitive theories of the horizontal-vertical illusion cannot incorporate this datum. However, recent findings suggest that a motor theory of illusion might accommodate the observed one-step decrement in the illusion.

Theatricality as Estrangement of Art and Life In the Russian Avant-garde

We, too, will show you life that's real-very! / But life transformed by the theater a spectacle most extraordinary! writes Vladimir Mayakovsky in the prologue of his famous Mystery Bouffe. This transformation of life into a spectacle, both on stage and in reality, is one of the most distinct features of the phenomenon of theatricality. It is to some extent the metamorphosis of the real, the habitual, the ordinary the theatrical. The parallel between theatricality and the ideas of the Russian Formalist school of literary criticism has often been pointed out, particularly in relation to the Formalist concept of literariness.1 Nevertheless, the affinity between theatricality and the phenomenon of making the familiar strange, central to Russian Formalism, has rarely been addressed. In 1917, Russian Formalist scholar Victor Shklovsky coined the term ostranenie to describe the artistic strategy of presenting the well-known as if seen for the first time. The term is translated German as Verfremdung, which became the cornerstone of Bertolt Brecht's anti-Aristotelian dramaturgy of estrangement. The traditional means of estrangement in theater are epic devices central to Brecht's strategy of breaking theatrical illusions. Theatricality, however, can be present in the context of illusion without a self-referential aspect, but whenever theater's conventions and processes become its own topic, theatricality turns a conceptual approach, often expressing its potential to make the familiar strange. This was the case with Meyerhold's, Tairov's and Evreinov's concepts of the theatricalization and re-theatricalization of theater in the Russian avant-garde. Moreover, these directors practiced the strategy of distancing the familiar using devices of theatricality in ways much closer to the notion of ostranenie as elaborated by Russian Formalists than to Brecht's Verfremdung. Thus theatricality functions as a distancing device when it foregrounds what is immanent to theater, calling attention to the fictionality and incompleteness of the representation. Brecht's concept of Verfremdung, Shklovsky's ostranenie, as well as practical and theoretical works of the Russian theatrical avant-garde suggest that there are several

The tilt-consistency theory of visual illusions.

The tilt-consistency theory of visual illusions.

Why people want something for nothing: The role of asymmetrical illusions

Abstract. This article examines if and why mechanisms exist at the individual citizen level that may contribute to public sector growth — and whether such mechanisms can be altered through provision of information about the costs of public services.We test and find empirical support for the theory of fiscal illusion according to which citizens underestimate the costs of public services and therefore demand more public spending than if they had been fully informed. We also develop and find empirical support for a theory of asymmetrical illusions. This theory claims that producers and users of public services are more spending–minded than ordinary taxpayers — and that limited rationality contributes to this difference. However, the provision of information about the unit costs of public services can weaken these mechanisms of fiscal illusion and asymmetrical illusions. The test is based on tabular, logit, and experimental analysis of survey data from Odense, a Danish city with 175,000 inhabitants.

Truth, Lies and Story-telling in The Lower Depths

Critical writing on Na dne (The Lower Depths, 1902) has concentrated on the issue of a harsh versus a consoling lie as the heart of Gorky's play, regarding it is a matter related to the ideological, or less frequently the philosophical, implications of the piece.1 Such an exclusively thematic view of this text, however, neglects the fact that it was written for performance. If theme is integrated with theatrical form in the construction of meaning, interpretations different from those that have hitherto dominated the criticism may emerge. A focal area of interest where theme and form fertilise one another lies in the story-telling episodes. They provide several moments where the dramatic form becomes consciously engaged with the truth and lies theme of the play. They also create a set of links which informs interpretation of the perplexing ending to the play. Why do theme and form engage with one another in the story-telling episodes in The Lower Depths? When operating in a theatrical medium, a text utilises a juxtaposition of truth and truth, or reality, is pursued through the theatrical illusions which present the fictional world. Story-telling, particularly oral storytelling, embodies a similar structure of truth and lies in as much as content is conveyed by the illusions of performance. Story-telling may also refer in the vernacular to efforts, often childish, to mask truth, but it is nevertheless a venerable tradition of entertainment. The argument here is that the oral story-telling in The Lower Depths, when located in a theatrical, performance, framework, may hold a key to a new understanding of this text. The generally held view regards Gorky as a monolithic writer, dedicated to one political agenda, which he realises by showing signs of the disintegration of established society of his day. These signs reside principally in generational and social conflict. The key to a new understanding is that oral story-telling in the Lower Depths not only exemplifies and reinforces, but also greatly expands the truth and lies debate. Truths and lies are not in conflict, not clashing in the form but working together, co-existing, cooperating to produce a unified whole. In this way story-telling identifies as central to an overall interpretation of the play not conflict between views and the supremacy of one over the other, but counterpointing of very different views. Gorky is less of a propagandist and more of a humanist than has generally been allowed. In this interpretation, his play The Lower Depths proposes not a one-sided political agenda but makes the case for accepting a plurality of views. A doss-house in Moscow at the turn of the last century provides the memorable setting for this, Gorky's second, play. It is a place of extremes. On the one hand, it is a refuge for the destitute, suffering and dying; on the other, a place for survivors, the perverse and self-preservers. Into this pit of humanity comes Luka, a traveller, probably on the run (he has no papers) and probably associated with alternative forms of religion (he is referred to as a strannik (wanderer or palmer) and talks of the beguny (runners) 2). He is wily, shrewd, lives on his wits, a survivor, but he is also kindly. Unable to pass suffering by, he offers his consoling lies: he comforts the tuberculose and dying Anna with promise of heaven, and tantalises an alcoholic, out-of-work actor with talk of a cure in some remote clinic. His words bring instant calm and hope. Other characters, trapped in a life of poverty, dislike his temporary comforting, calling him a liar. They prefer to justify their aimless existences by the hopelessness, both theological and social, of their situation. Their feelings boil to resentment at his sudden disappearance towards the end of Act 3, when there is a fracas in the doss-house owner's family, which leads to his murder by one of the dossers. The possibility of being called as a witness causes Luka swiftly to remove himself The climax of the play in Act 4 emerges from a previously reticent but powerful character, Satin. …

Looking at the Self in a Rose-Colored Mirror: Unrealistically Positive Self-Views and Academic Performance

The relationship between unrealistically positive self-evaluations and performance in an academic setting was examined in the present study. As suggested by Colvin and Block (1 994), objective criteria were used to identify individuals who held unrealistically positive self-views. More specifically, academic records were compared to self-ratings of academic ability to classify students as accurate, unrealistically positive, or unrealistically negative about their academic abilities. Consistent with Taylor and Brown's (1988) theory of positive illusions, students who were unrealistically positive achieved higher grades the semester following the study than students who were realistic or unrealistically negative.