Physikalisches Kolloquium: Prof. Dr. Martin Revermann – Experiments as theatre

Titel: Experiments as theatre

Abstract:

In this paper I will set out to analyse, both conceptually and historically, how and in what ways a scientific experiment is itself a work of theatre&performance art: a manipulated, scripted, repeatable, dynamic and interactive performance-narrative which represents reality (rather than 'being' reality in any pure and naked sense) for an observer/spectator/audience. Something as (deceptively) simple as the 'floating needle experiment,' memorably staged in Brecht's Galileo (scene 9), is a good starting point. Approached from a more abstract and epistemological vantage point, this example naturally leads to more complex items, for example thought experiments like 'Schrödinger's Cat' or 'Wigner's Friend' which, to the best of my knowledge, has never been analysed from a dramaturgical and performative point of view. The sample applies to the (in)famous 'Milgram Experiment' in Social Psychology or the 'Turing Test,' a foundational element at least of popular conceptions of early Artificial Intelligence - despite the fact that 'Turing Test' with, for instance, its role allocations between three 'characters' is so overtly theatrical and fully centred around the notion of (game-) play.
Shifting to a more historical rather than theoretical or philosophical mode I discuss select well-known 'spectacular' experiments which capitalized on scale, public exposure, suspense and high drama to make a significant public impact. A good example is Galileo's 'cannonball experiment' - initially, in all likelihood, a thought experiment which then started to have a long and fascinating history of concrete performance instantiations which were set in venues as different as Dutch churches and the Moon. The paper will conclude with a performative analysis of how one of the most significant experimental findings in physics over the past decades, the detection of gravitational waves in 2016, was turned into a media-spectacle of global proportions.

Sprecher / Speaker: Prof. Dr. Martin Revermann, University of Toronto

Kontakt / Contact: Prof. Dr. Klaus Mecke