The Architecture of A Non-Narrative Theatre

Abstract

Marseille as a port city that is in constant flux carries out a vast array of qualities and experiences that creates a dynamic collection in which heterogenous conventions, orders, and routines interrelate and collide. It is a complex urban network of places and fragments that come together in this context of ‘otherness’.
Analysing Marseille through a heterotopic lens in our collective preliminary research has led me to the exploration of additional characteristics of the city as forms of ‘other’. I do not consider heterotopias essentially as spaces of resistance - as has been interpreted by many scholars - but as sites that colligate and connect different logics and norms.
This thesis looks at the ‘Absurd’ as a form of ‘otherness’ that emerges out of non-conventional that challenges common relationships and orders.
In philosophical terms, the absurd refers to the constant conflict between the human tendency to find meaning and purpose in life and their inability to find
these certain values.
Absurd does not provide a resolution, even though it is not an anti-resolution. It essentially operates by consistently colliding and juxtaposing different orders, norms, and conventions to dismantle customary relationships. The absurd does not bring forward any point since it points to the pointlessness.

In the absurd, there is no greater question, no moral lesson, no essence, and no story. There might be the appearance of a tale… only the wait for
Godot; the story never consummates, but the space for it latently exists. As paradoxical as the absurd is, the setting produced out of absurdity is indeed
elusive.