How Forms Act: Directing, Perception, and the Production of Reality

3 credits · Undergraduate

How does an image become evidence, a room become a tribunal, or an act of speech acquire the force of truth?nnHow Forms Act explores how artistic forms shape the conditions under which reality becomes visible, thinkable, and open to question. Taking directing as a critical and epistemic practice, the course brings theatre into dialogue with cinema, literature, and selected opera, drawing on philosophy, critical theory, and psychoanalysis.nnThrough close reading, screenings, Method Labs, and a Director's Notebook, students investigate how space, framing, rhythm, language, silence, and absence shape what can be perceived, believed, withheld, or contested. Rather than reducing the complexity of the real to a single interpretation, the course explores how formal decisions can expose its contradictions, generate further questions, and engage spectators and readers in an ongoing process of critical thought and judgment - one that continues to evolve in memory.