The ancient Greeks and 360 virtual reality narrative

I believe it was the Roman indoor theaters that first used the proskenion (προσκήνιον) or “fourth wall” with a restricted view and later it was adopted in Greek theater.

In ancient Greece, the acting space was always fully in the view of the audience and the actors were fully involved with the audience.

In very ancient Greek theater they could even see what was going on even behind the Skene (tent). In comparison, in these early stages in VR, everyone freaks out about removing the 360 camera, like its a big deal and ruins the immersive experience.

By Shakespeare’s time, the actors interacted more with each other than the audience.

Greeks, on the other hand, saw little reason for maintaining even a psychological “fourth wall” or building characters with interiority — psychological subtlety in ancient Greece wasn’t effected through subtext. The actor spoke to the audience directly of what was going on in their mind.

It was pure presentationalism — in every aspect of the word.

Finally, there was very little 2D (two-way) experience within ancient Greek theater for many reasons, even on a contextual level there was a 3D — triangular relationship between the actor, audience and chorus.

Actors didn’t ‘belly-gaze’ their interior struggles like modern narrative does. Greek theater was purposefully all out there because besides it’s entertainment value, it was an “experience”.

A Greek scholar here told me once that it is wasn’t well known that Greek soldiers were told to visit the Hetaira (whores) of Corinth before going home after the war, in order to become “human” again after their bestial killing sprees during war.

In the same vein, in ancient Greek theater a scene may have portrayed (in virtual reality) — a man killing his wife out of jealously. An audience member therefore after having such a visceral experience of the slaying and its emotional impact and feeling during the theater performance- would not go home and kill his wife.

Ancient Greeks dealt pretty well with making a 360 experience (props showing) appear totally immersive, maybe there are some lessons there for VR film makers.

Isn’t it quite funny how we are re-creating the same thing again but in μικρογραφία “minature” with headsets on our head. The Greek word for depression is “στεναχώρια” which translates to “narrow space”. I’m not sure who were the first to introduce interiority and ‘belly-gazing’ into the world of entertainment. It has created a world of isolation, loneliness and sadness for the most part. Of course, inhalation and exhalation are part of our human experience. Going inwards is understandably part of a process.

But as we go outwards again, wouldn’t it be nice if we felt the wind blowing through our hair and the scent of wild oregano wafting through the air.