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Bauhaus artist László Moholy-Nagy
undertook a wide range of aesthetic investigations, using the
school as a laboratory to examine the formal principles of abstraction
in painting, photography, and sculpture. He also explored the
influence of technology, which had a profound impact on his
work and ideas. These experiments led Moholy-Nagy to develop
a new kind of theater based on these principles. Underlying
this approach was an effort to synthesize the theater's essential
components – space, composition, motion, sound, movement,
and light – into a fully integrated, abstract form of artistic
expression.
Moholy-Nagy referred to this idea as the theater
of totality, a reinterpretation of Wagner's
concept of total theater. Moholy-Nagy's approach to the synthesis
of the arts reduced the importance of the written word and the
presence of the actor, placing them on an equal plateau with
stage design, lighting, music, and visual composition. This
interest in formal integration included technology, which is
reflected in his use of mechanical motifs in his work in other
genres such as painting, photography, film and sculpture.
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