KOLTON COTTON
Teaching Statement
Kolton Cotton
In the Palm of Our Hands: Examining Materiality and Embodiment through Media Design for Theatre
“The poor image is no longer about the real thing—the originary original. Instead, it is about its own real conditions of existence: about swarm circulation, digital dispersion, fractured and flexible temporalities... In short: it is about reality.”
— Hito Steyerl, In Defense of the Poor Image
Teaching Philosophy & Pedagogy
In an era dominated by high-fidelity CGI, algorithmic perfection, and standardized digital workflows, contemporary entertainment technologies risk distancing audiences from the raw, visceral essence of live performance. My pedagogy seeks to disrupt this push for seamless virtual immersion. I teach media design not as a vehicle for passive digital spectacle, but as an active, tactile, and collaborative dramaturgical agent.
My classroom and rehearsal spaces operate at the intersection of "high tech" and "high touch." I challenge students to look past expensive, proprietary pipelines and instead embrace the limitations of readily available tools—repurposing everyday consumer hardware (smartphones, iPads), open-source software, and discarded physical materials (paper, broken monitors, trash) as catalysts for radical creativity. By exploring the threshold of what is possible with what is accessible, students learn to treat the digital medium not as a rigid screen, but as an elastic, physical asset shaped directly by the human hand.
Core Theoretical Frameworks
To ground this hands-on practice in rigorous design theory, my curriculum synthesizes historical performance methodologies with contemporary media philosophy:
1. The Poor Image & Poor Theatre (Steyerl + Grotowski)
We utilize Jerzy Grotowski’s ethos in Towards a Poor Theatre (1968) alongside Peter Brook’s The Empty Space to strip away extraneous spectacle, focusing intensely on the relationship between the performer, the space, and the technology. By pairing Grotowski with Hito Steyerl’s defense of the "Poor Image" (low-resolution, fragmented, unpolished digital artifacts), students learn how low-fidelity assets can carry profound, democratic authenticity. Just as Grotowski posits that a holy actor can transform a simple stick into a sword, I teach my students that a ubiquitous consumer smartphone or a piece of ripped paper can become a powerful, meaning-making theatrical prop when manipulated with intent.
2. Second-Order Observation (Systems & Semiotics)
Media on stage inherently introduces simultaneous layers of reality. I train students to think through second-order observation—moving the audience past the question of "What is being observed?" to critically interrogate "How is it being observed, and what does this tell us about the system itself?" This approach demystifies mass communication and challenges students to consciously design how their systems alter or augment identity, representation, and consumer culture.
3. The Labor of the Negative (Hegelian Dialectics & Brecht)
Applying a dialectical framework, my pedagogy treats video as a tool to both immerse and alienate (Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt). We explore the tension between digital perfection and analog imperfection, ensuring that the Arbeit—the visible labor of the creator—is always present. Audiences are eager to see "how the sausage gets made." Lifting the veil on the mechanics of our systems does not kill the illusion; rather, it heightens theatricality and honors the collective labor of the production ensemble.
My curriculum translates these theoretical foundations into actionable, iterative design practices:
Tactile Pre-Visualization & In-Camera Prototyping
Students learn digital drawing, spatial composition, and layered compositing by starting away from computer monitors. Utilizing hands-on techniques like physical collage and multi-layered touchscreen sketching, we prototype workflows that mirror classic effects, such as adapting Disney’s multiplane camera system using a discarded TV monitor and paper cutouts.
Acting With the Camera
We explicitly reject the film-centric paradigm of "acting for the camera," which demands small, hyper-modulated compliance from the performer. Instead, I teach students to build systems where actors act with the camera. Through specialized workshops, performers are empowered to manipulate focal length, exposure, zoom, and live video loops in real time, transforming the camera from a passive documentation tool into a living partner on stage.
Cross-Disciplinary & Democratic Workflows
Media design should never happen in isolation. I instruct students to democratize the image-creation process by building workflows that pull directly from other departments. By capturing texture studies of the scenic designer's model, sampling the lighting designer's gel colors, or distributing disposable cameras to the cast during rehearsal to document memories, the media asset pipeline becomes a unified reflection of the entire ensemble’s labor.
My ultimate objective as an educator is to foster a responsive, adaptive design practice that honors the ephemeral traditions of live theatre while fearlessly hacking the tools of modern mass communication. By training students to value exploration over mere mechanical polish, I prepare them to step into production rooms as true conceptual collaborators. They leave my classroom equipped not just to engineer robust, complex video systems, but to ensure those systems serve the deepest human impulses of storytelling, collective connection, and community integration.