The Role of Video Projection in Creating Physical, Psychological, and Narrative times in the Scenography of Contemporary Western Theater (With an Emphasis on Gombrich's Viewpoints on Time)

“Video Projection”, as a technological phenomenon, is comprised of two words: “video” and “projection”. According to the Oxford Dictionary, video is “a system for recording audio and moving visual images on video tapes or other data storage hardware” and is etymologically derived from the Latin word “videre” (to see). In the same dictionary, “projection” is defined as “the act of presenting an image of something on a surface”. Arnold Aronson (1911 1998), an American scenographer and professor at Columbia University, views theater as an art with two main wings: time and space. Accordingly, with the help of the available special visual tools and equipment, the contemporary theater director and scenographer tries to create the time and space required for the play. The theoretical framework of the present study was based on the viewpoints and ideas of Ernst Gombrich (1909-2001), the British historian. This study was mainly aimed at explaining the role of video projection in creating physical, psychological and narrative times in the scenography of contemporary Western theater. The article also tries to reach its goal using the analytical-descriptive method referring to library resources and images. In this article, the research overview was presented in the introduction and five sections were assigned to investigate five areas including: Gombrich’s views on illusion, time, and image; the concept of time and its essence from the perspective of Western thinkers; time in drama; about video art; time and video projection. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between video projection and the transformation of the past and future into the present. They also confirmed Gombrich’s theory about the past and future being illusions and proved that it was possible to transform the past and future into the present through images. In addition, the results indicated that creation of physical, psychological, and narrative times depended on the practice time, the performance method, and the visual techniques, respectively.