Play Act­ing

Symposium:


Session Title:
  • Playing for Keeps: Social Empowerment Through Physically Interactive Artworks

Presentation Title:
  • Play Act­ing

Presenter(s):


Venue(s):


Abstract:

  • Panel: Playing for Keeps: Social Empowerment Through Physically Interactive Artworks

    This paper is a re­view into ex­pe­ri­ences with cre­at­ing par­tic­i­pa­tory phys­i­cal play areas as in­ter­ac­tive art works within the semi-pub­lic spaces of mu­se­ums and gal­leries. The au­di­ence im­pro­vised play takes place within an art work em­ploy­ing sound en­vi­ron­ments, ro­bots and bouncy cas­tles with in­ter­ac­tive au­dioscapes. Art his­tor­i­cally, the prac­tise in­cor­po­rates strate­gies from po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­ity to vi­sual, per­for­ma­tive, sound and media arts as well as role play­ing games. It is closely re­lated to var­i­ous forms of time, site and lo­cata­tion based gen­res like hap­pen­ing, per­for­mance, so­cial forms of art, and larp­ing – as much as media arts prac­tises. In this set­ting, art turns into a stage, a plat­form for im­pro­vised so­cial and phys­i­cal in­ter­ac­tion. In this ap­proach, the media tech­nolo­gies are given a sec­ondary, sup­ple­men­tary task in en­hanc­ing the au­di­ence in­ter­ac­tion rather than a pri­mary focus as the rea­son d’étre in chan­nelling the aes­thet­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence. The au­di­ence role has rad­i­cally changed from the con­ven­tional oculo-cen­tric Carte­sian viewer po­si­tion to a so­cial and multi-sen­sory agent who is both a par­tic­i­pant and a per­former in ac­tion. The act of be­com­ing vis­i­ble, tak­ing a cen­tral stage within the art work and the con­text of in­sti­tu­tion­alised prac­tise of art posits is a rad­i­cal shift in the so­cially nor­ma­tive pub­lic spaces. As a topsy-turvy ac­tive sit­u­a­tion, it chal­lenges and trans­forms the dis­cur­sive power re­la­tions sus­tained and re­newed in daily prac­tise by the in­sti­tu­tional order.

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