Paper short abstract:

Designated for observation, relation and knowledge-creation, Safe Places operate as labs. They are heterotopias where all those present have the opportunity to experiment basic facts of social and natural sciences, and then use them to co-create and perform common experiences and narratives.

Paper long abstract:

This paper follows the action research and the theoretical inference of performative processes in '27 ways to be born' and 'IF', co-created by scientists, artists, and the audiences in Copenhagen and Naples, based on the author's original idea and conception. In both cases the main aim was to create a heterotopic lab, which we will inhabit with our half-real, half-imaginary selves and build new, parallel or future societies and environments (Grant, 2017).

The epistemology proposed is based on a fusion of compatible methods in social and natural sciences, transferable to artistic research (Alvesson and Sköldeberg, 2000), too. Safe Places are both real and imaginary spaces, newly developed on each and every occasion by the temporary community which inhabits the playing area. The participants become co-creators, choosing from wide varieties of gender, lifespan, race, physical and psychological features to play the game in the experience. A series of objects or interactive installations are placed in the common playing area, which inevitably set the basic cues and rules by the way they can be operated. They set the topics and the sensorial experiences, too. The participants are free to choose at each stage their level of activity. Documentation of the process outlined the knowledge production on the set topics, on performative epistemologies and artistic research, too.

Safe Places will be examined here as reflective hybrid fields on the intersection of: participatory observation, action research, Actor Network Theory (Latour, 1990), experience and experiment design, dialogical art, relational art, gamification and sortition (Hennig, 2017).