The Empowering Potential of Re-Staging

Abstract

In this paper we present and discuss the empowering potential of re- staging interactive art installations. We build on an approach, where we divide the staging process into four levels of staging (potential, strategic, tactical, dynamic), and in Umberto Eco’s sense of openness, to four categories of choices (genre, temporal, spatial, actorial) to perform on each staging level. We present and discuss how we staged one of our interactive installations at a museum of modern art and a rehabilitation center for people with severe disabilities. We discuss our staging experience in relation to empowering qualities like; possibilities for self- expression, vitalization, ability to act, co-create, participation and mutual relation building. Our experience was that re-staging art at a radically different place became a provocation that re-vitalized us as creative individuals.