Co-created Staging – Situating installations

Staging is the creative act of showing something to an audience. When staging, the artist chooses and creates the context, situation and structure of the presented object, play or installation. The chosen context and situation provide background for the audience interpretations. Meaning is co-created between the artist and audience, based on the cultural and individual understanding of the context and situation. The term installation is open, ambiguous and undefined. One does not completely know what to expect and where to find an installation. It is open towards many interpretations. In this paper we present a model for staging and how we worked with staging of two interactive installations in different exhibition situations, to provoke and motivate different interpretations, expectations and interactions. We argue for staging as a communicative strategy to attract and motivate diverse audiences and user groups to collaborate and co-create through interpretation and interaction. Further we argue that installations have to be open to many possible structures, interpretations, interaction forms and roles the users can take, and shift between dynamically. When the users dynamically restructure, interact and shift roles and thereby re-situate the installation, the users are co-creators in the staging act. We call this dynamic staging.