When space becomes art: making sense in an aleatory world

The aim of this paper is to discuss the concept of space as a site of ephemeral representations that gives us a glimpse of an aleatory artistic performance. Thus, one can conceive space as a representation of social relationships between people that are mediated by images. Consequently, it is through a physical space that people organise their own personal trajectory. Within this idea, one can argue that actions taking part in public spaces are performed according to shared rules within a known set of applications. Hence a polarisation effect is similar on a stage and on a daily life: there is always an interchange of roles between the “performer” (the promoter of the action) and the spectator (the witness of the action); and that interchange is crucial to the creation of a symbolic system. It appears that there is a semiotic and meaningful correspondence between scenic space (physical space of a performance) and other social spaces of representation. This paper proposes a phenomenological and aesthetic approach to “performative spaces”, suggesting implications and discussing various performative (concrete and fictional) places as scenic spaces of symbolic interaction. In doing so it confronts social-philosophical theories and multiple theatrical practices, proposing different ways to understand the concept of performance as a phylogenetic and cosmological experience. It also questions performance art as an event that promotes an interruption of daily-life routine and creates different perspectives of how life can be interpreted.