In the frame of a laboratory, the object to be researched is taken out of its context for thorough investigation. In artistic practice, the term ‘laboratory’ is used as a synonym for a range of related research processes that develop artistic artefacts with an aesthetic and epistemological agenda (Rheinberger 2015). In PABR, we use the term in line with the exploratory approach of science to investigate material in order to generate knowledge and discover previously unknown possibilities of usage. Theatre itself has in recent years been understood as an experimental set-up that investigates performance as well as other artistic, cultural and quotidian practices, especially in the theatre laboratories that developed from the 1950s onward .
Ref:
Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg (2015): “Labor”, in: Badura, Jens/Dubach, Selma/Haarmann, Anke/Mersch, Dieter/Rey, Anton/Schenker, Christoph/Toro Perez, German (eds): Künstlerische Forschung. Ein Handbuch. Zürich: Diaphanes, pp. 311–314.