NOEMEs
Reality Through Method
NOEMEs—NeurAstra Observational and Experimental Mobile spacEs—is an experimental approach to field research that weaves together multiple methodological traditions into a unified practice.
The methodology combines long-term naturalistic observation with systematic constraints that break habitual perception. It integrates rigorous experimental intervention while maintaining attention to lived experience and embodied knowing. Throughout, it remains anchored in the recognition of reality's radical singularity, attending to what is actually present rather than doubling it with metaphor or facile comparison.
These approaches enhance and transform each other in practice. Naturalistic immersion creates the foundation from which constraints emerge as meaningful perturbations rather than arbitrary impositions. Constraints reveal dimensions that observation alone might miss through habituation. Experimental rigor validates discoveries. Phenomenological attention captures experience as it unfolds. The commitment to the singular real prevents theoretical abstraction from displacing actual presence.
NOEMEs is simultaneously patient and playful, rigorous and creative, systematic and responsive to the real. This is not compromise between opposed approaches but their productive synthesis, creating something genuinely new in field science methodology that honors both scientific rigor and the irreducible singularity of phenomena.
© Hippolyte Ñuelo — Artistic view of the Alpine NOEMEs observatory in a high-altitude environment.
NOEMEs emerged from a simple question: what if the apparent opposition between naturalistic and experimental approaches is a false choice?
What follows is an attempt to answer through practice, creating a methodology that researchers can adapt to their own questions and contexts.
Developed through iterative fieldwork since 2023, NOEMEs provides both theoretical framework and practical protocols. The approach has been tested across diverse contexts, from urban environments to natural systems, demonstrating how methodological integration reveals dimensions that single-approach research misses.
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