Embodying Space and Text – Performative Presentation of an Academic Publication Embodying Space: The Inside and the Outside of Soma in a Creative Process

Περίληψη

In my paper Embodying Space: The Inside and the Outside of Soma in a Creative Process (Jobbágy, 2024), I examined several possible ways of embodying space as a sculptor or performing artist, to find examples in artistic practices. Space is a process, and so is the body; especially, since the body itself — or the soma, the living body — contains inner spaces, which can and do relate to the spaces outside the body. How do we perceive space and embody space on this multiple scale? How do we feel space, objects, and other bodies while we co-exist? What do those inside spaces transmit while the performers move or stand still through their presence? How can the director envelope and contain these dimensions and be ‘holding the space’ in and around the process? How to be the membrane around the fluid space, while maintain space within the membrain itself? In this paper I juxtapose thoughts of the sculptor Morris and the somatic pioneer Bainbridge Cohen. Through their writings The Present Tense of Space (Morris, 1995) and The Place of Space (Bainbridge Cohen, 2006), I have found entry points to line up sculptural, somatic, and performative practices dealing with space and/or site-specificity. My performative presentation is an experiment in which I present excerpts of this writing using my body as a tool, accompanied by a pre-recorded soundscape based on the original written publication.