Investigations of Body and Space Relations in the Context of Performance

The relations between body, space, and time are of interest for many architects and theorists. Body and space, considered separately, form discrete wholes. However, bringing the two together reveals their interdependence. This research emerges from that perspective: That body and space must be considered in relationship. They are also affiliated with time through performance: specifically for this paper, art and architecture. Body disturbs the order of the space, and space violates and ruins the body.1 Both are apt to violate and ruin the expected behaviour of the other one. This relation is termed ‘manipulation tension’ in this research. Space tends to manipulate the body using its spatial compulsivity and intangible aura. Body also has the same tendency on space and positions itself using methods such as movement, perception, sensation, and events. Body and space come into balance using their own manipulation methods. This balance is not a mutual reversion to the neutral state. It is an equilibrium based on stress, which comes from their natural tendencies. The purposes of this research are to study the aforementioned subjects (body and space), reveal their methods (perception, sensation, movement, kinesis, events, and spatial configuration), and highlight the ‘performance moments’ that can be correlated with time. In this research, space is considered as a structure in relation with body. It is built through experience and performatives. Body is acknowledged as a concept - from a perspective of physical and intellectual integrity - which sustains its contextual relation to the space it exists. This research explicates an analogy of artistic and architectural examples, which approach ‘performance’ using body (contemporary art) and space (architecture).