This doctoral research examines the concept of the public body as a dynamic and relational space in which individual lived experience intersects with social norms, power structures, and collective expectations. Situated within practice-based artistic research, the project integrates performative experimentation, auto-ethnographic approaches, and theoretical perspectives from performance studies and phenomenology. It proposes a typology of public bodies understood as fluid and situational forms of bodily identity that emerge through everyday, often borderline social encounters shaped by visibility, conformity, vulnerability, and control. Rather than conceiving the body as a stable or unified entity, the research approaches it as fragmented, adaptive, and continuously negotiated through social interaction.The practical dimension of the project focuses on the creation of constructed performative situations that actively involve participants and disrupt habitual patterns of behavior and perception. These situations function as experimental settings for examining the limits, agency, and transformative potential of the public body, positioning the body simultaneously as the subject and the method of research. The term “public body” refers both to the author’s own body and to other bodies that actively co-create and negotiate the social and cultural environments in which they appear. Drawing on selected performative works by the author and related practitioners, the research employs interactive and participatory strategies, including short practical tasks, through which the presentation itself becomes an experiment in activating the audience and modeling the immediate social environment. In this way, performance is articulated as a humanistic tool for reflection, engagement, and change within contemporary public life.

Authors:
Andrea Tusimova, Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan

About the Presenter(s)
Andrea Tušimová (b. 1996) is a doctoral researcher at Tokyo University of the Arts (GEIDAI), supported by Professor Araki Natsumi, where she explores the body as a performative space in public and social contexts.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Tuesday Schedule

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