This research explores the relationship between objects and subjects and asks to what extent objects are constituted through an act of subjective interpretation, and by which they enter into a circulation of meaning; or to what extent objects, as things, escape a full determination by this act of interpretation. Through the analysis of a variety of artistic practices (including my own artistic trajectory) and drawing on different philosophical traditions, I will argue that the object can neither be reduced to interpretation nor can it be theorized as ‘outside’ language. Conversely, I claim that, although linguistically mediated, the relation between object and subject is characterized by a space of ‘undecidability,’ which arises as a consequence of a partiality in the nature of the encounter between them. It is the nature of this partiality that I will address in this thesis.

This thesis explores questions posed by the production of informal spaces in relation to space produced by the state. What kind of practices produce informal space, and to what extent do informal spaces either subvert or reinforce the order of private property? What is at stake in this thesis is the tension between the production of social space – that is, shared public space or space for society as a whole – on the one hand, and the tendencies and desires of individuals or small groups of spatial users to appropriate and produce their own space, on the other. In this research project, space is understood as the form through which questions of freedom, free will, and self-determination become culturally and politically manifest. This thesis analyses examples of spatial production such as Osman Kalin’s informal garden in Kreuzberg, Berlin, and the French social utopian new town Villeneuve, located in the suburbs of Grenoble. It explores stories, histories, and material forms of construction, building regulations and codes from these sites. This thesis analyses notions of freedom and free will which on the political left, are often said to exist when citizens forsake a degree of individualism for the good of the greater social whole, and on the political right, are said to be expressed through an individual’s right to fulfil his or her individual needs and desires. In the central case study of this thesis, I look at what happens when Osman Kalin appropriates a triangular plot of land in the centre of Berlin for his garden and hut. This act can be read as subversion, an appropriation of bureaucratised, state-capitalist urban space. However, Kalin’s actions, borne of a desire to produce a space based on his own needs, have serious implications for the production of shared social space. This thesis explores the contradictions that emerge through such acts of appropriation, and how they might mirror early forms of private property production. It looks at how spaces such as Kalin’s question the boundaries between private property and public space, and how other examples of collective appropriation might differ not only from Kalin’s actions but also from the top-down, state-produced utopian social projects of the 1960s and 70s in France. It goes on to explore notions of the commons, and discusses two informal collective spaces in order to question how the use and distribution of space is defined, as well as how claims and counter claims are managed when the state’s regulatory role is absent.

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This thesis examines how men experienced domesticity in the 1950s in Britain and analyses the role that artistic representations play in the expression and formulation of this masculine selfhood in this context. It considers domesticity at this historical moment as an inherently flexible concept: one that takes in the private spaces of the home as well as more public realms and aspects beyond it, and includes a variety of relationships, both familial and non-familial. At the same time, it highlights the social structures surrounding domesticity in Britain at this time – exemplified by the policies and aims of the welfare state and post-war reconstruction, and their reflection in institutions and social beliefs – particularly their assumptions about specific gender roles, particularly in relation to masculinity, in the context of the family, sexuality and work. As a result, my thesis examines how four male artists operated in this context – as individuals negotiating particular identifications of masculine selfhood within their own private and unstable conceptions of domesticity, in relation to, and sometimes at odds with, the public social structures in Britain around them. It focuses on the art of four male artists working in Britain in the immediate post-war period: John Bratby, Francis Bacon, Keith Vaughan and Victor Pasmore. By placing their work in a wide social and cultural context, including social history, sociology, psychoanalysis, literature, and the popular press, this thesis significantly expands the academic work on modern art in Britain after the Second World War. Furthermore, it begins to interrogate and expand on the relationship between art, domesticity, selfhood, and, more broadly, everyday life. By focusing on the ways in which art and life interact in the work of these artists, it argues that artistic representations, for these artists at this historical moment, serve as ways to negotiate the unstable and seemingly impossible task of selfhood, within the expansive, fluctuating realms of domesticity.

The very notion of ‘cross-arts’ calls for large collaborations of artists that serve different art disciplines and are eager to spend time in an artistic collective environment. The roles of the participants are not always distinct; in these productions artists acquire roles in a variety of production elements. Work may be co-directed and music improvised by a group of musicians, and artists can have multiple roles as choreographers, directors or production managers. Within this thesis, I propose a methodology of how to develop a contemporary artistic collective; thus proposing ways of how to produce a cross-arts collective project. I give examples of works in which I participate as a composer and producer through the collective arts group Medea Electronique. These are collective cross-arts works that involve a number of practices like music, dance, video art, photography, set design, animation, and installation art. Simultaneously, examples of collective production ethics and practices are introduced within the context of Koumaria Residency that I established in 2009. When working on collective cross-arts productions, practical issues often dictate how the piece is created. I expand on these practical issues and propose methods for calling artists, sharing the profits, and organising a cross-arts production. Moreover, I take as a hypothesis that collective work is a serious answer to underfunded non-commercial art forms that aim to produce alternative art within limited budgets.

The current vogue for experiential performance in contemporary theatre has led to a rise in interactive, immersive and participatory approaches that focus on creating work that attempts to involve and respond to the audience as individuals. This development has in turn led to an interrogation and redefinition of aesthetics, for instance in Claire Bishop's Artificial Hells (2012), which examines spectatorship in participatory art. This thesis examines the aesthetics and ethics of participatory performance and argues that agency is fundamental to both. The research builds on Gareth White's Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation (2013) and develops the discourse on participation by proposing a contextual understanding of agency that differentiates between the act and the experience of it. The main research question of this thesis is: How does participatory performance operate as an aesthetic form? The thesis also examines how participation implicates ethics and the way that agency becomes both an aesthetic and ethical concern. In answering the main research question, the thesis also considers ways to analyse and evaluate participatory performance that take into consideration the different contexts of the participant's (inside) experience and (outside) observation of their decisions and contributions. This research has taken a mixed-methods approach to enable a comprehensive response to the research question and employs audience research (implemented on three case studies) and practice-based research. Alongside these, the thesis draws on enactive and embodied cognition (Johnson, 2007; Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008; Fuchs and De Jaegher, 2009) to provide a nuanced perspective on agency, intersubjectivity and experience. The aesthetics of participation, and model for the analysis of participatory performance, I propose in this thesis focus on four key aesthetic elements: the intersubjective relationships between performer and participant (as well as between participants); the participant's embodied experience of doing within the performance; the creative contribution they make; and the demand characteristics of being a participant.

This dissertation explores the philosophy of digitally interactive works and video games. There are two central questions to this thesis, namely, what is distinctive about computer art, and more specifically, what is distinctive about the interactivity that these kinds of works afford? The latter question is a response to the former, but, as I will articulate in the chapters that follow, this distinctive type of interactivity is not restricted to works that are comprised of digital media. As it turns out, games (especially video games) are paradigmatic examples and so both analytic aesthetics and game theory are relevant to a discussion of interactivity. In what follows, I address topics that pertain to interactivity such as art categories, prescriptions, appreciation, and ontology. This thesis will show that interactive works consist of unique displays and prescriptions and are, therefore, a distinctive category of art. I conclude that interactive works do not belong in a performance ontology, that the prescriptions of interactive art bear player engagement, and, importantly, the distinctive features of digitally interactive works hinge on an algorithmic ontology.

The genesis for all three of my feature films, Ecology, Perestroika and Public House, was the challenge of an experimental writing project, which in each case sought to map new connections, within genre and innovate through structural interdependencies that fuse form and content. All three films evolved through responsive writing processes, which were, crucially, responsive to place, and all were further enabled by a responsive and reflexive use of digital technologies. In this thesis I will map some of the broad interwoven areas of concern and some of the frameworks of reference and enquiry, before discussing each film in detail.