This study presents the term Participation Cartography as an overarching category of analysis for a wide range of artistic practices that, in one way or another, enable participants to position themselves subjectively in relation to a given performed space. By re-defining cartography from a discipline concerned with the visual representation of the observable world into a performance praxis that requires audience participation, enabling participants to position themselves in relation to a given performed space, I expand the range of practices considered by previous literature. Further, I raise issues in relation to the connections of subjectivity, space, performance, and cartography. My argument is that Participation Cartography describes a type of practice in and through which the Subject who moves in space is both mapped and positioned. By linking Felix Guattari’s (1995) term ‘cartography of subjectivity’ with Deirdre Heddon’s (2008) investigation on autobiographical tours made by artists (‘autotopographies’), Participation Cartography locates the practices here under study within a terrain that blurs everyday life and art, autobiography and representation of subjects-in-movement. In so doing, Participation Cartography expands previous notions such as ‘psychogeography’ (Kanarinka, 2006, McDonough, 2002), ‘collaborative mapping’ (Sant, 2004), ‘locative media’ (Hemment, 2006) and ‘autotopography’ (Heddon, 2008). Participation Cartography describes a type of social activity or, in Allan Kaprow’s terms, a kind of ‘participation performance’ (Kaprow, 2003) that enables participants to present the self (Goffman, 1990) as a being-in-motion within the public arena of performance. Michel De Certeau’s (1984) ‘The Practice of Everyday Life’ is used as a theoretical model to analyse the tensions raised by Participation Cartography between the artists’ strategies, the participants’ performances, and the representations of those performances that remain. Positioning, as used within a field in social psychology called ‘Positioning Theory’ (Harre and Van Langenhove, 1999) is applied to the analysis of the practices here under study. Participation Cartography turns the spectator into a participant. More concretely, participants are turned into both producers and users of cartographies of the Subject they co-produce with others. As a self-reflexive practice that creates agency, it enables participants to fabricate interconnections between performance, space, and subjectivity, blurring the boundaries between art and therapy. Key practices that are discussed in this thesis include a locative media project by Jen Southern (UK) and Jen Hamilton (Canada) titled Running Stitch (2006), Untitled Action for the Arches (2005), a live art work by Kira O’Reilly (Ireland), and my own collaborative pieces, The Shoemakers’ Ball (2006) and We the Colombia National Team (2003)

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This study aims to develop a Daoist movement practice. Based on qi-energy, Daoism, a Chinese ontological study of being, suggests that Dao is the formless changing of in-between being. I explore how the formless nature of Dao informs my own creative practice. I argue that formlessness signifies an uncertain, unexpected, and constantly changing boundary of the self. Improvised movement emerges from within, and as an extension, of formlessness. The improvisational mode considered here is thereby experiential, an expanded way of being, rather than compositional. This thesis presents a somatic practicing process of embodying Dao in emergent movements. Chapter 1 discusses a practice-as-research methodology, which relates the ways in which practice and theory intersect to the relationship of yin and yang from a perspective of qi-energy. In Chapter 2, I discuss the somatic experience of improvised movement arising from qi and rethink the understandings of "practice" in the encounter between movement-based practices and Daoism. In Chapter 3, I borrow Eugene T. Gendlin's theory of a felt sense and explore how the felt experiencing of qi is activated by a holistic awareness and gives rise to movement through the body based on the Daoist concept of the changing self. Then I explore four diverse states of the in-between inspired by the Daoist philosophy of "light" through improvised movement in Chapter 4. Furthermore, in Chapter 5 I develop a sequential transformation of in-between states toward Dao and discuss this process from a Daoist view of the self. A boundary of the changing states is examined in a series of emergent movements as a process of practicing the self in Chapter 6. I finally reflect upon Dao in my developed principle that focuses on an awareness of subtle emergences, and conclude formlessness, as it corresponds to Dao, is an emerging felt sense of being that is constantly changing before interpretation within the self in this movement practice. DVD abstracts: DVD chapter 1: Four states This series of edited videos offers the viewer a flavour of the four in-between states developed over the course of this research (see Chapter 4). Some of the videos are supported with poetic words. Filmmaker Lotti Gompertz's footage uncovers the subtleties of the energy and emergent movement in the four states. DVD chapter 2: Sharing a practice This video consists of documentary material recorded by a still camcorder during a five-session workshop conducted during this research. The highlights of each stage appear briefly, in sequence, presenting the sense of transformation felt throughout the workshop. Footage of the participant and myself are juxtaposed to reveal the differences and similarities of the movement and energy emerging between us that helped me understand my self and Daoism during the workshop (see Chapter 5). DVD chapter 3: Continuous transformation Drawing on footage shot by Lotti Gompertz, this video presents the highlights of each state of my emergent movement. It provides the viewer with a taste of the subtle transformation of the emergent movement and energy involved in becoming a wu-wei (see Chapter 5). DVD chapter 4: Practicing the self This video documents a session in which the focus was on an awareness of subtle changes and emergences. Documented by a still camcorder, this edited video is composed of footage of a guest participant and myself working in the session (see Chapter 6), allowing emergent movement to unfold. The gradual transformation of a felt sense of the self during the session is revealed through subtitles that capture the words we spoke while moving.

Genital Sensation sets out to review the practice of "cunt art" as a diverse range of feminist performative works that represent the female genitalia and questions whether vulvar works can disrupt the phallocentric models of exclusion, absence and lack. Working from a poststructuralist perspective and drawing on notions of the feminist nomad and transdisciplinarity as a related methodology (Braidotti, 1994), this project assembles the criticisms and politics involved in this explicit display of the female body. Bringing some of the most potent and commonly disputed issues in feminist debate to the forefront, this study tackles the controversies which surround the use of the female body in performance art. Using a framework of performativity and embodied interpretative exchange, via Schneider (1996 also Grosz, 1994), to refuse the distance of disembodied viewing, via Jones (1998 1999), this project investigates the performance of sex, difference, cultural assumptions and iconoclasm through feminist employment of this explicitly marked body. This text, divided into investigations of the disruptive body, considers the cultural iconoclasm of cunt art and phallocentric exclusion of women via the work of Irigaray (1996) and Braidotti the artistic iconoclasm and pornographic alignment of cunt art through Nead (1997) and McNair (1996) and the feminist iconoclasm of cunt art, in addition to the abrasive and subversive possibilities constituent within a practice that challenges the invisibility of the vulva and notions of the forbidden. This project proposes the female body as "political fiction" that reflects particular cultural values and considers ideas of feminist re-reading and feminist writing through Irigaray and Cixous (1983). Ultimately the recurrent focuses of this study are difference and female subjectivity that revolve around disrupting notions of lack or absence through the personal and political agency affected by these works.

The thesis uses performance to elucidate the politics of sports commentary. In contrast to Williams' assertion that TV sports maintain a strong sense of their independence despite control and commodification by government or commerce (1989) and Kennedy's suggestion that the significance of sport is not tied to ideology (2001), the thesis argues that sports commentary, however implicitly, asserts neoliberal authority within sporting broadcasts. This written thesis and the Practice as Research articulates and critically contextualises the performance of sports commentary resulting in the production of a postdramatic theatre performance referred to as PhD Practice (2016), DVD documentation of the live event, a script and critical writing. Focusing on the commentary of the charity fun-runner in the Big City Marathon (BCM) the thesis uses Fischer-Lichte's notion of performance as event (2008) as a framework to examine how sports commentary changes the way an event is received and subsequently perceived. Through the creation of a performance event that renders the strategies of the sports commentator (Whannel, 1992) as an event of text (Turner, 2009), the research articulates a gap between the event and how that event is framed, reframed and enframed (Žižek, 2014) by the commentary. The thesis subsequently argues that the position taken by the commentator complicates Fischer-Lichte's autopoietic feedback loop (2008), enacting a degree of sovereignty (Agamben, 1995) over the event, contradicting the way in which the feedback loop purports to neutralise the sovereign position of the performer in postdramatic theatre (Lehmann, 2006). This partially sovereign position maintained by the commentator manipulates the audience into a pattern of consent that mirrors the enactment of neoliberal authority (Harvey, 2005). The commentator is thus able to reframe mass participation in the BCM, so that fun-runners and spectators are made to perform as neoliberal subjects, contextualised by capitalist charity (Livingstone, 2013), complicit with neoliberal ideology. This approach represents significant developments in two distinct areas. Firstly, considering sports commentary as an event of text (Turner, 2009) represents a distinctive contribution to the study of event based performance and provides a position from which to articulate a practical and political critique of the autopoietic feedback loop (Fischer-Lichte, 2008). Secondly, the use of performance to examine sports commentary, as an example of commentary as a broad cultural phenomenon, contributes to discourse around the performance of ideology.

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This study is a practice-based exploration of the screen as a border site, where the concepts of division and encounter are performatively examined. My research strategy is shaped by applying autoethnographic performance strategies to the mediated space of the screen. Media materials (photos, videos and blog entries) are created with mobile media devices used in performative situations, offering a theoretical framework originating in practice. The main argument is that the screen is an assemblage site, where the notions of division and encounter can be artistically explored. Furthermore, the screen is explored as an object, as a metaphor and as an idea. By linking the Latour notion of “assemblage” with Colley’s exploration of the personal use of mobile screens (“autobiometry”), and Ettinger’s notion of “borderspace” as site of artistic encounter, the practices presented in this thesis are located in a field that blurs the boundary between the personal and art; autobiography and autoethnography; technology and identity. In so doing, this thesis expands on previous explorations such as “boundary event” (Trinh T. Minh-ha 1999); “soft mastery” (Turkle 1995); and “screen-reliant art” (Moldoch 2010;). In the performative media materials created for this thesis, the screen is explored through a “processual approach” (Bacon, 2006). This enabled me to examine the nature of interaction with the screen through embodied reflexive practice. This approach firmly places the work in the experiential or performative realm. Key practices that are discussed in this thesis include among others, an earth body performative project by Ana Mendieta (Cuba/USA) entitled Silueta series (1973-1980), a live art work by Tanja Ostojic (Serbia/Germany) called Looking for a husband with EU passport (2000-2005) and my own performative media pieces, Valid until… (2010) and The place where we were last together (2011).