The Body as Action and Transgression

Project 1: The Body as Action and Transgression

The Body in Contemporary Art is an overwhelming, vast collection of ideas. It has been derived from many different opposing positions, which have developed over the centuries from many different competing branches of knowledge and institutional frameworks. To think about The Body is to also involve one’s mind, since to make art one requires a body and a consciousness to act. If we assume the ‘mind to be the seat of intellect, then the body is our interface with the world and our senses its line of communication’1. The body’s mind is also inextricably linked to such terms as subjectivity, identity or even the self, since it is these historical constructs which define our understanding of consciousness and the ways in which these institutions have shaped and influenced, who we are today.

In order to frame these vast arrays of information, an arbitrary list of parameters have been drawn up for you to research and for you to even add to in your own time, in and out of the studio. The way I have framed this semester lectures is to simply treat The Body in Contemporary Art as the over-arching term used to describe how artists and their use of representation (language), engage with the topics presented over the course of the semester.

These topics have been broken down into six main areas, although through your own research many more may be uncovered. These are The Body as Absence and Presence, The Body as Text, The Body as Action and Transgression, The Body as Spiritual and Immaterial, The Body in Time, Space and Sound, and lastly, The Body as Trace.