Immerse yourself in Tangible Territory by playing this audio track.
The seed of TT Journal was planted many years ago during my practice-based PhD at the Royal College of Art, which explored questions of tactility in the context of moving image—specifically, the relationship between the intangible, immaterial quality of audiovisual media and the embodied reality of the filmmaker and their audiences (Stehlíková, 2012). I was particularly interested in the dynamics between the filmmaker/cinematographer, their camera, and their subject, and how this relationship affects the way a film communicates to the audience's own embodied reality. The term ‘tangible territory’, which I borrowed from an expression in one of the chapters in Giuliana Bruno’s Atlas of Emotion (2002), captures dynamic interconnections between these various elements, and in a way, these are the very same tensions that run through the journal, which emerged during the Covid pandemic as a response to the sudden profound shift in how we engaged with the world and each other. This shift was brought on by the need for social distancing and our sudden, ever more deepening reliance on digital, audiovisual technologies. It is this tension, contained in the contradiction between the journal’s virtual form, and the embodied, material and situated themes it explores, that remains one of the journal’s key concerns.
TT Journal’s purpose extends far beyond that initial impulse, which, looking back, simply helped to clarify an existing trend towards technologically mediated reality, at an expense of embodied presence. Today, the journal continues as a dynamic platform for inquiry into embodied knowledge, sensory perception and the ways in which different disciplines approach meaning-making. While I initiated the project, I consider the journal primarily a collective endeavour—shaped by its contributors, readers, and an ongoing dialogue that evolves with each issue. The journal is alive and open, functioning as a field of experimentation, where I am able to invite others to examine specific themes. These usually emerge intuitively and spontaneously, through my own research practice. Each new issue thus becomes a kind of field of exploration, allowing new seeds to be planted, from which new ideas sprout and new connections grow.
My desire for TT Journal is to operate as an open, non-hierarchical space where perspectives from artists, scientists, writers and thinkers of various backgrounds come together. Our contributors range from established voices such as artist William Kentridge, scholars Giuliana Bruno, Lev Manovich, Juhani Pallasmaa, or scientists such as Charles Spence or Ophelia Deroy, to early-career researchers, students and practitioners across disciplines. The journal welcomes new contributors through annual calls, personal invitations and an expanding network of engaged readers. The openness of the journal is deliberate: it is neither strictly an academic journal nor an arts publication, but rather an experimental space where different forms of knowledge—sensory and embodied, emotional, scientific and artistic—can intersect without predefined hierarchies, which are otherwise often present, especially with the current scientific emphasis on quantifiable data and standardised methodologies. The journal seeks to challenge this paradigm by valuing qualitative, experiential and process-driven approaches to knowledge, recognising that understanding emerges not only from empirical analysis but also through giving space to intuitions, emotions, sensations, poetic and tacit insights. In doing so, I believe the journal nurtures a more inclusive and expansive intellectual environment, where alternative ways of knowing are given equal legitimacy and where diverse perspectives can coexist, influence and enrich one another. The goal is thus to build and sustain a platform where critical thinking and creative practice merge, allowing for new juxtapositions and unexpected insights.
The journal is thus a continuously evolving space that invites contributors to explore ideas in progress—ideas that might be deeply personal or academic, philosophical or poetic, scientific or artistic, yet always driven by a genuine desire to ‘make sense with all the senses’, seeing these within a larger context of living a life. The journal reflects a deeper philosophical stance: it considers knowledge not as a static entity but an ongoing process of discovery, which is fully embodied and multi-sensory and to a great extent provisional, just as philosopher Mark Johnson or artist William Kentridge argue. In this way, the journal aligns itself with naturalistic philosophy and theories of embodied cognition, which challenge the traditional split between reason and emotion, intellect and bodily sensation. Instead of treating thought as a purely abstract process, embodied cognition recognises that our understanding of the world is fundamentally shaped by our bodily interactions with it. Our sensory experiences, emotions, and movements all contribute to how we process and make meaning. Knowledge is thus not something external to be acquired; it is something we actively generate through our interactions with our environment, our tools and each other. This is why TT Journal prioritises multisensory exploration and diverse modes of expression—whether visual, textual, auditory or performative.
TT Manifesto: A Living Framework
Over the time of running TT Journal, certain principles have evolved naturally, shaped by my own artistic research journey as well as the dialogue that has taken place within the journal. For the purpose of this text, I decided to distil them into ten points, which form a kind of manifesto.
1. Body as an Instrument of Investigation
TT Journal embraces the idea that knowledge is not purely intellectual but deeply embodied. Our contributors—whether artists, scientists, or philosophers—engage with sensory experience as a primary means of inquiry. From Václav Cílek’s geological reflections to Juhani Pallasmaa’s work on our “existential sense,” (2021) the journal foregrounds the role of the body and environment in shaping our understanding. We see the body as an instrument that is finely tuned to its surroundings, constantly processing information that is often overlooked by more abstract forms of reasoning. By foregrounding the body as a site of knowledge production, the journal challenges conventional hierarchies of intellect and sensual experience.
2. Structure versus Improvisation
Artistic and intellectual work thrives on the tension between structure and spontaneity. TT Journal encourages both rigorous methodology and playful experimentation, recognizing that the most innovative ideas often emerge at the intersection of disciplines.
3. Contingency
Knowledge is fluid, shaped by shifting contexts and unforeseen encounters. TT Journal embraces uncertainty, encouraging research that is exploratory, iterative and open-ended. The creative process, like life itself, is unpredictable, and the richest insights often emerge from mistakes, detours and unexpected collisions of ideas.
4. Collaboration
Creativity and knowledge production do not exist in isolation. TT Journal fosters collaborations across disciplines, geographies and methodologies, recognizing that the deep insights often emerge from exchange—whether between artists and scientists, materials and makers, or human and more-than-human worlds. Collaboration also extends to materials themselves, which shape and transform ideas through their own agency, resistance and possibilities.
5. Curiosity
The act of questioning is at the heart of research and artistic practice. TT Journal encourages an attitude of radical curiosity—one that challenges assumptions, unearths new perspectives, and remains open to complexity and contradiction. Curiosity fuels deeper engagement with our surroundings, pushing us beyond habitual ways of seeing, thinking and creating.
6. Emotion and Empathy
Understanding is not purely intellectual, it is also deeply felt. TT Journal promotes a research ethos grounded in empathy, attunement and embodied presence, acknowledging that perception is relational and shaped by our engagement with others and our environment. By cultivating sensory and emotional awareness, we encourage deeper connections to our work and the world around us.
7. Imagination
Just as the senses provide information about the world, imagination allows us to perceive what is possible beyond the immediately visible. TT Journal sees imagination as a research tool—one that expands perception, invites speculation, and generates new ways of thinking and being. Imagination, like any other sense, can be trained and sharpened, offering new ways of experiencing and interacting with the world.
8. Ways Of Knowing
TT Journal tries to challenge rigid definitions of knowledge by embracing process over outcome. Understanding is always in flux, shaped by experience, experimentation and reflection. Research is not solely about producing definitive answers but about refining ways of engaging with the world, or “intelligently transforming experience” (Johnson, 2011, p 145). Different media—whether text, sound, image, movement, or material—offer unique insights, shaping both the questions we ask and the answers we find.
9. Habits
Habits shape our perception as well as ways of thinking and making sense. They can help us greatly but also lead to rigidity, trapping us into patterns which limit new insights. TT Journal encourages contributors to question ingrained ways of thinking and working, to break patterns through play, experimentation and collaboration, and to remain receptive to new paths opening up. Disrupting routine can open doors to fresh insights. By embracing uncertainty, we create space for deeper transformation and renewal.
10. Quiet Activism
In a world increasingly built around attention economy, filled with distraction and spectacle, the act of paying attention is a radical stance. TT Journal sees attentive presence as a form of quiet activism—one that resists passivity, values depth over speed and cultivates meaningful engagement. Paying attention is not merely an intellectual exercise but a fully embodied sensory practice that keeps us connected to ourselves, to others, and to the environments we inhabit.
By holding these principles at its core, TT Journal hopes to remain an evolving, living inquiry—one that invites new voices, new methodologies and new ways of making sense.
Common Territory
Reflecting on my own journey so far, I have realised that Tangible Territory is a way of making sense of my own particular research (and life), while being in a fruitful and rich dialogue with a community of thinkers and practitioners. The communal aspect of this project is in balance with the personal trajectory, which runs through it. By inviting others to bring their own unique angles and ways of working, understanding and knowing, to the common territory, I am weaving a living community, drawing a map, while making my own research context. This tangible territory is alive and responsive, empathically and sensorially formed as ideas touch each other and co-evolve, shaping my own research journey. It is this living framework of TT Journal that now forms the basis of my forthcoming book Exiled From Our Bodies – How to come back to our senses. (Stehlíková, 2025) Themes that emerged in dialogue with others have come to inform the book, and some of the contributions have become a source of direct reference for it.
Unlike an event requiring logistics to enable people to meet in a physical place, the journal is able to transcends geographical distance, while bringing people to a shared albeit virtual space, marking thus its own territory. As an editor, I prefer to give contributors as much freedom to shape their input as possible. I want to be surprised, to receive unexpected reflections on a given theme, in varied genres and media. The journal’s digital form aids this flexibility and openness of responses. Like a field or a meadow, across which one can choose an infinite number of paths, Tangible Territory opens up a space for discovering interesting resonances. Yet despite its virtual existence and its intangibility, TT Journal is deeply rooted in each of the contributors’ situatedness, their unique embodiment. It’s thus like a patchwork of realities woven together, a collage or an assemblage, a living map of a shared common territory.
This territory draws in those who want to enter it and take part in its creation. After all, as one of the readers (and later also contributors), writer and scenographer Dordi Strom wrote, when she reached out to me for the first time: “Reading it for the first time, made me feel like coming home.”
https://tangibleterritory.art/
References
Bruno, G. (2002) Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film, London and New York: Verso.
Johnson, M, (2011 ‘Embodied knowing through art’ in Biggs M. and Karlsson H. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts. London: Routledge, pp. [141-151].
Pallasmaa, J. (2021) TT journal, issue 3 (https://tangibleterritory.art/journal/issue-3-content/the-multi-sensory-reality-integrating-the-existential-experience/)
Stehlíková, T. (2025) Exiled From Our Bodies: How to come back to our senses, London: Routledge
Stehlíková, T. (2012), Tangible territory: Inviting the Body into the Experience of Film, Doctoral Thesis, London: Royal College of Art.
Acknowledgements
In the light of the above discussed ideas, I decided to approach a selected number of my TT Journal contributors with the following request:
- Can you imagine crossing Tangible Territory—what would it feel like?
- What traces would you leave behind as you move through it?
- What textures, sensations or rhythms would guide your way?
- How does the idea of ‘home’ resonate with your journey through this space? What might home be?
- What kind of lines or connections do you find yourself drawing between ideas, places, bodies?
- What kind of map do you create?
Their audio responses, deliberately spontaneous and personal, have been used to create this collaborative sound piece. I invite you to listen to it as you move through your own ‘tangible territory’, whatever that concept might mean to you, personally.
I am grateful to all the contributors to the audio piece, who are listed here, in order of their voices appearing (including their rough geographical location at that time):
- Tereza Stehlíková, artist and editor of TT Journal, in Central Bohemia
- Dordi Strøm, scenographer and writer, in Norway
- Andreas Weber, philosopher and biologist, in Italy
- Rosalyn Driscoll, sculptor, in USA
- Katja Vaghi, dance researcher, in Berlin
- Steve Fowler, writer and poet, in London
- Maya Gratier, developmental psychologist, in Paris
- Noga Arikha, philosopher and historian, in Florence
- Yumi Mashiki, composer, in London
Biography
Tereza Stehlíková is a Czech/British artist, researcher and educator. She is the head of the Visual Arts department at VŠKK and teaches artistic research to PhD and MA students at the Academy of Performing Arts as well as the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague. Tereza holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art, London, and is engaged in artistic research focused on investigating the role our senses and embodiment play in conveying meaning through artistic practice. Her practice spans moving image, installation, and participatory performance and is driven by cross-disciplinary collaboration. She collaborates with scientists, particularly experimental psychologists and neuroscientists, investigating sensory perception and embodiment. Her upcoming book Exiled from Our Bodies: How to Come Back to Our Senses (2025), about her artistic research journey, is to be published by Routledge. She is the founder and editor of Tangible Territory Journal.
