Artist Saburo Murakami (1925-1996) was part of the Gutai movement, which consisted of artists in 1970s and 1980s Japan loosely united by their attention to the nature of material itself: paper, mud, paint, or the environment, unbound by preexisting concepts. Murakami pasted sheets of paper onto wooden frames and hurled his body through them. In doing so, he subverted the conventionally horizontal and durational way we encounter paper — often in the form of books or paintings — by turning it into a burst of movement (and sound!) that joins the space both in front of the paper and behind it. 

In Snail’s Gallop, Korean avant-garde artist Lee Kun-Yong (b. 1942) also drew attention to the friction between the artist’s body and their material. Squatting and shuffling forward somewhat awkwardly,, he drew chalk lines on the ground which were immediately smudged by his own feet. He not only turned his own body into a tool but intentionally limited  the movement of this tool. In doing so, he called greater attention to the material constraints on our bodies as they move through the world.

Read more about Murakami here and here. Read more about Lee Kun-Yong here and here.