PRFM1603 Placemaking and Performance
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · S2 2026PRFM1603 Overview
- University of Sydney
- Semester 2 2026
- Level 1
- Arts and Humanities
PRFM1603 Placemaking and Performance is a University of Sydney unit that examines how performance can investigate, make and contest place. The unit moves beyond treating a location as scenic background.
- Core method Move from situated observation and authority to a site-dependent performance choice
- Making practice Use embodied testing, dramaturgy and audience geometry to organise encounter
- Writing practice Build claims from precise rehearsal incidents, concepts and consequences
- Live control Confirm task conditions and submission settings in the official learning system
What you get in the full PRFM1603 Study & Assessment Guide
- 11 chapters, 54 pages — every assessed topic, week by week
- 30 original practice questions, each with a model answer
- 11 worked examples, solved the way PRFM1603 marks
- 23 computed figures, redrawn from the course’s own numbers
- Before-you-submit checklist for the Performance with Exegesis (40%) — what markers reward, what costs marks
Free on this page: assessment table, chapter map, one worked example, key terms, FAQ. The rest is in the full study & assessment guide.
How PRFM1603 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Journal | 30% | Portfolio or journal with six entries across the semester, totalling 2000 words; AI allowed in the official 2026 outline |
| University places Utopian, Dystopian, and Heterotopian images | 0% | Out-of-class early feedback task; 30 minutes; AI allowed in the official 2026 outline |
| Response to readings | 30% | Individual written response to reading material in the context of directed research; 1000 words; AI allowed in the official 2026 outline |
| Performance with Exegesis | 40% | Group in-person performance task with an individual written or creative exegesis component; 1500 words; AI prohibited in the official 2026 outline |
The official 2026 outline publishes a complete 30/0/30/40 structure and marks no row as a hurdle. Confirm all live task instructions before submission.
What other students are asking about PRFM1603
- Where can I find lecture notes or study guides for PRFM1603 at USyd?
- The PRFM1603 study guide in AskSia Library covers Placemaking and Performance in 11 chapters, with the assessment table, a chapter-by-chapter topic map, key terms and a worked example, free to read on this page.
- Is there a final exam in PRFM1603?
- No final exam is listed in the offering this AskSia Library guide is built from; PRFM1603 is assessed by Journal 30%, Response to readings 30%, Performance with Exegesis 40%.
- What does PRFM1603 cover on country, custodianship, and contested campus?
- In AskSia Library's PRFM1603 guide, the Country, Custodianship, and Contested Campus chapter explains authority, layered histories and responsible work on university ground.
- What does PRFM1603 cover on from abstract space to lived place?
- In AskSia Library's PRFM1603 guide, the From Abstract Space to Lived Place chapter explains experience, movement and a practical ladder from space into place.
- What does PRFM1603 cover on embodiment, motion, and gathering?
- In AskSia Library's PRFM1603 guide, the Embodiment, Motion, and Gathering chapter explains kinaesthetic knowledge, effort and the social organisation of bodies.
Current PRFM1603 dates
| Date | Item | Control |
|---|---|---|
| 21 Aug 2026 at 23:59 | Early feedback task due | Closing date 25 Aug 2026 |
| 25 Sep 2026 at 23:59 | Response to readings due | Closing date 20 Nov 2026 |
| 05 Nov 2026 at 23:59 | Performance with Exegesis due | Closing date 07 Dec 2026 |
The dates are published in the official 2026 unit outline. Confirm exact submission settings in the live learning system.
What PRFM1603 covers
The chapter map moves from theories of place and Country through embodied urban inquiry into site-specific making, protocol, audience encounter and exegesis.
Performance, Place, and Counter-Sites
Relational place, juxtaposition and performance beyond the theatre buildingPerformance does not become place-based merely because it happens outdoors. This chapter treats place as a field of relations among bodies, histories, material arrangements and competing uses.
- Performance beyond a theatre building
- Place as a changing field of relations
- Counter-sites and incompatible spatial orders
- Observation before interpretation
- The transfer test for site dependence
- From spatial evidence to a performance proposition
Country, Custodianship, and Contested Campus
Authority, layered histories and responsible work on university groundA campus is not an empty institutional stage. It stands on Country, carries histories of dispossession and education, and remains shaped by living custodianship. This chapter distinguishes acknowledgement from permission, relationship and authority.
- Country as living relation
- Custodianship, authority and permission
- Campus as historical palimpsest
- Institutional narratives and material traces
- Acknowledgement compared with relationship
- Ethical limits as design conditions
From Abstract Space to Lived Place
Experience, movement and a practical ladder from space into placeThis chapter follows the movement from space treated as an abstract arrangement to place experienced through bodies, memory and repeated practice.
- Abstract space and measured arrangement
- Lived place and situated experience
- Orientation, posture and habit
- Memory attached to repeated routes
- The feature to choice observation ladder
- Evidence beyond private feeling
Embodiment, Motion, and Gathering
Kinaesthetic knowledge, effort and the social organisation of bodiesBodies know places through motion, effort and contact before those relations are fully verbalised. This chapter treats walking, balancing, reaching, waiting and gathering as forms of spatial inquiry.
- Kinaesthetic knowledge through movement
- Effort, balance and environmental resistance
- Different bodies and unequal access
- Gathering as a temporary social field
- Spacing, orientation and attention
- Ergonomic scoring and revision
Play, Drift, and Everyday Urban Tactics
Walking, chance and small appropriations within the planned cityUrban space is planned, regulated and represented from above, yet everyday walkers continually produce their own routes and uses.
- Planned city and everyday spatial practice
- Strategy compared with tactic
- Drift as constrained attention
- Play and temporary appropriation
- Chance without false neutrality
- Public impact and positional reflection
Why Make Site-Specific Performance?
Necessity, asymmetry and the decision to intervene in a particular placeA maker should be able to explain why performance is needed here, now and in this form. This chapter turns that question into a selection method. A site carries material affordances, public functions, histories and uneven power.
- A reason to perform here
- Site affordance and material constraint
- Power asymmetry among site users
- Necessity compared with visual appeal
- Proportionality of intervention
- A defensible site selection matrix
Visitation, Host, and Ghost
Welcome, return and the traces that unsettle ownership of placeVisitation offers a relational vocabulary for entering a place without claiming possession. The visitor arrives under conditions, the host appears to control welcome, and the ghost names traces or absences that disturb any simple account of ownership.
- Visitation without possession
- Host authority and unstable welcome
- Ghost as trace, absence or unresolved relation
- Debt, return and what remains
- Positions that change across a project
- A visitation compass for analysis
A Dramaturgy for Place
Organising site, time, action and audience into a legible encounterDramaturgy is the organisation of relations that lets an audience experience a governing idea. In site-specific work, those relations include site, action, duration, transition, audience geometry and the place ordinary life.
- Dramaturgy as organised relation
- A governing proposition for the work
- Sequence without conventional plot
- Space and time as compositional materials
- Audience geometry and reception
- Transitions as evidence of structure
Protocols, Authority, and Gathering Ground
Relationship-based procedure for work on contested and culturally significant groundProtocol is not a universal checklist that grants automatic safety. It is a relationship-based practice for learning who holds authority, what responsibilities attach to an encounter and how decisions should be made.
- Protocol as relationship rather than checklist
- Administrative and cultural authority
- Consultation, consent and ongoing revision
- Gathering ground as overlapping relation
- Refusal and the power to stop
- Documentation without extraction
Deep Mapping, Haunting, and Polyvocal Place
Layered evidence, absent voices and a map that preserves differenceDeep mapping gathers heterogeneous traces of place across time, medium and perspective. It may combine routes, archival fragments, oral accounts, sensory notes, images and material remains, but accumulation alone does not make the method deep.
- Deep mapping as layered inquiry
- Provenance across different media
- Polyvocality without false equivalence
- Haunting as pressure of absence
- Conflict and gap as evidence
- Translating a source weave into performance
Making, Audience Encounter, and Exegesis
Rehearsal evidence, group performance and an individual analytical argumentThe final making process joins a group performance with an individual exegesis inside the official combined assessment. The two outputs are connected but not interchangeable.
- Group making and individual analysis
- Site relation as a performance criterion
- Audience encounter and reception
- Rehearsal as evidence production
- Stage management as dramaturgy
- Claim, incident, concept and consequence
It asks how bodies, routes, histories, institutions, Country, ordinary users and audience encounters produce a place, and how a performance can work responsibly inside those relations. The guide begins with relational place and counter-sites, then develops accountable approaches to Country and campus history, lived experience, embodiment, gathering, walking, drift and everyday urban tactics.
Later chapters turn toward making: why a particular site warrants intervention, how visitation and haunting unsettle ownership, how dramaturgy organises space and time, how protocol locates authority, and how deep mapping preserves distinct voices and gaps. The final chapters connect group performance practice with individual analytical writing.
Assessment in the official 2026 outline comprises a Journal worth 30 percent, a zero-weight early feedback image task, a Response to readings worth 30 percent, and a combined Performance with Exegesis worth 40 percent. The combined row is the authoritative published structure; teaching material further describes the practical performance and individual exegesis as connected parts.
No assessment row is marked as a hurdle in the official outline. AI conditions are task-specific: the outline allows it for the first three rows and prohibits it for Performance with Exegesis. This guide supplies independently authored, unweighted practice rather than reproducing an official question or inventing a University mark scheme.
Current dates, file requirements, permitted assistance and submission settings should always be checked in the official outline and live learning system.
Worked example · free
From site observation to a defensible performance choice
- 1Map ordinary routes, thresholds, users, material conditions and changes across the relevant time rather than collecting atmosphere alone.
- 1Identify access control, cultural authority, everyday stakeholders and any person who must be consulted before the proposal develops.
- 1Write one governing relation and let it determine the action, duration, audience geometry and transitions.
- 1Rehearse under real conditions, record an incident, revise the design and preserve the reasoning for the individual exegesis.
Key terms
- Relational place
- Place understood through interacting bodies, practices, histories, materials and power rather than as a neutral container.
- Country
- A living network of land, waters, law, kinship, culture, memory and responsibility.
- Site specificity
- A condition in which researched features and relations of a particular site determine the work form.
- Counter-site
- A location that juxtaposes or unsettles ordinary spatial orders and their assumptions.
- Lived place
- A location made meaningful through embodied experience, memory, relation and repetition.
- Kinaesthetic knowledge
- Understanding produced through sensed movement, effort, balance and orientation.
- Everyday tactic
- A temporary spatial manoeuvre enacted within structures controlled by more durable powers.
- Visitation
- An encounter structured by arrival, conditions of welcome, limited access and return.
- Dramaturgy
- The organisation of action, space, time, transition and audience into a legible encounter.
- Protocol
- Relationship-based guidance for authority, responsibility and respectful decision-making in context.
- Deep map
- A layered representation preserving provenance, conflict, difference and incompleteness across place evidence.
- Audience reception
- How action is perceived and interpreted from a particular audience position and context.
- Exegesis
- An analytical text that answers a task question through evidence, concepts and sustained argument.
PRFM1603 FAQ
What does the unit teach?
It teaches students to analyse place as a relation among bodies, Country, histories, everyday use, institutions and audiences, then translate that analysis into responsible performance choices. The course also develops dramaturgy, protocol, deep mapping, rehearsal methods and analytical writing for an exegesis grounded in concrete making evidence.
How is the unit assessed?
The official 2026 outline publishes a Journal worth 30 percent, a zero-weight early feedback image task, a Response to readings worth 30 percent, and Performance with Exegesis worth 40 percent. The outline marks no row as a hurdle. Check the live task pages for current format, authorship and submission settings.
What is the final task?
The official outline groups Performance with Exegesis as one 40 percent row. Teaching material describes connected practical and written work: a group site-specific performance and an individual exegesis. The performance develops site, dramaturgy, encounter and logistics; the exegesis uses research and process evidence to build an individual analytical argument.
Is the course mainly theoretical?
Theory matters because it changes how students observe and make, but the course is strongly practice-oriented. Concepts such as lived place, drift, visitation, protocol and deep mapping become field methods, movement scores, audience designs and rehearsal decisions. Strong work keeps concepts precise and tests them against a real site rather than merely naming theorists.
Are there hurdle tasks?
No assessment row is marked as a hurdle in the official 2026 outline retrieved for this guide. That statement concerns the published assessment table and should not be expanded into an assumption about every operational requirement. Students should still follow attendance, participation, authorship and submission instructions in the current learning system.
When is the unit offered?
The official handbook lists a Semester 2 2026 availability for the current outline. University teaching materials also place activities through the second half of 2026. Future offerings, staffing and schedules can change, so confirm the current availability and timetable on the University of Sydney unit page before planning enrolment.
Is this an official University guide?
No. It is an independent study resource grounded in University of Sydney course materials and the official 2026 outline. Its practice questions and model responses are newly authored and unweighted. Official task pages control deadlines, required formats, permissions, permitted AI use, academic integrity and any changes made after publication.
Questions students ask in each PRFM1603 chapter
- When is a location more than a backdrop?
- A location becomes structurally consequential when its routes, uses, material limits, histories or permissions determine the work. Naming a place, showing a local image or borrowing its atmosphere is not enough. Ask which action, duration or audience relation would have to change if the performance moved. A precise answer demonstrates site dependence. Chapter 01 · Performance, Place, and Counter-Sites
- Is an acknowledgement the same as permission?
- No. An acknowledgement can recognise Country and custodianship, but it does not authorise the use of stories, images, names, places or knowledge. Permission concerns a particular action and source. Responsible work identifies who holds relevant authority, seeks guidance where appropriate and accepts that some material or places may remain unavailable. Chapter 02 · Country, Custodianship, and Contested Campus
- Does lived place mean that every interpretation is equally strong?
- No. Experience is situated, but an account still needs precision. A useful interpretation connects feeling to bodily response, material condition, social context and repeated practice. It also states its limits. An unsupported mood description is weaker than an account that shows how a blind turn, changing echo or familiar route organised perception. Chapter 03 · From Abstract Space to Lived Place
- Why is movement a research method?
- Movement tests conditions that static observation can overlook. Walking exposes rhythm and gradient; reaching reveals clearance and resistance; waiting changes attention to duration and social permission. The resulting knowledge remains situated, so the maker should record which body performed the test and avoid treating one experience as a standard for everyone. Chapter 04 · Embodiment, Motion, and Gathering
- Is a drift just random walking?
- No. A drift suspends habitual purpose through an explicit rule or mode of attention. The rule matters because it makes the method discussable and repeatable while leaving room for encounter. Pure randomness can hide the walker choices and privileges. A strong record states where the rule changed, failed or met a boundary. Chapter 05 · Play, Drift, and Everyday Urban Tactics
- Must a site-specific work address trauma or conflict?
- No. A work can investigate rhythm, labour, play, ecology, access, memory or ordinary encounter. What matters is that the site relation is researched and consequential. Choosing an overtly traumatic subject does not make a project more serious, and it may intensify obligations that a student group lacks the authority or relationships to meet. Chapter 06 · Why Make Site-Specific Performance?
- Does ghost mean that performers should impersonate absent people?
- No. Ghost can name how an absence, record or unresolved history shapes present experience. Impersonation may invent authority and collapse difference. Work instead with attributed evidence, material traces and the limits of recovery. If a voice or story belongs to a living community, consultation and cultural authority remain essential. Chapter 07 · Visitation, Host, and Ghost
- Can site-specific performance still tell a story?
- Yes, but narrative is one organising option rather than a requirement. A work can also structure relations through accumulation, contrast, return, simultaneous action or changing viewpoints. The important question is whether the chosen form helps an audience encounter the site proposition. Plot should not be added merely to make experimental material feel familiar. Chapter 08 · A Dramaturgy for Place
- Why is a protocol not just a checklist?
- A checklist can prompt useful questions, but it cannot determine authority or replace relationship. Protocol changes with place, people, knowledge and purpose. Following generic steps without listening may reproduce the very extraction the process is meant to prevent. The maker must understand why a condition exists and remain responsive to guidance and refusal. Chapter 09 · Protocols, Authority, and Gathering Ground
- How is deep mapping different from collecting many facts?
- Depth comes from relation and provenance, not volume. A deep map shows how sources were produced, where they agree or conflict, who has authority and what remains absent. A scrapbook can contain many items yet leave their relationships unexplained. Selective, well-attributed layers often produce a stronger inquiry than indiscriminate accumulation. Chapter 10 · Deep Mapping, Haunting, and Polyvocal Place
- How should the performance and exegesis connect?
- Use the making process and event as evidence for an individual argument. The exegesis should not reproduce the performance in prose or become a diary of group activity. Select incidents that reveal a relation among site, action and audience, apply concepts where they sharpen interpretation, and explain the consequence of each decision. Chapter 11 · Making, Audience Encounter, and Exegesis
How to prepare for the assessments
Study this course by moving repeatedly between field evidence, conceptual language, practical revision and analytical writing. For each chapter, select one familiar place and record routes, thresholds, bodies, material conditions, histories and authority before choosing an interpretive term. Use the term only if it changes what you observe or make.
Rehearse small scores under real conditions and keep an incident log with the condition, observation, decision and result. That log becomes evidence for the exegesis. Build assessment work steadily: use journal entries to preserve situated observations, read assigned sources for concepts and disagreements, and test major performance choices against site dependence, audience encounter, protocol, access and feasibility.
Draft exegesis paragraphs by claim rather than chronology, using one precise incident, a relevant concept, a design consequence and its significance. Keep group decisions and individual analysis distinct. Recheck the official task instructions before every submission, especially authorship, referencing, documentation, AI permissions and file requirements.
