Limb Identity

The emergence of form and content in drawing


A drawn line is possibly the most simple and economical means of primary visual expression. Even if it consists of a single purposefully drawn line, a drawing is a conscious economic decision and a voluntary act, whether constructive—as the visible traces of a manual gesture—or conceptual, as an act of interpretation and definition of reality (schema). As the latter, a drawing is also a construction of meaning, independently of any medium used or the nature of the reality observed. Whether it is made on any given surface or space with our body or using some other form of line producing instrument or whether it is the result of the deployment or identification of arrangements of objects in space, for example, drawing is an action that develops over time—even in the briefest of instants—and therefore is a process, a sequence of graphic events that has a beginning and an end and one that involves the notion of emergence.

In connection with images, the concept of emergence is defined as follows: “An image displays emergence when its parts or features are combined such that additional and unexpected features result, making it possible to determine new patterns and relations in the image that were not intentionally created.”(1) Whether these parts are drawings, printed images or photos, other materials or previously finished works, their arrangement in space or in time involves a process of drawing in which traditional collage techniques, literally, provide the glue that physically and materially holds together what the mind has already brought together through a process of closure. Through this process our mind achieves an understanding of unity in the observed, bridging the gap there is between the visual and the material, between our mental image and our imperfect attempts to render or give physical form to that mental image, at the same time that it opens up new possible interpretations.

If a drawing is an orderly and sequential deployment of such 'units of information' or graphic events, what is the nature of the relationship between line and information, between form and content, in the process whereby such a drawing comes into being? In other words, how do form and content manifest themselves, if at all, before a linear construction achieves—and maintains over a period of time—the coherence of form and expression that permits it to be read as 'a drawing' or—also—in the transitional phase there is between one form of the drawing and another? Are the lines that lead to a finished drawing totally meaningless or only partially meaningful until that drawing is complete? If so, for how long do they remain in that condition? At what point do they “become drawings”(or a drawing other than the one originally intended)? Also, from the point of view of content, what is the nature of visual information before this coherence is achieved? Does it have some kind of disperse factual existence prior to the condition of 'information', as data for example, with the potential to become information through line and therefore through drawing? These questions define the context of development of the work presented here, which focuses on the physical and material manifestation of such a development process through collage.

In the visual operation that is collage the original meaning of images or fragments of images is less relevant than the evidence of the formative process itself and our understanding of the development of form (but not entirely meaningless, however). In its non-digital form, collage is an intervention into both the physical and contextual dimensions of an image. It is also a crude attempt to regain the fluidity of observed reality, whether physical, social or political, an attempt to achieve the formless ductility and timelessness of such reality, a doomed attempt to inhabit and develop the moment that precedes the image.

What matters in these works is not seamless superficial perfection, digitally or otherwise enhanced, or a fluid transition from one source image to another, but instead the Frankenstein-like romantic beauty of the scars, the openness and layer-by-layer construction of a sensitive paper skin.

Two types of surgical operations have been performed on the physical body of these drawings: cosmetic surgery, or surgery to conceal and correct visible defects and reconstructive surgery which involves not only the redefinition of form and space within the images but, also, an intervention into the narrative underpinnings of the emergent images.

P.B.


(1) R. Finke, T. Ward and S. Smith Creative Cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992
I am not concerned with digital images in these works, however, I would like to point out that, as processes that depend on external inputs (e.g. electricity, software, etc.) the notion of collage in my opinion has to do with the diversion and linking of similar flows of visual data rather than the juxtaposition of elements of a diverse nature. In the realm of the digital, everything is of the same digital and representational nature. You deal with objects, with the physical in order to construct object-images. Digital images, however complex, rarely possess a relevant physical being other than the technological device used to generate or convey it.