Performance Drawing: New Practices since 1945 9781788313841, 9781350113022, 9781350113015

Citation preview

PERFORMANCE DRAWING

DRAWING IN Series editors: Russell Marshall, Marsha Meskimmon and Phil Sawdon University of Loughborough, UK ‘Thinking through drawing’ has become a ubiquitous trope across the arts, sciences and humanities. The rich vein of thinking, making and visualizing through drawing that is being developed across these diverse fields affords an opportunity for sustained intellectual dialogues to emerge within, between or without traditional disciplinary boundaries. The Drawing In series provides a space for new perspectives and critical approaches in the field of drawing to be brought together and explored. Published titles: Drawing Difference, Marsha Meskimmon and Phil Sawdon Drawing Investigations, Sarah Casey and Gerry Davies Performance Drawing, Maryclare Foá, Jane Grisewood, Birgitta Hosea and Carali McCall Forthcoming: Looking at Life Drawing, Margaret Mayhew Scenographic Design Drawing, Sue Field Serial Drawing, Joe Graham Drawing as Phenomenology, Deborah Harty

PERFORMANCE DRAWING New Practices since 1945

MARYCLARE FOÁ JANE GRISEWOOD BIRGITTA HOSEA CARALI MCCALL

BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2020 © Maryclare Foá, Jane Grisewood, Birgitta Hosea and Carali McCall, 2020 Maryclare Foá, Jane Grisewood, Birgitta Hosea and Carali McCall have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work. Cover image: ARC: I Draw For You (2010) © Nick Manser All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Foá, Maryclare, author. | Grisewood, Jane, author. | Hosea, Birgitta, author. | McCall, Carali, author. Title: Performance drawing : New Practices since 1945 / Maryclare Foá, Jane Grisewood, Birgitta Hosea and Carali McCall. Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020. | Series: Drawing in | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “What is ‘performance drawing’? When does a drawing turn into a performance? Is the act of drawing in itself a performative process, whether a viewer is present or not? Through conversation, interviews and essays, the authors illuminate these questions, and what it might mean to perform, and what it might mean to draw, in a diverse and expressive contemporary practice since the 1960s. The term ‘performance drawing’ refers to Drawing Papers: Performance Drawings by Catherine de Zegher (2001), with origins in live works decades earlier. In this book, it is used as a trope, and a thread of thinking, to describe a process dedicated to broadening the field of drawing through resourceful practices and cross-disciplinary influence. The introduction presents a brief historical background and outlines approaches to performance drawing. As a way to embrace the different voices and various lenses in producing this book, each author reveals their individual perspectives and critical methodology in the five chapters. While embedded in ephemerality and immediacy, the themes encompass body and energy, time and motion, light and space, imagined and observed, demonstrating how drawing can act as a performative tool. The dynamic interaction leads to a collective understanding of the term, performance drawing, and addresses the key developments and future directions of this applied drawing process. Featuring a wide range of international artists, the acclaimed practitioners from the 1960s, such as Alison Knowles, Carolee Schneemann, Richard Long, Robert Morris, Tom Marioni, Trisha Brown and William Kentridge, have been instrumental in instituting and exposing the relationship between drawing and performing. This book provides the foundation behind these pioneers, alongside a platform for current and emerging artists, and for those working between the boundaries of the genre. Merging experiences and disciplines in the expanded field has established a vibrant art movement that has been progressively burgeoning in the last few years”– Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2020011462 (print) | LCCN 2020011463 (ebook) | ISBN 9781788313841 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350113008 (epub) | ISBN 9781350113015 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Performance drawing. Classification: LCC NX456.5.P38 F63 2020 (print) | LCC NX456.5.P38 (ebook) | DDC 741–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011462 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011463 ISBN: HB: 978-1-7883-1384-1 ePDF: 978-1-3501-1301-5 ePUB: 978-1-3501-1300-8 Series: Drawing In Series editors: Marsha Meskimmon, Phil Sawdon and Russell Marshall Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS

List of figures  vi Foreword   viii Foreword: Drawing life   x Acknowledgements  xii

Introduction  1 1 Marking: Line and body in time and space  9 2 Physicality: Running as drawing  45 3 Communicating: Directives and/or instructions that promote the activity of drawing  79 4 Conjuring: The gift of a surprise  125 5 Illuminating: Live mark making through projected light  171 Conclusion  215

Select Bibliography 221 Index  235

FIGURES

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7

Jane Grisewood and Carali McCall, Line Dialogue IV, 2011.  19 Piyali Ghosh, Arabian Sea, My Rasa Rekha, 2015.  21 Tom Marioni, Drawing a Line As Far As I Can Reach, 1972.  23 Jaanika Peerna, Am Rand / On the Edge 2014.  27 Helena Almeida, Inside Me (Dentro de mim), 1998.  30 Jane Grisewood, Mourning Lines, 2006.  33 Francis Alÿs, When Faith Moves Mountains (Cuando la fe Mueve Montañas), Lima 2002.  35 2.1 Carolee Schneemann, Up to and Including Her Limits, 1973.  47 2.2 Carali McCall Work no. 1 (Circle Drawing) 4 hours 15 minutes, 2019.   51 2.3 John Court, Untitled, 2016.  56 2.4 Tony Orrico, performing Penwald: 6: project, recoil (WhyNot!, W139, Amsterdam, NL) 2011.  58 2.5 Robert Luzar, Two-Legged Idleness, Untaped, 2013–14.  66 2.6 Trisha Brown, Man Walking Down the Side of a Building, 1970.  70 3.1 Alison Knowles, rolling up paper from a work by Fabrizio Manco, Workshop at October Gallery, London.  89 3.2 Foá, Grisewood, Hosea, McCall, ARC: I Draw For You, 2010.  93 3.3 Counterproductions, InspiralLondon, 2018.  102 3.4 Angela Rogers and Denise Turner, Drawing Conversations, 2016.  104 3.5 Georgiana Houghton, The Flower of Catherine Stringer, c.1870.  107 3.6 Tim Lewis, Mule Make Mule, 2012.  114 4.1 Tania Kovats, Evaporation (Black) 31, 2014.  134 4.2 M. Foá, Lost Borrowed and Found; The SS Great Britain, 2006.  139 4.3 Birgitta Hosea, White Lines, 2009–10.  144 4.4 Phoebe Boswell, Dear Mr. Shakespeare, 2016.  146 4.5 Kreider + O’Leary, Immolation Triptych, 2009.  152 4.6 Jordan McKenzie, Shame Chorus, 2016–ongoing.  158

FIGURES

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6

Walter R. Booth, Comedy Cartoons, 1907.  175 Photo of Bahman Panahi, 2017.  185 Foá, Grisewood, Hosea, McCall, Sky vs SKYPE, 2011.  186 Jeremy Radvan and Paul Sermon, (tele)consequences, 2018.  187 Vicky Smith, 33 Frames Per Foot, 2013.  192 Kellie O’Dempsey and Jennifer Wroblewski, Resistance Movement, 2017.  199 5.7 Birgitta Hosea, dotdot dash, 2018.  204

vii

FOREWORD

This book curates and articulates a richly diverse panoply of practices where the act of drawing is comprehended as a performative undertaking. Written from the perspective of articulate practitioners, the authors explain the term ‘performance drawing’, first coined by Catherine de Zegher in 1962, as cross-disciplinary, variable and evolving. Each of the five chapters discuss, with examples, strategies by which the artist is leaving – as well as stimulating in others – marks and traces that operate in space and time, invisibly and materially, aurally and visually, instructively and reflectively, conceptually and physically, permanently and ephemerally. The field is quintessentially playful. Conjuring, instruction, animation, theatrics, even spiritualism, are included. The body is a leitmotif; as is motion: dance as well as motion picture. The material agency of the corporeal comes into play, literally. The entire body might be involved, becoming a total instrument; or the artist’s bodily intervention might be alluded to in traces made visible, imprinted residues left behind as evidence of previous action. The artist might be running, or walking (perpendicular, up a building even, as in Trisha Brown’s iconic postmodern choreography Man Walking Down the Side of a Building, 1970). She might be making her mark on film footage as it projects. She might be allographically instructing others in drawing actions. Vitally, the artist is present, in the sense of rendering the action of mark making manifest, as a live process, whether analogue and digital. Classification of the genre is inevitably elusive. No sooner does one read one definition than another emerges to offer yet another boundary pushed, another flavour, dislodging traditional assumptions about drawing signifying two-dimensional mark making on a flat surface. What arises throughout, as a transverse line running across the authors’ eclectic definitions, is a consistent democratizing motive at work, unsettling traditional modes of consumption to promote methodologies of process, and a consensus that the examples chose to share a collective intention to disrupt spectator consumerism. The performance-drawn piece is only completed in its symbiotic encounter with its public. In participatory culture, accomplishment gives way to concept, technique to process. Art, by definition, becomes the action of making art itself, over and above the artefact, a recurring post-twentieth-century zeitgeist conversation

FOREWORD

ix

to which the authors are uniquely contributing. If this book defines a common ground of artistic tendencies and their distinctions, it also expresses the very different perspectives of its authors. It is their respective approaches in gathering and comparing artists and their work that make this such a useful compendium for student and scholar alike. The pieces cited are simple and complex, solo and interactive, urban and rural, analogue and digital. They belong in their chapters, and yet there is slippage, as the confines of one topic infiltrates another. This is to be expected. This is a bold volume about unbounded, often interdisciplinary, practices. United by a common thread of liveness and performativity, the sundry experiments discussed and contextualized are positioned to foreground each chapter’s focus, unpacked to reveal the ways in which drawing, as performative action, continues to inscribe meaning in space and time. What lingers, once one has put this book down, is a vivid impression of an expansive field of innovative and boundary-pushing art practices, persuasively held together by this elastic yet consistently logical term: Performance Drawing. Anna Furse London, March 2020

FOREWORD DRAWING LIFE

When is a person a line? When is a body a pencil? When is a drawing a thought? I am swimming and thinking about writing the foreword to this volume as I make waves in the swirling water. I am stirring vegetables around and around a frying pan on the stove. I am mowing a lawn that stretches into long verdant rows. My thoughts follow my hands and arms and propel movement. Just as we’ve now come to see how much of our daily activity can be understood as performance, so it is that most of what we do is based on the line – which is to say, drawing. The linkage of drawing and performance came rather late to recognition in art exhibitions and performance scholarship in the post-war period. By now it is obvious how long the relationship has existed. Drawing is one of the earliest languages, like dance. Paradoxically, it is non-verbal and yet a form of speech articulating the body’s vocabulary. A private act turned public. Drawing is gestural as is performance in its foregrounding. What has it to tell us about the movement from mind to hand to space? There is so much to discover in such a network of complex signs. Drawing is concerned with process not product. It can be a score, a thought, a study, a map, a walk, an action within a performance, or the performance itself. Thinking about performance drawing encompasses several forms of art: visual art, theatre, dance, music. The ethos of performance studies that encompasses all activity as a form of performance has now been extended to the visual arts where the ontology of the line overwhelms every medium. Think of William Kentridge drawing his way through multiple settings or the visual book Robert Wilson creates for his theatre and opera, first drawing each scene. Think of Francis Alÿs whose projects make a line in the earth or the processions in a Meredith Monk performance. Performance drawing is a form of Intermedia, in the very sense Dick Higgins described, as a union of art media and life media, his own efforts generating a remarkable number of graphis drawings as occasions for performance. Visiting the British Library for the 2019 exhibition Writing: Making Your Mark, I admired the Chinese scrolls and multiple screens with writing as drawing that turn folding panels into an installation. And what of the publisher Aldus Manutius’s

FOREWORD

xi

creation of italics, the performative gesture of the word that first came to life on a fifteenth-century page? Drawing is not merely mark making but the imagining of a world. It can be envisioned with charcoal, crayon, graphite, pencil, light, sound, the body. Sometimes it is a spurt of ink. Or blood stains. Or dirt. There is drawing as performance, drawing in performance, drawing for performance. A live performance or its documentation. Drawing is a form of writing, a line of thought. Drawing is both noun and verb, idea and image. In so far as a drawing relates to live action by a body, it represents: an act, a physical object, an idea, a space. Bodies are not abstractions. Drawing in performance makes itself known through appearance. This condition goes beyond the designation of ‘time-based’ work. It demands to be understood in its fullness as presence. The one performing drawing is a vulnerable actor in real time in front of live spectators, making gestures toward the unknown, inchoate beyond: the mind thinking, the hand moving, the body quickening, the eyes following intuition wherever it may lead. A light tracing in the darkness, an invisible sound emitting waves in the air. There is so much to comprehend regarding performance drawing and the narrative, the line and linearity. What is performance drawing to performance space? Is the drawing a species of performance or the performance itself? Performance Drawing: New Practices since 1945 goes a long way in chronicling how widespread and varied is the bringing together of performance and drawing in the modern and contemporary histories of multiple art forms. So many disparate kinds of art making and multidisciplinary artists are taken into its folds that one begins to wonder where performance ends and drawing begins. More importantly, it brings closer together the two histories of performance that continue to isolate performance knowledge in visual art or theatre. The volume’s contributors explore drawing as it pertains to the environment, the studio and performance space, each realm shaping its own necessities. Here is a manual of new ways to think about the line and by extension about the drawing’s relation to the human body. If we are led to contemplate the longevity of drawing from the earliest cave markings, the outlines of what performance may become in the machine-learning experiments of artificial intelligence await our attention. We are now at the frontiers of what will constitute the dimensions of performance and drawing in worlds yet to be staged. How will body and line and time and space be reconfigured in the not yet discernible lines of the future? What we do know is that expanded art processes and perceptions have redrawn the poetries of everyday life. Bonnie Marranca New York, September 2019

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The final stages of this book were completed during the early months of 2020, at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.  The authors and editors working on the manuscript were required to be separated, communicating virtually while individually working and living in isolation. This separation has highlighted how performance drawing largely depends on people being  physically together, whether in a collaborative practice or as performer and audience. Whilst artists continue to make works supported by the advancement of digital and online technologies, performance drawing was developed over a time when a physical gathering of people was considered a normal ‘everyday’ circumstance. The authors would like to thank all those who have supported our performance drawing practice, research and writing; the copy editors and artists involved, our colleagues, former tutors, friends, families and all those who stand for a kinder world.

INTRODUCTION The practice of drawing has traditionally been assumed as a discipline bound to two dimensions and dry marking materials. In a contemporary art context, drawing can be understood as both durational and spatial and comprised of elements employed in both painting and performance-based practices. Importantly, drawing can now be understood as a performance when enacted in front of an audience either live or in anticipation of a future audience through a recording device. A number of contemporary practitioners engage with time-based and performative ways of working that foreground the actions of making over the final result of those actions. Unbound to observational representation, particular methods of employment, surfaces or types of materials, these process-based approaches to drawing reveal themselves as temporal – either during a live event or through documentation. Thus, performance drawing can be interpreted as a blended hybrid, containing various and diverse components from different disciplines and involving both primary haptic engagement and the advancement of technology. Intended as a resource for practitioners involved in the expanded field of drawing, who are looking for a scholarly debate and seek informed references to underpin their practice, Performance Drawing: New Practices since 1945 gathers together a range of seminal works that have contributed to these developments in drawing and, in addition, reconsiders work from other disciplines, such as dance, theatre, action painting and expanded cinema, as forms of drawing that today’s artists are inspired by. This will also provide background information for researchers new to the field. As today’s artists are shifting boundaries of genres, creative debates are opened up and generate transformative methodologies. Instrumental in instituting and revealing the relationship between drawing and performing, the chapters in this book aim to establish a progressively vibrant and forward-thinking approach to art that contributes to the expanded field of drawing. At times, it may seem apparent that successive generations of artists reinvent the wheel and explore performance drawing across a range of disciplines; the authors, here, aim to give a contextualization, reaching into diverse yet significantly relevant references of historical predecessors.

2

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Although incidences of temporal, process-based approaches to drawing can be found in a range of historical periods, practices and disciplines, there has yet to be a book that gathers examples by such themes and investigates the implications of advancing the interrelationship between drawing and performance to this extent. While the seminal text ‘Artists Notes 1972’ by Carl Plackman could be sited as an opening up of the possibilities of drawing from a contemporary point of view, it was the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition and catalogue Drawing Now (1976), with forty-five artists such as John Cage, Robert Morris, Richard Serra and Piero Manzoni, that can be noted to have significantly contributed to a renewed fascination in processes of drawing. A year later, in 1977, Martha Beck, former assistant curator of drawing at the Museum of Modern Art, founded The Drawing Center, New York, which continues to celebrate the practice of drawing in all its various guises. Although these are significant examples of thinking about drawing, they do not investigate drawing in relation to performance. Furthermore, to drawing’s history, a key exhibition curated by Michael CraigMartin, Drawing the Line: Reappraising Drawing Past and Present (1995), posed a new conversation between historical and contemporary drawing practitioners with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Carl Andre, Paul Klee, Richard Long and Bruce Nauman. Following this was the exhibition and catalogue Out of Line: Drawings from the Arts Council Collection, Hayward Gallery (2001), leading to further institutions opening in the UK, such as C4RD – a UK registered charity since 2004 supporting artists interested in drawing which identifies itself as London’s museum space for drawing – and Drawing Room. This was initiated by Mary Doyle, Kate Macfarlane and Katharine Stout in 2002 as a non-profit gallery in the UK dedicated to contemporary drawing, which hosted Robin Rhode and work by Tom Marioni in an exhibition titled Sounds Like Drawing (2005) and continues today to provide a major resource for contemporary drawing with programmes that include panel discussions, exhibitions and practical workshops. Another noteworthy exhibition was the 2003 The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act, and the exhibition’s catalogue included a conversation between curator Catherine de Zegher and practitioner Avis Newman on theory and concepts of drawing. The former chief curator of The Drawing Center, New York (1999–2006), de Zegher, then went on to curate the key exhibition On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century (1910–2010) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2011. More recently, editors and writers, such as Bonnie Marranca, in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art; Katharine Stout, in her book Contemporary Drawing: From the 1960s to Now (2014); and Catherine Wood, in Performance in Contemporary Art (2018) have contributed significant research to this platform and have helped shaped the thinking toward the development of this book. Existing now is an ever-increasing interest and focus on drawing and the performance of drawing in art institutions and artist-run spaces. It is important

INTRODUCTION

3

to give mention and include here Professor Anita Taylor’s Research Centre for Drawing (which first opened in Wimbledon, London, and, more recently as Drawing Projects UK, moved to Trowbridge). She initiated the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, which was founded in 1994 as a drawing prize and exhibition that has established a reputation for its commitment to championing the breadth of contemporary drawing practice within the UK. Also noteworthy is the established and long-standing research project Drawing Lab Dessin at Concordia University, Canada, co-founded by artist and educator François Morelli, which provides a platform for action and discussion around contemporary drawing practices. Other key notable examples include Loughborough University’s TRACEY drawing research online journal, annual conference and project space as well as the recent A History of Drawing, an inaugural exhibition at CCW at the University of the Arts London (UAL) (2018) curated by Kelly Chorpening, which includes the work Sweeping Actions (2017) by Rossella Emanuele. Beyond universities, further key examples include an exhibition titled Performing Drawing (2018–19) at Australia’s National Gallery, with artists such as Nicci Haynes and Gosia Wlodarczak; the DRAWING NOW Art Fair (2019) in Paris curated and directed by Joana P. R. Neves; the Draw Art Fair London (2019), with American artist Linda Karshan’s work Draw Performance at Saatchi Gallery; Draw to Perform events, curated by artist Ram Samocha, which, since 2013, has established annual exhibitions, residencies and an active Instagram and Facebook group. While the interest in the expanded field of drawing has undoubtedly become well established, the appeal in performance and drawing has grown on social media forums and university research hubs, enabling a cross-cultural, international sharing of practice, processes and ideas. All of these publications, educational institutions and exhibition spaces can be seen to have planted the seeds that have nurtured performance drawing practice. However, to date, there has not been a publication specifically concerned with tracing the genesis, emergence and development of performance drawing and where it sits now in contemporary practice. The term ‘performance drawing’ first appeared in the subtitle of Catherine de Zegher’s Drawing Papers 20: Performance Drawings, in particular with reference to Alison Knowles and Elena del Rivero. This volume accompanied a series of five solo exhibitions at The Drawing Center, New York (2001) of work that ‘explored the interrelation of drawing and performance’. Since then, performance drawing has compellingly become an operational term – a trope and a thread of thinking to describe the process dedicated to broadening the field of drawing through resourceful practices and cross-disciplinary influence, including dance, audio, moving image and technology. This present book is co-authored by four London-based artists, Maryclare Foá, Jane Grisewood, Birgitta Hosea and Carali McCall, who met as PhD researchers at Central Saint Martins, UAL, while individually undertaking research in different

4

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

areas of drawing – each sharing an interest in process-based and expanded methods of working. In addition to their individual artistic practices, since 2008 the artists have collaborated on a range of performance drawing projects that address the relationship between the body and presence, time and space through working with graphite and charcoal, light, sound and animation. Working together collaboratively defies traditional notions of authorship and, indeed, their collective work was once described by artist Avis Newman as ‘a many headed hydra’. For the four authors, the choice of working collaboratively has significantly contributed to the creative process in this book and is underpinned by generations of feminist practice; however, Feminism is not a primary concern for this text. For the authors, working as a group has many positive outcomes and has enabled the combination of ideas from four practitioners with diverse experiences of expanded drawing practice and different generational perspectives. The subject of drawing and performance as considered from four perspectives can suggest a vast number of areas of enquiry. The very title of this book, Performance Drawing: New Practices since 1945, is problematic in its suggestion of defining and containing a genre that is not yet extensively analysed or documented (relative to painting, drawing, sculpture, film and performance) and largely understood today as being in its formative years. Brought together through the lengthy dialogue, debate and negotiation that are necessary for collective authorship, Performance Drawing: New Practices since 1945 seeks to introduce, agitate and open out the concept of performance drawing rather than offering a narrow, reductive or categorical definition that would serve to close the field down. The authors do not wish to fix a categorical or limiting definition of performance drawing, yet are determined to avoid a nebulous selection of works. Any selection is by definition a restriction and the extent of the global contemporary art scene makes it impossible to represent all artists whose practice could be considered performance drawing around the world. Thus, the artworks and practices that are included were not chosen on the basis of providing a categorical definition of performance drawing or an exhaustive chronological, socio-historical account of its development, but rather these selections are framed around a series of thematic enquiries that are outlined in the chapters. Although each author has a different nationality and an effort was made to include a broad and diverse range of artists, the authors acknowledge that the sample choice has been limited by having English as a native language, white privilege and being based in London. Not every work is a performance drawing, or necessarily a performance or a drawing, but may contain key ideas and/or elements that contribute to the building of works that engage in this arena. The authors have critically selected artworks that help give shape to the particular themes of each chapter: Chapter 1: Marking, Chapter 2: Physicality, Chapter 3: Communication, Chapter 4: Conjuring, Chapter 5: Illumination. In creating a structure for this text, Foá, Grisewood, Hosea and McCall each looked

INTRODUCTION

5

at the practical, material and process-based methods that can be identified in the field of performance drawing from the perspective of their own research interests. Each chapter aims to find specific approaches yet demonstrates a use of related themes and concepts that address notions of performance, drawing and time. Importantly, each chapter outlines a series of artworks which subvert, challenge and advance perceptions, to expand contexts, to offer flexible interpretations and to open up possibilities for further conceptual and practical exploration. While embedded in ephemerality and immediacy, the themes explored in each chapter encompass a range of perspectives that span time and movement, body and action, imagined and observed, light and space, media and  materiality  – demonstrating how performance drawing connects a diverse and expressive collection of work and how such an assembly of artists can bridge and interrogate what it might mean to perform and what it might mean to draw. Although the examples involved in the book are predominantly artists’ works from a Western context, the authors have tried to approach performance drawing as a worldwide phenomenon. While acknowledging a number of historical antecedents from the Victorian period onwards, Performance Drawing: New Practices since 1945 focuses in particular on live works of the Gutai artists, John Cage, Fluxus and onwards – in which the art object itself becomes dematerialized and increasingly less important than the ideas behind it and how it was made. During this time, many artists’ works required photographic documentation to secure archival evidence. Thus, while the act of drawing itself questions the performance process, selected artists and their particular artworks bridge and interrogate what it might mean to perform and what it might mean to draw – whether the viewer or the camera is present or not. Chapter 1, ‘Marking: Line and body in time and space’, surveys many artists’ works that merge drawing and performance, exemplifying the body as a tool for performance, where the dynamic line has defined bodily presence and durational processes. It introduces the pioneers of contemporary art practice, reflecting on the action painting of artist Jackson Pollock, who, by engaging his whole body in his work, challenged traditional conventions. Further practitioners who introduced radical change through physical action include the Gutai group, Yves Klein and Ana Mendieta. The chapter brings together artists and artworks such as John Latham’s One Second Drawing, Tehching Hsieh’s One Year Performance, Tom Marioni Drawing a Line As Far As I Can Reach and artists who focus on developing the line to create a sense of space, such as Jaanika Peerna and Monika Grzymala along with choreographer Trisha Brown who created sizeable three-dimensional action drawings. Revealing in-between spaces, Helena Almeida turns herself into a drawing with her body as a place of passage, while William Anastasi and Morgan O’Hara (in her Live Transmission drawings) draw tracks of bodies in motion. Finally, the chapter explores the paradigm shift from

6

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

inside to outside, the peripatetic actions of artists such as Richard Long with his seminal A Line Made by Walking and Francis Alÿs embodying the integral line in perpetual movement. Overall, addressing drawing as a material residue using the tool and hand to leave a mark on a surface, it builds a foundation grounded in past histories of what it means to use the body and draw. Importantly, the chapter identifies time as a material and key source of concept and means of working. Chapter 2, ‘Physicality: Running as drawing’, identifies artworks that focus on the body and the physical effort involved in performance drawing. Through an accumulation of artists’ works that recognize the demands of conditioning and training, it ultimately leads to running ‘as’ drawing and addresses the artist as athlete. It considers performance-based works that constitute a marking process such as Carolee Schneemann’s Up to and Including Her Limits and Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 1–6 and develops the theme of physical/mental strength central to the work through artists such as John Court, Tony Orrico and Guido van der Werve. While suggesting how disciplines such as running and dance have merged to become an ever-engaging mode of working for artists today, artworks such as Barry Le Va’s Velocity: Impact Run, Martin Creed’s Work no. 850 and Trisha Brown’s seminal work Man Walking Down the Side of a Building are described to cultivate the conversation between performance and the performative, artist and the audience, agency and the physical act of movement. The approach to this chapter exemplifies extreme but fundamental forms of human movement, contributing to the legacy of artists refining skills and enriching the future of performative practice. Following on from Chapter 1, in this chapter the visible mark is lost and drawing becomes the concept of the line through the motion of the body in space. Importantly, the subjective experience of the practitioner during the conscious act of making is key. While the focus of the chapter is on the body as the primary source of material, it addresses physical endurance within time-based events. Chapter 3, ‘Communicating: Directives and/or instructions that promote the activity of drawing’, investigates drawings made as a conceptual activity that start with an idea from an artist but are not physically made by them. Rather, an instruction for an unfinished or ‘open’ work is communicated and its making is performed by someone else. After Nelson Goodman, the term allographic is used to refer to this kind of artwork in which the artist’s intention is communicated as a set of instructions using language or visuals, stored as text or image and then delivered to another, who will interpret the instructions and carry them out as a collaborator. Methods of communicating instructions for drawings include notational systems for dance and music, such as Rudolf Laban’s Kinetograms and the graphic scores of John Cage and Cornelius Cardew. Text-based instructions for participants to follow, such as George Brecht’s Event Scores and Alison Knowles’s Make Something on the Street and Give it Away, are considered alongside drawn forms of dialogue with the public, such as Stanley Brouwn’s

INTRODUCTION

7

This Way Brouwn, Angela Rogers’ Drawing Conversation and InspiralLondon’s walking trail. Also investigated in this chapter are historical works in which artists followed instructions for drawings from the spirit world (including 1860s works by Georgiana Houghton and 1930s–1960s works by Emma Kunz). The concept of an instruction for a drawing created to be enacted by another has been a direct influence on the early pioneers of computational art, such as Frieder Nake, who defined instructions for drawing in procedural code that was then enacted by the computer as well as machines for drawing (including works by Jean Tinguely, Tim Lewis and Patrick Tresset) that follow mechanical instructions to create drawings on paper. In this chapter, the notion of drawing and the mark becomes a concept designed as a directive, for example something to be drawn by another. In the form of a process undertaken through instruction, performance drawing importantly involves participation and collaboration: there is a letting go of the individual as a sole performer. Chapter 4, ‘Conjuring: The gift of a surprise’, investigates an area of performance drawing concerned with the conjuring of images. This chapter sets out to explore how the term conjuring has been employed in the description of still images, what this term has meant in the context of creative practice and how (because of its potent connection to illusion and surprise) it can now be employed as an efficient description of live and recorded performance drawing works. Six different aspects of conjuring in performance drawing are investigated beginning with the first section, ‘Shadows, memory and the gift of a trace’, in which Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Pliny’s Birthplace of Drawing and Jacques Derrida’s interpretation of Emmanuel Levinas’s text on The Gift of the Trace are studied alongside William Kentridge’s Triumph and Laments, Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog and Tania Kovats’ Breath. The second section, ‘Relocating place and site’, focuses on works made in outside environments among which are Dennis Oppenheim’s Gallery Transplant and Robin Rhode’s Untitled (Landing). The third section, ‘Redrawing the self through technology and performance’, investigates works including Eileen Agar’s Ladybird and Echo Morgan’s Be the Inside of the Vase. The fourth section, ‘Reinterpreting narratives’, includes artists whose works address characters from history, such as Phoebe Boswell’s Dear Mr. Shakespeare, William Pope.L’s Harriet Tubman Spinning the Universe and Joan Jonas’s Lines in the Sand. The fifth section, ‘Merging disciplines and bridging technologies’, looks at artists whose works expand the practice of performance drawing by employing various technologies in the process; the works include Kreider + O’Leary’s Immolation Triptych and Christian Nold’s Emotional Mapping Series. And lastly, the sixth section, ‘Sound drawing in performance’, opens out the process of performance drawing, focusing on the sonic rather than the visual, proposing vocal sound as a material to draw with through place and thereby releasing the work from a surface. Works in this section include Susan Philipsz’s The Lost Reflection and Jordan McKenzie’s Shame Chorus. In this chapter, an important element of performance drawing is investigated,

8

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

when the act of making can transport the audience, and also the practitioner, into a state of wonderment. Visual mark making practices of drawing provoke an unexpected transformation, surprizing the audience in the moment of the making, and sometimes also the practitioner, as the work emerges. Chapter 5, ‘Illuminating: Live mark making through projected light’, focuses on live drawings made with projected light. This final chapter connects a range of practices from theatrical acts, expanded cinema, live animation, light graffiti and digital art in which an ephemeral, illuminated drawing is created live in a performance setting. A range of technological approaches to mark making in live performance are covered, starting with the lightning sketch drawing performances, a popular act in the Victorian music hall that directly contributed to the development of early animation. In some cases, these early animations were, in turn, projected on stage as part of the act. This tension between the live act and the pre-recorded document establishes the problematic of ‘liveness’ for the drawing that is projected. Does it need to be static? Can spontaneous and improvisational drawings that move be created and projected in real time? A range of approaches to this challenge are demonstrated from contemporary artists, such as Lisa Gornick, Harald Smykla and Bahman Panahi, who continue the traditions of the lightning sketch through projections of their live performance drawing and calligraphy. This continues with expanded cinema works by Annabel Nicholson, Paul Sharits, Takahito Iimura, Vicky Smith and VALIE EXPORT, in which moving drawings on analogue film are made as part of live performance. These hybrid works, which use technologies of the screen, raise questions about liveness and issues of time – namely, the pre-recorded vs the live and immediate. The chapter concludes with examples of contemporary artists, such as the Graffiti Research Lab, Pierre Hébert, Kellie O’Dempsey, Jeremy Radvan and Oliver Gingrich, who create live animation and digital performance drawings through the use of technologies such as the Tagtool, Skype and lasers, with techniques ranging from the projection of live video feeds through to spontaneous digital drawing and computer-generated mark making. In this final chapter, drawing is addressed in the ephemeral mark of light perceived by the audience in timebased media. The performance element is ruled by the work being live and created only in view of an ‘other’. The book concludes with a summation of thematics explored and the anticipation of future research and development in this emerging field, continuing to insist that performance drawing remain as a highly flexible category, which should not be confined to any one definition. The four authors aim to explore what can be described as performance drawing and bring together a trace of influential artworks and artists to invoke and investigate the term’s history and emergence in a field of practice. Through elements and aspects of drawing and performance, the book aims to uncover the emergence of practices that establish strong relationships between body, line, time and space.

1 MARKING: LINE AND BODY IN TIME AND SPACE Drawing, with its long history rooted in material permanence and its status as a private and often preparatory activity, may seem at odds with performance art. Yet drawing has been used by artists engaged with performance just as it has by painters and sculptors, to record their actions and for the mapping and preparation of those actions. The deployment of the unorthodox materials and approaches to the twodimensional surface, often involving an intensely physical interaction, has in many cases rendered drawing an action in itself. CORNELIA H. BUTLER1

The act of drawing itself transforms the mark into line and the body into action. This chapter provides a foundation to the interrelationship between performance and drawing and focuses on the implications of mark making in time-based artworks. The artists select open creative debates and highlight transformative methodologies that involve concepts of the line and body, time and space as means of working. They are instrumental in introducing and revealing the relationship between drawing and performing in the expanded field today. Introduced are the pioneers of contemporary art practice and artists such as Jackson Pollock, Gutai artists and Gego, whose concepts and actions contributed to the emergence of performance drawing, and acclaimed artists that follow, such as Helena Almeida, Trisha Brown, Richard Long, Tom Marioni, Ana Mendieta and Robert Morris, whose physical performances expanded drawing ideas. Importantly, the chapter engages with works tangibly bound in time that range from John Latham’s one-second studio drawing to Tehching Hsieh’s epic one-year performance outdoors, where time is evidenced and embodied in the action itself. The chapter looks to artists using new approaches that have given way to thinking about the body as movement and a performative tool. In addressing how

10

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

drawing transforms the mark into line and the body into action, the first section looks to the transition and opening up of materials – as practitioners in fine arts have been engaged in the multidisciplinary and performative processes since 1945. It describes the ‘Shifts in painting and drawing’, seeing Jackson Pollock’s work as an expansion of painting that encompasses a drawing-like trace of the body in action. The other artists selected in the first section include Yves Klein, Janine Antoni, Ana Mendieta and Richard Serra – all use a performative action and help describe an interest and shift of focus to the body involved in creating the work. The second section emphasizes the line, and many artists’ long fascination with the line as a trope, and in particular the notion of the ‘Line in time’. Works by Piero Manzoni, John Latham, Tehching Hsieh, Elena del Rivero and Robert Morris introduce key processes, later expanded by contemporary artists such as Jane Grisewood and Carali McCall, Piyali Ghosh and Kevin Townsend, whose use of the concept of time illustrates a visualization of the line. The third section, ‘Materials and actions in space’, includes the artists Tom Marioni, Bruce Nauman, Trisha Brown and Gego, whose practice highlights the importance of incorporating a sense of space and has more recently been considered and taken up by the artists Monika Grzymala and Jaanika Peerna, making artworks that imply a sculptural drawing in space. In the fourth section, ‘Trace and record’, the artists Helena Almeida, William Anastasi and Morgan O’Hara as well as selected works by Jane Grisewood demonstrate the significance of gesture and tracing motion. Developing how a mark-making process is embedded and fundamentally part of the conceptual thinking of many artists, this section brings together artworks that highlight the complexities between marking and drawing and recording movement. The final section, ‘Walking as drawing’, builds on these ideas and presents works by Richard Long, Francis Alÿs, Lygia Clark and, again, Tehching Hsieh to demonstrate how performance and drawing practices can move beyond visualbased mark making and identifies how today walking can be a drawing practice.

Shifts in painting and drawing JACKSON POLLOCK / GUTAI ARTISTS / YVES KLEIN / JANINE ANTONI / ANA MENDIETA / RICHARD SERRA The paradigm shift in art from the late 1940s carried an increasing awareness of the social and political mood; and, from the point of view of many, Jackson Pollock was the pivotal artist between modernism and postmodernism. A prodigious impact on younger generations paved the way for artists to experiment and progress with groundbreaking developments from the vertical (working on walls)

MARKING

11

to the horizontal (working with materials on the floor and expansive spaces), exposing new forms of art to live audiences and a wider public. The focus of performance drawing as a medium embodied time and movement, line and trace, and emerges from a practice with the term defined as ‘action painting’, introduced by the critic Harold Rosenberg in his 1952 essay in ARTnews: ‘giving more prominence to process and action rather than the painting itself’.2 For Rosalind Krauss, art theorist and critic, Pollock’s weblike shapes were also ‘constituted of pure line, the very stuff of drawing’;3 the curator Gary Garrels also conveys Pollock in ‘terms of drawing and line and there is a very blurred boundary between drawing and painting in his work’.4 He subverted traditional conventions by using his whole body and indulging with his materials, attracting the viewer to the action behind the marks. ‘Until Pollock, art making oriented toward two-dimensional surfaces had been a fairly limited act so far as the body was concerned. At most it involved the hand, wrist, and arm. Pollock’s work directly involved the use of the entire body.’5 The curator Connie Butler surveyed Pollock’s work, describing his ‘bodily engagement with canvas or paper and paint with a kind of performance’.6 Amelia Jones, art historian and curator, coined the term the ‘Pollockian Performative’.7 Pollock’s unorthodox gestures required not only his hands but also extending his entire body, bending and crouching, stretching and twisting, while spontaneously splattering, dripping and flicking lines of paint. His methodology revealed instinctive performance-based gestures, sweeping back and forth over the canvas that lay flat on his studio floor in Long Island, New York. Butler also saw in him ‘parallels in modernist dance’8 and dance-like traces left from his drip paintings. Catherine de Zegher observed: ‘Even when still material, in the “drip” paintings of Jackson Pollock, line had a new volatility.’9 Pollock’s work is mostly known through the celebrated documentation of the renowned photographer Hans Namuth. Hundreds of black-and-white photographs (each holding a residue of time) and film had a powerful impact on artists, enabling an opening to performance drawing. Namuth’s film Jackson Pollock 51 (1951) allowed a wider dimension for viewers to experience the art as performance and spread worldwide, attracting a large audience. Countless action artists motivated by Pollock spread and are viewed as transitional figures in changing the art world, affirming physical gesture and emphasizing lines of paint and body in action. The composer John Cage’s inspiring works contributed towards Pollock’s expanding vision and practice, as did the artist Allan Kaprow in his 1958 essay ‘The Legacy of Jackson Pollock’, which acknowledged far-reaching actions that would profoundly influence subsequent generations of performance artists, shaping a significant and enduring legacy. The radical-minded Japanese Gutai artists were also motivated by action painting and the performed gesture, bridging what seemed to be an interest in the transformative approach to simply making a mark and engaging with

12

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

materials in new ways. In a further understanding, the emphasis on their ‘playful’ paintings freed them from having to commit to any aspect of their work being read as a reflection of post-war devastation or emblematic of a given sociopolitical agenda.10 In The Gutai Art Manifesto, the artist Jiro Yoshihara states: ‘We are following the path that will lead to an international common ground where the arts of the east and the west influence each other. And this is the natural course of the history of art.’11 The act of painting in the unconventional sense provided a connection and flexibility and, most importantly, a focus on the physical manifestation of movement and art making. Pollock produced his action paintings on the floor of his studio, sometimes with his partner Lee Krasner present,12 whereas the Gutai artists (consisting of twenty-four members between 1954 and 1957) exposed the process of performing their work in site-specific outdoor spaces in front of a live audience. For Gutai artists, it was the temporal process of marking and making that was more important than the outcome. The physicality of the body became fundamental to the material, leaving traces that mark evidence of the intensive corporeal duration. Challenging the boundaries of mark making from the artists, the Tate Modern curator Catherine Wood affirmed that ‘a history of performance is evident in the traces of action in paintings […] or indeed, the choreography of tracks left by the movement of Pollock on his drip paintings’.13 In live performances, Kazuo Shiraga, a co-founder of the Gutai group, used mud on his feet to create large tactile works and, for Challenging Mud (1955), rolled and tussled with his body to make sculptural forms. At his first performance in Osaka in 1957, he suspended himself from the ceiling of the gallery by hanging from a rope, extending a drawing to incorporate the space, flicking paint on sheets of paper spread on the floor. In the previous year, fellow Gutai artist Shoza Shimamoto had substituted the brush for flinging bottles of paint onto paper on a rooftop floor. Meanwhile, Saburo Murakami, well known for his performances of throwing objects or leaping through paper, expands his body to burst through frames of ‘Paper Breaking’ Kami-yaburi (Breaking through Many Sheets of Paper 1956), resonating Yves Klein’s Leap in the Void (1960) and ‘drawing’ in space. Gutai describes new ways of creating – ‘We discarded the frame, jumped out of the wall, moved from static time to live time’14 – echoing the performed actions of Pollock’s large floor drip paintings. Shiraga also spent time painting with his bare feet on large sheets of paper on the floor. In 1963, applying a different material, Jiro Takamatsu trailed lines of string from inside to outside the exhibition space for his performance The String of 1000 Meters. Atsuko Tanaka is known for her ephemeral work exploring drawing as performance with the constant gestural movement of drawing circles around her body. Round on Sand (1968) augments the physical actions of her drawing, creating large-scale circles upon circles, marking lines in the sand bare foot with a long upside-down pickaxe. Tanaka moves out of the loops to trace the vast circle drawings that appear on the beach only to be washed away by the tide.

MARKING

13

The drawing and erasure process was documented, redeeming the mark and wash, in a grainy 16 mm film. For the French artist Yves Klein, a further radical change in his practice was no longer to paint from the life model but to employ the body of the model as a tool for staged events. In Anthropometries (1960–1), ‘Klein replaced Pollock’s brushes with women’s bodies’.15 Unclothed females drenched in Klein’s signature YKB blue paint became his ‘living brushes’ – bodily actions as drawings were made in front of audiences as a performance. Perhaps prompted by Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Weil’s 1949–51 full-body photogram series, which were prints made by placing their bodies on blueprint paper, Klein’s work similarly gave evidence of direct body contact on a surface to leave a trace. After Klein, decades later, Janine Antoni, a Bahamian-born artist, also became interested in the body as a tool to leave a mark. Dipping her long hair into buckets of ‘Loving Care’ brand black hair dye, she used it as a brush, drawing over the floor of the Anthony d’Offay Gallery in London, 1993. During the performance, she continued to make sweeping actions with her hair, referencing the labour involved in mopping a floor – making ‘an ironic provocation of male-dominated legacies (in this case that of Pollock and Klein)’.16 Disregarding Klein’s body works as a response to using a model to paint, Antoni used her own body as the model and the performer. It is rather like the bodily limits of Paul McCarthy’s Face Painting – Floor, White Line in 1972; lying on his studio floor, he strenuously drags his body forward, pushing a bucket of white paint with his head and chest. Similarly, Ana Mendieta’s discarding of the conventional paintbrush allows her visceral movement to control her own actions and outcomes that have always been an essential part of her practice. Revisiting Klein’s blue paintings exposed his artworks through consistent instructions and male ego, whereas ‘Mendieta became both the instructor and participant in the gesture of her own female form’.17 Corporeality, transforming the body into trace, identity and landscape dominate the Cuban-born artist’s ephemeral works. She engaged in a specific form of performance art, clothed and unclothed, outside and inside. Repetitively recording her physicality through specific marks and materials, Mendieta would leave boundless negative body imprints in the deserted Iowa landscape. Mendieta reveals: ‘My art is the way I re-establish the bonds that unite me to the Universe. It is a return to the maternal source.’18 ‘Ashes were part of Mendieta’s performative practice of marking through disappearance.’19 The paradigmatic twist of the body in the iconic Silueta series, where Mendieta uses blood as a medium for her ‘body tracks’ drawings in several different locations, addresses the landscape outside and inside. Untitled (Body Tracks) was first performed in 1974,20 silently creating a dramatic wall drawing for a brief duration of just over one minute: Mendieta stands facing the wall, both bloodstained hands and forearms raised above her head against its white surface; she gradually slides down

14

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

onto her knees, tapering the stained markings from her hands to a place where they meet at the bottom of the wall but never quite converge in on one another. This recorded action commences when Mendieta stands, shaking, and turns to address the audience for a brief moment before exiting the field of view.21 Retracing the earlier works designed for the camera and documentation led to Mendieta’s 1982 performance Body Tracks (Rastros Corporales). It took place in a progressive performance space known as Franklin Furnace in New York City, founded in 1976. The Body Tracks large-scale drawings, a mixture of blood and red tempera, leave traces of Mendieta’s body on sheets of paper. ‘Her ghostly image is seamlessly integrated into the gallery space, a haunting reminder of the presence of her body as integral to the performance.’22 Encompassing a further shift in painting and drawing and embracing the body, Richard Serra’s artwork installation Splashing (1968–9) demonstrates a way of working gesturally with a physical action at the forefront. In relation to Pollock’s drip paintings, the San Francisco-born artist hurls and splatters molten lead from a ladle in the space between the floor and wall.23 For Serra, with industrial trade materials based in sculpture, it is a way of forming a drawing with materials other than charcoal and pencil. And, more importantly, the title of the artwork serves to emphasize the process of its making. He considers the action of making integral to the work and the agency of the body part of the action. In other works, such as Verb List in graphite on paper (1967–8), Serra keenly suggests how action has an effect on his art-making practice. He famously said, ‘Drawing is a verb’;24 and, in the work Verb List, on two sheets of paper, lists of words that relate to the process of making are made in two columns. For example, to fold, to tear, to cut, to drop, to splash, to stretch and to mark are registered. Interestingly, inserted within these lists are words that denote theme and concept, such as ‘of tension, of gravity, of mapping, of time’. Here, Serra’s work provides an arena for expanding drawing as ‘thought’ and explores art, either painting, drawing or splashing, within a particular form and mode of thinking, suggesting how, particularly since the mid-to-late 1960s, artists used materials and key processes to reach the corners of fine art practices and make work based on conceptual constructs.

Line in time PIERO MANZONI / JOHN LATHAM / TEHCHING HSIEH / ELENA DEL RIVERO / ROBERT MORRIS / GRISEWOOD AND MCCALL / PIYALI GHOSH / KEVIN TOWNSEND

MARKING

15

Exploring notions of line in time and boundaries of fine art practices, Piero Manzoni describes his actions in time as centred in his body, the body becoming line where the ‘act of making a Line can be defined as a performance, whether conducted in the solitude of the studio or before an audience in the street or in a printing house, where the production of the Lines was collaborative’.25 The body in line and time becomes the vehicle for articulating his work and, like other artists, he senses an ‘affirmation of the body itself as a valid art material’.26 Time is something different from what the hands of the clock measure […]. As well as an extension in space, then the line is an extension in time; but not time in the sense of measurement of a finite period or duration; time, rather, that just goes on ad infinitum. […] Infinity is endless. It is not a place or even a point but a conception in the mind.27 A dedicated exponent of the line, measurement and the demarcation of time, Italian conceptual artist Manzoni sees things differently from ‘clock measure, and the Linea does not measure metres or kilometres, but is zero, not zero as the end, but the beginning of an infinite series’.28 With his work, he precludes canvas, working only with paper, body and ink, focusing on performing the line, engaged in a position of sharing artists’ process while not pursuing museums and galleries. The curator Martin Engler claims that the conceptual paradigm shift in 1960s art had a profound effect on Manzoni, who essentially heralded the way for art of the future.29 Hauser & Wirth’s New York gallery exhibitions titled Piero Manzoni. ‘Materials of his Time’ and ‘Line’, 2019’ reveal Manzoni’s revolutionary approach to unconventional materials, highlighting his broad influence in contemporary practice.30 From 1959, Manzoni began a series of drawings, titled Lineas (Lines), in his studio where he performed to the public. Repeated horizontal lines drawn on long rolls of paper were mostly placed in labelled cardboard tubes and some in metal cylinders. In documentation, Manzoni is seen standing and holding the vertical life-size Linea, one of the many early performance drawings. In 1960, he produced the longest line drawing, Linea m.7,200, in a Danish printing works in Italy with a machine emitting Indian ink on a large industrial roll of white paper,31 enabling Manzoni to take his lines of just over 7  km for time-based walks. (Contributing to the idea that a drawing could be a walk, discussed in the section ‘Drawing as walking’.) More than a decade later, the British conceptual artist John Latham further explored lines in time. Latham’s event-based practice became influential in performance art and has contributed to what can now be embraced as performance drawing. His spray paintings, defined as drawings, became

16

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

fundamental in his work, particularly in the 1970s when he planned a series of durational One Second Drawings.32 For the task, he devises a list of instructions that produced a series of sixty 1-second drawings, one per day.33 Holding a spray gun filled with black acrylic paint and flicking dots on white board, he creates a cosmic array, representing the briefest moment of time that the technique would allow, the ‘least event’. Latham’s instant measure of time was radically different from Taiwanese Tehching Hsieh’s one-year durational performances. Despite being at extreme ends of the scale, the effects of time, ‘slits in time’,34 acknowledge the coexistence of different durations and temporalities. Additionally, in the 1970s, British-born New York artist Anthony McCall, like Latham, was absorbed in the idea of duration and measurement, creating a meticulous Five-Minute Drawing (1974/2010). McCall describes the charcoal line drawings on six sheets of paper as ‘also a performance – the drawing is really a sign that the performance happened’.35 He followed with Two Pencil Duration and three-minute performances. He has been defined as one of those ‘artists whose conceptual and graphic investigations of line have led them to the performative experiments incorporating the body and working off its dimensions’.36 Tehching Hsieh’s one-year performance lifework is recognized as ‘something that sits between performance and record’.37 The British writer and curator Adrian Heathfield remarks that, when viewing the transient work, like all live performance, it exists only as material traces in the documentation of daily notes and photographs. Undertaking his third one-year performance (One Year Performance 1981–1982), Hsieh’s approach to conceptual art revolutionized the body in action. In the extreme contrast of durational time, Latham’s work exemplifies the briefest moment of time that his technique would permit, while Hsieh chose a year indoors to be his optimum measure of time in daily life.38 During Hsieh’s One Year Performance 1978–1979, in the interior ‘Cage Piece’, he methodically documents time passing at his studio in solitary confinement. This was the beginning of an immense physical undertaking of his lived experience over eight years, whose subject and focus was time itself. For the first year, in Hudson Street, New York, without talking, reading or writing, Hsieh spent 365 days locked inside a cell-like wooden cage measuring 3.5 × 2.7 × 2.5 metres. Only one friend visited each day to bring food, remove waste and take just one photograph to record the event. Notching a mark on the wall to evidence each passing day was Hsieh’s only daily activity. Sequential interior performances comprise his punching a time clock every hour on the hour, ‘Time Clock Piece’ (1980–1); living entirely outdoors, ‘Outdoor Piece’ (1981–2);39 being tied with an eight-foot rope to another artist, ‘Rope Piece’ (1983–8); and not making or looking at art, ‘No Art Piece’ (1985–6). Being systematic throughout his lifeworks, his five One Year Performances convey visceral embodiment of

MARKING

17

experienced time. With tenacity and endurance, he palpably pushes the limits of durational time as his works stretch beyond prevailing art practice. Tehching Hsieh’s work ‘Outdoor Piece’ (in relation to walking) is discussed further in the section ‘Walking as drawing’. Three decades later, Hsieh’s Doing Time (2017) exhibition at the 57th Venice Biennale’s Taiwan Pavilion shared two monumental One Year Performances, the ‘Time Clock Piece’ and ‘Outdoor Piece’ installations, along with accompanying documents, films and photographs. ‘Each of his performances,’ Heathfield states, ‘makes manifest a bare existence in which resilience is pitched against adversity, and the fugitive qualities of life are valued in their passing.’40 The experience of observing Hsieh’s work incorporates the line and trace of his lifeworks: challenging corporeal limits, enduring extreme durations, inhabiting edges, merging art and life, fleeting time, walking time, performing time – time is his medium. Hsieh’s yearly performances bring to mind Spanish/US Elena del Rivero’s millennium performance project ‘Story of a Year’. Del Rivero describes: ‘I have found in paper a perfect medium to recreate the fragility of life. Paper doesn’t relate to grand narratives. Rather, it connotes the domestic, the everyday. It is not imposing; it is subtle and silent. Paper, however, can be strong, a herald of what is to come, as poetry is to literature.’41 Inspired by the passage of time, del Rivero initiated a one-year-long performance on 1 July 2000, in an attempt to track a year of her life. As she began to create [Swi:t] Home (the story of a year) and ‘Reference Library’,42 she questions: ‘The tight rope I traverse concerns whether work becomes daily routine or daily routine becomes work.’43 Placing twenty large-scale sheets of paper on her studio/home floor in New York, del Rivero commenced her journey using the body and materials to define her enduring actions. As she walks backwards and forwards across paper on the floor, traces and impressions of her actions record her daily routine and mark the evanescence of time, which connects with the section ‘Trace and record’ in this chapter. During del Rivero’s one-year performance, she created an imaginative range of works on paper, including line drawings, artists’ books, diaries, schedules and photographic documentation. The ‘performative’ and ‘performance’ became assimilated in 1960s and 1970s drawing practice, but it was not until 2001, when Catherine de Zegher first published the Drawing Papers 20: Performance Drawings, that Elena del Rivero’s documentary photographs of her [Swi:t] Home and drawings were revealed. Inspired by the immediacy and ephemerality ‘of drawing and performance together’, de Zegher designated ‘performance drawing’ as an official art form. ‘More than a trace of a creative gesture, as a performative act drawing is the gesture in itself. Sharing the fleeting aspect of traces in present time and space,’ she writes, ‘the happening of drawing and performance consists of a multiplicity of experiences shifting between the intimate

18

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

and the social – between the sheet and the street.’44 Time and temporality are bound within performance drawing, embedding repetition and mutability, which Heathfield observes ‘lead[s] us back to our elemental physical relation to time, where time is not simply experienced as linear, progressive and accumulative, but is also infused with suspension and loss’.45 The complexity of time also influenced New York-based artist Robert Morris’s 1960s drawing, simultaneously questioning measurement: How many minutes would it take to conceal a surface with repetitive marks? How many times could a mark be repeated before exhaustion sets in? By experiencing and recording time, Morris disrupts ‘sequential time by denying a logical order or a sense of why one thing should follow another, or indeed, why or whether an action would terminate, an event stop’.46 During the same period, Morris merges into the dance world with Simone Forti, Trisha Brown and other Judson dancers and choreographers where ‘dance’ became such everyday movements as walking or sitting, stretching or bending. But it was not until the 1970s that Morris develops ongoing large-scale processbased drawings on paper. Much of this process comprises predetermined rules that apply to performed drawings, measured and unmeasured according to clock time. The art critic Rosalind Krauss claims that ‘the notions of process art as a form of performance came naturally to Morris’.47 The bodily connection in Robert Morris’s drawings, which were blind in their making, prioritized touch over vision. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida would also find himself writing without seeing – the blind tentative movement is an allegory of drawing itself.48 In his exploratory essay Memoirs of the Blind, published in 1993, Derrida questions the primacy of sight in drawing while understanding blindness as implicit in the act of drawing itself, where it might reflect that all drawing is ‘blind’.49 Derrida prescribes drawing as being in itself ‘blind’, which he may not ‘see’ in its viewing, while addressing the performative drawings of Morris’s essential touch in his works (Derrida’s Memoirs of the Blind is also discussed in Chapter 4). Morris began his intense performed Blind Time Drawings in 1973, reappearing with drawings again in 1976, 1985, 1999 and 2000.50 The first series of 98 large drawings multiplied to around 350 in 6 series over a period of 30 years, with each one performed ‘blind’. With eyes closed or blindfolded, Morris hesitantly fumbles for the parameters of the paper. These are expressive gestures in action, with both hands obsessively pressing and smearing powdered graphite mixed with oil or black ink directly on large sheets of paper with ‘the drawing touching back the artist’s hands’.51 The drawings, embodying movement and time, each have instructions to convey before the event – a ‘task performance’. Each drawing is implicating a task. Drawing attention to the ‘time estimation error’, Morris reflects: I always timed my working. I started a stopwatch, closed by eyes and began. When I finished working (eyes still closed) I estimated the lapsed time, opened

MARKING

19

my eyes and looked at the watch. I then recorded the discrepancy as a note or on the back of the drawing […] estimations of pressure, placement, proximity, distance, etc., were involved in the production of the works, so it seemed logical to estimate the lapsed time as well.52 Morris labels and records each action at the bottom of each drawing where he describes his movement: ‘With the eyes closed, the ten fingers move outward from the top center making counting strokes. Two thousand strokes are made in an estimated two minutes. Time estimation error: +45 seconds.’53 He establishes a conceptual framework for recording the difference between the estimated time and the actual duration of the performance where the time-based process of marking is integral to the work. While Morris has abandoned the dominance of the visual in drawing practice, he finds the staged tactile, timed and measured perspective unique.54 Influenced by these notions of mark making and linking notions of line and time, London-based artists Jane Grisewood (New Zealand/UK) and Carali McCall (Canada/UK) collaborate on large time-based series of live performance drawings, Line Dialogues (2008–ongoing), marking lines with charcoal and graphite. Moving alongside the wall, each artist has a specific task: McCall keeps her arm outreached for as long as possible and draws a line using graphite at her utmost height, while, for Grisewood, the aim is to stretch and repeat the last line

Figure 1.1  Jane Grisewood and Carali McCall, Line Dialogue IV, 2011, 90-minute performance drawing in charcoal and graphite, 500 × 220 cm, private art collection, Vancouver, Canada. Followed in 2012 by the 2-hour 1,200 × 200 cm Line Dialogue V at the Again and Again and Again exhibition, Vancouver Art Gallery. Photo: Judy Goldhill.

20

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

drawn using charcoal along the wall. Together, the two artists pace continuously back and forth crossing over and under each other (either at full stretch or curled retreat),55 experiencing time through persistent and arduous marking. Through repetitive movement and continuous negotiation challenges, Grisewood and McCall experience the temporalities of duration and endurance (Figure 1.1). The artwork’s title, Line Dialogues, was inspired by Grisewood’s research and investigations into the philosopher Gilles Deleuze and his book Dialogues II. Similarly, the doubling that occurs in a collaborative context with his colleague Félix Guattari experienced a ‘double capture’56 when doubling, something new emerges: ‘Each will know his own […] aided, inspired, multiplied’.57 For Grisewood and McCall, repeating and moving at their own pace, the artists share physicality and a particular rhythm with each performance. They first performed Line Dialogues in 2008 at the University of the Arts London’s Lethaby Gallery58 and later in 2012, the Line Dialogue V, ‘Again and Again and Again’ exhibition (2-hour performance wall drawing, 1,200 × 200 cm) at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The artworks followed with further rigorous time-based performances drawings in London, Liverpool, Lisbon and Venice. The drawings, in front of an audience, span durations of 30 minutes to 2 hours and across horizontal surfaces on the wall ranging from 5 to 12 metres. While indoors performing Line Dialogue back and forth, Grisewood and McCall are visually tracing and marking repetitive lines on large walls in charcoal and graphite, whereas the Indian artist Piyali Ghosh performs outdoor on lengthy fabric marking ink lines – resonating with Grisewood and McCall repeating Manzoni’s Linea ink on industrial paper. Ghosh’s performances include the Arabian Sea, My Rasa Rekha (2015), a series of durational three-hour live drawings enacted in India on remote beaches in Kerala (Figure 1.2). Between water and shore, Ghosh is creating her work in the low tide water projecting an ethereal beauty on a lengthy 21 metres of flowing silk fabric. Marking lengthwise with delicate black ink lines, also back and forth, the bodily gestures become an inextricable measure of her performance. The durational drawing performances continue with Ghosh’s Pacific Ocean in Australia (2017) and Atlantic Ocean (2018), performed in Ireland and also in Russia for the 2018 Biennale.59 In an interview, Ghosh describes: ‘When I perform I feel like I merge myself into drawing lines, my whole body movement creates invisible lines in air, I become the line.’60 Between performance and drawing, US artist Kevin Townsend describes his obsessive and repetitive time-based practice as being in time: The performative drawings connect to a public perceptual field where the drawing, audience, and maker occupy the same present. In these pieces, I become a part of the work – my presence, labor, time, mark-making tactilekinesthetic body movement and the topological images they yield all exist simultaneously. At the outset of these works, each mark embodies only the moments of its making and exists as a record of both attention and intention.61

MARKING

21

Figure 1.2  Piyali Ghosh, Arabian Sea, My Rasa Rekha, 2015. Durational 3-hour performance drawing located between land and sea at Chellanam Beach, Kerala, India. Black ink lines are marked on 21 metres of silk fabric. Photo: Lijo Lonappan.

Dominating the spaces he works in, Townsend’s commanding and meticulous large-scale drawings endure lengthy durations. His arduous 42-hour A Shadow Too Heavy (2014) and his equally arduous 16-hour, 2 × 6 metre A Tidal Gravity (2016) drawings are covered with powdered graphite. Through gestural movement, he erases and exposes swirling lines on the wall’s textured surface. Townsend’s performance drawings shift from two dimensions to three, from inside space to outside. For several hours, inhabiting public urban places, scoring lines of chalk on windows and pavements, he creates a number of ephemeral drawings titled Stria: Lost Time, Misplaced Moments (2014), lasting only for the duration of the work. While Drawing Room No.2 (2015) is a twelve-hour, threedimensional work with white chalk lines marking seven blackboards to form a square room that remains for thirty-six hours. In the same year, Townsend performed a six-hour durational work, Perceptual Field Drawing / A Heavy Seat.62 Each line, elusive and impermanent, measures time, repeating and vanishing as Townsend’s chalk is washed away and only the residue remains. The Looking for a Recollection (2018) site-specific project in two acts on two walls 12 × 3 metres installed in the gallery in Kansas City is a durational marking in graphite – erasing and repeating on the wall surface. Townsend’s 48-hour durational drawing A Granular of Nows (2019) records six 8-hour days over time created for the Drawing Now exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at Meca in Portland, Maine. His practice in durational drawing and mark making embraces expanded drawing focusing on temporality and time. ‘Townsend

22

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

produces large-scale ephemeral works that leverage the power and possibility of drawing to give form to our evolving relationship to time-space.’63

Materials and action in space TOM MARIONI / BRUCE NAUMAN / TRISHA BROWN / MONIKA GRZYMALA / JAANIKA PEERNA / GEGO A seminal figure in the 1960s art scene, Tom Marioni, American artist, writer and curator, pushed the boundaries of conceptual art in a way that transformed drawing indefinitely. His performances encapsulate the body gesturing and tracking in space, concerning recursive movement, duration and measurement, control and chance. His multidisciplinary passion for making connections with drawing, sculpture, photography, music and performance is particularly significant as he considers drawing to be the foundation of his art. It has inspired the simultaneous embodiment of gestural mark making through contingency and bodily limits. Marioni positions his One Second Sculpture as one of his first actions that linked drawing to performance and sound, which he ardently documents. He describes: ‘My instrument was a rolled-up tape measure. I threw it into the air, and in one-second it opened like a spring, making a loud sound, it left my hand as a circle, made a drawing in space, and fell to the ground as a straight line.’64 This ephemeral work revealed in the photograph embraced sculpturebased performance, with or without an audience. Marioni said: ‘One Second Sculpture is probably the smartest work I ever did because it is a measurement of both space and time and also incorporates sound as a material.’65 The work is included in the Drawing Room’s exhibition Sounds Like Drawing (2005). He continues: One Second Sculpture (1969) turned out to be a profound piece for me because it was a sculpture-based performance that was also about sound. It made a sound and a drawing in space and was also a sculpture that performed itself. It all happened in one second. That work, like much of what I’ve made throughout my career, was about taking the idea of sculpture and moving it into the dimensions of time.66 In 1972, Marioni performed Drawing a Line As Far As I Can Reach at the Reese Palley Gallery in San Francisco (Figure 1.3) and, in the same year, made his first visit to Scotland, relating the performances that were made at the Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh. He writes:

MARKING

23

I did a five-day performance. I did action drawings that produced sounds, a different drawing each day for four days … I made a drawing called Drawing a Line as Far as I Can Reach. I hung a long scroll of tracing paper on the wall, so it continued onto the floor. Then I stood in my socks on paper and drew lines over and over, each time starting the line by reaching back between my legs as far as I could, continuing along the paper on the floor, and then reaching up the wall as far as I could … Doing this drawing was like doing yoga while holding a pencil.67 During his actions, recording the length of his body moving from standing, crouching or sitting positions, Marioni rhythmically marks graphite lines, tracing the motion on sheets of paper, repeatedly retracing, extending the line’s potential, testing his bodily limit. He describes his meditative line drawings being related to ‘mechanical repeated bodily movements’.68 His reaching or throwing, running or walking, jumping or rotating his arm, extends his body to record the farthest reach (a precursor to Carolee Schneemann’s Up to and Including Her Limits, 1973–6, addressed in Chapter 2; and the UK-based artist David Connearn’s work Mappa Mundi: Drawing to the Extent of the Body, 1984). Marioni remarks on the Zen influence of ensō, the circle, in the drawings. After his travels to Japan in the 1980s, he created circle drawings attaching

Figure 1.3  Tom Marioni, Drawing a Line As Far As I Can Reach, 1972, pencil on brown wrapping paper, 190 × 122 cm, The Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco. Collection in Oakland Art Museum of California. Photo: Larry Fox.

24

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

a pencil to a finger – ‘finger lines’. He defines his practice as ‘out of body’, amassing a wide range of performative works, including Flying with Friends, 1999 (alone and with friends), jumping and running drawings, and carrying pencils to mark paper as he walked.69 He tests the scale and limits of his visible body, documenting drawings of himself photographed in action. ‘Marioni’s presentations challenged the viewer’s ability to configure his work as individual and bounded “performances”.’70 For Marioni’s Walking Drawing (2000) he describes an inventive way of holding his multicoloured pencil at his waist, but not strapped to it. He walks to record how the body moves when he paces one way only to return to the beginning and walk the same path. Composed of two verbs, walking and drawing, it suggests movement that conveys the trace of walking. As Deleuze and Guattari observe: ‘To follow the flow of matter is to itinerate, to ambulate. It is intuition in practice.’71 The choreographers and dancers Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer integrate drawing into their performance practice, seeing the body in a space outlined by its farthest reach, which brings to mind Marioni’s performances. Brown contemplates that ‘drawing could have the kind of directly evidentiary relationship to the body at full scale that Marioni pursued’.72 Brown’s drawings were strategic exercises marking movement within the body while the drawings define the body through space. Drawing is inherent in Bruce Nauman’s dynamic process-based conceptual work. His studio is where his innovative projects began involving repetitive taskbased actions, merging his sculptural and performance practice alongside notations and sketches. Nauman was conscious of movement and mapping, describing his works as being nearer dance than art. As an artist, he implements dance manoeuvres that comprise ‘a kind of tracing of space, an inscription of the space and studio with the body’.73 Conversely, as choreographer and dancer William Forsyth remarks, ‘his work is involved with drawing, indeed functions as drawing, and has made a number of large-scale installations that physicalize the line in space’.74 Walking around his studio in a defined space, Nauman activates snailpaced walking or bouncing against a corner in the room. During 1967–8, he recorded and documented work with a 16 mm black-and-white film and camera, performing ‘drawings in space’ with explicit titles: Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square; Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square; Walk with Contrapposto; and Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk). He began constructing corridors in 1969, walking back and forth, augmenting a lure to passageways and narrow spaces that would fit his moving body. Visitors were invited to public places, walking through the corridors and, in so doing, creating their own performance.

MARKING

25

Nauman had withdrawn his own presence, shifting the focus of his work to manipulating the movement and experience of the beholder. Performance Corridor (1969) marks the pivotal moment of this transition. The work originated as a prop for a solitary, videotaped performance, Walk with Contrapposto (1968), in which Nauman is seen walking up and down a narrow passageway, shifting his hips back and forth with each step in an exaggerated imitation of the conventional pose of classical sculpture.75 Drawing through the body and line in time and space led to further investigations and new boundaries in the expanding field of drawing, extending Nauman’s performative interactions. The choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham revolutionized dance, introducing walking into his dance steps and collaborating and experimenting with artists from Robert Rauschenberg, who, by ‘taking a line around the block […] drew attention to action and time as materials’,76 to John Cage, who declared significance in his drawings: These experiences led me in one instance to compose music in the way I had found to make a series of prints called On the Surface. I discovered that a horizontal line that determined graphic changes, to correspond, had to become a vertical line in the notation of music (Thirty Pieces for Five Orchestras). Time instead of space.77 Over many years, the American Trisha Brown created a large number of performed drawings on paper, from which the line she draws forms a dialogue between her body and movement. Brown expresses: ‘My entire body becomes the agency of visual traces, vestige [sic] of the body’s energy in motion.’78 From her drawings, she engages in choreography and dancing, devising intricate methods of notation that can advance the viewer’s sense of the body in space. It was from the Locas notebook of two-dimensional graphite drawings and notations that led to inventive body movements. Making intuitive changes from the 1980s onwards, Brown has been drawing conceptually and following certain task-based rules: ‘Sitting beside a piece of paper on the floor and holding a pen between her toes, she used each foot to draw the other’ as she did with her hands. ‘Left hand drawn by right hand #1’,79 mirroring herself through observation. From 1999, Brown was creating largescale drawings that become three-dimensional when in performance. Draw/ Live Feed is a combined drawing, video and piece of music with improvised movements, marking with charcoal and crayon on larger than body-sized sheets of paper placed on a gallery floor – Brown’s body fluidly moving, scoring with her hands, feet and arms to mark the dynamic lines. She describes: ‘I purposely take [the drawing] one step out of my control by using something other than my hand to draw it.’80

26

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Using a sheet large enough to encompass her whole body, she began to treat the frame of the paper as a stage. Moving across it with pastels or graphite in her toes, rolling over, pivoting, sitting back, pushing, skidding, pulling, swooping, breaking her materials, skipping and stuttering them over the surface (or across the gap between sheets), thrusting, rubbing up the texture of the floor beneath.81 The critic and curator Klaus Kertess portrays Brown’s drawings as ‘about the hands as body and the body as hand, about drawing gesture as dance gesture as writing gesture, about page space as stage space’.82 Brown shaped her drawings on the floor, expending energy as she intensely marked large-scale sheets of paper with charcoal, combining drawing and performance. Exhibiting in the USA and Europe convinced her of the connection between drawing and dance, continuing the dialogue of the body in space in relation to physicality. (Trisha Brown’s early work Man Walking Down the Side of Building (1970) is highlighted in Chapter 2.) Continuing the notion of the line and body in space, Berlin-based Monika Grzymala’s works are primarily three-dimensional ‘spatial drawings’ fundamentally implicated by movement. Energetically working alone in her studio space, or in site-specific locations, she constructs impressive rhizomatic three-dimensional drawings using vast lengths of adhesive tape or wire to create installations. The architect Ivana Wingham portrays Grzymala’s artwork ‘as a natural trajectory’ that emphasizes spatial movement in drawing. ‘Movement between backgrounds for lines, movement between materials that lines are made of, movement between your own different performances when creating lines in particular and different sites.’83 Grzymala describes her durational process as similar to live performance: In part, it is performance. This is why I describe my work sometimes in kilometres of used tape, because I think that these kilometres that I leave behind in the process of developing a new three-dimensional drawing best describe the physical […] And the duration – time is a very important component of my work. The pieces are all like time capsules.84 Grzymala depicts her work as being in a kind of temporality in continuous change and where the drawings become lines as streams that make ripples of thoughts, where ‘the body plays a crucial role as it becomes a kind of seismographic instrument through which to understand space’.85 Coexisting in both real and unreal spaces, her temporary three-dimensional drawing structures are performed within the construction of tape and wire attached to walls in studios, museums and galleries. Lines connect in the artworks, showing a few examples of her work forming large-scale tangles and horizontal structures, such as: Transition

MARKING

27

drawing with black and white tape (2006); Rhizome with wire and adhesive tape and Swoosh with black and white tape (2007); Studio with black tape and chalk (2010); Drawing Spatially – Raumzeichnung (Berg) with 9.2 km silver tape (2017); and further large-scale installations such as Drawing in Space (2017–18); and Convexity 1.1 km with silver mirroring tape (2018).86 Grzymala describes: ‘The image carrier (the wall) and image (the drawing) becomes one. The lines are the elements that coexist with the surface onto which or into which they are drawn. They create their own topological space.’87 A line synchronous in Paul Klee’s iconic phrase is a reminder that drawing is just taking a line for a walk having a particular impact on the performative embedded in drawing and in sculpture. Grzymala’s innumerable lines of tape to lines in space reference other artists’ works that were included in the exhibition titled Line at London’s Lisson Gallery in 2016, such as Tom Marioni’s flinging a tape measure One Second Sculpture and Richard Long’s imaginary 94-mile line in the ground A Four Day Walk. Corporeal movement as lines in space, crossing media, sound and light, is embedded in New York-based Estonian artist Jaanika Peerna’s gestural linear drawings and live performances, where the material body is the motivation of her practice (see Figure 1.4). In a solitary studio or a public place, she ardently

Figure 1.4  Jaanika Peerna, Am Rand / On the Edge 2014, 40-minute performance drawing on three large windows, 12 × 3 metres covered with a mix of marble dust and sour milk. Layers removed from the glass allow the audience to view from both inside and outside, while responding to recorded sounds of wind and the site itself, Jää-äär, Berlin. Photo: Reelika Ramot.

28

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

draws lines sweeping across different surfaces with hands and feet immersed in graphite, charcoal or chalk, leaving only a residue of the event. Peerna writes: ‘I see all my work as drawing, whether it be a video or light installation, which I see both as drawing with light, placing works in a room, drawing in space, leaving lines on paper, traces of movement […] and now performance, which is focused on drawing.’88 The art critic Heie Treier reflects on the phenomena of light and line, straight or curved, which is inherent in Peerna’s practice, where two-dimensional lines of light on paper transmute into three-dimensional gravitational space. The executive director Brett Littman of The Drawing Center for eleven years is now the innovative director of the Noguchi Museum and Garden in Long Island City. Littman announces: ‘It is always interesting to move drawings into performance and three-dimensional space. Peerna’s work allows us to see line as a physical object as well as a trace of her own body and the passage of time.’89 The curator, writer and artist Fiona Robinson describes her drawn lines filling the space with paper flowing from the walls and ceilings, again moving between dimensions. Peerna’s performance drawing practice has since developed into a wider field that focuses on sound within space. In Glacier Elegy (2018), a performance drawing using 15 metres of sheets of Mylar plastic paper, she creates sound that emerges from movement; marking space with paper, pigment and pencils as well as the sound of ice, dripping and crackling, the drawing transforms into sculptural forms. Versions of Glacier Elegy have been performed in Tallinn, New York, London and Montreal. While drawing with sounds using the space as an ‘echo chamber’, large sheets of paper merge back and forth activating loud crunching sounds. Peerna writes: ‘Drawing is inseparable from movement. And the impetus for movement comes from deep within where the rapturous and subtle shifts happen, then ripples through the entire body impacting the plastic surface pulling the audience into the same resonant space.’90 Peerna’s work depicts traces of the German/Venezuelan artist Gego’s dramatic three-dimensional wire constructions. Absorbed in the interconnected lines, drawing in space without paper (Dibujos sin papel y sin marco), Gego’s Reticulárea transcending space and time was first installed at the Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas in 1969. Constructed with thick wires, the work forms a massive web, creating an endless vision contained only by the walls around it. Gego writes of her own work: ‘I discovered that sometimes the in-between-line is as important as the line itself.’91 Her work used the space as multidimensional, creating with lines measured to keep a distance between them as ‘the presence of the line defined these works as drawings’.92

MARKING

29

Trace and record HELENA ALMEIDA / WILLIAM ANASTASI / MORGAN O’HARA / JANE GRISEWOOD New York-based Portuguese Helena Almeida’s mesmerizing Inhabited Drawings (Desenho habitadol) was revealed in 2004 at The Drawing Center’s Drawing Room in New York. It exemplifies the body as both tool and physical surface, incorporating the performative dimension in her work. The drawings are absorbed into duration, with the body situated in time and trace. As Elizabeth Grosz, Professor of Women’s Studies, has said: ‘bodily existence is endurance, the prolongation of the present into the future’.93 The body as an ephemeral place of passage performs and records simply as movable medium and material. Almeida adds: ‘The image of my body is not an image. I’m not producing a spectacle.’94 I turn myself into a drawing. My body as a drawing, myself as my own work – that is what I was searching for. When you make lines on a piece of paper, vibrant areas inside the drawing come into being, and because of this the drawing itself isn’t enough. Right away you’ve got to enter another dimension, move into another area of artistic language.95 Crossing disciplines, Almeida consigns her body to thoughtfully choreographing motions of everyday transitory objects. Her photographic documentation is innovative and abstracted, recording black-and-white photographs of herself adding blue paint that is resonant of Yves Klein. The phenomenological elements of drawing in the inhabited body interact with the active imaginary figures traced on the documentation. In her Inhabited Drawing (1975), the line moves from graphite or ink to her signature stitching with lines of delicate horsehair.96 In a later photographic series from 1998, Inside Me (Dentro de mim), again Almeida’s body becomes process and material (Figure 1.5). Set up in her studio, she alone tests the limits of her body in the surrounding space. In her performance-based work, she asserts that ‘her place is in the studio and the studio is her world’,97 a solitary process that is not seen by viewers until the work is documented and displayed as photographs. Yet, for this work, Untitled (2010), Almeida is tied to her husband, architect Arturo Rosa, with plastic-covered wire looping several times round their lower legs, marking and shuffling back and forth. Dragging their bodies for almost twenty minutes between wall and video camera, they produced a three-dimensional drawing. While Almeida explores the body and material in space, echoing Tehching Hsieh’s durational works, she plays with dimensions in the traces between

30

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Figure 1.5  Helena Almeida, Inside Me (Dentro de mim), 1998, black-and-white photograph, 185 × 122 cm. Drawing Papers 43, Helena Almeida: Inhabited Drawings at the Drawing Center’s Drawing Room, New York. Collection FLAD – Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Laura Castro Caldes and Paula Cintra.

documentation and imagination. William Anastasi perhaps took a more conventional ‘pencil to paper’ approach of tracing and recording his movement. A founder of conceptual and minimal art in the USA, Anastasi engages in the medium of gestural drawing. He considers the trace always in movement. With a meditative approach, and using chance as a prime element, he abandons visual control, producing numerous Unsighted Drawings from the late 1960s. Working ‘blind’, with eyes closed, his covert involuntary drawings provoke random graphite lines on folded paper in his trouser pocket. During the same period, Robert Morris, like Anastasi, surrenders to an arbitrary process of tracing his Blind Time Drawings, premeditated but contingent. In 1969, Untitled (Pocket Drawings) emerged and is recorded in Anastasi’s wider practice. He explains the process of his pocket drawing: You fold a piece of paper until it can fit in your pocket, and then you put it in your pocket, and you use, usually, a 6B or 8B pencil. Soft. I just put my hand in my pocket, feel the paper, and draw. If it’s a pocket drawing, I’m usually also walking.98 Walking itself is performance and an integral part of Anastasi’s work where his thinking in time and space, trace and record occurs. He observes the origin

MARKING

31

of drawing on the subway from the walking drawings.99 In 1977, revisiting his Subway Drawings, Anastasi would ride on subway trains daily from his New York 137th Street apartment to meet for chess games with John Cage in his downtown studio, and would record this journey through his drawings. Cage, being renowned for ‘chance’ as method and practice, was very timely with Anastasi’s random and repetitive bodily actions. ‘Holding a pencil in each hand at an angle of 90 degrees and with a drawing board on his lap, Anastasi closes his eyes allowing the vibrations of the subway train to move his hands that produce the tangles of lines on the paper.’100 In contrast, Anastasi performs large-scale blind drawings; with eyes closed, he repetitively marks the paper with graphite in each hand, back and forth, up and down, for lengthy durations, producing One Hour Blind Drawing (2012) and One Hour with Graphite (2013). Focusing on the integrity of the drawn line, Morgan O’Hara’s Live Transmission drawings, which first emerged in 1989, are elusive choreographic works meticulously observed, performed and recorded in real time. She tracks her body’s movement through the intricate action of both hands, her dancing hands simultaneously transmit pencil marks on paper, producing delicate drawings rather like tiny seismic waves. O’Hara writes: I draw methodically with multiple razor-sharp pencils and both hands, as time-based, executing a direct neural transmission from one human action into another. I condense movement into accumulations of graphite line, which combine the controlled refinement of classical drawing with the unbound sensuality of spontaneous gesture. Time-space coordinates for each drawing are described with precision in the titles.101 Her early years in Japan provided US-born O’Hara with the catalyst for transmitting her energy, the Zen arts and the pureness of line and trace, which became inspirational and integral to her work. John Cage’s revolutionary performances and theories also had a profound influence on her practice, as did his friend, William Anastasi. Movement is fundamental; the gestural actions of the body define the performative. O’Hara records the physicality of movement in all aspects, tracing the motion of lines onto paper. Skilled at drawing with both hands, she simultaneously clutches as many as twenty pencils. While there is a range of pencils and paper, O’Hara works with firm paper and soft pencils using two or more pencils, the effect is unpredictable until the drawing is finished. O’Hara’s list of diverse and extensive subjects includes artists, athletes, conductors, dancers, doctors, farmers, incense makers, martial artists, musicians, pastry chefs, poets, politicians, psychiatrists, shoemakers and window cleaners. Her subjects also comprise well-known participants such as Marina Abramović, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Umberto Eco, Stephen Hawking, the

32

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Dali Lama, André Previn, Susan Sontag, and ikebana master Ken Katayama. Their actions postulate the motions of control and chance as O’Hara’s tangled lines appear across the paper, where she marks and records the title with time and place along the bottom edge of each drawing. From the plethora of content accumulated over thirty years, O’Hara has produced a gargantuan three thousand or so Live Transmission drawings. Registering movement, tasks and rules, the process of drawing is collaborative and intense. ‘Through the lens of her work, all activity becomes a kind of a performance, as she, guided by her own rules, is “performing” drawing.’102 Through documentation, line and durational processes, Jane Grisewood records time and transience, body in motion, where she observes marking while moving. She writes: The body as a drawing instrument, a tool, is embedded in the process, where the repetitive practice of drawing the line gives way to a more physically active involvement with the work. While the significance of drawing is still the personal trace, not only the hand, but the foot also takes its place as an equal means of mark making, where the line’s connection is with movement, separating and moving between the inside and the outside.103 Clutching graphite in one hand and a small piece of paper in the other, intricate seismographic lines appear from the rhythmic shifts in Grisewood’s hand as she walks from place to place recording duration and distance. Revealing inbetween spaces, she documents drawings, photographs and journals to elicit interventions ‘that capture a moment in time while simultaneously tracing its passing’.104 In her journal, she records her daily walks, leaving traces along the way. Lucy Lippard, writer, art critic and curator, alluded to ‘something revelatory about walking daily in familiar a place’.105 The autobiographical Line Journeys maps Grisewood’s passage back and forth between Proustian memorable and poignant locations.106 In public places, the performative intervention, with and without viewers, is the focus of her walks. Grisewood’s work Mourning Lines (2005) documents a 1  km walk that inhabits the rural English landscape between her previous home and a village burial ground (Figure 1.6). ‘Yet beyond the process-driven undertaking,’ observes Katharine Stout (the director of Focal Point Gallery, UK), ‘these works offer a beautiful abstract landscape of sorts, a geological mapping of a moment.’107 Exploring how to record temporal presence or trace a spatial experience through the line, ‘the line that is consistent […] is not one that articulates an imagined object or describes a projected figure, but exists independently as a mark that delineates materiality, bodily presence, and in particular, time’.108 Grisewood, like Serra, repeats and reflects on how ‘drawing is a verb’.109 In other works, such as Drift Lines (2007), walking a stretch of

MARKING

33

Figure 1.6  Jane Grisewood, Mourning Lines, 2006. Video documentation of performance trails ash on a 500-metre walk between home and a village burial ground, Suffolk, UK. Filmed and edited by Ron Suffield. Photo: Ron Suffield.

beach in New Zealand revisiting her childhood home; and Ghost Lines (2009), slow pacing between her current home and former home in London. Her walks signify her recording transient movement back and forth that holds memory, in presence through absence. Shifting between the studio and the outside space, Grisewood’s temporal drawing practice, entrenched in movement with her body as a device to construct a line in space.

Walking as drawing RICHARD LONG / FRANCIS ALŸS / LYGIA CLARK / TEHCHING HSIEH The paradigm shift from the inside to the outside, there and not there, broadens how drawing in motion becomes the marking of both urban and natural landscapes. Land artists in the 1960s and 1970s became fixated with the performative line in the vast outdoors. In the hot, dry Mohave Desert, Walter de la Maria enacts Mile Long Drawing, two parallel lines drawn in chalk almost 4 metres apart, in contrast to Dennis Oppenheim’s three-mile-long Time Line Drawing in the icy snow on the border between the USA and Canada, which would in time leave only transitory marks and traces on the surface.

34

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Movement, leaving evidence as his trace, in mostly vast, solitary outdoor spaces defines the British artist Richard Long. With minimal intervention, covering thousands of miles of walking, he uses his body and a map to record time in space as he passes across the land. Drawing invisible and visible lines onto the landscape, Long proposes the simple act of walking as a work of art. Walking in the 1960s initiated an art practice where many conceptual artists were influenced by Long and, since then, many artists advocate the walk in their work in both rural and urban environments.110 Long writes: ‘I am an artist who makes walks. A walk defines the form of the land in space and time beyond the scale of sculpture or the fixed image.’111 My first work made by walking, in 1967, was a straight line in a grass field, which was also my own path, going ‘nowhere’. In the subsequent early map works, recording very simple but precise walks on Exmoor and Dartmoor, my intention was to make a new art, which was also a new way of walking: walking as art.112 In his 1967 seminal A Line made by Walking, Long intentionally and repeatedly walked back and forth in a field in rural England. He made indentations drawing a line on the damp grass with his feet, the action leaving residue on the land. But time pervades the ephemerality of the line as the grass is slowly concealed – and the performing body is absent. Long observes: ‘A walk moves through life, it is physical, but afterwards invisible.’113 Long’s walking continues with lines: tracks in Bolivia, dust lines in the Sahara, water lines in China, snow lines in Switzerland and, in Australia and India, ash lines, arcs and circles. For the work Ash Line: Along the 8-Day Walk in Queensland (1994), Long returns ashes to the landscape, which sees his hands and feet covered with ash. Long’s work reveals ‘a performance of which the line was a residual trace, or a sculpture – the line – of which the photograph was documentation, or was the photograph the work of art, or all of these? Walking became Long’s medium.’114 Many artists claimed the outdoor urban environment as the platform for their work – walking the line – where they recall Long’s global odysseys and wanderings. Notwithstanding these imposing land-based drawings, performed directly on the land, one of the most thought-provoking images of the line in movement is Mexico City-based Belgian Francis Alÿs’s When Faith Moves Mountains (Cuando la fe Mueve Montañas) (2002) (Figure 1.7). He observed a challenging project of linear displacement in the landscape ‘to move a mountain’ and to ‘draw a line’ and to ‘walk the line’. The work ‘attempts to translate social tensions into narratives that intervene in the imaginary of a place […] a kind of land art for the landless’.115 In 2002, five hundred volunteers, each walking and carrying a shovel, formed a line at the foot of a giant sand dune in Ventanilla shantytowns,

MARKING

35

Figure 1.7  Francis Alÿs, When Faith Moves Mountains (Cuando la fe Mueve Montañas), Lima 2002, in collaboration with Rafael Ortega and Cuauhtémoc Medina. Video documentation of an action. Some 500 volunteers move in a line on a 500-metre-long sand dune. Photo: Francis Alÿs.

near Lima.116 By the end of the day, along the lengthy 500-metre dune, the line had slowly moved a few centimetres from its original position. The project evokes questions from the philosopher Gilles Deleuze concerning not what the line is but what it can become: ‘What are your lines? What map are you in the process of making or rearranging? What abstract line will you draw, and at what price, for yourself and others? What is your line of flight?’117 Reminiscent of Paul Klee’s ubiquitous line is taken for a walk that frees his point as it turns into movement and lines. The drawings and notations reveal that a dynamic line is a point that can ‘take a line for a walk’ – as referencing the 1925 iconic phrase: ‘An active line on a walk, moving freely, without goal. A walk for a walk’s sake.’118 In his Walking Distance from the Studio (2004), Francis Alÿs, in measured movement of the body in time and space, leaves traces as he wanders the streets, observing from the margins and absorbing the ephemeral and aleatory. Over the period of his performances titled Fairy Tales (1992–8), Alÿs’s peripatetic movement through the city streets of Mexico City and earlier performances in Stockholm were made by unravelling his sweater leaving a long trail of wool that relates to Jiro Takamatsu’s (1963) and Grisewood’s (2005) string lines. They each individually carry 1,000 metres of string strewn on their walks, where the line becomes both trace and drawing. In São Paulo, moving from wool to paint, Alÿs performed a walk holding a leaking can of blue paint to draw a line marking

36

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

his passage: The Leak (1995). In Jerusalem, he did the same in The Green Line (2004) but this time the action of dripping green paint was politically provocative. As he walked through the streets, he retraced the line that marked the divided territories of the 1949 ceasefire maps. Over five years, mapping, recording and photographing, Alÿs paced the streets of London, culminating in Seven Walks between 2004 and 2005.119 Leaving few traces, he has performed many documented paseos (walks), following performative explorations roaming from place to place in cities in different parts of the world. Deleuze would define all wanderers as enmeshed in the metropolitan environment, which recalls the cultural theorist Michel de Certeau’s study of everyday life.120 (De Certeau’s concepts are also discussed in Chapter 4.) Walkers amble through the city marking and transforming space. The wandering movement of Alÿs is integral to the motion of walking and drawing lines within the urban context. The Brazilian Lygia Clark developed an interest in walking the line, from line into form and back again, when she shifted from abstract painting to experimenting through three dimensions and movement. While walking, sitting and drawing, Clark makes her Möbius Strip out of paper and glue, cutting endless thin lines to create Caminhando (Walking) from 1964. The ongoing Caminhando performances invite a participant to be the maker of the work by drawing through cutting. Clark explains: ‘Do it yourself the “walking” with a strip of white paper about 40 cm wide, twist it and join its ends as in the Möbius Strip. […] The work is your own act.’121 (In Chapter 3, artworks that explore instructions and audience participation are addressed.) Clark’s performative practice embraces action and drawing – walking as drawing and drawing as walking, a randomness of cutting and tangling that forms a cybernetic maze of line in body and space; this also relates to Grzymala’s, Peerna’s and Gego’s work introduced earlier in the chapter. With the participation of the audience endorsing her projects based in both movement and drawing, Clark’s works are inherent in the dialogue of performance. Her projects in Brazil and New York led to ‘a radical transformation of the art object in the direction on performativity’.122 She describes walking, Caminhando, as a turning point, a freedom, where she can work with the material and the transient. From 1981 to 1982, Tehching Hsieh made his third One Year Performance walking the streets of New York City.123 During his arduous, and mostly solitary, durational ‘Outdoor Piece’, 24 hours a day for 365 days, he roamed downtown Manhattan, living a dejected peripheralized existence in an expansive urban landscape. Hsieh shifted from his studio to the streets where he moved outdoors for the entire year – an outdoor epic – living and walking on the streets of the city. Each day he is marking time, drawing and recording his wanderings, itinerant sites on a map, noting the places where he ate and slept. This is an astonishing perception of the complexity of lived duration. Adrian Heathfield observes:

MARKING

37

‘A joining and a separation – performing and recording, roving and sedentary, exposed and withdrawn.’124 With the merging of Hsieh’s ‘Outdoor Piece’ and life and work, in this ‘delicate balancing act the question of belonging is negotiated’.125 Heathfield’s insightful quest captures the complexity of temporal nuances in Hsieh’s durational work, while seeing him as a lone city drifter in a state of perpetual exile and unbelonging. Hsieh was an illegal immigrant from Taiwan who in this work migrated again, living outside in unknown marginal spaces in urban zones.126 His daily walks as a marginal and dispossessed figure bear witness to the increasing fragmentation of the contemporary metropolis where city dwellers do not necessarily feel at ‘home’. The action of repeatedly walking the streets amplifies a sense of awareness while paradoxically being in a non-place.

Conclusion Tehching Hsieh stated: My performance work is about different perspectives on thinking about life: ‘Life is passing time’ and ‘life is free thinking’ […] I never ask myself how to pass the day. I’m just passing time. But I know I did pass yesterday, and I have confidence that I will pass today, and I hope that I can pass tomorrow. ‘There is Only Movement’, states Gilles Deleuze, and this chapter begins and ends with time as its primary focus, flowing back and forth. The line exists as a mark that delineates materiality and bodily presence, while mark making and duration encompass the performance drawing dimension that has emerged in a predominant contemporary art practice. The interrelation between drawing and performance in real time occupied various practices and disciplines over many years. Drawing practice from the 1950s to the 1970s, particularly through conceptual and process art, became the moment in time when the line as subject in itself was propelling drawing into a significant position. By advancing a new paradigm that allows artists to freely expose time and movement, drawing practices have been enhanced and expanded. Inimitable material gestures are let loose, increasing the interaction and influence in current performance drawing arising from multidisciplinary and experimental practices. With various backgrounds it seems artists are crossing similar points in their practice to question how movement and mark making correlate to draw the visceral body in time. The dynamics of movement in drawing is synchronous with line as an openended trope to question the shift in artists’ practice from working indoors to outdoors, studio to landscape, optic to haptic, hand to foot and body to action have been identified in the different sections in this chapter. The artists’ locations

38

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

move between working inside, recorded in ‘Line in time’ and ‘Material and action in space’; both inside and outside in ‘Shifts in painting and drawing’ and ‘Trace and record’; and moving outdoors in ‘Walking as drawing’. The ephemerality of drawing and tracing instigates walking as art practice, marking seen and unseen lines in the rural and urban environments. The artists mentioned in this chapter are resourcefully extending performance and drawing practice beyond the single acts of marking and walking, resulting in identifying wide-ranging links and methodologies. A multidisciplinary, transnational approach is where artists engage with choreographers, musicians, art historians, philosophers and scientists that augment what is happening now. Subsequently, the vitality of performance drawing through the body and line, time and space, transitory and enduring is where the temporal resides in the dynamics of the line in movement. It will have a profound effect on arts and artists from this time on, where the ontology of the line makes ongoing connections that provide links between and beyond.

Notes 1 Cornelia ‘Connie’ H. Butler was curator of the Live/Work: Performance into Drawing exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, from 31 January to 21 May 2007. 2 The critic Harold Rosenberg introduced the term ‘action painting’ in his 1952 essay, ‘The American Action Painters’, ARTnews, giving more prominence to process and action rather than the painting itself. See Barbara A. Macadam, ‘Top ten ARTnews stories: “Not a picture but an event”’, ARTnews, 1 November 2007, https:// www.artnews.com/artnews/news/top-ten-artnews-stories-not-a-picture-but-anevent-181/ (accessed 2 March 2020). 3 Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Art since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism and Postmodernism (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004), p. 357. 4 Gary Garrels, ‘The line between drawing and painting’, in Ivana Wingham, Mobility of the Line (Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 2013), p. 44. 5 Robert Morris, Continuous Project Altered Daily: The Writings of Robert Morris (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), p. 77. 6 Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), ‘MoMa exhibition explores performance and drawing through works in the collection’, Press Release for Live/Work: Performance into Drawing exhibition, 31 January to 21 May 2007, https://www.moma.org/ documents/moma_press-release_387120.pdf (accessed 5 March 2020). 7 Amelia Jones, Body Art: Performing the Subject (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), pp. 53–9. 8 Cornelia H. Butler and Catherine de Zegher, On Line: Drawing through the Twentieth Century (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010), exhibition catalogue, p. 182.

MARKING

39

9 Ibid., p. 163. 10 Joan Kee, ‘Situating a singular kind of “action”: Early Gutai painting 1954–1957’, Oxford Art Journal, vol. 26, no. 2 (2003): 123–40. 11 Jiro Yoshihara (1905–1972) was an influential avant-garde artist and the Japanese leader of the Gutai group, http://www.nak-osaka.jp/en/gutai_yoshihara.html, (accessed 7 May 2019). 12 Ines Englemann, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2007), p. 44. 13 Catherine Wood, ‘What is performance art now?’ Tate Etc. Magazine, no. 38, October 2016, p. 58. 14 Paul Schimmel, ed., Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object 1949–1979 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1998), p. 148. 15 Jones, Body Art, p. 86. 16 RoseLee Goldberg, Performance: Live Art since the 60s (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004), p. 137. 17 Erin Dziedzic, ‘Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972–85: One Universal Energy Runs Through Everything’. Drain Magazine. http://www. drainmag.com/contentNOVEMBER/REVIEWS_INTERVIEWS/Ana_Mendieta_Review. htm.DrawinDr (accessed 3 February 2019). 18 Jane Blocker, Where Is Ana Mendieta? Identity, Performativity and Exile (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), p. 57. 19 Blocker, Where Is Ana Mendieta?, pp. 29–30. 20 Untitled (Body Tracks), 1974. There is a 35 mm slide and Super-8 colour silent film documentation of the performance at Galerie Lelong & Co., New York. 21 Dziedzic, Ana Mendieta. 22 Megan Heuer, ‘Ana Mendieta: Earth body, sculpture and performance’, The Brooklyn Rail, September 2004, https://brooklynrail.org/2004/09/art/ana-mendietaearth-body-sculpture-and-pe (accessed 1 June 2020). 23 Gary Garrels, Bernice Rose and Michelle White, Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), exhibition catalogue, p. 207. 24 Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), ‘Richard Serra’, MoMA website, https://www. moma.org/collection/works/152793 (accessed 5 March 2020). 25 Shinichiro Osaki, ‘Body and place: Action in postwar in Japan’. In Paul Schimmel, ed., Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object 1949–1979 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1998), p. 147. 26 Goldberg, Performance Art, p. 147. 27 Briony Fer, The Infinite Line (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 36. 28 Ibid. 29 Piero Manzoni, When Bodies Become Art (Frankfurt: Städel Contemporary Art Collection, 2013), exhibition catalogue. Martin Engler is the curator and head of the Städel’s Contemporary Art Collection in Frankfurt (2013). 30 Rosalia Pasqualino di Marineo, Piero Manzoni, 2 vols (New York: Hauser & Wirth Publishers, 2019), exhibition catalogue.

40

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

31 After the performance, Manzoni’s large roll of paper was sealed in a zinc container, which he displayed in front of a local shirt factory. 32 John Latham, Least Event, One Second Drawings, Blind Work, 24 Second Painting (London: Lisson Gallery, 1970), exhibition catalogue. 33 Each piece in One Second Drawings was carefully annotated, for example, with the time of execution: (17″ 2002) – the second, minute, hour (the 17th second of the 20th minute of the second hour); followed by the date (14 December 1972) and a numerical code referring to different features of the work. 34 Andre Breton cited in Bryony Fer, ‘Some translucent substance, or the trouble with time’, in Carolyn B. Gill, ed., Time and the Image (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 70. 35 Ivana Wingham, ‘Durational lines’, in Wingham, Mobility of the Line, p. 123. 36 Butler and de Zegher, On Line, p. 176. 37 Adrian Heathfield and Tehching Hsieh, Out of Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh (London and Cambridge, MA: Live Art Development Agency and MIT Press, 2009), p. 27. 38 The decision behind choosing a year, Hsieh said, ‘was that it was the largest single unit of how we count time in our daily lives, the time it takes for the earth to circle the sun’. 39 See the discussion on Hsieh’s artwork titled One Year Performance ‘Outdoor Piece’ in the ‘Walking as drawing’ section in this chapter. 40 Heathfield and Hsieh, Out of Now, p. 27. 41 Elena del Rivero, ‘Elena del Rivero’, in Catherine de Zegher, ed., Drawing Papers 20: Performance Drawings (New York: The Drawing Center, 2001), exhibition catalogue. 42 Elena del Rivero’s year-long performance included [Swi:t] Home (Five Dishcloths); Six [Swi:t] Home drawings; [Swi:t] Home sound piece; Floor Plan/Studio Home; and ‘Reference Library’ of 15 works: Book of Routines; Book of Hours; Book of Time; Book of Numbers; Book of Blank Pages; Book of Past Wounds; Book of Lost Hair; Book of Quotations; Book of Expenditures; Diary; Scrapbook; Silence; Index Cards; Photo Album; and Calendar. 43 Del Rivero, ‘Elena del Rivero’, p. 44. 44 Ibid., pp. 44–9. 45 Adrian Heathfield, ‘End time now’, in Adrian Heathfield, ed., Small Acts: Performance, the Millennium and the Marking of Time (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2000), p. 106. 46 Fer, ‘Some translucent substance’, p. 71. 47 Rosalind Krauss, Robert Morris Recent Felt Pieces and Drawings (Leeds: Henry Moore Sculpture, 1997), exhibition catalogue, p. 90. 48 Jacques Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and other Ruins, trans. by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). 49 While researching the relationship between drawing and blindness, Grisewood came across a particularly poignant essay discussing Derrida’s Memoirs of the Blind by a young freelance writer David Bradford, written after he was

MARKING

41

diagnosed with an eye disorder that causes the gradual loss of peripheral vision and may lead to blindness: David Bradford, ‘Littoral blindness: Writing across sight lines’, 2008, http://dbfreelance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/ littoralblindness.pdf. (accessed 17 November 2017). 50 Blind Time included six series: the first (1973); the second made by a woman who was blind from birth (1976); the third (1985); the fourth inspired by the writings of the philosopher Donald Davidson (1991); the fifth, Melancholia (1999); and the sixth, Moral Drawings (2000). 51 David Antin, Maurice Berger, Jean-Pierre Criqui, Rosalind Krauss, Annette Michelson, W. J. T. Mitchell and Kimberly Paice, Robert Morris: The Mind/Body Problem (New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1994), p. 244. 52 Jean-Pierre Criqui, ed., Robert Morris: Blind Time Drawings 1973–2000 (Göttingen and Prato: Steidl and C.Arte Luigi Pecci, 2005. Exhibition catalogue), p. 15. 53 Robert Morris, ‘Blind Time I’, record of the drawing, graphite on paper, 88.5 × 116.5 cm (1973). 54 Criqui, Robert Morris, p. 14. 55 Jane Grisewood, ‘Marking time: Investigating drawing as a performative process for recording temporal presence and recalling memory through the line, the fold and repetition’ (PhD diss., University of the Arts London (UAL), 2010), pp. 36, 66–7. 56 Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet, Dialogues II (London: Continuum 2002), p. 7. 57 Deleuze speaking of his collaborations with Guattari in Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. by Paul Patton (London: Athlone Press, 1988), p. 3. 58 In 2008, Jane Grisewood and Carali McCall, with Maryclare Foá and Birgitta Hosea, were artists-in-residence at UAL Lethaby Gallery for the summer, where they formed their ongoing ‘Drawn Together’ collective. 59 Ghosh’s performance drawing ‘Daughter of Volga, My Rasa Rekha’ was performed at the Shiryaevo Biennale, Russia, 2018. 60 Jane Grisewood interview with Piyali Ghosh (31 October 2017). 61 Kevin Townsend, www.kevin-townsend.com/new-page-1/ (accessed 17 July 2017). 62 Kevin Townsend, https://www.kevin-townsend.com/drawing (accessed 1 June 2020). 63 Artworks, for example, Kevin Townsend, Looking for a Recollection (2018) and A Granular of Nows (2019). 64 Tom Marioni, Beer, Art and Philosophy, A Memoir (San Francisco: Crown Point Press, 2003), p. 93. 65 Kathan Brown, ‘Overview: “Tom Marioni: Know where you are and what is going on”’, Crown Point Press Newsletter (April 2016), p. 2. 66 Terri Cohn, ‘Interview with Tom Marioni: In-depth, critical perspectives exploring art and visual culture on the West Coast’, ArtPractical, 17 October 2017, https://www. artpractical.com/column/interview-with-tom-marioni/ (accessed 5 March 2020). 67 Marioni, Beer, Art and Philosophy, pp. 123–5. 68 Ibid., p. 19. 69 Brown, ‘Overview: “Tom Marioni”’, p. 2.

42

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

70 Nick Kaye, ‘One time over another: Tom Marioni’s conceptual art’, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, vol. 35, no. 2 (2012): 26. 71 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Nomadology, trans. by Brian Massumi (New York: Semiotexte, 1986), p. 100. 72 Peter Eleey, ‘If you couldn’t see me: The drawings of Trisha Brown’, Walker Art Center website, https://walkerart.org/collections/publications/performativity/ drawings-of-trisha-brown/ (accessed 12 June 2017). 73 Butler, ‘Walkaround time: Dance and drawing in the twentieth century’, in Butler and de Zegher, On Line, p. 144. 74 Ibid., p. 198. 75 Ted Mann, ‘Bruce Nauman: Performance Corridor’, Guggenheim website, https:// www.guggenheim.org/artwork/3148 (accessed 7 August 2017). 76 Wood, ‘What is performance art now?’, pp. 58–9. 77 John Cage, ‘An autobiographical statement’, johncage.org website (originally written in November 1989), https://johncage.org/autobiographical_statement.html. 78 Eleey, ‘If you couldn’t see me’. 79 Ibid. 80 Trisha Brown cited in ibid. 81 Ibid. 82 Kertess cited in Butler, ‘Walkaround time’, p. 193. 83 Ivana Wingham, ‘In/of/through/out’, in Wingham, Mobility of the Line, p. 130. 84 Katharine Stout, Contemporary Drawing: From the 1960s to Now (London: Tate Publishing, 2014), p. 153. 85 Wingham, ‘In/of/through/out’, p. 133. 86 Grzymala’s works also include: Raumzeichnung (2016), a site-specific spatial drawing using 3.7 km black tape and clear polypropylene tape; and Raumzeichnung (2011), a site-specific spatial 3D drawing using 3.3 km, black tape, London; Studio (2010) black tape suspended sculpture and 3D white chalk drawings, Berlin; Rhizome (2007) 3D wall drawing with wire and tape, Braunschweig; Swoosh (2007) spatial drawing with black and white tape, Glasgow; Transition (2006) spatial drawing with black and white tape, New York. Raumzeichnung (Berg) (2017) 9,2 km silver tapes, Reykjavik; and Convexity (2018) 1.1 km silver mirroring tape. 87 Butler and de Zegher, On Line, p. 116. 88 Fiona Robinson Writings on Art, ‘Jaanika Peerna’, Fiona Robinson Writings on Art website, 6 March 2014, https://fionarobinsonwritings.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/ jaanika-peerna/ (accessed 18 August 2017). 89 Brett Littman cited in ‘Quotes on Jaanika Peerna’s work’, Jaanika Peerna website, https://www.jaanikapeerna.net/quotes (accessed 14 June 2017). 90 Jaanika Peerna, ‘Glacier Elegy project’, Jaanika Peerna website, https://www. jaanikapeerna.net/copy-of-current (accessed 17 May 2019). 91 Gego, ‘Testimony 4: You Invited Me,’ in Sabiduras and Other Texts: writings by Gego, ed. by Maria Elena Huizi and Josefina Manrique Cabrera (Houston: International Center for the Arts of the Americas, 2005), p. 167.

MARKING

43

92 Ibid., p. 163. 93 Elizabeth Grosz, The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), p. 14. 94 Helena Almeida, Kettles Yard website, http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2014/10/almeida (accessed 17 June 2017). 95 Helena Almeida, Drawing Papers 43: Helena Almeida: Inhabited Drawings (New York: The Drawing Center, 2004), exhibition catalogue, p. 3. 96 The Inhabited series includes Inhabited Painting and Inhabited Canvas (1976). 97 Helena Almeida, Drawing Papers 43: Helena Almeida: Inhabited Drawings (New York: The Drawing Center, 2004), exhibition catalogue, p. 6. 98 Rachel Nackman, ‘William Anastasi: In conversation with Rachel Nackman’, NOTATIONS: Contemporary Drawing as Idea and Process website, http:// notations.aboutdrawing.org/william-anastasi/ (accessed 5 March 2020). 99 Ibid. 100 Grisewood, ‘Marking time’, p. 61. 101 Morgan O’Hara, ‘Statement’, Morgan O’Hara.com, website, http://www. morganohara.com/statement.html (accessed 23 May 2017). 102 Ibid. 103 Grisewood, ‘Marking time’, p. 69. 104 Ibid. 105 Lucy Lippard, Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory (New York: The New Press, 1983), p. 125. 106 Line Journeys exhibited at the Centre for Recent Drawing (C4RD), in London, 2009. 107 Katharine Stout, ‘Marking Time: Jane Grisewood’, Firstsite Papers (2007), http:// www.janegrisewood.com/Downloads/Jane%20G%20article%20pdf%20(4).pdf (accessed 20 November 2019). 108 Ibid. 109 Ibid. See also Lizzie Borden, ‘About drawing: An interview [1977]’, in Richard Serra, Writings, Interviews (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 51. 110 Other walking artists in the 1960s and 1970s include Yayoi Kusama (Walking Piece, 1966); Bruce McLean (Taking a Line for a Walk Piece, 1969); Adrian Piper (Catalysis, 1970–1); Hamish Fulton (John O’Groats to Lands End, 1973); and Sophie Calle (Suite Venitienne, 1979). 111 Richard Long, Five, Six, Pick Up Sticks. Seven, Eight, Lay Them Straight (London: The Curwen Press for Anthony D’Offay Gallery, 1980). 112 Ben Tufnell cited in ‘Richard Long: A Line Made by Walking 1967,’ at Tate.org: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/long-a-line-made-by-walking-ar00142 (accessed 7 March 2020). 113 Anne Seymour, ‘Walking in circles’, in Richard Long, Richard Cork and Hamish Fulton, Richard Long: Walking in Circles (London: Anthony D’Offay, 1988), exhibition catalogue, p. 58. 114 Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking (London: Verso, 2001), p. 270.

44

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

115 Francis Alÿs and Cuauhtémoc Medina, When Faith Moves Mountains [Cuando la fe Mueve Montañas] (Madrid: Turner, 2005), p. 102. 116 Alÿs found social unrest and hardship in Lima, Peru, in 2000. Many people had been displaced from Lima to shantytowns in the giant dunes nearby. 117 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 203. 118 Paul Klee, Pedagogical Sketchbook, intro. and trans. by S. Moholy-Nagy (London: Faber & Faber, 1925), p. 16. 119 James Lingwood, ‘Making Seven Walks: Rumours’, Artangel website, https://www. artangel.org.uk/project/seven-walks/ (accessed 7 March 2019). 120 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California, 1998), pp. 91–110. 121 Stout, Contemporary Drawing, p. 119. 122 Butler and de Zegher, On Line, pp. 146–7. 123 De Certeau’s urban landscape in New York City is Manhattan, and one cannot help feeling destabilized by the opening sentence in his essay, ‘Walking in the city’, written in the late 1970s: ‘Seeing Manhattan from the 110th floor of the World Trade Center.’ He could not have contemplated the trauma of 9/11, which forever altered the city, nor the impact of his words: ‘once a familiar landscape, now only in our memory, in memoriam, and in the visual record’. Michel de Certeau, ‘Walking in the city’, in The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. by Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 91–3. 124 Heathfield and Hsieh, Out of Now, p. 45. 125 Ibid., p. 43. 126 See H. G. Masters, ‘No time like passing time: A conversation with Tehching Hsieh (Part 2)’, ArtAsiaPacific, 15 September 2017, http://artasiapacific.com/ Blog/NoTimeLikePassingTimeAConversationWithTehchingHsiehPart2 (accessed 11 March 2019).

2 PHYSICALITY: RUNNING AS DRAWING Uncovering what the term performance drawing has brought to contemporary art practice opens up different perspectives on the role of the body. As seen in Chapter 1, a collection of artworks can expand and contract critical elements in the field and explore key themes such as marking, time, action, line and walking. In this chapter, the discussion is developed to revolve almost entirely around the body as the source and site of the work and it considers to what extent drawing and performance may be useful for artists working today in multidisciplinary and performative contemporary practices. Focusing on the physicality of drawing and artworks that provide a context and operative means to explore duration and expenditure of energy, the chapter is shaped to propose that drawing is not only connected to movement but can be located in a more extensive enquiry into the performative nature of human activity – ultimately building an argument that the physical act of running can be a form of drawing. It considers performance-based works that constitute a marking process, introducing the focus of physical strength and active involvement central to performance drawing through artworks such as Carolee Schneemann’s Up to and Including Her Limits (1973–6) and Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 1–6 (1987–9) as well as artists such as John Court, Katrina Brown, Tony Orrico and Guido van der Werve who recognize the demands of physical conditioning and endurance training specifically for the work and means of making. Through the lens of female (and feminist) artists, these artists and artworks are grouped together in an attempt to chart the dominant inspiring examples of a specific approach to using the body in contemporary fine art. It is an attempt to trace the works that have led artists working today in the field of drawing to express a physical yet optimistic sensibility. It is important to note, and should be explained, that the selection of artworks can be linked to various and very different critical contexts. For example, the artists Carolee Schneemann and Matthew Barney were working with very different audiences and intentions that powered their distinctive artworks. However, for the purpose of this text and to convey an interest in the physical athleticism of performance drawing, although

46

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

it is important to acknowledge various critiques, such as the feminist critique significant for Schneemann’s work, this text draws attention to the action rather than authorship and focuses on the shared interest in the body – the personal and subjective rather than the collective. The chapter identifies a trajectory of art practices that stimulate the conversation between mind and body, sound and sight, as well as performance and performativity.1 It aims to define ‘artist as athlete’ and looks to the fabric of movement to describe how disciplines such as running (and, for example, dance) have merged to become an ever-engaging mode of working.2 In demonstrating this development in thinking – artists and artworks such as Barry Le Va’s Velocity: Impact Run (1969), Martin Creed’s Work no. 850 (2008) and Melanie Manchot’s film Tracer (2013) have been selected to help present lines of movement – from using the body as a tool for mark making to challenging the urban environment as trace(less) forms. Not every work discussed in this chapter is a performance drawing, or a performance or a drawing, but they are seen to contain or help unleash key ideas that can be employed in the build-up to thinking beyond the conventions of fine art. Artworks in this chapter are used to identify engaging elements within key works that have shaped contemporary drawing and exercise a new relationship to performance. Continually engaging and attempting to locate the body within the canon of performance and drawing, artists working today encounter themes such as duration and endurance and dig to uncover and re-establish the importance of existential and philosophical concepts that underpinned previous works. In describing how artworks produced over the decades have demonstrated in various ways a strong relationship between artist and viewer, this chapter identifies Trisha Brown’s seminal Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970) and reveals how some artists today are notably sourcing and tracing both philosophical and historical references and rely heavily on these art-historical references in current practices. In the continued context, since 1945, and the experimental shift of the 1960s – when conservative attitudes of the body (and sexuality) were being questioned and overturned – this chapter closes by looking to the public and social connections seen keenly through the combination of sport and art – the changes in public and institutional contexts and key elements of harbouring a cultural identity that strives for progression and exchange.

Physical/mark making CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN / MATTHEW BARNEY To return to the earlier identification of mark making, this section looks at how the mark can be representative of a form of presence and type of movement

PHYSICALITY

47

but also how the mark and approach to recording the body are a mere catalyst for physical action, intention and mental effort. The focus of the mark here is not to give evidence of the trace of the body but rather hold a kind of means and method of process that invokes a quietness and stillness, as well as inner sensibility. Carolee Schneemann’s Up to and Including Her Limits (1973–6) and Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 1–6 (1987–9) are two key works that lead to a particular use of the term performance drawing, giving a specific demonstration of how artists use their own bodies as a primary source and material for making and evidence a physical act beyond any conventional understanding of what drawing might entail to develop the concept of a mark, line and body. While also calling on restraint and resistance as the central elements, these two works connect the increasing engagement of extreme subjectivity and embed the 1960s and early 1970s performance-based methodologies as a means of working. In Carolee Schneemann’s Up to and Including Her Limits (1973–6), performed live and as part of a video installation, the artist is both restricted and supported by a harness, actively exploring the relationship between body as subject and drawing device (Figure 2.1).3 Suspended from the ceiling by a rope, unclothed, propelling herself in circular and back and forth motions, the artist’s performance involves the whole body as an extension of the line. With a crayon in hand, and marking the white-paper covered walls and surrounding

Figure 2.1  Carolee Schneemann, Up to and Including Her Limits, 1973. Photo: Henrik Gaard.

48

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

floor, Schneemann’s aim at the limits and furthest reach of her body reveals how both resistance and restraint can increase and emphasize the body’s presence. Widening the artist’s range of movement and the involvement of her body in the work, the artwork presents an attention to process and develops the concept of the body as subject and material. This focus within Schneemann’s work can be identified in a single photographic image. It depicts a female artist undergoing the task of drawing and can be considered to be creating gestural movement through line. Politically charged, it addresses the role of a female artist during a specific time period4 – on further reflection, the importance of the work and the photographic image identifies an artist becoming the work and making the work. Consciously exploring the act of being present, in its foundation, it evokes an all-embracing bodily experience, generating an interest in movement and thinking of the body as an agency of drawing – desiring contact and the act of mark making. The potential exchanges between the body as subject and object underpin what drawing may present and, evermore, making the performative element in drawing a key avenue for expanding into physicality. Developing further the previous definitions in Chapter 1 of the line and its conceptual and philosophical uses in practical means for experimentation, here the thought of drawing as mere movement cultivates an additional understanding that aims to focus and expose both visible and non-visible marking processes of performance drawing – as well as explore both a ‘gesture’ (defined here as a subtler and slower movement) and a more intense and physical movement to establish the body as line. For example, Matthew Barney’s works illustrate the body as an extension of the line and the athletic body as site and material – also referencing Carolee Schneemann’s Up to and Including Her Limits; both works can be used as examples that help shape the groundwork for performance drawing and demonstrate the artist as athlete. Through reaching and stretching and ambitiously moving to make contact with surrounding walls, emphasis is put on resistance and testing the limits of the body – occupying space and expressing a concentrated focus and determination. (Discussed in the section ‘The act/stillness’ are artists such as Robert Luzar and Charlie Ford, who make performances moving slowly – so much so that actions appear motionless. These types of movement encourage and challenge a range of embodiment and a deepening understanding of physicality.) The Drawing Restraint series by Matthew Barney is the first and longest ongoing artwork of his career. It explores the body as an athletic issue and creates a structure and framework for his ritualistic references and actions. Also tied to the process of mark making, as well as the limits of the body (and sexuality),5 Barney’s work clearly identifies a practice working with drawing materials and constructs a very particular relationship with his environment and body as site in performance-based work.

PHYSICALITY

49

In early Drawing Restraint works, apparatuses such as ramps, harnesses and flexible cords were used to frustrate the ease of drawing. Climbing gallery walls with planned routes and structures, he made the act of willpower and reaching to draw the fundamental crux of his work. From the start, he was interested in using the body and referencing his own experiences as an athlete in the work.6 He states: ‘Form only takes shape when it struggles against resistance’;7 he suggests that similar to how resistance is used to build muscles, obstacles can be used to strengthen an artist’s output, therefore leading every action as a critical development to the conditioning and training of the work to follow. Constructing situations that, comparable to Schneemann’s, embody the concept of restraint, however, enables a lengthened, stretched-out movement; Barney’s Drawing Restraint 1–6 (1987–9) works were exhibited as video installations, incorporating the sculptural and architectural elements of how the work took place.8 Performing to camera, the work engaged in repetitive athletic actions, filmed in enclosed spaces with no viewers present.9 In Drawing Restraint 6 (created in 1989 and re-filmed/re-performed in 2004) Barney jumps and extends his body to exercise physical limitations and mark making abilities. In this work, a mini-trampoline was fixed onto a base on the floor with a 15-degree angle and, over the course of a day, he would jump using the trampoline – powering his body upwards, constructing a series of single marks with graphite on the ceiling. Directing his movement, the focus went from the lower part of his body (bending his knees and stabilizing his body at the core) to transcending energy and placing intention and the line of movement to the end of a marking device. In finding power – stretching, bounding and reaching – the act of drawing in Barney’s work awakens the entire biological body as a muscle and develops the athletic body as an expressive tool. More akin and comparable to Schneemann’s work, Barney’s Drawing Restraint 11 (2005) uses a harness and technical climbing rope to scale the walls of the gallery. Ascending the empty space, the architectural space and gravity additionally become restraining elements in the work; and marks and traces are left as evidence of the artist’s interaction with this environment.10 As an installation for Drawing Restraint 11, Barney performed three consecutive ascents at various heights (intended to indicate the phases of a larger enquiry into the human form and sexuality).11 Again, creating a relationship between the body at the threshold of physical limitations and making visible marks, the infrastructure and the use of ropes and attachments give a new meaning to these drawing elements and materials; by enabling the body and challenging and developing the physical role in the process, it lengthens and increases the severity of distance, gravity and risk. Conforming and negotiating a relationship with the act of drawing and the materials involved in Barney’s Drawing Restraint series, the taut rope, harness and jumping structure mutually support and extend the body’s reach; however, as

50

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

another aspect, they also create uncomfortable conflict – as the artist struggles against the confinement of being either attached to the fixed length of material or restricted to the dimension and conditions of the space. In either case, the individual effort to drive the body upwards – to make a line and become the line – creates a particular space for performance drawing. In looking to the interactions and current discussions on the body, gender and performativity and addressing the politicized body and material as site, from the position of exploring the individual and the personal competitive nature of testing ability and sustain resistance, Barney’s and Schneemann’s works present a way for each artist to uniquely engage with the body and drawing materials, acquiring a personal sense of mental and physical focus that advocates growth and development. Despite the different contexts, both artists demonstrate a deepening connection with the materials and use the line as both a formal part of the work and one that embodies expression. While becoming increasingly aware of a number of artists who use graphite and drawing materials as part of a very physical performance, similarly, like Matthew Barney and Carolee Schneemann, additional contemporary artists in this area include Katrina Brown (UK/Netherlands), John Court (UK/Finland), Robert Luzar (Slovenia/Canada), Carali McCall (Canada/UK), Tony Orrico (USA) and Ram Samocha (Israel/UK), to name a few. Artworks that demonstrate a particular bodily effort and determination of simple mark making can be located within this umbrella of physicality. The artists explore the potential of the body not only as the tool to make work but as central to the work, that is, the condition of training, timing and integrity of movement to execute a performance. In the development of artists who use the body as a physical device, it is important to note again and emphasize the concept of the line as a trope. As identified in the Introduction and Chapter 1, since the 1960s the line has increasingly been given primacy. A line is a natural bodily movement and these works bring to the forefront the entire body and energy to its making. Artists indebted to these foundations have used the line as a means for context and greater understanding of the expanded field of drawing. Since the 1960s and the new areas of practice opening up, drawing has become a line made by walking (Richard Long, 1967), cutting through a house (Gordon Matta-Clark, 1974)12 or a process of ‘thought’ (Robert Morris, 2000).13 Moving the discussion forward and providing examples that critically question the role of the artist, the line as a conceptual tool is used to orchestrate a particular way of thinking that helps to cross boundaries, disciplines and generations of artworks. To reference Tim Ingold’s book, Lines: A Brief History (2007), an analogy can be made between drawing the line and map making: that ‘lines have a real phenomenal presence in the environment, or in the bodies of those organism that inhabit it – our human selves included’.14 An ongoing series that prompted artist Carali McCall’s initial questions into drawing, Work no. 1 (Circle Drawing), involves a process of mark making with

PHYSICALITY

51

graphite and performing in front of an audience and/or camera. As part of a trajectory of art practices that consider the body as site and material of work, it references works such as Tom Marioni’s Out of Body – Free Hand Circle (2004) as well as Matthew Barney’s and Carolee Schneemann’s works described earlier in this section. Endurance and exhaustion are incorporated as key elements in McCall’s research and approach to performance drawing. In each performance, standing in front of a wall with a stick of graphite in hand, McCall captures the length and extension of her arm drawing a full circle as a feat of endurance. Shaped by the anthropometric limits of the body and a single continuous line, Work no. 1 (Circle Drawing) addresses time, energy and the physical process of drawing (Figure 2.2). The task is to continue the activity for as long as possible, exploring limits of mental and physical strength and to materialize the effect and impact of the process set in motion on paper. Each drawing is named according to its duration, usually between two and three hours; developing and building on the very action of drawing a circle, the performance demonstrates a collision between chance and order, generating its own aesthetic. In these works, an important aim is to maintain a constant movement and draw a visible line that embodies effort, energy and a rigorous pace. As a conscious act of finding the limits of endurance, decisions have to be made, for example how fast and how much energy to put into the role of the body drawing? At many points during the public performance, the whole body is noticeably putting strained effort into drawing circles. In time, fatigue eventually

Figure 2.2  Carali McCall Work no. 1 (Circle Drawing) 4 hours 15 minutes, 2019. A live performance drawing for the opening reception of McCall’s solo exhibition at Mac I Gryder Gallery, New Orleans, 2nd – 30th November 2019. Photo: Daniel Hughes.

52

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

becomes a factor and muscles become weak. The performance ends when either the graphite stick drops or the decision is made to stop – as mental exhaustion accumulates and levels exceed endurance. In some performances, the paper rips and if the drawing is made on particularly rough surfaces the skin on the knuckles tears and traces of blood appear. These markings are another unpredictable outcome of long durations, traces of the body and energy in the drawing. Attached to the athletic body is a philosophy that tries to establish a positive mind-set and approach to thinking through the body. Aiming to create a focused commitment to the physical act, there is a battle between thinking about the body and trying not to think about it. Prompting further enquiry into how ‘thought’ can impact and alter perceptions of the body in Ben Rubin’s We Believe We Are Invincible (2004), Rubin interviews track athletes to examine the mental edge they try to develop as they prepare moments before a competition. Despite the rush and adrenaline in the moments before the race, one runner states how the body slows down. Time slows down. In that moment when they say take your marks, set, I become the gun, so when that gun fires, it’s almost like I am the bullet being fired out of the pistol and that’s my reaction. When I hear that sound […] I am the bullet.15 This idea of mentally imagining oneself becoming something ‘other’ to achieve an aim that may be nearly impossible can seem elusive; however, as a personal and practical way to deepen the sense of embodiment, thoughts and feelings and ideas of building a relationship with the self (such as a firing gun) demonstrate how performance athletes and artists can potentially compress the body’s movement and relation to time; and, by mentally training and acquiring skills to transform perceptions of limits and physical boundaries, new perspectives of the body can be created.16 In terms of testing limits, long durations can place an extended emphasis on one’s focus. The experience involved can demand a particular mental strategy that is taxing on the body’s understanding of itself. An implication of endurance adds a new perspective to the role of the body, bringing the relationship of drawing closer to human activity and physical concerns. Some moments of performing can best be endured under the close eye of an audience member, making a declaration, or thinking of the body as something other beyond the state of the situation.

Endurance GUIDO VAN DER WERVE / JOHN COURT / STUART BRISLEY / TONY ORRICO Since the 1970s, in particular, durational artworks have become a framework and a vital form of art that not only used the body as both subject and medium but

PHYSICALITY

53

also employed endurance as a way to explore physical, mental and emotional limits. As identified in Chapter 1, artworks can span from one-second, as in Tom Marioni’s One Second Sculpture (1969), to multi-day performances, as with artists such as Tehching Hsieh, creating bonds between themselves as artists (object of art), audiences and time. Endurance can be described as a subjective measure of the body’s effort – an experience that can extend preconceived expectations of restraints. Such mental and physical exertion can be characterized by pain and struggle, as the experience of enduring long hours and expending high amounts of energy without recovery can generate a considerable amount of distress. Artists have long been connected to suffering, testing limits and risking failure, such as Chris Burden (Shooting, 1971), Stuart Brisley (12 Days, 1975), Orlan (The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan, 1990) and Bas Jan Ader (In Search of the Miraculous, 1975).17 Moreover, artists are recording performances and consolidating concepts of the body that interconnect and cross disciplines. For the Dutch artist Guido van der Werve, as part of his autobiographical, historical and film-based practice, running and endurance sports have played a central part. In his work Nummer Veertien: Home (2012) the film involves the artist completing a self-constructed three-week triathlon (which included a 27  km swim, 1,400 km bike ride and 300 km run) from Warsaw to Paris.18 Trained as a classical musician, repetition and reluctant practising are a way of working for van der Werve. He completed his first marathon in 2009 and, since 2007, has sought to incorporate acts of physical endurance into nearly all of his artworks – as a way of identification, van der Werve is a contemporary artist with the accomplishments of an endurance athlete.19 Part of a recent group show, titled Melancholia – a Sebald Variation, at Somerset House, London, van der Werve’s video Nummer Veertien: Home sits between a wide range of international artists’ works that provoke reflection about the European condition and the nature of melancholy itself.20 In a recent public talk, van der Werve spoke of running and the importance of the activity in his daily routine. He also spoke of his long admiration for the composer Frédéric Chopin and explained that he felt compelled to commemorate and honour Chopin in his work.21 In an earlier interview, he said: ‘if you think about how composers work, they use very, very personal feelings, and they basically abstract them in a more universal language.’ He went on to explain: ‘that’s also what I’m trying to do.’22 In staging the 1,727 km triathlon, the work began when he filled a chalice of soil in Poland near the birthplace of Frédéric Chopin and it ended a few weeks later when he arrived at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris’s 20th arrondissement and emptied the chalice at Chopin’s gravesite.23 The reason for this route was that Chopin was buried in 1849, and his sister Ludwika had his heart removed from the proceedings, which, at the composer’s request, was placed in an urn and spirited back to Warsaw. Therefore, in carrying the soil with him as he ran, swam and cycled the path from Poland to France, as the writer Reid Singer suggests, this was van der Werve’s ‘attempt to retrace

54

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

the line that connected the place of Chopin’s birth to the place of his death’.24 By making this work, van der Werve, as he commented, hoped to translate his feelings about Chopin into something everyone could understand.25 Although the physical struggle and painful acts of endurances are suggested in his work, there is also a romantic and personal attachment to the poetics of longing for home. Notably, van der Werve’s admiration is not only for the composer Frédéric Chopin but perhaps also for artists such as Bas Jan Ader who includes absurdity and irony in performance-based work; van der Werve has performed many stunts for the camera, such as setting himself on fire and getting hit by a car.26 The act of performing in his work has not only tested endurance but also sustains the humour of surviving. It is the body, his drive and desire to use the body as medium, that constructs and conditions his work. Van der Werve’s Number series started in 2003. For other films in this series, he climbed to the summit of Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, and ran around his house in Finland continuously for twelve hours. In other works, he guided a small film crew to the Gulf of Bothnia, in the northernmost arm of the Baltic Sea, to film himself walking in front of an arctic icebreaker, 50 feet in front of the moving ship.27 That same year, for the work Nummer Negen, The Day I Didn’t Turn With the World (2007), he travelled to the geographic North Pole to stand for twenty-four hours, shuffling slowly to rotate in a circle with the earth.28 The film is shot and presented in time-lapse (compressed into 8 minutes and 36 seconds), showing the lone figure enduring time and the cold temperatures. In a final example of van der Werve’s work, as part of the annual performance at the art festival Performa, held every year in New York on a Sunday morning, van der Werve invites anyone who is interested to join in as he leads a run called ‘Running to Rachmaninoff’ which involves running from the Luhring Augustine Gallery (Chelsea, New York City) to the gravesite of the Late Romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, located in Valhalla, New York, some 34 miles away.29 Critical to the poetic aspect of van der Werve’s work, he instructs each participant to carry and place on arrival a bouquet of chamomile flowers at the base of Rachmaninoff’s grave.30 A clear and poignant purpose for enduring an act can hold a particular personal and complex connotation and meaning. For the viewer, it serves to question these notions and ideas as it then conjures and sparks emotion; the will and desire to wonder and inspire and simply ‘to do’ can be transformational. The artist Lisa Stansbie also highlights personal endeavours through pain and struggle and suggests that the value of the tension that accompanies endurance is often underestimated. In her article ‘The Performance of a Channel Swimmer’, she states: Although it may be the case that tension causes destruction and harm, it is equally likely that it can open up new avenues for creation, adaption, and

PHYSICALITY

55

change. Tension can be used as a conceptual tool for thinking about the moments when bodies collide with time and space, and each makes its presence known.31 In Stansbie’s video artwork Acclimatisation (2012), the viewer witnesses the body in extreme elements: holding and speaking to the camera after swimming in 14 degrees Celsius seawater, as part of her training sessions which last from 30  minutes to up to 2 hours. Presented in a series of clips over several weeks, the body uncontrollably shakes, exemplifying its response to the extreme temperature and adaptation. The artist uses the cold environment and the English subculture of swimming the Channel to extract the discipline and place it within her practice and research. For practitioners, long periods of a single activity can feel like a lost sacrifice. However, what endurance can enable in terms of a discussion around duration is to offer a more subjective position and illuminate the processes involved. Recalling Ben Rubin’s work, when the body becomes something ‘other’, it is perhaps the fact that the artist is dealing with the paradoxes of time and allows for the mind/ body relationship to collapse. Moments while enduring, other measurements and relationships between mind, body and time open up. According to Adrian Heathfield, the physical giving (of oneself) that incorporates and illuminates the notion of time is where other temporalities can be explored.32 Duration can involve the collapse of objective measure and reveal the spatial sense of the body – the giving of oneself to space and time.33 As discussed in Carali McCall’s Work no. 1 (Circle Drawing), an interest in endurance may be considered due to a longing for an unpredictable outcome, a self-driven challenge and the desire to explore the elasticity and conflict between mind and body. However, practices that focus on constraints or thresholds of pain and physical exertion can raise the idea of what duration, discipline and physicality can contribute to a work. The Finland-based British artist John Court frequently uses drawing and performance in his practice. Based on long six- to eight-hour durations, his work focuses on the ethics of working and harbouring methods of mediation. While performing repetitive acts, he immerses himself in breathing exercises and the recollection of personal memories. In early works on paper, he addresses issues of language and builds on the processes and systems of learning.34 More recently, developing his attachment to symbolic structures, Court creates live performances in spaces using constructed objects and task-based events. He calls his way of working ‘movement with material’ and suggests the work is ‘a collaboration’ between him and the objects in the space.35 In the work, Untitled (2016) for the festival ‘Room for Performance’, Court used blocks of crushed white chalk scattered on the floor and a table constructed with three legs (Figure 2.3). Resting one of the extended legs of the table under his chin, without using his hands, Court pushes the table and starts to walk in a clockwise direction, making full circles of the room. Similar to how Tehching Hsieh would signify

56

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Figure 2.3  John Court, Untitled, 2016. A 7-hour performance during the festival ‘Room for Performance’ at Bildmuseet Umeå Sweden. Photo: Helena Wikström.

lapses in time, Court makes a circle on his hands with black marker, counting the laps and validating the accumulation of rounds. In time, the structure breaks down and he is left to rebuild it again, repeating this procedure for over seven hours. In the work, it becomes apparent that, for Court, drawing is a physical activity and that the resistance and effort placed on moving the structure, which then subsequently moves the chalk, are a means of marking and tracing an accumulation of time. As for many of the artists noted, the line and circular movement in performance and drawing-based actions result in producing imprints and graphic traces. In identifying themes of labour and repetition, Court’s work sits between Schneemann’s Up to and Including Her Limits, Hsieh’s Cage Piece, Stuart Brisley’s 1970s performance works such as 12 Days and, more recently, Brisley’s work DRAWN, where for over four days the artist performed in the space for a total of twenty-four hours with a selection of pieces of furniture (chairs, tables, a mirror) and materials such as clothing, paper and long lines of twisted cling film to present to the audience a way of moving objects and drawing in space. He explains: DRAWN as in hanged drawn and quartered and as in drawing. Drawing as to draw out, to make a drawing, to describe, to express through drawing. Hanged drawn and quartered: to hang, cut down while still alive, disembowel and cut in pieces for exposure in different places.36 In this work, like Court’s, the artist as subject is performing and focused on the task; the aims seem to be driven by a belief and the intentions adopted to

PHYSICALITY

57

develop a structure that will support the artist and material to adhere for long durations. Importantly, the materials used are not stable and have a tendency to alter in accordance with the artist’s actions and surroundings; for example, ‘the long lengths of Clingfilm which cling to become like string’, Brisley states, ‘[are] elastic, this flexibility was one of the central parts of the action of DRAWN and conformed to notions of drawing as they were used. Other materials were previously formed into objects such as chairs, tables etc., which were then disassembled over the time span of the performance.’37 For artists such as Brisley, this disassembly, fracture and dispersion is understood dialectically whereby the conditions of what exists in the frame of the work fluctuates between moments of doing and undoing – of visual coherence and disharmony, which implies it is not so much a question of contemplation, but of risk taking because the actions are neither choreographed nor tested a priori.38 The work reveals an element of setting particular conditions, allowing the performance to unfold and the work itself to become unstable. In Tony Orrico’s Penwald Drawings (2009–15), a series of geometrical drawings are made by repeating extended arm movements on the floor with graphite sticks in each hand. Engaging his entire body over the surface of paper, in particular his hands, feet and abdominal muscles, Orrico turns and pushes his body in circular rotations. Similar to the work of the artist Heather Hanson, over time, drawings emerge that resemble spirograph-like shapes (also known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids).39 Trained as a dancer, Orrico is a former member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company and Shen Wei Dance Arts and his departure from the stage to the gallery demonstrates an acutely timed and meditative approach to a very physical drawing practice. His works are constructed to incorporate breath and recovery within every work. In Penwald: 6: project, recoil (2011), Orrico performs by propelling himself forward using the architecture of the space (Figure 2.4). Extending his entire body in a line with as much strength and power as possible, he then pushes himself back against the wall using his core and limb strength to repeat the action. The results of the ordered, repetitive actions appear as large calculated markings of graphite on paper. The outcome of the drawings, through lines and circular shapes, records with precision and symmetry Orrico’s mental and physical commitment. The drawings can be defined with human scale and measurements of the body’s mathematical and operative output – with links between Marina Abramović’s endurance approach, Tom Marioni’s geometrical shapes and Pollock’s physically immersive floor paintings. Most performance drawing practices are mediated through photographs or video documentation, and often the performance element is evidenced in markings or tracings as drawings that remain as archival material from the live performance. The connection between performance and documentation can usefully be exploited and can redefine where the work sits – a controversial issue for many in performance art history as it can also become an entangled

58

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Figure 2.4  Tony Orrico, performing Penwald: 6: project, recoil (WhyNot!, W139, Amsterdam, NL) 2011. Photo: Bart Dykstra.

conversation (with regard to authorship and ownership). For the purposes of this chapter, live performance and documentation of the work act as two parts of a larger whole. Similar to how many artists are trained in different mediums and techniques to make work, artists experiment and incorporate various recording methods. Although, for many, the camera is a tool to reflect and simply archive, for others, the material of the footage becomes another extension of the work; documentation becomes an avenue for concept and clarification and is an expected consideration. The artist Stuart Brisley explains, ‘the camera can stand for the audience; the presence of the camera is quite important. Sometimes it becomes more important than a person because it represents a certain sort of future.’40 For artists such as McCall, Court and Orrico, there sometimes lacks an obvious audience while drawing; the performance is performed to camera and therein the key concerns are the documentation through time-based means for sharing. What can be linked more closely to the processes of early performance art practices is the reception of many endurance-based events by still documentation and labels of duration. A notable strategy is to capture clearly identifiable moments of the beginning, middle and end, as well as evidence of an audience (camera and/or live persons). However, perhaps more important in terms of still documentation are the images that grasp at the artist’s focus and their perseverance in working with their materials and intentions – aiming to give evidence of their commitment to the act and the use of the body as a

PHYSICALITY

59

muscle. Performance drawing, in this definition, aims to uncover the embattled and strong relationship artists have with their material (therein their body as well as an extended tool). Using the camera as an instrument, an extension of the body and a device to capture specific key movements helps explain the action, method or narrative. (This may lead to drawing with light or the camera, as Chapter 5 recognizes.) In doing so, the camera becomes ‘the other’ and, as a result, acts of performance progressively turn towards processes of recording and looking at the expanded field of drawing. In the next section of this chapter, the artist as film-maker is developed further in the discussion of Melanie Manchot’s film Tracer (2013). To explore temporal presence and transient states of consciousness, performance events that include mediums such as cameras and sound recording devices can become problematic, albeit exciting for new methods of drawing to be established. Through threads of multimedia-based discussions and moving image practice, the problem of suggesting the leaving of a mark or evidence of movement perhaps starts to conflate the understanding of the body and physical presence. Consider drawings that use Global Positioning System (GPS) devices and follow a pre-planned route to create large-scale images. However, the works selected here rely heavily on the many tactics and processes of fine art practice to present a critical engagement with the audience and documentary processes – not to describe the experience of drawing as a practitioner or an audience member but to address how, in the emerging field of drawing, some artworks have become the foundations and stepping stones to uncovering a further need for new definitions of the body.

Running/movement BARRY LE VA / MARTIN CREED / MELANIE MANCHOT Informing physical processes of drawing that encompass performance practice, running introduces new and radical definitions of what practices since 1945 based in process and conceptual art have produced. In the pursuit of finding the boundary, and the extent to which something can be considered performance drawing, there is a shift in thinking about the body and the performative act. Importantly, the moving body in the work is an internalized declared activity. With the emphasis on subjectivity, the performative – and the concept of performativity as defined by the philosopher J. L. Austin, which is ‘not to describe my doing … it is to do’41 – helps give shape to the defining and narrowing of what this chapter identifies as performance drawing in today’s fine art realm. It also looks closely at the means of sound and the ways of deepening an embodied practice.

60

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Instead of attempting to redefine terms associated with drawing or performance, the artworks cited in this section are used to help define a particular way of illustrating how some artists, whose concern is with the physicality and testing the margins or the parameters, bridge similar concepts around the artist as athlete and/or artist as runner. As artworks that continue to use alternative, unconventional constructs to describe drawing, the following examples demonstrate the extension of how performance drawing, as an operative term, can carry an influence and unfold a broader field. The physical act of running as a method and form of drawing practice encases the notion of performativity in its being – running while thinking about running is a ‘performative act’. The role of sound in the experience of drawing or running contributes to the tactile sensibilities and contributes to the transition of thinking about the body as both object and subject. In durational performances, artists such as Marina Abramović have used the intervention of microphones to amplify bodily sounds (for example, breath and heartbeats) and increase the intensity of the performed action. In the context of drawing in front of an audience, in hearing the weight of the material, the exhausted breath of the artist and the scrape of a tool, sound can be emphasized as an element of drawing that – although it can be subtle – can also empower the drawing process. At the point of contact, when drawing materials connect or the body exerts a certain exhale, a connection beyond sight and vision is sensed and drawing can become even more bodily. Barry Le Va’s Velocity Piece: Impact Run – Energy Drain (1969) consists of two speakers at opposite ends playing a recording of Le Va running back and forth in the gallery.42 The sound of him sprinting and colliding with the wall, as well as the marks and traces left by his body (including blood), exemplifies a conceptual position in art making.43 From Jackson Pollock’s paintings to Trisha Brown’s choreographic gestures and the indexical imprint of Le Va’s moving body on the surface of the wall, this direct type of contact has been an inspiration for many artists: the irrefutable physical evidence of the artist’s presence becoming a trace, a print or a recording recycled and recirculated to bring an understanding to performance. Through reflection upon Le Va’s approach, artists have since experimented with ways in which particular physical qualities related to the expenditure of energy, such as velocity, speed, acceleration and rhythm, produce sound and question movement, and further represent the human body. The soundtrack of Le Va’s sprinting laps, with not so subtle collisions, suggests more than an act of movement but embraces a conceptual meaning and stages a particular aesthetic form. Although seeming somewhat violent and aggressive in nature, the performative aspect creates a simple, delicate and rather humorous notion of physicality. The concept that sound can help materialize and shape an understanding of the body is a profound tool.

PHYSICALITY

61

In 1971, Le Va stated that his work was about time, place and the physical activity; everything our existential experience is about.44 Works such as Le Va’s identify the growing concern of a number of artists working in the 1960s and the early 1970s whose interest was in expanding the experience of art and exploring what art could be in terms of communicating a humble approach to being present and what it means to have a body.45 At a time when artists were expanding forms of practices and placing new emphasis on the viewer’s experience, with works such as Velocity Piece, where visitors could enter a gallery space and experience a single non-visible work (rather than view a space filled with objects), this expanding field of the 1960s and 1970s had a direct influence on and has affected the direction of this area of performance drawing. Le Va’s work clearly identifies the human body as both a non-object and an object that occupies space – in the way the physical act of running connects the viewer with the environment, as well as the size and scale of the human form. Through sound and rhythm, the act of running depicts how a body, like a drawing material, can become depleted and exhausted, unstable and tenuous, yet can mark and trace. And, in the case of Le Va, running can be a method of measuring – the sound of running can define physicality in terms of experience and intervention and shape one’s thinking. As referenced in Chapter 1 in the discussion of Richard Long’s A Line Made by Walking, while there are numerous artworks that use walking, running is prevalent and instrumental in the expansion of new drawing processes. This suggests there is more to uncover in the use of running as a method and skill related to the discipline of physical strength and training in a primordial activity. Running is a method of movement and, according to the biologist Dennis Bramble and the anthropologist Daniel Lieberman, it is more than merely an extension of walking – it is also claimed that it emerged nearly two million years ago as part of Homo sapiens’ evolution and is one of the most single transformative events of human history; they assert it is running that made us human.46 In a fine art discourse concerning the body’s limits, these concepts have consequently introduced an athletic, powerful approach to many practitioners’ methodologies. Artists have used physical activities such as swimming the Channel (British artist, Karen Throsby), wrestling (American artist, Jennifer Locke) and, as identified earlier, triathlon (Dutch artist, Guido van der Werve) in works that decentralize the competitive quality of athletics and rather explore the synergies between action and context. Each artist uses the disciplines of both art and sport to uncover modes of physical effort and strategy and advocate for reluctant repetition and self-controlled determination. Additionally, there is a long list of choreographed movements through dance and sport that can also be considered an expression in this field of intense physical pursuit. Many of the 1960s collaborations between Simone Forti and Robert Morris, Robert Rosenberg and Trisha Brown and, more recently, artists

62

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

such as Katrina Brown and Rosanna Irvine have produced works that draw on the legacy of the seminal Judson Dance Theatre and Steve Paxton’s teachings around weight and the sensation of weight, momentum and gravity.47 Brown and Irvine’s commissioned work surface/sphere (2016) is a video installation based on particular movements in relation to the spine – twist, roll, spiral – and a conceptual event of exploring processes from their ongoing work between paper, charcoal, the body and breath.48 There are many examples of practitioners who intersect dance and fine art, for example artists currently participating in studies at the London-based Siobhan Davies Dance studio, with recent workshops such as Where Dance and Art Meet (2017).49 Evident in its title, the direct influence on performance drawing can be linked and considered. Reflecting on drawing as movement, artists have developed and demonstrated the activity of mark making processes, both visible and non-visible, or rather marking and non-marking, and refer to the temporal and ephemeral (as discussed in Chapters 1 and 5). Via conceptual avenues, these boundaries between performance, drawing and human activity are cognitive processes whether using an instrument such as graphite or using the body as a tool in conceptual or temporal approaches. The action – and context in which the action sits – is an act of thinking through the body, again emphasizing that the approach taken by the artist themselves goes beyond drawing as an objective process and moves into the workings of performativity and subjectivity: to perform with a particular intention is at the root of performance drawing. Hence, running, as a voluntary endurance and extreme action that triggers a more demanding notion of responsibility for action thus producing an experience that characterizes control and agency, feels appropriate. In the past, ancient Greek games, as well as the early modern Olympics, embraced both sport and art within the same occasion.50 However, there are ways in which sport and art can do more than simply operate alongside each other and instead imaginatively bring together grounds for research into movement. Aesthetic experiences can be seen in artists’ works that cross a larger field of research. Humanities and research groups such as Fields of Vision and RUN! RUN! RUN! are actively providing platforms and research models to fill this gap. The organizations recognize that sport and art present opportunities to broaden the field in both disciplines and can positively impact contemporary society.51 For artists, bringing elements of sport into practice as a meaningful and sustainable method enriches a critique of movement but also stretches works into a new arena. As a subject for research, running and drawing have provided artists with inspirational forms of movement and physicality, developing new forms of practice and representation of the body, almost through a scientific lens. As an opportunity for a dialogue to emerge between disciplines and bridge previously confined ideas and ways of thinking within the act of running the process moves the body from a position of the everyday and into an act of

PHYSICALITY

63

enduring resistance against time, science and technology. Training techniques allow the performer (athlete or artist) to adapt and acclimatize and prepare for environmental pressures and physical demands.52 Through repetition and understanding the pressures of situation, the body can act accordingly and allow the intention of the work to be communicated. The crossover and merging of selected artists’ practices rely similarly on the expertise of a skilled and experienced practitioner to focus on the body as a muscle and power to generate performance. Where, in sprint training, athletes use resistance and speed to build muscle and achieve a faster, stronger body and train at higher altitudes or in different temperatures and on different terrains to challenge their regular training patterns, perhaps the artist – like the athlete – defines a practice by certain rules, the testing of material, scheming technique and pattern and prepares a routine following a strict regime to enhance the possibility and the shaping of knowledge through practice. Martin Creed’s Work No. 850 (2008) consisted of a series of runners, sprinting consistently through the Duveen Hall Gallery at Tate Britain, London. For the duration of the exhibition, every 30 seconds an individual ran the 86-metre length of the space. After a runner has made the sprint (which took about 12 seconds) there was a 15-second pause – according to Creed, like a rest in a piece of music. Then the next runner would dash forward.53 In full sprint, the runner’s sound and rhythm reverberated and, according to the writer Katharine Stout, the work presented the presence of a runner as the object of art.54 In many ways, it was a performance, drawing a line in space. Similar to Le Va’s work, the simplicity of running in a particular space created the context and framework and the action became the art. For the viewer of the live performance, a chain of repetitious actions and tensions was created in the act of each run; a contrast in the dynamic movement and posture of each runner could easily be noted. Each runner was instructed to focus and, in Creed’s words, run ‘as if their life depended on it’.55 In Melanie Manchot’s video installation Tracer (2013) (19  minutes and 43 seconds),56 the work presents professional, semi-professional and amateur parkour runners.57 The work focuses on the movement of both body and camera through urban and rural landscapes and, as Manchot describes, draws attention to how human agency may act upon built environments and question the authority inherent to architectural form58 but also provide a heightened sense and understanding of how certain movements produced can generate a different kind of space. As mentioned, in many applications of recording performance drawings, a camera is used to trace and represent the body making a mark. In Manchot’s work, the film-maker speaks of the methods and tactics used to produce the visual representations, as line, and that, for both the artist and runners, it is the philosophical aspects of moving through a landscape that is of interest.59

64

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Manchot explains that, when recording the work and thinking about the viewer, it was important for the film to represent a series of linear movements, by following each parkourist in long cinematic takes as they delineate a given space.60 Through the lens of the camera, the trace(less) materiality and thought of the line are demonstrated. In the film, runners move from one side of the screen to the other – a similar approach to Martin Creed’s work at Tate Britain. It creates a singular forward movement with a line connecting the individual runner to their environment. Runners are signalling a temporal, ephemeral line. Also, in comparison to Creed’s work, it focuses on how running can function as a non-competitive discipline or practice. The practice of parkour can be referred to as an ‘art of displacement’;61 the runners aim to change the perception of urban environments and alter one’s ability to use the body in relation to structures that define our surroundings. It brings an expression of freedom and identity and highlights the tension and formalities between social perceptions, creativity and public space. These issues of the self and the environment are further discussed in relation to Trisha Brown’s performance Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970) in the ‘Embodying historical references’ section.

The act/stillness ROBERT LUZAR / CHARLIE FORD Based on the idea that drawing can manifest an immediate and direct experience, performance drawing can be delineated as movement, or a mode of thinking. The physical act, as well as the mere thinking about a physical act, can correlate with how artists relate to themselves inwardly as well outwardly. An intention of and commitment to ‘being’ and consciously thinking about drawing as movement can elevate the physical experience and operate under philosophical investigations of existentialism. Building on how the moving body in the work is an internalized declared activity, this section shifts gear and looks to the performative as stillness and how thinking relates to the self and world. In addition to Marina Abramović’s current practice that is entrenched in exploring duration, her early collaborative works included Abramović and Ulay’s Nightsea Crossing, a series of twenty-two performances between 1981 and 1987, where the key to duration was an aspect of endurance and being motionless. Abramović and Ulay sat still in silence facing each other for an epic ninety days in total, with each performance consisting of seven daily hours of concentration.62 In an interview discussing the work, Abramović states: ‘unless we become an object, the piece would be entirely unbearable […] it’s another kind of survival.’63

PHYSICALITY

65

Beyond attempting to re-establish the materiality of drawing, here the works focus on the importance of intermittent movement and inner presence. Therefore, it is not only the medium of what drawing can be that is considered but also, at a time when performances are streamed online in real time and presented on various electronic media devices, an integral element of the work is how the artist/performer can demonstrate and convey a rigorous thought process to the viewer. In contemporary works by Robert Luzar, Sonia Boyce, Maria Hupfield, Greig Burgoyne, Didier Morelli and Charlie Ford – who are critical of how movement is employed in their performances and apply a certain approach to gesture, context and scrutiny of sculpture or drawing – their practice can be related to a type of art that presents aspects of stillness and obstruction, embodying a further concept of restraint. Particularly in Robert Luzar’s or Charlie Ford’s practice, most artworks hold a peculiar sense of unease and self-consciousness. In Luzar’s Two-Legged Idleness, Untaped (2013–14), the body in space, as well as the gestures made while the audience members watch, presents a pensive and subtle tone that challenges not only the extent of drawing but movement – an awkwardness that questions if the action (blowing balloons, sticking pieces of tape to the wall, lying on the floor and resting legs against the wall) is to be humorous or incredibly serious (Figure 2.5). The presence of a disciplined body is portrayed, as well as a willingness and intention to use a great amount of controlled energy for a somewhat minimal result. The search for balance creates a muscular tension. In Luzar’s work, standing and lying in subtly still positions provides a way to rethink a collective understanding of the medium of drawing – to take account of the potential to rather quietly present a physical presence and be critical of movement. Perhaps the work is layered with an attempt to have profound control – demanding of the viewer time to contemplate and question subtle idleness and inactivity. Drawing can acknowledge movement not only in the visual traces of an action carried out in time but also by utilizing philosophical and theoretical concepts to conceive a form of mark making – performance strongly places ‘the act’ as a moment simply questing for a sense of presence and liveliness. Through the conscious intention to draw and/or perform, this section considers artworks that build on manifesting a presence as well as the already accepted idea that the line is a means of exploring theoretical and philosophical concepts including the subjective body as a key material element in the work. Luzar’s Two-Legged Idleness, Untaped is a two-person live-art event and Internet-streamed video.64 Performing against a white wall with the light from the projector casting shadows of the body, the performance addresses time-based elements. The video is streamed only in one direction and the projected video appears only in the gallery for the audience members to see (the performing artist cannot see the audience or the other artist).

66

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Figure 2.5  Robert Luzar, Two-Legged Idleness, Untaped, 2013–14. Artist collaborating in work is Johannes Zits, photograph of the work is from the exhibition Life and Limb, at the Orillia Museum of Art and History, Canada, April 3 – June 14, 2014. Photo: Ed Pien.

The artist’s body becomes the agency of obstructed movement, and the notion of drawing is established without the need for the evidence of the mark. For Luzar, ‘drawing is how you start something, how you go on’.65 The only documentation of the live drawing performance is through a selection of still photographs and the collective memory of the audience members present. In Two-Legged Idleness, Untaped (2013–14), there are no specific instructions between the two artists. However, from the pairing of actions and movements made by both, it becomes apparent that one artist appears to respond to the other. The slow-moving silhouettes of both artists’ bodies and the tape adhered to the wall (that eventually drops) are what shapes the narrative. Perhaps the anticipation of ‘nothingness’, or an emptying, as if something becomes nothing, is what makes up the conditions of this work. Between discernment, balance, stillness and movement, the condition indicate an attempt to understand more about spatial awareness and, more broadly, persistence and transience. Luzar considers the work obstructed in the way the two subjects decide to consciously ‘make work’ and perform with these materials and in this specific time without an explicitly formed instruction but to be in the space; every action and decision is scrutinized and almost painfully thoughtful and considered. In some way, the absence of instructions makes for an artwork that is to say barely working.66 Nevertheless, for the viewers, the pace of movement and the choice of materials seem constructed and somewhat choreographed. Like a dancer

PHYSICALITY

67

who counts to music, it appears like a John Cage composition: Luzar’s subjects are in time and reflective of movement in small increments. For Luzar, he selected materials based on consumables and everyday commodities – scissors, wood, sticky notes, Blu-Tack putty, (non-marking) tape and paper – and spaces that resemble home and work offices. His focus is to iterate conceptual problems with materiality and inactive movement. In the area of performance drawing that keenly questions the medium and material and site, Luzar’s work addresses the immediacy and effort of even the simplest of tasks. It challenges terms such as ‘liveness’ and presence in relation to movement. There is no formal recording of the event or possibility of the entirety of the work being seen in the flesh. The playfulness of (unmarking) tape can sometimes drop, signalling an awareness of gravity and loosening the ideals of material – the ideals of materiality being both as Luzar suggests ‘this-is-that and here-and-now’ – substances, the qualities and elements of all things known become.67 Inspired by theoretical and philosophical elements of point, line and plane, Luzar’s work questions gesture and how the body can consistently remain in states of becoming and moving forward.68 For him, the notion of trace(less) is best addressed by making work that sits in two locations at once. It therefore fundamentally obstructs the sense of ‘where’ the work sits and physicality lies. When asked about the materials and context, in contrast to the line, he writes: A ‘point’ … [is] where a work seems to both start and strangely end … all the while perpetually seeming to keep open. It is the ‘betweeness’ of space stretching, the metaphors of indeterminate grey shifting to a stranger pale blue.69 Perhaps the future of performance drawing is this kind of ‘point’: how artists make something from a constructed context and, rather than leaving something of a mark/trace behind in physical space, moves something on – or, in Luzar’s words, ‘traces’ something towards a future form.70 It may be a critical understanding of where drawing and performance intersect, a moment in an artist’s practice that emphasizes the shift from mark making (and potentially risking failure of this) to embedding the simple act of presence as process. The vigour in performance drawing perhaps identifies a particular treatment of presence and the perpetual emptying of material – like the expending of energy in a good run. In Charlie Ford’s current practice, he considers his performance and video works as a type of ‘drawing in space’.71 Similarly, his focus is on gesture and he considers his performances as mark making, measuring and tracing but,

68

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

moreover, addresses thresholds of movement and performs the small details of everyday actions to obstruct their meaning. He writes: Performative actions both allude to everyday life – the objects, costumes, and bodily movements – and disrupt their familiarity through pacing, gesture, and tone. Within this choreography, the stage is set to reconsider the world around us through the space between: stillness and action, object and body, seriousness and humor, control and failure.72 In considering the lens of performance drawing as a tool, in Charlie Ford’s work, he moves from using the body and drawing with charcoal – and what he calls tracing space with marks and representations – to using concepts of drawing to make performance work that uses an object to draw traceless forms – to frame and sculpt and structure space.73 It seems to address how the mind almost separate from the body can move and be present and be evidenced as doing so. In Ford’s series titled Sometimes (2017), the work is durational and specific to the length of the wall. In a room with a DIY shelf sitting loosely on brackets and items such as a jar with water, a stone, brick, some paper and a small pile of gravel on top, as well as a dangling live microphone to amplify sound, the performance starts with the artist taking the shelf at head height and moving it along the side of the gallery wall to the other fixed brackets – which are on the same wall but very close to the floor. Attempting to hold the shelf upright and steady, due to the awkward movement the artist stumbles and alters the evenness of the shelf and, unsurprisingly, the glass jar spills and items fall, tumble and break. For the audience members, Ford’s slow and awkward movements, despite being thoughtfully planned, capture a focused but failed attempt at a task. Despite Ford completing the set tasks, remnants of gravel, broken glass and water lie on the floor and his body lies flat in a resting position, signalling both the mind/body at ease and the performance being over. Trained in dance and choreography from UK, Ford has used the methods and processes of drawing in movement theory and, similar to Robert Luzar, has recently become more interested in describing a suspended space between physical and conscious movement in relation to stillness. Directed now by a fine art and philosophical approach, Ford explores tension, which can be described as the positive and negative conflict of things. Through themes of control and precision, for example, with reference to artists such as Mel Brimfield (On Board, 2010), Erwin Wurm (One Minute Sculptures, 1996–ongoing), John Wood and Paul Harrison (Board, 1993) and Bruce McLean (Pose Work for Plinths, 1971), alongside the seriousness of body and movement, the stillness and simplicity of the task in these works demonstrate a sense of personality and character – like a comedic deadpan stare, humour is imbued.

PHYSICALITY

69

Embodying historical references DIDIER MORELLI / TRISHA BROWN / CARALI MCCALL In many works since the 1960s, stemming from Marcel Duchamp’s subversion of ready-made objects (as early as 1913) and the birth of conceptualism, performance art can generally be defined by ideas and actions that transform objects; artists have tested and experimented with ways to make work and evolved processes to challenge and inspire new ways of thinking. Ultimately, by forming a new relationship between artist and audiences through dematerialization and shifting the attitudes towards the role of the artist, performance drawing has emerged from this legacy and way of working with a certain rigour and intellect. In addition to this, the body as a figure and object of art has long been an aspect and element of practice; what performance drawing does is activate the corporeal and bodily presence as participatory, not only transforming the art object but de-emphasizing its use and captivating the immediate and sensorial physical acts of movement and making for viewers. The term contributes to conceptual, process-driven artworks that embody historical references, and engaging audience members strikes the core of performance drawing. In the claim that performance drawing can be identified in terms of being physical, instructional and ephemeral – which links to the 1960s conceptual modesty and humour – the political content and contribution to fine art practice, in terms of methods and expanding definitions of what art can be, perhaps brings the most value. Alongside key themes and artworks that incorporate the entire body, in seminal works such as George Brecht and Fluxus’s Event Score (as described in Chapter 3) and Tehching Hsieh’s Cage Piece (see Chapter 1), engaging audience members and creating a sense of participation are critical. Studio-based work has proven to be a key root system for experimental processes and collaborating with both materials and peers (studios can create a space for thinking); performance elevates the importance of the public realm and exchanging ideas, influences and inspirations – it creates a different kind of space for making. The artist Didier Morelli keenly addresses historical references as well as notions of materiality, spectatorship and limits of the impossible/possible. In his ongoing project Walking Through Walls, Morelli engages with building structures in urban and public spaces by pressing and pushing up against them  – bringing focus to the specific parts of the body, he wrestles and struggles to find ease and movement in the absurd act of trying to walk through the wall. Holding conversations with passers-by on the street – Morelli’s performances, documented on film, critically look to social engagement and perspectives on authority and empowerment. He states: ‘I often find myself identifying with marginalized groups where “otherness” and failure to “succeed” is not viewed

70

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

as a state of passivity and inaction but one of potential growth, empowerment, agency and knowledge.’74 Referring specifically to both Barry Le Va’s and Trisha Brown’s works mentioned in this chapter, Morelli has a deep connection to athleticism and the infrastructure of a city. Looking at the body in space, like in many works discussed in this chapter, he works with repetitive, cyclical acts, addressing time and timelessness and attempting an exploration into physicality. Trisha Brown’s Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970) was first performed in New York, making architecture the basis for a choreographic score and live public performance (Figure 2.6).75 The work featured a dancer poised perpendicular to the ground, descending the facade of a seven-storey building.76 Altering the ordinary act of walking, it became an achievement of athleticism and a form of physical expression.77 This work has since become a key foundation and resource in connecting the disciplines of dance and fine art, architecture and performance, and championing how different forms of site-specificity and explorations of public places can bring together notions of movement, suspension and stillness. In ways that challenge the naturalized movement through urban spaces, Brown’s work poses questions of aesthetics and materials; it addresses access and mobility in terms of the physical as well as communal public spaces; and, in terms of gravity, it challenges the perspective of our relationship to the body in space, and what that can do to our imagination.78

Figure 2.6  Trisha Brown, Man Walking Down the Side of a Building, 1970. Photo: Carol Goodden.

PHYSICALITY

71

In referring back to the parkour running in Manchot’s film Tracer, the potential to engage with the possibilities presented by the environment and architectural buildings invokes a question around context and the role of the performer in a public space. For Brown’s Man Walking Down the Side of a Building, the original performance took place as part of a self-organized programme titled Dances in and Around 80 Wooster Street and was conducted outside of institutional authority.79 Directing attention to what artists have to offer in thinking about space and creating opportunity for performances in public spaces conjures a collaborative and institutional approach to working. In reference to the seminal work Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970), the artist Carali McCall’s proposed performance Run Vertical: Running Up the Side of a Building makes a direct link to a way of thinking, in that artists today are nostalgists just as much as they are Futurists and they seek to find re-signifance.80 Considering this act of drawing on architecture and public space to construct a live performance, and redoing the past, there is an act of facilitating and acknowledging history, yet a drive for an unmediated experience in the present. A belief that existence can be enriched if one sets about the task, and acts as if those limits can be exceeded, albeit repeated or performed with confidence, and in recognition that they are not completely original.81 Without delving into comparing and contrasting the works, like many of Brown’s recent re-performed or re-enacted performances, most importantly the performances are part of programmes and must therefore be institutionally sanctioned.82 There is also an essential understanding of questioning how each new work sits in relation to the previous. This contextual shift is an example of the new arenas artists have adapted to since the 1960s. For the performance Run Vertical, the artist Carali McCall proposes to run towards the Tate Modern’s chimney and then seamlessly transition to the vertical, running up the entire building using a harness, ropes, mechanical equipment and a team of engineers. Leaning on the artist’s earlier practice and previous artworks that utilize running as a method of making work, it also builds on the interest in reactivating the histories of performance, paying homage to and addressing the bewilderment that the artist and audience experience and that artists studying and working in the field of performance today adhere to and follow. For historians, Run Vertical signifies a nod or rather a nudge to the artworks made in the age of questioning what the position for a female artist is, as well as starting to examine and expose how institutional bodies govern permissions and health and safety risks. McCall’s work, like Brown’s, also seeks to reactivate and address how the city can be used as a surface to engage with as a material and source of inspiration – albeit, rather than walking, demonstrating and promoting running as an empowering and artistic activity. Returning to the physical act of running ‘as’ drawing, the work embraces the idea that the body is not passive in the act of drawing but that the artist brings a

72

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

particular agency to the work; comprehensive training is involved for an artwork and the artist’s experience is one that exceeds the object of art (be it through the body in a live performance, video or sound recording).83 Run Vertical is another example of the body’s necessity to build muscle and develop an understanding of balance and gravity as a personal relationship to then engage the public audience. Like many artists discussed in this chapter, McCall arrived at her professional practice from an interest in the body as a physical tool and consequently developed a performance drawing practice that uses running and trace(less) forms as an integral methodology. Presenting a development in thinking – from using the body as a tool (for mark making) to challenging the urban environment and its buildings with the action of running as an ‘authorized’ form – the work can be traced to an influence shaped by the concept of the line, task-based works and physicality in fine art practice. It facilitates history and establishes a practice in running that uses architecture to create another avenue for ways to consider limits and a perspective of the body in art.

Conclusion According to the cultural history writer Thor Gotaas, there was a significant boom in the 1980s of Western cities and the public participating in the activity of running,84 and, since the turn of the twenty-first century, there has been a rise in the number of people who use running as a fundamental part of their professional practice. As mentioned in this chapter, more and more platforms are available that account for the swell in interest and the desire to endorse the simplicity of a creative action, and thinking of it so; however, this raises the problematic issues of the symptoms of ‘art as a form of life’ and that ‘anything can be art’, which can cause division between practice and theory. Highlighting seminal works that have inspired this emerging field of performance drawing and discussing various uses as an operational term, this chapter celebrates how art and everyday actions can connect and diverge into cross-disciplinary practices. For artists working in the realms of drawing and performance, which can be underpinned by philosophical questions of line and movement, the chapter closes by opening up the social connections and cues from experiencing performance and a live drawing work, and attempting to enrich the strong relationship between body, time and space and contribute to the legacy of artists honing their skills and enriching the future of drawing. Addressing how the body in art begins to appear in wider multidisciplinary modes of research, and exemplifying new practices and methods of communicating, the artworks presented in this chapter have aimed to reveal

PHYSICALITY

73

how practitioners have come to understand and utilize the body as material and site – and, moreover, endorse the primitive and familiar discipline of running to suggest that running, like drawing, can be an extreme but fundamental form of human movement and discovery; further, in the event of scrutinizing and suggesting stillness, the performative act and being consciously aware of the body and any movement can also be identified at the core of an artist’s work. With these configuring elements and methods of art practice that illuminate shifting attitudes towards drawing and the variable extent of how drawing and movement can be classified and described alongside performance, it is inherently interesting to consider the future potential of using the body as a drawing device – making lines through the landscape and exploring new territory; ultimately, linking these drawing processes to what makes us human and creating new practices with agency, sincerity and drive.

Notes 1

Performativity refers to the term performative according to J. L. Austin and later described by the theorist Judith Butler, and can be defined as to ‘repeat the meaning in an act’. See Judith Butler, ‘Burning acts, injurious speech’, in Andrew Parker and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, eds, Performativity and Performance (London: Routledge 1995), p. 197.

2

In reference to Matthew Barney’s notebook on his Drawing Restraint series as a student, he writes: the athlete is the alchemist, in Matthew Barney on the Origins of Drawing Restraint (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2006), video, 1min 32seconds, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83WTxmkye04 (accessed 3 May 2020).

3

Carolee Schneemann, More Than Meat Joy: Performance Works and Selected Writings (New York: McPherson & Company, 2003), p. 231.

4

In ‘Interview with Kate Haug’ in Carolee Schneemann, Imaging Her Erotics: Essays, Interviews, Projects (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), Carolee Schneemann states: ‘Could I include myself as a formal aspect of my own materials? Could a nude woman artist be both image and image maker? Those were critical concerns at the time. I was constantly told that I shouldn’t even be painting: You’re really good for a girl, but …’ (pp. 21–44).

5

Guggenheim, ‘Matthew Barney’, Guggenheim website, https://www.guggenheim. org/artwork/artist/matthew-barney (accessed 7 November 2017).

6

Matthew Barney states from the start he wanted to put his body into the work, as well as his own experiences. The most profound experiences Matthew Barney had at that point were from the football field, in Matthew Barney on the Origins of Drawing Restraint (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2006), video, 1min 32seconds, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83WTxmkye04 (accessed 3 May 2020).

7

Neville Wakefield, ed., Barney: Prayer Sheet with the Wound and the Nail (Basel: Laurenz Foundation Shaulager, 2010), exhibition catalogue, p. 13.

74

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

  8 Nina Papazoglou, ‘Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle and the ordeal of value’ (PhD diss., Goldsmiths, UAL, 2013), p. 112.   9 Ibid. 10 Drawing Restraint 1–6 (1987–9) are a set of studio experimental works that were documented using video and photography. Drawing Restraint 10–16 (2005–7) are site-specific performances that recall the earlier works. In other phases of Barney’s Drawing Restraint series, the project developed into a more complicated structure, incorporating narratives taken from biographical foundations and mythological constructs and working with wider cultural themes such as sexuality, war and death. See Papazoglou, ‘Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle’. 11 Carali McCall, ‘The line is a brea(d)thless length: Introducing the physical act of running as a form of drawing’ (PhD diss., Central Saint Martins, UAL, 2014), p. 103. 12 Tania Kovats, ed., The Drawing Book: A Survey of Drawing: The Primary Means of Expression (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2005), p. 14. 13 McCall, ‘The line is a brea(d)thless length’, p. 7. 14 Tim Ingold, Lines: A Brief History (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 47. 15 Ben Rubin, We Believe We Are Invincible (New York City: National Track and Field Hall of Fame, 2004) video, 9 minutes 18 seconds. 16 McCall, ‘The line is a brea(d)thless length’, p. 14. 17 Distinct from ‘body art’, which can highlight the visceral or abject aspects of the body, and focusing on bodily materials or the ability to suffer flesh-like pain, see, for example, Amelia Jones’s survey: Amelia Jones, Body Art/Performing the Subject (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998). 18 Guido van der Werve, Nummer Veertien, video, http://roofvogel.org/ (accessed 25 November 2017). 19 Reid Singer, ‘Endurance sports as performance art. Literally’. Outside, 6 December 2013, https://www.outsideonline.com/1920461/endurance-sports-performance-artliterally (accessed 1 June 2020). 20 Van der Werve, Nummer Veertien. 21 Guido van der Werve, ‘Guido van der Werve in conversation with John-Paul Stonard’, Somerset House London, 13 November 2017; event attended by Carali McCall. 22 Singer, ‘Endurance sports’. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Van der Werve, Nummer Veertien. 27 Ibid. 28 Guido van der Werve, Nummer Veertien (The day I didn’t turn with the world) (LIMA, 2007), video, 8 minutes, 36 seconds, http://www.li-ma.nl/site/catalogue/art/guidovan-der-werve/nummer-negen-the-day-i-didn-t-turn-with-the/11379 (accessed 26 November 2017). 29 Singer, ‘Endurance sports’.

PHYSICALITY

75

30 Ibid. 31 Lisa Stansbie, ‘The performance of the Channel swimmer: Time-based rituals and technology’, in Kristy Buccieri, ed., Body Tensions: Beyond Corporeality in Time and Space (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2014). 32 Linda Montano, Performance Artists Talking in the Eighties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p. 331. 33 McCall, ‘The line is a brea(d)thless length’, p. 119. 34 Using the outline shape of written words, Court made drawings that present a basic unit of understanding and a symbolic structure. See, Steve Pratt, ‘Mirroring dyslexia: The power relations of language, The drawings of John Court (2006–2007)’, in John Court Drawings (Oulu: Kaleva Print, 2007), pp. 1–4. 35 John Court, interview with Carali McCall, 13 September 2017. 36 David Roberts Art Foundation (DRAF). ‘DRAF Studio – Stuart Brisley, DRAWN (2–5 Mar 2016)’, DRAF, website, http://davidrobertsartfoundation.com/live/draf-studio-_stuart-brisley/ 37 Interview with Carali McCall, 24 February 2019. Brisley went on to say: ‘Imagine the pencil being held between finger and thumb, being drawn metaphorically into the body, where the action of drawing might take place in the ways the human figure moves and negotiates substances and forms etc. The title DRAWN also refers to the body and its own disassembly found in sources of European art.’ 38 Stuart Brisley, interview with Carali McCall, 24 February 2019. 39 Raphael Rosen, Math Geek: From Klein Bottles to Chaos Theory (Holbrook, MA: Adams Media Corporation, 2015), p. 241. 40 Stuart Brisley, ‘Biography’, Stuart Brisley website, http://www.stuartbrisley.com/ pages/21 (accessed 22 October 2017). 41 See J. L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 6. 42 Rhea Anastas, Pamela Lee, Paul Virilio and Ingrid Schaffner, Accumulated Vision: Barry Le Va (Philadelphia: Institute of Contemporary Art, 2005), exhibition catalogue, p. 84. 43 Peter Eleey,‘If you couldn’t see me: The drawings of Trisha Brown’, Walker Art Center website, http://walkerart.org/collections/publications/performativity/ drawings-of-trisha-brown (accessed 12 June 2017). 44 Liza Bear, ‘Discussions with Barry Le Va’, Avalanche, no. 3 (1971): 66. 45 Rosalind Krauss, ‘Sculpture in the expanded field’, in The Originality of the AvantGarde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979), pp. 277–90. 46 Lee Siegel, ‘How running made us human: Endurance running let us evolve to look the way we do’, ScienceDaily, 24 November 2004; McCall, ‘The line is a brea(d)thless length’, p. 123. 47 Katrina Brown, Translucent surface/Quiet body, a choreographic report, in Performance Research ‘On An/Notations’ Vol. 20 Issue 6 (Dec 2015) pp. 101–5. 48 Katrina Brown, interview with Carali McCall, 28 November 2017. Katrina Brown and Rosanna Irvine’s work surface/sphere (2016) was commissioned by Siobhan Davies Dance/InDependent Dance for the WHAT Festival 2016: What remains… Anatomy of an Artist.

76

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

49 Siobhan Davies Dance, newsletter, September–December 2017, http://www. siobhandavies.com/media/uploads/files-downloads/sdd-newsletter-autumn-2017web.pdf (accessed 17 November 2019). 50 Fields of Vision: A Manifesto for the Arts and Sport Together; Manifesto, https:// artsinsport.wordpress.com/a-manifesto-for-the-arts-and-sport-together/ (accessed 10 September 2017). 51 Ibid. 52 In considering the developments in technology and the advancements in human capabilities, work presented at the Wellcome Trust’s ‘Superhuman’ exhibition in 2012 holds potential interest. 53 Charlotte Higgins, ‘Martin Creed’s new piece for Tate Britain: A show that will run and run’, The Guardian, 1 July 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2008/jul/01/art.tatebritain1 (accessed 30 November 2017). 54 Katharine Stout, Martin Creed, No. 850 (London: Tate Publishing, 2008). Published on the occasion of the 2008 Tate Britain Duveens Commission by Martin Creed: Work No. 850, 1 July–16 November 2008. 55 Higgins, ‘Martin Creed’s new piece for Tate Britain’. 56 Commissioned by Great North Run Culture, Melanie Manchot’s film Tracer (2013) features ten parkour runners, or traceurs, from the north-east of England making their way along the course of the Great North Run, http://greatnorthrunculture.org/ aboutcommission198a.html?commid=63 (accessed 14 November 2017). 57 Melanie Manchot, Tracer, video, 19 minutes and 43 seconds, http://www. melaniemanchot.net/category/tracer/ (accessed 14 November 2017). 58 David Whetstone, ‘Interview: Film-maker Melanie Manchot on Great North Run culture’, The Journal, 13 September 2013, http://www.thejournal.co.uk/culture/filmtv/interview-film-maker-melanie-manchot-great-5922312 (accessed 14 November 2017). 59 Melanie Manchot, interview with Carali McCall, 31 March 2020. 60 Originating in the suburbs of Paris in the late 1980s, ‘art of displacement’ and ‘free-running’ are terms referred to as parkour. It can be described as a physical activity adapted to the prevailing environment and is a dynamic interaction with that environment. Practitioners of parkour are also sometimes referred to as ‘traceurs’ from the French word meaning bullet. Niell Brown, ‘The art of displacement: Parkour as a challenge to social perceptions of body and space’, http://www.aughty.org/ pdf/art_of_displacement.pdf (accessed 31 March 2020). 61 Pomeranz Collection, ‘Marina Abramovic & Ulay’, Pomeranz Collection website, http://pomeranz-collection.com/?q=node/39 (accessed 28 November 2017). 62 Montano, Performance Artists, p. 331. 63 Robert Luzar, interview with Carali McCall, 16 August 2017. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 Robert Luzar, ‘Rethinking the graphic trace in performative drawing’, Theatre and Performance Design, vol. 3 (June 2017): 50–67.

PHYSICALITY

77

68 Robert Luzar, interview with Carali McCall, 16 August 2017. 69 Ibid. 70 San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), ‘Charlie Ford: Between’, SFAI website, http:// immaterial.sfai.edu/post/163452915440/charlieford (accessed 16 August 2017). 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 Didier Morelli, ‘About Didier Morelli’, Didier Morelli website, https://didiermorelli.com/ About-Didier-Morelli (accessed 28 July 2019). 74 Susan Rosenberg, ‘Trisha Brown (1936–2017): Remembering the choreographer who forever changed the landscape of art and dance’, Frieze, 31 March 2017, https://frieze.com/article/trisha-brown-1936-2017 (accessed 14 November 2017). Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970) was performed on Brown’s building of residence at the time, 80 Wooster St, New York. It was recorded on 16 mm film and has since been transferred to video; it exists as a silent, black-andwhite film, 2 minutes in duration, and was gifted to MOMA in 2017: https://www. moma.org/collection/works/117939?locale=en (accessed 9 September 2017). 75 Ibid. See also Susan Rosenberg, Trisha Brown: Choreography as Visual Art (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2016). 76 Ibid. 77 Acatia Finbow, ‘Trisha Brown, Man Walking Down the Side of a Building 1970’, case study, Performance At Tate: Into the Space of Art, Tate Research Publication, 2016, http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/performance-at-tate/case-studies/ trisha-brown (accessed 9 September 2017). 78 Ibid. 79 Luke Turner, Metamodernism Manifesto, http://www.metamodernism.org/ (accessed 10 March 2018). 80 See also Timotheus Vermeulen and Robyn van den Akker, ‘Notes on metamodernism’, Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, vol. 2 (2010). 81 Ibid. 82 Most recently, Man Walking Down the Side of a Building was performed by BANDALOOP in 2016. 83 McCall, ‘The line is a brea(d)thless length’, p. 5. 84 Thor Gotaas, Running: A Global History (London: Reaktion Books, 2009), p. 267.

78

3 COMMUNICATING: DIRECTIVES AND/OR INSTRUCTIONS THAT PROMOTE THE ACTIVITY OF DRAWING Following on from discussion in earlier chapters of the physicality of movement expressed through the line, the focus here changes from the material and the bodily to address the communication of an intended concept behind an artwork and how the realization of that intention may come about through collaborative drawing. Drawing is explored as a conceptual practice in which an idea is manifested as a mark through the performance of another. The artworks gathered come from the fields of performance art, experimental music, spiritualism, mechanical sculpture and computer art, but they all share an investigation into the act of communication and how this might be translated into action. In his essay ‘Encoding/Decoding’,1 the cultural theorist Stuart Hall presents an argument that meaning is not inherent or innate in a message transmitted through mass media. It is not fixed and determined by the original author but is part of a whole process of communication. Any message (and this includes a work of art) made for public viewing goes through a number of separate stages to create a process of communication. The message is first produced and put into a form in which it can be circulated and is then distributed and displayed before being viewed and consumed. Hall likens this process of communication to coding. The production process involves firstly the artist having an intention to make something and then secondly carrying out that intention to make a work. In Hall’s terms, the artist’s intention is encoded into the work and, as this happens within a specific historical, economic, cultural and social context, these ideological factors are also encoded into the work. After it has been made, the message (or artwork) is then open to interpretation by the receiver (or viewer) who may operate within an entirely different historical, economic, cultural and social

80

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

context. Thus, Hall considers the act of viewing to be a process of decoding, which may lead to a re- or misinterpretation of the original message if the viewer does not have access to the same codes as the original author. Whereas Hall’s theory of communication could apply to any artwork, what is relevant to this chapter is the concept of a process of ‘encoding’ when the work is made and ‘decoding’ when the work is viewed. The artworks under consideration in this chapter are not personally completed by the artist, but, through an act of communication, they utilize the participation of another to decode and enact their instructions. This is not in the manner of a Renaissance studio in which a ‘master’ artist directs apprentices to complete their paintings for them in the master’s own signature style but rather a conceptual choice to create something only partially finished so that it can be completed with different variations added by the contribution of another. To use Hall’s terms, the first stage of this process is the act of encoding, when the artist expresses their intention for a work of art using a form of language or visuals to create a plan. Next, these ideas are stored as text or image and delivered to another, who will interpret (or decode) these instructions and then carry them out. This approach to art practice is what Umberto Eco has called an ‘open’ work.2 There is no single, fixed outcome or product; these works are explicitly designed to be interpreted in different ways. Examples of this form of practice covered in the chapter include instructions defined in the form of text as a ‘score’ before being publicly performed as a drawing; notation drawings created to serve as instructions for performances; coded messages from the spirit world enacted as drawn images; and programmed drawings generated by digital algorithms and machines. The discussion starts with a focus on John Cage and his influence on avantgarde performance practice in which different forms of notation are used to communicate an idea that participants execute to complete the performance. This has a direct bearing on the work of Alison Knowles, whose #5 Street Piece (1962), as stated in the Introduction, prompted the first usage of the term performance drawing by Catherine de Zegher.

Directives for performance: Event scores and instruction paintings Musical scores are used by composers to give specific instructions to musicians about how to reproduce a piece of music in a particular manner. Notation in the form of lines, notes and a system of symbols forms a shared language about musical scales, duration and rhythm. In his essay ‘The Poetics of the Open Work’ (1962), Eco describes this thus:

COMMUNICATING

81

a classical composition […] posits an assemblage of sound units which the composer arranged in a closed, well-defined manner before presenting it to the listener. He converted his idea into conventional symbols which more or less oblige the eventual performer to reproduce the format devised by the composer himself.3 Experimental use of the score in avant-garde performance practice was popularized in the art world of the 1950s through the influence of the composer John Cage. Considered today as a seminal work that heralded multi- and crossdisciplinary performance and collaboration, Untitled Black Mountain Piece (1952) can be seen as a reflection of the sociopolitical discord of its place and time. In the shadow of the Cold War, the influence of McCarthyism continued to cast its paranoid spell (Charlie Chaplin was denied re-entry to the USA for his socalled un-American activities), the USA was testing atomic bombs in the Pacific Ocean and US troops were fighting in the Korean War, and at the same time the iconic Hollywood film Singing in the Rain premiered. Bearing in mind this schism of activity and thinking, Untitled Black Mountain might in its context of 1950s America seem to be a logical response to those chaotic times. Cage’s method of producing a performance event used chance due to the multiple possibilities for individual interpretation of a minimal set of instructions whereby each artist was given a randomly allocated time period: Projector: Begin at 16 min. Play freely until 23 min. Begin again at 24:30 Play freely until 35:45 Begin at 38:20 Play freely until 44:25 Untitled Black Mountain Piece, 19524 After his death, one unsigned page of Cage’s score for Untitled Black Mountain Piece was discovered with these simple instructions written down. The staging was influenced by poet and playwright Antoine Artaud’s The Theatre and its Double,5 in which Artaud altered the traditional positioning of stage and audience by placing the audience at the centre of the action. Although no images have been found to date that were made at the time of the work, Mary Caroline Richards, one of the artists who took part in the event, drew a floor plan from memory for the writer William Fetterman in 1989.6 Richard’s remembered floor plan positions the audience in the centre of the event, while another plan reconstructed in 1965

82

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

(in an interview with Cage)7 has the audience seated in four triangular sections, the wide aisles between each section forming a cross.8 In addition to how it was staged, Untitled Black Mountain Piece expanded the perimeters of contemporary practice to include multidisciplinary (dance, poetry, performance, music, sound, visual art) collaborative scored and directed works. Recollections by the collaborating artists of what actually happened are various and, at times, contradictory. Some recall that Merce Cunningham was chased by a dog9 while dancing through the performance space – the Black Mountain college dining hall (and also while dancing outside). David Tudor played the piano (and a radio). Cage delivered a lecture from the top of a ladder (some have said Cage spoke from behind a lectern) on Zen Buddhism (though some witnesses have said it was the Declaration of Independence and Cage himself recalls giving his Juilliard lecture which ends ‘a piece of string, a sunset, each acts’).10 Robert Rauschenberg played Edith Piaf records on an old-fashioned phonograph. Tommy Jackson did impressions in ink. Nicholas Cernovich projected a film. Richards and Charles Olson climbed ladders and recited poetry.11 Perhaps the absence of an original comprehensive score (if indeed there was one), the joyously unfixed and sometimes contradictory recollections by the artists involved and the lack of visual documentation of the event have all contributed to this work’s legendary reputation, despite the fact that, according to William Fetterman, ‘the significance of this performance was not appreciated at the time’.12 Indeed, Untitled Black Mountain Piece subsequently came to be known as the first ‘Happening’.13 This seminal work marked an important shift in fine art practice, breaking away from the traditions of a conventional theatrical performance, whose shape in space and time depends on a fixed physical position and a written script, towards an embrace of flux, both in the composition of the instructions and in the means by which those instructions may or may not be followed.14 Thus, the end product of the scored instructions are not prescribed; rather, the process of individual interpretation and the response to the instructions become the focus of the work: the chain of events and the possibility of chance iterations. Cage’s approach to composition represented a paradigm shift in music: away from melody, harmony and rhythm as the basis of musical experience to an exploration of duration, sound and silence. He aimed to relinquish authorial control by the composer, open the mind of the listener and engulf them in the present moment. Cage had come to think of music ‘not as a communication from the artist to an audience, but rather as an activity of sounds in which the artist found a way to let sounds be themselves’.15 His work uses the form of music to reflect upon the concept of music. In his composition 4′33″, a period of time – four minutes and thirty-three seconds – is specified during which no instruments are played nor sounds of any kind made. Originated in 1952, the score for this piece was expressed through a series of different conventions.

COMMUNICATING

83

Initially described in conventional musical notation, graphic notation was subsequently used in the form of two continuous vertical lines framing either side of the white space of a paper page in 1953 and, finally, during 1958–60, it was written out as descriptive text.16 This silent work foregrounds the context in which it is performed rather than the musical performance itself. Anything that is heard comes from the listener’s active attention to noise in the ambient environment. As in many of his other works, this composition shows the influence of Zen Buddhism, on which Cage had attended lectures by the Japanese author and teacher Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki at Colombia University from 1949 to 1951, just a few years after the end of the Second World War.17 Indeed, 4′33″ recalls a form of meditation known as Mindfulness of Listening in which the instruction is simply to pay close and undivided attention to sound. From 1958, Cage taught an influential course in Experimental Composition at the New School for Social Research in New York. Founded in 1919 by progressive teachers from Columbia University who took a stand against the USA joining the First World War, the New School proposed ‘a more relevant model of education in which faculty and students would be free to honestly and directly address the problems facing societies’.18 By this time, Cage had come to think of music ‘not as a communication from the artist to an audience, but rather as an activity of sound in which the artist found a way to let sounds be themselves’.19 Many artists and composers who attended Cage’s course would later be identified with the Fluxus group, such as George Brecht, La Monte Young, Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, Allan Kaprow, George Maciunas and Toshi Ichiyanagi. Students were encouraged to go beyond conventional ideas of how music is made and to think of it as ‘events in time-space’ and ‘time-structures’.20 They were encouraged to experiment sonically using toy instruments and objects such as radios. The course outline from the New School Catalogue gives a sense of the ideas that would be explored: Course Outline: (Experimental) Composition Experimental music, a course in musical composition with technological, musicological, and philosophical aspects, open to those with or without previous training. Whereas conventional theories of harmony, counterpoint, and musical form are based on the pitch and frequency components of sound, this course offers problems and solutions in the field of composition based on other components of sound: duration, timbre, amplitude, and morphology; the course also encourages inventiveness. A full exposition of the contemporary musical scene in light of the work of Anton Webern, and present developments in music for magnetic tape (musique concrete: electronische musik).21

84

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Cage’s students, in particular George Brecht, Allan Kaprow, La Monte Young and Alison Knowles, experimented with a combination of art, performance and musical form. One such outcome was the Event score, pioneered by minimalist artist and composer George Brecht and later adopted by many other artists for Fluxus performances. Prior to working with Cage, Brecht had been studying strategies for the creation of unpredictable outcomes through chance operations in the work of Duchamp, Jackson Pollock, Dada and the Surrealists in order to uncover methods for transcending the ego and moving away from intent.22 Brecht’s Event scores comprised a written proposal and/or instruction for action – and so, the instructive score became a method that could encompass any manner of actions and might also be repeated in different sites and various ways. Between 1959 and 1962, he had written more than a hundred of these in the form of a few lines of text written on a white card.23 Brecht’s Word (1961) consists of one solitary instruction – ‘Exit’. The simplicity of this direction can be interpreted by a multitude of different actions – exiting a room, making an Exit sign, exiting through an Exit, planning a stage exit and so forth.24 Brecht’s Event scores can be read and enacted as live performance with or without an audience or even simply imagined in the mind of the reader. They are designed to apply the kind of focused attention normally reserved for a work of art to an everyday occurrence and resist closure with their many different possible iterations representing constant change. Brecht compared his Event scores to the haiku – a form of three-line Japanese poetry in which words are kept to a minimum and the reader must use their imagination to complete the scene.25 The Event scores need to be contemplated or interacted with in real time to make sense of them. In this there is also evidence of the influence of the Zen Koan – short poetic riddles that novice monks contemplate as part of their training and journey towards enlightenment. Inspired to apply Cage’s notion of ambient sound as music to performance, Brecht incorporates actions from everyday living into his Event scores, mixing art and life. Indeed, just as Cage’s musiques-concrète (1939) – musical compositions constructed from elements of found sound26 – extended Marcel Duchamp’s idea of the ready-made object to sound, with his Event scores Brecht extended the ready-made action into performance, through using simple activities from daily life as material27 – like the telephone ringing – as the following works demonstrate: Three Lamp Events on. off. lamp off. on. [1961]28

COMMUNICATING

85

Three Window Events opening a closed window closing an open window [1961] Three Broom Events broom sweeping broom sweepings [1961]29 Encompassing everyday activities, Brecht’s scores are accessible for others to enact and are also iterative. Another person completes the instruction, which adds the element of chance. Rather than a one-off creation, they can be repeated by others with many different variations according to the personal interpretation of the participant. Another student of the New School for Social Research, the artist and graphic designer George Maciunas, founded the short-lived AG Gallery in New York in 1961, where he hosted exhibitions and literary and musical programmes with artists, writers and composers whose works included concepts of collaboration, code and directive, such as George Brecht, La Monte Young and Yoko Ono. Together with Dick Higgins, in 1961 he planned a magazine to include artworks and writing that would be called Fluxus. Although the magazine did not materialize, the term he had coined continued to be used to refer to this loosely associated, international network of people who were connected through publications, festivals, events and concerts.30 Echoing the 1920s Dadaists, the (initially) European anarchical artist movement responding to the horrors of war, Maciunas outlined that the purpose of Fluxus was to ‘promote a revolutionary flood and tide in art, promote living art, anti-art’.31 He organized the Fluxus Internationale Festspiele Neuester Musik (Fluxus International Festival of Very New Music), the first official Fluxus festival in Wiesbaden 1962 (including performances by artists such as Nam June Paik, Alison Knowles and Dick Higgins)32 and went on to co-ordinate many other Fluxus events. Following on from the Cold War with its climate of espionage and paranoia and leading up to the growing wave of protests against the Vietnam War (1955–75), a perfect storm had brewed in America for the explosion of nonconformist creativity. The New York critic Irving Sandler was witness to one significant moment highlighting this dramatic shift in creative practice. Sandler recalled that in 1958 the artist Allan Kaprow in an Abstract Expressionist ‘hang out’ declared, ‘I am convinced that painting is a bore. So is music and literature. What doesn’t bore me is the total destruction of ideas that have any discipline.

86

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Instead of painting, move your arms; instead of music, make noise. I’m giving up painting and all the arts by doing everything and anything.’ Sandler went on to explain that, like his mentor John Cage, Kaprow was calling for artists to break down all barriers between art and non-art and that the avant-garde art world would never be the same.33 Kaprow’s declaration heralded the burst of multi-, cross- and interdisciplinary works, Happenings, Action Painting, Performance and expanded Theatre in New York’s 1960s art community. Although Brecht is often credited with the invention of the Event score, anticipating these by several years, Yoko Ono’s instruction paintings also invite the viewer to use their imagination to complete a scenario that she has constructed and, in some cases, this involves mark making. She is often thought of as influenced by Fluxus; however, Ono’s ideas were established prior to the foundation of this group and can more accurately be considered as proto-Fluxus. Although they share similar concerns to the Event score, her instruction paintings predate the formation of Fluxus by several years.34 One of her earliest pieces is Lighting Piece (1955): Lighting Piece Light a match and watch it go out 1955 autumn35 As this work shows, Ono had discovered the concept of score independently from the Fluxus artists through a combination of her own musical training and interest in Japanese haiku poetry from an early age in Japan.36 In her 1966 statement To the Wesleyan people, she points to a childhood influence: ‘The painting method derives from as far back as the time of the Second World War when we had no food to eat, and my brother and I exchanged menus in the air.’37 Ono initially called these works ‘unfinished paintings’ as they need to be actively completed by the viewer.38 The dialogic form of the Zen Koan, a form of experiential, intellectual puzzle given by a teacher to novice monks in which the meaning is not immediately apparent and needs to be actively engaged with in order to gain the wisdom behind the lesson, clearly inspires how the work is engaged with. Ono was not concerned with public display or theatricality but ‘a dealing with oneself’.39 Her work inspires a contemplative and conceptual reading that goes beyond the surface of representation and requires the viewer to perform or visualize the instruction painting for themselves according to their own interpretation of her instructions.40 In a statement made in 1966, Ono said of her instruction paintings: Instruction painting separates painting into two different functions: the instructions and the realization. The work becomes a reality only when

COMMUNICATING

87

others realize the work. Instructions can be realized by different people in many different ways. This allows infinite transformation of the work that the artist himself cannot foresee, and brings the concept of “time” into painting. It immediately eliminates the usual emphasis put on the original painting, and art comes down from the pedestal. Instruction painting makes it possible to explore the invisible, the world beyond the concept of time and space. And then, sometimes later, the instructions themselves will disappear and be properly forgotten.41 The action of walking features in her Map Piece (1962), which combines the imaginary with everyday lived experience and suggests drawing as a form in which to do this: Map Piece Draw an imaginary map. Put a goal mark where you want to go. Go walking on an actual street according to your map. If there is no street where it should be according to the map, make one by putting obstacles aside. When you reach the goal, ask the name of the city and give flowers to the first person you meet. The map must be followed exactly, or the event has to be dropped altogether. Ask friends to write maps. Give your friends maps. [Summer 1962]42 In Painting to be Stepped On (1960), the viewer literally completes the work through marks made by their own physical activities: Painting to be Stepped On Leave a piece of canvas or finished painting on the floor or in the street [1960]43 Deceptively simple, Painting to be Stepped On was intended as a reference to the persecution of Christians in Japan in the 1600s. Those suspected as Christians were tested by being asked to step on a painting of Christ or the Virgin Mary. If they refused, they were assumed to be Christian and crucified.44 The

88

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

action of walking over a painting also challenges the idea of permanence and painting as a valuable material object of economic exchange. Ono’s first show of instruction paintings, at the AG Gallery in 1961, featured canvases with instructions attached to them but was widely misinterpreted as a collection of calligraphic works since the text was written by hand.45 Thereafter, the text was printed and displayed as a work in itself. Of this conceptual leap Ono said: in 1962, I did an exhibition of instruction paintings at Sogetsu Art Center in Tokyo. A year before, I did a show of instruction paintings at AG Gallery in New York, but that was exhibiting canvases with instructions attached to them. Displaying just the instructions as paintings was going one step further, pushing visual art to its optimum conceptualism; it would open up a whole new horizon for the visual arts. I was totally excited by the idea and its visual possibilities. To make the point that the instructions were not themselves graphic images, I wanted the instructions to be typed.46 With a background in music, Ono organized a series of concerts with La Monte Young in her Chambers Street loft apartment. During one of these, Ono created one of her first performances. Involving mark making in an enactment of her Kitchen Piece, she smashed and smeared eggs, jam and ink onto a canvas and then subsequently set fire to it. Kitchen Piece Hang a canvas on the wall. Throw all the leftovers you have in the kitchen that day on the canvas. You may prepare special food for the piece. [Winter 1960]47 Although a painting is conventionally considered as a closed act of artistic production, like the Event score, Ono’s instruction paintings resist traditional notions of individual authorship and are open to how they will be enacted. In this they have a relationship with musical notation. Described by a musical score, the composition of a piece of music is typically thought of as the work itself, with each performance of the composition an iterative interpretation. The experimental composer La Monte Young had been another of John Cage’s students at the New School for Social Research and was also inspired to extend the paradigm of the composition to describe both music and other kinds of actions. His 1960s compositions were concerned with duration and repetition. In Composition 1960 #7, musical notation depicted the notes B and F♯ with the

COMMUNICATING

89

accompanying direction ‘to be held for a long time’.48 With Composition 1960 #10 the instruction ‘Draw a straight line and follow it’ has a similar concern with duration, a continuation of one activity and holding at a constant level. His own performance of this instruction involved sighting with plumb lines and drawing on the floor with chalk.49 At the Fluxus Internationale Festspiele Neuester Musik in Wiesbaden, 1962, the experimental composer and media artist Nam Jun Paik presented a free interpretation of Young’s Composition 1960 #10. Since musical compositions are written for musicians to interpret, authorship in the moment of performance becomes intertwined between composer and interpreter. Although he followed Young’s instructions, Paik’s Zen for Head (1962) was very different from Young’s earlier version enacted with chalk. Paik dipped his own head into a bucket of ink and, using his hair as a brush, dragged his head along an extended sheet of paper to paint a line. This act referenced the traditional art of Zen calligraphy on paper scrolls,50 in which the careful creation of text serves as an act of meditation. Similar to Ono’s Kitchen Piece, there is an implied mockery of action expressionism and (but unlike Ono, who is very respectful) also perhaps of the fetishization of Zen Buddhism by his fellow artists. Brought up within this tradition himself, Paik had a more critical approach to it and he is recorded as regarding Zen as responsible for poverty in Asia.51 Through his physical act of mark making to interpret Young’s composition, Paik’s version adds new layers to Young’s original composition in a collaborative act of combined intentionality.

Figure 3.1  Alison Knowles, rolling up paper from a work by Fabrizio Manco, Workshop at October Gallery, London organized by the International Centre for Fine Art Research (ICFAR), University of the Arts (UAL), 2009. © M. Foá.

90

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Also associated with the Fluxus group, Alison Knowles (see Figure 3.1) has employed the Event score form since the 1960s, and she has established a working process in which performance, drawing and sound are intrinsic components of her practice.52 At a time when the second wave of Western Feminism was at its peak, women fought for workplace equality, and reproductive rights, yet continued largely to be objectified in the contexts of mass media and everyday life. Knowles’s actions, sometimes employing domestic items and sometimes enacted out on the street, were audacious in their quiet yet continual challenge to the conventions of the female positioning of those days. Significantly, her works can also be seen to have had a direct influence on the evolution of ‘performance drawing’ as a concept. Her interest in ‘simple actions … ideas, and objects from everyday life re-contextualized as performance’53 is demonstrated in the following street-based works: #5 Street Piece (1962) Make something in the street and give it away. Premiered in Aug, 63. #9 and #11 are really variations on this piece. #9 Color Music #2 (1963) Print in the streets. 1st movement: orange 2nd movement: black 3rd movement: blue Performed on Canal street, NY, in 1963. #11 Printing Piece [On 30 May 1964 at Fluxhall in New York, Alison Knowles silkscreened images on any and all objects, animate and inanimate, which were brought to her for imprinting. Felt to be too close to #5, this piece is officially deleted from Alison Knowles’s canon.]54 Based on #5 Street Piece, Giveaway Construction was performed in 196355 and was also later recorded as being performed at a Canadian ‘Works’ Festival in the 1970s.56 Giveaway Construction was explicitly referenced in 2001 by The Drawing Center, New York, when, to accompany a series of five solo exhibitions of work by ‘artists who explore the intersection of drawing and performance’,57 they published their Drawing Papers 20: PERFORMANCE DRAWINGS Make something in the street and give it away – Alison Knowles, Street Piece, 1962. This use of the term ‘performance drawing’ to describe a drawing that took place as a performance is arguably the first time that the term was used and, therefore,

COMMUNICATING

91

it can be claimed to have been coined by The Drawing Center’s then director, the writer and curator Catherine de Zegher. Additionally, the publication of Drawing Papers 20 can be argued to mark the genesis of a specific genre that is performance drawing, allowing for a reclassification (and perhaps reclarification) of previous works (such as La Monte Young’s Composition 1960 #10 and Nam June Paik’s Zen for Head (1961) – described earlier in this chapter). By naming Knowles’s work in the subtitle of Drawing Papers #20 and the year it was first performed, The Drawing Center underlines the era when fine art was freed not only from traditional practices but also from the physical confines of interior spaces. Knowles’s multidisciplinary practice evidences the interwoven relationship at that time between emerging methods of creativity, physical performance, mark making, drawing, the musical score and the newfound freedom to make work in environments beyond the usual four walls of fine art white cube spaces on the streets and in other places. In her essay ‘The Drawing as Instrument’ in Drawing Papers 20, Elizabeth Finch explains how this creative practice, merged from the joining of two different disciplines, was naturally inclined to leave its original habitat: ‘[a]s drawing gained prominence, precisely because of its ability to register gesture, it was shifted out of the studio and into the world at last’.58 This shift from private interior space to public exterior space marks a dramatic change. The shift is not only in context but also in terms of process and clarification because, when a work is made in the public domain, that work becomes subject to the gaze of the passers-by, the other, and therefore the work can be said to be a performance. In addition, a work that is beyond shelter in a public outside environment is exposed; that is, the materials, the performer and the outcome are subject to influences of the unexpected and unscripted. Serendipity comes into play when work is performed outside, both in terms of natural events (rain, shine, hail) impacting the work and in relation to the passerby, the unprepared witness who may respond in any manner. They may cheer or harass or they might ignore the performance altogether. Whichever they choose to do becomes an integral aspect of that performance; whether related by word of mouth or recorded in text or images, every response is archived as evidence of the work. Writer-director and performance artist Laurie Carlos acknowledges that the other’s role, as witness/responder, is actually in itself a crucial and ‘performing’ component of the live art process. In her essay on live performance, Carlos goes as far as to say that current critical theorists believe the presence of the other ‘is essential to the completion of the work’59 and that the other’s ‘live immediate response to art work’60 is also a performance. Tom McDonough describes Knowles’s 1960s New York street events as focusing on the context of the performances, the position of the practitioners, and the audience in relation to those performances made outside in public on the streets.61 ‘Spectators were entirely optional,’ McDonough explains ‘and the

92

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

performers were often the only witnesses to the undertakings.’62 McDonough notes that Knowles described collaborators as ‘adopt[ing] a perception of a free-floating attention’. Knowles herself states that she aimed to draw attention to the act of listening in the present moment.63 As McDonough observes, the process of the performance is of primary importance, not the end product, and the works expressed ‘the fundamental logic of the drawing: the production of a line that … marked the separation of and joint between two spaces’,64 concluding ‘event scores’ were ‘proposals for drawings in real space, to be inscribed into the realm of everyday life’.65 Since the early Fluxus works, other artists have worked with the concepts of scores and multiple authorship for the production of indeterminate outcomes. Inspired by the Event scores of Knowles and Brecht to create works explicitly conceptualized as performance drawing, Foá, Grisewood, Hosea and McCall work together as a group to create projects that reject individual authorship and explore procedures to introduce improvisation, spontaneity and chance into their multimedia mark making. During a residency in the Centre for Drawing’s research space at Wimbledon College of Art in London, they developed a collaborative performance, ARC: I Draw for You (2010), (see Figure 3.2) which combined live action mark making through graphite and white light with sound and animation. Following earlier experiments, including work for Joined Up, a contemporary collaborative drawing exhibition in 2009, for which they combined different material surfaces and marking tools to follow a series of rules in the surrealist tradition of ‘exquisite corpse’, the group sought a democratic methodology to allow each individual practitioner to come together in the making of the work and also to be able to bring in external contributors. Referencing the written directives of Fluxus and developing an idea from her Driftsong Drawing series, M. Foá created ARC, a method to include artists from different locations in collaborative works. The concept of ARC grew from a visualization of communication technology: the image of a signal beaming from its source (in one location) and arcing over to its receiver in another place. These short written scores were Action Relayed Collaboration, hence they were referred to by the acronym ARC. The potential of a range of social media and teleconferencing technologies was explored to aid creative collaboration between different locations and time zones, such as documenting our work in progress through blogging and YouTube, writing collaboratively with Google Docs and publicizing our events through Facebook. To enable a broader and more interactive collaboration, national and international artists were invited to complete an instruction or suggest one, thus adding further variation and layering in the project.66 During the period of the residency, the ARCs were transmitted by handwritten or typed notes, telephone, SMS messages, email and Skype. The mobile phone became a key tool to deliver ARC instructions irrespective of location, providing an intimate and immediate connection. This methodology of collaboration between group members and invited guests kept the work developing, alive and full of surprises.

COMMUNICATING

93

Figure 3.2  Foá, Grisewood, Hosea, McCall, ARC: I Draw For You, 2010. A live performance drawing at the Wimbledon Centre for Drawing, London. Photo: Nick Manser.

Multimodal in their conceptualization of mark making, the ARCs explored vision, touch, light and dark, time and duration, sound and mapping. Some rules denoted particular durations and materials while others were open to interpretation. The instructions included: • Draw 40 circles in light • Take two sticks and make a rhythm. Mark that rhythm on the wall. Duration: 2 Minutes • With eyes closed and kneeling on the floor draw a continuous line on the wall to the silent count of 100 • Holding your breath draw a line around someone else’s drawing for as long as you can hold your breath67 The materials used to action these scores ranged from basic drawing mediums of charcoal and graphite, through sound, to virtual ephemeral marks generated from digital light that weaved back and forth in interaction with the physical marks on the wall. This was created by a Tagtool – an instrument for performance drawing with light linked to a projector, computer and Wacom tablet.68 During the ARC: I Draw For You performance, the instructions for ARCs were transcribed onto index cards and laid face down on the floor for the four performers to pick up and action at random in front of an audience. One ARC

94

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

invited a member of the audience to participate – this fell to artist Avis Newman. Instructed to use ‘the light tool’ (intended to refer to the Tagtool), Newman’s interpretation was to draw very lightly and with the lightest material available.69 Because what was written on the cards was subsequently carried out, the ARC instructions can be seen to have animated the participants. Therefore, in her reflection on the work, Birgitta Hosea considers this performance as a live animation: a layered moving drawing that emerges over time. Partially drawn in graphite, partially drawn in light, it echoes the media of traditional drawn animation and is recorded in sequential photographs and video documentation.70 Newman’s interpretation of the ARC instruction in a manner unintended by the artists raises the issue of the creative possibilities that result from different interpretations or even misunderstandings of text. The Australian artist Nicci Haynes works with text to generate her drawings, and costumes that she performs in, in a process of becoming drawing. Often the focus of this is the struggle to translate her lived experience of the world into language. In a series of works, Her Words My Body (2012–13), Haynes sent drawings to the poet Angela Gardner who, in return, sent lines of poetry back. Haynes describes their process thus: More than verbal communication, the dialogue between us occurred via the images, words and prints that we posted to each other. The exchange began with photocopied gestural etchings, Nicci to Angela. Words were returned. The poem travelled back and forth; crumpled, collaged, photocopied, layered, printed on a costume, as performance documentation. Text was liberated from the page and found its way back again, gestures interchanging with words as they moved between the page and the body.71 Their collaboration resulted in a performance at the Queensland Poetry Festival in 2013, in which Gardner read poems to a backdrop of moving images made by Haynes. This video was created from photographs documenting drawings, drawn costumes and actions that Haynes had performed for the camera in her studio. However, the interchanges between their different disciplines and manners of articulation were not always straightforward. Haynes relates: After the postal back and forth was completed I confessed that I had not understood some of the poetry and selected a line of poetry, asking what it meant. Gardner, in response, pointed to marks in my etching asking me what it meant. I understood by this interaction the word of the poet to be itself a gesture.72 Thus, the artist understood the line of poetry physically in terms of gesture and the poet understood abstract marks linguistically in terms of poetic metaphor: each adding an unforeseen dimension to the other’s contribution.

COMMUNICATING

95

As a means to relinquish control over the execution of their artistic intention, the written score allows the artist to, in the words of Eco, ‘reject the definitive, concluded message and multiply the formal possibilities of the distribution of their elements’73 and thus introduce an element of chance through the unpredictable variable of the participant who carries out the work. By his conceptualization of the ‘open’ text, Eco is not referring to a finished work of art that contains sufficient ambiguity to invite a number of different interpretations; indeed, he notes that in a sense any artwork can be thought of as ‘open’: on account of its susceptibility to countless different interpretations which do not impinge on its unadulterable specificity. Hence, every reception of a work of art is both an interpretation and a performance of it, because in every reception the work takes on a fresh perspective for itself.74 Rather, the works he refers to are quite literally ‘unfinished’, and ‘the author seems to hand them on to the performer more or less like the components of a construction kit. He seems to be unconcerned about the manner of their eventual deployment.’75 However, there is a caveat. Eco cautions as to how open the ‘open’ work really is. The artist has already defined the parameters of the rules and named this as a work made through their own authorship: The possibilities which the work’s openness makes available always work within a given field of relations. […] it is not an amorphous invitation to indiscriminate participation. The invitation offers the performer the opportunity for an orientated insertion into something which always remains the world intended by the author.76

Graphic notation for performance In addition to the role of language in the form of written text to delineate instructions for a work of performance, visual forms of communication have also been used to enable a greater degree of indeterminacy and variability in how the instruction is interpreted. In 1940s Rio, the Brazilian composer Heiter Villa-Lobos had ‘dr[awn] the outline of the mountains he saw onto his music paper […] and used that drawing as his melodic line’.77 However, it was the French composer Erik Satie whose ‘pre-compositional rhythmic structure’ for René Clair’s film Entr’acte (1924)78 could be said to be a point at which traditional musical notation broke away from a conventional form. Satie’s unique approach in re-forming the musical score, ‘us[ing] measures […] that most closely matched the average length of a single shot in the film’,79 encompassed ‘jump-cuts, anti– variation, non-development, directionless repetition’80 and looked like a tumble

96

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

of numbers, letters and notes running down the page in an unruly list. In addition to the influence on him by visual artists such as Duchamp and Rauschenberg, Cage thought Satie’s work ‘indispensable’81 to the development of experimental music, and its break from traditional notation heralded the visual score. In New York, during the early 1950s, Cage was associated with three young composers, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolf and Earle Brown. According to the composer and writer Michael Nyman, Feldman was the first to use ‘nonrepresentational graphic representation. His Projections of 1950–1 are aptly named since his aim was not to “compose” but to project sounds into time, free from a compositional rhetoric that had no place here’.82 Feldman’s graphic scores had an ambiguity in comparison to classic music notation that Cage called ‘indeterminate with respect to its performances’.83 Earle Brown’s December 1952 (1952) is a contender for the first noteless graphic score. Inspired by Alexander Calder mobiles, this series of horizontal and vertical lines on a page was generated mathematically through the use of random sampling tables.84 The image was designed to be open to a number of musical interpretations; as Brown stated, it could be played ‘in any direction from any point in the defined space for any length of time and may be performed from any of the four notational positions in any sequence’.85 In one of his own experiments with the representation of music, Williams Mix (1952), Cage used a reassemblage of magnetic tape recordings and made a score on graph paper with gridded squares that ‘did not remotely resemble a traditional score’.86 Cage stated: ‘Since so many inches of tape equal so many seconds of time, it has become more and more usual that notation is in space rather than in symbols of quarter, half, and sixteenth notes.’87 Thus, the ability to transcribe compositions that no longer needed to comply with any traditional musical convention expanded the possibilities of what a score could actually be, both in content and in visual form. Helen Molesworth believes that it was the work Williams Mix that ‘led Cage towards his lifetime of chance procedures’,88 yet Michael Nyman would have it that ‘Cage’s use of the I Ching […] as a pre-indeterminancy method of “letting sounds be themselves,” [was] as much the logical outcome of his earlier methods as they were evidence of his deepening attachment to the Zen philosophy of non-involvement’.89 The use of chance procedures resulting from the interpretation of images was also used in performance art. Alison Knowles included images in the form of found printed ephemera and drawings in her event scores and directions.90 Indeed, Knowles and Cage worked together to compile Notations (1969), a book of graphic scores and texts by composers selected from the archives of the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts. Chance-based operations were used to select typefaces and the amount of words through the use of the I Ching. During the 1960s, Cage’s, Brecht’s and Young’s verbal and visual scores were a source of inspiration to the experimental composer Cornelius Cardew,

COMMUNICATING

97

whose work spanned the visual and the musical in its concerns with the use of drawing as a tool to engage with improvisation and collaboration. Classically trained at the Royal College of Music in London, Cardew served as Karlheinz Stockhausen’s assistant in Cologne for three years between 1958 and 1960. Upon his return to London in 1961, he took a course in Graphic Design and worked intermittently as a graphic designer as well as teaching classes in composition.91 While working as a designer, Cardew produced Treatise (1963–7): 193 pages of symbols, lines and abstract shapes without any explanation as to its meaning beyond an empty series of five-line staves running across the bottom of each page to indicate that the interpretation should be musical. His intention was to get away from classically notated and prescribed music in order to create a system that would enable musicians to develop spontaneity rather than being bound by formal musical conventions or traditional hierarchies. However, Cardew feared that classically trained musicians would not be able to freely improvise but would instead fall back on remembered cliché and learned, automatic responses. His ideal musicians would therefore be ‘musical innocents’ who, while unskilled in reading conventional sheet music, were able to respond skilfully to visual images and convert these into sound: Mathematicians and graphic artists find the score easier to read than musicians; they get more from it. But of course mathematicians and graphic artists do not generally have sufficient control of sound-media to produce ‘sublime’ musical performances. My most rewarding experiences with Treatise have come through people who by some fluke have (a) acquired a visual education, (b) escaped a musical education and (c) have nevertheless become musicians, i.e. play music to the full capacity of their beings.92 Following this score was intended to provide coherence and structure to link together musical improvisations by a group of individuals who would provide a series of responses to this central act of authorship. Cardew began teaching a class in experimental music at Morley College, London, in 1968, which brought him in touch with other musicians with similar interests in experimentation. In conjunction with Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton, he formed the Scratch Orchestra in 1969, a large experimental group who toured in the UK and internationally. This collective was intended to question the definition of music and how it was presented, as noted in the draft constitution: Definition: A Scratch Orchestra is a large number of enthusiasts pooling their resources (not primarily material resources) and assembling for action (musicmaking, performance, edification).

98

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Note: The word music and its derivatives are here not understood to refer exclusively to sound and related phenomena (hearing, etc). What they do refer to is flexible and depends entirely on the members of the Scratch Orchestra. The Scratch Orchestra intends to function in the public sphere, and this function will be expressed in the form of – for lack of a better word – concerts.93 Anyone could join and the aim was to: change the traditional forms of music so that anyone, whether musician, painter, bank clerk, teacher, student or labourer could participate. This was a reaction against the elitism in the classical and avant-garde music circles.94 As opposed to having a conductor or artistic director, their concerts were ‘designed’ by rotating members of the group – starting with the youngest. The members were encouraged to devise ‘improvisation rites’ to build upon in their performances, which were defined as follows: An improvisation rite is not a musical composition; it does not attempt to influence the music that will be played; at most it may establish a community of feeling, or a communal starting-point, through ritual.95 One such rite by Richard Reason is given as follows: All seated loosely in a circle, each player shall write or draw on each of the ten fingernails of the play on his left. No action or sound is to be made by a player after his fingernails have received this writing or drawing, other than music. Closing rite: each player shall erase the marks from the fingernails of another player. Your participation in the music ceases when the marks have been erased from your fingernails. (Groups of two or more late-comers may use the same rite to join in an improvisation that is already in progress.) (blank pages for addition). [#14 Richard Reason, 1969]96 Graphic scores were used instead of traditional musical notation and created collectively. They were built from experiential research that each member would record in a Scratchbook – incorporating text, drawings, maps, diagrams, photographs, actions, ephemera and even snippets of musical notation. Any kind of visual material was regarded as a potential score for a performance.97 This assemblage of materials would then be interpreted by the others in the form of ‘musical’ performance. Any member who created a composition through these

COMMUNICATING

99

methods could have their work trialled by the orchestra.98 Personally acquainted with Brecht, who came to the UK to teach at Leeds College of Art in the late 1960s and participated in several concerts of theirs between 1969 and 1970, the orchestra also performed works by Cage, Brecht and Young – or even of all three at once, as in their performances at the Commonwealth Institute, London, in 1967.99 Following a period in which the group reviewed their working practices and politics, the group split into two factions in 1971. Those who wanted to continue with formal experimentation left and those who stayed adopted a more politically engaged Marxist-Leninist position to create work that would be popular with the people. Issues of discontent that led to the split included complaints that, despite using accessible methods to make music democratically, individual members did not always show commitment to the ideals and what they created was not always appealing to a popular audience: We found, in practice that what we wanted to achieve did not happen. What actually happened was that only a handful of people wanted to hear us play, and most of those who did come left well before the end of the performance […] To know how to play an instrument properly was considered a disadvantage; though we were a group, supposedly working together, members of the group performed as individuals, doing their own thing regardless of the group as a whole; ordinary people thought our music was meaningless, the only section of the public to take us seriously were the very elite we were rebelling against.100 The group was no longer operational by 1974, when, in a book entitled Stockhausen Serves Imperialism, Cardew came to denounce his own work, as well as that of Cage and Stockhausen, as too liberal and insufficiently revolutionary. His work changed direction to explore the form of the folk song to raise popular consciousness. Andrea Phillips argues that the work of Cardew raises important issues about the nature of collaboration and improvisation, with implications for contemporary concerns with participation and relational aesthetics.101 His work followed a trajectory from the rejection of conventional music structure in his search for methods to embrace spontaneous improvisation; then to an exploration of practical and ethical methods in which to mix trained and untrained practitioners in a non-hierarchical group for creating collaborative practice; and then finally a return to more popular forms of song in order to have relevance to a wider audience. Phillips asserts that the process of improvisation can have more relevance to the artist as a method of production than to the audience: If improvisation in its utopian forms is an ethical promise to the player (in that it offers the potential of equality; of an aesthetics born of the desire for true

100

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

democracy) then in performance it cannot be that for the listener … whose role is extraneous in many ways to the capacity of the work.102 However, she considers Cardew’s work as a useful case study for forms of art practice that go beyond using improvisation as a superficial, stylistic device and seek social engagement through the process of how and where they are made and through constant reflection and analysis. Graphic forms of notation have been in use not only for the creation of music but also for other forms of performance such as dance. Whereas graphic notation in music is intended as an imprecise vehicle of expression that requires the contribution of a musician’s act of interpretation, dance notation such as the Beauchamp–Feuillet notation, recognized by a French act of Parliament in 1666, or the Labanotation system provides choreographers with a precise manner in which to transcribe, store and communicate specific information about movements of the human body in three-dimensional space.103 Graphic information can also be used as a form of directive for more spontaneous, collective social activity and chance encounters with public space. In her book Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit suggests that Suriname-born Dutch artist Stanley Brouwn, who was associated with the international Fluxus group, was most likely the first artist to transform walking into performance.104 Absorbed in line and movement, duration and measurement, Brouwn was influenced by Cage’s systems of indeterminacy and his work is included in Cage and Knowles’s Notations book. Brouwn’s works explore chance and randomness through ready-made marks from the actions of everyday encounters in the urban environment. In Steps of Pedestrians on Paper (1960) and View of a City in 24 Hours (1963), he captured the marks of passing pedestrians and/or cyclists on sheets of paper laid out on the street. From the 1970s onwards, he recorded his own footsteps in different cities on index cards that were stored in grey metal filing cabinets.105 The traces of footprints and wayward directions of his works augment the allure of his own absence and presence. Working with sets of rules, a number of his works are participatory and activate the spectator to record or respond to codified instructions for him. Anticipating the later work of Richard Long, in 1962 he composed a ‘work concept’ on a typed card: ‘a way across a field on exactly the same straight line from A to B: every day, all year long’.106 This was a proposition to be completed in the mind of the viewer who could imagine the line that would be created by such activity and shows an affinity with Brecht’s Event scores and Ono’s instruction paintings. Later, in 1971 he built on this earlier work. In his gallery in Amsterdam, he displayed a monitor showing live action footage from an adjoining side street with a caption underneath saying, ‘Walk from point A to point B.’ Unwitting passers-by would follow his instructions with no knowledge that they were performing for him in the gallery.107

COMMUNICATING

101

In his project This Way Brouwn (1962), he asked pedestrians to draw directions to another part of town for him. In his own words: Brouwn is standing somewhere in the world. He asks a random passer-by to show him on paper how to get to another place in town. The next passer-by tells him the way. The 24th, the 2,000th, the 11,000th passer-by tells Brouwn the way. This way Brouwn. Every day Brouwn makes people discover the streets they use.108 He would later stamp these explanatory sketches with the text ‘This way Brouwn’ and exhibit them. Finally, he compiled them into an artist’s book. In this project by Brouwn, drawings are created that rely on networks of relations generated through a series of chance encounters, but the nature of these interactions remains unexamined. In asking for directions from passers-by, he positions himself as an outsider, as a stranger, lost and unfamiliar with which way to go or how to navigate the city. It is not recorded whether the notoriously private artist experienced racism while soliciting these drawings on the streets of 1960s Europe or if the work was intended as a comment on feelings of cultural dislocation as a migrant to Europe. Brouwn’s work engages with directives in several ways. His ‘work concepts’ invite others to walk for him, but this is turned around with This Way Brouwn in which he invites strangers to make instructional drawings in the form of sketched mappings of the city that he himself could carry out. Cage also used mapping as a form of instruction. In a later work, 49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs (1977), a tribute to the city of New York, Cage created a graphic score directing his audience to listen to the auditory experience of the streets. This urban sound map was created by Cage by superimposing forty-nine triangles onto a map of New York City and inviting listeners to go to the different places on the map where an apex of a triangle had been drawn. In this way, Cage directed his audience to listen or record the sounds at those places in New York City. Cage’s drawing became a geographical score in real time and place, ever-changing, unfixed, unpredictable and encompassing the character of the city.109 Engagement with the city and social relationships through a geographical, graphic score can also be seen in the contemporary work of InspiralLondon (see Figure 3.3). This is an ongoing, artist-led project, initiated and facilitated by Charlie Fox and Counterproductions, in which a loose collective of artists, writers, architects, geographers, planners, urban explorers and walking enthusiasts join together to follow a 300-mile trail defined by a spiral line drawn upon a map of London. This line hacks into existing routes, turns through London six times and crosses the river Thames ten times to reach its final destination at Gravesend North.110

102

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Figure 3.3  Counterproductions, InspiralLondon Metropolitan Walking Trail, 2018. © InspiralLondon CIC.

InspiralLondon developed out of De/Tours, a series of artists’ interventions for decentred space during the Marseille–Provence European Capital City of Culture celebrations in 2013 that included ‘performances, situations and artistic research practices, which interrogated the implicit assumptions that underpin the production, creation and reception of such large-scale public festivals’.111 The artists worked with the GR2013 walking trail as a site for their works – a newly established, semi-urban walking trail over 365 km that encircles Marseille. Their projects sought to interrogate notions of capital, culture and public art in the city, to reinvigorate radical practice from the margins and to consider the position of the outsider, the foreigner. In the InspiralLondon project, the shape of the spiral trail defines the site that the walkers encounter by chance and, as such, influences the inspiration and setting for their actions and encounters, as Fox describes: The in/spiral shape of the walk is a drawing, but as a form of mapping or direction. In that sense it acts as the directive for the project. Without that simple act of marking the trail form, designing or creating a walk trail would involve a myriad of criteria and be dependent on a host of potential directions. In that sense the drawing of a snail spiral shape on a map of London acts as the foundation for the walk. It gives its reason to be and its structure. From that point on any adjustment or deviation refers back to the initial form. Inevitably, the form then becomes a potential space and line of activity on

COMMUNICATING

103

which invention, experiment and exploration is allowed. Suddenly the drawing has given us license to call the walk a trail, to make it public, to talk about this new possibility.112 Members of the group take turns to lead the walk and adopt various strategies for artistic interventions in the city, performances, site-specific readings and performative tour guiding in the role of various characters. Divided into thirty-six segments, the core group initially walked them on a monthly basis, taking three years to complete the trail in its entirety. Following a spiral line through London defies the time-stressed logic of taking the quickest and most direct route from A to B and passes through unexpected and unfamiliar streets. This becomes a way to discover and engage with the social reality of the city as the walkers visit a mixture of suburbs and inner-city estates not usually considered as obvious leisure destinations. In the words of the organizers: The walk is both an artistic assembly and a form of democratic action allowing members of the public, walkers and participants to use the trail as a pathway to discover and experiment within the metropolis London. We use the whole of the City and its hinterland as one vast art space in which to rethink and re-imagine the built environment, as a place of extraordinary variety, contrast and potential, and as a tour of the places we no longer see or have forgotten.113 With the establishment of the trail, the group organize regular walks and art events along different segments that are open to the general public. While the InspiralLondon walking trail is a way to create chance social encounters and bring art into the city through following the trail of a drawn line, in Angela Rogers’ Drawing Conversations series (2006) drawing is used more explicitly as a process to notate social encounters (see Figure 3.4). Practitioner and researcher, Rogers114 uses dialogic drawing to facilitate social encounters and invites a stranger to make a drawing with her. She has done this in random everyday contexts such as during train journeys but also within the more formal setting of a gallery. Her work draws upon Martin Buber’s notion of ‘images of the inbetween’ – the space in between people in which innovation and invention could take place.115 After drawing with people during a project at the Phoenix Gallery, she asked them questions about their experience of the process of making a drawing with her. Rogers’ resulting interviews raise interesting issues about the process of collaborative drawing and reveals a number of anxieties that the participants had about connecting to another on an intimate, nonverbal level: about the judgements that could result from relative levels of skill between the two parties; about a potential power struggle to take the lead on visual direction and a fear about the loss of complete control over the drawing.

104

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Figure 3.4  Angela Rogers and Denise Turner, Drawing Conversations, 2016. © Angela Rogers.

Considering the use of graphic notation in music by Cage and Cardew, alongside the use of visual directives in works by Brouwn, InspiralLondon and Rogers illustrate how drawing can be used not simply to record a representation of audio, urban and social encounters between participants but also to direct and inform these activities. Indeed, Rogers concludes from her own work that ‘drawing’s potential as a social activity is unrealised’.116 If participatory drawing can be used as an activity to connect both people and different geographical spaces, could it also be used to transcend the human body and communicate with the spirit world?

The allographic: Messages from the other side Cage had not been alone either in using imagery to transcribe the auditory experience of music or in being influenced by spiritual practices. The visualization of music inspired some of the pioneers of abstract painting, such as Wassily Kandinsky, with his Composition series (1910–39) in which geometric shapes reference musical notation and colour is intended to represent musical sound. Inspired by the Theosophist Madam Blavatsky to produce a ‘new manner of expression’ that could ‘clothe the new truths’,117 Kandinsky aimed to go beyond

COMMUNICATING

105

the conventional, representational painting style of his era. As detailed in his book On The Spiritual in Art (1911), where, for example, he considers light blue to be like a flute and dark blue like a cello,118 Kandinsky argued for the use of music as a model for an art that could go beyond the representation of objects in order to achieve insights into spirituality and consciousness: A painter who finds no satisfaction in the mere representation of natural phenomena, however artistic, who strives to create his inner life, enviously observes the simplicity and ease with which such an aim is already achieved in the non-material art of music.119 Although he is often referred to in the canon of Western art as the first abstract artist, there were others before him who used abstract imagery to express spiritual dimensions. So far in this chapter, art practices have been examined in which either textbased instructions are used to describe an activity or drawing that another will perform or drawings are used as a directive for action. In this process of communication, an artist’s intent is codified into language or visuals, stored as text or image and then delivered to another, who will interpret the instructions and carry them out. In the works that follow, the artist is not the originator of the intention behind the drawing. Indeed, the artist sees themselves as a means for another to make a drawing, in other words, as a medium. Predating the Surrealists and their experimentation with séances and automatic writing, directed by the guidance of a number of spirits, Georgiana Houghton produced 155 striking watercolour drawings, which she exhibited at an ambitious solo show in Old Bond Street in 1871. It was uncommon for women artists to have their work shown at this time, certainly not in a solo show, and, more significantly, abstract work such as this had never been seen before. It predates Kandinsky by several decades. Her colour palette was so unusual that her cousin feared her work would give her brain damage: ‘the action of those brilliant colours would be injurious to the brain and produce all kinds of dreadful calamities’.120 Although she received some money through entrance fees, one sale and a commission, the exhibition was a commercial failure and left her in dire economic straits.121 The brave and startling work she displayed received mixed reviews, ranging from ridicule in the popular press to lavish praise in Spiritualist circles, a movement that was widespread in the Victorian era. Spiritualism originated in America with the Fox sisters in 1848 and arrived in the UK with the American medium Mrs Maria Hayden in 1852.122 During Spiritualist séances, participants would attempt to contact the spirits of departed loved ones who were considered to have crossed over to the spirit world. Certain individuals, known as mediums, were considered to be more sensitive to these spiritual presences and able to pass on their messages to the earthly realm.

106

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

These messages could be verbal or given in the form of ‘automatic’ writing or drawing. One of the first medium artists to be documented is Anna Mary Howitt. She had previously trained at Henry Sass’s Art School, at the same time as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, had exhibited her paintings at the Royal Academy and established a group called ‘Sisters in Art’. However, after criticism of her work by John Ruskin, she gave up her former practice and under the influence of Spiritualism began to produce automatic drawings. Her spirit drawings are possibly the first to be shown in public and were reproduced in a book on Spiritualism by Camilla Crosland in 1857.123 Many of the leading figures in the Spiritualist movement were women and it proved an empowering environment for them to be involved in where their endeavours were taken seriously. Georgiana Houghton was part of a genteel network of ‘private mediums’ who did not charge for their services, and she regularly attended séances with many of the key figures of Victorian Spiritualism such as Madam Besson, Agnes Guppy, Daniel Dunglas Home, John Murray Spear and spirit photographer Frederick Hudson. Although many of these were later exposed as outrageous frauds and the descriptions of séances she provides at times strain credulity, the impression she gives in her autobiography is of deep commitment to Christian spiritualism and a genuine conviction in her work. She went through a period of intense training in order to develop her mediumship, developing skills in meditation and trance through gazing into a crystal for an hour every Sunday evening124 and then, after three months of daily trying for about half an hour at dusk, herself and her mother slowly began to have success in communicating with spirits through the alphabet in a process known as ‘table tipping’.125 After seeing spirit drawings by Mrs Wilkinson, in 1861 she managed to contact a spirit called Henry Lenny, who she claims taught her to draw spirit flowers – a form that represents each person in the spirit realm – with her hand guided directly by his instructions.126 As she grew more experienced, a series of ‘High Spirits’ and ‘righteous men of both the Old and New Testaments’ guided her to create works of increasing technical and conceptual complexity and her work often includes long notes detailing the esoteric meanings of the ‘Sacred Symbolism’ behind the colours and forms used in the work.127 As her mediumship developed, the spirits spoke through her, using her as if her body had been taken over and used as a vehicle for their intentions: It is curious to look back on it now, and to remember how perfectly natural it even then seemed, that in my own voice and with my own knowledge, I should be first someone else and then myself, talking alternately, discussing and arguing matters; as, for instance, I did with Henry Lenny, who, in explaining one of my drawings, rather told me that I was ‘only a machine’, to which I demurred, and brought him to acknowledge that I had taught him much about modern colours, although he guided my hand in the use of them, but I

COMMUNICATING

107

could always leave off when I pleased; so he admitted his error, and promised never to call me a machine again.128 This quotation gives a sense of the process of mediumship as a collaboration between the spirit and the medium who received and interpreted the message, adding some of her own artistry to the drawings she produced. (see Figure 3.5) Her autobiography contains references to an art education and previous experience of flower painting, but no details are given.129 Interest in Houghton’s work grew and, from 1863, she had regular Wednesday afternoon receptions at home during which visitors would come to see her drawings. At times, her receptions would go beyond viewings of the drawings to include demonstrations of her mediumistic gifts, such as for one of her visitors, Mr L: I had two drawings in progress, and began upon the one that was nearly finished, so he watched with deep interest the fine lines that went on so smoothly and so unerringly under my hand, never failing to reach exactly their purposed destination, notwithstanding that I was fully engaged in conversation with him all the time; and there would be sudden changes of detail, and methods of manipulation, which clearly did not require my mind to be concentrated upon them, which must have been the case had self been

Figure 3.5  Georgiana Houghton, The Flower of Catherine Stringer, c.1870. © College of Psychic Studies.

108

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

the operator, even supposing the possibility of my powers being equal to such perfect work […] he marvelled indeed at the wondrous effects of colour that were produced … acknowledging that it would baffle any merely human artist to produce such harmonies.130 This quote illustrates that a performance of her drawing process to others confirmed her claims for genuine mediumship. Houghton’s drawings were created in a context of Spiritualist experimentation with automatic processes that would later be explored by the Surrealists. Not just done in private, creating spirit drawings in public featured as a collaborative activity in the séances she attended, as she describes of one such occasion: We all saw the lights, much the same as I described on a previous occasion, and we soon heard our spirit friends busily engaged with pencils; they did three small drawings, but without much defined form, presenting one of them to Mr Leighton, for him to take away with him.131 Although the drawings of Georgiana Houghton were not originally conceptualized by her as performance drawings, it is evident that the process of their being made took precedence over the form they took and that public demonstration of that process was integral to their authenticity. Whether or not there is cynicism about her claims, it can be surmised that denying responsibility for her own authorship and attributing her drawings to the work of spirits allowed her to take up the ‘unfeminine’132 position of pride in her accomplishments and to inhabit the seemingly incompatible positions of ‘woman’ and ‘artist’ that, although not possible in the art world of the time, was accepted in Spiritualist circles. The researcher and healer Emma Kunz, who lived from 1892 to 1963 in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, is another artist who can be interpreted as using concepts associated with a score or directive system in her work through channelling information from the psychic realm. Heralding John Cage’s use of the I Ching, in a process employing gravity and motion, Kunz used a divining pendulum as a device to direct her mark making through dowsing. The way that the pendulum moved over graph paper would determine geometric structures that she would spend hours completing in pencil and crayon. Drawing mainly at night, often to the point of exhaustion with sometimes over twenty-four hours in one sitting, she considered this to be a systematic, therapeutic and predictive research process in which she would map psychic energy fields for her patients. The use of the pendulum absolved Kunz from the responsibility of decision-making by directing her where to draw lines on her paper.133 As part of the process of divination, Kunz would ask a question and each time a different image would evolve.134 In the context of this chapter, this is reminiscent of Cage’s

COMMUNICATING

109

process of consulting the I Ching. As he explained around a hundred years later, ‘When you use chance operations […] you’re not making choices, you’re asking questions.’135 While Kunz was a practitioner of drawing who did not seek an audience in the art world, her witnesses were those individuals for whom she acted as healer and shaman. Her drawings were created in a kind of ritual performance in which endurance and exhaustion must have played a part. The images aided her in diagnosis, enabling her to both receive and transmit forces that enabled healing.136 Selecting a drawing from her archive of preconstructed works, Kunz would ‘read’ her drawings in a divinatory performance in which her maps of psychic energy were consulted for the purpose of healing a client.137 Thus, it could be said that the drawings Kunz made in turn also directed her work as a therapist. Leaving aside any judgement on whether or not Houghton and Kunz were actually following the instructions of spirit guides to transcribe esoteric codes into drawings, their work raises the contrast between the autographic – drawings defined by a personal, signature style that is clearly identified as made by the hand of a particular artist – and its complement, the allographic – drawings that have been designed to be made by another. The term allographic art is taken from Nelson Goodman’s book Languages of Art (1968),138 in which he considers this to be a form of practice in which an intention for an artwork is inscribed into a system of signification, such as a literary script, a musical score or a mechanical process, in order to be carried out subsequently by another. The concept of the allographic, which, in its original sense, refers to the act of writing a signature on behalf of someone else, can be considered as an opposition to the autographic, which epitomizes the artist’s own distinctive and authentic style of mark making. In claiming their work as allographic and channelling communication from the spirit world, Houghton and Kunz deny their own personal autograph and yet, as women artists, gain authority through the spirits who speak through them. They follow the directives they are given without question, like a secretary or even a computer, to create bold, abstract drawings that speak to the future rather than the past.

Machines for drawing The insight that codified instructions can bridge different disciplines (and dimensions) to be used as a collaborative method of information sharing that has the potential to repeat was observed by the mathematician Ada Lovelace, considered to be the first software programmer, when she wrote her (1843) notes on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, ‘[the engine] might act upon other things besides numbers […] the engine might compose elaborate and scientific

110

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent’.139 The mechanics of this theoretical computing machine were influenced by the Jacquard loom, which used a system of punched cards to store information about complex patterns that could then be woven into cloth. This primitive form of binary code is in itself a score that describes the actions needed to produce the pattern it encoded. The mechanical loom performs the instructions to create a predetermined line. Working in secrecy in Bletchley Park during the Second World War as part of the British effort to crack the encrypted messages made by the German Enigma machine, Alan Turing’s work in code-breaking and mathematics led him to conceptualize the first universal digital computer that could electronically store both programs and data.140 While it is unclear as to whether Babbage’s concepts directly informed Turing’s code-breaking Enigma machine,141 there is a clear link between codification in mechanical devices, mathematics, music and digital computing that exists within our contemporary culture and these systems can be readily employed by creative scored practices of all genres. Indeed, the use of a computer program or mechanical instruction can be seen as a form of allographic art. Concerned with proving that visual values are objective and could be created through mechanization, László Moholy-Nagy set about creating an artwork over the phone. As his wife later recalled of the making of EM 1–3, 1922: He dictated his painting to the foreman of a sign factory, using a colour chart and an order blank of graph paper to specify the location of form elements and their exact hue. The transmitted sketch was executed in three different sizes to demonstrate through modifications of density and space relationships the importance of structure and its varying emotional impact.142 Influenced by the Constructivists, Moholy-Nagy wanted to produce radical art that spoke of the modern, machine age of industrialization for the masses and to stand against the representational art of the Academy. EM 1–3 were made with industrial processes of enamel on metal, in three sizes, with a design based on a grid. However, this story of mechanization has become idealized. Unlike a contemporary process where an instruction might be digitally inputted and printed remotely with little intervention by human hands, these instructions were interpreted by a foreman and carried out by sign writers using mechanical tools. With his series of wall drawings that he started in 1968, Sol LeWitt began an extensive project of allographic drawing in which he conceived of a series of mechanical rules for a drawing that a team of assistants would complete for him. Reacting to Cage, Duchamp, the ready-made and the outraged response from the audience, he wanted to explore seriality and to create systems of permutations. With one such instruction being ‘Using pencil, draw 1,000 random straight lines 10 inches long each day for 10 days, in a 10-by-10-foot square’,

COMMUNICATING

111

LeWitt tried out varying degrees of personal interpretation in the carrying out of his concepts: What it looked like wasn’t important. It didn’t matter what you did as long as the lines were distributed randomly throughout the area. In many of the wall pieces there is very little latitude for the draftsman or draftswoman to make changes, but it is evident anyway, visually, that different people make different works. I have done other pieces that give the draftsperson a great liberty in interpreting an action. In this way the appearance of the work is secondary to the idea of the work, which makes the idea of primary importance. The system is the work of art; the visual work of art is the proof of the system. The visual aspect can’t be understood without understanding the system. It isn’t what it looks like but what it is that is of basic importance.143 The autographic expression of the artist’s subjectivity, the craft skills employed in the making, affect – emotional, physical or sensational responses evoked in the viewer – none of these were as important to him as the rational logic of the idea: In conceptual art the idea of concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.144 These ideas from conceptual art of creating systems and instructions for drawings directly influenced the pioneers of digital image making, such as Frieder Nake, who first exhibited his digital art in Stuttgart in 1965. Working before the invention of the mouse or commercial software, he created drawings through the use of computer code. In works such as Hommage à Paul Klee, 13/9/65 Nr.2 (1965), he defined a series of instructions for a visual image into computer programming language, which had a number of random variables written in. The computer then interpreted this information and it was output using a pen plotter, a mechanical device for holding a pen that is attached to a computer.145 Frieder Nake now oversees compArt database Digital Art (daDA), an extensive archive of early digital art from 1950 to 1979 at the University of Bremen.146 He forms part of a group of international artists, such as Roman Verostko, Manfred Mohr, Vera Molnar, Hiroshi Kawona and Harold Cohen, who have been writing their own original algorithms since the 1960s as forms of instructions for making artworks, and were given the name Algorist artists by Jean-Pierre Hébert in 1995.147 Pioneering digital artists in other parts of the world, such as Japan, were also inspired by avant-garde art movements to produce algorithmic art. Influenced by the idea of creating systems of permutations, the Computer Technique Group

112

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

(artist Masao Komura and programmers Makato Ohtake and Koji Fujino) created the plotter drawing Running Cola is Africa for the groundbreaking Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition held at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1968. The image shows the outline of a runner morphing into a bottle of cola and then a map of Africa.148 In these early digital works, the computer is treated as a collaborator that adds its own contribution to the drawings that are produced through random mark making or the computation of variables. This raises the issue of whether a machine is necessarily a tool or whether it can be a collaborator: do mechanical aids to drawing provide perfect reproduction of the signature of their maker or might they add an element of indeterminacy through malfunction or planned disobedience? During the Industrial Revolution engineers explored the mechanization of many handmade processes. Resulting from his investigation of the movement of pendulums, the professor of mathematics Hugh Blackburn invented the Harmonograph, whose manufacture is first mentioned in a publication from 1893.149 This device uses a series of pendulums swinging in different directions to manipulate both the action of a pencil and the angle of the surface to which paper is attached. In combination, these motions produce drawings consisting of complex interlocking spirals. As it is near impossible to set the pendulums in motion with the exact same force and direction each time, there was a degree of indeterminacy in the drawings produced by the device. As part of the kinetic art movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely created a number of mechanical sculptures, also known as ‘useless’ machines since they performed no utilitarian function.150 Some of his earliest devices, such as Méta-Malevich (1954) and Méta-Kandinsky (1956), hint at his interest in Constructivism and ironic commentary about the materialism of the art world. During the late 1950s, he made a series of drawing machines known as Méta-matics that were designed to produce original art works. Métamatic No. 10 (1959) demonstrates some of the properties of the Harmonograph. Participants can control the speed of a machine, which rotates and agitates a piece of wood that forms the support for a piece of paper on one axis while the pen that draws upon it moves in different directions. It is possible to change the pen or drawing medium that the device holds and influence the direction of the parts. Owing to chance and faulty mechanics, each drawing was unique as the machine was simple unable to reproduce the same exact series of actions each time.151 With their stuttering, spasmodic movements, these machines satirized the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and the painting performances of Georges Mathieu as they imply that the original, autographic mark of the artist can be reproduced by a machine.152 Originally, Tinguely claimed full authorship of the drawings that were produced by his machines. He signed each drawing personally and also filed a patent with the French government arguing that his devices created abstract drawings and paintings that were important enough to

COMMUNICATING

113

be collected and exhibited in their own right. This attitude towards authorship shifted over time and he began to stamp the paper with the text ‘Painted in collaboration with machine No …’ to reflect the contribution of the device itself.153 Although they produced drawings, with the theatrically of their construction and unpredictable outcomes, Stephanie Jennings Hanor considers these machines in motion as performance pieces in their own right, extending the lineage of Constructivist, Futurist, Dada and Bauhaus theatre and cabaret that celebrated mechanization.154 Contemporary artist Patrick’s Tresset’s robots are explicitly made to perform within the installations that he creates. Initially a painter, Tresset started to experiment with robots that create drawings when he experienced a crippling, creative block. Although he lacked finances, having a background in computing as a child, he began by recycling old computers discarded by offices and experimenting with making them usable again. Influenced by the Algorist artists, he learned how to program and to develop robotics that could make drawings based on his own accumulated knowledge of mark making from personal experience.155 Over time, his focus shifted from the aesthetics of the drawings that his robots make to the overall performance that they create and he now considers them to be puppets within a theatrical scenario. In Human Study #4, shown as part of the Merge Festival in London’s Bankside in 2017, a camera mounted to a table at the front of a room of 1970s school desks seems to communicate to a classroom of robots through its movements and in Morse code. Using black ballpoint pens, the multiple robot arms mark time on school jotters in accord with instructions on a video blackboard at the front of the room. Each behaves slightly differently, to which the viewer cannot help but project emotional qualities such as boredom, rebelliousness or industriousness. Finally, all but two start scribbling over their previous marks. The impact of this installation does not just come from the sight of robots drawing, but the theatrical set up of the whole tableau and the contribution of the sound of the servo motors and the bleeps of Morse code all contribute to an uncanny echo of 1970s schooling. In the same exhibition, his installation Human Study #1, 3RNP mimics a life drawing class. Members of the public are invited to make appointments to be a sitter for the robots, who are again mounted on old school desks with pieces of paper attached that are placed around the sitter’s chair. The whole process takes around forty minutes to produce three drawings from the different angles. A small camera is placed in the position where the eyes would be, if the system was a human. This camera is programmed to face the sitter directly and then move down as if it were facing the paper, which gives the impression of the act of observation. These actions are not necessary for producing the drawings, but add to the experience. A black ballpoint pen is used to create portraits through gestural evocation rather than strictly delineated by the photographic information captured by the camera. This is based on Tresset’s own left-handed drawing

114

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Figure 3.6  Tim Lewis, Mule Make Mule, 2012. © Tim Lewis/Flowers Gallery.

style, which he describes as a ‘controlled loss’ that resembles a perambulatory stroll rather than a direct route: ‘With a promenade you do not have a direct path to an aim, but at the same time you are still going somewhere.’156 The system is capable of a small amount of variation in the drawings produced according to the positioning of the servo motors on the robot arms, the angle of the pen, whether the pen is full or running out of ink and variations in light levels. The signatures on each robot drawing are not his own but taken from a random, unintended mark that one of his robots once made. As each successive sitter is drawn an archive of images is created and displayed on the walls. While Tinguely’s and Tresset’s works foreground the machine as a performer, the drawing machines of Tim Lewis investigate the act of drawing itself. The artistengineer Lewis specializes in mobile sculptures and mechanical interventions that incorporate found objects and finely crafted mechanics. These include a series of machines that create drawings inspired by historic automata.157 With an unsettling combination of the human, the animal, the digital and the mechanical, several of these comment directly on the notion of the autographic and the allographic. In Auto-Dali Prosthetic (2002), a motion sensor triggers a Victorian prosthetic arm to continuously sign Salvador Dali’s signature on rolls of paper in a humorous comment on Dali’s commercial exploitation of his status as an artist during his later years. With Mule Make Mule (2012), an automaton in the shape of a mule can be manipulated through a hand crank to draw crude self-portraits of itself on pieces of A5 paper (Figure 3.6). For Lewis, these machines are an

COMMUNICATING

115

extension of his own drawing practice and continuously enact the process of drawing in the present moment. He explains: ‘Other than the obvious content of the image drawn, they predominantly concern a means of achieving a longevity through repetition rather than monumental physical permanence.’158 The visual information for the drawings produced by these two machines is stored mechanically on cut metal cams. Depending on the force with which the handle is turned, the sharpness or positioning of the pencil, mechanical friction and the environmental conditions in which the machine is placed, a slight deviation or wobble to the line can occur, thus adding an element of indeterminacy to the lines it makes, although not to the extent of Tinguely’s machines. Another mechanical sculpture, Mona Hatoum’s + and − (an earlier version was called Self-erasing Drawing) (1994–2004) also foregrounds the act of drawing itself. Owing to an electric motor, a range of parallel, circular lines are mechanically inscribed in sand and then continuously erased.159 No human labour is evident and yet the process of making is foregrounded. The drawing is never finished but continually in a state of becoming. Constantly in motion and reproducing a series of lines that were determined by the artist, it could also be considered an animation. In addition to purpose-built machines for drawings, artists have also repurposed automata to make drawings. In Gutai performance events in Japan in 1957, Akira Kanayama attached cans of paint to toy cars to make a series of live action paintings all entitled Work, 1957.160 Many years later, in his performance at Draw to Perform 4, Brighton, 2017, another artist, River Lin, combined paint with a mechanical toy to create an automated action painting using a wind-up yellow plastic duck for his disturbing and thought-provoking work.161 Concerned with ‘the everyday and ritualistic of specific cultural contexts’,162 Lin’s performance began as a humorous interaction with the little automatic toy while it waddled playfully in circles around his feet on a long strip of white paper. But, as Lin poured paint onto the toy, imposing his will to leave a mark and employing the witless object as his tool, the performance gradually became a troubling series of actions and suggestions. The toy continued to waddle determinedly trailing circles of colour in its wake, and despite its obvious lack of cognition – the suggestion of many kinds of imposition teased the audience into an emotional response – ‘the toy’ had indeed been used to make drawings, and the audience as witnesses were complicit in that narrative. The use of the mechanical in art is not without criticism, and images created through technology are frequently regarded as having lost the authenticity implied by the physical gestures and materiality of the subjective hand-drawn mark.163 This point of view associates hand drawing with the expression of individual consciousness and digital imagery with mechanized, mass production.164 It is also underpinned by the assumption that art making is only a handmade, autographic

116

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

process and discounts conceptual approaches. However, an examination of allographic art practices reveals the complex interplay between artist, intent, means of production and audience. It also demonstrates the potential for mechanical or digital imagery to be created with a conceptualization of the tool as participant through the introduction of the unexpected – imperfection, glitches, randomness and indeterminacy in its design. Thus, while the understanding of performance underlying this chapter has encompassed two nuances of the concept’s usage – (1) an activity intentionally carried out in front of audience and (2) the execution or accomplishment of a task – it also draws attention to (3) the manner in which or the efficiency (or otherwise) with which something reacts or fulfils its intended purpose.

Conclusion This chapter has considered the process of communication in allographic performance drawings that employ scores, directives, instructions and codes. In this form of practice, the work of art becomes a collaboration in which another will realize the making of an artist’s original intention rather than the artist being the one to produce the finished article. Allographic art enables different disciplines to come together – as one form may be translated into another – and an element of chance and unpredictability to be present in the end product. It counters traditional assumptions of the artist as sole author. Although the Fluxus artists can be seen to idealize collaboration and the aleatory process, the works of Cardew and Rogers reveal anxiety and tension in collective activity. However, the projects of InspiralLondon, Foá, Grisewood, Hosea and McCall as well as the Computer Technique Group reveal that, when a group of peers come together to collaborate, there is an excitement in the unexpected ideas of the others. Each has their own skills and independent practice outside the group, providing access to a wider pool of knowledge than each individual has. Ultimately, allographic art works oppose a modernist or humanist perspective that places the individual artist at the centre of meaning. Umberto Eco’s caveat about how open the ‘open’ work really is notwithstanding, these works involve a measure of collaboration or collectives and emerge through dialogue and social interaction. They can be seen as a series of strategies to manage participation and develop an ethics of the means of production.

Notes 1 Stuart Hall, ‘Encoding/decoding’, in Paul Marris and Sue Thornham, eds, Media Studies: A Reader, 2nd edition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), pp. 51–61.

COMMUNICATING

117

2 Umberto Eco, The Open Work, trans. by Anna Cancogni (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989). 3 Umberto Eco, ‘The poetics of the open work’, in Eco, The Open Work, pp. 2–3. 4 Volker Straebel, ‘The mutual influence of Europe and North America in the history of musikperformance’, Volker Straebel: Thoughts on Music and Related Arts website, http://www.straebel.de/praxis/index.html?/praxis/text/t-musikperf_e.htm (accessed 1 August 2017). This text is what exists of John Cage’s unsigned score for Untitled Black Mountain Piece (1952). 5 Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double, trans. by Mary Caroline Richards (New York: Grove Press, 1958). 6 Mary Caroline Richards (Richards collaborated in John Cage’s Untitled Black Mountain Piece, 1952) drew a floor plan from memory in 1989 for the writer William Fetterman. William Fetterman, John Cage Theatre Pieces: Notations and Performances (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996), p. 100. 7 Fetterman, John Cage, p. 99. 8 ‘The audience was seated at the centre of all this activity. Later that summer … I visited America’s first synagogue to discover that the congregation was there seated precisely the way I had arranged the audience at Black Mountain.’ John Cage, Silence Lectures and Writings (London: Calder and Boyars, 1968), p. x. 9 Justin Wolf, ‘John Cage artist: Overview and analysis’, TheArtStory.org website (2017), http://www.theartstory.org/artist-cage-john.htm (accessed 26 November 2017). 10 Cage, Silence Lectures and Writings, p. x. 11 Fetterman, John Cage, pp. 97–103. 12 Ibid., p. 104. 13 Mary Emma Harris, ‘John Cage at Black Mountain’, The Journal of Black Mountain College Studies, vol. 4 (Spring 2013). It was Allan Kaprow who first introduced the term ‘Happening’ in his work 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (1959). Fetterman, John Cage, p. 104. 14 Straebel, ‘The mutual influence of Europe and North America in the history of musikperformance’. 15 David T. Doris, ‘Zen vaudeville’, in Ken Friedman, ed., The Fluxus Reader (Chichester: Academy Editions, 1998), p. 96. 16 Julia Robinson, ‘From abstraction to model: George Brecht’s events and the conceptual turn in art of the 1960s’, October, vol. 127 (Winter 2009): 80–2. 17 Doris, ‘Zen vaudeville’, p. 96. 18 The New School for Social Research (NSSR), ‘About us’, NSSR website, https:// www.newschool.edu/nssr/about-us/ (accessed 10 December 2018). 19 Richard Kostelanetz, Conversing with Cage (New York: Limelight, 1988), p. 42. 20 Anna Dezeuze, ‘Origins of the Fluxus score: From indeterminacy to the “Do-ItYourself” artwork’, Performance Research, vol. 7, no. 3 (2002): 80. 21 Laura Kuhn, ‘John Cage at the New School (1950–1960)’, John Cage Trust official blog (2014), http://johncagetrust.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/john-cage-at-newschool-1950-1960.html (accessed 18 March 2017).

118

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

22 Doris, ‘Zen vaudeville’, p. 94; Robinson, ‘From abstraction to model’, pp. 82–5. 23 Ibid., p. 77. 24 Hannah Higgins, ‘Fluxus fortuna’, in Friedman, The Fluxus Reader, p. 32. 25 Dezeuze, ‘Origins of the Fluxus score’, p. 91. 26 Larry Miller, ‘Transcript of the videotaped interview with George Maciunas, 24th March 1978’, in Friedman, The Fluxus Reader, p. 184. 27 Ibid., pp. 191–2. 28 In 2013, Martin Creed won the Turner Prize for his Work No.227 The Lights Going On and Off – echoing Three Lamps Event. 29 Ken Friedman, Owen Smith and Lauren Sawchyn, Fluxus Performance Workbook (n.p.: Performance Research e-Publications, 2002), p. 23. 30 Owen Smith, ‘Avant-gardism and the Fluxus project: A failed utopia or the success of invisibility’, Performance Research, vol. 7, no. 3 (2002): 4. 31 Tate, ‘Art term: Fluxus, Tate.org website, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/f/ fluxus (accessed 10 December 2018). 32 Fluxus derives from the Latin meaning flowing loose and slack; it is also the historical name for dysentery. See Emmett Williams and Ann Noël, Mr. Fluxus: A Collective Portrait of George Maciunas, 1931–1978 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1998), p. 32. 33 Robert C.Morgan, Wolf Kahn and Irving Sandler, ‘Allan Kaprow (1927–2006)’, The Brooklyn Rail, 9 May 2006, https://brooklynrail.org/2006/5/art/allankaprow-19272006 (accessed 28 December 2018). 34 Eva Yi Hsuan Lu, ‘Instruction paintings: Yoko Ono and 1960s conceptual art’, SHIFT Graduate Journal of Visual and Material Culture, no. 6 (2013): 2–3. 35 Friedman, Smith and Sawchyn, Fluxus Performance Workbook, p. 86. 36 Chrissie Iles, Yoko Ono: Have You Seen the Horizon Lately (Oxford: Modern Art Oxford, 1997), p. 30. 37 Yoko Ono, ‘Instruction Pieces’, Yoko Ono, 4 July 2107, http://www.a-i-u.net/ yokosays.html (accessed 4 July 2017). 38 Lu, ‘Instruction paintings’, p. 10. 39 Iles, Yoko Ono, pp. 10–11. 40 Ibid., p. 17. 41 Ono, ‘Instruction Pieces’. 42 Lucy Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 178. 43 Friedman, Smith and Sawchyn, Fluxus Performance Workbook, p. 86. 44 Iles, Yoko Ono, p. 128. 45 Lu, ‘Instruction paintings’, p. 7. 46 Ono, ‘Instruction Pieces’. 47 Iles, Yoko Ono, p. 28. 48 Dave Smith, ‘Following a straight line: La Monte Young’, JEMS: Journal of Experimental Music Studies – Reprint Series (8 April 2011): 1. 49 Ibid., p. 3.

COMMUNICATING

119

50 Doris, ‘Zen vaudeville’, p. 121. 51 Ibid., pp. 126–7. 52 Alison Knowles, A Great Bear Pamphlet (New York: Something Else Press, 1965). 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 ‘The score reads: “Find something you like in the street and give it away. Or find a variety of things, make something of them, and give it away.” I heard from the people in the festival that they had a wonderful time making little handheld objects from things they found in the street but the problem was to actually give away the things they had made to strangers. As far as I know, this is the only live performance of this score. As a score it is reproduced in “Technicians of the Sacred” by Jerome Rothenburg.’ Alison Knowles, ‘Giveaway Construction (1963)’, Alison Knowles website, http://www.aknowles.com/giveaway.html (accessed 28 January 2018). 56 ‘Works’ were festivals of short plays initiated by the Canadian playwright and founder of the Factory Theatre Lab in Toronto, Ken Gass. Jeffrey M. Heath, Profiles in Canadian Literature, vol. 8 (Toronto: Dundurn, 1991), p. 43. 57 Catherine de Zegher, ed., Drawing Papers 20: Performance Drawings (New York: The Drawing Center, 2001), exhibition catalogue. 58 Elizabeth Finch, ‘The drawing as instrument’, in de Zegher, Drawing Papers 20, pp. 50–4. 59 RoseLee Goldberg, Performance: Live Art since the 60s (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1998), p. 9. 60 Ibid., p. 9. 61 Tom McDonough, ‘City scale and discreet events: Performance in urban space, 1956–1969’, in de Zegher, Drawing Papers 20, pp. 22–4. 62 Ibid, p. 24. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Drawings were sent from the UK, Canada, Germany, Romania, Finland and the USA and displayed on the wall. Contributing artists included Mary Banda, Carolyn Bew, Traian Boldea, Julie Brixey-Williams, Maija Burnett, Jax Horswill, Greg Murr, Lucy O’Donnell, Laura Perrin and Clare Smith. 67 Maryclare Foá, Jane Grisewood, Birgitta Hosea and Carali McCall, ‘ARC: I draw for you’, Studio International, 29 January 2010, http://www.studio-international.co.uk/ index.php/arc-i-draw-for-you (accessed 4 February 2018). 68 The tool was developed as an Open Source project in which programmers collaborated to develop the software and was made by Birgitta Hosea and her father according to instructions freely available on the Internet: http://www. instructables.com/id/How-to-build-a-Tagtool-Mini. (accessed 1 May 2020). For more about art projects with the Tagtool, see Chapter 5. 69 Foá et al., ‘ARC: I draw for you’. 70 Birgitta Hosea, ‘Drawing animation’, Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 5, no. 3 (2010): 364. 71 Nicci Haynes, ‘Her Words My Body: Artist’s statement’, Unpublished essay, 2019.

120

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

72 Ibid. 73 Eco, The Open Work, p. 3. 74 Ibid., p. 4. 75 Ibid., p. 4. 76 Ibid, p. 19. 77 Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), p. xvii. 78 Michael Nyman, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 34. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid., pp. 50–3. 83 Ibid., p. 53. 84 Piotr Grella-Mozejko, ‘Earle Brown: Form, notation, text’, Contemporary Music Review, vol. 26, no. 3/4 (August 2007): 463. 85 Ibid., p. 462. 86 Helen Molesworth, Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College, 1933–1957 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), p. 56. 87 Cage, Silence Lectures and Writings, p. 11. 88 Molesworth, Leap Before You Look, p. 56. 89 Nyman, Experimental Music, p. 51. 90 Alison Knowles, Footnotes: Collage Journal 30 Years (New York: Granary Books, 2000). See p. 16, ‘Notes on Transvironments’ (term dreamed up by George Quasha) and p. 37, ‘George Brecht Event Score’. 91 John Tilbury, ‘Cornelius Cardew biography’, in Kate Macfarlane, Rob Stone and Grant Watson, eds, Play for Today: Cornelius Cardew (London: The Drawing Room, 2008), p. 108. 92 Cornelius Cardew, ‘Towards an ethic of improvisation’, UBU, website, http://www. ubu.com/papers/cardew_ethics.html. (accessed 11 April 2017). 93 Cornelius Cardew, ‘A Scratch Orchestra: Draft constitution’, in Macfarlane, Stone and Watson, Play for Today, p. 14. 94 Anonymous, Scratch Orchestra, ‘Art for whom’, in Macfarlane, Stone and Watson, Play for Today, p. 19. 95 Cardew, ‘A Scratch Orchestra’, p. 14. 96 Ibid., p. 15. 97 Michael Parsons, ‘The Scratch Orchestra and visual arts’, in Macfarlane, Stone and Watson, Play for Today, p. 76. 98 Cardew, ‘A Scratch Orchestra’, pp. 14–15. 99 Parsons, ‘The Scratch Orchestra’, pp. 72–5.

COMMUNICATING

121

100 Anonymous, Scratch Orchestra, ‘Art for whom’, p. 19. 101 Andrea Phillips, ‘The revolution will (not) be improvised’, in Macfarlane, Stone and Watson, Play for Today, pp. 38–9. 102 Ibid., p. 42. 103 See Ann Hutchison, Labanotation: The System for Recording Movement (London: Phoenix House, 1954). 104 Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking (London: Verso, 2002), p. 272. 105 Oscar van den Boogaard, ‘In search of Stanley Brouwn’, Frieze, 12 March 2014, https://frieze.com/article/search-stanley-brouwn (accessed 3 March 2018). 106 Antje von Graevenitz, ‘“We Walk on the Planet Earth”: The artist as a pedestrian: The work of Stanley Brouwn’, Dutch Art and Architecture Today, vol. 1 (June 1977): 6–7. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid., p. 2. 109 Maryclare Foá, ‘Sounding out: Performance drawing in response to the outside environment’ (PhD diss., University of the Arts London, 2011), 135. 110 Charlie Fox (Counterproductions), ‘About InspiralLondon’, InspiralLondon website, https://www.inspirallondon.com/about/ (accessed 12 April 2017). 111 Charlie Fox, ‘DE/TOURS: Tales from Marseille-Provence 2013: Performing and reforming capital as culture’, in Charlie Fox, ed., DE/TOURS: Artistic Journeys into, through and after Marseille-Provence 2013 (London: Counterproductions, 2014), pp. 7–8. 112 Interview with Charlie Fox, by Birgitta Hosea, email, 16 March 2017. 113 Fox (Counterproductions), ‘About InspiralLondon’. 114 See the artist’s website, Angela Rogers: https://www.angelarogers.net. (accessed 1 May 2020). 115 Angela Rogers, ‘Drawing conversations: Drawing as a dialogic activity’, TRACEY Journal What is Drawing For?, no. 1 (2007): 3. 116 Ibid., pp. 5–9. 117 Wassily Kandinsky, On the Spiritual in Art, trans. by Hilla Rebay (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1946), p. 26. 118 Ibid., p. 65. 119 Ibid., p. 35. 120 Georgiana Houghton, Evenings at Home in Spiritual Séance, Welded Together by a Species of Autobiography, First Series (London: Trübner & Co, 1881), p. 23. 121 The impression given from Houghton’s autobiography is that the exhibition was quite well attended. However, the account book detailing the entrance fees received went missing. She never suspected it, but was she defrauded by the gallery owner? 122 Simon Grant and Marco Pass, ‘“Works of art without parallel in the world”: Georgiana Houghton’s spirit drawings’, in Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen and

122

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Barnaby Wright, eds, Georgiana Houghton: Spirit Drawings (London: The Courtauld Gallery, 2016), p. 10. 123 Grant and Pass, ‘“Works of art without parallel in the world”’, pp. 13–14. 124 Houghton, Evenings at Home in Spiritual Séance, p. 165. 125 Houghton, Evenings at Home in Spiritual Séance, p. 4. 126 Ibid., pp. 14–16. 127 Ibid., p. 17. 128 Ibid., p. 20. 129 Ibid., p. 23. 130 Houghton, Evenings at Home in Spiritual Séance, p. 29. 131 Ibid., p. 84. 132 The use of the term ‘unfeminine’ is intended to be historically specific and related to the era in which she lived. 133 Catherine de Zegher, ‘Abstractions’, in Catherine de Zegher and Hendel Teicher, eds, 3x Abstraction: New Methods of Drawing (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), exhibition catalogue, p. 127. 134 Ibid., p. 134. 135 Holly Martin, ‘The Asian factor in John Cage’s aesthetics’, The Journal of Black Mountain College Studies, vol. 4 (Spring 2013). 136 De Zegher, ‘Abstractions’, pp. 29–30. 137 Ibid., p. 132. 138 Cited in Edna Čufer, ‘Don’t’, in Catherine Wood, ed., A Bigger Splash: Painting After Performance (London: Tate Publishing, 2012), p. 32. 139 Ada Lovelace, ‘Translator’s notes to L Menabrea’s memoir’, in Richard Taylor, ed., Scientific Memoirs, Selected from the Transactions of Foreign Academies of Science and Learned Societies, and from Foreign Journals, vol. 3 (London: Richard and John E. Taylor, 1843), p. 694 (extract from Note A 1842). 140 Margaret Boden, Mind As Machine: A History of Cognitive Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 165. 141 Ibid. 142 Sibyll Moholy-Nagy, Moholy-Nagy: Experiment in Totality (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), pp. 30–1. 143 Saul Ostrow, ‘Sol LeWitt’, Bomb Magazine, 1 October 2003, http://bombmagazine. org/article/2583/sol-lewitt (accessed 16 April 2017). 144 Sol LeWitt, ‘Paragraphs on conceptual art’, in Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson, eds, Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), p. 12. 145 Hosea, ‘Drawing animation’, p. 359. 146 compArt: Centre of Excellence Digital Art, compArt database Digital Art (daDA), http://dada.compart-bremen.de (accessed 11 June 2017). 147 Roman Verostko, ‘The Algorists’, Roman Verotsko website, http://www.verostko. com/algorist.html (accessed 11 June 2017).

COMMUNICATING

123

148 Jean Ippolito, ‘Dare to be digital: Japan’s pioneering contributions to today’s international art and technology movement’, in ACM SIGGRAPH 2005 Electronic Art and Animation Catalog (Los Angeles: ACM, 2005), p. 1. 149 Anita Chowdry, ‘Ingenious machines for drawing curves: The archives’, Anita Chowdry Journeys with Pattern and Colour (blog), 6 October 2014, https:// anitachowdry.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/ingenious-machines-for-drawingcurves-the-archives (accessed 15 April 2017). 150 Stephanie Jennings Hanor, ‘Jean Tinguely: Useless machines and mechanical performers, 1955–1970’ (PhD diss., The University of Texas at Austin, 2003), p. 7. 151 Ryszard W. Kluszczyński, ‘Machines like gods: Introduction to reflections on creative machines and the art of Patrick Tresset’, in Ryszard W. Kluszczyński, ed., Human Traits: Patrick Tresset and the Art of Creative Machines (Gdańsk: LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art, 2016), p. 19. 152 Hanor, ‘Jean Tinguely’, pp. 75–8. 153 Ibid., p. 81. 154 Ibid. 155 Özden Şahin, ‘Robots, nostalgia and loss of control: In conversation with Patrick Tresset’, in Kluszczyński, Human Traits, pp. 185–8. 156 Ibid., p. 190. 157 A selection of Lewis’s devices can be seen on his gallery’s Vimeo page: https:// vimeo.com/14114458. 158 Email from Tim Lewis to Birgitta Hosea, 19 March 2017. 159 Catherine Dee, ‘Plus and minus: Critical drawing for landscape design’, in Marc Treib, ed., Drawing/Thinking: Confronting an Electronic Age (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 60. 160 Ippolito, ‘Dare to be digital’, p. 5. 161 Founded by the artist Ram Samocha, Draw to Perform has held an annual event (in different UK locations) since its initiation in 2013. Showcasing artists who have experimented in the field of performance and drawing, practitioners from many and various countries participate. 162 River Lin, ‘Duck Walk’, River Lin website, https://riverlin.art/Duck-walk-2017. (accessed 1 May 2020). 163 For a more detailed elaboration of this argument, see Birgitta Hosea, ‘Made by hand’, in Caroline Ruddell and Paul Ward, eds, The Crafty Animator: Handmade, Craft-Based Animation and Cultural Value (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 164 Hosea, ‘Drawing animation’, p. 355.

124

4 CONJURING: THE GIFT OF A SURPRISE Enraptured by the miraculous conjuring of images from thin air, I had early on succumbed to the lure of drawing and that curious abandonment to the power of the infinite that tempts the drawer to withdraw from the world and map herself into a scenography of a different order. JEAN FISHER, ‘ON DRAWING’1

The excitement of the unexpected in collaborative practice (addressed in Chapter 3) is also a significant facet in the process of a conjuring. This chapter looks at drawings in which conjuring can be said to occur and investigates performance drawing works (live, recorded and edited) where different forms of conjuring exist, both for the practitioner and for the audience.

Drawing, performance drawing and conjuring In a contemporary context, a work that can be classified as a drawing is one in which there is evidence of an intentional presence.2 A drawing may be marked, formed, sounded, implied or suggested; in two-dimensional, three-dimensional or time-based media; and received by the audience as a visual, imagined or heard experience. In their introduction to Drawing Now (2007), the editors Simon Downs, Russell Marshall, Phil Sawdon, Andrew Selby and Jane Tormey confirm drawing’s potential unfixed and exploratory characteristics by focusing their book on the ‘ambivalent qualities’ of drawing, ‘its propensity to speculation and its contradictory condition’.3 Carl Plackman, in his ‘Artists Notes 1972’, identifies the tesseract (akin to TARDIS – Time and Relative Dimension in Space, with an external of three dimensions and an internal of extended dimensions), as a characteristic of drawing by stating: ‘A drawing contains more time than it takes to look at it.’4 Three decades later, the inherent expansion and fluidity of drawing

126

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

was described by Catherine de Zegher at Tate’s 2006 conference ‘With a Single Mark’ when she stated that the process of drawing can contain its conventions within it while also being ‘always in a state of uncertainty fragmentation and flux’.5 Emphasizing this instability, and acknowledging its potential for freedom and connectivity, ‘Line,’ de Zegher tells us, ‘has [now] become a moving trace in time and space, stressing interreliance and transsubjectivity […] from grid to web.’6 Michael Craig-Martin in his 1995 Drawing the Line text contextualizes these characteristics of drawing practice when he says, ‘Spontaneity […] creative speculation […] and undogmatic qualities’ in drawing have been ‘highly appropriate models for art in a century characterized by fragmentation of both the systems of belief and the languages of expression’.7 And, just as fragmentations in society, politics and beliefs persist, and agitate, today, and practitioners of drawing continue to ‘expand its boundaries through experimental approaches’,8 so these exploratory, speculative characteristics evidenced in contemporary drawing are also to be found in the varied live and recorded processes of performance drawing. Inherent in the unfixed discipline of performance is the potential for serendipitous happenstance. Through unexpected material results, audience response or site-specific impacts, a performance work may change during its process, therefore holding the potential to break conventions and explore new ground, particularly in a contemporary context when live works are woven with pre-recorded and live digital material of expanded cinema, as examined in Chapter 5. Performance drawings are beyond any fixture to a surface, or limit in process, method or type of employment or material. Imbued with awareness of past and contemporary concepts and philosophies in both performance and drawing practices, performance drawings are made in front of an audience either in real time, live or in front of a recording device, because a recording device creates (time-based media) documentation and/or editable footage and therefore anticipates an audience.9 What then are the connections between conjuring, drawing and performance drawing? The term conjuring, with its obvious association with magic tricks, can be understood as an action or event in which the audience is surprised by an unexpected visualization that occurs in front of their eyes. Lamont and Wiseman, in their 1999 Magic in Theory, explain conjuring as being an action in two parts, ‘effect and method’,10 under the umbrella term of ‘misdirection’. In Magic and Theory, nine different categories of conjuring methodologies are identified, the most relevant to this investigation into conjuring in drawing and in performance drawing is that which Lamont and Wiseman title ‘Appearance’, with the subheading ‘Object is not actually there but appears to be’.11 This condition of ‘not actually [being] there but appear[ing] to be’ echoes the familiar collective deception of traditional drawing, in which practitioners mark a twodimensional surface and propose those marks as three-dimensional forms.

CONJURING

127

While these marks may be recognized (in our Western culture) as the forms they represent, still the element of trickery (sleight of hand) lies at the heart of the process of a traditional two-dimensional drawing. However, in as much as performance drawing expands boundaries through experimental approaches, the performance drawing process may also contain elements of conjuring, because of the dimensional shift in the live narrative and/or recorded work; and a performance drawing conjuring can also exist in edited film, as the editor’s sleight of hand manages a visual surprise. All of these forms of performance drawing, the live (layered narrative), the documented (of multiple dimensions) and the edited (a tesseract of narrative and dimension) result in a visual experience that could be described as ‘contain[ing] more time than it takes to look at it’.12 E. H. Gombrich, in his 1960 Art and Illusion, tells us: ‘All representation relies to some extent on what we have called guided projection’;13 and, recalling an experiment on visual perception in which subjects were directed to anticipate seeing light on a screen and repeatedly mistakenly did so, Gombrich explains: ‘To the students of the visual image, these experiences are of relevance because they show how the context of action creates conditions of illusion […] Their […] expectation led to hallucination.’14 Gombrich concludes that, in relation to visual guidance and misdirection, ‘there is no class of people better able to bring about such phantom perceptions as conjurers’.15 This chapter proposes that practitioners making drawings (their sleight of hand misdirecting the viewer by manipulating visual dimensions, and the performance process itself potentially containing more time than it takes to look at it) might also sometimes be classed as conjurers. While the word conjuring is employed in texts and documentation to describe still images that produce, evoke or suggest an alternative or unexpected visualization, it is the motion in the process – as Gombrich identified ‘action creates conditions of illusions’ – that most often produces what can be described as a conjuring. Yet Avis Newman, in her conversation with Catherine de Zegher, reveals a type of motion in the process of all drawing when she explains: ‘drawing is akin to an interior monologue emerging to the surface in our actions’.16 So, if we know that, in general, a drawing (during its practical process) emerges through actions (from the thought in the practitioner’s mind out into the physical world), then we need to clarify that a drawing that conjures extends beyond that general emergence, beyond the expectations of the witness and perhaps even sometimes beyond the intention of the practitioner. In her 2016 text A Recent History of Drawing, Katharine Stout concisely observes how the process of drawing is perceived today: ‘for some [it] is more aptly described as an activity [rather] than a medium’;17 and, addressing changes over time in concepts related to drawing and the reception of the activity of drawing, Stout confirms that the completeness of a drawing today is ‘less of an imperative than [the] process’.18 This shift of focus away from the

128

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

end result towards acknowledging the value of the process in contemporary drawing offers space to detect and investigate a myriad of possible drawing actions, including conjuring. Enraptured by the miraculous conjuring of images from thin air, I had early on succumbed to the lure of drawing and that curious abandonment to the power of the infinite that tempts the drawer to withdraw from the world.19 When Jean Fisher watched her mother draw it was the experience of seeing the motion of her mother’s hand ‘as it perform[ed] its little arabesques with the crayon over the paper’20 which so entranced her. Fisher was aged ‘[t]hree, maybe’21 when she asked her mother to draw ‘anything! a horse, a cat, Grandpa’s house’ and ‘gazed in excited anticipation, mesmerized by her [mother’s] hand’.22 But, in her memory of the event, instead of describing what her mother drew, Fisher recalled how her mother, the drawer, had been ‘tempted to withdraw from the world’ as she made an image and also how Fisher, the witness, had been ‘enraptured’ as she watched ‘the miraculous conjuring of images from thin air’. Fisher’s description clearly shows us how a drawing that conjures can entrance the witness and at the same time transport the practitioner in the process of making.23 However, it is also possible that a conjured drawing may sometimes be wilfully actioned by a practitioner to gift themselves and the witness a visual surprise. When the writer and artist John Berger, in his 1972 book Ways of Seeing, writes ‘[i]mages were first made to conjure up the appearances of something that was absent’,24 he is speaking of still images made many thousands of years ago, when pictures were traced, scratched, smeared, daubed and spat, for the purposes of sharing recorded, imagined or wished-for information. Berger’s statement that these first images conjured up appearances of something absent speaks much to his faith in the potency of drawing. Berger believes drawing is not so important because of how it records something observed ‘but for what it leads [the practitioner] on to see’.25 This process, as he suggests, of retrieving and returning something visually lost, whether or not the practitioner plays with the concept of erasure and retrieval to heighten the audience’s desire, may perhaps be understood as the giving and receiving of gifts: the observed giving a gift of further knowledge to the practitioner in repayment for the practitioner’s attention, and the gift from the practitioner to the audience returning that which was lost back into their gaze. Yet not all drawings that conjure are made with the intention of retrieval, or of gifting things into the visual realm; nor are they by definition, as Berger’s ‘something’ might imply, a figuration. When Avis Newman explains that ‘[t]he line manifests a division that conjures the “this” and the “that” and in so doing is symbolically the mark of language’,26 Newman’s use of the term conjure suggests (in this instance) that, in the process of making a drawing, the practitioner has unexpectedly witnessed some familiar visual element within an abstracted form.

CONJURING

129

Whether this visual surprise came about through an altered dimension, a change in scale, a reversal, a merging from a familiar into something else altogether or a momentary slip in time, the practitioner’s surprise at the unexpected visual familiar may momentarily transport them into an altered state of consciousness, much as a child becomes transported in the process of discovery and play.27 And so it can be understood that within a conjured drawing today there are a number of different factors that may be at play. There is an element of motion in the process of drawing beyond the general emerging of a drawing (‘action creates conditions of illusions’);28 there is the practitioner’s ‘guided projection’29 or misdirection (sleight of hand altering the visual dimensional form), in which a visual ‘[o]bject is not actually there but appears to be’;30 with the added possibility of a tesseract (‘[the] drawing contains more time than it takes to look at it’),31 there is the audience’s ‘expectation lead[ing] to hallucination’,32 their ‘enraptured’33 surprise as they see an unexpected visual (either figurative or abstracted, ‘the this and the that’);34 there is the possibility of the audience retrieving something lost, or receiving an intentional gift from the practitioner; and there is the possibility of the practitioner and the audience being equally enchanted by witnessing the unexpected and being ‘tempted to withdraw from the world and map [themselves] into a scenography of a different order’.35 Chapter 5 (on illumination) investigates lightning sketch performances and other performed drawing processes (such as live and interactive animation) which, in their time (around 1900), surprised audiences with their seemingly magical visual transformations. These and other similar drawing performances from that time may have been perceived (by audiences) as magically ‘conjured’ into being, but, despite the similarities in the reception of lightning sketches and contemporary performance drawings that can be described as having been conjured, there are significant differences. An animation process differs from conjuring in that animation generally adheres to a sequential series following a preconceived thread, and a conjuring can be understood as a visual surprise (sometimes both for the practitioner and for the audience) in one or more hallucinatory-like images. The advancements in the technology employed in the process of performance drawing that conjures (in documented and edited recorded film contexts as well as live works) have also expanded the possibility of multiple retrievals (the finding of lost things) and of layering present and past times; these may now appear together at the same present time, facilitating practitioners to advance their play with loss and retrieval. Examples of multiple edited layering, losing and retrieving, can be found in Laurie Anderson’s 2016 Heart of A Dog, discussed in the section ‘Shadows, memory and the gift of a trace’ in this chapter. A dancing with time and the extended layering of narrative also allow the practitioner to perpetuate their audience’s surprise to a greater degree than was ever possible within the technological limitations of the heyday of lightning sketches. In addition, the development of drawing practices sometimes

130

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

merging with different disciplines (for instance, drawing in science, Wellcome commissions, S.T.E.A.M. practice, etc.) has informed practitioners and their audiences of intention, thereby heightening awareness and consciousness in the process of making and witnessing visual practice and also of altering the reception of performed and recorded imagery. Lastly, and importantly, works that can be said to conjure today are viewed with the significant knowledge and influence of past and present cinematic and screen visualizations. As Western contemporary society is optically and psychologically steeped in the influence of the screen, our collective reception of contemporary visual narrative, the signs, the edit, the shorthand, ever quickens and has equipped us with a visual comprehension far in advance of, for instance, the audience who watched the Lumière Brothers’ Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat. While that 1895 audience may not (as legend has it) have panicked and run out of the cinema, they were in all likelihood more astonished than we would be now if we watched a film of an approaching train. We have been deeply immersed in imagery for many decades, from the extraordinary computer-generated imagery (CGI) of Hollywood (such as James Cameron’s 1984 Terminator and 2009 Avatar films) to the holographic performances of deceased entertainers on stage (Celine Dion’s 2013 American Idol duet with Elvis Presley conjured into life). These technologies and the everyday perpetual immersive imagery of our personal computers, tablets and phones have brought us to an age of far greater visual distraction than Guy Debord’s cautionary text Society of the Spectacle (1967) predicted. Imagery influences our lives in a stream of moving and endlessly updating visualizations, and we have learned to read pictures with more awareness and experience than those witnesses who lived even just one lifetime ago. So it is that our reception of a drawing that can be said to be conjured today is understood through the prism of our historical knowledge and visual awareness. The influence of images on our society and the distraction they cause us through our everyday could perhaps be perceived as an act of visual trickery or, significantly (for the focus of this chapter), it could be interpreted as a form of collective misdirection. This being the case, perhaps we should question whether or not society is being conjured before our very eyes. Plato, in his Allegory of the Cave, imposed a misdirection on his imagined captives. More conjured trick than visual surprise, Plato sets the scene – the prisoners in a cave are tied in place so their view of the world is fixed and they can only see the wall in front of them. Behind the prisoners there is a low wall and, behind that, people are moving back and forth ‘carrying all sorts of things that reach up higher than the wall: statues and other carvings made of stone or wood and many other artifacts’.36 The bright sunlight casts those objects being carried as shadows on the wall in front of the prisoners. The shadows are all the prisoners can see, and they believe those shadows to be the real world, a world of statues and carvings. While the concept of a ‘real world’ may be

CONJURING

131

problematic in the context of contemporary fine art, and also for the (arguably) media-orchestrated societies of today, still Plato’s most powerful sleight of hand might not have been to conjure forms that bewitched the prisoners in Plato’s own time but to hold a mirror to his audience, many years in his future, posing a question for contemporary humankind, asking whether the world that is seen now is mistakenly perceived as ‘true’. And indeed as fake news, propaganda and advertising messages are spread worldwide on repeat through social media, each pressing their audience to believe them, a clear view becomes even more difficult to achieve. It should be explained that, for the purpose of determining where a conjuring exists during the process of drawing, a wide range of drawing practice has been investigated and through this enquiry particular areas of focus have been identified. These areas concern ‘Memory’, ‘Environment’, ‘Technology’, ‘Narrative’, ‘Merged Disciplines’ and ‘Sound’. To address these concerns, a selection of works by artists whose practical, generational, racial, cultural, political and contextual positions are markedly different from each other have been chosen. Rather than the juxtapositions of their different identities and works imposing a reductive comparison, the intention is to celebrate diversity in the process of a drawing understood to be a conjuring; it can also be understood that within all the selected works are common threads of being, presence and narrative. At a time when fake news, regressive politics, propaganda and advertising may fog our view of our climate, pesticide, petroleum and plastics challenged world, a constructive and kind collective awareness of the human condition in any cultural context place or time may be the common thread that protects us from activating our own annihilation. Towards that intention, this chapter proposes inclusivity in the gifting process of a conjuring.

Shadows, memory and the gift of a trace WILLIAM KENTRIDGE / LAURIE ANDERSON / TANIA KOVATS The South African artist William Kentridge dances with facts and fictions in his performed and recorded drawings that examine the social, political and racial through animations, documentations and flip-book motions. In the case of his Triumph and Laments: A Project for Rome (2016), made to celebrate the founding of Rome, Kentridge echoes Plato’s Allegory of the Cave with a live event, in which performers holding silhouettes of various figures and objects above their heads parade in front of a wall on which Kentridge, by erasing the patina there (scratching the surface and thereby revealing the lighter coloured stone), has drawn more than eighty figures in a theatrical frieze along the river Tiber. The ‘silhouetted procession’,37 that is, the live performers, the banners

132

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

they hold above their heads, together with the scratched figures on the wall, ‘explor[e] dominant tensions in the history of the eternal city from past to present’.38 Kentridge is dancing with the various and shifting ways in which light can illuminate a reality. In the live performance and within the documentation of the event, Kentridge conjures a tripling of shadow play, as the performers holding silhouettes (shadows in outline) cast their own shadows onto the wall on which other silhouettes are already scraped and drawn. In a 2016 conversation with Imagine presenter Alan Yentob, Kentridge explains that his Triumph and Laments was inspired by the debunking of a truth he had long accepted. Kentridge tells us: at art school you learned from the Italian renaissance … later on I understood about the [Jewish] Ghetto in Rome – I’d always assumed that that was in fact a medieval project … the shock was in discovering that in fact NO it’s a project of modernity. The Ghetto was established in 1570 – the same time they were building St Peters Cathedral. This heroic history of Rome and the shameful history of Rome came together.39 In her 2016 feature film Heart of a Dog, the artist, musician and performer Laurie Anderson brings together imagined narratives and personal memories. Playing with truth, she retells stories using drawn animation, the spoken word, performance and music, tracing around the loved ones she has lost to capture them momentarily and for as long as she desires. Beginning with a still charcoal drawing, the film pans around the sketched image of drifting people and dogs, accompanied by the mournful sound of Anderson’s violin. Anderson then begins to tell a story. The image on the screen turns into a self-portrait – animated lines loosely drawn, perhaps from a photograph. Anderson says: ‘This is my dream body, the one I use to walk around in my dreams.’40 Speaking directly to the individual (so it seems), Anderson draws the audience into her confidence, transporting them into her imagined landscape. In this way, it is both her voice and her images that conjure the scene. Anderson then takes the audience into a hospital room to witness a gruesome procedure: I had arranged to have Lolabelle sewn into my stomach so that I could give birth to her … she kept barking and trying to get out … it was really a mess … anyway … I kissed her on her head and said … I will love you forever.41 Anderson’s film then fades into old photographs, family scenes – houses and backyards. Her voice continues to perform her story: ‘When my mother died she was talking to the animals that had gathered on the ceiling.’42 In this way, Anderson extends her trace to embrace another of her lost loved ones.

CONJURING

133

While Anderson breaks the fourth wall – talking directly to her audience – Kentridge, in his Interview for Studio School 2010: Drawing Lesson 47, chooses to talk to and with himself by doubling himself in his film. He also draws himself into his stories, becoming different characters: Felix Teitlebaum in his 1989 Johannesburg, 2nd greatest city after Paris, Kentridge’s ongoing drawing for projection (as he calls his drawn animations), and in The Tide Table (part of Johannesburg, 2nd greatest city …), Kentridge drawing from old home movies ‘shifts’ the order (of time and ancestry), by posing as his own grandfather, and by having his son perform the role of his father. In conversation with Alan Yentob, Kentridge explains ‘so you had in a way four generations – and [it’s] about our relationship to our younger selves’.43 Within most autobiography there is a sense of grief for the loss of a time that can never be repeated, yet there is also, in every retelling, an act of capture. The retelling traces around the events that have occurred in a past time, capturing and fixing those events, and therefore gifting the memory (at least) to be repeatedly revisited and conjured again into the present time. An early (around AD 79) and frequently referenced example of drawing in which an event has been captured, and which can be described as a conjuring, is recorded by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History: A Selection. In this story, sometimes known as the birthplace of drawing, the drawer traces around her lover’s shadow, trapping him in time as a gift to herself. Pliny tells us: ‘all agree that it began with tracing an outline round a man’s shadow’.44 He goes on to explain: Modelling portraits from clay was first invented by Butades, a potter of Sicyon, at Corinth. He did this owing to his daughter who was in love with a young man, and she, when he was going abroad, drew in outline on the wall the shadow of his face thrown by a lamp. Her father pressed clay on this and made a relief.45 Even now this story of drawing and impending loss continues to be retold and differently interpreted. Jean Fisher observes that, because the potter’s daughter turned away from her lover to draw round his shadow, her drawing was ‘a displacement; as with Orpheus’s surrender of Eurydice to the underworld, the poem, the drawing, or song can only emerge, it seems, through the absence of the loved one’.46 The professor of art writing Michael Newman, in his reading of the story he calls Pliny’s Shadow, considers the presence of gifts and signs. If Butades’s daughter’s drawing ‘begins with … the shadow … then it may be … as philosopher C.S. Peirce calls an “indexical sign”, … as … track in the snow [is] to the animal that leaves it’.47 Newman also sees Butades’s daughter’s drawing as ‘a gift of memory, to herself and the other’.48 He notes that in the daughter’s

134

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

grief of her lover’s departure and in her substituting the drawing in his place there is the echo of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle,49 a concept of loss and retrieval – in which a child learning to endure the departure of his mother repeatedly throws and retrieves his bobbin. In her 2007 introduction to The Drawing Book, the artist Tania Kovats also sees Butades’s daughter’s drawing as ‘an act of love and grief’.50 Recognizing a sometimes elemental emotion in the drive that activates drawing, Kovats observes that ‘Boutades’s (sic)’51 daughter’s drawing not only attempts to fix a moment in time but also is made by ‘using a marker from the source of light and shadow itself’.52 In her series of drawings titled Breath (2001), Kovats revisits the elemental by using her own breath blown through a straw to move ink across graph paper, thus ‘exhaling’ her ‘experience and thought’ from her ‘consciousness … onto the paper’.53 As Kovats writes in her introduction to The Drawing Book, ‘to draw means to take in’,54 and with her breath it could be said that Kovats conjures a bridge between internal thought and external consciousness. The ink blown by Kovats’ breath sometimes traces serendipitous pareidolia, visualizing forms and conjuring unexpected yet familiar shapes. Kovats has addressed the elemental on a larger scale in her Evaporation Installation work (the second Cape Farewell Lovelock Art Commission at Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, 2015). Declaring that ‘[t]he health of the planet depends on the health of our oceans’, Kovats also wonders, ‘Does water have a memory?’ A set of drawings made through a tidal evaporation process were included in the installation, and

Figure 4.1  Tania Kovats, Evaporation (Black) 31, 2014, ink, saltwater on blotting paper, framed. Photo: courtesy of Pippy Houldsworth Gallery.

CONJURING

135

throughout the exhibition the traces of salt left embedded in the paper continued to react to moisture in the air (see Figure 4.1). Perhaps it could be said, then, that those salt crystals were indeed returning to a memory, if not a conscious altering then a shifting physical change; as their particles were impacted upon by the surrounding air, they reverted back to a familiar form. In Evaporation, the crystals had lost their original shape and then with rehydration they retraced a memory of their previous selves, bridging their past with their present while also leaving a trace.55 In his Judaic studies of loss and trauma, the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas believes that traces can be perceived as gifts left (even unintentionally) by those who are no longer with us – ‘the trace signifies beyond being’.56 Derrida, in his re-reading of Levinas’s text, interprets Levinas’s concept in this way: He will not have been (a) present but he will have made a gift by not disappearing without leaving a trace. But leaving a trace is also to leave it, to abandon it, not to insist upon it in a sign.57 And so it can be understood that every mark, brushed, warn, pressed, stepped, rubbed or smeared, can be interpreted as a gift left (without motive or purpose) by those who are no longer physically in this world. These traces conjure memories of loved ones, and through these traces loved ones accompany the living throughout their lives. While, as Levinas explains, the departed may leave unintentional traces as gifts for those that remain, Butades’s daughter’s lover was present when his shadow was traced and captured; he knew that something of himself would be left with his lover, and so, in his act of sitting for her while she traced his shadow, he gave her not only the possibility of an object of physical memory (in the trace itself and her father’s casting of it) but also his conscious presence during the act of her drawing – in this, his gift was both present, future and past in time and memory. Even though Derrida clarifies the meaning of Levinas’s text – ‘he will have made a gift by not disappearing without leaving a trace’58 – in his Memoirs of the Blind (1993), he interprets Butades’s daughter’s story by focusing on the idea that the practitioner cannot gaze at the subject while making a mark, an idea that is no longer credible in the practice of drawing today. Derrida’s reading of the act of drawing is framed in a conventional tradition, one in which a practitioner, when drawing, looks up at the subject and then away from the subject to the surface they are marking. But this repeated back and forth, up and down broken gaze is not necessarily a method followed in contemporary drawing practice. Some practitioners draw while staring uninterrupted at their subject without looking at the marks they are making; others trace a subject directly (on a transparent surface), thus looking at both the subject and the marks they make at the same time. Yet Derrida perceives that ‘the origin of graphic representation to the absence or invisibility of the model …

136

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

[occurs] … because their gazes simply cannot meet’.59 Must the act of drawing, as Derrida would have it, be trapped in a performance of unrequited desire? Maybe so, but not necessarily in the manner in which Derrida understands or in the way that is evidenced in the story of Butades’s daughter’s trace. Perhaps in contemporary drawing, where a practitioner’s efforts to develop their skills will drive them towards ever-shifting goals, and the ongoing process provides a progressively clear knowledge of the faults present in the work, that is where the perpetually unsatisfied desire is now to be found. Nonetheless, Derrida in his continued investigation of the impossibility of drawing that which cannot be seen and its association with the desire to retrieve that which is irretrievable, touches a contemporary ennui: it is as if seeing were forbidden in order to draw […] as if drawing were a declaration of love destined for or suited to the invisibility of the other – unless it were in fact born from seeing the other withdrawn from sight.60 The drawings Anderson makes in her film Heart of a Dog, as she repeatedly traces the shape of her beloved dog, are seen and also perhaps fashioned after the death of her companion. As Derrida professed, Anderson’s work is ‘a declaration of love, destined for or suited to the invisibility of the other’.61 But today technology offers shadows (photography, video and film) of beings that are sometimes long departed, and after their absence their capture is then conjured into a visibility of present time. And so, the shadows of the other, those who are departed, are made visible and can be seen and loved by those who remain; that love is destined to a conjured shadow, suited to a visual that exists somewhere between invisibility and presence. Traces in the contemporary age of multiscreen technology may come not only in physical marks but also in photographic, filmic and virtual guises, as Kovats’ father (a former engineer) noted: ‘I looked at the screen and I could see my rotten old heart beating, and it made a drawing like when the earth moves.’62 These technically various visual documentations extend the possibility of capture; now, it is possible to revisit those who have died, through multiple digital, analogue or virtual dimensions, and these ‘shadows’ that can be seen and their capture, gift those left behind with a bridge that connects the living to those existing in the dimension of after living. As outlined earlier (in Kentridge, 1989, Johannesburg, 2nd greatest city after Paris, and Anderson, 2016, Heart of a Dog), this is one of the acts at play that enables a conjuring in drawing to become a gift to the witness and the practitioner, surprising one or the other and sometimes both in its sudden presentation of an unexpected familiar. In current contemporary society, every individual can witness their own traces, in reflections and documentations visualized and screened in various ways; these can be interpreted as different versions of the self. Traces can morph time – from

CONJURING

137

the past and, with augmented predictive software, from an imagined future. They may conjure experiences remembered or possibilities yet to be; and, as they are witnessed, those different versions of the individual shifting and changing are dancing and slipping with time.

Relocating place and site DENNIS OPPENHEIM / GREIG BURGOYNE / M. FOÁ / ROBIN RHODE Another form of slipping and dancing occurs when visual evidence of a place is situated in different alternative viewing places and spaces. This displacement, replacement or alteration shifts and plays with perceptions of physical site. These displacements also trigger and conjure images in the viewer’s mind’s eye. Dennis Oppenheim navigates time and shifts place in his work Gallery Transplant (1969), made for the Earth Art exhibition at Cornell University’s Andrew Dickson White Museum in Ithaca, New York. Oppenheim, ‘by drawing on the ground using dirt and snow’,63 created ‘a dynamic relationship with the site becoming a surface for inscription’,64 transplanting a life-size floor plan of gallery number 4 of the Andrew Dickson White Museum, Ithaca, New York, to Bird Sanctuary, Ithaca, New York. Oppenheim’s action now exists as documentation comprising various maps, photographs and plans. In an interview with Avalanche magazine, he discussed his concepts. ‘To me a piece of sculpture inside a room is a disruption of an interior space … I began to think very seriously about place, the physical terrain. And this led me to question the confines of the gallery space.’65 Despite these observations, Oppenheim continued: ‘I don’t really carry a gallery disturbance concept around with me; I leave that behind in the gallery.’66 He went on, adding, ‘[o]ccasionally I consider the gallery site as though it were some kind of hunting ground’.67 Whether tracking for ideas to explore or concepts to disrupt, Oppenheim’s transplants discovered a way to turn the gallery inside out. His sleight of hand lay in marking ground in an outside area with the exact measurement of the internal space, thus ‘misdirecting’68 the viewer with the familiar two-dimensional life-size marks (an ‘[o]bject is not actually there but appears to be’),69 those signs triggering the shaping of a familiar form into their mind’s eye. In this way, Oppenheim conjured the internal space into a different place, and also (in a literal manner) wrenched that gallery cube out of its pristine white space, questioning its very existence, and perhaps even posing the question, If an empty parking lot can be a gallery space then why would white cubes remain the only place for artistic display? In an alternative form of transplant, Greig Burgoyne’s Walk/Count/Flow/Lost (2017), a series of three live repeated performances, repositions the dimensions of a grave taped on an internal wooden floor space out onto a stone path and then off the path back into a graveyard. Burgoyne defines his performances at Walcot

138

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Chapel, Bath, England,70 as a ‘vocal instruction and study in patch dynamics, […] purport[ing] to the idea that within the vast space that is homogeneity there are pockets of heterogeneity also, hence – patches of dynamic difference’.71 Like attracts like, so the saying goes, yet it is also said that differences attract, thus within areas of similar characteristics otherness may be discovered. During the documentation of his performance, Burgoyne holds a camera (phone), its lens pointing to his shoes, and in so doing he fixes his audience’s gaze to follow the motions of his feet while he speaks the number of steps he paces, navigating around restrictive rectangle spaces. Once out among the graves, he releases his audience from his grasp to see the action from a distant perspective (another camera’s view), revealing the graveyard around his stooped, halting gait. Burgoyne then uses the film of his feet pacing and his voice speaking numbers as a directive to navigate the graveyard.72 There is a comic/tragic sense in this performance as his stance begins to mimic an exaggerated now familiar pose of the lost pedestrian, gaze fixed on their screen’s GPS direction, repeatedly stumbling, not looking where they are going. Burgoyne clarifies the intention behind his work ‘was to explore a space’,73 citing de Certeau’s concepts related to people in place and space: ‘The “system” in which they move is too vast to be able to fix them in one place, but too constraining for them ever to be able to escape from and go into exile elsewhere. There is no longer an elsewhere.’74 This would imply that Burgoyne perceives he must be perpetually in motion, scurrying about the space yet unable to escape into another space, and perhaps also (in our society so consumed by our ceaseless back and forth gaze) unable to escape the watching documenting eye. In his text The Practice of Everyday Life, de Certeau also argues that place ‘excludes the possibility of two things being in the same location’.75 Viewed through a contemporary prism, de Certeau’s two concepts – the first a system too vast yet also too constraining to allow an escape to an elsewhere; the second the exclusion of two things being in the same location – can be understood as related, particularly when considering works concerned with the layering of histories in place. If different histories can be layered, evoked and conjured through the same time and place, then an exile from one narrative dimension of place into another would be effortless and hence there would be more than one thing existing in a place at the same time. In order to understand this more clearly we need only look to performance artist Phil Smith’s ideas of layering histories in place. A decade after de Certeau’s text, Smith coined the term Mythogeography.76 Mythogeography is the process by which the individual brings their story to a place, thereby layering a multiplicity of truths in a physical location. Smith also tells us that by being in a place we change the condition of that place – we change the stories of that place and we also influence people’s readings of that place.77 Therefore we can understand that each place is inhabited by a multitude of different entities and personal and historical readings. Indeed, Burgoyne discovers a variety of possibilities through

CONJURING

139

his physical process, ‘reiterating that space, one finds less familiarity … [one finds an] elsewhere’.78 Burgoyne introduced his story (his mythogeography) to the space and in this way may have found ‘an elsewhere’, perhaps by pacing out the dead or cautiously re-stepping around his memory of a life. ‘Three, four, five turn, six, seven, eight …’, Burgoyne’s voice is punctuated by birdsong, wind and leaves being crushed by footfall; ‘nine, ten, eleven, twelve, turn, thirteen …’, the documentation of the performance is now split into four images on the screen ‘indicative of CCTV screens’,79 showing the actions from different points of view. At Burgoyne’s last count, ‘twenty-five’, he stops, looks up from his phone, appears to take in his surroundings and then walks back to the chapel. By acting out and conjuring a contemporary struggle – the constant interruption of a screen that blocks all direct experience of being in place into a context that speaks of mortality – perhaps Burgoyne has paced out a warning: better to be lost and physically experience place than to be trapped in a virtual space while searching for the path. Referencing Oppenheim’s transplant action, and a ‘loss’ different to Burgoyne’s disruption by gaze and screen, M. Foá’s Lost Borrowed and Found (2006),80 made for Southwark Council’s participation in London Architecture week, replaced life-size floor plans of ships and buildings associated with south-east London into different park areas of the borough of Southwark (see Figure 4.2). The largest drawing in the series, a 3,500-metre-long plan of London Bridge, was drawn onto Honor Oak Park using a games pitch marker and gypsum.

Figure 4.2  M. Foá, Lost Borrowed and Found; The SS Great Britain, 2006, still from video documentation of the performance in Southwark Park, London.

140

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Walkers followed the white lines as though magnetically pulled across the park. The lines had become, as Newman had noted in his text, what C. S. Peirce calls an ‘“indexical sign”, […] as a track in the snow is to the animal that leaves it’.81 But, in this case, the sign not only referenced the practitioner but evidently also conjured a safe path to follow. As an animal will follow a track, so a person will follow a path, because, if well-trodden, that path signals previous repeated and safe passage through a place and space. Even Thoreau, alone in the woods, chose to walk along the rails that lead a clear way through, until ‘the bell rings and I must get off the track and let the cars go by’.82 A smaller work in the series Lost Borrowed and Found (2006), saw a top-down deck plan of the SS Great Britain in Southwark Park. Even before the work was finished, children, seeing the line as a games pitch mark, began throwing balls from one side to the other. When they understood the drawing was a ship, they stopped, looked along the curved bow line and, as if entranced – believing the object was actually there,83 the ship’s hull weighing through the trees – jumped, as though to clear water; landing on their make-believe deck, they called out ‘I’m on the ship, I’m on the ship’. The writer Bruce Chatwin, in his Anatomy of Restlessness, believes that childhood experiences are enriched by interactions with paths more than with people: ‘Children need paths to explore, to take bearings on the earth on which they live, as a navigator takes bearings on familiar landmarks.’84 The SS Great Britain’s top-down deck plan remained a visible path for a number of days before weather and footfall gradually rubbed it away. The South African artist Robin Rhode plays with the line of a drawn ship in his work Untitled (Landing) (2005). Rhode, inspired by a schoolboy initiation ritual ‘into the high school subculture’85 of drawing objects onto the wall and then forcing the younger kids ‘to interact with the drawing’,86 performs with his own drawings, and in so doing plays with a slippage of dimensions. In his works, he strives to be with ‘[o]bjects … not actually there but appear[ing] to be’.87 The still images of his actions are both documentation and the work, because, through his performance and the documentation of that performance, he conjures within the flatness of the photographic image a merging of the three-dimensional and the two-dimensional. In Untitled (Landing), Rhode appears to be struggling up steep stairs, hauling a black outline that describes a rowing boat; as he interacts with the two-dimensional line that pretends to be a three-dimensional form, his stooped physical pose suggests the drawn form is remarkably heavy. It is through Rhode’s physicality, as he playfully performs an impossible interaction with the drawn line, that the different dimensions – his own three-dimensional self and that of his two-dimensional drawing – merge into one within the twodimensional photographic image. In her chapter ‘A century under the sign of the line: Drawing and its extension (1910–2010)’,88 Catherine de Zegher defines drawing in the twentieth century. ‘With line as the prime element of a language concerned with the imitation of

CONJURING

141

reality, drawing could be both a reliably accurate representation of’ the observed and ‘a poetically inspired’ imagined ‘representation’.89 Perhaps this delineation, this marking out of things observed, might also be considered part of the collective falsehood of drawing because, as has been addressed in the introduction to this chapter, many practitioners realize there is a sleight of hand in marking a twodimensional surface when it proposes to represent a three-dimensional object. Rhode performs this sleight of hand as prankster and magician, revealing the falsehoods of the medium and at the same time celebrating the marvels of the illusions therein. As the art critic and writer Charles Darwent describes in his text Dreams, ‘[t]he dialogue decides how we re-cast 3 dimensions as two, … how we shrink a mountain down to paper size or imply a source of light’.90 However, when the practitioner retains awareness of this falsehood throughout the production of a drawing, rather than conceding to a convention of received signs and methods, something new occurs. Perhaps alertness is retained in the work, as when prompted by the perspective slip of a visual Doppler shift or a multiple dimension merge (which Rhode deftly achieves). The visual surprise sharpens the audience’s perceptions, heightening their awareness to the possibilities of different dimensions existing in space. In his 1993 ‘Essays on painting’, Maurice Merleau-Ponty explains that perspective drawings show a ‘conjuring away’91 of space, perhaps then the visual surprise occurs in the moment of slippage when something is reduced from its original three-dimensional state into a twodimensional sign, beguiling the witness and suspending the practitioner in the very act of drawing. This slippage of dimensions may go some way towards describing a conjuring up (rather than away) in the making and the witnessing of a drawing, because, in the case of Rhode’s documented actions with drawings, while his still images do ‘conjure away’,92 by merging his three-dimensional form into the two dimensions of his drawings, within the two-dimensional photographic image a visual surprise has been successfully conjured up. Alongside the merging of dimensions in Rhode’s images, there is also at play the concept of suspended motion. In a 2008 Modern Painters article, Rhode discusses his works with the artist William Kentridge. Rhode explains: ‘I’m beginning to understand performance differently. It’s taking the movement …’93 Kentridge finishes Rhode’s sentence: ‘And holding it.’94 Rhode agrees. Since Eadweard Muybridge’s extensive photographic examination of human and animal motion (1872),95 practitioners have physically satisfied their desire to hold a moment in time by fabricating the suspension of motion. In his work Leap in the Void, the painter and action artist Yves Klein offers an early and notable example of captured suspension. Klein declared that ‘in order to paint space he must go there by his own means’ and that ‘he must be capable of levitation’.96 In an iconic photo-montaged image, Klein is captured as though flying from a window, the tarpaulin that catches him is masked out, and hidden in the layering of a number of still images. A holding still of animation, in performance, film

142

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

and drawn or documented imagery, best describes the position in contrast to movement that appears present in Rhode’s works. His drawings are a capture of suspended motion, and, through his interactions, he appears to activate a reanimation – and that moment is held suspended – in a series of sequential still images.

Redrawing the self through technology and performance EILEEN AGAR / ECHO MORGAN / BIRGITTA HOSEA The Surrealist painter Eileen Agar’s work Lady Bird (1936) evidences a powerful and early analogue example, through photographic manipulation, both of holding motion and of altering reality. Lady Bird is a photograph of Agar taken by the Hungarian writer Joseph Bard, and within it Agar manages an exploratory example of performance drawing and conjuring. Agar transforms her naked self by holding in front of her a shimmering sheet of cellophane painted with drawn lines and symbols that camouflage her face and body. The surface of the photograph is also embellished with black-and-white patterns and lines, and the cellophane’s reflective surface, in part creased into random shadows and in other areas gleaming with light, glare and reflection, contributing to the surreal quality of this image. The pose Agar strikes suggests she is performing these drawings within her own dimensional space, somehow emitting the lines and shapes from her hands and suspending them in the air around her, yet caught within the two-dimensional still image in which she has also been captured. Agar, in response to being selected to participate in a 1933 Surrealist exhibition in London, explained: ‘Surrealism opened up new possibilities in subject matter for me. It is a constructive art movement, bent on freeing the mind from overdoses of common sense and opening hilarious new avenues of free thought.’97 Agar’s multidisciplinary practice, which includes sculpture (from found and constructed objects), photographic montage, painting and performance, clearly evidences her fearless appetite for exploring creative concepts, and in so doing she produced some pioneering works that prefigured the Happenings and performances of New York by some thirty years.98 More recent technological developments (since the 1980s, from analogue to digital and to virtual), with filming through multiple and various recording devices now (relatively financially) accessible, have allowed contemporary live artists an ever-broadening spectrum of documentation and position works by such practitioners as the Chinese artist Echo Morgan not only in a different time and culture from Agar but also in a greatly expanded spectrum of visual and dimensional possibilities – employing the live, the recorded and the various methods in which those two materials may now be worked together in live time.

CONJURING

143

Morgan, echoing Agar’s Ladybird work, develops and advances the concepts of drawing the body and conjuring an alternative reality, using her own naked body as the surface for her drawing and the tool for her narrative performance. Documentation images of Morgan’s work contain various and momentary differences in her facial and bodily gestures and in the shapes of the flow of water that streaks the paint covering her body. Presenting the viewer with signs that bring together multiple concepts, Morgan’s durational live performance work Be the Inside of the Vase (2012) addresses both cultural and sexual politics. Her naked body covered in white paint is decorated with cobalt blue bamboo stalks and leaves; in this way, Morgan both imitates (her body shape echoing a traditional floor standing vase) and references the blue-andwhite ceramics made in China from as early as the fourteenth century. These signs (the blue-and-white and the painted bamboo) are so iconic that they are internationally recognized and automatically understood as antique, historical and Asian, and so the audience may think they are in familiar comfortable territory; yet the familiar ceramic pattern when painted onto Morgan’s naked figure and in the context of a live performance strikes a disturbing visual. There is, in Morgan’s durational and sometimes motionless performance, an elegance and grace that capture the viewer’s gaze, particularly in the case of her Be the Inside of the Vase (2017; Draw to Perform),99 performed in a large open space bustling with various other actions; yet Morgan’s stillness, isolation and suspended animation attract the eye, suggesting that there may be something troubled, perhaps even desolate, in the work. Morgan explains that the work was inspired by something her father had said to her; he told her: ‘Women should be like vase, smooth, decorative and empty inside!’100 This extreme objectification of women and the rejection of Morgan’s individual identity and growth were thankfully countered by her mother’s very different perspective: ‘Don’t be a vase, pretty but empty inside,’ she told Morgan, ‘be the inside, be the quality!’101 The reasoning behind Morgan’s father’s comment is perhaps even more tragic than might first be imagined. He was an obsessive collector of Song Dynasty vases, had neglected his family and fallen into debt. He also borrowed money from Morgan’s ‘mother to send the vases to auction but they were all confiscated for being stolen goods’.102 Morgan navigates this tragic and complicated childhood trauma magnificently through her ‘heart breaking’103 performance, in a number of stages. First through ‘guided projection’,104 conjuring the still beauty of an iconic form (an ‘[o]bject […] not actually there but appear[ing] to be’)105 onto her own self and then by melting the blue bamboo away with water and song, she releases herself from being an objectified relic, and in this way she also loses her father’s reduction, stepping into and re-becoming her own self again, gifting her deliverance to herself and the audience. Defining this work Morgan says: ‘This is my voice, my story, my childhood’; and then, perhaps seeking the other’s continued assistance, she asks: ‘please break my vase’.106

144

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Figure 4.3  Birgitta Hosea, White Lines, 2009–10, still from the documentation of a performance at the Holographic Serendipity show, Kinetica Art Fair and Shunt, a performance venue at that time in the underground tunnels beneath London Bridge station.

The practitioner’s body as surface and subject, through drawing animation and digital technology, is central to the British/Swedish artist Birgitta Hosea’s work White Lines (2009–10) (see Figure 4.3).107 Inspired by the Chinese artist Huan Zhang’s performance Family Tree (2001), in which he writes Chinese physiognomy on his face until his identity is completely obscured by the black ink, Hosea’s White Lines was first performed as research for her practice-based PhD dissertation ‘Substitutive bodies and constructed actors: A practice-based investigation of animation as performance’.108 Created specifically for the Musion Eyeliner holographic projection system, Hosea – whose research practice and teaching in the field of expanded animation has contributed to the genre109 – explains that White Lines (2009–10)110 was also inspired by the 1901 film by Georges Méliès, L’homme à la tête en caoutchouc (The Man with the Rubber Head). In the film, Méliès, using early examples of photographic trickery, double exposure, viewpoint perspective and masking, appears to inflate a replica of his own head until it becomes so full of air it explodes. Hosea explains that White Lines is ‘a hybrid of Live performance and animation in which a holographic projection of white lines came together to form a giant head’.111 The work begins with a seemingly black empty space, then very slowly lines of bright white light begin to appear, but they do not fall onto a flat plane as we might expect; extraordinarily, they hover in space as they shape a three-dimensional form around Hosea’s

CONJURING

145

body and remain suspended there in the shape of a giant head. Thinking back to the work of Robin Rhode investigated in the section ‘Relocating place and site’, in which Rhode interacts with a two-dimensional drawing and employs the photographic record of his action to reduce his presence so as to exist in the same dimension as the drawing, Hosea, using holographic projection, has expanded this concept to its ultimate limit, and by attempt[ing] to animate myself into existence by drawing with light … in the performance I drew on myself in a mimicry of the actions taken to make the video projection. So I was performing the making of a drawing within the drawing itself.112 Hosea does literally exist in the same dimension as her drawing. The head, constructed from drawn light lines, appears to be conjured from thin air; this is smoke, lights and mirrors on an advanced level. Another interesting aspect of this work in relation to drawing in performance is that Hosea, taking a nonmatrixed position in the work,113 merges her hand-drawing with cutting-edge technology, and, by using both the earliest means of mark making and one of the most recent technological developments, clearly evidences the leap that has occurred in photography and film over the past century when used to conjure spectacle or mirage in performance works. Hosea’s work also signposts the possible innovative explorations that can be undertaken when mixtures of primary, analogue and digital visualization are employed together in live drawing performance.

Reinterpreting narratives PHOEBE BOSWELL / WILLIAM POPE.L / JOAN JONAS A mixing together of the primary hand-drawn mark with digitally visualized animation and a narrative that dances with time in performance are some of the elements at play in the 2016 film Dear Mr. Shakespeare (see Figure 4.4). Written and performed as part of the British Council’s Shakespeare Lives programme (2016) by the British Kenyan artist Phoebe Boswell and directed by British Nigerian film-maker Shola Amoo,114 Dear Mr. Shakespeare investigates how Shakespeare addresses issues of race in his Elizabethan play Othello, while giving the audience a collage of contemporary images and sounding words that conjure a myriad of visual notions into the mind’s eye. The various ways in which this play has been reinterpreted, and how these readings resonate with contemporary culture, are looked at through the eyes of a visual artist, Boswell herself. The film opens with a scene echoing a life drawing session: Boswell is sitting at her drawing board facing her subject – a black man

146

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Figure 4.4  Phoebe Boswell, Dear Mr. Shakespeare, 2016, film still. Courtesy of the artist and AMI Productions.

playing Othello (the British musician and actor Ashley ‘Bashy’ Thomas), this is indeed a life class although not of the traditional kind, because in this public context (we the audience are watching) Boswell has brought a balance; there is no inequality of modesty, the subject and the practitioner are both clothed. Boswell puts on her glasses, studies the man and, lifting a stick of charcoal, strokes it over the white paper. A shower of black dust rains into her lap. As Kovats poignantly observed concerning Butades’s daughter’s drawing of a shadow, charcoal is ‘a marker from the source of light and shadow itself’.115 Thomas, playing Othello, speaks Boswell’s words to the camera: ‘I only told her my stories of the places I’ve been, of the trauma the drama the things that I’ve seen’. Boswell has stepped Othello out of the play to confide in the audience; he continues: ‘the far away the exotic, it all seeped into her heart, that’s the only voodoo I do, you can’t keep us apart.’ Here, Boswell has performed a moment of chicanery, a magic that extracts a fictional character out of his early seventeenthcentury context and puts words in his mouth to speak to the audience in the here and now. In her letter to Shakespeare, Boswell slips time, breaks the fourth wall and then brings her audience into the performance, as both witness and confidant. This is the medium of film, a world of light and shadow, and Boswell is concerned with the lights and shadows of race. While she attempts to draw Othello visually with charcoal and aurally in spoken words, she is rendering a shadow of a character conjured in Shakespeare’s original text, so it could be said that she is also capturing the light illuminating a man who is himself shadowing Shakespeare’s invention of a man. Thus, Boswell, in this documentation of her performance

CONJURING

147

drawing, captures and conjures with both shadow and light in multiple ways. And now dressed in a long dark formal gown – the bodice decorated with black beads and strings of white buttons forming a necklace (echoing cowry shell jewellery and currency) – Boswell, her hands blackened in charcoal, ‘the source of light and shadow’,116 speaks to the camera. ‘Did you know Mr. Shakespeare, for no one is sure, when you decided to draw Othello as a Moor, that his blackness his otherness would always raise queries …?’ The image changes from Boswell speaking to the camera to an African woman dressed in a flowing Dutch Wax gown walking along a contemporary London street, past boxes of oranges, limes and pineapples, the colourful parade resonating heinous histories of colonialist trade. Then, the film shows Boswell again, looking into the camera and speaking directly to the audience, so that we the audience become her Mr. Shakespeare. Boswell continues: ‘In your own words Mr. Shakespeare you place black as the devil and create characters who speak race at an astounding level.’ A dancer117 writhes and flays around her as she speaks. ‘[B]ut then you subvert the whole thing with the poise and the grace that you give to Othello.’ Now the dancer puts his arms above Boswell’s shoulders and for a moment he seems to give her a pair of dark fluttering wings; then he is gone. Boswell continues: ‘and it made me think a little of the art world’s view of the other’. She pauses and wonders: as I am a brown female who has yet to discover how to be in the mainstream of the art world’s white male tower … they like my stories but from a distance those great titans of power … anyway Mr. Shakespeare … While the Jamaican cultural theorist Stuart Hall ‘changed the trajectory of creators like Steve McQueen’118 and ‘inspired generations of students into intellectual and activist cultural production’,119 problematic racial reception still continues in contemporary social and creative practice, requiring Boswell, tenacious in her direct approach, to break from her filmic reverie. She shakes the audience into the here and now by calling out a disturbing truth, the ‘dismal’120 position of a woman of colour in the art world today. This regrettable state of affairs, confirmed by Jean Fisher when she stated ‘the prevailing establishment view’121 that the art world ‘was the domain of white men from which the arts of women and ethnic “others” were to be excluded as inferior derivative’,122 is lamentably present today, and still many establishments continue to resist transcultural expansion, perpetuating an insular reductive and regressive status quo. The writer and cultural critic Cynthia Carr’s text In the Discomfort Zone describes how the American performance artist William Pope.L and his Tompkins Square Crawl (1991) ‘illustrated quite painfully what racism does’.123 Pope.L attempted to crawl across New York’s Tompkins Square holding a flower pot and wearing a suit as a comment on ‘the African-American tradition of struggle’.124

148

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

His performance was stopped by a distressed black spectator who told him: ‘I wear a suit like that to work […] You make me look like a jerk.’125 Carr explains: ‘White artist Chris Burden once crawled down a street […] but he had the privilege of being identified as an artist […] or a lunatic […] not the representative of all white people.’126 The America curator Stuart Horodner, in his text Working with William, explains Pope.L’s position: ‘he puts himself at risk […] rendering racism and confounding contexts … William is always relevant, always brings an intelligent inquisition and disarming humor […] He’s a Fluxus guy.’127 Pope.L’s persistently subversive performance practice energetically tramples racial stereotyping. Storyteller, prankster and jester combined, he reinterprets clichés of prejudice in a contemporary context, continuing to challenge perceptions and assumptions, often conjuring for his audience an uncomfortable surprise. In Bocio, Pope.L’s presentation at the symposium Issues in African Contemporary Art, 2000, he addressed the critic Cair Craword’s comparison of his work to West African bocio (empowered cadaver) magical objects, and said ‘how come one of them [white people] knows more about me than I do?’128 Pope.L then outlined the intentions behind his practice: I make objects and performances which act on the world in an uncertain and splintered fashion … within this dynamic of ‘things- at-odds’ there is also the intention that things interact with the world in specific ways … I hope that the creation of a state of rupture within contrary art works will foster a pro-active meditative life in those who apprehend the work.129 In a documentation photograph of his work Harriet Tubman Spinning the Universe (1992), Pope.L, standing on top of a ladder in Stuart Horodner’s East Side Manhattan gallery, is drawing directly onto a wall using charcoal and peanut butter. It is not clear whether this drawing was made as a performance, although the image could be argued to present the action as so, because Pope.L, balancing on the ladder in the middle of making the drawing, is fully aware of the performing position a practitioner takes when being recorded in the process of making a work. As has been defined in the introduction to this chapter, performance drawing is a drawing that is performed while viewed by an audience  – and through the documentation process, which anticipates a witness, a camera is also considered to be an audience. Harriet Tubman (the African American abolitionist and humanitarian), her multiple limbs seemingly wheeling round and round at great speed, cannot be stopped, and the peanut butter from which she was formed was so persistent on the gallery wall that, as Stuart Horodner bemoaned, the smell and the oil regularly seeped back to the surface for years after the drawing had been removed, in this way Pope.L achieved a repeated conjuring. It is unlikely that those who saw those peanut stains interpreted them as a gift, yet still there is something of a subversive

CONJURING

149

interpretation of Derrida’s reading of Levinas’s idea, in Pope.L’s ‘Fluxus guy’130 type returning: ‘He will not have been (a) present but he will have made a gift by not disappearing without leaving a trace. But leaving a trace is also to leave it, to abandon it, not to insist upon it in a sign.’131 In the peanut oil reappearance of Harriet Tubman Spinning the Universe, Pope.L and Tubman’s stories are both conjured and retold. Continually and uniquely repositioning past narratives into the present day, Pope.L refreshes audience’s reception of the racial and historical. In 2003, he gave a presentation at Tate Modern’s Live Culture: Performance and the Contemporary conference. Referencing a British colonial interpretation of the African, from the moment he touched down on British soil up until the moment he stepped back onto a plane to fly home to the USA, Pope.L. spoke not one word of sense at all. Thus, for twenty minutes, his presentation was babbled, burbled, blown, trilled, spat, popped, hissed, whizzed and banged out rhythmically with his hands on the podium. The audience, astonished into stunned silence, occasionally interrupted with embarrassed guffaws. That he is African American positions Pope.L, as Cynthia Carr clearly understood, fixed to the problematic past and present racist gaze, yet interwoven through his performances and two-dimensional works can be evidenced his acutely clear and present view of the human condition, this being so it is possible to describe this ‘fluxus guy’132 artist who ‘hope[s] that the creation of a state of rupture within contrary art works will foster a proactive meditative life in those who apprehend the work’133 as a subversive storyteller and maker whose work gifts his audience with conjuring and surprise. From a different generation race and gender, the octogenarian American performance artist Joan Jonas, in her multimedia work Lines in the Sand, also tells and makes stories – her Caucasian multilayered mixed media, live time recorded and drawn performances tend towards a gendered focus steeped in myth and contemporary narrative and are made from the position of ‘having the privilege of being identified as an artist […] not the representative of all white people’.134 In her retelling of the story of Helen of Troy, Jonas dances in a frock while sounding and drawing. First commissioned by Documenta XI in 2002, Jonas performed the work in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in 2004, transposing Helen in Egypt by the American poet H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) ‘to present-day Las Vegas, with the Luxor Hotel as a key motif’.135 In conversation with Robert Ayres, Jonas explains: ‘I went to Arizona and I was thinking about memories of the American landscape […] from before the Europeans came here. The southwest is a perfect example of different cultures layered on top of each other and next to each other.’136 In Lines in the Sand, Jonas wove together real-time live camera relay, projecting the visual here and now (varied camera views of the performance while it happened) and past time from there and then, still and moving imagery (projections of spectacular vividly coloured dream like neon displays interlaced with open desert landscape). ‘As soon as I started working with video […] I

150

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

got more interested in complexity and in building the links between things.’137 The multimedia in Lines in the Sand also comprised dance, drawing and the spoken word, offering many different motions and various views for the audience to see as the live bodies in action are simultaneously juxtaposed with live and documented time-based media. Conjuring the present and the past together into the now, Jonas states: ‘it interests me that people can see the performance in such different ways, they can miss one thing and see something else […] one person’s interpretation and experience of it can be slightly different to the next.’138 Clothed in a calf-length short-sleeved floral patterned dress with under trousers (gently subverting contemporary fine art performers’ usual choice of being naked or wearing black trouser costumes), Jonas, wielding a rod (approximately the length of her body) attached with a lump of chalk, performed her drawing onto a large sheet of black paper on the stage floor, gracefully gesturing white lines back and forth. She then appeared to use her chalk lines as directions to stepdance around. The British writer Tracy Warr, in her text What a Performance Is, explains that Jonas ‘sees her work as in-between dance and sculpture’139 and her ‘performance … repetitive drawing with a piece of chalk attached to a branch … gestures at shamanism’.140 Since the 1960s, Jonas has made live works combining video, drawing, dance, installation and sound, performed in gallery spaces and also in rural and urban landscapes. The now retired director of the John Hansard Gallery, Professor Stephen Foster, in his catalogue text for Jonas’s 2004 exhibition at the gallery, explained that in Jonas’s practice drawing ‘runs through the works over a long period’.141 Jonas’s continued exploration of her many and varied approaches to drawing, whether marking on mirrors or blackboards, drawing herself onto her own costume or tracing lines on the ground or onto paper to dance around, have been pivotal to the emergence of performance drawing as an identifiable genre; yet, as Jonas enthusiastically employs technologies alongside her direct hand to mark drawings today, she ensures her practice is not fixed in the 1960s. Once ‘describ[ing] herself as an “electronic sorceress,”’142 in a 2018 interview Jonas outlined her continued interested in shamanism and the role women play in society as healers and sorcerers. And, recalling the online live work made for Tate Modern in 2013, she noted some of the illusionistic influences that continue now to inform her practice. J.J.: ‘I composed a video projection in my loft in New York, which was projected in that room in the Tate, so I was simply moving in the space of projection … What I liked about that was that it was illusionistic, so you appear and disappear – its looks as if you’re really embedded in the space …’ MKP: ‘A sort of conjuring? When you put paper over yourself and disappear into the projection and when you wear a mask and come forward?’

CONJURING

151

J.J.: ‘Yes, I like very much that perception of the space being ambiguous, so the audience doesn’t know exactly where you are. It’s three-dimensional but it’s not, and, also, it’s mysterious and magical. I often went to magic shows as a child, and the idea of magic and sleight of hand had a big effect on me.’ 143 The dancers’ hands behind Boswell’s shoulders momentarily becoming her wings, Pope.L’s peanut butter Harriet Tubman reappearing on a New York wall, and Jonas and her drawing appearing and disappearing, in these various visual illusions these surprising conjured gifts, the reinterpreted narratives, are heighten and transported from their original form into shifted visions, thus offering the audience the possibility to alter their reception and, in this way, vision, narrative and audience are each transformed.

Merging disciplines and bridging technologies KREIDER O’LEARY / CHRISTIAN NOLD Beginning their collaboration in the 2000s, the performance collective Kreider + O’Leary – comprising Kristen Kreider, a poet in expanded contemporary writing and art practice, and James O’Leary, an architect and installation artist – embrace a multiple of technologies and mediums, ‘operat[ing] on the edges of disciplinary boundaries through an integrated visual-spatial-poetic practice’.144 While their individual professions (architecture and poetry) investigate markedly different fields, the bridges they create together to link those disciplines (‘building … links between things’)145 allow for an exuberant and vigorous examination of place. Interacting together in a site, Kreider + O’Leary revisualize that space with the live body, the spoken word, drawing and time-based media. These interactions, such as Immolation Triptych, performed at The Drawing Field workshops at Camberwell College of Arts, UAL, in 2009,146 are laced through with conceptual and visual suggestions, triggered by those various interactions (see Figure 4.5). And, rather than the experience of place and/or the audience’s interpretation of that place, being interrupted through the prism of a screen (as has been investigated in the section ‘Relocating place and site’ in the discussion of Greig Burgoyne’s 2017 work Walk/Count/Flow/Lost), Kreider + O’Leary’s interactions intensely and directly expose and re-contextualise the site,147 renewing the viewer’s direct physical and conceptual experiences of place. Engaging with the final three scenes of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film work Nostalghia (1983), Immolation Triptych translates and transforms each of these three scenes through word, image, object and action as well as through the spatial design and construction

152

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

of each shot. By refiguring the narrative and visuals of time-based media in their live work, Kreider + O’Leary also refigure the space in which they are working. During the live performance, resonances and emotions are conjured out from the film into the real time and the place of the live work as it happens, and they become interlaced into the resonances, emotions and narratives already present in that site in which they are performing. ‘With archaeological levels of detail, they […] use images, video and architectural elements to explore the site as the fulcrum for a number of inter-related systems: from the spatial and historical to the social or artistic.’148 Theirs is a performance drawing practice celebrating a multiand cross-disciplinary process while also joyously employing technologies in an exploratory manner. As Kreider + O’Leary ‘operate on the edges of disciplinary boundaries’, they are referencing the performative Happenings of the 1960s and 1970s (see Chapter 3 on communicating) and the film-making of the 1980s, at the same time signposting the possibilities of materiality and concept in future expanded performance drawing. Navigating an alternative and exploratory employment of technologies, the British artist Christian Nold fuses together different scientific and virtual methodologies in his practice, reinvestigating place by revealing hidden elements in place. Nold’s Emotional Mapping series ‘explores people’s relationship with their local environment’149 and displays the individual’s hidden emotional experiences in, and of, place. By ingeniously ‘commandeering technology away from its current

Figure 4.5  Kreider + O’Leary, Immolation Triptych, 2009, still from the documentation of a performance at The Drawing Field workshops at Camberwell College of Arts, UAL. Photo: Kreider + O’Leary.

CONJURING

153

frequent default position – of separating person from place’150 (smartphones, film and photography all position screens between people and place, blocking direct experience of place) – Nold, weaving together GPS technology with galvanic skin tissue technology, creates visual evidence of people’s emotional experiences as they interact with a specific place. His Emotional Mappings were composed during his Bio Mapping workshops across the UK, Europe and America. Those attending the workshops walked (individually) around selected locations, their index finger taped with galvanic sensitive material and attached to a GPS tracker. As the journeys of the participants were recorded through GPS data onto a virtual street map, Nold collected the information and then gathered the participants’ emotional responses (from the galvanic skin tissue readings), reconfiguring them as graphs and superimposing them (in peaks and troughs) onto the street map: peaks registering, for instance, a shock at a road crossing and troughs registering perhaps periods of relaxation. The galvanic sensitive finger band, reading data from the moisture and temperature of the skin, is basic ‘lie detector’ technology, but through his subversive use of this methodology layered together with navigational data, rather than revealing an abrupt exposure, Nold manages a gentle and double conjuring. Nold’s Emotional Mappings reverse the separation between person and place and, through fashioning maps to register location layered with the individual’s emotion, reveal the individual’s direct emotional interaction within a place. Nold’s Emotional Mappings have shown that the invisible GPS signals that travel from satellites through environments to telecommunications devices can be revealed.151 And, as those signals are revealed, it can be understood that contemporary ‘spaces are threaded through [in an electromagnetic river], with [all manner of] multiple invisible signals. […] generated by mobile phones, security devices, television, radio and microwave’.152 In the same way in which electromagnetic signals travel through place, so too do sound waves, moving from one place to another. Sound is perceived by the ear, tracked and followed in the mind’s eye and, as the American curator and writer Elizabeth Finch explains in her text, ‘The drawing as instrument’, by ‘[u]nderstanding that our visual memories are linked to the sonic – we can know something visually by hearing it’.153 In this way, it can be understood that sound can be drawing moving through place and that sound is also an integral material component of performance drawing practice. In this chapter, what is meant by conjuring, in the context of performance drawing, has been identified, and works related to shadow and memory and practice that plays with the relocating of sites have all been examined. How practitioners refigure the self during their process and the various ways in which narratives have been reinterpreted in the practice of performance drawing have also been investigated. Lastly, the use of multiple and various technologies, and how merged disciplines within performance drawing practice might continue to expand the genre, have been considered.

154

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Performance drawing works in which sound moving through place can be understood as drawing and in which sound is an integral material component of the performance drawing process are now examined.

Sound drawing in performance ALISON KNOWLES / KATIE PATTERSON / M. FOÁ / SUSAN PHILIPSZ / JORDAN MCKENZIE While a drawing made with marks journeys across a two-dimensional area – tracing, delineating and defining that space, and thereby controlling that space – a drawing made in sound is a travelling sonic wave that leaves no trace. As that sound wave draws through a three-dimensional place, exploring place and its own source in relation to place, it moves from one area to another and is impacted on by the materials it encounters. Despite the differences between the haptic (felt and seen) and the sonic (heard and visually imagined), the American curator and writer Anthony Huberman understands that drawing and sound have shared properties; he clarifies those as being ‘more draft like […] quicker […] something to do with the line, and to do with mark making’.154 While visible work may engage a lingering gaze, sonic work can only be experienced in the moment of the audible event. Sound conjures images received by the ear and translated by the mind’s eye. It might therefore be understood that sound requires hearing, memory and imagination in order to engage in an experience of ‘know[ing] something visually by hearing it’.155 In Chapter 3 (on communication), Alison Knowles’s practice in relation to The Drawing Center’s Drawing Papers 20: Performance Drawings and Knowles’s event score works have been examined. In her text ‘The drawing as instrument’ for the 2001 series of solo performance drawing presentations at The Drawing Center, Elizabeth Finch considers Knowles’s works in relation to performance drawing and sound. Finch writes that Knowles’s works ‘return to the principle of process as it relates to a host of factors: among them, sound, collaboration, audience, chance and the studio versus the site of presentation’.156 Finch’s text, subtitled ‘The acoustic event’, confirms how sound (its presence and/or absence) is integral to performance drawing and explains that Knowles seeks ‘to create performances that can be enacted by others’,157 stipulating that she acts with objects rather than imposing herself onto those objects, ‘making present … rather than bringing forth objects’.158 In her 2001 Drawing Center performance, ‘Knowles shapes [handmade papers that transform into a paper suit] … around a performer, while reciting accompanying text.’159 The objects that are components of Knowles’s performances (some are used repeatedly, e.g. Loose Pages (1983–2001) – papers that transform into costume, 1983–2001,

CONJURING

155

and Giant Bean Turner 2000) are also traces of her performances, and as such they are important for both her exhibition and her performance works. Knowles’s 2001 Drawing Center performance also consisted of ‘other visual and sonic events together with poetry – her own and provided by friends’160 and, while offering objects and actions for the observing eye, through her recited texts and various performed sounds Knowles conjured images into the audience’s mind’s eye. In April 2009, she led a workshop at the October Gallery London for UAL’s International Centre for Fine Art Research (ICFAR). During the workshop, she displayed her paper constructs (paper sleeves for arms and legs, and a helmet) and offered those participating in the workshop the opportunity to try on the helmet. Participants reported that the sound of Knowles’s hands smoothing the paper helmet around their ears might have been wind and rain or perhaps even fire and that photographic documentation of Knowles’s constructions do not describe them well, because they are made from flax, which crackles loudly when touched. And, when moved and turned, the beans trapped between the paper set off a noise like monsoon rain or a hurricane wind rushing through trees.161 A workshop participant spoke to Knowles about sound in her practice: Participant: ‘You told us earlier that you felt your practice was about sound …’ Knowles: ‘Performance and sound, I don’t use sound isolated from any activity, it’s a kind of focus of my work.’ Participant: ‘Would you say that you draw with sound?’ Knowles: ‘That’s very poetic that I’m drawing with sound, I wouldn’t have thought of it, you did – at the drawing exhibition I did a performance at the opening that was my contribution.’ Participant: ‘Were you drawing?’ Knowles: ‘No, I was performing with the bean turner, the huge one, and in the exhibition I had some still work … I think I read some text [from The Natural Assemblage] before we walked onto the street with it – and up to the end of the block.’162 Despite Knowles declining the concept that sound in her work might be interpreted as drawing, still Tom McDonough, in his text ‘City scale and discreet events: Performance in urban space 1959–1969’, makes comparisons between Knowles’s street performances and the process of drawing when he describes her performances as expressing ‘the fundamental logic of the drawing: the production of a line that … marked the separation of and joint between two spaces’.163 And in as much as sound travels through place, beginning at its source and spreading out

156

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

in a directional wave, the motion of sound holds the ‘fundamental logic of drawing’ and its linearity ‘mark[s] the separation of and joint between two spaces’.164 McDonough also defines Alison Knowles’s street performances as intentions to enact drawings into the real world ‘and to be inscribed into the realm of everyday life’.165 It can be said that sound as it examines and is impacted by the spatial and material qualities of place temporarily, in real time, does indeed ‘inscribe [itself] into … everyday life’. When speaking about her Street Performances (1959–69) works, Knowles, realizing the impact of sound onto place and practitioner and also how sound can reveal condition of place for practitioner, explains that ‘[t]he task’ primarily was for the collaborators, when they went onto the street to make a piece, ‘to become competent in listening to their sound underneath silence or noise’.166 When listening to the sounds in Knowles’s work it can be said that, as those sounds move from one place to another exploring space, they conjure traces, pictured in the mind’s eye. In this way, the sounds in her works could be interpreted as drawings conjured through place.167 The British artist Katie Paterson’s 2007 work Vatnajokull (the sound of), reveals an extraordinary exploration of place through sound and technology conjured into and interpreted by the listener’s mind’s eye. In June 2007, Paterson dropped a hydrophone into a glacier in Greenland and rigged up the necessary audio equipment which was connected to a mobile phone set to auto answer. For a week, mobile phones anywhere in the world could telephone the glacier and hear it melting. Paterson, in her online diary entry for 7 June 2007 noted, ‘the phone was jammed yesterday with calls. If you didn’t get through please try again’.168 Her Vatnajokull (the sound of) could be seen as a contemporary echo of the bell that Henry David Thoreau heard through a wood. As the sounds of the bell came from the church to his ear they were ‘to some extent original sound … not merely a repetition … but partly the voice of the wood’.169 Thoreau understood that, as the sonic wave from the bell bounced, reflected, refracted and resonated through the trees, branches and undergrowth to reach the place where he was listening, the waves absorbed the character of the place and became sounds woven through with the timbre of the place itself. Vatnajokull (the sound of) travelled in a very different manner, contained in a device (the phone’s receiver), propelled and broadcast via satellite, the sound of the iceberg was coloured by technology and the vast space between its location and the satellite, all these elements were conjured into the audience’s listening ear to trigger images in their mind’s eye. The sound artist Chris Watson also recorded Vatnajokull,170 capturing the sound of the melting glacier on a disc, as the sounds are heard through the listener’s personal audio equipment (CD player/ laptop, etc.), perhaps it might be said that Watson’s Vatnajokull contains less distortion from materials of place and space, yet in Watson’s work there is also a greater dislocation – the sounds having been separated completely from their original place.

CONJURING

157

Sound’s potent capacity to describe the condition and character of place is evidenced in Line Down Manhattan, a performance action by Foá made on New Year’s Eve 2003. Initially intended as a prayer for the closing of one year and the beginning of another, in the form of a temporary trace (left by a lump of raw chalk pulled on a length of rope –  roughly 14 miles) down Broadway (from Broadway Bridge to Battery Park), it is the sound in the documentation of the action that conjures place into the listener’s ear and mind’s eye. While the film (recorded on a hand-held camcorder) reduces the journey to a series of monotonous images (white chalk dashed, skipped and slipped over various pavements), people’s voices, the different languages, vendors hawking wares, different music, pedestrian’s conversations, children playing, traffic noises, these sounds are what best describe the districts passed through, and in their variety of identifiable characteristics they conjure a sense of the multicultural place. Yet there is also another possible conjuring at play in this work, because the shape of the island of Manhattan is so iconic, the title of the work, Line Down Manhattan, does enough alone to conjure an image, in which case perhaps there was no need to make the work at all. Even so, it was in the physical action of walking and recording the length of Manhattan that Foá found the sonic harmonics that expanded and revealed the various and particular characteristics of place. Therefore, it can be said that the work exists in three different forms: first, the walking action – being a temporary physical motion through space measuring while tracing and investigating evidence of place; secondly, the documentation – capturing some visual imagery and revealing a sonic discovery of the descriptive harmonics of place; and thirdly, the title alone – triggering a visual conjuring into the individual’s mind’s eye. After completing Line Down Manhattan Foá learned of The Great White Way 22 miles, 9 years one Street (2000–9) a work by Pope.L in which he – dressed as superman – crawled down the length of Broadway. Pope.L’s edgy subversive action shone a light on the problematic racial implications of Foá’s white English chalk line, particularly as Broadway follows the indigenous American Wickquasgeck Trail.171 Consequently, Foá renounced the chalk trace and prefers to emphasize the fleeting image conjured by the title into the audience’s mind’s eye and the sonic descriptions of people and place revealed in the documentation. How sound describes and explores place and space is key to Susan Philipsz’s work The Lost Reflection.172 Philipsz, who uses her own voice as material in her works, explained she began to understand singing as ‘a sculptural experience in your body space’ and then realized that ‘when you project a sound into a room … it can define a space’.173 Life on Mars’s biography of Philipsz characterizes her work as ‘ephemeral installations’, in which ‘lie the infinite possibilities of sound to sculpt both the physical experience of space and the intangible recollections of memories’.174 Philipsz explains that her work The Lost Reflection was inspired by a ‘barcarole [boating song of Venetian gondolas] in The Tales of Hoffmann

158

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

[by the German composer Jacques Offenbach in 1881] … it was a duet where each person seemed to call to the other across the water’.175 In her vocal sound works, Philipsz manages a multiple conjuring: first, in her soundings across place Philipsz conjures physical senses of space; and then, through her vocal song, she conjures memories into the listener’s ear. When the American curator Suzanne Delehanty, in her 1981 ‘Soundings’ text, tells us ‘sound, gathered from the space around us by our skin and bones, as well as by our ears, is inextricably bound to both our perception and experience’,176 we can understand that sound resonates from the body and within the body and that ‘the sound that surrounds us, gives us a sense of our proper bodily location in space’.177 As vocal sound drawing is expressed through the larynx, activated by breath from the internal place of subjectivity, concept and dream, and sent out to the external place of objectivity, practice and physicality, it can be argued that drawing in sound is the three-dimensional expression and measuring of self in relation to place and the expression and measuring of place in relation to self.178 While Philipsz’s The Lost Reflection evidences a calling across water, so it also references the human tendency to call out under bridges – perhaps this may be an instinctive means to ‘sound’ an environment, in the same way that sonar measures the depth of the sea floor; so calling out inside a structure can conjure a physical sense of that structure and locate self in relation to the boundaries of that structure.179 In his Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Georges Perec recalls a story concerning how sound can measure and reveal place. An escaped

Figure 4.6  Jordan McKenzie, Shame Chorus, 2016–ongoing, performance at B Side Festival. Photo: Brendan Buesnel.

CONJURING

159

prisoner, lost at night, ‘came to the banks of a river. There was the moan of a siren. A few seconds later, the waves raised by the passing boat came and broke on the bank. From the time separating the moan of the   siren, to the splashing of the waves, the escapee deduced the width of the river … and knew where he was.’180 The singing voices in Jordan McKenzie’s Shame Chorus181 conjure a collective hope, an emotional knowing and a strong sense of being together in place (see Figure 4.6). Presenting his work, McKenzie – collaborating with the Freud Museum, the psychoanalyst Susie Orbach and the London Gay Men’s Chorus – quotes the American writer Brené Brown: ‘If we can share our story with empathy and understanding shame can’t survive.’182 There is in this work a remarkable calling, one that Susie Orbach recognized as ‘an important way to find oneself and yet be able to be with others and be different in that same way’. While Sigmund Freud’s concept of the ‘talking cure’, in which a patient talks to a therapist to allow them to uncover hidden desires, may have been a starting point for this work, there is perhaps a more ancient and universal intuition at play here, one that relates to a deep sense of collective belonging. On a small mountainous island in Papua New Guinea where local villagers made their gardens, I saw how people communicated with one another over great distances (1/2 to 1 mile) from one hill top to another, they called whooping across the valleys, revealing their own positions, locating one another, and keeping safe through that network of sound, similar communication networks exist in rural areas of the Canary Islands, Turkey, Mexico, Greece and Spain.183 That a collective sounding might be geographical as well as local reveals the vital potency of sound in relation to community and survival, and the London Gay Man’s Chorus, in singing together for the Shame Chorus projects, perform a sounding that declares their collective belonging and determination to survive. Using both the spoken and the sung word, their voices play with harmony and rhythm relating stories of shame; and their collective sound, the sound of men singing together, cannot help but also reference plain song and the chanting of Christian monks in Western churches. In turn, the numerous and abject actions perpetrated by members of the church onto young choristers is also brought to mind. And so, there are a multiple of shames present at this Chorus – the experienced, the sung and the referenced – yet still the men singing together are so sure in voice and so strong in their collective belonging that those multiple shames are illuminated, dissipated and overcome, changing the condition of their life and environment all through the sounding of their collective voices. Marcel Proust, in his text Swann’s Way, understood the importance of sound and how it mapped the shape and quality of an environment: ‘I could hear the whistling of trains, which now nearer and now further off, punctuating the

160

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

distance like the note of a bird in a forest, showed me in perspective the deserted countryside.’184 The vocal callings, like Proust’s whistling train and Thoreau’s bell through the woods, not only resonate with the material of the place revealing the shape and condition of place but also conjure a sonic network across an area mapping a person in place, situating them in relation to another person located in a different place. These callings then are acts of survival sonically connecting one person to another across open spaces, in a system of belonging – just as McKenzie’s Shame Chorus, answering an acute need in today’s disparate society, connects individuals in a time and place. The choir contains multiple voices singing together, and the song resonating within each body reverberates together as one body in a hopeful and visionary sonic system of belonging. This chapter has addressed the concept of conjuring in the context of drawing and performance drawing and showed how a drawing that can be said to be a conjuring presents itself as a surprise gift for the witness and sometimes also for the practitioner. These gifts might be premeditated actions, managed with a conscious sleight of hand misdirecting the witness’s gaze (in documentation, edited film or live action), yet sometimes they might also occur quite by happenstance when both the practitioner and the witness are surprised by a visual familiar or serendipitous pareidolia. The concepts of perception and misdirection have been referred to in the texts of Plato and Debord and evidenced in the works made in outside spaces (see the section ‘Relocating place and site’), where lines drawn on the ground can be mistakenly perceived as signs to be followed. Yet, as Levinas has said and Derrida has restated, traces may be left not imposed, and those evidences of past presence can be interpreted as gifts of memory to those who remain. One such infamous trace was made by Butades’s daughter. We have seen different interpretations of this story, yet there is always more to ponder in what exactly did happen as she sat her lover down. He must have been seated at a precise angle and positioned close enough to the wall for his shadow to be clear and in perspective, and he must also have been still for long enough for her to draw around his shadow, thus gifting his outline to her. In this way, he (perhaps a lover about to travel or a soldier ready to leave and fight in a war) gave her his attention, his stillness and time, both his present time and, once he had left, also his past time, allowing her to hold tight in her time to the vision of his likeness and to embellish and enhance her memory of him with concrete evidence of his form. The retelling of memory narratives are also gifts to those that remember: each time their memory is told so the past event is conjured for a moment into the teller’s present time. In this way, traces and memories can morph time, dancing back and forth between past and present. Performance drawing conjuring through cross-disciplinary practice and the employment of technology in live action, recorded and edited works has also been looked at in this chapter. And how sound can be interpreted as drawing that conjures images in the listener’s mind’s ear has been understood. It has also

CONJURING

161

been outlined that heard sound can reveal the condition of place to the listener’s mind’s ear: a melting glacier transcribed through the broadcast of a satellite and a mobile phone; the culture of place evidenced by the languages spoken and the music heard through place; the human voice calling under bridges, resonating from a body in place; and finally the collective chants that call out, conjuring a network of hope and belonging across space. A performance drawing that conjures (in mark, trace, recording and sound) is a gift of a visual and sonic surprise. Chapter 5, on illumination, investigates live performance drawing that employs all manner of light projection from the lightning sketches of the Victorian theatrical processes through to contemporary projects such as lightning doodles, expanded cinema and lasers in the present day.

Notes 1 Jean Fisher, ‘On drawing’, in Catherine de Zegher, ed., The Stage of Drawing Gesture and Act: Selected from the Tate Collection (London and New York: Tate Publishing and The Drawing Centre, 2003), p. 217. 2 Maryclare Foá, ‘Drawing: A Conversation with Carl Plackman 2009.’ Poem in response to Carl Plackman’s poem. See Maryclare Foá, ‘Sounding out: Performance drawing in response to the outside environment’ (PhD diss., UAL, 2011), p. 216. 3 Simon Downs, Russell Marshall, Phil Sawdon, Andrew Selby and Jane Tormey, Drawing Now: Between the Lines of Contemporary Art (London: I.B.Tauris, 2007). 4 Carl Plackman, ‘Artist’s Notes 1972’, in Arts Council, ed., Out of Line: Drawings from the Arts Council Collection (London: Hayward Gallery Publishing, 2001), exhibition catalogue, p. 31. 5 Transcribed by the Maryclare Foá from notes and audio recordings taken during the conference ‘With a Single Mark’, Tate Britain, 19 May 2006, as research for Foá, ‘Sounding out’, p 10. 6 Cornelia H. Butler and Catherine de Zegher, On Line: Drawing through the Twentieth Century (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010), exhibition catalogue, p. 120. 7 Michael Craig-Martin, Drawing the Line: Reappraising Drawing Past and Present (London: South Bank Centre, 1995), exhibition catalogue, p. 10. 8 Hester Musson, ‘Drawing together’, Art Quarterly (Summer 2018), https://drawingroom. org.uk/uploads/Art_Quarterly_Summer_2018.pdf (accessed 4 April 2020). 9 Foá, ‘Sounding out’, pp. 42–3. 10 Peter Lamont and Richard Wiseman, Magic in Theory: An Introduction to the Theoretical and Psychological Elements of Conjuring (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 1999), pp. x–xi. 11 Ibid., p. 9. 12 Plackman, ‘Artist’s Notes 1972’.

162

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

13 E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (London: Phaidon Press, 1960), pp. 170–1. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Avis Newman and Catherine de Zegher, ‘Conversation’, in de Zegher, The Stage of Drawing, p. 78. 17 Katharine Stout, ‘A recent history of drawing’, in Katharine Stout, Contemporary Drawing: From the 1960s to Now (London: Tate Publishing, 2014), p. 9. (Stout cites Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, ‘Raymond Pettibon: Return to disorder and disfiguration’, October, no. 92 (Spring 2000): 37–51.) 18 Ibid., p. 13. 19 Jean Fisher, ‘On drawing’, in de Zegher, The Stage of Drawing, p. 217. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin, 1972), p. 10. While Berger uses the word ‘images’ in his text, he is referring to the earliest visual renditions made by humankind, those made on caves and/or stones before any definition or distinction between a drawing and a painting had been decided. The processes undertaken to render such images (direct hand or stick, or spit staining or scratching in line, mark and stained tone) can be understood as being both drawn and painted. Berger’s use of the term conjuring in this chapter has been quoted as an indicator of its frequent use in relation to our visual world. 25 Ibid., p. 3. 26 Butler and de Zegher, On Line, p. 109. 27 In reference to how a ‘one-off’ drawing ‘simply rests in its own space’, Professor Stephen Farthing considers how St Thomas Aquinas ‘eloquently described [this space as] “the limbo of children”’. Stephen Farthing, Dirtying the Paper Delicately (London: University of the Arts, 2005), pp. 41–2. And, citing Roy Harris, Farthing offers an ‘Artspeak’ translation: ‘a poetic space where ideas and information can be stored in a raw and untranslated state’. 28 Gombrich, Art and Illusion, p. 173. 29 Ibid., pp. 170–1. 30 Lamont and Wiseman, Magic in Theory, p. 9. 31 Plackman, ‘Artists Notes 1972’, p. 31. 32 Gombrich, Art and Illusion, p. 173. 33 Fisher, ‘On drawing’, p. 217. 34 Butler and de Zegher, On Line, p. 109. 35 Fisher, ‘On drawing’, p. 217. 36 Plato, ‘The Allegory of the Cave’, Republic, 514a–517a, trans. by Thomas Sheehan, https://web.stanford.edu/class/ihum40/cave.pdf. (accessed 1 May 2020).

CONJURING

163

37 Andrea Biagioni, ‘TEVERETERNO: A multidisciplinary cultural project or the revival of Rome’s Tiber River’ (April 2016), http://www.tevereterno.it/public/2015_TE_ Programming_Report.pdf (accessed 4 April 2020). 38 Ibid. 39 On 14 July 1555 Pope Paul IV officially established the neighbourhood of Sant’Angelo as the home of the Jewish community requiring that all Jews live within the confines of the Ghetto. St Peters began being built in 1506 and was completed in 1626. So Kentridge was correct the two coincided – but a little earlier than his date. BBC, ‘The Triumphs and Laments of William Kentridge’, on Imagine, BBC, edited and presented by Alan Yentob (first aired 22 November 2016). 40 Laurie Anderson, Heart of a Dog (London: dogwoof, 2016), DVD; Laurie Anderson, Heart of a Dog (Nonesuch Records, 2015), audio recording. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 BBC, ‘The Triumphs and Laments of William Kentridge’. 44 Pliny the Elder, Natural History: A Selection, trans. by John F.Healy (London: Penguin Classics, 1991), book XXXV, ‘Painting, sculpture and architecture’, pp. 323–41. 45 Ibid. 46 Fisher, ‘On drawing’, p. 219. 47 Michael Newman, ‘The marks, traces and gestures of drawing’, in de Zegher, The Stage of Drawing, p. 93. 48 Michael Newman, ‘Marking time: Memory and matter in the work of Avis Newman’, in Catherine de Zegher, ed., Inside the Visible (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), pp. 271–9. 49 Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, bartleyby.com, http://www.bartleby. com/276/ (accessed 6 March 2017). 50 Tania Kovats, ‘Traces of thought and intimacy’, in Tania Kovats, ed., The Drawing Book (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2007), p. 10. 51 Kovats uses this spelling of Boutades (rather than Butades) in her text: Kovats, ‘Traces of thought and intimacy’. 52 Kovats, ‘Traces of thought and intimacy’, p. 10. 53 Ibid., pp. 9, 30. 54 Ibid. 55 Kovats’ quote is taken from David Buckland, Tania Kovats Evaporation Cape Farewell, Vimeo, http://www.capefarewell.com/latest/events/875-lovelock-3.html (accessed 12 February 2018). 56 Emmanuel Levinas, Humanism of the Other, trans. by Nidra Poller (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), p. 40. 57 Jacques Derrida, ‘At this very moment in this work here I am’, in Robert Bernasconi and Simon Critchley, eds, Re-Reading Levinas, trans. by Ruben Berezdivin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), p. 37. Derrida re-reading Emmanuel Levinas, ‘“Humanisme de l’autre homme”’, Fata Morgana, 1972; LGF, 1987. 58 Ibid.

164

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

59 Jacques Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind: The Self Portrait and Other Ruins, trans. by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 49–51. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. 62 Sandor Kovats (2005) cited in Tania Kovats, ‘Traces of thought and intimacy’, p. 303. 63 Jeffrey Kastner and Brian Wallis, Land and Environment Art (New York: Phaidon Press, 1998), p. 75. 64 Ibid. 65 Amy Ballmer, ‘Avalanche Magazine: In the words of the artist’, Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, vol. 30, no. 1 (2011): 21–6, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27949563 (accessed 20 March 2017). 66 Ibid., p. 534. 67 Ibid. 68 Gombrich, Art and Illusion, pp. 170–1. 69 Ibid., p. 9. 70 Greig Burgoyne, ‘Walk/Count/Flow/Lost – a study in patch dynamics’ curated by Fay Stevens, Embodied Cartographies, Fringe Arts Bath UK, 2017. 71 Transcribed from a conversation between M. Foá and Greig Burgoyne, July 2017. Further information and documentation can be found on the artist’s https://www. greigburgoyne.com (accessed 1 May 2020). 72 Burgoyne’s 2017 Walk/Count/Flow/Lost performances at Walcot Chapel Bath, UK, were filmed by Fay Stevens, Kenji Lim and Greig Burgoyne. 73 Transcribed from a conversation between M. Foá and Greig Burgoyne, July 2017. 74 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. by Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 40. 75 Ibid. pp. xx, 117. 76 Phil Smith, Mythogeography (Charmouth: Triarchy Press, 2010). 77 At London’s ICA, during the book launch of A Misguide to Anywhere (Exeter: Wrights & Sites, 2006), Phil Smith led a walk around the area titled ‘Masses'. Participants were invited to introduce their personal associations to a space. Smith called this layering of meaning, narrative and interpretation of place ‘Mythogeography’. He also explained: ‘If you sit in a space that’s non used you transform it – you bring it back to life.’ Transcribed by M. Foá during Smith’s Masses walk. 78 Transcribed from a conversation between M. Foá and Greig Burgoyne, July 2017. 79 Ibid. 80 Foá, ‘Sounding out’, pp. 112–13, figs 30, 31. 81 Newman, ‘The marks, traces and gestures of drawing’, p. 93. 82 Henry David Thoreau, The Portable Thoreau, ed. by Carl Bode (London: Penguin Books, 1982). 83 Gombrich, Art and Illusion, p. 9. 84 Bruce Chatwin, Anatomy of Restlessness (London: Picador, 1997), pp. 100–6.

CONJURING

165

85 Carol Kino, ‘Something there is that loves a wall’, New York Times, 13 May 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/arts/design/13kino.html (accessed 5 April 2020). 86 Ibid. 87 Gombrich, Art and Illusion, p. 9. 88 Catherine de Zegher, ‘A century under the sign of the line: Drawing and its extension (1910–2010)’, in Butler and de Zegher, On Line, p. 119. 89 Ibid. 90 Charles Darwent, ‘Dreams’, in Kovats, The Drawing Book, p. 201. 91 Merleau-Ponty’s use of the term conjuring was related to his interest in the individual’s point of view and how space and depth of field was created in painting, giving the illusion of a vanishing point and or objects enlarging or reducing in scale within the picture plane. In his ‘Essay on Painting’, Merleau-Ponty understands that: Centuries after the solutions of the Renaissance … depth is still new and insists on being sought … it cannot merely be an question of … an interval … between these trees nearby and those faraway. Nor is it a matter of the way things are conjured away one by another… as we see … displayed in a perspective drawing. The enigma consists in the fact that I see things each one in its place precisely because they eclipse one another … they are rivals within my sight … each one is in its place … known through their envelopment and their mutual dependence in their autonomy.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, ‘Essays on painting’, in Galen A. Johnson, ed., The MerleauPonty Aethetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting, trans. by Michael B. Smith (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1993), p. 140. (Originally published in 1961.) 92 Ibid. 93 ‘William Kentridge and Robin Rhode. Free Forms. The artists in conversation’, Modern Painters (June 2008), pp. 64–9. 94 Ibid. 95 Muybridge undertook his study to settle a dispute concerning whether a racehorse in full gallop had all four of its legs off the ground. Muybridge’s image Horse Galloping, Daisy with Rider, frame 7, plate 67, 1872–8, shows that all four legs are off the ground in a gallop. Eadweard Muybridge, Animals in Motion (New York: Dover Publications, 1957). 96 Artistic action by Yves Klein (Titled in his newspaper, Sunday 27 November 1960: ‘Le Saut dans le vide’ (The Leap into the Void), https://www.artsy.net/article/artsyeditorial-yves-klein-tricked-iconic-photograph (accessed 5 April 2020). 97 Ann Simpson, ‘Eileen Agar: The spirit of play’, in Eileen Agar 1899–1991, for the exhibition Eileen Agar 1899–1991, Ann Simpson, David Gascoyne and Andrew Lambirth (Edinburgh: Trustees of the National Gallery of Scotland, 1999), p. 27. 98 One obvious example of work prefigured by Eileen Agar’s Lady Bird (1936) is Carolee Schneemann’s Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions (1963). 99 Draw to Perform, an international community for drawing performance, holds an annual symposium and workshops curated by the Israeli artist Ram Samocha. Echo Morgan’s Be the Inside of the Vase was performed in 2017 during Draw to Perform 4 at the Art Foundation in Brighton, UK, https://drawtoperform.com/draw-toperform-page/draw-to-perform-4/ (accessed 5 April 2020).

166

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

100 See the text accompanying the documentary images of Morgan’s work: Echo Morgan, ‘Portfolio: Be the Inside of the Vase’, Echo Morgan website, http:// echomorgan.com/#/be-inside-of-the-vase/ (accessed 1 May 2020). 101 Ibid. 102 Bill Rogers, ‘Performance art: Echo Morgan’s darkness is undressed in heartbreaking performance’, cfile.daily, 25 February 2015, https://cfileonline.org/ performance-art-echo-morgans-darkness-undressed-heartbreaking-performance/ (accessed 13 June 2017). 103 Ibid. 104 Gombrich, Art and Illusion, pp. 170–1. 105 Ibid., p. 9. 106 Morgan, ‘Portfolio: Be the Inside of the Vase’. 107 Birgitta Hosea, ‘Substitutive bodies and constructed actors: A practice-based investigation of animation as performance’ (PhD diss., University of the Arts London, 2012), pp. 95-106. 108 Ibid. 109 Hosea established a blog on expanded animation in 2010 to share ‘some of the things I talk to my BA, MA and PhD animation students about … at the University for the Creative Arts, Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London’. https://expandedanimation.net (accessed 5 April 2020). 110 This was awarded a Musion Academy Media Arts (MAMA) Holographic Arts Award (Performance category) in 2009. It was shown in 2010 as part of the Holographic Serendipity show at Kinetica Art Fair and Shunt, a performance venue in the underground tunnels beneath London Bridge station. 111 Hosea, ‘Substitutive bodies and constructed actors’. 112 Birgitta Hosea in conversation with M.Foá, 24 November 2017. 113 Michael Kirby, ‘On acting and not-acting’, in Philip B. Zarrilli, ed., Acting (Re) Considered: A Theoretical and Practical Guide (London: Routledge, 1995). (Kirby’s article was originally published in 1972.) 114 Shola Amoo ‘Dear Mr. Shakespeare,’ AMI Productions, in Shakespeare Lives. London: The British Council. 2016. https://www.shakespearelives.org/programme/ (accessed 1 May 2020) See Shola Amoo website https://www.sholaamoo.com/ dear-mr-shakespeare/ (accessed 1 May 2020). 115 Kovats, ‘Traces of thought and intimacy’, p. 10. 116 Ibid. 117 Lanre Malaolu, the British actor dancer and choreographer. Stephen Foster and Amanda Wilkinson See the dancer’s website: https://www.lanremalaolu.com (accessed 1 May 2020). 118 Jean Fisher, ‘Stuart Hall and the black arts movement’, Radical Philosophy, no. 185 (May/June 2014), https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/obituary/stuarthall-1932-2014 (accessed 15 June 2017). 119 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Obituary: After Pan-Africanism: Placing Stuart Hall’, Radical Philosophy, no. 185 (May/June 2014), https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/ obituary/stuart-hall-1932-2014 (accessed 15 June 2017).

CONJURING

167

120 Fisher, ‘Stuart Hall and the black arts movement’. Radical Philosophy, no.185 (May/June 2014). 121 Ibid. 122 Ibid. 123 Cynthia Carr, ‘In the discomfort zone’, in Mark N. C. Bessire, ed., William Pope.L: The Friendliest Black Artist in America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), pp. 48–9. 124 Ibid. 125 Ibid. 126 Ibid. 127 Stuart Horodner, ‘Working with William’, in Mark H. C. Bessire, William Pope.L, p. 55. 128 William Pope.L, ‘Bocia’, in Bessire, William Pope.L, p. 70. 129 Ibid., pp. 71–2. 130 Horodner, ‘Working with William’, p. 55. 131 Derrida, ‘At this very moment in this work here I am’. 132 Horodner, ‘Working with William’, p. 55. 133 William Pope.L, ‘Bocia’, p. 70. 134 Carr, ‘The discomfort zone’, pp. 48–9. 135 Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is a New York-based international resource for video and media art and advocates for media art and artists. Joan Jonas, Lines in the Sand (New York: EAI, 2002–5), video, https://www.eai.org/titles/lines-in-the-sand (accessed 26 June 2017). 136 Robert Ayres, ‘That’s what we do – We retell stories’, in Stephen Foster and Amanda Wilkinson Joan Jonas (Southampton and London: John Hansard Gallery and Wilkinson Gallery, 2004), exhibition catalogue, p. 16. 137 Ibid., p. 11. 138 Ibid. 139 Tracey Warr, ‘What a performance is’, in Stephen Foster and Amanda Wilkinson (accessed 1 May 2020) Joan Jonas, p. 19. Warr references Joan Simon, ‘Scenes and variations: An interview with Joan Jonas’, Art in America, no. 7 (July 1996): 72–9, 100–1. 140 Ibid. 141 Stephen Foster, ‘Introduction’, in Stephen Foster and Amanda Wilkinson Joan Jonas. 142 Warr, ‘What a performance is’, p. 19. Warr references Nancy Hynes, ‘Joan Jonas: Lines in the Sand: An interview with Joan Jonas’ n.paradoxa, 11 January 2003 pp. 6–13 (interview). 143 MK Palomar, ‘Joan Jonas: “I often went to magic shows as a child, and the idea of magic and sleight of hand had a big effect on me”’, Studio International, 2 May 2018, https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/joan-jonas-interview-tatemodern (accessed 6 February 2019).

168

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

144 The Centre for Drawing (CCW, UAL), ‘The Drawing Field’, at Camberwell College of Art, participant printed handout, session 3, Kreider+O'Leary, 21 April 2009, http:// www.kreider-oleary.net (accessed 1 July 2017). 145 Ayres, ‘That’s what we do’, p. 11. 146 The Drawing Field was comprised of six presentation workshops at the University of the Arts London (UAL) investigating some of the diverse possibilities of performance drawing for students and researchers. At each workshop, a practitioner performed a presentation that included making a live drawing related to their practice, and afterwards the presenter led a practical session in which the audience could participate in a drawing that employed those concepts addressed in the presentation. The series was curated by M. Foá, supported by the Centre for Drawing UAL, and the presenters were: Ceramicist Edmund de Waal, Painter Professor Stephen Farthing, Research Fellow Dr Patricia Lyons, Architect Dr Penelope Haralambidou, Poet and Architect Kreider+O’Leary, and Storyboard artist Chris Baker. 147 The Centre for Drawing (CCW, UAL), ‘The Drawing Field’. 148 The Bartlett School of Architecture, ‘Kreider + O’Leary at TATA Britain’, UCL website, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/news/2013/jan/kreider-olearytate-britain (accessed 3 April 2020). 149 Christian Nold’s Greenwich Emotional Map (commissioned by Independent Photography) ran from October 2005 to March 2006. For more information, see Christian Nold, ‘Greenwich Emotional Map’, Dr Christian Nold (blog), http://www. softhook.com/emot.htm (accessed 1 July 2017). 150 Foá, ‘Sounding out’, pp. 116–17, fig. 33. 151 Foá, ‘Sounding out’, p. 103. 152 The scientist Mary Somerville’s theories of ‘electromagnetic induction of the earth’ are believed to have influenced the paintings of her friend J. M. W. Turner. J. Hamilton cited in Foá, ‘Sounding out’, p. 121. The German physicist Heinrich Hertz discovered electromagnetic waves in 1887. E. Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), p. 34. 153 Elizabeth Finch, ‘The drawing as instrument’, in Catherine de Zegher, ed., Drawing Papers 20: Performance Drawings (New York: The Drawing Center, 2001), exhibition catalogue, pp. 50–4. 154 Anthony Huberman, ‘Sounds Like Drawing: In conversation at the Drawing Room gallery London’, Sounds like Drawing, London: Double Agents no. 3 (2005), exhibition catalogue,1+1+1. 155 Finch, ‘The drawing as instrument’, pp. 50–4. 156 Ibid., p. 51. 157 Ibid., p. 54. 158 Ibid. 159 Ibid., p. 53. 160 Ibid. 161 Foá, ‘Sounding out’, pp. 28–9.

CONJURING

169

162 Ibid. 163 Tom McDonough, ‘City scale and discreet events: Performance in urban space, 1956–1969’, in de Zegher, Drawing Papers 20, pp. 22–4. 164 Ibid., p. 24. 165 Ibid. 166 Ibid. 167 Foá, ‘Sounding out’, pp. 121–54. 168 Katie Paterson, Vatnajökull (the Sound of) 2007–8, http://katiepaterson.org/ portfolio/vatnajokull-the-sound-of/ (accessed 5 April 2020). 169 Thoreau, The Portable Thoreau, p. 375. 170 Chris Watson, ‘Vatnajökull’, on Weather Report (Touch Records), 2003, https:// youtu.be/CH2o-FGrWdE (accessed 5 April 2020). 171 WWTW, ‘10 streets that changed the world’, WTTW website, https://interactive. wttw.com/ten/streets/broadway (accessed 18 June 2019). 172 A Sound installation under the Tormin Bridge (Torminbruecke) on Lake Aa, commissioned for the Munster Sculpture project in 2007. 173 Susan Philipsz C108 Life on Mars interview, by Douglas Fogle, curator of the 2008 (55th) Carnegie International (May 2008–January 2009). Transcribed from the online interview at https://youtu.be/7U5nLmcHmUU (accessed 16 July 2017). 174 Ibid. 175 Graham Coulter-Smith, ‘Susan Philipsz: The Lost Reflection’, in Brigitte Franzen, Kasper Koenig and Carina Plath, eds, Sculpture Projects Muenster 07 [English version] (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 2007), p. 197. 176 Susan Delehanty ‘Soundings’, from SOUNDINGS, Neuberger Museum, SUNY Purchase, 1981, on UbuWeb Papers, Ubuweb,http://www.ubu.com/papers/ delehanty.html (accessed 4 April 2020), para 2. 177 Ibid. 178 Foá, ‘Sounding out’, p. 125. 179 Ibid., p. 139, n. 59. 180 Georges Perec, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, ed. and trans. by J. Sturrock (New York: Penguin Classics, 1997), p. 88. 181 The Shame Chorus ‘is a music project created by international visual and performance artist Jordan McKenzie, working in collaboration with London based writer Andy White, psychoanalyst Susie Orbach and the London Gay Men’s Chorus’, https://www.shamechorus.com (accessed 4 April 2020), http://www. jordanmckenzie.co.uk (accessed 4 April 2020). 182 Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead (New York: Penguin Life, 2015), p. 75. 183 Chris Morris cited in Foá, ‘Sounding out’, p. 131. 184 Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, vol. 1: Swann’s Way (London: Vintage Books, 2002), pp. 1–2.

170

5 ILLUMINATING: LIVE MARK MAKING THROUGH PROJECTED LIGHT The first image that comes to mind in connection with drawing with light may well be one of the iconic photographs of Pablo Picasso appearing to conjure images made of light out of thin air.1 Taken by the photographer Gjon Mili for Life magazine in the south of France in 1949, these photographs of Picasso were the result of the accomplished photographer’s experimentation with lighting and long exposures. Mili’s camera was able to capture Picasso’s gestures, while holding a light source, taking the form of centaurs, bulls, Greek profiles and his signature, since the slow exposure had a duration of several seconds. Picasso’s gestures are physical and full of showmanship, yet they are frozen in time. We, the viewers, do not witness his actual gestures at the same time as he made them; rather, we see a record of them captured by a photograph. With the ‘lightning doodle’ project PiKAPiKA, contemporary Japanese artists Nagata Takeshi and Monno Kazue2 have further developed Milli’s technique of moving a light source in front of a camera set with a slow exposure. Working with crowds of participants, they capture drawings of light through photographs taken with slow exposures that are later joined together in a process of stopmotion animation to create moving images. As with Mili’s photographs of Picasso, they can be seen as documentation of a drawing performance that is made to be viewed by an audience at a later date. These works are designed to be experienced through photography. And yet what are they? Is this drawing? Is it painting? Is it photography? Is it animation? This kind of work complicates preconceived boundaries between all of these disciplines. This chapter covers an interdisciplinary range of technological approaches to creating performance drawings with light taken from different art forms. Although in general this book uses a working definition of performance as an activity that was either done in front of an audience or recorded in order to be played

172

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

back to an audience at a later date, this chapter limits its scope of examples to work that is performed live. Although the materials and technologies used to create the drawn marks in the projects presented may vary – pen on paper, charcoal, sand, scratch on film, magic lantern slides, lasers, proprietary software or custom coding – each example focuses on drawing with light that is created spontaneously during performances in which marks are created live in the present moment: the audience is witness to a process of becoming. As this chapter is concerned with uses of technologies of light projection, this avoids confusion between ephemeral acts of performance drawing – the activity itself – and prerecorded animations or films – the trace or documentation of that activity. Thus, a consideration of performance drawings made with technology raises issues of liveness, of immediacy and spontaneity, rather than pre-recorded marks recalled or manipulated, for example through the playback of an animation or by triggering a database of pre-recorded moving image samples such as with VJ software.3 The notion of liveness as a key aspect of performance is explored by Peggy Phelan in her chapter ‘The ontology of performance: Representation without reproduction’ (1996). She argues that a defining feature of live performance is that it happens now, which makes it non-reproducible, in a state of disappearance and beyond control or regulation: Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance … Performance’s being … becomes itself through disappearance.4 For Phelan, the experience of live performance is ephemeral – its only trace in the memory of the spectator. It is a unique event that takes place now, in front of the spectator’s eyes. Another aspect of liveness is that it involves the element of chance, the unplanned and the unpredictable. However tightly planned, prepared and scripted a live performance may be, variations in how it turns out night after night inevitably result from factors such as the emotional state of the performers, audience reaction and the different spatial contexts of the venue that a performance is produced in.5 This chapter is not intended as a chronological or exhaustive survey. In order to contextualize contemporary practice, thematic examples from the past are used that are taken from two periods of immense technological and social upheaval of particular relevance to experimental practice with live drawing and the projected moving image. These periods are the turn of the twentieth century marking the beginning of cinema and the 1960 and 1970s when artists had access to experiment with consumer film cameras. All of the drawings mentioned are made with projected light in front of an audience. Some are still and emerge

ILLUMINATING

173

bit by bit over time. Others move and can be considered to be live animations. In order to provide some historical context for works that combine performance drawing and animation, it is relevant to examine the lightning sketch act.

The lightning sketch Although performance drawing may be thought of as a recent activity in contemporary art, it has a theatrical precedent in the lightning sketch, a Victorian music hall act. Ephemeral as all performing arts are, this act is little remembered today, with the main interest in it coming from historical studies into the origins of animation, where it is recognized as playing a leading role in the development of cartoon animation. Although this act appears as a frequent and popular attraction on surviving bills and programmes that list the performers featuring in variety theatre, documentation of the lightning sketch is very scarce. Only a few traces survive in newspapers, films and personal archives and these have been studied by animation researchers such as Malcolm Cook and Donald Crafton. Cook suggests that drawings may have been performed in front of an audience for many millennia since the production of cave paintings and could have had a ritual element. He notes references in Victorian newspaper reviews to a precursor of the lightning sketch from the previous century: ‘writers were happy to retrospectively label French painter Charles LeBrun ‘a seventeenthcentury “lightning artist”’.6 Cook has found evidence of 100 performers of this act active in the UK.7 His research indicates that the act emerged in England in the late 1870s to early 1880s before spreading to the American vaudeville circuit and that ‘lightning sketch’ or ‘chalk talk’ was more frequently used as a term in the USA and ‘lightning cartoon’ in the UK, where this term was likely coined by the artist Edgar Austin.8 The lightning sketch act was a ‘hybrid of graphic and performing art’9 in which the artist literally stood in front of a blackboard, canvas or paper and drew rapidly with chalk or graphite or, very occasionally, paint.10 The lightning sketch performers often came from a background in print, sometimes also working as newspaper cartoonists and caricaturists. The subject matter of their drawings included political caricature and therefore these performers extended the satirical cartoon into a live event. Some acts employed both drawing and ventriloquism, thus lending a voice to the image. Others involved changing the facial likeness of one known political figure into another or playing with perception by drawing portraits upside down.11 Aside from rapid drawing, techniques that the performers used could include sleight of hand with hidden paper cut-outs or plays on perception. The act drew attention to the process of drawing but also, as Cook points out, to how that drawing is then decoded by the viewer. Successive lines contribute to a particular understanding of a drawing that could

174

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

then be undermined by a skilful practitioner by adding yet more lines to subvert the original act of interpretation through trickery and optical illusion.12 There is an interesting resonance between these drawings performed as lightning sketches and the type of drawings that are defined as ‘conjuring’ in Chapter 4. The earliest cinema drew upon popular forms of entertainment for its subject matter and this included the lightning sketch, with stop-motion techniques used to speed up the drawing. Tom Merry Lightning Artist Drawing Mr Gladstone (1895) appears to be the first time a lightning sketch act was documented on film. This was directed by Birt Acres who made four films of Tom Merry’s work.13 Tom Merry was known for being able to draw upside down as well as at speed, creating caricatures of the former UK prime minister Gladstone and other politically topical figures such as German leaders like Kaiser Wilhelm II and Bismarck. Rather than being projected as we understand films today, they were initially created to be seen in one of Edison’s Kinetoscopes, a machine for peeping into in order to view sequential photographic images flipped around by turning a handle to create the impression of movement. This machine predates by a few months the first film projections by the Lumière Brothers later that year.14 Robert Paul included the work of Tom Merry in public film projections at the Alhambra music hall in London the following year and his act was described in one newspaper review as ‘the performance of a lightning cartoonist who draws Bismarck is another successful picture’.15 These early silent films, examples of what Tom Gunning has called the ‘cinema of attractions’,16 were very short  – based not only on the influence of the theatrical variety act but also on the limitation of the length of film reels available, which had a standard duration of one minute. Dennis Gifford suggests that the short length of film reels was pivotal to the development of drawn animation.17 Other lightning sketch artists could not draw as quickly as Tom Merry, which was a problem because film reels were too short to contain a recording of their whole act. Consequently stop-camera techniques were introduced in which the camera was stopped, a part of the drawing was amended, this was then filmed, the camera stopped again and the drawing amended again. When played back this had the effect of speeding up the drawing process. Gifford argues that it is from this simple act of documenting the lightning sketch that cartoon animation was derived. As a film, the lightning sketch act could now be distributed and projected in many different venues, bringing the performance to a wider audience than the one-off theatrical event. The early cinema was a period of rapid innovation and interdisciplinary experimentation. Performers who had backgrounds in stage magic and lightning sketching themselves began to make films that employed their knowledge of stagecraft. In the first decade of cinema, the terms ‘animation’ or ‘special effects’ had not yet emerged as the description of a particular technique and these films were known as ‘trick films’.18 In Paris, magician turned film-maker Georges Méliès experimented with the lightning sketch on film. In 1896, he used

ILLUMINATING

175

the stop-camera technique to speed up the drawing of caricatures of political figures such as Chamberlain, Queen Victoria and Bismarck. Using a combination of stop-camera and substitution, in his 1900 film Le livre magique, the artist miraculously turns full-sized drawings into real people.19 The pioneering British animator Walter R. Booth also had a background in stage magic.20 Starting his career as a lightning cartoonist, ventriloquist and conjurer, Booth went on to create a number of ‘trick films’ for Robert Paul that drew upon his knowledge of stage illusion and sleight of hand and applied it to in-camera trickery. In his film Upside Down; or, the Human Flies (1899), by turning the camera upside down, he made it seem as if his actors were performing on the ceiling. Other films show the lightning sketch itself. Political Favourites (1903) featured Booth rapidly drawing caricatures of Lord Rosebery, Joseph Chamberlain and other contemporary politicians. His films began to combine magic tricks with lightning sketching. In his 1906 film Hand of the Artist, a drawing is turned into a living figure21 and in Comedy Cartoons (1907) an animated chalk drawing of a man smokes a cigarette of its own volition and a paper-cut of a clown becomes a real actor (Figure 5.1). This use of moving paper parts is derived from theatrical practice employed in the lightning sketch act and anticipates ‘cut-out’ animation in which paper pieces are manipulated for the camera like a puppet. Other British artists who created lightning sketch-inspired films are documented: Lancelot Speed, Harry Furniss, Anson Dyer, Dudley Buxton and George Ernest Studdy. Their work in rapidly creating satirical caricatures was a part of British

Figure 5.1  Walter R. Booth, Comedy Cartoons, 1907. Public domain.

176

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

propaganda created during the First World War. Crafton notes that an AngloIndian performer named Frank Leah was still releasing ‘straight’ lightning sketch films as late as 1914.22 One of the pioneers of drawn animation in the USA was British-born J. Stuart Blackton. As a teenager, Blackton performed in drag as ‘Mademoiselle Stuart’ and did ‘chalk talks or lightning landscape paintings’.23 He toured the vaudeville circuit as the Komikal Kartoonist with the illusionist Alfred E. Smith in 1894 and then became a reporter and cartoonist for the New York Evening World after this act folded. His experience with both stage magic and cartooning come together in his early films. In The Enchanted Drawing (1900), he is shown drawing a face on a pad. It then appears to smile and frown. He also draws objects – cigars and a bottle of wine. As he touches them, they become real. Blackton continued to perform in his own right and featured as the live-action star of the Happy Hooligan series (1900), which was based on the comic strip of the same name. His 1906 film Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, in which faces drawn in chalk on a blackboard appear to move of their own accord, is often singled out as a unique landmark in the origin of drawn animation, yet was only one of many films inspired by the lightning sketch.24 The lightning sketch act was also practised in Australia in the early 1900s, where Alec Laing is credited with being the first Australian lightning sketch performer.25 Having created political caricatures for animated lightning sketch films in London for Pathé during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), Laing returned to Australia with an act that used a magic lantern to project lightning sketches upon his wife, La Milo, whose speciality was to perform as a classical statue, the ‘living reincarnation of the Venus de Milo’.26 During his performances, Laing drew live and upside down on frosted sheets of glass which allowed him to project his drawings through the magic lantern as he was making them. A review in the Melbourne Punch explained the result thus: While the caricaturist rapidly sketches familiar faces on a huge sheet (it is a magic-lantern effect with their sketches done on a smoked glass) a series of statues, remarkably well managed, are shown in a garden scene on the stage.27 Subsequently, Laing began to create animations on film based on these lightning sketches and to project them during La Milo’s act. Known as the La Milo Films, these works were first shown in London and then their act travelled to Sydney and New York.28 In the USA, Winsor McCay pioneered both drawn ‘cartoon’ animation and drawing as performance and developed the lightning sketch into character animations that we would recognize today. McCay was a well-known newspaper cartoonist and his comic strips demonstrate a fascination with movement and

ILLUMINATING

177

the representation of motion in sequential images. He could draw with great skill at speed and he was signed by F. F. Proctor in 1906 to appear as a ‘featured novelty act’ at his 23rd Street vaudeville theatre in New York for the sum of $500 per week. This act consisted of two daily performances using coloured chalks to musical accompaniment.29 Rapidly drawing twenty-five pictures in fifteen minutes with chalk on a blackboard,30 this included Seven Ages of Man in which drawings of a baby boy and baby girl were modified until they reached the appearance of old age. As an encore, he drew the increasing exasperation of a husband while he waited for his wife to get ready for the opera. His act was so popular that he was booked to appear in theatres in the largest cities all over America and he toured on a regular basis until 1917.31 McCay’s printed cartoon strips show experimentation with the sequential representation of motion and metamorphosis. From 1909, he began privately trying to make his drawings move through flipbooks, a form of moving image he was introduced to by his son.32 Fascinated by motion, he began to make animated films and to incorporate them into his stage act. Both on stage and in his short films much is made of the novelty and sheer amount of work involved in the animation process. Little Nemo in Slumberland (1911), the adventures of a boy in his dreams, was both his first short film in its own right and part of a stage act. The opening subtitle to the film version of Little Nemo says, ‘Winsor McCay, famous cartoonist of the NY Herald and his moving comics. The first artist to attempt drawing pictures that will move.’33 At the start of the film, McCay is shown making a bet that in one month he can produce 4,000 ink drawings that will move. His companions laugh at him. The next scene shows a huge package of paper and a barrel of ink being delivered to his studio, then him testing the drawings on a modified Mutoscope. The film dwells on the animation process in comic-style filmed footage showing an assistant knocking over a giant pile of drawings. One month later, he returns to see his friends. The hand of the artist is seen producing a drawing of the character Flip from the Little Nemo comic strip that he drew for the New York Times and placing it into a wooden slot in front of the camera. The words ‘Watch me move’ appear above his forehead and the character then appears to move of its own volition, turning its head from side to side, smoking a cigar and turning somersaults before calling into being another two characters and interacting with them as they dance, jump, elongate and distort. Drawing is used to impart the act of creation and magical transformation. The character Little Nemo takes it upon himself to draw a princess into existence and then to draw a rose to give to her before they are both taken away on a golden throne in a dragon’s mouth. At the end of the film, the hand of the animator is seen removing the last drawing from the wooden slot before the end credits roll. A few days after the release of the Little Nemo in Slumberland film, McCay reused this animation in live performance as part of his vaudeville act at the Colonial.34

178

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

In 1914, McCay released Gertie the Dinosaur, which was also created as a stage act and as a film that documents both the process of making the animation and the stage act itself. Just as in Little Nemo, a filmed prologue and intertitles replace the stage ‘patter’35 in the film version. Another similarity between the two films is that the animation is presented as being a seemingly impossible feat produced by the animator in response to a bet. Both films include some shots of the production process involved in creating an animation. In the part of the film that documents the stage act, interactions between creator and cartoon character reinforce the illusion of physical co-location. McCay is shown in front of a large screen onto which the cartoon dinosaur is projected. He tosses Gertie an apple and, just as the real apple goes behind the screen, she catches a cartoon apple in her mouth as if it were the same one. In the film’s finale, McCay walks offstage and seemingly returns on screen as a cartoon version of himself. He brandishes a whip like a lion tamer and then cautiously steps into Gertie’s mouth. She lifts him onto her back and then carries him off screen.36 It is worth quoting at length a recollection by another animation pioneer, Émile Cohl, of the Gertie the Dinosaur act in order to get a flavour of both McCay’s on stage interaction with his animated drawings and how the animation was perceived by contemporary audiences as part of the stage act: Winsor McCay’s films were admirably drawn, but one of the principal causes of their success was the manner in which they were presented to the public. I remember one of the first public presentations at the Hammerstein Theatre in New York. The principal, in fact, the only performer in the film was an antediluvian beast, a kind of monstrously large diplodocus. In the beginning the picture showed a tree and some rocks. On the stage, before the screen, stood the elegant Winsor McCay, armed with a whip and pronouncing a speech as though he were the ringmaster of the circus. He called the animal who loomed up from behind the rocks. Then it was like exercises in horsemanship with the animal always in control. The animal danced, turned and finished by swallowing the trees and rocks and then curtseying to the audience which applauded the work of art and the artist at the same time. It was lucrative for McCay who never left the theatre without stopping by the cashier to be laden with a few banknotes on the way out.37 Winsor McCay is an example of a showman animator who is clearly marked as both the author and the performer of animation.38 The virtuosity of McCay’s live performance and the drawings that are being made are both vital components of the act. In his work, both animator and animated occupy the same live stage space. Through the creation of an animated parallel reality that the performer engages with in front of a live audience, this reflexive performance reveals the moving image to be an illusion, as is shown in this quote from a review of Gertie

ILLUMINATING

179

by Ashton Stevens in the Chicago Examiner: ‘Thus the camera, that George Washington of mechanisms, at last is proved a liar … You are flabbergasted to see the way the reel minds its master.’39 Commenting on the origins of animation, Donald Crafton concludes that the earliest pioneers of animation – J. Stuart Blackton, Walter R. Booth, Winsor McCay, Georges Méliès – all had backgrounds in live performance and presented animation as part of a continuum of stage illusions in which performance drawings were brought to life.40 There is a demonstrable link between the desire to document lightning sketch acts on film as part of the remediation41 of earlier stage acts into content for the emerging new entertainment form of cinema and the development of what is now known as animation. However, it is important not to conflate the two practices. The lightning sketch may have partially engendered animation, but it remains a distinct practice that is defined by taking place in front of a live audience rather than being pre-recorded. Malcolm Cook counsels against a simplistic identification of these acts as proto-animation, while recognizing their points of commonality such as ‘transformation, the movement of line drawings, and the desire to bring drawings to life’.42 Of relevance to this study, he argues that the combination of both movement and drawing shown in lightning sketching anticipates both animation and contemporary time-based mark making practice: a line is a history of the movement that made it. The lightning cartoonist emphasized this movement by the performance of drawing; and we might assume that the creation of the drawing would have been a dynamic experience, with the cartoonist working furiously to produce the image within a few seconds: these were animated cartoons. Thus, the lightning cartoonist, decades before the twentieth century’s action painters or kinetic sculptors, introduced time and movement into a primarily spatial art form by virtue of their performance.43 In the lightning sketch act, the making of a drawing is performed live and some of the artists then went on to create animation, which in the cases of Alec Laing and Winsor McKay was then incorporated back into the stage act through the projection of magic lantern slides or film. However, as animated films became more commonplace and skilfully made, the moving drawings themselves displaced their creators’ act of drawing from centre stage. As the animation theorist Alan Cholodenko points out, the act of magic becomes displaced from the performer to the illusion on screen: the magic machine of cinema – the animatic apparatus – would increasingly displace and replace the human hand of the magician with its own mechanical prosthetic and demiurgical ‘hand’, making the human magician

180

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

its supernumerary, its ‘sorcerer’s apprentice’, a sleight/slight of hand, the ‘handiwork’ of the ghost writer/drawer.44 No longer on show, the animator now performs out of view, creating the illusion of animation off screen. It is the product of their drawing process documented on successive frames that is shown to an audience, not their performance of drawing.

Mediated acts of drawing: Live video feeds and projected drawing Working with projected analogue film images on stage was a labour-intensive process for the lightning sketch performers. As McCay’s films show, the creation of the film itself is time-consuming and then the film footage must be developed and processed before it can be projected. All of these procedures could take weeks if not months and, therefore, this technology did not allow for spontaneous mark making on stage. Although Laing was able to achieve spontaneity by drawing on glass as he projected with a magic lantern, the equipment he used would have been heavy, cumbersome and very fragile. More recently, developments in analogue and digital video have made projection technology more portable, accessible and affordable to a wider range of people. This has afforded contemporary artists and performers from different fields much more freedom to experiment with illuminating a process of mark making in front of an audience. With these kinds of projected drawings, either a form of overhead projection is used or live streams of moving images mediate the act of mark making via a video camera and projector. Performance drawing with illuminated sand has become a popular art form. If sand is manipulated live on an overhead projector, the light from below shines through the sand to create a range of tonal values that are projected. At times, the artist’s hands are also on display. The animator Caroline Leaf drew attention to the textural and tonal possibilities of illuminated sand as a material in animated films such The Owl Who Married a Goose (1974), an adaptation of an Inuit legend, and The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa (1977), which was adapted from Franz Kafka’s short story The Metamorphosis. More recently, performers have begun to explore sand animation in a live context. In 1996, Hungarian animator and graphic designer Ferenc Cakó devised the use of live sand animation – creating and manipulating drawings in sand in real time. His drawings develop and metamorphose over time into a representation of something different from their initial appearance – as in the work of the lightning sketch artists covered in the previous section. Using his hands and his breath

ILLUMINATING

181

to draw with and manipulate sand, he works spontaneously and confidently, without corrections, to create a series of pictures to musical accompaniment.45 His performances, such as those recorded at the 2003 Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival and Techfest 2004 at IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India, have won prizes at many festivals and created a sensation on the Internet. They can be seen on his YouTube channel.46 Despite his attempt to copyright this process,47 he spawned a genre worldwide and inspired other practitioners such as the Ukrainian internet sensation Kseniya Simonova, the winner of Ukraine’s Got Talent in 2009, who was awarded the title of Merited Artist of Ukraine in 2013. Although her sand animation is sometimes created to illustrate a musical accompaniment – such as her live performance during Ukraine’s entry to the 2011 Eurovision song contest – the sequential images in her work generally involve a narrative rather than a simple process of transformation and can have sound effects to reinforce the story being told. In You are Always Nearby (2009), her performance for the semi-finals of Ukraine’s Got Talent, she created a poignant story of the Second World War and her winning entry in the finals; Don’t Be Too Late (2009) is a story about a boy who forgets his roots and the love of his family.48 Sand animation is particularly popular in India, where it is possible to study a diploma in sand animation; artists such as Rahul Arya can perform 100 years of Bollywood in 200 seconds and Ronnie Chhibber is the world’s only blindfolded sand animator. As well as sand animation, other forms of live image making are increasingly popular in conjunction with narrated storytelling. Lisa Gornick is a film-maker and actor who also performs live drawing and storytelling in the theatre. Her most recent live drawing shows include Grandma Ray Live Drawing Show (2015) – memories of friendship and secrets shared with her Russian Jewish grandmother at the Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Festival, UK – and What (the Fuck) Is Lesbian Film? (2017) which took place at the Barbican Centre, London, and the International Women’s Film Festival Dortmund, Cologne, Germany. A talented comedian, she sketches rapidly and tells highly amusing stories to accompanying music while adopting an array of different voices. Reminiscent of the political satires of the lightning sketch, in the most recent show her material has included caricatures of the then UK prime minister Theresa May and the German chancellor Angela Merkel imagined in the throes of a passionate love affair. Unlike the lightning sketch artists whose performance drawings would have had to have been laboriously shot on film and developed before they could be projected for an audience, her drawings are shown instantly using a webcam and digital projector. The digital video equipment she uses allows her to be seated while making drawings, thus enabling her to draw on an intimate scale with all the spontaneity and subtlety of watercolour and pen. These drawings are projected at a much larger scale than they are drawn so the audience can see all the intricate details.

182

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Gornick began to work in this way following a series of video art pieces in which she documented her process of drawing. Noticing how the eyes of viewers of this work followed the line as it was drawn, she then went on to draw live herself. This represents a paradigm shift – the work becomes the original process in the present moment rather than a documentation of it made at a previous time. Her live drawing performances are often contextualized by film – for example, shown in conjunction with her films or at film festivals – and yet remain distinct. As opposed to her practice in film-making, working in live performance allows her to be spontaneous and to experiment: There’s a freedom to it. It can be different every time. I can find new things each time. I don’t have to limit myself to a final cut as you do in film, but each show I can change it if I want to. There is a live audience responding in real time to my performance and drawing. They are different each time and bring a new energy. As a performer, there is the adrenalin, the exposure, the need to give of yourself more. It feels quite vital, on edge, less control, I like that. Film is beautiful but is a long studied, thought-out process.49 Performing her drawings live also brings an element of embodied sensuality that is linked to the tactile act of drawing: I am not aware of what it feels like for the audience, but I try to explore sensuality in my shows which have a flirtatious feel as I look directly at the audience. I usually welcome the audience in by drawing portraits as they come in, which is more like me chatting the audience up as I try and draw them whilst talking to them at the same time. My drawing is spontaneous. I am led by the pen and the watercolour. I don’t try and control it. That for me is sensuous delight.50 Her latest show explores the niche of lesbian cinema and the desires it arouses – in terms of politics, economics and passion.51 Using her drawings, she is able to perform through the characters that she conjures up. She describes this experience of creating avatars to voice her own thoughts as ‘like a glove puppet’52 that she can hide behind. In Gornick’s performances, stories are created through the presentation of acts of drawing out of which characters emerge. Harald Smykla is another artist who is influenced by filmic narrative and cinema, although his drawings record the process of viewing rather than in themselves telling a story. Concerned with process and the ephemeral, in his Movie Protocols performances, shown at England & Co Gallery, London, in 2010, and Unspooling: Artists & Cinema at Manchester Cornerhouse in 2011, Smykla draws rapidly in real time on a scroll of acetate that is projected through an overhead projector in response to

ILLUMINATING

183

classic films as he watches them, such as Nicolas Roeg’s Insignificance (1985). He started this series of work as a means to turn the time he spent in passive viewing into a ‘productive performative act’.53 These ‘pictographic notations of films’ form a ‘graphic record of every take’ and his performance of drawing lasts as long as the film itself, which is screened in parallel with his drawing activity.54 The audience watches not only the film but Smykla himself watching the film and the drawings he makes in response. The result is a scrolling series of drawings that resemble hieroglyphics. In addition to telling stories, portraying characters and recording the process of viewing, live drawing can also be used to evoke and extend the space and place that actors inhabit, such as in the scenography of Filipa Malva and Joaquín Cociña. Theatre design has come a long way since the days of painted canvas backdrops, and contemporary practitioners frequently employ video technology to augment the imaginary space of the stage. The designer Filipa Malva believes drawing to be sited at the epicentre of stage design.55 She argues that, although drawing is conventionally thought of in scenography as a means to communicate the graphic visualization of plans for construction, it is also a flexible tool of collaboration between practitioners from different disciplines who come together to make a theatrical performance. As well as being used to share ideas in an open-ended manner, it can record the evolution of that collaboration. Through gestures of the designer’s hand – sketches recorded through pencil during rehearsals – dramaturgy can be drawn. The bodily movements of the performers can be captured as marks on paper through sketching and those performers can, in turn, respond to this with their own embodied knowledge of physical gesture. In his review of a presentation that Malva gave, John Miers suggests that Malva’s iterative way of working with actors through drawing during rehearsals extends artist and researcher Birgitta Hosea’s proposal that ‘the act of drawing is increasingly being seen as the record of a performance, as the aftermath of an action, the trace of the presence of an artist’s body’.56 He argues that the process of marking need not be finite but is an invitation to a continuous and generative system of becoming: ‘drawing is not just an aftermath of action, it becomes a provocation to further action’.57 In Malva’s work, she goes beyond regarding the use of drawing as a tool for simply communicating and developing scenographic design concepts. She argues that drawing in itself can form the scenography: Mediated through a camera and a screen, a drawing can also change scale, texture and colour, offering the drawer-scenographer a chance to open a scene into multiple fictional spaces.58 In the show O meu país é o que o mar não quer (My Country Is What the Sea Does Not Want) (2014), a testament to the experience of Portuguese immigrants

184

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

living in London that was directed by Ricardo Correia at Casa da Esquina, Coimbra, Portugal, Malva drew much of the scenery herself during the show. Using live video feeds of her own drawings made with felt pen and charcoal59 in conjunction with collage, she could transform the space of the theatre. A tree could be metamorphosed into a pathway. She also used lighting gobos60 to create shapes out of light. As in the work of Gornick, the use of the camera allowed her to zoom in to an intimate scale as well as the possibility to change the viewpoint or to track across the images. Through live projections of drawing onto the walls and the floor, she could evoke other places and emotional contexts for the actors to perform in. The artist and film-maker Joaquín Cociña is perhaps better known for his exhibitions of (static) drawing and video art; however, his theatre design for Niños Prodigio Teatro’s Mi joven corazón idiota (My Foolish Young Heart), made in conjunction with Yolin, also included live drawing to create the scenography. For this play by Anja Hilling and directed by Francisca Bernardi, the cast and crew use pen on clear film with a number of overhead projectors to project rapidly drawn cartoon figures and elements of interior architecture during the performances.61 Mi joven corazón idiota was performed at the Goethe Institut, Santiago, Chile, in 2007 and also at the Centro Cultural Amanda, Vitacura, Chile, in 2009. A review of this latter performance gives the sense of the contribution that the scenographic performance drawing made to the dynamism of the performance: another good reason to go to see Mi joven corazón idiota is the scenery. Or rather, the absence of it. On the stage of the old cinema room there is nothing more than a white panel and overhead projectors. The ‘scenography’ is created at the same time that the work is happening. In front of our eyes, visual artist Joaquin Cociña and his brother Vicente are drawing and projecting the locations and psychological states of the characters. All accompanied by the music, also live, by Angela Acuña. The result is an exquisite blend of chorally managed artistic disciplines. More than a play, this is an event.62 Thus, through live drawing the scenography is not a mere backdrop to the main performance, but is itself performed. More than simply a means of public entertainment, storytelling or visual exploration, live projected mark making has also been used in a very different context, to illuminate a spiritual experience. In his PhD on the animation of Islamic calligraphy, Mohammad Javad Khajavi explores the kinaesthetic, plasmatic and transformative aspects of calligraphy and argues that ‘the process of experiencing a line is time-based’.63 While Islamic calligraphy has a close relationship to language and the written word that may be absent in the wider practice of drawing, and, in particular, to the words of Allah as written in

ILLUMINATING

185

Figure 5.2  Photo of Bahman Panahi, 2017. © Bahman Panahi.

the Qur’an, which has the utmost spiritual significance in Islamic calligraphy,64 of interest to this chapter are calligraphic artists who publicly engage with the performativity of calligraphy, of the coming into being of poetic words. In contemporary Iranian artist and calligrapher Ahmad Ariamanesh’s Concert of the Line performed in Tehran in 2013, live calligraphy is created to the accompaniment of musicians, which forms an interaction between the music and the emergence of the letterforms. Ariamanesh performed live on stage through ink on paper that was projected live on a screen behind him.65 Another artist working in this field is Bahman Panahi (see Figure 5.2). Originally from Iran, Panahi was classically trained in both calligraphy and Persian classical music before moving to Paris where he continued his studies at the Sorbonne and his artistic activities. He has done extensive research on the relationship between music and calligraphy, which he calls Musicalligraphy.66 In his performances, he uses different approaches, such as creating large format pieces accompanied by musicians or by his own recorded music, performing music while projecting images of his calligraphy pieces, or composing music which corresponds to the visual compositions of each piece. He also creates performances that combine these two disciplines, sometimes working with fellow calligrapher Nuria García Masip. In their performances, a camera relays a live feed of calligraphy in the process of creation to a large screen that reveals intimate details of the writing process and its choreography, while music is played in accompaniment.

186

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Figure 5.3  Foá, Grisewood, Hosea, McCall, Sky vs SKYPE, 2011. © M. Foá, Jane Grisewood, Birgitta Hosea and Carali McCall.

Using a live video feed to enlarge performance drawings made on stage and make them visible to a live audience in the same space through projection is only one use of this technology. Video can do more than simply mediate the act of drawing within one place: the use of telematic video can also connect distant locations together and enable a reciprocal process of documentation and projection. Sky vs SKYPE (2011) (See Figure 5.3) was a telematic drawing performance by Foá, Grisewood, Hosea and McCall that connected London and the island of Papa Westray (Papay) as part of the Papay Gyro Nights Festival in Orkney (See Figure 5.3). The initial concept for this work came from Carali McCall, who contrasted the ancient method of navigation that uses stars in the night sky with modern telecommunications satellites that can connect locations at the speed of light. During this performance, a camera in Papa Westray was pointed at the night sky and transmitted video images and atmospheric sound live via Skype to London. The video feed was projected over a whole wall in a gallery space and the group made spontaneous drawings over the projection as they charted the passage of the moon through the night sky from Papa Westray. A camera in London recorded the live drawings as they were created and returned a live video feed back to Papa Westray via Skype, where it was projected onto a wall as part of the festival’s opening night. Thus, the live video footage was originated in Papa Westray, drawn over in London and the modified images returned and displayed back in Papa Westray. Materials used included graphite

ILLUMINATING

187

Figure 5.4  Jeremy Radvan and Paul Sermon, (tele)consequences, 2018. © Paul Sermon.

powder, pencil, water, chalk and white light from a torch. The performance featured spoken word commentary on the weather conditions transmitted by a second Skype feed from Jane Grisewood, who was in Australia at the time.67 Skype was also used in (tele)consequences, a collaboration between artists Paul Sermon and Jeremy Radvan working with participants for the Marks Make Meaning exhibition at the University of Brighton in 2018 (See Figure 5.4). A wall in the gallery was covered with a large sheet of paper 2 × 1.5 metres high. Onto this was projected an incoming live video feed from various participants online. Working in a range of media including felt pen, charcoal and paint, gallery guests, students and staff could then draw on the paper in response to the video images from Skype. The camera in Brighton would then send the combined image back to the participants as well as recording the various stages that were later played back in the gallery. The examples of performance drawing in this section differ in terms of context, approach and intention, yet there are formal similarities. Each is created live and spontaneously in conjunction with either music or a narrative. The mark making produced on an intimate scale with traditional, analogue materials such as sand, ink, graphite, watercolour and felt pen is instantly projected at a much larger size through either the use of an overhead projector or the mediation of a live video feed. This enables the audience to observe small details and the materiality of the drawing process. The live experience highlights the wit and dexterity of the

188

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

artist who can respond freely to the present moment. Similar to many of the lightning sketch acts in the preceding section, these artists create still drawings that emerge over time during a performance. As part of the process, the artist’s hands, while making marks, are often seen. The drawings themselves are static and, although developing and expanding over time, they do not move. It is possible, however, to make moving drawings that are projected live in front of an audience as they are made. Through marking analogue film while it is being projected, artists are able to go beyond the static image and create animated drawings that move during a live performance.

Expanded cinema From the mid-1950s onwards, inexpensive 8  mm and 16  mm film became available to the consumer market, which enabled amateurs and artists access to film equipment and the opportunity to experiment with film and how it could be marked or erased as part of live performance.68 The term expanded cinema was coined by experimental film-maker and animator Stan Vanderbeek in 196569 and popularized by Gene Youngblood’s seminal book Expanded Cinema, based on his writings from the 1960s and first published in the USA in 1970. In his book, Youngblood comments that, since commercial cinema has a made-for-profit motive, it is formulaic, manipulative, dulls the senses and cannot express his globally connected, post-war generation who, spawned in an era of space travel and mass media, was questioning traditional conventions, institutions, behaviours and politics.70 Instead, he presents examples of expanded cinema: new forms of media that could represent and engender expanded consciousness. Unable to be contained by one discipline, this was part of a worldwide intermedia communications network which functions like humanity’s nervous system.71 This new form of cinema was not about narrative or telling the audience what to think – it was poetic, evocative and designed to open minds with multiple sensory stimuli that leave space for the individual’s own free associations and thus expand their consciousness. In Europe, however, argues A. L. Rees, the notion of expanded cinema took a slightly different trajectory than America.72 Rather than aiming for an immersive, meditative and psychedelic experience, in general, the interpretation of ‘expanded cinema’ in Europe tended towards a political attempt to deconstruct the illusionism and ideological apparatus of the cinematic experience. Avant-garde film sought to define itself by its opposition to a mainstream or ‘dominant’ cinema that is marked by its connections with ‘economic and social power’.73 The argument was that, as it was funded by the ruling classes, cinema represents their worldview as ‘normal’. Alternative viewpoints are not expressed or distributed. Within the pleasurable form of realist narrative, complex reality is replaced by escapism

ILLUMINATING

189

and the viewer is seduced into believing these representations to be truthful: ‘mainstream cinema “dominates” not through coercion, but through its formal and stylistic lures and appeals’.74 Thus, the aim of oppositional, avant-garde film was to challenge realism – making the artifice of the cinematic experience apparent – and to question narrative and its stupefying effect on the viewer in order to encourage a more critical attitude. Through an investigation of the formal, structural and material processes through which cinema is constructed, the artifice and ideological positioning of the work are revealed and challenged. In the 1970s, a number of experimental film-makers held live events at which this investigation of the structural and material properties of film was developed into a deconstruction of the cinematic apparatus itself.75 These artists included, among others, those associated with the London Film-Makers’ Co-op – including Malcom Le Grice, William Raban, Anthony McCall, Annabel Nicholson and Guy Sherwin; in Austria – Peter Weibel and VALIE EXPORT; in Germany – Birgit Hein and Werner Nekes, in the USA – Paul Sharits; and in Japan – Takahito Iimura. These artists used their own bodies and other surfaces as projection screens in order to interrogate the site of projection. For example, in Anthony McCall’s Line Describing a Cone (1973), originally shown at the London Film-Makers’ Co-op, a white line moving slowly across black exposed film to form a circular shape is projected onto a room filled with smoke or dust particles. This has the effect of creating three-dimensional, sculptural cones of light that fill the space as far as the reach of the projection. In this work the animated line is no longer restricted to the screen. It is made manifest. It can be physically experienced. It is not imagined. It exists in the present moment.76 Although these cones of light are the product of a live projection event, Line Describing a Cone relies on pre-recorded film footage and, thus, according to the criteria applied to this chapter, cannot be called a performance drawing. A number of other artists during this period sought to question mainstream cinema by developing experiments with how films could be projected. These included live performances in which strips of film were modified – painted, scratched, sewn, eroded, erased, punctured and otherwise marked – while they were being projected. This chapter argues for these works to be considered not just within the canon of experimental film but also as a form of drawing in time. Since the film is treated as one continuous strip during this process rather than being worked on over a series of discrete frames, Nicky Hamlyn refers to this method of generating moving images as ‘frameless’. Indeed, he states, with a process that operates across a whole film strip ‘there can be no such thing as a still frame, except as arbitrarily imposed by the framing act of the project’.77 Paul Sharits’ film S:TREAM:S:SECTION:S:ECTION:S:S:ECTIONED (1968–71) began as a performance. Over live-action film footage of images of a stream, which he considered as a metaphor for narrative film, Sharits scratched sequential lines into the filmstrip as it was passing through the projector. Thus,

190

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

to these representational images were added, and subtracted, marks specific to the material of film. Through this process, Sharits aimed to ‘subvert any illusion of reality the images might suggest’.78 This work is an act of drawing that deconstructs the illusion of film and reveals it as, in the words of Birgit Hein, ‘both projected image and object (film-strip)’.79 The ‘real’ images of moving water are slowly erased by scratches that remove the film emulsion and instead allow pure light to penetrate through the scratched areas. Rather than modifying the filmstrip by hand during her performance Reel Time (1973), Annabel Nicholson used a mechanical process to mark film footage. According to Felicity Sparrow’s account of the original event at the London FilmMakers Co-op in 1973,80 Nicholson was seated at a small table with a Singer sewing machine. The audience stood and sat on both sides of her. There was one projection screen in front of her and another at an angle. An empty projector shone onto the angled screen and, thus, created a silhouette of herself and the actions that she performed. A second projector showed a film in which she herself was sewing. The filmstrip creating this projection took the form of a very large loop which was attached to the ceiling but also ran through the sewing machine that she was operating. Threaded through both the projector and the sewing machine, her sewing over her image resulted in the projected image becoming increasingly perforated by the needle, with areas of light flooding through the holes. In the audience, someone read a manual on how to thread a sewing machine and another read from a manual on how to thread a film projector.81 As there was no thread in the sewing machine to bind it together, the filmstrip slowly began to deteriorate. When it snapped Nicholson would repair it and start the process again until it was no longer possible to fix it anymore and the image became obliterated by light because of all the perforations. Sparrow points out the gendered connotations of the use of the sewing machine traditionally associated with the female and domestic sphere and the film projector associated with male-dominated technical equipment. There are also many technical connections between the sewing machine and the film projector, such as the spools that are used on both to sprocket holes in film. The artist Vicky Smith points out the challenging physical exertion involved for Nicholson as it involved pedalling a treadle machine while handling a large amount of cumbersome material that was splitting and coming apart in her hands.82 Whereas these performances by Sharits and Nicholson involve live mark making to modify and erase pre-recorded films that already had a series of images on them, other artists mark directly onto blank film that is either clear (unexposed) or covered in black emulsion (pre-exposed). In Nam June Paik’s Zen for Film (1962/4), a continuous loop of clear film becomes increasingly worn and dirty as it is projected.83 Thus, it is the act of projection itself which creates an array of slowly changing marks in the form of dust and scratches that emerge over time in the rectangle of projected light. The title implies the act of viewing

ILLUMINATING

191

as meditative contemplation. The use of the act of projection itself to create a performance of live mark making can also be seen in BWLHAICTKE (1976) by Lis Rhodes and Ian Kerr at the ICA Festival of Expanded Cinema in London. Their installation was in place for a week, during which time 100 feet of exposed black film and 100 feet of unexposed clear film looped through projectors continuously. Dragging on the floor for the duration of the event, the film became increasingly scratched and dirty, with marks such as dust and dirt added to the clear film and scratches erasing the surface emulsion of the black film. Through their different forms of modification, by the end of the installation the two types of film come to resemble one another – the black film lost its surface emulsion and the clear film was no longer transparent after continued abrasion.84 This process also affected the part of the film on which the soundtrack is optically recorded and, thus, produced artificial sounds.85 Another artist who has, more recently, created performances of live mark making onto blank film footage is Greg Pope. In Light Trap (2007), an audio/light sculpture first performed at the Kill Your Timid Notion Festival in Dundee, four projectors that are placed in the corners of a room and threaded with loops of black film are pointed into the centre of the space, which is filled with hazy, dry ice. An operator at each projector uses abrasion through sandpaper and a jewellers’ grinder to graze and scratch away the surface of the film. This creates random streaks and patterns of light as well as synthetic sounds from the audio component of the filmstrip.86 Another variation of this can be seen in Cipher Screen (2010) which uses two overlapping projections in the form of a cross. Again, precision cutting and grinder tools are used to erase and erode the surface of the film. As with the previous performance, this results in not only marks of light but also flecks of black and an optically created live soundtrack.87 Using automatic processes during a live performance, Paik, Rhodes, Kerr and Pope are able to utilize chance and involuntary mark making to create random and unexpected results in the projected image. Although this can also be seen as an element in the films and performances of the contemporary artist and animator Vicky Smith, her primary investigation is that of direct physical encounter between film and the artist’s body. For Smith, there is renewed relevance for artists today in working with the medium of film since it has become obsolete as an industrial method of mainstream film production. In addition, film has materiality – it need not be reserved for mimetic reproduction. The fragility and physicality of film enables an exploration of sensuality through touch, of time passing, mortality and decay. Smith considers her work to be ‘tactile film’ since no camera has been used and all marks are made through touch by a direct, indexical connection between the artist’s body and the film strip. In her performance 33 Frames Per Foot (2013), she walks over unexposed film in front of an audience (see Figure 5.5). With paint on her feet, she leaves a trail of footprints imprinted on the surface of the film. The paint dries quickly and then

192

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

she projects the film shortly after at the same event to create an animation. Interviewed by email in 2014, Smith said of 33 Frames Per Foot: I saw the work as a performance of making animated film. I thought of it as animation in that the process was very incremental in terms of my bodily movements, and in terms of the intermittent markings made on the filmstrip.88 Through this live performance work, Smith explores the idea that the material of film is measured in ‘feet’, but this unit of measurement bears no relation to her own body. The standard British imperial measurement unit of a ‘foot’ is actually based on a male foot and is much larger than her own female foot. What does this mean for women film-makers? Could it really be that the material of film is not supposed to be used by women? Aligning her process with the structuralist, materialist practices of an earlier generation of film-makers, Smith considers this work as ‘a performance in which industry rules, measurements and systems are explicitly rejected’.89 The work 33 Frames Per Foot reveals a gendered bias behind the basic material of film-making. In common with the previous artists, the work of Takahito Iimura shares an investigation into the site of projection, the material properties of film and also the act of perception at the heart of the viewing process. Internationally active, his work also connects the avant-garde practices of Japan with the Fluxus group in New York and the London Film-Makers’ Co-op. Iimura began experimenting

Figure 5.5  Vicky Smith, 33 Frames Per Foot, 2013. © Vicky Smith.

ILLUMINATING

193

with how his films were projected in the early 1960s. In his performance Screen Play (1963) at the Sogetsu Art Centre in Tokyo, he projected an abstract film he had made of chemical reactions onto the back of fellow artist Takamatsu Jiro. He had cut a square hole into the back of Jiro’s jacket so the film was projected directly onto his naked flesh as he sat, oblivious, reading a newspaper.90 In the Film as Form catalogue, Birgit Hein91 credits Iimura with being the first artist to treat projection itself as an object of investigation and, in the same publication, he himself stresses that his work is not just about the moving image that is created, but the whole process: What I am concerned with in my film-installations is not just the screen but the whole system of projection, and I want to expose that system: the system which consists of facilities (projector, wall-as screen) and materials (film, projected and not-projected light) within a space; (not-projected light is when light is blocked by black film). To expose the system, so that it no longer hides in darkness or behind the projection booth, every facility and material must be ‘visible’ including non-visible light. To achieve this, I use, rather than a theatre with seats, an open space like that of a gallery, where people can come and go at any time, and walk around the installation. I do not darken the space, but exhibit under normal room light where projected light is still quite visible. I use either black or clear leader or both as materials, because I regard these as fundamental ones in film: one blocks light, the other transmits light … The film installations are a dialectic, positive and negative, which makes apparent what the film system is.92 Iimura began to punch holes into film in 1970.93 In his performance Circle and Square (1981), he punches holes at regular intervals into a loop of black film as it passes continuously through a projector. This results in the projected image becoming increasingly filled with dancing circles of white until the punctured filmstrip becomes so fragile that it breaks.94 This concept of erosion or erasure of the image as a performative act is applied to the screen itself in White Calligraphy Re-Read (1967/2014). During this performance, a text animation, an ancient historical chronicle of Japan that has been scratched onto individual frames of black film leader, becomes increasingly impossible to read. Working framelessly by writing across the length of the film strip is for Iimura a reference to ancient Japanese scrolls,95 which are considered by some as a time-based medium.96 As the film progresses, the projected white letters gradually appear to erode. When the lights go back on at the end of the event, Iimura is revealed to have been painting the projection screen black and thus destroying its light-reflecting properties. Another performance that uses live painting to alter the portions of a screen that can be projected onto is Guy Sherwin’s Paper Landscape (1975) included

194

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

in the ICA Festival of Expanded Cinema in London in 197697 and still regularly performed. In this work, Sherwin stands behind a screen of transparent plastic. He starts to paint it white. As the white strokes begin to cover the plastic, a film can be seen in the places that are painted white. The film shows Sherwin’s younger self in 1975. The younger self is tearing away a paper screen in front of the camera to slowly reveal himself. He then walks into the horizon. The real, present-day artist who stands behind the painted plastic then takes a knife and starts cutting a hole in the image until he himself is revealed. Although originally intended as a way to investigate the combination of interior and exterior space,98 over time this performance has taken on additional meaning as the artist himself grows older in relation to the original film and has acquired a poignant sense of memory, nostalgia and loss. Another artist connected with expanded cinema who used live drawing during one of her events is VALIE EXPORT. Based in Austria, EXPORT renamed herself in order to take ownership of her own representation.99 In common with the other artists in the 1960s and 1970s connected with expanded cinema, she was concerned with the politics of film and her work was created in an environment of Happenings, student uprisings of May 1968, Fluxus, Dada, Situationism, Structural Film and Viennese Actionism (she was acquainted with but not a member of this group)100 and aimed to be ‘an analysis carried out in order to discover and realize new forms of communication, the deconstruction of a dominant reality’.101 Auf+Ab+An+Zu (Up + Down + On + Off) (1968) was an expanded cinema performance in which the viewer as passive consumer is questioned. In reference to Bertolt Brecht’s idea of a Lehrstück (a learning or instructional play that aimed to activate its audience out of passivity), she considers this a Lehrfilm (learning film), which aimed to eliminate the distance between creator and viewer in an effort to do away with the traditional hierarchical distinction between active, creative artists and passively receptive audiences.102 During this performance, a looped 3-minute film shows a 360-degree camera view circling around a monument. Some of the film footage is obscured by black geometric shapes. The film is projected onto a paper screen and the audience is invited to draw upon this paper screen and, thus, complete the image in partnership with the artist. As the film looped, at intervals the drawings that had been made on the screen would momentarily fill the missing space again. Made by audience members, EXPORT called this drawing that attempted to fill a series of absences the real film.103 Although expanded cinema is usually considering in terms of its context within avant-garde film practice, it is clear that a number of artists associated with this movement, such as Sharits, Nicholson, Rhodes, Kerr, Pope, Smith, Iimura, Sherwin and EXPORT, used forms of live drawing in conjunction with film projection as part of their investigations. Their inclusion in this chapter is intended to contextualize their work on film as a form of time-based drawing. Mark making

ILLUMINATING

195

is used to immediately and directly intervene with the projection, material nature and perception of film. During these performances, the activity of drawing is seen by the audience as well as the results in the form of projected moving images. Making marks on the film strip as it is projected, using the process of projection itself to make marks, painting over the screen to vary opacity and inviting the audience to participate in the making of images, these works question the mainstream institution of cinema with its escapist immersion in an entertaining narrative in order to invite a critically aware engagement with the constructed nature of moving images and the manipulation involved in watching classic narrative cinema.

Live animation Animation is conventionally thought of as an art of the past: images are laboriously created in a time-consuming process, recorded and then played back in front of an audience. The time of creation is different from and precedes the time of viewing. However, this view is bound to a pre-digital, medium-specific conceptualization of animation. As Hosea has written, Animation has previously been considered as bound by its relationship to film: the medium on which it was distributed. In the traditional cinematic context, each audience member has the same experience, is passive and their reaction has no influence on how a film is played back. The use of digital technologies has engendered a paradigm shift and a short or feature film in a cinema is no longer the only manner in which moving images can be distributed.104 On the contrary, animation can happen ‘now’, in the present time, through various processes. This section will consider examples of live animation that result from performance drawing. The term live animation is used here to define moving images which are created live and played back in front of an audience as they are being made. The act of drawing may be seen by the audience, but the hands or body of the artist do not feature in the moving images that result. Using a range of digital technologies, drawings are performed live and are projected in the form of moving images. The work of the Canadian animator Pierre Hébert creates a bridge between expanded cinema performances of scratching directly onto analogue film and the use of digital technologies to create live and spontaneous animated drawings for projection. Hébert began to experiment with live scratching in 1986, making marks on a 16 mm black leader loop of film while it was running in the projector.105 In these performances, he was able to improvise, for example producing stick

196

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

figures to illustrate the accompaniment of a poem.106 His motivation behind this work was to reveal the process and technology of animation: to set side by side, in clear view, in front of the spectators all the different components of cinema: the screen, the projector, the strip of 16mm film, the light table, the engraving tools, the frame by frame work, and the body of the animator (my own body) doing all this, engaged in a frenetic activity in order to proceed at the same speed as the projector … In those performances, the displaying, with full transparency, of the apparatus and of the process was as important as the result of the work, which was the short 40 sec. looped film that was completed after more or less one hour of this unleashed activity.107 In the late 1990s, Hébert began to collaborate with the musician Bob Ostertag, who created software that would allow him to process digital images live. Relishing the opportunity to ‘profane’ the ‘new triumphant digital technology’,108 Hébert worked with Ostertag under the name of Living Cinema to create live, immediate improvisational animation and music. This was done through the use of software such as MaxMSP/Jitter to manipulate live video feeds of objects and performed drawing and to combine them with processed streams of prerecorded images.109 The spontaneous nature of Living Cinema’s performances enables them to respond immediately to world news and current affairs – such as the bombing of the World Trade Center, which happened the week before their first performance. Between Science and Garbage (2001), their first joint performance at the Walker Center for Arts, Minneapolis, involved Hébert drawing with marker pens on glass, chalk on chalkboard, blowing dust on mirrors, and manipulating piles of rubbish, which formed both the subject matter of the animation and the source of the sound – which was sampled and processed live by Ostertag. Special Forces (2007) opened in Beirut and was conceived of after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006. It combines video game sounds with video footage from the war and Hébert’s playful animated drawings of planes, explosions and stick figures.110 A more recent performance, Shadow Boxing (2012), premiered at the Beethoven International Project Festival in Chicago and featured an amplified boxing ring, live animation, a video game controller, toys (weapons, animal and soldier figures), fire, video footage from the location of the performance and the newspaper from that day.111 For Hébert, his use of the technology is conceptual and extends his earlier practice of live scratching on film: The focal point of my work is situated precisely at the level of the interface and the interaction between the live manual creation of successive images and the digital processing of those images in terms of modification of order and speed, of their segmentation in series of distinct loops, and of live composition

ILLUMINATING

197

of those loops. The fact that everything is accomplished from series of images drawn during the performance, maintains at the center of the process the bodily dimension and the imperative of speed, which were so important in live scratched animation.112 He is able to investigate the ‘idea’ of animation and to perform it in an improvisational manner with an ‘instrumental expression’.113 Rather than showing pre-recorded images from the past, his work is able to respond immediately to the present moment – like an improvisational musician. As well as Hébert’s pioneering work with Ostertag through the use of the Jitter patch for MaxMSP, there are other software and hardware tools available to enable the generation of moving digital marks in a live context. The Tagtool, for example, began as an open source ‘performative visual instrument’114 consisting of an Arduino microprocessor in a wooden box with sliders linked to a Wacom drawing tablet and joystick controller. It could be assembled through instructions shared on the Internet. In 2012, the Tagtool was brought to the iPad as an app and it was no longer necessary to assemble the components.115 The equipment enables digital drawings to be created, projected (in conjunction with a projector) and animated live. Following Hosea’s experiments with the Tagtool in early 2010 to create spontaneous backdrops and lighting effects for improvised dance and music work at a University of the Arts London (UAL) Interdisciplinary Performance workshop, where she created performances with, among others, the sound artist Jose Macabra and scenographer Agnes Treplin,116 Foá, Grisewood, Hosea and McCall began to experiment with the Tagtool during our second residency at the Centre for Drawing, Wimbledon.117 The tool was used to create drawings of white light in combination with graphite, sound and actions of the live body during a performance of ARC: I Draw for You, as described in Chapter  3. Hosea went on to use the Tagtool in her Medium (2012) performance that was premiered in the basement cells of a former workhouse in London. The Tagtool was used to create live automatic writing and ectoplasmic drawings that were projected over pre-recorded images that formed a backdrop behind her own live performance. Inspired by Victorian spirit photographs, this tableau vivant or living picture explores the act of mediation that is involved in the digital imagemaking process. Taking the role of a techno-medium, she channels messages from film and radio through a projection of her pre-recorded multiple digital doubles in combination with live images of automatic writing and electronic ectoplasmic drawing. The work is informed by an investigation into the history of manipulated photography and the connections between a medium, such as film or digital code, through which a message is encoded, stored and transmitted, and the psychic medium, a person who transmits messages from the spirit world.118

198

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Other artists to use the Tagtool as part of live drawing performances include UK-based Alys Scott Hawkins – who has been commissioned to make Tagtool drawings for such events such as the opening of Drawn Together, Drawn Apart (Southampton Art Gallery, 2013) and the dance performance collaboration Mark  / Shift / Loop (Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton, 2018) – and Kellie O’Dempsey. Discovering the Tagtool online during research for her Master’s at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) Film School in Australia, O’Dempsey travelled to Austria to build her own at OMAi International as part of an event they were holding – Tagtool Chink Chank 2010. Struck by the immediacy of drawing with light, its ephemeral nature and how it could be projected onto architecture and natural environments, O’Dempsey has used the tool in a number of performances – often in conjunction with drawing by hand, live-feed cameras, recorded footage and video projections. Collaboration is an important part of her practice and she often involves artists from other disciplines or even the audience in her work: When working collaboratively; with dancers, musicians, sound and visual artists the drawn and choreographed line can respond and be responded to. This can create a binding element where scores associated with improvisation can re-imagine and generates new methods in making.119 For Draw / Delay (2015), she collaborated with the musician Mick Dick as part of a public intervention in the city for the White Night festival in Melbourne. Sited in an alleyway off a busy central street at night, both artists improvised – visually and musically – in response to the environment in order to demystify the process of creation. Combining paint, charcoal, a live video feed and digital drawing with the Tagtool, O’Dempsey creates a richly layered and evolving series of painterly images.120 The performance itself lasted for 12 hours and it was a challenge of endurance for O’Dempsey to continue working from 7  p.m. till 7  a.m.121 Another collaboration, Resistance Movement (2017), with the American artist Jennifer Wroblewski at the Kentler International Drawing Space, New York, also featured Ben Gerstein on the trombone, Mike Pride on percussion and Jonathan Moritz on the saxophone (See Figure 5.6). Inspired by Dada cabaret, Resistance Movement invokes drawing’s capacity to record movement and reframes the gallery as a site both in which drawing as movement can be explored and in which a political movement of resistance can be incubated. Using ink, charcoal, chalks on sticks – sometimes sighted, sometimes blindfolded – the pair responded to the music and each other’s movements. After the opening night, the drawings that formed the residue of the performance remained. Video and photographs that documented the events were projected back into the space to form an installation that served as the backdrop for other performances, such as Latino hip-hop outfit M.A.N.I.A.C. Empire.122

ILLUMINATING

199

Figure 5.6  Kellie O’Dempsey and Jennifer Wroblewski, Resistance Movement, 2017. © Kellie O’Dempsey.

Hosea and O’Dempsey have both employed digital drawing tools that they have made themselves through following open source instructions online, but the Tagtool was not of their own invention. Other artists such as Jeremy Radvan create and programme their own unique drawing tools. Radvan’s digital projects come out of years of experience in drawing in which he has observed the difference between the ‘depictive mark, placed on the surface with a concern for topographical precision’123 and the expressive stroke that employs chaos, indeterminacy and imprecision.124 Originally, he worked with ‘off-the-shelf’ software. His initial research, as part of an MPhil at the Royal College of Art, entitled The Use of the Computer as a Tool for Observation, led to a series of directly observed animations drawn with a mouse and produced in a now obsolete piece of software called Director. However, it seemed to him that this process of drawing was a mimicry of traditional media and he wanted to explore the specific qualities of the digital materials he was using. His work in live drawing and performance began with Avatar (2005–7), a collaboration with the dancer Rajyashree Ramamurthi. In this structured improvisation, live animations with ghostly overlapping ‘onion-skinned’125 frames that leave a trace of movement behind and layered video feeds were projected into the performance space. Drawing with a tablet directly into Macromedia Flash, the animations were created in real time, adding an improvisational choreography of line to the live performance:

200

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

In Avatar, Rajyashree Ramamurthi and I began to explore the points of contact between dance and drawing when they take place in the same performance space … My drawings were created in direct response to Raj’s movement on stage and I felt that I was drawing alongside her within the performance space. That was the fundamental idea behind the piece.126 Ever Lasting (2011) was a live drawing performance in collaboration with the dancer Marina Tsartsara as part of the Body-Culture-Art exhibition at the Royal Institute of Science and Literacy, Bath, UK. This used Boil, Radvan’s own custom-coded drawing software, which adds indeterminacy to the lines made and incorporates randomized components. As opposed to a static line, the term ‘boil’ is used in animation to refer to constant movement that runs through a line, even though the subject of the drawing may itself be static. For Radvan, this adds the experience of duration to a drawing: The drawing device that I have developed shifts the focus of the drawn mark away from the instant of its making. The qualities are expressed through constant boil. The qualities are distributed through a broader moment that lays over that instant of its making … The constant movement gives a sense of time passing. These could be described as still images even though something is evidently happening. They are still because they employ the visual language of cinema and within that structure nothing happens. They are stilled images.127 Radvan sees this use of time in mark making as a way to distinguish between drawing that demonstrates and drawing that performs.128 Another artist to write software inspired by their own extensive investigations into drawing practice is James Patterson.129 Named after the Scottish/Canadian experimental animation pioneer Norman McLaren, his software, Norman,130 allows the user to sketch in three-dimensional space using virtual reality (VR) controllers in WebVR. Although he normally uses the tool to record animations rather than perform them live, Irene Alvarado and Jonas Jongejan created an augmented reality (AR) viewer for the animations that he made with Norman to allow them to be composited in real time. Thus, they can be explored in three dimensions through the mediation of a smartphone in which the animation is superimposed over the actual view of whatever the phone’s camera is pointed towards.131 Whereas Norman is an artist’s project for drawing in VR, Google’s Tilt Brush132 is a VR drawing application that has been developed commercially. Wearing a VR headset such as Vive or Oculus and holding one or two handheld controllers,

ILLUMINATING

201

the artist is able to walk around and create a digital drawing in virtual space through physical gestures that reach into all three dimensions. The controller enables a variety of different mark making styles to be used in a combination of sculpting and drawing. In Anna Zhilyaeva’s live performance (working as Anna’s Dream Brush)133 at the Louvre in 2018, she used Tilt Brush in front of an audience to recreate Eugène Delacroix’s painting Liberty Leading the People. In the documentation of her performance on YouTube,134 she is shown as the audience sees her – a woman with a headset and two handheld controllers moving around in front of the original painting with a screen beside it showing her viewpoint from inside the VR headset. This video footage is intercut with renderings from her own point of view from inside the virtual space of the painting that she is creating. Another artist to use Tilt Brush in live performances is the Korean artist Broken Brain,135 who combines drawing in VR in front of an audience with pre-recorded video and animation clips to create accomplished audio-visual performances that combine drawing with traditions of the backing dancer to provide visual illustrations that accompany rousing music soundtracks. As opposed to using a controller, mouse or tablet to input mark making information into a drawing programme, other artists use auditory or bodily triggers to generate marks that can be projected live. On a computer, all information is reduced to binary code in the form of zeros and ones. This enables multimodal, synaesthetic connections to be made between different kinds of digital data136 and can result in algorithmic drawings that are generated live from different bodily processes. In Golan Levin’s Scribble (2000), which was originally commissioned by the Ars Electronica Festival in Austria, seven interactive Audiovisual Environment Suites (AVES) programmed by Levin are operated by himself and collaborators using live coding to produce synthetic sounds and abstract animation.137 In another performance project, Messa di Voce (2003), Levin’s software transforms the sounds made by human beings – through speech, shouting and song – into a range of abstract graphic images, thus making the human voice visible. In addition to visualizing sound, a number of artists use gesture data to create drawings that are generated by the live human figure in motion – such as Fei Jun’s Gesture Cloud Gesture Wall at the Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art in 2017. This work employed games technology – an Xbox Kinect motion sensor – to detect the movements of museum visitors and transform this data into graphic images. Other artists have begun to work with interior corporeal data such as that produced by brainwaves. Oliver Gingrich’s Aura (2015) installation is a real-time holographic projection of lines generated by the viewer’s mind and measured through an electroencephalogram (EEG) headset. The images change in colour and form according to the degree to which the viewer concentrates.138 For Gingrich, this work is a way to visualize telepathy and spiritual connections between isolated individuals.139 Ani Liu’s Mind Controlled Spermatozoa (2017) also uses an EEG headset and invokes the powers of telekinesis, in which the

202

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

mind alone can move material objects. In this case, the power of a woman’s mind is used to control something fundamentally male and to manipulate living tissue through the power of her thoughts. The project was created as an act of protest against President Trump’s decision to cut US funding for international projects to promote the reproductive rights of women. In the performance, a woman sits cross-legged in a meditative posture within a pool of light into which images of sperm are projected. A brain–computer interface (BCI) reads her thoughts and transmits degrees of motion via electrophoretic circuits to pools of semen and the resulting images are projected live via a microscope.140 There are a number of ways in which artists can create live animation with digital mark-making tools – from processed video feeds of hand-made drawings through to digital drawing that is created through input by mouse or tablet, algorithm, voice, bodily movement or brainwaves. All of these examples, however, rely upon digital technology connected to a projector in order to mediate the act of digital mark making and to illuminate the drawings for an audience to see. The marks are not themselves made directly onto the projection surface. A way to draw directly with light without the aid of a camera or computer software is to use self-illuminated sources such as LEDs and lasers.

Light drawing without mediation: LEDs and lasers The art and technology group Graffiti Research Lab have created tools for drawing directly into the environment with a system for instantly projecting digital drawings as they are made onto the walls of buildings. The Graffiti Research Lab, which has now disbanded, was founded in 2005 by James Powderly and Evan Roth at the Eyebeam OpenLab in New York. Their aim was to create tools for digital graffiti art that could empower metropolitan activism in city spaces that they considered to be dominated by the advertisements of big business. This was done through developing open source technologies and sharing the know-how and source code for these tools online. With the ambition to allow people with scarce means to communicate at the same scale as advertisers do, Graffiti Research Lab wanted their tools to connect urban street artists with technological activists so that artists, protesters and pranksters could intervene in the city with un-curated content. According to Roth: We see this similarity between graffiti writers and hackers: graffiti writers sort of hack the city, street artists and pranksters sort of hack public spaces to twist systems that happens in the city into sort of their own message, and hackers do that in a digital sense.141

ILLUMINATING

203

An early project that the group created was LED Throwies – LEDs connected to magnets that could be thrown onto metallic surfaces around the city in order to emit coloured lights. Another project was the L.A.S.E.R. Tag, a tool that used a projected laser reflector to draw on the side of buildings. It works through camera tracking of a green laser point, which is transformed by the software into custom brush strokes such as dripping paint and then projected. As the finale of the Microwave New Media Arts Festival in Hong Kong in 2007, Graffiti Research Lab used the L.A.S.E.R. Tag to ‘bomb’ the city’s iconic skyline with ephemeral graffiti. Local graffiti artists took turns to use it to paint with light over the exterior of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in Kowloon from across the harbour 1,200 metres away.142 Although the L.A.S.E.R. Tag employed a laser to draw with precision, the marks themselves are not drawn directly onto the building. Rather, gestural information is captured from the artist, this is then interpolated and mediated through a computer by software before being transmitted on to the building via a high-powered projector. As with the use of any software, this can result in a lack of precision, modification of the intended mark and sometimes even a slight time lag. Other artists have used lasers as a tool to draw directly with light in their work without the intervention of a computer. Hosea’s dotdot dash (2018)143 is a participatory light action with laser pointers and voice that she conducts as part of site-specific experience. The orchestration of this visual music piece is based on a chance-based score made through walking with paint-covered feet over musical paper. Coming together in a choral collaboration, participants are directed to explore the colours and mark making possibilities made by drawing with laser pointers and to accompany this with the sounds of their own voices. The effect is a live audio-visual performance of animated lines in red, green and purple reminiscent of an abstract animation created by directly scratching on film. Although other artists have done light painting before, such as Nagata Takeshi and Monno Kazue’s PiKAPiKA lightning doodles covered at the start of the chapter, this is not the same. It is not a set-up to be recorded on a slow exposure for a photograph but a live animation of lights and sound that is created communally through improvisation and experienced in the present moment. It is not intended to be experienced later through documentation but to take part in during a live experience. The work dotdot dash (see Figure 5.7) was originally commissioned in 2018 for the Night Walking North Kent Festival by InspiralLondon, a collaborative artists’ project led by Charlie Fox of Counterproductions previously discussed in Chapter 3. The project is based on a 300-mile walking trail around London in the shape of a spiral created by Charlie Fox and divided into thirty-six sections. dotdot dash was created to be experienced by walkers as part of a series of site-specific artworks at the end of the trail in Gravesend. The intention behind the work was to create a work of animation that could be made collectively by

204

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Figure 5.7  Birgitta Hosea, dotdot dash, 2018 Live participatory performance of animated drawing in a tunnel near Ebbsfleet station. © Birgitta Hosea.

the participants on the walk – that was mobile and would not involve carrying any heavy equipment. Additionally, following discussions with the InspiralLondon group about privilege and who is able to walk around freely in the dark at night, dotdot dash is a collective action to reclaim the night through light and noise for people who may not normally feel safe to walk at night in the city. Determining a route by chance through this drawing of a line means that the walk cuts through many unpredictable parts of London. The route involved going through light industrial areas that are desolate and deserted at night, walking through a caged walkway over a sheer drop to a chalk pit, through bushes and undergrowth, past burnt-out motor bikes, across another caged walkway over a railway line and then to a tunnel through a disused chalk pit near Ebbsfleet International station. Everyone on the walk was given two laser pens and with around thirty people present a live performance of animation was created. With the acoustic amplification of a brass megaphone, Hosea gave instructions as to what colours and types of marks and sounds the participants should make. The orchestration of this visual music piece is based on a chance-based score made through walking with paint-covered feet over musical paper. Coming together in a choral collaboration, participants are directed to explore the colours and markmaking possibilities made by drawing with laser pointers and to accompany this with the sounds of their own voices. The effect is an immersive experience: a live audio-visual performance of animated lines in red, green and purple that look like an abstract animation which has been scratched on film. The work was

ILLUMINATING

205

repeated in a different tunnel – on the Regents Canal at Kings Cross, London for another InspiralLondon night walk for the London as Park City Festival (2018). A different group of walkers participated in the work. The addition of the water going through the tunnel added an extra element of bounced light and reflection to the mark-making possibilities.

Conclusion: Post-medium practice Performance drawing generally unsettles conventional views of drawing, because the emphasis is on the activity of mark making, on the process, on the performance, rather than the end product – the resulting drawing. It can be argued, however, that any drawing contains levels of performance. During the process of creation, an artist performs gestures, actions and movements to make the forms and marks that constitute the finished work. Indeed, Donald Crafton proposes that contemporary fine art animation is in itself a performance. He argues that animators who use tactile processes such as sand or the manipulation of objects create a performance of which the animation is a recorded documentation.144 Thus, although the only method of documenting a performance drawing may appear to be photographic, a still drawing or an animation also record the gestures that the artist used to make each mark. This chapter has connected together a field of performance drawings that are made through illumination from an interdisciplinary range of technological practices in art, theatre and film. What connects them is not one particular medium, material or process but the use of illumination. With other forms of performance drawing, a relic is left behind – a trace of the materials used lingering on a surface. However, when the means of exhibiting the performance drawing is through projected light, the experience becomes completely ephemeral. A common-sense understanding of drawing is that it is an activity that leaves a residue behind on a surface: a material trace of pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, pastel and so on.145 Yet drawing with light complicates this as light does not normally leave a trace behind where it has fallen. It is temporary and fleeting rather than permanent. Photo-sensitive paper or a photograph may capture the trajectory of the light drawing, but as documentation and not directly in its original form as illumination. The experience for the viewer is different. This is the same point that Phelan makes about live performance146 – that the sensual perception of it in three-dimensional space and the risk and surprise involved in spontaneity and improvisation cannot be reproduced: it needs to be experienced in its original form. This is a perennial question for all performance art – where is the work? Is it created for the live experience in the present moment or for the lens of the camera to be watched later? If the latter, how much does the framing eye of the camera affect or even diminish the work?

206

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Animation offers another option for documenting a performed drawing, yet it normally operates within a different temporal zone to a live event. The experience of watching a performance of light drawing may appear to be like watching an animation, but there is a fundamental difference. With a conventional animation, the images have been painstakingly created in the past, recorded and then played back, whereas with a performance drawing the act of creation takes place in real time before the eyes of onlookers. It is not a replay of a recording. However, if the drawn images created during the live performance move, then it can be argued that this is a live form of animation. Although ‘liveness’ troubles the usual understandings of animation, certain types of performance drawings that move and are illuminated and/or projected can be regarded as not only time-based drawings but also live animation.147 The illuminated works in this chapter are also connected by issues of both time and movement at the heart of the practice of drawing. The very notion of drawing with light is at the root of the concept of photography itself. The English term ‘photography’ combines the Greek terms phōs/phōt (meaning light)  and graphikos (meaning written or drawn). Cholodenko argues that following a trail of concepts that contain what he refers to as the ‘graphematic’ reveals a range of practices that are all connected by drawing: The graphs – hand drawing, drawing with light (photography), drawing with motion (cinema), and drawing with life and motion at the same time (animation) – are inextricably interwoven in a tracery, as they are in a chain, or rather train, of undecidable, substitutable, supplementary terms/modes.148 Indeed, a concern with line and duration persists across all the disciplines under discussion in this chapter and, in particular, it is argued here for moving image itself as a form of drawing practice. An example of this can be seen in the work of Soviet theatre director and film-maker Sergei M. Eisenstein, who drew incessantly, as was revealed in an exhibition of his drawings at The Drawing Center in New York in 2000. In a chapter from his memoirs that is reproduced in the catalogue for this exhibition, he recounts the interconnection between learning to dance and learning to draw. A particular incident in which a family friend drew for him was transformational: He drew wild animals. Dogs. Deer. Cats. … Here, before the eyes of the delighted beholder, this outline took form and started moving. As it moved, the unseen line of the objects traced a magical path, making it appear on the dark blue coloured cloth. The line was the track left by the movement.

ILLUMINATING

207

Years later I still remember this acute sense of line as dynamic movement; a process, a path.149 During his drawing lessons, Eisenstein felt constrained and uninspired with drawing the volumes of static subjects in ossified poses like a plaster cast. It was the movement of line that inspired him: drawing and dancing, which take the route from the same impulse, here converged. And the line of my drawing was seen as the trace of a dance.150 He connects drawing with motion, with change, with metamorphic transformation, with the instantaneous and ephemeral. As a film-maker and theatre director, his exploration of the line took different forms. For Eisenstein, the choreography of the line was not just expressed by drawing on paper but the patterning of human bodies in space in his theatre work and graphic contrasts in his film work. For him, the line is time-based and about movement. Eisenstein’s work demonstrates that whatever mark-making technology is used, drawing is not tied to particular tools and materials but is a concept or methodology that emerges from the tracing of human gesture. As Ed Krčma has argued,151 drawing, in its simplicity, can be used as a process with many other forms of technology. Indeed, perhaps drawing itself is continually evolving with new forms of technology. Rather than fixating on issues of technique, of the analogue rather than the digital, of the medium, instead this raises issues of the body, of the physical making process, of the living, sensing human being at the centre of the process.

Notes 1 The authors would like to acknowledge the following who made contributions to the research for this chapter: Lina X Aguirre, Malcolm Cook, Oliver Gingrich, Nicky Hamlyn, Javad Khajavi, Soirée Nicholson and Richard Wright. 2 Examples of their work can be seen on Takeshi Nagata’s YouTube channel: https:// www.youtube.com/channel/UCfhISR7gmVxLxNEInpNvitg. 3 A VJ (abbreviation for ‘video jockey’) plays samples of moving images as part of a live show, typically at a night club or music event. 4 Peggy Phelan, ‘The ontology of performance: Representation without reproduction’, in Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 146. 5 Birgitta Hosea, ‘Substitutive bodies and constructed actors: A practice-based investigation of animation as performance’ (PhD diss., University of the Arts London, 2012), p. 30.

208

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

6 Malcolm Cook, ‘The lightning cartoon: Animation from music hall to cinema’, Early Popular Visual Culture, vol. 11, no. 3 (2013): 238. 7 Ibid., pp. 237–9. 8 In this chapter, the American term ‘lightning sketch’ is used to stress the centrality of drawing to this act rather than cartooning or caricature. 9 Donald Crafton, Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898–1928 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 48. 10 Cook, ‘The lightning cartoon’, p. 240. 11 Ibid., p. 247. 12 Ibid., pp. 243–5. 13 Dennis Gifford, ‘Tom Merry (William Mecham) (1853–1902)’, Biographical Guide to Victorian film, Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema, 1996, http://www.victorian-cinema. net/merry.htm (accessed 19 November 2017). 14 Malcolm Cook, ‘Animating perception: British cartoons from music hall to cinema, 1880–1928’ (PhD diss., Birkbeck, University of London, 2012), p. 248. 15 Cook, ‘The lightning cartoon’, p. 248. 16 See Tom Gunning, ‘The cinema of attraction[s]: Early film, its spectator and the avant-garde’, in Wanda Strauven, ed., The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), pp. 381–8. 17 Gifford, ‘Tom Merry (William Mecham) (1853–1902)’. 18 See Philippe Gauthier, ‘A trick question: Are early animated drawings a film genre or a special effect?’, Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 6, no. 2 (2011): 163–75. 19 Crafton, Before Mickey, p. 51. 20 Ibid., pp. 48–51. 21 Dennis Gifford, ‘Walter Robert Booth (1869–1938)’, Biographical Guide to Victorian film, Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema, 2017, http://www.victorian-cinema.net/ walterbooth.php (accessed 19 November 2017). 22 Crafton, Before Mickey, p. 364. 23 Ibid., p. 52. 24 Ibid. 25 Dan Torre and Lienors Torre, ‘The pioneering years of Australian animation (1900– 1930): From animated sketches to animation empire’, Senses of Cinema, no. 77 (December 2015). 26 Anita Calloway, Visual Ephemera: Theatrical Art in Nineteenth-Century Australia (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2000), p. 68. 27 Melbourne Punch, 27 July 1905, cited in Torre and Torre, ‘The pioneering years of Australian animation (1900–1930)’. 28 Torre and Torre, ‘The pioneering years of Australian animation (1900–1930)’. 29 Crafton, Before Mickey, pp. 89–129. 30 John Canemaker, Winsor McCay: His Life and Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2005), p. 135.

ILLUMINATING

209

31 Ibid., pp. 152, 153–7. 32 Winsor McCay, Winsor McCay: Animation Legend [1911–21] (USA: Argos Films; BFI, 1996), VHS, Connoisseur/Academy Video. 33 Ibid. 34 Canemaker, Winsor McCay, p. 177. 35 This term refers to the improvised dialogue that showmen would speak. Often during silent films or lightning sketches there would be amusing or entertaining chatter by the performers. Also known as ‘banter’. 36 Canemaker, Winsor McCay, pp. 176–7. 37 Cohl [1922] quoted in Crafton, Before Mickey, p. 111. 38 Unfortunately, Winsor McCay’s animation and stage careers were relatively shortlived. His main employment was as a newspaper cartoonist and his biographer, John Canemaker, reports that in 1917 W. R. Hearst, his employer, forced him to give up his act and focus on his work at the newspaper. See Canemaker, Winsor McCay, p. 177. 39 Ibid., p. 177. 40 Crafton, Before Mickey, p. 259. 41 According to the theory of remediation, an emerging form of new media will incorporate forms of ‘old’ media that preceded it. See Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000). 42 Cook, ‘The lightning cartoon’, p. 238. 43 Ibid., pp. 246–7. 44 Alan Cholodenko, ‘The illusion of the beginning: A theory of drawing and animation’, Afterimage, vol. 28, no. 1 (2000). 45 Ferenc Cakó, ‘Interview’, Sand Animation by Ferenc Cakó, 2012–2017, https:// sandanimation.tumblr.com/interview (accessed 1 June 2020). 46 Ferenc Cakó, ‘Livesandanimation’, YouTube, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/user/ livesandanimation (accessed 18 November 2017). 47 Ferenc Cakó, ‘Legal statement’, Sand Animation by Ferenc Cakó, 2012–2017, http://sandanimation.tumblr.com (accessed 18 November 2017). 48 Kseniya Simonova, ‘Simonova TV’,Kseniya Simonova website, http://simonova.tv/ en/ (accessed 18 November 2017). 49 Lisa Gornick, interview by Birgitta Hosea, email, 29 October 2017. 50 Ibid. 51 Lisa Gornick, ‘What Is Lesbian Cinema? Live Drawing Show’, Lisa Gornick, website, http://lisagornick.com/what-is-lesbian-cinema-live-drawing-show (accessed 2 November 2017). 52 Gornick, interview by Birgitta Hosea. 53 Cornerhouse, Unspooling: Artists and Cinema (Manchester: Cornerhouse, 2010), exhibition catalogue. 54 England & Co Gallery, ‘Harald Smykla: Movie protocols & other activities’, England & Co Gallery (blog), 12 December 2014, http://www.englandgallery.com/haraldsmykla-movie-protocols-other-activities/ (accessed 3 November 2017).

210

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

55 Filipa Malva, ‘Of lines, zoom and focus: Mediating drawing in performance’, presentation at the Markings: Festival of Illustration and Performance, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London/House of Illustration, London, 2016. 56 Birgitta Hosea, ‘Drawing animation’, Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 5, no. 3 (2010): 363. 57 John Miers, ‘Event review of “Markings: Festival of Illustration and Performance”, at Central St Martins, 8–9th July 2016’, Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, vol. 2, no. 1 (2017). 58 Malva, ‘Of lines, zoom and focus’. 59 In an email to Birgitta Hosea, Malva related that the particular brand of charcoal she used, Vlarco, is only available through Portuguese art suppliers. 60 These are custom-cut pieces of black metal used to control patterns of light and shadow in theatrical lighting. 61 Joaquín Cociña, ‘Theater’, Joaquín Cociña website, http://joaquincocina. com/?page_id=201 (accessed 3 November 2017). 62 POTQ Magazine, ‘Teatro: Mi Joven Corazón Idiota’, POTQ Magazine, 9 June 2009, http://www.potq.net/noticias/teatro-mi-joven-corazon-idiota/. Translation courtesy of Microsoft Translator (accessed 3 November 2017). 63 Mohammad Javad Khajavi, ‘Re-animating the script: An exploration of new directions in calligraphic animation with reference to the kinesthetic, plasmatic and transformative qualities of Islamic calligraphy’ (PhD diss., Nanyang Technological University, 2016), p. 79. 64 Ibid., p. 49. 65 Ibid., p. 58. 66 Bahman Panahi, ‘About’, Bahman Panahi website, http://bahmanpanahi.com/ about-me.html (accessed 3 November 2017). 67 Drawn Together, ‘SKYPE vs. Night Sky: A telematic drawing performance’, Drawn Together website, https://drawntogether.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/skype-vsnight-sky-a-telematic-drawing-performance/ (accessed 3 November 2017). See also Drawn Together, ‘SKYPE vs Night Sky: Pictures’, Drawn Together (blog), 19 February 2011, https://drawntogether.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/skype-vsnight-sky-pictures/ (accessed 3 November 2017). 68 Gene Youngblood, Expanded Cinema (London: Studio Vista, 1970), p. 93. 69 Mark Bartlett, ‘Socialimagestics and the visual acupuncture of Stan Vanberbeek’s expanded cinema’, in A. L. Rees, Duncan White, Steven Ball and David Curtis, eds, Expanded Cinema: Art, Performance, Film (London: Tate Publishing, 2011), p. 50. 70 Youngblood, Expanded Cinema, pp. 42, 59. 71 Ibid., p. 41. 72 A. L. Rees, ‘Expanded cinema and narrative: A troubled history’, in Rees et al., Expanded Cinema, p. 12. 73 Phillip Drummond, ‘Notions of avant-garde cinema’, in Hayward Gallery, ed., Film as Form: Formal Experiment in Film 1910–1975 (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1979), exhibition catalogue, p. 9. 74 Ibid.

ILLUMINATING

211

75 This term refers to the interconnected elements of the cinematic experience – the film itself and how it is constructed; the equipment used; the act of projection and its reception; the institutional context of cinema. See Jean-Louis Baudry, ‘Ideological effects of the basic cinematographic apparatus’, trans. by Alan Williams, Film Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 2 (1974–5): 39–47. 76 Hosea, ‘Substitutive bodies and constructed actors’, pp. 100–1. 77 Nicky Hamlyn, ‘Frameless film’, in Nina Danino and Michael Mazière, eds, The Undercut Reader: Critical Writings on Artists’ Film and Video (London: Wallflower Press, 2003), p. 164. 78 Stuart Liebman, Paul Sharits (St Paul, MN: Film in the Cities, 1981), p. 13. 79 Hayward Gallery, Film as Form, p. 99. 80 Felicity Sparrow, ‘Annabel Nicholson: Reel time’, Artists’ film, Lux Online, 2005, http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/annabelnicolson/(printversion).html (accessed 6 November 2017). 81 Annabel Nicholson, ‘I was sitting with my back to them, sewing, a beam of light coming at me from the projector’, in Rees et al., Expanded Cinema, pp. 158–9. 82 Vicky Smith, ‘The animator’s body in expanded cinema’, Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 10, no. 3 (2015): 224. 83 Hayward Gallery, Film as Form, p. 95. 84 Nicky Hamlyn, ‘Mutable screens: The expanded films of Guy Sherwin, Lis Rhodes, Steve Farrer and Nicky Hamlyn’, in Rees et al., Expanded Cinema, p. 213. 85 Hamlyn, ‘Frameless film’, p. 163. 86 Steven Ball, ‘Conditions of music: Contemporary audio-visual spatial performance practice’, in Rees et al., Expanded Cinema, p. 271; Greg Pope, ‘Light trap’, Greg Pope Live Cinema/Film/Performance (blog), 17 July 2011, https://gregpope.org/ light-trap/ (accessed 17 November 2017). 87 Cornerhouse, Unspooling: Artists and Cinema; Greg Pope, ‘Cipher Screen’, Greg Pope Live Cinema/Film/Performance (blog), 17 July 2011, https://gregpope.org/ cipher-screen (accessed 17 November 2017). 88 Vicky Smith, interview by Hosea, email, 2014. 89 Smith, ‘The animator’s body in expanded cinema’, p. 234. 90 Julian Ross, ‘Circle the square: Film performances by Iimura Takahiko in the 1960s’, MOMA, Post Notes on Modern and Contemporary Art Around the Globe (blog), 19 September 2013, http://post.at.moma.org/contentitems/290-circlethe-square-film-performances-by-iimura-takahiko-in-the-1960s (accessed 14 November 2017). 91 Hayward Gallery, Film as Form, p. 99. 92 Ibid., p. 139. 93 Ross, ‘Circle the square’. 94 Hosea, ‘Substitutive bodies and constructed actors’, p. 1. 95 Duncan White, ‘Artists at work: Takahiko Iimura’, Afterall Online, 2010, https:// www.afterall.org/online/artists-at-work-takahiko-iimura/#.Wg8OSEtpFE6 (accessed 17 November 2017).

212

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

  96 See Erkki Huhtamo, Illusions in Motion: A Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013).   97 Hamlyn, ‘Mutable screens’, p. 214.   98 Guy Sherwin and Lynn Loo, ‘Live cinema’, in Rees et al., Expanded Cinema, pp. 253–4.   99 VALIE EXPORT, ‘Biography’, VALIE EXPORT website, http://www.valieexport.at/en/ biografie (accessed 18 November 2017). 100 Rosewitha Mueller, VALIE EXPORT: Fragments of the Imagination (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994). 101 VALIE EXPORT, ‘Expanded Cinema: Expanded Reality’, in Rees et al., Expanded Cinema, p. 288. 102 Mueller, VALIE EXPORT, p. 11. 103 Dunja Schneider and Nina Kirsch, ‘VALIE EXPORT: Time and countertime’, information sheet (Linz: LENTOS Kunstmuseum, 2011), p. 19. 104 Hosea, ‘Substitutive bodies and constructed actors’, p. 91. 105 Pierre Hébert, ‘The idea of animation and instrumental expression’, Pierre Hébert website, http://pierrehebert.com/en/publications/texts/the-idea-of-animation-andinstrumental-expression (accessed 4 February 2018). 106 Tess Takahashi, ‘Meticulously, recklessly worked upon: Direct animation, the auratic and the index’, in Chris Gehman and Steve Reinke, eds, The Sharpest Point: Animation at the End of Cinema (Toronto: YYZ Books, 2005), p. 175. 107 Hébert, ‘The idea of animation and instrumental expression’. 108 Ibid. 109 Pierre Hébert, ‘Cinema, animation and the other arts: An unanswered question’, in Gehman and Reinke, The Sharpest Point, p. 188. Pierre Hébert, ‘Living cinema’, Pierre Hébert website, http://pierrehebert.com/en/performance/living-cinema (accessed 18 November 2017). 110 Lizzy Hill, ‘Special Forces drawing lessons’, The Coast Halifax, 2 April 2009, https:// www.thecoast.ca/halifax/drawing-lessons-in-special-forces/Content?oid=1098798 (accessed 18 November 2017). 111 L’École de Littérature, ‘Shadow boxing: Living cinema’, French Literature Organisation, L’École de Littérature, June 2014, http://www.lecoledelitterature.org/ shadow-boxing.html (accessed 19 November 2017). 112 Hébert, ‘The idea of animation and instrumental expression’. 113 Ibid. 114 OMAI International, ‘About the Tagtool Project’, Tagtool: Drawing and Animation for Live Performance – on Stage, on the Street and on the Net, website, http://www. tagtool.org/wp/about (accessed 10 May 2010). 115 OMAI, ‘Tagtool’, OMAi, website, https://www.omai.at/tagtool (accessed 19 November 2017). 116 Hosea, ‘Substitutive bodies and constructed actors’, pp. 187–8. 117 Drawn Together, ‘Drawing with light’, Drawn Together, 18 January 2010, https:// drawntogether.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/drawing-with-light (accessed 19 November 2017).

ILLUMINATING

213

118 Karachi Biennale 2017, ‘Artists: Birgitta Hosea’, Karachi Biennale 2017, website, http://www.kbcuratorial.com/artists?page=2 (accessed 19 November 2017); Birgitta Hosea, ‘Medium (2012)’, Artist’s website, Birgitta Hosea, 2012, http://www. birgittahosea.co.uk/pages/medium.html (accessed 19 November 2017). 119 Kellie O’Dempsey, interview by Birgitta Hosea, email, 31 October 2017. 120 Kellie O’Dempsey, ‘White Night Festival – Melbourne – Draw/Delay’, Kellie O’Dempsey, website, http://www.kellieo.com/performance/2015-2/white-nightfestival (accessed 19 November 2017). 121 O’Dempsey, interview by Birgitta Hosea. 122 Ibid. 123 Jeremy Radvan, ‘A description of drawing and time in my work’, email, 14 March 2017. 124 Jeremy Radvan, ‘A Hand-Crafted Digital Drawing Application: Indeterminacy and Boil’, paper presented at The Crafty Animator, Rich Mix conference London, 2017. 125 The term ‘onionskin’ is used in animation to refer to semi-transparent images of the frame before and after the one currently being worked on. They are like an echo from the past and the future of the animated sequence. 126 Jeremy Radvan, interview by Birgitta Hosea, email, 8 June 2017. 127 Radvan, ‘A description of drawing and time in my work’. 128 Ibid. 129 See James Paterson’s website: presstube.com. 130 See the Norman animation tool website: https://normanvr.com. 131 See James Patterson, Norman – Night Street Navigation, YouTube video, 2017, https://youtu.be/r8Yqm6xfOso. 132 See the Tilt Brush by Google website: https://www.tiltbrush.com. 133 See Anna Dream Brush’s website: https://www.annadreambrush.com. 134 See demonstration on Anna Dream Brush, Live Performance at the Louvre Museum Paris (Virtual Reality Art), YouTube video, 26 August 2018, https://youtu. be/Zs3n07Clw7A. 135 See Tilt Brush by Google website: http://brokenbrain.co.kr. 136 Birgitta Hosea, ‘Photosonic synthesis: Hearing colour, seeing sound, visualising gesture’, paper presented at the Seeing … Vision and Perception in a Digital Culture: Computers and the History of Art (CHArt) 24th Annual Conference, University of London, 2008. 137 Golan Levin, ‘Scribble’, Flong, website, http://www.flong.com/projects/scribble (accessed 19 November 2017). 138 Oliver Gingrich, ‘Aura’, Oliver Gingrich, website, https://olivergingrich. com/2016/09/23/aura (accessed 4 February 2018). 139 Oliver Gingrich, Alain Renaud and Eugenia Emets, ‘Aura: Telepathy, telepresence and spiritualism as a mirror of technology’ (Unpublished document, 2017). 140 Ani Liu, ‘Mind-controlled spermatozoa’, Ani Liu, website, http://ani-liu.com/ pussygrabsback (accessed 18 November 2017). 141 Monica Ponzini, ‘Graffiti Research Lab: Writers as hackers as artists’, DIGIMAG: Digital Art and Electronic Culture, no. 30 (December 2007): 62.

214

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

142 Graffiti Research Lab, ‘L.A.S.E.R. Tag’, Graffiti Research Lab website, http://www. graffitiresearchlab.com/blog/projects/laser-tag/ (accessed 3 November 2017). 143 Birgitta Hosea, ‘Dotdot Dash’, Expanded Animation, website, https:// expandedanimation.net/2019/01/09/dotdot-dash (accessed 28 January 2019). 144 Hosea, ‘Substitutive bodies and constructed actors’, pp. 70–1; Donald Crafton, ‘Performance in and of animation’, Society for Animation Studies (SAS) Newsletter, vol. 16, no. 1 (September 2002). 145 Hosea, ‘Drawing animation’, p. 354. 146 Phelan, ‘The ontology of performance’. 147 For a more detailed version of this argument, see Hosea, ‘Substitutive bodies and constructed actors’. 148 Cholodenko, ‘The illusion of the beginning’. 149 Sergei M. Eisenstein, ‘How I Learned to Draw (A Chapter About My Dancing Lessons)’, ed. The Drawing Center. Drawing Papers 4: The Body of the Line: Eisenstein’s Drawings, 22 March 2000, 25. https://issuu.com/drawingcenter/docs/ dp4eisenstein (accessed 8 October 2017). 150 Ibid., p. 28. 151 Ed Krčma, ‘Cinematic drawing in a digital age’, Tate Papers, no. 14 (Autumn 2010), http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/14/cinematic-drawing-ina-digital-age (accessed 19 November 2017).

CONCLUSION A significant feature of contemporary drawing has been the transition to artists’ engagement with performance-based works, as well as engaging with the philosophical and conceptual construct of the line. In performance drawing, there is a strong relationship between mark making, body, line, time and space in contemporary practices. This book has aimed to gather artworks from different disciplines, materials and approaches that have either informed the development of or reflect current concerns in the expanded field of drawing today. Although, as is symptomatic of the majority of the available literature in English to date, many of the examples of artists included in the book are taken from the AngloAmerican context, the authors have tried to approach performance drawing as a worldwide phenomenon. Grounded in a practice-based research perspective that derives from the authors’ own praxis, the focus has been on process, whereby ‘drawing’ has come to refer not only to works on paper but to a more expanded notion of what drawing and performance in combination can mean. Indeed, throughout the book, drawing is considered as a performed process rather than focused through the lens of a particular technique, medium, outcome or aesthetic. In relation to drawing specifically, Chapter 1, ‘Marking: Line and body in time and space’, introduced artists’ works made by marking and involving the body to explore duration. Investigating works made in the late 1940s through seven decades to the present day, the chapter identifies how contemporary drawing, like sculpture and painting, has moved beyond the limits of recording the visual to engage with temporality, memory, movement and the sensuality of touch. Starting from the action paintings of Jackson Pollock and the Gutai artists, pioneering works of performance art are described that expand drawing into actions carried out in a time-based context. This thread of enquiry is extended to more recent artists whose conceptualization of time is recorded by line in movement and space. Jean Fisher once described drawing as ‘suspended between gesture and touch’,1 and the marks described in Chapter 1 take the form of material residue resulting from the touch between tool and body during an act of drawing. From line as a record of movement – where the mark is still paramount – Chapter 2, ‘Physicality: Running as drawing’, shifts the focus from mark to maker, whose movement is seen as a performative embodiment of the

216

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

line, where the body becomes the line. The body also becomes the material and the site of the work, so that running can be drawing and the dynamics of the artist’s body offer a mark. In counterpoint to the physical demands of extreme movement and duress is the powerful presence of stillness and being. In the contrast between stillness and the motion of extreme endurance experienced through time are possibilities to understand or ‘to know’ different versions of oneself and uncover the body in multiple and various ways. In this way, the conscious focus of the practitioner is elevated in performance. Thus, although it may leave no trace beyond its photographic documentation, the linear movement and their points in space are proposed as a form of drawing in which the dynamics of the mind/body supersede the mark. Following a trajectory that traces the influence of John Cage on approaches to performance practice, in Chapter 3, ‘Communicating: Directives and/or instructions that promote the activity of drawing’, drawing becomes further dematerialized from an actual mark into an idea for a mark – meaning that the idea is stored in the instruction or directive and interpreted and realized by another. The chapter adopts Nelson Goodman’s (1968) term allographic to refer to a drawing which is intentionally made on behalf of someone else and thus, through the contribution of the hand of another, subverts the idea of the autographic mark, which is unique and special to an individual artist. Allographic drawing could take the form of a score or written instructions to describe the making of marks. Equally, it could also take a graphic form in which a drawing is used as an instruction to make a musical or physical performance. This process of communicating an idea for a drawing, whether generated by machine on behalf of the artist or directed by one artist and made by another, involves a translation of ideas that passes from one source to another. Involving factors that are beyond the total control of the original artist, the outcome of this kind of open work is always unfixed, is subject to a degree of chance occurrences and therefore cannot be precisely predicted. The unpredictable surprise offered by drawing is also investigated in Chapter 4, ‘Conjuring: The gift of a surprise’, which builds on the notion of the unexpected visualization that occurs in a conjuring and how, through misdirection and sleight of hand, a gift of a surprise (in image or sound) is offered to the perceiver. Looking at stories of drawing and conjuring – from Butades’s daughter’s legendary trace of her lover; to William Pope.L’s wall drawing of Harriet Tubman Spinning the Universe, drawn in charcoal and peanut butter (the oil of which reappeared); to Laurie Anderson’s animated story of her beloved dog Lolabelle; and to Susan Philipsz conjuring memories into the listener’s ear through her vocal song – the drawings explored in the chapter address the presence of an absence – people, objects, places, spaces, memories, lost loves, hidden emotions and sonic vibrations. The chapter also presents how drawing can be created in visual marks on a surface or in sound drawn in a sonic wave as it travels through a space. As Foá has written:

CONCLUSION

217

mark drawing is observed by the seeing eye, while sound drawing is heard through the ear and its passage through place is perceived in the mind’s eye.2 From the material mark in Chapter 1, the embodied and implied mark in Chapter 2, the conceptual mark in Chapter 3 and the unexpected, transformed mark or sound in Chapter 4, Chapter 5, ‘Illuminating: Live mark making through projected light’, concludes with an examination of the temporal and ephemeral mark. The chapter looks at how light has been employed in live performances of drawing. Considering a range of technological approaches to mark making with light in live performance, it argues for a consideration of the moving image as a time-based drawing. It starts with the historical precedent of the Victorian lightning sketch act that inspired and then incorporated early animation projections of conjured drawing. Contemporary examples of lightning sketching from scenography and storytelling are given in which a still image emerges stageby-stage through live projected drawing processes. The chapter then explores moving marks created live during performances of spontaneous ‘frameless’ drawings across whole filmstrips during expanded cinema performances and on to the digital works of today. The book’s focus on the process and performing of drawing raises many facets of discussion around the notion of performance. Grounded in the history of mark making within live art, in relation to performance specifically, Chapter 1, ‘Marking: Line and body in time and space’, builds a foundation for what it means to use the body to create drawing through the material trace of lines produced by the artist’s movements in time and space. In the embodied and processdriven works presented in the chapter, the actions of doing drawing are of more concern to the artist than the final outcome. As Grisewood has said: My practice focused on not what the line is but what it can do or be, where drawing is predicated on touch and derived from thought and memory, rather than appearance or observation.3 However, if the focus is on the process rather than the outcome, then questions arise as to where the artwork resides: whether the work is the material trace left behind, or the live experience of witnessing the artist engaged in marking a line, or the photographic document of that process viewed afterwards. Chapter  2, ‘Physicality: Running as drawing’, raises the issue of the usefulness of the camera and considers examples of performance work that are documented through photography. McCall writes: The camera provides a way to record the moment ‘of’ or being ‘in’ the act of drawing – it also operates as a tool to mediate and reflect on the experience.

218

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

Like the graphite stick that moves with the action when drawing, the camera can become a tool to both draw and to record the body performing.4 This focus on the artist’s gestures, movement and actions results in a shift away from the centrality of the mark. The chapter considers performance in the sense of extreme physicality and testing the limits of the body. It also introduces the notion of performativity into drawing, as defined by J. L. Austin, as the idea that the artist not only could produce a mark through their actions but, in addition, could also embody, inhabit and themselves become the mark. Destabilizing the conventional understanding of the individual artist as being in complete authorial control of the autographic mark that reflects their signature style, Chapter 3, ‘Communicating: Directives and/or instructions that promote the activity of drawing’, separates having an intention for a drawing from the actioning of its making. In the mediumistic works of Georgiana Houghton and Emma Kunz, this is taken to the extent of the artist refuting all responsibility and attributing their design to the instruction of spirit guides. This raises another nuance of the term performance related to the degree of quality and efficiency of an action made: whether a performance is created together with participants, collaborators or mechanical devices, the element of chance is introduced by the possibility of error, entropy, misunderstanding or variation in interpretation during the communication and completion of the given task. Interpretation and communication are also addressed in Chapter 4, ‘Conjuring: The gift of a surprise’. The chapter considers the perception of a work in the moment of its performance, in particular the state of wonderment stimulated in the viewer (and sometimes also the practitioner) when the unexpected arises. These surprises (from unrecognizable to knowable and familiar in form or sound) are achieved through the actions of the performance. Thus far in the book, the viewer has been considered as experiencing the performed work in several ways: first, as a witness to a live event; secondly, as experiencing the material trace of a process as recorded in a drawing; or, thirdly, as looking at the documentation of that action – the performance of a drawing recorded photographically through still or moving images. However, the notion of performance itself becomes complicated when considering drawings made with light: to what extent they are performed live and to what extent they are a reproduction of an original performance. In order to differentiate between live performance drawing in light and the playback of pre-recorded animation or film, Chapter 5, ‘Illuminating: Live mark making through projected light’, concentrates specifically on drawing that is created and experienced in the live context of the present moment. Using projected light as a material means that any marks made are temporary and do not leave behind an illuminated trace. As they are not fixed upon a surface or the ground when they are made, they can only be experienced in their original form as light in the moment they

CONCLUSION

219

are created. In relation to animation and live action film, Hosea has previously stated that there is a time lag between production – the moment of creation and inscription – and playback – the moment when the recording or documentation of the drawing is shown.5 However, using certain forms of projection and moving image technology, it is possible to produce light drawings at the same time as they are shown. The chapter contends that only if these two happen at the same time – if marks are made live and at the same moment that they are projected in front of an audience – can this be said to be a performance of light drawing or live animation. Finally, in its collection of artworks from historical and contemporary artists, the book has sought to link the past, present and future. In a period of constant listing and revealing of the present through social media, it is useful to investigate and acknowledge artists from the past in order to build upon their achievements. Specifically in relation to time, with its consideration of recording duration, Chapter 1, ‘Marking: Line and body in time and space’, reveals time itself as a material. The line is presented as a visual marker of spatial connections between beginning, middle and end, which becomes a metaphor for a temporal journey where past meets present and then future. As Grisewood has said: [Drawing] resides in a gap between, where time itself unfolds and things are forgotten as well as remembered, liminal and open ended […] a new theoretical understanding of drawing as generative of memory and as a process of continual negotiation and temporal becoming.6 As artists, we build upon the memory of works that have gone before us, enabling the past to survive in the present. In discussing the intertwining of the past with the present, in his book Bergsonism (1988), Gilles Deleuze said: We have great difficulty in understanding a survival of the past in itself because we believe that the past is no longer, that it has ceased to be. We have thus confused Being with being-present. Nevertheless, the present is not; rather it is pure becoming, always outside itself. It is not, but it acts […] The past, on the other hand, has ceased to act or be useful. But it has not ceased to be.7 Indeed, an ‘elasticity of past-present-future’8 can be read throughout the different approaches to performance drawing presented in this book: in the influence on the present when fulfilling goals for endurance within physical and time limits that were set in the past (Chapter 2, ‘Physicality: Running as drawing’); or in defining an action in the present that is intended to be carried out at some point in the future (Chapter 3, ‘Communicating: Directives and/or instructions that promote the activity of drawing’). Concepts of memory and how a trace of the absent past survives in the present are considered in Chapter 4, ‘Conjuring: The gift of

220

PERFORMANCE DRAWING: NEW PRACTICES SINCE 1945

a surprise’; and the vitality of what happens now in the present moment during a live situation is examined in Chapter 5, ‘Illuminating: Live mark making through projected light’. In aiming to gather artworks from different disciplines, materials and approaches, each chapter has developed ways in which performance drawing has become part of contemporary practice. Initiated as practice-based research, the focus has been on how diverse perspectives and understandings of the term can challenge and destabilize preconceived ideas of what it means to draw and what it means to perform. Each author/artist has approached performance drawing as a fundamental occurrence that expands and qualifies the field of drawing. The focus has been on process and the continual emergence of new strategies for practice intended for other practitioners and researchers to investigate, develop, extend, challenge, test, push up against and explore.

Notes 1

Jean Fisher, ‘On drawing’, in Catherine de Zegher, ed., The Stage of Drawing Gesture and Act: Selected from the Tate Collection (London and New York: Tate Publishing and The Drawing Centre, 2003), p. 224.

2

Maryclare Foá, ‘Sounding out: Performance drawing in response to the outside environment’ (PhD diss., University of the Arts London, 2011), p. 124.

3

Jane Grisewood, ‘Marking time: Investigating drawing as a performative process for recording temporal presence and recalling memory through the line, the fold and repetition’ (PhD diss., University of the Arts London, 2010), p. 2.

4

Carali McCall, ‘A line is a brea(d)thless length: Introducing the physical act of running as a form of drawing’ (PhD diss., University of the Arts London, 2014), p. 84.

5

Birgitta Hosea, ‘Substitutive bodies and constructed actors: A practice-based investigation of animation as performance’ (PhD diss., University of the Arts London, 2012).

6

Grisewood, ‘Marking time’, p. 2.

7

Gilles Deleuze, Bergsonism, trans. by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam (New York: Zone Books, 1988), p. 55.

8

Grisewood, ‘Marking time’, p. 29.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Almeida, Helena. Drawing Papers 43: Helena Almeida: Inhabited Drawings. New York: The Drawing Center, 2004, exhibition catalogue. Alÿs, Francis, and Cuauhtémoc Medina. Walking Distance from the Studio. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum, 2004, exhibition catalogue. Alÿs, Francis, and Cuauhtémoc Medina. When Faith Moves Mountains [Cuando la fe Mueve Montañas]. Madrid: Turner, 2005. Amoo, Shola. ‘Dear Mr. Shakespeare, AMI Productions’, in Shakespeare Lives. London: The British Council, 2016. https://www.shakespearelives.org/programme/ (accessed 1 May 2020). Anastas Rhea, Lee Pamela, Virilo Pual, Schaffner Ingrid Accumulated Vision: Barry Le Va (Philadelphia: Institute of Contemporary Art, 2005), exhibition catalogue. Anastasi, William. William Anastasi. Copenhagen: Stalke Galleri, 2005, exhibition catalogue. Anastasi, William. ‘In conversation with Rachel Nackman’. Notations: Contemporary Drawing as Ideas and Process website, March 2012. http://notations.aboutdrawing. org/william-anastasi/ (accessed 3 March 2020). Anderson, Laurie. Heart of a Dog. London: dogwoof, 2016, DVD. Ansell-Pearson, Keith. ‘Duration and evolution: Bergson contra Dennett and Bachelard’. In Robin Durie, ed., Time and the Instant: Essays in the Physics of Philosophy of Time: 144–76. Manchester: Clinamen, 2000. Araya, Kinga. ‘Walking in the city: The motif of exile in performances by Krzysztof Wodiczko and Adrian Piper’. PhD diss., Concordia University. Artaud, Antonin. The Theatre and Its Double. Trans. by Mary Caroline Richards. New York: Grove Press, 1958. Auslander, Philip. ‘The performativity of performance documentation’. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, vol. 28, no. 3 (September 2006): 1–10. Ayres, Robert. ‘That’s what we do – we retell stories’. In Stephen Foster and Amanda Wilkinson Joan Jonas: 9–16. Southampton and London: John Hansard Gallery and Wilkinson Gallery, 2004, exhibition catalogue. Bale, John. Running Cultures. London: Routledge, 2004. Ball, Steven. ‘Conditions of music: Contemporary audio-visual spatial performance practice’. In A. L. Rees, Duncan White, Steven Ball and David Curtis, eds, Expanded Cinema: Art, Performance, Film: 267–75. London: Tate Publishing, 2011. Ballmer, Amy. ‘Avalanche magazine: In the words of the artist’. Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, vol. 30, no. 1 (2011): 21–6. Barney, Matthew, and Neville Wakefield. Matthew Barney: Drawing Restraint, Vol. 5: 1987– 2007. Cologne: Buchhandlung Walther König, 2007.

222

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barney, Matthew, and Neville Wakefield. Matthew Barney on the Origins of Drawing Restraint. San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2010. Video. Bartlett, Mark. ‘Socialimagestics and the visual acupuncture of Stan Vanberbeek’s expanded cinema’. In A. L. Rees, Duncan White, Steven Ball and David Curtis, eds, Expanded Cinema: Art, Performance, Film: 50–61. London: Tate Publishing, 2011. Baudry, Jean-Louis. ‘Ideological effects of the basic cinematographic apparatus’. Trans. by Alan Williams. Film Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 2 (1974–5): 39–47. BBC, ‘The Triumphs and Laments of William Kentridge’, on Imagine, BBC, edited and presented by Alan Yentob (first aired 22 November 2016). Bear, Liza. ‘Discussions with Barry Le Va’. Avalanche, no. 3 (Fall 1971): 62–75. Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 1972. Boden, Margaret. Mind As Machine: A History of Cognitive Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000). Brigitte Franzen, Kasper Koenig and Carina Plath, eds, ‘Susan Philipsz’ in Sculpture Project Munster 07 (English version), Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig. 2007.197. Brisley, Stuart. ‘DRAF Studio – Stuart Brisley, DRAWN (2–5 March 2016)’. http:// davidrobertsartfoundation.com/live/draf-studio-_-stuart-brisley/ (accessed 13 October 2017). Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. New York: Penguin Life, 2015. Brown, Kathan. ‘Overview: “Tom Marioni: Know where you are and what is going on”’. Crown Point Press Newsletter (April 2016): 1–4. Brown, Katrina. ‘Translucent surface/quiet body, choreographic notes’. Performance Research, A Journal of the Performing Arts, vol. 20, no. 6 (December 2015): 101–5. Bither, Philip and Brown, Trisha. Trisha Brown: So That the Audience Does Not Know Whether I Have Stopped Dancing. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2008, exhibition catalogue. Buchanan, Ian, and Gregg Lambert, eds. Deleuze and Space. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005. Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. ‘Raymond Pettibon: Return to disorder and disfiguration.’ October, vol. 92 (Spring 2000): 36–51. Butler, Cornelia H., ed. Afterimage: Drawing through Process. Los Angeles and Cambridge, MA: Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT Press, 1999, exhibition catalogue. Butler, Cornelia H. ‘Walkaround time: Dance and drawing in the twentieth century’. In Cornelia H. Butler and Catherine de Zegher, eds, On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century: 137–204. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010, exhibition catalogue. Butler, Cornelia H., and Catherine de Zegher. On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010, exhibition catalogue. Butler, Judith. ‘Burning acts, injurious speech’. In Andrew Parker and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, eds, Performativity and Performance: 197–227. London: Routledge, 1995. Cage, John. ‘An autobiographical statement’. johncage.org website (originally written in November 1989). https://johncage.org/autobiographical_statement.html (accessed 1 May 2020). Cage, John. Silence Lectures and Writings. London: Calder and Boyars, 1968. Cakó, Ferenc. ‘Interview’. Sand Animation by Ferenc Cakó website. http:// sandanimation.tumblr.com (accessed 18 November 2017).

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

223

Calloway, Anita. Visual Ephemera: Theatrical Art in Nineteenth-Century Australia. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2000. Canemaker, John. Winsor McCay: His Life and Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2005. Cardew, Cornelius. ‘Towards an ethic of improvisation’, UBU website. http://www.ubu. com/papers/cardew_ethics.html (accessed 1 May 2020). Careri, Francesco. Walkscapes: Walking as Aesthetic Practice. Trans. by Steve Piccolo and Paul Hammond. Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, 2002. Carr, Cynthia. ‘In the discomfort zone’. In Mark N. C. Bessire, ed., William Pope.L: The Friendliest Black Artist in America: 48–53. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. Chatwin, Bruce. Anatomy of Restlessness. London: Picador, 1997. Cholodenko, Alan. ‘The illusion of the beginning: A theory of drawing and animation’. Afterimage, vol. 28, no. 1 (2000). http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2479/ is_1_28/ai_64263079/ (accessed 6 May 2010). Chowdry, Anita. ‘Ingenious machines for drawing curves: The archives’. Anita Chowdry Journeys with Pattern and Colour (blog), 6 October 2014. https://anitachowdry. wordpress.com/2014/10/06/ingenious-machines-for-drawing-curves-the-archives/ (accessed 15 April 2017). Clearwater, Bonnie, ed. Ana Mendieta: A Book of Works. Miami: Grassfield Press, 1993. Cociña, Joaquín. ‘Theater’. Joaquín Cociña website. http://joaquincocina.com/?page_ id=201 (accessed 3 November 2017). Cohn, Terri. ‘Interview with Tom Marioni: In-depth, critical perspectives exploring art and visual culture on the West Coast’ (17 October 2017). Art Practical https://www. artpractical.com/column/interview-with-tom-marioni/ Cook, Malcolm. ‘Animating perception: British cartoons from music hall to cinema’. PhD diss., London: Birkbeck, University of London, 2012. Cook, Malcolm. ‘The lightning cartoon: Animation from music hall to cinema’. Early Popular Visual Culture, vol. 11, no. 3 (2013): 237–54. Cornelius Cardew, ‘A Scratch Orchestra: Draft constitution’. In Kate Macfarlane, Rob Stone and Grant Watson, eds, Play for Today: Cornelius Cardew: 114–15. London: The Drawing Room, 2008. Cornerhouse. Unspooling: Artists and Cinema. Manchester: Cornerhouse, 2010, exhibition catalogue. Cosgrove, Ben. ‘Behind the picture: Picasso “draws” with light’. TIME Life Magazine, 29 January 2012. http://time.com/3746330/behind-the-picture-picasso-draws-withlight. Craig-Martin, Michael. Drawing the Line: Reappraising Drawing Past and Present. London: South Bank Centre, 1995, exhibition catalogue. Crafton, Donald. Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898–1928. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Crafton, Donald. ‘Performance in and of animation’. Society for Animation Studies (SAS) Newsletter, vol. 16, no. 1 (September 2002). Criqui, Jean-Pierre, ed., Robert Morris: Blind Time Drawings, 1973–2000. Göttingen and Prato: Steidl and C.Arte Luigi Pecci, 2005, exhibition catalogue. Čufer, Edna. ‘Don’t’. In Catherine Wood, ed., A Bigger Splash: Painting After Performance: 23–9. London: Tate Publishing, 2012. Cull, Laura, ed. Deleuze and Performance. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. Darwent, Charles. ‘Dreams’. In Tania Kovats, ed., The Drawing Book: A Survey of Drawing: The Primary Means of Expression: 201. London: Black Dog Publishing, 2007. Doris, David T. ‘Zen vaudeville’. In Ken Friedman, ed., The Fluxus Reader: 91–135. Chichester: Academy Editions, 1998.

224

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Davies, Siobhan. Newsletter, September–December 2017. http://www.siobhandavies. com/media/uploads/files-downloads/sdd-newsletter-autumn-2017-web.pdf. (accessed 17 November 2019). De Certeau, Michel ‘“Making do”: Uses and tactics’. In The Practice of Everyday Life: 29–42. Trans. by Steven Rendall. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998. Dee, Catherine. ‘Plus and minus: Critical drawing for landscape design’. In Marc Treib, ed., Drawing/Thinking: Confronting an Electronic Age: 60–71. London: Routledge, 2008. Del Rivero, Elena. ‘A one-year performance in the artist’s studio/home’. In Catherine de Zegher, ed., Drawing Papers 20: Performance Drawings: 44–9. New York: The Drawing Center, 2001, exhibition catalogue. Delehanty, Suzanne. Soundings. New York: Neuberger Museum and SUNY Purchase, 1981, exhibition catalogue. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. On the Line. Trans. by John Johnston. New York: Semiotext(e), 1983. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. by Paul Patton. London: Athlone Press, 1988. Deleuze, Gilles. Bergsonism. Trans. by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. New York: Zone Books, 1988. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. Nomadology. Trans. by Brian Massumi. New York: Semiotexte, 1986. Deleuze, Gilles, and Claire Parnet. Dialogues II. London: Continuum, 2002. Derrida, Jacques. Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins. Trans. by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Derrida, Jacques. ‘At this very moment in this work here I am’. In Robert Bernasconi and Simon Critchley, eds, Re-Reading Levinas: 11–48. Trans. by Ruben Berezdivin. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984. De Zegher, Catherine, ed. Drawing Papers 20: Performance Drawings. New York: The Drawing Center, 2001, exhibition catalogue. De Zegher, Catherine, ed., Drawing Papers 36: The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act, Selected by Avis Newman from the Tate Collection. London and New York: Tate Publishing and The Drawing Center, 2003, exhibition catalogue. De Zegher, Catherine. ‘Abstractions’. In Catherine de Zegher and Hendel Teicher, eds, 3x Abstraction: New Methods of Drawing. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005, exhibition catalogue. De Zegher, Catherine. ‘A century under the sign of the line: Drawing and its extension (1910– 2010)’. In Cornelia H. Butler and Catherine de Zegher, eds, On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century: 21–124. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010. Dezeuze, Anna. ‘Origins of the Fluxus Score: From indeterminacy to the “Do-It-Yourself” artwork’. Performance Research, vol. 7, no. 3 (2002): 78–94. Dillon, Brian. The Edge of the Line: Attitudes in Drawing, London: Hayward Gallery Publishing, 2009. Downs, Simon, Russell Marshall, Phil Sawdon, Andrew Selby and Jane Tormey. Drawing Now: Between the Lines of Contemporary Art. London: I.B.Tauris, 2007. Drawn Together, ‘Drawing with light’, Drawn Together, 18 January 2010, https:// drawntogether.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/drawing-with-light (accessed 19 November 2017). Drummond, Phillip. ‘Notions of avant-garde cinema’. In Hayward Gallery, ed., Film as Form: Formal Experiment in Film 1910–1975: 9–16. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1979, exhibition catalogue.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

225

Eco, Umberto. The Open Work. Trans. by Anna Cancogni. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Eco, Umberto. ‘The poetics of the open work’. In Eco, The Open Work: 1–23. Trans. by Anna Cancogni. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Eisenstein, Sergei M. ‘How I learned to draw (a chapter about my dancing lessons)’. In The Drawing Center, ed., Drawing Papers 4: The Body of the Line: Eisenstein’s Drawings, 22 March 2000. https://issuu.com/drawingcenter/docs/dp4eisenstein. Eleey, Peter. Trisha Brown: So That the Audience Does Not Know Whether I Stopped Dancing. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2008. Eleey, Peter. ‘If you couldn’t see me: The drawings of Trisha Brown’, Walker Art Center website. http://walkerart.org/collections/publications/performativity/drawings-oftrisha-brown (accessed 12 June 2017). England & Co Gallery. ‘Harald Smykla: Movie protocols & other activities’, England & Co Gallery (blog), 12 December 2014, http://www.englandgallery.com/harald-smyklamovie-protocols-other-activities/ (accessed 3 November 2017). Enrighti, Robert, and Meeka Walsh, eds. ‘The beautiful trap: Janine Antoni’s body art’. Border Crossings, vol. 29, no. 113 (March 2010): 38–54. EXPORT, VALIE. ‘Biography’. VALIE EXPORT website. http://www.valieexport.at/en/ biografie (accessed 18 November 2017). Farthing, Stephen. Dirtying the Paper Delicately. London: University of the Arts, 2005. Fer, Briony. ‘Some translucent substance, or the trouble with time’. In Carolyn B. Gill, ed., Time and the Image: 70–8. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Fer, Briony. The Infinite Line. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. Ferguson, Russell, Jean Fisher and Cuauhtémoc Medina. Francis Alÿs. London: Phaidon, 2007. Fetterman, William. John Cage Theatre Pieces: Notations and Performances. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996. Finbow, Acatia. ‘Trisha Brown, Man Walking Down the Side of a Building 1970’, case study, Performance At Tate: Into the Space of Art, Tate Research Publication, 2016. http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/performance-at-tate/case-studies/ trisha-brown (accessed 9 September 2017). Fisher, Jean. ‘On drawing’. In Catherine de Zegher, ed., The Stage of Drawing Gesture and Act: Selected from the Tate Collection: 217–26. London and New York: Tate Publishing and The Drawing Center, 2003. Fisher, Jean. ‘Stuart Hall and the black arts movement’. Radical Philosophy, no. 185 (May/June 2014), https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/obituary/stuart-hall-1932-2014 (accessed 15 June 2017). Foá, M. ‘Sounding out: Performance drawing in response to the outside environment’. PhD diss., University of the Arts London, 2011. Foá, M., Jane Grisewood, Birgitta Hosea and Carali McCall. ARC: I Draw for You. Visual Arts, Design and Architecture. Studio International, 29 January 2010. http://www. studio-international.co.uk/index.php/arc-i-draw-for-you. Foster, Hal, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh. Art since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism and Postmodernism. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004. Foster, Stephen. ‘Introduction’. In Stephen Foster and Amanda Wilkinson Joan Jonas: 6–8. Southampton: John Hansard Gallery and Wilkinson Gallery, 2004, exhibition catalogue. Fox, Charlie. ‘DE/TOURS: Tales from Marseille-Provence 2013: Performing and reforming capital as culture’. In Charlie Fox, ed., DE/TOURS: Artistic Journeys into, through and after Marseille-Provence 2013. London: Counterproductions, 2014.

226

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fox, Charlie (Counterproductions). ‘About InspiralLondon’. InspiralLondon website. https://www.inspirallondon.com/about/ (accessed 12 April 2017). Friedman, Ken, Owen Smith and Lauren Sawchyn, Fluxus Performance Workbook. n.p.: Performance Research e-Publications, 2002. https://www.thing.net/~grist/ld/ fluxusworkbook.pdf (accessed 1 May 2020). Friedman, Ken, ed., The Fluxus Reader. Chichester: Academy Editions, 1998. Fuchs, Rudi. Richard Long. New York and London: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Thames & Hudson, 1986. Garrels, Gary, Bernice Rose and Michelle White, eds. Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011, exhibition catalogue. Garrels, Gary, in ‘The Line Between Drawing and Painting’. In Ivana Wingham, ed., Mobility of the Line. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 2013. Gauthier, Philippe. ‘A trick question: Are early animated drawings a film genre or special effect?’ Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 6, no. 2 (2011): 163–75. Gego. Sabiduras and Other Texts by Gego, ed. by Maria Elena Huizi and Josefina Manrique Cabrera. Houston: International Center for the Arts of the Americas, 2005. Gena, Peter, and Jonathan Brent, eds. A John Cage Reader: In Celebration of His Seventieth Birthday. New York: C. F. Peters Corp, 1983. Gifford, Dennis. ‘Tom Merry (William Mecham) (1853–1902)’. Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema, 1996. http://www.victorian-cinema.net/merry.htm (accessed 25 June 2009). Gifford, Dennis. ‘Walter Robert Booth (1869–1938)’. Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema, 2017. http://www.victorian-cinema.net/walterbooth.php (accessed 26 October 2017). Gingrich, Oliver. ‘Aura’. Olivergingrich (blog). 23 September 2016. https://olivergingrich. com/2016/09/23/aura/ (accessed 18 November 2017). Goldberg, RoseLee. Performance: Live Art since the 60s. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004. Gombrich, E. H. Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. London, New York: Phaidon, 1960. Gornick, Lisa. ‘What Is Lesbian Cinema? Live Drawing Show’, Lisa Gornick, website. http://lisagornick.com/what-is-lesbian-cinema-live-drawing-show (accessed 2 November 2017). Gotaas, Thor. Running: A Global History. London: Reaktion Books, 2009. Graffiti Research Lab, ‘L.A.S.E.R. Tag’, Graffiti Research Lab website. http://www. graffitiresearchlab.com/blog/projects/laser-tag/ (accessed 3 November 2017). Grant, Simon, and Marco Pass. ‘“Works of art without parallel in the world”: Georgiana Houghton’s spirit drawings’. In Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen and Barnaby Wright, eds, Georgiana Houghton: Spirit Drawings: 8–23. London: The Courtauld Gallery, 2016, exhibition catalogue. Grella-Mozejko, Piotr. ‘Earle Brown: Form, notation, text’. Contemporary Music Review, vol. 26, no. 3/4 (August 2007): 437–69. Grisewood, Jane. ‘Marking time: Investigating drawing as a performative process for recording temporal presence and recalling memory through the line, the fold and repetition’. PhD diss., University of the Arts London, 2010. Grosz, Elizabeth. Space, Time and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies. New York: Routledge, 1995. Elizabeth Grosz, The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. Grzymala, Monika. Drawing Spatially/Raumzeichnung. Berlin: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2016.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

227

Guggenheim. ‘Matthew Barney’. Guggenheim website. https://www.guggenheim.org/ artwork/artist/matthew-barney (accessed 7 November 2017). Gunning, Tom. ‘The cinema of attraction[s]: Early film, its spectator and the avant-garde’. In Wanda Strauven, ed., The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded: 381–8. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006. Gutai Group. Time and Space and Gutai: Splendid Playground. New York: Guggenheim, 2013. Hall, Stuart. ‘Encoding/decoding’. In Paul Marris and Sue Thornham, eds, Media Studies: A Reader, 2nd edition: 51–61. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999. Hamilton, J. Fields of Influence: Conjunctions of Artists and Scientists 1815–60. London: Continuum, 2001. Hamlyn, Nicky. ‘Frameless film’. In Nina Danino and Michael Mazière, eds, The Undercut Reader: Critical Writings on Artists’ Film and Video: 163–8. London: Wallflower Press, 2003. Hanor, Stephanie Jennings. ‘Jean Tinguely: Useless machines and mechanical performers, 1955–1970’. PhD diss., The University of Texas at Austin, 2003. Harris, Mary Emma. ‘John Cage at Black Mountain’. The Journal of Black Mountain College Studies, vol. 4 (Spring 2013). Harris, Roy. The Necessity of Art Speak: The Language of Arts in the Western Tradition. London: Continuum, 2003. Hayward Gallery, ed., Film as Form: Formal Experiment in Film 1910–1975. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1979, exhibition catalogue. Hébert, Pierre. ‘Cinema, animation and the other arts: An unanswered question’. In Chris Gehman and Steve Reinke, eds, The Sharpest Point: Animation at the End of Cinema: 179–88. Toronto: YYZ Books, 2005. Heath, Jeffrey M. Profiles in Canadian Literature, vol. 8. Toronto: Dundurn, 1991. Heathfield, Adrian, and Amelia Jones, eds. Perform, Repeat, Record: Live Art in History. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2012. Heathfield, Adrian, and Tehching Hsieh. Out of Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh. London and Cambridge, MA: Live Art Development Agency and MIT Press, 2009. Heathfield, Adrian.‘End time now’. In Small Acts: Performance, the Millennium and the Marking of Time: 105–11. London: Black Dog Publishing, 2000. Higgins, Charlotte. ‘Martin Creed’s new piece for Tate Britain: A show that will run and run’. The Guardian, 30 November 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2008/jul/01/art.tatebritain1. Higgins, Hannah. Fluxus Experience. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Hill, Lizzy. ‘Special Forces drawing lessons’. The Coast Halifax, 2 April 2009. https:// www.thecoast.ca/halifax/drawing-lessons-in-special-forces/Content?oid=1098798 (accessed 18 November 2017). Horodner, Stuart. ‘Working with William’. In Mark N. C. Bessire, ed., William Pope.L: The Friendliest Black Artist in America: 55–9. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. Horodner, Stuart, Walk ways, Independent Curators International (ICI), New York, 2002. https://curatorsintl.org/shop/walk_ways and https://curatorsintl.org/ exhibitions/walk-ways (accessed 1 May 2020). Hosea, Birgitta. ‘Drawing animation’. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 5, no. 3 (2010): 353–67. Hosea, Birgitta. ‘Substitutive bodies and constructed actors: A practice-based investigation of animation as performance’. PhD diss., University of the Arts London, 2012.

228

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hosea, Birgitta. ‘Made by hand’. In Caroline Ruddell and Paul Ward, eds, The Crafty Animator: Handmade, Craft-Based Animation and Cultural Value: 17–44. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Houghton, Georgiana. Evenings at Home in Spiritual Séance, Welded Together by a Species of Autobiography. First Series. London: Trübner & Co, 1881. Second Series. London: E. W. Allen, 1882. Howell, A. The Analysis of Performance Art: A Guide to Its Theory and Practice. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 1999. Huberman, Anthony. ‘Sounds like drawing: In conversation at the Drawing Room gallery London’. Sounds like Drawing.London: Double Agents, no. 3, 2005, exhibition catalogue 1+1+1. Huhtamo, Erkki. Illusions in Motion: A Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. Hutchison, Ann. Labanotation: The System for Recording Movement. London: Phoenix House, 1954. Iles, Chrissie. Yoko Ono: Have You Seen the Horizon Lately. Oxford: Modern Art Oxford, 1997. Ingold, Tim. Lines: A Brief History. London: Routledge, 2007. Jonas, Joan. Lines in the Sand. New York: EAI, 2002–5. Video. https://www.eai.org/ titles/lines-in-the-sand (accessed 26 June 2017). Jones, Amelia. Body Art: Performing the Subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Kandinsky, Wassily. On the Spiritual in Art. Trans. by Hilla Rebay. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1946. Kaprow, Allan. Assemblage, Environments and Happenings. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1966. Kastner, Jeffrey, and Brian Wallis. Land and Environment Art. New York: Phaidon Press, 1998. Kaye, Nick. Site Specific Art: Performance, Place and Documentation. London: Routledge, 2000. Kaye, Nick. ‘One time over another: Tom Marioni’s conceptual art’. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, vol. 35, no. 2 (2012): 26–38. Khajavi, Mohammad Javad. ‘Re-animating the script: An exploration of new directions in calligraphic animation with reference to the kinesthetic, plasmatic and transformative qualities of Islamic calligraphy’. PhD diss., Nanyang Technological University, 2016. Kino, Carol. ‘Something there is that loves a wall’. New York Times, 13 May 2007. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/arts/design/13kino.html (accessed 18 November 2008). Kirby, Michael. ‘On acting and not-acting’. In Philip B. Zarrilli, ed., Acting (Re) Considered: A Theoretical and Practical Guide (Worlds of Performance series). London: Routledge, 1995. Klee, Paul. Pedagogical Sketchbook. Intro. and trans. by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1960. Kluszczyński, Ryszard W. ‘Machines Like Gods: Introduction to reflections on creative machines and the art of Patrick Tresset’. In Ryszard W. Kluszczyński, ed., Human Traits: Patrick Tresset and the Art of Creative Machines: 6–37. Gdańsk: LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art, 2016. Kovats, Tania, ed. The Drawing Book: A Survey of Drawing: The Primary Means of Expression. London: Black Dog Publishing, 2005.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

229

Kovats, Tania. ‘Traces of thought and intimacy’. In Tania Kovats, ed., The Drawing Book: A Survey of Drawing: The Primary Means of Expression: 7–11. London: Black Dog Publishing. 2007. Knowles, Alison. A Great Bear Pamphlet. New York: Something Else Press, 1965. Knowles, Alison. Footnotes: Collage Journal 30 Years. New York: Granary Books, 2000. Knowles, Alison. ‘Giveaway Construction (1963)’. Alison Knowles website. http://www. aknowles.com/giveaway.html (accessed 28 January 2008). Kostelanetz, Richard. Conversing with Cage. New York: Limelight, 1988. KrÄma, ed. ‘Cinematic drawing in a digital age’. Tate Papers, no. 14 (Autumn 2010). http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/14/cinematic-drawing-in-adigital-age. Krauss, Rosalind. E. ‘Robert Morris: Soft forms’. In Robert Morris: Recent Felt Pieces and Drawings. 7–106. Leeds: Henry Moore Sculpture, exhibition catalogue. Kusprit, Donald O. Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972–1985. Washington, DC: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, 2004, exhibition catalogue. Kuhn, Laura. ‘John Cage at the New School (1950–1960)’. John Cage Trust official blog (2014), http://johncagetrust.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/john-cage-at-newschool-1950-1960.html (accessed 18 March 2017). Lamont, P., and R. Wiseman Magic in Theory: An Introduction to the Theoretical and Psychological Elements of Conjuring. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 1999. Lanchner, Carolyn. Jackson Pollock. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2009. Latham, John. Least event, One second drawings, Blind work, 24 Second painting. London: Lisson Gallery, 1970, exhibition catalogue. L’École de Littérature. ‘Shadow boxing: Living cinema’, French Literature Organisation, L’École de Littérature, June 2014. http://www.lecoledelitterature.org/shadow-boxing. html (accessed 19 November 2017). Lee, Pamela. M. ‘Some kinds of duration: the temporality of drawing as process art’. In Cornelia H. Butler, ed. Afterimage: Drawing through Process: 25–48. Los Angeles and Cambridge, MA: Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT Press, 1999, exhibition catalogue. Lepecki, André, ed. Of the Presence of the Body: Essay on Dance and Performance Theory. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004. Lepecki, André. Exhausting Dance: Performance and the Politics of Movement. London: Routledge, 2006. Le Va, Barry, and Ingrid Schaffner, eds. Accumulated Vision: Extended Boundaries. Pennsylvania: Institute of Contemporary Art, 2005, exhibition catalogue. Levinas, Emmanuel. Humanism of the Other. Trans. by Nidra Poller. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Le Witt, Sol. ‘Paragraphs on conceptual art’. In Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson, eds, Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology: 12–18. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Liebman, Stuart. Paul Sharits. St Paul, MN: Film in the Cities, 1981. Lippard, Lucy R. Six Years: The Dematerialisation of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972. 2nd edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Liu, Ani. ‘Mind-controlled spermatozoa’, Ani Liu, website. http://ani-liu.com/ pussygrabsback (accessed 18 November 2017). Long, Richard. Richard Long: From Time to Time (with Markus Hartmann). Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 1997, exhibition catalogue. Long, Richard. Richard Long: Walking the Line. London: Thames & Hudson, 2005.

230

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Long, Richard, Richard Cork and Hamish Fulton. Richard Long: Walking in Circles. London: Anthony D’Offay, 1988, exhibition catalogue. Lovelace, Ada. ‘Translator’s notes to L. Menabrea’s memoir’. In Richard Taylor, ed., Scientific Memoirs, Selected from the Transactions of Foreign Academies of Science and Learned Societies, and from Foreign Journals, vol. 3. London: Richard and John E. Taylor, 1843. http://findingada.com/about/ada-lovelace-links. Lu, Eva Yi Hsuan. ‘Instruction paintings: Yoko Ono and 1960s conceptual art’. SHIFT Graduate Journal of Visual and Material Culture, no. 6 (2013): 1–20. Luzar, Robert. ‘Rethinking the graphic trace in performative drawing’. Theatre and Performance Design, vol. 3 (June 2017): 50–67. Macfarlane, Kate, Rob Stone and Grant Watson, eds. Play for Today: Cornelius Cardew. London: The Drawing Room, 2008. Malone, Meredith. Chance Aesthetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Malva, Filipa. ‘Of lines, zoom and focus: Mediating drawing in performance’. Presentation at the Markkings: Festival of Illustration and Performance, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London/House of Illustration, London, 2016. Manchot, Melanie. ‘Tracer’, Melanie Manchot website. http://www.melaniemanchot.net/ category/tracer/ (accessed 14 November 2017). Mann, Ted. ‘Bruce Nauman: Performance Corridor’. Guggenheim wesbite. https://www. guggenheim.org/artwork/3148 (accessed 20 September 2017). Manzoni, Piero. Piero Manzoni. New York: Hirschl & Adler Modern, 1990, exhibition catalogue. Manzoni, Piero. When Bodies Become Art. Frankfurt: Städel Contemporary Art Collection, 2013, exhibition catalogue. Marioni, Tom. Beer, Art and Philosophy: A Memoir. San Francisco: Crown Print Press, 2003. Marranca, Bonnie, ed. The Theatre of Images. New York: Drama Book Specialists, 1977. Masters, H. G., ‘No time like passing time: A conversation with Tehching Hsieh (Part 2)’, ArtAsiaPacific, 15 September 2017, http://artasiapacific.com/Blog/ NoTimeLikePassingTimeAConversationWithTehchingHsiehPart2 (accessed 1 May 2020). McCall, Carali. ‘The line is a brea(d)thless length: Introducing the physical act of running as drawing’. PhD diss., University of the Arts London, 2014. McCay, Winsor. Winsor McCay: Animation Legend. London: Connoisseur/Academy Video, BFI, 1996. VHS video. McDonough, Tom. ‘City scale and discreet events: Performance in urban space, 1956–1969’. In Catherine de Zegher, ed., Drawing Papers 20: Performance Drawings: 22–4. New York: The Drawing Center, 2001, exhibition catalogue. Mendieta, Ana. Body Tracks. New York: The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, 1974. Video. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. ‘Essays on Painting’. In Galen A. Johnson, ed., The MerleauPonty Aethetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting. Translated by Michael B. Smith, 121–49. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1993. Miers, John. ‘Event Review of “Markings: Festival of Illustration and Performance”, at Central St Martins, 8–9 July 2016’. Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, vol. 2, no. 1 (2017). https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/ view/46/76. Mock, Roberta, ed., Walking, Writing and Performance. Chicago: Intellect Books and University of Chicago Press, 2009. Moholy-Nagy, Sibyll. Moholy-Nagy: Experiment in Totality. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

231

Molesworth, Helen. Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College, 1933–1957. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015. Montano, Linda. Performance Artists Talking in the Eighties. Berkeley: University California Press, 2000. Morgan, Echo. ‘Portfolio: Be the Inside of the Vase’, Echo Morgan website. http:// echomorgan.com/#/be-inside-of-the-vase/ (accessed 4 May 2020). Morris, Robert. Continuos Project Altered Daily: The Writing of Robert Morris. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. Mueller, Rosewitha. VALIE EXPORT: Fragments of the Imagination. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. Musson, Hester. ‘Drawing together’. Art Quarterly (Summer 2018), https://drawingroom. org.uk/uploads/Art_Quarterly_Summer_2018.pdf (accessed 6 April 2020). Muybridge, Eadweard. Animals in Motion, 1872–78. New York: Dover Publications, 1957. Nauman, Bruce, and Janet Kraynak, eds, Please Pay Attention Please: Bruce Nauman’s Words: Writings and Interviews. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. Newman, Avis, and Catherine de Zegher. ‘Conversation’. In Catherine de Zegher, ed., The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act, Selected from the Tate Collection: 67–82, 165–174, 231–237. New York and London: Tate Publishing and The Drawing Center, 2003. Newman, Michael. ‘The marks, traces and gestures of drawing’. In Catherine de Zegher, ed., The Stage of Drawing Gesture and Act: Selected from the Tate Collection: 93–108. New York and London: Tate Publishing and The Drawing Center, 2003. Newman, Michael. ‘Marking time: Memory and matter in the work of Avis Newman’. In Catherine de Zegher, ed., Inside the Visible: 271–9. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996. Nold, Christian. ‘Greenwich Emotional Map’, Dr Christian Nold (blog). http://www. softhook.com/emot.htm (accessed 1 July 2017). Nyman, Michael. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Obrist, Hans Ulrich, ed. Matthew Barney: Drawing Restraint, Vol. 1. Cologne: Buchhandlung Walther König, 2006. O’Reilly, Sally. The Body in Contemporary Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2009. Ostrow, Saul. ‘Sol LeWitt’. Bomb Magazine, 1 October 2003. http://bombmagazine.org/ article/2583/sol-lewitt. Paice, Kimberly, et. al. Robert Morris: The Mind/Body Problem. New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1994, exhibition catalogue. Panahi, Bahman. ‘About’. Bahman Panahi website. http://bahmanpanahi.com/aboutme.html (accessed 3 November 2017). Parsons, Michael. ‘The Scratch Orchestra and visual arts’. In Kate Macfarlane, Rob Stone and Grant Watson, eds, Play for Today: Cornelius Cardew: 38–45. London: The Drawing Room, 2008. Pearson, Mike. In Comes I: Performance, Memory and Landscape. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2006. Peerna, Jaanika. Jaanika Peerna: Storms and Silences. Newark, NJ: Terra Nova Books, 2015. Perec, Georges. Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. Ed. and trans. by J. Sturrock. New York: Penguin Classics, 1997. Pérez-Oramas, Luis, and Cornelia H. Butler. Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art 1948–1988. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2014, exhibition catalogue. https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1422.

232

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. London: Routledge, 1993. Phelan, Peggy. ‘The ontology of performance: Representation without reproduction’. In Peggy Phelan, ed., Unmarked: The Politics of Performance: 146–66. London: Routledge, reprinted 1993. Plackman, Carl. ‘Artist’s notes 1972’. In Arts Council Collection Out of Line, Hayward Gallery, 2001, exhibition catalogue. Pliny the Elder. Natural History: A Selection. Trans. by John F. Healy. London: Penguin Classics, 1991, book XXXV. Pollock, Jackson. Jackson Pollock. London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 1999, 15–137. Ponzini, Monica. ‘Graffiti Research Lab: Writers as hackers as artists’. DIGIMAG: Digital Art and Electronic Culture, no. 30 (December 2007): 61–8. Pope, Greg. ‘Cipher Screen’.Greg Pope Live Cinema/Film/Performance (blog), 17 July 2011. https://gregpope.org/cipher-screen (accessed 17 November 2017). Pope, Greg. ‘Light trap’. Greg Pope Live Cinema/Film/Performance (blog), 17 July 2011. https://gregpope.org/light-trap/ (accessed 17 November 2017). Pope.L, William. ‘Bocia’. In Mark N. C. Bessire, ed., William Pope.L: The Friendliest Black Artist in America: 70–3. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time, vol. 1: Swann’s Way. London: Vintage Books, 2002. Rees, A. L. ‘Expanded cinema and narrative: A troubled history’. In A. L. Rees Duncan White, Steven Ball and David Curtis, eds, Expanded Cinema: Art, Performance, Film: 12–23. London: Tate Publishing, 2011. Rees, A. L., Duncan White, Steven Ball and David Curtis, eds, Expanded Cinema: Art, Performance, Film. London: Tate Publishing, 2011. Reynolds, Ann. Robert Smithson: Learning from New Jersey and Elsewhere. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003. Robinson, Julia. ‘From abstraction to Model: George Brecht’s events and the conceptual turn in art of the 1960s’. October 127, no. Winter (2009): 77–108. Roberts, J. L. Mirror-travels: Robert Smithson and History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. ‘Robin Rhode and William Kentridge. Free Forms. The artists in conversation’. Modern Painters (June 2008): 64–9. Rogers, Angela. ‘Drawing Conversations: Drawing as a Dialogic Activity’. TRACEY Journal. What is Drawing For? (2007). http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ac/tracey/. Rogers, Bill. ‘Performance art: Echo Morgan’s darkness is undressed in heartbreaking performance.’ cfile.daily, 25 February 2015. Rose, Bernice. Allegories of Modernism: Contemporary Drawing. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1992, exhibition catalogue. Rosenberg, Susan, Trisha Brown: Choreography as Visual Art. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2017. Rosenberg, Susan. ‘Trisha Brown (1936–2017): Remembering the choreographer who forever changed the landscape of art and dance’. Frieze, 31 March 2017. https:// frieze.com/article/trisha-brown-1936-2017 (accessed 14 November 2017). Rosenthal, Stephanie. ed. Move: Choreographing You. Haywood Gallery. London, 2011. Ross, Julian. ‘Circle the square: Film performances by Iimura Takahiko in the 1960s’. MOMA, Post Notes on Modern and Contemporary Art Around the Globe (blog), 19 September 2013, http://post.at.moma.org/contentitems/290-circle-the-squarefilm-performances-by-iimura-takahiko-in-the-1960s (accessed 14 November 2017). Rottner, Nadja, and Peter Weibel, eds. Gego 1957–1988: Thinking the Line. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2006.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

233

Özden Şahin, ‘Robots, nostalgia and loss of control: In conversation with Patrick Tresset’. In Ryszard W. Kluszczyński, ed., Human Traits: Patrick Tresset and the Art of Creative Machines: 178–99. Gdańsk: LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art, 2016. San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), ‘Charlie Ford: Between’, SFAI website. http:// immaterial.sfai.edu/post/163452915440/charlieford (accessed 16 August 2017). Schimmel, Paul, ed. Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object 1949–1979. London: Thames & Hudson, 1998. Schneckloth, Sara. ‘Marking time, figuring space: Gesture and the embodied moment’. Journal of Visual Culture, vol. 7, no. 3 (2008): 277–92. Schneemann, Carolee. More Than Meat Joy: Performance Works and Selected Writings. New York: McPherson & Company, 1979. Schneider, Dunja, and Nina Kirsch. ‘VALIE EXPORT: Time and countertime’, information sheet. Linz: LENTOS Kunstmuseum, 2011. Serra, Richard. Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective (The Menil Collection, Houston). New Haven, CT and London, 2011–12. Serra, Richard. Writings, Interviews. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Sharp, Willoughby. ‘Body works’. Avalanche 1 (1970): 14–17. Simon, Joan. ’Scenes and variations: An interview with Joan Jonas’, Art in America, no.7 (July 1996): 72–9 and 100–1. Simonova, Kseniya. ‘Simonova TV’. Kseniya Simonova website. http://simonova.tv/en/ (accessed 18 November 2017). Simpson, Ann. ‘Eileen Agar: The spirit of play’. In Ann Simpson, David Gascoyne and Andrew Lambirth, eds, Eileen Agar 1899–1991: 27. Edinburgh: Trustees of The National Gallery of Scotland, 1999, exhibition catalogue. Smith, Owen. ‘Avant-gardism and the Fluxus project: A failed utopia or the success of invisibiIity’. Performance Research 7, no. 3 (2002): 3–12. Smith, Phil. Mythogeography. Charmouth: Triarchy Press, 2010. Smith, Vicky. ‘The animator’s body in expanded cinema’. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal 10, no. 3 (2015): 222–37. Solnit, Rebecca. Wanderlust: A History of Walking. London: Verso, 2001. Solomon, Deborah. Jackson Pollock: A Biography. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001. Somerville, Mary. On the Connection of the Sciences. London: John Murray, 1834. Sparrow, Felicity. ‘Annabel Nicholson: Reel time’. Artists’ film, Lux Online, 2005, http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/annabelnicolson/printversion.html (accessed 6 November 2017). Stansbie, Lisa. ‘The performance of the Channel swimmer: Time-based rituals and technology’. In Kristy Buccieri, ed., Body Tensions: Beyond Corporeality in Time and Space: 262–272. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2014. Stich, Sidra. Yves Klein. London: Hayward Gallery Publishing, 1995. Stout, Katharine. Contemporary Drawing: From the 1960s to Now. London: Tate Publishing, 2014. Takahashi, Tess. ‘Meticulously, Recklessly Worked Upon: Direct Animation, the Auratic and the Index’. In Chris Gehman and Steve Reinke, eds, The Sharpest Point: Animation at the End of Cinema. Toronto: YYZ Books, 2005. Thompson E. The Soundscape of Modernity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. Thoreau, Henry David. The Portable Thoreau, ed. by Carl Bode. London: Penguin Books, 1982. Tilbury, John. ‘Cornelius Cardew biography’. In Kate Macfarlane, Rob Stone and Grant Watson, eds, Play for Today: Cornelius Cardew: 106–7. London: The Drawing Room, 2008.

234

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Torre, Dan, and Lienors Torre. ‘The pioneering years of Australian animation (1900– 1930): From animated sketches to animation empire’. Senses of Cinema, no. 77 (December 2015). http://sensesofcinema.com/2015/australian-film-history/australiananimation-1900-1930/. Van den Boogaard, Oscar. ‘In search of Stanley Brouwn’. Frieze, 12 March 2014. https:// frieze.com/article/search-stanley-brouwn (accessed 3 March 2018). Von Graevenitz, Antje. ‘“We walk on the Planet Earth”: The artist as a pedestrian: The Work of Stanley Brouwn’. Dutch Art and Architecture Today, vol. 1 (June 1977): 2–11. Wakefield, Neville, ed. Matthew Barney: Prayer Sheet with the Wound and the Nail. Basel: Laurenz Foundation Shaulager, 2010, exhibition catalogue. Walker, Joanna, S. ‘The body is present even if in disguise: Tracing the trace in the artwork of Nancy Spero and Ana Mendieta’. Tate Papers, no. 11 (Spring 2009). http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/09spring/joanna-walker. shtm (accessed 2 October 2009). Walker, John A., John Latham: The Incidental Person – His Art and Ideas. London: Middlesex University Press, 1994. Warr, Tracey. ‘What a performance is’. In Stephen Foster, and Amanda Wilkinson. Joan Jonas, 10–24. Southampton, London: John Hansard Gallery, Wilkinson Gallery, Tate Modern. 2004. Watson, Chris. ‘Vatnajökull’, on Weather Report (Touch Records), 2003. https://youtu. be/CH2o-FGrWdE (accessed 5 April 2020). White, Duncan. ‘Artists at work: Takahiko Iimura’. Afterall Online, 2010. https://www. afterall.org/online/artists-at-work-takahiko-iimura/#.Wg8OSEtpFE6 (accessed 17 November 2017). Whitworth, Anna. ‘The angel of anarchy’. MA diss., University of London, 1985. Williams, Emmett, and Ann Noël. Mr. Fluxus: A Collective Portrait of George Maciunas, 1931–1978. London: Thames & Hudson, 1998. Wingham, Ivana. Mobility of the Line. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2003. Wolf, Justin. ‘John Cage artist: Overview and analysis’. TheArtStory.org website. http:// www.theartstory.org/artist-cage-john.htm (accessed 26 November 2017). Wood, Catherine, ed. Yvonne Rainer: The Mind is a Muscle. London: Afterall Books, 2007. Wood, Catherine. ‘What is performance art now?’. Tate Etc. no. 38, October 2016. Woolman, Matt. Sonic Graphics/Seeing Sound. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000. Youngblood, Gene. Expanded Cinema. London: Studio Vista, 1970.

INDEX

Abramović, Marina 57, 60, 64 and Ulay, Nightsea Crossing 64 Acres, Birt Tom Merry Lightning Artist Drawing Mr Gladstone (1895) 174 action drawing(s) 5, 23 action painting(s) 5, 11, 12, 86, 115, 217 activism 202 Ader, Bas Jan In Search of the Miraculous (1975) 53 AG Gallery (New York) 85, 88 Agar, Eileen 7 Lady Bird (1936) 142 Algorists, the 111, 113 allographic 114, 218 art 109, 110, 116 definition 6, 109 drawing 109, 110, 116 Goodman, Nelson 6, 109 mechanical process 110, 190 Almeida, Helena 5, 9, 10, 29 Alÿs, Francis 6, 10, 34, 35 Amoo, Shola 145 Anastasi, William 5, 10, 30, 31 Subway Drawings 31 Anderson, Laurie 7, 129, 132–33, 136, 218 Heart of a Dog (2016) 132 Andre, Carl 2 animation 132, 145, 208 abstract 201, 203, 204 as record of performance 205 boiling 200 calligraphic or text 184, 193 CGI 130 digital 195 drawings for projection 131, 133, 144

expanded animation 144 experimental 200 flip book 131, 177 frameless 189 live animation 8, 92, 94, 115, 129, 145, 173, 180, 195–202, 203–5, 206, 220 live scratching 190, 191, 195 origins 173, 174, 175, 176, 179 performance 178, 192, 197, 205 playback 172, 221 process 177, 178, 192, 196 real time 199, 200 sand animation 180–81 stop-camera technique 144, 171, 174, 175 temporality 206, 221 trick films 144, 174, 175 visual music 203, 204 Antoni, Janine 10 Ariamanesh, Ahmad Concert of the Line (2013) 185 Artaud, Antoine 81 artist as athlete 6, 46, 48, 60 artists’ interventions 32, 34, 100–101, 101–3, 140, 148, 157, 198, 203–5 Arya, Rahul 181 audience active 189, 194 as witnesses 91, 115, 146, 172 collective memory 66 confronted 147, 189 contemplation 65 co-presence 28, 126, 171, 172, 179, 191, 195 decoding 80, 173 desire 128

236

different views 150 direct address 14, 133, 147 engagement 69 expectation 129 historic 130 in the centre of action 81, 117 interpretation 151 listening 92 mind’s eye 132, 137, 145, 153, 154, 155, 157 online 65 outside in public 91 participation 36, 94, 100, 194, 203–5 passers-by 69, 91, 100, 101 passive 189, 194, 195 popularity 99, 174 reaction 172, 182 reception 126 scrutiny 52, 187 surprise 129, 148, 149 the camera as audience 14, 49, 54, 55, 58, 59, 94, 126, 138, 146, 148, 172, 203, 205, 219 autographic 111, 112, 114, 218, 220 as evidence of ‘art’ 115 definition 109 hand-drawn mark 115 automatic drawings 106 automatic writing 105, 106, 197 avant-garde 81, 86, 111 film 188, 189 performance 80 Ayres, Robert 149 Babbage, Charles 110 Bard, Joseph 142 Barney, Matthew 6, 45, 51 Drawing Restraint 1–6 48–50 Drawing Restraint 11 49–50 Bauhaus theatre 113 Beck, Martha 2 Berger, John 128 Ways of Seeing 128 Besson, Madam 106 Black Mountain college 82 Blackburn, Hugh 112 Blackton, J. Stuart 179 Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) 176

INDEX

The Enchanted Drawing (1900) 176 Blavatsky, Madam 104 Bletchley Park 110 blogging 92 body as a muscle 49 as a tool 5, 13, 46, 49, 59, 62, 72 as material 6, 15, 48, 73 as medium 52 as site 45, 48 as something other 52 as subject 47, 48, 60 drawing device 73 endurance 6, 17, 20, 29, 45, 46, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 52–59, 64, 109, 198, 218, 221 expenditure of energy 45, 60 mind/body 46, 55, 68 resistance 47, 48, 49 restraint 47, 48 testing limits 48, 52, 53 the whole body 5, 11, 20, 26, 47, 51 trace of physical contact 13, 14, 17, 25, 28, 49, 60, 183 Booth, Walter R. 179 Comedy Cartoons (1907) 175 Hand of the Artist (1906) 175 Upside Down 175 Political Favourites (1903) 175 Boswell, Phoebe 7 Dear Mr. Shakespeare 145 Boyce, Sonia 65 Brecht, Bertolt 194 Brecht, George 6, 69, 83, 84, 99 Event scores 84–85, 100 Three Broom Events (1961) 85 Three Lamp Events (1961) 84 Three Window Events (1961) 85 Word (1961) 84 Brimfield, Mel On Board (2010) 68 Brisley, Stuart 53 DRAWN 56 Brouwn, Stanley 6, 100–101 chance procedures 100 Steps of Pedestrians on Paper (1960) 100 This Way Brouwn (1962) 101 View of a City in 24 Hours (1963) 100

INDEX

Walk from point A to point B (1971) 100 Brown, Brené 159 Brown, Earle December 1952 96 Brown, Katrina 62 Brown, Trisha 5, 9, 10, 18, 24, 25, 57, 60, 61, 64 Man Walking Down the Side of a Building 46, 70–71 Buber, Martin 103 Burden, Chris 148 Shooting (1971) 53 Burgoyne, Greig 65, 137, 151 Butades 133, 134, 136 Buxton, Dudley 175 C4RD 2 Cage, John 2, 5, 25, 67, 99, 100, 110 4´33˝ (1952) 82–83 49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs (1977) 101 and Alison Knowles, Notations (1969) 96, 100 chance procedures 31, 81, 96, 109 Cornelius Cardew 99 et al, Untitled Black Mountain Piece (1952) 81–82 Experimental Composition at the New School for Social Research 83–84 graphic scores 96, 101 I Ching 96, 108 influence 11, 31, 80, 96, 218 influence of Suzuki, Daisetsu Teitaro 83 music 83 musiques-concrète (1939) 83, 84 scores 6, 81 Williams Mix (1952) 96 Zen Buddhism 82, 83, 96 Cakó, Ferenc 180 Calder, Alexander 96 Cameron, James Avatar (2009) 130 Terminator (1984) 130 Cardew, Cornelius 6, 96–100, 116 Scratch Orchestra 97 Scratchbook 98 Stockhausen Serves Imperialism (1974) 99

237

Treatise (1963–7) 97 Carlos, Laurie 91 Carr, Cynthia 147, 149 Centre for Drawing (Wimbledon, UAL) 197 Cernovich, Nicholas 82 chance 81, 82, 84, 85, 92, 95, 96, 100, 101, 102, 103, 109, 112, 116, 172, 191, 203, 204, 218, 220 Chatwin, Bruce 140 Chhibber, Ronnie 181 Cholodenko, Alan 179, 180, 206 Chorpening, Kelly A History of Drawing (2018) 3 cinema of attractions 174 Clair, René Entr’acte (1924) 95 Clark, Lygia 10 Caminhando (Walking) 36 Cociña, Joaquín Mi joven corazón idiota (2007/9) 184 code algorithm 80, 111, 201 as score 7, 100, 109, 110, 111 code-breaking 110 coded messages 80, 109 coding 79, 80, 172, 200 computing 110, 111 database 172 encoding 79, 80, 105, 110, 197 live coding 201 Morse code 113 open source 197, 199, 202 Cohen, Harold 111 collaboration 97 a many headed hydra 4 as feminist practice 4 as rejection of traditional forms of authorship 108, 116 collaborative drawing 79, 92, 103, 203, 204 collaborative writing 4, 92 combined intention 89, 94, 116 dialogue 94 ethics 99, 116 mediumship 107 methodology 92, 99, 103 multi-disciplinary 81, 151, 183, 197, 198, 199, 200

238

multiple authorship 92 non-hierarchal 99 online 92, 187 participation 116 with machines 113 with objects 55 compArt database Digital Art (daDA) 111 Computer Technique Group 111, 116 conceptual art 22, 111 constructs 14 conjuring 125, 158 Berger, John 162 definition 127 drawing 126, 127, 128, 129, 133, 136 from thin air 145, 189 guided projection 143 illusion 127, 141, 150, 174, 175, 178, 179, 180 magic tricks 126, 151, 174, 175, 176, 179 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 165 methodologies 126 misdirection 126, 127, 129, 130, 160, 218 of images 7, 125, 128 pareidolia 134, 160 plays on perception 127, 137, 145, 173, 179 sleight of hand 127, 129, 131, 137, 141, 151, 173, 175, 180, 218 sonic 157, 160 surprise 7, 126, 127, 128, 129, 141, 149, 160, 174, 218 the gift of a trace 7, 131–37 transformation 8, 129, 142, 143, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179, 180, 184, 194, 206 trick films 144, 174, 175 unexpected visualization 126, 127, 218 ventriloquism 173 visual trickery 130 wonderment 8, 220 Connearn, David 23 Constructivism 110, 113 Cook, Malcolm 173, 179 Court, John 6, 45, 50, 55–57 Crafton, Donald 173, 176, 179, 205

INDEX

Craig-Martin, Michael 126 Drawing the Line: Reappraising Drawing Past and Present (1995) 2 Craword, Cair 148 Creed, Martin 6, 46, 64 Work No. 850 (2008) 63 Crosland, Camilla 106 crossing disciplinary boundaries 3, 72, 86, 152, 151–54, 160, 171, 174, 205 Cunningham, Merce 25, 82 Cybernetic Serendipity 1968 (ICA) 112 Dada 84, 85, 113, 194, 198 Dali, Salvador 114 dance 11, 18, 25, 26, 46, 61, 62, 68, 70, 150, 198, 200, 206, 207 Beauchamp–Feuillet notation 100 choreographic score 70 Labanotation 100 notation 6, 25, 100 Darwent, Charles 141 de Certeau, Michel 36, 138 de Zegher, Catherine 11, 126, 127, 140 Drawing Papers 20: Performance Drawings (2001) 3, 17, 80, 91 On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century (1910–2010) 2, 17, 126 The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act (2003) 2 De/Tours 102 Debord, Guy 160 Society of the Spectacle (1967) 130 del Rivero, Elena 3, 10, 17 Delehanty, Suzanne Soundings (1981) 158 Deleuze and Guattari 24 Deleuze, Gilles 20, 35, 36, 37, 221 dematerialization of the art object 5, 69, 218 Derrida, Jacques 7, 18, 135, 136, 149, 160 Memoirs of the Blind (1993) 135 directive 138, 218 as form of collaboration 7, 97 as proposal for drawing 92 Event scores 6, 84–85, 90, 92 graphic notation 80, 83, 97, 104

INDEX

graphic scores 6, 98, 96, 101, 203 instruction paintings (Ono) 86 instructions 13, 16, 18, 80, 93, 109, 113, 197, 199, 204, 218 instructions for drawings 6, 7, 36, 80, 87, 92, 93, 100, 110, 111 mechanical 7 scores 80–103, 108, 198 spirit guides 7, 106, 109 text 83 visual directive 100, 102, 104 disciplinary boundaries 152 documentation 186 anticipates an audience. See audience:the camera as audience as evidence 5, 58 as trace 16, 34, 63, 136, 171, 172 for an audience 1, 11, 58, 171 photographic 11, 57, 66, 126, 136, 140, 171, 205, 218 vs the work itself 34, 172, 182, 205 Doolittle, H.D Helen in Egypt (1961) 149 Doppler shift 141 Doyle, Mary 2 Draw Art Fair London (2019) 3 drawing (contemporary) 1 (traditional) 1, 127 as diagnostic tool 109 as dialogue 19, 36, 103 as predictive research process 108 as trace 6, 10, 11, 12, 17, 29–33, 34, 35, 49, 131–37, 149, 157, 160, 205, 207, 219 definition 125 digital 80, 93, 111–12, 115, 116, 144–45, 195–202 erasure 13, 21, 115, 128, 131, 191, 193 expanded field 1, 3, 9, 50, 59, 217 in movement 62, 64 in space 22–28, 63, 67, 183, 203 instructional 101 machines 112–15 mark making 6, 9, 10, 12, 19, 20, 32, 45, 46, 49, 50, 62, 65, 67, 91, 92, 109, 154, 188–95, 203, 217, 219 materiality of 32, 37, 65, 67, 115, 152, 187

239

mediated 186 origins 133 participatory 101, 104, 194, 203–5 ready-made mark(s) 100, 190, 191 sewing as 30, 190 temporal 1, 6, 9, 14–22, 31, 33–37, 179, 193, 194, 188–95, 195–202, 206, 219 the act of 5, 9, 18, 48, 49, 89, 115, 180, 183, 190, 195, 219 through Spirit guides 105–9 through technology 7, 8, 111, 115, 144, 172, 186, 190, 219 trace(less) 46, 64, 67, 72, 205, 220 with a pendulum 108 with light 8, 28, 59, 92, 93, 144, 145, 171, 172, 198, 202, 203–5, 206 Drawing Center (New York) 2, 3, 28, 29, 90, 154, 206 Drawing Lab Dessin 3 Drawing Now (1976) 2 Drawing Now (2007) (Downs, Marshall, Sawdon,Selby, Tormey) 125 DRAWING NOW Art Fair (2019) 3 Drawing Projects UK 3 Drawing Room (London) 2, 22 Sounds Like Drawing (2005) 2 Duchamp, Marcel 69, 84, 96, 110 Dyer, Anson 175 Eco, Umberto 31 The Poetics of the Open Work (1962) 80, 95, 116 Eisenstein, Sergei M. 206, 207 Emanuele, Rossella 3 Enigma machine 110 everyday 17, 62, 67, 100, 103, 115, 130, 156 expanded cinema 8, 126, 161, 188–95, 219 experimental music Cage, John 82–83 Cardew, Cornelius 96–100 Satie,Erik 96 Young, La Monte 88–89 EXPORT, VALIE 8, 189, 194 Auf+Ab+An+Zu (1968) 194 exquisite corpse 92

240

Feldman, Morton Projections (1950–1) 96 Feminism 4, 45, 46, 90 Fetterman, William 81, 82 Finch, Elizabeth 153, 154 ’The Drawing as Instrument’ 91 Fisher, Jean 128, 133, 147, 217 Fluxus 5, 69, 83, 84, 85–86, 90, 92, 100, 116, 192, 194 Fluxus Internationale Festspiele Neuester Musik (1962) 85, 89 origin of name 118 Foá, Grisewood, Hosea, McCall 4, 92 ARC: I Draw For You (2010) 92–94, 197 Sky vs SKYPE (2011) 186–87 Foá, M. 3, 89 Driftsong Drawing 92 Line Down Manhattan (2003) 157 Lost Borrowed and Found (2006) 139–40 Sounding out: Performance drawing in response to the outside environment (2010) 218 The Drawing Field 151, 168 Ford, Charlie 48, 65, 67–68 Forsyth, William 24 Forti, Simone 61 Foster, Stephen 150 found objects 114 Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts 96 fourth wall, the 133, 146 Francis, Alÿs The Green Line (2004) 36 Franklin Furnace, New York 14 Freud Museum 159 Freud, Sigmund 159 Beyond the Pleasure Principle 134 Fujino, Koji 112 Furniss, Harry 175 Futurism 113 Gardner, Angela 94 Gego 9, 10, 36, 228 Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas 28 Ghosh, Piyali 10, 20–21 Gifford, Dennis 174 Gingrich, Oliver 8 Aura (2015) 201

INDEX

Gombrich, E. H. 127 Goodman, Nelson 218 Languages of Art (1968) 109 Gornick, Lisa 8, 181–82, 184 Grandma Ray Live Drawing Show (2015) 181 What (the Fuck) Is Lesbian Film? (2017) 181 Graffiti Research Lab 8, 202, 203 Grisewood, Jane 3, 10, 187, 221 Line Dialogues 19–20 Mourning Lines 32–33 Marking Time: firstsite papers 43 Grzymala, Monika 5, 10, 26–27, 36 Gunning, Tom 174 Guppy, Agnes 106 Gutai group 5, 9, 11–13, 115, 217 action painting(s) 11 Kanayama, Akira 115 Shimamoto, Shoza 12 Shiraga, Kazuo 12 Takamatsu, Jiro 12 Tanaka, Atsuko 12 Yoshihara, Jiro 12 haiku 84, 86 Hall, Stuart 147 Encoding/Decoding 79 Hamlyn, Nicky 189 Hanor, Stephanie Jennings 113 Happenings 82, 86, 117, 152, 194 haptic engagement 18 Harmonograph 112 Hatoum, Mona 115 Hawkins, Alys Scott 198 Hayden, Mrs Maria 105 Haynes, Nicci 94 Her Words My Body (2012–13) 94 Heathfield, Adrian 16, 17, 18, 36, 55 Hébert, Jean-Pierre 111 Hébert, Pierre 8, 195–97 Hein, Birgit 189, 193 Higgins, Dick 83, 85 Home, Daniel Dunglas 106 Horodner, Stuart 148 Hosea, Birgitta 3, 119 ’Drawing Animation’ (2010) 183 dotdot dash (2018) 203–5

INDEX

live animation 94, 145, 203–5 Medium (2012) 197 Substitutive bodies and constructed actors (2012) 144 White Lines (2009–10) 144–45 Houghton, Georgiana 7, 105, 109, 220 The Flower of Catherine Stringer (c.1870) 107 Howitt, Anna Mary Sisters in Art 106 Hsieh, Tehching 5, 10, 29, 37, 53, 55, 69 One Year Performance (Outdoor Piece) 36 Huberman, Anthony 154 Hudson, Frederick 106 Hupfield, Maria 65 I Ching 96, 108 Ichiyanagi, Toshi 83 Iimura, Takahito 8, 189, 192–93, 194 Calligraphy Re-Read (1967/2014) 193 Circle and Square (1981) 193 Screen Play (1963) 193 Industrial Revolution 112 Ingold,Tim Lines: A Brief History (2007) 50 InspiralLondon 7, 101–3, 116, 203, 204, 205 Counterproductions 101, 203 dotdot dash (2018) 203–5 Fox, Charlie 101, 102, 203 intentional presence 125 International Centre for Fine Art Research 155 Islamic calligraphy 185 Jackson, Tommy 82 Jacquard loom 110 Janine Antoni 10, 13 Jiro, Takamatsu 193 Jonas, Joan 7, 149 electronic sorceress 150 Lines in the Sand 149 sleight of hand 167 Judson Dance Theatre 62 Jun, Fei Gesture Cloud Gesture Wall (2017) 201 Kandinsky, Wassily 112 Composition series (1910–39) 104

241

On The Spiritual in Art (1911) 105 Kaprow, Allan 11, 83, 84, 85, 117 Karshan, Linda 3 Kawona, Hiroshi 111 Kentridge, William 7, 132, 141 Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris (1989) 133 Triumph and Laments (2016) 131 Kerr, Ian 194 Khajavi, Mohammad Javad 184 kinetic art 112 Klee, Paul 2, 27, 35 Klein, Yves 5, 10, 12, 13, 29, 141 Knowles, Alison 3, 6, 83, 84, 85, 89, 91–92, 155, 154–56 #11 Printing Piece (1964) 90 #5 Street Piece (1962) 80, 90, 119 #9 Color Music #2 (1963) 90 and John Cage, Notations (1969) 96, 100 Event score 90, 96 Fluxus 90 Komura, Masao 112 Kovats, Tania 7, 134 Breath (2001) 134 Cape Farewell Lovelock Art Commission 134 KrÄma, Ed 207 Krasner, Lee 12 Krauss, Rosalind 11, 18 Kreider + O’Leary 7, 151, 152 Immolation Triptych 151 Kunz, Emma 7, 108–9, 220 use of divining pendulum 108 Laban, Rudolf 6 Laing, Alec 176, 179, 180 Lamont, Peter and Wiseman, Richard 126 Latham, John 5, 9, 10, 15 One Second Drawings 16 Le Grice, Malcom 189 Le Va, Barry 6, 46, 70 Velocity Piece / Impact Run – Energy Drain 60–61 Leaf, Caroline The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa (1977) 180 The Owl Who Married a Goose (1974) 180

242

Leah, Frank 176 LeBrun, Charles 173 Leonardo da Vinci 2 Lethaby Gallery, University of the Arts London 20 Levin, Golan Messa di Voce (2003) 201 Scribble (2000) 201 Levinas, Emmanuel 149, 160 The Gift of the Trace 7, 135 Lewis, Tim 7, 114 Auto-Dali Prosthetic (2002) 114 Mule Make Mule (2012) 114 LeWitt, Sol wall drawings 110 light 28, 132, 134, 161, 190 light graffiti 8, 202, 203 lightning doodles 161, 203 lightning sketch 8, 129, 161, 173–80, 180, 181, 188, 209, 219 Lin, River 115 line as concept 6, 50, 65, 67, 72, 217 as record 5, 32–33, 57, 179, 221 in movement 27, 32, 38, 79, 182, 189, 200, 203, 204, 207 in space 5, 22–28 invisible 20, 34 time-based 19, 14–22, 184, 200, 207 Liu, Ani Mind Controlled Spermatozoa (2017) 201, 202 live bodily presence 59, 150 co-present audience 1, 8, 20 description 7 ephemerality 8, 17, 29, 34, 38, 62, 69, 93, 157, 172, 173, 182, 198, 203, 205, 207 immediacy 17, 67, 172, 198 improvisation 8, 92, 97, 98, 99, 100, 196, 197, 198, 199, 203, 205 live calligraphy 185 liveness 172, 205 real time 8, 31, 37, 65, 126, 152, 156, 180, 182, 206 serendipity 91, 126 spontaneity 126, 182 London Film-Makers’ Co-op 189, 192

INDEX

London Gay Men’s Chorus 159 Long, Richard 2, 9, 10, 27, 34 A Line made by Walking 6, 33–34, 50, 61, 100 Lovelace, Ada notes on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine (1843) 109 Lumière Brothers 174 Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1895) 130 Luzar, Robert 48 Two-Legged Idleness, Untaped 65–68 Macabra, Jose 197 Maciunas, George 83, 85 magnetic tape 83, 96 Malva, Filipa 183–84 O meu país é o que o mar não quer (2014) 183 Manchot, Melanie Tracer (2013) 46, 59, 63, 71 Manzoni, Piero 2, 10, 15, 20 Lineas (Lines) (1959) 15 mapping 14, 24, 32, 36, 93, 101, 102 Marioni, Tom 9, 10, 22–24, 57 Drawing a Line As Far As I Can Reach 5 One Second Sculpture (1969) 22, 27, 53 Out of Body – Free Hand Circle 51 Walking Drawing (2000) 24 Marranca, Bonnie 2 Marseille–Provence European Capital City of Culture celebrations in 2013 102 Marxist-Leninist position 99 Mathieu, Georges painting performances 112 McCall, Anthony 189 Five-Minute Drawing (1974/2010) 16 Line Describing a Cone (1973) 189 McCall, Carali 3, 10, 55, 186, 219 Line Dialogues 19 Run Vertical (Running Up the Side of a Building) 71 Work no.1 (Circle Drawing) 50–52 McCay, Winsor 176–79, 180, 209 Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) 178 Little Nemo in Slumberland (1911) 177 Seven Ages of Man (1906) 177 McDonough, Tom 91, 155

INDEX

Macfarlane, Kate 2 McKenzie, Jordan 7 Shame Chorus 159, 160, 170 McLaren, Norman 200 McLean, Bruce Pose Work for Plinths 68 McQueen, Steve 147 mechanical sculpture 112–15 Méliès, Georges 174, 179 L’homme à la tête en caoutchouc (1901) 144 Le livre magique (1900) 175 Mendieta, Ana 5, 9, 10 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 141 Merry, Tom 174 Miers, John 183 Moholy-Nagy, László EM 1–3 (1922) 110 Mohr, Manfred 111 Molnar, Vera 111 Morelli, Didier 65 Walking Through Walls 69 Morelli, François 3 Morgan, Echo 7, 142 Morley College, London 97 Morris, Robert 2, 9, 10, 18, 50, 61 Blind Time Drawings 30 movement 6, 18, 25, 26 action 22–28 gesture 11, 17, 22, 31, 171, 201 moving image 59, 172, 177, 193, 206, 219 Museum of Modern Art (New York) 2 music 22, 25, 67, 97, 99, 185, 208 ambient sound as music 84 and calligraphy 185 as sound 98 musical score 80, 88, 91, 95, 109 non-material art 105 notation 6, 25, 80, 83, 88, 95, 96, 97, 104 noteless graphic score 96 reproduction 80 silent work 83 music hall 173, 174 Muybridge, Eadweard 141, 165 Nake, Frieder 7, 111 Hommage à Paul Klee, 13/9/65 Nr.2 (1965) 111

243

Namuth Hans Jackson Pollock 51 (1951) 11 Nauman, Bruce 2, 10 Performance Corridor (1969) 25 Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square 24 Nekes, Werner 189 Newman, Avis 2, 4, 94, 127, 128 Newman, Michael 133 Nicholson, Annabel 8, 189, 194 Reel Time (1973) 190 Nold, Christian 7 Bio Mapping 153 Emotional Mapping 152–53 Nyman, Michael 96 O’Dempsey, Kellie 8, 198–99 and Jennifer Wroblewski, Resistance Movement (2017) 198, 199 and Mick Dick, Draw / Delay (2015) 198 O’Hara, Morgan 5, 10 Live Transmission drawings 31 October Gallery London 155 Offenbach, Jacques The Tales of Hoffmann (1881) 157 Ohtake, Makato 112 Olson, Charles 82 Ono, Yoko 85 instruction paintings 86–88 Kitchen Piece (1960) 88, 89 Lighting Piece (1955) 86 Map Piece (1962) 87 Painting to be Stepped On (1960) 87 ‘To the Wesleyan people’ (1966) 86 Oppenheim, Dennis 7, 33 Gallery (1969) 137 Orbach, Susie 159 Orlan 53 Orrico, Tony 6, 45, 50 Penwald Drawings 57–58 Ostertag, Bob 196 Out of Line: Drawings from the Arts Council Collection, Hayward Gallery (2001) 2 P. R. Neves, Joana 3 Paik, Nam June 85 Zen for Film (1962/4) 190 Zen for Head (1961) 89, 91

244

PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 2 Panahi, Bahman 8, 185 Musicalligraphy. 185 Papua New Guinea 159 Parsons, Michael 97 Paterson, Katie Vatnajokull (2007) 156 Patterson, James 200 Paul, Robert 175 Paxton, Steve 62 Peerna, Jaanika 5, 10, 27–28, 36 Peirce, C.S. 133 Perec, Georges Species of Spaces and Other Pieces (2008) 158 performance bodily presence 10–14, 26, 59–64 body in 59 efficiency 46–50, 51–59, 116 execution of a task 24, 32, 36, 116, 79–116 in front of an audience 8, 13, 58, 63, 116, 173, 177, 179, 191, 192, 201 live experience 71, 172, 178, 188, 197, 199, 206, 219 ritual 98, 108–9 space 24, 22–28, 82, 184, 207 performance art 13, 15, 57, 58, 69, 205, 217 performance drawing as a field 37, 72, 217, 222 operational definition 1, 3, 148 origin of the term 3, 17, 80, 90, 91 origins 9, 10–14, 61, 69, 150, 154, 173, 176 physicality 45–73 problematics of definition 1, 4, 5, 8, 46, 59 temporality 18, 26, 67, 206 unsettles 205 performativity 73 Austin, J. L 59 becoming drawing 15, 20, 29, 218 drawing that performs 200 gender 50 performative act 13, 17, 18, 45, 60, 73, 193 Pollockian Performative 11 Phelan, Peggy 205

INDEX

‘The ontology of performance: Representation without reproduction’ (1996) 172 Philipsz, Susan 7, 218 The Lost Reflection (2007) 157, 158 Phillips, Andrea 99 Piaf, Edith 82 Picasso, Pablo 171 PiKAPiKA 171, 203 place and space 138, 140 Plackman, Carl 2, 125 Plato 7, 131, 160 Allegory of the Cave 130 Pliny the Elder 133 Birthplace of Drawing 7 Pollock, Jackson 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 57, 60, 84, 217 Pollockian Performative 11 satirized 112 Pope L., William 7, 147 Fluxus guy 148, 149 Harriet Tubman Spinning the Universe 148, 218 The Great White Way 22 miles, 9 years one Street (2000–9) 157 Pope, Greg 194 Cipher Screen (2010) 191 Light Trap (2007) 191 privilege 4, 148, 204 process-based 1, 4, 18, 24 public art 102, 103, 198, 202, 204 Queensland Poetry Festival (2013) 94 Raban, William 189 racism 147, 149 Radvan, Jeremy 8, 199–200 and Marina Tsartsara Ever Lasting (2011) 200 and Paul Sermon, (tele)consequences, a collaboration (2018) 187 and Rajyashree Ramamurthi, Avatar (2005–7) 199 The Use of the Computer as a Tool for Observation 199 Rauschenberg, Robert 13, 25, 82, 96 ready-made 84, 110 Reason, Richard 98 Rees, A. L. 188

INDEX

relational aesthetics 99 remediation 179 repetition 18, 20, 24, 31, 32, 49, 53, 55, 56, 57, 61, 63, 70, 88, 95, 115, 150, 156 Research Centre for Drawing 3 Rhode, Robin 2, 7, 145 Untitled (Landing) 140 Rhodes, Lis 194 and Ian Kerr BWLHAICTKE (1976) 191 Richards, Mary Caroline 81 Robert Paul 174 Rogers, Angela 7, 116 Drawing Conversations (2016) 103–4 Rosenberg, Harold 11 Rosenberg, Robert 61 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel 106 Rubin, Ben We Believe We Are Invincible (2004) 52 running 23, 59–64, 71 as a method 61 sound of 61, 63 sport and art 46, 62 the act of running 45, 60, 61, 62, 71 Ruskin, John 106 Saatchi Gallery 3 Samocha, Ram 50 Draw to Perform 3, 115, 123, 143, 165 Sandler, Irving 85 Satie, Erik 95, 96 Schneemann, Carolee 6, 45, 51 Up to and Including Her Limits 47–48 Scratch Orchestra (Cardew) 97 Serra, Richard 2, 10 Splashing 14 Verb List 14 shadow play 132 shamanism 109, 150 Sharits, Paul 8, 189–90, 194 Sherwin, Guy 189, 194 Paper Landscape (1975) 193–94 Simonova, Kseniya Don’t Be Too Late (2009) 181 You are Always Nearby (2009) 181 Siobhan Davies Dance studio 62 site of projection 193

245

Skempton, Howard 97 Smith, Phil Mythogeography 138, 164 Smith, Vicky 8, 190, 191, 194 33 Frames Per Foot (2013) 191–92 Smykla, Harald 8 Movie Protocols (2010–1) 182–83 social encounters 103 social engagement 100 Sogetsu Art Centre 193 Solnit, Rebecca 100 sound 22, 60, 83, 169, 186 harmonics 157 listening 60, 82, 83, 101, 154, 156, 157, 158, 160, 161, 219 map 101 place 157 sonar 158 sonic connection 159, 160 sonic discovery 157 sound drawing 22, 23, 28, 93, 153, 154–61, 201, 219 sounding 28, 159 three-dimensional 158 vocal 132, 150, 151, 157, 158, 159, 160, 181, 187, 201, 204, 209 waves 153, 156 space altered dimensions 21, 22–28, 126, 129, 137, 140, 141, 151, 154 body in 22, 25, 61 See performance:bodily presence decentred 102 drawing in. See drawing:in space extension 183 for action 102 holographic 144 of projection 150 public 21, 33, 64, 69, 70, 71, 91, 100, 103, 155, 198, 202, 204 screen 193–94 spatial context 141, 156, 172 stage 26, 178, 183, 184 three-dimensional 5, 10, 25, 26, 28, 100, 144, 189, 200, 205 two-dimensional 11 virtual 201 Spear, John Murray 106 Speed, Lancelot 175

246

Spiritualism 105, 106 ectoplasmic drawing 197 Fox sisters 105 mediumistic drawing 105–9 séances 105, 106, 108 spirit drawings 106, 108 spirit medium 7, 105, 106, 107, 197 spirit photography 106, 197 spirit world 7, 80, 104, 105, 109, 197 table tipping 106 telekinesis 201 telepathy 201, 202 stagecraft 174 Stansbie, Lisa 54 Stockhausen, Karlheinz 97 Stout, Katharine 2, 32, 63 A Recent History of Drawing 127 Contemporary Drawing: From the 1960s to Now (2014) 2 Structuralist film 189, 192, 194 Studdy, George Ernest 175 subjectivity 59, 62, 111, 158 Surrealism 84, 105, 108 tableau vivant 197 Tarkovsky, Andrei Nostalghia (1983) 151 Tate Modern Live Culture: Performance and the Contemporary conference (2003) 149 With a Single Mark conference (2006) 126 Taylor, Anita 3 technology 63, 160, 180, 196 Arduino 197 augmented reality (AR) 200 brain–computer interface (BCI) 201, 202 electroencephalogram (EEG) headset 201, 202 electromagnetic signals 153 galvanic skin tissue 153 GPS 59, 138, 153 holographic projection 144, 145 hydrophone 156 iPad 197 Kinetoscope 174 lasers 8, 161, 172, 202, 203, 204 live video feed 100, 149, 180, 184, 186, 187, 198

INDEX

magic lantern 172, 176, 179, 180 MaxMSP 197 microscope 202 motion sensor 114, 201 multiscreen technology 136 Musion Eyeliner 144 Mutoscope 177 navigational data 153 overhead projector 180, 182, 184, 187 pen plotter 111, 112 profaned 196 projection 8, 172, 202 satellites 186 Skype 8, 65, 92, 186, 187 sound 156 Tagtool 8, 93, 94, 119, 197, 198, 199 video 181, 183, 184 virtual reality (VR) 200, 201 VJ software 172 tesseract 125, 127, 129 theatre 8, 173, 177, 181, 184, 205, 206, 207 Theosophy 104 Thomas, Ashley ‘Bashy’ 146 Thoreau, Henry David 140, 156 time 221 and movement 11, 37, 179, 206 and space 17, 30, 31, 35, 55, 126 as a material 6 durational process 16, 14–22, 26, 45, 46, 64, 68, 82, 93, 143, 200, 206, 217 live time. See live:real time passage of time 17 record of 18, 32, 58 temporality 16, 20, 21, 33, 37, 38, 55, 62, 64, 217, 219 time-based 20, 217 Tinguely, Jean 7 Méta-matics (1950–60) 112 touch/haptic engagement 1, 154, 155, 191, 217, 219 Townsend, Kevin 10, 20 TRACEY 3 transcultural expansion 147 Treplin, Agnes 197 Tresset, Patrick 7, 113 controlled loss 114 Human Study #4 (2017) 113

INDEX

Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 3 Tudor, David 82 Turing, Alan 110 van der Werve, Guido 6, 45 Number series 53–54 Vancouver Art Gallery 20 Vanderbeek, Stan 188 Expanded Cinema (1970) 188 vaudeville/variety theatre 173 Verostko, Roman 111 Viennese Actionism 194 Villa-Lobos, Heiter 95 walking 17, 23, 24, 25, 30, 33, 54, 69, 71, 87, 100, 101, 204 as drawing 10, 33–37, 50 drawing as walking 15 the act of 70, 157 trail 32–33, 101–3, 157, 203–5 Warr, Tracy 150 Watson, Chris Vatnajokull (2003) 156 Webern, Anton 83 Weibel, Peter 189

247

Wilkinson, Mrs 106 Wolf, Christian 96 Wood, Catherine 12 Performance in Contemporary Art (2018) 2 Wood, John and Harrison, Paul Board, 1993 68 works on paper 52, 55, 57 Wurm, Erwin One Minute Sculptures 68 Yentob, Alan 132 Young, La Monte 83, 84, 85, 88, 99 Composition 1960 #7 (1960) 88–89, 91 Zen Buddhism 31, 89 ensō 23 Koan 84, 86 Mindfulness of Listening 83 non-involvement 96 Zhang, Haun Family Tree (2001) 144 Zhilyaeva, Anna 201

248

249

250

251

252