Michael Croft, 2016

In the Moment of a Drawing (Chapter 2; Jump-to-the-end)

Synopsis

Insofar as this visual work is a drawing and constitutes a conversation, one will be watching a video of a process that I have discussed while working, the discussion of which has both directed and been in response to the drawing, Figure 1.

Figure 1: Screenshots from the video, In the Moment of Drawing (Chapter 2; Jump-to-the-end)

The reference to Chapter 2 of the work suggests something already in process that reflects concerns essential to it and other possible divisible concerns. Chapter 1 of the drawing, which also resulted in a video, provided me with the basis for re-working Chapter 2, and involves line that fluctuates and conflates between writing and image making. Jump-to-the-end refers to the finished state of the drawing, as seen at the end of the video, after the intervening process of what has subsequently been Chapter 3, Figure 2.

Figure 2: In the Moment of Drawing, finished drawing, A4 paper sheets, black chalk, acrylic, marker pen, white emulsion, glazed and framed right section, 229 x 86cm, 2015

The writing has often inscribed my spoken thinking on and about the drawing, and in this respect echoes a visually focused self-reflective conversation. The subject of my thoughts has mainly concerned Lacan's idea of the variable time-length of the glance needed for comprehending, from his paper Logical Time (1945), where the moment can be extended and where such traits as hesitation and uncertainty can exist. My thoughts

Michael Croft, 2016have also concerned the visual/material quality of smudging and in what respect this can be a metonymic effect, also calling on Lacanian theory. My thinking on image-making while drawing has referenced Bergson's idea (2004: 28) of the "present image", as if caught in its passage between past and future. The latter idea, however, embraces the entire piece of work, its present form as Chapter 2 of a three-part drawing in this sense showing the moment of comprehending as a short period of time of passing through.

The making of the video has involved recording the process of drawing with an action-cam attached in front of my right eye. While visually recording, I spoke my thoughts into a voice recorder. The first chapter of the process resulted in a hand-written consideration of that stage's theoretical content, which I then attached along the top of the right-hand of a two-panelled plane. I highlighted key points and then underlined or encircled and in some instances physically moved them to the left-hand plane by re-writing. I have also referenced my drawing-hand drawing, as also what I could see of the camera attached to flat-lens goggles through my left eye. Searching for, indexing and the moving onwards of these images illustrate the Bergson reference, above. After recording the process, I wrote a theoretical consideration of the meta-psychological term displacement, and sections of this are now embedded in the video as a background reading.

While drawing is often a mute process, with the conversation going on self-reflectively in one’s head, the drawing-based video has been an attempt to vocalise these circumstances. In the process, however, of course the circumstances have shifted ground. I discovered other issues that may be brought to bear on such an activity, initially through a procedure innate to drawing, such as smudging. The latter, that is, as both a visual-material quality and, through writing it, a term that I found displaces ideas relevant to my personal experience concerning my deceased mother. While this content is extractable from the video as itself a reflective monologue, the video suggests that this has been evoked by drawing, specifically through what can be done in drawing through consideration of a moment. Such a subject also has its origin more organically in issues of Chapter 1 of the drawing, where a Lacanian reference (2006: 169-170) to anxiety brought about by hesitation in the process of comprehending—in any inter-subjective situation between two or more individuals, in this case me and my drawing as itself an other—led me to the question of desire and its origin. While such questions may be explored expressively through drawing, I am interested in how using other media while and as an extension of drawing can extend its communicative capacity. In this respect, the resulting work tacitly and reflectively embodies the idea of conversation through drawn gesture, writing, speech and language. While the middle section of my conversation is captured on video, the drawing's final state reflects traces of ideas that must then constitute such a conversation's concluding remarks.

Michael Croft, 2016References

Bergson, H. (2004) Matter and Memory. (First pubIished 1912) New York, NY: Dover Lacan, J. (2006) Écrits. (Trans. Bruce Fink) New York, NY: Norton