An
Introduction to “In-between-ness
“In-”between-ness” is this particular state of
being at once both and neither: reflecting my own nomadism between
two countries and two languages, two ways of seeing and thinking,
my research explores different forms of in-between-ness (nonsense,
paradox and infra-thin difference). Furthermore, I wish to think
of this in-between-ness as a link between thought and artistic practice
(poïésis), between art and life.
Drawing
My current research explores drawing as an in-between medium. Many
of the characteristics of drawing – it is nomadic, ephemeral,
fragile, elusive, linear, “definitively unfinished”
– reflect my artistic concerns. A display of the thought process,
of research going-on, I use drawing as another form of note-taking,
equivalent to the Renaissance pensiero, “first idea/thought”,
which accompanies the continual flow of thought and serves to catch
fleeting ideas. Often a complementary/contradictory form within
my practice, drawing is considered through its connections with
other media (sculpture, photography, action, writing). It is a parergon,
at once art work and outside of it, just on the limit between, at
the same time fundamental and peripheral.
Language(s)
At the source of my practice are my notes: in the form of scattered
fragments they are a display of the urgency of thought, mixing writing,
drawing and diagrams, and are in-between the idea and the execution.
This everyday form of writing is contained in Notebooks, research/thinking
spaces which interweave art and life. These “drawn”
notes or notes in “franglais” raise this question: is
there an infra-thin difference between what is said (thought) in
English and what is said in French? Do I draw in one or other language
or is drawing a language of its own?
(No-)Nomadism
The line is fine between nomadism and its opposite, an immobile
journey like that of thought. Between Ulysses’ perpetual journey
and Penelope’s unending wait, thought is a ceaseless wandering
similar to the one within a labyrinth.
It is significant that akedia is often represented as a woman refusing
manual labour, just as melancholic Penelope is shown behind her
loom. Knitting, just like plaiting, weaving and spinning, are three-dimensional
versions of doodling: doing nearly nothing forever while thought
floats.
Melancholy
Melan-colia, black bile, like the black ink used to write and to
draw – to think. An afflux of this excess black bile (produced
by the “spleen”) to the head is one of the ingredients
of existentialism. Melancholy is another in-between form and a profoundly
paradoxical state: at once a retreat from and a resistance against
the everyday. The melancholic shuts him/herself up to think, withdraws
into his secret chamber. Favouring the secret over the blatant,
melancholy is a form of asceticism which claims the right to slow
thinking, reverie, and constitutes an oblique subversion, an ex-centrique
approach.
Rhizomic
Thinking
Research is a work-in-progress, a rhizomic or nonsensical form of
thought: lines (threads) in-between, appear, disappear or move continually,
connections are created in all directions. This method operates
by fragments and creates an image of thought and creative process
as a flow of production. Lastly I would like to conjure up these
little afterthought threads which spring up, coincidences which
connect up the rhizome in unexpected but meaningful ways. |