‘Drawings can dismantle or disregard material and weight, providing insight into the unattainable’
Thomas Mayne

Drawing begins in the unconscious, a dialogue between the conscious and the unconscious in which things are worked out and found.

This paper explores what, as artists, we can reveal about sensory experience by taking this non-verbal means of communication and constraining it through the problematic context of representation.

In our work we use drawing as a vehicle of construction and recognise the potential for drawing to activate and reconstruct memory in the production of new ideas. Drawing is discussed as an occupied and per formative place of thinking, arriving through gesture, multi-sensory and often material experiences.

Building on recent work, in which conventional drawing processes were applied to the development of an academic paper (‘Dilemmas and Practices’, ‘Telling Places’ Conference, Dec 2007 UCL), we investigate the hidden spaces of our own methodologies as we tried to exchange sensory information through the constraints of technology, speech and virtual communication. We reveal the ways in which textural experience became suppressed and the extent to which shared references. (memory) built through previous sensory exploration, enabled new ideas to emerge.

In conclusion we reflect on how the slippage of technology both restricted and enabled new ideas and how the use of frameworks from varied disciplinary knowledge: ‘creating a good black from drawing in fine art practice and Joharis Window from Communication Management, revealed hidden aspects of sensory experience and provided a new direction within the practice.

References

Mayne T ‘Connected Isolation’ in Architecture in Transition edited Peter Noever, Munich, Prestel, 1991, p.79 referenced by Victoria Mitchell, ‘Tracing the fabric of construction’ in Site Works Artist Book, Mitchell Bould, 2004

Notes received during an investigation about creating a good black in drawing …………colours must be balanced in order that the black is not biased……………… the black achieved through graphite is limited by the blackness of the graphite material itself: graphite is not black but dark grey ………………………………… the graphite medium, being lubricative, prevented itself from accumulating………………

While writing this, I pondered the question...is black the opposite of white?
I think not,..how can it be when they share so many commonalities.....
AND isn't it strange how, when you are in a space and totally surrounded by dense blackness, you are able to project your mind's light into it, visioning light patterns and hazes. It seems we absorb and emit light, as a means of combating darkness.
Email from emma moxey

Luft J & Ingham H, 'The Johari Window: a graphic model for interpersonal relations', Univ. Calif. Western Training Lab. 1955

Drawing generated by Kathy Oldridge during the development of ‘Dilemmas and Practices’ November 2007