Mark's idea of "peeling drawing away from
one kind of surface, doing something with it
(groundless), and then applying it to another"
is attractive, but one issue seems to be
the relationship between ground and space.
The marks once removed retain something of their
spatial relations (albeit transformed in some way)
if we are still to be able to speak of "the drawing".
Yet what is the relation of the space to the marks?
Are the marks in a space? If we think of the space
as some kind of container, then is this a new ground --
a spatial support?
The function of the traditional ground is not just
a physical support, doesn't it also provide a flexible
spatial framework (try rolling up a drawing on paper,
try moving a sheet of paper from one place to another,
try screwing it up)?
I suspect the traditional ground has more than one
function, and that it is necessary to distinguish what
these are. It will probably be that the drawing cannot be
completely separated from all aspects of the ground.
The peeled off drawing bears traces of its original ground
in its spatial relationships and perhaps these traces
cannot be eradicated except by destroying the drawing?
This suggests the question "what allows us to speak
of the _same_ drawing when peeled away?" and I suspect
it can be argued that whatever the comonality is between
different physical realizations of the abstracted drawing,
there is still something ground-like or support-like
present.
Whether the marks inhabit space or create it is another
relevant idea here. Reading Somlin's Three Roads to
Quantum Gravity is interesting and it's rewarding to
ask what has this got to do with drawing.
''To understand what we mean when we say that space is discrete,
we must put our minds completely into the relational way of
thinking, and really try to see the world around us as nothing but
a network of evolving relationships. These relationships are not
among things situated in space -- they are among the events that
make up the history of the world. The relationships define the
space, not the other way round.''
John
--
Dr John G. Stell room: E.C.Stoner 9.15
School of Computing phone: +44 113 34 31076
University of Leeds fax: +44 113 34 35468
Leeds, LS2 9JT email: [log in to unmask]
U.K. http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/jgs
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