Drawn-out: trace and catharsis

Abstract

My investigations into the relationship between drawing, performativity and the unconscious mind began with an interest in the Surrealist concept of ‘automatic drawing’ and its subsequent iteration in Abstract Expressionism as a methodology for improvisation. My Honours project initiated this investigation through a series of large-scale abstract charcoal drawings and silkscreen prints that attempted to subvert the conscious control implicit in traditional notions of drawing by setting in motion the body’s autonomous energies. By the end of this project I had begun to explore how ideas such as repressed memory and psychic inhibition related to my practice. I was interested in using drawing as a tool of tactility and immediacy to facilitate connections between mind, body and paper. Drawn-out: the intersection of action, trace and the self explores the act of encountering liminal states of the body as an experience of catharsis. By inducing such states through psychological, physical and emotional intensity, within the context of performance art, artists can enact a display of agony and pain which subjects the audience to draw upon their own experiences of fear and suffering. (For example, an artist knelt on the ground, pushing a 3kg lump of chalk back and forth in front of their head until exhaustion.) Through Aristotle’s notion of catharsis (the purgation or cleansing of painful emotions) and Amelia Jones’ theories of performativity, this Research Paper will investigate how the performative act or event has the potential to function as a form of catharsis for both artist and audience. I will look to drawing as a residual trace, which has the potential to embody the intensity of sensations experienced by the artist during the performative process. Here, in particular, I discuss Jones’ analysis of artistic labour and materiality in ‘Materiality traces: Performativity, artistic “Work,” and new concepts of agency’ (2015). Through Henri Bergson’s notion of successive sensations, I examine how the intensity of sensations experienced by the body affectively cause its transformation. Repetition and duration are integral aspects to the increase of intensity. Here, the artist’s body visually (and audibly) transitions through psychic states as the intensity of sensations (such as pain) increase. The Research Paper takes an interest in how the audience have the potential to experience the affective sensations (Bergson’s term) evoked by the intensity (display of liminal states such as exhaustion and suffering) of the artist’s performance. Sound is a key component emerging in my practice as it communicates the intensity of the action performed by the artist’s body, which is not always visually explicit. Sound emphasises the weight of the material object or the force exerted at the point of contact, and the sensibilities endured by the fatiguing body (such as heavy breathing or exasperations). The Research Paper draws upon Maurice Blanchot’s notion of passivity The Writing of the Disaster, (1980), in relation to the sensation of loss of agency and sense of self, and the fear this engenders. I will discuss how performative works evoke these sensations physically through the artist’s live body (such as Body Tracks by Ana Mendieta and Rhythm 0 by Marina Abramovic), and representations of traumatic experiences and psychic states through unconscious mark-marking (such as Louise Bourgeois’ Insomnia Drawings and Tracey Emin’s mono-prints). Here the paper explores how artists encounter repressed memories and anxiety as a performative process (through unconscious modes of art-making), cathartic experience (as a way of coming to terms with particular emotions rooted in traumatic experiences), and as subject matter. I specifically focus on anxiety (its physical symptoms, psychological affects and emotional state) in Louise Bourgeois’ practice. With particular reference to Sigmund Freud’s On Psychopathology: Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety and Other Works (1979), I examine anxiety as an emotion, and a particular psychological condition. The work I will present for my Masters examination is a video and audio installation (documenting a recent durational performance), and a series of text-based mono-prints. Directly related to a series of similar performances over the last two years this installation will significantly extend my exploration into the use of sound as ‘trace’. The mono-prints depict the anxiety induced by repressed memories – the psychological and emotional intensity – which drives my performance. This is the ‘score’ for my performance.