‘Haecceity is the becoming individual from having been undifferentiated. It is something very concrete, a thickness, like a drawing, and describes a process of individuation, like when drawing.’
http://ojs-lib.tudelft.nl/index.php/footprint/article/view/748
As previously explained the concept of Haecceity stems from the philosopher John Duns Scotus, it is further explored by Deleuze and Guattari who use it to describe a change between states – the becoming individual by becoming different from what was before in a process of change or division.
‘A season, a winter, a summer, an hour, a date have a perfect individuality lacking nothing, even though this individuality is different from that of a thing or a subject. They are haecceities … capacities to affect and be affected.’
Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 288
During the last few weeks of drawing in the Museum I have considered the act of drawing and my interaction with both the location of the drawing as well as the material itself.
Through drawing there is a constant writing and overwriting of information. Process is in discussion with the material and these consist of both fact and fiction. Anne Katrine Hougaard explores this idea of Haecceity in her essay on Haecceity, Drawing and Mapping. In this she considers that this discussion of fact and fiction is laid down by physical tools, materials and notational systems, where arranging and composing a material create new relations between objects and concepts.
‘As a methodical way of orchestrating instinct and intelligence, drawing enables the creation of a problem, and can contain a problem and a solution to it. And as an activity conducted over time and an object in a process of transformation, drawing is many simultaneous processes of individuation.’
My drawings in the Museum are very much taking place in the present, however they represent something, which is beyond the drawing. They are therefore a point where differences can grow. Where an exchange can take place between the real world and the imagination.
Anne Karine Hougaard describes this a ‘manifold capacity the drawing makes it possible to negotiate with the world at a distance and to let new worlds emerge at the same time’
Through the many conversations I have had whilst on my residency I have realised that drawing is quite a unique activity in that it allows us to explore ideas of representation, composition, architectural space and imagination simultaneously. It has the ability to affect us through interaction as a creator or audience but it also offers us the opportunity to affect it back by our reaction and interpretation.
‘Haecceity’ then is as I have interpreted it, is an interweaving of the mapped and measured world with the very personal world of our sensuous experiences. Interpretations of facts and fiction playing out on a platform, which is a constant process of Haecceity or individuation, constantly differing from itself and from anything else.
I would like to thank Culture Warrington for the opportunity to work in the Museum over the last three weeks and for all the help and support given so generously by the Museum staff and Gallery assistants.
