This Saturday I’m going to present some work at FormContent with the rest of the antepress group, to mark the beginning of a season-long collaboration with the curators. The idea is that we’ll respond to their exhibitions and events with writing of some kind.
On Saturday I plan to present two recent works of mine that explore the relation between writing and its subject, and the possibility of formal contamination between the two. Both of these works comprise lines drawn from the page to the subject.
One of the works (pictured) is a kind of sketchbook I’ve been carrying with me this summer. Rather than drawing pictures of the things around me I drew lines to them: pencil lines that begin on the page, score over the endpapers of the book, over whatever surface the book’s resting on, and on and on until the line reaches its subject.
I have to decide where on the page the lines should start, and which and how many of the things around me I should draw lines to for a given double-page spread. I have to label the lines so it’s clear what they’re pointing to, and decide how much information the labels should contain.
Wherever I’ve been drawing in the book there are faint pencil lines left over on the surrounding tabletops and upholstery and floorboards, whose beginnings and endings mark routes between objects that are no longer there. These abandoned lines are arranged in approximate star shapes because each set radiates out from a single rectangle, which is missing from the scene, but which contains all of them.
I like the idea of returning to these star-shapes and finding the right page of the book and lining it up perfectly again, but the stars are all over London and Scotland and Inkpen and Wales now, with lines so faint they might be irretrievable.
FormContent is www.formcontent.org
antepress is www.antepress.co.uk
