Vocabulary
- Hyperdrawing = noun (a drawing)
- Hyperdrawing = abstract noun (concept i.e. both noun and verb)
- hyperdrawing = verb (drawing)
- Hyperdrawing = Sawdon, Phil and Marshall, Russell (2012), Hyperdrawing: beyond the lines of contemporary art. TRACEY, London: IBTauris.
- [Hyper]drawing = research project by Marshall and Sawdon
- [Hyper]drawing = concatenation of Hyper and drawing to allow interpretation as both and one
- [hyper]drawing = concatenation of hyper and drawing to allow interpretation as both and one
[Hyper]drawing 2007-
[Hyper]drawing emerges from the curation of the book Drawing Now: Between the Lines of Contemporary Art published by I.B. Tauris in 2007.Drawing Now developed a consideration of drawing’s peculiar dependence on a direct and physical process — the relationship between the hand, the drawing material and the paper. The book is founded on the premise that drawing thinks/talks in a particular way.
Drawing Now curated works, within the context of contemporary fine art practice, as an ongoing process focused on traditional drawing materials used in a manner to convey drawing as a conceptual process. TRACEY worked with the assumption that drawing is most often thought of as certain materials on particular types of support to produce a representational outcome. This context established a remit or boundary for Drawing Now that supported TRACEY’s curatorial approach. Following the drawing of this disciplinary boundary, the consequence of adopting a particular material approach indicated the presence of a boundary within a boundary, a sub-boundary?
In exploring beyond these boundaries, TRACEY’s Phil Sawdon and Russ Marshall appropriated the expression ‘Hyperdrawing’ (noun) and ‘hyperdrawing’ (verb) with an understanding that the prefixes sub and supra provided an articulate way of identifying and structuring drawing territory. Some of this exploration is documented in the paper Drawing: an ambiguous practice, presented at the AAH conference, Manchester, 2009.
The project is further explored in Hyperdrawing: beyond the lines of contemporary art, published by I.B. Tauris in 2012.
Drawing Ambiguity: Beside the Lines of Contemporary Art the final book in the series, published by I.B. Tauris in 2015, progresses a position seeded within Hyperdrawing.
Hyperdrawing as an ambiguous practice presents the prospect that a lack of a definition, a position of ambiguity, is desirable within contemporary fine art drawing practice. Toward [hyper] drawing… through ambiguity an article published in the Journal of Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice in 2017 moved beyond that prospect by proposing that a position of ambiguity (a lack of definition), is desirable and that a lack of definition is not only desirable, it is also a necessity and has the capacity to enable and sustain drawing practices.
[Hyper]drawing is a research project.
Hyperdrawing is an opportunity for [fine art] drawing practice.
This Research Catalogue exposition documents ongoing research into Hyperdrawing: Hyperdrawing is an ambiguous practice. Hyperdrawing adopts a position, a perspective or viewpoint, that a lack of definition should be embraced and that ambiguity presents an opportunity. Hyperdrawing has the capacity to enable and sustain drawing practices.
The prefix ‘sub-’ can be freely attached to elements of any origin and is used to indicate ‘under,’ ‘below,’ ‘beneath’ identifies a boundary within a boundary as a hierarchical element within for example, a disciplinary boundary, a supra- boundary?
The prefix ‘supra-’ meaning ‘above, over’ or ‘beyond the limits of, outside of’ confirms this hierarchical representation, in particular, a view of drawing within contemporary fine art practice.
The sub-boundary, whilst clear and unbroken in Drawing Now (TRACEY, 2007) becomes perforated into a dashed delineation. The punctuation of this boundary, this line, with regular empty space presents a challenge, firstly to constrain an expanding field within the context of Drawing Now and secondly, to consider a position for drawing that wanders or weaves across and through this boundary.
An essentially restless position could be argued to be unconstrained by the limits of definition. This ambiguity presents an opportunity. Drawing Now sits wholly within the sub-boundary as defined but also allows for an unfolding of those limits from sub- to supra- or from hypo- to hyper…drawing.
- TRACEY, 2007. Drawing Now: between the lines of contemporary drawing. London: I.B. Tauris, London.
Siún Hanrahan (2011) identifies three categories of Hyperdrawing.
The three categories: self-identified as drawing; inter-media specifying drawing; and self-differentiated as drawing. Hyperdrawings thus become one of: drawings; called drawings but…; and not called drawings and…
In establishing categories that encompass Hyperdrawings, that are not called drawings, Hanrahan creates an interesting tension that hints at the subtleties of individual and collective perspectives on drawing.
The tension reflects discussions about the order (Krauss, 1979) of drawing and whether Taylor’s (2008) view of the boundary busting nature of contemporary drawing leads to the fallacy of circular reasoning. The circular reasoning in this case is created by the drawing disciplinary boundary that encompasses various sub-boundaries and the intersecting Hyperdrawing space within and between. Thus the discipline of drawing appears to contain work that is not called drawing.
However, are the drawing boundaries a fallacy?
Is drawing so ubiquitous as to make boundary searches redundant?
- Hanrahan, S., 2012. 'Acts of Hubris'. In, Hyperdrawing: beyond the lines of contemporary drawing research, Marshall, R. and Sawdon, P. [TRACEY] (eds), I.B. Tauris: London, pp: xxiv-xxix.
- Krauss, R., 1979. Sculpture in the Expanded Field, October, 8, pp. 30-44.
- Taylor, A., 2008. 'Foreword – Re: Positioning Drawing', In: S. Garner (ed) Writing on Drawing Essays on Drawing Practice and Research, Bristol: Intellect Books, p. 11.
Emma Cocker and Marsha Meskimmon both establish Hyperdrawing as a form of techné where drawing practice is not constrained by spatial boundaries.
Emma Cocker (2012) states:
It is in these terms, that Hyperdrawing might be considered a form of productive knowledge—or techné. Here, techné is not used in its habitual sense, where it is taken to simply mean the skilful art of making and doing, the practical knowledge or technical facility of craftsmanship.…
Rather than referring to drawing solely in spatial terms, where the attempt to go beyond is conceived as one of giving shape to new forms, or of making—and leaving—a space wherein something unexpected might materialize; drawing can also be understood temporally, as the act of making time and of deciding how to act.
Marsha Meskimmon (2012) states:
Techne does not distinguish sharply between the hand and the machine, nor assume a hierarchy of materials, processes or procedures in creative practice. Rather, techne is open-ended, seeking to fold processes in upon themselves and to cross genres. Like drawing, techne permits the possibility of inexhaustible extension, elaboration as temporal agency, risking ephemerality, exigency and excess.
- Cocker, E., 2012. 'The Restless Line', Drawing. In, Hyperdrawing: beyond the lines of contemporary drawing research, Marshall, R. and Sawdon, P. [TRACEY] (eds), I.B. Tauris: London, pp: xii-xvii.
- Meskimmon, M., 2012. 'Elaborate Marks: Gender° | Time’ | Drawing” '. In, Hyperdrawing: beyond the lines of contemporary drawing research, Marshall, R. and Sawdon, P. [TRACEY] (eds), I.B. Tauris: London, pp: xviii-xxiii.
Hyperdrawing is identified as being less about where and more about when. The ‘above’ and ‘in excess of’ nature of Hyperdrawing suggests a two or three dimensional view with Hyperdrawing inhabiting space that is mostly unconstrained and capable of an inter/intra/cross-disciplinary view. However, Hyperdrawing is equally if not more of a fourth dimensional view where the spatial boundaries are broken by a dimension where such boundaries are diminished to a point that they no longer act as a constraint to drawing practice and instead merely provide context and a means to establish Hyperdrawing through establishing what is not Hyperdrawing. Fundamentally, what this fourth dimension view provides is the opportunity and openness that characterises Hyperdrawing practice, the opportunity not in doing but in being able to do or in establishing the conditions to be able to do.
Emma Cocker (2012) distinguishes between chronological time (chronos) and kairotic time in identifying Hyperdrawing’s position in not only being subject to and able to embody the concept of time passing but also the time of opportunity or timeliness. Siún Hanrahan (2011) offers a less overt discussion of time through the moment of drawing.
Siún Hanrahan (2012) states:
The moment of drawing, as an act of relating, is one of sustained engagement, of unwavering attention. The sustained ‘presence to’ of (observational) drawing models the response demanded in the moment of encounter with that which is other, be that the world as it is in itself or other persons.Marsha Meskimmon (2012) also considers Hyperdrawing in and through time but also ‘remind(s) us of drawing’s exceptional ability to materialise thresholds between disciplinary fields or conceptual territories while engaging with many modes of making at once.’…
The sustained ‘presence to’ of drawing thus holds the possibility of hearing back, not as a promise of immediacy, but as the possibility of such commitment revealing the object of attention as it is in itself.
- Cocker, E., 2012. 'The Restless Line', Drawing. In, Hyperdrawing: beyond the lines of contemporary drawing research, Marshall, R. and Sawdon, P. [TRACEY] (eds), I.B. Tauris: London, pp: xii-xvii.
- Hanrahan, S., 2012. 'Acts of Hubris'. In, Hyperdrawing: beyond the lines of contemporary drawing research, Marshall, R. and Sawdon, P. [TRACEY] (eds), I.B. Tauris: London, pp: xxiv-xxix.
- Meskimmon, M., 2012. 'Elaborate Marks: Gender° | Time’ | Drawing” '. In, Hyperdrawing: beyond the lines of contemporary drawing research, Marshall, R. and Sawdon, P. [TRACEY] (eds), I.B. Tauris: London, pp: xviii-xxiii.
In considering thresholds and boundaries there is an opportunity embodied within Hyperdrawing for movement within and between drawing boundaries as well as across dimensions. A restless wandering, an unfolding, a becoming?
is Hyperdrawing simply … drawing?
‘Hyper’ is over and above a traditional view of drawing, ‘what is proper to drawing’, not necessarily hyper to a more ‘open’ view of drawing.
It could be argued that Hyperdrawing positions itself within the space outside, and we are not trying to break the boundaries as to what is drawing. Are drawing boundaries a fallacy? We are saying these are drawings, end of discussion and that the challenge is more to discuss the content critically within contemporary fine art practice.
…three categories of Hyperdrawing. The three categories: self-identified as drawing; inter-media specifying drawing; and self-differentiated as drawing. All Hyperdrawings thus become one of: drawings; called drawings but…; and not called drawings and…
…to be continued…
[Hyper]drawing everything || everything [Hyper]drawing
The research is not arguing that [Hyper]drawing can be anything.
The position adopted is that an acceptable, inter/intra/cross-disciplinary view of drawing will never be reached. Thus, a lack of definition should be embraced. This lack of definition can then transform from being a compromise position into one of opportunity.
Marshall and Sawdon’s perspective on becoming is that [Hyper]drawing acknowledges where it is, and allows itself to be comfortable with what it is. From this position the view should then be forward, the opportunity in what can be as opposed to what is.
Hyperdrawing as an ambiguous practice presents the prospect that a lack of a definition, a position of ambiguity, is desirable. The possibility is that a lack of definition is not only desirable, it is also a necessity. The viewpoint is that the ambiguity that inevitably stems from a lack of definition forms a strategy that enables and sustains drawing practices (Sawdon and Marshall, 2009).
- Sawdon P. and Marshall, R., 2009. 'Drawing: an ambiguous practice'. Intersections: 35th Annual Conference of the Association of Art Historians, MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2-4 April 2009.
Hyperdrawing is an ambiguous practice.
Why?
Because Hyperdrawing can’t be defined?
Why can’t Hyperdrawing be defined?
Because the definition would be ambiguous.
Towards [hyper] drawing...through ambiguity
Marshall and Sawdon, 2018