Forever Drawing Mhb

8/3/2019 Forever Drawing Mhb

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INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTION

The drawing in the context of the art history has been usually related as an

expression way, which serves as a support to other kind of media. Through the drawing,

important masterpieces of painting, sculpture and architecture were born because there

is a belief that the drawing is really capable for emerging creations. They are the first

impressions externalized by artists and they become the starting point to larger projects.

This way of thinking the drawing, giving it a secondary function, had a rupture

at the beginning of the past century when Braque and Picasso introduced the collage.

And was through the modern arts questions that the drawing became itself an attractive

aim of investigations and reevaluations in its production process under new parameters[ROSE, 1976]. This concern is found in William Kentridges works. Besides social

references he exhibits the production process by recording the action of drawing using

basically charcoal and he changes it, erasing and manipulating the elements drawn to

show them as a motion picture.

The interest core of the work is the drawing as a process that represents and

develops perceptive actions. This work intends to analyze through the drawing process

as an exercise of perception that allows new possibilities, new points of view that

provide the exchanges between consciousness and unconsciousness. The work wants to

contribute to this discussion inserting the digital drawing, which means the utilization of

computer and some applications as a tool, as a support and even as a mediator between

the artist and art itself. The way for presenting these digital drawings configures

animation movies and also will be discussed by the exposition of the production process

as a language.

TIMELINETIMELINETIMELINETIMELINE

When the drawing becomes the artistic object, the reflection occurs basically

among the elements that compose this universe: tools, techniques, supports, but not

merely as a descriptive sense, but as a chaining of parameters acting in a perceptive

system.


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With the intention of linking the thought that searches also to analyze the

drawing under new approaches, it is always important to point out how it is presented in

our existence since the prehistoric registers, always as a good way to share the

individual experiences, helping with the self-knowledge mechanism as well as the

impressions of each one ahead of the collective experiences.

Despite the drawing does not have acquired an independent and autonomous

status in the most time of art history, we can observe that his essence is into the most

primary mental elaborations of the human being. The primordial function attributed to it

in the studies that revealed the depth question perceived in the nature, for example,

indicates its tendency to the perceptive exercise. However, for the interests that artists

would awake centuries later, its linking with the intellect and other times with the

spirituality, didnt allows in fact, that its potentialities came to light and gave itself the

protagonist role.

What always has been clear since then, is that the power of the drawing is on its

own process. The drawing works under the relations establish among themselves,

through the perception, through the reasoning and through the memory. Richard Serra

remarked in an interview: There is no way to make a drawing, there is only drawing.

It is the own act of the drawing that results in its expression, either treating at ideas

field, metaphors or emotions. For Serra, drawing is a verb [HOPTMAN, 2002].

VANISHING POINTVANISHING POINTVANISHING POINTVANISHING POINT

The drawing resists to the time as few ways of expression can resist, not in a

historic age sense or about its social context. Is about the process that is being written

here again.

There is not a moment to finish a drawing. A drawing can be enough since its

first line, trace or what the action can has conceived. And if it does not has an idealmoment to be finished, it means that it can be transformed infinitely.

Erasing is a part of the process. Changing the direction of a line, and spotting it,

are things from the drawing. And these mechanisms and its functionalities are the most

interesting part. Exactly because if we affirm that the drawing never will be necessarily

finished, we can say that it is always in progress, and this pause, that is not its end, is


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part of its process. Therefore, how the change of the perceptive approach is capable to

reconfigure the drawing going beyond of its own representation? The redrawing can

means a way to escape from the tyranny of the objective thought that at every instant

tries to treat the perception like something concrete. Aside multiple approaches are

placed new relations that vanish from the established way at each moment. In part, it isabout what Merleau Ponty remarks when he refers to the objective thought that ignores

the perception.

The perceiving subject is the place where these things occur, andthe philosopher describes sensations and their substractum asone might describe the fauna of a distant land without beingaware that he himself perceives, that he is the perceiving subjectand that perception as he lives it belies everything that he saysof perception in general. For, seen from inside, perception owesnothing to what we know in other ways about the world, about

stimuli as physics describes them and about the sense organs asdescribed by biology. It does not presents in first place as anevent in the world to which the category of causality, forexample, can be applied, but as a re-creation or re-constitutionof the world at every moment [MERLEAU-PONTY, 1994].

The contemplation appeal appears in the very instant of the drawings pause, but

the consciousness that he is not necessarily finished and that the possibilities to modify

it completely are opened permanently, becomes the adopted form in that instant,

ephemeral. The drawing is in that based form, but it is not of that based form. This

condition will become still stronger for the public, because in the work presented thedrawings are shown sequentially, generating an animation movie. As Couchot: The

contemplation demands the stop of the look at least when it is accustomed to the

determined relation with the image, as that one that is given to us, imposed by the

perspective to the central projection. In the movie projection, this contemplation is

incessantly interrupted by the transformation of images [COUCHOT, 2003].

The conditions for the continuous transformation of the drawing are submitted,

obviously, to the medium, where it is being produced. The paper possesses one

definitive resistance; the graphite is more susceptible to the deletion than watercolor.

Continuously it is possible to keep its character of to be expose to a new conception,

leaving it free of the form. However, it is necessary to notice the possible way of the

collage, for example, would become the work of art endowed with another complexity

imposed by an external circumstance and this would move it away from the point of

view of this article that threats the drawing as something more instinctive, becoming it


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perhaps inappropriate for the approach proposed here.

There is a more intriguing question still in this approach. As what was said

previously, the drawing is a medium that resists well to the time. It does not submit

itself to the time and thus arriving to the end. It is necessary to discuss more about it.

All material things can be transformed, by varying only its resistance and, into

the contemporary art notion where everything is allowed, everything is possible, a new

approaching can perfectly be launched. However, the interest that prevails at this

moment in this work is the drawing as a process capable to be part of a system that

interacts to the perception, trying to reach different perceptions than the traditional

process drawing. This is the scope of this work that treats the question of the time in the

drawing process. The drawing act possesses a very close relation to the perceptive

mechanism and in this field, the time is not capable to finish the process. The changes

are attributes detected by the perception and it is what give us the dimension of the time

that passes, when this arrangement goes to the thinking domain: The certainty of the

idea does not base the certainty of the perception, but it lies in it while is the experience

of the perception that teaches us the passage of a moment to another one and searches

the unit of the time. In this direction, all the consciousness is perceptive, exactly the

consciousness of ourselves [MERLEAU-PONTY, 1990].

In the drawing process, the time is counted from the moment when, for example,

the graphite touches the paper. So, how it is possible to advance in this perceptiveactivity, exploring this probable capability the drawing has to change itself perpetually?

It is when we ask about this point in the process that we start to understand better the

possibilities that are supported by the digital drawing.

CONTOURCONTOURCONTOURCONTOUR

The artistic production accomplished in the experience provided by thecomputer can reach a new range of sensations and approaches that allows perceptive

exercises different than those offered by the traditional methods. This experience

changes the art, because as Couchot, they are applied in the control of images, allowing

them to be registered, treated, transmitted, conserved and manipulated. Such techniques

interest the artists who look new inquiries in the field of the perception [COUCHOT,


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1993]. Just the consciousness that the digital experience extends our possibilities,

increases the senses, gives opportunities for simultaneous actions and challenges our

reasoning, creating the sensation of an environment that seems to belong to another

reality, where established arrangements created by the human condition, can be

manipulated as, for example, the passing of time.

In the traditional drawing process, the work can begin from a sheet of white

paper or to interfere on a photography from a newspaper page or also, the continuity of

a watercolor kept some months ago. What we verify in these examples is that the time

intervenes in the transformations and possibilities of the drawing. A work takes a

certain time. The results of the process will be different considering the simple fact to

have passed a greater or lesser time until the moment that the artist decides to stop. If

the watercolor will be continued later, depending on the conditions of the place where it

has been kept, it will have some transformations that will be able to occur, since de

action of a clothing-moth or a deformation of the support. It is as if the drawing had

maintained its production process, because if the artist restarts it and accepts these

transformations, he will be approving and incorporating them to his work. These are

known and interesting aspects of the traditional way. They are aspects that may be

considered in the analysis of such processes as intrinsic to the method.

During the drawing action we add lines, traces and blotches, besides of rubbing

out and eventual blots. This occurs in a chronological sequence determined by thedecisions of the artist in each moment: are drawn long lines, sometimes short and quick

traces, covering larger areas with light and dark blotches; the elements overlap each

other. These are arrangements that express a perceptive set, a structure that mounts itself

from consciousness and unconsciousness sensations and, while this formation emerges,

its configuration exerts more and more influence to the following steps. Therefore, we

can imagine if this configuration had another nature, that is to say, if the chronology of

this structure had considered a different ordering of several elements of the

composition, the genesis of the drawing could to generate a new set of possibilities,changing this arrangement. The nature of the drawing in the traditional way implies to

be submitted to these parameters that are linked to the temporal aspect. And the

subversion of these factors can be a way that allows new perspectives in the drawing

process. Taken to the conditions that the digital environment offers, the drawing can

find a renewed fertility.


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GRA_BITGRA_BITGRA_BITGRA_BITTIPTIPTIPTIP

The digital drawing experience using a graphic tablet is an action compared to

the traditional method, but different in aspects such as the visualization of the action.

When the pen is doing the movement, that is to say, when the drawing gesture is done

on the pad, any mark is done on it. All results are seen in the screen. Other aspect to

take into account is the small gestures, because is necessary to move only the hand,

even to make a long line, but it does not mean be impossible to do drawings of big

dimensions, because the software represents the dimension in the scale that was set it

up. The physical act itself is almost the same compared with the traditional act of the

drawing, but the perceptive part and the feeling caused by the involvement of the

drawing is from another order. The involvement referred here is felt due the

circumstances that the existence of an interface causes when it mediates the relation

between the artist and the machine.

The universe of possibilities allowed by the technology changes our perception,

traditionally fitted by the nature and the access to them is mediated by the software

interfaces. An interface is defined as an application that gives form to the interaction

between a user, in this case, an artist, and the computer. This interaction is a semantic

relation based in meaning and expression and not by physical force [JOHNSON, 2001].

The feeling perceived in the drawing that uses digital technology exists due to

this particular medium, characterized for example, by the dialogue with the tools

supplied by the software. And such tools only can be really understood by the artist, due

to the proposition of the interfaces. What is perceived therefore, is an environment

where references as concrete space, temporality, consummation, origin and ending are

distorted or even do not exist. When a drawing is created and digitally stored in the

computers hard disk, it is, not copied, but cloned, because if it will be distributed by a

network and open up in another computer, for example, it will be exactly the same. It

will be able to appear, eventually, with differences, if the visualization devices will be

different, but its integrity and its essence will be the same, replicated.


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THE POINTTHE POINTTHE POINTTHE POINT

The drawing is an ancient way of expression and its technique is basically the

same since the first impressions done by the man. The supports and materials have been

changed, submitted by the functions that are attributed it.

The appearing of digital medium changes the drawing way radically, revealing a

new range of techniques proposed by the softwares.

In the arts context is important the register of this changing in the drawing,

aside to the maintenance of the traditional techniques. The description of part of these

techniques in the artistic field and its relations to the propositions of this work shows all

complexity that the drawing acquired with the technology.

In this vision, the drawing subverts the chronology of the process, and it meets

new possibilities in the layers resource. Currently, there are many programs with the

layers tool. It is a tool, which is possible to separate whole drawing in several parts in a

way that is preserved a line, for example, in its integrity, even if another one was drawn

over it. In this way, is possible to use each moment of drawing process separately,

combining, arranging or discarding anything is wanted.

The drawing is the process. The big difference of the digital drawing are all itspossibilities that come along mainly by the application functionalities that become it

more rich in its construction, rich in perceptive possibilities. That condition always was

part of the drawing, but is through the digital process that this becomes transparent.

In the traditional drawing, the elements that were added and even rubbed from

the composition, are occupying the same layer. Like the Kentridges case, referred in

the beginning. When he erases and changes as part of his process, everything that was

modified is lost and gives place to a new conception. Because of that, an action that was

done previously is attached by the subsequent actions and its result is closed, that is to

say, the composition acquired cannot be altered in its course, just transformed, always

from its last condition. And this has influence in the way as the work is perceived.

What happens is a relation between the parts and the whole. With respect to

perception, is verified that is impossible to decompose it, becoming it a simple

disposition of parts or sensations, once the whole is previous to the parts and the whole


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is not an ideal whole [MERLEAU-PONTY, 1990].

This aspect of the process generates a brutal influence in the possibilities

provoked by the perceptions. The drawing is redrawn, destabilizing the form,

maintaining it open and alive. At every moment, the artist is challenged to check the

dimension of the perception ahead him, which does not allows to accept it or to reject it.

Its vibration denotes the unquiet nature of the drawing as a medium that constructs

without it has a foundation properly, occupies the space and soon, after that, leaves it

emptiness. The line demarcates the interior and the exterior, without being inside or out.

The drawing is a piece of work from the consciousness that feeds the unconsciousness.

The drawing emerges, floats, but does not anchors.

As was just mentioned previously, the drawing produced by traditional ways is

submitted to the time. What is presented in a specific drawing done with pencil and

paper is the accumulation of lines, traces, or whatever, that were being put one over the

other, in order to form a structure. The arrangement that follows a chronological

ordering is impossible to recover each moment represented by the choices or impulses.

The digital drawing allows to be executed, isolating each moment in transparent

layers. Therefore, it does not matter the sequence which each one of the insertions was

done, because everything can be rearranged, bringing to the top, again, the first traces

that were executed and that, momentarily, can be hidden by the traces that were latterly

done.

In this way, the influence that a specific instant of the process will cause in the

subsequent instants changes or almost not exists. There is less concern in the action

done than what it can cause in the process. There is not necessity to preserve a drawing

area for a subsequent intervention, for example.

In this way, is possible to affirm that the digital drawing never finds its definitive

moment. Even if nothing more will be added, there will still be the concrete possibility

to reconfigure and to know what more he keeps besides that momentary form which heappears.


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FLIPFLIPFLIPFLIP----BOOKBOOKBOOKBOOK

These digital drawings hold in each one, many dynamics propositions. And to

exhibit them, some video footages are produced.

The real intention with these videos is to show the drawing process, not as a

document, but as a way to demonstrate the perceptive exercise. Is interesting that it can

be understood that what there was before was the drawings and while they was, its

nature was another totally different comparing to its representation as a movie. The

movie ties the drawings. The movie subversion indicates other directions, but the

drawing is subversive by nature. The drawing does not keep accommodated. It is always

going on. Everything can be added to it and anything in it can be removed. Any surfacehas a potential drawing in stand by. And even this surface, is bounded by a drawing.

For that reason, becoming the drawing process the movies object, means give

an opportunity, through the perception, that in the beginning, everything that seems

hermetic, can be open to other visions. Other movies are possible. This is what the

drawing takes to the sequential treatment. In the sequential way, the drawing acquires

the motion. It is by the digital reproducibility that the process recovers itself and still in

that conception, it is submitted to the time, is the certainty of the drawing and its

insubordinate essence that guarantees the possibility of other conceptions. The drawing

process rescued by the movie is an invitation to the perspective change, suggesting

another point of view.

The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality,the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is atremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That ofthe painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists ofmultiple fragments, which are assembled under a new law.

Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by thefilm is incomparably more significant than that of the painter,since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoingpermeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect ofreality that is free of all equipment. And that is what one isentitled to ask from a work of art [BENJAMIN, 1985].

The drawing lends its accomplishment so that its process then can be shared and


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discussed. In fact, the result is no more a drawing and starts to represent the drawings,

because in this new medium, they became slaves of the time. But despite in the movies,

the drawings are representations of its process, they properly, stay open and free,

protected of the action of the time in the digital way.

CONCLUSCONCLUSCONCLUSCONCLUSIONIONIONION

There is not complexity or simplicity in the drawing. These definitions are

thoughts that appear when its process is analyzed. When something is drawn, is created

a bridge that opens a flow that comes from unknown places and surprises when it is

discovered. The drawing is an opportunity to have no certainty of anything and no

doubting if something is possible.Was given to the contemporary art, the task of taking sequence to the all of the

modern doubts. So, that new directions could be found, nothing was denied to,

everything is allowed to. The challenge has been to take advantage of this freedom, so

that, inserted in our moment, be possible to offer a way of reflection. Thanks to this

search, the drawing was discovered as a replete way of ramifications and it has paid

attention to many artists whom search through it, a change in the point of view until

then applied.

New techniques that has been developed and that has allowed new

experimentations initially to the motion pictures and to the photography and currently

arrived to all media, has also created new languages endowed of hybridization. They

equip the artist for searching new formulations.

The art that uses the digital ways is not more important than one that uses

traditional attributes. Actually, the techniques and the environments of new sensorial

experiences are still trying to consolidate in some concepts, while a generation that was

born inside of this era of fast technological progress, searches in the history, whichsubjects are in suspension and that await definitions.

The drawing process reveals with the experience digital, a richness of new

propositions and investigations to the contemporary art scenario, supplying to the public

new parameters for the reflection.

The exhibition of the artistic process, embed the work roots in the object and


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gives to it, a larger resistance to the pressures that permeate the system. The artistic

production that keeps open to the fruition, exercises a protagonist role in the discussion

regarding the contemporary art alike the public, when tracking some of the ways tracked

by the artist has the possibility to insert in this perceptive context and to contribute

indeed in the existence of the work.

REFERENCESREFERENCESREFERENCESREFERENCES

BENJAMIN, WALTER. A Obra de arte na era de sua reprodutibilidade tcnica. In:OBRAS ESCOLHIDAS MAGIA E TCNICA, ARTE E POLTICA. 1ed. So Paulo. Editora Brasiliense, 1985. p. 165-196.

COUCHOT, EDMOND. Da representao simulao. In: PARENTE, ANDR(Org.). IMAGEM MQUINA: A ERA DAS TECNOLOGIAS DOVIRTUAL. 1 ed. So Paulo. Editora 34, 1993. p. 37-47.

COUCHOT, EDMOND. A Tecnologia na Arte: da Fotografia Realidade Virtual.1 ed. Porto Alegre. Editora da UFRGS, 2003. p. 67-81.

HOPTMAN, LAURA. Drawing Now: Eight Propositions. New York. The Museum ofModern Art, 2002. p. 11-12.

JOHNSON, STEVE. Cultura da Interface. Rio de Janeiro. Jorge Zahar Editor, 2001.p-15-35.

MERLEAU-PONTY, MAURICE. O Primado da Percepo e suas ConseqnciasFilosficas. Campinas, So Paulo. Papyrus Editora, 1990.

MERLEAU-PONTY, MAURICE. Fenomenologia da Percepo. 1 ed. So Paulo.Martins Fontes Editora, 1994. p. 83-110.

ROSE, BERNICE. Drawing Now. New York. The Museum of Modern Art, 1976. p. 9-14.


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APPENDIXAPPENDIXAPPENDIXAPPENDIX

DrawingsDrawingsDrawingsDrawings


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Still from Janelas by M.H. Borba 2006

digital drawing 600px X 800px


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Still from Caf by M.H. Borba 2006



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untitled by M.H. Borba 2006



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Marta 00135 by M.H. Borba 2006



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untitled by M.H. Borba 2007



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humani by M.H. Borba 2007


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