Pictorial Processes as

Spatial Strategies

By: Verónica Lehner

Thesis Raumstrategien / Master of Arts
Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee
Advisor: Frederic Schröder
Berlin, 2009

1
Table of Contents

1. Pictorial, Process, Space …………………………………………………... 3

1.1 The course of Painting ……………………………………………………… 4

1.2 Back to the “Leib” ……………………………………………………… 14

2. Dieter Mersch: Kunst und Medium (Art and Medium)

2.1 How can medium be defined? ............................................................... 20

2.2 Perceptual and discursive media ……………………………………………. 21

2.3 The process of image perception ……………………………...................... 22

3. About pictorial processes …….…………………………………………….. 24

3.1 The mundane but particular …………………………………………………. 24

3.2 Pictorial Processes in relational space …………………………………….. 28

3.3 Encounters in relational space:

Pictorial Processes and
“small gestures” …………………………………………………………….. 34

4. Conclusion …………………………………………………………….. 37

Bibliography ……………………………………………………………... 40

2
1. Pictorial, Process, Space

Ever since Minimalism, the discussion of space in relation to art has become more
oriented towards perception rather than representation or abstraction. Perhaps
because of its three-dimensional quality, sculpture has always been at the center of
these analyses while painting has remained at the margins. However, as notions of
space develop, it is pertinent to bring in other disciplines within the arts into the
discussion. Does painting offer any possibilities to deal with new spatial concepts, and
if so, must it change its course in another direction? Can pictorial processes be
regarded as spatial strategies? Is it possible to make space-constituting relations
perceivable through this approach?

This thesis deals with the possible ways in which painting can broaden its scope of
action in order to address spatial questions. On the one hand, why is it at all relevant to
bring painting into the discussion of space? What can be gained from this perspective?
Some artistic positions dealing with the relation between space and painting will first
offer a gateway into the problematic, describing ways of working and approaches both
towards painting and space. This will be further analyzed by means of the theories of
Gernot Böhme, Lyotard and Henri Lefebvre, dealing with the division of the discursive
and perceptual and the possibilities that the latter has to offer in our “leibliche”
experience of the world. The other important question in this analysis is how can
painting dispose itself of limiting notions and become flexible enough - in a sense as
well “updated” - in order to deal with the subject of space? I propose to think of
painting in terms of “pictorial processes”. For this purpose, the possibilities of painting
3
will be analyzed first from a medium-theoretic standpoint, focusing on Dieter Mersch’s
investigation of the basic conditions for mediality and the perceptual processes
involved in the encounter of an image. This will then extend into the role of perception
in the various phases involved in a work of art and the existence of it in stages prior to
reception, even previous to creation. Moving from painting towards the “pictorial
process”, the role of processes and actions in the constitution of space will be then
examined on the basis of Martina Löw’s definition of relational space.

Additionally, another author relevant to this study is Mika Hannula. In his book The
Politics of Small Gestures, he proposes the “small gesture”* as a new possibility to deal
with contemporary notions of site-specific art that must deal with its context and
purpose within it, and the role it plays in the perception of our surroundings. A
comparison between the “small gesture” and the “pictorial process” is also pertinent to
researching the possibilities of pictorial processes as spatial strategies.

1.1 The course of Painting

A phrase going around during the 19th century and later coined by Duchamp, “Bête
comme un peintre” or “As dumb as a painter” may have more to it than a mere belittling
comment. In fact, it might be getting just precisely to the core of painting. Duchamp,
who had been a painter himself, soon abandoned this practice in favor of one better
suited for criticizing the art establishment of the time, as his spatial pursuits within
painting soon translated into a special new interest on the exhibition space. Taking
ready-made objects out of their usual context and presenting them in the museum as
art, Duchamp disrupted the governing structures of art institutions and society in order
to reveal the discourses underlying them. Furthermore, art itself was shaken and
questioned, reverberations on which contemporary art is founded. More and more, art
rooted itself on language, on significations, symbols, signs and plays of meaning in a
quest for a proper definition of art that really got to its essence and purpose.
Furthermore, as the term Art rattled and shook, other disciplines started to permeate
and influence its direction. Art, in its hope for meaning, for a response to social, political
and historical advents, became a means of communication, until it eventually could be

*
Term used by author Mika Hannula to describe “Chances and Challenges for Contemporary Art” in his
book The Politics of Small Gestures, 2006. For full reference see: chapter 3.3, pg. 32
4
read and interpreted as a text rather than staying at a purely “retinal” level. Painting,
which had always operated either on a perceptual level or was simply an instrument for
representation, began to be considered banal and superficial, as it did not seem to
have a meaning or a function, but rather presented itself to the spectator in a much-too-
mute-to-be-intellectual fashion. Moreover, as the pictorial turn became substituted by
the spatial turn, the static work of art took a second stance to the action or event. The
performative aspect of art became much more relevant in addressing an ever more
dynamic and changing concept of space, and painting on the other hand, a much too
millenary practice deeply inscribed in tradition, seemed to not respond satisfactorily to
the new inquiries. Moreover, painting's counted efforts in the performative direction
were soon labeled as something other than painting, were dismissed as marketing
stunts or macho bravado exhibitions.

Artists from earlier generations like Jackson Pollock, Richard Long or Yves Klein
experimented with natural phenomena like gravity and the body's influence on the work
of art without the interference of tools. Actions such as walking, dripping, splashing,
collecting, or even smearing nude women with paint so they would leave their blue
mark on the canvas were some of the processes used in this endeavor. Although they
paved the way for the later Performance, Installation, Body Art, Land Art and
Conceptual Art, they were still working with the container-like notion of space and not
really delving into the matter of what space is, if it can be produced, and if so, how.
They were also more concerned with the physical qualities of space and less with the
possibility of social relations also being a constituent part of it. Why they are pertinent
for this discussion is either because they declared that their work in painting is spatial
themselves, or because critics, curators and others regarded their advancements in
painting as expanding “into” space.

Pollock, on the one hand, was more interested in exposing his turbulent emotions than
on why action painting was relevant to the subject of space. The corporeal expression
of emotions as well as leaving behind traditional tools associated with painting, were
the emphasis of his work. He was also deeply inscribed in the tradition of male painters
who exhibited a quite macho-oriented behavior, what unfortunately gained excessive
importance in the art historic analysis of his work and most definitely did not do
wonders for renewing the notion of painting.

5
 Fig. 1

On her part, Katharina Grosse, a contemporary female painter, also left the traditional
brush for a spray gun, making it possible for her to cover colossal surfaces with paint.
Her work has also fallen into the category of a spatial approach to painting and to some
extent has a more procedural character as she brings in surfaces used before into new
installations. She has also done various works in renowned institutions, disrupting their
forms and discourse-impregnated architecture with paint. Her way of working situates
her together with those artists working on-site. Still, her work tends to not take into
consideration spatial relations other than the physical like the context, tending to not be
site-specific despite working within the space. On the other hand, her “anarchic” way of
working, as critics like to say, does not really exhibit a slow perceptual process of the
qualities to be altered in a given site. In being such an extreme gesture, it stops being
an irritation or subtle alteration of the site and becomes more of a personality, which
does not take into consideration the elements already given by the site but seeks to
destroy them and take their place. In this sense, what could be a humble, “small
gesture”*, which could redefine the boundaries of painting and be an exploration of its
process, becomes an arrogant, feathery, too obvious attempt at questioning institutions,
including painting and architecture. In way of comparison, it resembles an opaque,
colorful street-art piece covering a wall instead of one that uses details such as cracks

Fig. 1
Jackson Pollock Painting, Summer 1950, photograph by Hans Namuth,
http://www.sfasu.edu/pubaffairs/pressreleases/january2007/17-photographs.asp
* Term used by author Mika Hannula to describe “Chances and Challenges for Contemporary Art” in his
book The Politics of Small Gestures, 2006. For full reference see: chapter 3.3, pg. 32
6
 Fig. 2

or nails on the wall to develop. All the more, it fails to do so as soon as it joins the
gestural abstract-expressionist legacy, its only link to space remaining its great
dimension, taking us back to Euclidian notions of space.

Moreover, Richard Long was especially interested in a primitive way of working with
materials found in nature just like the people from earlier cultures. Coming from a
sculpture background, Richard Long denies the relationship between his work and
painting, as he regards the latter as “too colourful (…) too exotic (…) Paintings are
made with a brush and my mud works are made with my hand...”1 However, many
could regard his “mud works” on paper and walls as very close to traditional painting,
as they exhibit the exotic qualities of china white clay or pigments he got “in Morocco,

Fig. 2
Katharina Grosse, Another Man Who has Dropped His Paintbrush, exhibition at the Galleria Civica di Modena,
Palazzina dei Giardini, 2008-2009. Köln: Verlag Walther König, 2008, pg. 27
1
Richard Long, Walking and Marking. Edinburgh: Scottish National Galleries, 2007, pg. 53
7
 Fig. 2.2

in the Souk”2, as well as the “primitive-like” marks of his hands and the “dripping”
reminiscent of abstract expressionism or “neo primitivist”, “naif” movements such as the
Cobra. Like him, many artists avoided being a part of anything that had to do with
painting, as it was, and is still seen today by some, as a puppet of the market, as
conventional, banal and not “contemporary”. Nonetheless, such manifestations could
have actually helped to do further research on the relationship between painting and
space along the course of their mutual changes, instead of just being pushed into
another medium category. Additionally, although this is perhaps an effort to not be part
of the popular “art as commodity” wave, it could also be regarded as a marketing
strategy: move as far away from painting as possible, and be part of the innovative,
convention-breaking trend of the moment. On the other hand, nowadays, when even
sharks in formaldehyde have become commodities, notions such as specific and

Fig. 2.2
Katharina Grosse, Another Man Who has Dropped His Paintbrush, exhibition at the Galleria Civica di Modena,
Palazzina dei Giardini, 2008-2009. Köln: Verlag Walther König, 2008, pg. 37
2
Richard Long... 2007, pg. 53
8
enclosed media appear quite obsolete. Richard Long's work was all the more greatly
important in the exploration of materials and their particular qualities as well as of
alternative places for art besides the white cubes.

Fig. 3

Fig. 3
Richard Long, Untitled 2006. Richard Long, Walking and Marking. Edinburgh: Scottish
National Galleries, 2007, pp. 81
9
 Fig. 4

Fig. 5 Fig. 6

On his part, Yves Klein considered himself “a painter of space” as he stated at his
exhibition Yves Klein: Monochrome und Feuer in 1961 in Krefeld3. The “space” he
was talking about was a “sensorially perceivable, mute and timeless 'Farbraum'” or

Fig. 4
Richard Long, Untitled 1995. Richard Long, Walking and Marking. Edinburgh: Scottish National Galleries, 2007, pp.
69
Fig. 5
Richard Long, River Avon Mud Circles, France 2002, Richard Long, Walking and Marking. Edinburgh: Scottish
National Galleries, 2007, pp. 37
Fig. 6
Richard Long, River Avon Mud Hand Circles, James Cohan Gallery New York, 2000. Richard Long, Walking and
Marking. Edinburgh: Scottish National Galleries, 2007, pp. 74
3
Charlet, Nicolas. Yves Klein. München London New York: Prestel Verlag 2000, pg. 9
10
'color space', which did not rely on an underlying form.4 From this perspective, space is
still something that contains, which can be “filled” up with the material presence of
“pure” color, making painting expand “into” space. Although space is still conceived as
an object that we “enter”, at least his monochromes do lead towards a notion of
pictorial as something which creates an encounter, a very important building block for
further media theory. Painting for him, on the other hand, presents a finished “product”
and is not focused on the process, or the spatial relations, and owes its existence
pretty much solely to color: intense, “pure”, and even patented color.

Fig. 7

Furthermore, in his Anthropometries series, the process of creation is exhibited,

coming closer to a space based on relations which can be experienced, but remaining
static, as it is still “out there” to be conquered, and is not continually changing and
being produced. These attempts are all the more reduced to the autonomous “fine
arts”, not giving much importance to the everyday or the habitual. They are clearly
separated from life, as there is no question that they are an “artistic event”, a
performance, despite Yves Klein's efforts at linking art and life. Wearing a suit, Yves
Klein even directs the women, one way or another, so they leave their mark on the
canvas: a very solemn act demonstrating his geniality as he directed the “symphony”.
However, he definitely remains a highly important figure in the development of painting,

4
Charlet, 2000, pg. 56, my translation
Fig. 7
Yves Klein, Relief on the wall of the music theater foyer, Gelsenkirchen, 1958-1959. Charlet,Nicolas. Yves Klein,
München London New York: Prestel Verlag 2000, pp. 107
11
pushing it towards the performative and breaking with its traditional notions and
purpose, still not yet outfitted with the more contemporary spatial thinking.

Fig. 8

Fig. 9

Fig. 8
A sweat-cloth emerges, 14, rue Campagne-Première, Paris, 1960. Charlet, Nicolas. Yves Klein, München London
New York: Prestel Verlag 2000, pp. 171
Fig. 9
Yves Klein, Performance Anthropometrien der blauen Epoche, Galerie internationale d'art contemporain, 9. März
1960. Charlet, Nicolas. Yves Klein, Mü nchen London New York: Prestel Verlag 2000, pp. 161
12
As the previous artistic positions show, the course of painting has been a very long and
is still an ongoing process. Lyotard describes it as follows:

What is at stake in this dialectic is the question,

'What is painting?', and what keeps the dialectic moving is
the refutation of what was done or has just been done: no,
that wasn't indispensable to painting either. Painting thus
becomes a philosophical activity: the rules of formation of
pictural images are not already stated and awaiting
application. Rather, painting has as its rule to seek out
these rules of formation of pictural images, as philosophy
has as its rule to seek out the rules of philosophical
5
sentences.

More than rules, I would like to call them possibilities. Possibilities to deal with the
changes we perceive in the world, with the changes of perception itself and the
exploration of it; our way of thinking about space for example, of perceiving it and
shaking what we “know”. Therefore, the question seems to hang in the air, as painting
keeps expanding its limits and art keeps questioning itself: does painting offer any
possibilities to address spatial questions? Or does it automatically become something
else when trying to deal with this field? In approaching more challenging notions of
space since the spatial turn*, traditional ways of working need to be analyzed in a new
light and transformed so that they may be incorporated in the exploration and
investigation of these issues. If space is no longer a container and is continuously
being constituted, how must the relationship space-painting change? How can we re-
think painting in order for it to function in relation to space? All the more, being a non-
discursive perceptual process, can painting, in becoming performative and focusing on
its various processes, become a spatial strategy? Or, can it be that language and
semantics have all the questions and answers to be questioned and answered about
that increasingly challenging notion, space? It could be that intense perceptual
processes as well as experience not yet permeated by rationality or predetermined
structures offer an equally detailed and accurate description of relations in space, as
well as an alternative gateway into analyzing them. Is it possible for spatial relations,
otherwise invisible, to become perceptible through pictorial processes?

5
Lyotard, Jean-François, transl. G. Bennington and R. Bowlby. The Inhuman, Reflections on Time.
Stanford University Press, Stanford, California,1991, pg. 121
*
Spatial Turn is a term used to refer to the change of paradigm in the Cultural and Social Studies, in which
not only the question of time remained relevant but also the question of space started to permeate all
disciplines. Within this analytical framework, such aspects as geography, topology and topography
gained importance in the discussions about culture, and in so doing, the existing concepts of space were
also reevaluated.
13
 1.2 Back to the “Leib”

To effectuate an analysis of the possibilities of pictorial processes as spatial strategies,

there are first three core concepts to deal with: pictorial, process and space. For this
end, painting must first be defined in such a way that its intrinsic qualities, its differenzia
spezifica as a medium, may be brought forth, and in so doing, the “pictorial” may be
derived from “image”. This approach from a medium-theoretic standpoint focuses more
on the perceptual processes involved in encountering an image as opposed to the art-
historic perspectives bounded to interpretation and other discursive tools to analyze
painting and its relationship with space. Besides, as briefly recounted previously,
painting as a form of art has changed an extreme amount of times in the past and has
all the more been sometimes condemned to limiting pre-existing notions of it which no
longer apply. Consequently, this approach avoids stagnant conceptions of painting
while also preventing the discussion from going towards such notions of space
representation and subject-object hierarchies that reduce space to an accessible
container, to geometry or an equation. In addition, as the medium-theoretic
approximation applies to all types of images and is not constrained within “Art”, it allows
for a clearer, more direct path towards the process of perceiving space, ignoring value
judgements traditionally present in art criticism and not requiring a learned code for its
appreciation but relying on experience. Lastly, “pictorial”, in being a description more
than an object, is a term no longer confined within the heavy artistic tradition of
“Painting”, flexible and autonomous enough to be used in the context of other media as
well as within the context of relational space. Within this framework, the issue of the
accustomed division between the different media within art and the hesitation towards
crossing those boundaries thus takes a back seat and looses its historically central
standing.

In his attempt at finding that which makes a medium a medium and nothing else, Dieter
Mersch looks for a way of laying out the basic conditions for mediality and its ways of
occurring. For this, he first differentiates two orders of medium: the perceptual* and the

* Dieter Mersch does not provide any information on if he regards sculpture as an image, but I will assume
that sculpture pertains to the perceptual and not to the discursive. Another reason for using the term
pictorial is that it does not seek to exclude sculpture but rather incorporate it in its investigation of
materials and way of working on them. However, pictorial processes are not centered on a question of
form, but rather the perceptual process.
14
discursive media. He lists image and sound under the former and word and number
under the latter.6 Although Mersch then moves the medium “image” towards the
performative when describing the way the image “presents itself”, its “Sich-Zeigen” or
“coming out”, the term pictorial alone lacks the kind of dynamism necessary to get rid of
absolute notions of space and flip to the discussion of relational space. Thus, the term
pictorial must be accompanied by another one which provides a stronger sense of
action. Something that moves and perceives and in so doing changes its position, its
perspective, the elements surrounding itself: process. In triggering movement, it allows
for encounter, for crashes, for questions, for transformation, for perception, it becomes
experience. The term process implicitly carries the dynamic relation between time and
space within it, which when changed, produces other series of relations. These
relations are of different natures, as are the practices and processes carried out by
subjects or objects. Thus a pictorial process can be understood as one in which the
core characteristics of painting have been not only extracted but also activated in order
to make relations perceivable and thus analyzable.

But, what does the term relational space imply? Why are relations relevant in the
context of space? Relational implies something that changes depending on a certain
subject's standpoint. For Martina Löw, in the first place, space is something that can be
constituted. This immediately brings up two issues: one, the question how is space
constituted? and two, it suggests that the possibility of a “true”, “immutable”, “static”
space which you “enter” is ruled out completely.7 The concept of absolute space is one
that has been arduously discussed and questioned lately, as it seems to fail in
providing an appropriate term to work with when dealing with the social aspects of
space. Referred to as the space from physics, the Euclidean absolute space is that big
box in which we have been culturally conditioned to live (and in which terms we have
been conditioned to think as well), fixed and eternal, existing mainly in equations and
physics theories but also in geographical, geopolitical or demographic statistics
amongst others. Highly abstract, this perspective of space becomes too rigid to include
the individual, society or the numerous new and complex phenomena arising in the
present world, such as globalization, accelerated information exchange, the unbounded
growth of cities and populations, and the subdivisions and subcultures deriving from it.

6
Mersch, Dieter. Zwei Vorlesungen, Band III Kunst und Medium. Materialreihe der Muthesius Hochschule
Kiel, published by Klaus Detjen and Theresa Georgen, 2002, pg. 169
7
Löw, Martina. Raumsoziologie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, 2001
15
On the other hand, the concept of espace, goes back to the latin root spatium more
than to the germanic root rûm, which is more of a definite place or localization. Espace
includes a space for “freie Bewegung” or free movement, from which the word
spazieren in german language derives, bringing into play a “time interval”. In this way,
this term leads to the conception of space as relational and dynamic, functioning as the
opposite of the former. According to Jörg Dünne and Stephan Günzel, “Raum and
espace lead towards two very different positions within the theory of space: on one side
towards the assumption of an absolute and territorial fixation and on the other hand a
relational situatedness as a starting point...”8 In this way, there is a historical, linguistic
as well as a theoretical breech between two notions of space, the latter being ever-
changing depending on the focus given to one or more of its various levels. Analyzing
space under the light of sociology, for Martina Löw, people are not only an element that
constitutes space but people are continually producing space. Through people's action
of situating social goods and at the same time being placed and displaced themselves
by others, different spaces emerge.9 This idea of space allows for a more accurate
study of diverse social phenomena and the relations between people and their
surroundings. These relations tend to be imperceptible, however it is possible to
recognize the spaces constituted by them. In using pictorial processes in this spatial
context, these relations, otherwise difficult to grasp, can be made explicit.

So why should a medium such as painting, ascribed to the order of perception, that has
to undergo so many changes to become suitable for the discussion of space, be even
used in this context? One of the reasons is better highlighted by Gernot Böhme,
regarding the problems that the division between discursive and perceptive media have
generated in the course of developing an aesthetic theory that does not only take into
account art but also space. For one, Böhme states that the monopolization of the
discursive over the perceptual in contemporary aesthetic theories has given way to an
“Urteilsästhetik” or an aesthetic based on judgements of value.10 This aesthetic theory,
predominant until now, turns its back on the origins of the Greek word aisthesis, which
was based on experiencing something happening through the senses, what led to
practically shutting out nature and the sensory awareness inherent of “leibliches

8
Raumtheorie, Grundlagentexte aus der Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften. Hsg. Von Dünne,Jörg und
Stephan Günzel, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp Verlag, 2006, pg. 10 - My translation from the original
quote in German: “Raum und espace verweisen somit auch auf zwei sehr unterschiedliche
raumtheoretische Positionen: auf die Annahme einer absoluten, territorialen Bindung einerseits und auf
den Ausgangspunkt einer relationalen Verortung andererseits...”
9
Löw, 2001, pg. 158
10
Böhme, Gernot, Atmosphäre. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1995, pg. 23
16
spüren”, or “feeling-perceiving through the lived-body”.

Furthermore, this dominance of language also assumes an intention of meaning on the

part of the artist or even demands it from the work of art. Böhme proposes however,
that it is not necessarily true that “a work of art is a symbol, as far as a symbol is
always referring to something else... Not every work of art has a meaning. On the
contrary, one should always abide by a work of art being first of all something in itself
that possesses its own actual existence.”11 Taking into account the dissolution of the
former concept of image in the arts, for example, Böhme stresses the appearance of
works that do not say anything, do not illustrate anything and do not mean anything.
Finally, the course taken by aesthetic theory towards a critical art theory also brought
with it the consequence of categorizing some manifestations of aesthetic work as “high”
or “fine” art, as opposed to “handicraft”, kitsch or “applied arts”. Following these
parameters, all kinds of aesthetic work are to be measured with the scale of fine arts,
without taking into account other aspects of these manifestations also relevant to
aesthetics.12 This brings with itself a “fine art” that is too autonomous to reflect on the
more and more aesthetized everyday, and the various practices that produce our
surroundings.

Böhme thus proposes an alternative to this one-tracked approximation to art, a new

aesthetic theory that prioritizes a more expansive view of aesthetics. This new theory
should encompass all aesthetic manifestations instead of defining what is art and what
is not art. It is a theory of perception, “understood as the experience of the presence of
people, objects and environment”.13 Moreover, it should help us to develop ways of
discussing and talking about non-discursive media, without being obliged to incur in
negations, interpretations or relegating “mute” works to triviality.

In addition, in keeping spatial relations out of the discursive, other aspects of them
might come to light as those offered by semantics, as discourse is itself bound to power
structures. According to Henri Lefebvre, “any attempt to use such codes [worked out
from literary texts] as a means of deciphering social space must surely reduce that

11
Böhme,1995, pg. 23, my translation from the original quote in German: “Ebensowenig...
daß ein Kunstwerk ein Zeichen ist, insofern ein Zeichen immer auf etwas anderes verweist... Nicht
jedes Kunstwerk hat eine Bedeutung, im Gegenteil muss man daran festhalten, dass ein Kunstwerk
zuallererst selbst etwas ist, eine eigene Wirklichkeit besitzt”.
12
Böhme, 1995, pg.25
13
Böhme, 1995, pg. 23-24, my translation from the original quote in German: “Dabei wird Wahrnehmmung
verstanden als die Erfahrung der Präsenz von Menschen, Gegenständen und Umgebungen”.
17
space itself to the status of a message, and the inhabiting of it to the status of a
reading.”14 He further discusses that in order to consider space a message there must
be someone who has in advance inscribed a message into it within a context of
“conventions, intentions and order.”15 This eventually leads to “do's and don'ts”,
therefore is based on prohibitions and a sense of someone or something ruling the
chaos. Under these at times implicit, at times quite explicit power structures, the
diversity of space is forgotten, together with the dynamism of the activities it triggers
and in turn create it, as well as the idea that space is something that must be lived and
experienced. It thus resembles more of a container, with clearly demarcated areas to
enter and exit, abstract absolute space, much like the yellow lines on the floor marking
a special squared space for smokers in German train stations.

Lyotard on the other hand, who also happened to dedicate a chapter of his book The
Inhuman to the sublime and the 'now' inherent to modern abstract painting, also
analyzes the effects of the division of discursive and perceptual. He states that we all
live in “a world of inscriptions already there” and thus “think” or question from those
inscriptions.16 He further develops that “if we think, this is because there's still
something missing in this plenitude and room has to be made for this lack by making
the mind a blank”, what in turn allows that “something else”, which is “thought”, to
“happen”.17 Although this then must be inscribed as well, this occurrence, this moment
of thought, this “discomfort” and this not knowing, is indispensable for breaking with a
machine-like existence, to really experience. Therefore, “thought is inseparable from
the phenomenological body.”18 This shows how spatial relations are not only discursive
but greatly rely on perception. When codes fail to provide all the answers, the “Leib”
and its experience of the perceived can also set in motion ways of approaching and
investigating our relation to the world.

In this same line of thought but from a very phenomenological take, Gernot Böhme
delves into the possibilities of using “Atmospheres” as a spatial concept to work with in
aesthetics, precisely because of their perceptual nature. For Böhme, Atmospheres are
essential to the study of space, as they are directly connected to the way we situate
and find ourselves in the world, they are what forms and affects our self and their core

14
Lefebvre, Henri, transl. Donald Nicholson Smith. The Production of Space. Blackwell Publishing,
Massachussets 2008, pg. 7
15
Lefebvre, 2008, pg. 142
16
Lyotard, 1991, pg. 20
17
Lyotard, 1991, pg. 20
18
Lyotard, 1991, pg. 23
18
is the relationship self to self, self to surroundings and self to the other, or “the common
actual existence of the perceiving and perceived.”19 He first derives this idea from a
theory of nature, which should then help to achieve an “ais-thetic” theory as opposed to
an “aes-thetic” theory, that can better respond to the necessities of a world which was
suddenly confronted with its own “Leiblichkeit” as environmental problems started to
arise. According to Böhme, from this moment on, it became clear that human beings
are not primarily rational beings, but “leibliche” beings, who experience through the
“lived-body” and that the environmental problem is basically a question of the
relationship of human beings to their own selves.20 Furthermore, he points out that
Atmospheres allow the recognition of the human basic need of aesthetics, and in
analyzing the aesthetic in our surroundings and not only in the “fine arts”, it gives way
to the realization that the “Sich-zeigen” or “coming out of itself” and “appearing” is in the
essence of nature.21

In this way, an analysis of space through pictorial processes provides a gateway

towards experience and an alternative to codified structures by which space is usually
defined, described and analyzed. All the same, not only is the phenomenological take
on space important for the relationship of pictorial processes and space, but the
understanding of “medium”. This leads to the term “image” and the mechanism of
perception intrinsic to it, central to the approximation to “the pictorial”.

19
Böhme, 1995, pg. 34 – my translation from the original quote in German: “Die Atmosphäre ist die
gemeinsame Wirklichkeit des Wahrnehmenden und des
Wahrgenommenen”.
20
Böhme, 1995, pg. 14
21
Böhme, 1995, pg. 41
19
2. Dieter Mersch: Kunst und Medium (Art and Medium)

2.1 How can medium be defined?

Despite the various and committed attempts at coming up with an accurate definition
for medium in the past century, it remains a concept highly difficult to grasp. Maybe this
complication has to do with the numerous applications of the term “medium” in
everyday use, or maybe it is the constant talk about new media and technology that
tends to hide its primal attributes. Perhaps it is the medium's ethereal quality that gives
us such difficulties in even coming near to defining it.

According to Dieter Mersch, it is characteristic for a medium to show itself while at the
same time withdrawing.22 A contradiction in itself, a medium conceals itself, as it goes
through its process of mediatization, tending to remain masked as it brings forth
something else. When we look through a window, we tend to not see the glass but that
on the other side of it. It is precisely this intrinsic trait that separates a medium from
being just a means to do something, a mode, an instrument or tool to produce,
process, or investigate something for something. Not only does this approach broaden
the possibilities it can encompass too extremely (as saliva, a hammer, the wind, and a
train would all be then media), but as Dieter Mersch points out, this notion also reduces
the concept of medium into purpose and objective categories. This leaves out the
possibility that a medium can also show something, say something, or bring something
forth. Mersch further states that media enable or make possible, like tools do, however
they remain “virtual” in that they are formed by the “format of disappearing”. It is thus
this special quality media possesses, of dissipating its own “Sein”, of volatilizing and
making its appearance unseizable, that makes a medium a medium, and gives it its
power, its magic, its strangeness, its “Unheimlichkeit”.23

Likewise, media are not “mere passive instruments” but are actually actively involved in
opening up accesses to the world in the first place. They are what enables our

22
Mersch, 2002, pg. 135
23
Mersch, 2002, pg. 136
20
perception, structuring and organizing what we perceive, thus allowing for the
“gestalten” of worlds. This of course includes also a process of dividing and
demarcating, therefore of closing off spaces. Dieter Mersch develops these three
moments of the process, how media enable, structure and narrow down within each
individual medium and states that there is no “Meta-Medium” or definition that crosses
all of them, as the investigation of media leads to non-translatable, heterogeneous
instances. Mersch then comes up with two orders of media: the perceptive and the
discursive. Image and sound pertain to the former and word and number to the latter.
He is nonetheless very careful to point out that this “elementary separation” is only
possible for analytic purposes as their formats or “topoi” tend to blur.24

2.2 Perceptual and discursive media

Perceptual or aisthetic media are those pertaining to “Wahrnehmung” or aisthesis,

which are founded in the senses. These include the optical and acoustic systems but
also the haptic and olfactory. The latter are even more evasive media than the first two,
as they have not been developed as far as the visual and sound, but have stayed in
very intimate contexts, thus exerting an uncontrollable power that triggers emotions
and memories. Perhaps it is because of this reason that they have remained
marginalized and there has been a monopolization of the visual and sonic, or maybe it
is the difficulty they exert in trying to capture them or somehow fix and keep them for a
long period of time. The aisthetic media differentiate from the discursive, in that words
and numbers refer to structures, orders, subtle divisions and breaks, thus to the
construction of differences, logics, languages and grammatic forms. Their basic
elements are the symbol, marks and distinctions, as well as figuration, rules of
transformation and those of composition and rhetoric.25

Although the olfactory and tactile have been the most marginalized, the visual for
example has also been relegated to mere observation. Being intrinsically a spatial
sense, it needs a certain distance in order to be able to function properly. This has lead
to a misuse on the part of actual thought, in order to corroborate obsolete notions of
space, such as inside and outside. The eye tends to totalize and objectivize what it

24
Mersch, 2002, pg. 153
25
Mersch, 2002, pg. 153
21
sees, thus conveniently serving the current division of subject and object, and then
tends to repeat this objectivization.26 This repetition can be a representation, illustration
or pre-sentation, what takes the visual into the discursive. According to Mersch, the
eye's hierarchy in the order of the senses leads to a mathematization of the visual (as
in central perspective in the painting tradition), thus, to the discursive “overwriting” the
aisthetic.27 Therefore, this take on “the visual” not only reduces this medium to
discourse, but everything we perceive, including space. It incurs in an abstraction of the
world into equations, measurement units, and illustrations, forgetting the “leibliche”, that
which we live-perceive with our senses, that which presents itself in its Ekstase.28
Mersch further states, in the same line of thought as Gernot Böhme, that the
dominance of the discursive over the aisthetic has made the most innate quality of
these media, their capacity to occur or happen, to disappear. Both sound and image
are grounded on presence and thus on a unique and “present” presence, a “now”.

Nonetheless, the aisthesis that takes place during the confrontation with an image for
example has been largely replaced by semantic exercises. These wish to interpret,
make “sense”, “understand” or discover a “hidden meaning” in the image, to some
extent forcing the image to talk and neglecting its phenomenological qualities, its
presence and its way of showing itself. It is therefore not to say that images cannot or
may not become discursive but to demand an equal place to perception beside
discourse, that allows for experience and is not only reduced to abstraction. The
Ekstase would thus be the particular way a thing has to show itself, to come out of
itself, to be present. It is a way inherent to a particular thing, its way of being-there, a
manner of its presence.

2.3 The process of image perception

More than trying to define the medium image, it is the process involved in perceiving an
image that is relevant to this analysis. What is so particular to this process? We are

26
Mersch, 2002, pg. 156
27
Mersch, 2002, pg. 157
28
Gernot Böhme describes Ekstase by using this example: „Die Existenz der Tasse ist in dieser Auffassung
der Eigenschaft blau bereits mit enthalten, denn das Blausein ist ja eine Weise der Tasse, dazusein, eine
Artikulation ihrer Präsenz, der Weise ihrer Anwesenheit. Das Ding wird so nicht mehr durch seine
Unterscheidung gegen anderes, seine Abgrenzung und Einheit gedacht, sondern durch die Weisen, wie
es aus sich heraustritt. Ich habe für diese Weisen, aus sich herauszutreten, den Ausdruck ‘die
Ekstasen des Dings’ eingeführt“. Böhme, 1995, S. 33
22
constantly being confronted with different types of images, from billboards, to shop-
windows, to x-rays, to paintings, to videos. However, how do we know that all these are
images? Is it about what they depict? Is it about their being framed? Is it about their
capacity to stand out from a background? Is it their two-dimensionality?

If we consider the very different types of images surrounding us, we can easily come to
the conclusion that what they depict plays absolutely no role in our regarding them as
images.29 If they represent a subject, or are a monochrome surface, or are a pattern on
the wall, we will regard them as images. It also doesn't matter if they are two-
dimensional or not, as we sometimes speak of an image and refer to a mimic or
gesture, a situation, or a person's “presence”. What seems to be important though, is
that the image conveys a kind of being-there that calls the viewer's attention, which
presents itself and demands observation. Dieter Mersch goes further and states that it
doesn't only depend on the presence of the image and how it shows itself, but that
there is an intrinsic quality pertaining to the medium image and that is the reflective
gaze. As we observe an image, the image tends to break the view and reflect it on the
viewer, tends to return it. In showing itself and thus confronting the viewer, the image
itself directs perception not only towards itself, but also towards our recognizing it as an
image. This is what Dieter Mersch refers to as “Chiasmus”, and it is what constitutes
the “Bildlichkeit” or “image-ness” of an image.30 It is precisely this quality that lets us
know we are dealing with an image and this knowledge delivered within images is what
differentiates the process of image perception from other kinds of perception
processes.31 In other words, ”image” cannot be defined but its definition is rather given
by the image itself when it allows us to recognize its “image-ness”.

Therefore, there is no point in trying to define an image by ascribing characteristics to it

as the image gives us the knowledge we need to recognize it as an image. This
perceptual process implies that the world is not something that we fill up with things but
rather the world comes up to us and shows itself. We are neither the sole creators of
our surroundings nor can we determine and name everything in a fixed way. Instead, it
is the perceiver who should try to heighten his/her attention and awareness of that
being revealed to him or her. In addition, to think of images from the standpoint of the
perceptual processes they trigger instead of trying to encase them into a definition,

29
Mersch, 2002, pg. 172
30
Mersch, 2002, pg. 176
31
Mersch, 2002, pg. 176
23
provides a more useful and better routed gateway into analyzing the possibilities of
pictorial processes in space, which are also dynamic and “reflective”.

3. About Pictorial Processes

So what can possibly be meant with “pictorial process”? There are two components to
be analyzed in this term proposition. One is the pictorial, deriving from the image.
Experiencing an image involves a perceptual process as it shows itself to the observer,
but also a specific “image-perception”, showing itself as an image. Therefore, to be
pictorial or not, is not a matter of the materials it is composed of, of two-dimensionality
or framing, but is rather that which can be extracted from the process of perception of
images or the previously mentioned “Chiasmus”: those moments of “two-way seeing”
which allow us to regard something as pictorial while at the same time calling our
attention towards it. Therefore, a pictorial process is, on the one hand, a mediatic
process of perception that functions as the “device”32 image. On the other hand, as a
perceptual process, it can also be characterized as an event, being something that we
experience and towards which we react. Still, it is not only present in the final “image”
or “product” but rather in a succession of events, and thus Chiasmi, that make up a
process. In this way, it not only mediates or facilitates as a device, but is at the same
time a “present presence” or form of “Vergegenwärtigung”, which gives way to
encounters. These encounters in turn ensure the maintenance of process,
indispensable to the dynamic relations constituting space. Whence, the word process
does not allow for the pictorial to be limited to a perceptual process, but rather brings in
the other component relevant to this thesis: relational, dynamic space.

3.1 The mundane but particular

Although we have all been somewhat conditioned to think about images in their
interpretation or discursive sense, many painters, amongst them Cézanne, have tried

32
Mersch, 2002, pg. 249
24
to describe the process of “seeing” or perceiving as one of the stages prior to creation.
As Robert Walser writes in his essay Cézanne-Gedanken:

Er, von dem ich hier rede, schaute sich beispielsweise

diese Früchte, die sowohl alltäglich wie merkwürdig sind,
lange an: Er vertiefte sich in ihren Anblick, in die Haut,
wovon sie straff umspannt sind, in die sonderbare Ruhe
ihres Seins, in ihr lachendes, prangendes,
33
gutmütiges Aussehen.

Not only interested in his genius-like depiction of the fruit, it seems that the longest
process present in Cézanne's painting was that of perceiving, of letting the “Leib”
absorb all the sensory qualities, slowly, as if chewing them to be able to digest them.

Lyotard further mentions Cézanne's hypotheses in his book The Inhuman. According to
him, after having read Cézanne's correspondence, he concluded that what his work
had “at stake” was to regain access to those “little” or “elementary sensations” that
remain hidden under the “hegemony of habitual or classical ways of looking”.34 He
goes on to say that in order to get to this point, Cézanne must have had to undergo an
“interior ascesis” and strip himself of “perceptual and mental prejudices inscribed even
in vision itself”.35 Lyotard goes on to state that for him, the purpose underlying
Cézanne's oeuvre was “to make seen what makes one see, and not what is visible”.36
This points to the common resolution going around art schools: to unlearn everything
that was learned before that point. And what is this about, if not to try and get rid of
discourse and codes and really try to perceive that which is there, which shows itself to
us, which is present in the 'now'? This would explain why art students must endure
hours on end of drawing a model on a mattress, or why they spend most of their first
years drawing a skull from 50 different sides. It is highly doubtful that they are a
mimesis-oriented pursuit, as this type of teaching is still present in even the most
innovative schools. Rather, I think humans have practiced these exercises for years to
try to listen and stop talking.

In synchrony with these thoughts and after an exhaustive study of what can be the aim

33
Walser, Robert in: Das Gedächtnis der Malerei: ein Lesebuch zur Malerei im 20. Jahrhundert. Hrsg. Von
S. Omlin und B. Wismer, Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau, Verlag derBuchhandlung Walther König, Köln,
2000, pg. 43. “He, of whom I here speak, by way of example looked at these fruits, that are as much
mundane as particular, for a long time: He immersed himself in their “Anblick”, in the skin that tightly
envelops it, in the extraordinary calmness of its being, in its laughing, gleaming, good-natured
appearance.” - my translation.
34
Lyotard, 1991, pg. 102
35
Lyotard, 1991, pg. 102
36
Lyotard, 1991, pg. 102
25
of contemporary painting, Lyotard states that for him, “it seems... that the aim of
painting, beyond and by means of all the plots with which it is armed, including the
museum, is to render presence, to demand the disarming of the mind.”37 He further
writes that this is not connected to representation but that it “belongs to voluntary
memory, to the intelligence, to the mind, to what questions and concludes”.38 Lyotard
continues with the following phrase: “But it happens that a yellow... can suspend the
will and the plot of a Marcel. It is this suspension that I should like to call soul: when the
mind breaks into shards (letting go) under the 'effect' of a colour... I want to make it
clear that when I say colour, I mean any pictural matter”.39 Lyotard likes to call it “soul”,
I like to call this suspension “shutting up” in order to contemplate, to experience, to
encounter.

Similarly, Lyotard also dedicates a chapter of his book to “Scapelands”. Here, he

describes the way a baby sees his mother as a landscape. According to him, in order
for a landscape to exist, we must get rid of our sense of place.40 If there is place, there
is no landscape. In the same way, a pictorial perceptual process tries to meticulously
study the qualities of what is being perceived without recurring to anything a priori or at
least delaying its recognition - without naming that “landscape” of skin, wrinkles, hairs,
moles, smells... “Mother”.

In this sense, the pictorial triggers a very particular series of perceptual events which
are not only limited to seeing the final result “image” but can also appear in earlier
stages of production processes. It is also not restricted to the phase of creating,
intervening or transforming, but a pictorial process begins with perceiving: seeing,
touching, smelling, hearing, tasting. It begins with how we find ourselves in the world,
our “situatedness”. These investigations, observations and approaches towards certain
materials, objects or surfaces are also part of the pictorial process as it is then when
we direct our senses towards something in a pictorial way and begin to experience it. It
is only then, when something has our attention, that it can show itself in such a way
that it also calls forth a certain type of treatment, depending on its texture, color or
other material qualities. Here, however, we can further develop Cézanne's hypotheses,
in that for example an apple does not necessarily demand from us that we paint the
color sensations it irradiates onto the canvas, but rather that we research its material

37
Lyotard, 1991, pg. 151 -152
38
Lyotard, 1991, pg. 151 - 152
39
Lyotard, 1991, pg. 151 - 152
40
Lyotard, 1991, pg. 183
26
qualities farther: squash it onto the table so that all its contents are visible or put it
against an inorganic material to highlight its natural qualities. Since we no longer rely
on color or canvas to regard something as pictorial, it would still be pictorial if it involves
the perceptual process of Chiasmus as that which is being perceived shows itself and
awakens further pictorial processes.

Additionally, objects also provoke certain actions or practices that are carried out in
space, like finding, moving, collecting, displacing, documenting, repeating, removing,
returning, etc. In the example of a work of art, these processes would also be
comprised in it and not only those perceptual processes pertaining to the stages of
creation or the final state, the “Werk” or product, but the entire series of actions that led
to it. Furthermore, all the states it goes through after one of these culmination points or
“frozen” points of exhibition are also part of the perceptual process a work of art goes
through: the circulation is interrupted for a brief period, then reinserted in different ways
into the circuit. The artwork as a process also includes the actors carrying out those
practices, those who might be surprised at the fate of their belongings but also those
who are not aware of encountering a work of art.

Thus, a pictorial process would then be a medial process, which functions similarly to
the perceptual process involved in encountering an image. There is a “Chiasmus”,
there is a crossing of the “Blicke” or ways of seeing between perceiver and perceived.
This Chiasmus calls certain actions forth from the part of the perceiver that have to do
with the object or material itself, but also with the spatial relations it is a part of.
Therefore, a pictorial process is a perceptual process (aisthetic process), which is not
limited to a subject and an object alone, or a perceiver and a perceived, but goes
further into the process of the constitution of relational space. Moreover, in being
related to “aisthetic” media, the pictorial process is not interested in being subdued to a
mathematical equation or a semantic figure, but these aspects are all equanimous and
do not try to dominate the other. In this way, a term such as pictorial process opens up
the term “image” or “painting”, expanding the possibilities of perceptual processes onto
other stages without binding it only to an end product and excluding it from spatial
contexts.

27
3.2 Pictorial Processes in Relational Space

As mentioned before, in trying to come up with a more accurate concept of space to

work with in the context of sociology, Martina Löw has used relational space as a
working hypothesis. In order to not assume two separate “realities”, that of space and
that of actions, Martina Löw understands space as “a relational '(An)Ordnung)'* of
bodies, which are in continuous movement and through which the '(An)Ordnung' itself
is constantly being changed”, therefore space is constituted also in time.41 For her, it is
very important to not separate space and actions in order for space to remain dynamic
and avoid notions of space as a container, which do not include social and material
relations. According to Löw, “space and the bodily world are interwoven”.42 Further on
in her book Raumsoziologie, Martina Löw changes the word “bodies” for “soziale
Güter” or “social goods” and proposes her thesis as follows:

Space is a relational '(An)Ordnung' of social goods and

living beings. Space is constituted through two processes
that can be separated analytically, Spacing and
Syntheseleistung. The latter makes the abstraction of
43
ensembles of goods and people into one element.

Although social goods can be of a material or a symbolic nature, Martina Löw refers
mainly to material goods, or goods in their material character. She further notes that in
order to understand the 'Anordnungen' taking place, it is necessary to decipher their
symbolic characteristics. However, she also brings in living beings into her definition of
space, something rather unusual in the theories of space. For her, people are one of
the elements that constitute space and are not only producers of space. People also
place themselves and leave places behind, as much as they can also influence the
character of space through gestures or the use of language. She develops further by

* I have left the word '(An)Ordnung' and the way of writing it as it appears in the original text in German, as
Martina Löw plays here with the words 'Anordnung' or arrangement, and the word Ordnung which means
order, by using both in one. 'Anordnung' in German refers to an order or organization that has come to
be through the process of ordering into, in a certain manner or for a particular reason. 'Ordnung' refers to
ordering or organizing in general while at the same time alluding to the different orders or categories of
things. This ambiguity is left deliberately by Löw to stress that space refers not only to a structure or
order but also to the process or action implicit in the verb 'anordnen': to arrange, to configure, to place in
a certain way or manner, is equally important to the resulting order. 'Anordnung' would thus refer to one
of the aspects constituting space: “Spacing”, while Ordnung refers to the structures involved in the other
aspect, “Syntheseleistung”.
41
Löw, 2001, pg. 131- my translation from the original quote in German: “ (…) eine relationale (An)Ordnung
von Körpern, welche unaufhörlich in Bewegung sind, wodurch sich die (An)Ordnung selbst ständig
verändert.”
42
Löw, 2001, pg. 131 – my translation from the original quote in German: “ (…) Raum und Körperwelt sind
verworben.”
43
Löw, 2001, pg. 160
28
saying that although in comparison to people, social goods would seem to be of a more
passive nature, this is not the case as they also have an effect on people through their
smell or noise for example.

This idea goes back to the previous analysis of images and their way of showing
themselves. Objects or social goods can also provoke certain actions or practices from
people, consequently being everything but passive. A hammer, for example calls forth
hitting something for different purposes, used as an extension of the arm that weighs
more and can resist a bigger impact. Objects can also call forth pictorial processes,
which can be related to their material characteristics, their placement and particular
way of being there. For example, a piece of paper on the floor can provoke someone
interested in the repercussions of private goods in public space, to mark them and
collect them, leaving their trace on the street. It could also generate a need to blow it
away to others. In the same way, the debris of a former wardrobe left beside a house
could move someone to take it to research the material and work on it, as much as it
could lead someone else to use it as a material for construction or to burn it in an
incineration plant. In the same modus operandus of images, objects not only present
themselves, but also show themselves by calling forth certain processes, actions and
interactions. This two-way seeing or chiasmus implies that “social goods” as Martina
Löw calls them, are as active as people in constituting space.

Fig. 10

Fig. 10
Verónica Lehner, photograph from the series mal dies, mal das, mal hier, mal da, intervention in
public space, 2008-2009, Berlin
29
So what can be meant with Spacing* and Syntheseleistung? With Spacing, Martina
Löw refers to such processes constituting space that have to do with erecting, building
or positioning.44 Putting up a commercial banner, a flower vase on a table or building a
fountain in a city would all be examples of Spacing. Additionally, a person placing him
or herself in front of another would also follow a process of Spacing. According to Löw,
spacing is a positioning in relation to other placements or positions and takes into
account both the moment of placement as well as the movement towards the next
position.45 As mentioned before in her definition, these two aspects, Spacing and
Syntheseleistung are only separable for analysis. Space is constituted by both of them
and one's existence is not possible without the other.

* It is important to note that Löw uses an English term – Spacing – instead of the German räumen, which
implies to make place for, to empty out. Meaning mainly to bring something from one place to another,
this would refer to only one “substance” and not to the whole complex of social goods and people in
motion constituting space.
44
Löw, 2001, pg. 158
45
Löw, 2001, pg. 159
30
Fig. 11

On the other hand, with Syntheseleistung Martina Löw refers to “the processes of
perception, association and memory, through which goods and people are combined
and form spaces”.46 When these processes become habitual or are repeated for a
prolonged time, spatial structures are generated, which are, together with temporal
structures, forms of social structures.47 Spatial structures, Löw states, emerge when
the constitution of space becomes inscribed in the form of rules, mostly secured
through resources* and is then embedded in institutions. Although we are in a way
programmed by these structures already inscribed, there are ways of breaking with the
habitual, producing irritation and thus encounters. It may be that the same hammer
mentioned before misses our sight if it is in its place on the tool board. We are used to
seeing it everyday, to the point of not seeing it at all.

Fig. 11
Verónica Lehner, photographs from the series D-14467, intervention in public space, 2008, Berlin-Potsdam
46
Löw, 2001, pg. 159, my translation from the original quote in German: “Zweitens (…) bedarf es zur
Konstitution von Raum aber auch einer Syntheseleistung, das heißt, über Wahrnehmungs-Vorstellungs-
oder Erinnerungsprozesse werden Güter und Menschen zu Räumen zusammengefaßt”.
47
Löw, 2001, pg. 167
* Resources for Martina Löw can also be of a material or symbolic nature; the former derived from the
domination of nature and the latter which refers to people.
31
Nevertheless, if it happens to be lying next to a pile of wood splinters, we might have a
better chance of seeing it and at the same time perceiving the possible space-
constituting actions which were involved in its presenting itself to us 'now', in its
“Vergegenwärtigung”. In this way, those “little sensations” which we are sometimes too
accustomed to perceive can suddenly become noticeable if altered in a subtle way,
producing an encounter.

Fig.12

Fig.12
Verónica Lehner, intervened material from the series mal dies, mal das, mal hier, mal da, 2009, Berlin
32
 Fig. 13

Fig. 13
Verónica Lehner, photograph of material as found at its original site and documentation of intervened material,
from the series mal dies, mal das, mal hier, mal da, 2009, Berlin
33
3.3 Encounters in Relational Space:
Pictorial Processes and “small gestures”

In his book The Politics of Small Gestures Mika Hannula refers to process as “the third
space”.48 Based on “encounter” and “experientiality”, it is “a result of negotiations about
being together; a space that the parties involved in create in mutual reciprocity, and
which belongs to both of them only for that fleeting moment.”49 Since it must be
experienced, an encounter can never be repeated or translated in its totality, however,
it actually starts within each individual.50 In surprising resemblance to Böhme, Hannula
states that there are three levels inside each encounter:

1. self – self
2. self – immediate environment
51
3. self – difference, otherness

One way of producing this encounter is through a “small gesture”. For Mika Hannula, a
“small gesture is characteristically a process” that “confronts the big gesture” 52 and
“lives for the chance to be able to create alternative ways of being”.53 Opposite the big
gesture's monumentality and arrogance, the small gesture “is about the beauty of
ordinary acts”, of “trusting an experience that is happening near enough to you…in
your situatedness”.54 It becomes political as it becomes personal, making way for
reflection and awareness of the context in which it takes place. As Hans Hemmert said
to Mika Hannula in an interview in September 2005:

For me it is all about perception, about how we perceive

things. And a small gesture, for example, is a way to
change and alter the existing reality slightly. It means
visually changing the taken-for-granted parameters of a
.55
site just a little bit

In this way, a small act that takes into account the one thing common to all that has

48
Hannula, Mika.The Politics of Small Gestures, Chances and Challenges for Contemporary Art. Istambul:
art-ist tasarim prodü ksiyon ve yayincilik, December 2006
49
Hannula, 2006, pg. 77
50
Hannula, 2006, pg. 82
51
Hannula, 2006, pg. 83
52
Hannula, 2006, pg. 15
53
Hannula, 2006, pg. 16
54
Hannula, 2006, pg. 16
55
Hannula, 2006, pg. 33
34
unfortunately become invisible or over-looked and makes it visible again is what would
give a chance to contemporary art according to Mika Hannula. Moreover, it is this type
of gesture that has the power to involve others, to give way to participation, to go into
the fabric of daily life and get its raw material from there. For Hannula, the context in
which this raw material is most abundant belongs to the realm of the public sphere, “the
realm of give and take, push and pull”, more specifically the “open public space”, where
“the hope of being able to live with oneself and one's surroundings in a slightly more
meaningful way”56 can come closer to realization. Although a notion of an “open public
space” is problematic as it seems to be quite utopian (despite otherwise diffused), there
is a chance for art to help us get closer to this ideal.

He further states that “a small gesture... does invite interaction and exchange” and has
an awareness of being out there where it can “be seen, considered and criticized in
terms of... how the act relates to its discursive past, the public sphere, and the politics
of the given site and situation.”57 At this point it is also important to note how Mika
Hannula refers to the past as discursive and to what is already there as the “politics” of
the site. Linking this to Martina Löw's discussion of structures, spatial thus social ones,
the “small gesture” in a way breaks with this past and perhaps its stagnation, as it
makes it no longer habitual. Likewise, a pictorial process that reveals some of these
underlying structures (already codified and inscribed in rules, ergo discursive) by
altering the site and thus producing some kind of encounter, could also invite
interaction and exchange. Maybe not in a traditionally “communicative”, dialogue-based
way but in a chain of placements, displacements and other actions triggered by those
elements showing themselves, which can in turn make the spatial relations explicit to
others. Contrary to Hannula's “small gesture” which has as ultimate objective that of
being “meaningful”, the pictorial process tries to keep out precisely those codes and
meanings already there, and focuses on the material qualities and the actions triggered
by them.

As Martina Löw states, “in the first place people are in the world corporeally. They
move and place themselves with their body. Secondly, their corporeal expression is
directed by their positionings as well as the 'Synthesen'* of others.”58 In this way, the

56
Hannula, 2006, pg. 23
57
Hannula, 2006, pg. 23
* The word “Synthese” has been left untranslated to avoid confusion, as it refers back to the term Martina
Löw uses to describe one of the processes of space constitution: “Syntheseleistung”.
58
Löw, 1991, pg. 179, my translation from the original in German: “Erstens sind Menschen körperlich in der
35
body is central to many space constructions. As mentioned before, not only are people
and their bodies continuously constituting space but social goods as well, and not only
because of the meanings ascribed to them but due to certain perceivable qualities and
the presence they exert on who perceives them. It seems such qualities remain
relegated to a kind of automatic perceptive selection we exercise though, which
immediately lets us know what is “relevant” and what is not. This causes us not to
notice all the elements of our surroundings. We do not take the time, with patience, to
taste, chew and then digest, but we wrap the environment into a little pill called “world”
and gulp it down hastily.

Fig. 14

On the other hand, a basic similarity between pictorial processes and “small gestures”,
is that Hannula describes them as “activities that are not in themselves against
products or commercialization, but which definitely do not see themselves primarily as
a product”. Although they would like to be a part of the “mechanism of exchange that
we call advanced market capitalism”, small gestures want to set their own rules and

Welt. Mit dem Körper bewegen und plazieren sie sich. Zweitens steuert der körperliche Ausdruck sowohl
die Plazierungen als auch die Synthesen anderer.”
Fig. 14
Samstag Nachmittag, zuhause in Neukölln, 1995. Latex balloon / air/ artist/ livingroom, slide on light box.
http://ingesidee.de/page.php?pgid=35&lang=en
36
“criteria for it, not passively taking everything at face value”.59 As mentioned previously,
pictorial processes not only refer to those which take place prior to or during creation,
intervention, alteration, incision, etc., but also include those taking place after a “frozen
point” such as an exhibition. In this order of ideas, all the placements, displacements,
perceptual processes, exchanges and circulation of those elements, including all the
actors involved, are part of the experience. The product may be thus replaced with a
“frozen point”, which then returns to movement to keep on being a process.

4. Conclusion

More than any conclusions, the role pictorial processes could play in the perception of
relational space would be that of a possibility to break with the discursive invasion of
painting, a perceptual medium, as well as with encrusted notions of absolute space. It
is clear that in the search for spatial strategies adept at working with such newer
notions of space theory as relational space, art and architecture as well as other
manifestations dealing with it need to be thought of differently. As for art, I think
practices cornered and criticized within contemporary art, such as painting, could
actually offer numerous possibilities in making this “relational space”, which is always
“dynamic” and thus fleeting, more graspable. They just need to be rethought.

This thesis is a proposal for a new way of thinking painting in dealing with relational
space. If space is no longer static, painting also needs to become dynamic and thus be
regarded as a process that also triggers other processes. The development of painting
into pictorial processes is also an attempt at blurring the discriminating demarcation of
different artistic disciplines - at least it seeks to question these divisions. In coming to
terms with one’s place in the world and one’s experience of it as well as others’
experience of it, is it really that relevant to still focus the discussion on “is this
performance? Is it more like sculpture? Is it just plain, boring, old painting?” As
everything is transformed, these questions cannot possibly remain the same. Based on
perceptual processes, pictorial processes also try to provide a different approach than
the usual towards how we situate ourselves in the world. In this sense, although they
may not deal directly with say, violence in third world countries or engage in a

59
Hannula, 2006, pg. 25
37
community kind of interaction, they are nevertheless social despite of their simplicity.
They have to do with our daily experiences, even if some of their manifestations can be
found in an exhibition with white walls and not public space. Nonetheless, the
encounter they produce, if only once and within an art institution, will generate further
instances of awareness and attentiveness in the visitor’s everyday from that point on.

In short, the relations that constitute space, those that are chaotic as well as those that
have become structures, can come to our attention through slight alterations in our
environment. In breaking with the habitual and giving way to further actions and
processes, these irritations in our everyday can contribute to the creation of spatial
relations and in so doing, make us notice them in the first place. Furthermore, Painting
derived into pictorial processes, being of a perceptual nature, can possibly show us
spatial relations in another light than more discursive media, leading not only to a new
perception of space but also to the eventual transformation of it. Besides creating a
rupture with traditional ways of thinking space, perceptual media can offer a more
immediate connection to the environment, as they break with codes and equations and
generate experience and encounter. It is not to say that the perceptual should have a
higher position than the discursive, but rather that it is just as important and should not
just be relegated to the banal and trivial. Ignorance of a code does not necessarily
question intellectual capacities. All the more, it opens other doors into experiencing the
world. It also becomes an issue of dealing with “the other”, who is different and
operates under codes other than our own. Instead of marginalizing “the other”, it is
perhaps useful to delve deeper into possibilities being offered, negotiating a way of
being together so that new ways of thinking can not only be thought of, but be applied
to our everyday perception of the world.

It is necessary that perceptual media such as painting change in order to be able to

deal with non-static notions of space. It is not enough to work in grand dimensions, to
try not to represent space with the traditional central perspective or to try to erase all
aspects of a site by overpowering it with paint. It is also not enough to regard painting
as something two-dimensional, dependent on color and a flat surface as it is plain
simplistic to define it as paint on a support. Its core elements are not “being exotic” or
“being saleable”. Aspects such as the perceptual processes involved in the
“Chiasmus”, its independence from the discursive and the meticulous attention involved
in perceiving the world pertaining to that particular tradition are much more important
and to the point. Painting, as conceived traditionally, separated from other “disciplines”
38
such as sculpture, drawing, video and performance, and providing only a minor
interaction by way of encounter, needs to become more dynamic. For this reason, a
concept such as pictorial processes, supported on the mechanism involved in the
perception of images but also applicable to “social goods” or people, is more accurate
in dealing with relational space. The emphasis is not solely on the physical qualities of
space, on materials and objects, but it is also focused on the actions and processes
deriving from them.

Furthermore, pictorial processes are not limited to the stages of creation or reception
as in the case of “THE work of art”. Instead, they include all the actions set in motion
not only by art, the artist, art history, or the art-spectator, but the environment itself and
the whole of other factors that influence it. They open a perceptual gateway into
experiencing the world and try to break with hierarchical notions that objectify space
and thus reduce it. The idea behind pictorial processes is also the one of allowing the
world to present itself, allowing it to “come out” and reveal itself, something that we
have become aware of only after seeing our harmful way of acting on the environment.
In this way, an emphasis on these processes is not only relevant for the subject of art,
but it is also helpful in our relation to ourselves, to our surroundings and to “the other”.
It provides another way of transforming spaces or coming to terms with the ones we
live in already.

Moreover, pictorial processes might bring to our attention such space-constituting

actions as collecting, placing, displacing, demarcating, producing, occupying, emptying,
disposing, appropriating, exchanging, amongst others. All the more, they can make us
notice that all of this is going on in the first place, as we have become accustomed to it
and thus take it for granted, and then show us how this impacts our perception of
space. First we perceive and then we question what we perceive. We can then start to
realize how our relation to others, to the environment, to “social goods” changes,
transforming space and thus our “situatedness” within the world. We can then start to
think spatially and stop regarding space as an object. We can begin to really
experience, to live space.

39
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• Lyotard, Jean-François, transl. G. Bennington and R. Bowlby. The Inhuman,

Reflections on Time. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California,1991

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• Katharina Grosse, Another Man Who has Dropped His Paintbrush, exhibition at the
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• Charlet, Nicolas. Yves Klein. München London New York: Prestel Verlag, 2000

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I hereby declare that this thesis is entirely the result of my own work except where
otherwise indicated. I have only used the resources given in the list of references.

Verónica Lehner
Berlin, September 8th, 2008

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