FOREVER DRAWING

Marcelo Hernandez Borba artist and designer Institute of Arts / UFRGS Brazil marceloh.borba@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

For a long time, the art history conceived to the drawing a secondary role which with the intention of aiding in the process of artistic creation. The approaching of this article is the drawing and its process as its own artistic object endowed of great perceptive possibilities. This work intends to share the vision that the drawing is an expression way that is always susceptible to go on and it uses the experience of the digital drawing to go deeper, comparing it to the drawing done in traditional methods. The article emphasizes how the digital drawing subverts the chronological order of the traditional drawing, and thus to reach a new source of perceptions. This text also discusses how the drawing process can be showed and how it gives to the audience the opportunity to follow the same artist steps.

INTRODUCTION 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.

TIMELINE 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.

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 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 ideal moment 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

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 is about 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, and the philosopher describes sensations and their substractum as one might describe the fauna of a distant land without being aware that he himself perceives, that he is the perceiving subject and that perception as he lives it belies everything that he says of perception in general. For, seen from inside, perception owes nothing to what we know in other ways about the world, about stimuli as physics describes them and about the sense organs as described by biology. It does not presents in first place as an event in the world to which the category of causality, for example, can be applied, but as a re-creation or re-constitution of 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 the drawings 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

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 perceptive activity, 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.

CONTOUR The artistic production accomplished in the experience provided by the computer 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,

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 the decisions 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.

GRA_BIT TIP 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.

THE 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 its possibilities 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

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 he appears.

FLIPFLIP-BOOK 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 surface has 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 a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments, which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality that is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art [BENJAMIN, 1985].

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

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.

CONCLUSION CONCLUSION 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, which subjects 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

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.

REFERENCES BENJAMIN, WALTER. A Obra de arte na era de sua reprodutibilidade tcnica. In: OBRAS ESCOLHIDAS MAGIA E TCNICA, ARTE E POLTICA. 1 ed. So Paulo. Editora Brasiliense, 1985. p. 165-196. COUCHOT, EDMOND. Da representao simulao. In: PARENTE, ANDR (Org.). IMAGEM MQUINA: A ERA DAS TECNOLOGIAS DO VIRTUAL. 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 of Modern 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 Conseqncias Filosficas. 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. 914.

APPENDIX Drawings

Still from Janelas by M.H. Borba 2006 digital drawing 600px X 800px

Still from Caf by M.H. Borba 2006 digital drawing 600px X 800px

untitled by M.H. Borba 2006 digital drawing 600px X 800px

Marta 00135 by M.H. Borba 2006 digital drawing 1024px X 1280px

untitled by M.H. Borba 2007 digital drawing 3248px X 4134px

humani by M.H. Borba 2007 digital drawing 2362px X 4134px