Inviting the unconscious to manifest:1 process as a product? Authentic Movement and automatic drawing performed/exhibited

Abstract

This paper examines two improvisational processes, Authentic Movement (AM) and automatic drawing (AD), the possibility of their presentation to the viewer and the meanings such presentation may bring to the work presented. Improvisation has traditionally been used in the process of creating a finished work of art rather than in the finished art work itself. Improvisation is also commonly seen as a process as it is not pre‐planned and preconceived; an art work, however, is usually thought to be a product. This study asks the following question: Is it possible to present a process as art, that is, as a product? The paper draws on Gordon’s model of the creative process as well as Freud’s theory of the unconscious and Jung’s Collective Unconscious; the structure of the AM and AD processes and the role of the unconscious in them are examined through these theories. Authentic Movement and automatic drawing are similar improvisational methods because they both seem to enable the artist to connect to his/her unconscious. The duality of the unconscious – it can bare extreme self‐expression and on the other hand universality and impersonality – is discussed extensively. Artists claim that meanings arising from the unconscious can be fascinating for the viewer; the display of the unconscious process can expose an allusion of the desires, fears and repressed instincts inside all of us. On the other hand, both AM and AD can be extremely self‐expressive processes which reduces their audience‐friendliness.