Nine Drawings: seriality, postphenomenology and the force of time

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ABSTRACTThis article describes a piece of practice-led drawing research titled: Nine Drawings (2016). Treated as a first-person investigation combining serial drawing, Bergsonian philosophy and a postphenomenological methodology, the purpose is to test the idea of research through drawing by seeking to represent the enigmatic Bergsonian notion that time acts as a force. The methodology employs serially developed drawing to ‘record’ (represent) the drawers experience of time ‘passing’. Treated as a form of praxis which is reflected upon in the drafting of this paper, the process of drawing centres around the effort to draw biro lines ‘in time’ to a ticking metronome. The metronome is set ticking at various increasing tempos, each represented by a different coloured biro ink, and the results displayed across a series of nine graph paper sheets. In conceptual terms, time is interpreted according to Bergson’s philosophy of la durée (duration), while the series is largely assessed using the phenomenological method of variations. Considered in terms of research, the assessment seeks both an invariant and a multistable understanding of the phenomenon under consideration – the experientially derived idea that time acts as a force. The nine drawings are presented individually after the conclusion for the reader to refer to, whilst being presented once as a full series. The results of this multifaceted investigation are reported at the end, and offer potential insights into the way in which research through drawing might operate when art and philosophy are combined.