creation & destruction

surface research 04
new grid and text on scraped text and grid
ink on epson paper
29,7 x 21 cm / 30 09 2009

After a quote of marquis De Sade a new text is drawn on the scraped text of yesterday. In palimpsests sometimes text were purposely hidden because they could be dangerous for the author. Or they had to be kept secret and were hidden under layers of different texts.
The quote of marquis De Sade goes as follows : in actions of mankind we recognize rather than moral or criminal acts the irresistible natural laws of creation and destruction.

palimpsest

A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book that has been scraped off and used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin from Greek, (palin "again" + psao "I scrape"), and meant scraped (clean and used) again.

Because parchment, prepared from animal hides, is far more durable than paper or papyrus, most palimpsests known to modern scholars are parchment, which rose in popularity in western Europe after the sixth century. Also, where papyrus was in common use, reuse of writing media was less common because papyrus was cheaper and more expendable than costly parchment. But some papyrus palimpsests do survive, and Romans referred to this custom of washing papyrus, although the reed from which it was made did not grow in Italy. The writing was washed from parchment or vellum using milk and oat bran. With the passing of time, the faint remains of the former writing would reappear enough so that scholars can discern the text (called the scriptio inferior, the "underwriting") and decipher it. In the later Middle Ages the surface of the vellum was usually scraped away with powdered pumice, irretrievably losing the writing, hence the most valuable palimpsests are those that were overwritten in the early Middle Ages.

Architects imply palimpsest as a ghost, an image of what once was. In the built environment, this occurs more than we might think. Whenever spaces are shuffled, rebuilt, or remodeled, shadows remain. Tarred rooflines remain on the sides of a building long after the neighboring structure has been demolished; removed stairs leave a mark where the painted wall surface stopped. Dust lines remain from a relocated appliance. Ancient ruins speak volumes of their former wholeness. Palimpsests can inform us of the realities of the built past.



surface research 03
scraped text and grid
scraped off ink on epson paper
29,7 x 21 cm / 29 09 2009



surface research 02
text in the grid
ink on epson paper
29,7 x 21 cm / 29 09 2009



surface research 01
first layer of a construction grid
ink on epson paper
29,7 x 21 cm / 29 09 2009

rietveld pavilion

The Rietveld Pavilion is a transparent building and will be the studio for next year. Today's Tuesday I think to make the first palimpsest drawings. Probably this blog is going to be fed with a lot of images. We shall see.

starting surface research

This morning I arrived from Brussels into Amsterdam and had a day of introduction to several people working at the Rietveld Academy. Tomorrow I will start to draw in a new studio for next year: the Rietveld Pavilion.
I am very glad to be invited at the Rietveld Academy as the first Rietveld Research Resident (the RRR). I am going to do research into several aspects of my work as a visual artist.
This blog will be posted with words and images of the ongoing process of the artistic research which is titled : Surface Research. Tomorrow there will be the beginning of the drawing chapter of the research project.

Palimpsest drawings.
To draw and to erase the drawing.
To draw is to create, is construction.
To erase is demolition, destruction.
To erase, to scratch out, whip out, different ways to make less visible and more invisible.
The remained traces are possible reconstruction.
Creation and demolition on a 2 D surface.

Lost in oppositions ?

Surface 01