surface 04

Surface means it's flat, it's two / 2 / dimensional. It hasn't any depth. A sheet of paper has no depth. An illusion of depth on a sheet of paper has no real depth, no surface to dig in. Same with a canvas, a stretched canvas has no depth, is a two dimensional surface and has two sides. It is a façade, like walls in buildings. The stretched canvas, the painting, is mostly hanging on a wall, it even can be a wall.
A film projection on a screen is 2 dimensional. A light-source projects the depth, the illusion, the narrative. Which opens possible wide horizons but it stays flat. We want to get beyond the surface? Beyond the boundary of the 2 dimensional? We want to get beyond the veil? Like in Plato's cave we want to escape from the boring and already to long known same old wisdoms.

flatland II

"In such a country, you will perceive at once that it is impossible that there should be anything of what you call a "solid" kind; but I dare say you will suppose that we could at least distinguish by sight the Triangles, Squares, and other figures, moving about as I have described them. On the contrary, we could see nothing of the kind, not at least so as to distinguish one figure from another. Nothing was visible, nor could be visible, to us, except Straight Lines; and the necessity of this I will speedily demonstrate.

Place a penny on the middle of one of your tables in Space; and leaning over it, look down upon it. It will appear a circle."

surface research logo

bientôt ...

palimpsest scratching

scratch
erase
delete
wipe out
undo
damage
destroy

flatland

"I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space.

Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows--only hard with luminous edges--and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen. Alas, a few years ago, I should have said "my universe:" but now my mind has been opened to higher views of things."

Flatland
by Edwin A. Abbott
1884

pages from sketchbook

Drawing : to leave traces on the surface of the paper. No necessity of having an idea. Draw and erase. To erase the yet drawn leaves also traces. To draw and to erase. To succeed and to fail. Failure is more important, or better: is more interesting, when you fail there is more to do. You can go on. You don't know yet. You're trying to figure out, searching, thinking, wondering. Drawing and failing is like thinking. While drawing concentration works best.
Soon there will be more...

zoeken

creation & destruction III

By scratching the texts the surface of the sheet of paper becomes like a little field, a small vegetable garden where the soil has been dug. Anyway it isn't a battlefield, it's too neatly arranged. These palimpsests are like small vegetable gardens in between the seasons with some forcefields of text citations.

palimpsest with 3 layers

detail of the drawing below



"Each of us must pay for the slightest damage he inflicts upon a universe created for indifference and stagnation, sooner or later he will regret not having left it intact" (Emile Cioran, 1911 - 1995). Written on the quote of De Sade: "In actions of mankind we recognize rather than moral or criminal acts the irresistible natural laws of creation and destruction". Written on the title of this research project "Surface Research".



Archimedes Palimpsest

ideas

Do you need an idea to start drawing or painting? Nice question, stupid answer. Therefore... Perhaps the answer can be : "no, you don't need an idea to start drawing or painting". For sure you don't need a big or huge idea, already a small, tiny, little and simple idea can be enough. About for instance the materials so close to the draughtsman, like the sheet of white paper. The difficult part is not to get an idea but to continue with a simple idea into the depths of the unknown, in opposite of getting bored already after half an hour. To continue with a simple idea means you have to explore it by making variations and failure as much as possible.
Emile Cioran (1911 - 1995): "What to do? Where to go? Do nothing and go nowhere, easy enough".

creation & destruction II

detail of the drawing below



The quote of marquis De Sade "in actions of mankind we recognize rather than moral or criminal acts the irresistible natural laws of creation and destruction" scratched out. Two layers of text and construction grids are scratched out but still visible by the traces left behind.
By drawing with ruler, compasses and technical drawing pen, I do not want to deal with how to draw a good line. Adequate and efficient lines, rather drawn by a constructor or architect than an artist.
Enfin we all will be freed from our suffering, even the hedonists.

palimpsest drawings

Construction of palimpsests by drawing and erasing the grid and texts again & again. Tomorrow the palimpsest with two layers of text will be scratched off. Than another palimpsest has to be drawn by starting from the beginning. It will probably take two days to draw a three text layered palimpsest.

surface 04

blocked window by a surface of plaited canvas