Marked Surfaces

Marked Surfaces
The artwork is a triptych of three computer tablets mounted on the wall with power cables hanging from them. Each of the tablets was purchased on Ebay.co.uk using the search term 'tablet cracked'. The tablets show signs of previous use and all have damaged screens. Each device shows a sequence of drawings of faces (human and other animals) roughly categorised as full face, profile and sleeping. The drawings, initially made using pencil or pen on paper, were photographed/digitised using the camera of another computer tablet at close range, so that the texture of marks and paper are visible.

The sensory modes of seeing and touching are brought together in the touch screen. These modes are also combined in the act of drawing. If seeing is a process of actively seeking out meaningful configurations (sometimes barely glimpsed), then drawing is a means of marking them in all their uncertainty, from a point of contact.

The figure/background structure produced in drawing can be reproduced digitally and made visible in multiple devices of display. Each time a figure is materially reconstituted as part of a device, its meaning is contingent on this specific context. In this artwork, the physical properties of smooth or cracked screens, and plastic or metal bodies, manifest histories of previous ownership and commercial imperatives of hardware design and manufacture. They show evidence of the social, economic and technological developments that have resulted in handheld devices acting as prostheses of embodied relationships.

Gallery statement:
'Drawology' exhibition:
Drawing is said to have the ability to record both its own making and the movement of the thoughts and body of the drawer.

Bringing together the work of several artists with differing practices Drawology aims to consider whether this premise is applicable to a specific process or genre of drawing or whether it is applicable to drawing generally.

In this respect the works in the exhibition represent an expanded field of contemporary drawing in a Fine Art context to include: works on paper, performance, moving image, installation, projections and three-dimensional drawings. The exhibition is part of a larger research project currently being undertaken by Deborah Harty entitled ‘Drawing is phenomenology’.

Artists include:
» Shaun Belcher » Sian Bowen » Rachael Colley » David Connearn » Paul Fieldsend-Danks » Maryclare Foa » Paul Gough » Joe Graham » Deborah Harty » Claude Heath » humhyphenhum » Juliet MacDonald » Jordan McKenzie » Lucy O’Donnell » Bill Prosser » Karen Wallis » Martin Lewis » Patricia Cain » Simón Granell » humhyphenhumha » David Connearn » Andrew Pepper