marc van elburg homepage

#$%*&%!?

The #$%?!!, as the minimal unit of the
drawing, is a continuous back and forth of
conflicting movements
-synthesizing and segmenting-
engaged in a dynamic unstable unity
that holds within it the micro-genetic code
as well as the motivational drive of the
drawing
and is the initial pulse that moves the line

'Drawing' refers here to an activity that is
an ongoing process.
With the minimal unit as primary a unit of
thought.
Thus, recorded within the movement of a
line, drawing and thinking become analogous
activities.

Locked in a trans-formative cycle of
integration and disintegration

In the event, the unit absorbs its context.
And the drawing seeks to characterize the
unit as it grows within the limits of the
rectangular space of the material plane

The text above is an adaptation from the chapter on so-called Growth Points in David Mcneill's "Hand and Mind" which is based on Lev Vygotsky's concept of a 'minimal gesture–speech unit'

Every 'finished' drawing then represents a
slice of an ongoing process in time.
In that sense they can be seen as a
kind of 'phase portraits'.
That is- not a portrait of a person, but a
portrait of a state.
And in this case, a phase portrait is the
portrait of a state that is the outcome of a
sequence of actions.
A 'phase portrait gallery' then would be a
gallery that displays a collection of
different states that can be read as the
sequential art of a continuous drawing
program in time.