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ESSAYING ESSAYS: AN ASSEMBLING #1 is now available for online consmption and free PDF download, featuring experiments in essaying from: David Berridge; Rachel Lois Clapham; Emma Cocker; Alex Eisenberg; Fiona Fullam; Alex Hardy; Éilis Kirby; Jenny Lawson; Patricia Lyons; Pete McPartian; John Pinder. Assembled by David Berridge as part of ESSAYING ESSAYS: A TEMPORARY COLLECTIVE OF READERS, one of seven projects by the FREE PRESS collective exploring economies of ideas and alternative modes of dissemination and exchange.
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ESSAYING ESSAYS:
AN ASSEMBLING #1
Enjoy More
Enjoy more. Take pleasure in additional. Treasure extra. Money especially.
Cash particularly. Hard cash chiefly. Ready money primarily. Coins first and
foremost. Change mainly. Alter mostly. Modify more often than not. Adapt
usually. Become accustomed typically. Get used to characteristically. Get into
the habit of as usual. Make the best of normally. Adjust to usually. Accept
more often than not.
To try, to tentatively attempt In search of (1) clues; (2) a new life; (3) a method; (4) quality; (5) a psychic economy; (6) the perfect stranger; (7)
Enlightenment; (8) a gust of wind; (9) power and politics; (10) principles; (11) complications; (12) the dream people;
(13) life on Mars; (14) a withering community; (15) love; (16) the lost; (17) the origins of life; (18) a guru; (19) animal consciousness; (20) a scapegoat; (21) God and some lesser tales; (22) mathematical truth; (23) remarkable trees; (24)
silent spaces; (25) gold paved streets; (26) life on other planets; (27) the origins of art; (28) the edge of the world; (29)
hospitality; (30) a permanent peace; (31) strategic performance; (32) the lost feminine; (33) the living dead; (34) Dracula; (35) a poetry of specifics, (36) thought, (37) matter and experience; (38) identity; (39) the real and right; (40)
normality; (41) order in life; (42) the perfect drug; (43) wonder; (44) the true self; (45) great coffee; (46) cultural unity;
(47) excellence; (48) the origins of his evil; (49) a non-dogmatic theology; (50) ghosts; (51) empirical evidence; (52) exceptionally difficult constraint satisfaction problems; (53) shelter, subjectivity and spaces of loss; (54) greatness; (55)
common ground; (56) clusters; (57) an impotent man; (58) the meaning of sex; (59) madness; (60) universal values; (61)
the human mind; (62) order; (63) true wisdom; (64) answers; (65) a glorious death; (66) rigour and relevance; (67) the teller of tales; (68) a symmetry bond; (69) human origins; (70) authenticity; (71) quality; (72) solutions; (73) more
solutions; (74) solutions to the problem; (75) intimacy; (76) infinity; (77) humanity; (78) a border pedagogy; (79) lotus
feet; (80) a new world order; (81) the lost ladino; (82) prevention; (83) what makes us human; (84) the rules of the new games; (85) healing; (86) a better world; (87) Schrödinger’s cat; (88) Schopenhauer’s cat; (89) connections; (90)
happiness; (91) learning; (92) a cure; (93) the kite runner; (94) the good life; (95) flowers of the Amazon forests; (96)
congruence; (97) a new state; (98) a role; (99) a past; (100) a deity; (101) liquidity; (102) an alternative; (103) meaning; (104) the hidden meaning; (105) our mothers’ gardens; (106) direction; (107) stability; (108) lake monsters; (109)
ancient astronomies; (110) a new creation; (111) the melancholy baby; (112) Peter Pan; (113) the Pied Piper; (114) the
secret of the universe; (115) genetic origins; (116) the precious pearl; (117) the inner man; (118) Europe’s borders; (119) the perfect house; (120) structure; (121) white crows; (123) silence; (124) the existential pathway; (125) magic;
(126) integrity; (127) their conscience; (128) a script; (129) a character; (130) two characters; (131) proof of his
existence; (132) the cheddar man; (133) the magic bullet; (134) text syntax; (135) light; (136) power; (137) wonder; (138) promise; (139) truth; (140) hot water; (141) the great northern diver; (142) a future; (143) a soul; (144) weather;
(145) independence; (146) an authentic vision; (147) insight; (148) justice; (149) legitimacy; (150) legibility; (151) civic
order; (152) a new majority; (153) control; (154) reusable rocketry; (155) human mastery; (156) an eternal identity; (157) an empire; (158) interplanetary travel; (159) world domination; (160) the earthly paradise; (161) inclusion and
participation; (162) the conditions of life; (163) keystones; (164) autonomy; (165) reality; (166) self-knowledge; (167)
security; (168) the secrets of sex; (169) English windmills; (170) aerodynamic stability; (171) the elements; (172) a theory; (173) the ultimate theory; (174) a new theory of cosmic origins; (175) superstrings, symmetry and the theory of
everything; (176) comedy; (177) intelligence; (178) the Holy Grail; (179) autonomy, (180) democracy and
development; (181) reasonableness; (182) responsibility; (183) personal fulfilment; (184) leadership; (185) ecstasy; (186) transcontextual criteria; (187) alien planets; (188) productivity growth; (189) moral authority; (190) competence; (191)
balance; (192) medical certainty; (193) understanding; (194) an ultimate explanation; (195) public identity; (196)
freedom; (197) authority and honour; (198) value; (199) biological origins; (200) the North West; (201) Elvis; (202) Eastern promise; (203) the pleasure palace; (204) the pleasure principle; (205) the substance of substance; (206) unity
and integration; (207) the present tense; (208) a super-reality; (209) power and liberty; (210) lost knowledge; (211)
comfort; (212) a populist modernism; (213) absolute zero; (214) the dream; (215) nonesuch; (216) utopia; (217) a rigorous science of philosophy; (218) a physiological signature; (219) a third way; (220) a historical movement; (221)
ultimacy; (222) optimals; (223) the supreme principle; (224) individualized therapies; (225) what saves us; (226) life in
the universe; (227) ancient DNA; (228) extraterrestrial intelligence; (229) a usable past; (230) modern human origins; (231) free energy; (232) new ways; (233) the essence of the west; (234) the ideal society; (235) a paradigm shift; (236)
the good; (237) an ideal development model; (238) wisdom; (239) the gamma ray; (240) civility; (241) the missing
science of consciousness; (242) the materiality of experience; (243) a patriarchal ideal (244) authentic words; (245) skyscrapers; (246) enemies; (247) allies; (248) a livable world; (249) who we are; (250) the missing gene; (251) endless
energy; (252) healing; (253) Eve; (254) the Odyssey; (255) a unifying principle; (256) the missing mass and the ultimate
fate of the universe; (257) a true self; (258) a new stability; (259) distant relatives; (260) the beginning of time; (261) substantive rules; (262) our beginning; (263) common ground; (264) practical solutions; (265) sustainable futures; (266)
precursors; (267) a saint; (268) the miraculous; (269) shipwrecks; (270) vindications; (271) selective interventions; (272)
the affluent reader; (273) certitude; (274) transcendence; (275) nonformal alternatives; (276) explanation and social relevance; (277) mental hygiene; (278) lost time; (279) plenty; (280) the foreign policy of the Bush administration;
(281) reaction pathways; (282) a normative order; (283) the neutrino; (284) eloquence; (285) the last human
cannonball; (286) failure; (287) sanity; (288) myths and heroes; (289) psychoactive drugs; (290) labour-saving inventions; (291) a cause; (292) open skies; (293) an audio-visual language; (294) non-relativistic systems with
dynamical symmetry; (295) a permanent fixture; (296) the best strain of bees; (297) treasure on the desert island; (298)
pastures green; (299) artificial intelligence; (300) hope, faith, and a six-second ride
Traces of Essay 1- by Alex EisenbergPages 1-9
from Innovations in Essayingby Richard Kostelanetz. Published as Introduction to
Essaying Essays: Alternative Forms of Exposition (Out ofLondon Press, New York, 1975),1-9.
Traces of Essay 2 - by Alex EisenbergPages 1-9
from Innovations in Essayingby Richard Kostelanetz. Published as Introduction to
Essaying Essays: Alternative Forms of Exposition (Out ofLondon Press, New York, 1975),1-9.
Traces of Essay 3 - by Alex EisenbergPage 1
from Innovations in Essayingby Richard Kostelanetz. Published as Introduction to
Essaying Essays: Alternative Forms of Exposition (Out ofLondon Press, New York, 1975),.
I Love You
I love you
I commitment you
I pledge you
I promise you
I assurance you
I guaranty you
I security you
I safety you
I lock you
I fastener you
I catch you
I trick you
I deceit you
I fraud you
I imposter you
I con-man you
I cheat you
I deception you
I hoax you
I prank you
I joke you
I gag you
I device to prevent speech you
I muzzle you
I garrotte you
I strangle you
I smother you
I stifle you
I suffocate you
I suppress you
I put down you
I overthrow you
I deposition you
I declaration you
I assertion you
I formal statement you
I allegation you
I claim you
I demand you
I order you
I command you
I mastery you
I control you
I direction you
I point of the compass you
I management you
I administration you
I regime you
I term you
I word you
I expression you
I utterance you
I idiom you
I dialect you
I accent you
I intonation you
I speak you
I talk you
I communication you
I interaction you
I movement you
I action you
I deed you
I act you
I law you
I the courts you
I legislature you
I legal body you
I assembly you
I convention you
I agreement you
I contract you
I shrink you
I cringe you
I fawn you
I deer you
I animal you
I living you
I existing you
I love you
About Quartet, 2009
[A drawing in four parts, black pen, A4 white paper]
Rachel Lois Clapham
Performance is slumped on the floor, silent and still. Very occasionally it tries to strain upwards and
away from its graphic form, the edges of which emit a rubbery sound when stretched. High above
it, a range of punctuation marks - question marks, exclamation marks, comma’s, ampersands and
hyphens – can be seen cautiously entering the page.
Once it recognises the oncoming punctuation marks performance stretches and strains towards them
repeatedly and to the point of exhaustion. The marks continue to travel down the page, unhurriedly
and in no particular order. A fraction of a second before the first one comes into contact with
performance it stops straining, becomes still, and releases an imperceptible sigh.
Question marks puncture the surface, their loud metallic crank now a muffled thump that throbs
deep inside performance. A cluster of ampersands skim the sides and float onto the floor, lie there
latent, waiting expectantly for what will come next. A hyphen slides in, nestles just under the
surface and manages to be both of performance and not. Several blustery full stops come in at full
pelt and bounce right off, they fall away abashed and bent out of shape. Others, less bold find
microscopic round holes in the cellular structure of performance and pass through completely
unnoticed.
Performance is now buried deep in punctuation. Large parts of it are unrecognisable and obscured
by partial, deformed punctuation marks. Together, punctuation and performance move but it’s an
almost imperceptible churning, like a frisson, quiver or tremble. But deep. The noise, an excited
sort of chatter, is distinct, untranslatable, and deafening.
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK*
_____________
*Poets were our buildings of talk, small microcosms where language used the page as a first step towards full spatiality, less useful as written texts than as sources of architectural forms in the manner of Vitruvius or Owen Jones’ The Grammar of Ornament (1856).
Jones moved into the Alhambra Palace in order to sketch
the ornament within, and the following proposal adopts a
similar strategy, closer to Whitechapel High Street,
drawing also upon the stay-at-home fetishism of JK
Huysmanns’ À Rebours (1884). Language is derived from Sergei Eisenstein’s description - in his Immoral Memories: An Autobiography (1946) - of Meyerhold’s lectures.
A POET’S TALK-ARCHITECTURE, then, of words and page woven
into a blur building of Meyerhold shimmer, veil upon veil
method of post-contemporary beyond-object alphabet-shaman
building construction...
IN LIEU OF A FULL ARCHITECTURAL PROPOSAL
! ! ! !
! ! ! ! ! buildings of insidious songs
! waved arms
! eyes flash
! ! ! ! ! moved the hands of the puppet
! ! ! ! ! ! ! free access
! ! conjures up cascades
sparkling
breaks thread of enchantment
stones. No desk
not knowing what wall
mirages and dreams
secret upon secret
various nuances flutter
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! romantic “I”
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! rational “I”
curator striptease
Variations on a theme: recipes for essays – 1st attempt
Jenny Lawson
2KG SELF RA S I N G F LOU R
18 EGGS
2KG CA STER S UGA R
1KG B UTTER SOFT EN ED
1 B OTTLE VA N I LLA ESSEN C E
2KG I C I N G SUGA R
4 B OTTLES FOOD COLO URI N G
2KG REA DY ROL L WH I TE I C I N G
SWEETS A N D SP RI N KLES TO DE CORA TE
1 HOUR
MAKE 2 BATCHES OF CAKE MIX AND DIVIDE BETWEEN TWO 8” SQUARE TINS. AFTER 15 MINS OF COOKING REMEMBER THAT YOU FORGOT TO PUT THE EGGS INTO THE MIXTURE
1 HOUR
MAKE 2 MORE BATCHES OF CAKE MIX AND POUR INTO A LARGE 9” ROUND CAKE TIN. ON YOUR WAY TO THE OVEN DROP THE CAKE TIN AND THE MIXTURE ALL OVER THE FLOOR
1 HOUR
MAKE TWO MORE BATCHES OF CAKE MIX AND TRANSFER TO TWO 8” SQUARE TINS AND BAKE FOR 45 MINUTES
45 MINS
MAKE TWO MORE BATCHES OF CAKE MIX AND DIVIDE BETWEEN ONE 8” SQUARE TIN AND ONE 9” ROUND TIN
20 MINS
GO AND BUY MORE EGGS, SUGAR AND FLOUR
3 HOURS
WHEN COOL CUT THE SQUARE CAKES INTO CUBES AND ROLL OUT THE READY MADE ICING. LAYER THE ICING OVER THE SQUARE CUBES. AFTER WASTING 2 PACKETS OF ICING (WHICH STUCK TO THE TABLE AND RIPPED THE FIRST CAKE CUBE APART) GO TO THE SHOPS TO BUY MORE ICING.
2 HOURS
SPEND ANOTHER TWO HOURS CLUMSILY LAYERING THE ICING OVER THE BLOCKS OF SPONGE WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY
1 HOUR
DECIDE TO USE BUTTER CREAM TO ICE THE ROUND CAKE. MIX UP A VAST AMOUNT AND ADD FOOD COLOURING. MIX BLUE AND PINK COLOURS TO MAKE PURPLE. WHEN IT TURNS A HORRIBLE COLOUR THAT RESEMBLES SICK GO TO THE SHOPS TO BUY SOME MORE BUTTER.
1 HOUR
MAKE ANOTHER BATCH OF BUTTER CREAM. CAUTIOSLY ADD SOME BLUE FOOD COLOURING. WHEN IT TURNS A SOFT MINT GREEN COLOUR DON’T ADD ANY MORE AT THIS STAGE YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO TAKE ANY MORE RISKS. SPREAD THE ICING OVER THE ROUND CAKE
37 MINUTES
ASSEMBLE ALL SECTIONS OF THE CAKE TOGETEHR AND DECORATE WITH SWEETS AND SPRINKLES
TOTAL: 11 HOURS 38 MINUTES
(now start your essay)
Variations on a theme: recipes for essays – 2nd attempt Jenny Lawson
Viewing recipes as attempts, as narratives, as procedural
discourse, as interactive, as read, as used, as discourse colonies,
as created, as ingested, as dialogic. Recipes are attempts at documenting a creative process and sharing a version of this process with a reader. The recipe exists not as the meal/idea that it may result in, but as an interaction between multiple parties (writer/author/self/other and reader/audience/self/other) out of which many versions and re-workings of an experience can be produced. A recipe captured in text form acts as procedural discourse to be followed through a given system. Yet in the act of following the recipe the discourse becomes altered, re-shaped and given new life through a re-engagement in the creative process of cooking. The recipe is an attempt that sparks many more attempts. The recipe is inherently dialogic, existing somewhere in between the various attempts of writer/author/self/other and reader/audience/self/other. My mother’s self-authored childhood recipe book is a text that documents interactions across time and space, between her and I, and between both our multiple selves (past and present). The original text has been marked with smudges, stains and the remnants from multiple attempts and variations on a theme.
A collection of recipes might be
arranged alphabetically, like my mum’s, or in categories of particular foods,
such as ‘Recipes for Cooking Pork’ in
Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household
Management, or in general food groups, such as ‘How to cook Meat’ in
Delia’s Complete How to Cook, or
grouped in relation to a common
theme, such as ‘Comfort Food’ in
Nigella Bites. One page may contain a
number of related recipes or a single recipe may appear in a
number of parts on one page. Michael Hoey distinguishes between ‘mainstream’ texts (novels, articles editorials) and ‘discourse colonies’ (newspapers, dictionaries, cookbooks). Characteristically, ‘mainstream’ texts ‘are made up of interconnecting parts…like paragraphs, sections or
chapters’, whereas in discourse colonies ‘component parts do not derive their meaning from the sequence in which they are placed’ (Hoey 2001: 74-5). The reader is not bound to a recipe, as they might be to a more discursive text; I for one dip in and out, perusing for pleasure as well as purpose (I like to read Queen of Puddings
whereas I often make Rice Pudding). Recipes and food texts often combine sections of personal rambling prose alongside short functional instructions, which together blur Hoey’s distinction. Ruth Carroll, in a recent symposium paper, described her experience of reading Lourdes Castro’s Simply Mexican
cookbook: ‘it is unclear whether there is any one “correct” way in which to read it. Should the cooking notes text
box be read after the list of ingredients or after the directions on the right?’(2009). The visual layout of the
recipe has an impact upon the ways in which a reader interacts with the text. Although certain stylistic characteristics such as highlighted text, lists, boxes, headings, images and sections for reader’s notes are used to striate the page, the way in which a reader consumes a recipe remains fluid and open to selective consumption. Hoey however, confesses to a similar selective consumption of ‘mainstream’ texts and demonstrates his thought process; ‘this article is a good reference, that chapter will save...reading a book...this paper nicely supports …[an] argument’ (Hoey
1991; 14 my emphasis). This interactive dissection and selection of texts/essays is inherent to all reading processes. It enables both a dialogue between writer and reader beyond the printed
text, and a continuation of ‘attempts’, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth,
seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth…(ad infinitum).
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Personal commentary/context (a confession)
I am inside looking outside. On average, for every word that I type I
must at least glance outside 5 times. Sometimes my thoughts, words
and attempts get lost and I find myself staring into space and I don’t know how I got there – frozen inside my head, gazing outwards.
Method (style)
How do we ‘essay’ our (artistic) experiences? I am seeking a text that
offers a continuation, exploration, and re-contextualsation of my
practice. In written discourse my practice exits on the page as
autobiography, confession, observation, account, documentation and
justification. I am writing this text as practice about practice. This text
is about something particular but it exists simultaneously inside and
outside the work. This text is an attempt to articulate an autobiography
of essaying. Through writing this text I am attempting to engage with
the spaces in which I ‘essay’ and the objects and tools that enable me
to complete this task. I am trying to (re)search, pull out, accentuate,
edit, and layer together the many components of this experience. My
lower back is aching, I am punching the keys quite hard, I am drinking
my 3rd cup of tea and I have this idea about the recipe and the essay
as two versions of an attempt I am attempting to explore. However you
find yourself interacting with this text, please feel free to make notes,
cross bits out and attempt to use and read it as you please.
Ingredients
(provocations)
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*2#13'1#13,(#'-,#'4.51#
&./,13*26#7'-1*058'-9#:3*03#
-,/'*2&#.51&*),#13,#:.-;##
*1&,8+<#=>.&1,8'2,1?#!@ABC!D"##
E"#$F,G1#0'2#4,#),+*2,)#'&#
13,#H*&*48,#,H*),20,#.+#'#
-,'&.2'48(#&,8+I0.21'*2,)#
75-7.&,+58#*21,-'01*.2#
4,1:,,2#.2,#.-#/.-,#
:-*1,-&#'2)#.2,#.-#/.-,#
-,'),-&<#=J.,(#EKK!C#!!D"##
L"#$F3,#,H,21&#M#)*&05&,-,#
&.52)#)*++,-,218(#*2#13,#
:-*1*26#.+#13,/#13'2#*2#13,#
N,G7,-*,20*26N#.+#13,/9#'2)#
*1#*
,#5-6,21#0'88#.+#13'1#
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1.#'/78*+(#3,-,O#=P3,8'2#
!@@AC#!ED"###
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Image: Inside View
Image: Outside View
Tips and Hints (references) Carroll, Ruth (unpublished) presentation at
the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery
(13th September 2009) ‘The visual language
of the recipe: A brief historical survey’.
Hoey, Michael (2001) Textual interactions: an introduction to written discourse analysis,
Oxon: Routledge.
Kostelanetz, Richard (1975) ‘Introduction’,
ESSAYING ESSAYS: ALTERNATIVE FORMS
OF EXPOSITION, (Out of London Press).
Peggy Phelan (1997) Mourning Sex,
Performing Public Memories, London & New
York: Routledge.
For your own notes
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Title Variations on a theme: recipes for essays – 3rd attempt
Jenny Lawson
Fiona Fullam
Musings on Notes to Notes on Musings
word1
A word, a quick word, the word is, word on the street, in other words, in so many words, word of
mouth, harsh words, say the word, give your word, break your word, send word, put a word in, put
into words, put words to, of few words, take at his word, give me the word, word of honour, man of
his word, as good as his word, what’s the word?
Does word still feel like a word?
Does word still look like a word?
Does word still sound like a word?
sound2
A sound is a word. A word can be a sound. A word is a sound with meaning.
A sound is a word.
A growl is a sound.
growl = word ?
mark3
A mark is a symbol.
A mark is a sign.
A letter is a mark.
Letters make words visible.
Animals mark, leave signs, spray odours.
These odours have meaning.
These odours have messages.
“My territory, keep out!”
“Appropriate mate wanted for procreation!”
These odours communicate.
Is this language?
Are odours words?
1 Any sound or combination of sounds (or its written or printed symbol, customarily shown with a space on either side of it but none within it) forming meaningful element of speech, conveying an idea or alternative ideas, and capable of serving as a member of , the whole of, or a substitute for, a sentence; basic unit of expression of data and instructions in computer;
2 Sensation caused in ear by vibration of surrounding air; what is or may be heard; vibrations causing sensation of sound; similar vibrations whether audible or not; any of a series of articulate utterances (vowel and consonant sounds); music, speech etc., accompanying film or other visual presentation; (fig.) mental impression produced by oral or other statement etc,.
3 1. Target or other object to be aimed at; 2. desired object; 3. sign, indication, (of quality, character, feeling, etc.); 4. affixed or impressed sign, seal , etc. for distinction or identification; 5. cross etc. made in place of signature by illiterate person. 6. written or printed symbol, this as a sign of good or bad conduct, or as characterising quality of work; 7. trace, visible sign, left by person or thing; stain, scar, etc.
language4
Language is generally understood to have evolved as a verbal or written system of communication.
Can I have a language on my own? Must it be used for communication in order to qualify? If you
think about it, the whole notion of language is somewhat bizarre – using sounds or symbols to refer
to objects, people, emotions, ideas, abstract concepts, language itself. It must have started simply
enough: sounds for food, warmth, fuel, weapons. How did language progress to love, the future,
existentialism? Animals too, have a language of sorts, can express themselves to an extent through
different sounds, and more importantly can recognise and understand these sounds as having the
meaning given to them by the ‘speaker’, whether that was deliberate, unconscious or instinctive. A
dog can make a threatening noise, which is received and understood as such by another dog, or its
prey, or its predator. Animals can communicate tenderness, satisfaction, fear, aggression, with little
or no fear of being misunderstood. It seems unlikely however, that they are grappling with the
purpose of existence - their concerns are food, sleep, procreation, survival. Humans are more likely
than animals to be misunderstood. Has language evolved past communication?
Is it a question of translation, or of interpretation?
The cat is drinking milk..... . / -.-. .- - / .. ... / -.. .-. .. -. -.- .. -. --. / -- .. .-.. -.-
Die Katze trinkt die Milch.
Tá an chat ag ol an bainne.
!"#$% &' (% )*+ ,
!"#$%#% & '()$"#" *% +,&-&
None of the above will prevent one from thinking, that actually cats shouldn’t drink milk at all, it’s
bad for them, or of bedtime milk and honey, or that Uncle George makes that exact noise when he
slurps his tea.
Interpretation then!
reading5
Reading is an act of interpretation and is therefore possible at many different levels: meaning of
words; meaning of words together, as one word helps define another; interpreting material quality
of words, alliteration, onomatopoeia; interpreting/appreciating visual quality of words laid out on a
page; interpreting visual signs, actions in performance, video, image; interpreting these same words,
4 1. a vocabulary and way of using it prevalent in one or more countries. 2. method of expression; system of symbols and rules for writing computer programmes. 3. words and their use; faculty of speech; person’s style of expressing himself. 4. professional or sectional vocabulary. 5. literary style, wording.
5 read: 1. interpret mentally, declare interpretation or coming development of; 2. (be able to) convert into the intended words or meaning (written or printed or other symbols or things expressed by such symbols, or abs.); understand words intended by (person); copy or transfer data from. 3. reproduce mentally or vocally, while following their symbols, with eyes or fingers, the words of (author, book, letter, etc.). 4. study by reading. 5. find (thing) recorded, find statement, in print, etc. 6. interpret (statement, action) in certain sense. 7. assume to be intended in or deducible from writer’s words, find implications.
signs, actions in different places, at different times, in different frames of mind. Context therefore
must play a crucial role in how a piece of text, a piece of work is ‘read’. Each reading, re-reading is
intrinsically different to every other. Each reading, re-reading brings new insight, new meaning, a
new interpretation.
writing6
Why write?
A mnemonic device.
Leave something behind after death.
Give voice to one’s ideas.
Guide, teach or instruct.
Pass on a message.
Share information.
Criticise/critique.
Elaborate.
Entertain.
Recount.
Explore.
Express.
Explain.
Writing is seen, read, mostly understood.
Writing is visual.
Writing is language.
Is language visual?
essay7
An essay could be seen as an attempt to elucidate, establish, explore, expose, refine, define,
challenge, test, contest.
Must it then be prose? Can a poem or a performance constitute an essay? Can an image constitute
an essay? A set of notes? A series of thoughts? A heated debate?
An essay resides then not only in written language, but in the aural, the visual, the performative, the
curatorial, in speech, in thought, in action. An essay resides in its attempt at attempting, in its
essaying of essays.
6 Write: 1. form or mark symbols representing word(s) esp. with pen or pencil or typewriter on paper or parchment or other surface. 2. form or mark (such symbols), form or mark the symbols that orm or constitute (word, special script, etc.). 3. fill, draw up or fill in with writing; underwrite. 4. compose or written or printed reproduction or publication, put into literary etc. form and set down in writing, be engaged temporarily or permanently in such composition, compose books etc. 5. state in writing or print. 6. describe in writing as. Writing: In vbl sense; handwriting; written document; piece of literary work done, book, article, etc..
7 1. attempt (at, in). 2. literary composition (usu. in prose and short) on any subject: [f. F essai (essayer)]. 1. attempt (task, to do or abs.); (arch.) try, test, (person, thing). [ME, f. assay, assim. To F essayer f. Rom. *exagiare weigh, f. LL exagium weighing (exigere weigh; see EXACT)].
Said Doctor Bunny Rabbit, staring at his shadow black,"Indeed, I had no notion that I looked so like a quack!"
I wanted to re-visit Wittgenstein's duckrabbit thought experiment after setting myself the task in the studio of pursuing 2 different approaches to drawing; namely, drawing from observation and drawing from my imagination. The idea was to consider how these 2 different approaches to drawing effected the outcome. Of course, I realize that making art is hardly an empirical process, and that setting up an 'experiment' in the studio often produces something unrelated to the experiment itself, it was nevertheless a means to look at how I see. What I found through these drawing exercises is that the process of looking and seeing (observing and imagining) are bridged by an hallucinatory space.
While drawing I sense what I can only describe as a sort of zooming between microcosm and macrocosm; and a sort of flipping between inside and outside. This seems to be occurring both on the page and in my body. It feels so radically ambiguous, a perpetual de-stabilization of the figure and ground, body and page, tool and hand, eye and mind.
Trish Lyons
(a)musing: this and that from the studio
The Story of
A Score
Notes on a Return
Laing Gallery, Newcastle, 2009
By Rachel Lois Clapham
It goes like this.
Ultimately speculative, the score the lies in between action and object, performance and document;
it is a singular record of action past or imagined and a call to future performances.
This is the story of one such score, as it was made live, in public and in response to the Notes on a
Return exhibition at the Laing gallery.
It’s a story about a score based in movement, one that writes, composes or punctuates performance.
A score in which each physical gesture notches, tallies and incises intent and in doing so tells a
story; a story that is also about or tells of itself, of the doing, the churning, toiling, the hard work of
the story-telling.
The story of this score is shared by all those who were there, who find themselves now re-told and
re-scored. For my part, I am not the author of the score or its story teller, I am not outside the
narrative or the performance that cleaves to it. The narration is literally is in your hands. I am only a
character. Singular. A long stem with a blob on top or a line.
The final word in the story of this score was uttered by an electric fan at the push of a button. This
fan, another character, scattered the score and decided its final arrangement.
The score now remains as a collectively authored blueprint for future writing, future performances.
It’s out there. But that’s another story…
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ESSAYING ESSAYS: AN ASSEMBLING #1
Alex Hardy: Enjoy More; Pete McPartian: Readers Block(s)- Mapping Misunderstanding(s); Emma Cocker: To try, to tentatively attempt; Alex Eisenberg: Traces of Essay 1-3; Alex Hardy: I Love You; Rachel Lois Clapham: About Quartet (2009); David Berridge: Enter At Your Own Risk; Jenny Lawson: Variations on a Theme: Recipes for Essays (Attempts 1-3); Fiona Fullam: Musings on Notes to Notes on Musings; Patricia Lyons: (a)musing: this and that from the studio; Rachel Lois Clapham: The Story Of A Score: Notes on a Return; John Pinder: Bells Bridge Bubble: A sound walk through London (with Pablo Chernor); Éilis Kirby: Essaying to Essay: Clinical Procedure III and Essaying to Essay: Observation. Front Cover: Pete McPartian, drawing after reading Kenneth Goldsmith.
