Spin, Puppet, Spin: Drawing Estrangement
(2019)
author(s): William Platz
published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
The life studio is an eccentric place and this exposition is populated by eccentric characters. The drawings and photographs contained in this research have all been created by studio puppets. Each puppet's awkward methods of working — stabbing, pulling, twisting a clutching hand — magnify the work’s unorthodox strategy. Puppets will illuminate the idiosyncrasies, malfunctions and estrangements typically surfeited in the life studio’s private sphere. This research responds to the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann (‘Spin, puppet, spin’) and George Méliès; puppet/art hybrid exhibitions; the Puppet Master horror franchise; and the lay figure of Gustave Courbet. Puppets are not alien in the life studio. Although they were typically concealed in the artist's process and hidden from public view, they were common fixtures until the 20th century. This exposition estranges artists and models from the life drawing apparatus and invites puppets to make pictures.
Can a drawing be rehearsed?; or, There's no bowing in performance art
(2018)
author(s): William Platz
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
This exposition combines a practice-led research project titled 'Tullah and Tom: A Drawing Affair' with a reflective analysis of ‘performance drawing’—a tag deployed with increasing frequency in drawing research. Drawing has always been hybridised and concocted with other disciplines and research frameworks, but its contemporary associations with performance art, expanded theatre and the performing arts are under-examined. The co-option of drawing by performance lacks extensive critical engagement, as do significant aspects of the performance drawing process. The subject of this exposition is two of these unexamined aspects—rehearsal and the curtain call. Although there are analogies to be drawn with theatre, this research resists analogy and focuses on these phenomena within the context of drawing practice. Drawing rehearsals and curtain calls are peculiar and specific activities within the performance/drawing nexus, and their examination has yielded significant insight. One private and one public, these ancillary and parasitical processes bracket the performance drawing and fulfil pivotal roles in enacting, re-enacting, and disenthralling the drawing from its performance matrix.