Writing in the dark

‘Writing in the dark’ is an interdisciplinary, practice-led inquiry into writing art. Practice-led research of this kind aligns exploratory, conceptualist methodologies with the multidisciplinary interests of the author’s own art practice. From within an art practice situated specifically in space science, and from the point of view of an artist who writes, this doctoral research engages in a series of experiments into making art and writing art to examine the dialogue that occurs between writing and making. This dialogue between writing and making art is prepositionally mediated through multiple methodologies including notation and listening.

The generative nature of notation provides a bridge between the subject and the object of study. Notation is at once apart from, and a part of, writing art. As a gestural, compositional method, notes mark out a temporal moment of art making as an episode or interval of material extensity. This sense of the ongoing and the intertextual which is present in noting is central to meaningfulness in the act of writing art. Embodied, relational, sonorous and selective, listening is a method for writing art that emphasises lateral, associative movements between sensory dimensions—hearing as. It is an intransitive, tendentially mobile activity that relies on acoustic vigilance and ear training—a state of preparedness to hear, and a readiness or an openness to re-imagine sound. In writing art, listening prompts an understanding of spatio-temporal continuity and variation.

From the experiences of working as an artist who writes, three overlapping kinds of enactment emerge—how to write with art making to explore possibilities in process, mood, atmosphere and event—how to write about art, using memory and knowledge to locate and situate art practice, often in unfamiliar terrain—and how to write through art, to enrich the context of art making as a site of resistance, forming social relations that have the potential to create change. Beyond representations of art, this doctoral research develops new models of engagement to address interdisciplinary histories, frameworks, and methods. As different kinds of disciplines and distinct practices crisscross, ‘Writing in the dark’ explores how discourses, the artist and her practices, and the field of writing art are mutually dependent, affective and productive.