Un-claiming Experience of an Old Drawing

Abstract

This artefact is an experimental drawing project that I have been working on as a part of my on-going PhD research as a critical response to the current discussions on the end(s) of the project-ed drawing. Critically distancing myself from the conception of any technologically determined end and from a strictly referential and chronological historical narrative, I propose to execute a mnemonic and situated reading on the various temporalities of a drawing. Investigating the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of ‘unclaimed experience’ (Caruth) and ‘childhood’ (Agamben), I propose to unfold other possible historical imaginations “to arise where immediate understanding may not.” (Caruth) Investigating the implexuous relation between embodiment and unclaimed experience, I explore embodied act of drawing as a speculative research method and work on/through a set of projective drawing devices and develop a speculative research on a set of particular ‘aged’ drawings - fragments of a set of Ottoman miniatures, the so-called ‘ends’ of which are rather controversial. I propose to unfold an alternative reading on miniatures that do not necessarily refer chronologically back to pre-perspective but suggest other anachronic temporalities and exchanges.

Keywords: Experimental Drawing, The Collapse of Projected Image, Unclaimed Experience