Un-claiming Experience of an Old Drawing

In the wake of recent manifold predictions of the ultimate death of the projected image as a response to emerging technologies1, I believe, a speculative and critical reflection on the end(s) or rather the collapse(s) of the projected drawing is especially vital. 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.”2 Investigating the implexuous relation between embodiment and unclaimed experience, I will explore embodied act of drawing as a speculative research method and work on/through a set of projective drawing devices.

With this intention in mind, I will at first propose to shift the discussion from the projected image to a more extended conception of projection in architectural drawing: the projective cast3. Indeed, according to Robin Evans, the act of oscillation is an important part of ‘projection’ and of the ‘projective’ cast4. Projective refers to a rather transitional spatio-temporality, whereby ambiguity and uncertainty is cherished and celebrated. We may also observe that Evans carefully avoids any historical narratives restricted within the disciplinary boundaries in terms of defining projection in architectural drawing, stating: “not architecture alone but architecture amongst other things. […] Architecture can be made distinct but it is not autonomous.”5

Thus, we may perhaps ask ourselves whether it is possible to lay a particular claim to the ‘history’ or to the ‘end’ of the projected image in architecture. Cathy Caruth, in her book Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (1996) proposes and discusses on the notion of “unclaimed experience” with a deliberate focus on the possibility of a conception of an unknown history. Related to the notion of unclaimed-ness of any experience, she particularly elaborates on the forgotten-ness of traumas6. She states that Caruth’s discussion unfolds a critical position to reflect on the history of the projected drawing and relatedly on the end(s) or the collapse(s) of the projected drawing. In Caruth’s words, this critical position allows us to speak of the “possibility of a history that is no longer straightforwardly referential (that is, no longer based on simple models of experience and reference)”7. The impossibility to locate experience (traumatic experience in particular) in time and its demystification contribute to a particular mnemonic narrative that does not require -or that perhaps even deliberately escapes- any immediate understanding. Caruth describes this escape as “an unbridgeable abyss”.

At this point, the re-definition of ‘childhood’ and its relationship with ‘trauma’ become especially poignant. Giorgio Agamben proposes an alternative reading on the conception of ‘infancy’ and argues that childhood is not a “re-turn to an earlier relationship to words” nor a “regression”8. The essential reliance of childhood on its own forgottenness, asserts a quite special conception of time and memory which is not necessarily based on the act of remembering that perhaps remains “unclaimed” by no one, not even by ourselves.

In the history of art, we can see that there is a tendency to ‘claim’ the childhood of images either mainly with negative connotations, and to regard it as an inability to imitate reality as it is,9 or to discuss positively as a substantial reference for the avant-garde resistance against the hegemony of perspectival images. According to the first stance, the childhood of images has been mostly dated chronologically back to pre-perspective, whereby perspective becomes the ‘adult image’. However, Agamben discusses childhood (in the context of language) as a yet “unspoken” condition, not as a state of “not being able to speak”10. In a similar tone, Zeynep Sayın argues that Ottoman miniatures are potent to open a speculative discussion similar to ‘reverse perspective’. According to her opinion, miniatures offer not a uniform, measurable space but a great unknown that cannot be claimed by the gaze alone11. She further argues that they demonstrate a rather haptic character, bearing the “trace of the letter”12.

Investigating the frameworks of ‘unclaimed experience’ and ‘childhood’, my artefact offers 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. Intending to propose an anachronic quest that is not based on immediate referential understanding, the devices tactically aim to annul the privileged realm attributed to reality located behind the picture plane, and intend to unfold both optic and haptic field of investigation between the picture plane and the eye. Rather than facing the drawing plane with a certain distance as in perspective, the drawing device seduces the drawer to approach closer towards the drawing plane, calling for an uncanny union. Through this research method, 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.