Essaying Essays An Assembling

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 Eisenberg Pages 1-9 from Innovations in Essaying by Richard Kostelanetz. Published as Introduction to Essaying Essays: Alternative Forms of Exposition (Out of London Press, New York, 1975),1-9.

Traces of Essay 2 - by Alex Eisenberg Pages 1-9 from Innovations in Essaying by Richard Kostelanetz. Published as Introduction to Essaying Essays: Alternative Forms of Exposition (Out of London Press, New York, 1975),1-9.

Traces of Essay 3 - by Alex Eisenberg Page 1 from Innovations in Essaying by Richard Kostelanetz. Published as Introduction to Essaying Essays: Alternative Forms of Exposition (Out of London 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

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waved arms eyes flash

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conjures up cascades

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buildings of insidious songs

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moved the hands of the puppet

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free access

sparkling breaks thread of enchantment

stones. No desk

not knowing what

wall

mirages and dreams

secret upon secret various nuances flutter

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curator striptease

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romantic “I” rational “I”

2KG SELF RASING FLOUR 18 EGGS 2KG CASTER S UGAR 1KG BUTTER SOFT ENED 1 BOTTLE VANILLA ESSENCE 2KG ICING SUGAR 4 BOTTLES FOOD COLO URING 2KG READY ROLL WHITE ICING SWEETS AND SPRINKLES TO DECORATE

Variations on a theme: recipes for essays – 1st attempt Jenny Lawson

1 HOUR

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.

3 HOURS

GO AND BUY MORE EGGS, SUGAR AND FLOUR

20 MINS

MAKE TWO MORE BATCHES OF CAKE MIX AND DIVIDE BETWEEN ONE 8” SQUARE TIN AND ONE 9” ROUND TIN

45 MINS

MAKE TWO MORE BATCHES OF CAKE MIX AND TRANSFER TO TWO 8” SQUARE TINS AND BAKE FOR 45 MINUTES

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 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

2 HOURS

TOTAL: 11

(now start your essay)

HOURS 38 MINUTES

ASSEMBLE ALL SECTIONS OF THE CAKE TOGETEHR AND DECORATE WITH SWEETS AND SPRINKLES

37 MINUTES

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

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

SPEND ANOTHER TWO HOURS CLUMSILY LAYERING THE ICING OVER THE BLOCKS OF SPONGE WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY

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 selfauthored 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

Viewing recipes as attempts, as narratives, as procedural discourse, as interactive, as read, as used, as discourse colonies, as created, as ingested, as dialogic.

Variations on a theme: recipes for essays – 2nd attempt Jenny Lawson

seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth…(ad infinitum).

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,

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

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

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: 745). 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

number of related recipes or a single recipe may appear in a number of parts on one page.

!

Performing Public Memories, London & New York: Routledge.

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! ! – 3rd attempt for essays Jenny Lawson ! ! ! Ingredients ! (provocations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ips and ! Hints (references) Carroll, Ruth (unpublished) presentation at the Oxford! Symposium on Food and Cookery (13 September 2009) ‘The visual language ! A brief historical survey’. of the recipe: Hoey, Michael (2001) Textual interactions: ! to written discourse analysis, an introduction Oxon: Routledge. ! Kostelanetz, Richard (1975) ‘Introduction’, ESSAYING! ESSAYS: ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF EXPOSITION, (Out of London Press). Peggy Phelan ! (1997) Mourning Sex,

Title Variations on a theme: recipes

Image: Inside View

Image: Outside View

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 3 rd 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.

Method (style)

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.

Personal commentary/context (a confession) ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ _______________

For your own notes

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?

essay 7 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)].

(a)musing: this and that from the studio

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

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.

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