Completed Untitled Studies ['Deleuzian Cartography'] 2

 

Untitled Study ['Deleuzian Cartography'], Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Paper,
300 mm x 300 mm, 2024

Here is a somewhat delayed round-up of the paper-based studies from my 'Deleuzian Cartography' work. Everything here was produced during the latter months of 2024, alongside the slightly more substantial/resolved panels which emerged from these explorations. The first and last images here represent studies at the larger 300 mm x 300 mm size, and could, I imagine be presented as exhibit-able work, should the opportunity arise. In the event, the intensity of work and degree of resolution they represent falls only slightly short of the small 'finished' panels which have resulted from all this to date.  

This & Following Five Images: Untitled Sketchbook Studies ['Deleuzian Cartography'],
Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Paper, 180 mm x 180 mm, 2024

The remaining images show sketchbook-based studies, which were thus somewhat more spontaneous and rapid in their execution. This fairly organic methodology is a key feature of this phase of work, with motifs, themes cartographic locators and solipsistic references all bobbing to the surface of an ongoing process of exploration. The hope is that anything that emerges might draw on previous discoveries or feed into as yet unmade images with equal facility. 

The key motivation behind all of the work is, I guess, the search for a form of intuitive, deconstructed/reconfigured cartography, in which the established geometries of the street plan are perpetually short-circuited through space and time by more fluid currents of potential meaning or narrative. As can be seen, this has expanded to encompass references to electrical/electronic circuitry, diagrammatic labyrinths and specific literary/philosophical  references, alongside the streets, buildings and allusions to digital/analogue mapping with which I began. Simultaneity and a sense of zooming-in/out feel like they're pretty key too, and I can't help noticing that the inclusion of specific textual elements has once more become a thing.

As regards media and technique, there's nothing especially new to report. Everything has evolved via my long customary mixed-media/collage-based methodology. It allows me to hang onto a degree of chance and spontaneity and is a well-proven way to act as an editor/manipulator of found material (and spaces). I can only hope there's been some refinement of technique or increase in sophistication/nuance over the years I've been working like this.

The whole 'Deleuzian Cartography' idea still feels very live, although I've currently taken a short pause for thought, largely to consider possible ways to retain the key features and spirit of this kind of imagery at a larger scale. I feel like there are relatively practical issues of enlargement  implied here, but also an imperative to explore the idea of extensiveness and the transgression of set boundaries too. In relation to that, it's impossible to ignore the fact that Jorge Luis Borges once wrote an account of a physical map produced at 1:1 scale, which grew to encompass every topographic detail of the entire empire it eventually covered [1.]. Time for some more practical experimentation, I think...

Untitled Study ['Deleuzian Cartography'], Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Paper,
300 mm x 300 mm, 2024

[1.]: Jorge Luis Borges, 'On Exactitude in Science', From: ‘The Aleph’, London/NYC, Penguin, 1998