Demands of the diagram: creative abduction in artists’ research and practice

ABSTRACT

This is the introductory article by the guest editor of a special issue of Journal of Visual Art Practice, under the title of ‘Demands of the Diagram’. It addresses the work of the six contributing artists who explore different aspects of the ‘diagram’ at the intersection of history, philosophy, science, semiotics and art, in relation to their own and others’ creative practices. The article addresses emerging themes of embodiment, evolution and ethics arising out of the discussions, situating them with reference to C. S. Peirce and his theory of creative abduction. In conclusion, the author calls on the work of Isabelle Stengers to argue for the diagram as a commons, where heterogenous knowledges might co-create, helping to make us fit to respond to the demands of our time.

KEYWORDS:

• Diagram
• commons
• semioethics
• C. S. Peirce
• creative abduction

Acknowledgements

This special issue has been nearly two years in production, and there are a number of people I would like to thank for their help and support along the way.

Firstly, the former co-editor of JVAP, Dr. Mary Anne Francis, who, knowing my research interests, first mooted the idea of a special issue on the subject of artists’ diagramming. I thank her, along with her co-editor Craig Richardson, for accepting my proposal – it would not have happened without her suggestion. Her ceaseless support when I was struggling with ‘the beast’ has been vital to my confidence, and our ‘socially-distanced’ walks over muddy fields in search of the barn owl were a source of great sustenance and pleasure.

I thank all the artists who so graciously accepted my invitation to participate, and for their diligence, patience and care in the editorial process. Several suffered directly with Covid19, while others have persevered with me through the many various disruptions the pandemic continues to create in our lives. I would especially like to acknowledge Gemma Anderson, whose domestic circumstances in ‘lock-down’ since becoming a first-time mother of twins had originally forced her to withdraw from the project. Having first accepted her decision, I was troubled by it. Not wishing to acquiesce to such a condition of exacerbated inequality, we subsequently found a way to make her contribution possible.

I would like to thank Adam Gibbons for acting as my ‘critical friend’. His contribution has been invaluable in providing keen eyes and high standards in the editorial process.

I thank all on the production team at JVAP and the new co-editors, Ed D'Souza and Sunil Manghani, who managed to put me at ease in the hand-over period with their unqualified enthusiasm and support for this special issue.

Finally, as ever, I thank my beloved partner and playmate Paul Grivell for his continued interest in this project, his copy-editing skills and practical support with all things I have no patience or aptitude for. I look forward to spending more time working with him on forthcoming Scanlon&Grivell productions.

I dedicate this work to my mother Margaret Scanlon, who at 92 years of age is still curious about everything I do, if incredulous that I now do it without payment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Kenneth Rogers in conversation with Matthew Ritchie and Frederik Stjernfelt (Rogers 2014). https://youtu.be/L34QVtcybmc

2 In The Culture of Diagram (2010) Marrinan and Bender outline the progressive understanding of the diagram as a ‘working object’, through their in-depth analysis of Diderot and D’Alembert Encyclopedie.

3 Citing Deleuze as the pre-eminent proponent of the ‘diagrammatic turn’ in Continental philosophy, Jakub Zdebik (2012) describes the way Deleuzian non-philosophy proposes a paradigmatic shift from the concept of diagram as representation or schema (after Kant) to one of ‘abstract machine’, in which it is argued the gap between discursive (concepts) and non-discursive (forces) is bridged.

4 For the most part, with a few notable exceptions, what is discussed and demonstrated in this special issue, conforms to the formal characteristics and functionality of the ‘iconic’ conventional diagram, as a ‘skeletonised’ structure of points and lines.

5 As a free (unpaid) thinker, I am all too aware of the contradictions of making this proposition in the ‘enclosure’ of this academic journal, around which the publishers are obliged to construct a paywall.

6 The ‘cause’ for Stengers, in her essay ‘The Earth will not let itself be Watched’ in Critical Zones; The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth (2020) edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, is manifestly how we may generate a ‘common sense’ to become ‘sensitive to the dynamics of interdependence’ in the context of climate catastrophe (235).

7 The ‘philo-fiction’ is a new theoretical genre proposed by Francois Laruelle. Through this new genre, all modes of thinking (artistic, scientific, philosophical and non-human) are equalised into a fictional space/time, where they are viewed (non-philosophically) as ‘clones’ of the Real.

8 Peirce also theorised the role of the inscription support, attributing the highly evocative, if obscure term- ‘phemic sheet’, which roughly translates as a ‘tongue’ or ‘speaking’ sheet, relating through its Greek etymology to divination.

9 Lorenzo Magnani (2004) refers to this type of ‘hands-on’ reasoning in scientific discovery as ‘manipulative abduction’ and diagrams as ‘epistemic mediators’.

10 This also raises the question; might the affective and material processes of slow, diagrammatic thinking provide a check to the threat of epistemicide in algorithmic culture?

11 Holly Graham, citing black theorist Christina Sharpe's strategies of ‘Black annotation’ and ‘Black redaction’ for creating ‘wake work’ in reconstructing and decolonising representations of black history. In ‘Be/Holden- A Duty of Care’, In On Care (2020), edited by Rebecca Jagoe and Sharon Kivland, MA Bibliotheque, Hastings, UK.

12 Mitchell's broad agenda to open up the ‘image/text problematic’ is set against the backdrop of European post-structuralist analysis, most notably in the work of Foucault (1926–1984), Derrida (1930–2004) and Lyotard (1924–1998). However, his work does not address the diagrammatic specifically as an operation of the image/text problematic.

13 As discussed by Susan Mazur and virologist Luis Perez Villareal who believes we need to find better means to co-exist in the ‘virosphere’. Blog article 2015.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Claire Scanlon

Claire Scanlon is an artist and independent researcher based in Lewes, UK. She lives with Paul Grivell with whom she collaborates as Scanlon&Grivell. From 1990 to 2003 she was visiting lecturer in the Department of Art at Goldsmith's College and from 2003 to 2019 she was senior lecturer in the Creative Industries Department at Northbrook Metropolitan College. She is a member of the University of Brighton Drawing Research Interest Group and has contributed to several events and publications organised by the Drawing Research Network, Loughborough University. In 2019 she completed a practice-based Research Masters, investigating the speculative idea of the imagethought at the intersection of conceptual art diagramming and post-Continental philosophy. Recent publications include ‘Diagramming in the Margins of Philosophy', Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice 3 (1) (2018) and ‘ ’ #3 Becky Beasley in Conversation with Claire Scanlon (edited by Adam Gibbons and Eva Wilson), NERO Publications (2019).