A Fragment of Time in the Pure State; Painting in Search of Haptic Time

Abstract

The paper re-presents aspects of a practice-based Ph.D. in which notions of temporality within painting are researched and placed into a relation with digital imaging. The research constructs a means of theorizing process through an engagement with various conceptualisations of duration, alongside the mapping of process derived from studio notes. It proposes an approach to painting's temporality aligned with Proustian ‘time regained’ and the Deleuzian ‘time image’, and argues that a dialogue with digital imaging offers contemporary painting an expanded topography and contributes to its ability to ‘think’ time in these terms. Painting's time is viewed in relation to haptic visuality and filmic time, moving towards the proposition of a form of haptic time. These reflections are linked to various conceptions of the actual/virtual to suggest that it is through a folding of time that painting, via the digital, might make an approach to pure duration; Proust's ‘fragment of time in the pure state’.

Keywords:

• painting process
• digital imaging
• time
• haptic