RMIT University School of Architecture & Urban Design PhD by Project 2016
abstract
This PhD by Project has explored process-based interventions within decommissioned buildings and gallery spaces. The methodology I have engaged with is one of working responsively, allowing particular temporal conditions to surface within these sites and situations. The potential of these conditions are then engaged with in ways that do not seek to prescribe an outcome in advance. Sites are inhabited in time, and specific rendering techniques – such as drawing and mark making – are introduced. These situations are then reassembled through a variety of processes, including occupation and maintenance, with the material and the immaterial considered both individually and at the same time.
This process led to a foregrounding of duration; immersion in time as flow. My practice has subsequently extended beyond spatial and material propositions through a consideration of time as process, time as content, and time as [im]material. Unexpected impulses and outcomes have occurred, produced through a sense of openness and willingness to practice outside preconceptions. Towards the conclusion of my PhD, I now refer to my practice as temporal, material and spatial.
My drawing and painting practice has shifted in significant ways, making connections with the built works produced as part of this candidature. The practice of drawing and painting has become one of mark making, marking time, making time, and time making; foregrounding duration and marking an occurrence. The marks made are in response to previous marks and, in this way, the processes of drawing and painting have become immersed in, and expressive of, time.
Drawings, paintings and built works are all now immersive processes that prioritise time as distinct from space. This has enabled my practice to move from one that was defined (by myself and others) as a site specific and spatial practice, to one that explores and manifests the concept of duration through a practice that is temporal, material and spatial. The marks made – whether they be on a canvas, a house, a building, or a gallery – materialise [im]materiality and allow the residue of particular rendering processes to be assembled as collections of materialised and spatialised time.
