Between Limit and Transgression – Research Paper

Between Limit and Transgression The Play of Meaning at the Image’s Edge ----Matthew Lee mail@matt-lee.com

Chapman, J. & Chapman, D. (2000) Exquisite Corpse.

----MA DIGITAL ARTS (VISUAL ARTS), 01 DECEMBER 2010 Course Leader: Jonathan Kearney Supervisor: Andrew Stiff Camberwell College, University of the Arts London

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Abstract --How can the frame of the two-dimensional still image instigate a tension between presence and absence, and a play between limit and transgression?

A frame, by conventional definition, is an assertion that the edges of the still image are necessary for containing and restricting representation. As a self-contained semiotic device, the frame presents to the viewer a sign, or a collection of signs, surrounded by an indeterminable nothingness, which can never come into view. The image frame’s purpose, then, is to make the world it contains ‘ordered and rational’ (Friedberg, 2009, p.42), by structuring, limiting and closing the field of two-dimensional representation with the intention to fix meaning and context neatly within its four borders.

This inquiry, however, challenges the notion that the frame presents fixed and stable meaning; instead the frame is a device that is capable of facilitating a dialogue between inside/ outside, presence/ absence. It is this indeterminable space outside the frame that the first part of this investigation looks at in depth. Examples from drawing and photography demonstrate instances when the edges of the image support a tension between what is present or viewable in the image, and what is absent, unseen, out of view, beyond its borders. Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the ‘outof-field’ provides the theoretical basis for an exploration into how the still image is able to signify a “somewhere else” in space and time outside the frame (Deleuze, 2005, p.18).

The investigation then goes on to explore other ways in which the still image is able to transgress the fixity of the frame. The Exquisite Corpse and patchwork quilt exemplify a frame or grid with possibilities for limitless spatial expansion. In these procedural activities, the grid is the underlying ordering and sequencing mechanism, which structures a ‘dynamic tension’ between ‘rules and transgression’ (Kern, 2009, p.5). An examination of these ideas is then explored in relation to the pixel-based digital image, with its potential for infinite compositional transformation and spatial development.

This inquiry determines that the still image frame is capable of instigating a dialogical play or irresolvable tension, between what is present in the frame, and what is absent, beyond its borders. This inquiry also shows that the frame or gridded mechanism in dynamic spatial development facilitates a ‘movement of a chain’, a transformative process in which meaning and context are inherently boundless (Derrida, 1980, p.292).

Key words: Frame, Representation, Presence/ Absence, Semiotics, Play

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Between Limit and Transgression The Play of Meaning at the Image’s Edge --The four fixed borders that frame a conventional still image function to demarcate the space available for representation while limiting the domain available to the artist, and, in turn, what is presented to the viewer. The frame may have a material thickness, as in the structural gilt frame around a Renaissance painting, or it may be an immaterial border, as in the edges of a photograph. However, the essential definition of a frame is to contain and restrict. The frame of the painting and the frame of the camera ‘always leaves out more of the world than it can fit in’ (Hedges, 1991, p.xvi); compelling the artist to make critical choices between what is included and excluded from the visual plane. Michael Carter takes this further, observing that ‘the fundamental characteristic of the visual image is that it has an edge, it stops. Unlike 'reality' which appears as unbounded, the image constantly displays to its viewer the fact that it is different from 'reality' by having an edge’ (Carter, 1990, p.149). The purpose of this edge is to distinguish difference, not only between what is included and excluded from within representational space, but also between representational space and real space. Framing is a fundamental necessity for comprehension, because without it, differences between these dualities become problematic: ‘framing always supports and contains that which, by itself, collapses forthwith’ (Derrida, 1987, p.79). The frame then, attempts to make the world it contains ‘ordered and rational’ (Friedberg, 2009, p.42), by structuring, limiting and closing the field of two-dimensional representation in order to fix meaning and context neatly within its four borders.

Does this conventional definition of the frame encompass all two-dimensional images? Are there not examples of images that transgress strict framing rationale?

One such example of transgressing the frame may be the Exquisite Corpse (Cadavre Exquis), a collaborative game popularized by the Surrealists in which the frame continually extends, incorporating more and more content to a potentially ever-expanding composition. The process for this game begins with one person drawing some visual material across a delimited section of paper, which is then folded over so that the next contributing artist can only see the very end of what had been drawn. The second person continues the composition, joining the ends of the previous unseen section with his own contribution; this is again folded over and hidden from the view of the next contributing artist. The game continues in this manner, with all previous sections remaining hidden from view until the game is considered over, all connecting sections are then unfolded, revealing a string of heterogeneous visual material.

It is at the end of the game when the work is unfolded that the mechanisms of the Exquisite Corpse are fully observable. At the micro level it is revealed that the final image is comprised of a series of delineated sections, with each of these demarcating (framing) the space within which each contributor has drawn his part. It is also apparent that each artist has joined his contribution with the previous input and that the image parts have come to connect across the divide between

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these sections. At the macro level however, this content, which has continually transgressed a series of gridded sections, has now become static, fixed within a rigid frame, encompassing all parts that make up the whole. In the end, there is no way for the still image to break free from framing convention. In the Exquisite Corpse there is a play between limit and limit’s transgression as more and more content comes into view, into presence, during the game; but once ended, the work reaches its boundary, it too becomes framed like any other image.

Chapman, J. & Chapman, D. (2000) Exquisite Corpse.

The four edges of the artwork are then necessary for structuring, limiting and closing the field of representation, ‘[allowing] us to experience the artwork as unproblematically present’ (Duro, 1996, p.5). Though the frame usually does not draw attention to itself, it has an essential role in focusing the viewer’s gaze towards the meaning it presents and privileges above what is exterior or excluded from view. As Roland Barthes states in Image, Music, Text:

The tableau…is a pure cut-out segment with clearly defined edges, irreversible and incorruptible; everything that surrounds it is banished into nothingness, remains unnamed, while everything that it admits within its field is promoted into essence, into light, into view. (Barthes, 1977, p.70)

Here Barthes defines the tableau (frame) as a rigid, clinical and absolute structure that operates as a delimiting boundary between what is present or viewable in the image, and what is absent, unseen, out of view beyond its borders. He establishes that the frame forms a ‘clearly defined’ divide between dualities of presence/ absence, acknowledging that to limit, is to also imply there is something beyond limit, which has been rejected. Essentially, Barthes regards the still image frame as a self-contained semiotic device, one which presents to the viewer a sign, or a collection of signs, surrounded by a nothingness, which can never come into view (Manovich, 2001, p.104). In Cinema 1, Gilles Deleuze extensively critiques this indeterminable space, which he refers to as the ‘out-of-field’ (hors-champ) – that which exists in space beyond the frame that

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‘is neither seen nor understood, but is nevertheless perfectly present’ (Deleuze, 2005, p.17).

Unlike Barthes, who refers to this unseen space as absent nothingness, Deleuze instead claims that the ‘out-of-field’ has a persistent presence in dialogical relation with the image:

In one case, the out-of-field designates that which exists elsewhere, to one side or around; in the other case, the out-of-field testifies to a more disturbing presence, one which cannot even be said to exist, but rather to ‘insist’ or ‘subsist’, a more radical Elsewhere, outside homogeneous space and time. (Deleuze, 2005, p.18)

This concept of the ‘out-of-field’ then challenges the idea that the frame presents fixed and stable meaning within its borders. This ‘radical Elsewhere’ outside the image also has semiotic value; it functions as an interpretive space and is set in motion by the viewer’s imagination, making ‘the image into a mental image, open…on to a play of relations which are purely thought’ (Deleuze, 2005, p.19). This idea can be seen at work across a variety of Edward Gorey’s illustrated stories, where the ‘out-of-field’ has a prominent role in the delivery (or non-delivery) of the macabre tale. In Gorey’s abecedarian book The Gaschlycrumb Tinies what is not seen in the frame becomes the significant focus. Each singular illustration is accompanied by a line of text that tells us of an absent event which has either already happened and is now out of the frame: ‘K is for Kate who was struck with an Axe’, or is about to enter the frame in the imminent future: ‘V is for Victor squashed under a train’. Here, the text and image signify a “somewhere else” in space and time outside the borders of the frame. Gorey does not present a fixed image of the event itself, but with just enough contextual information for the viewer to form a mental image of the incident. In Story For Sara, Gorey uses text this time to describe what is happening outside of the boundary of the frame at that given instant: ‘The cat didn’t care a bit; he swallowed her in one mouthful‘. Here, the tail of the cat can be seen just in the right of the frame, but all else has been censored from view. The specific context is then established through the text – If this text were altered, then naturally so would our perception of the action implied beyond the frame.

Gorey, E. (1963) The Gaschlycrumb Tinies.

Gorey, E. (1971) Story For Sara.

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Gorey, E. (1968) The Other Statue.

One illustration from The Other Statue presents a group of onlookers whose inquisitive focus leads the viewer towards the lower left of the image edge. Here are two legs of a figure lying flat on the pavement, the rest of the body cropped out of the frame. The scene provides us with more questions than answers; to whom do the legs belong? Why are they lying there? Is the person dead, asleep, or just observing cracks in the pavement? Neither image nor text provides sufficient information to answer these questions. As Wim Tigges says, ‘The terrible things happen just outside the framework of the picture, and so Gorey suggests that they happen just outside the frame of the texts as well’ (Tigges, 1988, p.189). In semiology, a sign is considered to be involved in a two-part relationship, between a present signifier and an absent signified. Pictures (and text) are then ‘signs which can evoke the image of, or refer to, absent objects’ (Nöth, 2007, p.61). In The Other Statue, Gorey’s framing of the situation forces a semiotic gap in the narrative scene, which denies the reader the ability to comprehend the ‘full picture’. This however allows the viewer to interpret the event, forming a mental image or multiple mental images that go beyond what is present in the frame. What is essential in many of Gorey’s illustrations is that the edges of the frame have an important role in creating a dialogical ‘tension between presence and absence of meaning’ that remains ultimately irresolvable (Tigges, 1988, p.52).

Gorey’s open compositions, in which elements are cut by or extend beyond the edges of the frame, seem to take inspiration from the delimiting characteristics of the photograph – It is almost inconceivable to imagine the creation of these works prior to the invention of the camera.

However, Stanley Cavell explains an important distinction between the frame of the conventional painting and the frame of a photograph, which, in turn, implicates our reading of the ‘out-of-field’:

You can always ask, of an area photographed, what lies adjacent to that area, beyond the frame. This generally makes no sense asked of a painting. You can ask these questions of objects in photographs because they have answers in reality. The world of a painting is not continuous with the world of its frame; at its frame, a world finds its limits. We might say: A painting is a world; a photograph is of the world. What happens in a photograph is that it comes to an end. A photograph is cropped, not necessarily by a paper cutter or by masking but by the camera itself. (Cavell, 1979, pp.23-24)

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The technical and material limitation of the camera forces the photographer to select a finite section from infinite space, but this restriction also acts as a compositional device, allowing the photographer to purposefully limit what is ‘framed and fixed for the viewer’ (Friedberg, 2009, p.129). Unlike in painting, the world actually continues beyond the spatial confines of the twodimensional photograph, but the viewer can still only imagine or presume what elements exist in front, behind, above, below or to the sides of that contained within the frame.

The photographic work of Martin Parr, whose portraits make use of the delimiting edges of the photographic apparatus to play with notions of identity, also uses framing as a subject itself.

Parr’s compositions often focus on the subject’s midriff, with the head usually cropped out of the image. This limiting of visual information forces the viewer to make judgments based on what he or she can only assume – with the subject’s clothing in a given context, now serving as the subject itself, facilitating stereotypical notions to form the basis of these judgments. Another of Parr’s photographs features the image of a tourist who is in the process of taking a photograph, but the delimiting edges of the spatially flattened image restrict from view the tourist’s photographic subject. Again, the viewer can only form assumptive propositions based on the context presented within the frame. What is clear, then, is that though the ‘out-of-field’ beyond the photograph may generally have ‘answers in reality’, this space beyond the finite cut still allows ‘room for thought’ (Cavell, 1979, p.24).

Parr, M. (2007) Dubai.

Parr, M. (2002) Mexico.

Deleuze’s concept of the ‘out-of-field’ brings into question the notion that the frame constrains what the image may signify. This unknown, indeterminable space beyond the fixed image is open to a degree of interpretation. The image may then operate within the fixed parameters of a frame, but its meaning, in correspondence with the ‘out-of-field’, is able to transgress what is merely visible. There is always involvement from the outside: the ‘closed system is never completely closed’ (Deleuze, 2005, p.18). Herein lies the problem; a frame is a fundamental necessity for structuring, limiting and closing the field of representation, which seeks to but ultimately fails to present fully-fixed and unequivocal meaning within its four demarcating borders. The edges of the image then, provide an array of opportunities for visual artists to foreground the frame; using its restrictions purposefully, to support a dialogical play or irresolvable tension between what is

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present or viewable in the image, and what is absent, unseen, out of view beyond its borders.

Deleuze continues his interrogation of the ‘out-of-field’:

When a set is framed, therefore seen, there is always a larger set, or another set with which the first forms a larger one, and which can in turn be seen, on condition that it gives rise to a new out-of-field, etc. The set of all these sets forms a homogeneous continuity, a universe or a plane [plan] of genuinely unlimited content. (Deleuze, 2005, pp.17-18)

Here Deleuze presents a potentially unlimited process for the framing and continual reframing of space: ‘The closed system refers in space to a set which is not seen, and which can in turn be seen, even if this gives rise to a new unseen ‘set’, on to infinity’ (Deleuze, 2005, p.18). When the photographic apparatus comes to incorporate a larger ‘set’ of visual information, the meaning of the in-set becomes recontextualized, forming a continuity with the larger ‘set’ that was previously unseen. This process can be seen in Takashi Homma’s series of five photographs for Jesus Jones’ Perverse album artwork, which operate as an example of how a meaning of a ‘set’ is affected when space is dynamically framed and reframed. Homma’s first photograph in this sequence presents a close up of two formidable masked wrestlers. In the second photograph the ‘set’ is extended to show that the wrestlers are in fact holding hands. In the third photograph they are shown to be standing in a front room, joined on either side by two women in pink leotards. When the ‘set’ extends again, a tripod comes into view, foregrounding the artificial and self-referential nature of the setting. In the fifth and final photograph the scene is framed by another in-set frame – the outside brick wall and window of an English Victorian house.

Homma, T. (1992) Perverse.

Across Homma’s series, the four delimiting edges of each photograph are decisive in the contextualizing and then recontextualizing of content. The work operates as an example of how ‘the value of a sign is affected by the presence of other signs around it’ (Crow, 2003, p.48), with our perception of the scene changing each time a new set of visual signs comes into view. When space is continually reframed, the meaning and context are also in constant transformation. In Homma’s series this transgressive process stops at the fifth photograph, however it is conceivable to imagine a process that continues to add larger and larger ‘sets’, recontextualizing meaning and reframing space, onto infinity. This idea finds its theoretical correlation in Charles Sanders Peirce’s concept of ‘unlimited semiosis’, a semiotic process where the interpretation of one sign leads to another sign, onto infinity. As Winfried Nöth explains:

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Since every sign creates an interpretant which in turn is the representamen of a second sign, semiosis results in a “series of successive interpretants” ad infinitum. There is no “first” nor “last” sign in this process of unlimited semiosis…The continuous process of semiosis (or thinking) can only be “interrupted,” but never really be “ended”. (Nöth, 1990, 2.4.2)

In his essay, “Structure, Sign & Play,” Jacques Derrida also discuses a semiosis of infinite play that precludes fixed meaning, stating that: ‘the absence of a transcendental signified extends the domain and the play of signification infinitely' (Derrida, 1980, p.280). Put simply, there can be neither ultimate presence nor fixed and final meaning in a semiotic process that is in continual transition. In such a process there is a ‘play of presence and absence’, between all that has been, and all that is yet to come (Derrida, 1980, p.292). Derrida calls this operation a ‘movement of a chain’ (Derrida, 1980, p.292), which evokes quite literally the process–based mechanism of the collaborative Exquisite Corpse game. The Exquisite Corpse drawing continually extends its spatial frame, incorporating more and more disparate visual material to a potentially ever-expanding composition. Each time an artist adds a contribution, a meaning is unpredictably transformed – ‘the turtle becomes a jigsaw becomes the loin of a beast’ (Laxton, 2009, p.34).

This game however, is essentially comprised of a series of repeated gridded (folded) sections, which are the underlying framework for ordering and sequencing the collaborative activity. The grid does not formulate an image with a center or a privileged hierarchical order, but a list of visual parts, which generates ‘an arbitrary assemblage of attachments from one signifier to another’ (Kern, 2009, p.7). The divide between sections marks differences between parts, however, these parts are also joined together by the ‘smooth transition of line’ that moves across, from one section to another (Laxton, 2009, p.32). The string of connected visual parts then works in compliance with a gridded mechanism, which structures and paradoxically orders the play it simultaneously allows to happen. In the context of this investigation, “play” refers to a meaning, which is in constant movement – in either a dialogical tension, or in boundless, ever emerging transformation. In the Exquisite Corpse there is a dialogical play of meaning between gridded parts, and also a transformative play of meaning along a linear sequence.

Breton, A., Camille, G., Prévert, J. and Tanguy, Y. (1927) Exquisite Corpse Drawings.

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The Exquisite Corpse, with its gridded repetitions and transitional visual elements would then be an example of a ‘smooth’ form, which moves through ‘striated’ gridded space. In their essay “1440: The Smooth and the Striated”, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari discuss these notions of the ‘smooth’ and the ‘striated’ space:

The striated is that which intertwines fixed and variable elements, produces an order and succession of distinct forms, and organizes horizontal melodic lines and vertical harmonic planes. The smooth is continuous variation, continuous development of form; it is the fusion of harmony and melody in favour of the production of properly rhythmic values. (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004, p.528)

Deleuze and Guattari examine these ideas of ‘smooth’ and ‘striation’ in relation to the patchwork quilt, which, like the Exquisite Corpse, consists of repetitions in structure (striation) and continuous variation in its visual elements (smoothness). The patchwork quilt is made up of material fragments that vary in size, shape, colour, pattern and texture. These juxtaposing elements are sewn together to form a square, which is then stitched to other opposing squares to form a grid. As Rico Franses explains: ‘it appears that the vast majority of quilts evidence a careful play between order and random “unstructure.” Straight lines and squares often lurk beneath the visual turbulence above’ (Franses, 1996, p.316). Like the Exquisite Corpse, the quilt has no center or hierarchical order; each square has the same value as the next. The grid spatially organizes and structurally frames the material fragments, but as the quilt maker keeps adding more and more squares to the extending grid, there is also clear potential in the quilt for infinite spatial expansion. As Rico Franses again explains: ‘It is the endless nature of the grid that allows simultaneously for a framing function of individual units (the squares), and the infinite replication of these, which leads not to chaos but to boundless structure’ (Franses, 1996, p.259).

Like the Exquisite Corpse then, the patchwork quilt is both framed and frameless. The grid is the necessary ordering mechanism of these procedural activities, which structures a ‘dynamic tension’ between order and disorder and ‘rules and transgression’ (Kern, 2009, p.5).

Barnes, N. (1900-1920) Crazy Quilt.

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These characteristics of ‘smooth’ and ‘striated’ space can also be evidenced in the twodimensional digital raster image. At the micro level, the digital still image consists of pixels (picture elements) – a finite number of abstract squares, each with its own ‘distinct color or tonal value’ (Manovich, 2001, p.53). These single point units of information form an underlying grid for an image composition, which at ‘actual size’ may appear smooth and seamless. Framed microelements then exist within the virtual frame of the digital raster image:

Visually, these computer-generated or manipulated images are indistinguishable from traditional photo…images, whereas on the level of “material” they are quite different, as they are made from pixels or represented by mathematical equations and algorithms. (Manovich, 2001, p.180)

As Lev Manovich notes, pixels are numerical representations of an algorithmic code. These mathematical equations can be altered; which means that each individual picture element, which comprises the digital image, is ‘subject to algorithmic manipulation’ (Manovich, 2001, p.27).

Digitization then allows a flexibility or variability that is not possible in traditional still image media. For example, The GUI (Graphical User Interface) actions and commands of Adobe Photoshop allow the user to continually modify the image composition: content fragments from a variety of sources can be added, deleted, combined, manipulated, layered, cut, copied, rescaled and rearranged. The image file can then be reworked an infinite number of times, and saved in limitless versions and in a variety of file formats. This technical and material flexibility within the representational field also extends to the compositional frame itself, which can be proportionately resized, or an area of the ‘set’ selected and cropped. Furthermore, canvas space can also be adjusted, reshaped or the amount of picture elements extended, thus giving the artist choices through which to modify what is seen or not seen in the picture plane. The computer display window, which is the frame around the canvas, also allows for mobility: actions such as zoom-in, zoom-out and scrolling, allow for an image to be viewed as a whole, or in fluid, dynamic parts.

These navigational capabilities then fundamentally change how an image is read or explored by a ‘viewer-turned-user’ (Friedberg, 2009, p.232).

What is essential is that these variable and mobile characteristics of the digital still image allow both the artist and the viewer/ user to explore a variety of open compositional framings. The edges of the digital image are still essentially a boundary, which orders and demarcates inside from outside, however, unlike the frame of the traditional painting or photograph; the digital image is ‘not something fixed once and for all’ (Manovich, 2001, p.36). The implied action ‘out-offield’ can remain permanently outside the frame, but in some instances it can also be revealed. In New Philosophy for New Media, Mark B. N. Hanson discusses this capacity for the digital image to transgress the fixity of the frame:

the set of elementary numerical points comprising a digital image contains within itself, as alternative permutations of these points, all potential images to follow, and since therefore, any point whatever can furnish the link to the next image, the digital image explodes the frame. (Hansen, 2004, p.35)

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The numerically constructed and gridded digital image then has the potential for infinite spatial and compositional transformation. This idea of a dynamic space in which an image’s meaning or context is in constant process is again reminiscent of Peirce’s concept of ‘unlimited semiosis’ or Derrida’s ‘movement of a chain’. These ideas can in turn be seen in Gridcosm, an online collaborative project set up by Ed Stastny, founder of SITO art collective in 1997. The process for this participatory activity is explained on the project website as follows:

Gridcosm is a collaborative art project in which artists from around the world contribute images to a compounding series of graphical squares. Each level of Gridcosm is made up of nine square images arranged into a 3x3 grid. The middle image is a one-third size version of the previous level. Artists add images around that center image until a new 3x3 grid is completed, then that level itself shrinks and becomes the "seed" for the next level. This process creates an ever expanding tunnel of images, the newest level a direct result of the previous level which is a result of the previous level...and so on.

(Gridcosm, 1997)

Stastny, E., Oast, E. V. & Oast, J. V. (1997) Gridcosm Levels 3491, 3490 and 3489.

Each Gridcosm level consists of 450x450 pixels, which is divided into a 3x3 square grid. Again, the grid is the underlying mechanism for ordering and sequencing this process-based, activity.

Each individual contribution is first created in an image editing software to a scale of 150x150 pixels and is then uploaded to its designated grid position on the project website. When all nine squares of a level are complete, the overall effect created is one of ‘shared difference’: fragments of photographs, drawings, text, appropriated material and individual graphic styles appear to both ‘join and separate, couple and divide’ (Laxton, 2009, p.34). Sometimes there are unexpected juxtapositions between distinct squares, while other times there is a unity, especially in instances where artists have attempted to blend their delimited section with that of the surrounding, already completed sections. Regular collaborators often work together, in an attempt to make the overall image appear ‘smooth’ and seamless, continuing the theme and colour scheme, sometimes across several levels. In these cases, ‘striation’ acts as a restriction, but also a challenge to overcome.

Gridcosm then, is comparable to the Exquisite Corpse game; both are collaborative activities that operate through a gridded mechanism, with inherent possibilities for infinite spatial expansion

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and compositional transformation. However, unlike the Exquisite Corpse, this project does not extend its spatial frame at the four outer edges, but rather forms a tunnel of images, that recedes towards a single (vanishing) point at the image center. What marks Gridcosm as fundamentally different from the Exquisite Corpse is that the viewer is able to witness the collaborative process in real-time, as artists add their sections, and as the meaning and context of the work changes. In the Exquisite Corpse one only sees the drawing at the end of the activity, when the work is fixed and bound within its final frame. In contrast, Gridcosm allows the viewer to navigate through its levels, traversing through space and time, clicking on each compounding layer. In this way, the viewer/ user is able to see a ‘chain’ of meaning production as it has been unfolded and will continue to unfold.

The traditional Exquisite Corpse, as played by the Surrealists, involves a set number of players, working in one location, on a single sheet of paper. In contrast, there are currently 3491 levels in Gridcosm, created by over 300 artists, across a span of 14 years (Gridcosm, 1997). These material, time and player limitations do not apply to this online platform, which allows for continuous and open collaboration over distance. These technical and material differences between the Exquisite Corpse and Gridcosm prove that the digital domain is not just another medium, but the next logical step for further enabling a potentially limitless transgression of the frame. It is this theoretical idea of infinity, which is fundamental to the transgressive process.

However, there still remains the practical impossibility that anything human-created can ever really be infinite. There may be no foreseeable finality to Gridcosm; but if (or when) the collaborative project becomes inactive, the work will then become fixed and bound to a frame that, by conventional definition, delimits inside from outside and presence from absence.

In closing, it is also important to recognize that while the digital image has the inherent capacity to transgress the fixity of the spatial frame within the computer window, it is still however inset within the four fixed material borders of the computer display screen. This master frame is a necessity for ordering and demarcating real material space from the immateriality of virtual space (Friedberg, 2006, p.6). However, even then, according to Mark B. N. Hansen, the digital image ‘need no longer be so bounded’ to the screen (Hansen, 2004, p.31):

Regardless of its current surface appearance, digital data is at heart polymorphous: lacking any inherent form or enframing, data can be materialized in an almost limitless array of framings; yet so long as it is tied to the image-frame [screen]…this polymorphous potential will remain entirely untapped. (Hansen, 2004, p.35)

Hansen’s assertion that the digital has ‘polymorphous potential’ presupposes the fracturing or dissolving of divides between dualities of inside/ outside, real/ virtual and sender/ receiver. This raises interesting questions in relation to framing, which becomes invariably complex in the dematerialized, multiform and multidimensional digital domain.

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Conclusion --The four edges of the still image are a necessity, required for structuring, limiting and closing the field of two-dimensional representation and also for distinguishing difference, between what is included and excluded from the visual plane. The image frame’s purpose, then, is to display the artwork as ‘unproblematically present’ (Duro, 1996, p.5), with the intention to fix meaning and context neatly within its demarcating borders. Deleuze’s concept of the ‘out-of-field’ however challenges this notion of fixity; while the frame presents a still image within its boundaries, it is unable to present a fully-fixed and unequivocal meaning (Deleuze, 2005, p.18).

Instead, meaning is able to transgress the formal and material limitations of the frame, by signifying a “somewhere else” in space and time. The ‘out-of-field’ also has semiotic value; it operates in dialogical relation with the image and is open to a degree of interpretation. The edges of the image then, provide an array of opportunities for visual artists to foreground the frame; using its restrictions purposefully, to support a dialogical play or irresolvable tension between what is present, in the image, and what is absent, beyond its borders.

The Exquisite Corpse and patchwork quilt exemplify a frame or grid with possibilities for limitless spatial expansion. In these procedural activities, the grid is the underlying ordering and sequencing mechanism, which structures a ‘dynamic tension’ between order and disorder and ‘rules and transgression’ (Kern, 2009, p.5). In the example of the Exquisite Corpse, the gridded mechanism facilitates a ‘movement of a chain’, a transformative process in which meaning and context are in constant spatial development (Derrida, 1980, p.292). This is then comparable to the numerically constructed digital image, which has an intrinsic flexibility or variability. The digital image may still adhere to the basic principles of framing, but it also has the capacity to not be so limited by a rigid, fixed frame. The implied action ‘out-of-field’ can remain permanently outside the frame, but in some instances it can also be revealed.

The technical and material flexibility of digital space enable individual artists or collaborators to create process-based works, where space is in dynamic development, and where meaning and context are in infinite transformation. It is this theoretical idea of infinity, which is fundamental to the transgressive process. However, there still remains the practical impossibility that anything human-created can ever really be infinite. Even in the digital domain framing limitation is enforced when the project is no longer active, the image file closed, or printed on a material surface. The play between limit and limit’s transgression then comes to an end, and the artwork becomes bound by a fixed frame, which by conventional definition, delimits inside from outside and what is present from what is absent.

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