24 More on Writing: Postscript
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That essay, ‘Speed Limits’, was one of three I was commissioned to write for the online forum for art criticism, ‘Instantloveland’13 -the name derives from the title of a painting by Olitski. The first essay had been prompted by a visit to the ochre quarries of Roussillon. I realised how mistaken I was in thinking the pigments we use are ‘raw’, straight from the earth. The term ‘materiality’, used to bolster the claim that a painting surface is ‘physical’, does not quite mean what it seems. Most art materials have been processed, refined, and adapted for whatever works best. Both watercolour painting and digital painting lack the weight of impasto, of texture; they are more like working with light. They look immaterial, weightless, and that can make them seem insubstantial – insubstantial as art. The second of those essays was on Dubuffet and drawing14. I have been fascinated by how-to-draw books and have a large collection. I have written several essays derived from the material. Dubuffet had argued that the more you mastered technique the less creative the result. How or why should you discard what you learn? Writing has been a way to work out where I might be heading, and I have never resolved this question of ‘skill’ in drawing.
Early on, it was often said that computer graphics was for artists who ‘couldn’t draw’. In the mid-nineties I had a column in a journal called ‘CGI’, which was for the special effects industry in film and advertising, with recommendations for the best hardware and software on the market - Silicon Graphics led the field. My column reported on how artists were using computers, and I was often sceptical - given the wilder prophecies circulating, such as that earth-bound art would disappear and go virtual after the millennium. I wrote a piece for the UK edition of ‘Wired’ about a virtual reality art exhibition that I had failed to bring about. The sub-editor was Hari Kunzru, who has since flourished as a novelist. Whatever else was happening, I was lucky to have moved in circles that as a regular painter I would never have entered. My imagination was stretched; I could cross between the psychedelic fantasy of the dematerialised art of the future, and the more prosaic world of gallery art. Through the ‘Wired’ article I found myself invited to the BBC. Initially I thought I was simply a normal visitor, but it turned out to be something special. I was there as a digital artist, shadowing the newsgathering team, with the idea of providing Detail of ‘Walking, Stopping, Turning: Leicester Square’, 1995, inkjet print, 76 x 89 cms