Operating under the title, ‘Not Yet There' my practice is characterized by a state of restlessness or wandering that serves as both subject & motivation for my enquiries. Writing & text-based work are used to explore models of practice – & subjectivity – which resist or refuse the pressure of a single or stable position by remaining wilfully unresolved. My work interrogates the critical (& often resistant) potential within experiences or conditions such as failure, irresolution, boredom, deferral, hesitation, incomprehensibility, inconsistency & stillness. Whilst my practice tends towards the essayistic (embracing the potential of the essay as a ‘tentative effort’ or ‘trial’), I am increasingly interested in performative, invitational, propositional & even collaborative models for producing texts. Processes of condensation, extraction, fragmentation, listing, footnoting, cross-referencing & appropriation have become critical methods for attempting to produce speculative 'openings' rather than drawing conclusions, or for appearing purposeful whilst remaining without clear or discernible intent. I am a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University & live in Sheffield.

Wednesday, 18 January 2012

Video: Drawing on Drawing a Hypothesis


Nikolaus Gansterer and Emma Cocker, Drawing on Drawing a Hypothesis, video still

Using processes of cross-reading and live drawing, Nikolaus Gansterer & Emma Cocker approach the publication Drawing a Hypothesis as a reader might thumb through the book; where certain sections appear to be lingered over, while others are skimmed in the search for key words and phrases, evocative fragments and extractions. Their reading suggests that books like Drawing a Hypothesis might not always need to be read in a linear or logical way, but rather are to be dipped into, allowing for detours and distractions within the event of diagrammatic reading itself. The lecture takes the figures of thought at the heart of Drawing a Hypothesis as points of departure for exploring and performing the correlations between thinking and drawing. Addressing the shifting and ambivalent properties of image, symbol and drawing within the publication, it asks, “how can these visual artefacts be comprehended?”


Drawing on Drawing a Hypothesis, Nikolaus Gansterer &Emma Cocker,
Documentation of a performance-lecture at M HKA, Antwerp

Video was commissioned and produced by M HKA
Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, Belgium
as part of the Graphology Project curated by Edwin Carels
Camera and editing:
Patrick Elliott

With text by A. Adam, Monika Bakke, Kerstin Bartels, Marc Boeckler, P. Brandlmayr, Emma Cocker, Gerhard Dirmoser, B. F. Fisher, Nikolaus Gansterer, Hanneke Grootenboer, Karin Harrasser, Helmut Leder, Katja Mayer, Ralo Mayer, Felix de Mendelssohn, M. L. Nardo, Christian Reder, Philippe Rekacewicz, Moira Roth, Andreas Schinner, Ferdinand Schmatz, section.a, Walter Seidl, Christina Stadlbauer, Axel Stockburger, Jane Tormey