PhD sketchbooks: IBM (1/1/22 - 22/3/22)

This one mostly contains things relating to my thesis and to (U)KA. (Timelapse video here!)

Presence of the researcher/ creator - diablerie with captions (which I didn't use because captions would act as a go-between for the images and the words and therefore mess up the integrated nature of the thesis, and also because captions can be used to direct audience attention towards certain aspects of an image rather than allowing them free imaginative engagement) - also, on the left-hand page, two drawings about active voice and when traces of the past 'speak for themselves': these are linked by the denial of the presence of the practitioner (and I would never have spotted this connection if I hadn't drawn these stupid cartoons)

Left: thinking about how to include interaction between characters and their creator (me) in the thesis. Right: ideas for visuals that didn't get included in the thesis, such as me sounding like a broken record (I say the same stuff about drawing as a research method in everything I write, ffs), links between drawing and other stuff that involves simultaneous movement and thinking (Tim Ingold gives examples such as walking, playing an instrument, etc., - for walking, see Ingold, The Life of Lines, pp.60-62 - for playing music, see Ingold, Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art, and architecture, pp.127-128. I'd like to point out the infinite usefulness of working out, which in this instance becomes another good example of movement and thinking; to make it effective, you need to concentrate on what you're doing. Mind to muscle connection!)

Left: more caption nonsense (I might do a postdoctoral thing where I commit horrors with captions), and visual language test for the thesis (which I abandoned in favour of my usual freehand ink sketchbook stuff). Right: amusing (and miserable) idea that I could've shown William ageing through the thesis (and then vanishing before the conclusion), also drawings on the benefits of consistent practice (in both drawing and lifting) which also did not get into the thesis.

Left: drawings about the ideal of objectivity, and also about meaninglessness. Right: notes on Hayden White's Tropics of Discourse (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1978)

More potential thesis drawings. The one in the lower left-hand corner made it into the final draft. "LIKE THIS!"

Developing (U)KA. I read Jonathan Walker's article 'Antonio Foscarini in the City of Crossed Destinies' (in Experiments in Rethinking History, edited by Alun Munslow and Robert A. Rosenstone, Routledge, Abingdon, 2004) and he used Tarot cards to build his narratives. I'd already been thinking about use of cards (nonlinear narrative fun, endlessly rearrangeable, and also full of interpretive potential, such as in IBD) so I thought Why Not

Working out sizing for cards. I wanted them to be printable at home, available as a free download, which makes them better than affordable, and also easy to acquire (rather than traipsing off to a stockist or sending for them online). It also makes it easier for me: I only need to find somewhere to host the PDF, and I don't have to search for card deck printers, I don't have to pay for loads of decks being made, and I don't have to store mountains of decks in my house and then try selling them.

Left: playing with Tarot imagery. Right: looking at Mimi Parent's work.

Still looking at Mimi Parent's work, specifically her use of dark tones and how shadows work in her pieces.

Bringing in Lenormand - another divinatory card system.

Right: I wondered about having names on the cards (like the entire Major Arcana from the Tarot) but decided against it as it would influence audience interpretations, and it'd get complicated when I wanted to blend the imagery and make split cards which show more than one scene on the same card.

Wondering about bringing in the Minor Arcana

Left: notes on Tarot (edited by Jessica Hundley, Taschen, Köln, 2020), and then trying out the test (U)KA cards in a spread

More Minor Arcana ideas. I included a few cards which (in my interpretation) directly refer to specific Minor Arcana cards, but anyone else reading (U)KA might see differently, which is exactly what I want! (U)KA is about interpretation, and creating and manipulating narratives.

That's it for this sketchbook - the next is all final illustrations for the cards! (Sketchbook index here.)