Repetition: An Engine of Difference

Quin’s doctoral research project addresses the question of meanings attributed to the repetition of the hand made image (specifically painting and drawing) in an age of digital reproduction. Central to the project is an investigation into the nature of repetition, the complex relationships between repetition and difference and its manifestations as artistic practice within Modernism, Post Modernism and the notion of Altermodern.

The proposed research arises from conceptual concerns with repetition and temporality which have formed a focus for much of Quin’s recent practice, as evidenced in ‘Repetition’ Global Studio, Liverpool Bluecoat, 2011, an installation of 360 ‘echolalic’ drawings, where each drawing is created from memory of the previous that engages an endless loop of looking, remembering and forgetting. 

Context and Methodology

There is a broad philosophical and theoretical context to these research themes. Repetition, in a broad sense of happening, doing, experiencing and saying over and over again permeates nature, human life, the various arts and has been the central subject in the works of many modern philosophers, including Nietzsche, Adorno, Derrida and perhaps most compellingly in Gilles Delueze’s 1968 principal thesis for the Doctoral E’tat ‘Difference and Repetition’.

In carrying out the project Quin aims to contribute to his understanding of this research area and to firmly embed/clarify his own position within it, exploring repetitions relationships to Heidegger’s, Kirkegaards’s and Deleuze’s thinking on temporality.

Quin’s research project seeks to investigate ways in which time based media might inform and reinvigorate drawing and paintings potential to open up a space… temporal, liminal and physical that allows a secondary reading (a latent subject matter) to emerge that link past, present and future.

Quin will be utilising a range of systems within time based media including random number generators to organise film sequences and the construction of sound pieces based on the Fibonacci sequence that in turn generate imagery for a series of paintings and drawings that will be incorporated into a larger installation examining the emergent relationships that develop between the hand made and the digital.

Quin’s research project has been supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.