A fragment of time in the pure state : a mapping of painting's time through Proust, Deleuze and the digital image

This submission comprises a series of individual and collaborative research projects from the period 2003-2007 with material from 1999-2002 providing a background context. The research proposes an approach to time in painting aligned with Deleuzian/Leibnizian time and Proustian ‘time regained’ as opposed to the Freudian model of ‘return’ and preoccupation with absence and mourning often assigned to painting. It claims that such a positioning of painting’s temporal continuum enables it to reflect the complexity of our lived experience of time. It is argued that this alignment is realised through an engagement with the requisite literary and philosophical writings, but that crucially, a dialogue with digital imaging offers contemporary painting an expanded topography and contributes to its ability to ‘think’ time in these terms. The research reveals a means of theorising process in which a systematisation of theoretical discourse takes place within practice, through the application of the research methods. The submission includes a series of ‘process notes’ and a section of ‘visual footnotes’, articulating a distinctive perspective upon practice-based enquiry. The chosen methodology is characterised by a cyclical approach to action and reflection, and the text maps the development of the research as a series of interconnected circuits, operating on rhizomatic principles. The research finds that a rhizomatic model, as a non-linear, non-teleological structure, echoes the experience of practice and is appropriate in addressing the given proposition as it recognises that the shifting territory of the temporal and of memory produces a multiplicity of divergent, overlapping lines of thought.