From April 8 until June 12 2011, Simon Pummell will take part in the exhibition LONELY AT THE TOP: Graphology Chapter 2 at M HKA in Antwerp (Belgium). Pummell is course director of Piet Zwart Institute's Lens-Based programme.
In four episodes, Graphology explores the automatisms that may show themselves in drawing. The human hand as a seismograph of the inner life, but also, conversely, the 'mechanical unconsciousness' of the machine that thrusts itself on the human eye. Printed reproduction techniques lead a life of their own, but how? A series of exhibitions set at the intersection of drawing, photography, printmaking, film and computer graphics.
This year, M HKA presents a series of four 'pocket' exhibitions that thematise the technique of drawing and its automation, in the technical and mental sense. Graphology focuses on the human hand as a seismograph of inner life, but with extra attention on the 'mechanical unconscious of the machine' imposing itself on the human eye. Examining how graphic techniques of reproduction start to live their own lives, this exhibition series situates itself at the crossroads of drawing, photography, printing, film and computer graphics.
Each chapter of Graphology presents the work of emerging and established artists in a historical framework. The second chapter explores the impact of typography. With the invention of printing, handwriting lost its monopoly. At the same time the automation of writing caused a substantial process of individuation. From the Armenian alphabet over Nietzsche's poems on the Schreibkugel: every text also became an autonomous image.
With works by among others Simon Pummell, Carl André, Stefaan Brüggemann, Mekhitar Garabedian, Dean Hughes, Friedrich Nietzsche, Christophe Plantin and Salome Schmuki.