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The exposition transforms completely to enter into the realms of the unconscious. Line can be employed either consciously as previously seen in creating various types of spaces issued from logical choices or it can be employed directly - immediately to express the unconscious. There are some possibilities of using a line. The first might be seen as the result of a movement or as an indication of movement in the future. This is the logic-dominated conscious use of line. Or line might be used to mark intentions in some kind of writing with conscious use of resemblance between what is written and is described as Egyptian in hieroglyphes, Japanese and Chinese in calligraphy.
At last, line can be independent of what is
described. Here arises the possibility of arbitrariness between object and notation as in
modern alphabets. That is one connection between langage and abstract art which was
emphasized by the Surrealists when they called it "Automatic Drawing". Having
mastered this and enjoying it, one can delight in an arbitrary line not intended to
function or to mean anything but for the pure physical pleasure of its shapes and curves.
This is a method of making visible the content of the unconscious and the imagination
without control by the will or conscious intention. Although automatic drawing gave access
to layers of the person closed to conscious effort, it is less simple that might appear
and involves certain dangers which need to be evaded. Thus certain restrictions must be
placed on its execution. The participant should carry it out in a completely relaxed state
both mentally and physically - involving the whole body drawing from the shoulder (not
merely from the arm or the hand), standing above the paper to be drawn upon so that his
whole body is unified in one motion to the end that he functions not as a manipulator but
as a vessel.
Further-more the drawing should be done with a constantly varying velocity neither simply
fast or slow but with continuously varying speed: including starts and stops. As in the
most rational calculus, the rate of change in drawing the line is significant as well as
the rate of change of the rate of change. Here as in many of these experiments, profound
understanding even influences the unconscious.
The expression of the unconscious
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