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Somehow between the water and the wind

There are certain things in the world that only really come into being in the moments

that they are activated or brought into action by otherthings. A boat, for example, ismuch like any other vessel until it is brought into contact with water, and it is this

relationship to the water that in part makes a boat a boat and not any other mode oftransport or travel. So too, the specificity or singularity of the boat is furthermoremade evident during the act of sailing, for sailing characterises the mode of being

which is a boat. However, the act of sailing is only made possible through theinterplay of multiple forces, including but not only including that of the boat itself.Sailing is the interaction of the boat and the skipper and the water and the wind. It isan event that takes place in the moment of these different forces coming together inone place. Remove any one to reveal their inextricable interconnectedness. The

negotiation or interrelation between these elements creates the dynamic of movementand in turn it is this movement over water that defines the boat as a boat; that gives itits reason for being. The boats reason for being is thus dependent upon the presenceof other forces; its existence or potential, at least, is always conditional, affected anddetermined by the existence of other things. Learning to sail involves the negotiation

between and with these different elements; it is a process of facilitation or mediationthat attempts to make good the turbulence created by the pull of the water and thepush of the wind. Sailing then, involves a mode of attendance or attention to thesedifferent and often competing forces; moreover, an intuition for knowing when to

yield and for recognising when to assert control.

Our own experience of being in the world might equally be thought of in terms ofthese interrelations and co-dependencies. Subject formation is a highly contingent

process, which takes place somehow between and through the event of affecting andof being affected by other things. It is perhaps no coincidence that the word subjectalsomeans to be depending or conditional upon somebody or somethingelse, somethingother. The experience of the subject emerges then at the interstice between the selfand the world, as a consequence of a social encounter or interaction with. Forphilosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, the experience of being is always one of being with,where the concept of I is not prior to that of we. For him, the nature of existence

itself is one ofco-existence, where being cannot be anything but being-with-one-another, circulating in the with and as the with of this singularly plural existence. i

Within Brigid McLeers practice, the process of art production operates in a way thatis analogous to the contingent experience of a subject formation based on this notion

ofbeing with. Her practice becomes an active space of engagement that acknowledgesand makes visible the interrelationships and interactions that contribute to ourexperience of being in the world. McLeers work often begins as a dialogue with, orresponse to, an existing place, a particular history or a specific text, where eachdifferent stimulus sets up new conditions or parameters within which to operate,necessitating the continual reconfiguration of the rules of engagement.

In The Face of Another, McLeer adopts Kobo Abesii novel and its title as the startingpoint for the production of a two-part work, in which she attempts to erode ordestabilise the domineering presence of the individuated and privileged I, which isfore-grounded by the authors use of first person narration. Over an extended period,

the artist carefully deleted the text within the novel, word by word, leaving nothingbut the pronoun, I. What remains is page after page of erased narrative, a white

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palimpsest punctuated only by the pronouns repeated and diminutive black strike.Counter-intuitively, the act of isolating the pronoun does not emphasise theindividuality or singularity of the narrator, for this position was only held in place by

the logic of the narrative structure, now absent. Without this anchor, the pronoun nolonger belongs to any one; it is liberated of its relationship to the individual. The

singular becomes plural and anonymous. A visual multiplicity of Is scatter across thesurface of the page, as the pattern of a community is brought into being. In the secondpart of this work, the pattern from two pages of the treated novel are scaled up and

each I is indelibly etched onto copper panels. Once assigned its designated place onthe copper grid the pronoun appears to relate to the individual once more, where itbecomes seemingly separated from the others; a small island distanced by the spacebetween. McLeer attempts to draw these disconnected entities closer together bydelicately tracing a spiralling line around each, expanding ever outwards. Her circling

inscriptions increase the space of each individual I, enabling them to slowly begin tocreep or spread across the copper plate towards the others until, and only until, theybegin to touch.

However, the process of striving towards the other is double-edged for the drawn lines

serve to further inscribe the marks of separation, reinforcing the boundary envelopingeach individual I; making them seem increasingly distanced, more isolated.

Alternatively, the emanating lines appear territorial or viral, seeping across andencroaching upon the space of the others, trying to breach or infiltrate theirboundary. The two parts ofThe Face of Anotherthen perform a double-gesture,highlighting the plural experience of existence whilst simultaneously revealing thisplurality or condition ofbeing with to be discontinuous, where the individual ultimatelyremains separated and alone. So too, the act of production is marked by a dichotomy,for the more McLeer attends to the surface of the material the less control she has of

the marks that are being made. Evidence of activity or labour registers not only in thecarefully inscribed lines but also in the smudged clusters of bodily imprints that dullthe metal around the sites of production, appearing like welts or bruises left from theact of being touched. Here, attention or even the artists proximity to the work doesnot guarantee any certainty or assuredness of process; rather it renders the work alittle more unpredictable, a little less easy to control.

The condition ofbeing with then is always in the end a form of separation also, wherethe process of contact or proximity between one and another simultaneously closesand reinforces a divide that can never be crossed, the line that marks the edges orlimits of one persons being and the beginnings of another. According to Nancy,

from one singular to another, there is contiguity but not continuity. There isproximity but only to the extent that extreme closeness emphasizes the distancing itopens up.iii Contiguity is only ever a form of beingin contactwith - a tangentialoperation, a mode of touching (upon). To be contiguous is to share only in aboundary, which in turn divides. Touching surfaces inevitably create a line; and it is

this line perhaps that distinguishes the known from that which cannot be known, fromthat which remains unknowable. In this sense, it becomes impossible to ever trulyknow the other for even the close encounter or most intimate of proximity alwaysleaves an unbridgeable gap or zone of indeterminacy between. Here then, is thedilemma at the heart of our being in the world, for whilst we are perpetually bound

into relations with other things, they forever remain beyond the limits of ourknowledge or understanding. Art practice makes this relationship palpable, for within

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the process of production there is a threshold crossed at the moment where the workdevelops a momentum or life of its own, and in doing so begins to enter the realm ofthe unknowable, becoming somehow other.

For McLeer, practice becomes a space in which to explore the paradoxical experience

of existence, as one of being simultaneously interconnected with and yet disconnectedfrom other things in the world. The act of making work is performed through arelationship between the artist and a given context or particular stimulus; the chosen

materials and a rule or instruction that is often brought into play as the catalyst tomake something happen, to create the momentum for production. Practice is acontinual process of negotiation between these different elements, the nature of whichonly becomes revealed in the course of the making itself, as the work begins to assertits own terms. Inthe video,Isola:Incontro McLeer endeavours to trace the pattern of ashadow over the course a day, as it carves an arc through the ferocious heat of themidday sun into the faint and dissipating evening. The shadow itself is cast from anornately decorated gate that formerly marked the entrance to the psychiatric hospital

of San Servolo in Venice; a place of incarceration and isolation previously inhabited(involuntarily) by hundreds of men deemed somehow unfit or unable to participate in

society at large. McLeers tending to the shadow is then as much a mode ofmindfulness or memorial; a state of immersion that calls to attention the lives of theseunknown individuals whose right to life had been stripped away by the institution andby societal notions of normality. McLeer appears crouched awkwardly, engaged in theact of marking the passage of time with lines tentatively drawn and scored onto canvas

laid on the ground; the drawing itself complicating the conditions of its ownproduction by ever reducing the space and terms within which the artist is able tooperate. The continual unfolding of the shadows arc demands continual attentionand the sustained investment of time, concentration and of care. A rule is drawn, an

action is required, and a commitment is made.

Whilst certain rule or system-based processes are often used as a way to absolveindividual responsibility and a sense of subjectivity from production, McLeer workswithin certain parameters as a declaration of having made a vow to see somethingthrough. Hers is an ethical gesture like the honoring of a promise or a pledge or of a

contractual oath. However, within the work the rule or requirement is rarely fixed orconstricting but rather becomes a site of negotiation and working through. At times,different pressures, commitments or even durations compete for attention as one forcegives way to allow the emergence of another; as the rule created in order for the workto begin is superceded by another that allows it to continue to develop. An outcome

can only ever be predicted and can easily turn. The impetus or force that initiates aprocess has the capacity to destroy it also; production can become entropic in theabsence of the decision that determines when to stop or change tack. The artists rolethen is to navigate a course of action between the different and competing forces ofproduction, by intuiting when to yield to the rule or the momentum of the work and

when to reassert control.

McLeers work offers a reminder that the terms in which we live our lives are in factflexible and negotiable. It suggests how certain rules and frameworks can be affirming

and productive, whilst others only serve to limit or constrain. McLeer exposes the rule

as a construct whose logic has been put in place, or brought into effect over time, andwhich in turn might as easily be dislocated or challenged. She questions the logic and

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authority of rules or languages - of dominant systems of knowledge and power - thatattempt to define or determine our experience of the world; that are insidious,invisible or somehow undeclared. Less the site of naming and of stabilising meaning,

the dictionary for example, is exploited for its arbitrary logic. Unexpected poetryemerges in the collision of unlikely words found adjacent within its pages, incongruous

linguistic relations strangely born of a desire to order and control. Or the entries foreach individual letter of the alphabet are written over one another, each separateword merging with the others to become formless as they gather on the page in a

mercurial pool.

Within McLeers practice the logic of the rule or restriction gets folded back in onitself in order to be creatively productive, or else becomes used as a point of criticalpressure or leverage against which to work. Rules become reviewed or dismantled

once they begin to stifle action or no longer offer provocation; they are entered intovoluntarily and without obligation or have the capacity to be modified and rewrittenas events unfold. This optionality however is not to be confused with opting out of a

commitment, nor the blunt refusal to perform according to the rules terms. Tocommit to a rule or contract voluntarily or optionally is in the end a critical and

ethical decision; it is to make a commitment to something out of choice, by ones ownvolition. Rather than being surrendered to with passive and acquiescent acceptance orobedience, for McLeer, the rule is to be approached consciously and as a constructthat should be used affirmatively or else somehow changed. McLeers practice thenfunctions as a site through which to reflect on subject formation and the experience of

being as an ongoing activity that needs to be continually attended to, that is always influx. It is to be actively undertaken rather than passively endured. This sense ofbeingthrough the act ofdoingis in part a refusal to see the world and our place within it asfixed and determined, as unchanging and unchangeable. It is to challenge the

presupposition that the terms by which we live our lives and understand ourselves aresomehow antecedent to us being here, and thus irrevocable. The experience of beingis positioned as an event that is always taking place, whose terms need to beperpetually re-negotiated, re-worked or re-defined. Being is thus a continual processbut not one of merely continuing to be as before, but rather a practice of explorationand investigation that is always happening in the present.

Emma Cocker, 2009

This essay was commissioned in response to Brigid McLeers exhibition,Isoli[cont.]at LanchesterGallery.Isoli [cont.]is a suite of works all of which explore contingency as a method of production, anaesthetic form, and as way of thinking about subject formation. Circling around a set of work made

while on residency at San Servolo island in Venice (Summer 2007) this suite of works use performativeand durational processes to produce drawings, video works and photo-objects that invoke and resist the

implications of being island.

i Nancy, Jean-Luc,Being Singular Plural, Translated by Robert Richardson andAnne OByrne, Stanford University Press, 2000. p.3

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ii Abe, Kobo, The Face of Another, Translated from the Japanese by Alfred AKnopf 1966, First published 1964. (Penguin Classics, 2006)iii Nancy, Jean-Luc,Being Singular Plural(p.5)