The Discarded Garment in Motion in 1950s and 1960s Narrative Film through the Lens of Drawing

This practice-based study asks: In what ways can momentary depictions in 1950s and 1960s narrative film of discarded garments in motion be interrogated and reinterpreted through drawing? It examines how drawing can apprehend and translate the enigmatic fragments of narrative film in which female film characters discard an item of clothing and, in so doing, it seeks to understand what drawn responses can contribute to the contemporary practice of drawing in ‘the expanded field’.

During these filmic moments the garments are in motion, not clearly visible, and removed from the possibility of being touched directly. By examining 1950s-60s film via digital modes this research questions a set of presumed correspondences between drawing and analogue film, especially where these relate to movement, sight and tactility.

Employing an emergent methodology, and in reflective dialogue with the practices of contemporary and historical artists and theorists on drawing, multiple viewpoints are adopted to open out interpretations of the excerpts. In contributing different facets to the theorisation of the interplay between viewing film and the practice of drawing, each chapter offers new propositions for the following: drawing digitised filmic motion; discussing the positionality of the research from a female body; proffering the notion that a sense of touch is provoked through viewing drawings of the unclear image. The final chapter aims to ‘focus on the blur’ as the garments become less distinct with repeated viewing and their construal becomes progressively more diffuse through further drawing episodes until the experience of drawing becomes more physical than observational.

The research concludes by arguing that the practice of drawing the blurred garments in motion, because of their elusive qualities, necessarily moves between iterations and refuses distinctions between digital and analogue, virtual and physical. The drawings produced also oscillate between definitions, causing sensation in the viewer: an emergent embodied affect that eschews the sequential interpretation associated with the consecutive frames of analogue film. Ultimately the study determines that to keep the movement of its subject alive, drawing is released from the requirement to produce a singular, clear visual representation. Primarily, this work seeks to further extend the scope of drawing and to generate new ways of understanding drawing practice and research.