2014 ongoing

Duration 1+ hours.

2 Parallel=lines is one of an evolving series of durational drawing scores She’s only doing this which are performed in gallery-like situations and adapted to different scales and architectural formats. They can be performed solo or with multiple performers – sometimes with live feed projection presenting an aerial view of the live drawing event unfolding on the ground. The score works with paper and willow charcoal on the gallery floor.

In She’s only doing this the score operates as task-based constraint, performance event, material residue – and as document.

2 Parallel=lines exists as documentation. It was initially performed alone in a studio with only the documenting camera as witness. Using white school board chalk on a black wall, the lines were washed away later, just a slight greasy residue lingering in the upper surface of the wall and a light scattering of chalk dust on the floor.

A performer works close to and draws onto a black wall with chalk or a white wall with charcoal. Lines are generated in parallel around a central area – rhythmically alternating between a freely drawn line extending out in any direction to the edge of the space and a second line carefully drawn underneath the previous back to the centre. A meditative process of underlining. 

The performer’s attention – eyes, weight, pressure, breath – is on the moving point of contact between chalk and wall whilst for a spectator viewing from a distance, an increasingly entangled radial network of parallel lines appears on the wall. Spectators are free to enter and leave the space throughout.

A visual performance of white, black, light, line, dust and surface becomes increasingly architecturally present whilst the performer becomes increasingly absorbed into the scale of the drawing.