Between scribbling and imaginal writing: The line that is on its way

Abstract

In a series of tiny artistic experiments, I explore the relationship between drawing writing and performing in close collaboration with children and professional dancers. I examine the tight relationship between drawing and writing on the one hand, and the process of sensorial (non-linguistic) sense-making on the other hand. Professional dancers and children engage in the act of imaginal writing. The aim is to come to an embodied understanding of drawing and writing as gestural re-enactments of the line (Ingold 2016). In this paper, I first describe the scribbling of young children, as the exploration of the line in terms of rhythm, movements and affects. Then, the tight relationship between drawing and writing is discussed. It is argued that both drawing and writing use the line as its medium, since ‘the same sort of line which writes also draws’ (Gray in Ingold 2016: 132). This brings me to imaginal writing, i.e. a form of writing that is not concerned with the semantic content of words but instead takes the quality and dynamic of the line as its departure point. Imaginal writing is a form of draw-writing that taps straight into the lived experience. It is an embodied activity that takes movement as the main vehicle for the sense-making process. This process is illustrated by the draw-writings of both children (my own daughter as well as other children) and professional dancers.