Drawing Analogies: Diagrams in Art, Theory and Practice

By exploring diagrams, diagramming and the diagrammatic across a range of disciplines and arts-led practices, this open access book addresses the gap between diagrams as a widely valued mode of visual representation and their under-examined status within arts and art education

Informed by Charles Sanders Peirce’s understanding of a diagram as an analogy of relations, Drawing Analogies draws on its authors’ creative use of diagrams as artists, educators and arts researchers, and on fields of inquiry that bring the arts into alignment with other disciplines - most notably anthropology, critical theory, pedagogy, philosophy, psychology, semiotics and the physical and life sciences. This range of disciplines is evident in the artists and writers discussed, such as Gregory Bateson, Black Quantum Futurism, Salvador Dali, Phillipe Descola, Aristotle, Hilma af Klint, Rosalind E. Krauss, Yayoi Kusama, Louis Hjelmslev, Susanne Leeb, Jacques Lacan, Pauline Oliveros, and George Widener.

While the authors approach diagramming as both a technical and poetic activity, their emphasis is on creative, embodied and exploratory modes of diagramming practices, which are capable of engendering new forms, thoughts and experiences. By taking an artistic approach to diagrams and diagramming, by incorporating diagramming as a method of enquiry within chapters, and by exploring their interdisciplinary and multi-perspectival potentials, Drawing Analogies proposes giving new life to the art of diagramming and widening the arena of artistic practice and creative research.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by University College London.

David Burrows is an artist, writer and Professor of Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, UK. He has published and exhibited widely and is a member of the London-based art and performance collective producing the collaboration Plastique Fantastique.

John Cussans is an artist, writer and researcher. He is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, course leader for BA Fine Art and BA Fine Art with Psychology and director of studies for practice-led PhD projects in Fine Art at the University of Worcester, UK.

Dean Kenning is an artist and writer based in London. He is Research Fellow in the department of Fine Art and PhD supervisor at Kingston University, UK. He also teaches Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, UAL, UK and is the 2020-21 winner of the Mark Tanner Sculpture Prize.

Mary Yacoob is an artist based in London, UK. She is Assistant Lecturer in Fine Art at London Metropolitan University, UK. She exhibits widely and was the recipient of an Arts Council England award for Schema (2020), an exhibition and publication.