The compulsion to draw while the mind conducts seemingly unrelated operations is often referred to as “doodling”, not a word I personally favour, connoting as it does the frivolous. In fact there is much of value to be gained from these drawings, being unencumbered either by the demands of style or by any aesthetic convention, the fleeting trends and the seemingly-timeless so-called rules that govern the process of making what we are taught to think of as “art”. Interestingly, the style of these drawings (created while on the phone, using a computer, or just waiting for any work-related hold-up to run its course) is generally wildly heterogeneous. Depending on the individual, these drawings can run the gamut from faithful figurative depictions of daydreams to wildly ecstatic-cosmic-psychedelic abstracts. The surrealists always had a great fondness for play, as evinced by their legacy of games such as Exquisite Corpse or by techniques such as automatic drawing. The idea of course is to encourage access to the unconscious mind, that mysterious realm where the irrational lurks and exercises a lasting and hidden influence over our everyday conduct. What the Automatic Drawing Project (Service Class) sets out to achieve is the reconciling of the worker, that usually anonymous call-centre drone, with the playful, subversive aspect of their creative inner life. By co-existing with their hidden and discarded artistic output through its display and elevation (the enlarging, framing and re-presenting of their original drawings) the finished installation will affect a lasting reconciliation between worker and artist.
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