Drawing in the Dark: Involuntary Drawing.

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Published: Dec 30, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32334/oqnfp.2025n57a1118
Keywords:
Involuntary drawing, Motion capture drawing, Automatism, The bodily unconscious, Vision and subjectivity

Main Article Content

Susan Morris
Tatiana Lotierzo
Universidade de São Paulo (USP)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6675-3601

Abstract

Susan Morris approaches the subject of involuntary drawing from the point of view of an artist trying to make a visual record of that which escapes or exceeds deliberate action or conscious intention. In this paper Morris discusses her own work in the context of a wider consideration of the theme, which touches on the work of other artists as well as the writing of psychoanalysts, philosophers and art historians.

Article Details

Issue
Vol. 33 No. 57 (2025): Beyond Dualism: Configurations of the Body in Modernity
Section
Other Themes
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Author Biographies

Susan Morris

Susan Morris is a contemporary artist. Susan Morris is a british female artist born in Birmingham in 1962. Susan Morris's artistic practice involves exploring themes of automatic drawing, language, and the neuroscience of language. She works with various mediums such as motion capture drawings, Jacquard tapestries, and paperback books, incorporating elements of sound recordings, digital tracking devices, and everyday materials like receipts and newspapers. Morris's stylistic approach often revolves around repetitive gestures, chance as a compositional tool, and the interplay between technology, data, and artistic creation.

Tatiana Lotierzo , Universidade de São Paulo (USP)

A postdoctoral researcher in Social Anthropology at the University of São Paulo (USP) and at the Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology (LISA-USP), her main research explores the intersections between images and thought in indigenous arts and anti-racism in the visual arts, involving both fieldwork and archival research. She collaborates with artists in their research and creative processes. Her dissertation, Erosion on a Piece of Paper (forthcoming), was conducted with Inga indigenous artists in Colombia. Her master’s thesis gave rise to the book *Contours of the (In)visible: Racism and Aesthetics in Brazilian Painting (1852–1936)*, which received an award from the Brazilian Association of University Publishers (ABEU) and was a finalist in the 60th edition of the Jabuti Prize. Also in Colombia, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at SensoLab/Faculty of Social Sciences at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (2024) and was a Visiting PhD Student at the Universidad del Rosario (2016). In France, he was a resident of the Programme Courants du Monde: Séjour Culture Cinéma-Audiovisuel (2008), an initiative of that country’s Ministry of Culture and Communication, through the Maison des Cultures du Monde. Recently, he conducted a second postdoctoral research project on the topic of “Emotions, Perception, and Artificial Intelligence” at LEPPAIS/UfPel Coletivo Antropoéticas. 

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