ERASURE IN ART:

Destruction, Deconstruction, and Palimpsest.

By Richard Galpin
February 1998

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Contents:
Introduction
Chapter One. Destruction
Chapter Two. Deconstruction
Chapter Three. Palimpsest
Chapter Four. Fiction. A Conclusion
Bibliography

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Introduction
My interest in erasure stems from my work as an artist. I am involved in work th
at deletes various texts, and am excited by the subtle play that erasure seems t
o create when executed in certain ways. My work is not about the suppression of
text, or the negation of what the text represents, but is about obscuring the wo
rds in order to create a different relationship between the text and the viewer.
When I first started this body of work I felt that the erasure of language in a
rt, rather than being destructive, contained the potential to provoke an ambiguo
us and shifting reading of both the original text and the work. If not destructi
ve then, could erasure be deconstructive? This is something that I will explore
in this writing. I will then discuss the notion of the palimpsest as a concept t
hat seems relevant to erasure in art.
In this writing I will examine art work that erases text in various ways, and so
me examples of art that erases other things. One of the exciting factors of this
study has been the surprisingly small number of examples of this type of work t
hat there are. It seems that this is a relatively unexplored area of art practis
e that nonetheless has exciting possibilities, especially in terms of its relati
onship to deconstructive theory, particularly the work of Jacques Derrida.
In this writing I will attempt to show that in practise erasure in art does not
function in the same ways that we might expect when considering erasure in an ab
stract sense. I will then try to explain why.

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Chapter 1. Destruction
The initial impression of any erasure in an artwork is often that of a destructi
ve act. This is something that I intend to question.
In 1953 Robert Rauschenberg produced a work entitled "Erased de Kooning Drawing"
. This was made by using rubber erasers to literally rub-out a drawing that he h
ad persuaded de Kooning to give him specifically for that purpose. The work appa
rently took a month and about forty erasers to erase/make (Rauschenberg, 1976, p
.75). Calvin Tomkins reacts to the destructive element in the work:
What else, in God's name, could you think about his wanting to erase a de Koonin
g drawing? The implications were so blatantly Freudian, the act itself so obviou
sly symbolic (if good natured) patricide.(Tomkins,1980, p.96)
The Freudian relationship that Tomkins suggests is that Rauschenberg wishes to s
ymbolically obliterate de Kooning, his father, (the leading established artist o
f an older generation), because of his relationship with his mother (which could
be the art world, the public etc.) Rauschenberg did recognise this element of e
radication when he later talked of trying "to purge myself of my teaching" (Raus
chenberg, 1976, p.75). The word 'purge ' however suggests a cleaning and purifyi
ng process, rather than a violent destruction. Rauschenberg stresses that the ma
in aim of this work was to find out "whether a drawing could be made out of eras
ing" (Rauschenberg, 1976, p.75). Rauschenberg used the eraser as a drawing tool,
working over the top of the old drawing, to create a new work.
Jasper Johns referred to the Erased de Kooning as "additive subtraction" (Johns,
1964, p.27). The question of destruction then, could be seen in terms of positiv
e and negative, or addition and subtraction.
Additive subtraction is a contradiction that suggests a play of differences, rat
her than an absence of a presence. This sort of idea will be discussed further
in Chapter 2.
John Latham was one of several artists who participated in two international gat
herings, both called Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS), held in London in 1966
and New York in 1968. John Latham burnt what he called Skoob Towers (figure 2,
right) (the word Skoob coming from the reversal of the letters in the word books
). Latham's work over the years has involved the construction of reliefs that us
e books as sculptural elements within them. (figure 3, below right). This began
as a hesitant use of books as a found object. John A. Walker states: "His playfu
l alterations of the shapes of books... were as much constructive as destructive
" (Walker, 1995, p.38). In Latham's early reliefs the books appear as physical o
bjects, selected for shape, size and colour, and used like, and alongside, other
scrap materials. The books appear somehow detached from themselves as works of
literature.
Latham later became more involved with the negation of what the books represente
d. Especially with the more directly destructive burning of Skoob Towers. But co
ntradictions arise in the writing about the work. Walker states that Latham was
"critical of language as a medium of communication and of books as reservoirs of
received knowledge" (Walker, 1995, p.39), although Latham himself states that "
It was not in any degree a gesture of contempt for books or literature. What it
did intend was to put the proposition into mind that perhaps the cultural base h
ad been burnt out" (Latham, 1991, p.20). In the case of the Skoob towers the poi
nt is made rather literally. With these and other of Latham's works his vague id
ealism and professed interest in new science doesn't seem to communicate through
the work.
However something comes through the destruction. As Lawrence Alloway wrote about
Latham's reliefs in 1960: "a non-verbal art appears out of the wreckage of the
printed word. The effacement of the known code is related to the emergence of a
previously unknown object" (Alloway, 1960, p.64)
It becomes conceivable that any form of erasure, however violently destructive,
can be seen as constructive in some way. Brooks and Stezaker pointed out the Nie
tzschian element of Latham's book burnings: "an acceleration of the innate self-
destructive tendencies of culture, so that (quite literally) a new culture might
emerge, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the old" (Brooks & Stezaker, 1975, p.12
). This idea, which can be traced to the nineteenth century anarchist Mikhail Ba
kunin, would suggest that any erasure of text, however violently destructive, ca
rried within it the potential for preparing the way for renewal.
This idea can more palpably be observed within painting specifically. Ad Reinhar
dt reduced painting to a flat black canvas, which he described as "the last pain
ting which anyone can make" (Glaser, 1966-7, p.28). Joseph Kosuth wrote of Ad Re
inhardt's work: "Painting itself had to be erased, eclipsed, painted out in orde
r to make art." (Kosuth, 1994, p.44). There is, in this, a certain completion, p
erhaps an arrival at some essence of modernism. However, Reinhardt himself stres
sed the negation of this act:
The painting, which is a negative thing, is the statement, and the words I've us
ed about it have all been negative statements to keep the painting free. (Reinha
rdt, 1996-7, p.28)
It is as though Reinhardt resisted laying values on the work because the negatio
n had to be absolute. This left others to build it back up, to find new values t
o ascribe to this painting and the ones that are to follow. Kosuth makes a case
for Reinhardt's negation leading to a development of art, a reinvention that is
made possible by the knowledge gained through the erasure of the old:
Paul Connerton, in discussing Hegel, has stated: "The negative connotes those hi
storical forces which are incompatible with a certain form of social life and wh
ich act upon it destructively, but forces which nonetheless arise inevitably out
of the particular social structure which they negate and surpass"... The circul
ar act of self-understanding, in an attempt to transcend itself, erases the old
part of a process which makes the new visible to itself as it redefines what is
visible in the old. ( Kosuth, 1994, p.44).
Reinhardt's black paintings offered a clean slate for painting and prepared the
ground for a new departure. But it seems that the black painting's lack of style
becomes a style in itself. Reinhardt's paintings actually promote a strong mini
mal aesthetic. This is because the negation can never actually be free of the ol
d values, or the new. The negation is not actually nothing. The negation takes i
t's form from an erasure of a particular set of positive values. If those values
were different, then the negation would be different. This means that the new d
eveloping values that come after the erasure, in turn, are influenced by the par
ticular values of the erased original. In this case, developing into what we cou
ld describe as the minimalist aesthetic.
In this way acts of erasure or deletion can be seen as part of the circular/line
ar development of a form. However, the above examples of erasure are extreme. I
wanted first to push the idea to it's full extent, the absolute erasure - which
can now be seen not to be absolute, but inextricably formed by the thing that it
erases. Most of the examples of text deletion that I have studied don't attempt
to delete so completely, and so it might be expected that they create less, by
retaining more. The deletion is more closely involved with the erased sign, and
consequently the developments that are invited by the erasure are even more spec
ifically in relation to the text.
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Chapter 2. Deconstruction
Before examining the specific examples of work that enact partial erasures, I wa
nt to first look at deconstruction in general in relation to the aforementioned
negative/positive opposition, and get a sense as to whether it is generally thou
ght that a departure or new growth is invited by deconstructive activity, as I h
ave suggested is the case with (seemingly) destructive erasures.
Jurgen Habermans claims that "Nothing remains from a desublimated meaning or a d
estructured form; an emancipatory effect does not follow" (Habermans, 1984, p.11
). However Paul Crowther writes, in response to the above statement:
...there is also a positive dimension. To Deconstruct history or texts in the st
yle of Derrida or Foucault is to make evident that play of differance - that ung
raspable network of relations, which sustains but is concealed by claims to self
-presence. It is, in other words, to offer an insight into, or partial presentat
ion of, a totality which as a totality is unpresentable. This, as Derrida remark
s, "gives great pleasure" (Crowther in Papadakis (ed.), 1989, p.99)
This suggest that there is a constructive and positive element to deconstruction
. But what of the sense of the new growth that forms out of the 'ashes of the ol
d' that I spoke of in relation to destruction? Deconstruction goes further than
the dismantling of binary oppositions (such as classical philosophical oppositio
ns). The language of the oppositions is worked upon to keep the oppositions from
reforming. There is a sense in which deconstruction disarms the hierarchical st
ructures within the oppositions by continuing to undermine the terms upon which
the oppositions could be reconstituted. As Fred Orton writes:
The next strategy is to prevent what has been accomplished by the first strategy
- that overturning of the binary oppositions- from getting re-established. This
involves operating further on the terrain and on the interior of the deconstruct
ed system (Orton, 1989, p.36).
So deconstruction works to keep things in a deconstructed state, and prevent the
new growth that follows a temporary destructive act. And yet Derrida talks of a
new "concept". This is Derrida discussing what happens in his 'general strategy
of deconstruction' after the 'overturning' of a binary opposition:
By means of this double, and precisely stratified, dislodged and dislodging, wri
ting, we must also mark the interval between inversion, which brings low what wa
s high, and the irruptive emergence of a new "concept," a concept that can no lo
nger be, and never could be, included in the previous regime. (Derrida, 1981, p.
42)
This interval is marked by the introduction of what Derrida has hesitantly calle
d "indecidables":
...that is unities of simulacrum, "false" verbal properties (nominal or semantic
) that can no longer be included within philosophical (binary) opposition, but w
hich, however, inhabit philosophical opposition resisting and disorganising it,
without ever constituting a third term, without ever leaving room for a solution
in the form of speculative dialectics.(Derrida, 1981, p.43)
These indecidables are words that somehow encompass the opposition, while not si
tting within the discourse of the original opposition. Indecidables in no way so
lve or mediate between the opposition, and yet refer to both terms. When Fred Or
ton wrote (as quoted above) "operating further on the terrain and on the interio
r of the deconstructed system" this writing of indecidables was one of the thing
s that he was referring to. It is the imposition of the deconstructive writer's
own language onto the 'terrain' of the initial opposition. This is an explicit s
trategy that prevents the binary oppositions from reforming. It is interesting t
o think of erasure as the making of an undecidable mark. Particularly in cases w
here the text is still readable underneath the erasure. This is something that F
red Orton suggests when discussing Jasper Johns in relation to Derrida and Decon
struction. He writes of Johns:
his practise does seem to show not only 'deconstructive indicators' - like the h
inge - but also provides evidence that some deconstructive-like strategies are a
t work. I'm thinking of Derrida's writing 'sous rature' and the strategic indeci
dability which it causes.(Orton, 1989, p.38-9)
Writing 'sous rature' (under erasure) is a technique that Derrida employs to sug
gest that something is 'inaccurate yet necessary to say'.(Spivak intro. to Derri
da, 1976, p.xiii-xiv) Spivak makes the most comprehensive study of erasure in he
r introduction to Derrida's Of Grammatology. She says "..the authority of the te
xt is provisional, the origin is a trace; contradicting logic, we must learn to
use and erase our language at the same time." (Spivak intro. to Derrida, 1976, p
.xviii)
Spivak explains the background to this technique. She says: "The predicament of
having to use resources of the heritage that one questions is the overt concern
of Derrida's work" .(Spivak note 13 in Derrida, 1976, p.318) The writing of word
s under erasure is one of Derrida's methods for using the words that he question
s but is forced to use. Derrida says "At each step I was obliged to proceed by e
llipses, corrections and corrections of corrections, letting go of each concept
at the very moment that I needed to use it". (Derrida, 1976, p.xviii)
This use of words that one distrusts can be seen in Kosuth's various works that
partially erase Freud's texts (such as Zero and Not, 1986, and Zero and Not, 198
9 figures 4 and 5). In his installations the erased text is still actively prese
nted for viewing, and in this way the text is still used in some way. So in what
way does the erasure constitute a critique of his theories? Nancy Princenthal's
reading of it suggests a certain affirmation of Freud's theories:
The installation is an ironic confirmation of a fundamental psychoanalytic dictu
m, or at least a mocking concession to it: you can repress Freudian theory but t
hat wont make it go away... Kosuth demonstrates that the harder one tries to obl
iterate Freud's claims, the more forcefully, if deviously, they try to assert th
emselves. (Princethal, 1986, p.129)
The reassertion mentioned here could be considered in relation to the reformatio
n of binary oppositions that I discussed earlier. I stated before that it was De
rrida's writing of his own language 'within the terrain of the opposition' that
prevented the reassertion of the opposition. Contrary to this, the above quote w
ould seem to suggest that in this case the cancelling lines fail to prevent the
text from reasserting itself. However, Princenthal sees the cancelling as (ficti
onally) intending a purely destructive obliteration, rather than the more uncert
ain questioning of Derrida's erasure. It seems possible then that this obliterat
ion of Freud is brought back into some kind of similar uncertain state to the mo
re tentative erasure of words by Derrida. The words recover from their complete
erasure because it is Freud, and the obliterated words could form a reading of t
he act of their obliteration.
The word erasure is often used by Derrida, and people writing about Derrida, whe
n words are not actually written and printed anywhere 'sous rature' (with erasin
g lines), but are still spoken of as being used 'under erasure', or being erased
 by other strategies of deconstruction (See, for example, Derrida, 1976, p.60) C
ertain words are qualified as being used 'under erasure', which implies the same
sense that the word is 'inaccurate and yet necessary to say'. So the technique
becomes used as a metaphor. Although the actual instances of writing under erasu
re are few and far between (listed by Spivak in Derrida, 1976, p.lxxx) it can be
seen as being motivated by the same concerns as the whole deconstructive approa
ch.
The 'trace', that was mentioned above by Spivak in our initial definition of 'so
us rature', is a key concept in Derrida's writing. Derrida suggests that words a
re inaccurate because they do not show the trace element. Derrida writes:
In order to describe traces, in order to read the traces of "unconscious" traces
(there are no "conscious" traces), the language of presence and absence, the me
taphysical discourse of phenomenology, is inadequate. (Although the phenomenolog
ist is not the only one to speak this language.) (Derrida, 1982, p.21)
Robert C. Morgan suggests that erasing language can expose this trace in his wri
ting about Joseph Kosuth's erasure of language in works such as Zero and Not:
By "erasing" the absence through repression of speech, Derrida's "indelibility o
f certain traces" is only further pronounced... somehow the originary source has
an invitational aspect to it, an appellation, something that calls forth to the
subject in order to traverse the distance between the trace and its origins...
What erupts in the presence of working in relation to Freud is a merging of the
subject toward the horizon of the disappearing trace. (Morgan, 1988, p.48)
To expose the trace is also one of Derrida's specific uses for writing 'under er
asure', and as such can be seen as a central concern in Derrida's work (see, for
example, the essay Differance in Derrida, 1982, p.12)
However, erasure is perhaps a technique and a writing that is only 'readable' in
these ways within the context of a deconstructive text. The actual marking of t
he erasing lines brings the associations of deconstruction closer to the art wor
k that I am examining, but is it possible to say that the writing of words under
erasure in art constitutes deconstruction? It certainly makes it easier to make
a deconstructive reading of these works. But is deconstruction actually at work
within the work? Does this depend on proving the intentions of the artists, and
even then, is there enough happening with a single erasure? The writing of word
s 'under erasure' in deconstructive texts is a small part of the deconstructive
strategy (that can be seen as representative of the whole), but an erasure stand
ing alone, without being part of a broader deconstructive approach must surely b
e limited.
In the silk-screen print Untitled (Skull) from the portfolio Reality and Paradox
es ,1973 (figure 6) Jasper Johns crosses out his signature. It is difficult to t
ell exactly what the artist intended by this gesture. Fred Orton writes:
He seems to be writing that it's necessary but inaccurate to say that this was m
ade by Jasper Johns. He seems to be guaranteeing the text by signing it and then
drawing attention to the problematic nature of authorship and ownership by cros
sing out the signing, clearly opening to doubt its power to confer authenticity,
but not denying it. (Orton, 1989, p.38-9)
This seems plausible although in other works Johns crosses out parts for very di
fferent reasons. In an Interview Johns discusses his reasons for crossing out pa
rt of Bent "Blue" (Second State), 1971, (figure 7). He says:
In a sense it is to say it is of no importance, because in Bent "Blue", that are
a is constantly changing, so it's not too important what's there. But obviously
it's of great importance what's there because that is what's there. But it could
be anything else - that or the next image. (Coplans, 1972, p.32)

But this is not the way in which erasure is usually read. As Robert C. Morgan sa
ys in relation to Kosuth's work: "The covering of language carries with it the s
uggestion that what is present beneath is significant in view of its absence." (
Morgan, 1988, p.48) John's crossing out of part of his picture surely draws our
attention to it and makes this area more significant. There is a paradox here wh
ich may or may not be intentional. Fred Orton discusses this play, but claims th
at the area is not necessarily made to be more significant:

As an 'undecidable' that crossed out bit of the surface is neither insignificant

nor significant, neither less important nor more important, neither inadequate
nor adequate, neither wrong nor right, neither unwanted nor wanted. (Orton, 1989
, p.40)
This brings us back to Fred Orton's assertion that writing 'sous rature' causes
strategic indecidability. It should be noted that this is Orton's reading of Der
rida. Derrida himself has not written that writing 'sous rature' constitutes the
writing of an 'indecidable'.
So what are the qualities that Derrida describes his indecidables as having? In
discussing gram, (one of the indecidables that he uses) he says: "the gram is ne
ither a signifier nor a signified, neither a sign nor a thing, neither a presenc
e nor an absence, neither a position nor a negation, etc." (Derrida, 1987, p.43)
A similar set of characterisations could describe erasure, as Orton has constru
cted above. In any partial erasure, whether in art or in writing, the text is ne
ither intact nor destroyed, but both these possibilities are apparent within the
erasure. The erasure involves both the presence, and the negation of the presen
ce of the text, and yet it is part of a different discussion.
But how would the rest of the strategic structure of indecidables as described b
y Orton fit into place? If we take the partially erasing mark as the 'indecidabl
e', the writing of one's own language onto the terrain of the opposition, then w
here is the initial overturning of the opposition? And what in fact is the oppos
ition? Perhaps the opposition is whatever the given positive is within the text,
and the negation of that, the lack or destruction of that (which could be repre
sented by the complete destruction of the text). The overturning is the semi-era
sure which questions the authority of the positive text, whilst reaffirming the
significance of the text by showing the need to present it in a semi-erased form
. Can the overturning and the indecidable sign be carried within the same gestur
e/mark? Perhaps the overturning is in the intention, the gesture of semi-erasure
, the decision, the act, and the undecidable is in the erasing mark that lingers
and holds the text in this semi erased state.
This analogy eventually becomes convoluted and exhausted. This discussion become
s a reading of erasure rather than the proving of a strategy at work. Fred Orton
reaches a similar conclusion about deconstructive readings of Jasper Johns:
Each one seems deconstructively knowing in certain ways. They seem to invite a d
econstructive reading. I'm able to say that, but only after having read some of
Derrida's texts... Perhaps the most that I can say is that Johns... brings certa
in considerations to bear in making some paintings and prints which somehow can
be seen as, read as, analogous to some aspects of what someone doing deconstruct
ion does. (Orton, 1989, p.44)
If the artists involved appear to have different concerns it does not mean that
we should not give the work a deconstructive reading (deconstruction after all i
s really a way of reading, and then writing about that reading). But within that
there is a sense of creation, inventing or constructing a deconstructive meanin
g where none was intended. But that is legitimate within deconstruction, as the
deconstructive thrust is not within the language of the original opposition or l
anguage. There is a fine line however between making a deconstructive reading of
art, and implying a deconstructive strategy within the work.
There are also examples of artists claiming a deconstructive strategy, when thei
r work actually falls short of this. Tom Phillips' A Humument uses A Human Docum
ent by W.H Maflock as it's surface, and erases all but some of the words with il
lustrations (figure 8, below). The words that are allowed to stand are given a s
econd life and a new meaning. The artist states that "At its lowest it is a reas
onable example of bricolage, and at its highest it is perhaps a massive deconstr
uction job." (Phillips, 1992, p.77). Maybe it is because of Phillips' off-puttin
g superficially stylised illustrations that cover the pages, but I cannot concei
ve of this work as employing deconstructive strategies, or make an interesting d
econstructive reading of it myself.
It seems that "Maflock is merely pretext for the overlaid story" (Gass, 1996, p.
80). Phillips' covering work does not make a reading of the original text, even
though it uses some of the words, and takes the theme of the painting from one s
elected word. It appears, and is confirmed by Phillip's lack of engagement, that
the work is no more than the arbitrary use of fragments of text, that have in t
his case been left in their binding.
But there are other examples of artists making erasures that do seem to offer an
undecided critique of the erased thing. Malcolm Morley in his work Race Track (
1970) duplicates a poster advertising a race course in South Africa, but cancels
it with two crossed red lines. Paul Crowther writes of this work:
the violence of the erasure challenges existing categories of meaning and pleasu
re. It refuses to repeat the cool aesthetic surface of Late-Modernism, yet at th
e same time refuses to replace it with a homage to radical chic...His rapid tran
sitions from lyricism to violence, broken brushstrokes to stable masses, fantasy
to reality, make it impossible to locate him. Familiar categories are loosened
and made strange; the horizon of differance appears. (Crowther, in Papadakis (ed
.), 1989, p.100)
Differance is another of Derrida's key terms, which relates very closely to his
ideas about the trace. (See for example Derrida, 1982, p.21 for a discussion of
the trace and Differance)
Morley's work is an example where it is more plausible to say that there is some
deconstructive strategy within the work because the main content of the work is
a representation of an earlier work. The same could be said of Kosuth's erasure
s of Freud. However with works like Ann Hamilton's Tropos 1993, (figure 9 right)
, where we are unaware of which text is being erased, the erasure is of a more s
ymbolic nature, an erasure of a book and what that represents. This is more diff
icult to make a deconstructive reading of, and is clearly not overtly not concer
ned with deconstructive strategies, because there is no reading of the text as s
uch.
So some of these examples of partial erasures can be seen as operating in simila
r ways to deconstructive strategies, and inviting interesting deconstructive rea
dings, but not explicitly as deconstruction itself, unless it was within a broad
er deconstructive text or project. However I do find the use of the word 'indeci
dable' useful in relation to erasure, as it highlights the ambiguous and potenti
ally uncertain nature of some erasures in art.
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Chapter 3. Palimpsest
Figure 10. Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1960

Roland Barthes, writing in relation to Cy Twombly, who he describes as a "painte

r of writing" (see figure 10 left), discusses the application of marks onto a di
rtied surface in terms of graffiti:
what constitutes graffiti is in fact neither the inscription nor its message but
the wall, the background, the surface (the desktop); it is because the backgrou
nd exists fully as an object that has already lived, that such writing always co
mes as an enigmatic surplus... that is what disturbs the order of things; or aga
in: it is insofar as the background is not clean that it is unsuitable to though
t (contrary to the philosopher's blank sheet of paper)... (Barthes, 1985, p.165)
If we interpret erasure as graffiti in these terms, the erasure is an 'enigmatic
surplus' to the original text. Although it could also be seen as an attempt to
re-clean the background, to move it towards the blank sheet which is more 'suita
ble for thought'. Except that the thought that it prepares the way for is inevit
ably polluted by the traces of the background that is never successfully cleaned
. The erasure perhaps moves the background, the text, into a state which is more
suitable to thought, but only thought in relation to itself. This can be seen a
s an extension of my earlier argument that the erasure invites a departure that
is founded on the original text. The word palimpsest has been used frequently in
the writing about the works I have been discussing:
Derrida's erasing-erased writing - his palimpsest - is the reinscription that co
ntinually displaces the reversed hierarchies of metaphysics. (Leavey intro. to D
errida, 1980, p.11)
The word palimpsest originally referred to "writing material or manuscript on wh
ich the original writing has been effaced to make room for a second writing; mon
umental brass turned and re-engraved on reverse side"(Conscise Oxford Dictionary
, 1976). For clarity, I want to define this in terms of three stages, that is -
the initial writing, then the erasure, and then the rewriting. (Phillips' A Humu
ment fits this structure) However, the term now often seems to be used to sugges
t just the first and third stages, writing directly over the top of the old text
, without an erasure:
..the hand has drawn something like a flower and then has begun "dawdling" over
this line; the flower has been written, then unwritten; but the two movements re
main vaguely superimposed; it is a perverse palimpsest...(Barthes, 1985, p.165)
And more interestingly, in a form where the second and third stages, the erasure
and the rewriting have merged to become one - so that the erasure is the rewrit
ing. This use of the word is evident in Neville Wakefield's writing about Ann Ha
milton's Tropos:
...as each line is read it is singed out of existence with a small heated implem
ent, language and text disappearing in a thin arabesque of smoke - the delicate
imprint of the erased text, a palimpsest of language and the body. (Wakefield in
Hamilton, 1994, p.12)
The 'palimpsest of language and body' is the imprint of the body's actions (the
burning out) onto the book's language. Here the erasure of the old text, and the
imprint of a new sign is carried in the same action. Kosuth's and Derrida's era
sing lines can also be seen as a 'writing', the inscribing of a new sign. A piec
e of work that I am in the process of making has a different dynamic within this
structure. In this piece the second text is carefully written over the first te
xt in a way that renders both texts unreadable. This would mean that the third s
tage, the rewriting, had brought about the second stage, the erasure, rather tha
n the erasure bringing the rewriting as in the examples above. These two ideas a
re closely linked, but differentiated by the initial intent (even if this is fic
tional) and the sense of a linear progression (although obviously the erasure an
d the rewriting in both cases actually happens simultaneously).
Freud finds a particular surface or a mechanism, which fits his theories of the
human 'perceptual apparatus'. This is a device that was marketed under the name
The Mystic Pad. It is something that has now become a common children's toy. It
has the appearance of a shiny whitish-grey card that can be written on with any
blunt instrument, and then erased by lifting the top two layers of the card. The
device actually consists of three layers - a dark waxy base card, a thin transl
ucent layer of waxed paper in the middle, and a transparent piece of celluloid o
n top. The marks made by the blunt instrument are made visible by the waxed pape
r and the wax card being pressed into contact. When the paper has been lifted aw
ay and returned, the close contact does not resume, and the surface appears blan
k once again.
The top celluloid layer is a protective layer (it prevents the waxy paper from b
eing worn away), and the layer beneath receives the scratching. Freud makes the
link:
...the perceptual apparatus of the mind consists of two layers, of an external p
rotective shield against stimuli whose task it is to diminish the strength of ex
citations coming in, and of a surface behind it which receives the stimuli, name
ly the system. (Freud, 1976, p.230)
He goes on to explain that although the device seems to erase the writing, the w
ax card underneath does actually permanently record the marks, which are readabl
e "in suitable lights". So the wax card (or slab in Freud's writing) represents
the unconscious. He then draws a further analogy that is to do with the time of
writing. (Freud, 1976, p.230). This concerns the breaking of the link between th
e consciousness and the unconsciousness. Intermittently the consciousness is det
ached from the unconsciousness, leaving the consciousness in a fully receptive s
tate, and the unconscious still bearing the knowledge of previous marks. But the
re is some sense of movement out towards the consciousness. As Derrida says:
This hypothesis posits a discontinuous distribution - through rapid periodic imp
ulses - of "cathectic innervations" (Besetzungsinnervationen), from within towar
d the outside, toward the permeability of the system. These movements are then "
withdrawn" or "removed". Consciousness fades each time the cathexis is withdrawn
this way. (Derrida, 1987, p.225 - refers to Freud, 1976, p.231)
This movement from "within towards the outside" is represented in the device bec
ause it is the contact of the wax card pressing up onto the paper layer that mak
es any scratching visible. In this scenario no consciousness is possible without
the unconscious reaching out to the receptive apparatus.
The analogy finally fails when it becomes apparent that the waxed paper (the con
sciousness) is not able to bring back writing from the wax card (the unconscious
mind), that it had previously held. (Derrida, 1987, p.227 - refers to Freud, 19
76, p.230)
My interest in this device is in its dual role that fills the gap between tradit
ional writing surfaces. As Derrida says: "A sheet of paper preserves indefinitel
y but is quickly saturated. A slate, whose virginity may always be reconstituted
by erasing the imprints on it, does not conserve traces." (Derrida, 1987, p.222
). The Palimpsest, like the Mystic Pad, fulfils both these roles, conserving tra
ces, and being receptive to new writing. In my work that uses tippex (correction
fluid) to erase text, such as No News Is Good News there is the retention of mo
re than just traces. The original writing is preserved in it's entirety (behind
a screen of white). With correction fluid there are also physical traces on the
re-prepared receptive surface. The screen (the correction fluid), which constitu
tes the erasure, carries a trace of the original writing in its physical shape,
which is formed by the shape of the words.
The Palimpsest introduces the idea of erasure as part of a layering process. The
re can be a fluid relationship between these layers. Texts and erasures are supe
rimposed to bring about other texts or erasures. A new erasure creates text; a n
ew text creates erasure.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 4. Fiction. A Conclusion

Barthes' use of the words perverse palimpsest (quoted above) highlights the will
involved. This is not an accidental covering of one line with another, but a co
nscious 'un-writing', or rewriting. This is picked up again by Barthes in a sepa
rate piece of writing:
Twombly seems to cover up other marks, as if he wanted to erase them, without re
ally wanting to, since these marks remain faintly visible under the layer coveri
ng them; this is a subtle dialectic: the artist pretends to have "spoiled" some
piece of his canvas and to have wanted to erase it; but then he spoils this eras
ure in its turn; and these two superimposed "failures" produce a kind of palimps
est. (Barthes, 1985, p.179-80)
This notion of 'pretence' is picked up by John P. Leavey in his introduction to
Derrida's The Archeology of the Frivolous. He uses the word 'smearing' to encomp
ass both the smearing of marks in Twombly's painting, and Derrida's writing 'sou
s rature':
Like Twombly, Derrida "does not grasp at anything." His smearing traps without g
rasping, traps without catching, in his hollowness, the emptiness of its snare.
The stroke of "pretence" in writing confirms this. Smearing introduces the prete
nded erasure: "he wanted... without really wanting," "the artist pretends," "in
virtue of a fancy." But smearing also introduces the double pretence: "as if he
wanted... without really wanting," "as if... in virtue of a fancy." (Leavey intr
o. to Derrida, 1980, p.13)
And later he mentions "that undecidable truth and fiction of every erased stroke
, title, word, writing, text, etc." (Leavey intro. to Derrida, 1980, p.15). So t
here is a suggestion that the play of truth and fiction is something that could
be described as an undecidable element within erasure. In places in this writing
I have argued that the presentation of the erased text was a balancing factor t
hat prevented the erased text from being altogether obliterated. This presentati
on, this fiction of an erasure, is like the theatrical staging of a death, where
it is not the obliteration of that character or thing that is the aim, but rath
er that it is a means of gaining new knowledge about that character or thing whi
ch is (fictionally) killed or erased, and gaining new knowledge about the proces
s of death or erasure itself.
The origin of the word erasure is radere, to scrape. This implies erasure as an
action, and erased text as the sign of that action. The scraping which is usuall
y employed to remove the mark or sign could perhaps be exercised more in the spi
rit of agitation.
I do not mean to imply that erasure is not erasure. However what I do assert is
that when erasure is used in art its properties change. The decision to show era
sed text is a dialectic that creates a dynamic and critical uncertainty.
*

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