Art Gallery of Windsor, 2006

"Derridraw, Prototype 2," is a critical response to Jacques Derrida's failed collaboration with architect Peter Eisenman to design a garden for Parc de la Villettte. The collaboration was documented in a book entitled Chora L Works, which serves as a growth medium for the plants in "Derridraw." The "Derridraw" series is inspired by the concept of "chora," which Derrida defines as "space," based on Plato's Timaueus. For this project, the artist reinterprets "chora" as "field," based on a close reading of Timaeus and also on the modern Greek word "chorafi," which basically means "farmer's field." In the end, "Derridraw" is about the inability of philosophers and critical theorists to "ground themselves," to embody their ideas in the physical world, which is the primary reason why Derrida's collaboration with Eisenman failed. While Prototype 2 is an attempt to get Derrida to grow a garden, Prototype 3 will coax him into drawing. This will be done by allowing the book, dirt, and plants to interact with digital sensors that will send instructions for drawing to an image-generating machine.

Still images