Surface/Touch

This article looks at the constraints imposed by institutional power on my artistic practice and considers how instinct is shaped by both stated and assumed laws which we often internalise unawarely. In doing so, it analyses the hegemony of the eye over touch in contemporary forms of representation. I examine how working with touch on a specific project – taking rubbings at the Hayward Gallery and the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room on the Southbank – led me to researching the architecture of the structures and their building methods. The article includes examples of types of rubbings and touches on the difficulty of working in an open ended exploratory way in rules bound environments.