ANCHORAGE: a phenomenology of outline

'ANCHORAGE' constitutes a collaborative piece of phenomenologically inspired drawing research, undertaken by artists Joe Graham, Steven Dickie, and Chantal Faust. Comprising forty drawings plus a written text, the objective is to ‘outline’ an understanding of the phenomenon of outline, described in an effort to overcome the traditionally definitive descriptions of it that abound (Rawson 1987; Maynard 2005; Thomas and Taylor 2003). In this respect, it constitutes both a relocation and an online extension of an earlier stage to the project, published in print: 'ANCHOR' (2015). In outlining an alternative form of reply to the earlier question (what is an outline?), the purpose of 'ANCHORAGE' is to revisit what was left uninspected or simply assumed; namely, whether an invariant understanding of outline in relation to drawing as a form of art might sensibly be defined. To address this notion, a variety of hand drawn ‘outlines’ by Graham, Dickie, and Faust are supplied for analysis, using original material from 'ANCHOR' as a guide. As lead investigator, the text by Graham seeks to unpack these variations as a part of a Husserlian-inspired methodology (Husserl [1950] 1999). This is geared towards seeking what an essential or perhaps even ‘truthful’ understanding of outline might look like, contingent on the drawings presented here.