The Physics of Resistance: Toward a Theory of Jelly

 

Peter Davidson - Eye Tracking Pomegranate

Pencil coloured pencil felt tip pen, pastel on paper 

18 cm h x 12 cm w

Drawing has always been described from the outside—through technique, history, or the rhetoric of accuracy—but rarely from within the lived friction of making. This essay begins from that interior ground. It proposes a new vocabulary for the felt physics of drawing, one built not from academic theory but from the stubborn, resistant, scintillating encounter between perception and material. By naming the substance of this encounter—what I call Jelly—I aim to give drawing a language equal to its own experience.

The Physics of Resistance: Toward a Theory of Jelly

I. The Myth of the Temporal Delay

In traditional studies of drawing, the space between the eye’s perception and the hand’s marking is often described as a temporal delay—a pause or a lag. This is a misunderstanding. The eye does not wait, and the hand does not hesitate. What occurs is a structural encounter: a field of resistance that arises the moment perceptual energy meets material form. This field is not empty; it is a substance. I call this substance Jelly.

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II. The Sovereign Zone and Scintillation

Between the motif and the mark exists the Sovereign Zone. This is a “thickness” of the present—a dense, non-linear space where perception, the body, the stubbornness of the material, and the emerging mark coexist without hierarchy. In this zone, the eye does not command the hand; they negotiate.

The evidence of this negotiation is visible in the mark itself. When a line appears unstable, fragmented, or flickering, it is not a failure of technique. It is Scintillation: the spark generated by the friction of making. Scintillation is proof of the Sovereign Zone in action.

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III. The Structural Constant: From Donatello to Whiteout

Jelly is a phenomenon that transcends epoch, style, and medium. It is a structural constant of praxis.

• Donatello encountered Jelly in the resistance of marble, where the stone pushed back against his physiological intent.

• Cézanne navigated it through planes of color, where the optical depth of the mountain collided with the flat reality of the canvas.

• William Coldstream sought to measure it in the deliberate discrepancies between the eye’s coordinates and the surface’s reality.

Whether the tool is a chisel, a brush, a texta, or whiteout, the resistance remains the same. The difficulty of drawing is not a hurdle to overcome; it is the realization of resistance. It is the physics of making:

J = I_optical ⊕ M_mark

In this equation, J (Jelly) is the result of optical energy (I_optical) negotiating with material form (M_mark). The ⊕ symbol represents the resistance and interaction that occurs in the Sovereign Zone.

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IV. Spatial Negotiation vs. Temporal Record

Adopting the framework of Jelly shifts the conversation from time to space. The artwork is no longer a record of a moment captured in time. It is a resolution of tension. The surface of a drawing does not store time; it stores distance made visible.

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V. Conclusion: A New Vernacular for Praxis

Defining the Sovereign Zone and the Jelly within it provides a precise lens for artists, curators, and historians. By moving beyond discussions of lineage or influence, we can understand art as a universal negotiation with material resistance. To understand Jelly is to understand that the mark is not merely a response to the world—it is a dialogue with it.

 

Peter Davidson - Pomegranate of rock hook

Pencil coloured, pencil, pastel on coloured pastel paper - F4

The Sovereign Zone: Spatial Non-Coincidence in the Act of Drawing

The common understanding of drawing follows a linear sequence: the artist sees, time passes, and the hand responds. In this model, the discrepancy between object and mark is treated as delay — a problem of the clock.

Sustained practice suggests otherwise.

If chronology is removed, what remains is not duration but resistance. What we call “time” in drawing is more accurately a spatial condition: a field of tension between the eye and the surface. The present is not a point moving forward — it is a thickness through which energy must pass.

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The Physics of Influence

In this spatial model, drawing is not a record of minutes but a negotiation of force.

Light enters the eye as perceptual charge. Pigment meets paper as material resistance. The difficulty of drawing is not slowness — it is conversion.

Let:

Iₒₚₜᵢcₐₗ = Optical Intensity (perceptual energy entering the eye)
Mₘₐᵣₖ = Material Inscription (the resistance of surface and medium)

What is misread as delay is more precisely described as Spatial Non-Coincidence (Δs) — the irreducible offset between perception and inscription.

This relationship can be expressed as:

  Δs = Iₒₚₜᵢcₐₗ / Mₘₐᵣₖ

This occurs within what I call Jelly — the mediating field in which observer, motif, and surface coexist.

The equation does not measure skill. It describes strain.

• When perceptual intensity exceeds material resistance, Δs increases: lines tremble, corrections multiply, scintillation appears.

• When material resistance dominates, Δs compresses: marks become inert, over-determined.

Drawing does not eliminate Δs. It renders it visible.

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The Sovereign Zone

Jelly is the Sovereign Zone of drawing.

It is not time extended, but space thickened. Within this zone, the artist does not advance along a timeline; they navigate a field.

Hesitation is not lateness.
Correction is not delay.
Both are movements within thickness.

A drawing does not store time.
It stores distance made visible.

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The Davidson Hypothesis

Through practice and reflection — later clarified symbolically — the following expression emerged:

  t₀ → t₀ + D

This does not describe chronological succession. It describes structural displacement.

D is not elapsed time.
It is the thickness of influence between perception and inscription — the displacement required for energy to crystallize into matter.

Perception and mark are not sequential events. They are offset positions within the same spatial field.

The hypothesis is named in honor of my mother and father.

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The De-Chronologized Mark

If drawing is spatial rather than temporal, the artwork is not a historical record but a preserved field of resistance.

Museums frame works through dates, encouraging distance: this happened then. Yet a mark does not transmit the past — it transmits optical resistance in the present.

When an observer looks at a drawing made centuries ago, reflected light enters the eye now. The negotiation of Δs resumes. The original artist and the current viewer become co-occupants of the same Sovereign Zone.

A drawing does not transmit time.
It transmits tension.

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The Auditor of the Yard

Value is not measured chronologically but biologically.

Consider the independent dog in the yard — a metaphor for the honest observer. A dog does not respond to dates. It responds to presence.

It senses scintillation — the visible flicker produced when perceptual intensity meets material resistance.

In spatial terms:

  Scintillation ∝ Δs

Scintillation is the visible effect of non-coincidence — the vibration of a mark under strain.

To the dog, this flicker is not historical. It is immediate. Learning occurs through sensing resolved and unresolved tension within the field.

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Conclusion

A 21 cm × 29.7 cm drawing is not a souvenir of duration. It is a bounded perimeter of negotiated influence.

Within that perimeter, eye, hand, and surface occupy offset positions in a shared field. The present does not pass — it thickens.

A drawing is a spatial map of negotiated resistance, existing in a permanent present for any observer willing to enter the yard.

Hypothesis: Jelly Ontology: Spatial Non-Coincidence and the Evolutionary Resolution of Artistic Creation

Eye tracking grapes
Pencil coloured pencil texta and whiteout on paper
18 cm h x 12 cm w

Hypothesis: Jelly Ontology: Spatial Non-Coincidence and the Evolutionary Resolution of Artistic Creation

This work does not offer a scientific account of vision, physics, or cognition. It advances a hypothesis drawn from practice: that seeing involves energy, and drawing is the point at which that energy is compelled into material form.

The language of physics—its equations, its treatment of delay, displacement, and resistance—is used here as metaphor rather than measurement. These structures provide a way to articulate what drawing repeatedly reveals: a persistent gap between optical perception and the spatial mark. This gap is not experienced as time passing but as resistance. It is a productive non-coincidence that shapes how form evolves on the surface.

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The Temporal Illusion

Within the traditional humanist model of artistic creation, the process unfolds as a linear sequence: the artist sees, the mind interprets, the hand responds. Any deviation between motif and mark is framed as latency—a problem of speed, hesitation, or timing.

Sustained studio practice at the Akashi Research Centre suggests a different structure. The mark never coincides with what is seen, not because the artist is too slow, but because the two never occupy the same spatial condition. What is typically called “time” appears instead as a structural non-coincidence between perception and inscription.

This irreducible gap—the field of influence between optics and the surface—is defined here as Jelly.

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Note on Derivation

This essay proceeds from a working hypothesis formed through drawing itself. It does not claim to describe optics or matter scientifically. Instead, it uses Einstein’s idea of mass–energy equivalence as a conceptual scaffold: if light can be treated as energy, and pigment as mass, then the so-called “delay” in drawing can be understood as the point where perceptual energy struggles to become material.

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The Material–Energetic Grounding (Hypothesis)

To move beyond the idea of delay as time, this work suspends the separation between perception and matter.

Einstein’s formulation is used here only as a structural guide:

Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared

(E = m × c²)

Within this hypothesis, light entering the eye is treated as Optical Intensity (I_optical), or energy (E). Pigment deposited on the surface is treated as Material Inscription (M_mark), or mass (m). The claim is not that physics explains drawing, but that this equivalence offers a useful way of describing what happens in practice.

From this perspective, the difficulty of drawing is not a failure of coordination. It is the resistance encountered as perceptual energy is negotiated into material form. The artist experiences this as tension rather than time.

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Jelly Ontology and the Sovereign Zone

Once time is no longer required as an explanatory device, drawing takes place within what I call the Sovereign Zone (D). This is not a pause or a moment, but a thickness of the present in which influences coexist.

Within this zone, Jelly operates as a continuous field of sensorial influence. It does not flow or transmit information. It presses, bends, and resists across space. The eye, body, and surface are present at once, but never coincident.

Creation is therefore re-described through Spatial Non-Coincidence (Delta_s) rather than temporal delay:

Total spatial discrepancy

Delta_s_total = Delta_s_O + Delta_s_B + Delta_s_M + Delta_s_J

Where:

• Delta_s_O = optical spacing

• Delta_s_B = bodily reach and orientation

• Delta_s_M = material resistance

• Delta_s_J = Jelly influence

These are not stages. They exist simultaneously.

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Jelly Influence

The Jelly Influence is the irreducible gap between what is seen and what can be marked:

Delta_s_J = I_optical minus M_mark

This gap cannot be trained away. It is not solved by intention or accuracy. It is a spatial condition encountered every time a mark is made.

Its visible evidence is Scintillation—the flicker, instability, or fragmentation in the drawing. This is not a stylistic choice or a failure of technique. It is the record of energy meeting resistance as it collapses into material form.

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The Evolutionary Resolution

The conceptual clarity of the Jelly Ontology resonates with the posthuman framework articulated by Robert Pepperell. His account rejects the notion of a bounded subject acting upon an external world, instead describing perception and action as emerging from an extended field of relations.

This alignment clarifies that Jelly is not a private sensation but a shared spatial condition. The “offset realities” observed in the yard at Akashi—between eye, ground, hand, dogs, and canopy—are not perceptual errors. They are the visible traces of an organism negotiating a spatial constant rather than a human clock.

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Conclusion

The artwork is not a record of time passing. It is a spatial map of negotiated influence. Drawing does not capture a moment; it resolves a tension. By bringing together a practice-based hypothesis, the Jelly Ontology, and posthuman thinking, this work shifts art away from representation and toward manifestation.

The surface does not store time. It stores distance made visible.

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Glossary of Terms

Jelly

A continuous field of sensorial influence between optics and inscription.

Sovereign Zone (D)

The thickness of the present where influences coexist without linear time.

Scintillation

The visible flicker in a mark produced by energy meeting material resistance.

Spatial Non-Coincidence (Delta_s)

The structural gap between seeing and marking.

I_optical

The energy intensity of light as it is perceived.

M_mark

The material mass of pigment deposited on the surface.

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Acknowledgements

This inquiry was sharpened through engagement with Robert Pepperell’s The Posthuman Condition, whose early arguments provided the conceptual resonance needed to understand these studio observations as part of a shared spatial reality.

The Rocket and the Silo: Reimagining Art Education

 

Peter Davidson - Self Portrait 2026

Pencil felt tip pen white out on paper

13 cm h x 11 cm w

The Rocket and the Silo: Reimagining Art Education

The integration of AI into the art school system is at times treated with scepticism and framed as a modern invasion, yet we have been ceding human functions to machines for decades. Just as the spellcheckers on early Macintosh computers replaced the manual diligence once required by the typewriter, AI has quietly evolved in the background of the creative process. We have transitioned from the “Wright Brothers” era of basic automation to a “rocket-level” sophistication in generative technology. This evolution isn’t a future threat; it is a present reality already woven into the fabric of artistic education.

The urgent question is no longer whether AI belongs in the academy, but how students of painting, printmaking, ceramics, and sculpture—alongside art history and curatorial majors—will adapt. As the tools accelerate, students and professors alike must find a way to maintain their creative sovereignty in an age of automated craft. However, the most glaring obstacle to surviving this acceleration is the current siloed methodology of art education. Today, these areas of study are strictly departmentalized, creating a fragmented experience that stifles the very synthesis required by the modern world.

This wasn’t always the case. Decades ago during my postgraduate research, I witnessed a different model: a singular, expansive space where undergraduate and postgraduate students practiced performance, video, drawing, photography, installation, painting, and printmaking side-by-side. This environment was more than just a shared room; it was a site of constant, organic peer-to-peer learning. One could walk in at any time and gain insight from a master of a completely different medium. As one professor noted, it was a period of unprecedented creative vitality—a “best-of” era that unfortunately ended when the retirement of key faculty allowed the silos to return.

Years later, I asked that professor where the inspiration for that communal model had originated. He traced the idea back to a lecturer in the United Kingdom who had pioneered the concept to immense success. The striking irony is that this “big space” philosophy mirrors the architecture of Artificial Intelligence itself. AI is not siloed; it is neither linear nor chronological. It functions by pulling unique seams of knowledge from across its entire algorithmic landscape, connecting disparate ideas instantaneously. By clinging to rigid hierarchies, art schools are operating in direct opposition to the way information—and creativity—now moves.

A recent example of how this unsiloed thinking can succeed was evident at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK). In the Collection Gallery’s exhibition, the curator bypassed traditional periodization to exhibit artists’ “pulses” in juxtaposition. This experience validates the Axiom of Delay: the understanding that artistic praxis exists in the non-temporal interval between seeing and doing, t₀ → t₀ + D. At MoMAK, the 1965 Informel-era work of IWATA Shigeyoshi sat in conversation with the 1895 silk compositions of FUKADA Chokujo. Despite being separated by seventy years, both works emerge from the same “sovereign space.” When we remove the “when” of a piece, its agency is restored as a living force.

This framework even allows a radical re-reading of Leonardo da Vinci. His unfinished works are often framed as failures of persistence, but through the Axiom of Delay, they become perfectly complete. For Leonardo, a work was finished the moment the scintillating energy of the concept reached its limit. To push further would be to slip into technical virtuosity—the habitual execution of craft—rather than the living presence of the Delay.

Ultimately, AI I think will help art students experience fine art as a pulse, not a clock. As the MoMAK exhibition revealed, the future of museum experiences—and by extension, studio praxis—lies in the scintillation of the artist’s work as it happens, rather than where it is located on a historical timeline. This is the pivotal difference. To compete with the rocket-level speed of AI, the academy must dismantle its walls. By fostering a big space that mirrors the interconnectedness of AI while protecting the uniquely human interval of the mark, we allow students to work not by the clock of the institution, but by the pulse of the creator.

 

Peter Davidson 2026

Eye tracking grapes
Pencil coloured pencil texta and whiteout on paper
18 cm h x 12 cm w

The Davidson Hypothesis: Mapping the Cybernetic Phenomenology of 2Dogs Art Space

The traditional narrative of art history is built on a linear progression of styles, movements, and technical mastery. At 2Dogs Art Space in Akashi, Japan, research proposes a radical departure from this chronology. By establishing an Orthogonal Stance—a research position at a right angle to the historical timeline—the artist bypasses the "before and after" of art history to focus on the recursive “now” of studio praxis. This shift establishes a new epistemology rooted in Cybernetic Phenomenology.

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The Mechanics of the Delay: t0 → t0 + D

At the heart of this research is the Davidson Hypothesis, which suggests that artists do not act upon reality directly. Instead, they respond to a buffered version of reality that exists after a Structural Delay (D).

Here:

• t0 (The Absolute Present) = raw, external data that is physically inaccessible to human consciousness

• D (The Structural Delay) = the cognitive interval where perception is held, processed, and transformed into action

In other words:

t0 → t0 + D

represents the fundamental condition of perception: reality is never accessed directly—only through structured delay.

This delay is not just a measure of time; it is a sculptural space where artwork is constructed. Within this space, the phase transition known as Crystallization occurs: the moment when fluid, unformed data in the mental buffer hardens into a tangible mark or artistic decision.

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Scintillation and the Offset Yard

Evidence of this hypothesis appears as Scintillation, a perceptual "glitch" or flicker that arises when the mind tries to reconcile t0 with the processed D. This is not a failure—it is a diagnostic tool revealing the system’s internal lag.

The phenomenon is localized in the Offset Yard, the primary research site at 2Dogs. The Yard is a shared physical space where multiple observers exist simultaneously, each inhabiting slightly different perceptual registers. Art emerges here from perception itself, rather than from a single chronological moment.

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Metaphorical Physics: A Stable Architecture

To navigate this complex interior landscape, the artist employs Metaphorical Physics—borrowing formulas, diagrams, and laws from science to create a stable architecture for poetic inquiry.

This approach echoes historical researchers like Da Vinci and Cézanne, who emphasized registering sensation and the mechanics of sight over producing a “finished masterpiece.”

At 2Dogs, the work is less about technical virtuosity and more about documenting the “log file” of the human processor as it navigates the inherent delay of being.

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The 2Dogs Glossary: A-Temporal Research Tools

• t0 (The Absolute Present): The theoretical point of contact with external reality; raw data inaccessible to consciousness until it enters the mental buffer

• D (The Structural Delay): The interval where perception is held, processed, and buffered—a territory where art is constructed

• t0 → t0 + D: The core condition of perception: reality is always mediated by delay

• Crystallization: The moment fluid data in D hardens into a material or conceptual mark

• Offset Yard: The research site representing a “shared yard” where multiple observers coexist in different perceptual registers

• Scintillation: The flicker or glitch when t0 and D are reconciled by the mind

• Metaphorical Physics: Using scientific structures to create a stable foundation for poetic and perceptual inquiry

• Orthogonal Stance: A research position at a right angle to historical timelines, focusing on the recursive “now” of the studio rather than “before and after”

t0 (Absolute Present, raw data)

    → D (Structural Delay, buffered perception)

        → Crystallization (fluid data → artistic mark)

            → Scintillation (flicker when t0 reconciles with D)

“Perception flows from t0 through the mental buffer D, crystallizes into artistic decisions, and produces scintillation as the mind reconciles the inaccessible present.”

The Paradox of Duration: Mike Parr’s Performance and the Timeless Space of Delay

 

The Paradox of Duration: Mike Parr’s Performance and the Timeless Space of Delay

A research perspective by Peter Davidson, PhD

2 Dogs Art Space, Akashi

In the landscape of contemporary performance, the work of Mike Parr occupies a significant position in examining the limits of the body, perception, and artistic intention. His practice is frequently characterised by a desire to move beyond the primacy of the “Idea,” a position he articulates succinctly:

“Everything in advance. Performance art for me is in advance. Decisively in advance. Because the event always exceeds the idea” (Parr, 2022).

Through his Blind Painting works, Parr appears to seek a state beyond mental reclamation, one in which visual mastery is relinquished and the work unfolds through bodily persistence and sensory uncertainty. At 2 Dogs Art Space, I engage with this work not as a spectator alone, but as a practitioner-researcher investigating a related question: how perceptual intensity emerges when time is no longer the dominant organising force.

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Duration and Delay: A Productive Distinction

A useful distinction arises when considering the structure of Parr’s performances. In my framework, Duration refers to the externally defined span of the work: the scheduled hours of the gallery, the measurable length of the event. Delay, by contrast, describes moments in which action is temporarily suspended by spatial, tactile, or perceptual necessity.

Accounts of Parr’s performances, including The Same Only Different (2019), describe a recurring dynamic. While the overall duration of the event proceeds continuously, the act of painting itself unfolds unevenly. Working with eyes shut, Parr repeatedly climbs a ladder and pauses to feel the wall with his hands, orienting himself within the architecture of the space before continuing.

These moments do not interrupt the performance so much as reveal an underlying tension within it. The forward movement implied by endurance briefly gives way to an immediate negotiation with space. The work advances not through time alone, but through contact, touch, and recalibration.

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The Spatial Gap

What is revealed in these pauses is a spatial gap in which time appears to flatten. The action is no longer governed by the momentum of the event, but by the need to locate oneself physically. This gap resists linear progression; it is neither before nor after, but insistently present.

In my own practice, this spatial gap is encountered continuously. There is no requirement for an imposed duration because resistance is already embedded in the material itself. Pigment, paper, eye, and hand do not coincide perfectly, and it is within this non-coincidence that perception becomes active. The work unfolds through responsiveness rather than endurance.

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Peter Davidson 

Towards Scintillation: Plastic Fruit and Veges on  (2026)

Pastel pencil on coloured pastel paper - F4

Towards Scintillation

In Towards Scintillation: Plastic Fruit and Veges (2026), resolution occurs at moments of peak saturation rather than through prolonged duration. The marks emerge from an intense, direct negotiation with the density of the subject—its colour, pressure, and internal resistance.

These moments do not rely on sustained endurance to establish their validity. The work concludes when perceptual intensity reaches its apex, not when a predetermined span of time has elapsed. Completion is marked by arrival rather than exhaustion.

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Art Beyond the Clock

This is not a critique of endurance, nor a dismissal of Parr’s achievements. Rather, it asks whether the most acute moments of perception necessarily coincide with the theatrical demands of duration.

My research suggests that artistic creation may operate most effectively within a space that is, in practical terms, without time—a space governed by responsiveness rather than endurance. Within such a space, the work is able to reach its apogee: the point at which perceptual intensity is at its greatest.

From this perspective, the moments in Parr’s performances when he reaches out to feel the gallery wall are especially revealing. These gestures open a brief, timeless interval in which perception asserts itself independently of the clock. Action is guided not by the forward pressure of duration, but by immediate spatial and sensory necessity.

By attending to this interval—what I describe as Delay rather than Duration—the artwork remains an active trace of influence rather than a fixed monument sustained by time alone. The significance of the work lies not in how long it endures, but in how fully it is allowed to arrive at its point of maximum intensity.

References

Parr, M. (2002). Malewitsch [A Political Arm]. 30-hour durational performance, Artspace, Sydney.
Parr, M. (2019). The Same Only Different. Durational performance, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney.
Parr, M. (2022). Blind Painting of a Falling Tree. 23rd Biennale of Sydney (rìvus). Artist statements.

ABC News. (2019, October 30). Australian artist Mike Parr stages performance protesting Amazon fires. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-30/australian-artist-mike-parr-protests-amazon-fires-performance/11650044 

The 2Dogs Glossary: A-Temporal Research Tools

 

2Dogs Art Space - Akashi (明石）- Japan - Research Centre

The 2Dogs Glossary: A-Temporal Research Tools

t₀ (The Absolute Present)
The theoretical point of contact with external reality.
A “now” that is physically inaccessible to human consciousness, existing only as raw data before it enters the mind’s buffer.

D (The Structural Delay)
The cognitive and physical interval where perception is held, processed, and “buffered.”
In this laboratory, D is not treated as a measurement of time, but as a territory — a sculptural space where art is actually constructed.

t₀ → t₀ + D
The fundamental condition of perception: reality is never accessed directly, only through structured delay.

Crystallization
The transition point where the fluid, unformed data within the Delay (D) hardens into a specific artistic decision — a mark on a page or a material object.
It is the moment a thought becomes a thing.

The Offset Yard
The primary research site at 2Dogs Art Space.
It represents the “Shared Yard” where multiple observers inhabit the same physical space while existing in slightly different perceptual registers.

Scintillation
The flickering sensation or perceptual “glitch” produced when the mind attempts to reconcile the Absolute Present (t₀) with the processed Delay (D).
It is the visible evidence of the hypothesis in action.

Metaphorical Physics
The practice of using scientific structures — formulas, diagrams, and laws — not to prove empirical facts, but to provide a stable architecture for poetic and perceptual inquiry.

Orthogonal Stance
A research position that stands at a right angle to the historical timeline.

It ignores the “before” and “after” of art history in order to focus on the recursive “now” of the studio.he 2Dogs Glossary: A-Temporal Research Tools