Peter Davidson - Decaying studio apple 2026
Pencil, felt tip pen, white out pastel coloured pencil on paper
16 cm x 8 cm
The Physics of the Scintillating Mark I
“I am not describing a theory from the outside; I am constructing a system through the praxis of painting and drawing, building it from within the act itself.”
We do not inhabit the world in real-time. There is always a gap, Δs, between photon striking the eye and hand touching the surface—we are here and we are not here. We are never fully present. This interval may not be a flaw but a condition: a Sovereign Zone in which aliveness is assembled and rendered.
Within this delay lies an interior expanse, a viscous, reactive medium I call Optical Jelly. Sensation bends it, memory thickens it, tradition exerts inertia. As long as life persists, the Jelly remains pressurized, converting difficulty into potential.
Δs does not simply interrupt perception; it appears to construct it. What feels immediate is stabilized within the delay. Optic input thickens with memory and expectation, accumulating as non-linear pressure. The organism cannot sustain indeterminacy indefinitely, so discontinuous signals are stitched into apparent continuity. This is the necessary fraud—not deception, but fabrication. Immediacy is produced. Drawing reopens that stabilization. By lingering within Δs, the artist resists premature closure and exposes the act of construction itself.
Hesitation, erasure, prolonged looking—these function as charging operations. The greater the tolerated difference between perception and resolution, the greater the eventual force of release. When potential saturates, a threshold is crossed. A vertical leap across Δs: the Sprite. The mark is its fossil. Scintillation—the vibration of the line—records resistance overcome at the moment of conversion. The mark does not depict the object so much as register the crossing.
This can be observed in the yard at 2Dogs Art Space. Light, scent, sound, temperature—the external field remains constant. Yet the dogs diverge. One halts, suspended in saturation. Another moves fluidly, converting uncertainty into direction. A third commits too quickly and misaligns. Memory reshapes their interiors. The yard stays fixed; the organisms shift.
Perception is less reception than navigation. Identical inputs, divergent crossings. The artist differs only in remaining conscious within Δs. Drawing records not the yard, but the traversal.
Δs endures across tools, media, and eras. A drawing’s value may lie in its fidelity to the charge preceding discharge. When the organism dies, its interior field collapses. Potential dissipates. The mark remains—a residue of delay made visible.
Jelly → Δs → Sprite: a working model of conversion, tested in the act and preserved in the line.
