The initial mark making was created by Jonathan Armour and collaborator Kapil Mani Dixit using the “from the nervous system” approach as mentioned in previous project The Body: Anatomy and Neurology. Having prepared 4 drawings using this method, they each took 2 drawings to develop further, independent of each other.
These ones developed by Jonathan are called Synaptic Drift.
Synaptic Drift catches those fleeting moments when the signals from neurons collide and form thoughts. In a therapeutic context, “catching thoughts” refers to the practice of identifying automatic thoughts the instance they happen in order to examine it objectively.
In writing or art, fleeting ideas refer to those lightning-fast ideas that pop into your head and disappear just as quickly if you don’t write them down. It’s like “catching” a butterfly. It represents the act of pinning down an elusive inspiration before it floats across the mental page.
The anatomy of an idea – the shapes resemble biological specimens—halfway between a neuron, a jellyfish, and a cloud of smoke. By giving “thoughts” a physical, organic form, here the suggestion is that even though thoughts are invisible, they have a weight and a life of their own. The drafting film causes the painting to feel like it’s barely there, much like a memory that’s starting to fade.
Notice how each form has a denser “head” and trails off into wispy, energetic lines. The Head represents the moment of impact or the “core” of the realisation, whereas the Tail represents the momentum—where the thought is going or how it’s being pulled away by the next neuro-signal.
These feel like a laboratory where someone is trying to “pin down” these mental butterflies so they can be studied before they disappear back into the subconscious. The use of layered colors and those thin, frantic “nerve” lines really captures that feeling of a brain that won’t stop moving, balancing biology with something almost ghostly.