No Notes (this is writing) is an open-ended dialogue between an artist and writer, made over 7 months on iPhones (texting text back and forth through iNotes). Writing as a process of unfolding. It is dialogue or ‘across speak’ riddled with visual surprise, invigoration and doubt, desire and struggle.

No Notes (this is writing) is a continuous collaborative work in the form of a loose dialogue between Francesca Rendle-Short and Martina Copley written on iphones that arose out of a shared interest in what it means to practice writing or something other. Written to one another – but also to our readers as a form of note-taking (almost as if the inner voice was spoken out loud) – the book is a drafting in action made concrete in poetic notes.

It is dialogue as double act, with asides.

What happens or emerges between making and thinking is a result of the interplay of bodies and intelligences: the artist/s at work, materials at hand, and the process and illumination of making itself.  Both artists are interested in the stutter and waywardness of dialogue, the potential of miscommunication. We were curious to see what would happen working episodically and in collaboration; working on screen in place of notebook, and writing not towards an end.

[Background: No Notes developed after Martina invited Francesca to participate in an annotative process as ‘respondant’ to her exhibition of work; The movement of the aside, 2014, which investigated uses of the aside as a way to discuss the movement of making. Parsing the aside (the poetics of immersion and patience as dialogue) was composed by Francesca directly onto an iPhone 5S Notes app using keyboard and fingers, and sent to Martina by email.]