The Vorticist
From 2007 to 2010 The Vorticist offered one-on-one appointments in a small cell at Melbourne’s Abbotsford Convent. Guests entered via a secretive referral system and were drawn into an intimate ritual involving bespoke drawing instruments and conversation.
Each session produced a unique imprint — a visual trace of the encounter. Split in two: one part was kept by the guest, the other was archived by The Vorticist alongside handwritten notes. No one knew exactly what the purpose was, but hundreds came. One participant put it simply:
“You don’t need me to be here, do you? And I don’t need anything from you either. That creates quite an interesting space. We’re both here now… so what could this mean?”
Part confessional, part game of chance, The Vorticist operated in a liminal zone of psuedo-science and parafiction. Over three years the project evolved into a living archive of interpersonal exchange, rich with poetic speculation.
An extensive community formed around the work, culminating in a public reading of the appointment archives at the Royal Society of Science in 2009, where hundreds of former appointees gathered to compare notes and extend the mythology further.