IMAGINATION AMPLIFICATION

Nat Chard, in his article Paradoxical Sciagraphy, posits a mode of ideation that is beyond what we typically think of as drawing. He has constructed small machines which throws small blobs of paint onto a canvas. Link here to their website which shows the machines and the result. They state that the apparatus will “draw uncertain conditions.” He places his machines within the historical context of other drawing machines, such as the camera lucida. This machine process could be a hypothetical tool which architects see as a response to a program. He emphasizes the disparity between the idea (in the architect’s / creator’s head) and the drawing (what ends up on the paper): most often there is a great difference. This all adds up to:

“the question of how we might design for those things that we do not know will happen” which creates a paradox by striving to makes sense of the programme.”

Set ourselves up for what we do not know will happen. Formalize a set of systems which allow for the generation of the previously unimaginable. It seems to me that Chard’s basic goals that he approaches with his machines are analogous to the goals of Transparent Drawing. I see these parallel themes as:

• 1. potential for serendipitous results,
• 2. beyond original imagination,
• 3. extension of first intent, and
• 4. yet another approach with what to do with a blank piece of paper.

And isn’t this what we all want? We all want an amplification of our imaginations. We all want to maintain the fidelity of the first intent that we conceive as a response to a program. We all welcome (or at least we all should welcome) a serendipitous result that is consonant yet different from the idea we had in our heads when we were making marks on the paper. These goals should be the ultimate intent of any architectural drawing, machine based or otherwise.

Rather than building machines, the technology is already at hand. The machine is yet another filter between the idea and what ends up on the paper. Instead, the pencil is within easy reach. Paper is ubiquitous. In short, the means for this amplification are within us. It is not something that is external. Certainly a machine designed to extend our souls will add value: it’s a fun idea. Could you imagine the power that you would have if your drawing shaped the physical machine and then the output of the machine shaped your (analogue) drawing?

Yet the answer is always, and already is, within us. The potential already is within you. All you have to do is draw what you can’t see.

1. Allen, Laura and Luke Caspar Pearson, editors. Drawing Futures. Riverside Architectural Press. Cambridge, ON. 2016. p151.