REAL FORMS

The forms that we generate with Transparent Drawing are real forms. 
They are not abstract. 
They are not ideal. 
They are not actual.
They are not schematic. 

Now, you might think that the five statements above amount to nothing more than philosophical gobbledygook. Yet, those statements are what philosophers have been arguing about since Plato.  

Plato argued that our perception of a form is an imperfect projection of the ideal archetype, which are the platonic solids.  Kant said that our perception of form must pass thru a schematic state.  And on and on the argument has gone thru thousands of years.  And we still are not in agreement on how the human can knowledge form.  Of course, a significant part of the problem is that philosophers use clunky and imprecise lingual strings to try to solve the mystery of visual perception, but never mind.  

In my reading, I recently came across these two quotes by contemporary philosophers which I believe offer helpful insight into this philosophical conundrum.

“The images of thought that are created in this fusion are ‘real without being actual, ideal without being abstract’; they set free the otherwise hidden, eternal nature of things, and awaken ‘our true self.’”   Torp

“An even more biological understanding of form, a generative ontology, must accept the coexistence of schema and form within the same continuum – a continuum that, accordingly, must be participating in the real itself.  The schema cannot be ideal; the abstraction must be real.”  Spuybroek

Taken in combination, the passages are ultimately resonant with the fundamental precepts of Transparent Drawing.  The forms that we draw are real without being actual. There is no schematic: our forms are within the same continuum as the schema.  We have said from the beginning that our forms are not abstract.  Etc.

I invite you to mull over these terms; real, ideal, abstract, actual and schematic, as you draw your next holistic form.  For my drawing above, it helped me to say the word real.   Which terms have the greatest resonance for you?

1. Hougaard, Anna Katrine, Soberg, M., Torp, K., Lorensten, E.  Thorborg, C., Gronlund, L., Refractions Artistic Research in Architecture.  Architectural Publisher,  Copenhagen.  2016
2. Spuybroek, Lars.  The Architecture of Continuity.  V2 Publishing, Rotterdam.  2008.