Drawing starts with seeing and leads to a way of envisioning and
understanding the world different from the understanding
filtered through language. From a cognitive viewpoint, drawing
implies that persons constituting their identity in the act of
drawing know the inside and the outside of what they render. To
draw requires that things grow from their inside and take shape
as active entities. Visible and invisible parts interact in
drawing, surface and volume intersect, voids and fills extend in
the visual expression, dynamically complementing each other.
Each line of a drawing makes sense only in relation to the
others. In contrast to words and sentences, elements of a drawing
conjure understanding only through the drawing. Visual
representation, as opposed to language expression, attains
coherence as a whole, and the whole is configurational. One can
write the word table without ever experiencing the object
denominated. Extracted from direct or mediated experiences,
knowledge about the object and its functions is a prerequisite
for drawing an old table or conceiving a new one. To design
means to express in a language that involves rendering. It also
involves understanding that practical expectations are connected
to the projected object. Consequently, to design means to
experience the table in advance of its physical embodiment. Thus
designing is the virtual practical experience, at the borderline
between what is and what new experiences of self-constitution
require.
In designing, people virtually project their own biological and
cultural characteristics in whatever they conceive. This
corresponds to the reality that design is derived from practical
experiences, extending what is possible to what is desirable.
Functionality expresses this condition, though only partially.
With the emergence of conditions embodied in the underlying
structure reflected in literacy, image and literate
renditions-statements of goal and purpose, descriptions of means,
procedures for evaluation-met. Literacy then effected changes in
the condition of design. These are reflected as general
expectations of permanence, universality, dualism, centralism,
and hierarchy. International style-an expression that really
covers more than the name of a style-reflects these literate
expectations from design.
Is drawing natural? The meaning of such a question can be
conjured only if articulated with its pendant: Is literacy
unnatural or artificial? Everything already stated about drawing
implies that it is not natural, though it is closer to what it
represents than words are. Except for metaphoric qualifications,
there is no such thing as drawing an abstraction of drawing,
although there is abstract drawing. Through drawing, persons
constitute themselves as having the ability to see, to understand
(for instance, the invisible part of objects, how light affects
an image, how color or texture makes an object seem lighter or
rounder), to relate to the pragmatic context as definitory of the
meaning of both the object-real or imagined-and the drawing.
Different contexts make different ways of drawing possible.
Disconnected from the context, drawing is almost like the babble
of a child, or like a fragmented, unfinished expression.
Vitruvius had a culture of drawing very different from that of
the many architects who followed him. Critics who compared him
to Le Corbusier and his architectural renditions, to the
architects of post-structuralism, and to the deconstructivists
and deconstructivist designers declared the drawings of these
architects to be ugly, bad, or inappropriate (Tom Wolfe went on
record with this). At this instance, drawing ceases to be an
adjunct to art; it petitions its own legitimacy.
If we ignore the pragmatic context and the major transition from
a design initially influenced by language-Vitruvius wrote a
monumental work on architecture-the statement stands. But what
we face here is a process in time: from design influenced by the
pragmatics embodied in Vitruvius' work, to design subordinated to
literacy, and finally to design struggling for emancipation as a
new language, in which the critical component is as present as
the constructive impulse to change the world.
Design carries over many formal requirements from practical
experiences subordinated to literacy. But there is also an
underlying conflict between design and language, moreover
between design and literacy. This conflict was never resolved
inside the experience of designing. In society, literacy imposed
its formative structure on education, and what resulted was
design education with a strong liberal arts component. Needless
to say, designers, whether professionals in the field or students
(designers-to-be), resented and resent the assumption that their
trade needs to be elevated to the pedestal of the eternal values
embodied in literacy. Instead of being stimulated to discover
the need for literacy-based values in concrete contexts, design
and design education are subjected to the traditional smorgasbord
of history, language, philosophy, a little science, and many
free choices. Its own theoretic level, or at least the quest for
a theory, is discarded as frivolous. Moreover, the elements
grouped under intuition are systematically explained away,
instead of being stimulated.
Whereas the context of education allows for the artificial
maintenance of literacy- based training programs in design, the
broader context of pragmatic experiences confirms the dynamic
changes design brought about since the profession ascertained
its identity. The conflict between training and engaging prompted
efforts to free design from constraints that affect its very
nature: How do we get rid of the mechanical components of design
(paste-up, rendering, model making)? These efforts came from
outside the educational framework and were stimulated by the
general dynamics of change from the pragmatics of literacy to
the pragmatics of the civilization of illiteracy. The change
brought about the emergence of new design tools that open fresh
perspectives for the expression of design: animation,
interactivity, and simulation. It also encouraged designers to
research within the realm of their domain, to inquire into the
many aspects of their concern, and to express their findings in
new designs. The computer desktop and various rapid prototyping
tools brought execution closer to designers. It also introduced
new mediating layers in the design process.