Drawing Without Paper
Location: College Station, Texas
Type: Speculative/Theoretical Anthropocene
Team: Adam Wells, Justin Zumel, Kathleen Sobzak
Spring 2014
Drawing without Paper attempts to remove the anthropocentric idea by means of the Eisenmanian challenge of scale. The development of this argument led to the notion of the Proto-Synthetic and Synthetic. The discussion of the Proto-Synthetic and Synthetic is framed in terms of Eisenman’s Arrows, Eros and other Errors, which discusses discontinuity, recursivity, and self-similarity. A result of this discussion produces an idea called the scientific image and enstranged object of desire.
Self-Similarity in origin “confronts representation and the aesthetic object.” In our case it can be argued by its relation to proto-synthetic and synthetic through confrontation and counter figuration. Confrontation is relevant to the reticulation of the overall massing. Counter figuration is in relation to the massing of the object and its visual representation. The object is represented as a singular mass however after closer inspection it is apparent that there is a stacking effect creating a collage of masses. This creates different moments that fluctuate between one single mass and multiple.
Discontinuity in origin confronts metaphysics of presence. In our argument it allows a new frame of representation through translations of medium and manipulation of scale, to create a perspectival Hi-Fi/Lo-Fi. This representation lends itself to the notion of the rendering as a drawing machine. The drawing highlights the reticular qualities of the object. One sense of the reticularity is in the argument of part-to-whole, where there is a comparison of zoomed detailing of the object to the massing of the form. Thus creating a Hybrid Reticulation as a state of flux where the reticular qualities at any moment are neither working for or against the object.
Recursivity confronts origin, and in our case it looks at reticulation. The recursivity is created by defamiliarization and hyper association to the object enstranging it and creating the Object of desire. Hyper association is rationalized in two ways. First through the confrontation of sinuous qualities and sinuous objects. Second by the allure which creates an appellation difference in the Derridian sense, where a vocabulary of words can be used to describe the object however no singular term describes it fully. Defamiliarization can also argue material instability causing a hyper association of “familiar” objects or as Jason Payne writes “objects that float across signification…that lend themselves to difficult, perhaps multiple readings.”
The notion of the medium comes into play because the project relies on multiple mediums to form the true object of desire. Text, image, drawing, and video are inseparable for the true object. In reference to the Para-fictional scenario the medium is manipulated to question the recursivity of the object. The image on the first page of this project is not one image but rather a collage creating a rhythm removing the ability to locate an origin.
After this we can understand that the proto-synthetic was self-manifested and omnipresent from the synthetic. The raw should be viewed as a direction rather than a destination and from this we can speculate on the notion of the medium. When looking at the 3D prints we instead view them as 3D drawings since they are in fact a series of 2D lines which have been layered to create the whole object. These 3D drawings move in the direction of the raw but reside as proto-synthetic. The CNC model is worked in the opposite way, where the origin was a block of foam, and through a series of corroding steps it has reticulated the object to form a proto-synthetic representation.
