“Dear Sue:
I suggest that you contact directly Krishnesh S. Methta (
[log in to unmask] ). He presented a paper at the "Senses&Sensibility in
Technology" conference in Lisbon last year. What I implied from his work is
that the brain activity when people draw is located near the pre-frontal
cortex and the temporal lobes where foresight and planning capacity is also
located.
Representational drawing can also enhance past experiences of smell tact
and flavour.
What we can say, for sure, is that drawing takes you out of the world.
Everybody experiences the sort of "reverie" status while doodling at a
boring meeting or telephone conversation. Also the sort of concentration
required in observation drawing on the abstract formal relations present in
the image take you out of the symbolic universe that characterize our
relation with the world.
Since most of the aggressions to our health come from the world, I think
that those illusive escapades can enhance your health.
Picasso's long active life is a great example. And if sexual activity at
old age is a proof of a healthy condition, even more.”
Maybe I should clarify what I consider to be the symbolic relation with the
world: The fact is that symbolisation is an economic device to be in the
world. Even in spatial orientation we tend to symbolise: Rhinoceros =
danger; apple = food; door = stop or go through according to status.
A little amount of formal features are enough to set images into a symbolic
framework. Self-preservation depends on that fast symbolisation.
Pure visual thought is hard to achieve. Normally, we see through and don’t
see, really. That’s why I said that drawing disconnects people from the
world, in the sense that disconnects the normal symbolic relation to the
world. Any drawing requires a number of formal relations that reveal the
drawingness of drawing purely mental/human constructed with no relation
whatsoever with symbolisation. A representational surface is such an
abstraction that there is always an amount of abstract “geometric”
relations that must be taken in consideration.
In that sense, I see that drawing promotes a disconnection with the real
world and that disconnection is the secret for its healthy power. The
possibility of building an individual abstract capacity that, in the end,
builds up self-esteem and the illusion of control may be the reason for the
healing powers of drawing.
Maybe we are all saying the same things in different words…
Best wishes
For any quest in favour of drawing
Eduardo
PS.: See Oliver Sacks’s “An Anthropologist in Mars”, the short story about
Stephen, the boy with autism.
Eduardo Corte-Real
PhD Arch.
Direction Board President IADE-School of Design
Avenida Dom Carlos I, 4
1200-Lisboa
Portugal
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