Dear Friends,
Carlos, Keith, Martin
First allow me to suggest the reading of a paper of mine at
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/microsites/sota/tracey/journal/thin/2014/PDF/Corte-Real-TRACEY-Journal-STEAM-2014.pdf
and, of course, many other interesting papers on the subject at Tracey.
In my insomnia nights sometimes I dream of creating a "General Theory of
Visualization" (such theory would affirm the superiority of Drawing
above all other human (intellectual) activities and afterwards I could
sleep soundly secure that I had saved humanity and "moi" in the process.
The sad thing is that most of visualisation theories already exist and
are specifically related with scientific data visualization and HCI.
Sadly, also, I'm only sure that drawing was the supreme intellectual
activity in Pre-History times, before writing.
However, drawings persevere in our History and especially create
secession between those who are able to master it and those not. Of
course that there is secession between those able to play clarinet and
those who aren’t, but probably not as important as this. (in fact what
puzzles me most about Altamira and Lascaux paintings is how the Hell did
they select the people that were allowed to paint? In a Herzog
documentary about new found cave in France I noticed a lousy mammoth in
a corner, so maybe they had to do some tests.)
In my (bound to uselessness) theory, it is impossible to dodge the
concept of image and, therefore, the consequent possibility of an
imagination. I say possibility because I have no proof of such human
capacity. Imagination seems to have a plasticity that what you might
consider as such can almost immediately be substituted by another
designation of “brain activity” types or else.
It is quite interesting that digitalization (0s and 1s), that worked so
well in favor of machines, became also our standard for qualifying
things, namely images and our manner of interpreting them.
I’m diverting, Dear Keith. Drawings are technical images. They are
images made in a technical way. There is no doubt about it. They are
images constructed according techniques that are not limited, as you
know, to repetitive liking of papers surfaces until they start to look
as our visual experience even when they are limited to look alike our
visual experience.
So, in the general process of visualization, Drawing stands as human
process of creating images that is inherently critical because the
technique involved in producing such images requires a mental
construction (if you like, related with imagination) that some
mechanical processes equally able to produce technical images do not
require.
When you want to make an argument that requires imagination, I guess
that images might get handy. When you require an argument that requires
imagination as a human capacity, drawing might get handy. Especially, if
by using an argument that requires imagination as a way to criticize
reality, you will be able to demonstrate that you were able to
criticize reality using human terms.
Best regards,
Eduardo
PS. Ken, you have some medium powers
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