I had a waking dream this morning. I was drawing on a flat tablet, like the type used by digital artists. On one side was a dial for cycling through menus, a short array of buttons for a flat hand. Between the fingers of the other I held a fat chisel-tipped stylus, the soft tip cut at an angle giving a thin edge for etching fine detail, a flat edge for broad strokes. Before me, on one screen, a clean and simple canvas. One accordion-style menu folded up, a display bar whose readout unravelled a tickertape of suggestions as I drew; changes to the proportioning system, servant grids, a warning when the limiting length of an element was reached. As I scrolled back through the messages, blue lines appeared overlaid on the model, hints of possible changes from the algorithm. The drawing was like one you see now only in exhibitions, a charcoal sketch of the fluted scrolls atop a column; rough, but in steady, controlled curves.
A second monitor held a mosaic of images; historic photos, sketches and line drawings which detailed the making of various precedent buildings. They faded or grew in size and brightness as the drawing progressed, as possibilities receded with each drawn line.
Within the dream itself I saw a further vision, of the old A1 standing drawing boards of the kind seen in photos of every atelier and studio before desktop computing won the day, with high-legged assistant’s stools before them. The board was canvas and screen itself, above its surface sat a 3D projection. As the assistant drew on the board, so it was with the model. An endless surface of scaled drawings and details showed upon the drawing board face, any one could be brought to the fore; its revisions glowed in the soft-sculpted projected form.
Tools for the hand, forgiving of inexperience, restraining at the limits of economy and guarding the primacy of human touch in the making of these built forms. I dreamt of the hidden machine that left in subtle imperfections, that was itself a form of simplicity, that held history’s magnet close to the paper, a mother lode of wisdom for each finger’s unravelling touch.
