research 4

	Technology as Handmaiden to Generative Drawing 4/4

Research Abstract

This reflective practice research project attempts to explore and orientate the activity of generative drawing within the early stages of the industrial design process by examining the notion of taking technology to the drawing surface.

Whilst recognising the enormous usefulness of computers in many aspects of creative endeavour, most artists and designers would agree that their early exploratory generative drawing is not currently best made within the 'conventional' computer system. As Fish & Scrivener have argued, ‘the predictability of many computer sketching functions inhibits unnecessarily the serendipity that may accompany the vagaries of conventional media.’ It is the purpose of this research to explore the potential to maintain and encourage the serendipitous, whilst searching for new modes of working with generative drawing. There are many aspects of generative drawings, both deliberate and accidental, which play important roles in such working practices. These include immediacy, indeterminacy, speed and flexibility, the economy of drawing, the expressive qualities and the universality of the medium, to name but a few. All of these attributes should be retained, celebrated or at least reinterpreted in any emerging proposal for drawing practice in design.

The concept of conversation through the drawing and with the drawing is central to this study. There are several theories which support and illuminate the concept of the drawing as conversation and these are actively explored in the research. Furthermore, the work is underpinned by emerging theories in cognitive science which argue that ill-structured and inarticulate activities such as generative drawing do not adhere strictly to the current computational theory of mind. To contemplate drawing within this cognitive sphere provides an external framework within which to consider the visual manipulation of ideas.

The research was conducted primarily by reflective practice, the direction of which was influenced by the theoretical and published experimental work of others in the field.

A useful hybridized approach to generative drawing has emerged which continues to be assessed within the context of my own industrial design practice (Gusto Design Ltd). Whilst I still have reservations about conducting generative drawing in a purely digital environment, some attributes of the digital domain were observed in the practical work to have the potential to assist in encouraging the cognitive processes identified as important in generative drawing. This observation helped to, at least partially, reinforce the validity of the original idea of taking technology to the drawing surface.