Hey good to see you all back fresh for
the new year
welcome to the lecture series thanks all
for coming tons of people on the stairs
thank you for coming welcome all this is
the College of Architecture and Design
lecture series if you've never been here
before tonight's lectures supported I
should say by the Robert B Church
Memorial Lecture fund
first I just want to say a word about
the lecture series at large we have I
think again this year
truly amazing edition of the series
there's a tremendous amount of hard work
to put all this on and many people make
that happen
and behalf of them all I just want to
say that it's a matter of pride and
ambition that I think this this series
registers is one of the best available
in the country for schools of
architecture I want to say thanks to key
people that make it happen
the committee is myself I chair that
committee and Jennifer Ackerman and
Gale Fulton and Diane Fox who
facilitates all the amazing exhibits
over in 103 so if you haven't seen
Bryan's work over in 103 please do so on
your way out and then come back the next
day and the next day and the next day
after that just to soak it in I also
want to say thanks to the staff that
facilitates all this that's Jenny flat
food Amanda Johnson the only Hilton in
Florence Graves who do a ton of work for
all this stuff that work and I just want
to say thanks also to Jason Young as
always for their support and care for
the culture of the school at large
Jason's actually doing a lot of work on
the series this year and it it's
invisible so thank you
over the last couple years we've had
we've been fortunate to have guests like
Keller Easterling Nicholas DiMaggio Liam
Young Fiona ray B Jeff Manto him in s ly
marks Mount Laura Allen Shannon Madden
Paul Lewis Craig dijkers Cascio says uma
among many many others and as a
testament to the quality of the series
this year we're starting tonight's
episode off with a bang I think I had
the distinct pleasure of introducing
Bryan Cantley to you all tonight
Bryan's guest I've been looking forward
to having on the series since I first
started organizing this Bryan's a los
angeles-based designer
his own studio called formula he's also
a professor in the Department of visual
arts at Cal State University in
Fullerton he's lectured widely at the
Bartlett School of Art cannot see any
more the Bartlett School of Architecture
he's lectured widely at the Bartlett at
UCLA at SCI art among many others his
work is featured in the permanent
collection at the San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art his first monograph titled
mekudzu a new new rhetorics for
architecture was published in 2011 by
the way if you're looking for a copy of
that I found one on Amazon today for
just over $1,300 he's been featured in a
drawing strength from machinery and
and drawing architecture Brian's a
prolific maker and drawer he's part of
the discourse about
experimental architecture but I think
even that description is somewhat anemic
when we actually encounter Bryan's work
his drawing practices are like exercises
and speculative linguistics and his
drawings are rich with layered ideas and
invented visual languages through which
to express them
it seems he takes it as his task to
translate between the verbage of
concepts and formed in the brain and the
ineffable but but often more nuanced
sensibilities that spill out of the
hands a kind of making sense of space
and ideas through the language of
drawing I think it can be no coincidence
that Hurricane Florence timed her
arrival in the southeast with with
Bryan's own arrival we could speculate
the perhaps that to supernatural forces
are attracted to one another or maybe
they're necessary to offset each other
but in any case I think we should count
ourselves lucky to be in the room
tonight so without further ado please
please join me in welcoming Bryan Cantley
well it's always interesting to
hear
these kind of precursors that happen to
lectures there I think much more
interesting intellectual themselves thank
you for such a great introduction also
thanks to mark for doing the heavy
lifting on the lecture and for Diane for
pulling together the exhibition that's
been kind of a an interesting little
logistical battle so hopefully get a
chance to see some of the work I've got
about an hour I it's I'm going to talk
about sort of a condition of
classification kind of trying to
position my my work somewhere between
architecture and its representation
it's a condition that's called post
liminal fuzz that I'll go over in just a
minute
and I want to kind of talk a bit about
how I attempt to classify several of my
work type ologies through a filter of
kind of a handful of projects and
drawings and I do this internally to
kind of understand how I might navigate
and curate the the body of work and I
think it gets a little dangerous when
you try to classify I think you you
potentially start to reduce ones one's
work to a taxonomy but it kind of serves
as an internalized cataloguing system
and and and then I think you know when I
start doing these exercises I always run
the risk of over-classification
or probably improper classification but
I I think that's kind of part of the
beauty of the experiment kind of the
waiting into the unknown if you will and
and I think ultimately what I'm talking
about is simply it's just language and
language is kind of it's it's systemic
it has a natural grammar our internal
grammars of course vary from person to
person I think this is how each of us
start to kind of think and start to
categorize but each of our grammars are
somewhat similar enough to use to
understand each other otherwise you have
kind of the Tower of Babel effect and so
it for me it's always really really
interesting really quite challenging to
try to frame my work for a lecture
inevitably I discover that I have
misclassified my work
or that their new typology that are
emerging as I'm as I'm starting that I
wasn't aware of when I'm starting to
lecture or a lot of times that it was
kind of a mistake in the first place and
I really don't know how my work reflects
any degree of classification and it's
it's maybe better to sort of simply do
one of those two current project
lectures but I think one of the reasons
that I decided to make the effort of
self classification is because it's odd
and sometimes diverse output sets in
from my studio so obviously there are
the examples of the kind of the
experimental drawing but I'm not really
certain that my classify as a typology
and then there are the hypothetical and
experimental works kind of projects that
attempt to solve a more specific
architectural problem or critique a
condition within the discipline and I
think these these are maybe kind of less
known interestingly enough themselves
they typically generate artifacts that
are more commonly associated with my
experimental drawings and so what I
found myself doing over the years is
creating a lexicon and grammar to
describe kind of emergent conditions
that I discover somewhere in the middle
of a given study and I think even though
that there are already sufficient
terminologies for architectural
prototypes I find the system of
inventing determined this terminology to
be more in keeping with the spirit and
essence of what I do which I think if
you boil it down is really just an act
of invention so then the act of
inventing vocabularies and
classification systems and languages
became become sort of a similar act as
that of invention of inventing the
architectural experiments and I don't
know if it's really important outside of
my studio but I think it helps me as a
maker to understand not only the rules
by that I might through which my work
must abide but also to understand that
within the envelopment of categories I'm
forced to comply with the nature of
those searches we were talking a little
bit about this in some of the studios
today so this this practice of
classification locates itself somewhere between
a masterbatory exercise and a method of
actual academic inquiry and I've learned
to become okay with that over the years
so with that I want to talk about just a
kind of a series of projects that may or
may not hopefully successfully fall into
these neat categories that I've invented
for myself and I think it's you know I
think it's important to state that the
conversation that I have with myself
about these categories are quite helpful
to establish these kind of definitive
splinters of my experimentation one of
which is the condition of the Limon I
mean it's it's a transitional threshold
between two fixed spaces or states and
kind of a rite of passage or between two
dissimilar spaces and architecture so
it's basically a threshold condition
it's an intellectual or emotional space
between other types of tangible spaces
and so it basically becomes an
examination of the in-between I consider
liminal space to be a discontinuity that
makes the occupants question or at least
become aware of their surroundings and
the awareness of the threshold in human
physiology the the interstitial space
between organs and tissues is called the
third space fluid sometimes collects
here if the body is in a state of
malfunction that that space is kind of
perse designed to house that those
entities but it also serves as an
overflow container when breakdown occurs
and I think when that on that kind of
Merit interstitial space is not really a
new term and architecture liminal space
within drawing is quite common though I
think most of the time we're and we've
been encouraged to ignore or kind of
erase or edit out its presence and when
you start to define an architectural
drawing as a documentation of elsewhere
of a thing's representation then this
third space starts to become supportive
at best it's often dismissed it's often
removed or at least it's not critical in
the ability to understand the object
being find so I want to kind of walk you
through the phases of liminality so the
first is the recognition that there's a
difference between representation and
drawing
the documentation versus the exploration
the second would be the extraction of
the drawing as an autonomous entity and
the third would be the the established
and document and documentation of the
drawings construction and post narrative
what I'm calling the liminal fuzz so the
sequence of drawing this might look
something like first you draw something
an object second you establish the
identity or character of that object
through the completeness of the drawing
third would be the representation of the
new object which is the drawing itself
through this versus the subject of the
drawing the third would be the
extraction of the construction of the
liminal condition which leads us to the
last one which is the establishment of
what I call post liminal fuzz which are
basically the artifacts and the
notations and the new conditions of
residues generated within the liminal
conditions so it's kind of a post
drawing drawing if you if that helps you
understand a little bit better and so I
started looking at the structure of
music and I realized that there's a
series of sequence considerations that
are worth exploring if you look at the
occupancy of music I think it occurs at
three different yet semi connected areas
the first is graphic notation which is
the world of the writer or the composer
the second is the world of the it's the
performance which is the world of the
artist or the musician and the third is
the aural receipt which is the world of
the listener and then kind of from that
I started to extrapolate that I'm gonna
I suggested that there's a the
architecture exists at these multiple
levels as well I don't think any is more
important than the other but I think
they all provide a larger access to the
greater whole so the first would be
graphic notation which is the world and
language of the designer or the
architect the second is the performance
or the construction which is the world
of the Builder or the fabricator and
third would be the the occupancy which
is the world of the viewer or the
inhabitant which led me to a couple of
questions in my studio is kind of
defined by not so much giving answers
but by asking questions such as does the
the occupation of music occur somewhere
between the writing of the notes
the printing of the music and the
musical performance there there's a
large kind of world of overlap between
those conditions that kind of intrigues
me and then questions like how does
recording and playback inform or deform
musics spatial theory and then of course
I started to ask if there's an
architectural equivalent or should there
be or are these two disciplines
analogous and those specific points I
think with most of my drawing work that
physic there's a condition this
condition is a situation where I attempt
to coordinate and articulate all of
those systems of interface or experience
but I kind of try to do them
simultaneously I think you can extend
that previous logic to suggest then that
the architectural drawing the the
residue of the artifact might exist in a
similar trio of layers the first being
the layer of impregnation which is out
of the drafter the second is the layer
of consumption which is that of the
voyeur and the third is the layer of
occupation which is the layer of
cerebral inhabitancy and it in my
exploratory drawings I've been
attempting to synthesize these three
layers into into a single page event
it's one that speaks of referencing not
only building technologies and
conditions of occupancy but the hidden
layer of graphic notation and I'm
attempting to do of all these kind of
simultaneously it's in it's the section
of occupation that I think begins to
explore the opportunities and overlaps
of reading and the implications of
occupancy within an architectural
drawing many architects deal with
drawing as a vehicle to describe spatial
residents obviously my work also
attempts to harvest the type of
information and it's what I call
experience notation that's not usually
investigated it tends to stay in the
background of drawings and I tend to try
to bring them into the within the realm
of the invisible and I try I'm trying to
make that information visible so my
lecture is kind of
divide it up into four small sections
the palimpsest relationships
which are sort of a condition of drawing
on tops of other drawing drawing on the
top of other drawings the second is the
taxonametric drawing which is a
context generative condition it's a
fairly new condition in the studio the
third is the post generative drawing
which is basically drawings that are
constructed after a project is complete
and the last one is what I'm calling a
datascape which is just a couple of
projects that incorporate drawing data
back into the architectural suggestion
so the first section palimpsest
relations drawing things on top of other
things so the the traditional
palimpsests denotes it was an original
writing that has been faced edited to
make room for a later writing but which
traces of the original remain so in that
case I think it's it's a drawing that's
been altered to accept a later drawing
which for me becomes a much it meant as
much a metric of chronology as it does
anything else it's and it's kind of in
between these two entities so this this
series of drawings it's a two space
experiment I was looking at two
scenarios that attempted to inform and
deform a given set of constraints or
contexts the first space was that of
organised religion which I considered to
be one of the first social networks and
then the second was the the condition of
the drawing so I've I've started
noticing an emergence of several kind of
human interference patterns as as social
media starts to expand into everyday
consciousness the power of the draw of
social media being kind of ironically
being connected but the power of
personal statements and videos that show
perhaps only one side or one view of a
particular instance but that are
immediately accepted as a truth by so
many so quickly it kind of deals with
the desensitization of society through
the saturation of what I'm going to say
is truth on call and so I started to
question the role of
maybe kind of younger people especially
raised in the age of the social media
appliance what this what an idea of
higher power it might be and where where
you're where the truth for searches
might be located so it seems that
there's kind of a movement towards a new
type of quasi religious experience and
then therefore a quasi religious kind of
space so I started the question the role
of the the documented have presented
organized religion within this multi
kind of space so and within that I
started looking at looking at media as
itself being a drone which is a
condition of pure social and
architectural media assistant that would
have to be affected by the awareness or
the presence of the camera you are all
familiar with reality TV and we sort of
have to suspend the leaf belief that the
camera and the production crew are not
an active part of the scripting and
therefore the presentation which is seen
this always seem kind of odd to me so
then this this I guess it's a technology
technology delivery system or the
presence of the drone becomes a very
highly political and I think therefore
architectural space so there's a
correlation to this all knowing and
watching entity and religion it's not
lost in this experiment so the idea of
drone politics is as much a drawing
device as I might use my pencil for and
 because of the work I do with an
architect media I start to question the
sanctity drawing we're at a time
where distort about media is I think
what I'll call the beverage of choice so
the combination of these two entities
the the proposed religious structure and
the sanctity of the architectural
drawing seems a really good place to
start to kind of tie these together so
the idea of drawing on top of an
existing print
the artifact were the subject matter in
this case was a tech technological
broadcast tub kind of placed within an
ancient religious center which itself
was kind of a broadcast device I think
it started to challenge I don't know
some of the accepted stereotypes with
new prototypes of what is real and what
is implied and it started to kind of
bring around the condition of the
importance of the idea of myth of place
and the plausibility of information
Distortion
when you're looking at spaces that have
in which actual events are transpiring
so then the architectural drawing I
think for some time can be argued has
become a sacred object certainly at
least within given curatorial circles so
the rendering or this idea of a finished
image which I'm sure most of you guys
are familiar with has a reflected a
condition of conclusion of sorts I guess
maybe not in the too distant past so I
find it interesting that the
conversation of design and then
therefore the conversation of
possibility begins to erode as soon as
your final printed image arrives in the
studio
typically a student would not use the
finished condition of the render to
physically draw upon if needed you
redraw it you they're just as I imagine
you guys as students are not printing 3d
prints on top of old 3d prints although
the house that I think there's an
interesting topic for a studio there and
we'll save that for another another time
so then this the Helio type print which
of the images that I'm drawing upon it's
it's it's some somewhat of a revered
object it's it's processed as a finished
image it's sold to collectors who wish
to possess what we'll call an esteemed
architectural object and I'm going to
argue that the condition of print itself
is suggest the finality it's a
termination of architectural thought and
a termination of intent even though it
continues on as a subject it terminates
itself as a malleable object so we
broadcast the subject the idea through
the conclusion of the object or the
print so my proposal was to devise to to
challenge forms of architectural
cultural
and religious normalcy I think since a
lot of my work looks at the threshold
state in between entities and their
situations I thought that this kind of
redefining might lead to an interesting
conversation about what is sacred as
well as what is ubiquitous and extremely
in an extremely established network of
kind of kind of social media events and
it also started an interesting
conversation in my studio about faith
within an invisible system of
organization and distribution and also I
think very temporarily makes us start
thinking about the idea of cloud
entities both in terms of cloud entity
as heaven and cloud entity as a data
storage reservoir both are reservoirs of
identity if you will and then I started
thinking about the the nature of the
delivery mechanisms of those cloud
structures so in terms of media it's
important to note that the physicality
of these objects and these are
hand-drawn constructs on physical prints
are very important in their
classification there has to be an
analogue entity the physical act of
making a drawing upon another drawing is
more important than the production of a
legible rendering the object within the
space the kind of checkerboard
intervention intervention this the
supplanting of the this device is quite
important because it provides a
necessary juxtaposition but the
production of the artifact is key and
whatever its ultimate truth is typically
drawing upon a drawing is a taboo
component of method it and this is the
element that starts challenges the norm
of rendering and the objective is to
remove its finality as an object if you
will and although these these projects
do start to show there's some similar
characteristics to collage the topology
involves more the construction of media
directly upon the original not kind of
just the cut and pasting of an imported
image into another drawing which is so
is it easy to do in the digital realm I
think there's something really sinister
and for
in quite seductive that the fact that
somebody other than the original
draftsman or architect is altering the
graphic product of her Labor's I find
that kind of really intriguing and so
this case the original artifact the
drawing has to be physically defaced
a new layer of information has to be
introduced to assure its reading is kind
of a rogue artifact and I think to be
able to frame an argument about post
liminal space which is the space between
architecture and its media as well as
the space of the architectural drawing
the drawing itself has to be recognized
as a physical entity so in this sense it
this this project has become a kind of
tattoo event where I'm using the
surfaces of drawing as an impregnable
condition and then the the alteration of
the original creates a condition both of
simultaneity and singularity and I think
it I think it arguably enters a
conversation about the viability or the
sanctity of either of them I think it
starts to speak about the future of a
drawing or perhaps the rewriting of an
architectural history which i think is a
seductive kind of idea and yeah I've had
conversations that I suppose I could
probably presented these architectural
adventures in inventions unlike the page
of a holy book or a song hymnal and I
still may attempt that but it's only
addressing half the equation ultimately
drawing upon the sacred architectural
object becomes the impetus behind these
projects otherwise you're not really
challenging the typology of drawing as a
malleable context so having done these
exercises we were talking about it in
the gallery earlier it there's also a
new typology and architectures
representation that of itself it's one
I'm calling the analog mented reality so
if you look at augmented reality as an
interactive experience of kind of a real
world environment where the objects that
reside in the real world are augmented
by some sort of synthetically generated
perceptual information this this
overlaid sensory information it can
either be constructive so that you're
adding something to the natural
environment or its destructive such of
masking something out in the natural
it's kind of seamlessly inter woven into
the physical world so that's perceived
as an immersive aspect of the real
environment I'm I'm proposing that this
is the analog version of augmented
reality we're taking the print as the as
the given condition of truth and we're
introduced introducing adding and we're
blocking sort of masking information to
produce a new set of kind of artificial
synthetic condition so I'm gonna I guess
I'm gonna challenge that this type of
palimpsest creates a new typology
nomenclature within our discipline
possibly and I it's important to note
that these ideas are really meant to
reside in the realm of drawing they're
these are not meant to be built or even
even buildable interventions I think for
me that that argument becomes very
limited very quickly so the the
manifestation of this post liminal fuzz
that I talked about before
I think the drawing is really the only
place where this crops of this fuzz can
be start to propagate fully without risk
of containment and infection of the
dimensional world about that
so next section taxonomy drawings
which are basically drawings drawing
drawings that's that's the most basic
definition is a drawing that how should
I describe a drawing that records its
own processes its own progress and its
notation as it emerges so it's if you if
you'll humor me for a moment it's a
drawing not only of an object not only
of itself but of the data of itself as
it develops
okay there'll be a quiz at the end so I
want to make sure that you get all that
information so a little anecdote here on
how I kind of got interested in
notational inquiry when I was an
undergrad at UNC Charlotte I got a job
for an architect during the summers and
I was I was doing working drawings and I
was kind of enamored by this really
thick set of hand drawn data and I
remember asking one of my professors
when I got back maybe
second maybe it was third year is there
an opportunity or can we ever take the
the information that the text and the
notation that's not part of the building
but that's part of the drawing and reap
impregnate that information back on the
building would that be kind of a cool
concept and I think they said forest
ranger yeah just know forest ranger
maybe it's what you want to try so okay
I pack that away and went to grad school
at UCLA and we were working on CAD
drawings but we were we were still
producing these datasets and I remember
asking one of my professors what if we
turned off every line that was building
and just kept the notation and then
collapsed them back on itself wouldn't
that be a wonderful thing and yeah you
know Plummer I'm not sure this
architecture thing is gonna work out for
you so well so this idea of kind of
collapsing the the data of a drawing on
top of it still I started I get really
kind of started to question the the
singularity of authorship and
architectural image on the last year so
this this drawing in particular was a
response to the challenge of the notion
that an individual an individual might
be able to possess the formal
characteristics of shape making and have
a graphic style which is always an
interesting and a dangerous conversation
to get into so this drawing is
attempting to kind of chart this kind of
fabricated piety of false investigators
and started to question the conditions
of authorship within a discipline that
is really based on formal propriety in
at the same time it was kind of a
syncopated chronological sample of
architecture whose the physical nature
of the project is to constantly change
so therefore it is constantly evading
form or definition so this is this idea
of linguistic authorship transform
transforms on a daily if not an hourly
basis so it's this drawing was meant to
ask the question if the proposed project
or the proposal to the identity it's a
proposal to the identity of non form
how might one categorize a record the
plasticity of such an identity within
the singularity of drawing it was also
probably more so an experiment of using
a previously designed architectural
entry entity as a as a metric for
graphic investments I was trying to
deconstruct the prototypical data of
three entities simultaneously and we
talked about this earlier in one of the
classes the the idea of the project the
object and the drawing so I think it's
somewhere between these three conditions
lies the truth of the taxonametric
drawing and the nature of this post
liminal fuzz that I've talked about so
that the taxonametric drawing
becomes about none of these conditions
by itself
I don't think it can and I think we
already know the parameters per se of
any of those categories so for example
the architectural project it which you
guys are probably working on it it kind
of describes a solution may be an answer
to a set of problems but it's not the
thing
it's the amalgamation of the issues that
are both addressed and potentially not
addressed in a solution and then there's
the architectural model which is I think
perhaps traditionally the most reductive
and one might argue the most truthful in
terms of the its architectural media in
other words what you see is what you get
and I think in terms of this model there
was an attempt to describe the formal
characteristics of a set of finite
responses of course the more esoteric
and the more translucent the intentions
of the model the less questions that are
answered in its reading and again this
is analogy this analogy is based on the
traditional architectural modeling model
media which i think is less of a novel
and it's and it's more of a dictionary
and then to follow that analogy the
third component would be that of the
architectural drawing which
traditionally is it's kind of an
instructional instruction manual for the
assembly and logical understanding of
the project but the object and the
drawing have typically served the
project when I'm attempting to do is
allow each of these entities to occupy
its own equal straight state of
transmission within the realm of
architectural media so here I was
attempting
to kind of experiment with the factors
that combined each of these three
distinct systems within us within a
condition of singularity that the
drawing membrane and not in terms of
achieving singularity within the design
I think quite the opposite
this drawing kind of allowed for the for
the unpacking of multiple sets of data
to occur that are typically segregated
probably for the best interest of
everybody involved and so it kind of it
kind of discharges intelligence of the
contradiction and conflict it looks at
the overlap and sympathetic
relationships as well as the emergent
circumstances that occur when these two
type ologies are probably dis
harmoniously occupying the same physical
membrane of the drawing surface and so
it's it's kind of big at some other
experiments this particular one was
attempting to unearth the the kind of
residual liminal space between positions
as a building object that that mystery
it traverses a flatness of the page it
kind of functions like a modern-day
Ouija board locates fantastical past of
a projected graphical landscape I think
the orange drawing that we carefully
coordinated to match the color of your
school is kind of a the more finalized
version of this happens to be the color
in the front door of my new house it
just all kind of wrapping up and to need
of a package but the notation residue
generated kind of increases if you can't
see the drawing on the left looks like
it might be a little washed out it's
it's kind of the fuzz factor it's a so
this device creates layers of the self
read of the drawing it's another example
of the taxon drawing or in this case
it's a hybrid that exists between
between the project and the objects and
the drawings so it's a again there'll be
a test on this yeah it's a project that
generates an object that produces a
drawing of its intentions and behaviors
I'm sure you have all that the next of
the last category is the post generative
drawing or when I'm calling after
drawings so initially kind of an a
prototypical process a drawing might
proceed a project it's a method of
quickly exploring the initial ideas of
an architectural intention the the
drawing typically allows for kind of the
fertile exploration of ideas and
promotes the the emergence or the
extrapolating of new ideas as the image
is added to and added as its manipulated
and it's interesting though because
drawing as a tool kind of reemerges during
the life of an exploration but it
typically doesn't show its face again
until the end of a project and it's
usually disguised as a rendering and so
I suggest that in my world it's very
small world there's a fundamental
difference between rendering and drawing
in this case rendering is suggest a
suggestive as I talked about on the
palimpsests as the termination of ideas
it's about distinctiveness and it's
about the finality they talked about but
drawing suggests for me a continuance a
kind of freedom that allows if it
actually doesn't promote growth and
change it endorses multiplicity over
singularity these yeah these particular
drawing topologies that are that are
developed after the investigation of an
architectural object I think have
reached a level of completion and that's
where we sort of in enter the category
of the of the post architectures they
typically in reinvestigate issues that
were developed possibly abandoned or
discussed in a separate a tangential
layer of a project I yeah I think that
they also a kind of assist in my attempt
at understanding the potentials rather
than the conclusions of much of my
architectural work and that's not to say
that they're not part of the
architectural work it's just sort of a
layer when they happen when they happen
and so I think you can probably tell I'm
I'm much less interested in defining or
confining architecture then
I'm trying to add fuzzy layers to its
already kind of thicken shell and I
think these are obviously most easily
conducted in the medium of an
experimental drawing so the way I
initially approach a post architectural
drawing which I guess it's kind of a
misnomer because any part of the
exploration or the journey of a project
is part of its complete makeup so it's
not really post architecture
it's just architecture but since this
lecture was supposed to be about
classifications we can we could maybe
return to that so then sorry the way I
might start these is to conceptually
allow the drawings to harvest ideas that
have emerged as the project develops I
mentioned before they could they could
range from discarded ideas often they're
edited bits there they're tangents about
the projects that popped up during its
evolution they're often distorted ideas
that were uncovered by the fluid process
of the drawing itself and and obviously
as well as the metrics of not only the
object but the metrics of the drawing
and the process itself because I tend to
deconstruct those we were talking about
in Mark's studio a little while ago about
the deconstruction of the
object and the drawing it's kind of a
very similar exercise of looking at the
object and the subject of the drawing
but the drawing itself as a physical
entity and and these things often become
real footnotes that kind of emerged
along the way of an unpacking themselves
I guess I think they're also a way of
generating datasets that start to behave
like geometry collectors in that sense
they begin to generate graphic
strategies of both the object which is
ironically the subject of the drawing as
well as the drawing itself and these
typeologies are initiated long before
the emergence of the text nanometric
drawing although I think they're surely
it's it's ancestor and I guess they're
basically simply ways for me to and and
and I guess meant for me to understand a
given or project proposal at a much
deeper level instead of sort of calling
it a day once the project is over
and I'm I will go out and and say that
once probably many levels the rules of
these exercises might might be too
personal for mass distribution because
the the codification is not really
normative and it's a deployment but but
sometimes whatever the next project is
to become resident with the previous
projects discoveries as well as its
shortcomings I think they're also a
really neat way of untidy these kind of
neat packages or models that are the
default output of a proposal and I
understand that this has to be done it's
in the nature of a proposal is to
suggest of a believable constructibility
and kind of a fabricated knowledge of
construction feasibility and budget
management if you will so in other words
the architectural object which is
arguably the the product of the
architectural studio and proposal must
by industry definition be somewhat can a
concise document for understanding and
if you take that definition then I think
these post architectural drawings become
the antithesis of that legibility that I
was talking about in that sense they
become devices for misunderstanding they
are done as an attempt to redefine and
hopefully kind of open the core of the
discipline to a little wider stance and
hopefully the nature of architectural
space and then it's kind of its internal
dialogue as well this this kind of
emergent drawing typology is simply a
system that creates nodes that will
emerge into secondary investigations for
those of you that were present in the
gallery walkthrough we did that very
first drawing that I was talking about
about sort of these in the surface
applicants this is this is a similar
kind of drawing these these these nodes
emerge into secondary investigations and
they tend to develop into kind of
tertiary proposals it's the idea of
removing a parasite from the host and
restructuring it to become a new host so
it's again a quiz drawing a drawing that
produces other drawings that themselves
initiate
further drawings I'm sure that's quite
clear right so if we take one of these
little nodes physically and we allow
them to sort of come up on the fruition
of itself you can see a rare kind of
glimpse into the linearity of how some
of these things might work this was done
so this is the social amplifier project
I did a couple years ago right after the
Trayvon Martin trial about looking at
the kind of the truth that may or may
not be found within social media and
ambient awareness so these social
amplifiers attempted to create
environments that promote kind of an
ambient social awareness the same way
that drones provide an external
awareness of a condition that's not
occupied by its operator it suggests
that a social media may in fact be
drones of awareness it allows us to plug
into social events that we are not
actually there but we've become voyagers 
and therefore contributors and therefore
participants and I think it has an
opportunity to assign a conscious to
kind of a soulless system it's a chance
to start mapping the synthetic condition
of segregation and for me I started
looking at where might we locate those
segregation points we've got a world
that's kind of expanded past the borders
of our own physicality and and
physically imposed culture into the
culture of media how do we start drawing
points of social diversion which is what
the diagrams were attempting to do that
were done as a post architectural
drawing of the amplifier or more the
point maybe how these these artificial
points of segregation and social
diversion are always in a state of being
redrawn redefined instantaneously
on are based on our saturated
culture of input when you've got that
little green dot of status availability
and you turn it off what happens to the
nature of the group that kind of
redefines and redraws itself quite
instantly some I'm very interested in I
was interest with this project about
those those boundaries of the
artificially constructed and then
therefore the kinds of machines or the
type of devices that might inscribe
those lines of
in terms of the plan its archetypically 
the initial instrument for calculating
projecting testing and documenting
shadows as an architectural stimulus and
response I'm sure most of you guys are
aware of this but I think shade is a
really interesting phenomenon within the
condition of the architectural drawing
many of all the if not all the entities
in this typology are meant to show what
is and what will be there there being a
very elusive term and metaphysical space
where is the there in a plan I mean if
you think about it what do you where
where is the there within the artifact
of the drawing shadows don't show what's
there they actually show what's not
there for that which is kind of
partially absent it's the removal of
light through this synthetic assembly of
kind of a construction hypotheses it's
actually quite a tragic story
the architectural shadow is a result of
the failed journey of light rays that
travel over 92 trillion miles only to be
denied their climax at the last moment
of their journey we do such a disservice
to light when we make the architectural
plan and we cast shadows in it if you
think about it however tragic that is I
think it it also provides one of the
most poetic devices found within the
plan the the transitory nature of the
shadow is typically suppressed and
condensed into a singular moment of time
this object casts this shadow at this
time on this date instead of the
durational aspect that transcends the
static nature of kind of this depiction
in in this particular drawing the
experiment was to serve as kind of a
metric for the constant shifting between
the horizontal and the vertical hybrid
moments of the shadows kind of mutable
paths so if you if you ever watch time
last time lapse photographs of a shadow
it's constantly moving horizontal then
it catches vertical then it catches
horizontal then it catches vertical
again so it's actually not a singular
static event it's a very I call them
topography scanners this this particular
project the urban brothel
or as we were laughing about earlier
it's called the horchata as well as the
drawing generated they're both trying to
establish and accept and record the the
factual condition that shadows are
indeed scanners of the surfaces of sight
in context so as I mentioned since it is
a topography scanner this particular
bird's eye view I guess you could call
it that was selected because of the kind
of easily recognizable tracking of
shadows as an object delineator as as
well as the idea that the the horchatas
condition of a program driven movement
the building actually rotates based on
its physical and its physical functional
conditions the the drawing tracks the
significant program positions and it
uses distortion of the residue found
between those positions to deposit
planimetric reservoirs of ink which is
the architects device for demonstrating
the prevention of environmental
illumination so both the building and
the drawing serve as multiple
circumstances of chronologies each of
them frames the temporal nature of both
kind of typically segregated subjects
and then the experimental nature of this
drawing typology allows for these
entities that we that normally
they exist in tandem they tend to be
isolated graphic commands and imprints
so last the last section sure if you're
awake with me so far thank you so the
datascape typology excuse me is a it's
literally a topography of fluctuating
intelligence it kind of serves as both a
figurative metric for depletion
projections as kind of well as to
animate the membrane of the cloud so I'm
going to close with these two projects
that I think illustrate this idea of the
fluctuating data scape the first is the
swarm draw and the second is the osanic
bladder anomaly sort of do a quote I
presented a paper at the Bartlett a
couple years ago with the drawing
futures conference so I wanted a real
little
excerpt from that in Alice in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll described a synthetic
world of immersion and constant
transformation unit he labeled a series
of indicators or totems that not only
dictated a shift of scale context and
orientation but that also indicated
graphically their intended use of the
observer me and drink me were the
documented instructions the event or
type of deconstruction that would
transpire they only demonstrated a set
of instructions for their improper these
were graphic instructions for
transformations through interactions
which is the nature of the swarm draw or
the the self generating drawing so to
extend Carroll's eat me drink me I came
up with the draw me which is a set of
self referential instructions or
embedded code that promotes the drawings
transformation by the occupancy and the
interaction with the reader or the
drawer I think if you simply state
that's in it's an interactive drawing
it's not really a full depiction the
draw me attempts to take this at many
levels it's not it's not so much as a of
a map as it is an immersive environment
with never repeatable outcomes you might
define a map as a graphic segregation of
drawing and reality or this is the
purposeful blending of the two a map
traditionally is not altered during the
course of your journey
this entity requires change at every
spatial and temporal shift in night and
this is part of the paper as well in
1995 Marcus Novak wrote a very impactful
paper trans terraform liquid
architectures and the loss of
inscription it's an excellent essay if
none of you have read it within this
critical text he described a future
condition of architecture and its
adjacent extreme intermedium that of
liquid architecture navigable music and
inhabitable cinema these conditions
described as spatial occurrence that was
operable by the user or occupant thus
changing the singularity of both
experience and navigate
so I was suggesting that the next
component within this line of thinking
might be the architectural drawing it's
it's a it's a preface to a built world
or at least the formal arrangements and
contracts contracts that suggest
experience over or instead of build
ability and I think both of these
settings settings share a common factor
it's this condition of occupancy which
is either plied implied or demonstrated
it's it's my contention that a
tangential next phase of these
intermedia might be that of the editable
drawing so it's a new category I've also
kind of talked about it as being the
occupiable drawing since it's it's an
app hypothesis which suggests that the
drawing arena is no longer confined to
this dimensionally reduced planar
two-dimensional system I'm also submit
that this new condition transforms from
intermedia to enter media because the
the proposition rests on the viability
and experience you'll anomalies found
within virtual reality perhaps requiring
full sensual if not spatial
immersion so if you imagine being
according to your physical visual
receptors and recorders fully absorbed
absorbed into an experimental drawing
for the historical prison of the single
plane is trapped representation
experimentation for a long time so the
experience was thought of to be a very
disorienting place where that history
becomes altered thus defecting the kind
of the trajectory of its possible
futures I'm gonna get back to the post
post luminal idea for a second so
this project it's kind of an epilogue
that was a resultant from an ongoing
collaborative project we did with a
small team from the University of
Kentucky did any of those make it
tonight
no Marty told me was going to try to
make it so it's done with Marty Summers
and a couple of grad students so
University of Kentucky we've been
developing a series of what we call
drawings of impossible objects for about
a year that was I think kind of probably
the latest iteration of the
collaborative
effort the idea was to pursue this
drawing as a virtual reality experience
not just as an opportunity to kind of
explore the spaces found within the
dense drawing what we were calling thick
data but to try to create an environment
of disorientation the idea is it would
be it would be a perplexing space that
would be a responsive drawing
environment it's completely immersive
and mostly adjustable by the occupant
and then it would also create new
drawings as each user and move through
and manipulated the thick drawing data
so the idea was that a residual drawing
would be projected to become a kind of
set of graphic baggage that would
accumulate with the observer and the
occupant is kind of a as they started to
dance with the drawing components so
each set of geographic and geometric
notation would aggregate with this
disembodied movement within the
environment and with this in this
particular construct the inhabitant and
the draftsman became part of the graphic
world system so that every interaction
node started to it started to impregnate
its information back onto the parasite
as it traveled populated and manipulated
the drawing the idea being not only
could the occupant restructure the
drawing by line or shape or form
interaction but they would each also
produce their own unique user notation
drawing based on their interface so it
was sort of a cookies based structure of
spatial engagement excuse me so
according to Robin Evans anyone
reviewing the history of architectural
theory would have to conclude that
architects do not produce geometry but
rather consume it and in this post
liminal drawing space architects
actually become the geometry so the the
idea is that the maker and the consumer
become a scene becomes singular and
they're possessive and they're immersive
experiences
I have to do this a lot I apologize
so the AH Sonic bladder anomaly it's
it's basically a synthetic membrane it's
a physical entity where one cubic yard
of swelling occurs for every cubic yard
of depleted ozone so it's an exchange
system the expansion is also based on
the amount and the concentration of
social media traffic so it's it breathes
with each log on or use activity so it's
it's it's kind of functioning as a media
metric so the backstory behind us when I
first moved to Los Angeles in 1988 for
grad school I think to the best of my
recollection there were two main area
codes for the surrounding territories 2
1 3 was for Los Angeles and 7 1 4 was
for Orange County mobile phones were an
anomaly back then if they were president
of all fax machines were just starting
to enter the consumer market they were
still a bit of a novelty and the web as
a consumer accessible entity had really
hadn't been born yet I think currently
the number of area codes for that same
Los Angeles Orange County region
somewhere between 11 and 13 to depend on
your district mapping so it the idea is
with massive increases in population and
our requisite to always be connected
with our smart devices this kind of need
and mandate for technology space sizing
has increased in the most dramatic
results in recent history of human
consumption or at least its
documentation and its physical support
structure so then we enter the protocol
for an ever-expanding vehicle for data
and linkage I think it's somewhat ironic
because the the idea of the layer of
band width accretion has created kind of
a fullness of data transfer and social
disengagement it creates a conceptual
and quite impactful layer of information
discharge so the project it's basically
a conceptual space of protective
layering it starts to enquire how the
rupture might be recognized how it might
be labeled and kind of reimagine within
our age of media saturation so it's
really a proposal for an ozone metric
and plugging system
merging with the reduction of our strata
with the accumulation of data space also
responding to the demand the
ever-increasing demand for the
aggregation of bandwidth with we need
more information we didn't we need it
faster so at the same time we're
depleting a natural resource we're kind
of increasing a synthetic resource so
the prognosis is a physical need to fill
the increasing surface rupture of the
ozone information technology kind of
inclined I inclination to hypothesize
the dramatic increase of a need for
media space and all its ubiquitous
outlets and inputs in an architectural
hypothesis it basically serves two main
functions so it physically measures
calculates and fills the cavities that
will continue to tear open in our ozone
and then secondarily it critically
measures records and maps and projects
are rapidly increasing technology media
engagement and uses so it's a it's a
cognizance machine it so it's an
observatory it's a recording device it's
a mobile transmitter for sure but it
also becomes a billboard it's an
advertising agency it's a bit of
conceptual duct tape and bondo it is a
physician a scientist a lab manager a
plastic surgeon and a counselor all
wrapped into one but it's also a
soothsayer it's a mimic it's an
impersonator and I think perhaps most
poetically that's it becomes a political
and a social band-aid and in that case
maybe it's just described best as a
messenger it's kind of a conscientious
objector it is not an architecturally
resolved project but it's more of a kind
of a herald of inquiry I think to put it
in very basic terms it expands to fill
the holes in the ozone it expands to
measure and increase the amount of
consumptive communication it the idea is
that the the object that I showed would
be one of many hundreds of thousands of
cells with anise and Li
sadly needed expanding network
eventually these would expand to a
maximum volume kind of linking and
merging with adjacent anomalies until
the new ozone would be a completely
official construct so therefore both
physically and conceptually it becomes
the cloud it also becomes a floating
laboratory of a non shape which is what
the previous drawing kind of alluded to
so the the amorphic shape it highly
fluctuates the images that I'm showing
assume that it only has these exact
shapes at only one moment in time and it
has the ability of morphing constantly
as the ozone and media projections
change over longer periods so in that
sense it becomes a measure of the
chronology of progression and thought if
you will and even though it's designed
to fully to evolve to full capacity and
implementation it is hoped that its
ability to reduce both the number as in
number as well as volumes might reflect
an awareness and hope for its ultimate
goal which would be its decommissioning
if it does its job and we as humans stop
destroying the ozone it doesn't need to
be there so it's an odd architectural
project that hopes that it actually
never has a chance to fulfill its kind
of ultimate destiny of becoming the
cloud yeah I think it set becomes a bit
of a palimpsest itself it's it's
basically conceived to be drawing or
writing in or on the invisible layer of
atmospheric membrane it kind of
ultimately masks traces of the existing
kind of identical to the way that
drawing on the drawing replaces data
based on an existing context and I want
to I want to attempt to distinguish the
representation from the presentation for
a moment in this case this the space
between the model of the architecture
and the architectural suggestion
of a reality this was one of the first
models I did that attempted to wear a
similar hat as to some of the drawings
being a simultaneous set of entities
where temporality and geography were no
longer at a one-to-one relationship
where the object object studied was
through the camera lens and the overlay
of diagramming
and I was I was hoping to figure out a
way in the composition to kind of deal
with the surreal misalignments of the
players so there's three segregated
entities in the models
there's the bladder lab the docking
station and the tree hugger
each of these existed in a world of the
architectural project but they're not in
this same position or adjacency or time
that the model suggests and so I think
just as my experimental drawings overlap
non-adjacent
elements tweaked chronologies and the
multiplicity of scales so was the
attempt of this artifact so in a sense
it represents it represents conditions
of exteriority positioning and timing so
it becomes a distorted and fractured
timekeeper and there's a new typology
kind of device that was inhabits the
drawn object and so this minor project
the Treehugger was born out of this
experiment it was a series of
experiments that explore the nature of
architecture is both literal and
symbolic reading device and so it kind
of remaps the analog drawing data onto a
formal digital diagram it's a device
that operates between two systems so
that of the natural environment and its
occupants trees and that so that's the
first environment the second is the
synthetic which is the Southern
California cell tower mimic I don't know
if any of you have ever been to Southern
California but we're heavily populated
with the things on the Left which are
are there cell towers there tree mimics
right so there's an attempt at
graphically making a synthetic device
that somehow harkens back to the natural
device so that we don't know what's
going on because you certainly can't
tell that those things are harder
official so I'm trying to kind of map
the the area between those two so and
even though you can argue that the I
guess the green nature of Southern
California landscape itself is synthetic
the condition of the floor as a
condition that reflects its its
biological condition so this was this is
kind of an initial pass if the
Treehugger
it's a as I mentioned it's a scanning of
appliance it surveys deforestation Maps
cell tower locate location diagrams
archival texts that kind
record record haunted archaeology's of
landscape reconfigurations powerline
boulevards and plots of topography
legislation it's a very political
machine in that sense so it inhabits a
space between the physical membrane of
the drawing and the intellectual zone of
its legibility it also attempts to map
the parallels and contradictions of the
residual space and artifacts between
those between those system so just a
couple to a couple more images here you
I produce a lot of artifacts I am a
maker I do this not in the sense of
creating documents of successful
experiments I think they're more can
just do a body of work that without this
kind of cataloguing that I've been
trying to do it becomes much too intense
of a blur for me to have them make any
sense so it's and we were talking with
students about this earlier today it's
kind of an internalized set of rules
that governs the typology in which you
might work in which I work which allows
me to attempt to create a little
order from this otherwise kind of
chaotic machine and I think if you look
at the notational space of the post
liminal fuzz and the tax on a metric
drawing catalogs they're they're
actually systems categorization in their
own right I think at some point several
years ago I decided to attempt to
classify my work in the same way that I
classify occurrences that were happening
within the drawings which is an intense
I'll be a highly internal system of
structure that makes sure that
everybody's playing by the same rules
even though those rules are incredibly
fluid and responsive by nature so I'm
going to read a little a little
statement for this last section the taxonametric condition is one of
expressed self classification the
drawing typology attempts to discover
break down configure expose and
reformulate the discussion the very
nature of the process of construction
the conceptual underpinnings of the work
the twisted chronologies and fabricated
histories and the graphical exploration
of a given moment object or
architectural events
classifying one's work attempts to do
the very same thing it's it's a a crack
at unfolding deciphering and
understanding or misunderstanding the
conditions that make up a scope of
invention without this internalized
understanding the work either ceases to
be progressive within its context for
example the work starts to become
incredibly repetitive and predictable
and thus denies the pleasure of emergent
conditions where it becomes an empty
exercise of stylization both of these
conditions scare me quite a bit in my
work I think there's I think there's an
inherent fear of over saturating myself
with the same basic set of ideas it's
not about keeping fresh for the sake of
freshness but it's done under the
realization that the presence and
stagnation is kind of antithesis to
creative energies we were talking about
producing a body of work in Mark's
studio that you have to put the
investment into making the work to sort
of pull these ideas out of it so to make
work and then to classify your work and
it's emergent properties I think is to
make paths for future work or beyond
work beyond its immediate scope last
little bit and then I'll turn the lights
on so the the emergence of this category
or classification occurs either at the
same time or it's usually post
production the taxonametric drawing
for example this terminology it's it's
probably been evolving over the last
five to seven years in my studio but I
only really label it about a year and a
half ago because I think it's about the
generation of the lexicon or perhaps a
series of sub lexicons in order to
navigate the projects and their agendas
so the question might be to see if if
the context is my studio formula or it's
found instead within each project each
drawing each object and I tend to I tend
to question whether the relics are
individual lexicons themselves or in
fact they're artifacts and maps to the
larger Lexus of the studio so I'm going
to end this not with the conclusion but
much closer to the nature of the work
itself with yet one more unanswered
question I thank you for your attention
and can your consciousness for some of
you that's that's greatly appreciate it
as well
thanks for in will you take questions
yes yeah I'm just gonna put the white
shirt yeah I hope there are questions
Bryan's why you're going for more pizza
yeah Bryan's flight leaves at 11 a.m. so
if we can finish the questions before
that that would be that would be nice
you have to talk to the microphone so
they can pick it up on their recording
hi Bryan um on your Instagram on the and
your other works I see a lot of both
digital and analog drawings and both of
them so your analog drawings have a very
sort of digital quality whereas your
digital quality of digital drawings that
will have a very like very organic
analog quality so I'm really curious to
hear if you how you consider those two
mediums if they are different from each
other or how that fits into your process
of drawing all together yes an
interesting question it sounds like I'm
doing it wrong if the analogs are
reading is digital in the deeds or is
analog so I think I need to
reinvestigate my whole studio from gonna
make a new network I you know I don't I
guess it would be interesting I curious
how you define digital looking digital
and looking analog I'm not I don't
subscribe to kind of the conventions of
what that might be
they're certainly using different tools
to construct but they're they're still
tools that are moving towards kind of a
central idea idea or a way of way of
working I tend to draw digitally the
same way I draw analog ones faster one
allows certain one one promotes a racer
one kind of avoids it one masks it very
well one
is impregnated with everything so you
can't cover up your mistakes so I don't
but I'm it's I've never heard anybody
sort of described the analog drawings
having a digital quality and gay I'm not
sure what that means or the digital
drawings kind of having this organic
analog quality that's I'm not sure I'm
not sure how to answer that I think
they're very fluid between each other
and I think that's my way of trying to
express Oh a fluidity yeah that my first
book my kudzu was kind of based on the
principle of fluidity so I grew up in
North Carolina in the south and I don't
know if you guys have it here kudzu vine
all right so you understand you
understand it right so I grew up around
a bunch of tobacco warehouses and
industrial buildings and I would over
the course of my youth would watch the
kudzu grow and invade and deconstruct
buildings and grow on top of powerlines
and jump over roads and things so the
idea of net kudzu is it's just a
marriage of mechanical and kudzu so it's
the organic growth of mechanical
synthetic entities and that's kind of
been the the philosophy of my studio so
I think the drawings are residual
outputs of that kind of a philosophy I'm
not sure I understand the question so I
don't know if I have addressed it but
maybe that helps frame it a little
better I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have
to think about that one on the plane and
that's interesting yeah I actually would
like maybe you can let mark know I'm
really curious as to what your
definition of have digital quality
analog quality I'm because usually from
lectures at schools we don't have a
conversation about analog quality we
just have a conversation about analog
versus digital so I'm really intrigued
about your access point about what what
that actually means I think that's an
interesting kind of larger conversation
to have so you can write an essay and
submit it to mark and I'll read it yeah
that's great actually
hello there you go so you talked a lot
about drawing on drawings so and you
mentioned that you reach a state of
completion sometimes so how do you
decide when you've reached a state of
completion and how would you feel if
someone did palimpsest drawings on your
dress do we talk about this this morning
maybe yeah yeah maybe next time yeah
that's that's the question that's always
asked in the lectures
okay so specifically for the palimpsest
drawings I've established a set of rules
and objectives that I want the drawing
to cover those are complete if there is
such a word when that particular
investigation I feel has been answered
within that drawing and I think we were
maybe talking about it this morning
right now there are there are nine of
them
I only sort of step back and look at all
nine of them as a whole we're preparing
I've got a solo show in Hollywood coming
up in a month and so we're starting to
frame them and I haven't really stepped
back and look at them as a whole but you
can see it evolution of the intensity
and the saturation of information and
the kind of moving away from a segregate
into building component to segregated
smaller components and then how its
start of how it's starting to project
image graphic information on the drawing
so even even that parameter has started
to evolve over the life of the drawing
so I think for me specifically with
those is when I feel that that question
has been answered within that given
drawing that's when I stop the joke is
when I there's no more room to draw
lines on there that's then they have to
be done at that point but conceptually
drawing number one has to be done before
drawing number two happens which has to
be done before drawing number three so
in that sense as a series they're not
complete and they never will be complete
because it's
it's a new drawing number one I analyzed
that I study it I rip it apart I
critique it I understand what it doesn't
doesn't do and I hopefully address the
original issues plus those issues and
drawing number two and then I do the
same thing over and start with drawing
number three I think in as a generic
answer is when I feel that the issues
that were either set out at the
beginning of the project or that have
evolved during the life of the project
or answered that that's when I stop I
don't I don't think of any of the work
being finished I think some of the work
is presentable in terms of discussing
the idea but I mean I could easily spend
another five years on one drawing just
just removing parts that I don't think I
need it anymore yeah then it becomes
sort of a masturbatory exercise at that
point and that's not good for anybody so
that's maybe how I would answer that if
that makes any sense
on to the Lewis Carroll aspects just
because he had a way of creating his own
language as well but in his case he had
the assistance of really easily
digestible illustrations so like in the
poem of the Jabberwock
you don't know what a Jabberwock is but
you see the illustration and you can go
along with the story so while you're
creating these sort of new visual
languages along with these definitions
of interstitial spaces and things how do
how do you see them being digested by
people who are kind of learning this
language or is this more of kind of like
a personal language that as a thought
process to kind of help move through
things move through ideas
are you saying these are not digestible
illegible drawings it's okay they're not
they're not meant to be so that that was
I've done this I've done this before
that that particular project was was a
quote that established the idea of the
inhabitable drawing the the graphics
that I showed during that part of the
lecture I don't I don't have access to
create a virtual reality drawing I don't
have the hardware I don't have the
technical know-how I don't have the
financial support so those were all
constructs that I generated to sort of
illustrate of what the Jabberwock might
be it's just it's just hypothesis I
don't know if it would actually look
like that but that idea is interesting
because if every one of you guys
went through that virtual drawing and
then inhabitable drawing and that
editable drawing it would change every
time somebody went through it and you
guys would I think I showed a picture of
pig pen from Charlie Brown enough you
guys knew that character but he sort of
collected dust everywhere that's what
would happen with you you've collect all
this information based on how you
navigated the drawing landscape and then
that information you would impregnate
back on the drawings so it would never
be the same drawing twice so in terms of
it would it be legible I
I hope not that was the objective behind
it and it stopped as a hypothesis
because for me there's no way to test it
out but it's there they're actually
doing the same thing they were trying to
illustrate what that you don't know what
the Jabberwock is but so this is what a
version of it looks like and so those
were sort of passes as to what those
might look like I have no idea if that's
actually what they would be actually I
would think probably not because that
would be that's me controlling it and I
think these things would be I wouldn't
control and I would I would control the
parameters but I wouldn't control
the graphic residuals that make sense
okay did that answer your question so in
terms of information that beginning
people might understand yeah I yeah I
don't know if I understand them to be
quite honest with you they're they're
they're meant to establish in all
seriousness seriousness
they're meant to establish a dialogue in
a discourse and to invoke the act of
inquiry so if you're looking at them and
asking questions about them then then
that's how I might rate them complete to
answer the first question of the first
question then they're they're doing
their job as an artifact of
architectural discourse if one person in
here maybe it's you maybe it's not looks
at architecture and drawing slightly
different then it has been successful
Bryan thanks a lot for that I mean just
to kind of sit back and have someone
talk about work that's so intense and so
pleasurable is the gift on its own so my
thresholds even lower than yours doesn't
even have to impact one person just
seeing someone so you know kind of into
it is its own gift my question is really
about the supposed inevitable end game of
the work of the architect which is the
building mm-hmm and I love here that
you've unsettled that that kind of
dictum if you will you know so here you
you've kind of asserted the drawing to
take the place of that inevitable
endgame but I'm curious just in your own
trajectory how close you got to being
lured into the building right and the
thing itself and what in are you
dissatisfied with the buildings that you
see or the buildings that you think
about and and therefore that's part of
what's driving this or how do you sort
that out yeah that's that's a really
interesting kind of take on how to how
to frame the work I have been well I
pretended I generated some architectural
projects which generate architectural
artifacts am I satisfied with that those
as objects I think to a certain extent
but it also bugs me that there there is
a condition of finality
have I been affected by the buildings
that I have worked on I think if I had
found them to be successful I would be
doing more building and I wouldn't be
doing more drawing we had this
conversation several times during the
day today
you know it's kind of a worn out
conversation but the difference between
building and architecture especially in
the studio that we were in at the end
right i yeah i think i'm highly
dissatisfied that's what's that's what's
pushing the work and the endgame is a
really good terminology because I don't
think it I purposely am looking at the
start game which is the drawing I mean
this is how I was educated you start
with a sketch you start with a drawing
you develop it you don't develop the
model and the project emerges then you
might do rendering so it's a very clean
linear system but that's always bugged
me right because it does talk about the
condition of finality and I think in our
discipline one of the worst things that
we can do is to is to close
the book or to kind of put the period at
the end of the sentence on any kind of
investigation I think I'm I'm in a
minority on doing that but I think it's
it's in the sense of your question it
might be kind of a protest of that that
can condition a finality or they own
game i I see especially out in Southern
California because building is exploding
most of the time very very little of it
is architecture and I know some of the
people that are generating this work I
know that I know the factors that are
that are populating that and I guess it
may be kind of mean that protest is
maybe kind of a harsh word but it's it's
a response to that condition of
terminology that happens I and I
attempted to do the students before I
think it would be an excellent studio is
to find a non architectural building and
to produce a set of experimental post
architectural drawings based on that but
then we could go back and kind of
re-evaluate that I know that can be done
I've done it before and I've kind of
worked with students before so that that
that would be an interesting for me I
would find that a really interesting
topics to do to take the most banal kind
of response that you can find and how
can you generate a set of artifacts from
that that would maybe make it give it a
new kind of legibility and then maybe
breathe life into kind of the discourse
of the architecture I don't know if I
came close to answering the question
two years ago Liam young was here and he
showed you know amazing movies and he he
he kind of made a political statement in
the QA that he had abandoned he had
abandoned the building as a site for
architecture mm-hmm and had moved his
practice you know exclusively into film
or cinema or right right however you
want to describe that video production
lots of ways to describe it and I was
thinking you know that was really
provocative but there was also a part of
me that thought wow I want to experience
buildings that are as rich absolutely as
those films are and you know and your
drawings have that kind of similar
quality for me as his films where on the
one hand I understand them as deeply
architectural that's not a question for
me but they do indict conventional
practice I think and they indict
buildings that you know don't let us
care the careless buildings that don't
let us care absolutely and so I think it
would be interesting to all of us to
collect examples of buildings you know
for ourselves that we think have the
same kind of intensity as work like this
and then see what that adds up to not a
question I'm I'm I'm trying to thank you
I'm we're talking about this is at
breakfast this morning with Martin and
I'm trying to generate a set I think I
showed a couple samples of them of the
what I'm calling the taxonametric
object which is kind of the next phase
of the taxonametric drawing so we
produce this post little graphic fuzz
and I want to be able to sort of take
that back in three dimensionally and see
if it can impregnate upon step one step
two is alter and deform the building I
don't have the technology or the
know-how I've got a couple of I guess
you could call them assistants one is in
LA one is in Germany
that kind of answered an open call I was
looking for interns and we're trying to
create kind of a live notation system
that we can of a specific architecture
of the horchata that we can sort of
project back on itself and see if it can
be transported it might be a horrific
experimentation and you can't you have
to kind of wheat you know weed through
them but that's so I'm interesting to
see if the idea of a drawing a pre
drawing of a building and a post drawing
of the building could in fact affect the
building itself I mean you know
Eisenmann kind of has done that to a
certain extent and that was that he
actually planted a big seed when I was
in graduate school about kind of looking
at some of those ideas and I'm not
really sure how to take it further I
guess part of my charges is to kind
of throw this information out there and
seeing if the much younger much more
intelligent much savvy er students could
pick up on that and somebody kind of
runs with the idea that maybe we can see
what happens with it I my studio is me
every couple of years I get an intern to
work with me but it's pretty much me and
a desk and uh just MacBooks or whatever
this MacBook can do is what I generate
if I can't do it which is a lot I don't
do it
so I think I've kind of hit a saturation
point in terms of the the volume of what
I can produce in terms of a hypothesis
so I'm really anxious to see if students
you know kind of pick up on any of those
ideas and how that might kind of
manifest itself not not in a one-to-one
relationship you know but yeah that's
not an answer but you didn't ask a
question so I think it's okay yeah
anyone else
thanks a lot it was really engaging yeah
I'm curious because I think one of the
things that you started with was the
idea that there's a given and that given
is a set of conventions or it's a set of
notations or it's something that kind of
derives from the nature of drawing
itself or in in the in the case of the
pounce s the praetor um you know this
kind of great thing that that was very
much about the public realm so I wonder
if you've thought about the idea of an
open drawing just like laying it out
there and putting a PSD out there you
know a Photoshop document out there and
letting people engage it make it better
no just engage like like literally if
like a corpse can yeah like that I've
experimented with that a little bit
it it it usually becomes and I'm accused
of creating you know dense drawings it
very quickly usually becomes so dense
that it's like end of the first image I
showed I can do this like that way and
that's borderline legible for me it
becomes that almost instantly and then
it it just it there I think there's
there's too many voices and too many
issues no I I have it's a very
interesting idea I probably haven't done
it in the correct way but that tends
that and an exacerbation of that tends
to happen rather quickly
I feel like that's that's a kind of an
idea of classifying something that that
has to do more with more haste
classification of the Chinese
encyclopedia mmm that that Foucault
talks about in his opening mm-hm and
that that's kind of where that
ultimately goes that the taxonomy of
form is in an end of itself a kind of
incredibly complex object again another
one - excellent studio topic my advisor
this is a really good idea action oh
yeah well I might take that myself
please thank you anyone else
well what's let's call it there thanks
Bryan
