COGNITIVE PROCESSES OF DRAWING
Typology: Research
Work: Text & Drawings
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Date: 2015
The document presents an analysis of the cognitive processes involved in architectural drawing. The texts explore how knowledge can be acquired through drawing and how drawing-hand-thought is linked to our mental structures and, therefore, to knowledge.
TEXT EXTRACT ︎︎︎
It is not possible to talk about drawing without discussing the space and the body inherent to its activity. What is drawing if not the product of the body’s activity in space, an activity that records and represents our perceptions?
When drawing, tracing, delineating, expressing, and understanding architecture, we must consider our body as part of the space that defines its limits. The comprehension of architecture as a phenomenon of observation relates to the realization of the body as an organism whose existence is limited to its encounter with the exterior.
Architecture, then, is a condition for enriching the experiences of the body in space, allowing us to assimilate the information that is present. Therefore, the body cannot help but interact with its surroundings, with architecture being an essential part of this dialogue.
The interaction between our body and the body of architecture, between our corporeal space and the external space, creates a reciprocity that keeps this interaction alive. The drawing of architecture will always require the external space that composes it in order to record what is perceived for the purpose of understanding as part of the body’s existence.
The activity of drawing will thus need material supports for its creation but will also require an intuitive and introspective world that connects the external world with the internal world. If the body must be cohesive with its space, it must also be self-aware and comprehend what begins as ‘exteriority.’ Architecture, then, will constitute part of this exteriority. The body, as a limit between itself and architecture, will delineate what is perceptible in conscious schemes.
If we can observe bodies that are distant from our own, these objects will be translated into manageable information, and drawing will allow us to handle that information. Architecture will then compose the external object of our observations, where it can be recorded, evaluated, and understood.
The initial perceptual experience of what we observe in drawing constitutes a dynamic process of exploration of thought and reality. Without an initial perceptual experience, without a first sensory approach to the phenomenon of observation, it is difficult to construct knowledge; therefore, the act of drawing will be interrupted, and the processes of information assimilation will be inefficient.
Analyzing primary experiences through drawing allows for the construction of an interpretation that enables us to make the basic connections necessary to understand what we are drawing.
Therefore, we must understand our body as the starting point of our spatial experience and the medium through which our sensitive faculties perceive external boundaries and sensory stimuli.
Annik Keoseyan
Book Extract
2015