Stuart Mealing

On drawing a circle

Emotions generated in the viewer by objective drawings which are made using traditional media are different from those elicited by digitally originated marks presented on a computer screen. This chapter explores the dichotomy of production and interpretation of the two forms of mark-making and considers the possibility that they may lead to different understandings of the world.

Prologue

The story is told by Vasari of Pope Benedict IX sending a messenger to a number of artists with a view to commissioning one of them. In Florence he met with Giotto and requested of him a drawing to take to His Holiness. The painter took a brush, "then, resting his elbow on his side, with one turn of his hand he drew a circle so perfect and exact that it was a marvel to behold." The courtier thought he could not be serious to offer so little but took the drawing to the Pope who "instantly perceived that Giotto surpassed all other painters of his time."

The implicit equation of a circle (centred on j) is: (x-xj)2+ (y-yj)2- r2= 0.

On drawing a circle

How do you, I or Giotto draw a circle? How its circularity stored in the mind – by its appearance, by its formula, by the algorithm used to construct it? A circle could be thought of either statically or dynamically, as a concatenation of all positions in one plane which are the same distance from a single point or as an arc sweeping before your eyes. In the first incarnation it is matched by a mathematical template, in the second by a turn of the wrist.

When fingers and wrist combine to take a line on a slow, looping journey there is constant feedback from eye to hand, correcting incrementally against a mental model. On a rapid circumscription it seems to be habit, burnt into the nerves and muscles, that drives the action. Of course in the context of objective drawing the mark not only has its own identity but also stands for something in the outside world. The significance is that a circle is more than its shape, it embodies a concept. It hints of containment, harbours dreams of perfection, reminds of heads, suns and apples. This reference to the world outside the drawing, whether tacit or explicit, ties the experience of the observer to that of the mark's creator and the mark may need to carry evidence of humanity to establish the link convincingly.

Making marks, externalising and looking are vital parts of an artist's process. They are clearly linked to one another but also create a conduit through which ideas flow back and forth between artist, subject and image. It is through the process of making and refining marks to stand for the subject that the artist comes to a better understanding of the subject – its form, its weight, its articulation, its occupation of space, its place in the world, its circularity.

Poles apart

As I have commented in the introduction to this book, there is an undeniable frisson about juxtaposing the words 'art' and 'computer' since they stand at the gateways of seemingly opposite worlds, guardians of opposite values and standards. Their juxtaposition calls into dispute embedded notions about art, about creativity, about consciousness and thus about the human condition. Their union provokes questions about new aesthetics, new directions and new destinations.

Within the domain of art the immediacy and directness of objective drawing arguably renders it the subset of the discipline which has the narrowest gap between encounter and corresponding mark; the medium where artist, subject and image are closest. As such a knowing distinction between the stamp of man or machine could play an overbearing role in emotional response to an image. Negroponte comments that 'computers and art can bring out the worst in each other when they first meet. One reason is that the signature of the machine can be too strong.' Neither is idiosyncrasy normally an intended feature of machines.

Local context can also be an issue, both in production and viewing, which separates traditional media from digital. The archetypal life drawing studio, stained by generations of use and redolent both of its own history and that of its subject, provides a very different working environment from that surrounding the average computer workstation. Similarly, viewing an image on the wall of an art gallery provides a very different physical and cultural experience to that of staring at a computer screen, even when the computer itself is displayed in a gallery.

Dislocations

Traditional coordinations are revised when drawing with a computer. Whilst the hand typically toils in a horizontal plane, the results of its efforts are output to a normally vertical screen and with a delay lasting from imperceptible to worrying according to the type of mark being made and the speed of the system.

The tools available in a computer paint system largely imitate those available for traditional mark-making. The value of this imitation is the apparent familiarity the user has with the new tools – there seems little to learn. The problem with this imitation is the apparent familiarity the user has with the new tools – the fundamental differences are overlooked. The computer provides a new set of relationships for the artist between tool and mark, relationships which modify, distort or destroy much of the feedback which drives traditional drawing.

The drawing tool is usually replaced in the current digital world with a universal proxy that stands for all available tools. Its feel does not change whether simulating the grate of a charcoal stick or the smooth slide of a sable brush nor whether it is making light, fine scratches or broad, wet sweeps. If it comes in the awkward form of a mouse the required grip is more like that on a bar of soap though a stylus is pencil-like and permits fingertip control reminiscent of 'real' media. Tool pressure can be set to modify variables such as size and opacity of marks but such relationships are pre-set rather than modified whilst in use. There is, however, none of the tactile feedback, none of the physicality of pen, chalk and paper. 'We draw a picture without making a mark, wield brushes that have no bristles, mix paints that do not pour'.

A new breed of haptic devices is slowly emerging which offers sensory feedback from the virtual texture of a surface and force-feedback from the virtual forces an object might embody but these are currently uncommon. Their functionality tends also to be limited and application specific.

The scale...