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According to Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "The blind, says Descartes, “see with their hands.” The Cartesian concept of vision is modeled after the sense of touch." "For Descartes it is unarguably evident that one can paint only existing things, that their existence consists in being extended, and that design, or line drawing, aline makes painting possible by making the representation of extension possible. Thus painting is only an artifice which presents to our eyes a projection similar to that which the things themselves in ordinary perception would and do inscribe in our eyes. A painting makes us see in the same way in which we actually see the thing itself, even though the thing is absent. Especially it makes us see a space where there is none."
The Cartesian system may not lend itself to painting but it most definitely lends itself to architectural drawing. This is an area that needs more research before I can say more.
The act of drawing just as important as the end result. The evidence that the act occurred is, of course, the drawing itself. It is a remnant. Evidence that the act occurred.
But what is the “act”?
What occurs during the drawing process?
It is an exploration and a record at the same time.
Act: take steps, react, move, work, function, serve, have an impact on, action, feat, exploit, move, gesture, performance, undertaking, stunt, operation, achievement, accomplishment.
It is the movement of the body as the result of of the mind. The communication between what we see in our mind and the paper. The body, the hand, is the tool.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty agrees, "The painter “takes his body with him”, says Valéry. Indeed we cannot imagine how a mind could paint. It is by lending his body to the world that the artist changes the world into paintings. To understand these transubstantiations we must go back to the working, actual body – not the body as a chunk in space or bundle of functions but that body which is an intertwining of vision and movement."
How do you document the act?
