Abstract
Drawing is celebrated as a powerful tool in the designer’s toolbox. While it is generally understood to be a useful method in the visualization of abstract concepts and complex scenarios, it is equally important to understand drawing’s role in the pursuit of novel solutions. Drawing affords enough physical and conceptual space between modes of representation to permit the designer to reinterpret the design. With this creative act as inspiration, this paper reviews the topic of computational play as a framework for implementing autonomous, creative design in computational systems. The framework is demonstrated in a proof-of-concept drawing machine. Specifically, the machine uses shape grammars to exhibit multimodal reinterpretation in its drawing process: It physically draws each step of the design and then visually reinterprets the drawing in an iterative, playful process.
Keywords
shape grammars; computational play; reinterpretation; drawing machine
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.687
Citation
Penman, S. (2018) Drawing to See / Drawn to Seeing: Multimodal Reinterpretation in an Autonomous Drawing Machine, in Storni, C., Leahy, K., McMahon, M., Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Design as a catalyst for change - DRS International Conference 2018, 25-28 June, Limerick, Ireland. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.687
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Drawing to See / Drawn to Seeing: Multimodal Reinterpretation in an Autonomous Drawing Machine
Drawing is celebrated as a powerful tool in the designer’s toolbox. While it is generally understood to be a useful method in the visualization of abstract concepts and complex scenarios, it is equally important to understand drawing’s role in the pursuit of novel solutions. Drawing affords enough physical and conceptual space between modes of representation to permit the designer to reinterpret the design. With this creative act as inspiration, this paper reviews the topic of computational play as a framework for implementing autonomous, creative design in computational systems. The framework is demonstrated in a proof-of-concept drawing machine. Specifically, the machine uses shape grammars to exhibit multimodal reinterpretation in its drawing process: It physically draws each step of the design and then visually reinterprets the drawing in an iterative, playful process.