Thinking on Paper: drawing and the significance of feedback

(presentation and workshop).

This presentation and workshop will address, on both a theoretical and practical level
drawing as a way of knowing. It will present drawing as a phenomenological activity,
one that has at its core the idea of feedback. As far back as the 16
th
century Vasari
was aware of this aspect of drawing. He explained that the reason why the artist
draws is that the mind can neither perceive nor perfectly imagine inventions within
itself unless it opens up and shows its conceptions to corporal eyes which aid it to
arrive at a good judgement (Gombrich, 1982, p.227). This presentation will argue
that this idea represents a precursor of contemporary situated cognition conceptions
on the extended mind. The significance of feedback in drawing is understood by
many artists, John Berger reflects this with regard to his life drawing: each line he
draws on the page reforms the figure on the paper, and at the same time it redraws
the image in my mind, [and] what is more, the drawn line redraws the model,
because it changes my capacity to perceive (John Berger in Pallasmaa, 2009, p.92).

In situated cognition theory physically situated, and embodied activities like drawing
have a particular epistemological status and indeed may be regarded as a
knowledge forging activity par excellence. Indeed drawing may also be envisaged as
a manner of thinking, but this requires an expanded conception of our understanding
of what thinking encompasses. Gallagher explains that according to situated
cognition theory:

To conceive of the mind as a Cartesian thinking thing is to posit something over
and above the situation in which thinking occurs. Thinking is not something that
happens in a mind, as an attribute or quality that belongs to a subject who is
isolated from the world; it is an activity or event in the world (Gallagher, 2009,
pp.38-39).

This presentation will be followed by a drawing workshop in which the audience will
be asked to participate in a series of drawing exercises where the experience of
thinking on paper will be investigated.

References:
Gombrich, E.H., 1982. The Image and the Eye: Further Studies in the Psychology of Pictorial
Representation, London: Phaidon Press.
Pallasmaa, J., 2009. The Thinking Hands: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture, John
Wiley and Sons, Chichester.
Gallagher, S., 2009. Philosophical antecedents to situated cognition. In Robbins P. and Aydede M. eds.
The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.