Fault Lines

An exhibition of a design process in the Centre for Drawing, Wimbledon College of Art, November 2006 During the process of developing the CAD design for ‘Revelations’, a multi disciplinary production by the physical theatre company Stan Won’t Dance, I became suspicious that what I was seeing on the screen, and what I needed from it, were worlds apart. After opening the show, the experience of the performance space confirmed that amongst the benefits of the flythrough, and the implications of a line as a physical material, lay a gap between perception and reality. This exhibition of drawings articulated the meandering journey from concept, through research and development, to design, to final production. Some questions sprang to mind…

Why do the virtual sensations of the computer’s reality not match the scenographic experience in the auditorium?

Why are computer-generated lines of perspective on screen so subtly but importantly different to the real view?

How can a speculative experiment endure the checks and balances of sustained collaboration to persist in becoming a costly mistake?

Is the gap between my imagination and pencil smaller but more significant than the shortfall between drawing and its realisation?

Why is a screen so seductive?

Why do I feel increasingly compelled to subject my drawing to the mediation of machines?