
Computational Drawing
From Foundational Exercises to Theories of Representation
Carl Lostritto(Author)
Oro Editions (Publisher)
Published on 9. June 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
292 pages
978-1-957183-45-9 (ISBN)
Description
This book explores computation, specifically the craft of writing computer code, as a medium for drawing. Exercises, essays, algorithms, diagrams and drawings are woven together to offer instruction, insight and theories that are valuable to practising architects, artists and scholars. This book can serve as a primer for those new to programming or motivation and context for those with experience.
'Computing' and 'drawing' are both deeply historical and loaded terms. Although digital media is often positioned in opposition to the 'manual' act of drawing, the broader territory of 'computing' includes matters of language, rules, procedures and orders that are very much compatible with the presence of ink on paper. Indeed, the nature of drawing - a temporal medium governed by marks that can be precisely defined, but not easily edited - provides welcome structure for computational methods.
'Computing' and 'drawing' are both deeply historical and loaded terms. Although digital media is often positioned in opposition to the 'manual' act of drawing, the broader territory of 'computing' includes matters of language, rules, procedures and orders that are very much compatible with the presence of ink on paper. Indeed, the nature of drawing - a temporal medium governed by marks that can be precisely defined, but not easily edited - provides welcome structure for computational methods.
Reviews / Votes
"With acupuncture-like precision, Lostritto unpacks genetic connections between drawing and computing, on the prowl for new visual bodies and alternative forms of knowledge constructions--revelatory insights a double key click or bodily gesture away. Operating in the space between a guidebook and Jorge Luis Borges' encyclopedic Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, Computational Drawing gathers, dissects, and resplices assumptions about the generative potential of computing and drawing, realigning things taken for granted..."--Perry Kulper "associate professor of Architecture, A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning " "In a historical moment when pedagogies of drawing and computing are still being debated, this timely contribution identifies, unpacks, and repositions the instrumentality of the tools that underlie varied media. Linking strategies that range from the compositional to the rule-based, Lostritto historicizes these tools, the ideas that precede them, and their results. What surfaces is a refreshing respite from the limiting dichotomies we have all endured in the trenches of curricular debates. Beyond the intellectual precision of the book's argument, Lostritto's drawings form an indispensable body of work whose figures and configurations embody, line by line, the evidence through which the instruments of the discipline must manifest that debate."--Nader Tehrani "dean of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture and Principal of NADAAA " "With acupuncture-like precision, Lostritto unpacks genetic connections between drawing and computing, on the prowl for new visual bodies and alternative forms of knowledge constructions--revelatory insights a double key click or bodily gesture away. Operating in the space between a guidebook and Jorge Luis Borges' encyclopedic Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, Computational Drawing gathers, dissects, and resplices assumptions about the generative potential of computing and drawing, realigning things taken for granted..."--Perry Kulper "associate professor of Architecture, A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning ""In a historical moment when pedagogies of drawing and computing are still being debated, this timely contribution identifies, unpacks, and repositions the instrumentality of the tools that underlie varied media. Linking strategies that range from the compositional to the rule-based, Lostritto historicizes these tools, the ideas that precede them, and their results. What surfaces is a refreshing respite from the limiting dichotomies we have all endured in the trenches of curricular debates. Beyond the intellectual precision of the book's argument, Lostritto's drawings form an indispensable body of work whose figures and configurations embody, line by line, the evidence through which the instruments of the discipline must manifest that debate."--Nader Tehrani "dean of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture and Principal of NADAAA "
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
San Rafael
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
250 Illustrations, color
Dimensions
Height: 225 mm
Width: 177 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
804 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-957183-45-9 (9781957183459)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition

Book
08/2019
Oro Editions
€63.33
No shipping information available
Person
Carl Lostritto is Graduate Program Director and Assistant Professor of Architecture at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island. He operates an artistic practice that involves writing custom software and adapting machines to create drawings.