A recent piece published in the New York Times by Michael Graves, an architect and Professor Emmeritus at Priencton University remarked on some of the losses of our digitized world. When we were discussing the negatives and positives of a digitized world, this article kept peering back into my frame of thought.
In the age of computers, Graves feels that we are loosing an art for drawing. Instead, architects resort to computers and software programs,
IT has become fashionable in many architectural circles to declare the death of drawing. What has happened to our profession, and our art, to cause the supposed end of our most powerful means of conceptualizing and representing architecture?
The computer, of course. With its tremendous ability to organize and present data, the computer is transforming every aspect of how architects work, from sketching their first impressions of an idea to creating complex construction documents for contractors.
As commented on in Cohen and Rosenzweig’s book Digital History, we digitizing history is not only difficult, but when we do so we not only again new knowledge, but we also loose it. I have never been against digitizing history, but I think we loose so much when we try and convert everything to become digitized. At what point do we loose the art form of the written word? Could Hemingway have written “The Great Gatsby” on a Macbook Pro? Maybe, maybe not. The connect that an artists and an architect has to their pen, pencil is so innate in creating art. The pen or pencil both allow for the expansion of ideas to flow from imagination to execution. Could Monet have painted with a simple computer? It’s a sad realization, but we are loosing art forms through digitization. Whether it is for the better, we have yet to determine.
With every advance in technology, we are loosing something of our past. Cohen and Rosenweig comment on this by saying, “but even in the best of circumstances, the move from analog to digital generally entails a loss of information…”
It’s not just a loss of information that we loose when we look at manuscripts of Shakespeare’s work digitized, but we aren’t able to analyze the ink of the time, the paper, or even the binding. But we are also loosing forms of art. In the case with Grave’s comment, he feels that architects of today aren’t as closely related to their work as they were in the past where, “buildings are no longer just designed visually and spatially; they are ‘computed’ via interconnect databases.”
Graves continues to note that with the digital world’s impact on architecture, the mere practice and art form of architecture have fallen apart. There used to be a process and tools one used to sketch out future buildings. Despite the benefits that technology bring, in particular to the art world, we are loosing ways of practice and we are loosing art and a way to process ones creativity.
Apart from architecture, the music industry has been growing since the age of the internet. But with that, has also come some losses. This is not to say that we are no longer producing great music, it’s just different. In the age of Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, recording was a long process. It was something one worked up towards and people used to listen to their music. It’s great that I can carry my iPod with me holding up to 6,000 songs, but am I really appreciating the creation of the music I’m listening to? The process? Do I even care? Pop music artists are able to go into a recording studio, put in a few vocals, mix a single and put it online. Just like how Graves is disheartened by the loss of drawing in architecture, should I be disheartened to not care about the process of making music? Am I loosing an experience the same way future architects are loosing something?
For example, partisans of (digital) music CDs played with solid-state (digital) amplifiers tout their quality and reliability, with the thousandth playback as crisp and unblemished as the first, whereas devotees of (analog) vinyl records amplified by (analog) tube amplifiers enthuse about their “authentic,” “warmer” sound, despite the occasional scratchinessof an old platter.
– Cohen and Rosenzweig, Digital Past
The more and more I go through this class, the more I am trying to appreciate the slow process of how things are made. I am starting to recognize the process of how things are made and what we are truly loosing in the age of continuing growing technology. I am curious to see what other students in the class think about the actual art forms that we are loosing in a digitized world.
To end, Graves tells the story of how he and his architect friend have an unspoken dialogue occurs between him and another architect, simply done on a sketpad; not a computer.
We had a genuine love for making this drawing. There was an insistence, by the act of drawing, that the composition would stay open, that the speculation would stay “wet” in the sense of a painting…As I work with my computer-savvy students and staff today, I notice that something is lost when they draw only on the computer. It is analogous to hearing the words of a novel read aloud, when reading them on paper allows us to daydream a little, to make associations beyond the literal sentences on the page. Similarly, drawing by hand stimulates the imagination and allows us to speculate about ideas, a good sign that we’re truly alive.
For more information on Michael Graves, he was profiled on CBS’ Sunday Morning program.