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Engineering
Architectural Engineering

Drawing the Glitch

Profile image of Matthew AustinMatthew Austin

Abstract

The introduction of glitches into the production of architectural drawing has the capacity to open up and transform what is understood to constitute digitalarchitectural production. Traditionally, the architectural drawing uses lines as codified indexical representations of existing or proposed real-world objects. 1 The representation of an edge between a floor and a wall, for instance, requires the line to function through analogy. Vidler 2 starkly points out that over the past two centuries architectural drawing has steadily become more abstract in its use of analogy and its representations of real-world objects. Digital technologies potentially transform the traditional analogue notion of the line from a projected analogy to an analogy in itself, made up of the discrete units used by digital technology, namely zeroes and ones and the pixel. However, the capacity for the image plays a central role in what architecture 'means' and how it is drawn and formulated. 3 The nature of lines, and by extension drawings, in the digital age has fundamentally shifted from being about abstractions of abstractions to "nothing more nor less than the mapping of threeor four-dimensional relations in two [dimensions]". 4

Figures (7)
Fig. 1: Diagram showing how an image file can be understood as a two-dimensional array and a linear sequence of values on the computer's hard or solid-state drive. ENTER THE GLITCH
Fig. 1: Diagram showing how an image file can be understood as a two-dimensional array and a linear sequence of values on the computer's hard or solid-state drive. ENTER THE GLITCH
Fig. 2: A simple example of how a text file and an image file can create the same outcome if put through specific algorithms, in this case Processing and Adobe Photoshop respectively.
Fig. 2: A simple example of how a text file and an image file can create the same outcome if put through specific algorithms, in this case Processing and Adobe Photoshop respectively.
Fig. 4: A study matrix of how the same figure of the plan reconfigures itself depending upon binary-numeric transformations of the plan. Fig. 3: A redrawing of the Barcelona Pavilion by Kieran Patrick.
Fig. 4: A study matrix of how the same figure of the plan reconfigures itself depending upon binary-numeric transformations of the plan. Fig. 3: A redrawing of the Barcelona Pavilion by Kieran Patrick.
It is evident that the glitching of a plan requires a complete reconsideration of the vertical nature of the result, and in turn the glitching of an elevation requires a reunderstanding of the plan. In fact, the glitch not only resists architectural convention, but also disrupts the relationship between architecture's different modes of representation. Further to this, architecture’s other modes of representation (such as video) constitute a difference in technology and thus glitch in a fundamentally different way. The glitch has the potential to disrupt architecture at any point within its production to force a complete reworking of what the architectural drawing intends to represent. Fig. 5: Three-dimensional reworking of a valid interpretation of the data-bent image of the plan of the Barcelona Pavilion.
It is evident that the glitching of a plan requires a complete reconsideration of the vertical nature of the result, and in turn the glitching of an elevation requires a reunderstanding of the plan. In fact, the glitch not only resists architectural convention, but also disrupts the relationship between architecture's different modes of representation. Further to this, architecture’s other modes of representation (such as video) constitute a difference in technology and thus glitch in a fundamentally different way. The glitch has the potential to disrupt architecture at any point within its production to force a complete reworking of what the architectural drawing intends to represent. Fig. 5: Three-dimensional reworking of a valid interpretation of the data-bent image of the plan of the Barcelona Pavilion.

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References (40)

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  2. Anthony Vidler,"Diagrams of Diagrams: Architectural Abstraction and Modern Representation" in Representations 72 (Autumn, 2000), 7.
  3. Ibid., 17.
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  5. Ibid.
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  26. Menkman, The Glitch Moment(um), 29.
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  28. Matthew Austin and Gavin Perin, "The Other Digital: A study between algorithmic design and glitch aesthetics in digital architecture" (paper presented at Emerging Experience in Past, Present and Future of Digital Architecture, Proceedings of the 20th International Conference of the Association for Computer- Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA 2015), Daegu, South Korea, 20-22 May 2015), 835.
  29. Menkman, The Glitch Moment(um), 31.
  30. Davis, "Precise Image Mishandling of the Digital Image Structure".
  31. Andreas Broeckmann et al., The Art of the Accident, edited by Andreas Broeckmann (Rotterdam: NAI Publishers/V2_ publishing, 1998), 2.
  32. Paul Virilio, "The Accident Museum" in A Landscape of Events, trans. Julie Rose (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), 54.
  33. Menkman, Vernacular of File Formats.
  34. Stan Allen, "Mapping the Unmappable: On Notation" in Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation (New York: Routledge, 2000), 32.
  35. Luca Garofalo and Peter Eisenman, Digital Eisenman: An Office Of An Electronic Era (Boston, Massachussetts: Birkhauser- Publishers for Architecture, 1999).
  36. Andrew Atwood, paper presented at Fieldwork Symposium, Sydney, New South Wales, 16 March 2016).
  37. Mark Hansen, New Philosophy for New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 202.
  38. Matthews, "Upgrading The Paradigm", 11. REFERENCES
  39. Ant Scott, 'Ant Scott' in Glitch: Designing Imperfection, edited by Iman Moradi, Ant Scott. 20-21. (New York: Mark Batty, 2009).
  40. David Temkin, 15 January 2014, 'Glitch & Human/ Computer Interaction', The Journal of Objectless Art, accessed 1 October 2015.

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Related topics

  • Architecture
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