Maintaining the abstract critical facility in post-digital drawing practice

Abstract

Drawing practice has been significantly and irrevocably augmented through the advent of digital technologies. The term "post-digital" refers to a condition in which those technologies have been subsumed into the suite of tools at the disposal of designers. Such a condition renders the polemic of traditional versus new media, of pencil versus mouse, redundant. Building information modet diagram, render, collage, equation and script - each is understood as a form of drawing, each has its own predispositions and purposes. The qualities of the project that unfolds through the focused application of these tools is, as ever, a reflection of the abilities of designers to pursue ideas through drawing. And yet the "traditional versus digital" polemic, and the well-turned ground of the problem of the digital lying with its general tendency toward the production of visually- realistic images, is sustained by a lack of critical scrutiny based upon active engagement. With a critical base which relies solely upon observation grounded in conventional drawing, the digital remains "new" but somehow grows tired. This text proceeds on the understanding that what is required to address this broader concern is to accept the gift to drawing practice that its digital augmentation is and, through practical engagement to deal with the related imperative of critically (re-)evaluating and (re-)negotiating the role that each tool plays in drawing practice, and indeed of developing understandings of relationships between tools.