Tracing Paper As a Site for “Taking the Mind for a Walk”1
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ITU A|Z • Vol 17 No 3 • November 2020 • 127-139 Tracing paper as a site for “taking the mind for a walk”1 Hatice Işıl Uysal1, Gülçin Pulat Gökmen2 1 [email protected] • Architectural Design Doctorate Program, Graduate School of Science Engineering and Technology, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey 2 [email protected] • Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey Received: April 2019 • Final Acceptance: May 2020 Abstract This article concentrates on the tactility of a mind-walk that is realized by writ- ing on tracing paper. The mind becomes a terrain as it is being walked on while writing, and writing is both making traces on a surface and opening a path in the mind. As the writing continues, lines match with time, and the path that has already been visited becomes distant. A methodology has been researched to see the previously visited path and the upcoming path simultaneously. The need for seeing both past and present has turned into an initiator idea of seeing depth on the paper surface that has employed tracing paper as a site for this experimental work. Generally used as an architectural drawing medium, tracing paper is used both as a surface and a design environment. As the tracing paper is a translucent plane that makes seeing the superposed lines altogether possible, resorting to the papers diversifies the mind-path created by a single line. Thus, a thought becomes not an extending line that drifts away, but a visual experience of visiting super- posed writings simultaneously. The totality and wayfare of thought unfold in and through the frame by its size A4 (21x29.7 cm). In this article, the possibilities of a medium are presented through tracing individual experiences. Also a path narrative is employed to delineate the understanding of the case of being on a continuous walk. Both the path narrative and the tracing paper have been tools for experiencing a surface with depth. Keywords doi: 10.5505/itujfa.2020.55822 doi: Walking, Mind-walking, Tactile experience, Line, Tracing paper. 128 1. Introduction continues and the time passes by, the Mind-walk is an imaginary walk car- written text, the encounters and deci- ried out with a body. As Solnit (2000) sion moments recede into the distance describes, the mind is a landscape of and fade away. Eventually, the problem sorts. And while the mind becomes of the trackability of an imaginable path a terrain when it starts to be walked, occurs. In order to image the path as a paths appear while the walking contin- whole and also continue writing at the ues. Writing, drawing, reading, paint- same time, a methodology is needed. ing and walking are some of the ways According to Deleuze (2006), the that open the paths through the mind creative act is realized through me- terrain. All the continuous intentions diums. For the filmmakers, blocks of and productions constitute these paths. movement-duration are mediums to Walking through the mind means vis- tell stories with (Deleuze, 2006). In an iting specific places that consist of interview, artist Kimsooja tells the sto- ideas and images. As Ingold (2010) ry of her relationship with the surface, points out, to walk is to journey in the “I had this exhilarating moment when I mind as much as on the land, and to was trying to push the needlepoint into read is to journey on the page as much the fabric…So that was the moment as in the mind. Some thoughts can only that this is it, this is the methodolo- occur at 6,000 feet above the plains and gy I would experiment to investigate while following a route a thousand bi- to dig into the depth of the surface” furcations swarm in one’s mind (Gros, (Bloomberg, 2017). The surface was 2014). When writing and creating a the two-dimension that she broke free path on the mind terrain, images and from but was the space where she was thoughts are gleaned. However, there still working. Through the possibilities are also elements such as decisions, of the medium, which was the needle bifurcated ideas, selections, dead ends for Kimsooja, the depth of the surface that constitute the mind terrain. One was discovered. As the needle was the might encounter differentiating paths, medium to discover the depth of the forget the places passed by and stray surface for Kimsooja, by problema- away but still be on the path. tizing seeing the mind-walk as a path As Careri (2007) states, the songlines without becoming distant, the surface of Australian Aborigines tell path-sto- itself has been the medium to discover ries that map their continent. Each the depth for this work. The valid writ- path has its own song and the complex ing surface was shifted to tracing paper of the songlines constitutes a network to create a writing surface with a depth of erratic, symbolic paths that cross that starts to reveal its possibilities as and describe the space (Careri, 2007). it is experienced. A series of successive A song continues as the walk contin- surfaces folding the unfolding thought ues, the length of a song is as long as in an unchanging frame has been the a walk (Solnit, 2000). As a songline site for taking the mind for a walk. makes a path imaginable, unlike a map, The continuous flow of time, between the song merges with the path and tells the body and the surface, was inter- stories about encounters at the body fered and folded by changing the only level. What a songline contains is what changeable element of this correlation, the writing is made up of: The body, the the surface. time and the surface. As to write is to walk through the 1.1. Methodology mind terrain, from the body to the In this phenomenological in-depth writing surface and from the surface to research, that comprises first-person the body there is a flow of continuous lived experience, a specific experiment lines either in the form of a path or a practiced by the author has been tak- text. While writing, encountering ideas en as the basis. The phenomenologi- and visiting images transform into a cal method is solely concerned with kinesthetic experience of the body that the description of an event or object draws lines onto a surface. Writing be- (Crust, Keegan, Piggott, & Swann, comes the correlation of time, the writ- 2011). It studies the structures of con- ing surface and the body. As the writing sciousness as experienced from the first ITU A|Z • Vol 17 No 3 • November 2020 • H.I. Uysal, G. Pulat Gökmen 129 person point-of-view (Smith, 2018). ments of the traced interretaions, the This method, necessitating the individ- focus has been on creating a narrative ual experimentation, reveals and en- of being at the body level and revealing ables discovering unspoken relations the tactility of working with a medium between body and object through ex- while thinking through the medium. perience narratives. The fundamentals of the practice have been set by defin- 2. Elements of writing: Lines, ing the problem of the trackability of surfaces and tactility an imaginable path and bracketed as The work of the three elements, trac- discovering the depth of the writing ing papers, writings, and the body, is surface. In this regard, this article is more than an interaction. While writ- structured retrospectively by examin- ing, thoughts and images transform ing the theoretical background of the into lines. The translucent surfaces elements that constitute the problem, of tracing paper create encounters in the relation between the experienced depth. Lines and superposed surfaces medium and the problem, the back- work as signifiers of movement and ground of the practice, and analysis of resorted thoughts. The body is the the experiments. The analysis is depen- connective tissue between lines, re- dent on the interrelations between the arranged surfaces and thoughts. This bodily movements and differentiating work of the threefold, on a broad- layouts of the medium. er scale, is the work of lines, surfaces The phenomenological method is and tactile experience. In the following, employed to track the relations be- these elements are examined both with tween the body and the writing sur- their expansions at the broader scale face. The tracing paper as a design and with their situation that is specific environment has worked as a site that to this work. unblocks the path that had a desire to unfold. For this work, it is taken as 2.1. Lines the site where the ideas are probed, A line is a continuous movement. It attached, resorted, accumulated and does not flash into view, it emerges or folded. The tracing paper, as the site, is experienced in a period. Line, as a is discovered through tracing the so- movement, indicates a flow, and track- matic motions transformed into move- ing a line is a temporal activity: draw- ment sequences that create the layouts ing a line, connecting places, sewing, of the medium. The experiments of the singing a song, walking, telling a story, author are tracked and the traces of living… They all occupy a period. De- depth through these experiments are pending on the fact that the lines are pursued. The tension of searching for a related to time, they have metaphorical methodology to reach a trackable path connections with and translations to constituted the background of this site other things that are temporal. Thus, experimentation and, revealing the while occupying time, they also con- possibilities of a rediscovered medium, nect, collect and project things.