Or: How I Owe Bryan Cantley an Essay about Digital VS Analog
“Classification” @ UTK CoAD 9/17
Bryan Cantley, Form:uLA, @bcantl3y
My exposure to Bryan Cantley was through the works of students a year or two ahead of me. Last year, I had just entered the MLA course at the School of Landscape Architecture at University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) with a semester of drafting classes and a degree in drawing. I did not realize that the style of drawings in this field were drawn at about 0.15 pts until someone pointed it out to me. The most intriguing projects were draped with marks and movements drawn in that delicate manner.
(from Instagram, 8/24/2018)
My colleagues brought to my attention that Brian Cantley was coming to lecture at our school. I was excited to put the name to the style of drawing I had admired, so I studied his instagram feed prior to the lecture (he doesn’t have a website). I found most intriguing his seamless transition between analog and digital work. Some of his videos were of him making those very delicate marks of 4pt line 1pt gap dotted lines.
His lecture, “Classification,” was a lot of fun. In attempting to classify the nature(s) of his work and to explain it to an audience, Bryan shared with us the logic and philosophy behind his work. Personally, lectures of this nature are very helpful. Through his lecture I was exposed to lots of neologisms and new frameworks of understanding ‘practice’ and (perhaps) architectural thinking. Bryan’s work focuses on drawing and representation, processes that maybe reserved only at the fringes of an architectural (final) product. Prompted by Jason Young (Dir. of Architecture at UTK), Bryan stated that his work is perhaps a response to the (disappointing) products of architecture, aka buildings, that plague today. (You could call today “second modernity” or “late stage capitalism,” more on this to be continued through my theory digest.)
Anyways, during the Q&A session, I asked the first question about his digital and analog work. I phrased it something close to this: “In your work, the analog and digital are very similar. Your analog work have a very digital quality and your digital work have a very organic quality to them. Could you explain the relationship between these two work ....” and I was halted by Bryan himself, that he had never been accused of such nonsense! (my words) I added that the fluidity between the two modes was perhaps what I was picking up on, and he gave us a short story about his first publication, Mechudzu, and how the fluidity between mechanical and kudzu forms inspired that project. I created a beautiful moment - when Bryan asked, “Do you guys know what kudzus are?” - all of us nodded throughout his story.
(Picture mine - @ Guntersville Lake State Lodge)
In all fairness, when I went and explained my thought process a little more - that I was classically trained in art, and that the digital mode is different for me - and when I commented on the material texture that resonates through both analog and digital drawings of his, the misunderstanding was lifted and Bryan understood me.
... and that’s how I owe Bryan Cantley an essay about my difference between “digital” and “analog”!
Note to self: talk about factory made cups and hand-thrown mugs ...
