Representing Pasts – Visioning Futures
Abstract
Rendering as Proto-Photograph examines this moment, right when we aim for novelty, to ask broader questions of our visual practice; it situates rendering within a long lineage of image production. Starting with a series of definitions, the paper balances rendering in relation to drawing and photography to describe new conceptions of authorship, authority, and audience. It argues that the present homogeneity of the image and its singular focus towards commodity, reduces the agency of the architect, and the power of the image. The paper concludes with the aspiration that rendering either pursue what gives photography weight – its capacity to expose, or to turn to drawing and its pluralism to express the breadth of architecture’s contemporary techniques and concerns.
I study how digital technology informs architectural modes of representation. My main area of focus are histories and theories of digital architecture after the digital turn of the 1990s and is weighted towards questions of technology, technique, and agency. This literary research is balanced with a research creation agenda that endeavours to undermine the conventional use and expression of digital representation. These drawings and models often use established art practices to explore topical questions on culture, environment, domesticity, and heritage.