Vol. 17 No. 3 (2020): Narrative
Articles

Tracing paper as a site for 'taking the mind for a walk'

Hatice Işıl Uysal
Architectural Design Doctorate Program, Graduate School of Science Engineering and Technology, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey
Gülçin Pulat Gökmen
Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey

Published 2020-12-01

Keywords

  • Walking,
  • Mind-walking,
  • Tactile experience,
  • Line,
  • Tracing paper

How to Cite

Işıl Uysal, H., & Pulat Gökmen, G. (2020). Tracing paper as a site for ’taking the mind for a walk’. A|Z ITU JOURNAL OF THE FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE, 17(3), 127–139. https://doi.org/10.5505/itujfa.2020.55822

Abstract

This article concentrates on the tactility of a mind-walk that is realized by writing 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 superposed 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.