Description
You have all encountered this term before: formal analysis. We can always rely on it to produce
transparency of mathematical precision and its consequent claim to truth. Through most of the
twentieth century, modernist ideology found its roots in classical values by this
formula. Now consider, for a moment, some objects that cannot readily be explained in this way:
dolmens, Mondrian's canvases, a mountain in the Himalayas. These things have seemingly
nothing in common, that is, until you begin to draw them. Laid out against a grid or a set of
coordinates, they come in and out of focus. Under the interpretive power of formal
analysis, these objects tend to misbehave, to occupy the analytical frameworks informally. They
do not reduce to a simple diagram, massing, or algorithm. They might, at times, align and, at
other times, deviate from normal. Their imperfections?high tolerance, low resolution, blank
finish?are rather difficult to model precisely. So they produce rude forms,