Constructing the architectural moving drawing: transdisciplinary practices between architecture and artists’ film

This thesis establishes original forms of reading and making architecturally focussed timebased artefacts through the construction of practices which I term “architectural moving drawing”. The subject of this thesis emerges out of my dual-disciplinary grounding in fine art and architecture and explores the resonances I have identified between the tectonic practices of structural film and architectural representation, relating to ideas of an active, engaged viewer who constructs meaning. While there is substantial research covering many aspects of the relationship between cinema and architecture, there is a paucity of work exploring the relationship of artists’ film – in particular with practices emerging from structural filmmaking – to architecture and architectural representation. It is in this gap that I draw together aspects of disciplinary practice, of both making and writing, testing “architectural moving drawing” as a sui generis form, and one which opens up new territory for artists’ film and architectural representation through new transdisciplinary methodologies operating outside the constraints of a home discipline, without becoming bound by those of other disciplines whose techniques are employed.

By tracing the journey that I draw out through the thesis the reader will also begin to construct the architectural moving drawing through their own perceptual agency. The route will include a mapping of the trajectory of my practice, and a drafting out of the theoretical foundation for the construction of architectural moving drawing. As I tell the story of my previous practice, I will show how a nascent form of architectural moving drawing already exists in this historical work. The thesis will go on to present the processes and artefacts that have been produced during the undertaking of the PhD. This new work is a continuation of my practice-based research working on the principles of a critical, iterative and reflective practice, that translates and anchors the speculative act into a tangible, materially manifest entity.