Computer and creativity

“Pencil, paper, ruler. Stencil, compass, pastels. Set-square, paper, pencil. Or an old Olivetti and a few sheets of typing paper, I might say in the case of other forms of expression. For me it was not an Olivetti, but a more antiquated Underwood...” The writer Daniele Del Giudice recounts the transition form the analogic tools to computers in Domus 821, December 1999.

Computer e creatività, foto Ramak Fazel
#domus1000, on newsstands in March, is the occasion to get back to the archive for some relevant articles of the editors that guided the magazine from 1979 until now. This article has been published in December 1999 during François Burkhardt’s editorship.

 

Pencil, paper, ruler. Stencil, compass, pastels. Set-square, paper, pencil. Or an old Olivetti and a few sheets of typing paper, I might say in the case of other forms of expression. For me it was not an Olivetti, but a more antiquated Underwood, rising up like a vast altar or monument to the Unknown Soldier. I had dug it out of the cellar when I was eleven years old, and just cleaning and lubricating it, tightening its screws and getting the thing back in working order was more engrossing even than Meccano.

In the afternoons I would sit on a pile of telephone directories to reach the keyboard, and the writing was there; it was the typewriter itself, a machine for telling stories, a machine which by itself told the stories that I used to tell my playmates by word of mouth, true or invented, to torment them. The pages without lines to guide the writing on its way, indicated that that type of paper had nothing to do with exercise-books, nothing to do with school. The typewriter possessed the characteristics of print, at least when pressed; it was printing within easy reach. What the typewriter wrote came out printed, that is, objective; just as for me the novels and stories that I read were objective because they were in print.
Years afterwards I changed the old and monumental Underwood for an equally old American Royal, which was very small and light and portable, in its stiff black case. So portable that I carried it about with me for decades, everywhere and always, even when I was sure I wouldn’t be using it. It was the tool of my trade; if I had a tool it meant that I too had a ‘trade’, or something I could think of, on a par with others, as “my trade”. The only trouble was I couldn’t take it out of its case like a violin and improvise something on the spur of the moment, like a strolling player in a restaurant, and then go round the tables holding out the case of my Royal to collect the money.
Angelo Mangiarotti's portrait in his studio
Top: Detail of the storage section of Castiglioni's studio surmounted by an archive corner. Above: Angelo Mangiarotti's portrait in his studio
Abandoning the typewriter for the first computer was therefore a stupidly procrastinated, ridiculously painful and ultimately salutary, liberating decision. Everyone has their own rituals for getting the best out of themselves or what little they can offer; and if somebody had asked me what story-telling and writing were I would have started out by showing them, even much later on in life, how to clean a typewriter, with a needle the wrong way round to remove the caked ink from the hollow parts of the letters without damaging the lead of their bodyline. I was much comforted, years later again, when I heard that Carlo Scarpa used to begin his architecture course at the University by illustrating the best way to sharpen a pencil.
The reasons why I mistrusted the computer at first were opposite to those for which as a small boy I had abandoned myself to the typewriter and identified myself with it. For if then the typewriter print gave the idea of something really done, now instead, the perfect computer print, with its imitation book layout and definitive look, in short, the aesthetic perfection of what I saw in the monitor, left me very unconvinced and wary of its contents. It went beyond. It didn’t take much, however, to realise that the computer and writing have a deep-rooted connection, that they are made for each other: indeed, they are made of each other. We use a machine language, an alphanumeric code and an alphabet for us totally without common sense, to compose alphabets and texts in the form of common sense. And ‘homepage’, the English term for Web sites, says clearly, and says right from the start, that cyberspace is made up simply of very fast reading and writing in the real time of thousandths of seconds, and thus understandably arranged in home pages. The home page is built with blocks of HTML text, even the icons and images and drawings are made of alphanumeric codes and letters; with sequences of characters as its floors, rooms, furniture, and everything contained in the home.
Vico Magistretti's portrait in his studio
Vico Magistretti's portrait in his studio
It is natural that new objects, especially those engraved in the flesh and bones of our work, should leave us each time firmly convinced or deeply perplexed. They are objects, nothing more, as were the set-square or the old Olivetti. But in their nature as objects they embody at least a couple of questions: where does the work start from? How does it change? They look friendly, they save a lot of effort or time or make possible what had previously been impossible. But in so doing they shift the threshold from which the essence of what we call elaboration or invention springs. And if they resolve a lot, they demand even more. As has always been the case.
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