The Random Machine. Graphic Representation Based on Mechanical Repetition

We have been using random drawing machines in design and architectural education for the last 15 years. Grounded on the hypothesis of a creative development of graphic elaborations produced by mechanical devices, designed and manufactured by students, capable of producing automatic and random line tracing. This didactic fits right into the debate the dialectic between chance/order, randomness/control, stochastic/deterministic, which characterizes both the processes of invention within the project and, more generally, the evolutionary processes of the built environment. Design is always driven by two forces. On one hand, the Order, proposing and declining immutable forms; on the other, the logic of the unpredictable. This cannot, nor does it want to, guarantee the immobility of what is realized. Demanding a careful reflection on representation and interpretation as possible strategies of creative thought. Can we imagine didactic approaches promoting expressive freedom in graphic elaboration processes? How this can be done through a free, wide-ranging, explorative, courageous, creative thought?. The article ends with some philosophical reflections about contermporary relationships between man and machines.