Shape

109 A Second Look at Calculating
anticipate what the rules are going to do when they’re actually applied. This is what I
tried to do in my head and failed. It seems to be divination, only it’s not. It happens
because constituents are determined as an afterthought. Whenever calculating stops, I
can describe what’s gone on as a continuous process in which shapes are assembled
piece by piece in an orderly way. This makes a good story and a good explanation. It’s
the kind of retrospective narrative I hear all the time from people doing creative work,
especially in design!
Look at it again in another way. Every time the rule
or its inverse is applied, its right side divides in a different way to produce the constituents
in the shape that’s defined. The triangle has alternative representations that
change as rules are tried. First, the triangle is divided in two
as I’ve already shown, and then it’s not divided at all
But perhaps this is starry-eyed. It isn’t how I was trained in school—I’m positive every
triangle has three sides. And Evans is, too. It’s simply not a triangle otherwise. There’s a
problem somewhere, and not with my rules. Making up your mind too soon—saying
what it is before calculating—ends seeing. Evans’s shape
shows this brilliantly. The way I describe what I’m doing changes as I calculate, so I
can always go on and calculate some more. It isn’t fixed before I begin, it’s merely an