Shape

379 Getting in the Right Frame of Mind
mations, etc., for grids and villa plans. (Many of the technical devices in my Pictorial
and Formal Aspects of Shape and Shape Grammars are useful in this regard.) Moreover, I
can learn from experience, adding to my catalogue as I try new things and see what
they do. Perhaps I have a list of identities that are useful, and expand it according to
what I produce when I calculate. Then what I see next depends on what I’ve done before.
And, in fact, I did this for fractals in part II to show how they were self-similar. I
defined identities according to the shapes—lines and planes—I produced calculating
with the rule
in the schema
x fi X tðxÞ
for a triangle and its boundary. Alternatively, I could use the schema
x þ bðxÞ fi bðxÞ
where x þ bðxÞ is anything I produce with my rule, to play around with triangles made
up of lines
But getting back to my catalogue, I can apply the schema x fi A þ B a couple of times
and use identities to define rules in the schema x fi A þ B þ C. And I can go on in this
way for larger sums. Shapes go together when I calculate, and they go together in rules,
as well.
But there’s still another way to find new schemas—I can borrow them from
others. Whatever I see anyone else do will work in my catalogue—perhaps I use identities
again to get new rules and schemas as I did for the Villa Barbaro. But whatever I do,
the way it works isn’t rote copying. No one confuses ice-rays and Glarner’s paintings or
imagines they’re the same. There are different algebras, assignments, and transformations
for the schemas I have. That’s the beauty of it. Because of the way shapes are
defined in terms of embedding, schemas and the rules they define are readily transferable
and can be used in many creative ways. Being original isn’t something you have to
do all on your own. In fact in many ways, creativity implies community—both to
make new things and to recognize their originality—and it’s something that follows
automatically when you calculate with shapes and rules.
I haven’t paid very much attention to descriptions—despite this book, I really
prefer seeing and doing more than saying what this is about. Nonetheless, it’s easy to