Wall Drawing & Hair Tearing

Sol Lewitt’s Wall Drawing was quite an experience. While the curiosity of what the shape would look like was a great driving factor, it could not trump the frustration that came with having to keep track of my progress through the guide given. I found myself having to open up a word document breaking down his instructions bullet point by bullet point, parsing things into sizeable more logical chunks. I also had to clear out the sentences from the original instructions as I progressed in order to not be confused about which ‘points’, ‘halfways’ and ‘midpoints’ I was drawing. Maybe it’s just me taking on the role of a program trying to follow exactly what the rule tells me, following it in the order with which its presented.

In essence, the Wall Drawing can be considered a form of code, albeit one that is not so elegantly formatted for efficiency both on the part of its execution, and for the review of the user.