“The problem is that all this stuff is too specialized, it has too many prerequisites”…

(Doctorow 89)

We have been doodling with flat blocks, clicking and dragging not quite drawing,  two dimensional blueprints representing the three dimensions of  objects that have yet to be created. I talked to two students in the CAL this week about the ability, or lack thereof to “doodle” in TinkerCAD. Doodling and drawing open up a sort of free space in the body and mind to create out of blankness and thin air, conveying the experience in two dimensions. The word tinker implies objectivity, the ability to be tactile with objects and perceive them as a whole. TinkerCAD occupies a gray space where so much dimensionality is perceivable, the objects and structures are flat as paper to the touch, and yet myself and another student I spoke with, each find ourselves tilting our heads, moving our faces closer, turning the computer screen, and being, at points, totally unable to get the right point of view.

“They’ve ended up back in the trash heaps that inspired them.”

(Doctorow 123).