Subtract and Simplify

         Subtractive processes in industry are usually the domain of two shop practices: the woodworker's shop and the machinist's shop. In each, a project or product is created through the careful manipulation and cutting of (generally) oversized parts, reducing them down, one operation at a time, until they are perfectly fit to the desired dimensions and use. These actions are reductive, peeling or shaving more and more material away. These pieces may be joined, fastened, or bonded, but it is an assembly of reduced parts, rather than a truly additive process.

A small milling machine cutting HDPE

         Efficiency of form is not necessarily efficiency of action- the subtractive shop practices require a great deal of time, energy, and precision to achieve a quality result. When so much is reduced and laid bare, there is little room to conceal the gap or blemish. Surface quality, fit and finish become critical, and all take time. Similarly, the conceptual framework toward a 'subtractive' aesthetic was long in the making. 

        In the middle to late 20th century, the philosophical Venn diagrams of architects, engineers, and artists began to converge around the concept of  'less  is more' minimalism. For architects like Mies van der Rohe, it meant stripping down the forms of buildings themselves, removing the excesses of ornament and superfluous features. From the conceptual building blocks of the past, he was extracting the most meaningful and essential aspects. 

Untitled (1988-1991) by Donald Judd
(photo: Talmoryair)

       Engineers were developing subtractive systems as well, not as aesthetic statements but as practical and ideological aspirations towards optimally efficient and elegant solutions to mechanical problems. Fueled by emerging synthetic materials and the space race, engineering became focused on boosting performance while reducing weight and cost. 

      Finally, artists subtracted the figure (long a standard of Western art), first to more basic representation, and then completely, allowing geometric forms to speak for themselves, rather than as mouthpieces for allegories or metaphor. Just as in shop practices, sculpture's formal language had become more and more about surface quality, fit, and finish. These developments meant that beyond conceptual commonality, the tools and materials of these distinct fields would become shared, part of a new visual and structural language.