From Step to Mark: Knowledge and the Proliferation of Undecidable Meanings between Trace, Experience, and Interpretation

Abstract

This contribution advances an operational thesis: drawing does not merely fulfill an illustrative function; rather, it constitutes a process that dynamically participates in the visual semantic field, acting as a cognitive engine within the creative act. Indeed, it selects, orders, and correlates dispersed data, transforming them into legible and debatable figures. This process is structurally akin to walking: both operate as iterative practices of orientation, grounded in rhythm, correction, and the progressive construction of meaning. Cartography is thus understood as an ‘already reinterpreted space’, a trace that directs the gaze and prefigures itineraries; yet, in the transition from the paper to the physical street, the initial direction does not predetermine the experience. While the trace guides the steps, it cannot govern material friction, micro-perceptual variations, the observer’s affective state, or the situated encounter with the landscape. This gives rise to a proliferation of partly undecidable meanings: the map and the layout generate knowledge not by confining reality within a single reading, but by triggering plural interpretations within shared constraints (scales, codes, sequences). The text integrates case studies and theoretical references: from John Snow’s epidemiological mapping as the graphic proof of a phenomenon, to schematic maps that orient without exhausting, through to the reading of historical routes as devices of memory and perception (Rutigliano). Through a neurocognitive lens, the in situ experience is interpreted as embodied cognition, wherein the environment activates perceptual-motor and affective responses (Gallese). Consequently, drawing –much like walking– becomes an integrated methodology to interpret territories, construct design themes, and render time operable within places.