The thing about lines

Paul Klee’s famous conception of drawing - as a ‘line [that] goes out for a walk’ - points to a significant question regarding agency and intentionality in design. In short, does the line ‘go out’ for a walk, or is it ‘taken’ for one? This paper questions whether the point, the line, and other potentially unconsidered actors, could have agency in the process of drawing, or whether this is something reserved for the intentional artist or architect alone. This paper engages the metaphysical framework of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) to explore this tension, suggesting that if the line were to sincerely ‘go out’ for a walk, then it is possible to imagine an expanded concept of agency beyond such intentional limitations. OOO is a philosophy founded on a realist structure of objects existing independently of their relations. In the object-oriented cosmos, everything is equally an object, including humans, nonhumans, non-living beings, and even non-physical and fictional entities. The radical levelling ambition of this ‘flat ontology’ highlights a curious and unresolved balancing of intentional humans alongside the many behavioural or inanimate ‘things’ of the cosmos. This paper thus engages the flat ontology of OOO alongside creative drawing practices, to reconsider agency as something not possessed by distinct beings engaged within any interaction, but rather in the interaction itself. This position critiques notions of control and certainty, offering a potential practice of kinship and collaboration in design, beyond the human sphere.