I found one of the most interesting elements of this weeks reading in Arnheim’s discussion of balance and the interactions of part and whole. Arnheim says: “Whatever happens at any one place is determined by the interaction between the parts and the whole”. As we discussed last week, the juxtaposition of certain colours will alter how we perceive them. This is however, is not limited to the perceptive neurological responses that we discussed when focusing on color, or even to Arnheim’s examples involving the balance of shapes. As Arnheim points out: every visual experience is embedded in a context of space and time- not only by neighbouring objects in space, but events that precede it in time as well as the wishes and fears of the observer. I found this extremely interesting alongside the more physiological readings of the past weeks. It seems very important to look at both of these angles in order to get a full understanding of how complex our perceptive system is. It is amazing how the brain can, in a flash, integrate the high and low level perception into an understanding of one’s surroundings.
Visual agnosia, or the inability to grasp a pattern as a whole, was an interesting example of how the brain can be missing certain parts of this delicate equation, with an unimaginable result. I have consistently found these discussion of the various deficiencies with their multiple sources and results very intriguing.
I find Arnheim’s explanations extremely thought provoking, but somewhat lacking in the description of the more subjective processes. Granted, it is much more difficult to taxonomically define more subjective processes. My discomfort however, probably arises from my lack of experience in the field of psychology and my background in politics, aesthetics and economics. In these fields I have developed an understanding of the world that perceives an individual’s subjective reality as the effects of man-made structures and institutions. These structures arise out of historical processes and are maintained by certain assumptions that are embedded culturally and transmitted through dominant paradigms. Thus I have a bit of trouble simply viewing perception in such an objective and categorical frame work.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
“Whatever happens at any one place is determined by the interaction between the parts and the whole”
I also found this bridging of gestalt perceptual/visual forces and the more over arching contextualized understanding of art to be interesting. Arnheim objectively presents the separate and integrated dynamics of art in terms of the complex systems neurological systems and linear visual analysis of art. This is where I think Zac and I take a bit of issue. Yes, I am convinced that visual perception of a work underlines the importance of the work, “mobilizes space”, and that “What he [the artist] creates with physical materials are experiences,” however there is a greater context in which art lives. I agree with Zac that there are political and historical pretexts which people bring to there perception, and is not perceptions, cognition, memory, and experience integrated in a similar vein to layers of feedback in visual processing. It seems as though there is more a significance on reading design, like Gordon brings up, in Arnheim’s notions of visual perception. However, Arnhiem does bring up an interesting slight counter balance when he speaks on top bottom processing and the uses of “environmental orientation” in Andrea Mantegna’s ceiling painting. Also, I keep thinking about a text written by Hans Haacke that might add to this debate,
“A ‘sculpture’ that physically reacts to its environment and/or affects its surroundings are no longer to be regarded as an object. The range of out side factors influencing it, as well as its own radius of action, reach beyond the space it materially occupies. It thus merges with the environment in a relationship that is better understood as a ‘system’ of interdependent processes… Such independence does not permit him to assume his traditional role of being the master of the sculpture’s program (meaning), rather the viewer now becomes a witness. A system is not imagined; its real.”
Post a Comment