Movement can be instigated by and product of forces in the world acting upon one another. I was aware how intricate all the bodily systems are and how easily one influences another, but the discussions of physical, optical and perceptual movement As with most parts of visual perception, the brain has a system of expectation and organization for movement as well. The laws of organization that our brain is accustomed to are broken intoa hierarchical system. The brains inherent belief that if something is in motion, it is less likely to change than if it is stagnant. The brains categorization of movement is further specified as Albert Michotte showed the brain trusts the consistency of directed motion over that of color consistency. I appreciated the incorporation of several types of arts. The discussion of dance made many of the explanations about movement more tangible. Arnheim brings up several times that human body experiences movement in several ways, all effecting one another. The dancer experiences force through motion the viewer experiences the force by watching the dancer move.I though that the image examples in Arnheim for this particular chapter were most helpful. Braque's "Man with a Guitar" evokes the feeling of motion using several techniques.The rigid shapes provide force against the more subdued, blurred back ground. within a painting. The overlapping lines show chaos but somehow provide direction. These same overlaps, along with the color tones and shading create concavities and convexities down the whole piece. He also brings up how important movement is in sculpture. I have seen several pieces of sculpture, especially installations where the space and the movement within it makes the piece.
When I first began this weeks readings I was thinking about how fast our culture moves and it's effect on our visual perception. On p. 384, mentions that our vision has evolved to fit our essential needs for survival. Has our visual attention span been shortened? In the days of MTV and high definition action movies our brains have to be altered from that of someone who lived pre technology. Our visual attention span is only seconds long, I find myself wondering when is our brain at full capacity with visual stimuli?
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It is very interesting that you bring up HD TVs! I always thought that it was silly to pay extra money for High Definition because at first, I could hardly notice the difference. However, now that films come out in IMAX on the regular, I can't help but notice the difference! I was in Sears the other day marveling at how I could practically walk through the TV! In addition to that, I was watching some silent comedy films for my film class. Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin relied heavily on movement to portray their sight gags and slapstick comedy.
I find the comments about our fast-moving culture of particular interest to my conference project. I am looking at the evolution of museum displays over time. One of the things I have noticed is in recently redone halls at the museum of natural history, in addition to the static displays of years past, there are new additional "attention-grabbing" videos. The still images of dioramas are no longer sufficient to hold a person's attention and must now be added to with movies and interactives such as touch-screen computers. These are now more stimulating to the visual systems that are more used to movement, movement, movement.
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