Livingstone already examined artistic representation as 2-D depiction of a 3-D world. Now she looks at paintings as still depictions of a world full of motion. In a sense we are now urged to think about artistic representation in a 4-D world, with the addition of motion through time as a key aspect of human perception. Arnheim explores the concept that viewing of art always consists of time and motion. The viewer perceives any artistic work using his eye movement to perceive each part through time. However, Arnheim argues that order or eye movement in perceiving a work of art does not matter. Arnheim points to evidence from eye scans (Livingstone shows an example of this on page 78). Does anyone know if there is, in fact, canonical order of eye movements in viewing art? Or in viewing human faces? Arnheim goes on to apply the basic principles of Gestalt to art as 4-dimensional. Through time the brain must grasp the whole significance of artistic works and the whole work must be simultaneously present in the mind. He states that time creates succession, however, the artist (and the brain) must create the order or progression through time.
Livingstone writes about how we maintain stability despite the movement of our eyes and explains that the brain remaps to compensate for eye movement. In studying infant perception for another class, I’ve been intrigued by how perception is inextricable from action and movement. I realized how much we take for granted what our body must do to allow for visual attention. For infants, visual perception, attention and focus is linked with the ability to control body movement, to hold the head and torso upright. There is a huge amount of work done in order to coordinate the motion of the body, the eyes and the external world with visual perception.
Arnheim writes about the distinction between our kinesthetic reactions to inanimate vs. inanimate objects. He argues that endowing inanimate movement with life or consciousness is something that children and artists can access. He gives a great example of a thunderstorm that may be alive to a film director. I find this interesting considering studies of mirror neurons that question whether such neurons are activated by observation of human actions or actions of inanimate objects as well. Interestingly, some studies have showed that people with autism show mirror neuron activation in observations of objects more than in observations of actions of people. This calls to mind the importance of mirror neurons for basic social cognition. I believe that these studies really speak to Arnheim’s discussion of the differences between “expressive impulses and responses” in contrast to “the mechanical effect of physical action (402).” Arnheim seems to see the human body as unique in its motion because of the forces from within the organism. He argues that dance is created more from kinesthetic rather than visual understanding. Considering the evidence from the development of infant perception and the existence of mirror neurons, I believe that visual and kinesthetic senses are perhaps even more closely related than Arnheim states here. In addition, there may be something particular about human action and kinesthetic empathy that is crucial for humans as social beings.
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In his movement chapter Arnheim cleared up a mystery for me about old cars. I've always wondered why drivers used to operate their vehicles so fast and recklessly. It never occurred to me that it had to do with the speed of the film that captured the motion. ah ha.
I was fascinated by this whole section on how we perceive motion through film and how the mechanics of old crank cameras allowed for the manipulation of this perception.
Also, as a set designer I was interested in what Arnheim had to say about motion on stage and how it is perceived by the audience depending on the "frame of reference" of the stage. I had never thought of a set a stable frame to dictate the perception of motion and speed of motion.
While reading Livingstone and Arnheim, I was fascinated and impressed by both the perceptual feats achieved by the brain and our complete ignorance of them. The fact that when we move our heads, we realize that our heads are moving and not the room we see around us is pretty incredible. Our brains are able to notice what is moving and what is stationary with incredible precision and to separate the two streams of information in order to give us a perception of the world that we can use to our maximum advantage.
I was going to write "an accurate perception of the world" there, but stopped myself when I considered the fact that our mind's interpretation of movement in the world around us is not always accurate given what we know about it. For example, as Arnheim states, we see the sun move across the sky when it is really the Earth that is moving. That our perception deceives us in this way is not surprising to me. After all, why would it be important for us to know that the sun is stationary relative to the Earth? It is more important that our brains evolve in a way that will aid with our survival rather than achieve a perception that matches reality completely. Thus, we have achieved a system that consistently separates figure from ground and tends to see the figure, rather than its surroundings, as in motion. It is this system that allows us to hunt and to recognize predators.
Arnheim might have pointed out that if we were to see the sun and the Earth from a different viewpoint in which their relative sizes and positions in the galaxy were obvious, we would see the Earth as moving and the sun as stationary. After all, we are able to see a plane in motion from on the ground, but not while we are in the plane. Our point of view limits the accuracy of our perception, but that doesn't mean that we are incapable of perceiving things as they really are.
I am interested in the " frame of reference" that Gordon mentions. With perception of motion in space, there are many different ways to create this frame. If I am thinking about this correctly, the movement itself can be the reference as well. For example, if a choreographer sets a constant in the space like a repetitive phrase of movement, and the other dancers do movements that branch from this phrase. The constant movement functions as the frame? The frame can also be an actual physical set piece too.
Also, I am wondering if movements that return through out a piece like a motif could be a sort of frame of reference? The audience will perceive the motions in reference to each other. They would see the recognizable motif as the constant frame of reference. The other movements without the constant as reference would be perceived differently.
I also found it interesting, how as Living stone pointed out, there can be more movement in a static and abstract image than in one depicting a scene full of movement. Using the examples of Mondrian's "Broadway Boogie Woogie" and Poussin's "the rape of the sabine women." Here, the purely perceptual factors of luminance override the more high level, subjective factors to create movement.
Like Madeline and Cavin mentioned, I also found Arnheim's discussion of the frame of reference interesting. Again, there is a hierarchy of simplicity which a multitude of factors influence to create a singular perceptual reality. The sun or Moon example is such a common sight. In this case the scale determines our understanding of which element is the figure and which is ground in the movement.
I was also very interested in arnheim's discussion of the attribution of human qualities to simple visual cues. Why would we need to describe a black square as "chasing" the red square etc. I guess this relates back to questions of memory and the integration of subjectivity into the physiological.
I am very interested in the relative motion of objects. I think it is incredible that despite the fact we move our eyes constantly, we are accurately able to perceive the world as stable, unmoving and our own senses as moving. What I find confounding about this situation is that the relative motion of objects also effect our perception. As Danielle mentioned, our visual perception separates figure from ground and tends to see the figure as moving and the ground as stationary. Thus, the sun, which appears as the figure in the ground of sky, seems to move across the sky, even though we know that the earth actually rotates around the sun. In smaller, less grand situations, the tricks of relative motion are evident. For instance, who has not sat on a subway car that had stopped and watched a train pass it in the opposite direction and felt as though their train was actually still in motion. I noticed this the last time I went into the city; my body actually got confused for a moment about which train was moving. This is also true, even when both trains are moving. If they are moving together, they appear relatively stationary, because the same portion of the train is perceived. If they are moving in opposite directions, their relative speeds appears much faster than their actual speeds, due to the different directions of travel.
I think the that Gordon makes about the frame of reference is also at play in this situation.
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