patternsthatconnect

I saw this Blog the other day

Hi The Art Gallery is over.  I still feel compelled to paint.  Over the next four days I will be sharing four new peices that have arisen since the show.  Again, each will have somewhat of a synopsis but no real explaination.  I have also put up a ‘Gallery’ in the Art section of this site.  Enjoy:) … Read More

via Love, Art & Fear

and then I started wondering about how it works (the image that is, not the blog)

Am I right in thinking that it relies on

1. the closeness of the lines near where the ‘circles’ appear to throb (close but not converging),
2. that the repeated motif is not quite symmetrical, and
3. most of all, on tonal contrast?

What would happen if you loosened the closeness of the lines, introduced colour and reduced the tonal contrast?

How brilliant is this? (a reblog of Michael’s blog, that quotes Richard Wiseman’s blog…) You just click on ‘Read More’ and follow the instruction to follow the instructions in the image. It only takes a few seconds to do, and I think you will love it when you actually do it. See if you can resist smiling!

This was published on Richard Wiseman’s blog today. It’s your own personal rainbow! Follow the instructions in the image. … Read More

via Michael’s Blog

I saw this wonderful blog post recently on optical illusions. It’s like a brief survey of three different types of illusion. Some interest me a lot more than others. I have my doubts about whether illusion  is really the best word, especially if we allow the suggestion that there is a real out there that we misinterpret. I don’t think that’s it. Anyway, check out the first three that come under the category ‘Physiological Illusions’.

Have you ever heard of Optical Illusion? Optical Illusion is also known as the visual illusion. Illusion occurs when we observe things, our brain perceive images that are different from the reality. When our eyes are “illusioned”, they send the wrong information to the brain that is different from the actual thing. There are three different kinds of optical illusions. literal optical illusion, physiological illusion, and cognitive illusions. Lite … Read More

via SHUFFLE

Joel was right! some of us need help to see optical effects. In my recent blog I asked viewers to look at a painting and to note what they saw. I then brought their attention to the subjective formation of white discs. I added a poll to find out how many people saw the white discs without being helped, how many saw them as a result of being helped and whether anyone was unable to see the white discs even after having been directed towards them

When I last looked  we were getting something close to a 50/5o split between “I saw with aid” and “I saw without aid” (with 14% claiming  not to have seen the white discs at all).

I know the research would be much more conclusive with 420 or 4,2000 participants, rather than the 42 that have actually taken part so far. However, if these results are anything like typical of the general population, I suggest they show that there is a role for curators to help us to see. I have often been suspicious of labelling works of art in galleries because the label (a linguistic filtering process) could get in the way of the primary experience (pre-linguistic) of the viewer. Yet, we have seen that helping us to observe what’s there is helpful for something like 50% of us.

I suggest that, in looking at art, we differentiate between the three ‘stages’ of viewing: 1)observation, 2)interpretation and 3) judgement. I could argue that curators more readily help us to do 2 and 3 and that 1 is a more ethical space to occupy.

Oh! And for those who claim not to be able to see the white discs, this is where to look:

Marked to give you an idea - you won't see them where I have drawn round them, but if you look in the corresponding places elsewhere on the grid, then you will, no doubt, see them

My son Joel suggested that some people tend only to see optical effects when someone else brings them to their attention. Will you join me in an experiment?

Look at this painting and note what you see, especially noticing the optical effects.

Glow Grid: abbiedawn, 13 05 11, Acrylic on Canvas, 61cm x 61 cm

Now, did you see the white discs in the middle of the squares, secondary in intensity to the coloured discs, or is it only now I have mentioned it that you can see them?

Please let me have your answer by using this poll

Thanks for your help.

I got the following little exercise from a paper by Donald D. Hoffman. It is possible to see one of two cubes here. (You can see them both, but not at the same time.)

The subjective Necker cube (Bradley and Petry, 1977)

One has corner A in front (cube A), and one has corner B in front (cube B).

Which of the two cubes do you see first?

Whichever one you see first, note that you’ve seen it, and then allow it to shift, so that you see the other one. Amazing, isn’t it? (Maybe it’s childish of me to get so fascinated by this and to keep on shifting from one to the other just for fun.)

If there were two of you viewing this figure together, one of you could be viewing cube A and one of you could be viewing cube B, thus seeing a different cube even though you are looking at the same thing. Then, when it shifts, one could turn to the other and say “I’m seeing the same one as you now” and the other reply “no I am not seeing that one any more, I am seeing the other one”. You could continue to look at the same thing together and both continue to see a different cube, even after it has shifted.

Now the important questions: where is cube A when you are viewing cube B? and what are the implications for our everyday perception of the world?