I wrote to you in a previous blog about two images shot from variable angles then, merged into a single image to exaggerate the sense of stereopsis and motion. (All previous blogs are at the website.) I wrote to you about our inability to sustain two different images simultaneously. We must alternate between interpretations. Therefore, whenever we are given an ambiguous image, an enigmatic image, we choose an interpretation. We may choose between different interpretations but, we choose them sequentially, not all at once. Our brain allows only one image identification at one instant. We can retain and retrieve more but, visualize one at a time. Because of our predisposition to identify, because we must place experience into categories, even for an image which wants to lie outside of categories, we will provide a guess for any complex image . If we can’t guess, hypothesize, then we become agitated and move on or, we do not see the image. We ignore and discount what we can not categorize . When confronted, we force the cloak of meaning onto the enigma. In my first example, I present an interior painting by the 17th century Dutch artist, Pieter De Hooch. Next, I layer that painting with another image of museum visitors. By merging the two images I offer you a new image to create a new unified narrative; “Visitors Who Stroll Through a Painting”. The effect is to show the mind’s eye as it visits a painting in a museum. Like a novel in which we lose ourselves, we can also lose ourselves in the experience of the painting. We share the space and the story with the painting’s elements. An alternative interpretation could be, “Characters from a Pieter De Hooch Interior Set Up Their Table in a Museum.” In my third example, I offer another interior by Pieter De Hooch followed by the same painting but, layered with visitors. Here a tourist reads a map or maybe an explanatory brochure to help engage her with the painting but, looking at art is easier than that. The tourist only needs to look into the painting to realize she is already in the painting, and she has brought parts of her environment with her. She is already having the experience. Finally, I offer the unity of texture and image. I have overlaid a Ruben’s drawing onto an image of three women strolling through Grand Central Station. Ruben’s drawing is theatrical; its motion is dramatic. The women’s motion is ordinary but, elevated by their interaction with the narrative and texture of Ruben’s work.
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