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Semiotic Series.
The process of VISUAL PERCEPTION.
The process of VISION.
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Looking at an object or a scene is performed in 2 modes. The information received is being processed for survival and adaptation first, and then for meaning (Semiotics). 1. Mode 1: I observe a target view.
2. Mode 2 : The target observes me. 3. When the view is a new environment, then the observer will unconsciously processes a Darwinian mind cycle for survival and adaptation. 4. When the view is another person, then a special process starts.
The process of VISION.
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Mode 1: I look (gaze) at the object. 1.1. Unconsciously, I check the Evolutionary Trajectory for safety.
1.3 I Prepare for action.
1.2. I start to analysis in search for meaning and sense giving in a Semiotic process.
The process of VISION.
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Mode 2: I am being observed by the view: the gaze.
!! Some elements will pop up with a personal as if the view reads my inner thoughts and
message, triggers me to take action.
The process of VISION.
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“ To perceive the World is to co-perceive oneself “. The viewing is an iterative process until a stable mental picture has been reached, or until a mental compromise for relevance is achieved.
I look to
The observing gaze (act)
I am looked at The internalizing on the Other
Foucault
The viewer differentiates (ask for details) and integrates the inputs ( tries to make sense of the inputs). This goes on till a stable view of the view is reached which is called an IMAGE. a detailed example : >>>
The process of VISION.
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To perceive the World is to co-perceive oneself. Differentiation.
The process of VISION.
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To perceive the World is to co-perceive oneself. Differentiation – Integration
We create a version of the view, an Image that fits best our own Self.
The process of VISION.
Psychoanalytic
In some cases people do not manage to re-integrate the parts of the picture and can make no sense of a whole. The person will focus on a specific part or element and getting obsessed what is called PARANOIA.
The process of iteration is interrupted and no stable and balanced meaning or sense is reached. This is mostly due to some blockage during infant development or to the unbalanced development of the EGO which has created a self image out of touch with the real person he or she is. This brings us in the field of Psychoanalyst.
The process of VISION
Psychoanalytic.
Looking at a scene might trigger the tension between DEMAND and DESIRE. Seeing an object might trigger an insatiable DEMAND to a specific object that becomes a fetish. Some woman buy a pair of shoes anytime they approach a shoe shop. By satisfying that need they hide a real suppressed DESIRE. In extreme cases this will be called NEUROTIC behaviour. The opposite does also exists. The object is at reach and needed, what should trigger the action to obtain the object. On the contrary it triggers an action to reject the needed product; what communicates an insatiable DESIRE. Anorexia is such a case: the food is there and the patient refuses to consume it...only to demonstrate her or his desire. [a desire is fundamentally barred from consciousness . A wish is something you want in conscious–Freud, Lacan] In all these cases the normal visual process get stuck and switches to a trajectory which can be pathologic; but in most cases will influence our behaviour or choices.....even the one for selecting a partners.
The process of VISION.
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The Darwinian cycle starts when a new scene is viewed. In the iteration of scanning the details of a view, there is a logical purpose in the sequence of the points of attention which are the primary instincts linked to survival, dominance and the generation of offspring. Here are the different steps we go through when we see a NEW unknown scene.
1
We first detect the
colours
and then ... is anything
moving?
The process of VISION.
2
3
... @ what distance ?
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flight or fight ?
is the Environment threatening ?
The process of VISION. 4
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Is the Environment supportive to me? Can I meet the challenges ? Are people supportive people ? Any Cooperative networks ?
The process of VISION. 6
‌ any mate for mating around ?
7
time for play and ‌ testing !
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The process of VISION. 8
is the place right for
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nesting‌ a
habitat for you ?
The process of VISION.
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‌ yes we can ! first we search for a match by checking on: face. body language. 9
eyes.
The process of VISION. 10 We look for
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values ... hoping to find happiness.
The process of VISION. 1111 12 13
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The Darwinian cycle ends when there is no priority actions needed and the view can take over the role to reveal its story or message.
●
OK, now I can listen
●
●
●
In fact I listen to what my unconscious tells and this is done in the Language from the unconscious.
The process of VISION.
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Mode 1: I look (gaze) at the object. 1.1 New object or scene : start a Darwinian cycle of observation. 1.2 No action required: start the processing for meaning. Mode 2: I am being observed by the view: the gaze.
1.2 No action required: start the processing for meaning.
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The physical processing will not be discussed here. The main thing is to know that a complex signal processing is behind, which converts an upside down picture and which codifies the distance and angles of the objects from the position of the eyes.
- The Mental processing: learning a new language is the next topic.
The process of VISION.
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The new Language by which the visual elements captured are converted in ‘meaning’, is different from our spoken and written languages. The study of SEMIOTICS helps to map how the new language operates as well as the knowledge of the UNCONSCIOUS. For the Unconscious we rely on the works of Freud and Lacan to map what might be of relevance in understanding the processes of view and gaze. Be aware also Freud and Lacan are not uncontested in their theories on the unconscious. We only can strife to reproduce a coherent picture. The content from psychoanalytical science is presented in
The process of VISION.
The Unconscious
Everything which serves externally to manifest our internally is called language. Language reproduces Reality.
Chomsky. Jacques Lacan.
Language fails to provide the ‘truth’ about himself; that’s why he will seek in the Image from others to identify himself. In the psychoanalysis 3 systems are recognised: pre-unconscious, unconscious and the conscious. Their mental functioning is different from the thoughtprocesses in the conscious. The primitive mental process of the unconscious flows freely to express unconscious wishes ( primitive hallucinations).
The process of VISION.
The Unconscious.
The primary processes do not recognise differences in time (past, present, future) , cannot express negation or contradictions. The dream thinks mainly in visual images. Freud. What we see insight is an image of what we have seen outside before. Consciousness can be controlled only for a tiny fraction by introspection. Niklas Nuhmann. This is demonstrated clearly in the forms of perceptions.
In Perception there are 2 modes: the reception of information via our senses, the mental insight following the reception.
The process of VISION.
The Unconscious
The percept in mode 1 is analysed on the content of information, salience (attractive) framing. in mode 2 is identity subjectivity the interpretative. Michael Forrester: Psychology of the Image -2000.
This is also expressed in the metaphors: knowing as seeing and seeing as knowing, indicating the difference between image/sensation and image/knowledge.
The Unconscious The unconscious is composed of signifiers in the dimensions of visual imaginary. This creates the condition for Language. Poetic language is close to the form of unconscious language. Laplanche. Grouped unconscious signifiers form an unconscious idea. Add to this a concrete plan and a verbal expression and you get a conscious idea. Lacan indicates 3 levels of being: - before the unconscious; what we cannot know. - between the unconscious as language and the conscious language. - between signifier and signified in conscious language.
From this Lacan derives that knowledge of the unconscious should come from what we know about language operates. Lacan comes to the conclusion that the Unconscious is purely and simply a discourse of signifiers ( without signified – so no signification given)
The Unconscious
A., != Signifiers in the Unconscious
Signifiers in the Conscious claim a signified.
The Unconscious is not the message, it is another text written underneath which must be read by illuminating from behind with the help of a developer. Leclaire: La rĂŠalite du dĂŠsir.
The process of VISION.
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Mode 1.
The book of nature is written with characters different from our alphabet. These characters are triangles, squares, circles, spheres, pyramids, cones and other geometric figures. Gallileo
There There exist universal shapes to which everyone is subconsciously conditioned and to which they which they can respond if their respond conscious control does not shut them off. Henri Moore
Shape is an exteriorisation of an internal meaning.
Wassily Kandinsky
The way our brain reads a view is by decoding colours, shapes, l i n e s and position s in search for feeling and meaning.
com
The process of VISION. Mode 1.
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the reading of Shapes : examples from Fashion. the shapes are : the female triangle, the male active triangle and the power base of the pentangle. In the example of elegance is the female triangle dominating together with the power pentangle.
When the main purpose is seduction by elegance the S curve will dominate male triangle.
together with the
The process of VISION. Mode 1.
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the reading of Compositions: examples from Fashion. this example combines Shape and Proportions.
The process of VISION. Mode 1.
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How Lines create messages. When looking at a picture, we unconsciously absorb the canvas of the lines which create the composition. The artist always start by balancing the canvas.
Some compositions can be very complex :
The process of VISION. Mode 1.
colours
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Colours play a special role in the creation of sentiment and meaning.
Cold
Warm
Example of social connotation Relationship with Shapes
The process of VISION. Mode 2.
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Mode 2: I am being observed by the view.
The canvas contains all possible lines, shapes, colours, figures and compositions that ever have been created or will be created by man or man/machine. The canvas asks the artist: which one do you want to show?
The process of VISION. Mode 2.
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Mode 1: I look (gaze) at the object.
Mode 2: I am being observed by the view. A particular view can trigger our unconscious to release inner messages. This is particular true in the process of viewing abstract art and bi-stable pictures.
bomb & BLUFF
Figure & Ground
The process of VISION. Mode 2.
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What I am seeking is not the real and not the unreal but rather the unconscious, the mystery of the instinctive in the human race. Modigliani. The person who views a piece of art is part of the process of art creation. The unconscious works much faster than what we can communicate in conscious mode. I am only the conscious part of the landscape which I paint.
CĂŠzanne .
The process of VISION. Mode 2.
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Mode 1: I look (gaze) at the object. 1.1 New object or scene : start a Darwinian cycle of observation. 1.2 No action required: start the processing for meaning. Mode 2: I am being observed by the view: the gaze. INTERPRETATION.
Mode 1 and mode 2 together brings us to the topic of INTERPRETATION. There is a wide scope of elements that will influence Interpretation. some are optical illusion based interpretations, other have a philosophical artistic interpretations, but all will be interpreted by the skills, personality, knowledge and mood from the person who looks at the picture, image, scene. Some examples follow:
The process of VISION. Interpretation.
psycho messages and optical effects.
What we see is not necessarily what ‘ is ’.
there is the painted landscape on the glass and the real landscape outside.
Renée Magritte
W
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The process of VISION.
Interpretation.
The example of looking at Art. Yet when an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected by a whole series of learnt assumptions about art. Assumptions concerning: Beauty Truth Genius Civilization Form Status Taste, etc. This is a commissioned painting where the commissioners expected to be reproduced with a message. The painter himself can put a hidden message from himself towards the viewer. There is the symbolic which dominate in any period of time and there are the cultural and esthetical norms valid in that period. The painter might have got the intention to depict the characters of the figurants, and the viewer will read the physiognomy differently. Ref. John Berger: Ways of Seeing
Frans Hals The women Regents from the Old Men’ s Home at Haarlem 1664
The process of VISION. Interpretation. The example of Art. For the Impressionists, the visible no longer presented itself to man in order to be seen.
Mary Cassatt Claude Monnet Ref. Wikipedia
The process of VISION. Interpretation.
The example of Art.
For the Cubist,s the visible was no longer what confronted the single eye, but the totality of possible views taken from points all round the object (or person) being depicted.
Paul Cézanne ( pré-cubism)
Albert Gleizes : L’homme au balcon. Ref. Wikipedia
Juan Gris: Portrait of Pablo Picasso
The process of VISION. Interpretation. 1. Mode 1: I observe a target view. 2. Mode 2 : The target observes me. 3. When the view is a new environment, then the observer will unconsciously processes a Darwinian mind cycle for survival and adaptation.
4. When the view is another person, then a special process starts. In the case when we observe another person we again can split in a mode 1 of intake of the direct information and a mode 2 where the other person will start talking to our inner(even if no direct gaze is exchanged or in case there is gaze of the other person, this person does not react with physiognomy or spoken language.
The process of VISION.
Interpretation.
Physiognomy and Body Language is a specific topic which also starts with a Darwinian observation cycle and a translation in primary unconscious signifiers as basic patterns.
Physiognomy Body Language
The process of Interpretation. In the Darwinian observation cycle goes the first and main attention to the eyes and the hands. ( 50 % of the connections in the brain are for the coordination between eyes and hands ). This is during the observation the continuous mode of priority attention. The other sequence is observation of the face, the neck, arms with the hands, the body/trunk the lower members. Then follows the check on the cohesion and balances on the body members and the whole which reveals the health of body and mind. Next goes the focus on the physiognomy of the face: eyes (shape, implant, expression), front (shape, size), implant of nose, chin, cheeks which are indicators for the character of the person.
The process of Interpretation. The response Gaze: The challenge to your Ego. Upon the conclusion from the Darwinian check cycle, will the gaze puzzle you the observer with questions. The gaze is not reflection on who that person is, what he does, likes or dislikes; no the gaze present a mirror to the observer. If I am the observer, I will start wondering how ‘ I ‘ can compare myself to the Other. This comparison is against the image I have from myself and that is my EGO, which is not the same as my Self. My Ego is absolute Imaginary build over time by association of images from Others and by attributing selected features of the Other to myself, the image of my own, my Ego. This is an extension of what happened in my childhood. Lacan. “ Looking at the Other, it encounters an uncomfortable resistance; a conscious look that is directed outwards into an self-consciousness that returns to its agents anxiety in relation to the scrutiny of an externalized anonymous Other. “ Lacan.
The process of VISION.
Interpretation. Psychoanalytic.
From psychosexuality follows that our psychic organisation strives to find an object that can satisfy our desire. The gaze of the other will initiate the
desire for the desire of the Other .
Lacan.
This principle finds it application intensively in Advertising; with the display of a person expressing a desire will psychologically transfer this desire to the viewer.
The process of VISION.
Interpretation. Psychoanalytic.
The desire for the DESIRE is processed in 4 steps.
1
2
3
Maurice Merleau -Ponty
.
4
-being for me -being for the other -the other being for me -the other for the other when in the gaze between one person and the other conflict arise, there might be a conflict in the person himself.
The process of Interpretation. ‘ My first instinct when I see an animal is to say “hello”. My first instinct when I see a person is to avoid eye contact and hope it
Your look on the world tells more of what is real.
goes away.‘
about yourself than it reveals
The process of VISION. Interpretation.
Your interpretations are
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BIASED !
There exist 19 kinds of Social Biases. 8 types of Memory failures can bias your interpretation. The Decision Making process can fail according 42 causes. There are 35 cases of Probability / Belief biases possible. Ref: http://www.scribd.com/doc/30548590/Cognitive-Biases-A-Visual-Study-Guide
“All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.� Friedrich Nietzsche.
the end of the presentation
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