Gestalt: Psychological Closure

       This week's reading by Zettl: "The Two Dimensional Field: Forces Within the Screen" was particularly interesting to me as he talks about a variety of visual optical illusions. In the section where he talks about vertical versus horizontal, he mentioned that we as people have "applied" it to our civilization. The most obvious example of course is the architecture around us. Why are some buildings horizontal and why are some vertical? He claims that this is because horizontal images "suggest calmness, tranquility and rest," whereas vertical images suggest "dynamic, powerful, and exciting." I never noticed it, oddly enough as someone who grew up in a huge city with gigantic skyscrapers everywhere. But if I were to apply what he was saying about vertical versus horizontals, it definitely seems to me that houses, for instance are obviously horizontally shaped and generally flatter surfaces than say, big corporate office buildings. 

   But anyways enough about that. Although I'm not a psychology major, I find it absolutely fascinating, especially during the part where the author talks about this idea of psychological closure, which is called gestalt, a german word. At first it was kind of hard for my mind to wrap around what exactly he meant by this, as his definition was puzzling. He defines it as "a perceptual whole that transcends its parts." To break it down, I think the main concept is that the bigger picture as a whole is more important than the "sum of its parts," and he also says that our brains naturally fill in the gaps.  With this combination of psychology and visual art, I started googling examples of this and came across how gestalt can be applied and even used to enhance photographs. Photography is one of my favorite hobbies and interests, so naturally I was immediately drawn to this idea. With this particular image, this photographer only captured a close-up image of the top of what appears to be color pencils. Although you can't see the rest of the pencils, you know what they are because well, we've probably all been using them since kindergarten - so naturally therefore you put the missing pieces together.

In light of our next assignment that is going to be a video, I thought I would look up some examples of this concept, gestalt, in film. I came across so many that I wanted to share, but I thought this advertisement for Baskin Robbins in South Korea was hilarious!! All jokes aside though, I thought their use of gestalt was actually somewhat effective as well! 

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Sports Media Podcast

Perception

In part 3 of Virillo's Open Sky, he talked about perception and how it can be deceiving, and proceeds to raise an important question: "Are we free, truly free, to choose what we see?" (95) Virillo claims that we are in fact, "clearly not" but at the same time, reasonably he also defends the idea that we are not actually obliged or forced against our will to see what we see as well. I personally don't believe that we are obligated, as human beings, to see anything that we don't want to see. I guess it also depends on what he means by the actual things that we see. Is he referring to crime? poverty/beggars/homeless people/etc? General sights that, to society, has taught us are not necessarily the most pleasing to the eye? It seems to me, that he is almost insensitive in saying that we don't have the freedom to see what we see. Some things are just a part of life that are inevitable and we cannot avoid, so we might as well embrace it. Or maybe even change the sights that you don't want to see. Within reason, of course. I guess what I'm saying is, I don't believe that anyone really has the power to make us see what we don't want to see.

In From Sexual Perversion to Sexual Diversion, it actually made me quite sad to read about how people are deliberately coming up with ways that can actually replace human interaction. Call me old-schooled, but I just don't really believe that physical interaction can be that easily substituted, and is kind of insulting if anyone would actually think that some kind of technology in replacement of me, is fulfilling, or worse, better than me! I suppose I could see the appeal with couples doing long-distance relationships, I suppose it would be better than nothing, and maybe even it would eliminate temptation of cheating. But at the same time, I feel like someone in a committed relationship shouldn't need some kind of technology to fulfill their desires, to stay committed. But nevertheless, in the midst of trying to fathom Virillo's argument, I wanted to knwo what kind of technology is really being pushed out there for these types of situations. I came across this "blue tooth hand held" device introduced at a Japanese tech expo. Turns out, one of their biggest mobile carriers, DoCoMo came up with what they called "Taion Heart" shaped like a plastic heart.

Here's their description of this device: "When given a squeeze, the device would measure the rate of your heart and the tightness of your grip. This info would be transmitted to your partner’s phone, and then to his or her matching device, which would get warm and light up into a variety of colors — while vibrating according to your pulse of course." 

And more: “Couples can use it by each person holding the heart in bed as they sleep,” DoCoMo told the press. Edgar Allen Poe would be so into this."

Source: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/tech-support-technology-for-getting-really-intimate-in-a-long-distance-relationship

Law of Least Action

Law of Least Action.

      I'm sorry, but what?? Is this what our society has come down to? That we are so lazy that we can't even physically take a couple of minutes in our day to open the blinds, turn on the lights, little things in our houses that doesn't even require us to leave the house? That's just unacceptable. People blame US's high obesity rate on the fact that they serve food with way too much sugar in it. After reading this chapter, in particular the section where he mentions "Law of Least Action,"I beg to differ for obvious reasons...not that I'm particularly active or anything, but it definitely isn't encouraging me to get my butt off the bed to hear that they're finding ways so that I don't even ever have to leave it anymore. With communication though, obviously there are perks to not having to hand deliver everything. Although I will say it really isn't quite as sentimental when you get an email or message on Facebook, as opposed to a handwritten letter or postcard. Think about it. Someone was actually thinking about you, with the intent of putting effort into whatever they were writing, then had to go through the trouble of mailing it. All of that takes a lot of effort. Today I actually did receive a postcard from a friend studying abroad in Germany which totally would have been different if she had Facebook messaged me, and it totally made my day.

     I also found it particularly interesting on page 57, when he talks about Shinohora's notion that "the city of the future will express the beauty of confusion." This is oddly profound to me, in an almost eerie way. I keep thinking back to the movie IRobot from years ago and how the robot eventually becomes evil or something like that, and Will Smith has to fight them off. Especially when Virillo then says, "I am on the other hand, quite convinced that it will in the near future illustrate the tragedy of the fusion of the 'biological' and the 'technological.'" I'm not too sure what he means by that, but perhaps it isn't always a bad thing. Perhaps technology can make the biological more powerful, but i guess then again in those make-believe action movies it always seems that some greedy villain finds a way to make himself more powerful using technology, and then using his newfound power to disrupt the once quiet and peaceful community/village. Maybe this isn't really the same thing (if at all), but I know that those with severe back issues can have spinal surgery, replacing the bone with metal. Which is sort of technology and biological fusion. Sort of.

Open Sky: Part I

         After reading and re-reading again Part I of Open Sky, it seems to me that what Virillo is trying to make a case out of, is simply that we as human beings are moving too fast. He implies this in several different examples, complete with the definition of literal speed which is velocity. One of the things that stuck out to me when reading this was when he mentioned "The urbanization of real space is thus being overtaken by this urbanization of real time which is, at the end of the day, the urbanization of the actual body of the city dweller." It made me think of some computer software program thing called Second Life that my Intro to Comm professor mentioned, which is essentially designed for people to live "digitally," sort of like your playing sims but actually believing you are the character you choose in the program. To me, that is really sad. No judgement or anything (okay maybe a little...) but you're not really living life if your living through a machine. For someone who is handicap/disabled, there is definitely something appealing I could see, as they don't have the same abilities that normal people do and can't function the same way.

         Things definitely got more interesting when he talked about the debate between Auguste Rodin and Paul Gsell, and how the sculptor said that "No, it is art that tells the truth and photography that lies, for in reality time does not stand still." But wouldn't you be able to argue the same thing about art? What people paint, or sculpt or anything art-related for that matter, is capturing an image. By committing the act of capturing, isn't that considered "a moment frozen in time?" Virillo then, compares all of that with videos, which of course is where time does not stand still and is in fact constantly moving. I thought it was kind of a unique perspective to say that the transition from photography to video is essentially similar to that of the transition from daylight to electricity. Never thought about it in that way before.

         Thinking about the transition of art -> photography -> video, then I thought about what the next big thing could be. In relation to Virillo's whole obsession with speed/velocity, I thought about stop-motion videos, which I think are incredibly fascinating. A friend first told me about it when we were applying to universities, and she had decided to make a stop motion video of her experience as a track runner in high school. I don't have her video but I went on youtube and looked up some pretty cool post it stop -motion video.

How Greenville Gives Back to the Community

             Generous Garden Project   

Video:

The first picture I chose to edit were these rows of plants in the Aquaponic's center. I knew immediately what I had to do to fix this image, which is basically to increase the contrast, in order for each plant to stand out more. I also wanted the leaves of the plants to be more apparent and obvious so I lightened them a little as well.

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After:

         

This is a picture of parsley, which is a type of vegetable that they also grow in the aquaponic's center, pretty much all year round I believe. Although the before and after pictures don't look too much different, I wanted to be able to showcase the name of the vegetable, which I did by making the "parsley" stick/sign more obvious/clear. The second row of leaves are also much more clear in the after picture then the before. 

Before:

         

After:

        

What I didn't know previously about Generous Garden Project is that they also work with a lot of big corporations that donate things like mowed grass, which they use as compost for plants. Since GGP is all about "hands-on" teaching farming, they also believe that it should start at a young age. This is a little garden, sponsored by the company General Electrics, where GGP invites young children that are mostly elementary school aged to learn the basics about organic farming. Because this was such a big part of what they do, I really wanted to make the image brighter as the sun was shining down on it, to promote the adorable paintings on the fence!

Before:

           

After:

    

Usually I wouldn't just take a picture of grass, because I mean I feel like it's a pretty cheap shot, not very original, it's everywhere, and frankly it's not even that attractive! But I felt the need to, because when Anthony, the owner of GGP was giving me a tour, he literally grabbed a handful of the mowed grass to emphasize the fact that they really put every single scrap of anything really to use, as a resource for farming. I don't know much about farming, but I thought it was cool that these big corporations actually come in every few months to donate massive amounts of grass, which GGP can use to its advantage efficiently. Since this object was so close up, I wanted to emphasize each of the pieces of grass so that people's eyes immediately become sucked into the image of the grass (wow that sounds so weird)

Before:

        

After:

Well since the whole GGP project was essentially designed for volunteers to grow crops and give them to the needy, I thought it was only appropriate to take a wide screen ish shot of their garden. Which, fyi, I really didn't do it justice, the garden is beautiful! I did the best I could by brightening up the image by changing the contrast, as well as in the "color variations" tool, I took advantage of the handy dandy tool "Lighten" to just make all the plants look all the more fresh and apparent.

Before:

After: