PERCEIVING SPACE

The book I have been reading recently, House of Leaves, shows a different concept of space changing in response to what a character is seeing/expecting. It refers to dark corridors and staircases that expand and contract in response to characters' fears and anxieties about it.

Some critics believe the house's mutations reflect the psychology of anyone who enters it. Dr Haugeland asserts that extraordinary absence of sensory information forces the individual to manufacture his or her own data.(...) the house, the halls, and the rooms all become the self - collapsing, expanding, tilting, closing, but always in perfect relation to the mental state of the individual.

Experienced or concrete space:                                                                                                          It has a center which is perceiving man, and it therefore has an excellent system of directions which changes with the movement of the human body.; it is limited and in no sense neutral, in other words it is finite, heterogeneous, subjectively defined and perceived; distances and directions are  fixed relative to man...

Both here and in Repulsion we deal with space that changes when seen by different people, or even the same people in a different state of mind. There is a few differences such as the scale of changes to spaces and whether it is space that is haunted or a person, but at certain level both come down to how the space is perceived.       

BETWEEN YOU AND I

Recently I have seen Anthony McCall exhibition. Four of his light films were projected in a dark space. The light cut through darkness of the exhibition hall marking lines on the floor and moving slowly. What was the show's main strength was its simplicity, all the elements including the interior space were minimal and this only highlighted the projected films and forced the viewer to focus on them and follow the movement of the lines.

The darkness filling the room also forced one to focus on works in a more direct way - not only the works stood out but also were the only point of reference for the viewer. Coming from bright spaces into a dark area as such, it took me about 10-15 minutes to fully adjust and be able to see anything other than the projections. This may be linked also to films' duration - they are all about 15 minutes long.

GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

The German word Gestalt means essence or shape of an entity's complete form. This theory deals with the perception of reality as a whole rather than sum of elements. The Gestalt effect is the form-generating ability of our senses to recognize forms and figures rather than collection of lines and curves.

The whole is greater than the sum of parts.

Principle of totality: the conscious experience must be considered by taking into account all the physical and mental aspects of the individual simultaneously.

We order our experience in a manner that is regular, orderly, symmetric and simple.

Gestalt laws:

Law of closure - the mind experiences elements it does not see in order to complete a regular figure.

Law of similarity - the mind groups similar elements into collective entities or totalities.

Law of proximity - spatial or temporal proximity of elements may induce the mind to perceive a         collective or totality.

Law of symmetry - symmetrical images are perceived collectively even in spite of distance.

Law of continuity - the mind continues visual, auditory and kinetic patterns.

Law of common fate - elements with the same moving direction are perceived as a collective or unit.

OPTICAL ILLUSIONS

During my research I came across some interesting optical illusions that also make one look closer at how we perceive things we see.

The most striking one, however simple, is Kanizsa triangle:

In the drawing we see a triangle although it is not drawn. The effect is known as subjective/illusory contour.                                                                        Also, the nonexistent white triangle appears to be brighter that the surrounding area but in face is the same brightness as the background.                          In a broader context this makes one wonder how much of what we see is objective and how much of visual information we receive is actually our brain's personal response to what we see.                              That then leads to two conclusions: firstly how we perceive the world around us is subjective; even if we share the same response it is likely that it will not be the same exact thing we are looking at.

Secondly, it is sometimes more important what we do not see but understand clearly from the picture. As the brightness of the triangle in the drawing suggests what we do not see becomes more apparent than the visible.

Another interesting optical illusion is Necker cube:

with all lines of equal weight there is no indication as to which is the front and which is the back of the cube.                                                              There are two possibilities as the two bottom drawings show, however the cube in its simplest form does not show which of them is correct.
This leads then to confusion and forces one's mind to skip between the two possibilities, as explained in Gestalt psychology theory.

PSYCHOLOGY AND SPACE DEPICTION

The theme for this project is the link between mental condition of a protagonist and space depiction in cinema, based on Polanski's Repulsion.
While researching the connection between space perception and psychology I came across several interesting points. While not all of them relate to the project topic directly, I find them worth mentioning as they enrich my understanding of how we look at and see objects. Also, while some of the information appears obvious at its core, making it explicit forces us to realize the mechanisms of how we respond to some visual data.

1. What is perception then? The most brief and to-the-point definition I have found states that it is the process  of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information. This is a very broad definition, however it addresses the matter immediately. It is not restricted to vision specifically but addresses the main specifics of perception in general, whether visual, auditory etc. Since one gains understanding of a piece of information at hand, it will be a personal comprehension of such. Therefore this definition not only points what perception is but also describes it's qualities. It also suggests that all personal (if different) responses are theoretically correct.

2. We perceive the whole of a physical structure when only parts of it are actually seen. This is called amodal perception. This is part of our everyday experience that we take for granted but having read it made me realize how little attention we pay to this phenomenon. If we see someone behind metal bars we perceive them as a whole object rather that parts that are actually visible through the fence. It comes so naturally that we barely realize it unless we try to draw it.

3. Objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard or touched. This is the rule of object permanence. Again, while we assume it as obvious, how many time have we forgotten about an issue at hand as soon as we did not see it/listen to it? The old saying out of sight out of mind seems to reflect it perfectly.

4. Another interesting concept related to space perception is holism, stating that the properties of a system cannot be explained or defined by its parts alone. This derives from classical philosophy with Aristotle's Metaphysics statement: The whole is different from the sum of its parts. While it partly relates to amodal perception, it also suggests that spaces (in this context) are not defined merely by the lines and contours. The perception is of space is affected by additional factors such as ambience and these add to all the elements alone, frequently changing the whole perception of the given space.


All of the above information have been sourced from Wikipedia, with own comments and reflections.

SITC SPACES

SPATIAL STRATEGIES

Towards the end of previous project I realized I wanted to focus more on the filming techniques.

I would like to look into how different ways of filming an object or space  can affect the way we see it, alter the mood and perception.

Recently I have been looking at early Polanski's films, focusing on representation of space and its meaning. My research is still in progress, however I have seen his early films shot during his Film School studies and also two of his early feature films.

The films I have seen so far are:

A Murderer (1955)

A Toothful Smile (1957)

Break up the Dance (1957)

Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958)

The Lamp (1959)

When Angels Fall (1959)

The Fat and the Lean (1961)

Mammals (1961)

Knife in the Water (1962)

Repulsion (1965)

One characteristic that most of them have in common is the way the space is shown. Whether the set / locations are spacious or small, they are often represented as small, dark, crowded. This gives them a claustrophobic, almost oppressive appearance, especially in Repulsion.

On a closer look I have realized that this is not because of actual spatial restrictions. It is in fact purposeful director's decision to show them in this manner to accentuate the mood, make the ambience of the film more apparent.

By using close-ups and mid-shots when filming interior spaces the director instantly makes them look smaller than they actually are. They are often filled with people to the point there is no space left between them which also gives the impression the locations are too small, at the same time indicating a change in plot / an important moment in the film.

Another means of manipulating the way we view the spaces in Polanski's films is the way light is used in them. They are covered in darkness at moments of tension and bright during peaceful, uneventful scenes.

Repulsion (1965)

Knife in the Water (1962)

Another interesting idea of how we perceive space in film came from a friend.

We were watching one of Polanski's shorts, Mammals, below and we clearly had a very different understanding of the space within the film:

Some time throughout the film, she noticed that there was no real space there. This immediately rang a bell - what she saw as a flat was a perfectly normal winter landscape for me. It gives another insight into how we understand spaces we see depending on our experience and knowledge.

SITC PROJECTIONS

I continued my experiments with SITC movie, this time projecting it onto a simple three-dimensional installation and filming it. The result looks like a split screen video, consisting of several separate elements. This has especially strong effect on the time lapse part where I was no longer watching what was happening (purpose of our activities) but focused on movement instead.

What did not work as expected is lack of perspective in the film. The video I have made looks flat and requires further experiments. I will test how it works with different distances for depth as well as light and perhaps a better camera as possible. I will also look for opportunities to project it onto existing buildings and spaces to get a real spatial effect.