From: CTheory Editors [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 23 October 2002 19:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Article 115 - Towards a New Kinetic Art
_____________________________________________________________________
CTHEORY THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE VOL 25, NO 3
*** Visit CTHEORY Online: http://www.ctheory.net ***
Article 115 02/10/23 Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
_____________________________________________________________________
Motion Perception in Movies and Painting:
Towards a New Kinetic Art
=========================================
~Michael Betancourt~
Julian Hochberg and Virginia Brooks argue in "Movies in the Mind's
Eye" that the apparent movement of motion pictures should be
understood as a mental process described by cognitive theory and
gestalt psychology. This argument is a reconfiguration of the
traditional, physiological model that makes the motion an effect of
ocular physiology. In place of this model, they propose that the
movement we see when watching a movie -- whether in the form of a
film or a video tape -- is more than simply the illusion of motion:
it is perceptually as ~real~ as any other visual motion we perceive.
The difference between this motion and other motion resides in its
empirical status independent of observation, not in our subjective
perception. Their transformation of the conceptualization of "motion
pictures" has implications for our understanding of motion in
painting. So-called "painterly motion" is historically one of the
most important effects employed in old master paintings (and
developed in the Modernist period by Cubism and some of its
derivatives). Hochberg and Brook's theory about a cognitive basis for
film motion is applicable to any form of virtual movement. It
provides an account of why we can see "painterly motion." This theory
implies a connection between painterly motion and movies that has
implications for understanding "avant-garde" film and video. It also
suggests a type of kinetic art heretofore unknown.
Julian Hochberg and Virginia Brooks' discussion of Gestalt theory and
the perception of motion in movies begins with a simple observation
about the nature of the medium. Their description is the empirical
stillness at the foundation of the virtual motion created by movies.
This motion is fundamentally different (when considered as a still
image) from that of the old master painting. However, it is not the
means-to-motion but the cognitive process of human interpretation
that Hochberg and Brooks believe is the important factor:
A continuous motion in the world is, of course, captured by
successive displayed images on film (or their video equivalent).
For most events, these displacements are small, and within the
range of the low-level sensory receptors of the visual system;
these respond identically to the visual displacements on the
screen and to the differences provided from one moment to the
next by smooth physical motion in the world. [1]
Gestalt theory claims human perception treats all visual phenomena
encountered in the same way. Those visual displacements which we see
in film are interpreted without distinguishing their empirical
causes. This approach to movies emphasizes the linkages between
motion pictures and optical illusions: both are a result of our
perceptions incorrectly interpreting their sense-data. The
"principle" created by Gestalt psychologist Helmholtz to describe
this interpretative tendency is the ~likelihood principle.~ It is a
description that implies a perceptual commonality at the heart of all
perceptual interpretations:
we perceive that which would in our normal life most likely have
produced the effective stimulation we have received. [2]
Unlike motion in the real world which is physically emmanent, the
motion of movies and in the technique of painterly motion is entirely
a result of a human perception. The motion we see does not exist
except within our perception. The 'likelihood principle' is an
explanation of how we interpret. What we see results from an internal
comparison between immediate sense experience and prior knowledge. We
see motion in both these cases because we understand what we see in
terms of encounters with real, empirically emmanent motion. Our
perceptual understanding of virtual motion derives from encounters
with reality, thus Hochberg and Brooks' argue, it is real in
~perceptual~ terms. The motion we see exists in the same way as any
other visible motion. This essay will develop the connection between
painterly motion and perception before examining some implications of
this relationship. The overlap between the motion of movies and the
motion of painting is necessary for this theory to be logically
consistent.
*
* ~Animal Locomotion~ by Eadweard Muybridge
*
* Image available on www.ctheory.net (Article 115)
*
Painterly motion as a technical phenomenon requires some explanation.
The painted image has possibilities that photography lacks. The
photograph is static, as Eadweard Muybridge's photographic motion
studies demonstrate by isolating motion into a series of stills where
we can see the component adjustments of a figure. Each person or an
animal shows us the increments of motion as units in themselves.
These pictures "arrest" the figure imaged, presenting a single moment
from all possible moments of the subject in motion. The motion,
however, is absent, in the form of possible not-yet-visible action.
Taken as a whole, they present us with an idea of the motion; when
shown quickly and in proper sequence, the motion becomes apparent
rather than potential. The relationship between the motion of movies
and the ~likelihood principle~ is obvious: the movement created by
showing the sequence of photographs imitates our normal experience of
the world well enough that we interpret it in the same fashion as our
normal experience. This is "photographic motion."
*
* ~Helene Fourment in a Fur Coat,~ by Rubens
*
* Image available on www.ctheory.net (Article 115)
*
By contrast, "painterly motion," which is a technical effect common
to "old master" paintings of the European painterly tradition,
presents a single image that incorporates some of the same
characteristics as the entire series of photographs employed in
"photographic motion." The movement we see in Peter Paul Rubens'
portrait of his wife wearing a fur wrap is a example of this effect
made famous by critic John Berger's commentary in _Ways of Seeing_:
[Helene Fourment's] appearance has been literally recast by the
painter's subjectivity. Beneath the fur that she holds across
herself, the upper part of her body and her legs can never meet.
There is a displacement sideways of about nine inches: her
thighs, in order to join onto her are at least nine inches too
far to the left. [3]
Displacement causes Helene to appear (depending on the
interpretation) to be turning away from or towards the viewer. The
apparent motion of her upper body is caused by a specific distortion:
as the eye moves across this image the human mind fits the different
positions of her body together to form a coherent whole. This process
creates the impression she is moving. Her motion is caused by the
series of different views showing distinct physical positions.
Because we see her from a single vantage-point our minds combine them
to form a single body. This effect is identified by Helmholtz as the
~likelihood principle.~ In order for us, as viewers, to make sense of
the image as a whole body -- a "good gestalt" -- we interpret
Helene's displacements and distortion as motion.
This appearance of motion is an intentional construction, created by
a specific technical process that Rubens (and other old masters)
learned. It is not a mistake. The "stillness" which this painting
presents is a lively one, completely different from the static,
arrested movement of the photograph. This is a complex technical
development that evolves from life-drawing and work from living
models. It must be planned and built-in to the picture and could not
happen accidentally or unconsciously. Yet, Berger makes the
assumption that this effect was not intentional:
Rubens probably did not plan this: the spectator may not
consciously notice it. [4]
To assume that a master painter with several decades of experience
painting the human form is unaware of a discrepancy in a painting of
his ~wife~ is difficult to believe. The reason that many viewers may
not consciously notice it is they are not supposed to notice it. The
fur wrap which covers her body also hides the displacement from
immediate observation. Her movement and what it means is the focus of
the painting: Helene, teasingly, turns towards and away from the
viewer; the possible revelation of her whole body is the subject of
the painting. The displacement is what produces the force of the
movement, a dynamism that Berger notes [5] even as he denies the
artist's knowledge of what, how, and why Rubens may have produced
this image. To deny the intentionally of this movement is to deny the
humanity of the artist, his interest in the subject of his painting,
and the relationship that picture proposes for the viewer. It
dehumanizes and formalizes what is not a formalist painting.
Berger's assumption also reduces the importance of Rubens' training
and the European tradition to mere accident. It repeats the popular
assumption that artists are unintellectual actors who perform and
produce in an unconscious manner. Critics are more than simply the
explicators of art in this formulation. They are the conscious
observers of those things of which the artist is unaware. This case
is an ironic situation because Berger is unaware or ignores his
knowledge of the process involved in producing a painting of this
type: the number of studies, drawings and the amount of work required
to make the painting itself. Nothing in such a painting should be
regarded as accidental or unplanned. Her movement is a technical
effect that must remain technically invisible. It is the difference
between a painting of Rubens' period and a Modernist painting where
the technical devices and effects tend to be readily apparent.
Viewers and critics shouldn't notice ~how~ the effects are produced
in art of this type. To do so breaks the illusion that the painting's
meaning depends upon.
The appearance of motion within this image is a result of the viewer
interpreting the different positions of Helene's body to be markers
of movement through time. This perception follows from the likelihood
principle. The movements are interpreted from "signs" she has ~moved~
slightly while the spectator was looking. This is what makes painting
active in a way that never "happens" in (normal) photography. The
different and incompatible body positions are treated as motion and
appear to be movement because our interpretations work to maintain a
coherent gestalt. Art historian and gestalt psychologist Rudolph
Arnheim explains this effect in greater detail:
Happenings enter experience only when the passing of clock time
is accompanied by the perception of change. Change presupposes
that the differential of clock time encompasses more than one
location in space. [6]
Arnheim suggests that our normal perceptions present things to us as
"events" -- actions, movement -- only when what we are looking at
involves changes over time. Otherwise, we believe what we see is a
static reverie. Photographs "arrest" motion in a single consistent
and complete "frame." This is why photographs are completely (and
fundamentally) different than our perceptions. Arnheim's observation
is not simply a commonplace: it states that our perceptions have
developed to involve our memory as part of the perceptual process.
The likelihood principle suggests we understand the contorted (in
fact, distorted) bodies of "classical" realist paintings as bodies in
limited motion.
A more contemporary version of painterly motion is the work of
Francis Bacon. Here the distortions of painterly motion are taken to
an extreme and revealed to the spectator in a distinctly Modernist
fashion. These paintings explicitly develop the dislocated bodies and
the fragmentation of Cubism. The simplification of space in ~Three
Studies of Lucien Freud,~ (1969) is a necessary and typical element
of all his images. With a more complex elaborated environment, the
bodies would become more specifically disfigured rather than
contorted by painterly motion being stretched towards its limit.
*
* ~Three Studies of Lucien Freud,~ by Francis Bacon, 1969
*
* Image available on www.ctheory.net (Article 115)
*
These three panels all depict the same figure; Lucien, sitting on a
stool in an undefined yellow room. In each panel he is crossing or
uncrossing his legs, but the motion presented here is abrupt, even
startling. The movements in the central panel are typical of all
three: Lucien's hands are folded in his lap, but the left forearm
pulls both up and down; his face is both full frontal (the right eye
and forehead) and turned to the left, giving a profile while his head
is moving to the right. In the case of his legs, the right leg shows
us the sole of the shoe, but the pants leg is painted from a vertical
point of view, while the knee presents a view looking up. It is an
awkward movement that cannot reach a position of rest. Lucien's left
leg points straight down, but the angle is impossible vertical
(almost as if seen from a position parallel to the shin) while the
thigh is seen almost from below. The torso is positioned as it
normally would be seated in a straight-back chair, allowing the legs
and head to rotate around it as limbs on a stationary pillar. This
series of views when taken ~in toto~ present a vision of the sitter
squirming in his chair, unable to rest or remain in a position for
more than a moment. It is precisely this sense of movement that this
painting portrays in each of the three panels. One can almost hear
Lucien complaining about how long it's taking and how uncomfortable
the chair is.
Bacon creates this painterly motion through extreme deformations not
only of body position (no one could physically hold the position
Lucien is in) but also of the spectator's viewing angle. Both the
subject Lucien and the observer must be in motion to produce this
kind of effect in reality: it is as if a series of different
positions were used to produce a single image. These changes are so
extreme that the viewer cannot ignore the "montaging" of different
views of this body. This is an exaggeration and emphatic reiteration
of the distortion employed by Rubens. It is our interpretation of
this sequence of forms as being "a body" which creates the effect of
motion. If the audience fails to make this interpretation of the
elements, they will fail to see the movement.
In considering Bacon's ~oeuvre,~ we only encounter images with this
level of physical distortion in paintings which are very simplified.
It allows the complexity of the deformations to take center "stage"
in his canvas. The simplification also improves the ability to
recognize the body qua body. This relationship is a visualization of
Arnheim's definition of gestalt:
The structure of the whole, certainly of dominant importance, is
influenced by the parts, which in turn depend on the whole as to
their shapes and interrelations. Neither the whole nor the parts
are primary constants, primordial executives of influence.
Rather, all components from the whole to the smallest detail
exert their modifying effect, while they are being modified. [7]
Our process of recognition of the forms in these paintings and their
motions proceed according to an interpretation based on the "field"
we encounter, in this case the panels of the triptych. Each
represents a variation on the same view of the same subject; taken as
a group we can understand what Arnheim is describing here: each panel
is a self-contained unit which includes a series of components that
individually ~and~ taken as a single unit take the form of a body in
extreme motion: Lucien. Each panel when viewed individually as
separate images and together as a single unit provides a summary of
the motions of this subject while sitting for the painting we see. In
this regard, it is not improbable to think about these panels as
separate "frames" from a series showing Lucien shifting and squirming
in the chair. Such an interpretation is reasonable; Bacon used
photographs as reference material:
[The photographs of Eadweard Muybridge] showing the elements of
motion. They really did interest me greatly.
[interviewer] As evidence of the distortion of bodies in motion?
Oh no. I do that myself. That's not taken from photographs. [8]
The distortion of bodies in motion is not possible in conventional
photography without significant modification of this image.
Photographs present single moments. It is this "freeze-frame" quality
which gives scientific studies such as Muybridge's their value as
science. His photographs present a single moment of the motion,
rather than a successive series of different moments within the same
image. This isolation of movement allows the study of the action as a
sequence of individual phases each separated by a specific interval.
Unlike movement in reality, this fragmenting enables the specific
consideration and examination of motion as a combination of discrete
states proceeding one after another. Bacon's version of painterly
motion makes use of these photographic studies as a way to enable
greater deformations while still avoiding the static effect of
photography.
The differences between painterly and photographic motion become
significant when considered in relation to one another. While the
painterly motion requires the movement of the spectator's eyes
through the image to create the effect of bodies in motion -- a
static image of motion -- photographic motion does not require
movement by the viewer per se because the succession of images
provide the necessary shifts in relationship are combined
perceptually into motion. The encounter with painterly motion is
fundamentally a more active process than that of photographic motion.
Both proceed from an interpretative process, but the actual motion of
the spectator is irrelevant to photographic motion. However, both
types of motion can be understood through the same interpretative
strategy, the likelihood principle. The same ~biological~ perception
is employed in different ways but to the same effect: the creation of
visual motion.
Our sensory experience not only determines the meaning of the work
but also provides the vehicle for that meaning. Depending on how the
viewer approaches interpreting the image, where the emphasis is laid,
what details are considered important, determines not only the form
of the work, but also its significance. While this is true in a
general sense, it is literally true only in those instances where the
actual perceived form requires multiple perceptual approaches to
establish its contents.
A kinetic art of the type proposed by this discussion relies upon the
human interpreting consciousness for its existence. What this essay
has attempted to show is the applicability of the cognitive view of
film motion to painterly motion. By providing an account of how we
can interpret both film and painting as developing from a common
basis, we have also addressed the ontological question of their
relationship as different or related media. This connection implies
that it may be more appropriate to consider art based on its
~apparent~ motion, a division built from perceptual experience rather
than one of physical materials. Such a view elides the interpretative
difference between painting and film.
The cognitive-perceptual model of media encountered could be
described as the opposition between "movies" and "statics." This
division is based upon our perception of its motion. By adopting it,
the ontological relationship between painting and film suggest some
novel potentials for further exploration in art. In the case of
"avant-garde" film, a form which uses the aesthetic and visual codes
of painting instead of dramatic cinema, this ontological relationship
justifies artists' deployment of painterly structures and forms
within motion pictures. Linking the visual motion in film with
painterly motion creates a historical foundation for a kinetic visual
art specifically derived from the issues of painting but using the
technology of movies. The historical appearance of such an art is a
logical extension of concepts and issues already existing within the
Euro-American fine art tradition and has arguably been developing in
parallel to that of dramatic film.
The possibility of a cognitive link in our interpretation of movement
in both painting and movies also proposes the possibility for hybrid
works that employ aspects of both art forms. One such potential is
the flickering shutter (literally a strobe or flickering light) used
to illuminate and create motion in what are otherwise completely
static images. In effect this places the movies' content literally on
"screen." Such a kinetic painting is a logical potential that resides
within this conceptualization. To even consider it a possibility
requires that the basis for motion in film and painting be examined
with the framework described in this paper.
Notes:
------
[1] Hochberg, Julian and Virginia Brooks, "Movies in the Mind's Eye"
in _Post Theory_, ed. David Bordwell and Noel Carroll, Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1996, pp. 368-369.
[2] Ibid., p. 373.
[3] Berger, John. _Ways of Seeing_, New York: Penguin, 1972, p. 61.
[4] Ibid., p. 61.
[5] Ibid., p. 61.
[6] Arnheim, Rudolf. _To The Rescue of Art: Twenty-Six Essays_,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992, p. 36.
[7] Ibid., p. 205.
[8] Archimbaud, Michael. _Francis Bacon_, London: Phaidon, 1993, pp.
14-15.
--------------------
Michael Betancourt is an art critic and artist working in Miami,
Florida.
_____________________________________________________________________
* CTHEORY is an international journal of theory, technology and
* culture. Articles, interviews, and key book reviews in
* contemporary discourse are published weekly as well as
* theorisations of major "event-scenes" in the mediascape.
*
* Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
*
* Editorial Board: Jean Baudrillard (Paris), Paul Virilio (Paris),
* Bruce Sterling (Austin), R.U. Sirius (San Francisco), Siegfried
* Zielinski (Koeln), Stelarc (Melbourne), Richard Kadrey (San
* Francisco), DJ Spooky [Paul D. Miller] (NYC), Timothy Murray
* (Ithaca/Cornell), Lynn Hershman Leeson (San Francisco), Stephen
* Pfohl (Boston), Andrew Ross (NYC), David Cook (Toronto), Ralph
* Melcher (Sante Fe), Shannon Bell (Toronto), Gad Horowitz
* (Toronto), Deena Weinstein (Chicago), Michael Weinstein
* (Chicago), Andrew Wernick (Peterborough).
*
* In Memory: Kathy Acker
*
* Editorial Correspondents: Ken Hollings (UK),
* Maurice Charland (Canada) Steve Gibson (Canada/Sweden).
*
* Editorial Associate: Ted Hiebert
* WWW Design & Technical Advisor: Spencer Saunders (CTHEORY.NET)
* WWW Engineer Emeritus: Carl Steadman
_____________________________________________________________________
To view CTHEORY online please visit:
http://www.ctheory.net/
To view CTHEORY MULTIMEDIA online please visit:
http://ctheorymultimedia.cornell.edu/
_____________________________________________________________________
* CTHEORY includes:
*
* 1. Electronic reviews of key books in contemporary theory.
*
* 2. Electronic articles on theory, technology and culture.
*
* 3. Event-scenes in politics, culture and the mediascape.
*
* 4. Interviews with significant theorists, artists, and writers.
*
* 5. Multimedia theme issues and projects.
*
*
* Special thanks to Concordia University.
*
* No commercial use of CTHEORY articles without permission.
*
* Mailing address: CTHEORY, Concordia University, 1455 de
* Maisonneuve, O., Montreal, Canada, H3G 1M8.
*
* Full text and microform versions are available from UMI, Ann Arbor,
* Michigan; and Canadian Periodical Index/Gale Canada, Toronto.
*
* Indexed in: International Political Science Abstracts/
* Documentation politique international; Sociological Abstract
* Inc.; Advance Bibliography of Contents: Political Science and
* Government; Canadian Periodical Index; Film and Literature Index.
_____________________________________________________________________
************************************************************************************
Distributed through Cyber-Society-Live [CSL]: CSL is a moderated discussion
list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic
study of Cyber Society in all its manifestations.To join the list please visit:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cyber-society-live.html
*************************************************************************************
|
