On Monday we began the class with a discussion about turning in money for out Art subscriptions, but then we moved onto our first drafts of our story designs for three separate events. I had assumed the professor had wanted us to try to tell a personal but still complex story with as few images as possible.
I had not expected him to just want an one panel illustration/logo for our stories. Only one person had achieved this effectively, with clear detail explaining that he or she recycled; had found a cheap house or apartment; and had found a dog with a new ad.
Babcock then began to explain about the principle ideas of Gestalt Psychology. The concept theorizes that the human brain likes to fill in gaps of visual information even if the actual details aren't there, which basically is one of reasons optical illusions are so fascination to look at.
Some of the more effective artists/advertisers use these concepts to drawn people to a project they've been working on by adding or subtracting the information the audience sees. Some old cigarette ads in magazines that used to try things like adding third arm to a person in the background so that a person flipping through would sense something was off on the page and turn back to it.
Recently, a Dr. John Heilman posted the 10 most basic Rorschach tests on Wikipedia; and not just the images, but what the most common responses to the images were and what they meant psychologically. He may be facing trouble for it, but it is fascinating to see how people can perceive visual information and what it can say about aspect of their identity.
At the end of class we formed groups to discuss how to minimize our stories, which was pretty easy for two of my stories but my most complex story about a friend whose heart had stopped at a party needed some tweaking. I believe I found the answer and worked it out. Here's for the best.
I had not expected him to just want an one panel illustration/logo for our stories. Only one person had achieved this effectively, with clear detail explaining that he or she recycled; had found a cheap house or apartment; and had found a dog with a new ad.
Babcock then began to explain about the principle ideas of Gestalt Psychology. The concept theorizes that the human brain likes to fill in gaps of visual information even if the actual details aren't there, which basically is one of reasons optical illusions are so fascination to look at.
Some of the more effective artists/advertisers use these concepts to drawn people to a project they've been working on by adding or subtracting the information the audience sees. Some old cigarette ads in magazines that used to try things like adding third arm to a person in the background so that a person flipping through would sense something was off on the page and turn back to it.
Recently, a Dr. John Heilman posted the 10 most basic Rorschach tests on Wikipedia; and not just the images, but what the most common responses to the images were and what they meant psychologically. He may be facing trouble for it, but it is fascinating to see how people can perceive visual information and what it can say about aspect of their identity.
At the end of class we formed groups to discuss how to minimize our stories, which was pretty easy for two of my stories but my most complex story about a friend whose heart had stopped at a party needed some tweaking. I believe I found the answer and worked it out. Here's for the best.
Good post! I like your examples of optical illusions and rorschach tests. The off ads sound interesting too. If we had more time in class I could have started out by telling the class to tell me a visual story without giving any parameters and then slowly and painfully reducing it down without telling people our goal. Good thing we don't have a lot of time.
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