In the last 2 weeks I have encountered multiple references in my research to Heinrich Kluver, who in 1926, undertook experiments where he catagorised the visual effects produced by mescaline. He discovered that mescaline produces recurring geometric patterns in different users. He called these patterns 'form constants' and categorized four types:
lattices (including honeycombs, checkerboards and triangles), cobwebs, tunnels and spirals. He compared the subjective visual experiences of synaesthesia, hallucination and physical/psychological stress (e.g. fever, migrane). Form Constants are still being used to investigate commonalities among the unique experiences of synaesthetes.
These Form Constants give us a taxonomy of perception, and provide commonalities for us to identify in the type of shapes, spatial arrangements, depictions of movements and aesthetics in art be it painting, photography, video or 3d artforms.
I'm not sure yet whethter this is something I may draw upon in my own work but felt the need to post on it - to filter it, as previously unposted discoverings on fractals have been diluted in their relevance as I failed to comment on them properly here on my blog. (Fractals are rough geometric shapes that when split into parts each part is a reduced size copy of the whole, a property called self-similarity. They are often considered to be infinitely complex. Natural objects that are fractal are snowflakes, some vegetables eg. cauliflower/broccoli, ferns.
lattices (including honeycombs, checkerboards and triangles), cobwebs, tunnels and spirals. He compared the subjective visual experiences of synaesthesia, hallucination and physical/psychological stress (e.g. fever, migrane). Form Constants are still being used to investigate commonalities among the unique experiences of synaesthetes.
These Form Constants give us a taxonomy of perception, and provide commonalities for us to identify in the type of shapes, spatial arrangements, depictions of movements and aesthetics in art be it painting, photography, video or 3d artforms.
I'm not sure yet whethter this is something I may draw upon in my own work but felt the need to post on it - to filter it, as previously unposted discoverings on fractals have been diluted in their relevance as I failed to comment on them properly here on my blog. (Fractals are rough geometric shapes that when split into parts each part is a reduced size copy of the whole, a property called self-similarity. They are often considered to be infinitely complex. Natural objects that are fractal are snowflakes, some vegetables eg. cauliflower/broccoli, ferns.
Hi Steph,
ReplyDeleteLoads of info here, which I may draw on for my own work. Andrienna had mentioned 'fractals' in my voice thread, so its great to see more commonalities appearing in our work.