Gestalt Factor: Past Experience or Habit.

Looking at you. Original painting by Schamil Gimajev. East Side Gallery, Berlin.

It has been a long time since I wrote anything on Gestalt factors, but here we go again.

The posts on gestalt factors seems to go down really well on the blog. The reasons for this could be many, and my suggestions for an easy explanation goes the this: gestalt factor are interesting to read about; many gestalt factors are very simple to understand and could give a huge impact when put properly to use. Gestalt factors are are not well knows in contexts that deal with communication. Be it communication as such, or more specific areas of communication like advertising and photography. I mention advertising and photography specifically because those are, so far, the areas that examples have been gathered from. By that, I do no imply that gestalt issues are of low relevance to other areas of communication. Certainly not.

Let me briefly remind  you that the inspiration for the gestalt theme on this blog it the article “Laws of Organization and Perceptual Forms” written by Max Wertheimer 1923. Or, more precisely, do I refer  to one particular chapter in that article. It is a good starting point for anyone, who wants to learn and know about the basics of gestalt theory, and probably the most famous article of them all.  So be my guest.

The gestalt factor of past experience or habit is interesting for more than one reason. Not only is it a factor of importance for the reading of perceptual forms, but to some extent it poses a threat to all the other gestalt factors. Why is that? Well, if the factor of experience or habit is a gestalt, and that experience goes against the perception of similaruty, of proximity, of good curves, etcetera, what will then happen to these  gestalt factors? Do they simply go away? Are they longer valid? Are they overridden?

In principle they could be, but since we still have a gestalt theory that stresses that there are several gestalt factors (and not only one: the factor of experience or habit), I think we should understand this last factor not as a threat, but as an opportunity. Meaning that if experience or habit is important (and everyone knows is it), we need to add that option as a tool to the barebones toolbox. Right!

Let me be more specific about this factor. Wertheimer: “Another Factor is that of past experience or habit. Its principle is that if AB and C but not BC have become habitual (or associated) there is then a tendency for ABC to appear as AB/C”. I am sure you got that, if not then read it a couple of times.

Wertheimer continues: “Unlike the other principles with which we have been dealing, it is characteristic of this one that its contents A, B and C are assumed to be independent of the constallation in which they appear. Their arrangement is on principle determined merely by extrinsic circumstances (e.g. drill)”.

And; “There can be no doubt that some of our apprehensions are determined in this way. Often arbitrary material can be arranged in arbitrary form and, after a sufficient drill, made habitual”.

The question is, however, in how many real world situations are you on arbitrary ground? Not many, I would say? (To be continued..).

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Other important posts on gestalt factors; introduction; factor of closure; factor of direction, factor of good curve, factor of proximity; factor of similarity.

Well, why not?

Oprah Winfrey. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.

Well, why not?

You probably didn’t think I had a picture of Oprah Winfrey. True, this morning I didn’t, but now I do. Just to remind you that absence can be turned into precence if you work on it. Please read this post and stay alert for more .

As I told you, Oprah Winfrey is in Copenhagen for the last push for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Chicago. Here leaving the lunch at the Royal Palace Amalienborg in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Yes, the Danish Queen was there too. In pink.

Go here for more images moving into precence .

Phenomenology: The Larger Picture.

Presence and Absence. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven

Following this blog you will agree with me that it stills needs a more practical approach to phenomenology. We need some tools that can be applied when doing, understanding and analyzing pieces of communication. Being it text or pictures or other.

Aspects of gestalt psychology have been pretty well covered in a number of posts. So have certain practical aspects of semiology. And there are plenty of useful information on both advertising efficiency and human behaviour, for readers that seek that kind information. (To be linked later).

The next series of posts will deal with a more practical approach to phenomenology. This is important since we have stated several times, already, that phenomenology takes up a special position within the barebones universe being both the basic of reflection as well as a particular area of investigation. Normally you refer to phenomenology as the method of phenomenology. The phenomenological method has been randomly covered by a series of posts taking it offset in the big book on phenomenology by late philosopher Herbert Spiegelberg. The big book being his The Phenomenological Movement. This however is by far not enough. Spiegelberg’s steps of phenomenology may be good, but not very practical.

Making the whole area more practical shall be very interesting since a similar effort had never been done before. Correct me if I am wrong here, but in my humble opinion this is the case. I am pretty sure that this effort have never been tried in anything that resembles a communication theory. So, it will be interesting to see what develops in the course of the future posts on barebones.

It is all in the photograph above. I call it Presence and Absence. There may be some presence, but there are certainly more absence. Let’s see, then,  if we can get more absence present.

Please take a note that this post is written the day before President Obama arrives for the IOC conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. Michelle Obama arrived early yesterday and so did the Spanish King, The Brazilian President, and Oprah Winfrey. And many more celebrities doing a warm up of for the 2016 Olympics. Chicago Tribune calls it The Big Push. Friday all will be settled since the voter’s votes will have been cast. And all the presidents will leave.

What this last information has to do will phenomenology? Well, the facts are certainly there, aren’t they? And the celebrity information around IOC’s meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, is likewise missing from the picture above, right? That is precisely why this information belong to the photograph.

Confused? Just wait till you read the next post on phenomenology. That post will deal with presence and absence and everything will become clear to you .

Have a good morning.

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More posts in this section.

Library Thing.

Barebones Pitstop Puzzle

Pitstop Puzzle. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.

I just did you a favour.

From time to time I have posts that simply consist of a quote. Often an image added. These posts are all tagged “pitstop”, but unless you go for that tag in the tag cloud, you will never find them in one go.

I have collected them all for you. Linked from the same blog post. This one.  If you visit the blog page pitstop puzzle you will find the same linked there. I will update that page whenever I publish a new pitstop  post.

The idea with the pistop posts is simply to give you a break. Read them, or leave them.

Each pistop is a breath of fresh air. They all stand on their own and can be read in isolation. However there is an intention with these pitstop posts. Not expressive written down, or instructed. They are pieces of the same puzzle. They are pieces of the same picture. The are pieces of barebones.

Take a closer look at the photograph above. It is one single shot. Not a compilation of many. By viewing them all together you get a picture that is different from viewing each “piece” in isolation. You get THE picture.

Your turn now. Here are the collected pistop posts. Collected for you. You must make the picture by piecing them together.

Here you go: The Barebones Pistop Puzzle.

Minkowski’s Measure.

What Persists Unseen.

Lost in Translation.

Gain and Loss.

The Pose.

And Nobody Can Do Anything About It.

The Language of Facts.

A Mode of Familiarity.

This Feeling of Gratitude.

Out of the Bits and Pieces.

The Unsurpassed Elegance of a Stork.

From Solid Ground.

The Principle of Relevance.

Open Possibilities.

For Me Simply There.

No Substitute For Original Thinking.

Pitstop 05.

Pitstop 04.

Pitstop 03.

Pitstop 02.

Pitstop 01.

Good luck with it. I never told you it would be easy.

The good news, however, is that these pitstop posts do not only fit into one particular picture. They fit many. Could even be yours. There are stuff in there that will last you a lifetime. You need to fill out the blanks.

For once, I have listed things in a chronological order. Bottom up.

Just Married

Just Married. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.

A picture tells a thousand words.

I haven’t got time for that many words right now, so you need to go for it, and I’ll be with you shortly. Try deconstructing this image. Go for the connotations in it, then add gestalt factors to your analysis and maybe the CET-test for looking at impact.

I am sure that you will find this photograph interesting, and a suitable case for analytic treatment. Good luck.

Eazyinternet – Master or Disaster.

No reason to make a short story painfully long.

It’s Sunday and I have just finished paging through the Sunday paper finding a 12 pages colourful insert from mobile operator 3. “It’s good to be 3″, they say.

Hey, I am in the marked for this product, whatever it is, so I better read the insert. Interest increasing as there is a picture of my almost new laptop on the front page: a silver shining and attractive MacBook. Or so I thought.

Reading the visual at the insert’s front page, there is a picture of the MacBook, and in the left, low corner a product shot of the mobile router that the insert is all about. Three downsized men in science fiction uniforms are placed  on the MacBook’s keyboard and watching a house take off into the air.

Main visual element is the MacBook, and the hand carrying it on its  fingertips. This hand is wearing a black glove, and you see that the person is wearing a black jacket. Gloves connote “lack of intimacy”. Black gloves connote, or is often a symbol for, “stealing” or “burglary”. Things that are not meant to be shown in the open. 

The black gloves are the carrying visual element in the rest of the insert, and that is what confuses me. What is the product involved here: an easy way to the internet, or is it an insert for a security firm having introduced a mobile security device preventing burglars to get away with my MacBook? Or the stuff on it. The most negative pictures are shown at pages 2 and 3 of the insert, where two pair of black gloves work on two Mac keyboards, strongly connoting that they are trespassing to forbidden information on the computers. 

For a time I really didn’t know what was the message was since the visuals were so confusing. The intention of the promotion seemed to be one, and the visual execution of that intent quite another. I had to read through the whole insert to find out about the product. The promotion have nothing to do with security. It is a promotion for an easy way to the internet using the 3 mobile router. 

Well, these guys could have fooled me.

I could run this insert thought the CET test to see how this promotion falls out, but I will not. It is not necessary, since the visual execution should  not have left the drawing table at the ad agency in the first place. You will only get bits and pieces of a proper CET analysis. The promotion fails on at least three checkpoints. Here they are.

1. One Unified Impression.

 Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

The is no unified impression in this promotion. It falls apart though a conflict between ease of mobile internet, and connotation of the black gloves.

I rate -3.

3. Visual and Verbal.

 Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

The text says one thing, and the visual quite another. No consistence between visuals and verbals.

I rate  -3.

4. The Simple Truth.

 Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

Is this is a simple, easy to understand promotion? No, it is not. First and overall impression is that this piece of communication could have be done much better by being less complicated. and with fewer conflicting connotations.

I rate -2.

Since the idea is that if only one of the checkpoint in the CET checklist is rated below zero, the advertising/promotion in question is up for revision. Back to the drawing table or to the brainstorming room. This promotion from mobile internet from 3, you might even have to take a step further back.

Conclusion:

Not good, not good at all.

The 3 company has probably one of the best products for mobile internet on the market(s). Certainly their market penetration is an indication of that. They have even won several prizes for their technological solution. You really have to work hard to destroy these advantages. Promotion for their, seemingly excellent product, is from this position, no rocket science. No need to do this more complicated, and less straight forward, than it ought to be.

In the promotion, the 12 pages insert in a Danish newspaper, the company certainly do their best to camouflage their advantages. There is a severe clash between intended message, and executed message. Or more academically phrases: connotations conflicts, gestalt closure are obscure and might  be conflicting as well. Expected intentionalities are not met.

You know what? Take a closer look at the front page of the insert, if you get a chance to it. I am sure that it exist in several languages on several markets. The guys on the MacBook keyboard wear gloves. White gloves.

Let me finally excuse, on this visual blog, that I am not able to show you any pictures of the insert. If I could find who the agency was, I would have asked them for permission to use an illustration. This Sunday morning. But I have no idea. Probably a larger international agency.  The insert bears all the marks of an adaption.

In a proper handshake, anyway, I would never wear gloves. And the MacBook on the insert front page is not the new model. Might even be a MacBookPro. Old version.

Waiting Time

Here is another notebook brief for you. Comes in handy when I don’t have ready time to do more lengthy posts. 

Do you find that this photograph carries a strong and simple message? I do, but you don’t have to agree, of course. But if you do, what then are the semiological or other barebones tools, that carries this message thought? How do you explain the impact in terms of these tools?

Shot at Pierre Lachaise, Paris, France, some years ago. 

Stay alive. Good luck with it.

Waiting Time at Pierre Lachaise, Paris, France. All rights reserved.

Eyes Wide Open: Roadmap 2009.

Looking for the right direction to take in 2009?

At barebones communication, that is not a big deal since it has been advertised along the way. So, like the beach man, in the picture below, we are slightly turning our head, but keeping our body steadfast. Eyes wide open.

Beach Man, Spotorno, Italy.

1. The first year, barebones communication, has concentrated on cutting through the soft tissues of communication, and has tried to lay bare the bones that effects every real life acts of communication. There are still missing links in this work, and I will continue to fill in what is missing. Roughly this work will add to the themes that are already well established on the blog; semiology, phenomenology, gestalt psychology, naturalistic human sciences and types of experiential resources. These themes are the barebones pillars, and they will continue to play a crucial part of what is going to come on this blog.

2. I will continue the two more pedagogical threads: barebones pitstops, and the barebones notebook.

3. The turning of the head, however, means that I, to a larger extent, will put these things to practical use. Elaborating more on specific real life communication. You already find a hint of this direction reading some of the recent posts published. I am referring to the post on a Danish commercial, and the post on Canon and their black dots.

4. Last, but not least, I will continue using photographs to illustrate.

What you will see in 2009, then, is a mix of the above mentioned with eyes wide open particularly towards what I call real life communication. As a consequence you will see more of the newly introduced theme Barebones Orchid Scale (BOS).

phenomenology and photography

I have to admit that I had no clear idea of this from the beginning.

I have thousands of pictures and I have hundreds of books. So, my idea was initially to use both sources in combination on this blog.I started using pictures, because I thought they would brighten, and breaking up the blog a bit, and maybe, in some cases, make good illustrations for the points made in the individual posts. Particularly in illustrating some of the gestalt factors the pictures came in handy, since some of them seemed to have been shot for the particular blog post.

Not so. The pictures you find on the blog are in some cases many years before a blog on barebones communication came to my mind about a year ago. My favourite post, in this respect, is the one on gestalt direction. Go look it up. The post “Wertheimer would have loved”. This post, by the way, is one of the posts with the most hits. So, I must have done something right.

As I am the photographer of all the pictures posted, so far, I don’t have to worry about copyrights, since I hold copyrights to all the pictures. It makes life much easier that way, since I am allowed to quote from texts, but I am not allowed to quote from visual material in the same way. I can’t just post somebody else’s pictures.

However, lately, the thought grew on me that maybe my pictures had another role to play, as well. You are probably aware that, for instance, Roland Barthes have written with passion about photography. I am referring to his last book: La Chambre Claire, first published in France in 1980, the year of his untimely death.

I will return to that book in later post, since I fully agree with those stating that this book is one of the most important statements ever made on photography.

But what is more, it constitutes a cross section between semiology and phenomenology (Barthes explicitly refers to Edmund Hussels. Barthes states on page 20 in my copy of the English translation: Camera Lucida, that “In this investigation of Photography, I borrowed something from phenomenology’s project and something from its language”.

Barthes is talking about Edmund Husserl as his inpiration.

There is, however, even a much more important issue at stake here. You know that the phenomenological method includes a “freezing”, a “bracketing” of the natural attitude to be able to describe, and to study it more closely. Maybe you also are aware that one of the key methodological notions within phenomenology is the notion “perspective”.

Question: What is it I do, what is it that every photographer does, when taking or shooting pictures? Answer: Could be phrased this way: I/they/we, as photographers, freeze parts of the world from a certain perspective. That is the very nature of photography.

So, the cross over from photography to phenomenology, is rather obvious to make.

As the blog progressed, it slowly dawned on me, that here is a story that never has been told. I will try to tell it, bit by bit, as the blog unfolds. That was the general idea, anyway.

Think about this idea, and take a look at the picture submitted below: A moment, frozen in time, from a certain perspective. Phenomenological investigation illustrated. Photography on phenomenology. Feel free to re-read the posts on the phenomenological method already posted.

Gassin, France, 2002.

All the best to you as well

For more on the books mentioned, please go here: Library Thing: Roland Barthes: La Chambre Claire, and Library Thing: Roland Barthes: Camera Lucida (translated by Richard Howard).

For more posts on Barthes on this blog, go here, or use the tag cloud for navigation.

Mobile Man (notebook)

It has been a long time since we had the last notebook exercise. So, while I am preparing the next post on persuasion in marketing, here is the deal: Take a closer look at the image below and tell yourself how that picture works in terms of gestalt factors. Give a brief analysis of the shot with regard to the proximity factor, the similarity factor, the good curve factor, and so forth. There are plenty of information in this blog by now to make you able to make a grand analysis.

Here comes the picture shot in Berlin, June 2008. In the new parliamentary area.

Copyright 2008: Knut Skjærven. All rights reserved.

It you have a notebook then take notes of what you are analysing. If you want to share your work, you are welcome to share it as a comment to this post. Any questions? Just post them.

Good luck with it. And have a nice day.

phenomenological-method