Visual Design

VOLUME 10 ISSUE 1

The International Journal of

Visual Design __________________________________________________________________________

Designing on Nature’s Terms Visual Perception and the Emergence of Form and Meaning in Spatial Arts and Design MICHAEL HEINRICH

designprinciplesandpractices.com

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF VISUAL DESIGN www.designprinciplesandpractices.com First published in 2016 in Champaign, Illinois, USA by Common Ground Publishing University of Illinois Research Park 2001 South First St, Suite 202 Champaign, IL 61820 USA www.commongroundpublishing.com ISSN: 2325-1581 © 2016 (individual papers), the author(s) © 2016 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground All rights reserved. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the applicable copyright legislation, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact . The International Journal of Visual Design is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal.

Designing on Nature’s Terms: Visual Perception and the Emergence of Form and Meaning in Spatial Arts and Design Michael Heinrich, Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Germany Abstract: Evolution shaped our eyes and brains, and the conditions of natural environments and processes—far exceeding human control options—determined which of our perceptional competences were suited best to find our way and to survive in woods or savannas. The act of recognizing and interpreting patterns of natural appearances, transitions, and metamorphoses was—and still is—the daily bread of our visual perception. Our associative intelligence stores and cross-connects this stream of experience; by analogy, it uses these patterns to decode the unknown and the unfamiliar, to find the most appropriate and probable accordances as a reference for forthcoming interactions. Gestalt psychology and psychology of perception have investigated the emergence of separable forms out of the visual field and preferences of stimulus selection. But the more complex question of evaluation, meaningful classification, and integration of forms and structures within our visual experience still is an interdisciplinary challenge for aesthetics, semiotics, psychology, philosophy, and architectural/design theory and discourse. In this article, parameters of instantaneous visual attraction associated with properties of natural environments (e.g., anthropomorphic, biomorphic, or dynamikomorphic aspects) are described and systematically related to general modes of visual perception. They are exemplified by means of tangible design matters, and methods are discussed regarding how they can be made applicable and teachable. The idea of perceptual organization by patterns of transition and metamorphosis, outlined by psycho -morphology, is transferred to aesthetics and thus complements the terms “anthropomorphism” and “biomorphism” with the new term “dynamikomorphism.” A differentiated system of perspectives on design phenomenons that is able to define and to create successful design is outlined. Keywords: Design Principles, Biomorphism, Atmosphere, Aesthetics

Introduction

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n our rational world, we often try hard to regard things in a rational and “reasonable”, unemotional way: furniture, houses, and cars are just what they are—objects that are useful or useless for us. Nevertheless, the rational surface of our judgments, preferences and decisions is considerably shaped by subliminal emotional projections and reactions, and „certain aspects of the process of emotion and feeling are indispensable for rationality” (Damasio 1994). In children’s books and cartoons, the intertwining of rationality and emotional relatedness with the environment is expressed more directly: animals and objects—like houses or cars—are able to talk. Moreover, they have a personality, intentions, goals, perhaps even a past that can be read from their appearance. In childlike phantasies, in the moonlight illuminating the nursery, even pillows and garments transform into dwarves, fairies, and sometimes into monsters (see figs. 1, 2). A childlike perspective obviously perceives a world filled with animated objects whose emotions and intentions can easily be read from the properties and changes of their visual appearance. When rationality grips the mind, objects, architecture, designed spaces, and natural sceneries are superficially demystified and depersonalized. However, there is a lot of evidence that—even in adulthood—the world of inanimated objects retains those properties of expression that our perception correlates—now rather unconsciously—with human, animal, or biological manifestations, in other words, that humans beyond childhood keep on transferring subtly the idea of human or animal sensitivities, behavior potentials, and intentions to items of the outside world, even to objects that obviously are not animated at all.

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Figure 1: Alice in Wonderland, Concept Art Source: Walt Disney, Hollywood 1952

Figure 2: Monsters under the bed Source: Terry Wolfinger 2008

Such operations are known as anthropomorphism and, more generally, as biomorphism (for a definition, see Tylor [1871] 2010; for the Piaget interpretation, see Gebhard 2009, 53; Greek anthropos = man; morphe = shape; bios = life). In aesthetic philosophy, anthropology, psychology, proxemics, semiotics and behavioral biology, anthropomorphisms have always drawn attention: The rise of sciences since the 19th century and the establishment of psychology in the 20th century have encouraged the evolution of theories (e.g., familiarity thesis, comfort thesis, control thesis, see Guthrie 1997; theory of empathy, see Lipps [1912] 2007) and explanations to our understanding of anthro- and biomorphism. Concerning practical architectural and design application since ancient Greece, anthropomorphisms often were involved deliberately into concept design, e.g., as direct visual reference (see figs. 3, 4) or as proportional equivalent. Since the Renaissance, particularly classical architecture was distinguished by intensive efforts to interprete and revive the antique vitruvian ideals of anthropometrism.

Figure 3: Palazzo Zuccari, Rome. Federico Zuccari 1592 Source: Andrea Dorliguzzo 2012

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Figure 4: Upper Belvedere, Vienna. Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt 1723 Source: VUM 2015

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Figure 5: Spider Source: Harald Nitschke 2004

Figure 6: Ruin Capriccio. CharlesLouis Clérisseau 1760 Source: Hermitage 2009 Domain

Figure 7: Apartment Building Liesing Brewery, Vienna Source: Coop Himmelblau 2011

Beyond their static appearance, objects are embedded in temporal processes and thus yield a dynamic potential. As perceivers and interpreters, do we equally use analogisms, anthropomorphic and biomorphic attributions to draw conclusions—based on instinctive knowledge and acquired experience—from the static appearance of objects or scenes to their probable dynamic potential? Our mental representations are strongly characterized by our experience of transformations and metamorphoses, and so are our analogies; Gestalt psychology has conceptualized this idea by the approach of psycho-morphology (e.g., Salber 2009, 78f), and with the concept of perceptual meaning, the latter complementing the gestalt laws of shape and grouping with a temporal dimension, the attribution of “happenings” in case of deviations from a homogeneous shape or arrangement (Pinna 2010: “The happening (...) becomes part of the subject by qualifying it and explaining in terms of action the reason for the loss of homogeneity, integrity and unity of the subject.”). We have therefore reason to conclude that snapshots or static visual impressions are mentally completed to anticipations or intermediate stages of dynamic processes. We could characterize these spontaneous operations—including the assignment of “happenings”, but not confining them to segregations of initially homogeneous objects—as “dynamizations of object representations” or, more shortly, as “dynamikomorphic” (Greek dynamiko = potential; Greek dynami = force) (see Heinrich 2013; see below, 2.4.). Dynamikomorphic attributions are narrative insofar as they integrate perceptions into the idea of a temporal process (cf. Husserl [1926] 2007, 171f) or, in other words, into a story line. The imagination creates fragmentary film-like sequences that try to reconstruct past developments or try to anticipate future plausibilities. Our response depends on which of these “stories” we intuitively select as the most probable one. As with anthropomorphism, we experience this attribution not necessarily as our own activity but regard them usually as an inherent property of the external world of things: objects seem to “tell” us how they have become what we see or what could happen to them in the future (for example, the form of a spider suggests a certain kind of sudden, fast movement; a ruin suggests instability, further decay and, in the same instant, tells about its past as an intact structure; displaced architectural volumes evoke visions of collapse; see figs. 5, 6, 7). Studies and a meta-analysis (see Balling and Falk 1982; Orians and Heerwagen 1992, savanna hypothesis; Kaplan 1992; Flury 1992; Nüchterlein 2005) decisively indicate that there is an overall visual preference for natural environments in comparison to artificial ones. Moreover, according to a specialist of healthcare architecture, Roger S. Ulrich (1983): “Recent research demonstrates that responses to trees and other vegetation can be linked directly to health, and in turn related to economic benefits of visual quality” (abstract). The considerable influence of

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natural design and environment aspects on health, well-being, and human effectivity is confirmed by many relevant researchers (see Parsons 1991; Heerwagen 2000; Dilani 2009; Herzog, Maguire, and Nebel 2003; Orians and Heerwagen 1993; Chatterjee 2013, 48–53). Concerning the influence of cognition- and knowledge-depending factors, analyses show that aesthetic evaluations emerge immediately based on emotional reactions rather than cognitive consideration and that they often are processed unconsciously (see LeDoux 1996; Hasse 2012). In conclusion, it appears reasonable to presuppose that even discrete biomorphic, anthropomorphic, and dynamikomorphic aspects—in other words, parameter analogizing natural structures and properties—would heighten the spontaneous, unconscious affective attraction toward the concerned object or surrounding. Even prior to further special investigation, we can state that the described analogic attributions are of decisive importance for the interpretation of our everyday perceptions and our spontaneous reactions upon aesthetic stimuli of any kind. However, an awareness of the great importance of these analogies seems to need some more support in the mainstream of spatial design practice and training: the multiplication of technical possibilities absorbs the major share of time and energy for their understanding and adequate use, and this bias again favors a pragmatic and rational view of the world and a rather functionalist conception of man. From this point of view, the discussed peculiarities of human perception— hard enough to systematize—tend to strand as a mildly interesting but ultimately expendable pastime of design development. I therefore would like to explore the former existential relevance of the discussed topics and their strong connection of meaning with general modes of visual perception (see Heinrich 2013). I would like to propose the term and concept of “dynamikomorphism,” acknowledging and transferring, inter alia, central ideas of psycho-morphology (e.g., Salber 2009, 78f) and perceptual meaning (Pinna 2010) into aesthetic contexts and a strongly extended frame of reference. I would like to outline a basic survey of analyzing tools to support the systematic, practical handling of the mentioned phenomena within all design disciplines, explicitly within the spatial arts. Complementing each description of the main aspects of the vast and interdisciplinary theme, I concisely provide suggestions of design applicability and introduce examples of architecture and spatial design. Whereas many treatments of the topic put their emphasis on direct mimetic applications of anthropomorphic and biomorphic patterns and figures (as does Feuerstein 2002), I would like to direct our attention to more subliminal biomorphic analogies emerging in almost every design context, such as self-similarities or the zoning of objects (cf. Wölfflin [1886] 1999, 34).

2. Modes of Visual Perception To understand how the discussed analogies—transfers of form-encoded meaning—are established, we should first adopt a rather constructivist position: our world of structured meanings does not exist from the outset; we ourselves construct our inner mental world, using our perceptional templates and our classifications, out of the incessant flood of sensory stimuli that are the messengers of the unknown outside world. Doing so, what instruments exactly do we use?

2.1. Form-giving processes: The emergence of “Gestalten” To turn the chaos of sensory information into entities with meaning and relevance, our perception has to carry out many parallel performances: Numerous properties of various visual categories (brightness, contrast, color, etc.) must be registered, correlated, and reduced to manageable units: clearly defined shapes on a specific background or figures that maintain their stable independence in the field of perception.

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We need those figures on the one hand to simplify the infinite universal complexity and on the other hand to attribute meanings following individual qualities. Making figures (“Gestalten”) empowers us to record these hierarchies and to make them communicable and memorizable. Gestalt psychology has worked out such preferences and tendencies of perception systematically as “Gestalt laws” (see Ehrenfels [1932] 1988; Koffka [1935] 2013; Metzger [1975] 2008; Wertheimer [1923] 1950). Usually, we will find multiple proposals for Gestalten at the same time in our field of perception, and it is the context, the arousal level, and curiosity that determines our attention, selection, and abstraction activities (for curiosity and exploration, see Berlyne 1960, 193–227; for grouping laws in relation to attention, see Dodd and Pratt 2005; for Gestalt laws and the prediction of visual attention, see Kootstra, Bergström, and Kragic 2011). We have a strong preference for spatial interpretations and relationships of figure and ground, refined by a completion system that reconstructs fragmented forms or jagged figures with flowing, logical line extensions, aligning forms to projected abstract basic figures.

Relevance for Perception-Adapted Design Evolvement: Involving the form factors (Gestalt laws) and attention principles into our design work, we can analyze or directly control:  how attention is attracted, directed, and focused within the visual field;  how objects and spaces are divided up by our perception;  how strongly objects and spaces separate within an environment;  how fluently they integrate into their environment;  how objects and spaces are given rhythm by composing elements, inducing similarities, or suggesting virtual lines;  how attention is focused by agglomerations;  how the plasticity of the appearance is enforced by contrasts, rhythms, contours, or overlappings;  how strongly the observer performs his own completion of suggestive fragments;  the emergence of movement illusions;  the emergence of different contours and figures at different approaching distances at the same object (for example, the decreasing boldness and increasing refinement of subdivisions depending on viewing distance; see fig. 9);  the emergence of associations and analogies by providing appropriate key arrays;  the level of self-similarity at different structural levels of the object hierarchy (for example, the use of multidimensional rhombic grids; see fig. 8), creating unity in diversity, a strong biomorphic property (see Arnheim [1978] 2000, 63). Most of these form factors reflect biomorphic properties or refer to their roots in the interaction of man with his natural surroundings. Applied purposefully, these instruments can increase the attractiveness of design concepts enormously.

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Figure 8: The Gherkin, London. Norman Foster 2003 Source: GM Films 2005; Michael Heinrich 2013

Figure 9: Vaux-le-Vicomte, Melun. Louis Le Brun 1661 Source: Michael Heinrich 2013

2.2. Analogy; Anthropomorphic and Biomorphic Aspects of Appearance How does the manageable number of object-like structures with equally object-like subdivisions now convert into a meaningful object?Unless we are newborn, we usually have had some similar perceptual experiences with similar contexts in our lives so far. We have stored them in our memory as four-dimensional entities of experiences. By comparison of perceived qualities with these basic motives, we equip the formal accordances with the inherent meaning connected with them. The memorized entities of experience are so vivid that they allow virtually infinite variants of individual properties, and they even apply to minimal traces of familiarity. By chains of associations, individual entities in our minds not only connect with each other to form larger categories but also link with related, adjacent experience structures as comprehensive knowledge matrixes. The repertoire built up by acquired form and process experiences is primed by instinctive interpretation patterns (such as the Kindchenschema, see Konrad Lorenz 1943; simple face schemes, cf. Miesler 2011) and serves as a constant comparison and verification framework for new perceptions that, in turn, differentiate the existing archive contents simultaneously. Speed and flexibility of analogical thinking is an integral part of test arrangements for intelligence and creativity and corresponds to the central importance of analogy for the increase of knowledge (cf. Hofstatter and Sander 2014). Not least, our pool of analogies includes our most fundamental experience: our own corporeality and aliveness in their interaction with the physical forces of natural environments, with biographical and temporal rhythms. It allows us to “know” or “sympathize” how objects (remember the jungle scenario: every contour or shape of a wild animal could turn out to be a real beast) are conditioned internally or how they might interact with gravity, air resistance, heat, or cold. Thus we find basic vital and physical forces of our own experience—e.g., our sense of balance—reflected everywhere in our environment. We identify the slightest visual key signals of attentiveness, growth, expansion, torpor, aggression, fear, lust, greed, brood care, exhaustion, regeneration, etc.; compare them intuitively with our own inner experiences; and thus gain a rapid empathic access to the probable potentials and motives we encounter (see Vischer [1927]

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2007, 27; see Ruskin 1857, 120). Usually we interpret these universal patterns of physical conditionality, connected with our attributions, as “expression” of an object or being.

Relevance for Perception-Adapted Design Evolvement: Analogy is a fundamental, strong process of assigning and classifying units of meaning, and it makes use of all conceivable form-giving processes. Partly dependent on cultural conditioning, analogies can be applied at different levels of abstraction: they can appear either directly mimetic, highly fragmented or stylized, or eventually encoded as a semantic sign or symbol. Playing with anthropomorphic and biomorphic analogies (e.g., Kindchenschema or as sexual allusion) is a highly popular method to draw positive attention in the fields of advertising, fashion, automotive and product design, pop music, and comic culture but is also—as religious or mythological allegory—an ancient part of human cultural activity. Analogies may relate to color, shape, orientation, or materiality. Convexity (outward bulging roundness), for example, can strongly suggest the inner, stretching tension of a soft elastic tissue (see Sörgel 1921; Seyler 2003). The sheer verticality of an object may include an analogy of growth or the human uprightness. Symmetry, on the other hand, is a salient feature of living organisms and therefore a powerful analogy carrier. It stands to reason that our sensitivity for the ratio of supports and weights could be linked closely to various analogies. By analogy, we draw conclusions from the surface structure of an object or volume on its consistency and weight. We see a concrete surface and know the hardness of the object. We see a huge volume on thin brittle supports and distrust its stability, even against better knowledge. Intended biomorphic and anthropomorphic analogies can be widely found within works of contemporary architects, for examble with Calatrava (see fig. 39). Deconstructivist architecture (e.g., by Libeskind or Hadid), however, shows fragmentation, deformation, explosion, and growth processes as a sculptural snapshot, “telling” physical transformations of stereometric basic arrays (see below: narratives). The invitation effect (affordance: objects suggest their applicability or usability) may also be partly caused by analogy. Anthropomorphic, biomorphic, dynamomorphic, and other analogies can be provoked by numerous visual key stimuli:  faces and facial expressions (for example, arrangements of openings in an ocular manner, combined with a feature positioned in a corresponding mouth position, make a particularly strong effect; see fig. 10–13)  zoning, silhouettes, and body schemes (for example, the ceiling/skylight form evoking the contours of an internal organ, especially a human heart; see fig. 14)  posture and gesture expressions  materiality and weight assertions, e.g., convexity (for example, soft, bulging and stretching surface qualities suggest a corresponding materiality; see fig. 14)  patterns of hierarchy (symmetries, rhythms, self-similarity)  indicators of motion, transformation, deformation, compaction, growth, or decay (for example, curving and flowing lines suggest to mark motion and expansion tracks; see fig. 14)  affordances concerning interaction (e.g., exploratory arrays, see fig. 14)  situation and arrangement analogies (see fig. 14)

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Figure 10: Court Pavilion Hietzing, Vienna. Otto Wagner 1899 Source: ArchINFORM 2009

Figure 12: Villa Savoye, Poissy. Le Corbusier 1931 Source: Wikipedia Commons 2010

Figure 11: Court Pavilion Hietzing: Schematic Face Source : Michael Heinrich 2014

Figure 13: Villa Savoye: Schematic Face; right: Comic Title. Source: Michael Heinrich 2014; Andrew Bloor 2008

Figure 14: Set Design “Der Zauberberg,” Magdeburg Theatre: Analogies to Glacier, Snow Drift, Hotel Lobby (Skylight, Window), Heart/Organs, Skin, Wound Source: Michael Heinrich, 2004

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2.3. Visual Exploration of Space We all are spatial beings; all our life we move within external and internal spaces. Space in itself is hard to imagine; to be perceivable, space demands physical expansions that structure it with different consistencies and qualities; it demands objects and their boundaries, and an observer in motion (cf. Gibson 1986, 2f)—or, at least, the observer’s eyes in motion. Our gaze—as a nonmaterial substitute of our physical talent for exploration—scans the surrounding space and collects information that helps our perception to identify and define materialities and thing-qualities (see also Klopfer [1919] 2007, 150; Berlyne 1960, 78–103). Subsequently, we take physical possession of space via corporeal movement and interaction, following the suggestions of our senses and the affordances provided by our environment (concept of affordance, see Gibson 1979, 56f), and make it a physically experienced part of our inner map. Language reveals to what extent we use our eyes as virtual extensions of our body: the gaze can sweep, wander, ramble, or lose itself in the clouds. Eyes can be flashing, piercing, or warming. Like our sense of touch, the quasi-haptic exploratory eye induces immediate emotional reactions, enabling us to come to decisions on our interaction behavior.

Relevance For Perception-Adapted Design Evolvement: With the deliberately designed visual guidance of this tentative look (e.g., by rhythmic, linear, or depth parameters), we can, into a room or object system, inscribe a narrative dramaturgy of reading, and we can thus support and control the quasi-physical quality of the gaze’s exploration activity: We can:  generate dynamisms of direction and synesthetic sensations of explorative motion (see fig. 16);  produce growing, streaming, or pacing analogies (see fig. 15);  strengthen or weaken the impression of plasticity;  determine the sequence of space experiences. Seeing is therefore an activity that creates preforms of physical exploration: the visual perception is a holistic experience, representing our entire physique.

Figure 15: Racing Car “Survolt” Source: Citroen 2010

Figure 16: Set Design Hamlet, State Theatre Meiningen Source: Michael Heinrich 2000

2.4. Construction Of Dynamikomorphic Narratives Visual perception—a series of snapshots (an idea suggested as early as 1826 by the exponent of British Empiricism, David Hume)? Gibson (1986) denies that idea: “The evidence suggests that visual awareness is in fact panoramic and does in fact persist during long acts of locomotion.” But we can go even further: To estimate—at least rudimentarily—what could happen to us in our

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interaction with other beings and with our environment, we need to draw conclusions from the current appearance of a person or situation to its past development and its future conduct (cf. Husserl [1926] 2007, 171f; Buss 2008, 91ff). As soon as there is slight indexical evidence for physical transformation, we tend to extend our interpretation of static phenomena: we conceive them as potential freezings of dynamic processes. How easily observers attribute causality to consecutive visual perceptions has already been shown by Michotte and by the discussion of his hypothesis (Michotte 1963). The perceiver registers an indexical object “as mainly real, as situated in space and time, functioning according to familiar principles.” (Wildgen 2013, translation by the author). Based on a constant flow of cues and indicators, we let evolve animated scenarios and mental concepts about ourselves and our environment to make our predictions and conclusions more likely and our behavior more appropriate. These narrative particles are probabilities; we equip them with the wealth of similar experiences and analogies we have already accumulated. The emerging expectations take the role of anticipating cues, and indeed studies prove that visual perception shows “improved efficiency when subjects were cued to the location of the event” (see spatial-cueing paradigm, Posner 1987; Posner and Cohen 1984, 533); “Perception of space and shape is assumed to be a process of anticipating the sensory consequences of actions” (Möller 1999). The particular narrative, where most of the perceptions fit into place, and the most appropriate analogy will suggest how we should respond best to the current stimuli and settings. We could construe these spontaneous anticipating and concluding operations as dynamizations of object representations; visual signals and properties that evoke such operations could be called, in consequence, dynamikomorph (= taking the form of results and potentials of dynamic forces; showing signs of dynamic influences; Greek dynamiko = potential; Greek dynami = force). The domain of the arts was for a long time—and still is—driven by the ambition to inspire narrative imagination by means of static but motion-suggestive and telling representations and thus to develop the narrative potential of merely frozen screenshots of everevolving reality (cf. Weber 1976, 212ff).

Relevance for Perception-Adapted Design Evolvement: Independent of our input, each spatial structure will tell stories and generate analogies (not only in terms of a “Narrative Architecture” [Coates 2012]). Designing in its full sense, therefore, means to consider the possibilities for such stories and analogies, to apply or avoid them intentionally, and to use visual appearances as semiotic codes (as discussed by biosemiotics; good overviews cf. Barbieri 2008; Favareau 2010; Sebeok 2001). Whether we call, for example, a table or chair elegant or clumsy will depend on the intensity of animated agility we add to its appearance. In other words, the furniture tells our subconscious perception which process-like interactions it would be capable to perform if animated. (see figs. 17, 18).

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Figure 17: Dynamikomorphic Gestalt Profile: Clumsy—Heavy—Slow Armchair “Plump,”, Nigel Coates, F.LLI.Boffi; Hippo, Oregon Zoo, Portland Sources: Architonic 2009; Bob Mielke 2009

Figure 18: Dynamikomorphic Gestalt Profile: Agile—Light—Swift Biedermeier Chair, Southern Germany (around 1825); Springbok, Namibia Sources: Michael Heinrich 2014; Yathin Krishnappa 2012

Again, it is the language that incessantly reveals such projections: we call a building “inviting,” “repellent,” or even “overwhelming”; windows can “stare” at us, towers “greet” us from afar. The tavern “rests” in a valley; next to it “rises” a chapel. We furnish the object with a projection of activity extending in time and involving us as observer. The mere static appearance of an object seems thus to allow conclusions about its probable vitality, mobility, or mood—and about its future interaction behavior: a car can seem “spirited;” a facade “cheerful,” “cozy,” “proud,” or “cold.” How we evaluate such impressions in each case is dependent on our current expectations or needs. To proceed from an intended appearance to the actual form and design, it is quite useful to search for anthropomorphic, biomorphic, and dynamikomorphic correlates or analogies.When we design a building with tiny openings, for example, it will be hardly taken as “friendly”—for a friendly face is “open.” If we provide a huge room with a low ceiling but little walls or supporting elements (for instance in a parking garage), we unwillingly evoke collapse scenarios.

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2.5. Expectation and Need Orientation; Contextualization The result of the discussed functions of perception is a world of form and meaning made of an infinitely complex network of stimuli. But still we need some criteria to reduce this multitude to a few dominating themes that motivate our targeted activity. Our unconscious now selects those impressions that will best suit our current needs or situational expectations, in other words, potentials of evolvement, discovery, interaction, and existential protection, assisted by the Gestalt laws (cf. Kootstra, Bergström, and Kragic 2011). Impressions filtered out as irrelevant are automatically faded out of conscious attention. The unconscious portions of the visual field of perception, on the other hand, constitute a situational context and expectation frame that influences the interpretation of conscious perceptions (atmosphere, see above). Expectation frames can be so strong that unexpected though striking features are simply airbrushed out of attention (cf. Simons and Chabris 1999). The degree of stress on the visual perception is a matter of situational, individual need. Like any other physical function, the perceptual apparatus requires on the one hand exercise, stimulation, and active effort; on the other hand, it requires periods of rest and relaxation by reduced stimulus input. A moderate level of complexity and arousal potential seems to be, on average, most comfortable (see Berlyne 1960), a finding that exposes design dogmas of absolutized reduction as to be questioned and contextualized: “The empirical work on architectural detail … tends to support the hypothesis that detail is an important part of preferences for buildings.” (Stamps 2000).

Photo, ©: Bujdosó, Attila (2005)

Figure 19: Church of Light, Ibaraki Profile of Needs: to meditate—to congregate—to come to rest—sincerity, inwardness Tadao Ando 1989 Source: Bergmann 2006

Figure 20: Vierzehnheiligen Basilica Profile of Needs: to marvel—to explore—to rejoice—to be moved—cheerfulness, attentiveness Balthasar Neumann 1753 Source: Gunther Seibold 2013

Relevance for Perception-Adapted Design Evolvement: “Form follows function” (Sullivan 1896). By the functionalist opinion leaders of the 1920s until today, this dictum has been interpreted quite simplistically: the term “function” was unquestionably equated with utilitarian function or use function and thus reduced to a strongly biased interpretation. The basic assumption—a pure ideal, rational form as the ultimate aim in design should be approached by reduction, abstraction, and authenticity—discredited the knowledge on the wealth of subjective and atmospheric association (“ornament and crime,” Loos 1908). From today’s point of view, a differentiated, atmospherically sophisticated appearance with a range of appropriate association options represents an essential communicational function

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even preceding the purpose function. The level of such differentiation has always been dependent on the perceptional needs and ambitions of the concerned users (see figs. 19, 20).

3. Evolutionary Significance Of Anthropomorphic, Biomorphic, And Dynamikomorphic Attributions When we are born, we initially find ourselves in a visual universe of incredible complexity. To rearrange this chaos of disparate sensory irritations into a world of sorted meanings, our perception at first has to subdivide and group the continuum of stimuli into objects or subsystems. In doing so, real physical limits are reduced, analogized, interpreted, and supplemented. This subdivision sure is a very practical matter—to turn it into an evolutionary success, we must be able to attribute meaning to these things (including other living beings) with regard to our existential interests. We have to be capable of checking in fractions of a second their threats or opportunities and select the correct response immediately, namely a behavior that enables us to meet our current needs most likely or benefits an existential advantage to us or our horde.

Figure 21: Leopard, Kenia Source: Nikolaus Reich 2011

Figure 22: Abandoned Cat, Montmartre, Paris Source: Thomas Holste 2009

At each encounter with a fellow creature in the jungle or on the savannah, our ancestors had to detect and distinguish the finest differences of physical potential, movement, posture, outline, or facial expressions to successfully compete and survive. They had to be able to read objectives, intentions, needs, abilities, powers, and environmental potentials and dangers directly from the appearance of living beings and landscape signals (see Buss 2008, 90f; Ulrich 1983) and accomplish this, if possible, with a small head start (see figs. 21, 22). Anthropomorphic, biomorphic, and dynamikomorphic attributions are interpretation models that are instantaneously disposable. They enable rapid identification and unrivalled predictability of scenarios of animate and inanimate natural systems and environments. As they can cover innumerable situations of existential threat and crucial probabilities (see Guthrie 1997, 56), for humans they constitute evolutionary essentials. If they sometimes come to nothing because they prove to be completely inappropriate, they are still not in vain: they serve at least as a practice maneuver, keeping the psycho-physical reaction chain of the next case of emergency in good working order. When concerned objects and properties reach us beyond the threshold of conscious perception (cf. LeDoux 1996; Hasse 2012), they are generating feelings that we can neither define nor locate; they create sensations that condense concertedly inside us into a vague but intense mood blend (see figs. 23, 24). This network of mood colors we interpret—again unconsciously—as a diffuse feature of space itself, and we call it atmosphere (see Böhme [1995] 2007, 309). An atmosphere puts us in a certain expectation and a preparatory state of mind, long in advance of individual stimuli claiming individual reactions. The sense of atmosphere thus

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supports the goal-orientation, adequacy, and speed of our interaction with the environment; it is far from a superfluous squeamishness but highly functional.

Figure 23: The City of the Dead, Horror Film Source: Hammer Studios, GB 1960

Figure 24: Snow White, Concept Art Source: Walt Disney, Hollywood 1937

4. Interpretation and Application History of Anthropomorphic, Biomorphic, and Dynamikomorphic Attributions Since the discussed topics are basic processings of human perception, we find evidence of them in all human cultures and at all times. These attributions are particularly apparent when unfamiliar aspects of the world are interpreted as living entities for the sake of turning their mood to benevolence with the means of human communication. Mythologies and religions use allegories and deities to give a human face to complex and often unpredictable forces of nature. Since the ancient world, architecture and design cross-link themselves by all kinds of semiotic enrichment, the use of biomorphic and dynamomorphic analogies, and properties with the network of analogies and mythological narratives (see figs. 25, 26, 27). Similarly, the Catholic Church uses—in the Gothic period of the Middle Ages but also in the CounterReformation and beyond—art and architecture as a projection of anthropo-, zoo-, and biomorphic analogies and narrative structures (see figs. 28, 29, 30). Since the Renaissance, the human urge toward anthropomorphization becomes a subject of speculative philosophy, anthropology, and architectural aesthetics, the latter making efforts to develop corresponding formal grammars (see figs. 31, 32, 33). With the blossoming of a scientific, analytical perspective in the wake of humanism, the rational thinking of Cartesian dualism and Enlightenment increasingly dissociates itself from many applied forms of nonrational world experience, such as biomorphism.

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Figure 25: Erechteion, Caryatid Porch, Athens (ca. 410 BC) Source: hst 2011

Figure 28: Holy Cross Minster, Schwäbisch Gmünd. Peter Parler 1380 Source: Wikipedia Commons 2009

Figure 31: Trattato di Architettura: Entablature. Francesco di Giorgio Martini 1490 Source: BNCF Firenze.

Figure 26: Poseidon /Zeus, Greece (ca. 460 BC) Source: NAM, Athens

Figure 27: Temple of Hera, Biomorphic Entasis of Doric Columns, Paestum (ca. 550 BC) Source: Andrew Selkirk 2012.)

Figure 29: The Lord/Creation of Adam, Rome, Sixtina. Michelangelo Buonarroti 1510 Source: SwissEduc-Team 2010

Figure 32: Trattato di Architettura: Church Plan. Francesco di Giorgio Martini 1490 Source: Wikipedia

Figure 30: Symbolic Sketch, St. Peter, Rome. Gianlorenzo Bernini 1657 Source: Specchio Romano 2010

Figure 33: The First and Chiefe Groundes of Architecture: Ionic Order. John Shute 1563 Source: INHA 2009

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Figure 34: St. Nikolai, Leipzig. Carl Friedrich Dauthe 1797 Source: Wikimedia Commons 2012

Figure 36: Sagrada Família Cathedral, Barcelona. Antoni Gaudí 1882 Source: Fanshare 2012 Figure 35: Mausoleum for Queen Louise. Karl Friedrich Schinkel 1810 Source: Nationalgalerie Berlin

The scientific bias increased during the nineteenth century, and it is the antirationalist movement of Romanticism—domain of the arts and a holistic, passionate, and associative access to the world—that takes the role of a sanctuary for natural analogies, e.g., for the forest metaphor (see figs. 34, 35). Until the end of Jugendstil (see fig. 36), the idea of primordial nature holds its ground as a projection screen not only for harmonic beauty but also for the “sublime” (see Burke [1757] 1998) and for expression, soulfulness, and sentiment, a place of refuge at the edge of the overwhelming industrialization and social upheavals. Expressionism and the early Bauhaus movement feature a bridge from constructivism to nature analogies with the cave metaphor (see fig. 37) or the crystal metaphor (as in Bruno Taut and Rudolf Jahns; see Szymczak 2006, 214; see fig. 38). But the leading analogy of the coming decades will be the epitome of speed, ratio, modernity, purity, and efficiency: the machine.

Figure 37: Great Schauspielhaus, Berlin. Hans Poelzig 1919 Source: Architekturmuseum TU Berlin

Figure 38: Glass Pavilion, WerkbundExhibition, Cologne. Bruno Taut 1914 Source: Wikipedia

As a nonhuman mold, it generates a utopian technophile and hygienic metaphor of man (see Drake 2008, 91–130), stripped of any supposedly infantile (cf. Gebhard 2009) or animistic atavisms of a primitive creatural past. Since the 1960s, globalization and digitalization increasingly mix cultural patterns in Western societies; postmodernism opens up the architectural and design scene for semiotic and symbolic aspects of spatial communication. Beyond the academically dominating neomodernism in everyday industrial design production, the discussed

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analogies are used more and more, at least since the 1950s, simply because they have proved effective and reliable as a marketing and selling instrument (e.g., in car design; cf. DiSalvo 2003, Miesler 2011). The comic culture owes much to these processes, if not its emergence. Many architects and interior and product designers take a great interest in a new justifiability of design, beyond technology addiction, arbitrary aesthetic lifestyle trends, or cemented remains of an outdated Bauhaus ideology (see Kruft 1991, 461; see figs. 39, 40).

Figure 39: Allen Lambert Galleria, Toronto. Santiago Calatrava 1992 Source: Jelsoft Ltd. 2006

Figure 40: Stuttgart Airport, Terminal 3, Stuttgart. Meinhard von Gerkan 2004 Source: Ralph Wagner 1998

In this context, dynamomorphic approaches have gained widespread popularity via flagship projects of deconstructivistic architects such as Gehry, Libeskind, Hadid (see fig. 41), or Coop Himmelblau. The spirit of aesthetic experiment is, however, clouded in the lowlands of everyday architecture by the challenge of energy efficiency and its economic necessities.

5. Conclusion Anthropomorphic and biomorphic analogies and dynamikomorphic narratives are basic functions of our perception and an integral part of our creative intelligence. As such, they can contribute significantly to the success and acceptance of design interventions and strongly support a holistic reference to human needs. Many related questions remain to further scientific investigation. How exactly is health and well-being affected by aesthetic influences? How does the abstraction tendency of our potential to create simplified Gestalten correlate with the oppositional tendency of analogy to differentiate perceived figures, making them match an already experienced context of meaning? Referring to architecture and the fine arts: How can we explain the affinity to more and more sophisticated mimesis in relation to abstraction (which neurobiologist Semir Zeki [2001] calls “a supreme law” of the visual brain), such as appearing likewise in primitive and modern art? There is excellent basic research and interesting speculative answers (see Worringer [1907] 2007; Arnheim [1978] 2000; Berlyne 1960, 228–61); in the last decades, the quantitative and qualitative research concerning aesthetics has further intensified, exploiting new techniques of neurobiology and neurosciences and connecting related fields like biosemiotics, neuroaesthetics, evolutionary psychology, and environmental psychology.

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Figure 41: Museo Betile, Cagliari. Zaha Hadid 2006 Source: Baunetz 2006

Figure 42: TownTown Office Tower Erdberg, Vienna Source: Coop Himmelblau 2010

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Figure 43: “Form Follows Function” Source: Regio GmbH 2014; Sugar Ray Banister 2009; Wikipedia

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Within the creative practice of spatial arts, awareness of the discussed relationships of form and perception is pronounced differently. In many trendsetting architectural, scenographic, and communicational contexts of the 20th century, an ambitious avant-garde of interdisciplinary designers (for example, van de Velde, Wright, Saarinen, Aalto, Calatrava, Hadid) has long been involving conceptual, structural, or ornamental biomorphics and dynamiko-morphics, supported by increasingly powerful CAD systems (see fig. 42). The everyday architecture of industrial, commercial, and residential buildings, however, follows to a great extent one-dimensional economistic urges (see fig. 43). The extensive aesthetic diversity within a heterogeneous society requires a constant discussion on conceptual aesthetic core qualities of public and individual spaces. Corresponding reflection and research, including the discussed matters of perception, therefore earn an appropriate position in methodical design education: to limit the arbitrariness of aesthetic ideologies, trends, and fashions. Perhaps one of the major challenges for design research, design education, and design training is to continually systematize the multidisciplinary mosaic pieces of evidence; to relate them to each other; and, thus, to provide a structured, updating body of qualitative parameters that can help to establish standards of differentiation and reflection in the practice of design and architecture (an excellent approach is “A Pattern Language,” Alexander et al. [1977] 1995). This survey wants to contribute to that aim and, by embedding the visual perception of static design phenomena in a process-related concept of transforming meanings, extrapolations, and conclusions (see above, dynamicomorphism), to support a dynamic perspective on human visual perception in its relation to design approaches.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michael Heinrich: Professor (Visual Communication, Set Design, Design Principles, History of Interior Architecture), Department of Interior Architecture, Faculty of Design, Coburg University of Applied Sciences, Coburg, Bavaria, Germany

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The International Journal of Visual Design is one of six thematically focused journals in the collection of journals that support the Design Principles and Practices knowledge community—its journals, book series, conference and online community. The journal explores processes and practices of representation and communication using the medium of the image. Areas of interest include communications design, visual arts, illustration, photography, film and video, graphic design, typography, interface design, internet design, animation and computer simulations. As well as papers of a traditional scholarly type, this journal invites presentations of practice—including documentation of visual designs accompanied by exegeses analyzing visual design purposes, processes and effects. The International Journal of Visual Design is a peerreviewed scholarly journal.

ISSN 2325-1581