Continued reading indicated this area of research may have originated with Dr. Barry Prizant and then abandoned by his peers (along with Gestalt Language Processing.)
Here is an early study of his (bear in mind this was written a long time ago and is more deficit based than his current work.)
Over the last decade, my energies have settled, through desire paths and tributaries, into software, sound, and ceramics. I would characterize my approach to these disciplines to be sculptural in a broad sense, in which the resulting object (experience) is dependent on the accretion of smaller, more intuitive decisions, as opposed to starting from a dogmatic schema and working backwards.
Dornith Doherty is an American artist working primarily with photography, video, animations, works on paper, and scientific imaging. In projects that interweave the evidentiary and metaphoric powers of photographic images, Doherty illuminates ecological and philosophical issues that are often neglected when considering human entanglements in the environment.
Gestalt cognitive processing is when experiences are held as primarily episodic memories. Gestalt cognitive processors process events as a “whole” that is made up of very specific parts. They are whole-to-part thinkers. They have a hyper-awareness of specifics and details in events that make up the entirety of the event, episode, or “whole” for them. … If something within that whole changes, it can be very distressing for a gestalt cognitive processor.
Morgan Schafler says that perfectionists are people who “consistently notice the difference between an ideal and a reality,” and more often than not, have “a compulsion to bridge the gulf between reality and an ideal.” In her view, the perfectionist holds a kind of creative tension that contains an energy capable of creation or destruction.
The word Gestalt is used in modern German to mean the way a thing has been “placed,” or “put together.” There is no exact equivalent in English. “Form” and “shape” are the usual translations; in psychology the word is often interpreted as “pattern” or “configuration.”
“The act of taking notes in public is a powerful discipline: rather than jotting cryptic notes to myself in a commonplace book, I publish those notes for strangers. This imposes a rigor on the note-taking that makes those notes far more useful to me in years to come.”
“Better still: public note-taking is powerfully mnemonic. The things I’ve taken notes on form a kind of supersaturated solution of story ideas, essay ideas, speech ideas, and more, and periodically two or more of these fragments will glom together, nucleate, and a fully-formed work will crystallize out of the solution.”
Electric Paint is electrically conductive, water-based, and non-toxic paint, and air-dries at room temperature. It is great for fast prototyping with printed electronics, fixing small repairs in circuits, or painting large interactive murals.
I love this imagery of celestial phenomena (including northern lights, meteor showers, etc.) in relation to the recent eclipse and aurora borealis. I’ve been thinking about how people in medieval times would have experienced this. According to these broadsheets they were interpreted as signs of the end times (some things never change) and an act of God.
Northern lights observed over Ausburg on March 6, 1582, interpreted as an omen of disaster.Report of a northern lights phenomenon observed over Nuremberg on December 28, 1560. The text interprets the natural phenomenon as a warning sign from God.Report including a pictorial representation of a northern lights phenomenon (“a great broad long flame”) over Eggolsheim near Forchheim on December 28, 1560.Report of northern lights over Nuremberg on January 17, 1572, in the evening from eight o’clock until around midnight. The author of the text compares the northern lights with the heavenly glow above the Temple of Jerusalem and interprets the event as a divine sign of the end-time fire of the impending Last Judgement.
Other Celestial Phenomena
Depiction of a star that was seen in Calabria, with a fire-breathing dragon and the zodiac sign Aquarius. The text includes a prognostication for the years 1585 to 1587, which announces numerous catastrophes and political upheavals.Halo or secondary sun apparition over the Elbe on March 21, 1551 with the silhouette of Wittenberg below.“The terrible miracle of two earthquakes which happened in Rossanna and Constantinople in 1556”, interpreted as a sign of the Last Judgement, foretold by comets. Note the damage to the Hagia Sophia.Report and depiction of a halo and secondary sun apparition on January 16, 1561 over Rottenburg ob der Tauber, which is interpreted as an end-time warning sign.“An extraordinary face appeared as the sun.” Report of a halo around the sun on May 12, 1556 over Nuremberg. The celestial apparition was interpreted as a warning from God to mankind.The comet that appeared over Augsburg in November, 1577.Report on an ominous apparition in the sky of Lonnerstadt near Erlangen, 1558. The weather phenomenon depicted is related to the dragon of the Apocalypse as a sign of the end times in Revelation 12.Report of the apparition on March 2, 1561 in Nuremberg. The broadsheet claims that the divine signs should be taken seriously in view of the Last Day and will lead to a penitential life on earth.
Most of these come from Einblattdruck, a form of broadsheet that consisted of a title, woodcut, and an account of wonder. These sheets could be created rapidly, disseminated widely, and purchased cheaply. News and current events were thus being printed with greater speed and reach than ever before.
I’m fascinated by the fact these broadsheets have been painted!
I now want to research the process of early woodcut broadsheets.
We experienced a partial eclipse. There was only the tiniest sliver of sun showing. Looking through the glasses at a bright yellow orange cookie with a larger and larger bite missing feels removed. Like it’s hard to believe it’s really happening.
Meanwhile the environmental effect is very real. The light ever so slowly dimming and becoming less contrasted. Like a Supernatural filter descending on the world. (The SPN TV show – not the genre.)
The shadows (when viewed from a longer distance – like tree branches or a colander raised in the air) dance with crescents.
I tried many artsy shots, but the best one seems to be this.
The eclipse challenges our sense of normalcy in a way that feels inspiring re fiction writing. What other small things (the shape of a shadow) can make the world feel magic?
Observations from Aurora Borealis 2024
I can’t believe we could actually see this in Arkansas. To be fair, the effect to the naked eye was very dull (like a mauve smudge on the sky), but the camera was like a portal into another dimension.