MEDIA AS ECOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT

Depictions of objects and spaces triggered debates about reality, perspective and how these depictions are related to theories of perception. Plato was concerned that illusionary representations were immoral because the use of perspective dis- torted the proportions of reality (e.g., a distant tree might be drawn half as tall as a

11 Mediated Environments to Consciousness

near tree of the same size). Fortunately, Plato’s view now has little effect on art and perspective is a ruling principle for most image making. Some believe that mimesis is the ideal and the goal is to make an image so technically perfect that the viewer of the illusion confuses image and reality. Others disagree, for example, artist René Magritte painted a picture of a pipe and wrote below it (in French), “This is not a pipe.” Before the age of virtual reality, it is diffi cult to think of instances of mimesis. Except perhaps briefl y (with examples like holograph and trompe l’oeil), we are unlikely to accept an image as real, although Star Trek’s Holodeck offered a vision for the future and, today, many museums and art or science centers offer virtual reality installations.

Assumption of realism has moved to a debate about what is portrayed, a debate that encompasses many fi elds including philosophy, art, psychology, and computer science. Panofsky (1988) states that perspective is a symbolic form for conveying intellectual content. He says that perspective does not represent vision but one of the possible representations of seeing. As such, perspective is a fi gura- tive principle. Gombrich (1993) notes that perhaps the world may never look like an image, but an image may be made to look like the world; thus perspective is a representational technique for creating the mimetic ideal.

Avant-garde art may use perspective but have no interest in mimesis. As Swiss-born artist, Paul Klee (1973) states, “images do not reproduce what is visible; images render something visible.” Modern theorists understand that the artist/ photographer/fi lmmaker/game designer makes choices that affect the creation. Representing physical reality may not be a goal, but the representation of emotion or other types of content, as, for example, Kandinsky’s Composition VIII (Guggenheim, NY).

Turner painted the same scene under different conditions of light. The evi- dence seems rather clear that artists choose aspects of their compositions. The same is true of photographs, and this is no longer debated in an era of software for digital photo manipulations and the creation of digital fi lm graphics. Even when photos are not digitally altered, photographers make choices consistent with their own goals.

Visuals are not the only perceptual information available in media. Many presentations also make available information for auditory and other perceptual systems. Visual imagery, music, and other production features, such as lighting and mise en scene, all elicit emotion and can affect the visual focus of attention. Chion (1990) claims that what we see is always altered by what we hear because sound engages the very structuring of vision by framing it. Several investigators of fi lm music have shown that characteristics of music can infl uence direct as well as indirect judgments of the fi lm (Bolivar et al., 1994; Bullerjahn & Güldenring, 1994; Lipscomb & Kendall, 1994; Marshall & Cohen, 1988; Thayer & Levinson, 1983; Vitouch, 2001). Aspects of music, such as rhythm, tempo, and temporary synchrony, alter temporal congruence (of sounds and visuals) and may determine the visual focus of attention (Cohen, 2000). Cohen (1999, 2000, 2005; Cohen &

290 Joan M. Preston

MacMillan, 2004) has also demonstrated that music can alter mood and increase viewer absorption. These infl uences of music are greater when there is more visual ambiguity. Media creators usually select music that is congruent with the visuals. Smith (1999) argues that such congruence heightens or intensifi es the affective qualities of the image, that is, viewers feel emotion more strongly than they would with the music or image alone.

Any medium permits a range of options to the creator. The role of artistic talent cannot be ignored; otherwise, we could all paint like Rembrandt or Van Gogh, capture people like Imogen Cunningham or Annie Leibovitz do in their photographs, and so forth. Most media are representational and intentionally so. Viewers are often willing to adopt an instrumental set while the director-controlled images cue the audience to the director-intended message. Media creators can alter the impact of structure to elicit inferencing, and a simple demonstration illustrates the role of style or form. I show my students several pictures of “cat” which yield

a variety of meanings (a black-and-white line drawing of a cat with heart-shaped spots, a colorful cartoon cat, a photo, and paintings of a realistic-looking cat and

a colorful abstract version of a cat). However, media do not consist of form alone. Klee (1973) emphasized that content is essential; it is the impetus for form, but content is impossible without the appropriate form to hold it. For Klee, design empha- sizes process in analysis and synthesis, and whether it is called intuition, unconscious processes, or inspiration, creative forces must be balanced with conscious processes. Kandinsky (see Knight, 2001) described content as the emotion in the artist’s soul, while form serves to embody it. He argued that intuition was critical whenever

a media creation called for viewer input or choice because intuition was needed to evaluate and choose among available design solutions. As he explained, media creators begin with content but complete harmony exists only when the content creates the form.

MEDIA AS ECOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT