El lobo y el perro

We are trying to describe the difference between two kinds of media. In one of them the sequence in which the parts of a composition are apprehended is prescribed by the work itself, whereas in the other it is immaterial. I remem­ ber a discussion between two students, a painter and a musician. The painter said: "I cannot understand how you can keep the parts of a piece of music together since they are never given to you at the same time!" The musician assured him that this was not much of a difficulty, but, he said, "what I don't understand is how you find your way in a painting, not knowing where to start and where to end, nor' where to turn next at any point!"

The difference between the two kinds of media does not coincide with that between mobility and immobility. There are pictures that must be read in a prescribed sequence, e.g., from left to right like writing. Comic strips are

376 M O V E M E N T

of this kind, and so were certain narrative paintings, popular in the fifteenth century, in which one saw, from left to right, how Eve was created from the rib of Adam, how she presented him with the apple, how they were repri­ manded by God and finally thrown out of paradise by the angel.

Conversely, there are mobile works that are not sequential. A dance composition is likely to unfold logically from its beginning to its end, but a waltz in the ballroom is not. Similarly, certain kinds of music, intended to establish a particular mood, are stationary, without a beginning, end, or de­ velopment. The movements of a sculptural mobile have no progression. They reveal the varieties of spatial relation within a set of jointed elements. The order and coordination of the displacements at the various levels are left to chance, and the surprises of the unprescribed configurations are what we enjoy. When sequence is confused with mobility, misinterpretations result. For example, it has been asserted that painting and sculpture are as much "time art" as music and the drama because the viewer must move with his eyes all over the surface of the work and therefore perceives its parts in succession. Actually, the order of a picture exists only in space, in simultaneity. The pic­ ture contains one or several dominant themes to which all the rest is sub­ ordinated. This hierarchy is valid and comprehensible only when all the rela­ tions it involves are grasped as being coexistent. The observer scans the various areas of the picture in succession because neither the eye nor the mind is capable of taking in everything simultaneously, but the order in which the exploration occurs does not matter. The path of the glance need not adhere to the vectorial directions created by the composition. A compositional "arrow" leading from left to right may be perceived correctly even if the eye moves in the opposite direction, or indeed crosses the tract in an arbitrary zigzag. Bar­ riers erected in the picture by contours or color conflict do not stop the eye. On the contrary, they are noticed and experienced while they are traversed. I have already mentioned the many recent studies of eye movements. They show, not surprisingly, that the viewer spends most of his fixations on the items of prime interest. But the order of the fixations is largely accidental and irrelevant.

In a play or musical composition, by contrast, sequence is of the essence.

To change the order of events means to change, and probably destroy, the work. It is imposed upon the viewer and listener and must be obeyed. In a dance there are one or several dominant themes, just as in a painting; but the order of their appearance is linked to definite phases of the total development, and different meanings adhere to different locations in the perceptual sequence. A theme may be presented at the very beginning and then demonstrated and

M O V E M E N T ₃₇₇ explored by a number of changes or variations. Or it may be subjected to en­ counters with other themes and deploy its nature through the resulting at­ tractions or repulsions, victories or defeats. But the theme, perhaps embodied in the principal dancer, may also make a late appearance, after a slow buildup that leads through a crescendo to the climax. This different order in time produces a completely different structure.

Even the objective movement of a piece of sculpture differs in principle from the change of aspects we experience in walking around it; otherwise sculptors would not bother, as some do, to mount their works on motorized turntables. In such cases, the pace and direction of the rotation are prescribed properties of the sculptural display itself. Moreover, we shall find that it makes all the difference for perception and expression whether one sees a thing in motion or walks past, around, or across it.

When a work based on linear succession narrates a story, it actually contains two sequences, that of the events to be portrayed and the path of dis­ closure. In a simple fairy tale the two coincide. The account duplicates the or

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er of the events. In more complex works the journey that the author pre­ scribes for the spectator or reader may differ considerably from the objective sequence of the plot. For example, in

Hamlet

the inherent sequence leads from the murder of the king through· the wedding of his queen and brother to Hamlet's discovery of the crime, and so to the end. The path of disclosure starts somewhere in the middle of that sequence, and moves first backward and then forward. It proceeds from the periphery of the problem toward its center, introducing first the watchmen, then Hamlet's friend, then the mysteri­ ous ghost. Thus, while unfolding the dramatic conflict, the play also deals with man's ways of discovering the facts of life-a secondary plot, of which the spectator is the protagonist. And just as a traveler's route toward an unknown city will influence the notion of it he receives, so the path of disclosure will

encourage a particular response to the subject of a work by giving precedence to certain of its aspects and withholding others. Shakespeare's indirect ap­ proach to the Hamlet story stresses the effects of the crime before presenting the crime itself, and sets the initial accents of night, disturbance of the peace, mystery, and S1:Jspense.

We must take a further step and realize that in the last analysis even a work based on sequence p,resents not only an event but, through the event, a state of being. To use the formula offered by Lessing in his

Laocoon:

whereas narrative painting or sculpture presents action by means of objects, the drama­ tist or novelist uses action to present states of affairs. ("Things that exist next to one another or whose parts do so, are called objects. Therefore objects with

378 M O V E M E N T

their visible properties are the true conte.nt of painting. Thing

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that follow one another or whose parts do so are called actions. Therefore actions are the true content of literature.")

The Hamlet drama reveals an underlying configuration of antagonistic forces, love and hatred, loyalty and treachery, order and crime. The pattern could be represented in a diagram that would contain no reference to the se­ quence of the story. This pattern is gradually uncovered by the play, explored in its various relations, tested by the introduction of crucial situations. A man's

biography, which describes his life from his birth to the grave, must add up

to the presentation of a character, a state of being and behaving in its constant interplay with the polarity of life and death. And just as the young Michelan­ gelo's Pieta in St. Peter's shows a mother holding her child and at the same

time a man leaving his mother behind, so does the story of the Gospel, like

every great narrative, contain its end in its beginning and its beginning in its end.

Together, the sequential and the nonsequential media interpret existence

in its twofold aspect of permanence and change. This complementarity ex­

presses itself in a reciprocal relation between space and force. The forces rep­ resented in a painting are defined primarily by space. The direction, shape, size, and location of the shapes that carry these forces determine where they apply, where they go, how strong they are. The expanse of space and its struc­ tural features-for example, its center-serve as a frame of reference for the characterization of forces. Conversely, the space of a theater or dance stage is defined by the motor forces that populate it. Expanse becomes real when the dancer runs across it; distance is created by actors withdrawing from each

other; and the particular quality of central location is brought to light when

embodied forces strive for it, rest at it, rule from it. In short, the interaction

of space and force is interpreted with different emphasis.

When Do We See Motion?

Under what conditions do we perceive movement? A caterpillar crawls across the street. Why do we see it in motion and the street at rest rather than seeing the entire landscape, including ourselves, displaced in the opposite direction, with the caterpillar alone remaining at the same spot ? The phe· nomenon is not explained simply by learning or knowledge because against our better knowledge we see the sun move across the sky and the moon through the clouds. Dante notes that when a person looks up to one of Bologna's lean­ ing towers from "beneath its leaning" while a cloud moves in the opposite direction, the tower seems to topple over. Sitting in a rocking chair, we find

M O V E M E N T ₃₇₉ ourselves in motion and the room standing still But h ·

.

· w en an experiment

makes the whole _room revolve� like a rolling barrel, and the observer's chair

stand perfectly st1l

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, the sensation .th

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_{t the chair is turning is so compelling} that the. w1

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l fall un

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ess h

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_{1s .tied down. This happens even though the}

observer s sensat10ns md1cate the true state of affairs.

We can clarify at least a few elements of this complicated situation by noting that the visual experience of movement can be due to three factors: physical movement, optical movement, perceptual movement. T 0 these we must add the kinesthetic factors, which can produce the sensation of motion all by themselves under certain conditions, e.g., by vertigo.

I see the caterpillar in motion because it is actually crawling; this is motion perception based on physical movement. But, as our examples show, physical movement does not necessarily correspond to what happens in the eyes or in perception. We can speak of

optical

motion when the projections of objects or of the entire visual field are displaced on the retina. Such optical displacement occurs when the observer's eyes do not follow the movements of the perceived objects. But physical motion may be recorded as optical standstill, e.g., when my eyes are locked on the caterpillar while it crawls across the street or when I see the cabin of the airplane surround me in perfect stillness even though both the plane and

I

are moving. On the other hand, the projection of my immobile workroom sweeps across the retinas optically as soon as

I

move my eyes or my head or get up from my chair. If someone could observe what goes on in my eyes while

I

examine the various parts of a painting on the wall, he would find that each time I change the fixation of my glance, the entire picture moves on the retinas in the opposite direction. And yet, most of the time such faulty op­ tical information is not reflected in perceptual experience. I see the insect crawl although my eyes are locked onto it, and the painting remains unmoved even

though my eyes scan it.

The most powerful factor compensating for such misleading input is kinesthetic perception. Any movement by eyes, head, or body is reported to the sensory motor center of the brain, and in fact the mere impulse to move is a brain event. The feedback from these motor processes influences visual per­ ception. The information that I am moving my head induces the sense of sight to attribute the motion to the head visually as well, and to perceive the environ­ ment as immobile. In a film, however, the setting photographed by the travel­ ing camera is seen as moving across the screen, mostly because the viewer receives the kinesthetic information that his body is at rest. Only in extreme cases, e.g., when enough of the entire environment is seen as moving, will the visual input overrule the kinesthetic.

380 M 0 V E M E N T

. . _{.fi ll} ·

l

f ctors at work within the percep- In add1t1on, there are spec1 ca y visua a _{. .}

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tual field that determine how the sense of sight handles motor ambigui�ies. Karl Duncker has pointed out that in the visual field, objects are seen in a hierarchic relation of dependence. The mosquito is attached to the e

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ephant, not the elephant to the mosquito. The dancer is a part of the sta�e semng, not the stage setting the outer rim of the dancer. In other words, q�1te apart fro� motion, the spontaneous organization of the visual field assigns to certam objects the role of framework, on which others are seen to depend. The field represents a complex hierarchy of such dependences. Th� room serves as frame­ work for the table, the table for the fruit bowl, the fruit bowl for the apples. Duncker's rule indicates that in motor displacement, the framework tends to be perceived as immobile and the dependent object as moving. When �o de­ pendence exists, the two systems may both be seen to move symmemcally, approaching or withdrawing from each .other. .

Duncker and later Erika Oppenheimer, established some of the factors

that produce 'dependence. Enclosedness is one of them. The "figu.re" tends to Ve the "ground" to stand still. Variability is another. If one obiect

mo '

r " . in shape and size and the other remains constant-for ex�mple, a me

out of" a square-the variable object assumes the motion. The o

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server s_ees the line stretching away from the square, rather than the square withdr.awrng from an immobile line. Size difference is effecti.ve in the case o

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conuguo�s objects: when two objects lie close to each othe�, either lat�rally or m superposi­ tion, the smaller object will assume the mouon. Inte�s1ty also pl.ays a role. Since the dimmer object is seen as dependent on the bnghter,. the

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immer one moves when displacement occurs and the brighter one remains sull.

The observer himself acts as a frame of reference. When he stands on a bridge and looks at the moving water, his perception will be "�orrect"; but when he fixates the bridge, he and the bridge may be seen as moving along .the river. Duncker explains this phenomenon by pointing out that the obiect fixated assumes the character of the "figure," whereas the nonfixated par� of the field tends to become ground. Since as a rule the "figure" does the movrng,

fixation makes for motion. .

In any particular instance, the interaction of the various

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actors w�ll de- termine the final perceptual effect. Physical motion of th.e obiect contr'.butes only to the extent that it produces optical motion on the retina. T

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e exper:ment by Metelli mentioned earlier (Figure 46) sh�wed that t

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e rotatrng. section of the disk is not seen to be moving because opucally there is a successive uncov­ ering of segments but no displacem��t of the disk as a whole. Under such conditions perception reports immobility.

M O V E M E N T _38I

On the stage the actors are usually seen in motion against the foil of an immobile setting. This happens because the setting is large and enclosing and, in addition, anchored to the even larger environment of the theater in which the spec�ator is seated. It serves as frame of reference for the actors. Conse­ quently the stage presents a concept of life that invests most of the physical and mental activity in man as opposed to the world of things, which serves mainly as the base and target of such action and in fact, as

I

mentioned earlier, is defined by the motor forces populating it. A different concept can be con­ veyed by the film. The picture taken by a camera that travels along a street does not produce the same experience we have when we walk in the street our­ selves. Then the street surrounds us as a large environment, and our muscular experiences tell us that we are in motion. The street on the screen is a rela­ tively small, framed part of a larger setting, in which the spectator finds himself at rest. Therefore the street is seen as moving. It appears to be actively en­ countering the spectator as well as the characters in the film, and assumes the role of an actor among actors. Life appears as an exchange of forces between man and the world of things, and things often play the more energetic part.

This is so also because the film represents with ease such natural motion

as that of street traffic or the ebb and flow of the ocean, which is hardly possible on the stage. In a film like Robert Flaherty's

Man of Aran

the natural motion of the waves is reinforced by the cinematographic motion imposed on the scene by the moving camera. The film gives the world of things an opportunity

to manifest its inherent powers and to act with or against man. In addition, things on the screen can be made to appear and disappear at will, which is also perceived as a kind of motion and which permits any object, large or small, to enter and leave the scene like an actor. For example, a dance film may be organized in such a way that the dancers do not monopolize movement. In­ stead, they interact with the setting and with other objects, the movement being created by camera motion and editing. This has been attempted in ex­ perimental films, e.g. by Maya Deren, and also in the choreographed scenes of some film "musicals." In such a visual composition, the part of the dancer is no more independent or complete than that of an instrument in an orches­ tra. The screen image as a whole presents a complex interplay of moving spaces, settings, objects, and human figures, whose motions come across only as integrated elements of the whole. Some television shows, intended simply to record what happens objectively on the stage, are not only dull but distorted to the point of being incomprehensible because the performance being shown

In document ÁREA DE LENGUA. Ciclo lectivo do. GRADO (página 22-34)