Art & Perception

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1. Comment by Birgit Zipser          October 10, 2008, 7:52 am

   Greeting from Wilhelmshaven at Jadebusen, Northsea

2. Comment by Jay          October 10, 2008, 9:03 am

   Birgit:

   And greetings to you from my favorite armchair.

   You caught a waterfowl in the act of attacking the shadow of a pier, or so it would appear.

3. Comment by Steve Durbin          October 11, 2008, 5:17 pm

   Birgit,

   I wonder if the ducks were duckomorphizing you at the same time. It might be difficult for them to interpret a photographer.

   Last time you took pictures in Germany, you used two of them in an interesting layered collage. The same approach could work very well with these duck images, since there are large areas of water that will contribute mainly texture against other shapes, but also smaller subject areas that will show clearly in a blend. It would be fun to see what you come up with, if you have time during your visit.

4. Comment by Birgit          October 12, 2008, 9:04 am

   Thanks, Jay and Steve,

   Duckomorphizing. Perhaps, I will try swanomorphizing next.

   My mind is ruminating on collages. But time to generate them, I have not, organizing family affairs and, more interestingly, taking lessons in oil painting with Karl.

   DL from my family prefers the first picture without the duck (to him a cliche). By contrast, what attracted me to this image is the full circle the duck describes.

   During my high school years, the brick building in this first picture was a Max Planck Institute where I watched someone playing with his oscilloscope. Later my thesis project involved the reafference principle (a motor system informs a relevant sensory system to expect incoming information) that had first been postulated by a neurobiologist in 1933 at that very place. Duck cycling in my own life.

5. Comment by Jay          October 12, 2008, 11:25 am

   Birgit:

   I was wondering about that building but was reluctant to ask.

   Might then the wildfowl with its beak to the water be measuring a plunk interval? If so, did Max haunt the pier?

6. Comment by Birgit Zipser          October 13, 2008, 3:56 am

   Wow, the duck played a reafference demo, inspired by Mittelstaedt haunting the pier!