creasingly based on geometry. He was working to devise a new pictorial language for the masses. He repeatedly studied the landscapes of the Breton island of Belle Isle, radically simplifying scenes to transform nature into geometric shapes.
Vasarely increasingly found his subject matter in the sciences—such as physics, biochemistry, and magnetic fields—and described his abstract art as "…poetic creations with palpable qualities capable of triggering emotional and imaginative processes in others." His art gave sensory forms to unperceivable phenomena.
Vasarely came to feel that color and form were linked in that each color and each form should share the same identity. He viewed his abstract art as composed of pure color-form which by its very abstractness signified the world through the limitless associations and responses of the viewer.
Kinetic Explorations
In the mid-1950s Vasarely began integrating architecture into his art and producing kinetic works, films and writings. The Denise René Gallery in 1955 had a pioneering show of kinetic art, "Le Movement." Among those represented were Vasarely, whose works employed the principle of optical movement.
Vasarely's concern with optical perception had lead him to explore the effects of motion, not of the art object but of the viewer in relation to it. His works were composed of several overlapped sheets of Plexiglas on which black designs had been painted. The slightest motion of the viewer made the design seem to change and move as well. In conjunction with the show Vasarely issued his Yellow Manifesto, in which he discussed his theories of color and perception.
In Vasarely's black-white period of 1951-1963, he used compositions of stripes, checks, circles, or lines to explore the illusionistic effects he could achieve by modifying his patterns to give the impression of surface movement or of concave or convex forms, as in Andromeda (1955-1958). At the same time he developed the idea of eliminating the premise of the figure-ground relation, the image or central motif set against a ground plane or an environment, by filling the entire surface with uniform optical stimulation. In conjunction with this he often reversed a composition by inverting the black-white or color relationships.
In 1965, he participated in the "Responsive Eye" exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art, dedicated exclusively to "Optical Art". This pictorial movement attached itself to the concept of suggesting motion without ever actually performing it. It instituted a new relationship between artist and spectator, where the observer cannot remain passive, he is free to interpret the image in as many visual scenarios ha can conceive. Received with great acclaim, the press and the public hailed Vasarely as the inventor and creator of "Op-Art".
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le to some who are strong visual thinkers but who may have had serious difficulties in conventional academic settings. . . . Different kinds of problems and different kinds of tools may require different talents and favor different kinds of brains." --Thomas G. West, from the preface to the first edition of In the Mind's Eye, 1991. "Thomas West . . . claims that visualization is not only a legitimate way to solve problems, it is a superior way; the best minds have used it. West urges us to join the dyslexics of the world and use pictures instead of words.
Thomas G. West
The computer-generated information superhighway could launch a new renaissance of creativity for millions of visual thinkers! Some of the greatest minds in politics, science, literature, and the arts experienced undetected learning disabilities that stopped them from assimilating information the same way as their peers. Some of our most original intellects Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Lewis Carroll, and Winston Churchill relied heavily on visual modes of thought, processing information in terms of images instead of words or numbers.
In the "Mind's Eye" profiles gifted individuals who used non-traditional methods in their work as it explodes many myths about conventional intelligence and charts new vistas for today's computer visualisation technologies. Thomas G. West examines the learning difficulties experienced by these people and others, and how recent neurological research shows an association between visual talents and verbal difficulties. In the "Mind's Eye" probes new data on dyslexics to see how computers enhance the creative potential of visual thinkers, as well as interactive computer applications to all levels of education and work. Updated with a new preface, epilogue, and expanded notes, this volume could be the clarion call for educators and corporations to mine this untapped resource of highly creative talent in our midst.
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Added by Michael Grove at 10:12 on February 12, 2011
actions within one's local community. It is only then that the computers and
even books will really begin to nourish us in a way that is more benevolent than it is destructive.
Oral cultures are necessarily storytelling cultures, which are inevitably place-based cultures -
because the stories that thrive and live in this valley will be very different from the ones being told
on the other side of this mountain range. Rejuvenating the primacy of the sensuous world -
renewing our solidarity with the more-than-human locale - is only going to happen by
rejuvenating oral culture. Face to face storytelling, and all the things that go with it. Rituals,
community festivals, collective and good-hearted initiations of the young men by the older
men, and of the young women by the elder women, community celebrations honouring the
seasonal changes.
David Abram during an interview with Derrick Jensen entitled ... Alliance for Wild Ethics || The Perceptual Implications of GAIA
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