Getting Lost in the Supermarket

I'm an optical junkie. I love an illusion and feel comfortable vacillating between visual deception and physical reality. Perhaps that is why I enjoy amusement parks, pop-up books, geometry and magic tricks so much. Figuring out the deception is as fun as a puzzle but comes in second to the enjoyment I derive from the discovery of the deception after I have been observing the object for a period of time.

Spatial perception is a concept that I have been exploring in my Paper Ballet project this year and it has made me rather sensitive to the environments I come in contact with on a daily basis. As I try to incorporate stereoscopic elements to a flat 2 dimensional image,  I find that I too am creating an illusion to trick the mind into creating depth where none exists.

For instance, the other day I was strolling down the aisle of my neighborhood supermarket and noticed that not only were the aisles narrower but there were many obstacles in the way which made me slow down to maneuver through the maze. Being a savvy shopper I know their intention was to slow me down and get me to take a look at a specific product. But with my weekly list of groceries in hand, I ignored the sale and went looking for the items on my list.

As I began to shop, I found myself starring down the aisle and became mesmerized by the ceaseless patterns endlessly stretching to the other end of the store. I realized I was being lulled into a stupor by the tunnel vision created by the repetitive products seen down a very narrow aisle. Linear perspective at its finest! Linear perspective is created when two parallel lines recede almost into a vanishing point. It can also create depth on a two-dimensional flat surface.

How our brains translate the visual image in the retina of our eye to the visual cortex in our brains fascinates me. Optical illusions help us to better understand how the brain and eyes work together to piece together how something appears in space, rather than what is physically there in reality. Our perception of patterns and objects form from our unconscious grouping of similar items making them become a single entity if they are repetitive, simple and orderly. This type of Gestalt effect helps to explain what New Optical Illusions calls "the form-forming capabilities of our senses" which unifies the whole.

Max Werthheimer, along with Wolgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka were founders of Gestalt theory. They described how people organized visual elements.  Max Wertheimer, who was born in Czechlosovakia wrote “Experimental Studies of the Perception of Movement” back in 1912 which marked the founding of the Gestalt school. The Gestalt Laws of Grouping is a way to discuss visual perception. These laws delt with the elements of similarity between objects, the continuation of a line, closure which deals with how the mind will fill in what doesn't exist and proximity of objects to one another. The impact of the their work created the foundation for the modern study of perception.

In a different field, the psychological effects of long, straight, unending hallways in psychiatric wards have been looked at in depth by modern architects. Canadian architect Kiyoshi Izumi  and psychologist Humphry Osmond coined the term "socio architecture"to describe the design they came up with for the Weyburn Mental Hospital back in 1951. The basis of this type of proposed architecture they felt directly affected the heath outcome of mentally ill patients. Observing that the majority of patients were prone to distorted perceptual systems, where regular building forms and layouts were confusing, they tried to create an architectural environment that didn't induce or exacerbate hallucinations, imbalances or distortions in their perceptual systems.

Osmond and Izumi also explored the effects of LSD. Izumi dropped the drug to help him see first hand how the architectural space was affecting the metal patients. Osmond continued to research the effects of the drug and its similarities with the early stages of schizophrenia. He was the one who administered mescaline to Aldous Huxley. The effects of which were described in his famous work "The Doors of Perception".

By reducing linear perspectives, the architects were able to reduce the hallucinatory experiences of people who were already highly susceptible to visual distortions. Their designs no longer contained the long windowless hospital corridors and replaced them with more circular patterns with clearer destinations that are readable and foster a patient's sense of control. Their research into making the wards more aesthetically pleasing has set the ground work for modern day facilities.

As I was photographing the supermarket, I felt that time was standing still, that this scene is one that we all share on a weekly basis and have shared for the last century. I'm sure others have become very aware of the spatial distortions of the supermarket aisles and the linear perspectives it creates. I stood there for a moment wondering what other people did with that information and how it affected them.

I'm all lost,

Julie Pavlowski Green
Saturday, November 9, 2013