About a didactic experiment in bioptical art

About a didactic experiment in bioptical art

The Paired off Visual Signal   Liviu Iliescu

In my books  I show the way bioptical compositions are achieved in painting and sculpture. However, a great many details can be explained only by interactive communications. The same as in any other creative activity, individual sensitivities may be stimulated in time sequences with spontaneities in the region of seconds.
I have practised a didactic modality at the "Ion Mincu" Institute of Architecture in Bucharest. For several years on end, in the department of Visual Communications, headed by professor Sorin Vasilescu, I have familiarized students with the elements of the bioptical art, within the courses of lectures on visual communications. I have also tested the way in which students perceive the stimuli of binocular rivalry. Some of them even created bioptical sketches, as examination papers.
I have pointed out the rivalry stimuli in the sketches of figures 9.1 and 9.2, as well as the rules observed when introducing them in a composition. Several copies of those sketches were given to my students. I also presented part of my works, also testing their bioptical perception (figure 9.5). Figure 9.3 reproduces the creation of student Virgil Apostol (1999). In figure 9.4, I analyse the elements that should be discussed and corrected, in order to enhance the efficiency of the stimuli. In this interactive process, the student would bring his contribution (under guidance), increasing his sensitivity, with results that surprised even the professor.
In a similar way, the therapist may have an efficient talk with the patient, also using interactive computer programmes.

Fig. 9.1 (model)


Fig. 9.2 (model)


Fig. 9.3


Fig. 9.4

C1 - C2 = field 1 and field 2
The forms in C1 are composed in the normal rhythms of inspiration, with no restrictions.
The forms in C2 are bioptical pairs that require seeking and coming back.
d1 - d2 = coloured form 1 and its pair, coloured form 2; the colour of d2 should be modified, to enhance the bioptical effect.
e1 - e2 = the shade of colour in e2 should be changed; the student has found an interesting central combination, to remove an unaesthetic symmetry effect.
h1 - h2 = felicitous colour pair
k1 - k2 = colour pair insufficiently differentiated for rivalry effects
I think that the student has mastered some elements of bioptical art. His work is praiseworthy, the more so as the lessons were relatively few.
The artist follows the rivalry effects corresponding to his sensitivity. In a similar way, the composer seated at the piano seeks the sequence of notes to be placed at the appropriate spot in the melodic line. The artist is corrected all the time by his artistic sensitivity. Random programs on a computer would deprive the composition of artistic sensitivity, which is a gift of humans alone, for the time being and maybe for ever.
The artist should also take into account the compatibility of the composition to both normal contemplation, as a conventional expression, and to bioptical vision. He should emphasize the items that induce bioptical sensations, inventing differentiated stimuli, essential contrasts in the image, with effects in the psychic cycle (see the definition   3. Bioptical effects, definitions )
                   
In a first stage, the aim is to obtain a bioptical effect by a pair of signs. Successive modifications are then carried out, to obtain the adequate note within the respective bioptical effect.
These modalities result in new types of forms, other stylistic types, substantially differing from the conventional compositions.