DYNAMICS
"We are dealing with the psychological counterpart of the physiological processes that result in the organization of perceptual stimuli."
For Arnheim, dynamics is what art is all about; it is the deviations from ordinary percepts that allow for expressive meaning. While perception regards what is "simplest," there also must the external stimuli - or the artist's idea - that becomes what the thing is about. There is no better demonstration of the workings of perceptual dynamics than in geometrical illusions, where the tension-laden medium of the visual cortex bend and torque linear forms into new shapes.
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[Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Flying Pins, 2000; Steel, fiber-reinforced plastic, polyvinyl chloride foam; painted with polyester gelcoat and polyurethane enamel; Eleven elements in area approximately 123 ft. (37.5 m) long x
65 ft. 7 in. (20 m) wide; ten pins, each: 24 ft. 7 in. (7.5 m) high x 7 ft. 7 in. (2.3 m) widest diameter;
ball: 9 ft. 2 in. (2.8 m) high x 22 ft. (6.7 m) diameter]
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In art Arnheim found proof of directed tension in illustrations that confounded physical reality with a visually expressive solution, as in Gericault's Derby at Epsom above, where the artists's expressive rendering of galloping horses confounds physical reality. Of course, to the devotee of contemporary art this is perhaps too close to Hans Hofmanm's famous "push" and "pull" on the modernist painting's surface. However, contemporary artists are still interested in such tensions, but they tend to externalize them out into environments, often with paradoxical effect. Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen's Flying Pins play with popular sport - bowling - and the pop effect of surprising changes of scale. They also create a "pregnant moment" wherein the dynamicity of the strike is at its maximum. When visiting the installation a viewer can stand beneath the precariously poised pins, made possible by modern construction, becoming yet another index of the contradictions of modern life.
[Drew Daly, Compression, 2006; One bureau, adhesive, lacquer; 34 x 36 x 20.5 inches;
Image: Jim Wilcox, Courtesy Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle]
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Tensions are created through deformation. The bent shape presumes the unbent shape and the viewer infers the former as some forced alteration of the latter. A number of contemporary artists explored such effects as when John Chamberlain crushed automobile parts into new shapes, Christo bound everyday objects into squeezed packages, or Oldenburg himself showed his deflated, slumpy objects - solid forms collapsing into piles. A nice illustration of the power of deformation is given in Drew Daly's Compression, in which the sculptor sliced a bureau and reassembled it. The effect is that the bureau appears to pinched on one end, compressed as if by force.
[Richard Serra, 2000, 2001; weatherproof steel, torqued spiral, overall 13' 7" x 42' 6" x 35' 5," plates 2" thick, installation at Dia Beacon, Riggio Galleries, Beacon, New York © 2015 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York; Photo: Lorenz Kienzle]
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Tension cannot just be a trick and, following Arnheim's definition of form as the shape of content, must serve the larger meaning of the work. To illustrate his chapter, Arnheim analyzed Giotto's famous Lamentation from the Arena Chapel in Padua. The theme of the dead Christ, the redemptive story of life and death, is for Arnheim displayed by the various signs of animacy found in the grieving figures and angels, and the lifeless body of Christ. As noted, contemporary artists are not so interested in building up dynamic interplay within the image, but they certainly do so in the space of action. Richard Serra's 2000 (Torqued Spiral) allows visitors to enter within its cor-ten steel interior, which squeezes them as they venture further in. They are made to feel psychologically the effect of tons of steel curling around them. In this way, one is made aware of the humbling materials of modern industry. In an interesting way, the isomorphism between the brain and experience in Arnheim becomes externalized as an isomorphism between experience and the forces of the natural and artificial world.