I was really looking forward to hearing our visiting speaker this time, Amy Herman, with her talk, "Art of Perception." In her lecture, she talks about describing and thinking about what you really see and not just what you perceive. She does this with short activities in which she shows you a piece of art or photography and asks you describe it accurately. Much harder than it seems! In one activity, a team would have some members “observing” while the others would sketch only what the observers described from the image shown to them. Again, much harder than it seems, especially when something you are seeing might seem unbelievable. For example, describing a piece of public art that is meant to tease the mind by being out of place.
The point is to describe it exactly as you see it. Some images were uncomfortable as we’ve all been taught political correctness, and while the first thing in our thoughts is that the image is of a young black boy…or maybe a girl…we aren’t sure what we should say without offending someone. I know this is a worry of mine. While I think people nowadays are a tad on the hyper-defensive side about some things, I also don’t want to blatantly be rude to someone. - I guess the best way to describe the young person would be to say that they were a “young brown-skinned person who appears to be a boy (or girl, however you see them.) This shouldn’t be offensive and it’s probably more accurately descriptive of what we’re actually seeing. Interesting stuff. – I guess how this ties into the workplace is to keep in mind what you communicate and how others might perceive it, while at the same time questioning what you are perceiving from someone else before you make assumptions or judgements.
Learn more about Amy Herman and her lectures here : http://aop.artfulperception.com/
As for the art, one of the images Ms. Herman shows as an example is of a man sleeping in some public place. We are asked to describe what we might know about this man by his appearance and surroundings. Turns out he isn’t even alive. – He is a wax sculpture by the artist Duane Hanson. I knew straight away that the image was of a wax sculpture because incidentally, I just by chance discovered a book of this artist’s work that I have been studying for the past week or so. His work is really amazing; so much attention to every undignified detail. The people he chose to sculpt are of the everyday variety making them even more interesting for some reason. They are so realistic, you try hard to look at all the details to try to catch some flaw so you can prove to your brain they are not living, breathing humans. Incredible work. Some of these figurines make me pretty emotional. We have all known or have observed in passing or in stereotypes (and stereotypes usually come from real sources), many of these people. – I would love to secretly photograph people observing these wax figurines. Knowing that they are free to stare at some of these people that they might normally quickly turn their head at whether in disgust, fear or some awkwardness, what kind of expressions of emotion and judgement do these viewers make? How do these pieces of art make you feel? What part of how you’re feeling is based off true perception and what part from judgement?
See more of Duane Hanson's art here : http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/duane_hanson.htm
