Inspiration From Ambiguity

What sets our imaginations in motion?
As I've demonstrated here, a good many things can prompt us.

Ambiguous pictures can stimulate creativity. For examples of this, see the "Fantasizing Fotos Fridays" series threading through this blog. (More soon!)

A short phrase that's open to interpretation can propagate a unique interpretation from everyone who reads it. Check out the "Imagination-Exercising" series for past examples. If you haven't done so in the past, or even if you have, take a moment to envision scenarios for each of the previous "Imagination-Exercising" phrases.

Why? In some ways, we're never the same person twice. Additional experiences almost inevitably prompt us to respond differently to ambiguous stimuli each time we encounter them.  We grow, experience new things, learn from them, gain new insights from old experiences, make new mistakes. Our brains absorb all these events and many other forms of stimuli sometimes consciously but many more times subconsciously. 

Hence the surprised delight in sudden breakthroughs--in relationships, at work or even at the ice cream stand--when we suddenly "know" that we  w/a/n/t  need Cherry Garcia, not Chubby Hubby. (Not to say that we don't want the company of our spouses--chubby or otherwise.)

The ambiguous stimuli of a sound that we can't identify will pique our imaginations in the same way--preferably not an ambiguous sound coming from the living room in the middle of the night.

If you see a picture or come across an evocative or ambiguous phrase, please add it to the Comments. Even better, email it to me at ScrollChamberPress@gmail.com .  Naturally, you'll get credit if I use it here.

In the meantime, see what you think of the following "unstory" I shared on my Facebook page a few hours ago. I should have posted it here instead. Now I have.

~~~~~

Xfinity description of Criminal Minds rerun,

"...murders likely committed by an UnSub with an obsessive skin disorder..." 

Sample scenarios: 
1. the skin disorder obsesses so relentlessly about killing people that the person on whose body it is growing commits the murders without knowing why he is doing it. Or even -that- he is doing it. 

2. The skin disorder is disturbed by all the unnatural humans who don't have skin diseases When it can't let go the obsession, it attempts to bring nature back into balance by propagating itself on to other human hosts. Tragically the skin disease lacks the skill to do this successfully & ends up killing any clear-skinned human with which it makes contact. 

3A. The human host, driven to desperate measures by the 24/7 ravings of his skin disease, discovers he can distract the disease briefly by murdering humans. 

3B. In a fit of rage, the skin disease kills its host so that it can get back to its obsessive raving. It realizes too late that when it killed its host, it also committed suicide. 

3C. The Criminal Minds team arrives but fails to come up with a viable UnSub profile. The murders have stopped, so they head back to the plane. Team members are observed scratching themselves as they climb aboard.
No one thinks anything of it until the plane lands. Everyone aboard is dead, evidently slain by a fast-spreading skin infection.
Those investigating the deaths scratch their heads... in perplexity?


What other unlikely living thing or inanimate object might be obsessing over something, even as we speak? What would happen next?

Fantasizing Fotos Fridays #6

Now back to Ambiguity's role in giving us the freedom to be creative. If little well-defined data is available no one including ourselves can say that our interpretations of an ambiguous photograph or painting is wrong.

As children, some of us had the time and freedom to lay down out in our yards and imagine what the drifting clouds above resembled. A lamb, a basketball, a big bow... I hope that no child ever told another that their imagination got it wrong. No two people, even young people will see ambiguous information in exactly the same way. 

Here's today's picture

title unknown @ Leszek Buinowski, Polish Surrealism artist

Some of you may think you've seen this before, say about three weeks ago as the featured artwork for Fantasizing Fotos Fridays #3.

Good memory.

However you aren't getting the same artwork twice. For comparison, see the thumbnail of FFF#3's artwork below. There are parallels between the two paintings: dense shadows surrounding a single source of bright light, thick forest, a minimum of textures, and finally two silhouetted human figures centered in the light.

In this small version of Buinowski's painting shown above, Fantasizing Fotos Fridays #6 may appear to have only one human figure. Look carefully to the right of the better-defined figure. Do you see the second figure nearly obscured by bright light rather than shadow?

In the same way, fragments of our environments may be obscured by strong light such as that produced by the sun, theatrical Klieg lights or directed lasers. People may not be able to find something for which they are looking because it is hidden in the shadows, but a sufficiently strong light source can obscure aspects of an object which might make it easier to spot. Strong glare renders an object at least as difficult to see as an object in shadow. Glare may limit how long we can search for an object or study it before looking away.

In strongly-contrasting light vs darkness, details of an object which is casting a shadow may tend to disappear except at the border between light and shadow.*  Put another way, the borders of a three-dimensional object become unnaturally sharp at the expense of the object losing its depth and detail. 

In Fantasizing Fotos Fridays #3  I wrote, "Silhouettes provide less information so they offer more latitude for our creativity."

I also suggested we imagine both people walking into the forest, walking out of the forest, or even passing one another as one person left and the other person arrived. 

FFF #3 (thumbnail)

~~~~~

This Friday's artwork gives us more information to work with than did the picture we worked with three weeks ago. If you wish, see if you can find something in our new picture--lacking in the previous picture--which helps stimulate your imagination in a new way.

                                                    title unknown @ Leszek Buinowski, Polish Surrealism artist

Yes, this is an exact duplicate of the picture near the top of the article, inserted a second time for our mutual convenience.

Past time to unleash your imagination! 

As always, Remember to think about the picture and imagine what is going on before looking at what I wrote.** No two people will imagine the same thing. That would be weird.

~~~~~

Eighteen weeks ago, I came up with a series of questions based on this painting, every question unanswerable. That was just fine! I didn't want answers to my questions! Actual answers would have revealed that some of the stories I was telling myself were wrong. Remember the children and the clouds?

**"Evocative painting!

"He's a surrealist? Really?

"I like the broken stone arch! It changes everything. Is it the only thing like it?

"Who built it? Why build it in the midst of a waterlogged forest?

"Wait. Which came first?

"Is the arch the last remnants of a ruin overtaken by forest, like Cair Paravel***?

"Maybe the arch was always a doorway to something NOT a building! But to what then?

"Which way are the silhouetted men walking? (Are they men?)

"Have they come because they know to where the arch leads?

"It leads somewhere??

"Are they leaving the forest after passing through the arch?

"Maybe the "arch" is a mirror & the men are behind me! Ick. Not sure I like that!  That would mean I have to turn around, my back to "the mirror" and watch them approach? 

"There's a mirror in MacDonald's "Lilith" which permits access to another world... Yeah. That doesn't help.

"Okay, so no mirror! How do you undo an imaginary thought? By not trying to?"

~~~~~

With what did your imagination gift you? You may want to compare your FFF#6 reactions to your FFF#3 reactions. If you choose to do so, you may temporarily want to ignore any reactions which apply to #6 but not #3, and or to FFF#3 but not to FFF#6. Or else focus on them. As always, the choice is yours.

I have a treat for you! Like you, I originally saw Leszel Buinowski's painting in the same-sized screen capture you did. Before I began writing this blog, I rummaged the internet looking for a larger version of his work. Found one!

This isn't necessarily good. All other things being equal, a larger version of the same picture will add details. (Oh, no! Not details!) Additional details may "contradict" your earlier imaginings! If they do--and if you don't like such rudeness--ignore the details! We're not performing a scientific experiment here or gathering information for a court case. 

~~~~~

I suggest ignoring the frame.

What do you think now? Did you come up with additional reactions? (I'm sorry. I haven't had a chance to immerse my imagination in the larger version yet)

* This depends on the angle of the light in relation to the object(s). Bright light striking a rough object at an oblique angle can accentuate surface detail.

*** C S Lewis, "Prince Caspian", The Chronicles of Narnia.

Ambiguity vs Information Overload

Does this look familiar? Audrey Zhang won the annual Doodle 4 Google competition with "The Transformative Water Purifier". Google used her artwork in video format for their June 9 2014 doodle. I've been unable to find Google's video file.

So what's going on here?
A machine rather like a winged elephant--comprising the letters o o g --sucks contaminated water from a pool and converts it into a fountain of clean water springing from the G. A variety of imaginary animals--and maybe plants--look on with approval. Others--still oblivious to the impact to their environment--continue doing their own thing.

for more:
The Huffington Post (Mazza article)
The Christian Science Monitor (Axelrad article)

I studied Zhang's animated doodle* several times that day but I could make little of it. I believe the wealth of detail and the incessant movement defeated me. On the other hand, I never gave Audrey Zhang's work a chance. I was "distracted by work"** and so never gave Zhang's Transformative Water Purifier the attention it deserved. I didn't really study it in an active sense. Nor did I invest sufficient time to passively absorb the rich visual data. Mostly I checked Google's page to see if Zhang's doodle was still there.

Our brains may be more versatile and better at multi-tasking than a Swiss Army Knife but they still have limits when it comes to processing complex data--especially data that's constantly changing. Especially if we don't give our brains a chance to take in all the information.

Near the end of the day I looked for an actual description of Andrey Zhang's work. I wanted to get that settled, the better to concentrate on what I was doing. I read descriptions similar to the one I wrote at the beginning of this article, and then returned to Zhang's doodle but the narrative descriptions didn't help me as much as I had expected.

The combination of movement and detail gifted my brain with more than it could process--at least on a conscious level. But how much could I absorb when all I did was glance at the page from time to time?  Multiple brief exposures to Zhang's artwork could not begin to provide the information available to anyone who stayed on the page and allowed themselves time to patiently passively absorb details.

(Much as I'm loathe to admit it, I suspect the older we are the more difficult it is to efficiently process such an abundance of detail in a limited time.)


*  Doodle? Talk about "Damning with faint praise."
** I can safely say that these days--being in my second career. ;-p

Fantasizing Fotos Fridays #3

Fantasizing Fotos Fridays #3

What's the story behind these pictures?

copyright, Mountain Diaries,Ramyareddy

Remember to think about the picture and imagine what is going on before looking at what I wrote. No two people will imagine the same thing. That would be weird.

Male, female shapes blur in mist-soft light, entering with early morning sun haloed about them. Seeking refuge? A deed to accomplish? A truth tucked in riddled words?

Is this forest a host of mankind’s secrets? The smooth bridge betrays human intrusion. Tall trees, thriving undergrowth suggest ancient memories tucked within each brittle leaf. Something hastens to meet the visitors before they leave the bridge & tread into old memories. Do they know? The forest does. 

A Thought: Maybe they're walking away from us. Perhaps they're passing each other. Which of those three did you imagine? Something else entirely? Cool!

If you like, go back to the picture and assume one the other possibilities.

What's happening now?

And now?

Silhouettes provide less information so they offer more latitude for our creativity.

~~~~~

Just for a laugh...

"Oh, no! Not again!" (He wasn't always a bowl of petunias.)*

~~~~~

I'm cheating. I took this picture, so I know what it really is. 

Never let your creativity shut down because you know what something is. 

What do artists and authors use as the building blocks for their creations?

Anything we find. Fortunately there's a never-ending supply, no matter where we are or what we're doing. We use our imaginations to select, to rearrange and join our fragments in just the right way, creating something no one else ever has.

~~~~~

* Agrajag in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.

I created the photographic building block above years ago while trying to scan my cat. 
No felines were injured in the creation of this blog entry.

Fantasizing Fotos Fridays

Krystine Kercher and a couple other Lost Genre Guild authors set up a LGG Pinterest board this past February. I knew virtually nothing about Pinterest back then--not even how to spell it! (I think it was MikeD who corrected me in an email.)  Being a loyal LGG member & author-buddy, I promised to post material on "the board". Whatever that was.

It took a couple of days for the board to go up and for Krystine to issue invitations. I decided to check out this "Pinterest Thingie" while I waited.
Big. Mistake.

In my opinion, every human being has at least one vulnerability in our personalities. There's the "fast women/fast cars", "fashionistas", or "15 Minutes of Fame" seekers". Then there's the "auto-fantasizer" who sees a picture or looks through a shop window at people talking and can't resist theorizing about what they're discussing. Maybe there's nothing going on, but that hardly matters! Give us a few minutes, and there will be!

I inherited this a/f/f/l/i/c/t/i/o/n/,  c/o/m/p/u/l/s/i/v/e t/r/a/i/t/  hobby directly from my maternal grandmother. She loved to "people-watch" whether from a boardwalk bench or as a passenger studying the people in surrounding cars. You daren't leave her alone with her own thoughts for a minute! Given no time at all, grandmom would share their background, motivations, place of origin & destination with you. Her theories were invariably plausible because she took time to observe details and weave them into the scenarios she shared with us.

Back to Pinterest--which insists you register if you want to play. Krystine hadn't mentioned whether we needed to be a member in order to access the LGG board. I chose not to wait to find out. So... back to
Big Mistake.

You remember the line from "2001: a Space Odyssey"? "It's full of stars!"
Pinterest is full of pictures, most of them photographs but with enough art to balance the mix.

I was hooked. Indeed, I was hooked to the point that I had created two boards of my own before my first pin on the Lost Genre Guild's board.  I have 5, 7, 9 boards now. My first two were "Oceans: Real and Imaginary" and "Ima Writerly Writer Who Writes".

And so finally to the point of this blog entry, "Fantasizing Fotos Fridays" and God willing all of its future progeny.

I introduced the "Ima Writerly Writer Who Writes" board like this:

"People say they’re not creative so they can’t write or do art. Nonsense! I bet you daydream? Anyone who daydreams has an imagination. As a fantasy author, I use my creativity to write stories. I love books! But I’m fascinated by photos & paintings. Ambiguous pix stimulate our imaginations. We wonder, What’s she thinking? or Why would anyone make that? or Why does that tree attract me/ make me feel uneasy? When we make up answers, that’s our imaginations making up stories."

I've added 159 pins--pictures with brief comments--to the IWWWW board over the last five months. Their subjects vary but form what I believe is a cohesive collection: books, quotations from respected authors, tips on writing, what I call "pep talk" quotations, tips on marketing and finally photographs or artwork gifted with a fascinating ambiguity. When I p/o/s/t/e/d/  pinned one of these pictures to the IWWWW board, I would wonder aloud what so'n'so was or maybe spin a theory about what was happening.

Pinterest doesn't allow pinners to make long comments. While anyone viewing someone else's pin can comment on it. doing so is very rare. I've found this a little frustrating.

So--as you've doubtless guessed by now--I intend to post a picture here every Friday with the short commentary that Pinterest permitted. I hope you will enjoy looking at the pictures and that you'll take a couple of minutes to offer your reactions of whatever kind. No two people will imagine the same thing. That would be way weird!

My comments will appear directly after the picture to make downloading/uploading easier. I hope you will --ignore- what I've written until you've studied the picture to your own satisfaction. I hope you offer your thoughts in the comments!

Have fun!