Interrelationship

Interrelationships of Form
Forms can encounter one another in numerous ways.... when one form crosses over another, the results are not as simple as... [one may think].

Take two circles and see how they can be brought together. We choose two circles of the same size to avoid unnecessary complications. Eight different ways of interrelationship can be distinguished;

1) Detachment. The two forms remain separate from each other although they may be very close together.

2) Touching. If we move the two forms closer, they begin to touch. The continuous space which keeps the two forms apart in the example of detachment is thus broken.

3) Overlapping. If we move the two forms still closer, one crosses over the other and appears to remain above, covering a portion of the form that appears to be underneath.

4) Penetration. Same as overlapping, but both forms appear transparent. There is no obvious above-and-below relationship between them, and the contours of both forms remain entirely visible.

5) Union. Same as overlapping, but the two forms are joined together and become a new, bigger form. Both forms lose one part of their contours when they are in union.

6) Subtraction. When an invisible form crosses over a visible form, the result is subtraction. The portion of the visible form that is covered up by the invisible form becomes invisible also. Subtraction, may be regarded as the overlapping of a negative form on a positive form.

7) Intersection. Same as Subtraction, but only the portion where the two forms cross over each other is visible. A new, smaller form emerges as a result of intersection. It may not remind us of the original forms from which it is created.

8) Coinciding. If we move the two forms still closer, they coincide. The two circles become one. The various kinds of interrelationships should always be explored when forms are organized in a design. [Wong, Wucius. Principals of Two-Dimensional Design. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1972.]

The Design Simplicity - The crystal structures discussed here by no means cover the vast variety of naturally occurring minerals and man-made crystals. Yet they represent a large fraction of these crystals, and the analysis of the spinel problem does not essentially differ from the analysis being performed on yet more complex structures. The important conclusion in the present context is that the natural design turned out on proper analysis to be simpler than had been originally imaged. And the simpler the design, the fewer parameters were needed for a description of the structure. In turn this facilitates the communication of information regarding the structure among scientists themselves as well as between scientists and automatic information storage, processing, and retrieval systems. Most importantly, the recognition of the design simplicity leads to the discovery of universal interrelationships between vastly different materials. [p. 63] [Loeb, Arthur L. "The Architecture of Crystals." In Module, Proportion, Symmetry, Rhythm. Vision and Value series. Gyorgy Kepes, ed. New York: George Braziller, 1966.]

Interrelationship of components in perception - The perceptual psychologist Margaret A. Hagen . . . . offers what she calls a "generative theory of perception" that would embrace much more of what she believes perceiving and the making or art have involved across styles of art from the "rock art" of Altamira of 10,000-12,000 years ago, to ancient Egyptian art, to modern art--not a theory of art, she insists, but "a theory of the nature of the perceptual information that makes successful picture making possible." An adequate theory , according to her reasoning, must conceive of visual perception as consisting of ^three interrelated components, three choices, that confronted the Egyptian artist and that still confront the modern painter and graphic artist:

(1) Station point or points (near/distant, central/oblique), an inherited and/or chosen projection system, extending to what is called perspective and even to "mixed systems";

(2) Relative degree of emphasis on variant (immediate, transitory) versus invariant (ideal, timeless) features of the object or objects.

(3) Relative emphasis on two- versus three-dimensional components of objects and of the total pictorial environment, inclusion/exclusion, degree of transformation, abstraction, distortion, and the like..... [Harlan, Calvin. Vision & Invention, An Introduction to Art Fundamentals. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986.]

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