Activity 6: Exploring the Figure/Ground Relationship
Purpose
To help understand why an image “reads” clearly as a fish in one drawing or painting and not in another. When the image is indistinguishable a structured ambiguity may have been created. It occurs when shapes or other elements are not clearly understood to be part of the image or part of the background. Shapes are used which are equal in size, direction, color, mass, texture, and/or other variables, resulting in a general equivalency of images in the composition.
Identifying what’s wrong with a picture is a little like finding out why a car won’t start. It’s easier to fix the problem (the dead battery) than make a list of all the parts of the engine still working properly. In an artwork, once the condition of ambiguity (equivalencies) is recognized, it is easier to change those equivalencies than make a list of all the things that are working properly in the composition. It is not that the principle of equivalencies is right or wrong–rather, we want to understand and be able to apply it as needed. For example, if you need to design camouflage, you would employ the principles of structured ambiguity. Applying them in a painting will soften an area, making it less dominant.
Materials:
Magazines with lettering, a pair of "cropping-bars” (overlapping L's that are used to find new compositions inside a picture), scissors or a mat knife, rubber cement, construction paper.
Method:
Take the overlapping cropping bars and place them on a magazine page with interesting lettering or type. (Fig 4.6A) Select a letter and reduce the surrounding area by sliding the overlapping L's around and changing the composition. When the surrounding area is large, the image will definitely appear to be a letter (the figure) on a white or colored background (the ground). (Fig 4.6B) By sliding the L' s closer together you reduce the amount of ground and the letter appears larger in proportion to the surrounding ground. (Fig. 4.6C) Keep sliding the cropping bars closer until you can no longer identify the shapes as the letter in question or tell which color is functioning as figure and which as ground. (Figs. 4.6D, 4.6E) This is a structured ambiguity.
It is like a zebra–you can't tell if it is a white horse with black stripes or a black horse with white stripes. If you continue to reduce the image area as above, eventually the color that was the lettering becomes the ground. The small areas of what started as background become positive shapes. This is called a ground reversal. The white or color will stop being background and appear to be the important shape or figure. (Fig. 4.6F)
Go back to the point of structured ambiguity. Record it by drawing around the composition with a pencil. This will let you quickly go on to other discoveries. Try changing the direction of your cropping bars and discovering some other interesting shapes.
Try to decide why this structured ambiguity or "non-reading" situation occurs. What is it about scale, proportion of black and white, dominance, texture, readability of shapes, and volume that causes this to happen? Does a smaller area surrounded by a larger one generally become positive or figure?
Fifty to sixty new compositions (drawn shapes on the magazine–not blown up finished work) should be possible in an hour or so. Look for new and exciting typeface to see if it has any influence on your resulting compositions.
Final Presentation: present two or three of the best of your discoveries (the ambiguous ground stage) for each of the categories below. Blow each up into the largest composition that you can on a full sheet of construction paper while keeping the same picture frame. Cut additional shapes from the opposite color and rubber cement them on the first sheet. You should have:
A) Compositions discovered involving only one letter.
B) Compositions discovered using two letters or parts of two letters.
C) Compositions discovered using three or more letters. It will become more difficult to lose the letter’s identity and obtain a structured ambiguity.
D) Compositions involving any of the above (number of letters involved) but in different frame shapes: a rectangular format; a circular format; a diamond format; a multiple-celled format (triptych).
E) Compositions involving different types of balance: a symmetrical solution; and an asymmetrical solution.
F) Make the compositions using color rather than simple black-and-white shapes. What new problems occur because of the addition of color?
You may wish to take the presentation one step further by selecting the most exciting study for presentation as a large painting! You could paint on a flat, canvas surface or a canvas stretched over ribs and wires to give it a 3-D surface. Does the actual volume help or hinder the creation of the structured ambiguity?
