Confluence IV PeSla's Optical Illusion

Confluence IV

L. Edgar Otto

*20 February, 2013 11:18:02 AM  PeSla's Optical Illusion :

The question of what is art or a more scientific techne aside, I came across an old illustration where I was trying to approach a web page design from more explicit location of pixels.  I was in an informal, perhaps poetic mood as far as the circles of avatar like objects to which I associate with various zones of theoretical activity as symbols- these read from top left to lower right:  stereonometry, the omnium, depth and span symmetry, the 4D five cell polytope, the four winged bird of spacetime as a family symbol, my traditional Otto sign originally conceived as an electronics enterprise in 1963 and based on the golden ratio, a stylized sun based on my older kids sketches for sonic the hedgehog of which I noticed the illusion of a disc of the same color within, the 15 points of a hypercube surrounded by laurels of an idea of perfection, the symbol of quasicity, and the game of Morris of which I sign mathematical recreations in the spirit as such.

I did notice that the colors were important in the illusion of things standing out in levels of depth as if in space and that the viewing scale was also important to see the effect.  What I did not do at the time was to relate this to the cross-eyed viewing of such pictures which I did seeing this illustration again.  I mean it already looked in part three dimensional.  But upon crossing my eyes as the xtal form was there to think to do (so many of my posted illustrations were designed for the viewing as tiling on the desk top) I noticed that other than the one eyed ends the objects in the circles could clearly be distinguished and seen at the same time.  One black on white heron fit naturally into a dodecahedron.  This was easier to distinguish than those few instances where a new color arises or is confused in other such arrays. In the illustration above- the Otto symbol and the hedgehog blend smoothly as it works for the black on red circles too.

Or the family 4D four winged bird fits with the 5-cell polytope, two symbols I have long associated together as well the avatar for L. Edgar and PeSla.  But of the pairs that fit well in proximity I did not choose those here with this illusion in mind.  What was I doing with the gray pixels in the background and why? I ask myself as I think about this twilight art and perception today more formally?

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I should mention that I have now seen a few NOVA programs- the total picture of what satellites do to show the earth from its outer fields to deep within the core...breathtaking beautiful... the loops ongoing spin and weather, rise and reuse of living things...human influence as in the direction at morning or evening of the aircraft...  The weather, the monsoons, locally different globally understood the same--- the great Southern Continent and its hurricane like storm on the average 46 degrees colder than the North Pole- and yet as the minerals come back again to looping and recurring life forms: This is part of the picture- as well the picture of our sun, a star- the connections and wormholes and so on that abstractly go into the hidden side of space that beyond the chaos in higher symmetry finds stability more likely.  And that picture is almost full enough to think perhaps, to declare, what more do we need for a theory of everything- well, perhaps we should start with more than half a deck in our card reading...  How can so many gaze out at the sky feeling they may fall off some edge of the world, forces just out of sight behind their shoulders--- and not see this small step and leap beyond and into what needs not be but a faith alone?  How can this local world be viewed in the immensity of the universe and we not see how narrow and earthbound what we all seem to agree is the best of our wisdom in these wild theories of everything?

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