![]() The diversity of suggested meanings offered by respondents seems to confirm that the image on the biscuit is indeed highly indeterminate. What on earth is it supposed to be? Santa? Reindeer? Snowman? Do tell if you know!" ![]() Image of an 'indeterminate biscuit' taken from University web site, which includes the caption: "What on Earth is this? Found in a package of Cadbury's Festive Friends chocolate biscuits in the office this afternoon. Illustration 2 was recently added to a university bulletin board by a confused IT manager who wanted help in identifying what his Christmas-themed biscuit represented. There are numerous examples, not just in the history of art but in the most mundane aspects of everyday life. Visual indeterminacy then occurs when we are presented with images that are vivid and detailed yet resist easy or immediate identification, that is, when perceptual data cannot be integrated with cognitive data. Indeed, it is precisely because of these powers that viewers may be so perplexed by the vagueness of the amorphous shape in the fluid. Its ambiguity cannot be attributed the artist's shortcomings in rendering physical objects his powers of accurate depiction are clearly evident in every other part of the image. Is it a preserved bird, a dissected organ, or perhaps a skull? According the to National Gallery in London (to which the painting belongs) and several scholarly authorities, it is most likely the latter, but close inspection suggests this is by no means certain. It is not at all clear what this shape represents. Amid all the precision and clarity of Wright's depiction sits this sinister form, all the more prominent for being dramatically backlit. Inside this flask rests a silhouetted object, a specimen of doubtful identity. The bird at the top of the painting in the vacuum jar is shown at the point of expiration, while in the foreground stands a flask shielding the candle that illuminates the whole scene. Illustration 1 shows Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, an eighteenth-century British painting depicting the effects of oxygen withdrawal on a living bird by the use of a vacuum pump. Image source: The Web Gallery of Art, 2007. 'An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump' by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768. It is probably most helpful to introduce the phenomenon of visual indeterminacy with an example. I will outline a number of ideas drawn from a range of different disciplines that collectively support this argument. Furthermore, it may offer new insights into the workings of the brain and the mind, especially in relation to visual perception and aesthetic response. Yet I will argue that it points to a fundamental issue concerning our appreciation of art and, indeed, the very function of art itself. It is a phenomenon that many of us have experienced at some time, although one that is little referenced in the psychological or neuroscientific literature. This article considers the phenomenon of visual indeterminacy that occurs when the sensory data gathered from the visual system cannot be integrated with semantic knowledge. Indeterminacy, formalism, painting, visual perception 1. The paper concludes by summarizing the links between aesthetic experience, the operation of visual perception, and visual indeterminacy. ![]() Arguments about the nature of aesthetic experience are then considered from some historical sources and interpreted in light of the distinctions between perception-cognition and form-content. The implications for the operation of the mind and, in particular, the nature of aesthetic experience are addressed, and the distinction between the perception of visual forms and their cognitive interpretation is discussed. A number of examples are given, including from the author's own art work, and some results presented from a scientific study based on them. This article considers the phenomenon of visual indeterminacy, which occurs when the sensory data gathered from the visual system cannot be integrated with semantic knowledge.
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