Title: Self-organized Artwork
Prepared by: Eric Maurer
Prepared for: Ron Eglash
Subject: Self-organization in Science and Society
Paper: #2
Mimesis and the intention on working with scaling geometry is a major subject
regarding African tribal artwork within African Fractals, spurring me to explore the topic
within my own realm of art. As I read through the second half of the book, I started to
question how exactly the knowledge of fractal geometry would become intentional. I
theorize the process relying on the interplay between mimesis and intention back by
knowledge. Copying has helped me in regards to my drawing skills when I was younger,
but now I believe I no longer copy. I propose a question to my recent artwork, “What are
you a copy of?” At this point in my art career, I may be unknowingly mimicking
knowledge I have yet to fully grasp. I have chosen my art to be the object of my study as
I know my intentions and can vie for my methods as factual.
To fully explore the role of mimesis in developing knowledge, the definition of
mimesis must first be fully understood in all of its characteristics. Jordan Zlatev in his
article, The Mimesis Hierarchy of semiotic development: Five stages of inter subjectivity
in children, states “Bodily mimesis is either realized through action, or else this action
could be imagined, virtual, or as currently popularly phrased: ―simulated,” (Zlatev, 5).
Zlatev goes on to define mimesis as:
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(DEF) An act of cognition or communication is an act of bodily mimesis if
and only if:
1. It involves a cross-modal mapping between exteroception (e.g.
vision) and proprioception (e.g. kinesthesia).
2. It is under conscious control and is perceived by the subject to be
similar to some other action, object or event.
3. The subject intends the act to stand for some action, object or event
for an addressee, and for the addressee to recognize this intention.
4. It is not fully conventional (and normative).
5. It does not divide (semi) compositionally into meaningful sub-acts
that systematically relate to other similar acts (as in grammar).
For my research I will be drawing upon to forms of mimesis, proto (involving empathetic
perception) and dyadic (involving controlled, volitionary imitation).Within dyadic
mimesis is the distinction between self and the object to be mimicked, the requirement
for one to learn more than just what is being copied. I will apply these terms to the forms
of mimesis observed from the African tribes.
The African tribes I will be examining are Mangbetu, Ba-ila, and Bamana, using
analysis presented in African Fractals. The Mangbetu, as put by a modern member of the
tribe, aim to reflect the intelligence and beauty of the creator through their artisan work.
The Mangbetu represent an affinity and respect for the 45-degree angle and perfect 1/3
scaling. Their art has proven their ability to create highly analytical art, requiring
planning and understanding of geometry, but their statement seems to imply their
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mimesis is a common ground between proto and dyadic mimesis. The Ba-ila people
exemplify fractal recursion at its finest through progressive construction of houses into a
village. Their architecture relies upon a strong aerial perception and specific placement in
order to produce the visual effect of a fractal, displaying true dyadic mimesis of fractal
geometry, especially provided by their practice of creating a smaller, ancestral village on
the property of the house within the village. My favorite example of true knowledge
through dyadic mimesis is the Bamana tribe’s sand divination practices. Their ability to
essentially process code, through a transfer function amazes me. The Bamana
fortunetellers have grasped deterministic chaos and I can only wonder what chaos they
must have gone through to mimic such complexity. Each African tribe must have learned
their methods of creation from synthesis of sources. The struggle arises of whether
mimicry was intentional or not; as the results display knowledge, the true nature of the
math behind their designs is still a challenge to determine. In order to better understand
he intentions and outcomes of a creation, I turned to my own creations.
My artwork relies heavily on composition, only copying from the thoughts within my
own mind. My initial intentions when making art have been to make it look “good.” I do
not have much of an idea when I first put my hand down on the canvas. As I make
objects, I grow tired, bored or unhappy with my actions and paint over those spots, reworking the object till it seems to fit or ceases to work. I am constantly re-working the
piece from start to finish. I only start moving in a direction once I see one. By leaving
multiple options open, the idea has time to brew in my mind and on the canvas. I guess I
can say my method is fractal in that I start at the tendrils of an idea, working my way
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towards the source. I process multiple components into a single composition, creating a
bottom up organizational structure. What tends to happen in doing such, is I wind up
reaching the single point and then branching off back into tendrils as I try to decipher the
non-visual meanings behind the imagery. In pursuing a vague direction with my art, I
leave multiple gaps in understanding for the viewer to create the connections. If
intentionally leave gaps of knowledge within my work, I must be missing some artifacts I
can learn from. My art must be analyzed to develop a further understanding on my
intentions possibly mimicking knowledge I have yet to grasp.
Analysis of my artwork is the most complicated part of doing the research since there
are many methods of measurement. To keep with the analysis of African tribe I will look
for measurements for which could be compared to scaling behavior. Before thinking of
how to take my measurements I realized the bias I could have. I would need to make sure
I was not looking for measurements that would scale, but at the same time wanted to see
some results I could apply to scaling. My first idea was to measure the area of the
portions I delete plotted against the total time I painted, but soon after realized I do not
have the necessary data. Another was to measure the ratios of colors I use, but after
searching for programs to do the work and playing around in Photoshop, I would not be
able to attain the measurements I intended on taking. So, I decided to play around with
my art in MS paint to discover my first method of analysis. In Figure 1, I traced major
directional lengths within my painting and then lined the segments of in size order to
determine the trend.
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Figure 1: Graphing Directional Trace Lines
The scaling of Figure 1 closely resembled a ½ scaling trend. Using a similar method, I
analyzed another painting using triangles as when this painting first began, the
composition was just triangles and with time I re-worked objects over the initial structure,
creating more forms. Figure 2 displays my analysis and second-guessing of measuring
methods. In the upper version, the triangles form a non-linear scaling, but in going back
and tracing out more triangles in the lower version, I discovered the painting has
exponential scaling qualities as well.
Figure 2: Triangular Scaling
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Figure 2 displays how crucial data selection and measurement can be when arriving at
some desired result. I feel I have almost “fudged” my data to fit the results I was looking
to find. The exponential scaling result for Figure 2, in my opinion, is partially invalid; as
my analysis is subjective, I feel I could find exponential scaling in almost everything. In a
last effort to produce unbiased results, turned to the Fractalyse software, but sadly could
not make sense of the data I acquired from two of my paintings (I regret not using the
software sooner and asking for help as I was not in class the day we experimented with
its capabilities). My experimentation methods still need much work in order to fully
prepare data and results for the final research paper.
Philosopher of science, Karl Popper’s “falsifiability,” may be the method of analysis I
will have to take up in addition to attempting to prove my idea. Measuring my own
artwork can become too subjective; I picked where to put the lines on Figures 1 & 2
based on my understanding of my own painting. I need to prove I am not biased and still
attempt to understand what my art can teach me. I hope after this paper to gain help and
guidance on more accurate ways to analyze my artwork for trends in scaling. I have yet to
fully understand what I may be mimicking/ missing from my own artwork and will need
to enlist minds other than my own to survey the artwork for knowledge.
Wow!! You did a great job with this; nicely found a balance between your zany,
creative instincts and rigorous experimentation in the spirit of Popper. Regarding
fractalyze, better to reduce the image to black and white only with no grey shading,
which fractalyze cannot interpret. Do the reduction in photoshop using the bitmap,
but play around with the parameters for the conversion:
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and just let your eyeball find the right black/white
balance where the most meaningful patterns appear. Grade = A.
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Works Cited
Eglash, Ron. African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design. New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1999. Print.
Zlatev, Jordan. "The Public Journal of Semiotics IV(2): The Mimesis Hierarchy of
Semiotic Development: Five Stages of Intersubjectivity in Children." Google.
Department of Linguistics, Centre for Languages and Literature, Centre for
Cognitive Semiotics, Lund University Lund, Sweden, Feb. 2013. Web. 26 Mar.
2014.
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