Monday, 16 March 2015

Health. Environment. Human.

The following wordle represents the reading by Daniel B. Smith, 'Is There an Ecological Unconscious?'

The idea of ecological unconsciousness was fascinating and new to me. I have never considered the relation of the human impact on the environment and the resulting psychological effects associated with the health of our planet.

The most noticeable words in white: human, health and environmental are the most aligned with my interpretation of the concept in the reading and serve to support two key theories.

Smith coined the term “solastalgia,” which he defined as “the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault . . . a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home.” I interpret that to mean that if the health of the environment suffers, the health of the human will suffer as well. 

Doherty is an advocate of ecopsychology which supports the idea "that grief, despair and anxiety are the consequences of dismissing equally deep-rooted ecological instincts." Again, human health is connected to environmental health. 

Every time I look at this wordle, those three words continue to stand out even while my eye is drawn to varying secondary concepts such as ecological and environment. I definitely think that colour plays a major role in the interpretation and power associated with each word. 



To illustrate the point about colour consider the following image: 


Rubin’s vase: A classical example of figure/ground segmentation. The image is fundamentally ambiguous. People perceive a vase or faces, but not both at the same time. Wikimedia Commons

In both cases my eye is drawn to the negative space created by white on black. So I would presume, like in this sample, that interpretations of the wordle and where the emphasis has been placed will also vary.

3 comments:

  1. Jaylene, I loved how you used the Rubin’s vase as an example to show that biasing the shapes and colours influence our perception and interpretation of an image. I wonder whether the redundancy of the signs (such as the repetition of the letter ‘e’ – environment, ecological, health, nature, Albrecht, etc.) plays also a role in influencing our perception, thus, drawing attention on the words with a common pattern.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's such a great point Adela! Thanks for pointing that out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very Gestalt, darling - nicely done. I studied this as I would a hanging in an art gallery. "Continue" also popped out for me. I was intrigued by the shape of your Worldle as well - boatlike, and pointing toward the future quite vehemently - letting the environment point the way.

    ReplyDelete