Gestalt

Talking about Gestalt principles in my design courses just makes me think about psychology. Not in the Gestaltic way of how we perceive objects, but how these perceptions pertain to living life, forming relationships and conquering fears.

The very brief breakdown:

• Similarity
• Figure & Ground
• Proximity
• Continuation
• Closure

Finding similarities in ourselves and the world around us. Grouping things together as toddler's with our hands, building blocks, putting the square into the square hole.

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Finding out the difference between figure & ground, what we see as being real and what holds up that reality.

Proximity, how far is it from me? How far are you from me? Are we separate at all. What separates us.

Is it continuous? Will this road continue or segment into another or is this a dead end. Seeing paths as blending into one another.

Closure. Finality. Inside the box. What really is there to say about closure? It is what it is...

What I find so interesting about this, is in Gestalt theory we've managed to both classify and ossify the way in which we perceive. As a result these theories are used to make things easily understandable, which is a good thing I suppose. But, I wonder if in the defining and use of these theories if we've managed to miss a road that perhaps lead to opportunity for other ideas about and in perception. This is of course not to say that there are not, but if the mind is drawn into what makes it easiest, does it grow from the experience? Or does it have less thinking of its own to do.

Just questions meant to be posed in the least literal way possible.