Physiography from Principles of Cartography by Erwin Raisz 1962
Texture is used to define surface difference. If you look at the textural patterns for various types of geographic landscapes as they might be rendered on a map above, you quickly get an idea of how we use texture to identify differences in physical nature or surface appearance. These differences are what we have become used to as indicators of the thingness or physical quality of objects. We are aware of metals being very different to textiles and that these are different to skin or bone. When we look at the recreation of 3D form in CGI there are three basic levels of 'realism'. The first is the wire frame construction, which I have looked at recently and which has emerged from 'cross contour' drawing practices, linked to technical drawing and perspective conventions. The second level of realism is usually the use of tone to describe form or shading. Phong shading tends to be the default in contemporary 3D computer graphics and it is a type of shading I objected to when I first became interested in 3D computer rendering, because I felt it tended to make everything look like plastic. The next level in terms of visual realism is texture mapping, usually applied alongside Phong or other types of shading software, a process that allows you to take a simple polygon and give it the appearance of something far more complex. The texture map's parametric textural information is tied to the individual polygons that form an object's surface, which means that if the surface moves or deforms the texture goes with it. This is a very convincing construct and is now the standard 'realistic' effect in CGI. You could argue it is today's equivalent of 'trompe-l'œil' painting; the English translation of which would be; “deceive the eye”, indeed its definition is 'the representation of an object with such verisimilitude as to deceive the viewer concerning the material reality of the object'. Therefore 'deception' is central to the textual mapping CGI effect. Plato warned people to be very wary of this state of affairs, he stated over 2,000 years ago that as art imitates physical things, creating in effect a copy of a copy, it leads us further and further away from truth and into a world of illusion.
CGI surface illusion
Another problematic issue in relation to these illusions is 'point of view'. In perspective everything works fine, so long as you are at the exact spot that the perspective is designed to be seen from. This issue was unpicked in detail by Panofsky, who highlighted the fact that perspective was not just a technical means to render space in a convincing way, but that it was a symbolic form. It reinforces a particular way of looking at the world, and I would argue makes the world 'commodifiable' by making objects and buildings appear graspable as things, a state totally at odds to an understanding of a world consisting of actions experienced as processes.
A powerful illusion can be created of almost any form with a surface texture, in the case of the rooster above feathers and leather are convincingly rendered, making this fantasy cockerel appear to be very 'real'.
We all know that fur feels
soft, tree bark feels rough, and silk feels smooth, but also fur looks soft, tree bark looks rough, and silk looks smooth. This conjoined tactile/visual aspect of surface textural variation as Stephens & Hoffman (2016, p.257) pointed out, has long being used by artists and designers 'to evoke
emotions and set moods'. Texture is therefore not just something that can create illusions of reality, it is essential to the development of forms that can stimulate emotion.
Textures used by Stephens & Hoffman to test out aesthetic preference
Perception and feeling it would appear, are inextricably linked together. The qualia related to both experiences, I would argue reinforcing each other, because the qualia associated with emotional feeling developed as part of the interoception and associated body schema systems, would be generated at virtually the same time as the visual qualia entering the body from outside. These raw qualities of sensations, emotions and thoughts, although experienced privately, subjectively, and directly, are also what will eventually make up the building blocks from which all communication, both logical and emotive, will be effected. (Wolfe and Bell, 2007) A movement of chemical and electrical energy, is central to both perception and resultant action, the holistic nature of the process becoming more and more apparent as research into the processes associated with cognition advances.
Computer generated textural surfaces developed from hand applied textures
In the image above certain aspects of body schemas have been used to both suggest the idea of the body as its own landscape, as well as being a place within which decisions are being made as to how the body 'thinks' and feels. Indeed it has been argued by Margaret Wilson, (2006, p. 211) that body schemas act as prediction devices, interacting with perception, cognition and behaviour in a variety of ways. These schemas can be thought of as copying devices and as such perhaps lie behind our interest in likeness or similarity as ways to develop meaning. In this way we return to metaphor as being integral to the development of our ideas.
This close relationship between perception, illusion and emotional stimulus, was also something Plato commented on in relation to his worries about the power of art to effect people's emotional states, not only was illusion to be distrusted because it was not truthful, art's power to effect emotions, meant that for Plato illusion and emotional manipulation are often found together and this is something that we have seen to be more and more the case in this age of post truth politics, CGI and powerful media illusions. However as a process, the interrelationship between perception, illusion and emotional stimulus, would seem to be central to how we as humans devise ideas, so perhaps it is a problem deeply rooted in the very way we need to digest information. Copying, fiction and a tendency to find meaning in likeness all influencing our perceptual receptivity and responses to the world, so rather than like Plato trying to outlaw any art form that uses these tendencies, we should perhaps be seeking to observe how they operate and how we are prone to give effect and agency to perceptions that are as much inner constructions as they are responses to changing outer conditions.
References
Cytowic, R.E., 2002. Synesthesia: A union of the senses. MIT press.
Panofsky, E., 2020. Perspective as symbolic form. Princeton University Press.
Stephens, K.D. and Hoffman, D.D., 2016. On Visual Texture Preference: Can an Ecological Model Explain Why People Like Some Textures More Than Others?. Perception, 45(5), pp.527-551.
Wilson, M (2006) Covert Imitation: How body schema acts as a prediction device in Knoblich, Thornton, Grosjean and Shiffrar (2006) Human Body Perception from the Inside out Oxford: Oxford University press
Wolfe, C.D. and Bell, M.A., 2007. The integration of cognition and emotion during infancy and early childhood: Regulatory processes associated with the development of working memory. Brain and Cognition, 65(1), pp.3-13.
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