Sat down with my first cup of coffee this morning and clicked on the first TED talk link that popped up in my Facebook feed. It was a very interesting talk from TEDu by Tom Wujec about “3 ways the brain creates meaning.”
OK Good stuff, I’m thinking. Previous year they’d gotten a great response to a project involving two artists who sketched the main points of each talk presented and an interactive wall was created from these sketches. Very popular and successful. And in my mind, if I had the option of ordering a book like that from a TED I’d attended I’d plop my money down for the visual cues it would give me.
Then this came up as he was summarizing his ideas, which were really about how the brain takes in information, processes it and makes best use of the material in front of the eyes to both take in the information and direct it and remember it.
He had shown how the brain brings the eye around to look at various parts of the image in front of it, focusing first one area and then another in order to engage better and longer.
My brain went: a ha! Isn’t this how I want people to interact with MY images (aka quilts or photos?) I use images to present some sort of idea (not usually literal ideas). I want people to be drawn in to look at various parts of it and to look up close and farther back. A visual model of something is created for the person to take away in their brain. That persistent part I would guess might be a book with photos, or the photo they took, or a sketch or even notes they took in the moment.
Next cup of coffee, please!
