<--previous-- -home- -sitemap- -works- -statements- -résumé- -calendar- -recent- -current- --next-->


zebras at the waterhole (2001)
digital image,

about rorschach and open works

(umberto eco)

"suppose we take a white sheet of paper and spill some ink on it. the result will be a random image with absolutely no order. let's now fold the paper in two so that the ink blot will spread evenly on both sides of the sheet. when we unfold the paper we will find before us an image that has a certain order --i.e., symmetrical repetition, one of the most elementary forms of redundancy as well as the simplest avatar of probability. now, even though the drawing remains fundamentally ambiguous, the eye has a few obvious points of reference: indications of a particular direction, suggestions of possible connections. the eye is still free, much free that it was with the traditional mosaic, and yet it is directed toward the recognition of some forms rather than others, varied and variable forms whose very identification involves the unconscious tendencies of the viewer, while the variety of possible solutions they invite reconfirms the freedom, the ambiguity, and the suggestive power of the figure. and yet, as i have already mentioned, the figure contains a number of interpretive directions, enough so that the psychologist who proposes the test feels quite disoriented if his patient's answer falls outside the province of his predictions."

("the open work", umberto eco, harvard university press 1989)