Making Sense of Seeing: Autism and David Marr.
1996; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 22; Issue: 44 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2151-8009
Autores Tópico(s)Design Education and Practice
ResumoNadia (Seife, 1977), Stephen Wiltshire (Sacks, 1995, Wiltshire, 1989,1991), Jessy Park (Park, 1978, 1982, 1992), and Richard Wawro (Tref fen, 1989, Wawro, 1989), four autistic people with extraordinary drawing skills, are well known in the literature on autism and artistic procociousness. Their art skills and pleasure in drawing have allowed others the opportunity to explore the world of the differently abled as well as to consider the complicated rela tionship between image making and the visual process. The exceptional skills of these four people as well as others with related skills and perceptual abilities, allow those interested in the autistic artist, art making, or in the connection between symbolization and per ception, an opportunity to further investigate these issues. The work of the neurobiologist, David Marr (1982), serves as grounding for this examination of autistic art making, for Marr's theory of prepreceptual vision illumi nates the relationship between object, ob server, perceptual process, and image. attended the National Autism Society conference just after school let out for summer break. One of the featured speakers was Temple Qrandin, author, professor, designer of livestock confine ment systems, and herself autistic. The auditorium was packed the evening of her talk. Parents of autistic children, psy chologists, social workers, therapists, as well as several autistic adults waited im patiently for the appearance of Temple, who must surely be one of the most well known autistic people in this country, a role model for other autistic people trying to make their way in an incomprehensi ble, difficult world. After her arrival, Tem ple, a tall, big boned women dressed in Levi's, cowboy shirt, and boots, de scribed her life as an autistic person, the long path of both her social and academic learning, and the creation of her thriving confinement design business. The audi ence hung on every word. Here was a person who could talk about autism from inside and who, against what seem im possible odds, had developed her special skills and abilities to her best advantage. Autistic people often have a talent for drawing, she announced. They are often visual learners, too, though Asperger (a type of autism) people aren't as often this way. My art was encouraged when was a child. She flashed slides of several early drawings on the screen, one done when she was seven. None included color. All were of modes of transportation (planes and ships). All em ployed hasty, sketchy lines, extreme fo reshortening, and emphasis on per spective. I think in pictures, she continued, clicking to images of her cur rent work, drawings of confinement fa cilities. I can walk through a plant am designing in my head. can't deal with something can't see or visualize... (Grandin, 1995). The formal qualities of Grandin's draw ings are those that have since come to recognize as being characteristic of many autistic artists' images. Those wiry elec tric lines suggest questions that lie at the heart of art making and the special vision and art of some autistic artists. These questions include: Are there similarities in autistic artists work? If there are, what does it tell us about autistic artists and the visual perceptual processes? Does David Marr's (1982) theory of the early stages of vision suggest productive av enues for the examination of autistic art ists? The purpose of this article is to suggest areas for further research in regard to the above queries. In order to engage these questions and the complex issues 76 VISUAL ARTS RESEARCH ? 1996 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois This content downloaded from 157.55.39.147 on Sun, 07 Aug 2016 06:11:27 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms they raise, will begin by briefly examining Marr's hypothesis of preattentive vision which provides the grounding for this undertaking. Then, the art of four autistic artist savants and the lively drawings of a not yet diagnosed (though likely) As perger syndrome child will be examined in the light of Marr's ideas of visual processing. The value of this investiga tion for art education lies in the increased understanding of image making and seeing itself, and in the recognition of the special needs and abilities of autistic artists. David Marr and Preattentive Vision Before his death from leukemia in 1979, Marr, a neurobiologist, managed to com plete Vision: A Computationai Investiga tion into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information, in which he explained his approach to vision based on the premise that one cannot under stand the act of seeing without first un derstanding the information processing tasks being solved by this process. Though Marr presents his work as a series of hypotheses, these hypotheses continue to be borne out by investigations into issues of artificial intelligence, vision, and neurobiology (Sacks, 1985, Crick, 1995, Kass, 1995, Damasio, 1995, et al.). Additionally, to the visually sensitive and attentive non-specialist, Marr's work can be seen to successfully explain many of the puzzling characteristics found in our daily engagement with the visual world. As Marr's work moves into the main stream of investigations in perception, his computational theory of visual per ception also starts to shed light on art making and the artists' idiosyncratic use of visual processes. Marr's theory also begins to illuminate the particular char acteristics of the art of differently abled individuals, notably those with autism. In order to become familiar with Marr's central hypothesis and its implications for the artist, a brief discussion of vision and Marr's ideas concerning seeing is in order. According to Marr, it is from the examination of the process of vision and the enquiry into the brain's representa tions of this information that an under standing of seeing itself will develop. All the wonder, richness, and color of the world appears effortlessly to our eyes. Marr explains that the complex activity of seeing and identifying takes place in less than half a second. For what would it avail someone to see a hurtling bicycle a second too late to avoid it or to rec ognize a friend after she has left the room? In order to construct a clearer under standing of the process of vision, its purpose, limits, and form, a brief descrip tion of these closely related topics is important. According to Marr, evolution favors getting processes started as soon as possible. This is to allow one to avoid danger, seize opportunities for food, shelter, and sociability, and to allow one to locate one's self in an appropriate and useful way in the world. It is this necessity for speed and for rapidly locating objects in space that provide the constraints for the vision process. Additionally, to facil itate this rapidity and to enhance perfor mance as a useful, timely descriptor of what is present in the world, the process of vision itself must remain simple to facilitate both its speed and its ease of operation. The visual process, so essen tial to comfortable and successful activity, and one that provides food, safety, and ability to be in the visual world, is pro tected from degradation or loss (as are many other systems) by its structure, i.e., the manner in which it is put together. This visual process structure is modular in nature, thereby providing it a form in which its various functions are separate from one another. In this way, if one portion of the process is damaged through accident or illness, the remaining parts, or modules, can continue to function in a normal way, allowing one to continue to meet one's needs. Since everyone's visual process is modular and everyone
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