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In-Depth Information
Projective Construction
The notion of inference has a logical aspect, but that's not the whole picture.
When I see red rocks in a canyon, I may
infer
things about their qualities—the
type of rock, patterns of erosion and breakage that suggest exposure to fl ows of
water or fracturing, etc. But when I
look at red rocks in a canyon, some-
times I see faces or animals or ob-
jects. Anyone who has looked for
petroglyphs knows the tricks that
rocks can play on you. Something
about the geometry or texture of
the rock or its pattern of light and
shade triggers the brain to con-
struct a familiar shape. If you've looked at clouds or patterns in plastering, for ex-
ample, likely the same thing has happened to you.
My friend and colleague Rachel Strickland fi rst gave me a name for this phe-
nomenon during the Banff expedition to create
Placeholder
. She called it “projective
construction.” A stimulus with suffi cient ambiguity can evoke in the mind of the
perceiver the construction of something other than what is “actually” there. It may
also be colored by what we
want
to perceive (e.g., hunting petroglyphs) or some-
thing that is on our minds (e.g., seeing an ice cream cone in the clouds when we
are hungry).
Projective construction isn't limited to the realm of the visual. Most of us have
had the experience of someone taking something we said “the wrong way.” We're
at a loss to explain how it could have happened. What we may not know is what
was on that other person's mind or in their desires.
The
Placeholder
project provided a great example of projective construction
in discourse. The narrative of the piece used the lore of magical animals or animal
spirits, and some of its images were intended to represent rock art. A few of the
more politically correct members of the community busted us for this, accusing us
of appropriating First Nations stories and images. The critique was a projective con-
struction. When I explained that most of the images had been inspired by the cave
art of Western Europe, for example, a woman spluttered, “Well, that's even
worse
because you're relying on my ignorance!” I still don't know what she meant by that.
Petroglyph in Maui
(continues)
