Eye Contricks

Abstract

Icons are eye-cons: they provide a distillation of a complex object or idea into a simple pictorial shape. They create the impression of representing that which cannot be presented. Even at the level of the photograph, the links between icon and object are tenuous. The dimension of distance or depth is missing from the icon, and this alone introduces all manner of potential ambiguities. The history of art can be considered as an exploration of the missing link between icon and object. Eye-cons are more honest—they are tricks of vision so that what is seen does not necessarily correspond to what is presented. They are visual allusions rather than visual illusions, although they can display illusory effects. At its broadest, icon can be equated with image. The concept of image has thrived on its vagueness, and so attempts have been made to refine it. An icon corresponds to an optical image: it shares some of the projective characteristics of the object represented. Written words are also icons but they do not resemble the objects they represent—they are stylised or conventional rather than spatialised and projective. Words and images were set in delightful opposition by René Magritte (1898-1967) in a series of pipe paintings, and he also played on the theme of the arbitrariness of the verbal labels assigned to objects. What is surprising is that Magritte did not apply his painterly skills to transforming the word shapes he used. A similar reluctance to transform the typefaces pervades visual poetry. My interests are in the visual rather than the poetic dimension, and I will present a range of my own eye contricks which play with letter and word shapes in a variety of ways.