How do you like your tea?
How much do we really know about the personal preferences of our friends and family?
We might ask ” How do you like your tea? (milk/sugar/strong/weak).
But do we ever ask what would you like to drink your tea in?
Mug or cup? Large or small ? China or stoneware? Patterned or plain? Colour?
Guidance on accessible environments often refers to the need to avoid high contrast patterns in flooring that can appear moving or three dimensional for people with visual or cognitive impairments. The confusing optical impact of this flooring in a Camper shoe shop in Valencia gave me first hand experience of what this might feel like. Its a challenge to walk across this floor but the impression is also mesmerising.
Use of high contrast in patterns has been used as a deliberate method to disguise objects and people has been widely used in military contexts. The most common is in camouflage of uniforms. Dazzle camouflage was an ingenious method that maximised the use of light and reflective qualities of water was used in WW1 to disguise ships. Could these interventions that confuse our vision be used in different contexts to attract attention and maintain interest?
Can the power of images such as these that draw the viewer, and challenge our perception give us some insight into altered perceptions in dementia, and offer perhaps a captivating rather than a disturbing experience ? It is often said that some people living with dementia experience pattern as 3-dimensional or moving, and therefore potentially disturbing. In Realistic Magic: Objects, Ontology and Causality, Andrew Morton describes the:” aesthetic dimension as a the causal dimension.. you are working directly with people’s optic nerve and field of vision..” He describes his experience of viewing the paintings of aboriginal painter Yukultji Nanpangati :” The gaze emanates from the force field of a Napangati painting. It gathers me into it’s disturbing, phantasmal unfolding of zigzagging lines and oscillating patches.”.. ” At a distance it looks like a woven mat of reeds or slender stalks, yellowed, sun baked, resting on top of some darker, warmer depth. A generous, relaxed, precise, careful yet giving, caring lineation made of some blobby dots. The warmth reminds me of Klee. The lines remind you of Bridget Riley. As you come close and begin to face the image it begins to play, to scintillate, to disturb the field of vision. It oscillates and ripples,..”
“one cannot explain the flower by the fertiliser ” Bachelard, G. The Poetics of Space
I know what I like