763 COLLECTION of ARTICLES on Make-believe, Abstract, Minimalism, Superfluous, etc.

763 COLLECTION of ARTICLES on Make-believe, Abstract, Minimalism, Superfluous, etc.
These Blogs are from my site https://designsynopsis.wordpress.com/

9 MAKE BELIEVE EFFECTS
We are generally conditioned by predictable effects of the traditional or known materials. However, when we discover that any peculiar configuration or additional input creates an experience that is different from the one that is predictable, we get a tool for a make believe effect.
Mirrors play a very important role in creation of duplicate spaces. Glasses provide a transparent wall compared with a nominally solid opaque structure. Rooms other than square or rectangular shape provide an unusual experience. Echoes and reverberation of sound provide predictable space dimensions, but modified perceptions with white sounds, and frequency changes give unusual experience of the space. Lights like strobe s and dynamic shadows mould the visible space. Pulsating lights synchronized with sounds or other actions (water fountains) change the space perception. Ionized air endows a garden like freshness in an otherwise stifled space.

23 The SUPERFLUOUS in architecture
Between the real and virtually real, there has always been something extra, the superfluous. The superfluous, was the applique decoration, carrying its own meaning. It is essentially intended to counter the mundane. Sir John Summersen, the architectural historian calls it, ‘surface modulation’. He also says ‘Architecture had, with some difficulty liberated itself from ornament, but it has not liberated itself from the fear of ornament’. The shrouded symbolism of decoration and the contempt for the explainable interpretation, has led to creation of new space making elements. The first attempts were like image rendering tools of superimposition, merging, morphing, stretching, selective compressing or enlarging. It created visual aberrations. This has provided new ways of perceiving the forms. Films and television provided the impetus to make-believe cognition, beyond the visual frames.

241 ABANDONING DECORATIVE ELEMENTS for IRON
Iron, till 6rh C, was essentially an art and craft material. But it was emerging as the preferred material, in place of bronze, for making weapons, agricultural implements, domestic articles, braziers, caldrons, personal adornments and bells. Chinese were the first to use it for supports in pagodas and other buildings, though imitating the tile-roofed brick structures. Chinese had refined skills of iron making but it remained an imitative medium. Wrought iron was used to recreate ink sketches of master painters for frames, windows’ lattices, lanterns.
Italian smiths, in 13-14 C., were creating grills, lattices and screens of wrought iron, but using mainly the forging method. This began to change with introduction of blast furnaces, by 15th C. Its products known as pig iron facilitated the exploitation of cast iron and converting it to wrought iron and semisolid malleable iron.
The Baroque and Rococo periods saw an iron worked over as if a plastic material with perfection of detail. But by 17-18 C great deal of decorations in other metals were appended. The decadence was similar to architecture of the time, where designs were never original and techniques were overrefined.
With Industrial age rolled steel products were available, but products from this stock lacked the quality of workmanship and exclusivity of design. Industrial workshops and many other public buildings began to use steel shedding the classical styles. Reinforced concrete freed the buildings of sculpted stones. This was a time Iron began to omnipresent in the architectural scene and also vocabulary.

275 BREVITY in DESIGN EXPRESSION
Brevity in Design relates to two fundamental measures, the TIME and SPACE. And calibration of both leads to efficiency. Brevity in architecture is a reflection of minimalism. It comes from a yearning to ‘shed weight’ so as to be less ‘substantial’. In architecture (and also other forms of design) ‘substantial’ translates into monumental or elaborate. A monumental entity must confirm to the stabilizing force of gravity, and so should be large and wide-based. An elaborate entity could be multi-functional or multi-faceted, satisfying many needs.
The superfluous ‘becomes intense and dense’ in ‘classical ages’ that reappraisal becomes necessary not to discipline it but to discover the ‘new’. But such pursuit for Brevity starts at personal level, and is initially a preconception. By the time the originator and followers understand the means and methods of it, it may become a style weighed down by ‘substantial’.
Brevity as a doctrine has many Subscriptive forms, like, ABC art, minimal art, reductivism, rejective art, De Stijl, neo-plasticism, Bauhaus movement, minimalism, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’ Less Is More and Traditional Japanese art.
Brevity (First attested in English in 1509)has origins from Latin -brevitās or brevitātem, Anglo-Norman brevité, Old French brieveté (=br -brave + evity -evidence).

316 APARIGRAHA and MINIMALISM
Aparigraha means non-possessiveness or being non-greedy. Aparigraha is the opposite of Parigraha, which means, to amass, crave, seek or seize material possessions.
Aparigraha is one of the virtues in #Jainism. It is also one of the five vows that both the householders (Sravaka) and ascetics must observe. Aparigraha is a desirable self restraint and sincerity (as a fellow citizen) for possessing what is absolutely necessary and so minimum.
(#Jainism -a religion in India, originating in roughly the same time span as Buddhism).
American scholar Richard Gregg coined the term ‘voluntary simplicity’ to describe a lifestyle purged of the inessential. My space is small but my life is big.
The concept of minimalist design was to strip everything down to its essential quality and thereby achieve simplicity. Thereafter nothing can be eliminated ‘to simplify or improve the design’. Minimalists not only ‘reconsider’ the physical qualities but spiritual meaning also.
This usually creates a design statement that is very frugal and personal. And it requires converts, who can understand, believe and accept it. If you are a design service provider that needs spirit and energy of a crusader.

327 CRAFT of INTERIOR EXTERIOR DECORATION
During the middle ages paint making and its application verged on art. Art related crafts-persons (assistants to master artists) were hired to decorate shop and home fronts. These ‘artists’ used their own homemade materials but, kept the process of application, a secret.
They were also well skilled in other art-forms, so very often their job consisted of engraving, rendering, painting (illustrative art), sculpting and even gilding and metalizing. The job of painting-decorating an interior space and the exteriors were one integral exercise of the substantive assignment.
Most of the utilitarian structures or public facilities remained in original colour or finish of the material, without decoration. There were several possible reasons for this state: 1 The process of rejuvenation of building was technically fairly complex, 2 Required level of expertise was not available, 3 Political and Public-health related uncertainties, made long-term investments on residences, unviable.
The technological issues about house paints were substantially solved from 17th C onwards, due to availability of Lead oxide (white-pigment) and Linseed oil. Interiors of the rich persons were decorated with plaster (gypsum) painted with Calcimine colours, and woods were polished (shellac, French-polish, wax). But these did not suit the exterior application. Exterior masonry surfaces were painted with weather sensitive Lime washes and Calcimine coatings. During industrial revolution, oil-based coatings began to be commercially available.

422 PSEUDO or MAKE-BELIEVE EFFECTS
A finish on a surface nominally represents the nature of the material. The relationship between the ‘nature of the material’ and its surface quality, some times becomes a restrictive condition. Many finishes are as a result contrived or imposed on the objects, and are called pseudo or make-believe effects. Nominally natural finishes (or at least some qualities) are emulated for creating such effects.
Natural Finishes result due to many different factors, such as: Elemental conditions of formation, subsequent responses like weathering, cognitive affectations, and later, natural or man-made interventions (angle of cut, tools and techniques used, etc.).
Natural surface finishes have three main cognitive affectations: Colour, Pattern and Texture.
The colours are of original formation, subsequent weathering, readjustment of stresses, or induced by physical and chemical changes.
The patterns result from the stresses, mixing of constituents, weathering, and the varied reactivity of different parts and constituents. Patterns also result from granular or fibrous orientation, method of cut, cyclic nature of growth, formation of residual products, deposition of contaminants, and tools-techniques of handling and processing.
Textures primarily result from the degree of homogeneity, angle of cut, differential weathering, and various formative processes.
Examples of pseudo or make-believe effects
● Surface finishes that duplicate the natural materials, such as: wood figures (pattern) or textured effects in polymers, stone like effects in ceramics, cotton like fabrics made out of polyester, or synthetic gems and diamonds.
● Surface finishes that copy the effects of other manufactured finishes, such as: chrome polymers for metals, white metal ornaments for silver, or acrylic for glass. Future possibilities include flexible glass, elastomeric metals, polymers with programmable colouring or texture forming system, metals lighter than ceramics or polymers, biodegradable ceramics, etc.

640 ABSTRACTION in ART
Abstraction is a process of removing irrelevant appendages from the idea, thought or concept. This reduces the complexity and increase efficiency.
Abstraction in Art began with the removal or de-emphasis of the background or the context. This allowed the thematic concept to be perceived not just distinctly but in a different manner. The abstract Art was more concerned with the later. The newness of the object independently of its associations or attributes provided an exciting option to impressionism and expressionism. Both the -isms were substantially dependent on negation through colour, texture, form depiction, foreground-background delimitation, depth representation with intensities, perspective or scaling, and environmental connections like light and shadows.
Word Abstract derives from the Latin Abstrahere =to divert and Aabstractus =drawn away, drag away, detach, pull away, divert. It is an assimilated form of Ab =off, away from + Trahere =to draw.
In computer programming abstraction hides all but the relevant data about an object.
Acute abstraction takes away the reality. The subject is not sought or to be recognized. It has no bearing of perception like top-bottom, left-right, real or mirror. But on massing the abstract creations, do reflect the creator and that becomes the style. It is the mannerism that becomes universal. But before that universalism sets in the Art moves to something New.

653 REAL, VIRTUAL and SUPERFLUOUS
Thinkers, like Aristotle, Plato, Frege, Wittgenstein, and Russell, have made a distinction between the real and the abstractions (as concepts of things that are unreal). The abstractions remain superfluous and over the surface. The superfluous exist between the real and virtual. The abstractions are derivative products of the real and used for obscuration, misconceptions, delusion or cover-up.
The abstractions are elemental units, occurring as motifs carrying their own meaning. These are sometimes mutually related in meaning, scale, proportion and sensorial qualities. Up to a level the abstractions, if remain superfluous, their unreality is apparent. The superfluous, however, can create sensorial aberrations and form a realm of make-believe. The underlaying reality cannot be comprehended.
Abstractions as superfluous are the delusions where illusion is perceived to be the real or ‘impermanent to be permanent’.
Sir John Summerson, the architectural historian calls it ‘surface modulation’. He also says ‘Architecture had, with some difficulty, liberated itself from the ornaments, but it has not liberated itself from the fear of ornament’. The shrouded symbolism of decorations and the contempt for the explainable interpretation, has led to creation of new space making elements. The first attempts were like image rendering tools of superimposition, merging, morphing, stretching, selective compressing or enlarging. These tools provided new ways of perceiving the forms. Films and television provided the impetus to make-believe cognition, beyond the visual frames. But all these tools are creating visual aberrations, confusing the Real and Virtually real.

700 MEANING of ABSTRACT
The word abstract in fine arts is something that lacks representational qualities and so difficult to understand or obscure (since 1400AD). Expressionism in art was conditioned representation but it graduated to ‘uninhibited approach’ for expression of things that were essential, minimal and carried a personal meaning. A personal meaning that the creator perhaps branded with a title but never had to elaborate or justify. Abstract refers to creations not concerned with the literal depiction of things from the nominal world of perception. The tag abstract is being substantively used since 1920 (for works of Kandinsky and others).
Abstract is meant to be withdrawn, separated, pulled away or detached, content in ‘metaphoric’ form. But the other realm of the metaphor is unavailable. Abstraction is a graduated process. The creative person, perhaps has already seen several sequential earlier versions, and that offers not just greater maturity but more an abstractive result.
The abstraction though detests confirmation of any order is now getting classed into several categories. Intensional deconstruction of scale, form, proportions, colour, texture, motifs, geometry, etc. have led to new ways of abstractions. An abstraction is seen as a process condensation and selective or experimental elimination. But synthesis leaves out some trail of process and so not favoured. It also abhors the specification or explanation. But as said in Architecture, ‘one cannot conceive anything that is un-contractible’. Reality is omnipresent.
Abstraction generates images that are not easy to connect to the past, in the same manner things that are unfamiliar seem to be abstract.
Medieval Latin word abstractus, and its past participle of abstrahere means to drag, pull, take away or remove. Abstraction, from the Latin, is the process of taking away or removing characteristics from something in order to reduce it to a set of essential characteristics. Abstraction turns physical things to nonphysical entities like ideas. In science abstraction involves synthesis (several) theories into one general theory.
In programming software the process of abstraction means identification of routine processes and indexing them as objects.

713 INTEGRATING the APPLIQUE FINISHES
At any cross section of time, we find only few surface systems that are in the process of being integrated to the entity base, but until than we have to employ the objects with applique or overtly attached surface finishes. To achieve the first and ideal it is very necessary that the surface system itself graduate to a state singular material in constitution, or at least be effective in that manner.
Finish makers aspire to provide a singular surface system in place of a multi-component system. But object makers aim for integrated or own finish system. In a finish maker’s world, however there are very few situations where singular surface system can satisfy all the demands. Multi-component surface systems are reality.
Surface systems like, mechanically fixed, adhered or coatings all have a body that is foreign to the base entity, and a variety of problems arise only for this reason. Finish makers desire to integrate the finish components with the entity. To make a foreign finish fully-resident, it is necessary to have both of them of the similar nature or mutually very compatible.
Integrated surface finishes develop ionic, covalent or metallic bonds. Once integrated, such finishes have no separable identity. The finish material generally does not affect the entire mass of the object, and as a result the mass retains most of its original structural properties. The surface system so deposited is just a few molecules in thickness. Very thin deposition allows even very thin objects to retain their characteristics like ductility, malleability, expansion and heat coefficients etc. (e.g. polyester film deposited with aluminum to create solar films -transparency, chrome or gold plating -low cost spread, dyeing of cloth, paper, leather, etc. -softness or pliability).
For a good designer, it is often more efficient (functionally, technologically and economically) to compose a new entity, than expend too much effort in modifying the entity on hand or change its environment.
There are vast number of such surface systems so well integrated, that we consider them as surface treatments rather than as an integrated surface finish system.

722 ILLUSION MAKING in ART and ARCHITECTURE
Art of illusion making is very old. It is presumed that in primitive cave murals, the images were experienced in moving lamp-light, making it a dynamic and magical experience. The dynamism in art form has been part of almost all cultures of the world.
The techniques of creating the illusion and dynamism, relies primarily on movement and changes in the source of illumination, and secondarily on brilliance, glitter and contrast of the colours. But with age, sometime post 13-14 C, the representation of the form and its scaling emerged as the main tool. These new tools offered richer and incisive presentations.
The perspective allowed more realistic view and enforced the scaling. These experiences were also explored in architectural design. Art began to take into consideration, the presence of spatial or architectural elements in the vicinity, situational illumination, point of observation and differentiation of objects in light-shade. These techniques of art were in addition of use of the story line as a tool of dynamic and magical presentation.
Architecture was designed for impressionist perspective views. The depth of scaled field, positions of viewing and enforced directions of movements (promenades) turned more vivid by exploiting the dynamics of shadows.
In art, the expertise of incorporating the natural illumination from doors, windows and clerestory opening was explored for (artificial) illumination. Architecture of 20th C was floundering on it this pursuit. Some CAD tools do provide synthetic solutions, but not the creative satiation.

767 REALISM in ART and ARCHITECTURE
Realistic representations verge on Art of illusion making. It is illusion because it replaces colour, texture, depth and time, etc., by what is plausible. In primitive cave murals, it is believed, the images were experienced in moving lamplight, making it a dynamic and magical experience. All expressions, speech, music, postural or gestural, etc., are made through oratory, mimicry, acting, drawing or emulation.
Realism was comparatively easy in drawn arts like paintings, sculpture. Capriccio Art offered architectural realism with a romantic sense of the past. In architectural form forced perspective and dummy architectonic elements were explicitly used.
Realistic expressions were enforced deceptions, with novelty or certain restricted exposure. Such deceptions were Trompe l’oeil (=to deceive the eye) formed by idealization of the image. Greek painter Zeuxis, reportedly painted realistic grapes, where birds tried to eat them. Rival painter Parrhasius, created a scene with curtains that were only drawn.
Illusionism was fashionable from early Renaissance period. Part of still life or portraits spilled out of the frame or architectonic elements filled the walls and ceilings. One such art form was the plafond, art of ceiling painting that simulated the sky or heavens. It was known in Italy as di sotto in sù, meaning from below, upward.
Forced perspective imaging gained strength with the designs for sets of stage shows. These were used to create the illusion of a much deeper and wider space than the actual stage. Stage sets extensively used translucent and transparent curtains to denote presence of illumination and project images. In addition the variable illumination and repositioning of set elements were also exploited.
The art of illusion making began a new trend with background making for cartoons. Street art and Graffiti painters use image making techniques by extending the art over different surfaces and across angular planes.

790 REALITY and VIRTUAL REALITY
Reality is the state of things as they actually exist, and Virtual reality is partial, as it recreates limited sensorial experiences, such as of taste, sight, smell, sound, touches, etc. The Reality, is often differentiated from what is imaginary or delusional, such as the dreams, falsehood, fictional or abstract.
Designers start their work by conjecturing things in their imagination, and then format it to bring it closer to the reality with various tools. The tools allow realizing the presences and effects of things (and so their behaviour in limited sense), as if in the real world. These include quality of places and lapse of times. But once things are made there is no need the immersive technologies of imaging.
The realms of Real and the Virtual overlap as the Augmented Reality. Here the Real is augmented by the Virtual. The Virtual brings out the Real before it has taken shape or occurred. For Augmentation, the virtual is proffered by selective (and confirming) portions of the Real. Such augmented virtuality have no seams of real or unreal. The perception process is often manipulated with psychological support.
The reality in its physical form is perceived, but interpreted by every individual differently due to the mental filters created with the beliefs and experiences. In this sense reality is an extremely personal domain. Reality, whatever it is, is strictly subjective.
Various philosophers have distinguished the reality from the things that are imaginable (but not real). ‘Brahman’ is the word (Vedic Philosophy) used for the ultimate reality, which is formless, shapeless, abstract, omnipresent, invisible, eternal, transcendental and subjective. A similar concept in Buddhism uses terms like Shunya and Shunyata which literally mean zero and emptiness, respectively.

807 REALITY and DESIGN
Designers start their work by conjecturing or conceptualizing things in imagination. Such a conjecture is an inference formed without proof or sufficient evidence. It is personal perception or interpretation due to its reliance on beliefs and experiences. This could be a creative imagery or delusional impulse.
The concept is perhaps a flitting image, an abstraction or a dulled dream. But concept has a tendency to get misplaced in sequencing, miss the contextual reference and mixed up with other intrusions. The concept recall has to be immediate. It must be recorded or conveyed. Both of these actions create a Reality. The reality is the state of sobriety in what was imaginary or delusional.
Formation of reality is not however about just recording or conveying. It will need many different types of tools. Sketching, drawing, model making and other formats of representation always leave out some important details. Such tools often do not create a reality completely.
The defects or shortcomings emerge when the scheme is explained to the clients. Impromptu sketches, doodles, oral explanations, use of similes and samples may not satisfy the client.
More complex issues arise when consultants come to understand the project and offer critical options. Here, too, the virtual reality projections fall short.
The next step is to use virtual reality tools. Virtual reality formats ‘like-presences’ in the real world or imagined places (time-place situations). Virtual-reality offers, sensorial experiences, including illumination, sound, touch, etc. in a dynamic (moving around).
The realms, of Real and the Virtual, overlap as the Augmented reality. Here the real, is augmented by the virtual, and the virtual, is proffered by selective (and confirming) portions of the real. Such augmented virtuality has no seams of real or unreal.

806 CRAFT of ILLUSION
Illusion is sensorial deception. It can deceive many senses collectively, simultaneously or sequentially. The craft of illusion has been used in Surface arts like paintings, murals etc., Solid arts like sculpture, architecture, stage sets, Graphical arts like cinema, advertising, Performance arts like drama, dance, puppetry, etc.
There are several ways how the illusion is created. Primary method is to represent things in realistic or ‘lively’ manner. Other ways are to indicate situations that circumstantially cannot exist or coexist, or represent some out of the world reality in a convincing manner.
There are many such techniques like, Trompe l’oeil, Capriccio, Miming, Chantourné (cutting out-separating), Quadratura (plafond ceilings with open-up). The techniques of Optical Illusion relate to broadly THREE classes, 1 forming representations that are very true in colour, light-shade combination, exact or perfectly synchronized scale, true posture and angle of perception, and imminent actions, 2 Representing built-forms that represent true or glorified past, dramatized perception of spaces with unusual view positions, actions of characters, and catastrophes, 3 deceptions of scale, forward-backward emphasis, over-shortening of sizes, camouflage, occlusion, morphing, etc.
Techniques of illusion are created by other perceptions in a non contextual conditions like echoes, foods with non-matching taste-odours, delayed or quickened experiences.

811 REALISM, IMPRESSIONISM to EXPRESSIONISM
There was a time when painters learnt to draw realistic spaces, depict true postural and facial expressions. Such realism since 1400s, was an earning proposition as the rich and church both liked it. The story telling or narrative art that was framed and grounded in architectural elements began to be free. The composition was not relying on the edge or position of the display.
The realist-art relied on trueness of the tonal quality of colour. The architecture began to discover the impact of original colour, texture and patterns matching the spatial form.
But within this long period, the realism gained many localized variations. These were typically embodied in the compositions mixing the ethereal and ground, contrasting the spiritual with worldly or political. Architectural creations of Rococo, Baroque, Victorian, styles influenced the specific expressions.
But, for many it became too complex a situation, as with style transgressions across the Time and Space. In early 19th C Romanticism, offered a glimpse of the ideal and escape from the real. For this, the contrasting colours, textures and other effects were used.
The Romantic realism was replaced by the Impressions that one carries home (this was a time, when simple view capturing devices were extensively used). Impressionists exploited the new range of pigments. The effort was to depict the emotions and responses as subjective reality of the personal domain of perception. The subjects and objects were throughly involved with the scene.
The expressionists rejected the ideology of realism, but accepted the involvement of objects and subject in an abstracted manner. That is why often Expressionism is pitted as the opposite of Impressionism. Expressionism occurred at a time when many different ‘isms’ were simultaneously emerging in a very short time and compact geography of well-connected Europe.
But rapid industrialization was distancing from traditional ways of expression. Fauvists challenged the irrational colours and shocking compositions. This was a time social realities began to emerge through Marxism. The lack of clarity was represented through curvilinear swirling strokes, arbitrary colours, unstable objects and other forms.

908 DESIGN CONCEPTS and ABSTRACTION
Design concepts are abstractive mentions. The content of the concept is intentional, so well structured, but seemingly vague to be abstract. A design concept, when explicitly defined by the designer own-self, is in a search for justification. But Design concepts can be intentionally made implicit, when one is afraid of alluding to attributes. This happens when one wants to distance from a style or overused elements.
Design concepts are Metaphoric, and so stylistic expressions, tending to be of holistic nature. These avoid any ‘literal representation or definition of functionality, and even technicality of the architectonic entity’.
Design concepts, to be singular or holistic often ‘act as a common noun for many subordinate concepts, and connect related concepts as a group, field, or category’. Concept defining, forming or declaring is not a compression process, but for avoidance of the literal analogies.
Design concepts, as one opens the creative process and as one ends, are two different justifications. The first one, is too vague, with chances of correction by own-self, but the later one, is falsified justification, with the hazards of being historically validated by others.
The forms, church as a cross, Hindu temples as a Mandala, or the inner sanctum as Garbha-Griha (womb), are all holistic concepts, validated by years of interpretations.

962 ABSTRACTION as a process for DESIGN
Designers are trained for Abstraction Process, mainly as a Pre and Post design creation. Design schools lay a great deal of emphasis on ‘stating a concept’. The Concept Statement may start with a metaphor, symbol or some pre-existing experience. Such an exercise may even lead to ‘conjuring an unknown entity’. But no one can perceive ‘a thing that is non-buildable’, it always comes from some past trace or combination of it.
Design teachers ‘wash’ it up, it to be a form-less and non-material thing. The concept statement becomes an abstract idea in thought, without a physical or concrete existence. The abstract idea without concrete bearing, for the design students, it becomes very difficult to ‘state’. Yet students are often asked to ‘orally explain’ or use other sensual tools to elaborate it.
At this stage, good Design teachers catch the stated and unstated inclinations and make the student to explore some of it. The exploration may add form-shape, geometry and functional needs. The order and proportions of it may differ from teacher to teacher and programme of the school.
Post design abstraction occurs at the completion of a Design (scheme or project) at student or professional level. ‘Pre Design conceptualization’ may be adhered to as a milestone, or perceived as the beginning of a design thinking’. So, post design abstraction is what one has achieved. A design student may be required to justify the process of ‘design making’. A professional, restates the design objectives, as a learning experience. Now, public projects involve stake holders, who may need to be satisfied.
Post Design abstraction is a very brief statement, not resulting from condensation of all information, It is a clear and lucid statement that anyone not familiar with design can understand.
Abstraction derives from ‘abduction (of a woman), removal, extraction, and from Latin abstractiōn, abstractiō, abstract and abstraher. Abstraction (from abs =away from and trahere =to draw).

998 REALISM to IMPRESSIONISM
Artists began to abandon religious and historic subjects as very restrictive in content. These often invited intense dissatisfaction of the donors and criticism of the sponsors (church).
The scene settings, mostly interior, were always questionable for the architectural styling, perspective, detailing, scale, etc. and when in outdoors, panoramas seemed unrealistic in terms of terrain, flora and fauna and depiction of mood or emotion.
The need for scenic management-pushed the artist beyond the studios, to greater realism of streets, neighbourhoods and countryside, painting en plein air. The outdoor painting brought in illumination, shadows, colours, textures and most importantly infinite depth.
The depth was not necessarily perceived in receding scale of objects but as dulling of the details. The visual lack of clarity of distance combined with atmospheric somberness of the smog, smoke, over-cast skies, rains, snow, storms, morning, evening, twilight hours, offered a new language of expression. The atmospheric effects diffused the boundary between subject and background.
The painters began to capture (and very often ‘create’) the momentous impressions. Many impressionists began to capture the camera (BW) images, developed the film in dark rooms. For this reason, many critics faulted Impressionist art as the unfinished creations, amateurish or by short-sighted artists. They adopted many new pigments, tonal combinations and brush strokes.
The painting was not to be viewed for its subject but as a graphical composition. Impressionism is literally juxtaposed with Expressionism. The dulling was also accompanied by exaggeration of the form. The aberrations were often used to depict the ugly and vivid imagery of urban life, people and nature. The tools were intense colours, askew strokes and deconstructed built-forms. From this, the abstract emerged with value of its own.

1032 DEPENDENCIES -REALITY to ABSTRACTION
A creation or an object in nature could be holistic in nature. It may not have separable or separately identifiable sub sections. But such objects need to be placed-sited-rested, somewhere in a way that they remain stay-put. The stay-put characteristic is a confirmation of gravity. The stable placement immediately relates to the directions (cardinal directions).
Large number of art-forms are created with certain orientation. To eliminate the bias the creator may toss the work, frequently during the creation or after it.
Art-work or object from nature, appreciated for some value is in time-space context. The other contexts are, environment (intensity of background interferences like glare, noise, duration of exposure, persistence of past experiences) and conditions of perception (distance, angle, occlusions, reference to past remembrances, framing, personal sensorial capacities, etc.).
The realist approach to expression and the substantial dependency of the experience on the extraneous factors was sought to be eliminated.
Cubists, Modernists and later Deconstructivists tried to take a reverse route to reach the state of ‘abstraction’. They tried to reach a state of Holism by elimination. To this end, attempts were made to ‘eliminate’ (often just cover-up, hide or dis-regard) ‘what was plausible’. It is not possible to escape the reality and create any thing unimaginable.

1057 PURPOSES of REAL and ABSTRACT SPACES
A space is either real or abstract. To concern a space, one needs to possess it, by way of perceiving or occupying it. The possession of space is an indication that it is amenable to changes like size, shape and nature of it. The occupation is a reflection of the position in a space, which makes it possible to explore it in many facets, consistently and differently. Possession and Position both strategize the ‘next move’. Spaces are places that reflect the necessity for gaining and maintaining a commandeering position or control.
The Real space is contoured in geometry and so well founded. Such spaces derive their prime purpose through the possession and occupation, which in turn offer a sense of belonging, ownership, access, privacy, security and safety, privacy, comfort, rest, communication and expression. For such intentions the characteristic features of the space, such as the environmental facilitations, architectonic elements amenities and facilities, are created or reformatted.
Compared with the real spaces, we also deal with abstract spaces, which, are coalescence of many perceptions, or fuzzy imaginations. Such ‘ideas of space’ have a natural affinity for location and environment. The location related factors are static like the spatial character, size, shape, ergonomic facilitations, and connections with the outside world. The environment endows many variations that are substantially directional.
Space interventions are either routine or unconventional, but physically productive or psychologically satiating. Routine activities occur with predictable spatial features, but compulsions of space size, safety, security and group behaviour dynamics force unconventional actions. Unconventional purposes of space emerge due to the compulsory and explorative needs.
A space becomes functional, by the distance from edges, connections and interpolation (of other spaces), and presence or absence of others (beings).

1103 BINARY REALITY of SPACES and PLACES
A space could be unreal it functions as a place. Historically spaces and places have been dissected into dual subcategories.
One such act was to search for a ‘non-space’ that was either opposite or parallel. The opposite was an antithesis, unreal, like Narcissus found the reflection to be unreachable. The parallel was an expectant one, requiring some cross-over bridges. The parallel one anticipates an equivalent existence somewhere. The parallel space had to be flat (like the Earth) for the imaginable equality.
Another such act was to look for a space that had to be real and existential, and so a place. Places could be easily speculated as spaces.
Places are real spaces and could be segmented through the functions these can serve. Here again the primary mode of dealing was the duality. So thinkers opted for the binary actuation for the reality. These concepts were not necessarily for opposing or parallel conditions, but to differentiate the real versus the metaphoric presences. The places were, open and closed, private and public, sacred and profane, stationary and mobile, light and heavy, true and false, master and servant, etc.
When the binary segments are challenged, the next lot of options emerge to displace the original divide. This has happened in built spaces, prone to directional effects of environment. The basic duality of core area, as a nearly immune zone, exists due to the peripheral areas, prone to the directional effects of the environment.
A core zone is too specific for the task, demanding extreme sincerity. Peripheral zones are vulnerable to the outside influences due to their closeness with the edge and also their distance from the core section. The peripheral zones are affected differently by the directional and temporal aspects of the environment. The core area is always real, but the periphery can be virtually existent. The peripheral areas offer many strong identities.
The ‘ancient’ classification of Master versus the Service areas is now being challenged by the circulation areas, the contact and isolation areas, as the distinctive multi-laterality.

1057 PURPOSES of REAL and ABSTRACT SPACES
A space is either real or abstract. To concern a space, one needs to possess it, by way of perceiving or occupying it. The possession of space is an indication that it is amenable to changes like size, shape and nature of it. The occupation is a reflection of the position in a space, which makes it possible to explore it in many facets, consistently and differently. Possession and Position both strategize the ‘next move’. Spaces are places that reflect the necessity for gaining and maintaining a commandeering position or control.
The Real space is contoured in geometry and so well founded. Such spaces derive their prime purpose through the possession and occupation, which in turn offer a sense of belonging, ownership, access, privacy, security and safety, privacy, comfort, rest, communication and expression. For such intentions the characteristic features of the space, such as the environmental facilitations, architectonic elements amenities and facilities, are created or reformatted.
Compared with the real spaces, we also deal with abstract spaces, which, are coalescence of many perceptions, or fuzzy imaginations. Such ‘ideas of space’ have a natural affinity for location and environment. The location related factors are static like the spatial character, size, shape, ergonomic facilitations, and connections with the outside world. The environment endows many variations that are substantially directional.
Space interventions are either routine or unconventional, but physically productive or psychologically satiating. Routine activities occur with predictable spatial features, but compulsions of space size, safety, security and group behaviour dynamics force unconventional actions. Unconventional purposes of space emerge due to the compulsory and explorative needs.
A space becomes functional, by the distance from edges, connections and interpolation (of other spaces), and presence or absence of others (beings).

1159 SUPERFLUOUS in DESIGN
It is very difficult to isolate any part, component, element or a system as superfluous from an enacted Design. The isolation could be physical dissection or metaphysical disregard or delusion. An enacted Design is an integrated entity that has turned holistic, complete and unique in every sense. The Design process has nothing ‘beyond what is needed, un-necessary, extra, too much, or obsolete.
The word, superfluous comes from Latin, it derives from, super (‘over’) + fluere (‘to flow’), literally =‘overflowing’.
In simple terms, ornaments or embellishments are elements that are not structural, that is perceived to be >less purposive, functional or relevant<. Three categories of superfluous entities in any enacted design can be sensed, such as, Mimetic, (Imitative), Symbolic (metaphoric significance), and Extrinsic (emergent).
The Mimetic entity is the imported one, as the best fit into a situation or experimental. The content is gestated, so is difficult to trace the origins. There is rare realization that it is not ethnic, because of its impressionistic character. The process matures to uses for new materials, geometry, form and spatial configurations.
The Symbolic entity is well-matured design enaction, in part or whole. To accept, it needs to be separated from original setting, and customize it. Such transplantation could occur as the motifs forming new patterns that can free it up from the metaphoric moorings.
Extrinsic entities are products of adaption, usually post enaction of the Design, carried out by non-designers, other designers or users. It is an instant gratification for change, new experience, additional functionality or being relevant to the surroundings.
Superfluous entities can also be classified as
1 Things that follow building’s fundamental geometry, shape, size, contour, form, etc., and enrich them.
2 Things that reinforce the symbolic value of the design by helping build certain type of narrative.
3 Things that modulate the form and functionality of a design, by offering values like style, theme, consistency, novelty, etc.

1249 FORM to FORMALISM
The term Formalism concerns the form, the superfluous or external aspect of an entity, rather than its content. The content of a thing can relate to significance, definitions, references or connections to arts, literature, philosophy, etc. Such contents could be a story, justification or even perception offered by the creator or interpreted by an observer or commentator.
Formalism in Art, Architecture or other performances relates to the visual aspects. The visual form primarily needs a corroboration with the third dimension. It was not possible in the profile silhouette views, and so colour, texture and shadows were required to reinforce the form.
But, when these were being tried out along the history, the contents were sponsored and emotionally attached as the story. But as the expression became free of the sponsors, the art turned to recognition of the ‘bare-form’. The impressionism and post-impressionism helped a reductionist aspect of the visual quality. These trends were followed with frugalism, minimalism, supermatism, abstractions and functionalism. The form was still a confused entity, should it geometric, biomorhic or unexplainable?
Clive Bell coined the term ‘significant form’ and exemplified Cezanne’s works for it. Henry Moore once remarked that ‘A hole can have as much shape meaning as a solid mass’.

1295 MAXIMISING and MINIMISING the INCLUSIONS
Human endeavours operate to both extremes of Maximising and Minimising the inclusions. The inclusions are either, elemental units or bridges in between. The elemental units are already related by logic of their inclusion. But the elemental units need to be individualized by distance in time or space, without which the form turns to be holistic or totalistic entity conveying vastly different concept. Historically, we are hoarders, maximising our assets. But assets need storage management. A crowded composition of elements can become a futile pattern, a lost-out expression.
The need to bridge elements within a composition is an essential requirement for expressing a radical image. The bridges can help differentiate the elements. But bridges as the interposing inclusions need to be abstract or implied, rather than physical actual entities. Bridges, if have any perceptible presence, are just elements, and so just crowd the composition.
Minimalism in composite expressions like art, architecture, stage performances, music and other events depend on reduction of engagements in both time and space.
The ‘zero’ time or ‘white’ space, as bridges are interventive elements that become tool for minimalistic design.
Time is delayed, decelerated, adjourned or distanced to diffuse the pace of action. On similar counts, the Space occupation is made ethereal, elemental or barely essential. The reduction of engagements, on both the counts, goes against the tendency ‘to ply everything to reduce the chances of failure’.

1346 FORMALISM in DESIGN
There was an era around mid 19th C when artists (and others like writers, and later many classes of designers) began to show exclusive preoccupation with the arrangement of forms, spaces, surfaces, textures, colours, etc. This was tried first by extensional exclusion of such representational forms and arrangements (canonical orders). Other methods were to distort, camouflage and dilute the forms beyond recognition. It also included extensive use of ‘sensorial effects to divest the attention’.
The recognition of the abstraction for several decades, was more a manner interpretation and less of application. It was impossible to come out of the moorings of centuries. Just the same, it began with conscious elimination of the obvious, interventions to break the sequencing and making art seamless (frames in case of painting, open ended sculptural forms, meaningless expressions in literature, missing out the rhythm in melody).
There was an innate connection between the literal and metaphoric expressions, but difficult to state. There were also several metaphysical concerns, like socialism, geo-politics, functionalism, minimalism, etc. weighing down the abstraction. The ant-art isms, like Dadaism, Cubism, Futurism, etc. came to deconstructivism and deformalism, in all art fields, but stood out more emphatically in ‘practical’ arts like architecture and fashion, as non livable and non-wearable creations.

1362 MINIMALISM versus MAXIMALISM
Minimalism is ‘claimed to have arrived’ with the Modernist movement of the 20th C. These discussions and examples are closer to us, and so fresh. The minimalistic attitudes, however have very ancient bearing, as several discourses in ancient religions of Asia, show various manners of minimal existence.
Maximalism is often considered an antiquarian style. It is a product of stable lifestyles, where wars and migrations are fewer. There is a natural human tendency to invest, hoard everything and occupy larger estate. The grandiose comes with larger exhibition. The abundance is an additive and continuing process, enriched through generations.
Both the dispositions have their cyclic favours through ages. The preferment, though are not simultaneous in all fields of creativity. Usually, these manifest as contrast to each other. Maximalism has exuberance of abundance and over-realism. Maximalists creations have wider, detailed, but diffused statement. Minimalism carries extremely personal relevance due to over abstraction. Minimalists may survive through efficiency of simplicity, but not the clarity.
In the Design field, Improvisation is preeminent, as one refashions, a product by adopting best features of all equivalent offerings in the market. This has a tendency to be an ‘additive design’ –a maximalists approach. But, if the product competition is about cost and efficiency, than it becomes necessary to strip all less necessary features – a minimalist overture.