Elaborate Pareidolia and other Mysteries

Artist's Statement, Fred Ressler 2008


"Pareidolia" is a modern term coined by Steve Goldstein in 1994. i define it as "The phenomena of seeing faces/figures/forms in natural patterns unaltered by man. Prior to 1994 these images were termed "eidetic imagery" by Dick Olney. Ray Behrens called them "embedded figures", "natural simulacra" , "spurious images". To E.H. Gombrich they were "the beholder's share", "gifts of God", "found images" or "chance images". John Michell referred to them as "natural likenesses". They were spoken about by Pablo Picasso in his statement "I do not seek, I find. They were mentioned by Leonardo da Vinci in his treatis "Quickening the Spirit of Invention."

i photograped a series of approximately 250 images starting in 1995 and ending in 1998. The first image ("Angel}, was found by chance. All subsequent images were looked for intentionally, seen and then photographed. Approximately one in six seen images produced positive results, as i shot first and edited later. Although the first image appeared spontaneously with no searching time, and the second image ("Blues Singer") was found in 10 minutes, i estimate 7 hours as the time that it took searching for each image. i originally shot these images with 35mm Kodack color film with an inexpensive (Cannon Shure-Shot) automatic camera on the side of my house. i soon switched to a homemade tripod that held a 30x40 inch foam board covered with white paper, as i expected that the lines on the side of my house would interfere with the images. i generally looked for good patterns on the ground with high contrast and equal shadow and light with the trees from 10 to 50 feet above the board. iwould then place the board to intercept these shadows before they hit the ground. i would angle the board to be perpendicular to the sun to eliminate the elongation of the shadows. My next change was to upgrade to a manual 35mm. Nikormat PT-3 with 58mm. lens. i started shooting at that time with B&W Fuji or Ilford film because even though the shadows were mostly black and white, when they were developed and printed they came out with spurious unpredictable colors, due to the nature of color film at low levels of illumination..

Naturally the main statement about my photographs of naturally formed shadows, which look to me like artistic versions which incorporate humans ninety-nine percent of the time and animals one percent of the time, is made by the photographic images themselves. "The way is not the worded way" (Lao Tzu), but words are helpful hints to explain to others, like a finger pointing at the moon is neither the finger or the moon. Many people question the meaning or mystery hidden in the photographs, and i feel each photo says what its meaning is, as does everything. i feel the shadows as a group are saying that much has been overlooked, as people generally don't see these images because they don't look for them. At first one must look intentionally and medatatively for these images, but after spending many hours in this persuit, these images start to pop up into the conscious mind even when not specifically looked for. Everything is a living speaking god, with the same essence of god hidden in its core. According to scientists, from birth on, our nervous system is more hard-wired, to see images of human faces than any other pattern. Perhaps this is why when looking for these pareidolic images human faces showed up in such predominance when compared to animal faces or inanimate objects, which never appeared. This hard-wiring for the infant to see friendly faces and react to strange faces is a major inborn tool to aid in her/his survival. It is also interesting to note that all the images i took were facing the camera. There are a few profiles but none were facing away. Perhaps these beings are less shy than humans or want to show themselves to humanity.

The first image "Angel" showed up on the side of my house in 1995. i had thought of taking photographs of faces and figures in clouds and shadows but had never gotten around to it. i was merely looking for a pleasing abstract pattern, as i have always been interested in the abstract. When i had the abstract patterns printed, clear faces, bodies and images appeared on the first roll of film. i decided to look for more images and all subsequent, (approximately two hundred and fifty) images were shot while intentionally seeking faces and figures.

At first i was intrigued with the phenomenon of the figures and faces appearing, but one night i was looking at a specific image ("African Eve") when i saw the image as what artists are trying to capture. It was abstract yet perfectly balanced between abstractness and reality. The foreground figure was perfectly balanced with the background it emerged from, as a person or thing is perfectly balanced with the environment she/he/it emerges from. There were no artistic mistakes, distracting thoughts, copying from other artists, parroting teachings, which even the greatest artists are prone to. "Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better." (Andre Gide). When i looked at my other images in this light, i noticed that there was no rubber-stamping from canvas to canvas which is something even the greatest artists must fall prey to as they develop their unique styles. Even nature has this rubber-stamping effect within species. Despite this lack of styleistic rubber stamping from canvas to canvas in the photographs, there always is a styleistic similarity to images within each canvas when couples or groups of people appear within each canvas, to make it look as though they were painted by the same artist.. The groups of people within each canvas appear as part of a gestalt whole. Only the greatest artists ever get far enough to develop a unique style, and the shadow photographs seemed to transcend even that uniqueness in my opinion. The images also seemed to follow a perfect natural flow pattern that i later learned from Alan Watts' writing was the essence of oriental landscape painting years before it was understood in the west. These patterns as a stimulus to art have been written about extensively in Leonardo da Vinci's treatise entitled "Quickening the Spirit of Invention." Some have claimed that art originated when people saw patterns on cave walls, and there is evidence that these patterns, such as those of wild game animals, were reproduced adjacent to the naturally formed patterns in the rock walls. i am sure that before the camera was invented many people saw these pareidolic patterns but felt they lacked the artistic talent to reproduce them. When the camera came along they seemed so fascinated with capturing ordinary documentation and later abstraction, that they ignored early man's original intent of capturing these mystical patterns.

i started to love these images, and was really excited that other people close to me could see them too. When looking at one of the first images i had taken, i couldn't believe the degree of likeness to human face. i said to my wife "You've got to see this face." She said "Who is it?" i said i didn't know (i was just thrilled at the detail). She asked to see it and said "It's Dan Doloff!" (and old friend). Instantly i saw what she was seeing, and a strange new feeling same over me. The next week one of the most beautiful images appeared and i showed it to my oldest daughter, Lila, just hoping she could see the face i saw. Her mouth dropped open and she said "It's me." i questioned what she meant and she repeated what she had said and added "It looks exactly like me." i instantly saw what she was talking about. i read a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche which seemed very applicable- If you stare into the Abyss long enough, the Abyss stares back at you." The further i got into the process the more it seemed i was photographing my own mind. i was projecting these images from my unconscious at the same time they were being projected to me by the highest source. i started to see we are doing this with everything. There is no separation between the individual and the environment and no "Descartian" separation between mind and matter or body and soul. It is as if we are co-creating our environment as it creates us, as in our dreams, but with a less surreal and more rational aspects. Perhaps this rationality is due to our following the Cartesian mode of thinking which Native Americans and other primatives were not subject to. It struck me that if others would start looking at things with this solipsistic view, it would be a much different world. If we were part of what we saw, how could we harm our neighbors and environment. It is as if "the way" Lao Tzu speaks of is the river we are in, and each individual thing is like an eddy or whirlpool in the river, made out of the same basic material, merely a pattern that is formed. We are not born into the universe, but born out of the universe, and we return back to it when we so call "pass on to the next dimension." Every object materializes when it can no longer maintain its pure spiritual integrity in the spiritual realm and,like a whirpool, returns to the spiritual world when it can no longer maintain its physical integrity in the material realm. The photographs started to become a manifestation of a philosphical teaching tool that was always imbedded in me from the start. Everything is made of light, and like light follows the path of least resistence.

Everything in nature must look the way it does for a functional reason for it to survive and reproduce. This binding of form and function is tied in with symmetry and asymmetry that limits its artistic element, no matter how beautiful. Man-made art can never equal the beauty of nature which is made by the Master Artist Her/Himself. "All art is but imitation of nature." -Seneca. Natural patterns have the advantage over both man-made art and the art in nature in that they transcend the limitations of natural art and man made art. Even shadows have a function in nature, that is to provide shade, but the patterns they make, like all natual patterns can be purely artistic without the necessary limitations of both man-made art with it's man-made artistic mistakes and rubber- stamping from canvas to canvas and the exquisite beauty of a peacock feather with its necesssary bi-lateral symmetry which abounds in much of nature, which is a necessity for motion in animals, but also is necessary in much of plant life.

The photographs started to look like tips of an iceberg under which was a sea of hidden meaning with the deepest unfathomable mysteries were at their core symbolizing the mysteries of the universe itself, beyond art, science, nature or any other word. As taoistic flow patterns, the photographs seemed to make ideal templates which could be used to judge other art, including music and dance and even athleticism. Every object materializes when it can no longer maintain its pure spirit in the spiritual realm and, like a whirpool, returns to the spiritual world when it can no longer maintain it's physical integrity.

One of, if not, the main advantage of the process of photographing these images, is that it truly democratizes art. It is free art in that anyone one who is free to spend the time it takes to do it can do it. i did without any special talent or training and minimum equipment. Not only can anyone do this, but i am convinced that the results will be personal and demonstrate images projected from the unconscious mind towards the concious mind once meditated upon. i would like to see the results of people of varying ethnicities on various continents searching for these images. The most detailed image i found "Einstein" has 36 nameable features that match up to a human, in approximate size, shape, and placement. It is the most detailed example of pareidolia that i have seen. i am convinced that if this amount of detail was captured in the relatively small amount of time i spent, in one year if all the shadows in the world were captured something as complex as the "Last Supper" would appear.

Some of my favorite quotes:
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." Friedrich Nietzsche

"The artificial or the simulated becomes the standard by which the real is judged. Jean Baudillard.

"In this treacherous world
Nothing is the truth, nor a lie
Everything depends on the color
Of the crystal in which one perceives it." (Dali).

"We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origins. At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own." Arthur Eddington.

"The beauty of Chinese calligraphy is thus the same beauty which we recognize in moving water, in foam spray, eddies, and waves, as well as in clouds, flames, and weavings of smoke in sunlight. The Chinese call this kind of beauty the following of li, an ideogram which referred originally to the grain in jade and wood, and which Needham translates as "organic pattern," although it is more generally understood as the "reason" or "principle" of things. Li is the pattern of behavior which comes about when one is in accord with the Tao, the watercourse of nature.......The same sort of process is at work in the psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams and in eidetic vision, wherby we descry faces, forms, and pictures in the grain of wood or marble, or in the shape of clouds." Tao: the Watercourse Way by Alan Watts

"Come like shadows, so depart!" William Shakespeare

Thanks you for you time and your projecting these words and images, as they are projected to you.
fred ressler.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">i read a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche which seemed very applicable- If you stare into the Abyss long enough, the Abyss stares back at you."<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Interesting, but what about the step-by-step visual evidence? Or is it that there is none and we just have to take your word for it?[?] If so, we are back where we left off one year ago.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">It just occurred to me that we use a machine in my work called a "shadow graph" with which we can view our product in a brightly contrasted and enlarged shadow in order to check for finely detailed imperfections. Perhaps your setup uses some such tool whereby the natural shadows and the artistic drawing can be combined in a unique way to produce imaginative art--just a guess. I believe optometrists use such tools.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

As a tentative hypothesis; one way to make such elaborate pareidolia images of faces-in-shadows-of-leaves look authentic would be to superimpose the shadow of the face drawing on the shadow of the leaves by using transparencies. The combined effect on the shadow graph or similar scientific instrument could then be photographed, with the result being an *authentic* photograph of an elaborate pareidoloia image of a detailed *face in leaf shadows*. Again just a guess. [Neil]

P.S. I note that some of us have taken to using "replacement symbols" for the *smart quotes and apostrophes* in Microsoft Word (where we usually compose our messages) since the MRMB software doesn't support them, and they come out in code thus confusing the message.