Look at this image*. If you were a robot, what would you see? I think I can say with some confidence that you would see a lot of colour pencils and a pencil sharpener.
But you aren’t a robot, you see a zip – and it isn’t as if you have to concentrate, it jumps out at you. But there is no zip.
This is not a skill we need to learn, it is inherent. We pick out the key features and make associations with other objects or concepts that may have similar features. We create ‘visual metaphors’.
This is an extraordinary gift that we all have – to be able to see a zip from a bunch of pencils. What it does is to expand our thinking. It enables us to think far more creatively. Frederick Law Olmstead described his design for a connected system of parks as an ‘emerald necklace’. Visual metaphor is much used in architecture; - the Sydney Opera House’s shell forms reflect the image of yachts in Sydney Harbour.
It is less commonly used in engineering, but a significant example is in the development of supersonic flight. Scientists were struggling with the effects of shock waves at trans-sonic airspeeds. This was overcome when a key figure thought of the airflow over the fuselage as being in the form of ‘water pipes’. By redesigning the fuselage to match the contours of the ‘pipes’, the problem was overcome.
Perhaps a better known example is the struggle that the chemist Kekule had when trying to understand the shape of the benzene molecule. He dreamed of a snake eating its own tail, and realized that benzene comes in the shape of a ring.
Visual metaphors provide stepping stones, clues that can lead to seeing a solution.
Each of us has a fantastic visual ability, by pushing ourselves to see something new in the familiar will help overcome the most intractable problems.
*To see more of this artist's work, see http://kpk-photography.de/gallery
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