M74 Spiral Galaxy photo by Simon Dye (Cardiff University) overlaid with Shri Yantra Mandala.

Humanity’s search for knowledge, in its many forms, has always fascinated me. Spanning geographies, cultures, faiths, and generations, the enduring pursuit of truth and insight into the diverse realms of human experience has yielded some of the greatest works of science and art — from the sequencing of the human genome to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. Each school of thought or path of study carries its own distinct challenges, “great questions” and intellectual rewards, but it is the same mind that is driven to find answers.

Several months ago, I had read a New York Times article about Carl Jung’s Red Book, a hauntingly personal collection of writings and paintings exploring the depths of his unconscious. Despite the little knowledge I have of Jung’s work (I admit), I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see this long-lost treasure up close at the Rubin Museum of Art. When I finally made it to the museum over Christmas vacation, I decided to start at the top floor and take a quick walk through the other exhibits first, saving the “best” for last on the bottom floor (surely, I thought, some trippy mandala paintings and multi-limbed Hindu deity sculptures couldn’t hold my attention for very long, fascinating though they may be).

I was quickly proven wrong.

Almost every exhibit blew me away, but one resonated with me the strongest: “Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe,” up until May 10, 2010. Here’s a Flickr photo set of the exhibit.

While perspectives shifted greatly from spiritual to conjectural to empirical, the quality of execution and level of diligence in constructing coherent visual narratives were remarkably on par across all works. Metaphor and symbolism were as vital as brush and ink in depicting Buddhist and Hindu cosmologies; the artists behind these works employed the tools of design to depict the interrelationships between physical and ethereal planes with such compelling clarity as to affirm their reality. Turning to the early Western astronomers, meticulous drawings of their observations with the naked eye and with simple telescopes helped demystify the heavens and bring humankind’s grasp of the world beyond Earth within reach, religious controversy aside.

Rounding out the survey of astronomical study was a series of typically dazzling photographs of distant nebulae and galaxies marking our present level of achievement. A projected Powers of 10-style video of The Known Universe flaunted the astonishing accuracy with which we now claim to know the universe and our place in it. On the same wall as the projection but directly above was a giant mandala painting (part of the exhibit “Mandala: The Perfect Circle”). I don’t know if the juxtaposition on the same wall was intentional, but graphically and thematically, the two images made perfect sense together.

Reflecting back on that day, I realized that it is the same quest for knowing that links the devotional artist, the scientist, and the modern information designer. The content, the context, and the methods may be different, but all of these individuals share the same purpose: to model reality — be it physical, spiritual, or otherwise — for human understanding and enlightenment. (Even Jung, in working through his inner turmoil, used art and writing to make sense of what he experienced. Psychological information design?)

Today, the skill of modeling reality has been professionalized into many discrete roles, including information designer, infographic illustrator, data visualization expert, CG artist, et cetera. Technology continues to enhance our understanding of the world and expand the means by which we can communicate. Slowly, what our brains actually do is still evolving: how we perceive what is and conceive of what could be, as well as how we construct understanding. I wonder what a “Visions of the Cosmos” exhibit might look like in 50, 100, or 1,000 years from now. What new models will we create? What new understanding will we reach? What will our universe look like then? Will it still be a “universe”?

(Along the lines of how we know what we know, the Rubin Museum of Art is running a pretty amazing event series called Brainwave 2010. I wish I could attend every session!)

I usually put more effort into coming up with titles, but this time I settled on what was nearer to hand (thanks to Edward Tufte). In a metaphorical sense, the idea of escaping flatland sums up much of what’s been on my mind lately: breaking free from the mundane “two-dimensional” aspects of daily life and experiencing the world in multiple dimensions. And by that I don’t mean the Michio Kaku sense of alternate realities, but by improving the here and now.

Flatland, to me, is marked by a largely functional existence — just getting by, day after day after day. In the context of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, this applies to fulfilling the lowest 2 levels of needs: physiological and safety. I would venture a generalization that many people these days are worrying about and focusing more attention on these 2 levels than the other 3 (social needs, esteem needs, and self actualization needs).

From personal experience, work, finances, and other related matters have absorbed most of my attention for quite some time. The economic decline has caused quite a significant shift in priorities, leading to more frugality and thrift. Consequently, I’ve been visiting my local library more often, partly to curb my book-buying habit, but also to find a brief escape in works of fiction like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. The same applies to listening to music, watching movies, and going to art exhibits — in bits and bites, they’re enjoyable, but momentary distractions nonetheless.

So how does one truly escape flatland — even in times like these?
(I’m still working on this, so bear with me.)

The first step for me was to identify the activities that are no longer taking place, or that ought to be part of everyday life but got pushed aside. What was missing for me were the things I enjoyed long before the “real world” took center stage: drawing, painting, playing music, cycling, travel, hiking, and many other pursuits that made life multi-dimensional (sorry if that sounds cheesy). They used to happen spontaneously, without too much thought or effort; several of those activities were once a regular part of my day. Now, many years later, I realize how important they were and seek to bring them back. While travel may have to wait a while because of cost, I’m looking into doing more art-making as well as more light hiking in nearby parks. If I can re-work my schedule to balance out all the pieces, I think it might work.

I tend to do a lot of thinking. Not a moment passes when cascades of thoughts aren’t flashing across my mind like channels flipping quickly on a television screen. I suppose it’s both a cause and a symptom of working in a creative field and constantly being attuned to all things visual and verbal (I was never one for kinesthetic activities like sports).

There are different patterns or types of thinking — linear, circular, random or non sequitur, among many others — but the kind that burns the most cerebral calories for me is recursive, or thinking about thinking (I’m sure there’s a more accurate term for this somewhere). To continue the television metaphor, it’s the mental equivalent of pointing a video camera at the television screen it is connected to, or placing two mirrors directly opposite one another. Images repeat to infinity, containing their own image, contained within their own image. Recursive thinking need not continue to infinity, as in an Escher print — just one or two degrees out or in from where you are is all it takes.

Recursive thinking is an attempt at objectivity, though not quite free of personal bias or perspective. Outside of any rigorous studies in philosophy, psychology and cognitive neuroscience, I find the best description of this phenomenon by Ambrose Bierce in The Devil’s Dictionary:

MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with. From the Latin mens, a fact unknown to that honest shoe-seller, who, observing that his learned competitor over the way had displayed the motto “Mens conscia recti,” emblazoned his own front with the words “Men’s, women’s and children’s conscia recti.”

Some of my favorite works of art, cinema, and literature deal with nested repetition of the same reality (also called the Droste effect):

• La Reproduction Interdite (Not to Be Reproduced), René Magritte, 1937
• The film Synecdoche, New York, written and directed by Charlie Kauffman, 2008
• The graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware, 2000

And although this isn’t exactly recursive — unless you keep your own Earth-level consciousness in mind as the film’s perspective zooms out and in — The Powers of 10 by Charles and Ray Eames (1977) best captures the experience of shifting one’s perspective:

(best viewed in high quality)

So does anyone else out there have any personal insight into thinking about thinking, especially folks in the design field? I’d like to collect examples of how this is depicted visually and maybe share them in another post, so comments and suggestions are welcome.

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UPDATE, 1/30/10 – Here’s an interesting example of geographic recursion.