Reference. Reference. E.H. Gombrich THE SENSE OF ORDER a study in
the psychology of decorative art
7. The Probable and the Surprising
It is not difficult to connect the principle of continuity-probing with the basic idea of information theory without using technical language. For on this very general level the theory of information has recently taught us to grade information according to the degree of surprise a message may cause us. Conversely, the more a message is unsurprising and the more it could be done without, the more we can regard it as redundant.
(Gomrich, Ernst H. The Sense of Order. N.p.: n.p., 1979. Print.)
I found this passage to be quite interesting when they talked about the notion of "grading information" according to the degree of surprise. It's suitable in the context of my interest, fantasy surrealism, that these elements of surprise happen at the right place and the right time. According to the argument, the more a message and or an experience is unsurprising it will be regarded as redundant. In order for an experience of "fantasy surrealism" to archive its full effect, the elements of surprise need to be carefully and specifically choreographed.
(Fig. 120). The painter certainly had reason to be surprised, for we must agree that it would be infinitely improbable for this disaster to befall him. But in what sense is this event surprising or improbable? It is here that we must watch our step, for strange as it may sound at first, any other blot would also have been infinitely improbable. Imagine for instance that it had turned out that the artist had unintentionally made a replica of a Jackson Pollock or indeed of one of his own earlier masterpieces --- the shock would or should have been the same, provided of course we had spotted the coincidence. The word coincidence is helpful here, for it indicates that the surprise arises from the correspondence of two events or configurations. There being any number of variables intervening when the artist throws his paint -- the viscosity of the medium, the distance from the canvas, the direction and force of the throw -- we rightly feel that the result will be random. Any discovery of a law governing the configuration must therefore strike us as greatly surprising --- wether the structure can be defined in terms of meaning or in terms of geometry.There would also be cause for surprise at the coincidence if the splash had taken on the form of a perfect ellipse.
(Gombrich, Ernst H. The Sense of Order. N.p.: n.p., 1979. Print.)
The example of a painter throwing paints to the canvas, creating visual and intellectual surprise to the eye of the audiences, is very interesting. I'm particularly interested when it said that the elements of surprise will be generated with the presence of the coincidence. By knowing that a certain phenomenon would likely not going to happen due to various unpredictable/uncontrolable variables, but once this happen this would be surprising to the audience. In order to re create this experience of surprise, one would have to carefully choreograph sets of events prior to this "surprised" moment that would gradually prepare the audiences' mental that what would happen next would be almost impossible and then at the exact moment when the audience believe this you present the "element of surprise" which will throw them off guard.
