28 Critical Reflections: random 22 to 28
In between the towers and under the ramps you could see what looked like parks, or gardens, but some of them had wilderness areas, and there were tigers. At least they looked like tigers, but maybe that was...[2]
And the play of inside against/with outside, the seeing through, the laid bare view, makes everything that is around part of the sculpture too.[4]
The singularity of specular reflections is demanded by the fact that if one tries to apply to them the schema of communicational process many puzzling questions arise: source and addressee coincide (at least in cases where a human looks at him or herself in the mirror); receiver and transmitter coincide; expression and content coincide since the content of the reflected image is just the image of a body, not the body itself; as a matter of fact the referent of a mirror image is pure visual matter.[3]
In between the towers and under the ramps you could see what looked like parks, or gardens, but some of them had wilderness areas, and there were tigers. At least they looked like tigers, but maybe that was...[2]
The specular highlight often reflects the color of the light source, not the color of the reflecting object. This is because many materials have a thin layer of clear material above the surface of the pigmented material. For example plastic is made up of tiny beads of color suspended in a clear polymer and human skin often has a thin layer of oil or sweat above the pigmented cells. Such materials will show specular highlights in which all parts of the color spectrum are reflected equally. On metallic materials such as gold the color of the specular highlight will reflect the color of the material.[6]
Specular reflection could be called a sort of congruence, insofar as congruences are a type of equality, thus establishing a bi-univocal relation founded on the properties of being reflexive, symmetrical and transitive. In this sense specular reflection is equality and not similitude.[3]
The specular highlight often reflects the color of the light source, not the color of the reflecting object. This is because many materials have a thin layer of clear material above the surface of the pigmented material. For example plastic is made up of tiny beads of color suspended in a clear polymer and human skin often has a thin layer of oil or sweat above the pigmented cells. Such materials will show specular highlights in which all parts of the color spectrum are reflected equally. On metallic materials such as gold the color of the specular highlight will reflect the color of the material.[6]
28 Critical Reflections: random 1 to 7
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Sources
[1] http://www.neworleanspast.com/art/id62.html
[2] Ken MacLeod, Reflective Surfaces, New Scientist, 2009.
[3] Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics, Indiana University Press, 1979.
[4] Clive Fencott, Reflections on seeing River Form in Barbra Hepworth's garden in St.
[5] http://www.flickr.com/photos/nigelhomer/316548379/
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specular_highlight