Transitional Object Lesson
Transversal Composition #001
‘I call a perception “clear” when it is present and accessible to the attentive mind […] I call a perception “distinct” if, as well as being clear, it is so sharply separated from all other perceptions that it contains within itself only what is clear.’1
‘…buttons in the flat design style do not appear distinct from other visual elements on a webpage, and therefore do not appear clickable’. 2
objects in the rearview may be closer than they seem
—Am I clear? Have I made myself clear? (Peter Schlemihl, probably)
what you are looking for is an aspheric mirror, a winged eyeline, a side[g]lance
to s[t]imulate a proper distancing
the goldilocks distancing
the brechtian distancing
I know eye now aye no-no
mind the mi[n]dgap, though:
the reason you won’t find any transitional phases in the fissile fossil record is because transitional objects are softtissued
clear and distinct, the [k]not-me
clear and present—and correct
there is no record, only memory as touchshadow
neither Darwin nor Lamarck but Winnicott
though[t] patterns may persist
to thumb, to fist, to fuck
between the mediate and the immediate the intramediate
‘…between the thumb and the teddy bear, between the oral erotism and the true object-relationship, between primary creative activity and projection of what has already been introduced, between primary unawareness of indebtedness and the acknowledgment of indebtedness…’3
skeuomorphism uses lifelike affordances evocative of real-world experience: empirical simulators
still, one[e]ssense of balance is a-skeu
flat design uses lifeless, gripless, scaleless affordances, snake-of-the-world-without-end, with [s]po[o]rous boundaries that re-produce the feel of simulacra to denote Real, World, Experience:
drop shadows themselves, in the same way that cryptid koalas are drop bears.
Peter Schlemihl had a form
ee eye ee eye o
Peter Schlemihl, patron taint, pre-cursor of flat [de]si[g]n, selfmade without [s]Hade(s), thick in significance
O, Father of the Desert of the Live Reel
“what I am referring to […] is not so much the object used as the use of the object".4
It is experience, not the UI, that is flattened,
It is the world, not the word, that is flat
in the beginningwas
objects in hindsight may appear
smaller than < > greater than
but always equal to since for the field of vision to be useful it must be distorted, that is,
for the distortion to be accurate it must be
to appperception: leyline,
Zoom background by Pam Wishbow.
A road rug for children’s learning.
Taylor, Ruby. Equiterra. UN Women, 2020.
They Might Be Giants. They Might be Giants. Tower Records: 1986.
Saunders, Chelsea. “The Campus as it Exists in the Minds of US Conservatives.” 2018. Vol 3. Issue 6. Current Affairs.
Hương, Sông. Yellow and Red. 2013. Egg tempera on three canvases. 96 x 144 in; 243.84 x 365.76 cm.
Still from “Richard Scarry’s Busytown”. 1993. Simon and Schuster Interactive / SEGA of America.
Descartes, René. Prin. 1:45, AT 8a:21f, CSM 1:207f.
“Flat Design.” Interaction Design Foundation: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/flat-design
Winnicott, Donald W. (1951 ). "Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena. A Study of the First Not-Me Possession.” London: International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 34, 89-97.
—. (1971). Playing and Reality. London: Tavistock, p. xii.