It's getting crowded in here!

“We do not like those who unmask our illusion.”

-          Ralph Waldo Emerson

[1]

If a person has lots of fantasies, he/she may submerge into this illusionary dimension of life that creates a more soothing, comfortable and satisfying. We all have our own insecurities and we tend to cover them up by using art or any form of illusion that would mask that ugly part of us.

[2]

I honestly don’t want to sound stoic about illusions or fantasies and feelings we associate with them for I might find myself in the center of discrimination especially for those people who are in great need to have one. I may be like this because I believe that no matter what we do, the truth will always come out and we just have to deal with it. However, I do not disagree to the fact that for a temporary stay we have here on Earth, we should just make the most of what we can do in order to enjoy it. I guess that is my rational for people who often find themselves wanting to have illusions in their lives.

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I should say that that is a very long introduction. I must be in the mood to reflect for this morning. Actually, what I just want to share here in Jane’s Kitchenette is the contribution or the presence of illusions, particularly, visual illusions that we have in our kitchen, in our food and even in our general views about life. There are some websites which I found very interesting to look upon especially if you want to know more about the utility of the concepts of illusion, depth and size. This part is tackled in Goldstein’s Sensation and Perception book, Chapter 10.

The ideas I will be posting here are applications of the concepts that are discussed in the book. I just find it amusing that we do apply things in the real world, we make these concepts do real work. Some of the readers might be surprised that there are principles governing this usage or idea of this particular application.

To explain how I come up with the idea of collating ideas and websites and relating them to what is written in the book, I considered thinking outside the box. The box that I am referring to is food. Hahaha. That may sound hilarious because Jane’s Kitchenette is all about food and perception. However, I thought maybe I could consider things that are highly related to food and one of those things is your kitchen.

In my home, our kitchen is really small. Everything is jam-packed in one corner and there is merely an organization in the way they were positioned. Sometimes, it irritates me because it is so crowded that I can’t work well. Upon realizing this, I search for ways to modify our kitchen and found this very helpfuf website on making a small kitchen look larger.

[3]

Particularly, I found a slideshow from Better Homes and Gardens' website which explains some elements that would really turn your small kitchen into a larger one. It is entitled, "Make a Small Kitchen Look Larger". Basically, space has something to do with distance of the objects from one another, so in explaining each of the element, I shall be referring to some principles organizing distance and how it determines space between two objects.

The list in the website includes all their advices regarding this make-over.

1. Paint it white  

2. Use a Low Contrast Scheme

3. Replace Cabinet Doors with Glass 

4 Welcome the light

5. Slenderize the Furnishings

6. Borrow Space

7. Streamline Storage

8. Stretch the Floor Space

9. Widen with Stripes

10. Take the Eye High

11. Mind the Hood

12. Carve our storage space

13. Eliminate Clutter

14. Stay Light and Bright

15. Choose Sleek Surfaces

 

 For the first element, Paint it White, I really think it has something to do with how we associate the atmosphere to the color white.

[4]

According to Goldstein (2010), atmosphere serves as one of the bases in determining which object is more distant and which is closer.  This is called Atmospheric Perspective which occurs when more distant objects appear less sharp and often have a slight blue tint. The farther away an object is, the more air and particles (dust, water droplets, airborne pollution) we have to look through, making objects that are farther away look less sharp and bluer than close objects (Goldstein, 2010).

Fig. 1. A scene on the coast of Maine showing the effect of atmospheric perspective from Sensation and Perception (p. 234), Goldstein (2010).

 

In my own understanding, farther objects seem to be more blurry than the ones that are nearer. Using the picture above as a demonstration, the ones which are farther are whiter and as things become more distant, they resemble the wider space of the horizon and the sky making them look larger. That could be the reason why using white paint could enhance the space in your kitchen. Isn't that amazing? Having a touch of the sky in your kitchen? Very ethereal, I think. :P

As for the second element proposed by the website, it says Use a Low Contrast Scheme. Fairly, it talks about gradient. Why use low contrast? I personally think, strong color gradients create an effect of crowd which feels very uneasy especially if you're already in a small room. In a more logical explanation, I think low contrast scheme prevents the formation of illusionary shadows which contributes to the idea of the former statement. We can't do anything with the fact that if there is a shadow, then it means  something has been covered. If there will be many shadows, then there must be a lot of things that are covered and more things are in the same place having little spaces between resulting to the perception of crowd again. However, if we minimize the intensity of these illusionary shadows, that means making them appear lighter through low contrast, we might as well make things appear less crowded. That contributes to the first element. The fourth and the fourteenth element are also explained in the same manner

[5]

 The third element which says, Replace Cabinet Doors with Glass, can be rooted from the Chinese belief that mirrors expand space [6]and also smooth textures help the eyes glide through the surface. I know mirrors are different from glass doors but they somehow portray the same effect to the viewer. More specifically for the glass doors, it enables a person to see the inside of the cabinet resulting to a bigger perceived space. As we can see, depth is playing a trick in here. Successfully, it does lead the eye to really see a bigger space through glass windows because you get to see what's beyond the limits of the door.

[6]

This idea of extending your perception of space is also applicable to the fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth and tenth elements because the mechanisms used are designed to perceive beyond what is set to be the limitation of the space. 

 

However, the big difference of these elements: Slenderize the furnishings, Borrow Space, Stretch the Floor Space, Widen with Stripes and Take the Eye High to the idea of Glass doors and to each other, slenderizing your objects in your kitchen prioritized vertical orientation, which according to Goldstein (2010) is the easiest perceived orientation. If things are more slender, they will be less wider and therefore would complement the floor if stretched out by some pattern. Also, they will occupy less space leaving more space to the floor and creating a vision of the kitchen that's less crowdy.

[7] 

 

The element, Borrow Space and Take the Eye High, are the nearest to the mechanism behind the glass door when you consider extending your sight to the space you borrowed from an adjoining room and when you use elevation to perceive space between your floor and your ceiling. The elements, Stretch the Floor Space and Widen with Stripes, have something to do with patterns creating the illusion of bigger space when being viewed. 

 Additionally, the last element, Choose Sleek Surfaces, they also help in making small spaces look larger by incorporating the same idea to that of stretching floors and using stripes. Clean lines and geometric angles make improvements in using this element.

[8]

The remaining elements use the combination of ideas supporting the elements already discussed. Also, they employ practicality in making small spaces bigger.

[9]

After discussing all these elements, I realize it isn't so bad to make fool out of yourself or euphemistically, be more resourceful, creative and witty when maximizing what you have for your kitchen. There are better ways to explain these elements and I shall leave that to the experts. All I wanted to say is, illusions are not always about fantasies that are far from reality. A Professor once told me, the only way to break fantasies is to realize them. And through renovating your kitchen, you will realize that things are possible even when they don't initially seem so. :)

REFERENCES:

1. Goldstein, E. B. (2010). Sensation and Perception. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
2. Make a Small Kitchen Look Larger. Better Homes and Gardens. Retrieved from http://www.bhg.com/kitchen/small/make-a-small-kitchen-look-larger/#page=1