INCOMPLETE INFINITY: STRUCTURE IN A JAPANESE GARDEN VAN TONDER, Gert Jakobus, Lecturer in visual cognitive science, Dept.

Architecture & Design, Kyoto Institute of Technology, 606-8585, Japan email:gert@ipc.kit.ac.jp

Japanese dry rock gardens are synonymous with naturalistic, even if abstract, landscape design. Appropriate composition, executed with natural materials, overrides the potentially uninteresting emptiness of a sparse garden courtyard. Drawing from karesansui gardens in Kyoto, this paper considers their calm, rich visual appearance as the outcome of visual mental completion. In karesansui, one can see only partial views of garden elements. Rather than presenting the viewer with a literal recreation of nature, such elements evoke a strong sense of the holistic natural structures which they potentially can form a part of.

For the sake of clarity, I show examples of global and local structural analysis, in rock clusters, and in the empty spaces between them. The analysis derives from previous work, linking the medial axis transformation (Van Tonder, Lyons & Ejima,2002), with human perception of visual structure in Ryoanji. Comparison reveals that visible elements, like rocks, serve as local `seeds` from which subliminal global shape can be perceptually completed. Local shapes suggest an infinity of scale in global structure, and vice versa. This complementary relationship leads to ordered visual complexity of a very natural kind, even if mostly not directly visible. Advances in fractal geometry suggest a close relationship between natural structure and infinity of scale. Thinking in terms of rich structural infinity in a paradoxically empty garden courtyard may serve to deepen our understanding of the visual effects achieved in Japanese rock gardens. It may also offer inspiration for improving the naturalism of other architectural settings through the use of hidden structures of infinity.

1. Background Japanese karesansui, or dry rock gardens, are well known for their natural, yet empty, appearance. Their aesthetic appeal seems to go beyond existing cultural and philosophical interpretations, since karesansui is usually appreciated by individuals unfamiliar with esoteric and theoretical concepts in Zen gardens. As a visual cognitive scientist, I am interested to see if the intrinsic visual qualities of dry rock garden design enable some objective insight into the visual appeal of these gardens, and if such insights are applicable to landscape design, on a wider scale.

This presentation shows part of ongoing research, that investigates how karesansui design affects the brain mechanisms of human visual perception, in an attempt to objectively understand (1) the design effects, and (2) visual appeal of this style of Japanese garden. The intention with the work is not to discard non-scientific interpretations, but to add some otherwise inaccessible insights to the current understanding of Japanese gardens. 2. Mechanisms of visual perception The visual system constantly needs to distinguish between object figures for attention, and the surrounding background, to provide contextual information for planning of the appropriate course of action (Gregory, 1998). However, retinal signals serve as limited information of shape, and the brain has evolved with various mechanisms to reconstruct incomplete visual parts, and group them into meaningful global wholes. The gestalt school of psychology (Koffka, 1935, Wertheimer,1938) observed various factors that describe which visual parts group. The author distinguishes between dominant grouping factors, i.e. symmetry, good continuation, and contour closure, and subtle grouping factors, namely, proximity and similarity. A discussion of the neurological basis of the grouping factors is beyond the scope of this presentation, yet, the vision research community has researched this topic extensively (Kovacs, 2000, Elder & Goldberg, 2002). The natural visual surroundings in which humans evolved, teems with fractal structure (Mandelbrot,1977). In a nutshell, fractals are patterns where subparts and wholes resemble each other. For example, the shape of a branch is approximately the same as the shape of its parent tree. A smaller subsection, cut from this branch, would again resemble its parent branch, and the whole tree, as well. Mathematical description of fractals allow for infinite repetition of scale, whereas fractal structures of nature repeat the same structure only over a limited range of scales. The fractalness of natural shapes must have influenced the evolution of our brain mechanisms of perceptual grouping. For example, more proximal parts in natural shapes are usually also more similar in shape, and parts of the same natural object are usually more similar in shape than parts belonging to other structures.

It then comes as no surprise that grouping factors, like proximity and similarity, are effective indicators of how well visual parts would be grouped together. Psychophysical experiments confirm that humans perform better in perceptual tasks where local parts resemble global stimulus shape (Navon, 1977, Kinchla & Wolfe,1979). 3. Naturalness: The aesthetic of karesansui The two oldest surviving Japanese garden design manuals, the Sakuteiki, an anonymous 11th century scroll (Shimoyama, 1976), and the text, Sansui narabini yagyounozu, (Zouen, 1466), both emphasize that capturing the essence of nature is the chief aesthetic ideal of Japanese gardens. Since fractal structures form such a fundamental part of nature, the question, of whether karesansui gardens are recreations of fractal structure, naturally arises. The two old texts provide various design guidelines that engender the creation of gardens with, among other qualities, a natural, infinite, asymmetrical and simple appearance. This suggests that the old garden manuals were compiled by masters with a keen eye for visual (perceptual) effects in gardens. In fact, previous research draws parallels between the old garden design guidelines and the grouping factors, observed by the gestalt school (Van Tonder & Lyons, forthcoming). The old texts caution against the use of bright colours, striking textural contrasts, symmetrical shapes, and smooth alignment of design elements, like rocks. It suggests irregular spacing of plants and rocks, in winding patterns, and give many guidelines on how to create visually balanced rock compositions. For example, the guidelines describe relations between the size of the garden courtyard, size of rocks and distance at which clusters and rocks should be spaced. It further recommends that rocks must be chosen and planted such that their natural textural grain matches their overall shape, and again, that shapes of rocks and rock clusters should appear roughly triangular. Rocks are supposed to be set firmly, with about two-thirds of the rock below the ground, to ensure a natural appearance. The list of design effects described in the old manuals, contains many other instances of critical visual factors that bear upon perceptual grouping. Recent work (Van Tonder & Lyons, forthcoming) suggests that the karesansui style not only avoids patterns of dominant perceptual grouping, such as symmetrical shapes and compositions, but engender many levels of subtle grouping, through

repetition of similar shapes on many scales (similarity factor), and relative spacing (proximity factor) that gives figure and background (i.e. rocks and empty sand, respectively) equal visual salience. 4. Infinite structure in dry rock gardens The texts describe rocks and plants as forming the structural backbone of the garden. This global structure has previously been investigated via medial axis transformation. The latter was conceived as a mechanism to describe biological shape (Blum, 1973). The transform is analogous to spreading grass fires, that terminate where no grass is left to burn. For example, three fires (Fig. 1A, black dots) will spread and die out where the grass is burnt up from all sides, i.e. along the black lines. These lines reveal the medial axis structure of the space between the three points. If the fires were started all along a triangle, the medial axis resembles an Inverted y-shape (Fig. 1B). The medial axis of a human figure looks like a skeleton (Fig. 1C). Psychophysical experiments revealed that the human visual system is subconsciously sensitive to medial axes (Kovacs, Feher and Julesz,1998). Medial axis transformation reveals an unsuspected degree of structural organization in the visual ground, or empty space, of Ryoanji, a representative example of Zen gardens (Van Tonder et al., 2002). Similar structure, of visual ground, occurs in various other examples of karesansui (Fig. 1D-1G). The medial axis structure of such gardens explicitly shows that the empty spaces between rocks and rock clusters are arranged with the same statistical self-similarity, characteristic of natural structures, where global shape and its local subparts are alike in shape. In fact, the structure of visual ground here resembles the branches on a tree, or alternatively, many small rivulets flowing together along a connected network of larger and larger confluent rivers. Even when only a limited section of a mountain, rock, or tree, is visible, humans have no trouble in perceiving the shape in its entirety. Especially in fractal structures, a few levels of shape is sufficient to enable our visual systems to interpolate, and so reconstruct, the entire structure as it would unfold over an extended range of spatial scales. The self-similarity of structure in visual ground is therefore significant: It is the structural seed from which the mind perceptually completes visual ground as an infinitely extending, naturalistic structure. Similarly, the self-similarity of visual figure (arrangements of plants, rocks, rock clusters, etc.) is the perceptual cue from which the

visual system can complete the backbone of the garden as an infinitely extending naturalistic structure.

Figure 1 . Medial axis transformation (MAT) of three intuitive visual figures, A-C. MAT reveals structure in the empty spaces of rock gardens. In D-G, the MAT between rock clusters is indicated by dark branching patterns. Where relevant, architectural structures are indicated by rectilinear boxes.

Natural textures often display an inverse relationship between spatial frequency and spectral power (Fig. 2A). Such patterns are called 1/f textures. In the experience of the author, free viewing of 1/f textures causes perception of various dynamic shapes. Most people are familiar with the perception of faces, animals or other shapes in the textures or carpets, soil, or an earthen wall, such as those erected around many karesanui gardens (Fig. 2B). Leonardo daVinci remarked that inspiration for a difficult visual

composition can be found in the dirt stains on an old wall. Thus, infinity is further suggested through natural textures on surfaces of most garden elements, such as rocks, courtyard walls, and gravel. Whereas perceptual grouping in such (noisy) textures should not favour any particular shape, the similarity factor prompts the prediction that a given shape, X, placed next to a natural texture, would bias perception into grouping texture elements such that the whole would resemble shape X. Thus, when placed in the vicinity of a given rock shape (Fig. 2D), perceptual grouping in a nearby 1/F texture, such as an earthen wall, becomes biased toward that shape, and the viewer is likely to perceive the biasing shape of the rock recurring within the texture of the wall (Fig. 2C). Here, the simple wall thus serves as virtual extension of the structure of rocks and rock clusters, thereby altering the perceived fractal dimension of the garden.

Figure 2. Perceptual grouping in natural textures is biased by shapes of nearby objects.

Again, this is an instance where appropriately chosen materials lead to perceptual completion of the garden as an infinite structure. This is an area left open to rigorous investigation, and part of future research on human visual perception in Japanese gardens. Perceptual completion can also be induced by visual cues that signal visual occlusion between object surfaces. For example, a Kanizsa figure (Fig. 3A) is an instance where

visual cues (the four black pacman shapes) induces the completion and perception of a vivid white square occluding four black disks or spheres. Specialized mechanisms in the visual system, triggered by the tangential visual junctions on the pacman shapes (Fig. 3B), perceptually complete the surface and boundary contours of the white square, and at the same time complete the missing parts of the disks, so that one grasps and see complete objects (Fig. 3C and 3D). The visual system relies so strongly on this ecological assumption that one literally sees the white square, as an explicit shape with explicit outlines. The effect is so strong that it can override the seemingly more logical groupings of other visual cues in the same scene (Purghe,1998), such as a mountain landscape (Fig. 3E).

Figure 3. Perceptual completion due to occlusion junctions may create the impression of rich, infinite structure in a karesansui rock composition.

In a garden, occlusion cues trigger perceptual completion of shape. The clearer and stronger the occlusion cues, the more vivid the completed structure. By placing rocks deep in gravel, gardeners ensure strong occlusion junctions between the rocks and sand (Fig. 3E). The author believes that the angles at which stones are set, are carefully chosen to direct perceptual completion outwards, so that instead of completing the shapes of individual rocks, one rather senses their potential completion into neighbouring objects. Of course, most of this completed meta-rock cluster is only virtual,

perceived as extending under the gravel of the garden courtyard (Fig. 3G and 3F). Smooth alignment serves as a very strong cue to perceptual completion of occlusion structure. By arranging rocks and rock clusters at irregular intervals relative to each other, gardeners prevent perceptual completion from finding a simplistic terminus. Perceptual structure of rock clusters is therefore again spread out, towards other garden elements, as the visual system reconstructs the continuation, of each rock, below the gravel. Similarly, strong occlusion junctions between rocks, and between plants and walls and hedges, provide occlusion cues from which perceptual completion ensues. In a visual scene of karesansui rocks, the combined effect of occlusion junctions and the visual system`s sensitivity to self-similar patterns, should therefore give rise to perceptual completion of a complex fractal structure (Fig. 3H), thus literally imposing a rich, infinite structure t be perceived in an obviously sparse composition. Could this underlie the intuitive sense of paradox when looking at karesansui? 5. Conclusions This presentation introduces (1) previous work on the visual structure of a Zen garden, and human visual perception of Japanese gardens, and (2) ongoing research, on visual cues that support perceptual completion of structure, and self-similar, naturalistic and possibly, infinite, structure, in karesansui. If the hypothesis turns out to be correct, some of the major compositional achievements of Japanese dry rock gardens lie in (1) the activation of brain mechanisms for perceptual completion of visual structure, (2) selective activation of completion mechanisms, towards the reconstruction of self-similar (recursive), infinite structure, (3) elimination of visual cues that would support simplistic, non-recursive, completion, and (4) the activation of completion mechanisms by the appropriate use of sparse visual compositions. This approach to landscape design enables the creation of complex, naturalistic perceptual structure through a minimal number of design elements. Even if the explicit visual structure of such a composition could be considered incomplete, its implicit, perceptual equivalent is not just complete, but also infinite. Here, I would like to point out a practical implication for current architectural landscapes. It raises the tantalizing possibility that designs, with perceptually infinite structure, can

be created by the appropriate placement of only a few structural seeds, in an otherwise relatively empty setting. In a town surrounded by mountains, for example, sensitive setting of appropriate rock clusters in a public space could engender a powerful perception of the greater landscape being richly innervated, and drawn into, that space. The success of such a minimalist approach depends on how well the visual cues essential to perceptual completion, as presented in this paper, are presented in the design. I would like to suggest that the 1466 illustrated manual on karesansui design, in which the priest Shingen transmits the 11th century teachings of Zoen, already provides good instruction on how this task may be accomplished. This work shows that various compositional effects have to be considered to successfully implement perceptual completion as a design strategy. Irregular placement of design elements, creating appropriate occlusion junctions for their extension behind other surfaces, ensuring their internal self-similarity, and covering the surrounding empty surfaces with naturalistic textures to extend the self-similarity of structural seeds, are examples of aspects that must be taken into consideration. May this inspire you to create wonderful new landscapes! 6. Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Gunter Nitschke, for many insightful discussions on issues related to the topic presented here. This research was supported by the Kyoto Institute of Technology.

7. References

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