Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1996 - 18

The brain is capable of focusing attention
in more subtle ways than we give it credit for.

started the violin before the age of twelve.
The idea of Darwinian neural formation
canle to mind recently while I was lunch.ing
with a colleague intent on explaining his objection to television. I~ He claims that because
the television screen is two dimensional, ch.i1dren who watch many hours of television do
not develop the neural connections neceSSaIy
to process three dimensional perception. As a
result, his students struggle to understand
equations which demand "seeing" the back
side of a problem. For me his theOly explains
my increasing difficulty in teaching perspective. Intrigued by our conversation, I questioned several other colleagues in both the aI'ts
and sciences, all of whom reported corresponding problems with SUIdents. I wonder if
three dimensional perception will be further
eroded as more children use computers in the
early stages of their development. The implications for the future of live theatre are enol~
mous.
Theatre artists have always claimed that
the three dimensionality of theatre sets it apaI't,
making it a somewhat superior experience to
film or television. What if our audiences no
longer have the ability to perceive that experience? How do we cater to future generations
which see an image as flat whether or not it is
actually flat? Will theatre become ever more
elitist, appealing only to those who have not
spent numerous hours in front of a tele\~sion
screen or monitor? I have no aI1SWerS to these
questions, but considering the possible results
of looking at a two dimensional screen, I wonder about the use of projected scenely. Should
we be cautious in replacing built sets with projected images generated by slides or computers? Could such production techniques, so
popular with young audiences today, become
the gun that shoots us in the foot?
As scientists discover more about how the
brain works, we must re-think what we believe
about communicating with an audience. In
maI1Y cases, new information reconfirms what
we know from intuition aIld experience. In
some cases, the discoveries may help us to al16

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1D&1

tel' the way we design. Consider the brain's
ability to "see" what is not there. Our eyes have
a blind spot, near the center, where the optic
nerve is attached to the eye. In experiments,
subjects were shown a doughnut shaped ring
placed so that the hole in the middle was exactly in line Witll the blind spot in tlleir field of
\~sion. Subjects reported seeing a solid disk.
The brain fills in the space using information
that it assumes is there. Here's a more familiar
eXaJ11ple: when we see the back of someone's
head, we assume there is a face on the other
side. We might even picture that face, in much
tlle way we conjure up images of people we
know only from phone conversations. I; The
maI"Vel of the brain's multi-level coding
mechanism, called vector processing, allows
us to recognize those we know from the back
or with part of their faces hidden. 16
For me, the magic of theaire occurs when
audiences see what is not mere. Less is often
more. The tlleatrical moments I remember
best are when my mind was forced to complete
a picture. YeaI'S ago, I saw Emlyn WiIliaJ11s pel~
forming "Growing P," a one man show of
Dylan Thomas' poetry. For scenery, Williams
used one chair. \~~len he got to the part in "A
Child's Christmas in Wales" where a child rues
over his small town, WiIlianls stood on the
chair and slowly moved his aI'ms. I saw him fly.
I really saw him fly. Poetry and acting skill produced a whole scene and action in my mind.
Again, at the curtain call, when Williams
bowed and then motioned and bowed to the
spot-lit chair, I saw Dylan Thomas sitting in the
chair. If I had not stored pictlll'es of Thomas in
my memOlY, perhaps I would not have seen
him. But I did, and it was miraculous.
Imaginative miracles are still possible.
Never mind that so much of our popular theatre has become spectacular and explicit in its
design. Recently, in Santiago, Chile, I saw a
performance in a small make-shift theatre. An
actor, his grasping hands close to the floor,
chased all imaginaIy chicken across the stage
as it weaved and bobbed just out of his reach.
The chicken was so real that the audience

gasped when, the actor ha~ng caught the
chicken, wrung its neck in one swift motion.
Focus has always been a major design
concern. We think about the colors of costumes and sets and the light levels which will
make an audience look at what we want them
to see. I was intrigued to discover tllat brain
researchers as they look at why aIld how we
focus, use our terminology. They speak of a
"spotlight of attention." \~lile we work from
instinct, their discoveries and hypotheses may
be helpful. They tell us that our eyes are never
still, usually moving three or four times a second. These jumps, called saccades, involve
three processes in the brain: our eyes disengage, move and then engage a new object.
Constant eye movements are neceSSaI')' because after a short time, an image remaining at
tlle same place on the retina fades, either from
fatigue of the cones or the neurons processing
information. Keep in mind that our ~sion
evolved as a means of finding food and sensing
danger. To do tltis, our eyes aI'e most sensitive
to movement perceived as changing light levels
across our retina. When movement stops, our
vision fades. Many animals can do \~tllOut
color \~sion but sensing movement is vital to
survival. Apparently, we also have different levels of focus even though, like a canlera, we see
evel')llting within our field of ~sion. Therefore,
the "spotlight of attention" describes how we
filter out data in order to concentrate. To do
this, certain neurons inhibit information, causing a bottle neck effect which makes us aware
of only the most important images. 1Neurons, or groups of neurons have special tasks. SepaI'ately, they register only small
parts of what we see. Some may "see" a horizontal line, others a diagonal. Some see only
one color (although there is probably some
overlap). There are neurons for three dimensional perception, for various patterns, for
light levels, for movement; each neuron or
group is responsible for a tiny bit of what we
see. TIY to imagine how the brain must merge
a tremendous number and variety of different
bits of information to form an image, accom-

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