Artistic Composition

Drawing from Mike Vargas' 86 Aspects of Composition, I'm looking at one aspect at a time as it is reflected in the creations of Second Life Photographers and Artists.

1. Abstraction: To what extent would two people from the same community agree about the meaning?
January 6, 2015 Post


2. Appropriation: How precisely and in what proportion to the whole have the ideas and constructs of others been incorporated into this creation?
January 13, 2016 Post


3. Balance: How do the qualities and relative importance of the constituent aspects counteract each other, both inside and outside the system?
January 21, 2016 Post


4. Breath: Where is the alternation between tension and release, inhalation and exhalation?
January 27, 2016 Post


5. Center: Which areas, events, or ideas does our attention revolve around or return to?
February 17, 2016 Post


6. Coherence: How well do the elements involved maintain their physical or conceptual connections to each other?


7. Collaboration: If there is more than one person or element involved, how are they cooperating?


8. Color: What shades, tones, or spectral qualities do these particular combinations of vibrations and their reflections create or evoke?


9. Community: Who is involved with the making and percieving of this work?


10. Complexity: How many different streams of meaning, gestures, or materials are there, and do they interfere with each other?


11. Context: What are the circumstances surrounding creation and perception, and what bearing do they have?


12. Continuity: How does this move from idea to idea, from place to place, from beginning to end?


13. Contrast: How different is one thing from another?


14. Control: How tightly is the outcome predetermined?


15. Conviction: To what extent is there and absence of doubt or hesitation, and how big a role does this play in the potential to inspire?


16. Definition: What features distinguish this from everything else and are they expressed clearly?


17. Density: How many elements are present simultaneously or in close proximity in a given area or at a given time?


18. Detail: How finely are the small qualities and features chiseled and how important are they to the functioning of the whole?


19. Development: What changes as time and space extend and how does this affect coherence?


20. Diversity: What degree of variety is present among the components and what effects does this variety produce?


21. Duration: How much time goes by from the beginning to the end of each event? of each subdivision? of the whole?


22. Emotion: What human feelings can be found in this creation or perception and what importance are they given relative to the other ingredients?


23. Emphasis: Which aspects are meant to draw our attention and how is this achieved?


24. Exertion: How much physical and/or mental effort is involved and to what extent is it important for it to be visible?


25. Expectation: Do assumptions held by the creator or perciever influence continuity or predictability?


26. Familiarity: How important is it to maintain or evolve recognizable situations, ideas, environments, or feelings?


27. Frequency: How fast and how often do the events and the materials vibrate or occur?


28. Function: What role does this play in the world, and what roles do each of hte ingredients play relative to each other and to the whole?


29. Generosity: What is being given freely?


30. Geography: Where do things happen?


31. Gesture: How is movement of the materials organized, and what shapes and qualities do the trajectories of this motion create?


32. Hierarchy: How are importance and power organized?


33. Humor: How do factors such as smiling, laughter, surprise, lightheartedness, or delight contribute to the nature of this work?


34. Hybridization: Is there an intentional (or unconscious) blending of forms?


35. Imitation: How much do internal elements seek or exhibit similarity among themselves, and how much do they or the whole seek or exhibit similarity with external models?


36. Innovation: How great a role do new ideas play?


37. Inspiration: How does this work give and receive motivating energy?


38. Intention: What desired state or outcome is motivating the decisions that predetermine the nature of this process?


39. Interpretation: How do history, personal opinions, emotions, and skills affect the transmission and reception of the original message or intention?


40. Intuition: What percentage of creation/perception occurs spontaneously or without logical explanation, and how does this component int he composition interact with the intellectual component?


41. Language: What conventions, rules, methods of organization, or vocabularies distinguish this communication from others, and who understands them?


42. Leadership: Who makes the decisions?


43. Limits: What kinds of restrictions help to focus the expression?


44. Logic: What intellectual paradigms or conceptual maps are determining the basis for decision making?


45. Memory:How does the ability to store, label, and then retrieve impressions form the near and distant past affect creation and perception?


46. Mystery: How much reference is being made to not-knowing; how big a role does conscious (or unconscious) not-knowing play in conception and execution, and how necessary is knowing or not-knowing for appreciation.


47. Mythology: What roles do heroism, archetypes, folklore, and oral history play?


48. Organization: On what basis are the materials ordered, and what effect does this order have on the way they are perceived?


49. Originality: What percentage of the content is unique, and how does that affect the value of the whole?


50. Palette: What collection of physical and conceptual materials is being combined int his particular case?


51. Perception: How do the attributes and mechanisms of the human senses and mind color this process?


52. Perspective: From what physical or mental position was this created, and from which vantage points are the various elements and qualities best perceived?


53. Planning: What role does advance thinking, organizing, and deciding play?


54. Precision: Which ideas, gestures, or aspects must manifest in an exact way and which can be more general or approximate?


55. Preference: What proportion of qualities or choices is guided or determined by personal affinities or taste?


56. Process: What is the sequence and nature of the physical and intellectual events that determine the outcome?


57. Proportion: What are the relative quantities, sizes, and importance of each aspect with respect to the others and to the whole?


58. Proximity: What importance does the degree of nearness of players or elements have, internally and with respect to the perceiver?


59. Pulse: How much of the organization involves the regular marking of time or space with a steady placement of weight or events?


60. Punctuation: What devices help to delineate and separate units of meaning and activity?


61. Purity: How much allegiance or adherence to particular styles, ideas, traditions, or methods is present or necessary?


62. Reference: Toward which other elements, relationships, meanings, or memories is our focus directed when an element (or the whole) points outside of itself?


63. Relationship: How do these materials, organizers of the materials, and observers interact with each other?


64. Repetition: What happens again and again, how often, and with what intentions or results?


65. Reproduction: To what extent and how precisely are these materials or characteristics meant to resemble something from the past?


66. Resolution: How and when does this balance itself enough to start a new chapter or begin again?


67. Resonance: How do the effects of sympathetic vibrations play a role in the transmission of energy and inspiration, internally and with the environment?


68. Responsibility: How do social and environmental conscience influence the process of the creator, the perceiver, and other elements of the composition?


69. Scale: How large is this, relative to its conceptual and physical context?


70. Sensation: How does physical interaction with the medium, through the senses and systems of the body, affect the process and the nature of the experience?


71. Sequence: What events or ideas or materials follow each other, and in what order?


72. Shape: What are the qualities of the outline or contours created by the relative positions of materials in time and space?


73. Speed: How quickly do things happen?


74. Spirituality: What importance is given, either in the creation or in the perceiving, to contemplation, kindness, and matters of the soul?


75. Spontaneity: How much of the composition is determined by gestural, organizational, or conceptual decisions made in the moment?


76. Stability: Is there a sense of underlying predictability or steadiness, and how is this achieved?


77. Story: Is the series of events or the arrangement of elements such that it narrates or describes a human situation or perspective?


78. Symmetry: What types of correspondences exist between opposing sides or halves, either of the whole or of the individual ingredients?


79. Technique: What skills are necessary to clearly transmit and receive these energies or ideas, and how important is the mastery of these skills?


80. Tension: Where is there a physical (or other kind of) pull or push between elements or ideas?


81. Texture: What overall consistency or surface quality is created by the arrangement of materials?


82. Timing: When do things happen and how important is precision in this regard?


83. Tradition: What lineages of creators, styles, philosophies, politics, methods, contexts, or other factors have influenced this composition?


84. Transition: What manner of bridges or connectors serve to span the gaps between ideas, chapters, or areas?


85. Variation: What proportion of this process involves change, manipulation, or evolution of material or energy?


86. Vibration: When and how does cyclical alternation (of position, qualities, states, materials, etc.) play a role, and how do the relative speeds of these oscillations interact?