Picture
Ella in Paris: Sony α6000
“Look fiercely at the world.”
(John Berger)
I used to obsess about the ‘Picture.’
My life depended on it.
In those days, the ‘picture’ was a synthesis of information that helped me build the dynamic, often rapidly changing mental model of what was happening around my fighter jet. Where were my wingmen and the other ‘friendlies’? What shape were we in? What were the ‘hostile’ forces trying to do? How many of them, how far away, how fast…?
A secure and accurate ‘picture’ was the foundation of my ‘situational awareness’ and with good SA my chances of both effectiveness and survival increased exponentially. A shared, collective ‘picture’, seen clearly by everyone on my team, meant we would all get home that day.
These days, I‘m less obsessed, but we are all still dependent on the quality of the ‘picture.’ We live and work amidst high uncertainty and often low quality information. We take high stakes decisions almost intuitively as we stare at a confused, degraded, blurred image of unfolding events. We organise our politics, build institutions, configure teams, set tasks and define success on the basis of what we think we see before us.
A clear sense of ‘picture’ is vital.
My photograph of Ella, walking through a crowded ‘mist fountain’ on a scorching summer’s day, explored my shifting sense of clarity. When did I have enough information to know it was her? The white dress and sunglasses were an obvious giveaway but also opened possible cognitive traps; “Ah… a white dress, that must be Ella….?’
To see deeply, we need to shift the focus of our attention from what is experienced towards how we experience what is experienced. This is about consciously shifting our attention from what is seen, towards the seeing of what is seen. As we do this, our blind spots open up and we see into new possibilities.
Just like imagery and photography, language can seem obvious, transparent, self-concealing. So, today, I try to capture my ‘saying in the act’ as I articulate these words at the keyboard. I try to pay attention to how my concepts form, how my seeing and thinking actually works, how categories and labels come to light and the impact those choices have.
In a troubled world that is increasingly divided and fractured, we need to ‘look fiercely’ and find a shared picture.
And more than ever, this is not just about what we see, but how we come to see it.
Notes:
I’m making my way through ‘Taking Appearance Seriously’ by Henri Bortoft. It’s the kind of book that requires more than one reading as it unpicks some of the fundamental assumptions of Western thinking.
David Bohm continually questions the nature of our ‘thoughts’ as distinct from our ‘thinking.’ In ‘On Dialogue’ he questions the way in which contemporary problems exist (pollution, global warming etc.) and our apprenticeship inability to do anything about them: “But what I am trying to say is that though is the problem.” A public library of David Bohm’s videos are held here by the Academy of Professional Dialogue.
In “Photography and the Art of Seeing”, Freeman Patterson asks us to stretch our imagination with a list of visual exercises: “Try breaking the rules and escaping the labels. Thinking sideways will stimulate your imagination.”
You can download a full text copy of Mica Endsley’s “Toward a Theory of Situation Awareness in Dynamic Systems” which sets out the foundations of our thinking on the building blocks of SA.
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