> Suddenly you aren’t just thinking about what’s happening inside the picture; you’re thinking about the system it represents and your response to it. This is

> Suddenly you aren’t just thinking about what’s happening inside the picture; you’re thinking about the system it represents and your response to it. This is what true art is about. His use of "unfamiliarity" as a tool to evoke a shift in your point of view is actually a classic artistic device called "Defamiliarization"[1]. That is: The artistic technique of presenting to audiences common things in an unfamiliar or strange way in order to enhance perception of the familiar. Or as Viktor Shklovsky put it first: The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar,’ to make forms difficult to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. On step further it can be described with the "Wundt" or "Hedonic curve"[2] that basically says, the most interesting experiences are those that are similar-yet-different to those that have been experienced previously. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamiliarization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamiliarization [2]: http://natcomp.liacs.nl/images/wundt.jpg http://natcomp.liacs.nl/images/wundt.jpg