06.05.2023
The term „sequentially limited reason“ comes from psychology and describes a model of human thinking. This model states that people’s ability to „reason“ is limited, or bounded. Because humans are only able to process a limited amount of information, simultaneously.
This model also states that people’s thinking is sequential, one after the other. Thus, only limited resources are available to absorb and process information. This means that people are not able to consider and evaluate all available information at once.
Certain aspects of the information are focused on, while others are ignored. Eventually, this leads to not taking all relevant information into account. In the long run, this even leads to being biased because only certain information is focused on.
In psychological research, sequentially limited reasoning is often studied to understand how people make decisions and how to improve the quality of those decisions. As far as abstract and non-representational art are concerned, I see a connection and I can understand in which way the work on the canvas, is sequentially limited.
Relations between sequentially limited reason and making visible.
Limited resources:
As sequentially limited reason points out, my mind works with limited resources to process information. In abstract art and painting, I also have limited resources in the form of paints, brushes, and other tools.
Concentration of Aspects:
In sequentially limited reasoning, I have to focus on certain aspects of the information and ignore others in order to do so. In abstract art and painting, as an artist I often focus on certain elements such as shape, lines, or color. In doing so, other aspects such as representationalism or realism are ignored/ disregarded.
Subjectivity:
As with sequentially limited reason, I believe that the perception of art is purely subjective and not completed, objective. So every viewer can see or perceive different things in an artwork.
Individual steps and the processes:
In both painting and abstract art, there are certain steps and processes that must be followed to create the work. These steps and processes can be sequential, much like the, presumed, limited processing capacity of a brain.
So, from this perspective, there seems to be some common ground between the idea of sequentially limited reason and abstract art and the steps involved in painting.
Both themes, I think, emphasize the limitedness of resources and how important it is, therefore, to be able to focus on certain aspects. To this end, the subjectivity of perception, plays a crucial role.
In my works I make this a theme. Most important to me is the subjectivity, through which each viewer ultimately sees differently and so seen lives in its own world.