37. Traces of Neutral Space: What Lies Between Positive and Negative Space

This intricate web of life is a manifestation of existence and its interactions with living thing. Human beings have a very intrinsic relationship with this existence. One of the major aspects of this interaction is a visual perception which is developed over the entire process of evolution. With the collective efforts of designers, artists, architects, psychologists, and philosophers across the globe have successfully laid down the basis of visual perception referred to as elements and principles of design. This paper is an inquiry into one of the elements of design that is Space. Our perception of reality is built on ‘the space’, in which we move, eat, laugh, move, walk, plant, fly, and swim. Here, a systematic approach is being adopted by visual analysis and an experiment on the positive and negative forms to inquire about the existence of ‘Neutral space’ is being conducted. Reality exists in three-dimensional space that is our objects of interaction consist of length, width, and height. But when it comes to the visual representation of an idea, it is considered both 2D and 3D mediums to build a visual composition. A two-dimensional medium has been a major choice of humans when it comes to visual representation. Our understanding of space is predominantly based on its categorization and boundary definitions. In any visual composition, the focal part is referred to as positive space, and the rest, as negative space, is limited to the visual boundary. Artists and designers use the concept of positive and negative space to direct attention and build a visual hierarchy. Due to this dual expression of space and its effect on visual perception, the paper will discuss the existence of ‘neutral space’.