Does The Title Of An Abstract Influence What You See?

Lately, I have been having a bit of fun giving my abstract images titles. The titles can sometimes be fairly oblique and only hint at what I am seeing or what I was trying to make. At other times they are a bit more straightforward, though, clearly, the title doesn’t demand that you see what I did. In fact, I strongly prefer that the viewer have their own interpretation. But, at times, I do wonder if knowing the title tilts the viewer towards one avenue of thinking or interpretation.

With that, I am interested in what you might be seeing in this multiple exposure abstract (which was then further layered in Photoshop) before I tell you what the title is. What do you see and/or how do you interpret the image? If you have a moment let me know in the comments. Below the image I will tell you its title and I am curious if that knowledge alters or redirects what you see.

© Howard Grill

OK, no peeking until you’ve decided how you interpret the image.

My title is “Living In The City". I named it this because the orange squares reminded me of windows, and to me it felt as if I were looking at a street view of a city scene with multiple apartment buildings right next to each other. One friend to whom I told the title actually saw a city scene that was a bit different from mine. He saw an aerial drone view. What I looked upon as windows, he saw as the roofs of apartment buildings seen from above. The lighter-colored strips were alleyways. Of course, he had already heard the title.

In this case, I think the appearance of a city scene is reasonably easy to see, while some abstracts are far less representational and, like a Rorschach ink blot, could be interpreted as looking like almost anything.

So, what did you see before looking at the title? Was it a city scene? Did the title change your interpretation?

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