✪ Pala Di San Martino

This mountain range can be found in the Dolomites. Part of it is known as Pala di San Martino, or the Balls of Saint Martin. It is possible to walk and climb around these Holy testicles and when you do so it takes you into the strange landscape of lifeless rock-formations.

A curious effect of the barren stone landscape is that it is very difficult to asses its scale. The only thing you can estimate about the size of your surroundings is that it lies between certain limits that depend upon common sense. But with little effort these giant rocks can even be imagined to be the size of a pebble.

It is only when people or chalets appear in the landscape that its true scale becomes apparent.

This effect can be found in reverse order in the Suiseki or Penjing stones of Japan and China. These objects were used to let the mind wander through a landscape that fits on your desk.

Klik on the picture for a previous post on those stones:



Alton Delong has done very interesting work on scale and human perception.
When he asked people to play Pong on a 7-inch and a 23-inch screen he found that the size reduction considerably improved concentration in players.


When he created three model waiting-rooms he discovered that scale reduction compresses the perceived time of people.

• At scale 1/6 : 30 min becomes 5.43 min on average.
• At scale 1/12: 30 min becomes 2.66 min on average.
• At scale 1/24: 30 min becomes 1.49 min on average.

(Delong 1983, 2000)



Delong has also worked on class-room designs.

I came across his work and the Penjing stones in a stunning book by Douglass W. Bailey called Prehistoric Figurines; Representation and corporeality in the Neolithic.