Brock's theory, which is clearly laid out in a succinct and fascinating essay included in the show's catalog, comes with a two-page appendix, replete with a graph, equations, and multiple axioms.
"The thing about beautiful design is you don't need me to explain it. You just sense it. That's how it's supposed to be," he reassures me. "But some of us have the job of trying to find out what's going on."
What about this theory, then?
In truth, it's satisfyingly simple. Designed objects, Brock writes, can be broken down into "themes" and "transformations." A theme is a motif, such as an S-curve; a transformation might see that curve appear elsewhere in the design, but stretched, rotated 90 degrees, mirrored, or otherwise reworked.
Aesthetic satisfaction comes from an apprehension of how those themes and transformations relate to each other, or of what Brock calls their "relative complexity." Basically - and this is the nub of it - "if the theme is simple, then we are most satisfied when its echoes are complex . . . and vice versa."
I can't speak to the theory – I haven't seen the details – but Melanie and I have seen this exhibition and thought it quite splendid. Definitely worth taking a look at.
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