DISCRETE VISUAL STRUCTURES: Elements of Visual Grammar

Any new language, based on premises other than verbal language, can open another
window in our room, allowing us to see a different picture of the same world. These
different pictures will give us a much wider and more complex vision of the universe.
I believe that a highly organized and developed visual language provides such a new
window.
The basic construction of any language, especially a developed one, is a structure
of formal rules which regulate the relations between its signs or elements. For verbal
language it is a syntax which regulates all relationships between elements of a certain
language: alphabet, words and sentences.
This work is an attempt to explore and establish a set of formal rules between a
large and complex group of standardized visual signs which I call discrete visual
structures. A fundamental characteristic of a discrete visual structure is its possibility
to be visually represented. The relations between these structures depend primarily on
their graphic organization and structural characteristics. Elements of each structure can
be presented as finite parts of the plane surface. There are four basic types of
discrete visual structures: spatial structure, qualitative structure, state of space and
visual process.