Figure-ground is not a simple division between an autonomous agent and a passive background, but a synthetic operation. Unfolding like a conversation, where each statement is simultaneously a response to the last and the premise for the next. This dynamic operates on a logic of recursion, where the distinction between the two dissolves into a self-referential loop of continuous transformation. There is no outside observer, the system observes itself; perception and cognition emerge from context, not from isolated entities.
This dynamic is perfectly captured by Marshall McLuhan’s aphorism, “the medium is the message.” He argued that the true message – the lasting reconfiguration of our senses and social structures – is delivered not by the content (figure) but by the medium itself (ground). The ground is not a passive backdrop; it is the active infrastructure that gives rise to the figure, fundamentally conditioning how we see, interpret, and relate. Just as print shaped linear thinking and digital media cultivate fragmented attention, it is the ground that sets the terms of experience long before the figure appears.
The figure-ground relation is always in a state of reversibility, entanglement, and destabilisation. Action, in such a world, is no longer a linear imposition upon a passive stage but emerges from within this complex network of interdependencies, uncertain, unstable, and continuously in flux. The critical task, then, is to cultivate a radical shift in perception. This requires moving beyond imposing hermetically controlled figures and instead engaging in a practice of continuous re-formation, an active process that constantly acknowledges and redistributes agency throughout time.