Project 3: The Experience
In the first two projects I was
looking heavily into how we as humans use our eyes. I wanted to study the
effects of having some part of sight taken away or altered. “Sight is without
doubt our most dominant sense, yielding nine-tenths of our knowledge of the
external world” (Pocock, 1981) I knew the experience of having something we
rely on so much changed or altered would be an interesting one. One of the most profound experiences I
studied was the effect of having someone’s peripheral vision cut off or
obscured. By taking the peripherals away the way in which we see things is
completely changed, peripheral vision makes up more than 95% of what a person
can see, the other 5% is our range of focus in the vision eye spectrum. By
taking the use and ability of being able to see out of focus images around our
area of focus is one of them most useful abilities the human eye has and it so
often goes unnoticed. By limiting the sense of vision and striping back the
experience of sight without peripherals I hoped to create an austere mood. By
creating a pair of glasses that had small holes cut through them I wanted to
create a false sense of tunnel vision. I had the participants attempt to walk
around a room, sit down and use their hands to pick objects up and put them
down. The use of motor skills while under the influence of limited sight was a
very interesting experience that I sought to explain by studying the sensory
experiences.
Our vision is taken for granted
every day. Being able to see cars coming from around corners or see obstacles
travelling at fast speeds passed our field of vision is one of the most
important aspects of human sight. Mark Stokes explains that “our perception of
the external environment is continually shaped by internal goals and
expectations”(Stokes, 2009), by taking this expectation that our vision can
never fail us, and by limiting the perception of a person’s vision the entire
experience of sight and vision becomes austere. When our vision is refined and
stripped back of key components we become aware that what we never think about,
what is so ‘internally expected’ by our brains, can actually be the most
important aspect to the experience.
The object I created to make the
experience of austere vision was a very simple and austere construction in
itself. By painting a pair of glasses black and attaching thick sheets of black
paper to the outside of the field of peripheral vision and drilling two small
holes in the lenses of the glasses I could severely reduce the cone of vision
for the eye. This design aided the idea of austerity in the experience by being
as simple and austere as possible, “austere beauty of ruthless simplification
of interaction” (Jones, 1969). The effects of the glasses were instantaneous,
every participant expectations of what the experience would be like were
instantly changed when they were asked to move around and pick objects up. The
experience affected not only the field of view but also the sense of perception
of space and distance. “it is obvious that the handicap of tunnel vision would
be lessened if the item being viewed could be reduced in angular size, that of
it would fall within the narrow cone of vision” (Gordon, 1984), participants
would sway as they walked and had to check which direction they were travelling
constantly. Depth perception was decreased as well. By cutting the peripheral
vision out our brains find it harder to form three dimensional objects in close
areas. I believe this effect helped create the mood and emotion of austerity by
stripping back our perception of what we see even more, by only seeing objects
as two dimensional shapes the experience was so refined that most participants
wanted to take the glasses off before they either fell over or walked into
something. This experience further emphasises the fact that our sense of sight
is not only the most important sense for experiencing anything but also that it
is the most utilised sense when it comes to motor skills and concentration. The
experience left participants unable to carry on with physical movement leaving
them idle, trapped in an aura of limited potential. Movement was near
impossible and trying to perceive objects and limitations of sight was
impossible. The experience was so linear and refined that “momentary awareness
of a visual scene is very limited” (Huang, 2007) the only thing the
participants were capable of doing was looking around their environment,
studying it and planning a safe route for travelling anywhere.
I believe that the fact that the
participants had to plan and double check their movement was a great example of
an austere emotion. By having to check, plan and remember where obstacles were
and how to best get around them the participant had to memorize the smallest of
things only to achieve the most basic of movements and interactions.
Having such an important sense
such as sight altered and obscured so radically with such a basic and simple
interaction as looking through two tiny holes creates an experience so austere
and refined it makes participants realise how important their sense of sight is
and how austere the feeling of having their peripherals completely removed can
be.
Creating an austere experience is
not easy, the human mind and body is so complex and the senses so linked and
connected that stripping away the parts that makes up the whole can be very
difficult. But I believe I achieved an experience that is purely austere and
totally refined and disconnected to all other senses. Sight and visual stimulus
is granted the most important sense of all because without it we are stunned
and disjointed from our other senses; I created the austere experience of
having sight stripped of all its complexities with the most simple of tools and
implementations to create not only an austere object but the most austere
visual experience possible.
Bibliography:
Pocock, D.C. (1981), Sight and
Knowledge Vol. 6, No.4, Transactions of
the Institute of British Geographers, 385
Stokes, M. (2009), National
Academy of Sciences Vol. 106, No.46, Nov. 17th, Shape Specific Preparatory Activity Mediates Attention to Targets in
Human Visual Cortex
Jones, P.L. (1969), Leonardo
Vol.2, No.2, April, The Failure of Basic
Design
Gordon,I. (1984), Leonardo Vol.17,
No.3, A Visual Aid for Artists and Others
with Retinitis Pigmentosa
Huang,L.(2007), American
Association for the Advancement of Science, New Series Vol. 317, No.5839, Aug
10th, Characterizing the
Limits of Human Visual Awareness
