Scientific research has shed much light on how we see, and on how visual art resonates in our minds. I am interested in reading about contemporary visual artists who have applied this information in their creative processes.
If you are interested in this topic I would strongly recommend reading Eric Kandels recent book entitled "The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present". In this book the Nobel Prize Winner basically covers exactly the topic you are interested in, namely how Expressionist artists like Egon Schiele or Gustav Klimt and others have (implicitly or explicitly) used principles of visual information processing (such as those developed by Gestalt-Psychology) to create pieces of art that strongly appeal to the viewer. I have almost finished reading the book, and it is one of the best books I have ever read, covering interesting aspects of both art and neuroscience.
If you are interested in this topic I would strongly recommend reading Eric Kandels recent book entitled "The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present". In this book the Nobel Prize Winner basically covers exactly the topic you are interested in, namely how Expressionist artists like Egon Schiele or Gustav Klimt and others have (implicitly or explicitly) used principles of visual information processing (such as those developed by Gestalt-Psychology) to create pieces of art that strongly appeal to the viewer. I have almost finished reading the book, and it is one of the best books I have ever read, covering interesting aspects of both art and neuroscience.
Thank you for pointing out this book, Benjamin. I will order a copy and read it with great interest.
Do you know of any artists that are producing today (or to broaden the temporal scope a bit, in the present century) whose work is linked in some way to recent scientific research in neurscience?
You should probably check out this link: http://thebeautifulbrain.com/2014/02/art-and-the-default-mode-network/
And I don't know if this is what you are looking for but here are some modern artists whose works address aspects of the neurological sciences: Suzanne Anker (USA), Andrew Carnie (UK), Rona Pondick (USA), Michael Joaquin Grey (USA), Michael Rees (USA), and Leonel Moura (Portugal). You can for example check out Suzanne Anker's work here: http://www.suzanneanker.com/artwork/
Hope this helps.
Excellent! Many thanks, Benjamin. I'll get back to this thread after taking a good look at these examples.
This artist's work came to my attention on another ResearchGate thread:
Lia Cook, New work – neuroscience research (http://www.liacook.com/works/new-work-neuroscience-research/, access: March 20, 2014).
Benjamin. Perhaps you would be interested in Vision-Space? We have developed a new form of illusionary space based on perceptual structure (not optical projection). Vision-Space models visual awareness. Vision is entirely non-photographically rendered - we generate it. We have developed post process software that takes 'picture' footage and transforms this into Vision-Space moving image media. The info is on www.pacentre.org. I will take a look at the book you recommend.
OK, John, I saw your videos on YouTube and found them interesting, although because of their telegraphic nature I had trouble understanding exactly what you are up to. Then I downloaded your papers and gave them a quick first reading, and I see that you are producing images that approximate the illusion of images we have in our minds as the end-product of visual perception, especially the experience produced by having a retina with a sensitive, high-resolution fovea, surrounded by a less sensitive peripheral field. That's great! That's just the sort of thing I imagined someone might be doing when I posted this question on ResearchGate. Thank you! I will share your work with my students here in Guanajuato. I think you are on to something important.
John: Here is Leonardo da Vinci's drawing that shows he understood foveal vision five centuries ago. You are probably aware of this, but it may be of interest to others who may peruse this thread in the future. As you note in some of your papers, an understanding of the intricacies (and illusory nature) of visual perception can be glimpsed in the work of many artists from different times and places.
(Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eye_Line_of_sight.jpghttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eye_Line_of_sight.jpg)
The foveal aspect of vision is the one we have grown up with in the West. Its explicit in nature. What's been missing is the 'implicit'. It's simply not there in science and hence not present in our instrumentation. It's sub-conscious and covert in nature, however 90% of our 'field' of vision is given over to it. Its came first I think given the evolution of the eye. It forms our 'primary' sense of awareness - 'where' we are in the world. Without it there is no 'context' for the explicit. Its right brain stuff, so language and words to describe it are limited. Given its importance to an act of objectivity, not knowing about it and how we generate it and how to present it in our communication systems is leading to significant issues. The point is that if our instrumentation hasn't been designed to approach it or even capture the data potential it's going to to up those that are 'in-tune' with it at an experiential level to provide the guidance to those that operate through 'instrumentation' to develop our understanding of it. The experiential ontology is key - and we (artists) are the specialists here. We need to take the lead?
It is true, John, that researchers tend to "fixate" on foveate rather than peripheral visual perception. Talking about foveal vision implies acknowledging non-foveal vision, as it's all part of the visual experience, but not many people direct their attention to the latter. On another thread we have been discussing eye-tracking studies, and the subject of non-human animal visual perception came up. There are some ideas and links there that you might find interesting and relevant to your project.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Eye_Tracking_Devices_and_Art2
Thanks for that. The difference with attention in peripheral vision is that it's holistic. The 'field' is addressed not a specific point or area. So with the 'filed' supplying 'proximity' cues, spatial awareness is all about subconscious awareness to encroachment with respect to the setting out point (fixation). Attention in peripheral vision is in the form of a simultaneously understood field. Or at least I think it is! So if we are looking at a point in space with central vision and attending to that task we are also taking in an implicit form of spatial awareness in support of that activity. Only promoting to conscious attention things that could interrupt that fixated activity. So if someone throws an orange at you while you are involved in a specific task you don't even need to break away, you just duck out of the way. If you had to 'attend' to objects in flight towards you in central vision the process would be too slow. What is it, where is it, what do I do. If you can react in time using that 'channel' then you certainly will have dropped what you were doing in the first place? It's this ability to subconsciously address the world through peripheral vision and form context that ASD related conditions struggle to realise? They have to address everything though the 'explicit' channel which leads to overload and a fragmented sensory perception? And yes, eye tracking is essential to a Vision-Space simulator - we are working on that!
I suspect you will enjoy this essay, John, especially the illustrations:
WADE, Nicholas
2009 “Berkeley’s confused vision”, in Perception (Pion), vol. 38, no. 4, 2009, pp. 475-478 (http://www.perceptionweb.com/perception/editorials/p3804ed.pdf, access: April 13, 2014).
Benjamin: I found this article, from the web page on your first link, to be especially interesting:
HUTTON, Noah
2014 “Art and the default mode network,” in The beautiful brain, at the juncture of art and neuroscience (http://thebeautifulbrain.com/2014/02/art-and-the-default-mode-network/; access: April 12, 2014).
I've been looking at your list of contemporary artists. Here is a list to facilitate access to interested followers of this question. I have added a few others that people have been suggesting on this and other threads at ResearchGate. There is some extraordinary art in these web pages.
ANKER, Suzanne
n. d. Suzanne Anker (http://www.suzanneanker.com/, access: April 12, 2014).
COOK, Lia
2014 Lia Cook, New work – neuroscience research (http://www.liacook.com/works/new-work-neuroscience-research/, access: April 12, 2014).
CARNIE, Andrew
n. d. Science and art: art and science, a blog about the work of British artist Andrew Carnie (http://scienceandart--andrew-carnie.blogspot.mx/, access: April 13, 2014).
GREY, Michael Joaquin
n. d. Citroid (http://www.citroid.com/, access: April 13, 2014).
JUPE, John
n. d. "Artworks," in Perceptual Awareness Center (http://www.pacentre.org/index.php, access: April 13, 2014).
MOURA, Leonel
n. d. A new kind of art (http://www.leonelmoura.com/, access: April 13, 2014).
PONDICK, Rona
n. d. Ronda Pondick (http://www.ronapondick.com/home.html, access: April 13, 2014).
TURRELL, James
2014 James Turrell (http://jamesturrell.com/, updated: 2014, access: April 13, 2014).
Benjamin: I couldn't see the connection between the work of Michael Rees and neuroscience or other related fields. Perhaps you can help me out by explaining why you included his name on your list. Maybe I missed something.
David
I have met Nick Wade. He attended and spoke at a satellite event to ECVP in Galsgow that I set up with Jan Koenderink back in 2002 I think. Thanks for the link.
Benjamin
I have read the book over the last week (well most of it). I really like the attempt but there are serious errors in the assessment of impressionism and post impressionism. These arise because vision scientists non't study vision as VISION. There is no 'picture' on the retina so there is no re-presentation of the picture going on in visual process. Vision is essentially 'presentation'. Its diagnostic in nature - one way. If you break vision down and trace it back through to the retina you will not end up with a photograph. Lines, edges are concepts that arise at the end of the process (they are conceptual - we derive them from the various cues) they are not there to detect at the retina etc. If you look at a Cezanne the lines are on top of the painting! If you actually study phenomenal field you will quickly understand that that there is no data structure 'blur' in vision, no motion blur, no depth-of field, no picture frames and no frames per second. There is no binocular fusion going on as there are no 'pictures' available for us to fuse! The author daels with art that is mainly 'illustrative' in nature. Cezanne and V Gogh, Degas, Turner, Bonnard and even F. Bacon are working to some extent at a pre-conceptual level and are dealing with issues pertaining to perceptual structure. Check out the Vision-Space videos if you are interested. This takes us beyond the beholder's share (the viewer of the painting) to the perceivers share (the artist's understanding and awareness of our relationship with the real). This is where modern painting takes us and its simply not registering in vision science because they haven't got there yet! There are very significant issues here that vision science really must get to grips with if its going to get serious about understanding vision. They must get 'experiential'. Examples of vision scientists that operates at this level are Jan Koenderink and his wife Andrea. As Jan points out...There is no 'information' in the light array……information is passed between individuals sharing a common code.
My copy of Kandel's book is still in the mail from Amazon, so I can't comment on it at the moment. It's nice to have Benjamin's and John's thoughts before looking at it. Thanks to both of you for commenting on this thread. I am getting much useful information here.
With respect to blur, we ensured that our post production tool had a function to create radial blur as well as radial disorder. The blur looks absolutely rubbish! It's so obviously not a player within phenomenal field. The same is true of 'fusion' technologies. I we close one eye and then open it we don't pop out from 2D picture space to cinematic 3D. Its just amazing how it all lasted so long?
I was wondering David about a revision in title of this discussion. A change of emphasis!!
What contemporary visual scientists are (are interested in) applying principles from our intuitively understood perceptual structure from fields like visual art, in their understanding of visual perception?
Vision-Space now has a set of 'principles' and 'processes' that are coded and can be developed upon. Input from the vision science is absolutely essential if that is going to go anywhere.
That sounds good, John, although I hesitate to distort the history of the discussion, since people were responding to the initial question. I agree with you, though, that artists' input has been underestimated in academic discussion on vision in general.
Go for it! I suggest posting a link on this thread once you have it set up, so we don't miss the new one. There is also a feature for "sharing" questions that you can use to invite people you think can contribute to the discussion.
DCW-C
as usual, slightly troubled by the 'science-first' positioning of this question.Firstly, scientific research isn't monolithic, second, scientific researh is informed by (a) theory, third, many artists cannot distinguish between fringe science and orthodox science, forth, some fringe science becomes orthodox science. So I don't have an axe to grinds, I just think the question has a lot of unclear territory in it.
Another angle on this quesion might be about artists who are crtitically interrogting neuroscience, etc. Can;t think of any right now but I'm sure there are some...:)
FYI all - conference on neuroaesthetics -
SEEING/ KNOWING Invitation to the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics
September 6 & 7, 2014
Stanley Hall, UC Berkeley
http://www.minervaberkeley.org/conferences/seeing-knowing-vision-knowledge-cognition-and-aesthetics/
Simon: you are arguing with yourself!
Thanks for the link! I passed it on to my brave "Summer Research" art students who have scholarships to look into neuroaesthetics. One is writing an essay with a definition and comments on the uses and abuses in this new field; another is applying research on face recognition to the masks of ancestral deities made from agave leaves by a contemporary Otomí artist whose recent work is the focus of one of my current projects (attached is a flyer for the exhibit and lectures going on these days in Guanajuato); here we are more involved with cognitive psychology than neuroscience, which is one reason the course I am struggling to put together will not be called "Neuroaesthetics," rather something like "Art in the embodied mind," as I pointed out (on this thread?). I hope to have something to post on ResearchGate within a month or so (although both reports will be in Castilian, better known as "Spanish").
Artists are not the only professionals that have trouble with critical thinking. I have worked out a simple method for training students in this area, in which they construct a tool box on note cards and apply it systematically to any text that pretends to be scientific. The discussions often get lively and the students teach each other and themselves.
I have had a few art students who are stuck in a rut and declare that "Art has nothing to do with science." They have a distorted, "straw man" image of science in their heads, drawn largely from media caricatures and infomercials, and have a rough time reaching that exquisite sensation of intellectual liberation that comes with realizing that all knowledge is tentative and that nearly everything that people think they "know" is either outright wrong or at least defective and improbable.
There are some links to pages of artists who are critically interrogating neuroscience (including our esteemed colleague John Jupe) buried somewhere up on this thread, which at 26 (now 27) answers is beginning to get unwieldy but is still manageable.
¡Gracias!
This article, just out, provides some neuroscientific context for your ideas:
Kiehn, Ole; Forssberg, Hans (2014). “Scientific background, the brain’s navigational place and grid cell system," in Nobelprize.org, the official web site of the Nobel Prize (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2014/advanced-medicineprize2014.pdf, updated: October 6, 2014; access:October 6, 2014).
I will take a look now. As it happens this 2nd presentation on self ref attempts to look at the memory aspect. I think there is a big difference in the extent of phenomenal field and visual field? Please let me know if it makes any sense!
Vision-Space: Self-reference and contribution from memory http://youtu.be/hDDoRGHaOwE
I'm looking forward to the day when I can experience Vision-Space in a movie theater or a converted planetarium, John!
This is great, John. I looked long and hard at the painting before watching the video. I caught most of what you are visually saying in the painting without the explanation; the overlaying of several fixations and saccades, as they come together in the mind, immediately came through. I didn't catch the representation of your own body (looking down at your feet), but after seeing the video it became clear and I was able to understand and enjoy the painting more fully. I suspect the reason for my not having "seen" your feet has to do with the novelty of Vision-Space and with a lifetime of looking at traditional images based on the concept of a limited "window" into a static visual field.
I wonder if making color saturation gradually decrease, as visual acuity is doing, would add to the effect of these images, reinforcing the illusion and making them a bit more like our perceptual experience? There is probably a bit of this going on already, but the acuity gradations seem more evident.
I managed to put together a program and get it approved, to teach a course next semester called Art in the Embodied Mind, to be offered simultaneously to advanced undergraduate, master's and doctoral students in art. Your videos on YouTube will be invaluable tools to help these students understand the nature of visual experience and to think about possible applications of this knowledge in the production of works of art.
Thank you for another excellent contribution to this thread!
Interestingly in VS code colour saturation falls off radially as contract increases. I think its about 35% fall off to the extremities. All of these factors should be linked to the 'sunflower' pattern that's self-similar etc.
There is another factor that assists with the differentiation and that's brightness. In peripheral vision I think its around 10% lower than in central vision. The VS software can do this with ease. In paintings I used to 'wash' peripheral areas of the finished painting with a thin muddy brown turps (using the biggest brush I could find). It worked OK but I am reluctant to do that with these latest paintings. I need to try to sell the damn things at some point!
I agree that the self-reference of the body doesn't 'shout out' its presence. Notice that I had to swap the dark blue for white around the shoulder area of its would have been all but invisible! There are many issues to this:
1. We are not used to taking much notice of what's going on at the extremities of vision and certainly not picture space.
2. For this to work I think a hand stretched out in front (leading into the space) would generate greater impact.
3. I can't account for the disorder values very well with just brushes! I think this will work better in VS code?
4. I don't think that in experiential vision that the past fixations appearing within phenomenal field are just 'tonal'. There is colour there but I have chosen to take it out.
Glad that it will all be of use to you. Just let me know if I can help out.
Best - J
Thanks John. Your reply helped me understand more fully how your painterly version of Vision-Space is constructed. As for the class, if you don't mind I would like to ask my students to join ResearchGate and follow your posts, so please be patient with them if they show up on these boards next year with questions and comments.
Excellent David. I hope to be funded with Cardiff Uni by then. We would have an RA & phd working on VS. Frank Langbein would be the main contact at CU. Computer science and informatics. Let me know what you would like and I will see what I can organise. The code will be open source and the post production tool is in C++. This is a faily robust tool. Students can work in VS and create media.
This is the latest from PAC!
Vision-Space: What’s in an artificial stimulus? http://youtu.be/9ryFnuFCGys
Vision-Space suggests that we need to think very carefully about what we ‘mean’ by our stimuli. To what degree does the structure of the stimuli we feed into the visual system reflect prior beliefs we hold about vision? To what extent does the structure of our stimuli affect experimental ‘results’ and reinforce prejudice? Does the current structure of stimuli actually negate any pretence of experimental objectivity with respect to the system under investigation? Have we constructed a hall of mirrors? The answer to the question in the title is, our limited understanding.
Good work, John. It looks like a Vision-Space Manifesto! I enjoyed being able to get a closer look at your latest painting as well.
Hohoho.
I can see the brightness/saturation fall-off more clearly now in the painting. Or did you put more violet on the peripheral spots of paint after making the video?
It's all an illusion David! I would like to be brave enough to really get my serious brushes on on this but old age is creeping on! The attached is a very early painting where you can see evidence of me trying to get to grips with this. It does work when you look at the rap painting and these considerations are all built into the VS software. But I can't get everything in every painting. At this point I didn't have the 3D disorder field element. I was just stating to play with some off the offsets that occur between central and peripheral vision.
Hmm, I think 98-99. I was doing a long term architectural project at an old brewery and had a studio in part payment for services. The painting in now in my kitchen. I like it for its innocence! Just playing with the two data-sets I could independently generate in monocular vision. Just to see what the brain made of it when it was presented. Loads of errors it and its this I like! At the end of this time I was painting with more 'correct' arrangements of the two data-sets. Fixation formed in the cork of the bottle. Everything outside the radius of macular vision x,y & z dimensions is referenced as per the peripheral vision data-set. i.e. peripheral vision is not peripheral! You can be 'outside' the radius of macular vision within its 2D compass.
John, it is interesting to see the evolutionary process that led to Vision-Space in its present form.
When you say "You can be 'outside' the radius of macular vision within its 2D compass," are you referring to the act of paying close attention to something in peripheral vision without directing your gaze toward it, so that you are selectively conscious of that "something" and relatively ignoring what is coming through your foveal/macular feed?
No not really that was a rubbish description I gave. Sorry. I will try to do better.
What I think is going on is that there are 2 data sets. Macular vision is one where 'what' is considered and 'form' modulated. Then the implicit field providing the 'where' with 'proximity' cues etc. Having 2 data-sets of the scene means that the brain can play with them. For example the modulation process can be 'turned off'. This can occurs when we 'attend' closely to a sound for example, or day dream.
We are aware that we loose fixation at these times but actually the whole 'attention' thing with the modulation of data-sets within macular vision is suspended within phenomenal field. When this happens we don't get hole where macular vision activity was taking place. The field data-set runs right across phenomenal field. So, macular modulations occur 'within' the field. Think 'controlled hallucination' as opposed to 'projection.' These modulations occur 'in space' around fixation. Within a 3D radius of fixation. The brain is able to extract JUST the data relevant to the object or area being fixated on. If you think about it the depth-map of Vision-Space enables us to take just the pixels relating to the object and stream them independently from the rest of the image making up the spatial context. If there was a hole in the object the area through the hole would be rendered as per the implicit field. The point being that if you look at the cork and then bottle in the previous painting you can see that the edge of macular vision 1/2 way down the bottle there is a junction where the 2 data-sets join. That is an indication of the 2D extent of the fixation volume around the cork. Go back to the cork and you can see that everything else around the cork is referenced as the implicit field. No other object protrudes into the 3D radial circumference around the fixation. These 'junctions' are critical to us 'breaking out' the fixated object or area. They allow so to generate some spatial pop out. Not sure you can appreciate that well from the photo but its very clear when standing in front of the painting. The cork of the bottle does not sit on the picture plane. It projects into space free of the influence of the picture frame.
I attach another still life where the fixation is on the apple of the blue vase. It's deeper into the rendition of space. I deliberately put other object in the foreground that penetrate the 3D volume around the fixation. Again the 'artefacts' or misalignments at the junction of the data-sets helps with the illusion of space.
When we attend to the designated fixation spots in the paintings, the scene is 'put together' (by us!) the artefacts disappear and the pop out occurs. We create the saliency of vision as much as we detect it etc.
So that is a long rambling answer this time. Not sure if it's any clearer! Obviously in vision we don't form a depth map to extract the pixels from a 2D picture like projection. The 3D data we need to form the implicit field has to be in the light array? We could not generate that internally as if by magic. Signal in noise?
These still lives don't reference the 3D field structure properly. I had not got to that yet! However, it was will these paintings that I staged an exhibition at ECVP in Glasgow (2002) as a satellite event. I was talking a lot to Jan Koenderink at the time and he had worked on the data-structure 'disorder' as opposed to 'blur' and set this out forming a 2D radius from a fixation in a picture. I then understood that this is what I was after for the implicit field structure but set out on a 3D radius from fixation not 2D.
Try this with a finger stretched out in front of you. Draw a finger from the other hand away from the static finger while holding fixation on the static finger. In all directions from the static finger the disorder increases with distance. Nothing to do with depth of field that establishes a 2D focal plane based on blur.
Thanks, John. The paintings are fascinating and your detailed explanation of the creative process helps understand what you were trying to express. Your experience fits exactly into the area of inquiry that inspired this thread in the first place.
Most visual artists use the introspective study of their personal phenomenal experience in their work, though usually in an intuitive way, and are unable to verbally explain the creative process. Your intense interest in vision science allows you to understand vision in a deeper and more analytical manner, separating and manipulating the variables, attaining more control over the creative act. It's meta-art, making visual representations of the experience of vision.
This is like grammar in linguistics. Adults have a rough time trying to learn new languages naturally, like children do, so the metalanguage of grammar lets them rationally analyze verbal discourse, attaining enough mastery of the phonology, morphology and syntax to understand and communicate effectively.
This is the sort of process I hope to encourage in my students, helping them to work out a science-based grammar of visual communication to facilitate their creative work.
I try to stay away from the word 'representation'. There isn't any re-presentation in vision it's 'presentation'. The artist manifests the presentations of vision. Does that work for you? "If a think then everything is lost" Cezanne.
The main point is that the still life setups are always SET UP! They are arranged (not casual or aesthetic) to enable i) a clear expression of something that was partially caught in a previous encounter. ii) a more 'in-depth' investigation into something that I was unsure about or needed to be confronted. It's the intention that moves the poignancy of the encounter on. Only by engaging in the encounter, accurately depicting this free from prejudice (not easy - you have to know about the fundamentals of optics and perspective etc to be sure that this is not in play) and clear about the intention (as this changes the compositions of vision) and then reviewing the new stimulus (does it work in the way intended), can anything accrue. Then every time you start another painting all this has to be gone through again to be sure that a mistake in interpretation has not been made. Nothing can be assumed. Chasing the shadows of the hallucination is exhausting! As for an interest in vision science I am interested in others that study the phenomenon for what it is and who understand that that's the game! There are some artists that do this and some scientists. Just why they don't get together to sort the issues I don't know?
I always think that if aliens came to earth and had to explain Vision-Space to us and the processing system in the retina it would be very embarrassing! If we really aren't measuring at remote scales 'meaningfully' with our instrumentation because we hadn't taken the time to study what's actually involved in an act of observation - something we do all the time and have done down through the ages, then the little green men and women would no doubt be doubled up, pissing themselves with laughter!
So we really had better get on with it?
Interesting article in: Nature Neuroscience published online 26 October 2014; doi:10.1038/nn.3852
I think this is relevant to the discussion here? We need to understand what's involved in an act of observation. It matters not what we think about vision. It matters what presents as vision.
Rods in daylight act as relay cells for cone driven horizontal cell mediated surround inhibition Tamas Szikra et al
Abstract: Vertebrate vision relies on two types of photoreceptors, rods and cones, which signal increments in light intensity with graded hyperpolarizations. Rods operate in the lower range of light intensities while cones operate at brighter intensities. The receptive fields of both photoreceptors exhibit antagonistic center-surround organization. Here we show that at bright light levels, mouse rods act as relay cells for cone-driven horizontal cell–mediated surround inhibition. In response to large, bright stimuli that activate their surrounds, rods depolarize. Rod depolarization increases with stimulus size, and its action spectrum matches that of cones. Rod responses at high light levels are abolished in mice with nonfunctional cones and when horizontal cells are reversibly inactivated. Rod depolarization is conveyed to the inner retina via postsynaptic circuit elements, namely the rod bipolar cells. Our results show that the retinal circuitry repurposes rods, when they are not directly sensing light, to relay cone-driven surround inhibition.
As ever I try to hammer Vision-Space as a manifestation of experiential visual awareness onto retinal research!
If the rods are saturated then perhaps this is a function? Why evolve coultless millions of the things, cover the retina with them for use only at scoptic light levels when we are all asleep! They are obviously ‘in use’ at photopic levels. Evidence: 1. They mediate cone firing 2. They mediate ipRGC firing 3. Rods are thought to provide spatial awareness 4. We have determined a 3D disroder field and with it can model visual awareness.
So, saturation is a condition that needs to be present. It’s not null. A process is required to extract the signal? What contribution is this likely to be making to vision? Ans? 3D disorder field provisioning spatial awareness and proximity cues. We can articulate that and explore the attributes as Vision-Space. Potentially veridical.
What’s required to extract any meaning from the situation at the retina? Supposition: The saturation is the detection of background noise that in itself is useless. This has to be processed in conjunction with other inputs or influences. These providing a kind of ‘key’ to unlock the trace of a signal from the noise. That signal is still not going to ‘mean’ anything to us without further input from ‘us’. We have to give it a locus to form around. Fixation or ourselves (head). Its an active processing process! We are involved in its. We are integral to it. This process would involve a good deal of feedback. Signal without environmentally conditioned noise will not activate the specialised processing system in a typical fashion. The system may be active but establish that there is no relevant content variation to monitor. All cells would record much the same thing and the response would be constant – meaningless in spatial terms. So: Conditioned white light without environmental conditioning would produce something like the above?
The function of rods in daylight conditions (photopic) is not to respond to changes in light intensity, its job is to record noise from which spatial information can be propagated. This process requires ‘key’s’ in the form of input from other cell types. Noise is seen in relation to….? Data from across the retina much then be compiled by us to manifest the meaning. This ‘meaning’ is holistic and implicit in nature not explicit and local. At low luminance levels (scoptic) there is a threshold where not enough noise is present to enable this process to continue to be productive and so the rods change their function and become sensitive to changes in intensity.
Thanks for that, John. I'll download the article right away and put into into the growing corpus of texts which will serve as the raw material for building a "science-based grammar of visual communication" for (and with) art students next year.
I would like to share a couple of links I just found. João Martinho Moura and his collaborators have been doing some very interesting work on the border between neuroscience, computers, and art. The first link has pages with descriptions and videos of several projects:
Martinho Moura, João, João Martinho Moura (http://jmartinho.net/, access: December 25, 2014).
The second link is to a proceedings volume with a paper on one project, Câmara Neuronal:
Martinho Moura, João; Luxúria Canibal, Adolfo; Guimarães, Miguel Pedro; Branco, Pedro, “Câmara Neuronal, a neuro/visual/audio performance,” in xCoAx 2013, Proceedings of the First Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics and X, Mario Verdicchio & Miguel Carvalhais, editors, Bergamo, xCoAx, 2013, pp. 309-311 (http://2013.xcoax.org/xcoax2013.pdf, access: December 25, 2014).
Wishing you all peace and harmony for the Winter Solstice and the New Year,
David Wright
The pleasure has been mine, John. Your input has been invaluable for preparing my graduate course "Art in the Embodied Mind", which will be launched next month, if enough students sign up. My intuitive suspicion that delving into the intersection between cognitive/visual science and aesthetics can greatly expand our vision of art -and of the human experience in general- is being confirmed. Have a great holiday season!
Here are a couple of links to João Martinho Moura's recent work: B/Side (http://player.vimeo.com/video/51272346) and Câmara Neuronal (http://player.vimeo.com/video/62386564).
I can imagine that, John, perhaps with an eye tracking device thrown into the technological mix!
For sure! It's not that difficult to do actually. We have already linked up a kinect depth-map camera to the system as the position of the viewer with respect to the display is also significant. This is why we thought that gaming companies would take an interest. Gaming freed from the console and fully interactive.
I send my best wishes for a happy and fruitful new year to all who have contributed to this thread.
David
It's very relevant indeed, John. Thanks for sharing your latest video with us. The painting works quite nicely, and the explanation is clear. I especially like the bit about the suppression of parts of the fingers. This is cutting-edge stuff! I still would like to see the gradation in acuity reinforced a bit more by a corresponding gradation of saturation, where the periphery would tend more towards low-saturation or hueless grey tones. I think that would strengthen the contrast between central and peripheral vision phenomena, making it more explicit. I can see that there is some of that going on, but it's not always tied to the acuity gradients. I won't insist, though. You're the artist!
Yesterday I had my first session in the new "Art in the Embodied Mind" course in our graduate programs in art. There are just a few students, but it will be a good preliminary experience. I shall recommend your texts, and especially your videos, when we get to the unit on visual perception, after looking at consciousness theory and before moving on to the field of neuroaesthetics and its possible applications in art education and particularly in production. Your explanations are the result of years of study, thought, and work, and the fruits of your labor can be assimilated in just a few minutes. This will be quite valuable to my group.
Excellent!
You are right about the saturation thing and as we have discussed the contrast should increase radially. All of this is set out in the Postproduction Tool software. There is also a drop in brightness in what's called peripheral vision.
The issue with paintings is that as central vision is moved all over the surface it will 'read' the lower saturation and higher contrast and be irritated by it. The explicit doesn't look into the 'implicit' as we encounter the environment. Addressing these issues works in moving image media as people follow the action and the fixations so everything look right.
It's one of those no - win situations for an artist. In the end the idea is that people with a solid bank account may want to buy one of the damn things and they will be looking through Explicit central vision at it. I can just hear them say….it's a bit 'dull' at the edges. I don't see 'dull'!
We have had people in experimental situations that when asked if a photograph looks closer to vision or a VS image, that the photograph must do as they have 20/20 vision!!!!
The price of a good education!
Hi David, Looks like I am hogging the show and probably putting others off so after this I will stop for a while.
This is an attempt at an overview for Vision-Space theory. I realise that it will be more of a lost leader than a solution! Vision-Space: Overview http://youtu.be/UpMFfbEKEx0
No, please keep them coming, John. Your contributions are always welcome. They address the initial question head-on. We'll be looking at some of your videos in class in a couple of weeks. Keep expanding our horizons!
This is fascinating, John. I need to dig deeper into the anatomical and celular aspects of visual perception to follow everything you're saying; I'm working on that now. In general the message is clear. I like how you illustrate the lecture with your images; this gives a nice idea of what is going on in your head and how you are using vision research in your artistic work. I will share this with my graduate students right away; we're looking at visual perception this week.
Yes, I always liked his reed pen drawings. As an art student I cut one for myself and worked with it. After dipping the pen in ink, the lines tended to lighten after several strokes, so the trick was to apply the darker strokes where more contrast was desired and the lighter strokes in other areas. The comparison of Van Gogh's drawings with your work in Vision-Space adds a new level of appreciation for his work.
That sounds rough, John. The beauty of transdisciplinary research is that you start with a problem, not with a limited disciplinary perspective, then you expand your consciousness in any direction that is necessary to solve the problem. The momentary discomfort in your head is just the feeling of new neural connections forming. Some people avoid this sensation, others actively seek it. May your path be luminous.
It was partially a joke David! It's analogous how chaos breaks out from a few simple parameters? It's also what I am studying and also I think central to the formation of the field structure behind perceptual structure. So I have a theory about vision, attempt to study it and come across it in my learning process! (While getting nowhere fast in terms of understanding it conceptually!) Ooo the irony!
Damn! Now I'm going to have to buy the book to find out how it ends!
I suspect it was the excitable neuron that spiked her under the dendritic tree, then hid the spike near the threshold of the voltage gate; he certainly had the potential to do it. Then again, the transient current was suspiciously active...
But seriously, it looks like something I should look at some day, so it's going into the corpus.
Thanks!
Keep on sparkin', John!
(Image source: http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/medical-nanobots-will-connect-brain-cloud-computing-ray-kurzweil/)
I should of course add that Frank Langbein (Cardiff Uni) and I have been preparing a research bid that should (if we get it) ensure that the annoying tap is kept dripping for a while! Frank has had to get that together along side all the other stuff he has to do on quantum computing and staff responsibilities, lecturing etc. It's a long process for sure.
John:
The new presentation is excellent as usual. You have bravely taken on the tough part of the picture, which perhaps we could call "the neural correlates of phenomenal visual perception." This is probably more doable than "the neural correlates of consciousness," which people can't seem to agree about at all, since the concept of perception, for all of its illusory nature, seems to be more "focused" than the concept of consciousness.
I enjoyed seeing the new paintings. The Aloe is quite fine. I hadn't seen many of the video stills either. It looks like you've built up a nice body of work. I imagine a book will be in the works before long, using these images to illustrate your grand theory of visual perception?
Now comes the criticism, or nitpicking, actually. The pieces of cardboard visible under your giant triptych, with the phenomenal field centered on the blue vase, have always distracted me. The same image could be photoshopped so the surrounding areas of the triptych were blacked out (or whited out, or grayed out). The painting would then be framed by polygons of hueless color, enabling the viewer to concentrate fully on the work of art itself.
The rest looks very polished.
Ahhh, that cardboard is highly significant…it's rubbish!! Actually we will let the conceptual artists find a significance for it!!
The studio was too small to set the painting out flat against a wall or was it that I couldn't get far enough back, can't remember now. I could accomplish this in my new self built studio and the painting is actually in there (not in store). I would need to get my film based format camera setup with some lights (which I also have somewhere) and then do a proper photo session with all the new work. That would actually cost with the processing and contact sheets and I have zero funds! Also run out of paint and canvas now!
As for a book I did have a publisher lined up but am not sure there is a audience for all my waffle and I'm not into vanity publication. I don't think people want to hear from artists - they expect them to be 'written about' I think? Also I am actually interested in developing the technology and would see being forced to write a book that no one was interested in as the final humiliation after all the effort. These presentations are supposed to be the compromise!
What I really need is a research effort to knock over some of the hurdles. We can then expect someone else to write the book!
Appreciate your input David. As always. Hope things are going OK for you.
You're right John; you've already published your research on line. It's the bibliophile in me that wants to see Jupe's work on the printed page. As it is, the virtual presentations are much more accessible to my students than a book would be.
Good show, I can't write for a toffee anyway! I also think the presentations are closer to the creative act, so a bit messy, unpolished, contradictory, hit and miss etc but immediate. i.e. this is how the light gets in. Room for others to get in there and hack away. I think I will try to put something together on 'attention' as I don't really relate very strongly to what's out there on this at present. I think this article is interesting his publications from his uni site can be traced to free articles for download.
This is what has been keeping me silent for while. So I hope you enjoyed the respite?! I think this has relevance to your latest question on Primates but I don't want to keep bombing you fine discussions with Vision-Space.
Vision-Space: The protagonists
Working towards a relationship model of the dynamical systems governing human awareness
http://youtu.be/516mjrU3aC0
This is great as usual, John. I'm glad you're integrating hemispheric lateralization into your theoretical body. I have noticed over the last fifteen or twenty years that many researchers have been reluctant to address this fundamental reality, after the pseudoscience and new age people went wild with Roger Sperry's findings from nearly half a century ago and nearly ran them into the ground. I still think Betty Edwards' method for teaching, "Drawing on the right side of the brain," works, and she should be seen as a pioneer in the application of neuroscience in art education, giving us an early glimpse of the possibilities that are only beginning to be explored.
Hey, I just saw Pierre Brassau in your video! Hoo hoo!
Yeah, I agree with the evaluation of the history of R&L hemisphere debate etc. To be honest, with the exception of Iain McGilchrist's work (the master and his emissary) I steer clear of it. The issue is usually people trying to be scientific about something that's prior-to science. I think a clear case needs to be made and a system developed to encourage science to adapt its 3rd party ontology and attempt to align the approach with the relevant encounters offered up by those operating in the experiential ontology. That will only happen if a serious case can be made. I am doing my best. Splashing the supertanker! I bet it's fretting in its booties!
One of your collaborator John.
Seeing Without Objects: Visual Indeterminacy and Art
by Robert Pepperell (artist and writer)
School of Art & Performance
University of Plymouth
Exeter EX2 6AS, UK
and
School of Art, Media and Design
University of Wales, Newport
Newport NP18 3YH, UK
http://cvcl.mit.edu/SUNSeminar/pepperell_leonardo06.pdf
Abstract
This article discusses the perceptual phenomenon of visual indeterminacy in an
art historical and scientific context and considers its role in certain heightened
states of awareness. Further philosophical implications of the phenomenon are
discussed, specifically the suggestion that visual indeterminacy may point to an
inherent contradiction in the relationship between mind and world. This
discussion is then related to a body of artwork produced by the author over some
20 years. The article concludes visual indeterminacy is a fruitful subject for
further interdisciplinary research as it draws on ideas from the arts, sciences and
humanities.
The eighth section of the bibliography I recently translated into English and uploaded to ResearchGate includes some recent sources on the embodied mind, neuroaesthetics, and art production: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280949470_Art_in_the_embodied_mind_a_bibliography_%28updated_August_14_2015%29
Data Art in the embodied mind: a bibliography (updated August 14, 2015)
Is neuroscience relevant to aesthetics?
Talk by Gregory Currie, 2011
https://www.academia.edu/1686170/Is_neuroscience_relevant_to_aesthetics
Thanks, Louis. It's easy to forget that some things that seem obvious to us didn't always seem that way, and at present don't seem that way to many others.
This is the latest from the studio. I think its significant on a number of levels but need some feedback. Its a long presentation and you guys might want to start at the 8-9th minute to avoid the context that you already know about. It obviously builds on a number of themes being discussed across RG.
Vision-Space: The painter, reality and the real https://youtu.be/gzzBYOs6mc8
I will be doing a follow up thing that looks at some of the processes revealed as the painting materialised and which raise related issues.
To be honest I just don't know where this stuff sits!
Thanks for this new presentation of your thoughts on reality, the mind, and pictorial art, John. It seems to me to make sense. I don't recall having heard, seen, or read anything that gets at the heart of the matter like this presentation. You are demonstrating that visual artists have something important to add to the transdisciplinary discussion about consciousness, phenomenology, perception, and aesthetics. I shall pass it on to my art students!
Well thanks David. If you made it through to then end you did well! Without and funds to verify I am just sounding off really. I feel like I am achieving something and know where to drive it but can only ever hope to slash the tanker which will just keep steaming dead ahead regardless! If student's have any questions always happy to attempt a contribution.
Thanks, John, I'll pass your generous offer along too. If they do write, please be patient with their English!
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