akms

CONSIDER THE SCALLOP (Scallop Gallop)
A.K.M. Skarpelis 

Scallop vision is poetic. Each scallop eye contains two retinas: a proximal retina that captures light, and a distal one that captures darkness. Beyond enticing the human imagination (and petrifying those of us who did not know that scallops had eyes, much less that these can number in the hundreds), having two retinas is useful to the scallop in decidedly non-poetic ways: Discerning shadows makes the second retina an early predator detection system that gives the scallop time to escape before turning into a starfish’s supper. Consider the Scallop (Scallop Gallop), a 3D virtual reality game prototype, is grateful that we humans mostly do not habitually face similar mortal dangers. It takes scallop vision as a starting point to reimagine human ways of seeing the world, and asks you, the viewer: How would you augment human vision? (Ideally, without spider tempests.)