kasturi
BEFORE SIGHT BECOMES PERCEPTION
Kasturi Shah
This piece visualises the timeseries of US COVID19 cases by painting a metaphor between the temporal accumulation of cases and the manner in which the visual information contained in my painted scenes from the pandemic is revealed. It uses the fundamental components of visual cognition -- edges, brightness, darkness, shape, speed and colour as well as each viewer's associative recall experiences -- to ask a question about the human perceptual system that has a strong parallel to the emergence of public understanding on the coronavirus pandemic: for how long can we occupy that mist-filled moment before seeing becomes perceiving? Immerse yourself in this world by taking an interactive tour with audio (CLICK HERE and select the gear menu to turn audio + ambient noise on) and by exploring the materials on this page!
Experiencing how our perceptual system orients
itself when confronted with a
complicated, multi-faceted visual stimulus
whose meaning changes
as the observer
moves.
How do edges C
R
Y
S
T
A
L
L
I
S
E into a depth object?
How do beams of light reveal a scene? Alter a scene? Erase a scene?
Occupying that moment before seeing becomes perceiving.
That moment when coherence emerges from the mist.