Archives of Vision is an interactive installation that explores ways of seeing as a performative act of understanding space and constructing meaning. The installation is in three parts – the first explores the tracking of the gaze as a device for spatial composition; the second re-enacts the path of the observer’s eyes through the motion of a robotic creature; the third archives these recordings into a network of situated compositions, revealing the space as seen by a collection of human eyes and robotic creatures.

 

Installation in Three Acts:

1. Looking at Looking

 

The installation uses eye tracking as an input for materializing the eye movements of the observer within a space. As the observer looks through the viewport, her point of gaze becomes visible – leaving a trail as she unconsciously and consciously scans and environment. The voyeuristic position of the observer, fixated in relation to the “viewport” creates a paradoxical situation of embodiment: on the one hand the observer is fixated in position, on the other hand her field of vision is technically put into motion and intercepted by the visual trails of her gaze.

 

2. Teaching to See

https://vimeo.com/manage/376846658/general

In the second stage of our installation we are investigating the capacity of a robot to see through studying the eye movement of an observer. Rather than utilizing computer vision technology to teach a robot how to perform a task, the project adopts a bottom up approach to tasking unspoken communications as mechanisms for improving accuracy and calibration in eye movement research.

 

3. Archiving Observed Space

 

Ways of Seeing: Previous Explorations

Series of prototypes utilizing eye tracking technology and robotics to explore ways of seeing, animacy, behavior, spatial agency, and affective materiality of sight.  

• Ways of Seeing by Luna

• Ways of Seeing by The Entangled Eye

 

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Hankins, Thomas L. Instruments and the Imagination. Princeton University Pres, 2016.

Hansen, Mark B. N. New Philosophy for New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.

Johnston, John. “Machinic Vision.” Critical Inquiry26, no. 1 (1999): 27—48. https://doi.org/10.1086/448951.

Oregan, J. Kevin, and Alva Noë. “A Sensorimotor Account of Vision and Visual Consciousness.”
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