So, definitions vary in bits, not in content but in the order in which the bits of information are revealed. I believe the simplest one I encountered defined photoelasticity as the “change in a material’s optical properties when undergoing mechanical deformation.” (Azo Sensors, 2019). This way, one can access to see the molecule’s overlapping display making use of the naked eye, as long as the object is between two polarizers.

My research also contemplated other texts regarding perception and brain structure analysis in order to understand this phenomenon not only from the physical and material perspective, but also from a neurological scope. An interesting idea encountered was the one of color perception, which can also be examined from neuroaesthetics. Frederick Palmer, recognizes colours as having properties which affect us, both physically as emotionally.  (Palmer, 1971).

R.L Gregory’s book “Concepts and Mechanisms of Perception” has a section dedicated to the philosophy of perception. He develops some ideas with curious conceptual intersections. He states that sensory information is used, once rich associations have been built up, to suggest and test visual hypotheses of prevailing external reality. The eye, he also claims, by making prediction possible, on the other hand, allows the brain to develop and entertain many possibilities only some which are true.

He then continues talking about “The speaking eye”, where he explains how we are able to perceive an object’s texture or physicality without needing to have a physical encounter. He also mentions how the eye functions like a camara and how these other brain functions (such as imagining the feel of the object in one’s hands) are nearly impossible – yet – to be replicated by designing machinery that could emulate it.  (Gregory, 1974)

The ability to perceive objects occurred later in the evolution of brains. Perceptions are guesses, hypotheses, as to what object has produced the stimulation of nerves.  Which makes me question how animals use the photo elastic principles as camouflage. If other “simpler” species act by reflex responses to stimuli, due to the unavailability of brain signaling, can we determine levels of consciousness?

According to an article published by the RSTB, many animals use structural coloration to create bright and conspicuous visual signs. (Feller, 2017) This, however, is mentioned to be a subject which still needs a vast amount of investigation. Encountering visual signs is not enough to understand consciousness in the same way we do, or how visual information is perceived and later processed.

However, going back to human perception, it was also important for my practice to understand not only colour perception, but also moving image and the immediacy of experience. According to Kaufman, rapidly occurring events do not enter awareness, only events with a time course that is within some channel capacity of the person. (Kaufman, 1974) I believe these gaps could be channels for the unconscious to accumulate.

By rotating the structure, perceptually, I will be creating an overlay of different light scenarios. It shouldn’t be such a far stretch to compare then, the model I am building to a rotating animation.  Of course, the number of frames is not fixed since the subject is not observing an optical illusion but the shift of the physical properties of light.

Wadden Neidich explores the relation between photography, cinema and the brain. Some of the key ideas I encountered where, in the first place, how, although obvious, we have to remember that all optical devices are constructed with an ideal human viewer in mind. This means, for the specifics of human physical and sensorial capabilities. This seemingly natural relation reminds us, however, how we can make use of technology to explore our boundaries and play with these limits.

Another vital idea is the one of a networked relation to the world. According to Neidich these help us configure network relations in the brain. “Photography, cinema and new media can intend to change the way time and space are encoded into the networked relations in the world to reconfigure it into a real/virtual interface”. (Neidich, 2003) According to him, if both systems compete, the subject is left disassociated.

This idea reminded me of how some phenomena are studied from the present. Another study I encountered, for example, explored the effects of materiality after stress had been induced in order to study its recovery as another individual phenomenal aspect to the equation (Lykotrafitis, 2006). Duchamp’s pieces reflect on the ideas of threshold, in the same way we can reflect upon a pre, during and post perception.

A final group of ideas Neidich develops are the ones of different imagery generating a variating blood pressure increase in different neuronal activities in the visual cortex. He refers specifically to the Art Object as a specialized form and develops around visual ergonomics to explain the effect of object height – in relation to the subject – in perception. According to him, “art objects are part of a syncytium of relations they include political, social, economic, historical, and psychological factors that define the greater cultural context in which they function”. (Neidich,2003)

The piece works as a system of interactions and discourses. There is a dichotomic relation of the object as an instantiation of these relations as well as an instrument that feeds back on the system to change it.  Neidich believes aesthetic objects can help alleviate or reduce this friction by providing a surface for smooth and efficient interaction. Each artist, at the same time, is made out of its own systemic build up. (Neidich, 2003)

This being said, we can say that human perception is biased. In my work, landscapes become spikes in order to be reinterpreted, disassembled and then reassembled. The final piece intends to show how different realities coexist, allowing the audience a space to speculate can help achieve this.

Other media such as lenticular or holographic photographs and prints can accomplish an important level of transfiguration by layering pieces so that humans perceive this specific effect. In this way, I intend to use light as a grid to generate a space to experience the juxtaposition of the visible spectrum generated by molecular stress. We get as much versions of realities as spectators there are, coexisting making use of time and space as layers for the experience to set.

The piece was motivated by subjects such as physicality as well as dual concepts like arts and science, human vs machine, the positive and the negative, the conscious and the unconscious among other dichotomies. This also generates a high number of scopes through which one can analyze this phenomenon and the specific piece in question. By using negative space as a mold to vacuum over, the polarized piece is considered a perceptual cast.

Donald Hoffman specializes in the study of perception from an evolutionary point of view regarding reality. He insists that we are unable to see objective reality the way it is because we are built by evolution to see the things we need to, and not specifically built to comprehend reality as it is. We do not have the correct framework. According to Hoffman, veridical perception goes extinct when running simulations. This is because “organisms seek fitness payoffs instead of an identical representation of the truth”.  (Hoffman, 2022)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty can provide other mechanisms to understand the piece by establishing questions using phenomenology as a tool to question ontologies. He questions visibility and what is intelligible, using the nature of becoming. He believes a mind cannot be captured under its own representations. This dealing with intersubjectivity, epistemology and hauntology becomes an irreducible aspect of the work. Alike Ludwig Wittgenstein, he believes language is everything, or at least the closest tool to understating while at the same time being limited by its existence. Negatives are crucial to understand the whole picture. (Merleau-Ponty, 1968)

By contemplating research as a process, one can put together theories that accommodate the reality spectrum in such a way that noise is reduced. Semir Zeki explores neuroaesthetics – which is a branch of neurobiology –, he questions beauty, more directly, and focuses on its source. His findings show that blood pressure increases in certain brain areas that specifically get triggered when exposing the subject to a pleasurable or ugly stimulus. The question of why the brain filters said stimuli in order to activate one area or the other remains unsolved. Beauty, according to Zeki, finds its origin in understating those brain mechanism choices that trigger aesthetic experiences, love and desire. (Zeki, 1995, 2021)

Some final ideas I wanted to develop are, for example, the performative aspect of the object. The need of interaction and the effect that has on the viewer. Having a mechanical system has to differ from the active participating subject activating the piece. This tension generated between the subject and the piece relates directly to psychanalysis and the ideas of manifest and latent content. Freudian topics, for instance divide the self in a similar way than the physical structure separates its own pieces in order to achieve a complete image. Just like human psyche, an important aspect of it becomes what is hidden, which can be comparable to the pre conscious and the unconscious. (Mc Leod, 2018)

These perceptual shifts come from materiality, generating extra filters that act as layers for the experience to develop and unfold. Having two different versions of the object initially sounded promising, until I encountered the possibility to pinpoint multiple versions within a single object. This, while the apparent isochromacy of plasticity enters the threshold of questioning. This phenomenon, as well, presents the question (not necessarily from a psychoanalytic point of view) of what the effect of shape and colour changing is in the subconscious.

We might not necessarily fully understand or we might not be able to track the effect of the piece either in rational conscious or unconscious levels, however it will be interesting to explore people’s reactions to the piece in order to contrast them with some of the conceptual background provided. Olafur Eliasson once stated that people don’t own the meaning of their artwork, while Bob Dylan, on the other hand, expressed that the best art is meaningless.  

Regardless of which of this -almost– opposing perspectives is correct, I wanted to finish this segment with the reminder that in the same way I humans can perceive the possibilities of transparent materiality, other organisms, such as waxworms eat plastic.