Mechanics of Visual Perception

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Mechanics of Visual Perception

Firm

Office Feuerman, llc

YEAR

2012

In 2007, William Feuerman suffered from an acute, isolated stroke causing Internuclear Ophthalmoplegia (ino), a disorder that affected the coordination of his eyes. He had not lost his sight but the relationship between the eye and brain brought about a shift in his visual perception. As a designer, he was in a unique position to document his disability and recovery.He created a visual dictionary of his personal experience to help him better understand what he was seeing and allowing others a visual insight into how his eyes and mind were processing and distorting space. Collages captured his visual surface. A literal image of what he was seeing is juxtaposed against what would be considered the actual or typical image of the same space. Accompanied architectural diagrams and mappings further investigate the mechanics, exploring his neurological perceptual distortion with accuracy.By investigating a personal, acute, and (fortunately) temporary distortion in his own visual experience, the work explores how everyone's visual experience is already a kind of distortion of spatial information—just a distortion to which we are deeply accustomed. The research takes this exploration past documentation into speculation about new spatial environments, and new architectures, that support and transform our understanding of the seen and unseen world.A recent exhibition, located at the DAB Lab Research Gallery at the University of Technology, Sydney, part of Sydney Architecture Festival, showcased a sample of work from a larger catalogue of collages, architectural diagrams and mappings, and visual installations, in which Feuerman investigates the mechanics between the body, mind, and environment.DAB Lab curator, Aanya Roennfeldt, writes, “the small exhibition space is designed to disturb…. to place us into the world of distortion William experienced. Reflections, collages, moirés, colour and soundscapes along with detailed descriptions of the mappings make for an enticing exploration into human visual perception of space.”