Paul Bach y Rita once said "We see with our brain, not with our eyes...", this insight led him to design extraordinary devices that clearly demonstrate that principle. He was one of my heroes and for years I thought I was going to meet him one day.
My personal interest in vision stimulation, distortion and alternative ways of "seeing" was probably a result of a lucky accident I suffered as a kid, when a playmate threw a piece of glass that neatly sliced my left eye and greatly diminished my vision. I say it was a lucky accident because my professional career as a cinematographer was really enhanced due to such accident, for reasons beyond the nature of this post. It was no coincidence though, that I became interested in everything visual, and even more in the possibility of modifying that vision.
Chair used by Paul Bach y Rita to experiment with tactile vision
Artist rendering of the chair contraption
Department of Orthopedics & Rehabilitation
Copyright © 2008 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
Very early on I was fascinated by the work of Bela Julesz, a Hungarian neuroscientist and experimental psychologist who developed the first Random Dot Stereograms (you might know of them if you have ever seen the Magic Eye series of books) and many studies in the field of vision, perception, pattern recognition etc. But most important for me was the reading of his book Foundations of Cyclopean Perception (I considered myself some sort of Cyclop since I could only see "properly" with one eye:-)
Autostereogram. Read the instructions HERE to know how to view it
This book(which totally freaked me out, even to this day) led me to experiment with some of the concepts suggested in it and to understand from a psychophysical point of view some of the effects that I had become very familiar with due to my work in special visual effects. That is why, when I first heard about Paul Bach y Rita work from one of my Mexican friends (Bach y Rita studied at the UNAM in Mexico City) I was totally taken by his ideas and by their implementation, this last part being the most important I think.
Tongue device for tactile visual substitution
All photos of Paul Bach-y-Rita and his work, courtesy of Jeff Miller/University of Wisconsin-Madison
So here I would like to share this video which shows a little about the result of this genius work and hopefully expand our concept of Visualization as we progress through our projects.
BrainPort is a product by Wicab, a company founded by Paul Bach-y-Rita
That's AMAZING. We truly do see with our brains and not our eyes. Or at least produce mental images with our brains and not eyes. It leads me to wonder if you could produce an image of a smell without use of the eyes or nose. Can you feel a smell or hear one if you can SEE an image with your tounge. I guess we tend to think of our sensory experience as a cohesive whole but it is intriguing to realize that each sense developed to satisfy varying evolutionary pressures. Are senses distinct or cohesive? or both??
ReplyDelete