This weeks reading, I felt, was quite similar to last weeks. Last week we read about how various perceptual tools allow us to view two dimensional objects as three dimensional. Luminance and shading play a large part in this process. This week the reading focused mainly on stereopsis and how we perceive depth.
Over the centuries, since art began really, artists have been attempting to represent three dimensional objects or scenes on a two dimensional surface. Regardless of how precise the artwork is our stereopsis enables us to determine that what we are viewing is actually a flat depiction of something with depth. Many artists have also tried to manipulate the human perceptual system into seeing the flat rendering with depth. Livingstone mentions that Leonardo da Vinci wanted paintings to be viewed with only one eye and from a longer distance so that our stereopsis would be effectively circumvented. Such viewing was fashionable only for a short period of time.
But Leonardo da Vinci's notion of tricking the viewer into seeing a three dimensional object reminded me of a modern visual fad very much on the rise. Livingstone briefly mentions the View-Masters that were/are popular for children. By presenting the eyes two identical images of a dinosaur spaced slightly apart we then see a three dimensional dinosaur. This notion has since been upgraded from just a still picture to moving images in the movies. Films in 3-D have become increasingly popular ranging from Imax documentaries to feature films. 3-D movies are produced by projecting two of the same images, slightly overlapping like in the View-Master. However, they images also have different polarization which is where the glasses come in. The lenses of the glasses filter in only one of the polarized images allowing each eye to see only one image. If you take off the glasses the overlapping and subsequent blur of the two images on the screen is painfully obvious. While we still view paintings as two dimensional objects I think Leonardo da Vinci would be fascinated by our modern trend of viewing moving images through a three dimensional lens.
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The reading on stereopsis has profoundly affected me. I am convinced that I have very poor stereopsis. This realization was brought about when I read about Dr.Sue Barry. I began shutting one eye and I do have binocular vision. There is a shift from one eye to the other, but not much! I was fascinated when Sacks measured how much Barry saw the tuning fork floating above the paper. She only perceived it as being 3-4 centimeters above the paper while Sacks and the other guy saw it well into the teens. I did not realize there was a range of depth which people see in. I also find it difficult to see depth in red and green drawings. I cannot see the floating things in these drawings. I can however appreciate 3-D motion pictures. I do sense images moving toward me on screen. I think I need to be tested.
This also reminds me of 3-D Magic Eye pictures! My dad used to be really fascinated by them, so he had a few books of them. If anyone does not know what I am referencing, these pictures are computer-generated patterns usually that have a hidden image in them if you look at the picture long enough in a certain way. I once went through the whole book when I was a kid, trying to see each 3-D image. Some of them I could see, some of them I couldn't. However, these pictures use the wonders of stereopsis to produce a 3-D image in a unique way.
Here is a link to an example of one:
http://www.magiceye.com/gallery/102308s.html
My parent's also have a painting similar to these 3-D magic eye pictures that Kristen references. The "hidden" image in the painting in my parent's home is an eagle. I was quite enthralled by this when I was young as well, and always wondered how the artist knew to do this. I guess that is where the word "magic" comes into play...but in studying these optic tools I, and seemingly everyone else in the class, feel very excited with my new knowledge of stereopsis. I am also quite excited to utilize these tools in creating pieces of art in the future. Finally having the knowledge to be able to be on the creative end of the visual "trick" (as opposed to the viewing end) is considerably fun.
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