Unconscious peripheral perception transforms retinal images into spatial and bodily experiences. Peripheral vision integrates us with space, while focused vision pushes us out of the space and makes us mere observers.
Juhani Pallasmaa (2005) Towards an Architecture of Humility
[T]here are -- as I shall show -- images of matter, images that stem directly from matter. The eye assigns them names, but only the hand truly knows them. A dynamic joy touches, moulds, and refines them. When forms, mere perishable forms and vain images -- perpetual change of surfaces -- are put aside, these images of matter are dreamt substantially and intimately. They have weight; they constitute a heart.
Gaston Bachelard (1983) Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter (originally published 1942 as L'Eau et les reves: essai sur l'imagination de la matiere) (and arrived in my letterbox today)
All images from Experiments in Peripheral Vision, J Bowring
2 comments:
ah so beautiful images, i so love them -
what kind of project is "Experiments in Peripheral Vision"?
and i was reading the second quote and and then when i reached the second line thought "oh how Bachelard would have liked this' - and by the second sentence -"oh but this is Bachelard" :-)
too bad he was not very sensitive when it came to visual art, for him poetry, language, was everything... do you like his 'water' then? it is still so heavily psychoanalytic...
Thanks Roxana ... "Experiments in Peripheral Vision" is akin to John Cage playing 'prepared piano' or 'modified piano' ...investigations of interference and 'noise'... Yes, am enjoying diving into Bachelard's Water - and although he is primarily linguistic, it is language which is saturated with imagery. (The psychoanlytical I don't mind!)
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