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Vision-Space
Perceptual condensation within contextual field
Abstract:
To break our over reliance on records produced by instrumentation, it is imperative to
produce stimuli based on perceptual structure and the human umwelt through which
we fashion our relationship with the real. In previous publications I have carefully
tried to tease out and render visible almost oneby-one, a raft of differentials
between experiential vision and optical projection or picture space while always
retaining sufficient pictorial elements to avoid the exercise being dismissed as
creative subjectivity. In this paper the drawings and paintings aim to simply record
what is occurring to me without reference to arbitrary geometry, conceptual
consideration or pictorial convention and to show just how far removed one is from
the other. One of the biggest issues relating to the phenomenon of vision remains
how we package all the information that occurs to us. How does the phenomenon,
the relationship we form with the real, present? Somehow we present very significant
scale changes across the phenomenon or engage in perceptual abbreviation that
doesnt seem to interfere with our comprehension. We are truly engaged in multilayered, creative processes of engagement and realisation heavily reliant on neural
feedback circuits, learned experience and careful choreography involving
composition dependent on our intent in the world.
Traditionally processes developed by artists are subsequently adopted and
deployed by others as communication tools, the carriers of content or meaning.
Hence a new form of illusionary space is a big deal. It changes the fundamentals of
how we communicate while revealing new aspects of our developing relationship
with the real. The invention of the camera has interfered with that relationship.
As indicated, some visual artists and I am sure some musicians, have kept the faith
in a world dominated by third party observation and a conceptualised notional reality
to provide us with the essential groundwork for change. We need to found a system
of communication that works in accordance with the fascinating capabilities and
efficiencies of experiential reality. There is clearly a great deal that we simply do not
currently understand about observation. Its equally clear that instrumentation does
not stand in for experiential reality. What do the records made by instrumentation
actually mean?

Whats in an artificial stimulus? Ans: Our limited understanding

(Vision-Space presentation http://youtu.be/9ryFnuFCGys)

It is imperative to produce stimuli based on perceptual structure and the human

umwelt. The records detected by instrumentation lie almost entirely outside the set.
We seem to have forgotten this, indeed we appear to be compulsively driven to
forget this.
In previous Vision-Space presentations I have carefully tried to tease out and render
visible almost oneby-one, a raft of differentials between experiential vision and
optical projection or picture space while always retaining enough pictorial elements to
avoid the exercise being dismissed as creative subjectivity by viewers whos

Copyright PAC 2015

reference points will inevitably be firmly embedded in the paradigm delineated by

instrumentation. It is after all far more comfortable to engage in apparent variations to
a known existing system than it is to be confronted with and migrate towards a new
unformulated position. Why bother? I hope that I have produced enough now in
terms of artwork, papers and presentations to clearly articulate why we should
bother. The so-called deformations seen in artwork are showing us flashes of
perceptual structure. This process has also been a journey of enquiry for myself as I
try to negotiate the well rehearsed positions and arguments that keep us on the
straight and narrow.

My nose profiles!
Drawing form the studio 2015

St Ives, Cornwall 2015

The drawings and paintings in this presentation simply record what is occurring to me
without reference to arbitrary geometry, conceptual consideration or pictorial

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convention. We are no longer journeying on some vague heading we are residing at

the destination to look back upon the former paradigm. Vision-Space is a new form of
illusionary space. We are no longer comparing and contrasting between independent
points of order safely couched within the vernacular of optical projection. We have
disentangled the strands to understand that we should set one of the systems aside;
its superseded as we can understand that its not producing valid stimuli with respect
to human visual perception. Virtual reality is a miss-concept; while embedded within
the environment (the real) we generate reality as biological systems.
One of the biggest issues relating to the phenomenon of vision remains how we
package all the information that occurs to us. How does the phenomenon, the
relationship we form with the real, present. We have previously looked at data
structures and the processes of information exchange taking place within
phenomenal field and even some of the deployed compositions which are
themselves dependent on our intent in the world.

More recently1 we have seen how we stretch in the y axis within the area of
phenomenal field supporting binocular coverage but there is still a big issue
remaining to be confronted that once understood and seen in conjunction with all the
other facets will clearly disengage Vision-Space from picture space. They are entirely
different animals, one essentially conceptual to be fed into our perceptual system as
stimuli to confirm the veridical nature of the assumption that fired the concept and the
other perceptually driven capable of making us confront important aspects of the
relationship we form with the real and hence the nature of experiential reality.

1 Vision-Space: Land and Sea Scape, Camusterrach, Western Highlands
http://youtu.be/zr38-ibFwcU

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I took this photo a couple of weeks ago. This is not what I saw when stood in front of
the scene. The differences are simply to great for vision to be just some derivative of
optical projection dependent on simply the rectilinear propagation of light.

Even with additional shots to make up the panorama the ensemble has almost
nothing to do with the experience.

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Sketch nailing some cornerstone relationships

This sketch captures very basic experientially derived information about the scene. It
reveals the lengths to which anyone wanting to render the scene in accordance with
the phenomenon from photographic media (+ depth data) will have to go!

Reduce context by 50% in X axis. Stretch stereo zone in Y axis + magnify

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Reduce both context content and binocular area content in the X axis.

Somehow we present very significant scale changes across phenomenal field or

engage in perceptual abbreviation that doesnt interfere with our comprehension of
the scene. We are truly engaged in multi-layered, creative processes of engagement
and realisation heavily reliant on neural feedback circuits, learned experience and
careful choreography involving composition dependent on our intent in the world. All
of this activity is dependent on cues that are themselves developed through one-way
diagnostic processes as opposed to processes akin to optical transfer that could in
theory be retraced back from percept to the retina and a notional projected picture.
All of this has to be achieved with maximum efficiency. There is clearly a great deal
that we simply do not currently understand about observation. Its equally clear that
instrumentation does not stand in for experiential reality.
In a previous presentation I painted the landscape of Camusterrach in the western
highlands.

View for Camusterrach 2015 http://youtu.be/zr38-ibFwcU

I was highlighting for consideration the stretch in the y axis in the binocular zone.
However, there are 3 fixations across the scene and 3 paintings used to capture the
extent of the scene. Within the phenomenon we are able to pack almost the entire
extent of scene depicted on all three canvases into one experiential encounter or
view! How do we accomplish that?
We must engage in some form of perceptual compression within the extremities of
contextual vision that we currently and inappropriately refer to as peripheral vision: its
contextual vision. I say compression as though this is some function that can be
imposed upon a base picture. This is not the case. There is no picture to compress,
optical projection doesnt occur, so I have plumbed for condensation but considered

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local consolidation as I think that speaks to neural function and Bayesian processing
if not to the global level of comprehension? If anything, I would suggest that this has
some physiological derivation and that we have learned to manage, extrapolate or
unfold from. We infer from the condensed presentation enabling us to comprehend
a proportioned scene. If this activity occurs when looking at a landscape then those
same systems will also be in play as we observe objects within a closer environment.
The condensation processes must form a fundamental facet of human perceptual
structure.

View from the studio

As I look out of the studio into the garden I can record the scene with a camera.

Composite view

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I can direct it to take multiple shots to compile to some sort of pseudo experiential
view but it looks unconvincing!

rd

Step back to obtain the remote 3 party view

Otherwise I can step back and play the 3rd party remote observer that science
traditionally adopts through its instrumentation but this is also not what was seen.

Drawn while fixated on the centre of the tabletop

Or I can draw whats actually occurring as I stand at the observation point and
intuitively record experiential reality. The preferred option surely?

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Note that I am not trying to depict the spatial texture of implicit spatial awareness,
instead I am concentrating on the condensing occurring within contextual field. I use
line as Cezanne uses it, to denote the probability that, a situation where the lines
then often lie on the surface of the paint not to guide the placing of the paint on the
canvas. The line was not transcribed it was arrived at following presentation and
evaluation. Whats depicted in the intuitive record has next to nothing to do with
optical projection or picture space: this is Vision-Space.

The phenomenon

The camera record

Look at the tabletop. Look at the height and width of the two identical sections of the
glazing system.

The phenomenon

rd

The 3 party view

Look at the paint cans set out on the floor. There is significant condensation
occurring through contextual vision. At the extremities the width of objects is more
than halved, yet in the centre there is a considerable stretch in the y axis that makes
it look as though we have somehow slightly changed our viewing angle. Yet we don't
notice this as its occurring to us. We don't have the picture record to hold against
it. We are able to extrapolate from the consolidated presentation what we need from
the scene. It may be that past experience of and our innate understanding of our
perceptual structure enable us to know how to deduce or extrapolate from the
consolidated data the corrected proportions? In reality we can of course make

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multiple fixations and by so doing unfold the condensed areas making visual
appreciation an activity we engage in and not something that we simply detect.
So too the painting of St Ives, what did I do?
I took the very basic line drawing and used the very limited but key point markers as
the cornerstones and fitted information from the photographic record around them.2

The key relationship points from the drawing

Setting the field structure

The basic areas

Completing the composition

When this was completed I turned back to the photographs and photo shopped
them to fit the intuitive record. The ontology here is correct. Quite a difference!

I pushed the photograph composition further to fit the painting! Just fixate on the hilltop there are
possible associations here with fish eye lenses and also the disproportionate presentation of central
areas of visual field within visual cortex?

2 I am not going to address issues relating to the field structure of Vision-Space here, refer to other presentations and
publications.

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Reduce the extents of phenomenal field but retain the extents of visual field

Is the painting closer to a visual encounter on which should we base our stimuli and
information display technologies? I can tell you that it is, demonstrate that it is and
set out the data structures so we can model visual awareness and explore the
system. We can then at last present our perceptual system with valid perceptually
structured stimuli?

Records from: our precision instrumentation.or, an intelligent sentient being or biological system to
which vision occurs? It's a no-brainer!

To help us understand this in terms of a 2D artwork we must first consider, what is a

blank piece of paper to us?

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The world lived and recorded, fixation by fixation, will not add up to picture space.

Cezanne- Large pine tree, The Hermitage

Giacometti- Diego Seated 1948

Picture Space is a conceptualisation, an imposed geometry, a stand-in for

experiential activity. Its some sort of abbreviated and abstracted summary of what
can be deduced. This summary may be useful but it keeps a massive amount from
us pertinent to our relationship with the real. We should get back to first hand
accounts from the human umwelt. The total reliance on photographic media and our
other forms of information capture must be re-evaluated.
the lived perspective that which we actually perceive, is not a geometric or
photographic one Merleau Ponty

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Addressing a blank piece of paper

In one sense the piece of paper is an object of course in just the same way that a
vase is but we have developed an ability to supress its physical continuity within the
environment to read marks rendered on its surface as though they re-present real
objects like vases, pipes and faces. The blank sheet holds the potential of notional
space, the potential for fiction and creative engagement through that fiction.

For a long while it has been important for us to engage in these creative processes
as they indicate not just the depicted subject matter but also how we are thinking
about the world. Through this activity we engage with our environment and ourselves
manifesting the relationship we from with the real. This relationship is reality. Reality
occurs to us and not to a rock or to our instrumentation. The rock is real as is the
camera. The function of the camera produces pictures according to the physics of

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optical projection alone. Paintings on the other hand communicate our engagement
with the real and to others who are similarly equipped (a shared umwelt) to recognise
and identify with both the processes involved and the subject matter being depicted.
Both these elements constitute content.

Traditionally these processes developed by artists are then adopted and deployed
by others not directly engaged in their realisation as communication tools, the
carriers of content or meaning. Hence a new form of illusionary space is a big deal. It
changes the fundamentals of how we communicate while revealing new aspects of
our developing relationship with the real. The invention of the camera has interfered
with that relationship. I posed the following question on Research Gate recently to
almost complete silence: Has the invention of the camera been biggest single
roadblock to our developing understanding and the progress of knowledge? VisionSpace is a new form of illusionary space that re-establishes the linkage between us
and information display. Its potentially a renaissance moment presenting a paradigm
shift for our communication systems and the way we interact with them. If the theory
is correct there are also implications for our information capture systems.

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For the cave painters the walls of the cave were not equivalent to blank sheets of
paper. Their marks on the walls (the cave being part of the world they inhabited)
were attempts to rationalise their lives lived within the world. There werent any
pieces of paper, no abstract space to be filled in and they were not abstracted from
the world as third party observers. They often found the contours of animals in the
rock surface and then embellished. Their work was less a fiction and perhaps more
embodied action within the world? I, like so many others still engage in this process
by finding animal and bird forms in naturally forming tree roots. Its fun!

Otter-branch

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Bird-stick

Fish-stick

For the renaissance picture painters, setting out perspective views on canvases and
pieces of paper there was indeed an abstract space and they were envisaging third
party observation of their world. Paradoxically, perhaps the start of the so-called,
art/science divide?

Central perspective drawing

The world was there to be viewed and re-presented through the geometry of central
perspective. There was no place for subjective content. The projected real was
reality and the real was there to be poked and prodded and the process migrated to
observation at remote scales. Optical projection was itself projected over visual
process, visual perception and our reliance on instrumentation extended to the
universe and the micro scale. Instrumentation and information display systems
extended the conceit to form so-called virtual reality where the notional aspect of the
system being deployed was entirely forgotten. The ontology of 3rd party observation
created a hall of mirrors.

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Virtually Blind JJ (View right to left?)

For the modern artist these re-presentations proved hollow. They were not actually
presenting how we realised our environment or even to some extent what we were
realising about it.

Vision-Space transformation
of a photograph: fixation on
the mouth

It became important again to address the relationship we form with the real and
reconnect with the formation of experiential reality. Recording pictures is not linked to
the human umwelt, so around the 18C artists started the process of reengaging with
the realm of image making where as biological systems they generated and
recorded experiential reality rendering visible evidence of the relationship.

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We as sentient beings are embedded within our environment in complex ways as we

are in these paintings. Our instrumentation isnt. For us to make sense of the world
and universe we need to come to terms with whats actually involved in an act of
observation. We need to deploy the understandings that tumble from the
engagement.
So our relationship to the blank piece of paper changes. The progression we see
through history forms an important touchstone and indicator for cultural development
and this culture includes science. Progression is an indicator of a healthy culture. If
development stalls then the chances are that our culture has stalled.

Photographs of Tracys unmade bed are so I hope this will do! On the up-side, at least I built this one
but its true; the original is messier and currently shown alongside Francis Bacons fantastic paintings.
The Tate Modern Gallery cant spot the issue! http://www.tate.org.uk/about/press-office/pressreleases/tracey-emins-my-bed-returns-tate-britain-first-time-15-years.

In that context the indications are that we have stopped looking, that we have
stopped engaging. We have deferred to our instrumentation, the concepts on which
they are based and the way these are then fed back into our approach to the world
and subsequently then out again as art or results is entirely devoid of engagement.
We are at some sort of crossroads and we need to shift ourselves out of the rut, or
out of the grove, we need to get out from the hall of mirrors we have inadvertently
setup for ourselves. The art establishment are not going to help us achieve this, the

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discipline has been hijacked, so I am relying on the science community. The

progress made in our understanding of perceptual structure via intuitive record and
psychophysics needs to fight its way into technology and hence back into general
circulation. Blow back!
As indicated, some visual artists and I am sure some musicians, have kept the faith
in a world dominated by third party observation and a conceptualised notional reality
to provide us with the essential groundwork for change. We need to found a system
of communication that works in accordance with the fascinating capabilities and
efficiencies of experiential reality. By addressing a piece of paper differently and
linking this to the work of key scientists developing pertinent insights into the nature
of vision and experiential reality we can set about the systemisation of the processes
to develop information display that does work in accordance with our perceptual
system. We can then use these understandings to further interrogate experiential
reality, the human umwelt, our psychology and even remote scales. No more stuffed
fish and unmade beds!

Photographs of Damiens stuffed fish are so heres a drawing. http://www.damienhirst.com/thephysical-impossibility-of My fish-stick (above) is actually art?

John Jupe 2015

PAC (The Perceptual Awareness Centre)
www.pacentre.org
[email protected]
Other publications and online presentations available on the PAC web site
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Jupe4
http://loop.frontiersin.org/people/118197/overview

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