Bright and Dark Colours is part of the research project Visual Worlds II. It is said that dark colours feel heavy and bright colours light. In this experiment, we explored this idea.

—> Slutrapport Visuella Världar II (In Swedish)

The raft is suspended by a wire and appears to float in space. The brain has parallel visual systems to recognise objects and to enable spatial action. The visual perception is usually simple and straightforward. Recognising objects and identifying their possible use, weight and point of gravity rarely pose any problems. The raft, however, perplexes the parallel visual systems. It takes time to comprehend the situation. What is the platform for, why does it appear to hover freely, and where is its point of gravity?

—> Slutrapport Visuella Världar II (In Swedish)

The mirrors on the tables give an illusion of transparency. The impression of transparency is a fairly common phenomenon in the modern world of glass and plastic, but it was perhaps less common in our more primordial surroundings. There are “natural” transparencies, however, for instance, ice, water or cobwebs. The illuminated peep-cabinets demonstrate how transparencies can be created.

1. An unexpected encounter between a rubber duck and a brain

2. Meeting at a table

If you are two people, we suggest you sit down opposite each other by one of the mirrors. Try to position yourself so that your body or face overlap those of the person opposite. If you manage, you may get an unusual experience involving a moment of confusion. Perhaps you will have mixed feelings about seeing your own familiar face meet and mix with that of another person. Read more about faces later on.

3. Looking into a black and white world

We can influence our seeing with our will and intention within limits. It is interesting to think about these limits and how they may be built into the architecture of our visual systems. For instance, we probably can’t turn the world into black and white instead of colour through sheer willpower. Nor are there any optic filters that would make this possible. We can, of course, achieve a grey-scale by lowering the lighting so that we only see with our rods (< 1 candela). Then the world looks grey, but we also lose focus.

In this experiment, we can look at a pattern through the gaps in the mirrors and experience it as though through a “grey-scale filter”.

—> Slutrapport Visuella Världar II (In Swedish)

Blacker than black. The letters on this sign are carved out and the black is formed by the darkened void behind. When the sign is illuminated by sharp light from the side, the contrast between the black and white squares appears constant. The contrast between the black letters and the surrounding white area, however, appears to increase as the light brightens. Our sensory perception is tuned to comparisons. There are rarely any absolute measurements for our experiences. What looks black in one context appears more grey in another. Our visual perception covers a fantastic range of contrasts but nevertheless has its limits. Slight contrasts, for instance, may grow imperceptible when a strong contrast is added to the picture. The reason for this is the way in which the brain and the eye process information. Our visual worlds are always a form of incredibly well-balanced compromise. 

—> Slutrapport Visuella Världar II (In Swedish)

In this project, we experiment with both life-size and miniature models. These miniature peep cabinets help us to discover unexpected spatial relationships, with regard to both colour and light.

—> Slutrapport Visuella Världar II (In Swedish)

The thing you look at moves and changes – We have a tradition of studying colour contrasts by painting different colour combinations on two-dimensional surfaces. These peep cabinets can complement such studies with the possibility to study colour contrasts and light and shade in a changing spatial context. One of the starting points for this is the artist and colour theorist Josef Albers’ works on colour contrasts. While Albers focused mainly on two-dimensional pictures, my concrete visualisation of contrast phenomena in the illuminated cabinets is based on actual spatial conditions. The illuminated peep cabinets are mounted on swivelling stands and can be rotated. The colour and light that changes as they are aimed in different directions should be looked at through the peep-hole.

It is not the colour phenomena in themselves that are interesting, but the revelation and discovery of colour combinations and spatial relationships, in the manner of an artist studying a subject.

The most beautiful colours appear in the aimed parallel daylight on a cloudy day, but the experiment can also be carried out using artificial sources of light or a combination of daylight and artificial light. In this way, we can study how colour appears in different kinds of light.

—> Slutrapport Visuella Världar II (In Swedish)

There are countless ways of seeing the world, and it would be exciting if we for a moment could see it through another person’s eyes.

When you follow someone else’s eye movements registering different parts of a picture, it is like borrowing a piece of that person’s visual world. The best thing would perhaps be to study in film sequences how that person’s gaze moves across an image. Exciting and sometimes surprising.

Today, it is relatively easy to follow another person’s gaze using eye movement cameras, as they look at a work of art or some other interesting object. It is also possible to register people’s eye movements in other situations, such as when driving a car, reading or watching a movie.

The technology for studying eye movements has been around for quite long, since the mid-1900s, but today it is much more user-friendly.

Films showing how different people read works of art was shown at the Visual Worlds exhibition at Konstfack, Stockholm. Below you can get an idea of what it involved. In the stills, the red or pale areas show the zones that a group of people gaze at the most. These pictures are far less interesting, however than following a person’s gaze in real life.

Seeing how others see helps us look at the world in different ways. This became clear to Gösta Wessel, who often lectures on pictures:

I had been using a painting by Bonnard in many of my lectures. A model in a room. This is a wonderful illustration of how a painter depicts back-lighting. When I watched filmed sequences to see how others looked at the picture, I discovered that they often looked at a small area in the upper left-hand corner. Then I discovered something that had escaped my notice until then. There is a mirror there, reflecting part of the model.

An intentional focus on light and colour can alter one’s vision in a way so that what may be perceived as essential suddenly grows unimportant. There is a concept in cognitive psychology called inattentive blindness, which is exactly the phenomenon Wessel experienced. There are many other examples in scientific literature. 

Many thanks to Daniel Lundqvist who filmed the eye movements and took the eye movement photographs.

—> Slutrapport Visuella Världar II (In Swedish)

Your eyes move. Your right eye sees a green duck, and your left eye sees a violet duck. Can you make them merge into a green/violet duck?

When our eyes are presented with two slightly disparate images, we are usually able to consolidate them into one single image, where the discrepancy between the two images is experienced as depth. Since the eyes are set slightly apart, that is usually how we perceive the world. Either eye usually has a slightly different picture of the world, except when we look into the far distance.

The brain merges these pictures (the resulting product is useful, in the form of stereo vision). When the eyes perceive two images that differ too much from each other, the brain is unable to merge them. Instead, the perception may alternate between the two images. This is called binocular rivalry.

The image with the greatest contrasts will be visible the longest. A moving image, moreover, will dominate strongly. When it comes to colours, it is not as obvious which colour will dominate. Which duck dominates your vision? Or are you able to combine them into a green/violet duck?

Another fascinating question is if you are able to alternate between the ducks at will. Can your frontal lobes govern what takes place early on in the visual process?

—> Slutrapport Visuella Världar II (In Swedish)

You move. The impression of this sculpture is entirely dependent on the position from which you are viewing it. From one position, you may perceive the sculpture as a black-and-white chequered surface. (The exact position depends on how tall you are.)

As you move, you see another shape. The sculpture cancels what is called formal constancy, that is, the fact that the world normally appears stable even if we move around in it. Our capacity to perceive the world as constant and stable is truly fantastic and unparalleled. Creating a constant picture of the world puts many demands on the visual system, and this becomes especially clear when we try to construct a constant vision in technical systems, e.g. Robots.

—> Slutrapport Visuella Världar II (In Swedish)

There are many studies showing how quickly people notice and react to threatening facial expressions. This unconscious and rapid interpretation probably take place in the amygdala located inside the temples on either side of the head. These structures get information from the eyes directly via the thalamus, which means that the emotional interpretation begins within a hundredth of a second after something is registered by the eye. Higher systems in the frontal lobes get the visual information much later, around two-tenths of a second. By that time, the information has already been processed fairly thoroughly and can form the basis for a more balanced action, such as holding back an irrelevant emotional reaction. Recent studies indicate that the amygdala can react to both positive and negative emotional stimuli. This also includes learned, genetically programmed or expected reactions of fear.

—> Slutrapport Visuella Världar II (In Swedish)