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SENSATION VS. PERCEPTION A Study and Analysis of Two Methods Affecting Cognition MSAHUSETT S INSTIfUTE by OF TECHNOLOGY Xiaoyan Shen AUG 2 2 2019 B.A.S. New Media LIBRARIES City University of Hong Kong ARCHIVES Submitted to the Department of Architecture In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Art, Culture and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology June 2019 © 2019 Xiaoyan Shen. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants MIT permission to reproduce and distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created. Signature redacted ............................................... SIGNATURE OF AUTHOR Department of Architecture Signature redacted May10,2019 CERTIFIED BY Judith Barry Professor of Art, Culture and Technology Thesis Supervisor Signature-redacted ACCEPTED BY Nasser Rabbat Aga Khan Professor Chair of the Department Committee on Graduate Students COMMITTEE Thesis Supervisor Judith Barry Professor of Art, Culture and Technology Thesis Reader Caroline A. Jones Professor of History, Theory and Criticism 3 SENSATION VS. PERCEPTION A Study and Analysis of Two methods Affecting Cognition by Xiaoyan Shen Submitted to the Department of Architecture on May 10, 2019 In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Art, Culture and Technology Abstract In this thesis I discuss methods of projects that create cognitive effects that can be categorized into two situations: through sensation (outside stimulations/objective/bottom-up processing in neuroscience) or through perception (arousing background knowledge of inner mind/subjective/top-down processing in neuroscience). Similar effects can be reached through different ways. For example, to make something disappear, blending it into the environment through camouflage is changing the external stimulation, while a "lilac chaser illusion" is the result of influencing the retina and our brain. I will apply research on human sensation and perception from two perspectives: the psychological (neuroscience) realm and the phenomenological. My research mostly focuses on theories of vision, current studies on physiological information processing in visual systems, and the phenomenological theories of sensation and perception according to Kant, Hegel, Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty. It also includes a conceptual framework for theories of perception, dreams, consciousness, imagination, and hallucination presented by Dennett, Windt, and Metzinger. I also explore case studies of artistic projects and discuss these in terms of the ways that controlling visual stimuli or influencing perception affects the ways we apprehend the visual. Practices that are famous for affecting and challenging human cognition, including light and space arts and opt arts, will be discussed. The artworks created by different artists, such as James Turrell, Ann Veronica Janssens, Richard Anuskiewicz, and Brio Gysin, will be discussed and categorized into either top-down (sensation) or bottom-up (perception) works of art based on the methodology used to affect audiences' experiences and cognition of their work. Finally, I will also involve my own practice during past years in discovering the relationship between art and neuroscience, the outside stimulation and inside interpretation, the objectivity and subjectivity. Through this thesis, I will argue for an approach that allows for a new hermeneutics of seeing that ultimately enhances the viewer's capacity to perceive. Thesis Supervisor: Judith Barry Title: Professor of Art, Culture and Technology 4 Table of Contents Acknow ledgm ents........................................................................................................................................ 6 1. Introduction.......................................................................................................................................... 7 Towards a New Approach to Perception .......................................................................................... 7 Sensation and perception of the world of observing ........................................................................... 8 2. M ethodology ...................................................................................................................................... 10 3. Theoretical Fram ew ork: Stim ulation, Sense, and Perception ..................................................... 12 How vision works: sensation, process, representation and perception in the neurosciences ............ 12 Phenom enology of sensation and perception.................................................................................. 19 Neuroscience & Vision: Case Studies....................................................................................................... 26 Bottom-up perspective (sensation-affecting): change the outside physical world........................ 26 Top-down processing (perception-affecting): perception influenced by personal background ..... 30 Gysin and Burroughs' Dream achine ................................................................................................... 33 The Visual Sense of Presence: Deprivation and Creation.................................................................. 37 The isolation tank: deprivation of sensory ........................................................................................ 40 4. Project 1: Resonance Ver.M ................................................................................................................ 43 Preparation before the recording night ........................................................................................... 45 The Recoding Night ................................................................................................................................. 46 Dream Rebuild.........................................................................................................................................46 Presentation and Interaction .................................................................................................................. 50 5. Project II: Sisyphus ............................................................................................................................. 51 6. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 58 7. Table of Figures .................................................................................................................................. 60 8. Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................... 61 5 Acknowledgments I would like to render my warmest thanks to my thesis supervisor, Prof. Judith Barry, for sharing her knowledge and wisdom to make this thesis possible. I enjoyed every single conversation with her. I would also wish to express my gratitude to Prof. Caroline A. Jones for her insightful comments and suggestions on my thesis and my projects. Great thanks to Mario Caro, without whom the thesis will not be possible. Thanks to Renee Green, Gediminas Urbonas, Azra Aksamija, Nida Sinnokrot for the inspirations and guidance through my academic life. Thanks to Marion Cunningham, Kevin Mclellan, Graham Yeager, John Steiner, and Chelsea Polk for the incredible supports in every semester. Thanks to the Council for the Arts at MIT for the support and funding. Thanks to my ACT fellows, Nicolas Kisic Aguirre, Nicol s Consuegra, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Laura Serejo Genes, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Pedro Zylbersztajn, Erin Genia, Zach Jama, Ringo Runzhou Ye, Gary Zhexi Zhang, Casey Tang, Luiza Bastos Lages, Matt Ledwidge, Nancy Valladares, Rae Yuping Hsu, and Ryan Aasen. It is a great pleasure to meet these amazing brains and warm hearts. Thanks to Takatoshi Yoshida and Koichi Yoshino. It was a lot of fun to work with them. Thanks to Xuenan Ni, my roommate of three years, for the food and fun we had together. Thanks to Debarun Dhar, for being there whenever I need his insightful suggestion. Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my parents, for their endless love and unconditional support. 6 1. Introduction Towards a New Approach to Perception The long history of research on sensation and perception conducted by scholars, from the ancient Greek philosophers to the modern neuroscientists, has provided us with a huge body of knowledge to think about how we experience the world. Studying how we sense and how we perceive is undoubtedly important in the art world, because Art constitutes a powerful stimulus and response to such sensory possibilities, allowing us to try on concepts, experiences and altered states and providing cultural space for debates about the merits (for example) of a temporary, visually induced schizophrenia, or an aesthetic stimulation of 'the smell of fear.' There are also sufficient artists that focus on affecting the sensory and perceptual consciousness to create unique and illusionary experiences for the audience, like James Turrell, Julia Voss- Andrea, Brio Gysin, etc. The process of sensation and perception are often combined. These two activities are discussed together due to the difficulty in distinguishing them under many circumstances. (Schiffman, 1990). But in this thesis, I would like to separate and distinguish these two processes in order