Exploring Three-dimensional Reality of an Image

We see things but we are not always able to believe what we see. What we see may simply be caused by a creator’s visual trick or a simple result of a viewer’s conventional habit of overlooking at things. Because the act of seeing is so natural to us, we, the viewers, usually forget that seeing is always intertwined with the minds and what the viewer already knows about the image. John Berger, an author of The Ways of Seeing, argues that reality or the truth of an image is being measured by habits and conventions of one’s own perspective, which makes it hard to distinguish what is given to us from what we supplement in the process of projection. The interaction between knowledge and a pure visibility of a picture may contradict when approaching an unconventional situation of an image.

Further, in every visual experience, “recognition is always based on dynamics” Therefore, humans’ seeing percept would never be regarded as a fixed entity. Reality or the truth of an image would always undergo continual transformations, adapting any new information that is given over time.

Investigating the connection between an image and a viewer in relation to seeing and knowing is the core interest in this thesis. The project is an exploration into a three-dimensional reality of an image by analysing phenomena of human’s visual perception. By showing a two-dimensional image that is created in an unconventional way, the viewer shifts their visual focus from what they see to how they see. Thus, the experience would allow the viewer to reflect on one’s own seeing habit and question how their visual system works.