Issue

On The Ways of Seeing

January 2018

All perception mediates between self and external reality, but among humans vision holds a unique position. Despite the thought-ordering power of spoken language, it is still the visual world that shapes our experience most directly, to the extent that we treat the optic nerve as direct line between the world and cognition. It is no coincidence that we say "the way I see it" when we actually mean "the way I think it". This did not escape media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who observed that we go so far in conflating the psychological and visual as to call forward-thinkers "visionaries", and to say "always" when we actually mean all-times. Thus the visual world, the eye, and more recently that precision artificial eye-ball, the camera, map our interior experience, even as the brain reshapes what we see and perceive in turn. We will open 2018 with a fresh viewpoint (thought-point), a view of the act of seeing itself. Of looking outwards: unaided, through optical devices that open windows onto larger or smaller worlds, through the reflecting surfaces of the latest technologies, or even by more abstract means: visualization of the unseeable and the visual memories of the blind. Join us. Watch a few films. Seeing, after all, is believing.

Eye, Camera

FILM United States 2017
Brittney Shepherd

In 2005, Tanya Vlach loses an eye in a horrific car accident. As an artist and photographer, she approaches the loss as an opportunity to explore the possibility of turning her prosthetic eye into an intraocular camera. Her exciting journey into the field of wearable tech changes her life, forever a

Divine Machines

FILM United Kingdom 2015
Ali Hossaini

How – and why – did humanity invent cameras? Artist and philosopher Ali Hossaini offers a personal view of his research into the origins of visual media. Journey through 6,000 years of history to discover how optics evolved from efforts to tame nature by controlling visual space.

The Lanthanide Series

FILM United States, France, United Kingdom 2014
Erin Espelie

An experimental documentary, The Lanthanide Series examines the materiality of the digital world, combining approaches of non-fiction narrative essay, abstract visual and sound exploration, and the history of black mirrors. Each chapter of the film is based on one of the fifteen metallic chemical el

Blindelings

FILM Netherlands 2014
Joanne Van Der Weg

Before I started with graduation I got in contact with a blind man called Henk. He told me about his life. Because of my conversation with him I got interrested in how he lives his life. The animation is about a little trip a blind person makes to get somewhere. With this animation I won the The Dio

In, Over and Out

FILM France 2015
Sebastian Brameshuber

IN, OVER AND OUT is a film experiment in the tradition of structural cinema. It is made up of a limited number of carefully planned motifs, each of them shot simultaneously with twelve cameras from different technical periods. An homage to the Lumière Brothers' WORKERS LEAVING THE FACTORY, th

Stargaze

FILM Bulgaria 2016
Hristina Vardeva

"The eternal bond between people, stars and telescopes." Since ancient times we have been gazing at the stars. We dream of unveiling the secrets of the universe. After the boom of space research programs in the early 70's, astronomy became popular worldwide and thus the desire to unveil the mysterie

Night Vision

FILM United States 2015
Jake Fried

Night Vision by Jake Fried 2015. Hand-drawn animation with ink and white-out. Sound design by the artist. More at inkwood.net facebook.com/jakefriedanimation instagram.com/jakejfried

Interface

FILM Netherlands 2016
Anna Hoetjes

Imagine that there has always been a screen between your face and your surroundings, that you have never seen the face of your lover or looked at your own eyes in the mirror. The future doesn't look much different from today in INTERFACE, but every human head is shielded from the outside world by a

Through the Mirror

FILM United States 2016
Graciela Cassel

Through the mirror was created in a science lab, it is by the interrelation between the eye, the camera, and cells captured through mirrors that a journey develops. Repetition, reflections, movements, and gradient of colors: all traversed the cells, showing how the most minimal part of our bodies re

A Film Is A Film Is A Film

FILM USA 2014
Eva Von Schweinitz

Digital projection takes over the movie screens world wide. As celluloid slowly disappears from her workplace, the director, a movie projectionist herself embarks on an investigation into what makes the material special. Digital projection is taking over the movie screens world wide. As the material

Quantum Fluctuations

FILM UK 2016
Markos Kay

In Quantum Fluctuations, particle simulations are used to visualise the distinct micro-events that occur in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) during a proton collision. Made as a series of conceptual experiments, the film aims to show the complexity and abstract nature of these unobservable aspects of

Atlas (2015)

FILM UK 2015
Sara Hibbert

Exploring notions of observation, distance, and perception, Atlas is sited around a specific physical object in the history of optics and vision. This object is the first accurate 'map' of the retinal surface, traced using a camera lucida by Richard Liebreich, and published as the Atlas of Ophthalmo

What No One's Ever Seen

FILM USA 2016
Sandya Viswanathan

A day in the life of the world's most prolific spider scientist reveals the beauty and importance of a dying craft. "What No One's Ever Seen Before" follows the daily routine of Dr. Norman Platnick, Curator Emeritus of Arachnids at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Through his sunr

Microsculpture

FILM UK 2016
Tanya Cochrane

Microsculpture is a unique visual experience. The beautifully lit, high magnification portraiture of Levon Biss captures the microscopic form of insects in striking high-resolution detail. The film shows Levon Biss and his pioneering photographic technique as he captures beautifully lit high magnifi

Things used to be hidden

FILM UK 2015
Tara Mercedes Wood

How much do we really want others to know about us and what do we want to know about them? In the aftermath of a disaster causing everyone to loose their perception filters various characters tell us about their experience and new lifes. This animated film is a mockumentary about human perception an

Nanoplanet

FILM Italy 2012
Monica Zoppè

If we could shrink by 10 million times, we would be able to visit a living human cell, as if it were a small planet. In this movie, based on scientific data and an animation technique developed for biological visualization, viewers can get a glimpse of some of the wanders that such trip could offer.

How to make a prosthetic eye

FILM UK 2015
Barry J. Gibb

"Art, medicine and engineering collide to create beautiful artificial eyes" A small, highly skilled team at Moorfields Eye Hospital transform the lives of people who have lost their eyes to accidents and disease. Each year, they work with their clients to create around 1,400 customised, detailed pro

Restoring Sight in Bangladesh

FILM USA, Bangladesh 2012
Tatiana McCabe

Tatiana McCabe's mixed media video, titled Restoring Sight in Bangladesh (2012) uses documentary footage, motion graphics and stop motion animation to explore the issue of cataract blindness in Bangladesh. McCabe's interest in socially conscious filmmaking comes to life through her writing, cinemato

Cams

FILM Sweden 2014
Carl-Johan Westregård

Night will soon fall over a peaceful beach town. But where have all the people gone? And what are these creatures lurking just out of sight, seemingly making themselves at home?

Apariciones

FILM Austria, Argentina 2014
Luz Olivares Capelle

Apariciones is a cinematographic essay on the question of what apparitions are, or what might they be. It's a filmed documentation of the verbs "to appear" and "to disappear." This film challenges itself by trying to make visible and perceptible these unseizable and sometimes invisible subjects. Apa