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1.It’s my birthday in a couple of weeks and I will be 44. I used to worry about growing old. Now I just worry that I won’t make it to be old. Living with cancer fucks one’s perceptions of life.
2.I love music so much, and it’s always playing around me, even if it’s only in my head; it’s not always easy or practicable to play the music I want to hear when I’m competing with a four-year-old boy whose favourite song is “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and a husband who lamentably listens to heavy metal. Chapters in my life could almost come under songs that I’ve been listening to. What’s your favourite song?
3.I’m a vegan and have been for close on twenty years. I did it for ethical reasons and was a right little protestor back in the day. Now, it’s just a way of life.
4.I read a lot. I’ll read anything, everything, but never nothing. If there are no books around to read then I’ll read the cereal packet. I read a lot to my son; how else will he learn the love of words and languages if he doesn’t have the telling of stories and the reading of poetry? We’re reading “The Little Prince” at the moment. It’s way over his head. It’s way over my head, too, a lot of the time, but I have always loved Saint Exupéry. I am passionate about language, written and spoken. Grammar is a big issue in my world, it drives me insane to see the incorrect use of the possessive apostrophe, for instance, and I am in love with the Oxford comma. You may say that life is too short to worry about such small details, but the devil is in the detail (to paraphrase Flaubert), and I like my language to be precise and correct.
5.I studied film when I was at university. I watched a lot of movies and it was fun. If I were stranded on a desert island and was fortunate enough to have electricity, a TV, and a DVD player, it’d be hard to only pick one movie, but if I had to, it’d be “My Fair Lady”. Why? Because it has everything I could possibly want. Audrey Hepburn is my favourite actress, she was so beautiful and elegant. The costumes by Cecil Beaton are to die for. The songs magnificent, who could not sing along with them? And in George Cukor, a superb director. If I could take more movies, then they would include “Blade Runner, the director’s cut”. It’s not my first choice because I watched it too many times when I was writing my thesis, but again, everything in it is perfect for me.
6.Do you have a secret pleasure? No, don’t go there! Mine is not much of a secret but peace and solitude is part of it for me. I love tea. Not your bog standard PG Tips, although of course such tea has its place in the world. I love fine teas, exotic teas, black, green, white, pink, leaves, buds, blooms. My love of the drinking of tea means, of course, that I have a collection of cups and saucers, mugs, beakers, and teapots to suit every mood and occasion. I like it best to make tea on a Sunday afternoon and drink it in peace whilst listening to some of my favourite music. I don’t get the chance too often to do this but I hide in my office and contemplate the meaning of life, which, I believe, is generally considered to be 42.
7. I am hugely fond of Champagne, Cristal being my favourite. The aroma is so distinct, so delicious, I feel I am experiencing the scrumptiousness of the wine before the bubbles hit my tongue.
8. I like to swear a lot. Many people say that those who swear lack the vocabulary to express themselves coherently, but I defy anyone to say that I am inarticulate. I like the sound of the words, the meanings, the shock factor, the sheer expressiveness of a single word which can convey a multitude of meanings. I had fun on New Year’s Eve which was also seemingly designated National Fuck It Day. Happy days.
9.My son is my world. It didn’t used to be like that. Before he was born, the world was my world, and I loved to travel. I did my first solo trip overseas when I was 15, it was only to Paris, but I’ve been on the move off and on ever since and I never thought that I would be able to stay in one place for one person. I still have the wandering blues, I will have them as long as I live, and I make the effort to go away on my own somewhere interesting every once in a while, but my boy is the centre of my world now.
10.I always want to say something deep and meaningful, but I end up babbling. See 1 – 9 above.
Strobist: 1 nissin di8662 in front of the wine glass below the table it was placed on. Triggered using cactus v5s.
Nothing's ever right or wrong. It's merely a flow of thoughts: perception!
“Nunca real, e sempre verdadeiro.”
(Antonin Artaud)
________
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copyright, 2012, Ferran Cubedo.
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I'm never stimulated by the ideas, my art is the constant reflection of my perception. Sometimes Stimulated and sometime Virtual, but always its on my perception. May be depth is required to enable to quench the thirst.
copyright, 2012, Ferran Cubedo.
SALE OF PRINTED ARTS > : society6.com/ferrancubedo/Perception-Nature_Framed-Print#...
Astral projection (or astral travel), is a term used in esotericism to describe an intentional out-of-body experience (OBE) that assumes the existence of a subtle body called an "astral body" through which consciousness can function separately from the physical body and travel throughout the astral plane. The idea of astral travel is ancient and occurs in multiple cultures. The modern terminology of "astral projection" was coined and promoted by 19th-century Theosophists. It is sometimes reported in association with dreams and forms of meditation.Some individuals have reported perceptions similar to descriptions of astral projection that were induced through various hallucinogenic and hypnotic means (including self-hypnosis). There is no scientific evidence that there is a consciousness whose embodied functions are separate from normal neural activity or that one can consciously leave the body and make observations of the physical universe, and astral projection has been characterized as a pseudoscience.
According to the classical, medieval, renaissance Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, and later Theosophist and Rosicrucian thought, the astral body is an intermediate body of light linking the rational soul to the physical body while the astral plane is an intermediate world of light between Heaven and Earth, composed of the spheres of the planets and stars. These astral spheres were held to be populated by angels, demons, and spirits. The subtle bodies, and their associated planes of existence, form an essential part of the esoteric systems that deal with astral phenomena. In the neo-platonism of Plotinus, for example, the individual is a microcosm ("small world") of the universe (the macrocosm or "great world"). "The rational soul...is akin to the great Soul of the World" while "the material universe, like the body, is made as a faded image of the Intelligible". Each succeeding plane of manifestation is causal to the next, a world-view known as emanationism; "from the One proceeds Intellect, from Intellect Soul, and from Soul - in its lower phase, or that of Nature - the material universe". Often these bodies and their planes of existence are depicted as a series of concentric circles or nested spheres, with a separate body traversing each realm. The idea of the astral figured prominently in the work of the nineteenth-century French occultist Eliphas Levi, whence it was adopted and developed further by Theosophy, and used afterwards by other esoteric movements.
Biblical/Mythical
Carrington, Muldoon, Peterson, and Williams claim that the subtle body is attached to the physical body by means of a psychic silver cord. The final chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes is often cited in this respect: "Before the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be shattered at the fountain, or the wheel be broken at the cistern." Scherman, however, contends that the context points to this being merely a metaphor, comparing the body to a machine, with the silver cord referring to the spine. Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians is more generally agreed to refer to the astral planes: "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows." This statement gave rise to the Visio Pauli, a tract that offers a vision of heaven and hell, a forerunner of visions attributed to Adomnan and Tnugdalus as well as of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Ancient Egypt
The ba hovering above the body. This image is based on an original found in The Book of the Dead.
Similar concepts of soul travel appear in various other religious traditions. For example, ancient Egyptian teachings present the soul (ba) as having the ability to hover outside the physical body via the ka, or subtle body.
Taoist
Taoist alchemical practice involves creation of an energy body by breathing meditations, drawing energy into a 'pearl' that is then "circulated". "Xiangzi ... with a drum as his pillow fell fast asleep, snoring and motionless. His primordial spirit, however, went straight into the banquet room and said, "My lords, here I am again." When Tuizhi walked with the officials to take a look, there really was a Taoist sleeping on the ground and snoring like thunder. Yet inside, in the side room, there was another Taoist beating a fisher drum and singing Taoist songs. The officials all said, "Although there are two different people, their faces and clothes are exactly alike. Clearly he is a divine immortal who can divide his body and appear in several places at once. ..." At that moment, the Taoist in the side room came walking out, and the Taoist sleeping on the ground woke up. The two merged into one."
Hinduism
Similar ideas such as the Liṅga Śarīra are found in ancient Hindu scriptures such as, the YogaVashishta-Maharamayana of Valmiki. Modern Indians who have vouched for astral projection include Paramahansa Yogananda who witnessed Swami Pranabananda doing a miracle through a possible astral projection. The Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba described one's use of astral projection: In the advancing stages leading to the beginning of the path, the aspirant becomes spiritually prepared for being entrusted with free use of the forces of the inner world of the astral bodies. He may then undertake astral journeys in his astral body, leaving the physical body in sleep or wakefulness. The astral journeys that are taken unconsciously are much less important than those undertaken with full consciousness and as a result of deliberate volition. This implies conscious use of the astral body. Conscious separation of the astral body from the outer vehicle of the gross body has its own value in making the soul feel its distinction from the gross body and in arriving at fuller control of the gross body. One can, at will, put on and take off the external gross body as if it were a cloak, and use the astral body for experiencing the inner world of the astral and for undertaking journeys through it, if and when necessary....The ability to undertake astral journeys therefore involves considerable expansion of one's scope for experience. It brings opportunities for promoting one's own spiritual advancement, which begins with the involution of consciousness. Astral projection is one of the Siddhis considered achievable by yoga practitioners through self-disciplined practice. In the epic The Mahabharata, Drona leaves his physical body to see if his son is alive.
Japan
The ikiryō as illustrated by Toriyama Sekien.
In Japanese mythology, an ikiryō (生霊, also read as shōryō, seirei, or ikisudama) is a manifestation of the soul of a living person separately from their body.[30] Traditionally, if someone holds a sufficient grudge against another person, it is believed that a part or the whole of their soul can temporarily leave their body and appear before the target of their hate in order to curse or otherwise harm them, similar to an evil eye. Souls are also believed to leave a living body when the body is extremely sick or comatose; such ikiryō are not malevolent.
Inuit
In some Inuit groups, people with special capabilities, known as angakkuq, are said to travel to (mythological) remote places, and report their experiences and things important to their fellows or the entire community; how to stop bad luck in hunting, cure a sick person etc. things unavailable to people with normal capabilities.
Amazon
The yaskomo of the Waiwai is believed to be able to perform a "soul flight" that can serve several functions such as healing, flying to the sky to consult cosmological beings (the moon or the brother of the moon) to get a name for a new-born baby, flying to the cave of peccaries' mountains to ask the father of peccaries for abundance of game or flying deep down in a river to get the help of other beings.
"Astral" and "etheric"
The expression "astral projection" came to be used in two different ways. For the Golden Dawn and some Theosophists it retained the classical and medieval philosophers' meaning of journeying to other worlds, heavens, hells, the astrological spheres and other imaginal landscapes, but outside these circles the term was increasingly applied to non-physical travel around the physical world. Though this usage continues to be widespread, the term, "etheric travel", used by some later Theosophists, offers a useful distinction. Some experients say they visit different times and/or places: "etheric", then, is used to represent the sense of being "out of the body" in the physical world, whereas "astral" may connote some alteration in time-perception. Robert Monroe describes the former type of projection as "Locale I" or the "Here-Now", involving people and places that actually exist: Robert Bruce calls it the "Real Time Zone" (RTZ) and describes it as the non-physical dimension-level closest to the physical. This etheric body is usually, though not always, invisible but is often perceived by the experient as connected to the physical body during separation by a "silver cord". Some link "falling" dreams with projection. According to Max Heindel, the etheric "double" serves as a medium between the astral and physical realms. In his system the ether, also called prana, is the "vital force" that empowers the physical forms to change. From his descriptions it can be inferred that, to him, when one views the physical during an out-of-body experience, one is not technically "in" the astral realm at all. Other experiments may describe a domain that has no parallel to any known physical setting. Environments may be populated or unpopulated, artificial, natural or abstract, and the experience may be beatific, horrific or neutral. A common Theosophical belief is that one may access a compendium of mystical knowledge called the Akashic records. In many accounts the experiencer correlates the astral world with the world of dreams. Some even report seeing other dreamers enacting dream scenarios unaware of their wider environment. The astral environment may also be divided into levels or sub-planes by theorists, but there are many different views in various traditions concerning the overall structure of the astral planes: they may include heavens and hells and other after-death spheres, transcendent environments, or other less-easily characterized states.
Notable practitioners
Astral projection according to Carrington and Muldoon, 1929
Emanuel Swedenborg was one of the first practitioners to write extensively about the out-of-body experience, in his Spiritual Diary (1747–65). French philosopher and novelist Honoré de Balzac's fictional work "Louis Lambert" suggests he may have had some astral or out-of-body experiences. There are many twentieth-century publications on astral projection, although only a few authors remain widely cited. These include Robert Monroe, Oliver Fox, Sylvan Muldoon, and Hereward Carrington, and Yram.
Robert Monroe's accounts of journeys to other realms (1971–1994) popularized the term "OBE" and were translated into a large number of languages. Though his books themselves only placed secondary importance on descriptions of method, Monroe also founded an institute dedicated to research, exploration and non-profit dissemination of auditory technology for assisting others in achieving projection and related altered states of consciousness.
Robert Bruce, William Buhlman, Marilynn Hughes, and Albert Taylor have discussed their theories and findings on the syndicated show Coast to Coast AM several times. Michael Crichton gives lengthy and detailed explanations and experience of astral projection in his non-fiction book Travels.
In her book, My Religion, Helen Keller tells of her beliefs in Swedenborgianism and how she once "traveled" to Athens:
"I have been far away all this time, and I haven't left the room...It was clear to me that it was because I was a spirit that I had so vividly 'seen' and felt a place a thousand miles away. Space was nothing to spirit!"
The soul's ability to leave the body at will or while sleeping and visit the various planes of heaven is also known as "soul travel". The practice is taught in Surat Shabd Yoga, where the experience is achieved mostly by meditation techniques and mantra repetition. All Sant Mat Gurus widely spoke about this kind of out of body experience, such as Kirpal Singh.
Eckankar describes Soul Travel broadly as movement of the true, spiritual self (Soul) closer to the heart of God. While the contemplative may perceive the experience as travel, Soul itself is said not to move but to "come into an agreement with fixed states and conditions that already exist in some world of time and space". American Harold Klemp, the current Spiritual Leader of Eckankar practices and teaches Soul Travel, as did his predecessors, through contemplative techniques known as the Spiritual Exercises of ECK (Divine Spirit). Edgar Cayce from the US, was popularly known as the “Sleeping Prophet”. He had been practicing astral travel at Washington DC for many years.
In occult traditions, practices range from inducing trance states to the mental construction of a second body, called the Body of Light in Aleister Crowley's writings, through visualization and controlled breathing, followed by the transfer of consciousness to the secondary body by a mental act of will.
Scientific reception
There is no known scientific evidence that astral projection as an objective phenomenon exists.
There are cases of patients having experiences suggestive of astral projection from brain stimulation treatments and hallucinogenic drugs, such as ketamine, phencyclidine, and DMT.
Robert Todd Carroll writes that the main evidence to support claims of astral travel is anecdotal and comes "in the form of testimonials of those who claim to have experienced being out of their bodies when they may have been out of their minds." Subjects in parapsychological experiments have attempted to project their astral bodies to distant rooms and see what was happening. However, such experiments haven't produced clear results.
According to Bob Bruce of the Queensland Skeptics Association, astral projection is "just imagining", or "a dream state". Bruce writes that the existence of an astral plane is contrary to the limits of science. "We know how many possibilities there are for dimensions and we know what the dimensions do. None of it correlates with things like astral projection." Bruce attributes astral experiences such as "meetings" alleged by practitioners to confirmation bias and coincidences.
Psychologist Donovan Rawcliffe has written that astral projection can be explained by delusion, hallucination and vivid dreams. Arthur W. Wiggins, writing in Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends...and Pseudoscience Begins, said that purported evidence of the ability to astral travel great distances and give descriptions of places visited is predominantly anecdotal. In 1978, Ingo Swann provided a test of his alleged ability to astral travel to Jupiter and observe details of the planet. Actual findings and information were later compared to Swann's claimed observations; according to an evaluation by James Randi, Swann's accuracy was "unconvincing and unimpressive" with an overall score of 37 percent. Wiggins considers astral travel an illusion, and looks to neuroanatomy, human belief, imagination and prior knowledge to provide prosaic explanations for those claiming to experience it.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astral_projection
An out-of-body experience (OBE or sometimes OOBE) is a phenomenon in which a person perceives the world from a location outside their physical body. An OBE is a form of autoscopy (literally "seeing self"), although this term is more commonly used to refer to the pathological condition of seeing a second self, or doppelgänger. The term out-of-body experience was introduced in 1943 by G. N. M. Tyrrell in his book Apparitions,[1] and was adopted by researchers such as Celia Green, and Robert Monroe, as an alternative to belief-centric labels such as "astral projection" or "spirit walking". OBEs can be induced by traumatic brain injuries, sensory deprivation, near-death experiences, dissociative and psychedelic drugs, dehydration, sleep disorders, dreaming, and electrical stimulation of the brain, among other causes. It can also be deliberately induced by some.One in ten people has an OBE once, or more commonly, several times in their life. Psychologists and neuroscientists regard OBEs as dissociative experiences occurring along different psychological and neurological factors.Those experiencing OBEs sometimes report (among other types of immediate and spontaneous experience) a preceding and initiating lucid-dream state. In many cases, people who claim to have had an OBE report being on the verge of sleep, or being already asleep shortly before the experience. A large percentage of these cases refer to situations where the sleep was not particularly deep (due to illness, noises in other rooms, emotional stress, exhaustion from overworking, frequent re-awakening, etc.). In most of these cases subjects perceive themselves as being awake; about half of them note a feeling of sleep paralysis. Another form of spontaneous OBE is the near-death experience (NDE). Some subjects report having had an OBE at times of severe physical trauma such as near-drownings or major surgery. Near-death experiences may include subjective impressions of being outside the physical body, sometimes visions of deceased relatives and religious figures, and transcendence of ego and spatiotemporal boundaries. Typically the experience includes such factors as: a sense of being dead; a feeling of peace and painlessness; hearing of various non-physical sounds, an out-of-body experience; a tunnel experience (the sense of moving up or through a narrow passageway); encountering "beings of light" and a God-like figure or similar entities; being given a "life review", and a reluctance to return to life. Writers in the fields of parapsychology and occultism have written that OBEs are not psychological, and that a soul, spirit or subtle body can detach itself out of the body and visit distant locations. Out-of-the-body experiences were known during the Victorian period in spiritualist literature as "travelling clairvoyance". In old Indian scriptures, such a state of consciousness is also referred to as Turiya, which can be achieved by deep yogic and meditative activities, during which a yogi may be liberated from the duality of mind and body, allowing them to intentionally leave the body and then return to it. The body carrying out this journey is called "Vigyan dehi" ("Scientific body"). The psychical researcher Frederic Myers referred to the OBE as a "psychical excursion". An early study that described alleged cases of OBE was the two-volume Phantasms of the Living, published in 1886 by the psychical researchers Edmund Gurney, Myers, and Frank Podmore. The book was largely criticized by the scientific community because the anecdotal reports in almost every case lacked evidential substantiation.
A 19th-century illustration of Robert Blair's poem The Grave, depicting the soul leaving the body
The theosophist Arthur Powell (1927) was an early author to advocate the subtle body theory of OBEs. Sylvan Muldoon (1936) embraced the concept of an etheric body to explain the OBE experience. The psychical researcher Ernesto Bozzano (1938) had also supported a similar view describing the phenomena of the OBE experience in terms of bilocation in which an "etheric body" can release itself from the physical body in rare circumstances. The subtle body theory was also supported by occult writers such as Ralph Shirley (1938), Benjamin Walker (1977), and Douglas Baker (1979). James Baker (1954) wrote that a mental body enters an "intercosmic region" during the OBE.Robert Crookall supported the subtle body theory of OBEs in several publications. The paranormal interpretation of OBEs has not been supported by all researchers within the study of parapsychology. Gardner Murphy (1961) wrote that OBEs are "not very far from the known terrain of general psychology, which we are beginning to understand more and more without recourse to the paranormal". In the 1970s, Karlis Osis conducted many OBE experiments with the psychic Alex Tanous. In one series of these experiments, he was asked whilst in an OBE state whether he could identify coloured targets that were placed in remote locations. Osis reported that there were 114 hits in 197 trials. However, the controls for the experiments have been criticized and, according to Susan Blackmore, the final result was not particularly significant since 108 hits would have been expected by chance alone. Blackmore noted that the results provide "no evidence for accurate perception in the OBE". In April 1977, a patient from Harborview Medical Center known as Maria claimed to have experienced an out-of-body experience. During her OBE she claimed to have floated outside her body and outside the hospital. Maria later told her social worker Kimberly Clark that during the OBE she had observed a tennis shoe on the third floor window ledge to the north side of the building. Clark then went to the north wing of the building and by looking out of the window could see a tennis shoe on one of the ledges. Clark published the account in 1984. The story has since been used in many paranormal books as evidence that a spirit can leave the body. In 1996, Hayden Ebbern, Sean Mulligan and Barry Beyerstein visited the Medical Center to investigate Clark's story. They placed a tennis shoe on the same ledge and found that it was visible from within the building and could easily have been observed by a patient lying in bed. They also discovered that the tennis shoe was easy to observe from outside the building and suggested that Maria may have overheard a comment about it during her three days in the hospital and then incorporated it into her OBE. They concluded "Maria's story merely reveals the naiveté and the power of wishful thinking" from OBE researchers seeking a paranormal explanation. Clark did not publish the description of the case until seven years after it happened, casting doubt on the story. Richard Wiseman has said that although the story is not evidence for anything paranormal it has been "endlessly repeated by writers who either couldn't be bothered to check the facts, or were unwilling to present their readers with the more skeptical side of the story." Clark responded to the accusations made in a separate paper. In 1999, at the 1st International Forum of Consciousness Research in Barcelona, research-practitioners Wagner Alegretti and Nanci Trivellato presented preliminary findings of an online survey on the out-of-body experience answered by internet users interested in the subject; therefore, not a sample representative of the general population.
1,007 (85%) of the first 1,185 respondents reported having had an OBE. 37% claimed to have had between two and ten OBEs. 5.5% claimed more than 100 such experiences. 45% of those who reported an OBE said they successfully induced at least one OBE by using a specific technique. 62% of participants claiming to have had an OBE also reported having enjoyed nonphysical flight; 40% reported experiencing the phenomenon of self-bilocation (i.e. seeing one's own physical body whilst outside the body); and 38% claimed having experienced self-permeability (passing through physical objects such as walls). The most commonly reported sensations experienced in connection with the OBE were falling, floating, repercussions e.g. myoclonia (the jerking of limbs, jerking awake), sinking, torpidity (numbness), intracranial sounds, tingling, clairvoyance, oscillation and serenity.
Another reported common sensation related to OBE was temporary or projective catalepsy, a more common feature of sleep paralysis. The sleep paralysis and OBE correlation was later corroborated by the Out-of-Body Experience and Arousal study published in Neurology by Kevin Nelson and his colleagues from the University of Kentucky in 2007.[98] The study discovered that people who have out-of-body experiences are more likely to suffer from sleep paralysis.
Also noteworthy, is the Waterloo Unusual Sleep Experiences Questionnaire that further illustrates the correlation.
There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors of perception
14mm - ISO 800 - 1/50 - f11
Life has a bright side and a dark side, for the world of relativity is composed of light and shadows. If you permit your thoughts to dwell on evil, you yourself will become ugly. Look only for the good in everything so you absorb the quality of beauty.
-- Paramahansa Yogananda
(Detail Best Large)
I've always admired the Barbican, along with many of the "utopian" projects from the brutalist period. Unfortunately many people, led by Prince Charles seem to despise these buildings. It's very much a challenge of perception, and how we are often mislead. This is a series of two images which have simply been post processed differently, and shows you how easily the mind can be warped.
woo hoo! The month is over!
This piece of art was installed at the front window of the Monte Clark Gallery in Granville Street. It's a collage of Strathcona's "favourite" little orange pinto. Flickr is partly responsible for making a mini-celebrity of this little orange pinto and it is almost serendipitous that it should be made into a work of art by local artist cameraman.
Originally for the guesswherevancouver group.
For the Scavenger Hunt Pool 101 # 37 A Work of Art
Made Explore #79! Thank you very much for your support of this photo!
“How foolish of me to believe that it would be that easy. I had confused the appearance of trees and automobiles, and people with a reality itself, and believed that a photograph of these appearances to be a photograph of it. It is a melancholy truth that I will never be able to photograph it and can only fail. I am a reflection photographing other reflections within a reflection. To photograph reality is to photograph nothing.”
(Duane Michals)
"Some other dog?" My Boston Terrier, Lizard, barked. "Where?!"
His excitement overflowed, and off into a fit of barks and growls he went. I just laughed at his amusing territory defence dance. Back and forth, from this window to that, his little legs scurried him along.
As the other dog moves out of site, Lizard let's out a couple more barks, "And stay away, this is mah house!"
“Let me tell you something about perceptions: If a public safety officer pulls up right now and sees us talking, he’s going to see a black homeless guy talking to a white guy. He’s not going to think that you wanted to talk to me. He’s going to think that I’m panhandling you or trying to hustle you. My point is, sometimes you’re considered guilty until proven innocent.”
Memphis, Tennessee
Our perceptions of aesthetic value are determined by a host of factors which we typically fail to consider. This is apparent not only in the realm of art, but in every aspect of our everyday interactions with the world in which we live. We humans experience such a bombardment of sensory input throughout our day that we can’t help taking for granted the objects which make our lives more enjoyable. Often, our ability to properly appreciate the subtle beauty held within the seemingly mundane is restricted by the limitations placed upon our eyes. I would like you to consider as an example the humble strawberry. Enjoyed by many for its taste, as well as the connotations which it arouses (warm summer days in the garden), the strawberry is truly one of nature’s greatest gifts to the world. Considering this, it seemed only fair to me that people should be able to truly comprehend the hidden magnificence of this tragically underappreciated object. The fine details which comprise the strawberries beauty are, unfortunately, far too minute for the naked eye to decipher. We are fortunate to live in a time in history in which details of the world which our eyes would be otherwise incapable of seeing are now available thanks in part to technology. With the right equipment, a person can now transform the most humble of insects into terrifying aliens. For my alien, I utilized a digital camera with a macro bellow attached to a 50mm lens. I painstakingly photographed one hundred and twenty nine separate images of the slice of strawberry you see before you. Afterward, I pieced together each individual image in much the same way the one puts together a puzzle. In the end, I was left with a magnificently detailed image which a single photograph would never have been capable of creating.
Can you realy trust what you see?
Perception depends on complex functions of the nervous system, but subjectively seems mostly effortless because this processing happens outside conscious awareness
Perception (from the Latin perceptio, percipio) is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the environment. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical or chemical stimulation of the sense organs. For example, vision involves light striking the retina of the eye, smell is mediated by odor molecules, and hearing involves pressure waves. Perception is not the passive receipt of these signals, but is shaped by learning, memory, expectation, and attention.
Perception can be split into two processes. Firstly, processing sensory input, which transforms these low-level information to higher-level information (e.g., extracts shapes for object recognition). Secondly, processing which is connected with a person's concepts and expectations (knowledge) and selective mechanisms (attention) that influence perception.
Candid shot, Trondheim Norway.