Lucida III
DEMONSTRATING THE MECHANICS OF VISUAL PERCEPTION, 2016
Suki Chan (UK)
Lucida III is an immersive moving image installation designed to show the viewer how we see with our central and peripheral vision.
Using eye tracking technology, the artwork invites the audience to participate and make the discovery that their gaze changes what they are seeing and hearing.
At first, the visitor will see a still image of the endothelium — a single layer of hexagonal cells on the inner surface of the cornea — accompanied by an atmospheric soundscape. When a visitor sits on the seat in front of the screen, the movement of their gaze across this still image begins to ‘burn’ through this cellular surface at precisely the area on which their central vision is focused. Over time, the trajectory of their gaze and a view of the night sky are simultaneously revealed.
For the audience watching this screen, they will be able to observe the rapid movement of someone else’s eyes and a trail of the trajectory of their gaze across the moving image artwork. The atmospheric soundtrack responding to visitors’ eye movements was composed by Dominik Scherrer, winner of the 2014 Ivor Novello Award for Best Soundtrack for Ripper Street and a 2015 Emmy Awards nominee The Missing.
Lucida III is supported by the Wellcome Trust Small Arts Awards and Arts Council England.
BIO
Suki Chan is a London-based moving image and installation artist. Suki studied at Goldsmiths, University of London and Chelsea College of Art. Her practice combines light, moving image and sound to explore our physical and psychological experience of time and space. Suki is currently a recipient of a Wellcome Trust Small Arts Award and a Grant for the Arts Award from the Arts Council of England to develop Lucida, a project exploring perception. Lucida seeks to make the viewer distinctly aware of seeing by bringing the perceptual process — including its flaws, imperfections and assumptions — to the forefront. Lucida is commissioned by the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art and the University of Salford art collection, and culminates in a UK tour of interactive moving image artworks and a publication.