[ISEA98] Paper: Mel Blain – Exploding Spaces

Abstract

A study of the physiology of visual perception, in relation to the act of drawing in electronically generated programmes. How this enables a better understanding of: – Still images: powerful visual tools offering a unique digital aesthetic experience, especially when seen in series – the Artist’s Schema: illusions and delusions; how misconceptions arise – Krauss’s graph fields and Lacan’s L Schema; non grounds and objects within – Moving cast shadows, Velocity gradients and relative depth perception, and Perceptual anomalies – Gibsonian and constructivist theories of visual perception, in particular the optic flow of changing visual patterns across the retina, and how the encodement of these patterns can hold sufficient congruent forms Ritualistic space, within a computer drawing, becomes a liquious aesthetic image, moving into the realms that tend towards music. This concept is Anti-cubic, exploding drawn space outward into time.

  • Mel Blain, UK. Artist and regular exhibitor. Studied at Coventry College of Art 1958-63. Mel taught in schools and colleges through-out the country 1,964-85. Mc Auiliffe Design Consultants 1985-96. Royal College of Art 1996 (extra mural life drawing). Invited to teach computer drawing at RCA in 1997. Currently studying at Camberwell College of Art MA Printmaking, since 1996.