Art can lay bare perceptual facts to the eye by its unique method of progressive dialogue between physical creation and conscious perception.
Seth Riskin explores vision and ways of seeing with original technologies and methods for working with the medium of light. His artwork and concept of “Light Dance” explores the conscious perceptive systems of space, time, and form. By “turning vision inside out,” Riskin makes low-level perceptual responses accessible for conscious study.
Riskin works with his light apparatus designs.
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Riskin created and manages the MIT Museum Studio, forming a mutually-informative bond between vision research in neuroscience and visual art creation.
The MIT Museum Studio hosts an exchange between empirical and theoretical methods and centers artistic practice as an equal collaborator with science on discoveries of the nature of visual perception.
Following in a long tradition of the artistic exploration of perception through physical creation, Riskin’s light work probes a reflexive experience of vision via a constellation of art work, practice, and media.
LIGHT DANCE. Designing instruments based on a desire to extend my body; light being the perfect medium.
GEOMETRIES. Projecting geometrically elemental light forms connects the movement of the body with dimensions in perception.
DIMENSIONS. Movement in two, three and four dimensions allows for the seeing process to be shared.
VISUAL PERCEPTION. The experiences I was generating in artwork connected to discussions of early vision.
A KEY MYSTERY. Low level vision—the moment light hits the retina—is a key mystery in vision science.
EXPERIENTIAL RESEARCH. Scientists study the visual brain as an object. As an artist, I study the brain as an experience.
LIGHT DANCE RESEARCH & ART
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I built the very first instruments based on a desire to extend my body. Light was the perfect medium. These tools allowed me to project my body into space. I wanted to “move space” around viewers so they, too, would be drawn inside the experience. Those experiments led to the articulation of light.
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I’ve developed many versions, tools, and techniques, but the purpose always goes back to the beginning: projecting from my body geometrically elemental light forms—like a line of light—which is highly articulate in terms connecting the movement of the body and unfolding dimensions in perception.
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Moves to two, three and four dimensions allows for the seeing process to be shared. It’s not about illumination of the space, but about the articulation of dimensional experience in a performance, collective setting.
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Over the past ten years at MIT I became increasingly aware that the experiences that I was generating with my artwork had connections to how early vision was being talked about, that is low level vision perception.
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Early vision or low level vision describes the moment light hits the retina, and how the brain constructs order with a paucity of information—a key mystery in vision science. What I’m doing as an artist in my performances is an overlapping exploration through the vehicle of light.
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There is a language in the brain. Scientists study the visual brain and perception as an object. As an artist, I study the brain firsthand as an experience. I study perception through perception. There is a profitable relationship between theoretical and experiential in the pursuit of vision.