“BirdMan’s Irises: Ophthalmic Surgery” exhibition at Bradwolff Projects explores the issues of what we see and allows us to reflect on what makes us human in this age. The project was born from the expectation that hybrid perception will vibrate our identity. Like Thomas Nagel’s thought experiment, we cannot experience the world of a bat, but we cannot give up trying to understand the Other because such efforts can be the first step towards coexistence (Nagel, 1980).

 My BirdMan project began by exploring the possibility of sharing the perceptions of the Other. My first solo exhibition grew from exploring the boundaries of perception triggered by my acrophobia (the fear of heights). I collaborated with a tower crane operator to artistically experiment with the possibility of sharing each other’s perceptions ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZfFg4pDM6k ).

My interest then shifted to non-humans. I began researching birds to overcome my fear of otherness, as I was ornithophobic(the fear of birds). I discovered in my research on birds that they are highly visuosensory evolved animals. Birds have very different abilities than humans. Some birds can discern images at 200 frames per second, some have two blind spots in their eyeballs, and their perception of color is very different. I wondered if it was possible to simulate these differences, and the BirdMan series began.

The BirdMan project is a research-based art practice. The exhibition started with research into the Bradwolff Projects space and its history: the dome structure of the space resembles the structure of the eyeball, and the building has a history of being used as an operating theater for the former Amsterdam Civic Hospital. I envisioned the space as an architectural eyeball and an operating room. I researched ophthalmology with the help of ophthalmologist Professor Dong Hyun Cho of Seoul National University and further researched veterinary ophthalmology. As an artist, I cannot access all the scientific knowledge. Still, my conversations with Professor Cho and my ophthalmology research allowed me to trigger the entropy of my aesthetic imagination.

Ophthalmology is a medical field that treats eye diseases, so ophthalmology books are filled with disease images. This research made me ask the fundamental question, “What is it to see?” once again. Patients undergoing eye surgery often experience dramatic changes in their visual perception, sometimes to the point of blindness. I attempted to assemble ophthalmological knowledge, images, and bricolage experiential objects in an architectural space that resembles an eyeball. Some of the print images were generated by artificial intelligence. Computer vision has become the new eye, and hybridizing human, bird, and AI perspectives is one of the artistic endeavors of this exhibition.

To evoke the exhibition space as a space of eyeballs, I changed the size of the objects, so I used 2.5-meter diameter balloons to install giant eyeballs. This change of scale stimulates the change of embodied perception. As an artist and cognitive scientist, my research on hybrid perception has expanded into the study of 4E (Embodied, Embedded, Enacted, Extended) Cognition. Clark (1999) and Gallagher (2017) have discussed embodied cognition and enactivism, which emphasize the notion that cognition extends beyond the brain and includes the body and environment. The chair in this exhibition space is reclined to view a video work projected onto a dome in the ceiling. The experience is similar to a patient’s position in a surgery room, with the images on the ceiling cross-edited with images of eye surgery and footage of the ground passing beneath clouds. This change of position allows the viewer to experience both the surgery and the flying experience simultaneously.

The human iris plays a crucial role in the act of seeing by controlling the amount of light, much like the shutter on a camera. The iris and fingerprints are also used as indicators of human identity. The iris is the first organ through which humans interact with the world through light. The iris and pupil are not unique to humans; birds, in particular, have highly developed visual systems. This exhibition gives us an opportunity to think about the relationship between humans and non-human animals. In addition, the pathological conditions of the eye that ophthalmology and eye surgery deal with provide an opportunity to rethink the problem of seeing and the distinction between normal and abnormal.

Keywords: birds, humans, eyes, visual, ophthalmology. veterinary, surgery, hybrid, perception, 4E (Embodied, Embedded, Enacted, Extended) cognition, anatomy, generative AI

References

Vetweb Veterinary Ophthalmology, vetweb.com.br

Basak, Samar K. Atlas of clinical ophthalmology. JP Medical Ltd, 2013.

Clark, Andy. “An embodied cognitive science?.” Trends in cognitive sciences 3, no. 9 (1999): 345-351.

Crawford, Kate. The atlas of AI: Power, politics, and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence. Yale University Press, 2021.

Gallagher, Shaun. Enactivist interventions: Rethinking the mind. Oxford University Press, 2017.

Kim, Jeong Han, Hong-Gee Kim, and Hyun Jean Lee. “The BirdMan: hybrid perception.” Digital Creativity 26.1 (2015): 56-64.

Maggs, David J., et al. Slatter’s fundamentals of veterinary ophthalmology. Elsevier Health Sciences, 2013.

Nagel, Thomas. “What is it like to be a bat?.” The language and thought series. Harvard University Press, 1980. 159-168.

Newen, Albert. The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Salmon, John F. Kanski’s clinical ophthalmology: a systematic approach. Elsevier Health Sciences, 2024.

Omelina, L., Goga, J., Pavlovicova, J., Oravec, M., & Jansen, B. (2021). A survey of iris datasets. Image and Vision Computing, 108, 104109.

Uday Devgan MD, cataractcoach.com