Field of view

The idea that you can only see what is in your field of view at any given time and in any given place. The rest is Gestalt effect, filling in using our imagination. Was musing on this after seeing a work by David Theobald called Trill at Cube's Open Art Exhibition. The work showed a Budgies Cage from a birds eye view. The bird looked out onto a modern kitchen with no life in it. As you watched you saw the light come up from the window to the left and bathe the room. We think of a caged animal as restricted in its vision but as you sat there in the space you looked beyond the bars into the room, not in longing but in inquisitiveness.

This led us on to talking about people who have been in captivity and specifically Terry Wait. I seem to recall Terry Wait saying that when he was locked up in his cell with nothing to look at he realised that his vision was only really as limited as his imagination.

We can only be in one time and one place at any given moment but our minds can propel us beyond our vision to all sorts of places. This can be done in romantic ways such as day dreaming about another place or in practical terms like when we give directions. It is for the sake of our sanity that we presume that the world outside our vision did not change since we last visited it. The Streets beyond the view from the window is still the same and the bookshelf still stands against the wall behind us. I Am interested in exploring this idea of limited physical vision informed by imagination and memory in some kind of art piece.