It became clear to John Jupe (artist, inventor and company founder) that the questions raised by the intuitive record of visual artists were pertinent to our understanding of visual perception. It was also clear that vision science made little or no reference to the techniques used by ‘modern’ visual artists to make their work more salient. Indeed, most art historians dismissed the view that this work had anything to do with visual perception on the basis that no reference to the specifics of the techniques could be found in vision science!

Jupe spent three years travelling the world to make presentations and to talk to vision scientists about these issues. He identified some similarities in recent scientific research on vision with his own work with intuitive record and the observations of past art-masters. Professor Jan Koenderink (University of Utrecht) has been most helpful to Atelier Vision, in helping to orientate Vision-Space within the vision science forum. Acting on examples published in papers presented at vision science forums by Jupe, Dr Rainer Wolf, ( himself a specialist in stereoscopic techniques) was fascinated by the apparent ‘double image’ he detected in monocular vision and published his interpretations in 2002.

An official satellite event to the European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP) was held in Glasgow 2002 under the title “Having the Courage of Your Perceptions”. Since then Jupe has developed relationships with local Higher Education Institutes (HEI’s) around Bristol and Bath who are keen to experiment to test the observations and to assist with the development of Vision-Space techniques. Initiating this important research agenda will require funding. Jupe defines the activity of the visual artist as one that operates ‘inside visual perception’.

“By direct mark making, artists open up certain aspects of visual perception. In some respects, in intuitive record from life study, there are no base assumptions. If you make a mark, then another, then another you are not taking a picture, you are recording facets of visual perception. Recording ‘how’ as well as ‘what’ we see. One mark may correspond to one projection of conscious vision, then previously suppressed information may be responsible for the next. If you learn to organise these projections, understand their characteristics, how the brain tends to use them and the intent that drives, them, you are working inside visual perception.” This train of thought has direct relevance to the categorisations of Professor Jan Koenderink as he distinguishes between:

Picture being: “a real image, an ordered record, such as a video-signal, a photograph, an activity pattern in a neural structure. The order of the picture is purely conventional and exists only with respect to an external agent.

and Images: “always contain more than pictures because the whole structure of the receiver (a lifetime’s experience) is summed up in them.”