Sometimes you only has to try something once.
If first results are obvious, repetition might be pointless.
Here's the story of a visual experiment in a literary sense.
In my youth I had an almost unsatiable appetite for literature.
Mostly modern, and William Borroughs was a favourite. Very weird author,
writing with scissors, cutting up pages and folding other things in. Yet,
there was method to his madness: There is no true or real 'reality'.
What we perceive as 'real' is merely a certain scanning pattern.
Drugs, or other things, may alter our patterns of recognition...
(loosely remembered from Borroughs in "Nova Express" 1964.
Late 70'ies. I am visiting one of my friends living in the countryside.
We don't meet so often, but know each other well enough. One evening
I'm sitting in one corner of the room, she reading something silently in the other end.
Conversation has reached a momentary pause, and I'm not thinking about anything specific.
Almost on the brink of merely observing everything, and reflecting upon nothing.
However, my last thought is then a reflection upon reflection.
I think: I am (almost) not thinking now. What if - one step further..?
Borrroughs in mente I then decide to experiment: I'll try to look
but not think, perceive but no analysis, vision without words.
And after a few moments - something indeed happens:
I am suddenly looking at a person that I do not know,
a completely stranger. A face that reminds me of noone..
Associations temporarily suspended, memory holding its breath...
I tell my friend what's happening, she is equally startled.
Then 'reality' changes again. From being 'noone'
she now becomes 'everyone'...
Memory prohibited usual associations, after a while tries others,
everything else, in search of any pattern that might fit.
My friend now looks like one person, then like another,
yet another and another, and so on. It goes on like this
for more than a minute. Many more faces than I can count...
Like a slideshow: Imagine a face as screen,
portrait after portrait projected upon it, each blending
seamless into the next. Like the morph-video "Black or white",
by Michael Jackon 1992, (same song but not sung by the same..?).
Several times it's visible that two layers interfere with each other.
I know she is blond, but some images are of people with dark hair?
I also notice, from a corner of my mind, that raw perception is unchanged.
If I measured any part with a ruler I would not find any difference.
Text stable, it is only the context that is fluctuating now.
But this is also the final layer, the instance informing us
what kind of thing it is, it's identidy - our memory.
Minutes later the effect wears off, normal 'reality' returns.
Leaving us both somewhat baffled. Weird shift, indeed.
Sometimes literature really rocks your senses.
But whereever you go, there you are...
Sometimes.
Benedict Arnold, 2005
News
Introduction
Boat of everything. Mircea Eliades dream
Descartes 3 dreams. November 10, 1619
Dr Jekyll and mr Hyde. Robert Louis Stevenson
Fantastic voyage. A long and twisted tale
Keules chemical dream. A vision of benzenes structure
Lincolns premonition. Who is dead in the White House?
Mary Shelleys dream. First vision of Frankenstein
Parallel world. Traffic accident on the hyperway
Swedish library. The unknown book
The sky, the Sun and the Ocean. The word for world is water
Vision without words. An experiment with Borroughs
Whitmans trance. My favourite trees
A3 Poster. Get all dreams on print
Quotes
Links
"Nightmare" (1781) by Henry Fuseli
"Dream" (1910 by Henri Rousseau, french post-impressionist