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Leonardo,Vol. 4, pp. 283-286. Pergamon Press 1971. Printed in Great Britain SCULPTURES OF UNUSUAL PERCEPTIONS Raivo Puusemp* and Henry P. Raleigh** Raleigh-With the investigations of visual perception by the experimental psychologists of this century the purely philosophicassumptionsregarding perception that had clouded and confounded prior research were largely removed. Swinging between hypothetical positions of perception as predominantlyinnatetothestructureoftheorganism to perception as predominantly learned, contemporary research appears to settle on a rough compromise, working on a supposition that some aspectsof perceptionare learned,others structurally given. Still, the major question is the relationship between the two. The phenomenon of perceptual constancy,for example,isnot clearlyexplainedsince the relationshipof memory, inferenceand cognitive judgment to the mechanics of the visual system is insufficiently known. Artists concerned with perceptual information have generally not found psychologicalstudiesuseful becauseresearchersstill concentrate on the simplest forms of perceptionmost of these a traditional common-placein artistic illusions. Of greater interest in its broader implications has been the ecological orientation provided by J. J. Gibson in his book, The Perception of the Visual World [l] and, more recently, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems [2]. Gibson’s article in Leonardo, ‘On the Relation Between Hallucinationand Perception’ [3], does have significant bearing on the perceptual investigations of the sculptor, Puusemp. The distinction Gibson makes between hallucination and percept interests him as well but where the visual psychologist wishes to clarify the differences, the visual artist wishes to merge them, accepting the logicalparadox to gain a new and expanded visual stance. Born in Estonia in 1942, Raivo Puusemp immigrated to the United Statesat the age of seven. He was educated at Hunter College in New York City and received formal art training at the Universityof Utah. Hisworkofthisperiodwasprimarilyinvolved withgeometricform,cleanlyandconciselyfashioned in wood and metal. From cast shadowsand reflecting surfaces of these forms, he evolved the problem of multiple interchangeof imagery. Parallel to this problemwasthephenomenonofillusionaryimagery of various psychological and physiological origins. The relationship of the formal to the psychological * Artist livingat High Falls, N.Y., U.S.A. ** Chairman,Division of Art, State University College, New Platz, N.Y.12561, U.S.A. (Received 3 July 1971.) question was summed up as an hypothesis of total perception versus selectiveperception. Puusemp-Perception, Ifind,isnotconsciouswith most people beyond a utilitarian level. The cause seems to be selectiveperception. The more specific one’s ownorientation,the moreselectivetheperception . My concern is to keep my perception as unbound by utility as possible. Through openperception , I make perceptual discoveries. An example of selective perception is the silk-screen worker who looks at hundreds of yards of silk, without seeing the incredible array of diffraction colors and multiple images behind the silk. It never seems to occur to him to direct his vision through hanging sheets of silk and to see the spectralimagery of a transformed reality. RaleieExtendingthiseffect,Puusempstretched a finely woven stainless steel screen on a rim suspended by stainless steel wires from a speedcontrollable motor. A woven steel screen has a greater effect on an image than the finest silk. This work consistsof a screenhoop hangingfrom a nearinvisiblesupport andturningat4to 6r.p.m., causing the metamorphosis of anything viewed through it into a shifting,unrealsequenceof images(cf. Fig. 1). At this stage of his work, Puusemp’s pieces indicatehis concernwith a particular perceptual and visual effect. The effect, if the visual point is to be impressedontheviewer,must beinducedor suggested without revealing it all at once, as has been the tradition with three-dimensional form. Of consequence ,many piecesare so subtlethat thereisrisk the viewer may miss the point entirely. One such object is a polished parabolic disc, classically classifiableas a sculpture(cf. Fig. 2). Puusemp-I noticed when looking at this object that there appearedto be a very bright sphereabove the surfaceofthedisc. Thespherecouldonlybe seen by positioning the viewer at a certain distance over the disc, with a light source suspended overhead. The spherecould be seenin illusion as an hallucinatory -like object and strangely felt with the hand as heat. A parabolic reflector takes light originating at its focal point and transforms it into parallel rays; it also makes impinging light rays focus at a focalpoint of the parabolic surface. This is why the sphere of light appearsin spaceabovethe parabolic disc. Raleigb-Central toPuusemp’swork...

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