Experimental Visual Experience Devices

This article introduces the concept of Experimental Visual Experience Devices (EVEDs), which the author defines as artistic inventions that alter the participant’s visual perceptions of the external real world. The aim of EVEDs is to place the participant in a slightly altered visual reality in order to cause him or her to see real things anew. The article describes several works of participation art that can be seen as historical precedents to EVEDs. The author discusses two EVEDs that he invented: Whirld is a cylindrical room mounted on an axle that functions as a spinning camera obscura; Portable Whirld is a hood that functions as a portable camera obscura. The author describes how the two sculptures reshape the spectator’s visual perceptions, and suggests some forms that future EVEDs might take.