Some guy, a clinical sociologist, I think, surmised a few years ago that we
are spending so many hours in front of our television and computer screens that
we will eventually lose our sense of depth perception, and cars will be banging
into each other on the freeways with great regularity. We’ll probably have those “smart cars” before
that happens. But it should be obvious
to everybody that the lens of a film or digital camera flattens and compresses space
and form and exaggerates detail and color, among other optical aberrations.
The resulting images bear little resemblance to the way things look to
us in the natural world.
An event recounted by Wade Davis, a western advocate for the world's indigenous cultures, illustrates this truth very well. It seems that a group of five missionaries were attempting to make contact with an indigenous tribe in Ecuador in 1957. They first dropped 8x10 glossy photographs of themselves into the rainforest as a peaceful gesture of introduction. The tribesmen had never seen a two-dimensional image before. They turned the photos every which way looking for form and figure but found nothing. So they concluded the photographs "were calling cards from the devil," says Davis, and when the missionaries arrived in person they were speared to death by the tribesmen.
Now you could argue that the same thing would have happened to Rembrandt if he had ever ventured out of Amsterdam to drop a self-portrait into the same rainforest, but I would have to strongly disagree, although not from behind the point of a spear. I'm a peaceful advocate for oil painting from life, which enabled Rembrandt to capture the impression of his real form and figure on canvas so convincingly that it would surely have elicited smiles of recognition from even the most obstreperous of indigenous tribesmen.
An event recounted by Wade Davis, a western advocate for the world's indigenous cultures, illustrates this truth very well. It seems that a group of five missionaries were attempting to make contact with an indigenous tribe in Ecuador in 1957. They first dropped 8x10 glossy photographs of themselves into the rainforest as a peaceful gesture of introduction. The tribesmen had never seen a two-dimensional image before. They turned the photos every which way looking for form and figure but found nothing. So they concluded the photographs "were calling cards from the devil," says Davis, and when the missionaries arrived in person they were speared to death by the tribesmen.
Now you could argue that the same thing would have happened to Rembrandt if he had ever ventured out of Amsterdam to drop a self-portrait into the same rainforest, but I would have to strongly disagree, although not from behind the point of a spear. I'm a peaceful advocate for oil painting from life, which enabled Rembrandt to capture the impression of his real form and figure on canvas so convincingly that it would surely have elicited smiles of recognition from even the most obstreperous of indigenous tribesmen.
There is no doubt, however, that the civilized world’s sense
of visual reality is being challenged subliminally by the virtual reality
encapsulated in the multitude of electronic image devices that permeate our
daily lives. We already can’t tell
whether images seen on a screen are the real thing or fake. Computer-generated imagery is so advanced
that a video showing crowds of people feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar
Square can be produced entirely in a studio in Burbank
with all the elements layered seamlessly into the scene via electronic pixels. Many purported on-location
interviews seen on news programs are actually done in the studio with computer-integrated video of
the actual scene playing in the background.
Computer graphics software now enables artists to produce professional
looking films, graphics and fine art from their home computers. Natural looking landscapes and realistically animated
images are part of the CGI portfolio. Photoshopped
images abound in the electronic and print media without attracting undue
censure from the public.
 |
|
Bush-Kerry Morph, http://vhil.stanford.edu/projects/
|
 |
|
Zoe, A Digital Talking Head, http://youtu.be/kOil2HSDq0E
|
Computer morphed or digitally simulated people look just like real human
beings on the screen nowadays and can easily fool us into believing they are, indeed,
composed of flesh and blood. We can’t
tell the difference, and frankly, Scarlett, we just don’t give a damn. “Everything is so sharp. It has to be real.” We believe the high-definition images on
television and our home computers to be a more accurate portrayal of an event
than what we witness with our own eyes, which we primarily use now to stare at
the tiny screens on our cell phones, iPods and tablet computers when we are out
and about.
We are in the midst of a truly amazing assault on human visual perception. This brave new world composed of nothing but
pixels is part of the ongoing campaign to replace human intelligence with
artificial intelligence for all critical thinking. So what, says the human race, this
electronically “pixelated” world is a far more entertaining place to live in
than the world of our ancestors, who only had boring things like flowers
growing in the backyard and sunrises and sunsets to gaze upon in their leisure
hours.
