project 57/

GENERATOR OF IDEAS

I. Sovkov, Writer, Moscow

The fact of the existence of peripheral vision in addition to axial or central vision was established long ago. When we look or scrutinize something, simultaneously with the axial, main field where our attention is concentrated, there emerges a field of "peripheral" vision as a vague sphere, a ring or perhaps it is better to say the likeness of a tunnel which surrounds the field of our direct attention.

For a long lime, insufficient attention has been paid to the significance of this "field" because of its lack or focus and lack of clarity, but recently it has been attracting more and more attention. "Peripheral" vision is directly connected to "axial" as its unmediated compliment, constantly performing the role of its "double," magnifying, enriching, uncovering either the content, or the meanings which the object of "direct vision" contain. Their connection is similar to the one between the conscious and the subconscious. If all that is logical, sober, clear and informative belongs to the perception of "direct view," then the "peripheral field" that arises along with it contains within it all that is wavering, intuitive, evasive, dark. If the "direct" vision via the axis of one's view somehow stops, grasps the object of scrutiny to examine it better, clarify it, then in the "peripheral" view everything is unstable, everything vibrates, moves around, flickers. (This characteristic of ''peripheral?" vision was understood very well by portrait artists: they were familiar with the mysterious rule according to which if you fix your attention on the "nose" of a finished portrait, then the eyes or the edge of the lips will begin to move, twitch.) Finally, if in central vision the object functions in a multitude of its details and connections, then in the peripheral vision everything exists as a whole, summarily, like a vague cloud where everything glides and dissipates. From these above-cited observations, it is only two steps to the extraordinary conclusion that direct vision incorporates the "daytime" side of our consciousness, where there exists speech, calculations, "correct'' connections, whereas the peripheral vision that arises simultaneously includes our "night" side, where images live, fantasies, assumptions, moreover, the first will be very important for our project - it automatically "drags" along with it the second: the problem merely consists of how this can be directed and used.

The device which confirms the action of the mechanism discussed here can appear like a chamber-tunnel built in any dwelling, with a drawing of a rabbit sitting in an empty field hung at eye-level at the end of the tunnel. Exactly the same drawings, three per row, are lying on slanted tables at the far end of the tunnel. If you sit down

in the chair in front of the chamber and examine carefully the hanging rabbit, then on one of the pairs of the lying drawings it will be possible to see next to the depiction of the rabbit a hunter or a running dog, depending upon what is prompted by the imagination which has begun to work in the consciousness of the observer. Such a chamber-generator of ideas can be built by everyone at home, maintaining all the proportions of our project. Of course, instead of a "Rabbit" you can hang up your own sketch or project. Scrutinizing it carefully, you only need not to miss the moment when your concept emerges, when it begins to flicker in the peripheral field in order to remember and record it.

GENERATOR OF IDEAS

1. A chamber 290 x 500 x 210 is installed in an exhibition space, it is open on two sides but you can enter it only from one side, a chair is standing there; at the other end is a picture of a rabbit hung by two wires. Just under the ceiling, the chamber is slightly rounded. The thickness of the walls, ceiling and floor is 1.5 cm, the radius of the rounded ceiling is 13 cm; the walls and the ceiling are light gray, the floor is brown.

2. Along both sides are slanted stands of wood (plywood). Paint them light ochre, they are 4.7 m long and 70 cm wide. The angle of the slant from the wall is 60 degrees.

3. Place a chair or stool at a distance of 30 cm from the entrance exactly in the middle.

4. From the floor to the ceiling, hang a picture of a rabbit sketched in black contours on two thin wires (so it doesn't turn around).

The drawing should first be glued to plywood. Paint the back of the plywood white. Hang the drawing at the very edge of the chamber in the center. The drawing hangs opposite the entrance, facing the chair at the edge of the chamber.

5. Do six drawings 65 x 47 of the exalt same rabbit as the one hanging on the wires, and arrange them three together (with intervals of 2 cm) beginning at the edge of the stands. (The lower edge of the drawing should be on the same level as the lower edge of the stand.)