Primitives is a sculptural illustration of the computational metaphors used to understand visual perception.









The sculpture learns to recognize basic shapes and uses these shapes as a vocabulary to physically draw patterns on a chalkboard, leaving a trail of its development on the wall over time.

Background
Tactile-Vision Device Paul Bach-Y-Rita

Vision by David Marr

Visual Intelligence by Donald Hoffman

I is an Other by James Geary

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn

illustrations by Fritz Kahn

illustrations of perception by Descartes, Johann Zahn, Isaac Newton

work by Chuck Close, Sol Lewitt, Cy Twombly

Implementation
Visitors are invited to submit hand-drawn primitive shapes on a small chalkboard slate with an overhead camera. The machine tries to detect the shape drawn by the user then draws the shape it recognizes on a wall - as if attempting to communicate or make sense of the world that it perceives. Each human interaction improves the machine's recognition abilities by contributing new data.