The Ishihara Colour Test is the most common clinical test for red-green colour vision deficiencies in humans. It comprises up to 38 plates, each containing a circle of dots randomised in colour and size, which form a number that is visible to people with normal colour vision. However, the number in the dots is invisible, or difficult to see, for those with a red-green colour vision defect.
But, like mirages and memories, the Ishihara numbers are just optical phenomena. Each shows an image of things elsewhere, where refraction and reflection coexist and, to some extent, can be captured on camera.
My project, Attentional Landscapes, undertakes semi-scientific experiments by photographically stripping and manipulating intended meaning and function. I combine the original plates from an Ishihara test book with personal family snapshots in which I appeared as a child. A mutated self-portrait memorial is the result ? ambiguity through neutrality and absence, where vision, memory and the truth are simultaneously reduced and enlarged.
Thus in this project, I question observation, exposure, recognition and insight, all in the contexts of memory and contemporary culture in which we are bombarded by ever-increasing amounts of visual stimuli, and yet in which there are always varying shades of gray.
