I'm trying to review what I've been doing over the last few years and as I do I realise I repeat myself over and over again, so forgive me, but as I get older I forget what I have said, or I need to say it again, slightly differently to ensure what I said still makes sense, even though I now have more but perhaps contradictory information.
Lines in the visual field (circular left) map to lines in the striate cortex: From Bressloff et al
When trying to visualise interoception, I often go back to entoptic forms, those shapes that we generate from inside ourselves, because both sets of phenomena are encountered as 'inner' experiences. Heinrich Klüver extrapolated
four groups of entoptic visual phenomena that he called 'Form Constants';
these were, lattices, cobwebs, tunnels, and spirals. It has been
theorised that structures of neural interconnectivity could dictate the type of emergent phenomena that are produced. Neural network models of
geometric hallucinations have incorporated empirical
insights from neural anatomy and physiology, including the spatial arrangements associated with different neuronal cell types. It has therefore been argued that the
worldwide prevalence of certain types of geometric visual patterns found in
prehistoric art can be best explained by humanity’s shared neurobiological
embodiment. The mathematical biologists Jack Cowan and G. Bard Ermentrout who created the first mathematical model of visual hallucinations in the 1970s, were the key researchers behind the realisation of why these specific shapes happen. Our primary visual cortex maps what we see using a grid-like coordinate system and when our brain is hyper-excited, whether by psychedelics as in Klüver's case or sensory deprivation, such as being immersed in a dark cave for a long time, migraines, or near-death experiences, it triggers spontaneous electrical waves of activity. Because of the way our brain's visual field is physically mapped (a mathematical transformation called log-polar mapping), straight lines of electrical activity in the brain are perceived by your mind as being bent, producing perceived images of spirals, tunnels, and lattices. The human visual system naturally performs a log-polar transformation in the process of sending signals from the spherical retina to the flat primary visual cortex. Because entoptic images are cast directly onto the retina, they are subjected to this exact same mathematical warping before your brain ever "sees" them, In short, when you see a form constant, you are quite literally looking at the physical wiring of your own brain.
Klüver's form constants
But I am also an image maker and my area of research covers the complex relationships between how we read symbolic material culture, how we encounter and attempt to visualise first-person experience and how insights into neurobiology can be used to give meaning to the ongoing awareness of our inner selves. In particular I'm interested in neurobiology as a growing area of
research focused on the interrelated concepts of sense-making, value and
sensorimotor activity and how the mapping of our complex interconnected bodies can effect our visual ideas of embodied thoughts.
Images from an interoception workshop
Workshops exploring how other people might visualise interoception have revealed the fact that images related to entoptic forms will emerge over and over again, these workshops are held at regular intervals and during the time I have been holding them, I have also made images of my own interoceptual experiences and other people's; as in the two prints below. In these images I attempt to synthesise an awareness of the expressive power of figurative distortion, alongside the embodiment of shapes and forms that are of an entoptic nature; spirals, zig-zags and dots, engaging the visual field alongside more figurative symbols.
A problem swallowing: Gagging with a full mouth
A print votive for a shy person; What it feels like to be stared at
Historical development of optogenetics.
Schematic representation of two classic photosensitive proteins.
Schematic illustration of the application of optogenetic technology in different diseases.
From: Zhao et al
So on the one hand I try to keep up with recent scientific advances, but on the other hand some things in relation to the evolutionary history of human beings, are very old indeed. My reading implies that basic formal elements or 'form constants'
can be used to carry information in a format that would have been
familiar to humans experiencing drawings over 40,000 years ago and ideas which
may have been communicable at the time may become so again but perhaps within a new/old context. In the image below the prints of hands, the dots and the drawings of the animals are all working together to tell a story. It is a story that would have been very different when first told and as these images reach today's humans, new stories are shaped by the concerns of life now.
From the caves at Lascaux
As these forms emerge within a contemporary framework, they arrive into the existing matrix of beliefs that society has about art, the body, the unconscious, belief, superstition, science, magic and religion. Old ideas become re-formed and re-read, the runes and symbols of ancient beliefs, such as those used by various shamanistic societies, now forming a texture out of which emerges new beliefs, truths are questioned and our faith in science begins to crack and at the same time it continues to produce wonders. It is into these cracks that my work tries to insert itself. Sometimes I can think of it as a contemporary answer to a loss of belief and yet also as a type of chaos magic, whereby it operates as a way to effect a change in thinking. All images are perhaps hallucinations, as they are never reality, but forms conjured up by our physiological makeup, as ways to help us make decisions as to what to do. Whether we think of art as a problem, echoing Plato's worry about mimicry or like Aristotle, see it as a way of rehearsing for life, we are faced with a never ending conundrum, one which I'm very happy to play with and offer yet another opportunity for others to join in with too. Our inner lives are so rich, that science alone cannot depict them, but what these imaginary explorations can do, is to intimate the richness and celebrate the wonder of this strange thing called life.
A diagram of imagined life energy
References
Bressloff, P.C., Cowan, J.D., Golubitsky, M., Thomas, P.J., & Wiener, M.C. (2002) What Geometric Visual Hallucinations can tell us about the Visual Cortex Neural Computation, 14, 473-491.
Knobloch, Patricia J. (2023) The shapes of things that were: Applying Huarpa art (AD 250-700)
to the Lewis-Williams and Dowson
entoptic model for shamanism: Boletín del Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Vol. 28, n.º 1, pp. 195-219, Santiago de Chile: Available at: https://boletinmuseoprecolombino.cl/nuevo/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/BMChAP_28_1.pdf#page=189
Zhao, H., Yue, H. and Chou, W. et al, (2025) Optogenetic technology: breakthroughs and challenges from basic research to clinical translation, Advanced Photonics, 7(5), 054001. doi: 10.1117/1.AP.7.5.054001.
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