Cephalopod Vision

I've been thinking about how to further explore my initial brief on the "creative potential to be found within ideas on multi species interdependence."

One of my original ideas was a Cuttlefish art gallery that helps us see from their perspective.  With that in mind I sourced some cuttlefish bones as a potential canvas to develop this further.  

 There have been some fascinating developments in out understanding of how Cephalopods vision works.  It is understood that they are technically colour blind as they only have a single visual pigment in their retina.  However in recent years it has been suggested that they may use chromatic aberration/blur to distinguish different colours based different levels of blurriness.

They are apparently "best at distinguishing the edges between dark and bright colours" *

I wanted to experiment with ink (seems appropriate given both Cuttlefish and Octopus produce ink) and how to visually demonstrate how something might be seen through a cuttlefish retina.  These are initial experiments with ink on paper, using a variety of techniques and tools.  The subject is a baby cuttlefish, which I thought might be one of the first things a cuttlefish sees.

I attempted to add blurred areas where colour was present on the photo and delineate the edges between dark and bright.  When I tried to replicate this on the cuttlefish bone I found it was very porous and absorbed the ink quickly so that some of the areas lost definition.  I found a dry brush left a nice mark on the ridged surface of the bone, which could be the 'blurred' part of the image.  If I do go down this route then I will need to use a finer brush or stick, and less water I think, however i'm going to experiment more to see how the surface responds to different paints and if I can prime it first to change how the ink is absorbed.  Or if I should seal or varnish it somehow afterwards.

I'd originally planned to experiment with cyanotype on these bones, so I will see if that works outside rather than in the darkroom too.






* https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-07/uoc--wpl070516.php