20/200
Cherish Hsiaohui Ho
Vision is dominant among the five senses in human perception. Eighty percent of the information a person perceives is decided by the visual cortex. With more visual data becoming increasingly accessible and persuasive, does one see more or does it become an information overload? If seeing gives us a sense of freedom and access to information that we take for granted on a daily basis, what happens when that ability is limited?
The book, 20/200, explores a world where vision is impaired and sight is limited. Using a digital pinhole camera, fragmented pictures of streets and objects are created, with heavy noise and scattered lights. Nothing can be seen through the viewfinder, and exposure and focus cannot be manually set.
Through abstract images of daily objects and experience, the book introduces a familiar yet strange dimension and questions what and how much information can be perceived when visual content is removed. In a void of visual hierarchy, how does a viewer process and differentiate what is perceived. Does the unknown completely remove the understanding or does this visual restriction open the opportunity to a completely other freedom of visual context and imagination? Or does it potentially offer an indirect, but intimate emotional connection? 20/200 suggests the latter that there is an unexpected opportunity to be found in the limitation of the visual information.