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INTRODUCTION

"Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information...
it is a creative human activity, its geniuses acting
more as artists than as information processors."
Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin

MAPPING PERCEPTION is a four year collaboration between Giles Lane, curator and producer (Proboscis), Andrew Kötting, the acclaimed director of Gallivant and This Filthy Earth, and Mark Lythgoe, neurophysiologist at the Institute of Child Health, London with the participation of Eden Kötting.

MAPPING PERCEPTION examines the limits of human perception through an investigation of impaired brain function, making visible the connections between scientific and artistic explorations of the human condition, probing the thin membrane between the able and the disabled.

At the heart of the project is Eden, Andrew's daughter. She was born at Guy's Hospital, London, in 1988 with a rare genetic disorder – Joubert Syndrome – causing cereberal vermis hypoplasia and several other neurological complications. Eden thus participates in the project as both a catalyst and a cypher for a more general investigation into how we see the world and perceive difference.

MAPPING PERCEPTION has four main outcomes:

a 37 minute 35mm film
an immersive & environmental sensory installation
a book & CD-ROM
a website

*** Special Offer 2004: Book/CD-Rom + VHS Video ***

The team have also given talks and presentations about the project, notably at:
• Science-Art Seminar at Imperial College London (June 1999)
• Sciart Symposium at the Royal Geographic Society (September 2000)
• Sciart Symposium at the Liverpool Biennial (September 2002)
• Brief Encounters Festival at the Watershed Media Centre, Bristol (November 2002)
• LUX Open at the Royal College of Art London (April 2003)
• European Media Art Festival, Osnabruck (April 2003).

Mark was awarded the prestigious Dorothy Hodgkin Award Lecture by the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science), which he presented at their Festival of Science at the University of Leicester, Thursday 12th September 2002.