mapping perception research

RESEARCH - Andrew Kotting's Project Diary

Her innocence has been pervaded by despair. A life of living in the now.

Failure to progress. Foetal distress. Emergency caesarean section. Resuscitation, mucus Extraction and oxygen by mask.

High pitched weak cry. Moved all four limbs. Slight grasp.

No further comments on baby's condition. Stable relationship for 6 years, father student, 3 bedroom council flat.

Mother unemployed Caucasian 26 year old., 3 bedroom council flat.
Mum and Dad visited and aware of condition.

Poor CTG and failure to progress. Seems hungry but will not suck.

Seen by neurologist. No problems to go on to demand breast feeds. Eden to be discharged, home pm. Health visitor informed.

Some investigations have been arranged for baby.
Visual problems. Jerky eye movements, almost a nystagmus.

*****Ultra sound head: The brain looks normal with normal SYE? possibly slightly compressed, No hydrocephalus......No haemorrhage
CT scan : Progress poor doesn't seem to see, has always had dancing eyes. Occasional smile but not in response to anything. Father possibly the same. Parents were in Africa for 2 months during pregnancy. Paternal great grandfather senile in age 40? Paternal Grandfather brain haemorrhage. Dads brother achondroplasia.

No head control. Global problems.

In good health. Generally happy. Often falls backwards. Can sometimes sit.

Squashed looking with no head control.

Insults across the neurological board.
On examination she had a head tilt to the right, she also had nystagmus. Avoidance was marked.

She is floppy and generally delayed. Tendon reflexes are brisk suggesting that the problem is cerebral.
She looked very well and we were pleased to see her overall progress.
This girl is walking better and better and apparently seems much better than she was and parents are very happy with her progress.
I saw Eden in my clinic today. I am pleased to say that she is doing very well.
Eden's visual acuity is very unlikely to improve with this condition and in fact it may well deteriorate.
The brain looks normal, possibly slightly compressed ventricles. No hydrocephalus. No haemorrhage.

We will see her again in one year.

They said :

Briefly she has the following problems:
She is floppy and generally delayed.
She is the first child born to healthy and unrelated parents and therefore there is a major genetic issue about this diagnosis.
I saw both parents and explained the uncertainties of the diagnosis.
I will give them some further information since they are intelligent people who would otherwise be trying to get further information about this from their own reading.

The dietician made an assessment and suggested that the Kottings should increase Edens fat intake, which they have done.

Eden has Jouberts syndrome of cerrebellar vermis hypoplasia, ventilation rhythm problems and several neurological problems, general delay but no clear decision yet about her intellectual functional has been made though we assume it is better than is at present obvious.

Recognises people or toys. Mum wants speech therapy.
Trying to feed by spoon. No words. Just Yogart.

The problem parents are worried about her feet.
Eden can walk whilst grasping onto walls or desks or ladders, although she cannot walk independently because of balance problems which are probably due to her cerebellum. Both feet look as if they are going into valgus.

Wherever that might be.

THERE ARE TO BE A COUPLE OF LISTS , BOTH ON TYPE.

edens star sign : ARIES
all that storm and bluster is fooling nobody. We all know you have said some of these things before and they changed nothing, or is this different?

FRANZ GALL and his Phrenological list : Human Nature perception of motives

Said in THE manner of a PALIMPSEST (TWO voices coming at you at once, one having almost been erased/offset in order that another might burroe through)

IMITATION

HOPE expectation , enterprise
CONSCIOUSNESS justice, equity
TUNE sense of harmony and melody
ORDER, method, system, arrangement
TIME cognization of duration
LOCALITY recollection of places
Bump reading is nonsense, but not completely wrong.

WHAT ABOUT THE TIME WE WALKED THE BUGGIES TO THE LETTER BOX? dO YOU REMEMBER THAT BILLIE?

Do you remember me as a baby Eden. Do you remember your time with Eden in the paddling pool Billie? Etc Also ask her about how SHE thinks that Eden might perceive the world. Repression is the mother of metaphor. It also makes you work harder.

THE BRAIN IS TOO COMPLICATED TO EVER UNDERSTAND ITSELF,BUT HE NEVER CEASES TO TRY.EVER MINDFUL OF HOW STUPID HE MIGHT LOOK IF HE DIDN'T

tHERE should be other somesuch drawn from notes and put as words into the mouths of COMMONERS.

Eden signs with a voice

v/o A SHORT hand gesture about THE TROUBLEs OF BEING BORN (C/U hands)
V/O BUT AS THE YEARS WENT BY, I LOST THE PRIDE OF YOUTH AND EACH DAY LIKE A LESSON IN HUMILITY I REMIND MYSELF THAT I AM STILL ALIVE AND AS SIMPLE MINDED AS THE REST OF THEM.
v/o AND I CALL SIMPLE MINDED ANY MAN WHO SPEAKS THE TRUTH WITH CONVICTION.
v/o THEY TELL ME THAT THE CLEAR SIGHTED PEOPLE THAT UNDERSTAND THEMSELVES AND CAN JUSTIFY THEMSELVES WILL NEVER MAKE A MEMORABLE GESTURE.
v/o MY DAD THE SECOND HAND THINKER
v/o WE FORGIVE ONLY MADMEN AND CHILDREN FOR BEING FRANK WITH US, OTHERS WILL REGRET IT SOONER OR LATER.
v/o I NEVER MET ONE INTERESTING MIND THAT WAS NOT RICHLY ENDOWED WITH INADMISSIBLE DEFICIENCIES.

(THERE WOULD ALSO BE A COLLECTION OF DRAWINGS NOTES COLLABORATIONS WITH EDEN, AVAILABLE FOR PERUSAL)

Where tomorrow brings whatever we give her. The light spills into the room for the new day and perhaps a " what did you have to eat followed by a what colour's your hoover..."if she hasn't seen me the night before.

Me the Pollyanna in the face of the Jeremiahs?

Then there's the sciart phenomena, the perfect adhocist debate.

The factotums abounding and the head swimming in the wake of more outpouring s, from others, to comprehend.

Now using a language which is accessible and transporting. Landing in worlds Faber book of sciencesque.

Perception as to know or to understand, but still cofusionist whilst trying to understand the notions of a process between sensation and cognition. A receptive process but for me just assimilation collation and then regurgitation. In the name of quest.

Questing. Inquiring. Deliberating but invariably forgetting.

They tell me the processes that involve thinking, meaningful language, or problem solving are assigned to cognition, while those dealing with the nonsymbolic or concrete properties are identified as perception: size, colour, shape, texture and sound. ie what colour is your hoover and what type of noise does it make?

This my upstairs , a Glory hole, pursuing, in a vain attempt to uncover the knowledge thing. The tickle of fancy.

Cogita tu, but do I? Or is it just the weary trope of second hand thinkers come tumbling out of this mouth. What dictionary did he swallow?

Attack the character rather than the argument. Ad homonym, to the man, seduce the prejudice rather than the reason.

Deriver, undoing that which is riveted, embracing the contingent, whilst waiting for the clarification. Devouring like a cultural omnivore, eating with the mouth open, very wide, so as people might see inside. You should always put your hand in front less people find a place to hide. To what extent can anything possibly good come of this nonsense which is utterly impenetrable?

Until then, after her birth I imagined myself capable of anything, all the transgressions, all the adventures, always the dare. But now I'm part of the humanity, humility and old age have brought me here via her.

Animus of the devout believer and fundamental non questioner. The lazy believer.

Stuff pertaining to the installation now.

So now we take Rembrandt van Rijn's Anatomy Lesson as springboard and catalyst, as the backdrop and all seeing focus for our re enactment. As testament to a spectacular body and confused conundrum that is her Perception. As a world re presented through her eyes. She lies, stillbound, knees up waiting for us to make sense of the carryon. Movements of imperceptible clarity. A meaning evoked through mnemonic and ikon. A signifier and provocateur. We wait for inspiration, clarification or at the very least a hand of god.

We have slowed down the idea, we have almost stopped the inquisition, but ever alert to the deep heritage of scientific truths. A practical philosophy and series of judgments, revised without ceasing. Our senses open to the zeitgeist, the bombardment of ideas set against the relics of past norms, surviving through a new digital mongrel tradition.

Mapping Perception as an Ontology or metaphysic (the nature of reality / being and knowing / abstract discussion or reasoning) and the nature of being.

The gallery space as a repository, a place of restriction and containment and paradoxically a place of contemplation and transportation. A trip to a church or synagogue, monastery or temple. It is a melting pot of elementary substances and concerns and an innermost chamber, the whole should become a lexicon of signs.

Though the desire for meaning may begin with an attempt at decoding, the inevitable result is the creation of further codes and veils, which require ever more decipherment in this practice of realising ideas in three-dimensions by way of what Descartes calls method ... ......etc. science is no different but we need the metaphor to the fore in order that the somesuch that has proceeded this somesuch in no way reflects what we actually deliver. IE it needs to be understandable like a dog.

*Rosicrucian philosophy which was disseminated in Northern Europe in the seventeenth century by an anonymous group of heretical writers, promised religious and intellectual redemption to anyone who could decode its enigmatic signs.

Is this what art musthas become or is this what science iswas?

Themes such as material symbols, flint, salt, sulphur, water, fire etc., the discovery of something wonderful where it is least expected (Dung Heap), constriction and containment and the work of the handson. This latter notion - manual labour - being absolutely fundamental to the symbolism of alchemy is particularly appropriate in the context of the Interactives Commission and would suggest parameters for a hands on interaction with the work. It is important that this intervention/interaction is direct rather than incidental once inside the space.

The vast literature of alchemy (BASE METALS INTO GOLD AND TRUTH) (SciArt Collaborations into new truths) requires a constant study and repeated rearrangement of its imagery in looking for connections, perceivable themes and clues to the practitioners intent - processes to meaning and ultimately just the quest as continuum.

The meaning of it is initially obscure but there is a sense of order and theme to the pandemonium that is mapping perception. Like trying to trace the neurons as they hurtle across the cortex. Her 24 hour psycho.

Then to things calmer and clearer and dare i say it commoner:
lost her leg to art to boot.
some maxims / aphorisms that should be read withease:

1543 was a good year for modern science and perhaps when it all began, way back before people had the KNOWING. It saw the release of Andreas Vesalius' on the fabric of the human body, (known in latin as the FABRICA). The text of which might be deemed the foundation of modern anatomy, packed full of top illustrations, designed by the artists of the school of Titian and cut of fine pearwood by Venetian block cutters, showing the arteries, veins, muscles and nerves of the human body.

Science and its specialised technical vocabularies, used to avoid the nuance, contingent metaphor laden and ambiguous plethora of ordinary language: thus enabling their own esoteric special language to at least be able to describe an egg as an egg or the right way up as the right way up.

The fun of knowing.

Leonardo of Vinci, a left handed topsy turveyist, vegetarian, homosexual bastard; insatiable for newness, both in art and science. Creator of the first true landscape drawing in western art. First painter to omit haloes from the heads of figures from scripture and show them in ordinary domestic settings. See that crown of thorns around his head, it was my idea. I was to get the job of bang bang bang banging in the nails, i was bang bang bang bang banging in the nails....she shot me down bang bang i hit the ground my baby shot me down.

"such an opinion cannot exist in brains possessed of any extensive powers of reasoning."

The smell of conception as experienced through the smell of 88. A rather expensive body cologne produced exclusively for crabtree and evelyn and connected with the number 8 and all that that might connote symbolically or numerlogically!

hE CONCLUDED THAT...(gALL/PHRenological images)....there were twenty seven different character traits. These purported building blocks of personality actually turned out to be rather sophisticated features of the human mind..........but they were possibly all wrong?

An Eden thougthover :

I'm lying here waiting
not wanting the arriving
happy with my fetal lining
wishing
that i was back in the balls of that maligning
swine
of a father.

(Repatriation is now impossible, given that i have a continuum to take care of)

Whisper the truth and shout the lies, which reminds me, why has pleasure in slowness disappeared? Nothing is now quite what it seemed to be.

Today i saw Eden as a late middle aged woman, her mum and dad were gone and it made me sad.

Me as the descriptive observational scientist without really having a clue about what's going on.

The portrait, as it developed from the works of Hans Holbein (1497-1543) and Velasquez (1599-1660) to those of Rembrandt (1606-1669) and Vermeer (1632-1675), increasingly created a picture of an individual presence, of a self, heightening the dignity and the value of a person and individual.

A TRONIE was a seventeenth century word for a painted figure that was important for its symbolic significance rather than for the person it depicted. Rembrandts early self portraits were not really about himself, but were really representations of types of people, or kinds of emotions.

The primary aim of human judgement is not accuracy but the avoidance of paralysing uncertainty.

Constructors of false knowledge in the face of adjectival false truths. Thus each civilisation presents an answer to the question the great out of doors proposes, but the mystery remains intact. New peoples with new enquiries will come to pitch their luck, vainly from within the confines of their own tent, each of them merely another enclave of mistakes.

There you have it.
Kotting. 2002