Helen Slater Stokes

Overview of My Research

As with all research, it is crucial to explore the context you are working in.

The Image

For this I examined how the two dimensional image has historically evolved and how these developments relate to the optical cues that the eye and brain adopt, in order to form a perception of three dimensions.

As an artist who loves to draw, it was really interesting to learn optically why the rules of drawing, which I have learnt over the years, are so convincing in creating the illusion of a three dimensional space or scene.

Optical Perception

The understanding of how we perceive three-dimensional depth, via our binocular vision, is not new. As early as the 4th century BC Greek mathematician Euclid was credited by some with the discovery of the principles of binocular vision. But today, with the interest in 3D virtual technology, the launch of glasses-free 3D televisions, virtual reality headsets and now augmented reality, the process of working with binocular vision, imagery and kinetics to create the illusion of 3D depth is being explored further than ever before.

Surveying the technological developments surrounding the image and the illusion of three dimensions was a further extension of the context. From early lens-based plotting devices that facilitated the translation of the world into a graphic reference, to scientific stereoscopic apparatus and early 3D technology, this contextualised the image and our desire to capture realism through illusion. Here I was intrigued by the scientific endeavours that have led to today’s convincing parallax-based 3D virtual realisations of real and imaginary worlds.

This short film illustrates the approaches explored and some of the glass works produced over my six years of part-time research.

This series of pieces create a dialogue around our notions of a 'place'. The emotional resonance it might have and our human sentimental or associative attachments.

Field View: This range of work is an exaggeration of what happens optically if we were able to capture the gathered image from just one of our eyes as it instantaneously flicks across a view gathering data. This captures a sharp focus on the area of interest and then the gradual blurring as peripheral vision tails off.

Through the Mist: In this photographic technique, blur, or bokeh, is used to exaggerate depth or draw the viewer to a particular focus. As mentioned, our eyes almost instantaneously find a focus while they dart across a scene: by focusing on several areas to construct a realistic image of the space or object as a whole. In photography it is rarely possible to focus crisply on everything within a shot and it is this blurring that distinguishes photography from human vision.

Den: This work looks at tonality and its use traditionally in depicting optical depth. The internal image illustrates a tunnel of trees receding into the the distance. Darker tones fade to lighter greys, as the space recedes. Again this is a space that no longer exists, which has been drawn from memory. This place has been pictorially recreated to appear three dimensional, preserved within the glass forever.

These effects in/on the glass bring a poetic reference to the pieces, adding a further emotive or human dialogue.

These lenticular glass sculpture appears to hold coloured spheres within, that track and follow the viewer.

Oculus, here coloured forms appear to breach the glass that holds them, animated as if rolling out of the glass. They question our perception of the 'space within', whilst also functioning as a time based image plotting not only spatial references but also the passing of time.

Acuity also addresses the space within an object. But here this work functions based on the miss alignment of the optical lens, converting smooth spheres into saw-like discs. These forms, in the glass, spin as the viewer engages with them, keeping track and time with the observer. This piece has been purchased to be part of the International glass collection at the Imagine Museum Florida, USA.

In this series dialogues around space and the time based image emerge, in addition to the necessity for interaction with the works.

This works explores 'Space' as a mathematical computation. Creating a virtual perceived space within the work that appears to be deeper than the 6mm glass which contains it.

When viewed the spiral-like form animates following and pulsing as the observer moves around the piece.

Virtual Landscape II: This is a unique cast glass sculpture that uses original glass processes, developed during my PhD, to create the perception of additional depth and three dimensionality, within the drawn landscape.

Drawings from memory, of a place that no longer exists, have be digitally captured and manipulated to recreate this place in three dimensions within the glass. This is a landscape that you are now able to look around, which animates as the viewer moves, and sways in the breeze.

It is a place that has been virtually fabricated to be preserved forever within the glass.

This wall mounted lenticular glass sculpture discusses the changes that happen overtime that change our landscape. The field in question has been built upon and the place changed forever. This was a place I knew, it had a resonance, but as the planners move in the place becomes a mathematical space, rather than one with an emotional attachment. Breaking Ground speaks of this change of purpose and change in emotional perspective.

This piece explores one of the optical cues that the brain used to create a perception of the space around us and how this recognised cognitive response can be manipulated.

Inverted Symmetric Cone creates the illusion of a cone-like form superseding the surface of the glass and animating or pulsing, as the viewer moves around the piece.

Again this work challenges our perception of what we are seeing, whilst also analysing our notion of the space around us and the optical cues we take in order to interpret these places/spaces.

This work is comprised of two pieces of glass. The first is an opaque white sheet of 3mm glass with the digital image fired onto it and the second a cast glass lens, again only approximately 3mm thick, which facilitates the illusion.