Archives of Vision is an interactive installation that explores ways of seeing as a performative act of understanding space and constructing meaning. The installation is constructed in three parts - the first explores the tracking of the gaze as a device for spatial composition; the second re- enacts the path of the observer’s eyes through the motion of a robotic creature; the third archives these recordings into a network of situated compositions, revealing the space as seen by a collection of human eyes and robotic creatures. The project utilizes the latest technology in eye tracking hardware and software to detect the point of gaze in three dimensional space. An analogue augmented reality viewing apparatus materializes the collected path of the gaze in the form of a holographic eye drawing. Following the data collection of eye movement of various observers, the behavior of their individual gaze is translated to the motion of a human-scale robot, creating a situated, mechanical representation of the eye. Rather than replacing the function of the observer, the robotic creatures catalogue a temporal memory of looking. Archiving ways of seeing space through a (digital and physical) collection and interpretation of human and machinic vision provides a dynamic model of how unities are articulated in the production of boundaries between visual representations and spatial environments.
