"Under suitable conditions light falling on the eye may render visible certain objects within the eye itself. These perceptions are called entoptical." This is most likely artist William Hundley's foremost obsession, I came across his work just this morning, and I can truly understand the fascination. Although Austin-based Hundley has been described as a multi-disciplinary artist, most will know him, if at all, for his rather eerie spectre-like photography. His tools of the trade are for the main part, a camera, air, and a piece of fabric. This apparently most benign trinity ensures that Hundley produces some of the most eye-popping, mind-phasing, frighteningly hypnotic images known to man.
If you ever wondered why people assume that wearing a white sheet could at all constitute an impression of a ghost, then here's most likely why…
One type of entoptic phenomena are 'floaters'. On occasion, be it in a dog-tired state readying for bed, or gazing up at a blue sky on a sunny summer's afternoon, I will see floaters. Floaters, or muscae volitantes, appear as slowly drifting shapes such as spheres, near transparent and only ever noticeable when staring at a blank space or in a brightly lit area. They appear to slide across the eye, however that volition is more due to the movements of the eye and in particular retina itself. The causes can vary, and all are both common and for the most part benign, some may be individual red blood cells swollen due to osmotic pressure, or in some cases appear as chains where these cells have stuck together causing patterns of diffraction. They can also be caused by the "coagula of the proteins of the vitreous gel, to embryonic remnants, or the condensation round the walls of Cloquet’s canal.
However this is definitely one phenomenon where artistic interpretation wins over scientific evaluation every time. I my more ethereal moments I have tried to imagine how, should there be such things, ghosts, alien species, rifts and warps in space, might appear, in the light of day, against a humdrum backdrop of over familiarity. Hundley has come so close to photographing dreams it is unreal. The mind reels as it tries, at least initially, to fathom what, why, and how in a split second, before deciding it couldn't be done and realising that each image is nothing more than cloth floating on a breeze. As with cloud gazers, it is more than tempting to interpret the abstract in a subjective manner, this is a survival mechanism of the brain, of the mind itself. In an age far gone, before Man found the succour of agriculture and trade, he would have constantly surveyed the terrain, be it for sustenance, danger, or both.
Our instincts will always fight for precedence, no matter how advanced or objective our society, science, and the quest for further understanding of our universe may appear, we are after all animals, mammals who must breathe, drink, eat, mate and in certain circumstances fight in one way or another to survive. Hundley takes full advantage of this fact, he plays with our sense of perception, and enables us to once again doubt what we no longer see in our assumptive and collective consciousness. Culture throughout history has brushed over the flaws, the tears in reality, the contradictions and hypocrisies of our existence, the whitewash of both science and religion to understand the imperceptible chaos that meets and greets our every action.
Hundley performs a vital role in the arts, he opens up the majesty of the bland, he creates procession for the mundane, and in effect turns reality on its head in order that we as viewers begin to question the absolute and definitive and to once again embrace the surreal wonders of subjectivity in our day-to-day lives. His methodical simplicity, utilising anything at hand to convey his message, be it a gust of wind, or the merest physical action cloaked in material, truly tears the familiar asunder.
See more of William Hundley's work at www.WilliamHundley.com and his highly popular Flickr page.
Man I love your website
Thanks Dusty