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As a visual artist, I am interested in perception. My art messes with visual perception.
It turns out that what we “know” through our senses is an interpretation of “objective” or “physical” reality. Our subconscious brain operates on our sensory input. It automatically constructs a “perceived” reality, which is an incomplete and sometimes unfaithful interpretation of physical reality. Our conscious mind augments perceived reality with learned concepts, reasonings, memories, beliefs and so forth, to give us a personal “conceptual” reality. Conceptual reality is the reality to which we are committed, which we project onto others, which we argue about, and which we use to justify our actions.
The physical universe—being vastly more complex than our biological sensory and computational organs—humbles us. The human brain, which is tasked with making sense of what we sense and reconciling our senses with what we know, is easily confused. This deficiency leads to mistakes in interpretation: sensory illusions for example; or flawed concepts; or conspiracy theories. What we know to be true is shrouded in a cloak of uncertainty. And so we make things up. We tell ourselves that anything is possible.
We are left with the great ontological question: “What do we know?” and the great epistemological question: “How do we know it?” We are left with Plato’s shadows on the wall; with Aristotle’s empirical reality; with Einstein’s relativity, with Godel’s incompleteness.
So, in Feeding Frenzy, I give you Earth’s moon and the globular star cluster known as Messier 107. Both are about to be eaten by Jaws, a mythical fish in Spielberg’s 1975 movie of the same name. If not eaten soon, then later. Keep checking the night sky. If ether or both come up missing, you will know what happened.