Notes On A Lecture by Professor Marvin Chun

"To Err is Human," Berkeley College Fellowship, yale University, September 20, 2010

Varini's artwork is: 'magical and ingenious... [and is] 'mathematical, based in physics...'

'From any given vantage point there are infinite views...'

'Pictoral art tries to make 3 dimensions from 2; Varini makes 2 dimensions from 3.'

'Vision scientists study how 2 dimensions can [become] three. The point of Varini['s artwork] is the 3 dimensional space.'

'Percepts come to the brain in 2 dimensions. The eyeball receptor is a 2 dimensional retinal sheet which converts light into neuronal signals, and the brain reconstructs 3 dimensional images.'

'Any given 2D image is an infinite possibility of 3D images for the brain.'

'The brain reconstructs the actual 3D structure from the impoverished 2D retinal images; the 3-dimensionality of the actual world comes from the 2 dimensionality of the visual world.'

'Understanding depth is a critical function of the visual system.' 

'Varini understands the illusory contours on which the brain imposes a sense of boundary continuity--there are actual nerves in the brain sensitive to defining boundaries which will fire to create boundaries even where none physically exist.'

'Varini is employing the very visual cues that our brains are using. Varini's genious is [to work] with the perspective so that each point seems to come to equilibrium. [It was] Brilliant [for Varini] to use the same color throughout as this enhances how the brain wishes to see this.' 

' The brain compensates: it does not care about illusions but wants to make sense out of the real world.'