Thhe Engineering of Vision From Consructivism to Computers

Lev ManovichThe Engineering of Vision from Constructivism to Computers

INTRODUCTION 1CHAPTER 1. VISUAL ATOMISM 8

1. I

NTRODUCTION

82. E

XPERIMENTAL

P

SYCHOLOGY AND THE

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CIENCE OF

A

RT

113. V

ISUAL

A

TOMISM

:

A

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ODE FOR

M

ASS

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OMMUNICATION

164. V

ISUAL

A

TOMISM AND THE

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IND

-B

ODY

P

ROBLEM

225. V

ISUAL

E

SPERANTO

276. C

ONCLUSION

31

CHAPTER 2. I SEE, THEREFORE I THINK 35

1. I

NTRODUCTION

352. I S

EE

, T

HEREFORE

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HINK

393. F

IRST

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IGNS OF

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EVOLT

: V

ENN AND

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ALTON

504. "T

O TEACH THE WORKER TO THINK DIALECTICALLY

." 545. F

REUD

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T

HEORY OF

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EASONING

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ISE OF THE

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IAGRAM

687. V

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ECHNOLOGIES AND THE

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778. A

NALOG

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85

CHAPTER 3. MAPPING SPACE 90

1. V

ISUAL

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OMINALISM

902. "T

HE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT OF THE

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ENAISSANCE

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ADAR

: S

EEING

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1154. 3-D C

OMPUTER

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RAPHICS

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NTERACTIVE

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ERSPECTIVALISM

1255. C

OMPUTER

V

ISION

:

A

UTOMATION OF

S

IGHT

1326. C

ONCLUSION

146

CHAPTER 4: THE ENGINEERING OF VISION FROM INKHUK TO MIT 150

1. N

OT

A

RTISTS BUT

E

NGINEERS

1502. I

NFORMATION

T

HEORY

:

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NALYZES

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1563. T

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NFLUENCE OF

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NFORMATION

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HEORY OR THE

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DEOLOGY OF THE

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ODE

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ROM

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UMAN

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OTOR

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UMAN

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NFORMATION

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OMMUNICATION

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NGINEER

A

NALYZES

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UMAN

V

ISION

1776. H

UMAN

E

NGINEERING

1867. C

ONCLUSION

:

THE

L

ABOR OF

P

ERCEPTION

193

CONCLUSION 196BIBLIOGRAPHY 199FIGURES 209

Introduction

The dissertation presents a history of modern ideas about vision. I believe that vision isnot a timeless concept; rather, each period understands vision differently depending on how it isused. In the twentieth century, vision acquired new roles as the medium of mass communicationand the instrument of labor, and, as any other productive tool, it was subjected to engineering,rationalization and automation. Such new disciplines as applied experimental psychology andcognitive science, communication engineering and film, robotics, and advertising designcontinue to search for ways to utilize vision productively. In the process, they generate newknowledge about vision, at the same time reducing it to a few disjoined and limited models. Thedissertation chapters follow the development of four such models: vision as a code, vision as ameans of logical reasoning, vision as a way to capture spatial information, and vision asinformation processing.Let us consider a few definitions of vision that are representative of entire research paradigmsand that were unthinkable before the middle of this century.David Marr's Vision, published in 1980, summarized a decade of investigations onhuman perception carried out at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. This book has beenthe most influential account of the computational approach to vision, shared by computer scientists and psychologists. It opens with this statement:What does it mean, to see? The plain man's answer (and Aristotle's, too) would be, to know whatis where by looking. In other words, vision is the process of discovering from images what is present in the world, and where it is.

1

David Marr, Vision (New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1982), 3.