Looking for alternative inspirations for altered perspectives, I spent some time in the Library today researching how various animals may perceive the world.
My attention was drawn to the tiny ant known as Cataglyphis, or more commonly known as the Saharan Racing Ant.... No, This is not an April Fool, there really is such an ant and he has been the subject of research from an Artistic perspective (no pun on the perspective either) by Rudiger Wehner.
(The pictures are also courtesy of Rudiger Wehner's submission to "The Expanded Eye" exhibition catalogue to the Kunsthous Museam, Zurich, that being an extract from a revised speech by him on November 8th 2002, upon receiving the Marcel Benoist Prize, of the University of Zurich).
This tiny insect searches for it's prey along a zig-zag / winding and random path, often up to a distance of over 100 metres. If prey is found, it immediately, from any point, is able to trace a direct straight line return to it's nest / burrow. It does this by orientation from the use of polarised light from the sun. In a similar environment, with no reference points on the land, a human equivalent experiment would, if one were to imagine the human had walked some 50km from base camp, - without GPS, Compass or instruments and navigational know how would simply fail, - it could not be done!
However, this tiny long legged Racing ant of the Sahara does this automatically many times daily by routine. All of this, by just using it's pre-programmed brain of approximately 0.1 milli-grammes, together with some really amazing compound, yet primitive, insect eyes that can virtually see the whole of the sky due to their positioning on the ant's head.
The compound nature of these eyes is effectively made up from about a thousand lenses and corresponding receptors in a package measuring less than a millimeter!
(Reference taken from the Exhibition Catalogue "The Expanded Eye, Stalking the Unseen", (September 2006) Kunsthaus Zurich, Sponsored by Swiss Re, & Published by Hatje Kanste Verlag, Germany.
In thinking about the discussion with Christian yesterday, where we explored the ideas of some kind of goggle type arrangement which could be worn by humans, I pondered significantly today over how I could achieve a similar effect to the compound eye / multiple lens experience that the ant uses with polarised light.
As I understand it, the ant uses a type of polarisation of light in the sub-ultraviolet wavelength, and I've been thinking how this could be emulated. It would seem that to have a total view of the sky at any one time (which the ant has, through the convex shape of each of it's compound left and right eyes situated high upon it's head), I would need to create some form of arrangement of fibre-optic receptor, amplifier and converter from UV wavelength to visible, and via the fibre optic bundles to re-image the whole sky image onto an appropriate screen or projection, perhaps something similar to the newly available "Google-glass" devices and ongoing development. Whilst this whole hypothetical piece is no doubt possible, I think I may defer this project for sometime until some independent funding could be accessible to enable me to commit to such an undertaking....
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