Burnett, R. How Images Think. MIT Press Cambridge, Mass, 2004.

Modern philosophy, psychology, and art theory are all united in the common goal of understanding human perception.  Dr. Burnett’s book How Images Think is widely known for its unique and complex descriptions of the perceptive apparatus connecting people and image generating systems. If I may address this matter in the first person, I feel that I am in a unique position to attempt understanding of this work as the author is my master’s thesis advisor and I interview him on a regular basis during our thesis meetings.  He is well aware of the fact that most readers have a hard time coming to grips with some of the concepts of perception and ‘imagescapes’ that he presents.  However, these ideas are pivotal to my own research regarding our visual apparatus of interpretation. 
           
Dr. Burnett has a strong focus on the ‘machines’ of interaction and visualization and this gives us insight into the human capacity to give meaning and iteratively engage with different visual environments.  In the chapter “Foundation of Virtual Images”, Burnett connects “images in terms of the space they occupy and the time of interaction with viewers” with the Federation Square project in Melbourne, Australia. “One of the walls on the site acts as a screen for a continuously changing succession of light and forms” (59) and “the light form is driven by a series of robotic mirrors”.  The dynamically changing displays that are described are intimately connected with my own work of creating unique robotic displays. My works certainly hold “meanings that are not solely located either in images or the viewer but in a set of relations created by the context of intersection”.  In fact it is this very ‘intersection’ that I am trying to represent. These concepts are at the heart many of the discussions given in How Images Think and are connected to the questions of meaning and perception that I am trying to answer in my own art.

Understanding the rhizomatic concepts that are given requires creative reading techniques to full comprehend.  For example, the chapter “Imagescapes, Mind and Body” mainly deals with the perceptive experience as a combination of metaphors, material and mind. However, understanding the complexity of perception and interactions in the mind might have been better followed the chapter “Simulation / Viewing / Immersion” because we learn about the limitations of visual simulations and the need for additional “sophisticated discourse to explain” what artists are doing (103). I propose that the only way to begin to understand some of the interrelated points of this work is to complete the whole book first then re-read it in a non-linear way as one might do with a dictionary or some other highly compact and interrelated text.