http://www.connolly-cleary.com/Home/helmets.html

 
 
 
 

The Meta-Perceptual Helmets are the ultimate chapter in our
exploration of what we call the art of looking, a notion that the
artwork is only brought to life by observer participation. With the
helmets we have tried to make a perfect loop of looking and being
looked at. Wheeler placed the observer at the centre of the universe,
we are placing the spectator at the centre of the artwork.

The project takes as a starting point the pioneering experiments in
perceptual adaptation carried out by psychologist George Malcolm
Stratton in the early twentieth century. Stratton wore special
glasses which inverted images up and down and left and right for over
a week, and discovered that the human brain could adapt to these new
conditions. 

These five helmets/viewing devices start off by exploring physical
conditions of viewing: if we have two eyes, they why is our vision so
limited? Why do we have so little perception of depth? Why don't our
two eyes offer us two different, complementary views of the world
around us? Why can't they extend from our body so we can see over or
around things? Why don't they allow us to look behind and in front at
the same time, or sideways in both directions? Why can't our two eyes
simultaneously focus on two different tasks?

Looking through Michael Land's defining work Animal Eyes, we see that
nature has indeed explored all of these possibilities: a Hammerhead
Shark has hyper-stereo vision; a horse sees 350deg around itself; a
chameleon has separately rotatable eyes...

The series of Meta-Perceptual Helmets explore some of these
zoological typologies:  proposing to humans the hyper-stereo vision
of the hammerhead shark; or the wide peripheral vision of the horse;
or the backward/forward vision of the chameleon... but they also take
us into the unnatural world of mythology and literature: the Cheshire
Cat Helmet is so called because of the strange lingering effect of
dominating visual information such as a smile or the eyes; the
Cyclops allows one large central eye to take in the world around
while a second tiny hidden eye focuses on a close up task (why has
the creature never evolved that can focus on denitting without
constantly having to glance around?).

Wearing the helmets, the visitor becomes a hybrid creature himself,
part human, part machine, part animal, but also: part work of art. A
work of art that challenges those who contemplate the helmet - from
the inside or from the outside - to take a new perspective on the
world.

Anne Cleary & Denis Connolly, September 2014

[shapeimage]

Neil McKenzie, Jersey, June 2014

[original]

C&C working on the optics Paris, April 2014

[shapeimage]

Neil & Denis (watched by Lotti) discuss the helmets, June 2014.

[shapeimage]

Hammerhead

[shapeimage]
[shapeimage]

Forming the first helmet at Neils workshop in Jersey, April 2014

With mentors Patrick Cavanagh & Sally Duensing. Paris, May 2014

"Cleary Connolly's meta-perceptual helmets ingeniously invite us to
set aside our preconceptions and to experience things in ways quite
different from the norm"

Aidan Dunne, writing for The Irish Times. 2 December 2014.

[Staff]
[original_1]
[shapeimage]
[shapeimage]

Staff wearing the Giraffe at the Irish Embassy, Paris, January 2015

Family portrait at the Irish Embassy, Paris, January 2015

[original_2]
[shapeimage]

The five helmets at the Dead Zoo, National Museum, Dublin, November
2014

Concept study for the Cheshire Cat Helmet, November 2013

Early studies, May 2013

[shapeimage]

Chameleon & Cheshire Cat at the Irish Embassy, Paris, January 2015

Forming the Hammerhead at Neils workshop in Jersey, April 2014

[shapeimage]

The Chameleon and the Giraffe at L'Ecole de Breuil, May 2015

[shapeimage]
[shapeimage]
[shapeimage]

Chameleon

Giraffe

Cheshire Cat

Horsehead

[shapeimage]
[clearyconn]

Denis Connolly & Anne Cleary

CV&BIO  / PRESS / ARTIST'S STATEMENT / CONTACT

[shapeimage]
[Helmets]

The Hammerhead and the Chameleon at the Liverpool Irish Festival,
October 2015

[Helmets100]
 
[shapeimage]

photos     video     drawings      press release     pdf     
tour      future helmets

[droppedIma]
[droppedIma]
[droppedIma]