The concepts that I wish to focus on are perception, attention, experience, illusion, and awareness. I wish to employ these concepts as explored in the readings, particularly Crary’s (1999) ‘Suspensions of Perception’, and Blesser & Salter’s (2007) ‘Auditory Spatial Awareness’, by exploring an unusual example.
Train rides. Most people have caught a train before, for some of us it is a daily ritual. After a close reading of Cluster 2, I realised that many of these concepts can be applied to my every day travel. The hustle and bustle of the train ride, as commuters’ board and exit the train, all becomes unnoticed when gazing the passing view outside the window. It feels as though you are viewing the world through the train window, and you slip into a blasé state. However the effects and feeling of what Crary terms “the gaze” (1999:3) is so familiar that it isn’t noticed any longer until you move away, or find yourself distracted by something. This is when we realise that our perception has been unconsciously altered.
According to Crary (1999:3), this experience causes our vision to evade “institutional capture”. If you focus your attention on the passing buildings and trees outside the window of a train, you will be unlikely to notice the person in a gorilla suit who sits behind you. This follows the belief explored by Crary that we only perceive that to which we attend. As he states:
“Attention is the means by which an individual observer can transcend those subjective limitations and make perception its own, and attention is at the same time a means by which a perceiver becomes open to control and annexation by external agencies.”
This result gives rise to a paradox of perceptual attention: to see detail in the environment, you must direct your attention to it. But how can you direct your attention to an unperceived external agent? Surely in order to direct your attention, you must already perceive that to which you wish to direct your attention (Doane, 1991:190). This paradox would seem to threaten the very possibility of perceptual awareness.
Trying to become more aware of when this is happening will help to get a better picture of your own unconscious processes. However, it is difficult to pay attention to the awareness itself in those circumstances. Even if you are alert and aware, you will often notice that all of the other passengers are also engaged in this daze. However, there are some exceptions.
Sound plays an important role in how we perceive things. According to Blesser & Salter (2007:16) there are two different kinds of sound: soundscapes and aural architecture. The insistent clickety-clack of the train can be deemed the soundscape because it supplies a rhythmic sound effect to the marching scene of the environment and adds to the gaze. On the other hand, some exceptions take the form of aural architecture, which serve only to “illuminate the soundscape” (Blesser & Salter, 2007:16). There is no doubt that loudmouth mobile phone users on trains, and blaring portable music players, are annoying. The reason most find these annoying is because they demand attention. They are the exception and it is because of this that it is impossible to slip into a daze. Especially when you can hear all about how Sarah got wasted last night or the “doof, doof, doof” of somebody’s headphones. Although voices are not usually considered aural architecture, I believe in this instance they are as they interrupt the space of the soundscape of the train and they also generate a reaction.
This train ride experience also touches on the concept of illusion. When the train on the adjacent track next to the one you are on starts to move, you feel as though that your train has started to move, as does when an express train alongside your train overtakes it. We initially perceive the carriage in which we are seating to be moving, and this false allocation is only later replaced when you realise that the other train is moving much faster. These images create the illusion of motion. Any phenomenon that contradicts our sense perception disorients us. Even with a full understanding of the mechanics of vision and motion, these phenomena are fascinating.
This may be a strange example to explore within Cluster 2, however, I believe that perception is an important part of a train ride. I have shown that the traveler on a train becomes a spectator. They see the objects, and landscapes, through the apparatus that moves them through the world (Doane, 1991: 190). Therefore, the train causes the detachment of the subject from the space of perception which I would like to elaborate on in my first project.
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