Ryan and Trevor Oakes - Capturing Visual Consciousness: A Tale of Two Eyes, One Brain, One Hand, and One Pen

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Capturing Visual Consciousness: A Tale of Two Eyes, One Brain, One Hand, and One Pen

Twins Ryan and Trevor Oakes invented a remarkable mechanism that separates the images projected from each eye so the user can scan the world with one eye and draw it with the other, as if tracing onto reality. Inspired by David Hockney's 2002 book, Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, their "machine" facilitates remarkably realistic drawings that is considered a major advance in art and science of perspective.

The mechanism enhances the cooperation between two eyes, as they integrate their separate images inside the brain to construct an understanding of three dimensional space. The result is an optically accurate "scan" of the artist's visual consciousness. This "scan" is translated with a pen onto paper, without any mathematics, man-made lenses, or mirrors.

The Oakes brothers present an account of how they invented this machine, how it works with examples, with how it relates to the spherical nature of human vision and the canon of western perspective.