The Construction of Seeing
You are not seen. You are assembled. We recognize people. But most of the time, we don’t: we meet the version we construct.
A glance becomes a story. A phrase becomes a character trait. A fragment becomes a whole. It happens fast, almost automatically.
We build identities from whatever is available: words, tone, timing, look, silence. And then we forget that what we built is still just that construction.
The three-panel wall art grew from this space from the moment where meaning is not given, but produced.
Each phrase acts like a fragment. Not a description, but a trigger. Something that invites the mind to complete the rest. And what is completed is never neutral.
The same line can mean different things to different people. Different histories, intentions, emotional weight.
Identity: The Failure of Reading.
Attempt I - Autocorrection. Message: “I am not linear.”
Attempt II - Directional Meaning. Message: “You don’t define me.”
Attempt III - Reflection. Message: “Don’t simplify me.”
Labeling yourself on your own rules
I decided to continue the idea of the triptych, but let it step outside the canvas and into other medium.
Most of the time, we don’t actually meet a person as they are. We meet how they appear first. The way they look becomes the starting point. From there, we begin to assemble. A glance becomes a story. A tone becomes intention. A detail becomes identity. It happens so fast that it feels like the truth.
The first panel, “Attempt I: Autocorrection,” uses typoglycemia, the phenomenon where your brain can still read words even when the letters are scrambled. You don’t raed craefluly. You rcenostruct. You assmue. You croerct auotamticlaly.
And that’s the quiet bias I’m pointing at: we don’t just see people as they are.
We “fix” them into something recognizable.
So, I created an artifact from this piece: a genuine leather necklace. It holds the same gesture as the work itself—the mind completing what it only partially receives.
