Datafication as a contemporary artistic process : an exploratory research into eye drawing using an eye tracker

Abstract

This research ivestigates the implementation of recorded data into a contemporary artistic process. Data from an eye-tracker was used as a replacement of the traditional practice of drawing. This entailed a shake up of the conventional hand-eye coordination present during any drawing activity by limiting it to a strict brain-eye exercise. The artist’s ‘talented’ hand was therefore obliterated from the practice’s equation, and the role of an artist and a beholder levelled. The exercise of eye drawing through the use of an eye-tracking device brought forth a new and unnatural way of looking at the world, as intuitive eye movements were suppressed into the following of contours along the observed worldview. The natural impulse to refer to the curvilinear hand motions while drawing was also restrained. These concepts we explored throughout this research’s methodology, alongside possible artistic developments from the generated data and the establishing of an eye-tracking device as an intriguing artistic medium. A communal eye drawing experiment was also conducted which resulted in surprising outcomes of very individualistic scanpaths, comparable to ‘graphological’ elements. The implementation of an eye-tracker as an artistic medium also gave the possibility to test a preliminary algorithm, ‘correcting’ an eye drawing by comparing it to the actual world view. The latter’s experiment results can be important grounds to consider for future development in the manufacturing of ‘eye drawing’ devices designed to give individuals with physical hand impairments the opportunity to draw from the real world through the use of their eyes.