This was achieved by the magic of perception, an installation specifically designed to bring art into the world of the visually impaired.

Magic of perception was exhibited at the VIP center in Fort Myers Florida and at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine Florida.

The blind perceive the world through very complex mental images constructed from familiar objects based on their sensory and tactile characteristics. I wanted to know among other things, how well could an art object carry a complex narrative to construct an aesthetic opinion of an object that was not much different than that obtained by a person with visual capabilities.

The steel sculpture stood on a pedestal that housed a computer with capabilities to record tactile information from a touch pad and add that information to a memory bank as musical tones. These tones were layered to compose a sound sculpture in three movements that played on a continuous loop. each  new wave of input was added to the overall composition allowing the complexity of the sound sculpture to grow exponentially.

Pictured above is a person playing the sculpture and adding to the score. This was 1984 years before the personal PC. the programming and construction of the computer was the result of a collaborative effort between Randy Stack, Peter Kreutline, and Tiité.

Magic of perception left me numb from the results obtained. folks were talking to me about having finally seen something, others cried, others found a joy that ensued from their first time ever at an art exhibition where vision was not an impediment to the perception of the works.