Virgil is a forty-five year old man born blind due to thick cataracts on both eyes. Although he was able to identify light, its location and direction, everything was a blur until he gained sight after an eye operation. He struggled with identification, categorization and comprehension of all objects. His wife, Amy, recorded his journey after gaining eyesight, showed that he had difficulty inputting sensory cues since he was used to identify objects through touch and hearing. A while after the miraculous recovery/event, Virgil, his lung failed to respond to levels of Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide as a result carrying a cylindrical oxygen tank on a daily basis.
Being sensory overloaded after not being able to see for more than forty years, he had a different, difficult way interpreting object, space and its relationship with each other. For instance, he couldn’t figure out how the “head, legs, and ears were connected to the animal”. With all the elements there, he wasn’t able to comprehend and group the elements together. He also wasn’t able to “identify elephants, despite the trunks, because they were at a considerable distance and stood against slate-colored background”. Here, it was proven that contrast is a crucial element in visuals. The wider the range, the more it stands out: center of attention. It also shows the importance of color. Contrast and color enables us to clearly define what the object, subject is from the background. Last but not least he mentioned that his dog looked different at times and made him wonder if it was the same dog. When an object is moving, the form and shape alters, therefore, Virgil wasn’t able to comprehend and identify that it was in fact the same dog. In relation to art, form and shapes have a direct relationship: when the shape changes, the form changes as well.
When I started reading this article, I was content that such miracle was possible. After reading it, I felt nothing else but guilty that we take our senses for granted and that we don’t appreciate what we have and overlook the fact that there are unfortunate people out there without sight, hearing, shelter and so on. I was struck by one line in the article: “We are not given the world: we make our world through incessant experience, categorization, memory, reconnection, recollection”. Despite the fact that I believe God created the world and gave us a place to live freely, we don’t realize how we recognize different objects in different environments.
