[[Perception Theory CZ (Comment)]] I was intrigued by many texts in the Handbook of Visual Communication, but I focused on the content from Chapter 3 about perception, which also touches on the topic of my bachelor's thesis. In the introduction of the chapter, the author discusses the process of cognition through neurological knowledge. He points out the issues of how the mind/brain receives and processes information, and how it derives meaning and utility from them. The very interpretation _(or over-interpretation)_ of data from the environment is also related to my project. We learn further about the difference between logical and emotional responses to stimuli. _Many of the reactions we perform may not go through conscious analysis at all, and are simply automatic affect and somewhat of a mystery, due to their uniqueness._ In one section, the author also deals with the negative influence of media on our perception. However, it seems to me like an unnecessary insertion in a text that otherwise discusses very interesting topics about the process of perception. Of course, anything we experience or see (especially in childhood) determines our future self. But just as it can be the author's exaggerated media, it can also be growing up in a toxic environment. **How we see — How we behave.** The subchapter about the development of vision begins with the theory of natural selection, which I am also increasingly encountering through my research. It introduces us to the development of the eye, which has evolved from a mere light-sensitive pigment (day x night) to the variously complicated vision of animals. Donald Hoffman explains wonderfully in his lectures how the evolution and necessity of animals adapting to their environment shaped their perception of the surroundings to enable them to survive. ( [https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY](https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY) ) **This is also an important motif for me to explore because it confirms how our perception of the world is utterly constructed by our senses, beyond which we usually cannot reach.** Vision, it seems, is the most complex sense, giving us the fastest and largest amount of information about our surroundings. Perception itself is then the dynamic assignment of meaning through experiences. The author mentions experiments with the blind, which prove that we do not actually need eyes to _“see”._ The brain can take any sensation, and if it has no other, better option for obtaining data from the surroundings, it will _adapt_ and allow us to _“see”._ This is also the case in the mentioned experiment using a camera that converts images into vibrations on the skin. Next, the author delves into a detailed description of the process by which the optical system in the eye captures light and through receptors converts it into electronic impulses. _The rest is still a mystery._ We can indeed describe in detail where in the brain the “image” forms, where the nerves carrying visual sensations cluster, but no one knows how consciousness works with sensations. The author returns to the emotional reactions of the body. Gazzinga's quote confirms that no matter how much we think we are part of a conscious experience, systems in our brain do everything automatically, mostly outside of conscious judgment. The brain finishes tasks about half a second before the information reaches our consciousness. It should be added that all systems within us have evolved to help us survive and reproduce. Even our vision is most sensitive to changes in the observed phenomenon. This is probably so that we can quickly spot an approaching predator or other danger. Through vision, a person selects, eliminates, and compares information to create a final perceived image in the brain. The author points out that this may be the same process that an artist uses in their creation. To that, I would just add that such similarities can be found countless in all branches, and I would not unnecessarily glorify art. It seems more interesting to me **to study the very phenomenon of perception in which surrounding reality is reduced, compressed, transformed, and interpreted.** This would connect the text with the theme of my bachelor's thesis, in which I want to create an installation that will mystify and transform the surrounding reality. An illusion will arise that is completely different from our perception, which will prevent the viewer from orienting themselves in a familiar environment and perhaps even prove to them that what they consider to be their immediate surroundings is not quite the complete world _out there_. In general, my work deals with **the unreliability of sensory knowledge and the mechanism of assigning meanings to individual things.** After all, we are never able to guarantee the correctness or fullness of knowledge. We always perceive differently, under different conditions, in a different scope. We are not even able to compare the experience of perception _with another_, where we are again hindered by the language barrier and the uniqueness of perception. **Everything we perceive, we construct ourselves,** and it may not have (and probably does not have) anything to do with any real reality. To emphasize the unreliability of knowledge as much as possible, I want to manipulate the surrounding **reality,** mystify it. The goal is therefore to create an installation that will construct **a new – distorted** reality based on input data from the surroundings in real-time. The installation will be made up of electronic components and sensors that will collect data from the surroundings. These data will then be **interpreted and returned back to the surroundings in a distorted form in real-time.** An illusion will arise that prevents the viewer from orienting and recognizing the surroundings.