Wolf's Eye View

"Wolf's Eye View"

(Safety goggles, craft foam, book light, plexiglas, sharpies, white out, duck tape, spray paint, acrylic paint, and hot glue.)

Prompt: "A view with no peripheral vision."

How: Wear the goggles as if they were 3D goggles, you may have to hold it on as it is unforunately front-heavy. The book light attached on the side shines a ray of light through the 5 layers of plexiglas, to illuminate the layers of an illustrated elk.

Purpose: To create a vibrant and thrilling viewing experience, putting you in the paws of an Olympic wolf (the highly endangered predator of the Northwest) as it zones in on the jugular of his prey; an elk innocently munching away on some tall grass.

Thought Process: This prompt was a toughy. I had trouble not taking it too literally. However, my first impression was something related to the anatomy differences between predators and prey. My understanding of the anatomy of the human head has been in thanks to a lecture series by Gary Fagin I attended when I was a wee 6th grader (way too young to grasp much of the adult humor, but looking back at the notes I took, I realize I was much more mature back then. I seem to be devolving).

So anyway, from what I understand, one of the differences between predator and prey is the position of their eyes on their head. Prey have eyes on the sides of their head, thus giving them wider peripheral vision to keep a look out for predators. Predators have eyes on the front of their head, this gives them very limited peripheral vision so they can focus on searching for prey. (So apparently humans are predators? That's something to ponder...)

I imagine that as a predator (ex. Olympic Wolf) zones in on its prey (ex. Northwest Elk) its peripheral vision shrinks and disappears as it solely focuses on the prey right before the kill. In this moment, which I attempted to capture with the goggles, everything irrelevant to the prey vanishes, and the wolf only sees the potential meal in his prey. So I've drawn several illustrations of the same elk on different layers of plexiglas. One is the Elk, one is the grass around the Elk, one is the insides of the elk (muscles, bones, blood), and on is a black fog that engulfs the elk (shrinking peripheral). Once light is shined through the several layers, you can see all the levels of comprehension that a wolf would experience in the thrilling moment before a kill.

I made some wolf ears on a headband to attach as well, but it just looked tacky. I even made the ears from real fur. I don't know where the fur came from, I found it in my attic in a trunk full of tacky things.