A central problem in representational art from the beginning of its history has been how to imbue a static and often flat image with information concerning a three-dimensional, dynamical reality. A related problem is how to communicate a complex set of thoughts and visions with a relatively simple and sparse set of distinct, physical objects or shapes. Still another related problem is how to represent emotions. These are precisely the same set of problems that face a living organism and for which natural selection has found elegant and unexpected solutions that are currently being discovered by neuroscientists and psychologists. In watching an octopus see, we will bring awareness of the processes of observation, recognition, and learning.

We present a video of an experiment in which patterns from works of art as well as natural patterns are projected on a common day octopus (Octopus cyanea) and a cuttlefish (Cephalopoda sepiida). The response of the organism is recorded using a high-speed digital video camera. In this way, we will capture on film the dynamics of camouflage.

The installation will record and play the viewer's dialogue as they observe the transformations in the video.