Hyperrealism with Tom Mulliner

Kitaoka and Lotto: Comparing Research Approaches in Visual Illusion Science Visual schema contrasting Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s pattern-based and Beau Lotto’s context-based approaches in illusion research. Expert Objective This masterclass day examines how Akiyoshi Kitaoka and Beau Lotto differ in their experimental strategies, priorities, and conceptual frameworks when probing visual illusions. Our focus: What can advanced artists learn from the science not only about perceptual effects but about the mechanisms and empirical constraints shaping visual work? Art-scientific practice requires critical rigor in testing illusions both perceptually and physically; today’s lesson delivers the analytic clarity and studio relevance missing from surface-level illusion tutorials. Observed Effects: Contrasts and Contexts in Illusions Kitaoka’s corpus centers on systematically varied geometric and chromatic pattern illusions, including the Rotating Snakes and peripher...

Day 15: Mixed Media Compatibility: What Can Safely Sit on What?  Masterclass Series | The Chemistry of Binding Agents: From Egg Tempera and Linseed Oil to Modern Acrylic Polymers Dusk, Florence 1503: Leonardo da Vinci peers at his half-finished Mona Lisa. Layer upon layer, oil on tempera, innovation clashing with tradition. His trials anticipated the mixed media puzzles modern artists still confront today. The historical roots of mixed media compatibility run to the Renaissance and earlier, framing today’s studio debates in a continuum of creative and technical daring (cf. Cotte et al., 2008, Louvre). The Chemistry Involved: Like Dissolves Like, Layers Need Logic At the heart of media compatibility lies chemistry’s golden rule: "like dissolves like". This ultrashort phrase guides whether an acrylic glaze will bond safely atop an oil underpainting, or if egg tempera's mineral rigidity can accept a polymer topcoat. The binders’ molecul...

Day 4 — Why Perception Is Not an Objective Recording The images above shows a GREY tomato. Even when we are told, "THERE IS NO RED IN THIS IMAGE!" it is difficult to believe. Yet our brain automatically compensates for the "cast" cyan/teal coloured overlay. Even the selected colour swatches look like a gradient from red to grey when they are the exact same, continuous colour. It is only when compared to the white surrounding that it looks grey. This is simultaneous contrast. Course: The Constructed Eye: Visual Illusion, Perception Science, and the Work of Akiyoshi Kitaoka and Beau Lotto Instructor: (redacted for roleplay) Diagrammatic contrast: The left ellipse represents afferent sensory signals ("input"), while the right ellipse marks the constructed subjective percept—arrows emphasize the transformative process. This gap underpins all visual illusions discussed across this course. Visual metaphor by the author. Exp...

Vinyl and PVA Binders: Household Plastic Chemistry in Art Materials Day 14 – Intensive Daily Masterclass: The Chemistry of Binding Agents Dramatic Origins: The Postwar Plastic Revolution Hits the Studio In 1947, a new era in art materials quietly arrived with the crackle of a kitchen radio and the gleam of household linoleum. Vinyl and polyvinyl acetate (PVA), the synthetic binders that coated postwar homes, would soon be scrawled, poured, and painted across avant-garde canvases. Plastic chemistry—born from 1920s laboratory breakthroughs—had become the unlikely ally of twentieth-century artists seeking flexibility, clarity, and unparalleled adhesive power. PVA Emulsion Vinyl Acrylic PVC Key synthetic binder families: PVA (Polyvinyl acetate), Vinyl Acrylic, PVC. Note their soft, adaptable film properties, which differ from older natural binders (see: Getty Conservation Institute...

Day 3 – Psychophysics: Measuring Experiences That Cannot Be Observed Directly The Constructed Eye: Visual Illusion, Perception Science, and the Work of Akiyoshi Kitaoka and Beau Lotto Strips with controlled luminance contrast, as could be used in classical threshold experiments (Hecht et al., 1942). Such stimuli are fundamental to measuring perception absent any direct access to neural responses. Expert Objective The aim today is to master how vision scientists measure subjective sensory experiences—contrast, brightness, motion, color—using psychophysical methods, and to critically examine how works like Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s illusions and Beau Lotto’s colour studies draw from, and sometimes complicate, these quantitative techniques. We will explicitly query: How do we reliably quantify something we cannot observe directly? Observed Effects Luminosity Thresholds: Classical experiments (Hecht et al., 1942;...

The Constructed Eye: Retina, Visual Cortex, and Perceptual Construction Day 2 of our intensive masterclass explores how the physical apparatus of vision and its neural processing stages interact to produce our constructed visual reality, emphasizing neural constraints and theoretical challenges for artists and perception scientists alike. Expert Objective This lesson equips advanced artists to deliberately engage—rather than merely experience—the neurologically grounded illusions fueling the work of Akiyoshi Kitaoka and Beau Lotto. By dissecting retina-cortex interactions, you will learn to manipulate image features within strict neuro-visual constraints, and to critique claims about visual filling-in and constructive perception using laboratory evidence, not intuition. Observed Phenomena Retinal mosaics (e.g. cone density gradients, ON/OFF ganglion cell mosaics) systematically distort sampled visual input (Curcio et al., 1990; Fie...