Mechanics of Inspiration

Designing Systems That Reveal the Invisible

Overview

Selected Works 2009–2010 is a body of experimental imaging systems that treats perception itself as the medium. Rather than producing photographs, the work constructs bespoke instruments—artificial retinas, time-collapsing cameras, frequency-driven microscopes, and radiation-sensitive imaging platforms—to reveal phenomena that exist outside conscious human sight: afterimages, temporal accumulation, molecular harmonics, and residual environmental forces.

The work is driven by a philosophical rejection of vision as an inclusive, objective record of reality. Lawson starts from the premise that perception is inherently selective—shaped by biology, time, frequency, and memory—and that what we do not see is as structurally significant as what we do. The project asks a foundational question: if vision is an edited system, how might we design tools that expose its exclusions and make the invisible legible without reducing it to abstraction?

Lawson answered this by designing perception as a compositional system. Each project isolates a specific sensory mechanism—afterimage retention, single-row retinal sensing, long-duration temporal exposure, frequency-driven biological response—and gives it a physical form. Rare-earth phosphor retinas capture iconic decay. Custom cameras collapse entire performances into singular frames. Live blood becomes a responsive visual medium orchestrated through sound. Gamma-sensitive platforms reveal unseen residues of human progress. These are not cameras in the traditional sense; they are instruments that translate imperceptible processes into experiential form.

This work doesn’t augment reality—it redesigns access to it, proving that perception itself is the most powerful interface we have yet to fully explore.

Challenge

How do you design experiences for phenomena the user cannot consciously perceive?

Traditional imaging systems assume perception is passive and inclusive—capture what’s visible and present it back. This work challenged that assumption by asking how to design for iconic decay, sensory exclusion, and time-based perception. The problem was not aesthetic—it was systemic: how to expose invisible perceptual processes without simplifying or abstracting them away.

Insight

Perception is exclusive, compositional, and programmable.

Human vision does not record reality; it edits it. By isolating individual sensory components—single rods, afterimages, electromagnetic frequencies, molecular reactions—it becomes possible to treat perception like a compositional system. Vision can be orchestrated, modulated, and redesigned through changes in time, frequency, and spatial perspective.

This insight reframed imaging tools as experience engines, not recording devices.

The work was executed through the design and construction of custom perceptual platforms, each purpose-built to surface a specific invisible process:

Artificial Retina Systems (Maunder Minimum)

Rare-earth phosphor membranes embedded in polymer substrates retain optical information as afterimages, producing imagery that only exists after the original stimulus disappears.
The Head Camera (The Art of Tone)

A single-row sensor system built from medical electronics, hand-ground crystal optics, and custom photosensitive cells captures entire performances as single exposures—compressing time into one spatial frame.
Large-Format Digital Camera + Glass Printing Pipeline (The Third Book)

A three-foot-wide, custom-built digital camera paired with a proprietary glass-based color printing process creates singular exposures of the human form as archetypal, temporal entities.
Microscope Performance Platform (Resident Environment)

Living blood samples are visually orchestrated in real time through violin performance, revealing frequency-driven structural transformations at extreme magnification.
Gamma-Sensitive Environmental Imaging (Secondary Refuse)

Long-duration exposure systems visualize residual radiation and unseen environmental forces within everyday public spaces.

Each platform functions as both instrument and interface, enabling users to experience phenomena beyond direct sensory access.

Execution

Impact

This work anticipated core principles now central to AR, spatial computing, and cinematic UX:

perception as an active system
experience shaped by time and accumulation
interaction beyond screens
meaning created through orchestration, not representation

Rather than augmenting reality with overlays, the project reframed reality itself as a design material. It expanded the role of imaging from documentation to experiential translation, influencing how designers think about sensory interfaces, embodied interaction, and immersive storytelling.