In Plain Sight

In Egypt, the Eye of Horus, also known as a wedjat, is believed to bring good luck. Legends tell that the god Horus battled the god Set to reclaim the throne of Egypt. In the fight, Set plucked out Horus’ left eye while he slept, then broke it into six pieces and scattered them. The god Thoth embarked on finding the pieces, to reconstruct the eye. Finding only five pieces, he replaced the missing fragment with one that had divine qualities, allowing Horus to see beyond the visible.

Eye miniatures probably originated in France in the 18th century. They were considered symbolic of watchfulness and were worn by the state police on their belt buckles. In Britain, miniatures became fashionable in the early 19th century, as tokens exchanged in secret romantic relationships – the disembodied eye kept the lover’s identity private.

The anting-anting is an engraved amulet believed to hold magical powers. This triangular version depicts the all-seeing eye, and the letters ROMA stand for the god Rex Omnipotentem Macmamitam Adonay, known as Trespiko Roma. The god represented by the eye is believed to be the indigenous deity Bathala. The triangle shape represents the Catholic holy trinity: God the father, the son and the holy spirit, reflective of the fusion of Catholicism and pre-colonial Filipino animism, the belief that people, places and objects all have a spiritual essence.

This hand-shaped charm with an eye in its palm protects the wearer from the curse of the evil eye, where an envious glare is believed to bring bad luck, illness or even death. Combined with the hand of Fatima, another talisman, it takes on a double function, repelling evil and offering protection. Derived from Arabic, nazar means sight or surveillance and boncuğu or boncuk, means beads.

This mask renders the wearer’s face undetectable by facial recognition algorithms used in public surveillance cameras. It consists of a curved rectangle that sits between the eyebrows and two circles positioned on the cheekbones. The shape of the mask disables the software’s ability to identify key facial features.

This sculptural garment is made from more than 400 copper plaques, each decorated with a different stylised eye. In the pupil of each eye is the abstracted representation of a pathogen—a micro-organism that causes infectious conditions such as influenza or covid-19. The work is inspired by votive objects, or religious offerings, called tamata, used in Greek Orthodox culture. Tamata often feature body parts such as eyes, legs or hearts, and are hung near a saint’s shrine for protection. Zsigmond transforms these objects into armour, shielding the wearer against the malevolent gaze of other people’s envy and the pathogens that spread health conditions, thus fusing ancient and modern conceptions of contagion and protection. The title of the piece evokes this, with the word mati (μάτι) meaning eye or evil eye in Greek.

During the eighteenth century the charitable society the Freemasons had two rival groups, or lodges, each with an apron decorated with symbols from their ceremonies. This highly decorated apron from one of those groups features an all-seeing eye in a triangle in front of a sunburst with text reading ‘Let there be light / and there was light’. The eye represents the divine gaze and within masonic traditions is connected with justice and morality.

Saint Odilia of Alsace in France, portrayed here as a Benedictine abbess, is the patron saint of good eyesight. She was born blind and it is believed that her eyesight was restored after her baptism by the bishop of Regensburg in Germany. It is also believed she protects against eye conditions and rat infestations, and so a pair of eyes and a number of rats are visible on the floor and altar, and are mentioned in the wording.

For more than a decade, Jon Rafman has been collecting images from Google Street View. These images are captured anonymously and at random by vans that drive around with a nine-camera sphere on their roofs. Introduced as an additional feature of Google’s online maps in 2007, Google Street View allows users to visit streets online almost anywhere in the world, and explore panoramic images of the scene. What they find can sometimes be funny, sometimes haunting. Even though faces are blurred, the images highlight a concern of being observed without consent.

Richard Liebreich was a German ophthalmologist, or eye doctor, and physiologist. He was interested in how health conditions change the eye, as viewed through an instrument called an ophthalmoscope. He captured the changes he saw in illustrations of the inner lining of the eye, the fundus, which includes the retina, the light-detecting part at the back. In 1863, he published his highly acclaimed Atlas der Ophthalmoscopie (Atlas of Ophthalmology), from which this image is taken, and designed a popular ophthalmoscope, which was named after him.

This illustration was used in iridology, the study of the patterns and shades on the coloured part of the eye – the iris – to determine information about a person’s health. Each iris here is divided into multiple zones, each representing a different organ of the human body. Iridology is a highly disputed method of diagnosis. 

This work is part of a series showing trades and occupations of India. The doctor, described as a saīhiya, an oculist or eye surgeon, is performing an operation, possibly couching, an early method used to remove cataracts. Indian ophthalmology is believed to have started with Sushruta, a celebrated doctor and surgeon, around the fifth century BC. He documented his observations of ocular anatomy and health conditions in the final sections of the Sushruta Samhita, a treatise on surgery.

This is a late imperial Chinese medical book on eye conditions and their treatment. It consists of six chapters that describe more than 100 conditions and their symptoms, along with pharmaceutical, surgical and acupuncture treatments. The illustration on the right shows the acupoints in the human body to treat photophobia, or sensitivity to bright light. The one on the left deals with ‘head wind’, a headache that was believed to be caused by the invasion of wind into the brain.

This early Renaissance manuscript on eye conditions and surgery was published by German doctor George Bartisch, considered to be the father of modern ophthalmology. The work contains 92 woodcuts depicting conditions of the eye, including some where the reader can ‘dissect’ parts of the organ by lifting up a series of flaps. This page addresses the treatment of white cataracts through the application of bundles of damp flax placed on the eyes, thought to help treat them at the time.

This is a teaching tool that mimics looking through an ophthalmoscope, an instrument that enables scrutiny of the retina. The retina is at the back of the eye and translates the optical images we see into electrical impulses that our brain then interprets. This model comes with a variety of painted cards showing different retinal conditions. The cards are inserted into the back of the viewer, and the user then inspects them via a lens at the front.

This film is a documentation of a live performance, designed for one audience member at a time and performed by the artist. The piece is informed by her identity as a woman with albinism, a genetic condition that affects her pigmentation and sight. It explores the tensions within her lived experience as someone with lower visual ability yet of higher visibility to others. Mimicking the form of the eye examination, this intimate performance focuses on the act of looking. It circles through medical, philosophical and personal lenses to probe how we look, how we are looked at and if we are ever really seen.

The eyes have long been thought to give onlookers clues to a person’s emotional state. These paintings by Mary Bishop are among thousands she created during her 30-year stay at Netherne Asylum in Surrey, now Netherne Hospital. Eyes are a recurring theme in many of her paintings. The descriptive titles often corroborate the emotion being expressed by the eyes, such as fear and guilt.

English film director Alfred Hitchcock asked surrealist painter Salvador Dalí to create the dream sequence for his film Spellbound, in which actor Gregory Peck relates a strange and disjointed dream to his psychiatrist. In the dream, painted eyes appear on curtains that are cut up by a giant pair of scissors. Eyes were a recurring theme in surrealism and Dalí’s work, symbolising things invisible to humanity.

The subject of this film is Natasha Demkina, who believes she has X-ray eyes, a penetrative form of vision, giving her the ability to see directly inside bodies. As both a medical and faith-driven practitioner, she uses her sight to diagnose conditions and witness the dynamic effects of medicine in action within the body. In 2007, the film’s director Phillip Warnell went to Moscow to meet Natasha, and became the subject of her gaze. Staged in a gymnasium, Warnell is scrutinised and given a detailed, technical report on his health status. The film culminates in Natasha’s attempt to make contact with future audiences, in a mediated eye-to-eye message. It also features a specially commissioned soundtrack by the composer Vladimir Nikolaev, played on the theremin – an electronic instrument that operates without contact from the performer – by virtuoso Lydia Kavina.

This is an early depiction of a fortune-teller wearing glasses. In it, an older man appears to be reading the palm of a soldier. Della Vecchia had a keen interest in alchemy, the art of transforming base metal into gold. This age of scientific curiosity included a resurgence of interest in the magic arts.

The two spheres – one clear and one black – evoke the pursuit of fortune-telling, also known as scrying. The art of looking into a crystal ball, to see images and interpret them as predictions of future events, has been practised across cultures for centuries.

This pair of glasses is from a collection called Once Upon a Future, by the Korean brand Gentle Monster. They have been designed for a future in which humans and extra-terrestrial life forms coexist amicably.

This painting depicts a scene from the legend of Shiva and Kama. In the story, the god of love Kama coerces Shiva to be overwhelmed with lust for his wife Pavati. While Shiva is meditating, Kama hides behind a tree and shoots an arrow at Shiva’s heart. Shiva is so angry for having his meditation interrupted that he opens his third eye on his forehead, and a fierce, blazing flame reduces Kama instantly to ashes.

The Bhagavad-Gita translated from Sanskrit means the song of god. It narrates the story of the Kurukshetra War, a power struggle between two groups of royal cousins in India. This page depicts the sage Sanjaya recounting what happened in a battle to the blind King Dhritarashtra. The king had previously passed his gift of divine sight to Sanjaya, so that he would not have to see his relatives die in conflict. Divine sight allowed Sanjaya to experience events past and future with all his senses.

In this work, the philosopher René Descartes explores the body’s functions, including its external and internal senses. The diagram on display demonstrates his theory of vision. He believed that light rays transmitted particles into the eyes. These were then carried to the pineal gland in the brain, which he believed to be the seat of the soul and served as the link between mind and body.

For the Huichol peoples of northwestern Mexico, the God’s eyes are symbolic of the power of seeing and understanding what is unknown and unknowable. The four points of the woven eye were believed to represent the elements fire, earth, air and water, while the centre serves as a portal between the spirit and the mortal worlds. The ojos de dios are a ritual tool, magical object and cultural symbol.

On this page, mathematician Al-Haytham demonstrates his theory of how light moves in rays through apertures. He was the first person to draw the link between light waves and vision. He also put forward the theory that the optic nerve transmits visual sensations to the brain.

Johann Zahn was a monk and a student of light. His book contains many descriptions and diagrams documenting his experiments with a camera obscura, the precursor to modern cameras, to try to better understand the properties of light. This illustration depicts the different theories of visual perception that were being debated into the 18th century. Zahn believed that vision was accomplished by rays of light emitted from the eyes.

The illustration shown here depicts the way we receive images upside down, and how the brain then inverts them. This realisation challenged the idea that what we see with our eyes is true to the external world, and was a subject much debated. This book is where philosopher Descartes uses the well-known phrase “I think, therefore I am”. It was the only truth, he argued, in a world of infinitely different beliefs and perceptions.

Religious prohibition of dissection in Europe and the Islamic world delayed progress in understanding the anatomy of the eye, although some was done illegally. From the late 17th century, optical models such as this one provided an acceptable alternative for studying the eye. This model is made from glass and silver and has an ornate leather travelling case, designed to help make it more portable.

This diagram brings together both a microscopic and macroscopic view of the eye. It was produced as part of a series of anatomical wall charts, designed for medical students as well as the general public. Foedisch drew “from nature”, which would have meant he examined human tissues through a microscope then drawn freehand on a sheet of paper, before copying his image on a much larger scale for printing.

This print features an eye in a star, the spokes dividing into seven colours, each containing figures holding plants in a corresponding colour. Four cherub-like figures sit in the corners of the print, each holding an object representing the key tools in the study of optics. A Hebrew inscription emanates from light at the top of the print, reading ‘And God said, let there be light: and there was light’.

Digeon was a master printer and engraver. This print is one of a series of chromatic colour circles that he produced using the research of the colour theorist and chemist Chevreul. Unlike many people working on the material properties of pigments at the time, Chevreul demonstrated that colours are seen to be enhanced or diminished based on their proximity to each other.

This portable set of coloured lenses was named after the French artist Claude Lorrain, whose landscape paintings were appreciated for their romantic depiction of light. Travellers and artists would insert different filters into what were known as Claude glasses, to evoke different moods and seasons on whatever scene they were looking at: light green for spring perhaps, or blue for winter. Claude glasses flattened and reduced the field of the view, and framed the landscape.

Colour blindness is a condition that affects one in 12 men and one in 200 women, causing reduced sensitivity to red, green and occasionally blue light. This test for colour blindness consists of glass tiles with red letters on green backgrounds and green letters on red, which are illuminated by an oil lamp. A person with colour blindness cannot differentiate between these colours, and so the letters become invisible.

The Ishihara test consists of circles of coloured dots, which form a number or shape. The number or shape is clearly visible to those without colour blindness, but not to those with it. Ishihara was a professor at the University of Tokyo. The tests were first published in 1917, and are still used widely by ophthalmologists.

The most common form of colour blindness is the difficulty to differentiate between red and green. These colours are detected by different photoreceptors in the retina called cones, which are sensitive to different wavelengths of light: medium (green) and long (red). These glasses contain filters that remove certain wavelengths of light within the visible spectrum where there is overlap between the cones. This helps the wearer differentiate between different colours.

Gossiaux’s drawings reflect on the idea of seeing colour through your mind’s eye. The New York–based artist has relied on her memories of colour to create her artwork ever since she became blind in 2010. Each page in the journal features a different colour from her collection of 120 Crayola crayons. She has renamed each one by associating them with a specific memory, so she can easily recall the crayons she wants to use when drawing. While serving a practical purpose, the evocative handwritten descriptions also read like a diary, sharing intimate details from Gossiaux’s life. Situated beneath each page is a braille translation that invites visitors to touch.

Mom’s Estée Laudere lipstick
Fuzzy Wuzzy and Brick Red

Big Sur
Summer 2010
Low tide
Clear blue sky,
Cerulean

Dad’s beat up Jaguar 1980
Tropical Rainforest 

I used to ride my bike to piano lessons down Fairfax drive
bike growing up
Wisteria

Shrimp cocktail
Melon and Apricot

Whiskey shots Tuesdays
20th birthday, 2009
Tan and Sunglow

The asphalt I scraped my knee on,
1998
Black

London yellow
Labrador blonde
Almond

My sister’s eyes
her hair
her freckles
Chestnut

Bad sunburn 1999
Scarlet

There are two different light receptors within the retina: rods and cones. Rods are extremely light sensitive and enable vision in low light conditions. Cones facilitate colour vision in daylight. Our cones take a while to develop after birth, which is why newborns have monochrome vision, slowly developing the ability to see colour as they grow.

In this book, English physicist Isaac Newton overturned the idea that white light is colourless. Through his experiments with prisms, he was able to demonstrate that light is actually made up of a spectrum of colours, which he identified as the following seven: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. We just perceive it as white. He also argued, controversially for the time, that the colours we see are actually produced in the mind and not an inherent property of light waves themselves.

When light passes through a prism, its different wavelengths travel at different speeds, which creates a visible separation of colours. The illustration for this prism only depicts six of the seven colours in white light, and excludes indigo. Many people struggle to recognise indigo because it is a word not frequently used anymore to describe a colour.

Aaron McPeake regularly uses the shadow as a simile for what he sees. In this film, he attempts to re-enact the journeys of the 19th-century blind explorer James Holman. Filming in countries such as Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, McPeake limits the visual documentation of his travel experiences to monochrome shadows and ambient sound, and invites the viewer to work hard to interpret what they are seeing and hearing. McPeake also references the tradition of kulit or shadow theatre, widespread throughout Asia, as a means of voicing the story of a blind traveller, a story that might not otherwise be told.

Snellen test type charts such as these are still used by opticians, to test a person’s vision. They feature an assortment of capital letters that decrease in size over 11 lines. Based on a person’s ability to read the letters from different distances, an optician will determine whether they should wear glasses, and if so what lenses to prescribe. The test was invented in 1862 by Dutch ophthalmologist Herman Snellen, who also created the 20/20 ratio system for rating vision.

This bronze cast of an eye test chart is meant to be touched, after which sonorous vibrations ring out around the room. McPeake became legally blind in 2002. Once I Saw it All is part of a series of cast gongs made by McPeake that seek to invite people to engage with works in other ways than sight. This chart has been given tactile and sonic elements, so people can experience the work beyond the visual.

David Goldblatt documented life in South Africa from 1948 until his death in 2018 – through the rise of Afrikaner Nationalism, the apartheid regime and into the democratic era. In particular, he captured the life of people in the Witwatersrand mining region. In this image, an optician is testing the eyes of a priest, with a Snellen eye test chart hanging on the wall behind them.

This portable sight test would have been used in Britain to examine and prescribe visual aids such as glasses and contact lenses. It includes two pairs of frames and numerous lenses. The optician would have held up the test type cards and a customer’s ability to read the letters would determine which lens prescription was required.

Refractor heads were invented in the early 20th century to prescribe lenses for patients without the need for testing with lenses. By measuring the change in the direction of light rays when they pass from the air to the eye – the degree of refraction – the optician can determine if a person requires glasses and how strong they should be.

The skiascope is used to view the retina and to assess how light is refracted at the eye’s surface. Light is shone into the eye using the circular mirror with the hole in the centre. The way the light is refracted determines whether a person has astigmatism, a condition whereby the shape of the lens can change the way light passes into the eye and on to the retina, distorting the image detected.

Early contact lenses were large and uncomfortable to wear. German ophthalmologist Dr Adolf Müller-Welt applied for a patent for the blown glass lens in 1928. His improved lenses had a better range of fit, size and strength. They matched the curve of the eye more precisely and increased wearing time to seven hours. By the 1950s, contact lenses were being made from plastic and increased in popularity.

Written in Latin, Garden of Health is a natural history encyclopaedia. It is open on a page with an illustration of a man holding a clear opal stone up to his eye. Since ancient Roman times, opal crystals have been used for soothing and strengthening eyesight and were believed to heal eye conditions. The man is also holding a dog on a lead. This is possibly an early example of a guide dog being used to assist a person with vision impairment.

This advertisement promised that by applying a powder, or snuff, to the eye, sight could be improved and nervous headaches cured, eradicating the need for glasses. Analysis of the snuff, by Dr Hassall of the Lancet Analytical Sanitary Commission in 1855, suggested it contained a variety of herbs including orris-root, rosemary and lavender, plus a fairly high proportion of salt, but no tobacco as in more conventional snuff inhaled through the nose.

This eye massager promised to cure perceived imperfect vision and eye conditions such as cataracts, which can cause blindness. The rubber cups were placed on closed eyelids and the circle in the middle squeezed, creating a massaging effect. It was invented by Charles A Tyrrell, a masseur who qualified as a doctor in 1900. He was criticised by the medical establishment for making products with dubious health benefits.

William Bates was a respected ophthalmologist in New York who believed that vision impairment was the result of emotional stress. He suggested that conditions such as short-sightedness could be corrected by eye muscle training techniques such as those pictured here. In 1920, he published Bates Method for Better Eyesight Without Glasses and was thrown out of the American Medical Association for unethical advertising. The book from which this illustration is taken remains in print.

Photographer Howard Coster took this image of the writer Aldous Huxley two years after the publication of his most famous book Brave New World. At the age of 16, Huxley suffered from a condition known as bilateral keratitis, inflammation of his corneas, causing him to lose his sight for 18 months. Gradually he regained light perception in one eye, and some sight in his other, and wore thick corrective lenses. He changed his aspirations to study medicine and instead pursued a career as an author.

The author Aldous Huxley moved to Hollywood in 1937 to be a screenwriter. Whilst in the USA, he visited a practitioner called Margarette Corbett for sessions on “natural eyesight improvement”. Corbett had been trained by the ophthalmologist William Bates, criticised for his unorthodox views on how to improve eyesight. In 1942, Huxley published The Art of Seeing, which narrates his departure from wearing glasses as well as bringing together his ideas about perception, inner vision and mysticism.

The artist Alfons Schilling experimented with vision and perception. From the 1980s onwards, he began to develop large viewing devices that play with the effect two different ocular images have on three-dimensional perception. This film brings together some of his experiences with his wearable viewing machines.

Katya Solenko’s painting shows her experience of eating a bowl of soup. Following a road accident in 2011, Solenko developed a condition called left-sided hemianopia, meaning she can only see the right side of her visual field. After a long period of recovery in rehabilitation centres, she began a self-taught journey to become a painter. Through vibrantly colourful acrylic paintings of everyday life experiences, Solenko seeks to share her viewpoint with others, and raise awareness of hemianopia.

These multi-hinged, mirrored glasses have been designed to add the illusion of the left field of vision for a person with hemianopia. This condition originates in the brain rather than the eyes, causing the left half of the vertical visual field to go undetected.

These glasses are an early example of a split lens, known as bifocals. The lower section is for reading, and the upper section is for distance. Bifocal glasses enhance two different focal lengths of view for the wearer. American politician and writer Benjamin Franklin is attributed as the inventor, created to help him both read papers and look at the scenery while travelling.

The inventor Dominic Wilcox designed these glasses after attending a music event and spotting a shorter person standing behind him who couldn’t see the stage through the crowd of people. The mirror in front of the eyes angled at 45 degrees, and another at the top of the periscope, enables the wearer to see over obstacles, such as taller people.

Alfred Yarbis was a psychologist who studied how exactly the eye moves when looking at a subject. By applying a small rubber device to a person’s eyeballs, he demonstrated that the eye darts around in micro-movements, gravitating towards details in the visual field that it is directed to. Using the painting An Unexpected Visitor from 1884 by Ilya Repin, Yarbis prompted his subjects with questions and then captured their corresponding eye movements. Top row, left: the painting without instructions, right: examine the painting freely. Bottom row left: estimate the material circumstances of the family right: assess the ages of the characters.

This interactive installation uses neural networks, or learning algorithms, to explore how we see and make sense of the world. The audience is invited to move objects around on the table and see corresponding scenery emerging on the display, in real time, reinterpreted by the neural networks. Every 30 seconds, the scene changes, as different neural networks engage, based on the natural elements of water, air, earth, fire and the cosmos. Akten states, “An artificial neural network looks out onto the world, and tries to make sense of what it is seeing. But it can only see through the filter of what it already knows.” Similarly in human perception, the pictures we see are not accurate reflections of what is there, but reconstructions based on our prior expectations and beliefs.

Arrange the objects on the table to activate moving images on the screen.

These cards are known as Shirley cards, used by photography lab technicians to colour balance when developing film. For decades only one Shirley card existed, featuring a white woman with brown hair, against which all skin colours were calibrated. This meant that many labs struggled to print images of darker skin. It was not until the mid-1990s that a multiracial card was produced.

This caricature depicts English magistrate and social reformer John Fielding in the act of judging a case surrounded by corrupt officials and an only half-blindfolded Lady Justice. Fielding was himself blind. He advocated for standards of honesty and competence amongst those engaged in the administration of justice.

This sketch depicts Lady Justice at the door of the House of Commons while the 1911 Conciliation Bill, which would have granted votes for women, is being debated. It comes from an album of women’s suffrage banner designs by Mary Lowndes, held in the Women’s Library collection at the London School of Economics. Most representations of Lady Justice depict her wearing a blindfold, alluding to the idea that we can only be truly impartial when we do not see.

The Inuit and Yupik people of Alaska and northern Canada developed the first known eyewear to shield from excessive bright light, more than 800 years ago. They carved narrow slits into ivory, antlers or wood and wore these over their eyes to protect themselves from snow blindness.

These glasses follow a design by English mathematician Benjamin Martin, who created many optical instruments including microscopes. The thick-rimmed frames were thought to help diminish exposure to light, thereby reducing eye strain. Many glasses by Martin would also have had green-tinted lenses, again to reduce the amount of light entering.

Goggles like these were worn by children undergoing ultraviolet light therapy. The procedure became popular in the late 19th century, for the treatment of rickets or tuberculosis of the skin, and the goggles protected against the high concentrations of UV light, which can damage the eyes.

In 1913, British chemist and physicist William Crookes created a lens that blocked out 100 per cent ultraviolet and 90 per cent infrared light. It was made from glass containing the metal cerium and was lightly tinted. The lens was an unintended by-product of Crookes’ research into how to protect glass workers from cataracts, and later became used in sunglasses.

The first glasses worn specifically for sun protection were in Venice, Italy, in the late 18th century. The ones on display are likely to be from that time or very possibly a later imitation or adaptation. They were known as Goldoni glasses, named after the famous playwright Carlo Goldoni who popularised the style. They were often worn by gondoliers who needed protection from the sun’s glare while rowing their narrow boats along the canals of Venice.

Solar viewers are designed for direct viewing of the sun. Unlike standard sunglasses, they are able to filter out excessive and therefore eye-damaging light. Solar viewers are required for safe viewing of solar events such as eclipses, and this one was produced for the solar eclipse on 11 August 1999.

MiyoSmart glasses use special lenses that claim to stop or slow myopic progression, short-sightedness, in children. In recent years, an increase in digital screen use has seen a decrease in time spent outdoors, which can be harmful to the development of the eye in children in particular, and increases the risk of them developing myopia.

These spectacles contain lenses that claim to reduce the amount of blue light that reaches the eyes. Computers, tablets, smartphones and other digital screens all emit blue light. Due to its short wavelength, blue light penetrates the eyes easily. This means that almost all visible blue light rays can pass through the cornea and lens to the retina, leading to eye strain.

In these glasses, two high-definition cameras take three-dimensional photos and videos, while four built-in microphones record immersive, high-fidelity audio. Linked to the online Snapchat application, where users share photos and videos, the wearer can use and edit the captured material.

Designer and film-maker Matsuda explores a near future where augmented reality has been integrated into our everyday life. The piece follows the protagonist, 42-year-old Juliana Restrepo, as she negotiates a bus trip to the supermarket in the Mexican city of Medellín. Her visual field is filled with games, internet services and phone calls, alongside adverts that pop-up in her peripheral vision. The interface is populated with avatars, or virtual characters, that alert her to injuries, give advice and ultimately give her the option to reset her digital identity.

Eye protectors with four coloured lenses, sometimes referred to as double-d lenses, were worn to help protect eyes from smoke, dust and the wind when riding on steam trains or when driving open-top vehicles.

Originally designed for car drivers and patented in 1915, Albex Eye Protectors were used widely by pilots during the First World War, to shield their eyes from particles, smoke and other hazards.

This chainmail face protector was used to protect against shrapnel while driving a tank. The metal eye covers had small horizontal slits in them to reduce the likelihood of damage to the eye, whilst still allowing the wearer to see. Chainmail was added to protect the mouth.

The development of protective work goggles for hazardous environments was slowly accelerated by the invention of new materials such as safety glass, anti-fog glass and plastics.

These glasses were used by doctors to examine the dark areas of the body, for example the inside of ears or noses. A light source was positioned behind the patient and the mirror reflected the light to illuminate the body part. The small screws underneath could be turned to adjust the focus.

In May 2020, during the UK’s first covid-19 lockdown, artist Maisie Broadhead collaborated with photographer Jack Cole to create two portraits of her sister, Zöe, an intensive care nurse. Zöe was in the midst of working long shifts in the crowded critical care ward of a large London hospital, caring for people very ill with covid-19. In this portrait, she wears an adapted builder’s face shield to protect her eyes from airborne particles and droplets at a time when accessing personal protective equipment was difficult.

Saint Jerome is the patron saint of scholars, students and librarians and is shown here at work in his study. The objects in the painting signify the saint’s significance as a Christian theologian: they include an extinguished candle and skull. There is a pair of early armless glasses on the right side of his desk. By the 15th century, peddlers were selling eyeglasses throughout Europe as they had become a sign of wealth and intelligence.

Central to the development of glasses was a demand for help with reading. The invention of early hemispherical lenses made from crystal or glass, also known as reading stones, is credited to mathematician Ibn Al-Haytham, as he wrote about their capacity to magnify manuscripts in his book Kitab Al-Manazin (Book of Optics), written sometime before his death in 1038.

This early set of glasses was made to demonstrate craftsmanship and skill, rather than to be worn. One pair is for long-sightedness, the other for short-sightedness, and they were both kept in the same case, with an opening on either side. The Nuremberg style refers to a one-piece nose spectacle. There was a set style to these masterpieces, visible in the hand-carved lattice work, which includes 39 small hearts along the upper rim and 12 below with clover symbols.

These glasses have small hanging weights that can be hung behind the ears, helping them to balance on the nose. The material does not allow for a mechanism to pinch the bridge of the nose for stability.

These glasses are made with a handle to allow the wearer to hold them in place. The handle, or bridge, was moulded to sit over the nose.

VerBien means see well in Spanish, and is the name of a free glasses programme that works in partnership with the Mexican government and Augen Optics. Access to eye tests and glasses is still challenging in many areas of the world. VerBien offers customisable corrective eyewear for children aged six to 18, and has so far provided nearly six million free glasses.

Free eye tests and prescription glasses became available in the UK on the NHS in 1948. Before this, the cost of bespoke lenses had been too expensive for many people. With the creation of the NHS, glasses were supplied free or at a much reduced cost. There was a limited selection of plastic and metal models, each identified by a unique numbered code. The 524 was the standard plastic frame and was available in child and adult sizes, in a limited variety of colours. The NHS stopped making glasses in 1986.

East London-based Algha Works factory produced NHS frames from the 1950s until 1986. The rolled gold NHS 311 model became one of their main outputs, with the factory producing 18,000 frames a week.

The architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, better known as Le Corbusier, collaborated with Robert Bonnet, the founder of bespoke eyewear company Maison Bonnet, to create two models of glasses. They included this thick-rimmed tortoiseshell variety. Le Corbusier had myopia, short-sightedness, and lost nearly all his vision in one eye in 1918. The frames were designed to conceal the thickness of the lenses he used.

What We Wore is a project by photographer Nina Manandhar that explores people’s personal relationship with clothes: why they wear them, how they wear them, and what they mean to them. For In Plain Sight, Manandhar collected photographs and stories connected to people’s relationship to eyewear through an open call for submissions. These are located on the opposite wall.

Here there are a short series of slideshows, narrated by contributors Patrick Duffy, Seana Gavin, Cynthia Grandfield, Mulenga Nkonga and Ted Polhemus. They relate their connection to eyewear through snapshots from different points in their lives. The installation uncovers the intertwined nature of our identities and the lenses we wear.

1. Hoana Poland, London, 1995
2. Suz Pettigrew and family, Falmouth, 1989
3. DJ Harvey, Cambridgeshire, 1980
4. Jarvis Cocker, Sheffield, 1980
5. Clare Cumberlidge, London, 1993
6. Don Letts, London, 1973
7. Janice Waltzer Curtis, London, 1965
8. Jeremy Deller, London, 1984
9. Liz Johnson Artur, London, 1995
10. Carri Munden, London, 2006
11. Suzie Zabrowska, New York and London, 1980s
12. Gary Card, London, 2002
13. Trisha Lewis, photographed by Stephanie Sian Smith, London, 2019
14. Nigel Stark, London, 1989
15. Sue Man and Han-Chi Man, Hong Kong, 1991
16. Rob Milton and Tess Farrington, Bournemouth, 1983
17. Suren Surenventine, photographed by Joseph Tovey-Frost, London, 2009
18. Shanti Manandhar, Kathmandu, 1968

This etching by prolific British cartoonist Robert Seymour shows two men wearing revolving hats that with ‘a slight touch presents its wearer with eye-glass, cigar, scent-box, spectacles, hearing-trumpet… without the intolerable trouble holding them’. It alludes to the many accessories, including a monocle, that a leisurely modern man in the 19th century would be expected to wear.

Figures such as British pilot Amy Johnson, who became the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia in 1930, were widely celebrated and inspirational. As such, the accessories needed to perform these feats, such as goggles and sunglasses, became imbued with aspiration.

Introduced in 1957, the 649 model by Italian sunglasses brand Persol was originally designed for Turin’s tram drivers, with large lenses to block out dust and debris. However, it was American actor Steve McQueen who made this and other Persol models iconic. The name Persol is derived from the Italian per il sole, meaning for the sun.

These frameless goggles feature photochromic spherical lenses, which darken when exposed to brighter sunlight, or ultraviolet.

The increasing popularity of television in the early 1950s led film studios to make efforts to lure people back into cinemas. Three-dimensional films were one of their strategies. Creating a three-dimensional effect relied on polarising technology, where two reels are projected at slightly different angles, viewed through special glasses. These glasses allow each of the lenses to catch only one image, which in turn tricks the brain into seeing depth.

The growing popularity of jazz from the 1930s onwards, and the subsequent focus on what the musicians wore, were instrumental in the development of sunglasses. Often put on even while performing at night, sunglasses became linked to a cool, nonchalant attitude embodied by jazz greats such as Miles Davis, Sun Ra and Thelonious Monk.

Sunglasses became popular through the advent of cinema and celebrity culture, and the subsequent focus on the lives and imagery of actors, the rich and the famous. Worn to conceal identity or to add mystique, specific frame shapes became associated with specific celebrities, such as those of Jackie Onassis.

This etching depicts a woman in an opera box holding a monocular opera glass, similar in shape to a telescope, looking down into the audience. Other forms of opera glasses, such as those held up by a handle, were known as lorgnettes, taken from the French word lorgner, meaning to ogle or to eye furtively. Users wanted to see the stage more clearly, but also watch strangers in the crowd.

In China from the 12th century, exquisite glasses featuring quartz lenses became fashionable among the upper classes. Far from functional, these glasses made it nearly impossible to see and could even harm the wearer’s eyesight.

Fans are items of personal concealment, but this one is subverted by the addition of a spyglass, giving the user the ability to observe others secretly. The lens is quite strong, suited for distant viewing, perhaps across a room, at the opera or theatre.

Designed to be handheld while the glasses rest on the bridge of the nose, these delicately carved and decorated glasses were produced by an artisan named Ernesto in Bologna, Italy, whose name is visible inside the case. They are made from expensive materials such as ivory in the handle, and silk and velvet in the case.

Cartier buffs, also referred to as carties, cardis, ye-s, or sticks, are sunglasses with buffalo horn arms from the French jeweller Cartier. They first became a popular status symbol amongst car factory workers in Detroit, USA. White buffs are some of the rarest and most expensive models on the market.

This portrait of Helen Epega, a Nigerian-British singer-songwriter, is part of artist Hajjaj’s series My Rockstars. It pays tribute to musicians that have inspired Hajjaj personally. Epega wears a bright red robe designed by Hajjaj, a colourful headscarf that she stylishly wrapped around a frame to project outward like giant ears and exaggerated white cat eye sunglasses, all the while playing a Swiss-made instrument called the hang.

This image shows a dandy, looking through a monocle. A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon his appearance, language and leisurely hobbies with the appearance of nonchalance. The wording on the image ridicules the dandy’s appearance from the perspective of the woman he appears to be ogling through his eyeglass.

This image was first published in the Daily Mail newspaper in 1925, with the caption ‘Brilliantly coloured horn-rimmed spectacles in many curious shapes’. It shows three women wearing glasses. None of the frames appear to have lenses in them. Wearing statement glasses, especially by women, was a signifier of rejecting established norms.

Hip-hop artist Slick Rick was 18 months old when he was struck by glass from a broken window, leaving him blinded in his right eye. He has spoken about his changing relationship with various eyewear, explaining that after wearing a contact lens and Ray-Ban sunglasses to camouflage the blind eye, he decided instead to emphasise it and wear an eyepatch. Ever since, he has matched his eyepatch to his outfits and famously commissioned jewellery designer Jacob Arabo to create a bejewelled patch for him.

Quizzing glasses such as this one were generally dangled at the end of a long ribbon or chain around the neck and held up to the eye to ‘quiz’ or examine people and objects. The ornate decoration and use of gold plate indicate a wealthy owner wanting to make a fashion statement.

These glasses are part of a collaboration between manufacturer Gentle Monster and Danish fashion designer and artist Henrik Vibskov. They mimic the appearance of matches.

Iris Apfel is an American interior designer and fashion icon, signing to IMG model agency in 2019 at the age of 97. First launched in 2021 to celebrate Apfel’s 100th birthday, this collaboration with glasses manufacturer Zenni celebrates her signature style with a range of oversized colourful glasses.

This installation explores a future where we all have a virtual identity, and where changing that virtual identity will be as essential as changing our clothes. You are invited to sit by a dresser and look at your reflection in a mirror, which transforms you into an augmented version of yourself. To the left there is a make-up palette, where you can choose from 12 different virtual looks. They can be activated via QR codes with your phone.

Look in the mirror to see your virtual avatar.

Scan the QR codes in the make-up palette to try on different virtual looks.

Make sure you have Instagram installed on your phone. Scan the QR codes to activate the Beauty and Beyond Human AR experiences. When the AR effects are open, feel free to record a picture or video, upload it as a post or story and tag @_keiken_. You can also save the effects to your filter tray so you can use them another time.

This hand-drawn illustration is from a mediaeval copy of Aristotle’s treatises. Within it, his essay De Anima (On the Soul) written in 350 BC, describes sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch individually, and in that order of importance. Philosophers such as Aristotle traditionally privileged sight and hearing as they were thought to be objective, because we ‘perceive’ things at a further distance from ourselves, whereas more bodily senses such as taste and touch were seen as subjective.

The French ophthalmologist Dr Émile Javal lost his sight in 1900, aged 60. He published The Blind Man’s World in 1904, in which he addresses the misconception that vision impairment makes the other senses more astute, supernatural even. Instead he explains that in the absence of visual input, there is greater attention paid to input received from the other senses, and an increased sophistication with being able to interpret it.

This virtual reality experience and film takes you on a journey into whole body seeing.

It was inspired by John Hull, an academic and theologian who was registered blind in 1980. Hull began to record his journey into what he described as “deep blindness” on audio cassette, documenting his experiences of gradual sight loss. He also wrote a book, Notes on Blindness. As Hull explains, “A blind person is simply someone in whom the specialist function of sight is now devolved upon the whole body, and no longer specialised in a particular organ”.

We recommend that the virtual reality is experienced from a seated position. To activate the experience, put on a headset. It can be adjusted for comfort. Please carefully replace the headset once you are finished.

Jo Bannon’s film plays with the format of a tactile mystery box. Arms outstretched, her fingers turn over hidden objects, at times navigating perilously their sharp edges as they are examined – sometimes identifiable and sometimes not. Bannon’s descriptions attempt to put into words not only their physical details but also their full sensory resonance, sometimes grasping at mis-remembered details and the indescribable. The work considers the complex interplay between our memory and our senses as we try to make sense of the objects that surround us.

London Stands Upon Her Hind Legs
Ballpoint pen on paper

London in My Dreams
Ballpoint pen on paper

True Love Will Find You in the End
Ballpoint pen on paper

Dog Girl, They Called Me
Earthenware, ceramic

Emilie Gossiaux explores the bond she has with her guide dog London. A relationship between a guide dog and their companion is often described as a marriage, and so Gossiaux explores a place where girl and dog have morphed into a sort of hybrid-being, symbolising their interdependence. She works with tactile materials such as clay, and draws into paper with a ballpoint pen on top of a rubber mat, which enables her to feel the impressions of the lines while she is drawing them. You are invited to touch the sculpture.

Spine
Fayen d’Evie
2019
Sanded oblong of Jurassic marble, with fabric wrapping steeped in mud 

on and on and on… (tactile poetics fragment) 
Fayen d’Evie 
2019 
Braille poetry, bronze, with fabric wrapping steeped in mud

handling (encounter between Fayen d’Evie and Georgina Kleege, July 2016) 
Sophie Takách
2016–2021 
Bronze, with fabric wrapping steeped in mud

Modes of Touch invites you to consider how our relationship with objects changes when we are given the opportunity to touch them. The work highlights a collaboration between author Georgina Kleege and artist Fayen d’Evie. Contained within drawers three objects sit waiting to be held. Most of the time the only access to what is inside these fabric-wrapped bundles is revealed through handling scores, or audio descriptions, that play when you approach the drawers. At 14.30 each day, these objects can be unwrapped.

The voices are those of Kleege and d’Evie and their collaborator Katy West, who steeped the fabric in river mud from Jarra Country, Australia. They invite you to discover what can be gained through touch, and draw attention to ideas of care for cultural objects held within museums. This work proposes alternative ways of experiencing and understanding the things we are able to hold in our hands. It is presented as the latest in the Let’s Keep in Touch series by Carmen Papalia and Whitney Mashburn, a project about the possibilities of tactility.

Carmen Papalia describes himself as a non-visual artist. His work seeks creative and individually tailored approaches to the access and navigation of public spaces. This impossibly long stick playfully challenges the stigma of the prescribed cane, making it even more noticeable and expanding the artist’s field of view by just over four metres. Papalia also uses his canes in performances to take other people on journeys, often with their eyes closed, and encourages them to attend to their surroundings with all of their senses.

Mobility Device is a film of a performance in which Papalia navigates the city of Santa Ana, California, with the help of the Century High School marching band. It brings attention to the objects his cane touches and transforms them into sound. Curbs, steps and lampposts became notes in the soundscape of a place. Entrusting his personal safety to this group of teenage musicians, Papalia proposes that access moves away from an institutional model, towards one that is community-generated and collaborative, one that celebrates a social act of seeing with others.