The love particles of eye tracking

I have a painterly confession to make. When I saw eye tracking visualisations for the first time they flooded me with a affecting impressions. They seemed to float outside, and ignite the air, of the computer screen I was witnessing them on. These vibrant visualisations threw light particles onto the surfaces all around me. I felt them as arrows and spirals and galaxies of light, colour, and intensities. The very last thing on my mind was scholarship – how useful they might be for empirical research on how viewers watched the moving image – that came later.

I saw these dynamic eye-maps as irregular and chaotic blocs of sensation; carriers of embryonic stories, histories and memories; and conveyors of feeling – the mind’s eye delicately locked into these beautiful incandescent streams and flows.

I saw them as phenomenal art pieces and I saw their potential in creative practice. I imagined them projected onto reflective edifices, tenement walls and abandoned buildings; on display windows and mirrors; in installations and exhibitions; and on the silver screen in opulent cinemas.

This is a paper that explores the love particles at the heart of eye tracking...