Suzanne Anker, fMRI Butterfly, 2008, detail
In fMRI Butterfly, fifteen seemingly unspecified and identical brain scans are arranged in a grid. At the center of each frame is an image of a butterfly, on each of which Anker superimposes a different reproduction of a Rorschach-test-type inkblot. The overlays of the butterfly, fMRI scans and inkblots yield visual variations in figure/ground relationships thus creating in the viewer subtle optical illusions. In effect, although the butterflies are identical in each print, they appear distinctly different from one another. The complex and minute system of the superimposed images thus brings to consciousness the underlying neurological processes at work in perception.
