https://www.camoufleurs.org/fieldnotes daily 0.75 2020-07-08 https://www.camoufleurs.org/fieldnotes/a-good-beginning-smooth-progress monthly 0.5 2020-07-08 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5f0556d11eb0f03a76833d9c/1594185983566/https-%3A%3Awww.wallpaperflare.com%3Ain-ancient-china-bronze-ding-round-cultures-old-metal-wallpaper-ahkdb.jpg Field Notes - “A good beginning, smooth progress…” In Bronze Age China, when the Yijing was composed, the ding was a huge ceremonial cooking vessel for ritual feasts. You can think of it as the “horn of plenty.” https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5f0554162bf0e26cbd8bfc62/1594186107746/IMG_1602_small.jpg Field Notes - “A good beginning, smooth progress…” Ding, “The Caldron” ䷱. Though today we usually see the Yijing’s 64 hexagrams represented as diagrams of six solid or broken lines, sages of the past used other forms, including numbers or even knots. https://www.camoufleurs.org/home daily 1.0 2020-12-08 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5fcf155aba7003536ea38927/1607407031349/IMG_4691.jpg Home A site specific installation by Lauren Ruth & Jason Clower “Stories Nine” 1078 Gallery, Chico CA December 5, 2020 - January 31, 2021 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5f970847eb1711562c37d336/1607407108738/Camoufleurs_Headshot1.jpg Home https://www.camoufleurs.org/gallery daily 0.75 2020-06-15 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee7e89a4272d276b05f867b/1592256751289/476717995_1a2b9d5a08_h.jpg Strategies of Camouflage - Disruptive Coloration: Background Matching This snake is disrupting our ability even to detect it. By matching its visual background, it makes it hard for us even to notice that we are really looking at two objects (a branch and a snake) rather than one. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee7e92bbec47e0fd4df7e2e/1592257196910/cat-408728_1280.jpg Strategies of Camouflage - Background Matching: Internal Disruption This cat is shows a set of colors well matched to its background. They do little to prevent us from scrying the outline of the cat’s body against the ground, but they present a wide enough variety of shades and textures to hide the fact that its body is really a single surface. That distracts our attention from the outline of the cat’s body and it successfully fades into the background. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee7eb294833d0007a2db54a/1592257626463/Chameleon+countershading.jpg Strategies of Camouflage - Countershading This chameleon is “counter-shaded”: its belly is colored lighter than its back, so it seems not to be in shadow. Without the tell-tale shadow, it is harder for casual observers to recognize they they are looking at a a three-dimensional object. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee7ed7ab480266cf4cd8cfa/1592258198607/Disruptive+coloration+snake.jpeg Strategies of Camouflage - Background Matching: Color and Texture In a great example of pure background matching, the snake matches this tree so well in both color and texture that we can scarcely distinguish its body as a separate surface, even from a short distance. Only the snake’s tongue breaks the illusion. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee7ef4f4855790a4347ad79/1592258569476/Cigale+background+matching.jpg Strategies of Camouflage - Background Matching with Internal Disruption This cigale already matches the background color well, but it adds a second strategy: internal disruption. With the thick brown lines on its back, it distracts attention from the much subtler outline of its body against the tree. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee7f07c44891d6c8258fc4a/1592263350604/carpet-python-snake-python-head-close-up-eyes-black-yellow-pattern.jpg Strategies of Camouflage - Internal Disruption: False Edges This python’s tan and brown colors do not match its background very closely, but it sports “false edges” that slow our ability to see its body as a continuous surface. Normally, we intuit that we are looking at a continuous surface because we see it as an area of consistent coloration separated from its background by an edge. But since the python’s body confronts us with irregular tan and brown patches, separated by black “edges,” its body fades into insignificance against the chaos of background shapes and shadows. We fail to interpret it correctly as one discrete snake shape. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee7f1b7fb967e67f0f22f4d/1592263403725/False+edge+insect.jpg Strategies of Camouflage - Background Matching with Internal False Edges This insect not only matches its background color but also is covered in dark stripes, some of which come from its own coloration and others from the shadows cast on its body by its legs. With these dark stripes, it presents our eyes with “false edges” that prevent our seeing its body as one continuous surface. Instead, we think we are seeing the edges and shadows of several discrete objects like pieces of rock and dry vegetation. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee7f391b0cc10796b1922b7/1592263424943/feature+binding+cat.jpg Strategies of Camouflage - Eyes: The Weak Point in Camouflage This cat would match its background well if only we couldn’t see its eyes. Whenever we spot a pair of eye-like circles, we are alerted to scrutinize that area extra closely for other nearby features (like a nose or facial shadows) that belong together and comprise a face. This process of noticing tell-tale clues that “go together” and identifying them as belonging to a face or other discrete object is called “feature binding.” https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee7f44adb3b8842f57f65b7/1592263451332/Tree+frog.jpeg Strategies of Camouflage - Eyes and Feature Binding Eyes are the weak point in many animals’ camouflage. This tree frog matches its home wonderfully in both color and texture. But when we spot a round, black eye, we scrutinize its surroundings and find tell-tale features like the outlines of its head, back, and feet that give it away. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee8043a5878276f8e05df72/1592263879813/Feature%2Bbinding%2Bcrocodile-1543051_1280.jpg Strategies of Camouflage - Obstructing Feature Binding Even when an animal cannot help but be detected, it can slow our ability to identify it. Immediately we can spot something against the green background, but we are slow to figure out what it might be. A randomly shaped patch of ground, a mud bank (like the one on the right), or … something with an eye? After noticing the continuous and almost uniform dark oval of the eye, we re-evaluate the contours of the larger brown region and the brown-and-green spotted regions on its right and left and conclude with horror that we are looking at the head of a crocodile still partially hidden by greenery. We need much longer to “feature bind” the crocodile because we have no useful features to recognize other than a single eye. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee7f68a1dae3d310a31cd57/1592263892897/eye+stripe-Mtn_chickadee_wray.jpg Strategies of Camouflage - Eye Stripe: A Way to Block Feature Binding Because eyes attract notice, some animals disrupt recognition of their eyes with a dark “eye stripe.” Instead of a tell-tale dark orb, their adversaries might notice only a dark linear shape amid a chaotic background and interpret it as one more random shadow. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee805173a92d532fc63cc1a/1592263967567/topless-man-with-black-and-white-face-paint.jpg Strategies of Camouflage - Obscuring Features This man slows feature binding simply and effectively with an eye stripe and a second stroke that distracts from the distinctive lines of the human nose and mouth. By denying us easy recognition of those features, he takes away the chief elements by which we recognize the presence of a human face. As in other camouflage strategies that thwart feature finding, he cannot prevent us from detecting him, but he makes it harder and slower to identify him. https://www.camoufleurs.org/about daily 0.75 2020-07-08 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee7f68d5ff7d2622eec8f6a/1592260239893/IMG_7972.jpg About - Our Story “Camouflage is an art in the process of becoming a science,” writes the U.S. Marine Corps. As camoufleurs, “artists of camouflage,” we aim to turn that science back into art. Lauren Ruth is a sculptor and performance artist whose solo work anthropomorphizes insentient objects to alert her audience to technological surveillance. As a camoufleur, she reverses the procedure, disguising individual human forms within the fertile chaos of their backgrounds. Jason Clower is a researcher and writer on Chinese Buddhist philosophy and studies and creates camouflage as a Tiantai Buddhist contemplative practice. https://www.camoufleurs.org/projects daily 0.75 2020-12-08 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5fcf16fb68c18617d40a680d/1607407356767/IMG_4691.jpg Projects A site specific installation by Lauren Ruth & Jason Clower “Stories Nine” 1078 Gallery, Chico CA December 5, 2020 - January 31, 2021 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5f9709c6697242525d2da39c/1607407414529/MeatMask.jpg Projects - Demilitarized Camouflage Camouflage patterns for the city and the wilderness without a military appearance https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec359a0ac9fc01d0a829a03/t/5ee81f676daaaa1f3bf34652/1592282654736/IChing%2BQuote.jpg Projects - Camouflage Yijing We are “translating” the sixty-four hexagrams of the great text of Chinese speculative philosophy into camouflage-like patterns that correspond to both the ordered lines of the diagrams and the expressive content of the text. https://www.camoufleurs.org/theory daily 0.75 2020-06-16