Photography

Visual Pathologies

Sophie-Jane Brindle

Visual Pathologies, 2025

Metallic Print, Dibond

30″ x 50″

Visual Pathologies explores the intersection of perception, memory, and truth in visual culture through the use of eye-tracking software, with a particular focus on the sociopolitical implications of how we see. The project records viewers’ gaze patterns as they interact with a curated selection of seventy viral images sourced from online news archives spanning the past twenty-five years—many of which depict moments of social unrest, protest, and injustice.

Each image is displayed for 3 to 6 seconds, simulating the fleeting engagement typical of digital media consumption. By isolating the areas of each photograph that attract the most attention, the work translates visual engagement into measurable data—revealing not only what viewers prioritize, but also how attention is shaped by cultural conditioning, bias, and systemic inequities.

In doing so, Visual Pathologies challenges photography’s role as a presumed neutral witness in a hyper-mediated age, and interrogates the politics of visibility: whose stories are told, whose suffering is seen or overlooked, and how visual repetition can desensitize or distort public understanding.

Ultimately, this study is both a reflection and a critique: of how we see, what we remember, and how images—once considered mere documentation—have become tools of influence, empathy, or erasure in the struggle for justice, representation, and truth.