Patterns Upon Patterns (Apophenia)
I’ve gotten around to analyzing the video footage from Southend, albeit with a human eye rather than computational analysis software (will have to wait til after I find time to wrap my head around Open CV).
I split the two video files of tea leaf reading into the individual frames which composed the footage. From that I’ve picked out my favourite pictures, and where appropriate I have annotated what symbols I discern therein. There is quite a heady amount of recursion going on here (I’m looking back at the computer recording of a webcam looking at me doing a tea leaf gazing exercise!)
Out of the 17000+ frames which I extracted I have included a select few which really jumped out at me. I’m going to reference what I saw against the tea leaf dictionary which explains what each pattern means relative to my near future. This will be devoid of the usual semi occult space/atmosphere that tasseomancy generates and so I expect different outcomes.
However I was really struck by how readily I discerned patterns in the pictures. It made me think again of how easily tricked our vision is, Rorshach ink tests, aponeia and what hypnotic/trance inducing potential does the act of seeing patterns where there are none have upon us
