Artists: Yuri Palmin

It is widely assumed that Emission theory of vision (Empedocles to Aristotle) which states that particles of light originate from the human eye was based on observation of the eyes of cats glowing at night. This theory in its turn gave birth to Euclid’s geometric optics which made photography possible. And photography has found its sacred subject matter in a cat.

Russian word KATAPHOT contains greek prefix KATA meaning ‘against’ or ‘back’, however due to unstressed position of the vowel A it can be mistakenly spelled as KOTOPHOT with a cat preceding the photo root. The English translation of the word, CAT’S EYE enjoys the unequivocal presence of the beast as well as its light-emitting organ.

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