The sense of sight, more precisely, the cultural determination of the sight, as well as the problems of perception, are the basic preoccupation of Atanas Botev in his latest project entitled Kinds of Sights. He has started it in 2002 as a series of graphic prints that were, primarily, researching the visual qualities of different signs used in the tests for determining the diopter. Gradually, the project Kinds of Sights grew into a research project that resulted in certain paradoxical discoveries on the visual culture.
With his interactive graphic prints Botev simulates a test for determining the diopter. Concurrently, he introduces a made up test with Cyrillic signs, since he finds out that, despite the fact that the Cyrillic alphabet is our cultural differentia specifica, such a test has never been used in the local ophthalmologic examinations. The paradox that the ophthalmologic tests in Macedonia still include Latin signs (despite the fact that the Cyrillic letters have been created on the territory of Macedonia, in the 9th century, by the Slavic educators Cyril and Methodius as the most adequate sings for denoting the local language), provoked the artist to reexamine this phenomenon.
Namely, all the possible misunderstandings that may arise from the use of an alphabet that is not always completely mastered by the local citizens incites disputes on the language and the cultural hegemony of the past, thus revealing a hidden policy of power in an apparently naive cultural failure.