We introduce bio-inspired microscopic and erratic movements as a pivot for artificial vision of static scenes with a neuromorphic active vision system. By characterizing the signal provided by the silicon retina we evidenced (1) an amplification of its response to high spatial frequencies; (2) a whitening effect when scaling stimulus contrast to match the structure of natural images; and (3) an equalized response to all possible orientations of stimuli related to the isotropic statistics of the motion. Finally, proper anisotropic spatial summation of events in a custom-designed spiking neural network allowed the detection of orientations of stimuli.