RP1

Watching TV shows, watching advertisements, watching films, watching youtube, watching instagtram, watching exhibitions, watching the paintings, watching the screens, watching... watching... watching...

Watching, or saying the gaze, is powerful. It dominate the way we learn knowledges, and even communicate (we type in conversation windows more than we talk in face). And with technologies developments, the dissemination of moving images even cements the domination of watching. However, we are watching all the time, in all the places, therefore we are getting numb of what we are watching. Especially as one in the practices of visual communication, I learnt the power of information and images, and I create images/moving images all the time. So I see the numb even stronger. As the viewer, I don’t feel (i.e. I don’t care) what I’m watching, as the image creator, I don’t know why I’m creating. There’s an anxiety of knowing without caring in my life of watching.

“In approaching touch’s metaphorical power to emphasize matters of involvement and committed knowledge, I can’t help but hear a familiar voice saying ‘theory has only observed the world; the point is to touch it’ - lazily rephrasing Marx’s condemnation of abstract thought that ‘philosophers have only interpreted the world… the point is to change it.” (Bellacasa, 2017)

That’s why I want to research, where to find this engagement, what it means to have an engaging relationship with the images, how it makes the invisible visible, affecting the understanding of our identity (which I’ll discuss in the next research update).

Reference

Puig de la Bellacasa, M., 2017. Matters of care: speculative ethics in more than human worlds, Posthumanities. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.