Vision: Control, Desire, Perception

Abstract

With the iconic turn, seeing and human vision have received new attention. How is seeing constituted? What is characteristic of the human vision? How is it determined by physical, cultural, and historical moments? Seeing enables an expansion of the human body, it creates inter-corporeality and image worlds through images, simulacra, and simulations. Seeing, man experiences not only the world but also himself. The eye becomes the window of the soul. Seeing an object is different from seeing another person, whom we perceive simultaneously as an object and as another person. The eye-hand field assumes a central anthropological significance. The politics of seeing is part of power and violence, and it has manifested itself differently throughout history. We exercise control and power though our view. Seeing oscillates between wish and desire, perception and thought.