Sight Reading (Redux)

Moving image / HD Video / 2015 / Supported by an Artsadmin bursary

How do we know what we see?

How do we know the world?

The chance finding of a second-hand book called Eyeless Sight, revealed a world of early twentieth century experiments into ‘paroptic’ vision. Subjects were tested to see if they could read – not with their eyes – but with their wrists, necks or hands. Only a very few individuals had this ability and it seems to have disappeared as a phenomenon of the last century. But what if ‘eyeless’ sight could point to the somatic ways in which we understand the world?

How do the patterns and systems in our bodies echo those in the world around us?

Sight Reading deliberately evokes a strange, dream-like sensation of synaesthesia through collaging re-enactments of ‘eyeless sight’ experiments with a choreographed exploration of an eclipse set against the endless cycle of Eric Satie’s Vexations.

Credits:

Performers: Jo.e Amado; Sebastian Backzkiewicz; Gerard Bell; Geoff McGarry; Marie-Gabrielle Rotie, Frances Scot; Lito Walkey

Focus Puller - Jason Walker

Camera Assistant - Trevor Speed

Gaffer - Mitch Spooner

Spark - Michael Onder

Grip - Alex Meacock

Sound Recordist - Johnny Burns

Pianist - Timor Fredricksson

Cinematographer - Ole Birkeland

Choreographer - Lucy Cash & Lito Walkey

Director / Editor - Lucy Cash