Sight Reading (Redux)

How do we know what it is that we see? What moves us between seeing and understanding? The chance finding of a second-hand book led me to explore how particular forms of somatic skills might destabilize our relationship to the world around us. Jules Romains’ intriguing account of early 20th Century experiments in Paroptic vision, (a scientific curiosity exploring evidence that sight could move to different parts of the body), offered me the possibility of exploring different registers of movement within a moving image work. Sight Reading deliberately evokes a strange, dream-like sensation of synesthesia through collaging re-enactments of ‘eyeless sight’ experiments with a choreographed exploration of an eclipse set against the compelling rhythm of Eric Satie’s Vexations.

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