David Johnson
Blind Aesthetics, Ways of (Not) Seeing: Memory, Matter and Synaesthesia
Summary
Contemporary visual bias obscures the existence and force of sight-independent visualisation and imaging. Working sculpturally in concrete, clay, latex and digital sound environments, my (blind) art practice dramatically shifts away from this visual bias by creating specific sensorial connections between memory, materiality and neural pluralities. It asks to what extent blindness can reveal a different approach to the visual, one that is no longer primarily attached to the haptic. This research extends the work of disability gain theorists (Kleege/Thompson) providing new ways of (not) seeing.
Additional info
My research methodology is a complex triangulation of art practice (sculpture), autoethnography and philosophical literary discourse.
What is it like to be blind?
A few thoughts on the ontology of blindness
This frequently asked question presupposes that it, being blind, is like something else that isn’t being blind but which people who aren’t blind can experience or relate to in some way. In other words can the experience of being blind be simulated in some way so as to translate it from the realm of the private and the subjective to the realm of the public and the objective? The short answer is ‘no’!
Consciously closing your eyes and thinking about what’s around you is a bit like being blind - but not much like it. Being dazzled by sudden bursts of intensely bright light shining straight into the eyes and not being sure of what’s around you is a bit like being blind - but not much like it. Putting on a blindfold or wearing something that covers the eyes and cuts out light and again being unsure of what’s around you is a bit like being blind - but not much like it. Turning off the lights in a room with no other light coming in and not being able to see what’s around you is a bit like being blind - but not much like it.
The reason why none of these examples succeeds in showing what it is like to be blind is because being blind is a hugely complex, variegated and heterogeneous state of being way beyond any of the simple, momentary gestures just described. All of the examples just given contain necessary elements of what it is to be blind but they are hopelessly insufficient in marking out the true nature and extent of blind phenomenology.
Being blind consists of a wide range of important factors including the type of eye disease you have, the extent of vision loss that has occurred, the rate of change in visual acuity that is happening, the age of the visually impaired person and the cultural context of the person concerned. This is to name but a few among many factors.
The truth is that there is nothing it is like to be blind. The only way to know what it is to be blind is to be blind. Being blind is ontologically sui generis. In other words being blind is a unique state of being that cannot be effectively simulated or described.
Blind, I stand before the mirror that evokes an image-of-thought-of-self whose tessellating and fragmentary modes of sensing provide both the instrument and the object of anamnestic reflection
Making sense of not seeing: Memory and beyond
As we journey through life we do what we can do as human bodies-in-the-world. Our body is there ready to do what it can do: Walking on two legs, throwing a ball, a stone or a spear, thinking, seeing, hearing, breathing , running, smelling and so on. This readiness to do is a kind of instinctual, innate set of potentialities common to all human bodies.
The essence of this innate humanism is captured in the words of Plato in his dialogue Meno: 'What we call learning is only recollection'. [1]
These pre-set faculties work like jigsaw puzzle pieces; each faculty tessellates with all the others such that if one is missing or is lost then what remains strongly reflects or resonates with what is missing.
This is true of the whole body but particularly so of the Sensorium, the group name for all the senses working together. So if eyesight goes or is missing, for example, then all the remaining senses retain traces of eyesight within their functionality. This is the well-known phenomenon of synaesthesia and this is a key constituent of the extended memory known as anamnesis.
[1] “Meno,” 29, accessed February 10, 2021, https://onemorelibrary.com/index.php/en/books/philosophy-and-psychology/book/ancient-greek-philosophy-227/meno-3058.
Transient Object Caught in a Multi-Dimensional Moment of Impossible Pringles
The moment of touch
The instant when the fingertips alight on the surface of another object in space-time is a gestalt moment akin to an electrical circuit being completed.
In the same way that we instantly recognise a familiar voice or fragment of familiar music, our sense of touch needs the tiniest shreds of sensory data in order to establish knowledge and recognition.
