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| Reminiscent of To the Lighthouse -- Virginia Woolf |
Scopophilia is
defined as the love of watching and viewing visual information and
decoding experience of primarily visual stimulation. It explains how
visual information takes precedence over written and textual decoding
of information. All information, even the written text, is
experienced first and foremost as visual stimulation. The following
paper deals with the wealth and forms of visual stimulation that the
subject views in every day life and modes of dissecting visual
information. It opens with the separation of visual information
between the foundation of existence in primary empirical relations
with the world, from the representation of experience through the
visual arts and media. Whether natural or artificial, it is contact
with the visual experience which is of the essence. Ultimately, it is
the phenomenological relation with the world which is of essence when
experiencing the visual empiricism of life, both in natural life and
in representation of the arts.
Scopophilia
means literally, the love of watching, seeing, looking. The modern
generation
is raised on television, films, music videos, print magazines,
photography, etc.
This
preferencing of visual data over oral or written media of
communication, shows that
presence
is determined by the subject’s focus on visual information. The
young
generation
is very media savvy. They know how to interpret visual advertising on
glossy
print
and subtextual layers. I have found, that just the roving eye,
scouting for attention
to
the environment in which one is immersed, keeps an attentivity for
the subject, so as
not
to allow the mind to wander from it’s focal points of perception.
Theatre and film are
good
training for the subject to submit itself to attentivity and
vigilance in every day life.
Even
if we are not producers in these media, we still learn to interpret
life based on visual
sources.
Architecture is the great expanse, whereby the sculptural media are
given
presence,
and the individual’s visual vigilance is made coherent through
understanding
the
field in which it moves. Space, truly, is the final frontier. Movies
made of light,
show
that the individual experiences life first and foremost through a
visual lense that the
body
interprets, through roving through space, through watching images
moving on a
screen
or on a stage, or simply through photographs in a magazine. Even
text, gains
primacy
through visualisation, and phonemes are regulated secondary to
Chinese
ideograms,
cuneiform, and ancient text in which vowels are not present for
interpretation.
Here,
we see, that all communication is principally and foremost visual in
nature.
Knowing
the primacy of visual communication, attention is paid to the eye’s
apperception
of the visual field. Through this visual contact, the mind is
steadied, and the
tendency
to slip into internal discourse is overcome by this visual contact
with the field of
perception.
By creating an imaginary Cartesian grid over the subject of
perception, the
eye
can have an ordered wandering about the space in its immediate
vicinity, and contact
with
the world is achieved through a field of distanciation. Some people
find it easier to
just
use a cross, a vertical and horizontal line, that’s central node
moves through the field
of
perception with ease. Regardless of the tricks that the individual
uses, ultimately if
one
attends to the visual perception, the immaculate perception, then one
is pressed into a
primary
contact with a visual plane of communication. Whether this plane is
Natural, or
Artificial,
it is the contact which is of ultimate importance. Watching is the
key to a
scout’s
exercise of will. This is also highly utilitarian. In the country and
in the city,
there
are dangers that constantly surround the individual. Only by
watching, can the
individual
be aware of any dangers that may be approaching.
And
so we have, in the love of life drawing, representation of
life-forms, the arts
of
photography and film-making, the goal to encourage the individual to
watch his or her
surroundings.
We can only determine our relationship with the visual surroundings,
by
watching
them in their mutability. Colours and forms take on new meanings,
aesthetically,
and the vibrations that they emit expose the spectator to a variance
of
empiricism.
Ultimately, when we are watching, and our eyes rove along the canvas
which
is either life or art, we can feel contact with the world around us,
and the mind
does
not have to work so hard in generating internal discourse. Of course,
light and
shadow
are the principle means of illuminating the objects in our frame of
vision. And,
so,
different parts of the day, yield different feelings from the viewer,
due to the light that
is
present from dawn until dusk. Different climates and geographical
terrains will affect
the
way in which objects are perceived. Forms in the Arctic, in the
desert, in the jungle,
all
have different meanings depending on their relationship to the
viewer. In close, I
would
like to say that visual perception is our first mode of
communication. Whether it
is
first-form Natural, or aesthetic Representation, is irrelevant at
this level. What matters
is
the undeniable phenomenological experiencing and witnessing of the
perception at
hand.
The Medium is the Message, and so, especially with television, we
realise that
speed
plays an important role in the rate of devouring visual information.
If we focus on
the
mutable experience, visually, we will overcome our sick fascinations
with ourselves,
our
egoism, and relent and submit to the experience of fleeting visual
phenomenon.
JDK, GLP4.
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