The Goose Volume 17 | No. 1 Article 32 9-14-2018 Returning the Radiant Gaze: Visual art and embodiment in a world of subjects Beth Carruthers Emily Carr University of Art + Design Part of the Continental Philosophy Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, Fine Arts Commons, Metaphysics Commons, Other Philosophy Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, and the Theory and Criticism Commons Follow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres: https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose Recommended Citation / Citation recommandée Carruthers, Beth. "Returning the Radiant Gaze: Visual art and embodiment in a world of subjects." The Goose, vol. 17 , no. 1 , article 32, 2018, https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol17/iss1/32. This article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. 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Carruthers: Returning the Radiant Gaze BETH CARRUTHERS Returning the Radiant Gaze: Visual art and embodiment in a world of subjects Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2018 1 The Goose, Vol. 17, No. 1 [2018], Art. 32 There is a place on earth where stillness and motion meet where a pool of water or the petal from a single stem catches the eye expressing through its rarified being-in-time perfection and the seeing of this apprehension seeks not to impede nor master this moment allowing it instead to be where it ought most to be – this reverential care this fragile power shared this delicate body-in–the-mind this two way mirror where the seen looks back mysteriously acknowledging in mutual respect this radiance of the gaze Nelson Gray, Gifted (for Beth Carruthers) (unpublished, 1999) https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol17/iss1/32 2 Carruthers: Returning the Radiant Gaze It is only through the senses that we experience what it means to be fully human. It is only through the engaged senses that we are able to feel desire and intimacy, the great longing to be fully, wholly, and utterly in the world. But it is only through the honest and engaged senses that we will come to appreciate the living world as it truly is, both wildly beautiful and endangered. Cultivating our perceptual capacity is fundamentally related to both the quality of our personal lives and restoring the quality of life on the planet. Laura Sewall, Sight and Sensibility (14) But what is Nature? From the Latin Natura, it is my birth, my characteristics, my condition. It is my nativity, my astrology, my biology, my physiognomy, my geography, my cartography, my spirituality, my sexuality, my mentality, my corporeal, intellectual, emotional, imaginative self. And it is not just myself, every self and the Self of the world. There is no mirror I know that can show me all of these singularities, unless it is the strange, distorting looking glass of art, where I will not find my reflection nor my representation but a nearer proof than I prefer. Natura is the whole that I am. The multiple reality of my existence. Jeanette Winterson, Art Objects (149-150) Why is it important to re-embody vision—and what does art have to do with it? An introduction to the enquiry. Vision is, many say, our most dominant sense. Our eyes move constantly, adapting, monitoring, locating us in relationship with the world. Through them we experience sunsets and gardens, disasters and conflicts, a single red poppy in the sun, the terrifying sight of a runaway truck on a crowded road. Yet, in Western cultural tradition, vision is also suspect and denigrated. From Plato, through the Middle Ages, to the twentieth-century backlash against a so-called ocularcentric Western culture, debates on vision have figured large in our cultural landscape. Vision, as they say in marketing, has an image problem. In the mid to late twentieth century, ocularcentrism and vision itself came to be heavily criticised within cultural practices, particularly the visual arts. As David Abram writes in his forward to Laura Sewall’s Sight and Sensibility, “the objectifying gaze has become a cliché of contemporary criticism” (xiv). Visual art was easily targeted as problematic, and within art institutions, artists responded by scrambling to achieve the desired distance from visual pleasure, or to critique the gaze within their work. Artworks metamorphosed into configurations of signs and text. As a visual artist, I found myself split. Taking up the stance expected of a successful artist at that time involved a disconnection from the lived experience of art-making—an experience joyful, engaged, intimately and ultimately sensual. How to reconcile the Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2018 3 The Goose, Vol. 17, No. 1 [2018], Art. 32 intimate touching of visual contact with a discourse which, intent on its desire to critique objectification, in fact promoted further removal from world, self, and other? While it could be argued that much has changed since the late twentieth century—for example, the re-embracing of the sensuous by way of “affect” and “new materialism”— vision and the visual remain troubled, reflecting the much discussed human disconnect from the body, as well as from places and other beings within the dominant, persistent, and reductive ontological frame of Modernity. Does such a disconnection in fact exist, or is it merely a stance taken—an ideal of disconnection constructed to support cultural beliefs and habits? I suggest the latter is the case and that this stance is continually reinforced by a number of behaviours within the culture. It occurred to me that the internal splitting I was experiencing as an artist was mirrored in myriad cultural ways, and that the splitting of vision has a long history—one that has everything to do with our way of Being-in-the-world. This essay is a response to the anti-ocular from inside the practice of visual art, through the lens of philosophy. It also constitutes an enquiry into a theory of visual embodiment and what I will call visual Being in the world. I believe that art has a vitally important role in cultures. By drawing us into a relational and sensual world, art denies dualisms while affirming difference. To quote writer and critic Jeanette Winterson, “art, by its nature, objects” (139). My intention here is to unravel some prevailing cultural beliefs about art and the visual by way of a personal journey through visual art and arts practice. I also intend to show how art is embodied in the world, engaged with myriad others. To do this I consider the relationship between the lived and the visual through the practice and experience of art-making. I then follow with an enquiry into the nature of the artwork in the world and the relationship between the work and the viewer. There is no intention on my part to engage with an in-depth analysis of anti-visual discourse, but as much as possible to locate my enquiry within an exploration of lived experience. As an enquiry, this essay promises no final truths, but a process, a journey through the contested territory of the sensual world of art and vision. This essay is primarily indebted to Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s reflections on art and the visual in Eye and Mind, as well as to Martin Jay’s thorough study and critique of anti- ocular discourse in the twentieth century, Downcast Eyes. Other valuable resources include the writings and ideas of philosopher Glen Mazis and philosopher/cultural ecologist David Abram, the work of psychologists James Gibson and Laura Sewall on vision, and writer Jeanette Winterson’s essays on art. While I cannot speak for all visual artists when I make the observations and assertions that I do within this essay, I am aware that observations that I make on the art-making process reflect the lived experiences of others, as well as my own. https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol17/iss1/32 4 Carruthers: Returning the Radiant Gaze Visual Being in a world of subjects What do I mean by visual Being? What do I mean by subject? For the purposes of this essay a subject is a being with agency. This subject may be considered animate, inanimate, seen, or unseen. A subject may be an object, an other, a differently bodied force. Visual Being is the embodied visual. Vision is of the eyes, of the body, of the mind, of our entire selves. We are present in our vision, embodied within vision as vision is in us, so that when we extend ourselves into the world visually, we really are extending our selves, embodied. As we encounter others, and others encounter us, we may engage, and converse, through vision. We do not have to be within physical proximity to touch, to converse. Through vision we may be, as Merleau-Ponty points out, “everywhere at once” (187). Vision itself has a mixed reputation in Western culture. We love it, vilify it, attempt to master it, pin it down for deconstruction, and use it as a tool for the deconstruction. Vision is culturally problematic because it ties us to the body as sensual beings. On the other hand, vision is also a problem by virtue of our insisting on its being disembodied and located in the mind.