The Primacy of Vision

Happy Color App Picture

If someone can’t see me, I would start by describing my film star looks and perfect physique! 🤣🤣 I bet I wouldn’t be the only one either.

I am currently teaching English to Art and Design students online, and yesterday we had a webinar where one of the presenters reflected on the way that we only experience art through vision in Western culture. We completely ignore the other four senses unless we are specifically forced to use them. Why is there this primacy of vision? I think it is because we live in a cultural environment where everything is behind a rope. DON’T TOUCH is thundered at us throughout our lives from our earliest days, through school and into the adult world. Why is this? Well, my theory is that we are not encouraged to take part in art, music or other creative pursuits by mucking around and seeing what happens. We are told there are ways of doing things and that we have to watch experts to see how it is done. Even music, which you would think of as primarily an auditory experience is very much focused on vision. We watch our teachers demonstrating the correct way of doing things, and when our teachers identify a mistake it tends to be a mistake they saw, for example your hand in the wrong place for a particular chord. Musicians who cannot sight read music are regarded as less skilled than those who can. Playing by ear is seen as inferior to playing by sight.

We need to move away from sight on its own and incorporate as many of our other senses as possible. Only then will we fully understand the nature of things.