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SUMMARY:Landscape shaped by blindness: Touching the Rock (1990) and Notes 
 on Blindness (2016)\, towards an ec(h)ology of vision - Dr Diane Leblond (
  Université Sorbonne Paris Cité\, Lectrice at Gonville &amp\; Caius Coll
 ege)
DTSTART:20180206T210000Z
DTEND:20180206T213000Z
UID:TALK100660@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Alisa Molotova
DESCRIPTION:In 1990 John Hull published Touching the Rock\, an essay based
  on the audio journal he kept after losing his sight\, as he navigated the
  complexities of his new condition. Analysing his experience\, the theolog
 ian identified a turning point in the erosion of his former existence as a
  sighted person: in 1984\, he travelled to the place where he had grown up
  in Australia. There\, deprived of the beloved views of his youth\, he fel
 t he had reached the ultimate point of dispossession and alienation that c
 ame with blindness. \n\nThis confirms\, by contrast\, the extent to which 
 landscapes function as catalysts in the elaboration of identity. Whether w
 e consider the shaping of the intimate self\, or the fashioning of a colle
 ctive psyche through an aesthetic tradition\, we apprehend landscape as an
  exercise in visually recognising the view as one’s own. The affinity of
  landscape with sight – it first emerged as a category in painting – e
 xplains the role that it played in Hull’s testimony of loss. It also acc
 ounts for the attention that Peter Middleton and James Spinney paid to lan
 dscape in their documentary exploration of Touching the Rock – a short f
 ilm\, a feature-length film and a Virtual Reality project all entitled Not
 es on Blindness (2014\, 2016). \n\nThis paper will show how the essay and 
 its multimodal adaptations challenge a sighted\, appropriative and visuall
 y normative conception of landscape. In evoking Hull’s growing ability t
 o perceive his surroundings through sound and touch\, Notes on Blindnessex
 plores new ways of experiencing landscape through audio-visual media. From
  the windy rock formations of Victoria to the rainy vistas of Birmingham\,
  blindness brings a creative disruption to the making of landscape\, and l
 eaves behind a model in which the view is appropriated\, and the subject f
 ashioned to “command” it. Through the working of echolocation\, a new 
 phenomenology of vision emerges as the landscape appears – one that insi
 sts on the interrelatedness of sensory experience\, and our participation 
 in ec(h)osystems of perception.
LOCATION:Senior Parlour\, Gonville and Caius College
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