We do not see light but see in it
我們觀看的不是，而是在光裡觀看

Jin Chien

Concerning our relationship with sight and sound in the modern day, British anthropologist Tim Ingold directs us towards a contemplation of light, as he writes:  

“We should not be fooled by art historians and other students of visual culture who write books about the history of seeing that are entirely about the contemplation of images. Their conceit is to imagine that the eyes are not so much organs of observation as instruments of playback, lodged in the image rather than the body of the observer. It is as though the eyes did our seeing for us, leaving us to (re)view the images they relay to our consciousness. For the active looking and watching that people do as they go about their business, visual theorists have substituted regimes of the 'scopic', defined and distinguished by the recording and playback functions of these allegorical eyes.

The scaping of things – that is, their surface conformation – is revealed to us thanks to their illumination. When we look around on a fine day, we see a landscape bathed in sunlight, not a lightscape. Likewise, listening to our surroundings, we do not hear a soundscape. For sound, I would argue, is not the object but the medium of our perception. It is what we hear in. Similarly, we do not see light but see in it.”

For the full text：https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/soundanth/work/ingold/
**Many thanks to Tokyo-based writer and musician Itaru Ouwan for the reference.

針對我們近代和視覺、聽覺的關係，英國人類學家提姆・古爾德將問題導向對光的思考：

「我們不該被藝術史學家和其他視覺文化學生所愚弄，那些宣稱關於觀看的歷史寫作其實是對圖像的思考。他們自負地將眼睛想像為回放的機器，而並非是觀察外界的器官，他們的眼睛存在於圖像裡而並非觀察者身體的一部分。眼睛為我們觀看，擷取圖像，我們的意識（再）觀看這些圖像。原來人們日常中所進行的積極觀看行為，被視覺理論家的視覺政體替代，在寓言化的眼睛裡，透過記錄和回放功能受定義和辨別。

事物的景觀 - 即它們的表面構造 - 因光的照明而向我們揭示。當我們在美好的一天環顧四周時，我們看到的是一個沐浴在陽光下的景觀，而不是一場光景。同樣，當我們去聆聽周圍的環境，我們聽到的不是音景。聲音，我認為，不是對象，而是我們的感知媒介。我們在聲音中聆聽。同樣，我們觀看的不是光，而是在光裡觀看世界。」


☯ Jin Chien
Writer, reporter, translator.


作家、記者、翻譯。
喜愛植物、詩集、游泳。