To answer my own question from the previous blog:

I don’t know…I don’t know whether what we choose to look at makes a difference or not. Do our eyes actually play a role in shaping the kind of person we are or the kind of People we become? Specifically, when we make the effort to look at something because we chose to, are we affected in ways other than those of which we’re aware? To make this question more profound than it probably is:  Is there a relation between seeing and being? I don’t know, but I think so…and I think the relation is imaginary!

Imaginary? …that needs a bit of explanation. By “imaginary” I mean: seeing is what imagination does, but not in the way the eye does. The eye responds to light; imagination responds to meaning. It responds by expressing meaning in a form that makes it accessible. (Caveat: Making meaning accessible is not the same thing as making it conceptual. Meaning is always lived and experienced before it is rendered any other way.)

The imagination constructs what we see. It actually builds the images in mind that our eyes deliver to the brain. The raw material from which it constructs those images comes from the exposure we’ve had to the visual and cultural worlds in which we live.

If we fill our head, then, with some things and not others it seems only reasonable to assume that we’re more likely to be attuned to those things, more disposed to imagine, think, and feel the presence of those things. If imagination constructs forms of meaning and value from the raw materials of experience, what we choose to look at makes a difference in the raw materials available for use. We might say that what we see sets parameters for what we can or cannot see. Why? Because our choices not only reveal our preferences, they create the visual possibilities for meaning to be there. In other words: the visual choices we make do make a difference in what we imagine!

Let’s take a concrete example of how this works. When we choose a movie, turn on the telly, attend an opening…do we think twice about where we put our eyes, or what those images we ingest do? I doubt it. Because we think there is no harm in looking and, furthermore, the last thing we want to do is censor the eye! It’s much more comfortable to believe that what we see makes no more difference than we allow it to make. Images don’t manipulate us; we manipulate them. It’s the same argument the NRA uses: guns don’t kill people, people do. The image, like the gun, is essentially a tool that can be used to either healthy or unhealthy ends. We decide, don’t we? The gun doesn’t aim itself….

So, the images we find appealing and entertaining or repulsive and disturbing only make a difference if we allow them to? When we’re over-loaded, supersaturated, with images of violence and horror, the grotesque and catastrophic…when we pay to be entertained by images of brutality, war, rape, and torture…are we simply a detached witness no more affected by those images than the projector that broadcasts them? We are patrons of our preferences looking in the mirror of self and society. And while we’re taking it all in, we’re filling the reservoir of possibilities for the imagination.

But here’s the paradox: filling the reservoir of possibilities may also drain it of options. The more explicit and intense the image the more likely it is to narcotize our imagination—filling and draining us simultaneously!  Think about it…when it comes to portrayal of the gruesome and grisly for example, increasingly little is left to the imagination. In film, it’s as if each filmmaker must out do the other with such fantastic effect that there is little need for the moviegoer to imagine anything! The hit is narcotic. The more graphic one’s exposure the more graphic the next set of images must become to evoke the same response.

With all of those possibilities spelled out, with more and more visual detail to draw from (“Now in 3-D!”), are we erasing (or trying to at least) the line between what one sees and what one imagines? And as that line thins, does the distinction between what’s imagined and what’s real become easier and easier to confuse?

Another way to think about it: is what’s going on here “visual fundamentalism”? When our images are spelled out in literalistic form with graphic detail and high definition…what’s left for us to imagine? Our eyes become wider and wider taking in all the realism we can absorb while our imagination shuts down. This is a condition Stanley Kubrick described as “eyes wide shut,” we see only what’s there but not what it means. The image has become so intense, so narcotic in its effect that it actually hides what’s going on right in front of our eyes!

(Kubrick’s movie Eyes Wide Shut is a brilliant demonstration of the point. You need only look at the critics’ bafflement about what it means. Kubrick was a genius and regarded this film as his only masterpiece. I don’t believe for a minute that he was just trying to be cryptic for the fun of it. The exploration of seeing and being pervades his work.)

The irony then is this: the more accustomed we become to having everything spelled out, displayed, and rendered with fundamentalist visual zeal, the less we actually see! The more literal an image becomes, the more it conforms to what we already know or could experience, the less imagination it demands and the closer to reality it seems. Imagination, like any other faculty, atrophies with disuse. Over exposure to the same sets of visual representation numbs imagination. The possibilities for new meaning or new experience are diminished. Growth slows and our capacity to discover meaning atrophies. Anything unfamiliar becomes not only unreal, but meaningless.

The stuff we look at over and over again, the places we visit with our eyes to entertain ourselves, acquires a normative quality. That is, it becomes so reinforced in our minds that it takes on the character of everyday life. So?

Think about how “ordinary” severed limbs, spurting blood, and people being blown away has become. When these images are so much a part of our everyday visual life, should we actually encounter them they’re not only likely to be less shocking but unlikely to register as anything other than what they are, a train wreck or a mass murder. C’est la vie. We’ll wring our hands, say prayers, hold memorials, and keep creating and absorbing all those images without ever imagining what they mean or what they say about who we are or what we have become—much less why. Blood and gore and guts are entertaining and exciting to see…they’re art, they’re sport, they’re our way of life—and the more graphic, brutal, and horrifying the better! That’s OK…we know the difference between imagination and reality don’t we?

Lawrence Bowden

Join us as we try out an entirely new format. Readers, both pro and amateur, will read while visitors relax in lounge-like environment. Drop in, drop out, come as you are. Food, drink, music, poetry social hour.

LuAnn Keener-Mikenas writes poetry that is concerned with the environmental crisis and the remaking and spiritualization of our relationship with the natural world.  She has also written memoir, fiction, and poetry for children.  Formerly a college English professor, she became a licensed clinical social worker in 2000 and worked intensively with emotionally disturbed children in residential treatment.

Film and event with Film-Maker: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, Time 7pm

When men in a prison art class agree to collaborate with victims of crime to design a mural about healing, their views on punishment, remorse, and forgiveness collide. At times the divide seems too wide to bridge. But as the participants begin to work together, mistrust gives way to genuine moments of human contact and shared purpose. Their struggle to find creative common ground raises challenging questions about punishment, justice and reconciliation — the insights gained are reflected in the art they produce in Concrete, Steel and Paint.

The DIRECTORS will be at Riverviews to introduce their film.
Cindy Burstein is an award-winning independent producer.  Formerly a community organizer, she received her MFA from Rutgers University to pursue the use of documentary film as a tool for dialogue and civic engagement.  She also works with other independent filmmakers to develop public engagement initiatives for theatrical releases, broadcast premieres and educational distribution. She is a 2010 recipient of the Leeway Transformation Award, a fellowship which recognizes women artists engaged in social change.

Tony Heriza
Since co-founding the Community Media Workshop in Dayton, Ohio in 1974, Tony Heriza has been involved in many aspects of media for social change: producing, editing, teaching and working with community organizations. His work has been broadcast nationally on PBS and featured in many festivals. He is now the Director of Educational Outreach for the American Friends Service Committee and along with his co-producer, Cindy Burstein, is an active member of the New Day Film distribution co-operative.

Jennifer Bundy

Sarah Fogle

Jamey Hagy

Alina Herron

Danielle Robinson

Karl Speer

Sara Taylor

Jerry Wells

Britni Wilson