Fundamental to the experience of seeing is the beholder's reaction to what is seen. These works explore the emotional experience of seeing.

It is said that "seeing is believing." But is there an objective, definite reality for us to be seeing? Is what we see always grounded in reality? What shapes our perception of reality? These works explore questions about the "reality" of sight.

To understand what we are seeing, we categorize. These works explore categories that are fundamental to modern visual culture.

Who sees, and who does not? What is seen, and what is not? These works explore the relationship between vision and power systems.

Cavell explores color as a new medium in film; in doing so, he briefly explores color film in opposition to its predecessor, the black and white film, arguing that despite color film's association with fantasy, it is not less realistic than black and white film. Rather, as a new medium, color film masks the drama of black and white film that has already been practiced and developed.

In this film about a young girl who gets swept away into a fantasy land, a clear opposition between monochrome and color is depicted between Dorothy's home in reality, which is defined by sepia tone, and the fantasy land of Oz, which is defined by vibrant colors at every turn. While color is more fantastical, it is also more whimsical and at times dangerous -- significantly, Dorothy spends the film searching for a way to return to her home of monochrome.

This film follows a young mother who works to support herself and her family (although her husband and son come in and out of the picture throughout the film) as an entertainer. In her performances, she portrays stereotypes of both gender and race.

Loyo explores the "blinding blonde" character, an excessively white and feminine platinum blonde woman, who many (including Marlene Dietrich of Blond Venus) caricaturize to mock existing ideas of race, gender, and women's sexuality. Loyo claims the "blinding blonde" as a form of "whiteface" and explores this performativity of "whiteness", including an analysis of the "Hot Voodoo" song in Blond Venus.

Batchelor explores the color "white" and its domineering presence over all else, including black and color. White is known a color of purity and exclusion on which all else is reduced to a stain; accordingly, color is both trivial in comparison as well as dangerous to existing systems of whiteness.

Fanon details his experience as a black man in being forced into blackness as his identity. He raises the issue of blackness being defined only in opposition to whiteness, and never alone. It is a fault that whiteness is somehow omnipresent in discussion of the black identity.

Le Corbussier argues for the imposition of white as a standard in every household, with the belief that whiteness is purity and morality, and that external whitewashing will lead to internal (moral) whitewashing. He believes that it is beneficial to the moral development of a community for all things not-white to stand out and be subject for cleansing.

Dyer argues that whiteness has been treated naturalized as the default. It is seen to have no culture, nor is it explicitly represented in film: it is invisible. This protects existing racial power systems because critique of whiteness is critique of the "default" and the "normal."

Minh-Ha explores the link between invisibility and visibility, arguing that one inherently exists within the other. A notable example includes her discussion of Tibetan monks, who would cheer in prison when they saw the Dalai Lama in newspapers. Their captors attempted to censor the Dalai Lama by cutting articles on him out of the newspapers, but monks would then cheer for the absence of articles in newspapers: this physical invisibility still brought visibility to the Dalai Lama.

Stoichita outlines various different, and sometimes opposing, views of the shadow throughout time. Plato associated the shadow with ignorance, while Johannes Sambucus associated the shadow with guilt, other creators in the Enlightenment associated the shadow with the soul, and the mythic origin of painting associates the shadow with love, demonstrating the continually fluctuating associations drawn with the shadow.

Blumenberg explores the history of perceptions of light, including the historic shift from perception of light as a transcendent aspect that exists outside (as in Plato's cave metaphor) to something that comes from within (as in Cicero's cave metaphor). In doing so, he shows that metaphors of light are not stable, but rather fluctuate through cultures.

Blue is the color of the endlessly wide sky and the endlessly deep ocean: it is infinite.

In this film, Jarman presents audio with a blue screen only: there are no visual interruptions to this blue. This visual exercise in blue's expansion demonstrates the endlessness of blue.

Here, Jarman constructs a queer history of color. In doing so, we see that blue is figureless -- it does not mean any one thing, but rather it can be anything: a color, a person, a mood, a concept, a thing. The only intrinsic quality we see is that "BLUE IS BLUE" (104).

To some red is the color of rage, to others it is of life, and to others still it is of luck. Our perceptions of the world are continuously shaped by our culture and experiences.

Klein describes blue as a uniquely transcendent color: He writes that "blue has no dimensions, it is beyond dimensions, whereas the other colours are not" (122).

In the "Hot Voodoo" scene of the film, Dietrich begins in a gorilla suit surrounded by "African/tribal"-looking decorations and dancers: a clear caricature of the black man. She then emerges from blackness and "puts on" whiteness, equipping a blonde wig on top of her already blonde hair, indicating that whiteness, too, is a performance.

The sepia tone of Dorothy's reality

The color of the fantastical land of Oz

This film follows a mother who copes with grief after the death of her husband and child. Notably, the color blue is used to represent her loss and her grief. In one scene, she sinks into a dark blue pool, symbolizing her falling into her grief: here, the pool of blue is, like her grief, expansive and seemingly endless, highlighting these qualities of the color.

Simpson's work depicts an iceberg and focuses on the colors of blue and black. Through the darkness of the blue ocean below the iceberg, the depth of blue can be felt: notably, with the phrase "the tip of the iceberg", we can imagine how far this blueness expands below the surface, adding to the feeling of depth and expansiveness of blue.

Klein's work explores immaterial concepts such as "the void" through a blank white space: while "reality" is often defined through the material, Klein questions what can be learned through emptiness.

Sacks details accounts of individuals who went blind. Some lost all visual culture, and instead saw enhancements in other senses, while others maintained an advanced mental visual understanding: in these individuals, there is a redefinition of what it means to "see", suggesting that the visual transcends the traditional definition of physical sight.

Benjamin analyzes color through a child's perspective. He argues that "color is something spiritual", and often beyond reality, pushing into the realm of imagination (50).

In this film about a young girl who gets swept away into a fantasy land, a clear opposition between monochrome and color is depicted between Dorothy's home in reality, which is defined by sepia tone, and the fantasy land of Oz, which is defined by vibrant colors at every turn. Dorothy's teleportation into another world, one of color, emphasizes the fantastical and otherworldly nature associated with color, juxtaposing it with her world of "reality."

Daston and Galison detail a history of research into the "subjectivity" and "objectivity" of color. Many studies document significant individual differences and high variability in color vision, indicating that color perception is highly subjective.

Endlessness, nothingness, the magical and imaginative: these works investigate phenomena which are difficult to place within our understanding of the physical world.

Albers deals with interactions between colors. He finds that placement of particular colors with others can make one color look like two, two colors look like one, or individual colors look lighter, darker, less intense, or more intense. These visual illusions

Sight is used to verify and to define: most trust their vision to dictate their idea of reality. Yet, sight is subjective, and foolable, indicating the fragility of our so-called "reality."

Rauschenberg's collection of reflective white paintings present differently depending on the time of day, position of the viewer, etc. This is because they are reflective: their image will change depending on the lighting and the shadows cast upon it. This work showcases the subjectivity of our perception.

This psychological film is not made to be comprehensible: the viewer continuously questions what is happening as they watch the movie. Arising from this confusion are a variety of fan theories about the plot, demonstrating the variability and subjectivity of perception.

This still from Persona alone has a variety of interpretations: are we watching the boy? Or does the boy represent us, the viewer? There appears to be a source of light from behind/to the right of the boy, so why is his hand not lit up?

Turrell's work is about creating illusions with light, defying what we perceive as reality.

Weschler details his personal experience with the sunlight in LA, associating the visual experience with beauty and longing.

In this series of photographs, Bey narrates the experience of travelling with the Underground Railroad. His photographs portray the feeling that visibility is dangerous, and feature little light; conversely, black becomes a color of safety to hide in. Further, black becomes a color of freedom as it shelters and hides runaway slaves from their pursuers and enables them to escape to their freedom.

This piece from Bey's collection showcases black as a color for safety. The open field in the foreground offers high visibility, and is thus a dangerous space. Behind it, the trees and shrubbery are darker, and offer a place to hide.

Sexton explores blackness through works from black creators. In doing so, he defines black as freedom and possibility, as well as a color of equality and inclusivity.

LeFarge explores the color black through theory and his own experiences. In doing so, he defines black as the color of not seeing, or rather, the freedom of choice to not see; further, this enables black as a space for imagination, which can be see as a removal of restrictions of reality -- thus, black is doubly a color of freedom in choice, and in removal of restrictions.

Stoichita details the history of cultural associations tied to the shadow. Significantly, he details the shadow's association with love, as it is tied to the lore of the origin of painting, wherein painting was founded on the caring act of tracing a loved one's shadow. He also describes its association with guilt, where shadows would appear when one was guilty, and fear, where shadows had the potential to harm the original human being.

Popova details Goethe's 19th century associations between colors and emotions. The descriptions span the full color scheme, as well as a range of feelings, ranging from hot to cold, melancholy to joy, disturbing to relieving. This demonstrates a history in tying emotions to visual experiences, as well as a wide range in the way that visual experiences can make us feel.

Didion writes about light in Los Angeles, tying it to negative imagery, including associations with dangerous elements such as fire and smoke.

Andersen writes a fictional tale about a man who sets his shadow free. His shadow makes a life for himself, but cannot shake his identity as a shadow, despite his desires to be a man, resulting in him murdering the man and taking his identity as a human. From its violent ends, this tale serves as an ominous warning about shadows, associating them with danger.

This psychological film is not made to be comprehensible: the viewer continuously questions what is happening as they watch the movie. Pairing with this confusion is a feeling of discomfort, especially with the opening images of the film: a series of black and white images flash at varying speeds, with particularly disturbing images (such as the one seen to the left) occupying the screen for disturbingly long periods of time. This opening sequence evokes strong feelings of discomfort from the viewer.

Still from opening sequence of Persona (1966)

Melville describes a variety of "pure" and "good" cultural associations of white, only to contrast it to the feeling held by the protagonist in the moment: that the whiteness of the whale held an elusive, intimidating quality that struck fear within him, exemplifying the ability of the visual image of the white whale to evoke a fear response.

Batchelor explores the color "white" and its domineering presence over all else, including black and color. In the opening chapter, he retells his experience with an aggressively white space, which made him extremely uncomfortable. Among other things, he mentions that it "would remind you [...] of everything you had failed to become" (10). The space was a visual experience, and yet it evoked such feelings of discomfort from him.

Blue as melancholy, grief, and suffering

Simpson's work depicts an iceberg and focuses on the colors of blue and black. Through the darkness of the blue ocean below the iceberg, the depth of blue can be felt. In her work, she layers the faces of black women into these images of the blue arctic, evoking feeling of blue weathering of black bodies, as the weathering enacted by the ice cold environment.

Rodney reflects on Simpson's collection, analyzing the endlessness of blue within her work and the placement of black, female bodies in the ice, suggesting the weathering of these black bodies. Rodney also questions the traditional association of the arctic with the color white, as Simpson's art seems to tie to blue and black, and ties this in with historic slave trade routes in suggesting that black bodies may be buried in the depths of the ocean in the Arctic.

Lewis explores the fundamental instability in blue and blackness through imagination of Matthew Henson's journey through the Arctic: in the Arctic, blue is dangerous as it represents the deadly cold, but it is also necessary for shelters made of ice. Lewis also ties in the imagery of the blue cold weathering down Henson, showing racism as "weathering" black bodies.

This film follows a mother who copes with grief after the death of her husband and child. Notably, the color blue is used to represent her loss and her grief.

This is one of the first scenes of Julie grieving the death of her daughter and husband in Three Colors: Blue (1993). The scene has over a minute of her sitting in place processing her grief, as a blue light dances around her face, tying the color blue to her grief. Notably, when the light hits her eye, it lights up blue -- as eyes are the window to the soul, this blue is reflecting the grief within her soul.

Mavor writes about Three Colors: Blue (1993), arguing that the blue lollipop represents Julie's daughter Anna, as she is represented with this lollipop early in the movie before her death, and that Julie's consumption of the lollipop while grieving Anna represents the internalization of this loss, showing that loss is something that becomes a part of us. Significantly, the lollipop is blue, bringing in the association of blue with grief and the endlessness of grief.

Julie consuming the blue lollipop.

In this film, Jarman presents audio with a blue screen only: there are no visual interruptions to this blue. The film is about the AIDS pandemic, and the loss felt by Jarman in seeing his own community die around him, as well as in waiting for his own death to AIDS. This unendingness of blue here represents not only the unending depth of his grief for his community, but also the aspect of waiting -- just as we wait for the next thing, for the blue screen to end, Jarman is also waiting for death to come, and it feels as though this wait is, like blue, endless.

Here, Jarman constructs a queer history of color. Blue takes many forms, and among them, the blue waters in which he finds longing for loved ones who have passed: Jarman writes, "In the roaring waters \ I hear the voices of dead friends" (108).

The protagonist of Ellison's Invisible Man is an intellectual black man made to feel invisible due to the identities forced upon him by others. From this, it seems that his visibility (or lack thereof) is determined by systemic beliefs created for the benefit of the white man. However, he takes advantage of this invisibility to create a den for himself, where he steals light (and thus visibility) from others, perhaps asserting that although he cannot control his own visibility, he can to some degree assert influence over the visibility of others.

This film investigates the use of body cams and aerial surveillance for police. It highlights how body cam footage is manipulated to benefit those in power, the police, by controlling who is (the victims) and who is not (the police officer) visible. It also emphasizes this control over what is seen by showing how susceptible images, and thus opinion, are to manipulation by showing editing of the film itself

Here, Plato creates a hypothetical scenario where a group of prisoners are tied up and can only face a wall on which shadows are projected. He argues that the prisoners will perceive these shadows as reality, when in truth they are false representations of reality subject to manipulation, suggesting that the captors who control these shadows hold the power to manipulate the beliefs of the prisoners.

Steyerl explains how the observed party can take control of their own visibility in regards to satellite imagery. For satellite imagery, resolution is the key: if you are smaller than the resolution, you can control your visibility or lack thereof. While escaping surveillance initially seems like a real possibility, this video seems to be a tool for empowerment of the observed to reclaim their control over their visibility; however, the conclusion that you must be under one foot to escape modern satellite resolution may suggest the opposite, which is to say that modern surveillance is an inescapable force.

Acconci details his accounts of following individuals in public spaces until they enter a private space. The work is uncomfortable, as he is profiting off these non-consensual interactions. The observed parties are not aware they are being followed, providing an inherent imbalance in power, and then Acconci one-sidedly profits off the interaction, showing that the observer is in the advantageous position.

Calle journals and takes pictures of her stalking a man over several days. Although her journal makes it seem as though she is powerless to the drive that compels her to follow and take pictures of the man, there is still a one-sided imbalance before he knows she is stalking him, wherein she is collecting information and pictures without his consent. After he discovers she is following him, there is a rejection of consent, and yet she still follows him and takes one more picture, indicating that she holds the power in this situation to observe him, and his consent will not impact that, demonstrating that the observer holds some sort of power over the observed.

Kleege details the experience of blind people who have their vision restored. These individuals are often disillusioned with the reality they experience with sight and get depressed as a result, indicating (against the opinion of the sighted community) that sight is not necessary or sometimes even wanted. The ableism associating sight with power comes through as Kleege mentions how sighted individuals blame the depression these individuals develop on their past as blind individuals, rather than their new sightedness.

Kleege disparages the trope of the "hypothetical blind man" within sighted individuals' discussion of vision and handicap, which is often used to disqualify experiences told by blind people, especially if they have only been blind for part of their life. The ableism associating sight with power comes through as actual blind individuals' experiences are disqualified and sighted individuals continue to discuss in their own made up hypotheticals.

Kleege's writing on blindness and the sighted community's discussion of blindness highlights ableism and the idea that having sight is power.

Wells tells the story of a sighted man who falls into an entirely blind community, wherein their entire society is adapted to their blindness, to the point where their biological features are adapted (enhanced smell to heard llamas, acute hearing, etc.). The sighted man feels as though he should be superior due to his vision, yet he is the most useless member of their community because he lacks their adaptations, and he eventually chooses sight over the community and his lover. This story highlights the existence of the belief of sight as power, and rejects it.

Here, Plato creates a hypothetical scenario where a group of prisoners are tied up and can only face a wall on which shadows are projected. He argues that their perception of reality will be based on the shadows on the wall, which is false seeing. Instead, he says that if one of them escapes their bindings and runs out of the cave and sees the light, then this will be true "seeing". This "seeing' is associated with suffering, as at first he will be blinded by the light, but then he will be enlightened. And finally, when he returns to the cave to explain to his fellow prisoners, he will be burdened with sharing this "seeing" because the other prisoners will not be enlightened like he is.

Paglen discusses the implications of technological advancements, especially machine learning, on surveillance, policing, and other spheres of influence. Significantly, he states that machine learning will only perpetuate the existing systems of oppression because it takes in existing data, which is shaped by these current systems of oppression. Thus, even these supposedly "unbiased" new forms of "seeing" will continue to feed into existing systems of power.

This clip highlights the danger of being seen, as each individual is blown up once their visibility is removed. Further, it suggests that each individual's consent to be made visible, or their desire to stay invisible, is not important, as the observer holds the power to expose them (or blow them up) in any case. Interestingly, the danger of being seen is also conferred onto the narrator, who is on the side of the observer until the final scene, when he is made visible and blown up.

Weem's art features pictures of black youth shaded in a different color for each youth, perhaps as a commentary on how society sees these children and forces color, or blackness, onto them.

Rankine discusses visual systems of oppression by storytelling experiences of black women. Through these experiences, she depicts the hypervisibility of being a black woman and having that identity thrust upon her. We see that to be seen as a black woman is to be seen as other, angry, or even inhumane (or immune to cancer). Further, this hypervisibility interplays with the invisibility of her as an individual beyond her identity as a black woman.

In this series of photographs, Bey narrates the experience of travelling with the Underground Railroad. His photographs portray the feeling that visibility is dangerous: the photos are based in darkness, with minimalized light, and taken from angles that provide space for hiding in the trees, or shrubbery, or the like. In his photos and with the context of the Underground Railroad, it is clear that to be seen is to be persecuted.

Smith discusses Bey's work in the context of the Underground Railroad, and other aspects of visibility and photography in relation to the Underground Railroad. Most accounts, such as that from Frederick Douglass, revealed little information about the actual route of the Railroad, while most documents for the operation of the Railroad were destroyed to protect its users. To be seen during transport or to be identified as an escaped slave after transport were all dangerous for these individuals; further, photography was used by slavers to identify lost slaves and to make advertisements threatening slaves, so visibility was used to enforce this system of oppression.

McFadden details her experience with photography as a child, when the camera was calibrated for white skin, and the historical context of camera development. As a child, the calibration of photography to white skin made her look, frankly, ugly, and this only reinforced the systems of oppression that set the beauty standard, declaring white skin as beautiful and black as ugly. To be photographed and seen in that way played a role in her internalization of the idea that she was ugly, and she should despise her dark sin.

This film centers on an African immigrant family in present-day Brooklyn and follows the husband and wife as they experience issues related to fertility. The wife, Adenike, is constantly wrapped in warm colors, while her more assimilated friends are in cool tones that blend into the cool streets of Brooklyn. Because of the lighting, her friends fade into the city, becoming invisible, while she alone is visible in her warm tones. Her inability to assimilate into the cool city showcases the solitude and marginalization of visibility.

Foucault details the idea of a "panopticon:" an ideal architectural concept for a prison system in which a surveillance tower has complete vision over the cells of prisoners, who are each in their own isolated rooms and cannot view each other or the observer. He theorizes that an observer does not even need to be in the tower: the threat of surveillance will cause prisoners to self-regulate their behavior. In this way, Foucault utilizes the inherent power imbalance between seeing and being seen, one being the tool of the governor (or oppressor) and the other being the status of the governed (or oppressed), by controlling what is seen by all parties. In this way, Foucault's concept is cemented in the idea that seeing and control of what is seen is power.

Dry pigment and synthetic resin on thin canvas mounted on panel.

An empty, white painted gallery space.