Averted Vision in the now.

Hi Gian,
Glad you made it in the end! Sounds like you’ve had a few issues at your end. Still, like mentioned in my other post, we just have to make do with what we have and when we have it. I very nearly didn't sign up for Block_Chain as I was feeling under lots of pressure at work and thought I’d not be able to find the ‘proper’ amount of time to justify my involvement. I keep, mistakenly, thinking that you need to be able to block off solid chunks of time, planning ahead yadda yadda. I was wrong of course, and I’m very happy that Susan, our glorious curator persuaded me to get on with it!

So, what I’m saying is, it sounds as though we both have our ‘distractions’ so lets not worry about our attendance figures, and just make the most of the moments we are here.

Speaking of which: great post, Thanks!
I haven’t had the chance to check out the Joan Fontcuberta’s text, but I’ll be sure to follow up as soon as possible.

However, it was your Edgar Morin quote about blind spots that captured my attention. It reminded of the old Cartesian chestnut: ‘the eye cannot perceive itself’. Here's a relevant passage I dug up:

But it wasn't that passage in itself that got me ticking, it was your bit about blind spots.

People often talk about blind spots in relations to how they deal with problems that  can linger, expand and become entrenched obstacles. Focusing on problems reinforce them.
Sometimes the less direct look offers greater clarity.

Here I'm reminded of the practice of Averted Vision. Its used by astronomers when viewing faint object through a telescope. The astronomer moves their eye, looking away, and examining the object with peripheral vision.  I've just found that this practice is much older than thought, having been first recorded by Aristotle observing star clusters. I like finding out things like that.

Also, it appears there a a similar method called ‘Scope Rocking’ which sounds altogether more groovy! That method involves moving the viewfinder rather than the eye. Still, Averted Vision works for me.

Blind spots are interesting.
They speak of limits.

They are flags that remind us of a reality other than our own immediacy.
We can see and function beyond our natural limitations, but we require adaptation to do so. A change to our method, a shift to our perspective, an extension to our functionality.

We exist in a universe of infinite vanishing points yet default to one.
That’s not to say that this type of singularity doesn’t have value, just that it has a tendency towards greed and the monopolisation of our attention. It is, in itself a kind of blind spot. If we avert our vision we can break from its monocular ways.

My preference is to dissent from such singular absolute values, that yield a linear reality. That said, here's a linear perspective of me sitting, perceiving and focusing on the moment I had: