3.1
John 20 : 24-7
King James Version (KJV)
King James Version (KJV)
24But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them
when Jesus came.
25The
other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the LORD. But he said
unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my
finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will
not believe.
26And
after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then
came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be
unto you.
27Then
saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach
hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.
28And
Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my God.
29Jesus
saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed
are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. [1]
3.2
"Seeing is
believing."
3.21 The classic idiom
‘seeing is believing’ was first recorded in this form in 1639, it essentially
means, "Only physical or concrete evidence is convincing". [2] The event refers back to St. Thomas’s
doubt and refusal to believe Jesus’ resurrection. He demanded to feel Jesus'
wounds before being convinced, “except seeing in his hands the print of the
nails, and put his finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into
his side.” [3]
Jesus responded to St. Thomas, ‘Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are
they that have not seen, and yet have believed.’ (John 20: 29) Therefore,
belief is something not yet seen or touched. In order to find out the truth, a
sceptic uses their hand to touch in additional to visuality.
3.3 So, what is the significance
of “touch” among our other deprived senses, when vision situates itself on top?
Hearing, smell and taste are as important as touch and vision, because we are
living in a multi-sensory economy. Perhaps we do not realise why our hands are so inseparable
in such an economy.
3.31 “Touching” which often
compensates “seeing” in biblical examples. Touching is like a “back-up”,
embedded into a visual experience. Our ten fingertips are all grown with “invisible
eyes” metaphorically absorbing the world as much as they can. The skin of our hands
analyses the texture of objects, thus giving the information to us.
The most crucial function of hands which
differentiates itself from the other senses is that the hands also offer their
tenderness and generosity – they not only “receive” information of the material
external world, but also offer its warmth in return. Spiritual energy returns
to material reality. Skin is the primal contact to the sensory world, they are
the initial expression.
3.4 One must remember seeing might
be too “sharp” and too rapid, which only creates distance and the problem of “the
gaze” and “the returned gaze”.
3.41 Language relates to our lips
and ears, as a word, the vocable, is spoken, is heard and understood.[4]
However, language is spoken; it only speaks to itself, which is to say, from /
of blindness. It always speaks to us from / of the blindness that constitutes
it. [5]
Potentially, this can produce confusion and misinterpretation, depending on the
vocaliser.
3.42 Touching is different, it makes
itself visible in silence and darkness. It is blind, and it is deaf. Our hands
are eager to “see” things. The hands want to see, while the eye wants to
caress, seemingly to aspire to balance the weight of “seeing” and “touching”.
3.5 The word “haptic” is based on the Greek word,
“haptesthai,” meaning touch. Haptic has different meanings in different fields;
it is not just a device that employs the sense of touch in communication in
general, or a combination of the kinaesthetic and tactile senses. McLuhan
argued, contrary to vision and hearing, which are passive (input only) senses
that can not act upon the environment, the Haptic channel is a bi-directional
(input and output) communication channel that can be used to actively explore
our environment and inform us about pressure, texture, stretch, motion,
vibration, temperature in our surroundings. [6]
In this thesis, there are also different post-modernist discourses employed by Laura
Marks, Deleuze and Guattari. In addition, it is also worth discussing the notion
of Haptic’s application in contemporary art, by giving case studies on the
emerging projects and documentary work in contemporary art intertwined with
this essay.
3.6 William Ivins asserts it is generally agreed
that classical Greece privileged sight over the other senses, a judgement which
is lent special weight by the contrast often posited with its more verbally-oriented
Hebraic competitor.[7] It also
suggests that vision plays an important role in the Greek history of
linguistics. In linguistic evidence, for example, some vocabulary is constructed
by the notion of sight.
3.7 Visuality seemed so dominant as in that
remarkable invention in philosophy. Jay quoted Bruno Snell’s notes of Greek
epistemology, “Knowledge (eidenai) is
the state of having seen. ” [8]
For
instance, the word theatre shares the
same root as the word theory, theoria,
which meant to look at attentively, to behold.[9]
It has allowed some commentators to emphasise the privileging of vision in
Greek knowledge. Greek science is also included to illustrate its partiality
for sight, as Greek scientists used to believe the earth was flat and the sun
and moon orbit us. Therefore the beginning of knowledge in western society is
based on an idealisation of observation. It is dominantly ocularcentric.
3.8 We usually tend to compensate visual experience
by touch [10],
as we seek confirmation through direct contact. Saint Thomas refused to believe
something without direct, physical, personal evidence; a “sceptic”. Mandrou, an anthropologist, made a similar
assertion: “The hierarchy [of the senses] was not the same [as in the twentieth
century] because the eye, which rules today, found in third place, behind
hearing and touch, and far after them. The eye that organises, classifies and
orders was not the favoured organ of a time that preferred hearing.”
[1]
John 20:24-7: King James Version
[2]
Ammer: The American Heritage dictionary
of idioms 1997 pp. 564
[3]
John 20:25: King James Version
[6]
McLuhan: What you see is what you feel
(2009) pp.22
[7]
Jay, Downcast Eyes – The Denigration of
Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought 1994 pp.23
[8]
Ibid pp.24
[9]
Levin: The Opening of Vision: Nihilism
and the Postmodern Situation (1987), pp. 99f.
[10]
Then again, to “compensate” is to recompense the absence of visuality
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