Vision in Motion – Streams of Sensation and Configurations of Time

Vision is not just a simple recognition of what passes through our field of sight, the reflection and observation of light and shape. Even before Freud posited dreams as a way of "seeing" as we sleep, the writings of philosophers, artists, and scientists from Goethe to Cezanne have argued that to understand vision as a mere mirroring of the outside world is to overlook a more important cognitive act of seeing that is dependent on time. Bringing together a renowned international group of contributors, Vision in Motion explores one of the most vexing problems in the study of vision and cognition: To make sense of the sensations we experience when we see something, we must configure many moments into a synchronous image. This volume offers a critical reexamination of seeing that restores a concept of "vision in motion" that avoids reducing the sensations we experience to narrative chronological sequencing. The contributors draw on Hume, Bergson, and Deleuze, among others, to establish a nuanced idea of how we perceive.