Sehstörungen
Grenzwerte des Visuellen in Künsten und Wissenschaften
[Vision Defects. Thresholds of the Visual in Arts and Sciences]
What significance do psychogenic visual disorders, rotating discs, blind children, spiritualist phenomena, perception experiments, and blind photographers have for the development of disciplines such as physiology and ophthalmology as well as for aesthetic and literary discourses? How have these motifs shaped our understanding of seeing, an understanding which has long ceased to be a purely physiological ability and has instead evolved into a socially, historically, and culturally pre-figured activity?
The contributions to this interdisciplinary volume show that a decisive part of the knowledge of seeing and the knowledge of the eye is constituted beyond the boundaries of seeing. From physiological, philosophical, or psychoanalytical discourses to literature, the visual arts, or film—it is always the failing of the visual, the clouding of the gaze or the restriction of the field of vision that are supposed to provide information on the ‘correct’ way in which vision has to function.