Within the hierarchy of the five senses, sight reigns supreme. Ancient Western philosophy tends to associate vision with knowledge, and Aristotle concluded that “of all the senses sight best helps us to know things, and reveals many distinctions.” Linking visual perception with truth lingers in our contemporary society, in which one declares “I see” to convey that one understands. Yet while sight, for many of us, is often our primary mode of apprehending the world, we are at the same time aware of the pitfalls and deficiencies of visual perception—places where the alleged “truth” of this ocular sense snags on its shortcomings. Far from being an objective sense, one individual’s visual reality is rarely identical to the next.

How Do I Look invites artists to reflect on the flaws in the theory of sight as truth and the subjective nature of visual perception. Such reflection is especially pertinent within “visual” art, as the ability to see and perceive color, light, depth, and movement is often inextricably linked with the tradition. Submissions of work might address issues that plague vision and its role within the visual arts broadly, including visibility and invisibility, blindness, gaze, optical illusion, perspective, synesthesia, the inner eye, etc. as a way to uncover the fallibility of vision and truth and explore new ways of “seeing”.

Works in all media will be considered; in the past the work shown has been primarily wall hung. Artists interested in submitting digital works, such as video, will need to provide all necessary technology (e.g. projector or screen, media player etc). This space has not traditionally featured works of performance art, dance or programmatic pieces (e.g. a dialogue or interactive activity), but we welcome proposals for these media and will consider them within the feasibility of the space. Due to space restrictions, we cannot accept site-specific works.