Rosalyn Driscoll

Seeing and touching meet space, time and self Seeing and touching are more than simply modes of gathering sensory information. Each sense embodies different ways of knowing, even different ways of being. Colloquially we say “I see” to indicate understanding; we say something “touches me” to indicate emotional response. We link comprehension to sight and emotion to touch; our language suggests activity in sight, receptivity in touch. What is the nature of these two sensory modes that they evoke such different aspects of our being? These differences unconsciously inform and shape our fundamental experience of space, time and self. We will explore the embodied effects of seeing and touching; how we perceive and construct space, time and the self through the sense of touch as compared to the sense of sight; how the experiential differences between sight and touch relate to the distinctions we make between reason and emotion, mind and body, self and other; and how to reconcile those differences.