Seeing Things

We experience the world with our bodies and our senses. This simple statement has vast implications, and forms the basis for Yi-Fu Tuan's writings in Space and Place. Any information that we collect from our surroundings, any experience we have, originates in sensation. We interact with one another using our senses, we experience art with our senses, and we know our external environments only through our senses.

If our experience of the world is so heavily vested in our senses, it follows then, that any of the slightest alterations to the operation or behavior of our senses would also drastically alter the way in which we perceive, know, and understand that world that surrounds us. Tuan acknowledges this truth when he notes that

"The Eskimo environment is bleak. Moss and lichen in summer give the land a uniform gray-brown cast; snow and ice in winter paint the scene in monotone. When fog or blizzard appears, land, water, and sky lose all differentiation. It is in this poor and poorly articulated environment that the Eskimos, to survive, have refined their perceptual and spatial skills. When all landmarks disappear in mist and driven snow, Eskimos can nevertheless find their way..."

In this passage, Eskimos are used as an example of a people whose senses operate differently than a Western city dweller. Due to the harsh nature of their environment, the Eskimos must refine their sense of vision to pick up on subtleties in their monotone surroundings in order to perform tasks necessary for survival. Their environment forced them to adapt their sense of vision in a different way than our environment forces us. The result of this discrepancy between the roles of vision results in two drastically different ways of perceiving the world, two different ways to sense the same place. The emphasis on vision, as opposed to the other senses, is also key here because, as Tuan puts it, "the organization of human space is uniquely dependent on sight. Other senses expand and enrich visual space."

Emerald City If visual space is such a vital part of how we relate to and extract meaning from our surroundings, how else can we modify the role of vision to create new relationships between us and the spaces and places we inhabit? In the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy and her friends follow a yellow brick road to the wondrous and fabled Emerald City, where, they are told, everything is made of emeralds. Upon entering Emerald City, they are instructed to wear special glasses that will help shield them from the City's "brightness and glory." However, at the end of the story, they learn that in fact nothing in the city is emerald, and the glasses are merely tinted green to create the illusion of a city of emeralds. Yet, it is intriguing how such a simple visual trick can redefine the mentality and behavior associated with a specific place. Everyone behind the city's walls is forced to wear these glasses, so they are all convinced that their city is made of emeralds. This conviction has a direct impact on how they respond to the Emerald City as a place. Much like how a bleak, monochrome environment has a direct impact on the Eskimos' behaviors and understandings, the green glasses have a profound influence over the people of Emerald City. Yet, where Eskimos must adapt to their visual landscape for survival, the modification of visual space in Emerald City is used a as tool by the Wizard of Oz, the city's creator. By tricking people into thinking he is capable of building a city out of emeralds, the Wizard is able to add to the myth of his own personal power. The use of emeralds denotes power and grandiosity, so that people do not even have to meet the Wizard to know how mighty he is. Once the people of Emerald City find out that their visual landscape is a hoax, they are far less likely to stick around worshipping the Wizard.

While the story of Oz is fictional, it still gives insight into the role that vision has in establishing a certain way of thinking about and acting in space. Technologies that take non-visable information and make it visual are also responsible for allowing us to establish new relationships to our surroundings. For example, the military has benefitted greatly from actually being able to see the world in terms of radar, sonar, night vision, etc.

What other ways, practical or impractical, could creating a new visual relationship with our surroundings alter our spatial knowledge, thoughts, sensations, emotions, and behavior? What kind of behavior would be prompted by a city where everything is white? What would Frazier, Auster, and Whitehead write about a New York City where they could only look up?