Seeing is Believing?

As a human being, our vision seems to be the most important sense among all the other senses. One of my painting professors once told me, “Use your eyes, not your brain.” I could understand him perfectly, but I also doubted it. In the slightest way to appreciate visual arts requires viewers must use their eyes, and they lead you to appreciate or read the concept of the arts, like the wall paintings in caves from the very beginning of art history. On the other hand, our emotions follow what we capture. A joyful smile, a peaceful prayer, a mad man with a twisted face, or a great view from Lake Michigan may change one’s mood. Somehow we come to believe in whatever we absorb with our eyes. It becomes some kind of belief, believe what you see, believe in yourself of what you see. Is it true that seeing is believing? Can we really believe in our own sight?

In previous times, before cameras were invented, that was a world with no doubt that seeing was believing. If you saw a beautiful scene and you wanted to share it with somebody else, all you could do was use your memories and interpret in your own ways by describing what you had seen. People may not have trusted you, and there were only two ways to make them: one, ask them to believe you because you saw it. Two, ask them to see it with their own eyes. After cameras were invented, everything went differently. There were a lot of times when seeing something, you wanted to touch it and feel the texture of the object. This action is like making sure about what you have seen and also saving some sort of files in your brain. The photographs didn’t provide any information similar to the files in the brain: no hairy touches of moustache that tickled, no gnarled wrinkly hands, no warmth of our lively skin. People couldn’t feel it, couldn’t grab, couldn’t smell it. People were frightened to see their faces locked in a little thin paper square. After a while, when people started to gain knowledge about cameras, to know that photos were just the captures of real images, they started to believe in photos, to believe in their own eyes again.

But wait a minute, what about digital cameras?

Today’s world is rife with digital technology. Everything can be digitalized. Cameras, music CDs, bus tickets, letters and even our essays. Thanks to digital technology, people can see each other through Web-cam from a long distance, we can send instant messages including photos which were just taken three seconds ago. The desire to see still stands in a very important position; people feel comforted by seeing with their own eyes. A mom could ask her son far away from home to sit in front of the camera and say, “Let me see you if you are OK over there.” On the other hand, digital could work in an unbelievable way. News or newspapers would put three-D animated scenes to show you the crime. Magazine covers of models could add some touches to the shape and tone of the body to make it look sexier. Photos for passports might not accurate enough for your identity because of the photo retouch can easily fool one’s eyes. Even with all the results, we still can’t stop convincing ourselves by using this irreplaceable sense.

Nowadays, we know that what we look at may all be digitalized and know that it all may not be real. It seems that “seeing is believing” may not be important anymore, but became important that trying to make yourself to believe in what you see. For example, two-dimensional cartoons are fascinating because of the incredible possibilities of the stories, figures and shapes in a great visionary world, but absolutely, they are far from reality. Three-dimensional animations make people stunned from the very first moment such as seeing the lively Woody in Toy Story, because the three-dimensional Woody actually appears in front of you on a big flat screen. Actually, they are all constructed by lines, colors and whatever you think about the drawing techniques, but why do Three-Ds look so real the first time? Why have Three-Ds become such a big market?

I can remember the first time I saw Toy Story. I kept asking myself, “How did they do that? Was it real? Can I really touch the little tyrannosaurus and feel the grain of its green skin?” I think this is very different from Ardman’s clay animation, because I actually know the characters inside are made of clay, which in your childhood memories, you could really grab and play with your sticky hands. I think the reason why a Three-Dimensional cartoon makes people think it looks so real is because the animators truly imitated the textures of the objects from every day life. The touches of things we have seen have been sorted into files, such as the texture of a wet sponge, a shivery silver knife, or a hairy England sheepdog. These files provide information for the next time a person sees something and starts to remember how it feels or what exactly that is when simply seeing the object.

Three-D animation shows the things that we are so familiar with and somehow the memories of the textures arise. It is virtual reality, a reality that you believe in yourself by seeing, even though you are totally aware that it is not real. Like the very popular movie, Harry Potter, which I just watched a few days ago, the unbelievable technique brought me into the air of London, whisked me through the night in England, and made me believe in everything in only three hours by sitting there and watching. This experience is exciting, fascinating, and what we often say,” It's unbelievable!” The point is, it looks so real to make one believes in it, but it is also truly unbelievable because it is truly fiction! Why we still so eager to dip ourselves in the world that seems you could never get your eyes satisfied or even want to get them spoiled?

Creativity never ends, imagination never stops. Visual artists and movie makers keep providing unpredictable luxuries for our eyes to be fooled by. People came to agree that you might never want to trust your eyes anymore. The thing is, images still go so fast like cluster of horses in your own brain. Daydreaming during your office hours, nightmares in your sweat soaked pajamas. What you saw in your dreams in your own brain feels so strong and so real. Imagination flows like flood. Stanley Kubrick’s last movie, Eyes Wide Shut in 1999, starring Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, talked about how the true experience in real life and the imagination compare with each other. Which one is stronger? Which one is truer? Is the actual action Tom did in real life? Or the disloyalty Nicole had in her dreams? Without question, Kubrick showed us both sides of the experiences in the movie, but he also left us a large range of space to imagine. Does it matter if we don’t actually see things with physical eyes but comes to believe it with our own mind? Can you still tell what life you are in? A real one or an imagined one?

I do a little bit of photography, mostly black and white traditional photographs. I think it appeals to me simply because the way it works: the principle for a traditional manual camera is to capture the image with the vibration of light. I like to imagine how the light crashed on the chemical surface and left those touches like fingerprints. This is something like those old black records, recorded and played with a gramophone needle. The physical scratches on black records are a direct response to the vibration of sound. This kind of process makes me feel real and alive. I could raise both my hands and say I totally believe in it. I believe in the music of old records and also the photo taken by those traditional cameras.
Black and white films are coming back again, so do records. Why? Why do we need them? We already have CDs or MP3 players? I think the reason why people still think they are precious and valuable is because we have believes in them. Maybe one of the reasons is cherishing old time memories, but I actually think that it’s because they are much more sincere, and maybe, trustworthy? Life circles around, so does our human nature. We touch, we smell, we taste, we hear, and we see. Our Eyes are the windows of the soul. As long as you believe in your eyes, you believe in your souls. So is seeing believing? Yeah, I suppose. 7/22/07

Sources
Stanley Kubrick on IMDb:< http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000040/>