But often, the image's revelation of a "way of seeing" is overshadowed by a series of assumptions that we are taught to make when appraising a piece of art.
This testimonial value makes images extremely powerful. Images, more so than any other relics from the past, offer a direct testimony as to how people saw-and, by extension, understood-the world. Images can preserve things as they once were, and simultaneously, preserve how their creator once saw their subject. In this sense, every image embodies what Berger calls "a way of seeing": a record of how its creator saw the world. To do so is to create an image: "an image is a sight which has been recreated or reproduced." In so doing, we remove the image from the original circumstances under which it was seen. Likewise, we can attempt to capture what we see, reproducing or recreating it for others so that they can try to understand how we perceive the world. Our understanding of what we see doesn't generally align with the objective facts of what we're seeing: for example, we see the sun set every night, while we know that it isn't really "setting," but rather, the earth is simply revolving away from it. Thus begins Ways of Seeing, drawing our attention to the fraught relationship between vision, images, words, and meaning.
Perception is an ongoing reality-we are always taking in the world, and only after the fact do we name it. Does it matter that it’s being swept out of sight? Artists Hito Steyerl, Ingrid Burrington, Trevor Paglen, Olia Lialina, Julian Oliver and Danja Vasiliev explain why they’re compelled to show us what’s going on beneath the surface.When we inhabit the world, we are constantly seeing. In this first episode, Invisible Networks, James looks for the hidden, physical infrastructure of the internet. In this series of four programmes, he updates Berger’s Ways of Seeing, inviting contemporary artists to explore how the technology we use every day has transformed the ways in which we see and are seen.
His work has been exhibited at the V&A, the Barbican, in galleries worldwide, and online. James Bridle writes about the development of technology on our lives. How do we see the world around us now? And, who are the artists urging us to look more closely?
Of course, that was before the internet, smartphones, and social media took hold. In 1972, Berger’s seminal TV series and book changed perceptions of art and set out to reveal the language of images. “The way we see things is affected by what we know, or what we believe” – John Berger. How is technology changing the way we see? The artist James Bridle reimagines John Berger’s Ways of Seeing for the digital age and reveals the internet’s hidden infrastructure.
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