disorientation

in Brecht’s play, Life of Galileo, 1938, the telescope is a threat to power, showing that the sun does not revolve around the most powerful. I’m disoriented by The Unclean World, 1903, as we cannot rely on what seems to be a scientific vision, instead we realise it is a staging with toys, a satire on technologically mediated vision. The joke surprises me and at the same time, it’s a reminder to distrust what we see, to distrust the ideology of empiricism. In some ways it’s a validation of illustration, which makes its truth claims (if at all) with an assumed subjectivity, even in the case of court images and wildlife guides, war reportage and portraits, we know there is an author who is situated.