Images by Michael Itkoff

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(“At first it would seem that nothing could be easier than seeing. We just point our eyes to where we want them to go, and gather in whatever there is to see. The truth is more difficult: seeing is irrational, inconsistent and undependable. Seeing is like hunting and like dreaming, it is entangled in the passions and soaked up in affect. Ultimately, seeing alters the thing that is seen and transforms the seer. Seeing is metamorphosis, not mechanism. Seeing bodies of any sort has an intense fascination all of their own. In daily life, as each new scene presents itself, we tend to look first at bodies and only afterward let our eyes take in whatever else there is. It may be that the unthinking search for bodies is the most fundamental operation of vision and that, even when there are no bodies present we tend to think in bodily forms.”

James Elkins, The Object Stares Back)