{ vision > dis-vision > en-vision }
Aware of the perception of sight as a dominant sense over the other senses in the construction of knowledge, especially in Modern-Western societies, we place our reflections within the limits of knowledge production that audiovisual material vision allows.
The English term vision comes from the Latin noun visio, derivation of visus, past participle of the verb videre, which means “to see”. The ancient Greek οιδα (oida) and the Sanskrit वेत्ति (vétti), among other verbs, came from the same Proto-Indo-European root weid- (that expresses the act of seeing) as the Latin videre, but in turn means “to know”. This is because the Proto-Indo-European verb wóyde, from which all of the three verbs derive, evolved into “to have seen”, a verb form conjugated to the present perfect and therefore expressing the knowledge production consequent to a past action of seeing. Therefore, in essence: I know because I saw.
Yet, what does each of us see? Has everyone seen the same thing? Far vision, near vision, giving or taking in vision, direct vision, indirect vision, clear vision, murky vision… While we might have shared the same lens, our visions might differ, might be divided. Stemming from the verb divide, division seems to derive from the Latin union between the prefix dus-, which afterwards became dis- and the root vid-, the same root found in videre. Although the prefix disis often interpreted as a negation, it could rather be re-understood as suggesting a separation: dis-vision as diverse visions. It is exactly in these dis-visions that we establish our mutual learning and research moment. By confronting dissected visions we are pushed to embrace a plurality of interpretations on the same theme. Besides, in conversation with each other we can en-vision and conceive new imaginaries as well as create new meanings.
Triggering our ability to imagine, envisioning means to conceive a thought in one’s mind.
Through the vision of a film, passing through the sense of sight, the images move from the sensorial to the abstract realm, where they are processed, comprehended and provoke conceptualizations of what is seen. The possibility to imagine something which is not yet in existence and share these disparate thoughts in a conversation which collectively resignifies the themes we address, is precisely the space we strive to create: a space where the decolonial and demodern can be envisioned from a collection of divided visions.
If the first meaning of the noun vision refers to “the faculty or state of being able to see”, a second one could be understood as assuming a specific “view” or “perspective”, allowing us to explore different positionalities by entering the stories proposed by the moving images. A third meaning, then, could speak about “the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom”, opening up to the creation of new images through collective confrontation. By combining these meanings, we propose that: vision is a perceptive process of luminous stimuli elaborated by the optical apparatus which allows for knowledge from the external world.
Through this vision we, as seeing-humans, can evaluate reality and then formulate new concepts and ideas.
Through the care we put in the research, selection and editing of the film material, we suggested different lenses through which we have put in focus a topic from different points of view. Eventually, every projection has put us in collision with a form of vision: contemplation of natural and supernatural events; conspiracy through myth; narration of stories; documentation of facts; advocation of prophecies; bouncing of nonsense; launching provocations; desired fantasies; abandoned hallucinations; absurd assumptions; campaigns for a right. Through each film we entered possible interpretations of reality, and through collective discussion we grew together, formed new thoughts and reflections, conceived new concepts, began to en-vision and propose new options.
It has been enriching to start this project from our individual visions, and then move to a shared preparation of the program. For us, Cineforum has not only been an exercise of
singular-to-collective curatorship, rather an act of collectively focusing on alternative visions through the work of braiding together session by session.
