The Story of Looking

classified 15
Film

Please note: This was screened in Sept 2021

Director
Mark Cousins
Cast
Mark Cousins
Details
87 mins, 2021, UK
Primary language
English

Mark Cousins explores the power of visual experiences playing a key role in our individual lives. As he prepares for eye surgery, Cousins spends the day before reflecting on personal meditation and the simple power of looking.

At a time when we are more assailed by images than ever, he reveals how looking makes us who we are, lying at the heart of human experience, empathy, discovery and thought. He shares the pleasure and pain of seeing the world, in all its complexity and contradiction, with eyes wide open, through a kaleidoscope of imagery across centuries of art, biology, neuroscience, poetry and drawing.

As the COVID-19 pandemic brings another dramatic shift of perspective, he reaches out to other lookers for their vision from lockdown, and travels to the future to consider how his looking life will continue to develop until the very end: The Story of Looking shows the human ‘seeing’ experience as a form of art connecting us to cultures ourselves and others.


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