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.

• Screenings of The Story of Looking on Wed 22 Sep are part of our Cinébites deal: get 30% off any main dish in the Café & Bar with a valid cinema ticket.