DÉJÀ VU

​

The French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas highlighted ethics and its core a commitment to the Other as the central pillar of his general philosophy ("Ethics is optics"). He allocates an important role to looking into the face of the Other. Consideration of the human face of someone else in an attentive and ethical manner frees a person from conventions and systems of sorting and cataloging. It is the ethical responsibility of the I towards the Other. Following Levinas, Dr. Hagi Kenaan argues that especially in a period in which the means of sight and communications are improving and becoming more sophisticated, it is possible to talk of a crisis in seeing reality and of a general flattening out of the meanings of what is seen. The eye is flooded with non-stop sensations and becomes a weak eye that in fact ceases to see.

From the exhibition catalog - the collection of Anat Gatenio