Jason Castro
Video Stills from Face to Face
2015
Video (colour, sound)
1:30 min
Face to Face : Jason Castro
For the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, the Other is irreducible to comprehension in his theory of the “face to face” relationship. That is to say, that the Other is not reducible to any concept that I can have of them. The nuances of their existence, their complexities, their freedoms and choices are beyond what I am capable of ascribing. The Other overflows any understanding that I can have of them. To reduce to comprehension is to move from the particular to the universal. This process undermines the “face to face” relationship and interjects a conceptual intermediary which diminishes the Other. That is to say, that to moderate the “face to face” relationship with ideas of the universal is to imagine oneself outside of the association and assume a position of power. You are no longer talking with, but rather, about the subject. In this relationship the Other is removed from their particularisation and becomes just one of the many. Through this process the Others’ absolute difference is reduced to the same through internalisation, a colonising of the other that takes the form of possession. For Levinas, this is an act of violence.
The video Face to Face examines Levinas’ theory in relationship to the ascribing of values to the Indigenous Other by European colonisers. Notions such as the ‘noble’ and ‘ignoble savage’, underscored by theories such as that of ‘Dying Race’ and “The great Chain of Being’, reduce the cultural Other from the particularisation of their individuality to that of generalised concepts, bypassing the “face to face” relationship and assume a position of power and control.
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