The Object Looks Back: Paraesthetic Vision in Portrait de la jeune fille en feu and Optic Nerve
abstract
Focusing on Céline Sciamma’s film, Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (2019), and Maria Gaínza’s novel, Optic Nerve (2014), I turn to two texts interested in the structure of vision to interrogate gendered dynamics of power. By formalizing alternate relations between subjects and objects, the portrait offers a space to negotiate the unidirectional and subordinating logic of the seeing subject. Focusing on interventions that interrupt and collapse the positions of the viewer and the viewed, both texts employ paraesthetic articulations of the gaze to redress the imbalance inherent in our conception of vision.
Keywords: Gaze • Portrait de la jeune fille en few • Portrait de la jeune fille en feu • Visual culture • Autotheory • Optic Nerve • Visual Culture • New Formalism • Paraesthetics • Crossmapping