The skin of the gaze

Observation is supposed to give the deepest and most direct access to organizations. However, observing as I might, I find it hard to make sense of what is to be seen. Sense cannot be derived directly from the seen as Geertz has convincingly shown. He advocated for thicker descriptions, as being the only doors towards a deep unerstanding; i.e. the complex web of significations that any gesture is pointing to. Yet I go on observing, and I quickly feel that sense is overexceeding the mere realms of significations and symbols. Sense is overthrowing, sense is burning. I also feel that this partition of the situation: the observing I (eye) and the observed is far more complex and constructed than Geertz seems to assume. I take the example of an observation in Odin Teatret, a famous Danish theatre troupe. Sometimes participating, sometimes not. And of the observation of my observation. I want to try and walk two paths away from Geertz's route, accompanied by J.L. Nancy and J. Rancière. I observe, as I walk with Nancy. As soon as the first step into Odin Teatret place, what I see is no longer a matter of signification. My body sees as much as my eyes. Sense, the sensible becomes mixed with sensations, sensitivity, sensuality, sensuousness, sentiments... Looking is no more a distant activity. I have contact with, I touch what I look. The sense has a body. The images have a skin. The thought has a weight. Sense is born in the moment, in this place. Sense is always coming, always imminent. Sense is in the approach. Sense is a sense of presence. There are rules, there are symbols, there is engagement, but how it is that all the participants seem to dance all around, that the atmosphere seems to change with the presence of Eugenio Barba? Looking, seeing, are no more a matter of building a representation, of finding a signification. Sense making is not adding more sense to a readymade sense. Meaning is not only plurivocal; sense, here, is a plural singularity, as I am too. I observe again, as I walk along with Rancière. I walk and I walk, I keep on observing. And suddenly I feel that something sounds wrong. This distribution of the sensible, this partition of the sensible classically reproduced by Geertz ‐ there are lives there and works here reveals highly political. As a partition of times and spaces, of the visible and invisible, of voice and noise. I look at the troupe and I see works there, I look at a conference, and I see lives here I guess and I hope. And in my work, can I think what I see? The real has to be fictionalized in order to be thought. Whatever sense they try to convey to me, I need to add my own poem. I don't expect them to give the key that illuminates, just that they teach me how to see. And you who observe my performance. Looking at my observing. Looking at my singular plurality. Don't you feel another contact than representation? What kind of sharing out of the sensible could we invent?