Exhilaration and innovative vision

From “transparent eyeball” to a new mode of perception

Abstract

In Nature Emerson describes the ecstatic experience of an individual recovering his «original relation to the universe» by be- coming a «transparent eyeball», a vision in which the boundaries between subjectivity and the external world have disappeared. This same dream of a total vision can be found in Münsterberg’s reflections on the aesthetic possibilities of the cinematic medium in The Photoplay: A Psychological Study. Following these seminal intuitions and Sitney’s work about Brakhage and Mekas, this paper explores Emerson’s role in both early American film theory and modern experimental practice.