The new dialectics of seeing

“The New Dialectics of Seeing” presents one of forty digital images created from a year-long research residency with The Fitzwilliam Museum collection from 2018 to 2019. Through the discussion of this one image, Blue Sky Entanglements, I explore the application of Susan Buck-Morss’ concept of dialectical seeing, based on Walter Benjamin’s dialectical image, which underpins the research completed at The Fitzwilliam. Benjamin’s theoretical framework for the dialectical image suggests a connection with myth through his notion of a dreaming collective. Within the construction of Blue Sky Entanglements, myth became a source of intertextual narratives in the work, raising a question of how objects generate meaning outside of their time.