The Blindspot Machine

This presentation will develop Eric Cazdyn's ongoing exploration of the blindspot. What is a blindspot? And what might it teach us about how we look, how we think, how we desire, and how change occurs in the world?  Cazdyn argues that the dominant ideology of the blindspot today (from culture to politics) as something missing, as something to be disclosed or concealed, is the deadliest weapon used by those in power. To develop this critique, Cazdyn has built what he calls a "Blindspot Machine"—a multi-camera optics system that, instead of exposing blindspots (the violent desire of state power), produces a new theory and practice of the blindspot itself. In this iteration of the Blindspot Machine project, Cazdyn will highlight how the work of Fredric Jameson informs and inspires the problematic of the blindspot. Clips from a film that Cazdyn made with Jameson (not long before his death), will be screened as part of the lecture.