Видимост и кожа: мирише ли истината?
Skin and Visibility: Does Truth Smell?

Summary/Abstract: Among George Orwell’s many remarkable formulations in his novel 1984 there is the Party command to reject the evidence of what we see and hear. And yet, in resisting the Party command, can nowadays seeing and hearing provide evidence? Do, perhaps, the „lower“ senses of touch, smell, and taste prove to be the more reliable witnesses? These questions gained poignancy in the wake of the lockdowns and the push towards virtualization which reduced our senses to the two “higher” ones – the ones technologically transmittable, technologically surveillable, and increasingly susceptible to digital simulation. The lower ones are as yet elusive. My reflections on this paradox were triggered by a study (Excrementum: Senses of Proximity by Nina Nikolova) and an exhibition (Noli me tangere by Minna Antova), which coincided in time with the lockdowns. In my attempt ‒ largely against the grain of Baudrillard ‒ to extract utopia from the wreck of the human senses, I will turn to the lessons of an earlier era through two very different novels, Ivan Efremov’s The Andromeda Nebula (1957) and Philip K. Dick’s Simulacra (1964).

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