«Burning Questions» is the essay I wrote about the eye and the gaze. It is the introduction to the fanzine created by Ignasi Monreal for the launch of the sunglasses he designed for Etnia Barcelona.
When our gaze alights on one thing, implicitly we surrender a million other choices. Wherever our eye may fall, it means we renounce looking at whatever lies next to it. At times this is a thought which disturbs me, causes me to feel impatient, agitated. It conveys the thought of loss. However, on other occasions it brings me peace.
When I ask myself whether, at that moment, there could be anything better to look upon than that which my eye has chosen, I question a decision over which I most probably have no power. It is my eye which has chosen the time and place and all that I can do is abandon myself completely to its choice.
By inertia, our eyes look ahead. It could be considered that looking ahead means looking toward the future. However, this is not a universal belief: according to Chinese culture, one sees the past in front of oneself, not behind. Thus, one could say the eye remains unconditioned by time.
The eye seeks answers to the questions we have asked of it. It constantly strives to help us name the nameless. In that respect, it is the opposite of loss. The eye seeks to demolish invented narrative.
If looking at something is a form of renunciation, then to decide what the eyes of another may see is an achievement. It is the eye that, above all else, has decided where it wishes to fall. And, so as it does not abandon us, we need to keep it busy, feed it whatever it may demand. But the eye must continue with its quest. It has to burn all its questions.