Looking

Available for 26 days

Looking can be tied up with joy or pain, with desire or despair, with judgement or disorientation. Some of the greatest poets have explored this – including John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson. You might be able to see, but your eyes can deceive you – as we’ll hear from the philosopher David Hume and the writer of ghost stories Robert Aickman, and looking is closely tied to the way we experience the world and view ourselves – which is explored in writing by the French existentialist Jean Paul Sartre, the film theory scholar Laura Mulvey and the film-maker Dziga Vertov. And composers from Beethoven to Puccini, Arvo Pärt to David Bowie have been fascinated by the textures and experiences of looking. Our readers are Ellie Piercy and Ben Miles. Producer: Luke Mulhall