Mural La Caresse
From the book of the French philosopher-phenomenologist Emanuel Levinas "Totality and the Infinite".
"A caress like a touch is sensuality. However, the caress surpasses the sensual. It is not about the fact that it feels more than its subject, that it extends beyond what other senses are capable of, or feeds on something higher, unearthly, while maintaining in its attitude to what is felt an unsatisfied feeling of hunger, directed at food that is promised and given to it and which aggravates hunger - as if the caress is supported by its own insatiability. The peculiarity of affection is that it is not saturated with anything, it seeks that, constantly freeing itself from its form, rushes towards the future, which is still not coming, to what is slipping away, as if IT HAD NOT YET EXISTED. The caress SEEKS, strives. This is not the direction of detection, but of search, movement towards the invisible. In a certain sense, a caress EXPRESSES a feeling of love, but suffers from the fact that it is unable to express it. It longs for expression - and this thirst is constantly increasing. So the caress rushes beyond its limits, beyond the limits of existence - even the future, which, precisely as BEING, is already knocking at the doors of existence."
The concept of Caress is complex, but interesting to understand. Caress is missed by us as repressed, too personal, too revealing. But caress - as a way of interaction - requires close consideration, especially now, when we lack mutual understanding. We live in an era of competition, battle, and at the same time we are forced to get along together, separated by our differences. Caress is not caring, because caring implies hierarchy and recognition of the one who weaker. Caress is not really love, because it does not appropriate, does not take away and does not require anything. Caress exists between different species of animals and plants. This is a unique way of communicating.
Morphology of Streets Festival, Tyumen 2021
