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When, Roger Daltrey sang 'see me, feel me, touch me, heal me' in the rock-opera Tommy, he expressed the dilemma of living in a world where his every sensation was purely tactile: to his admiring audience it was reason for his celebrity, but it was also a perversion.' Though he was a 'pinball wizard' with 'such a supple wrist', this 'deaf, dumb and blind kid' needed to be healed of his affliction, granted liberation from his sensorial prison. It was just not good enough to be brilliant in his field, if that field emphasised touch, practice, intuition and an uncanny sensitivity to the medium. He had to be seen to use his vision- of the non-extraordinary kind. Fortunately for Tommy, the intervention of more knowing figures enabled his sight to be restored, and he could lead a regular kind of life where any transgression was of a more predictable kind that challenged the hegemony in a way that could be clearly seen by all. Most curiously, we find, in the end, that Tommy was capable of 'seeing' all along, he just chose not to use his ' sense'.
What are we to make of this? Tommy was a seventies phenomenon, emerging at a time when the conventional experience of the visual world was being regularly challenged in a number of ways- from the use of illicit substances that created hallucinogenic internal worlds; to cinematic experimentation that engaged the audience as a collective; couture that blurred the distinction between clothing and sculpture (and also seriously challenged vertigo sufferers- just recall Elton John 's boots); and, for those who care to acknowledge or remember, textile or fibre art that challenged the... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline