Pauline Ayumi Ota

How did technology change the way the Japanese perceived and conceptualized their surroundings in the mid-eighteenth century? And, how did this technology facilitate an awareness of the perceptual process? Through a systematic investigation of key paintings and texts, this project addresses these questions, exploring the role visual technologies and nascent consciousness of the act of seeing played in the refashioning of Kyoto cityscapes. “Seeing is Knowing” argues that not only was this engagement with visual perception symptomatic of mid-eighteenth century Japan's emergent "modernity," but also, more significantly, it suggests the leading role of Kyoto in the push towards that "modernity."