He Fa on the Strawberry Box Lecturer

I wear yellow frames whose sides do not match: one is squarish, the other roundish. The strawberry-pink face is flattened and broad, while royal-blue box shoulders spread the body sideways. It first looks like a joke about geometry, but what really interests me is this: when two eyes are placed within different boundaries, what can still count as seeing together? The frames' shapes do not automatically determine how the eyes understand things; I cannot derive two innate personalities from square and circle. What they can do is make the existence of boundaries conspicuous enough. We readily forget that description also selects and leaves things out. Now two framing outlines hang side by side on the face, and neither can pretend to be the entire unframed world.

An enormous orange-red bow tie joins face and broad shoulders into a conspicuous sign. The bow is slightly crooked while the box stays level; the two orders are not entirely coordinated. I am willing to let an account work like this too: first present the same object, then explain the side from which each approach enters. Shared understanding can begin with differences being made clear, without first forcing every account into the same shape.

But difference can be abused. If I use the round frame to demand that your account flow smoothly, then turn to the square frame to demand strict boundaries, I will always have the advantage in finding faults. Switching among measures must be public, rather than occurring suddenly only when it favors me. The bridge fixes both sides to the same face, which also means I must take responsibility for the transitions between them.

The blue velvet sleeves remain soft, with short legs and black shoes standing beneath the box. The body's parts have not split into two independent people merely because the frames differ. I want to preserve this shared responsibility: one may understand something from different edges, but who ultimately bears a conclusion and which standard was used cannot, like that crooked bow, be flicked aside and left unexplained.