The Ocular-centric Obsession of Contemporary Societies

Abstract

Architecture has significantly transformed in the last century with the development of modern technologies. Since the advent of the industrial age and the advancement of technological tools, architecture has developed, assuming diverse forms, while shaping humanity's immediate built environment. These advances didn't only shape our built environment but also changed our inherited culture. With the easy accessibility to more amenities, our reliability on extensions increased. Moreover, while corporations sought to increase more revenues from profitable products, new strategies were developed to attract more customers. These strategies were established on ocular pleasing products for more desirability. Such systems were not only implemented on micro appliances, but were also reflected on our built environment and urban planning. This paper highlights how societies became obsessed with ocularcentric products. However, it indicates how, in the past century, the visual sense became more dominant over the rest of the senses. This dominance has not only prevailed through literature, architecture, and art, but also ocularcentrism, advocating architects, stakeholders, and planners to prioritize aesthetically pleasing products over the social needs of residents. This paper highlights the ocularcentric phenomenon of societies by providing real-life examples of architecture that act as a repellent to a specific social class, in which it contradicts the sacred role of architecture as an answer to our existential thrownness.

Tactility in perception of biobased composites

“…The trend of ocularcentrism, or the bias of considering vision superior to other senses, has been recorded in Western cultures (Chandler and Munday, 2011). This trend is also reflected in contemporary design, such that many current products and architecture focus on an ocularcentric design to attract consumers and generate revenue (El Moussaoui, 2020). This inclination also has limited the inclusion of tactility in frameworks for aesthetics and perception (Carbon and Jakesch, 2013).…”

The Development of Senior Clubs

“…The ocular-centric obsession of contemporary society has led to a major change in architecture over the last century with the development of modern technology [10]. Technology plays an important role in senior house design.…”

Tactility in Perception of Biobased Composites

“…The trend of ocularcentrism, or the bias of considering vision as a superior sense over other senses has been a recorded phenomenon in Western cultures (Chandler and Munday 2011). This is reflected in contemporary design as well, such that many current products and architecture focus on an ocularcentric design to attract consumers and generate revenue (El Moussaoui 2020). This also has limited the inclusion of tactility in frameworks for aesthetics and perception (Carbon and Jakesch 2013).…”