The Distance of Seeing our bodies, usually presented in the context of particular clothes, are never exclusively our own. We do not have access to our own bodies even if we take off all the clothing. Why?
Because when it comes to this access–whether to our own body or somebody else’s – we are always limited by whatever cultural context limits how we undress or dress ourselves. In a way we are always clothed and our bodies are always in costume – wanted or not – or, if we’d like to use stronger wording: our bodies are our costumes.
Everyone is dressed in the costume of his or her body that cannot be taken off. It’s paradoxical: The nudity of a human being hides the parameters of the costume of the body. Skin is something crucial and it is opaque.

It is something that is a subject to cultural codification of self-assessment and the assessment of others. In other words, to others we aren’t naked and we’re not even naked to ourselves when we stand in front of the mirror by ourselves.
So, since the nude body is also a body that’s dressed, let’s think about a reversal of this situation. Let’s think about a costume that is not accidental, that’s there to cause certain effect – the kind of effect that you’d expect from an unclothed body. Yes, many outfits show more than they hide, serving as a preview of the expected episode – something that cannot be achieved without a particular piece of clothing, something that nudity is unable to announce.

For that reason there exist outfits serving to push away with their intention to serve as the road to an expected reception, a specific climax. Those outfits are packages, situations that signal that the point is not what is contained within but rather that the point is the process of unveiling. They provoke moment that arrest curiosity or that create certain curiosity. Here we have a story about distance, about possibility of seeing that can be created by peeking, which – another paradox – is guaranteed by the wrapping of the body itself.

The distance created is some kind of a breathing space, a gap allowing to see. The distance is necessary in order to see. We notice that the distance is restricted by light. That’s when we talk about the light as it is created by two objects removed from each other. Having noticed that, let’s not allow ourselves to be provoked and let’s not think that seeing is in any way the direct access to what we’re looking at.