Through a series of short analyses of visual objects the article questions the nature of the dialectic distance/proximity. This dialectic actually concerns a boundary that is at the same time necessary for its articulation, but also only partially expressible within it: the boundary between spectator and observed object/image/medium. By trying to understand what distance is through the definition of some of its opposite forms (immediacy, oceanic feeling, Merleau-pontian flesh of the world), we will look for an answer to this complexity through the intelligence of the images themselves. The chiasmic nature of the relationship between the seeing subject and the seen object therefore seems to become a central theme.