return
P P P
there are things to consider
here
firstly, i do not have
leprosy, I am not blind
[
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Once the glass has been removed, they slipped
a thin film under my eyelids and over my eyelids they
laid walls of cotton wool. I was not supposed to talk
because talking pulled at the anchors of the bandage.
'You were asleep', the doctor told me later. I was asleep!
I had to hold my own against the light of seven days
- a fine conflagration! Yes, seven days at once, the
seven deadly lights, become the spark of a single moment,
were calling me to account. Who would have imagined
that? At times I said to myself, 'This is death. In
spite of eveything it's really worth it, it's impressive.'
But often I lay dying without saying anything. In the
end I was convinced that I was face to face with the
madness of the day. That was the truth: the light was
going mad, the brightness had lost all reason: it assailed
me irrationally, without control, without purpose. That
discovery bit straight through my life.
from Maurice
Blanchot The Madness
of the Day tr. Lydia
Davies............. |
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In La
Folie du Jour , the narrator
is at one embodied and disembodied. The voice is trying
to determine what life may be involved with it: but
for the moment there is only a sense of distance and
light. Light itself is the madness of the day,
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7{ Histoire de la Folie . . . . . . . In the
seventeenth century the perception of madness changed
from that of transgression or difference to a physical-moral
condition.The subjective reason that drove this new
thinking deligitimised and outlawed all forms of behaviour
which did not harmonise with this autocratic rationality.
Foucault hints that if other configurations (right
and wrong, true and false), other oppositions had taken
root modern 'reason' might be different.That reason
conceals an alternative and speechless/voiceless past.
} 8
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an unrelatedness into whose ambience
the voice [we speak 'of' the voice] is uncontrollably
caught up. The irregular movements, sudden changes of
tempo, hysterical outbursts are dissipated inside the
text, leaving a wake of flotsam folding and unfolding
at the mercy of the contest between tide and current,
but at the same time having a momentum of its own, perhaps
a consciousness to choose the easiest, or perversely,
the most testing direction to follow. Through the tone
of the writing the subject is dissipated or speaks as
if [comme si] from an absentee, the voice estranged
or made remote to itself [castrato]. The voice achieves
a passivity that asserts itself, even through a trauma
so severe the content does not survive. Blanchot is
also concerned with the author/reader relationship -
any work of art is anonymous . . . the creative force
of the work effaces the presence of the author. |
efface/from
French effacer, literally, to obliterate the face; deface/
sous rature 'under erasure' . Derrida's phrse for a
word that may be inaccurate or inadequate, but necessary.
A word can be left in and at the same time crossed out.
This must be graphic - it cannot be oral. It introduces
a temporal aspect. The sous rature can be seen together
but cannot be conceived at the same time.
In Derrida's
view of language the signifier is not directly
related to the signified. There is no one -to- one set
of correspondences between them.Iin structuralist thought
a sign is seen as a unity . In Derrida's view, word
and thing or thought never become one. The sign is a
structure of difference. Half of it is 'not that' and
the other half 'not there'. Signifiers transform into
signified and vice versa. for derrida the structure
of the sign is defined by the 'trace' - the footprint,
track, imprint. Signs cannot be a unit bridging an 'origin'
and an 'end'.The sign must always be seen as sous rature
- always being inhabited by the trace of another sign.
Words, sentences, these all contain traces. But reading
is a temporal process and language is unstable. Nothing
is ever fully present in signs. language does not fully
present a person or argument. Signs are always dispersed
and divided. Meanings are always dispersed and divided:
ideas are dispersed and divided too. In other words,
there is nothing but writing (and reading), 9 rewriting
(and rereading) : ,
erasing the palimpsest 1 [ Pensée.
The beautiful, the tulip substitute [tip] the beautiful
is left out, sous rature, but inherently there. this
is art, it has beauty, but it has given its beauty away
in terror of the sublime ].
encourages the reinscriptions, the displacements,
1
1 1 the rereadings, the rewritings. But all along,
these are always 'knowing' erasions. They are in effect
pretended erasures . . . "he wanted... without
really wanting" . . . . the artist pretends . They
are more a smearing . Introducing the double pretence
. . . "as if he wanted" . . without really
wanting, "as if . [comme si ], in virtue of a fancy".
The impress of fiction is the second (but always already
before the first) step (into its own trapless trap)
of writing into painting, of painting into writing,
of writing into writing, of painting into painting.
. . . . to introduce is to seduce. To seduce the
text, of course, not the reader. To deviate the text
from itself, but just enough to surprise it again very
close to its content Here an "alleged" introduction
deconstructs, smears the reworked/rewritten original".
The act of smearing disfigures the "idea"
the "concept".
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To
be aware of the work is to be unaware of the author.
The author should only be significant in his oeuvre.
But the oeuvre is only present in terms of a single
work . . . . the essence of literature is to escape
any essential determination. it is never already there,
it needs to be rediscovered each time. Otherwise the
institution of art has priority over the work - art
becomes a repetition of the institution.
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. . . . . . and again Repetition . . . behaving in a
certain manner, in relation to something unique which
has no substitute. But there is also the interior repetition,
the echo, the tremolo within itself. Repetition internalises
itself, the subject becomes the object. The qualitative
order of resemblances and the quantitative order of
equivalencies contrasts with the qualitative order of
the non-substitutable. Cycles and equalities are contrasted
with reflections, doubles and echoes. With the former
terms can be substituted and exchanged. The qualitative
order only legislates for gifts or theft. The object
belongs to the order of laws. Laws only determine the
relationships between the subjects ruled by them, they
do not define the content of the subjects themselves.
The subject of the law discovers its own powerlessness
to repeat. The constants of one law might be the variables
of another. If repetition is possible, it is a miracle,
it is against the law, it is a transgression. Erasing
the law [PONCER] with irony, a law of principles for
overturning principles - with humour as its consequence
[U -PON ] its descent {into madness?}. Ultimately a
question of will and freedom of expectancy - repetition
changes nothing in the object repeated, but does change
something in the mind which contemplates it.
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R e f r a in
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7
Hume implies the independence of each presentation.
One instance does not appear until the last one has
disappeared. Hence there is no 2nd, 3rd, or 'the same'.
AB, AB, AB, A . 9 : ;
Each AB is separate from the others and each ab is still
identical. But repetition does set up an expectancy
in the mind, the hint of the possibility of difference.
Expectancy encourages habit. Habit draws difference/generality
from repetition. habit is contraction [to contract a
habit]. To act is never to repeat. continuity - there
is no continuity apart from habit contemplation We speak
of our 'self' only in virtue of these thousands of little
witnesses which contemplate within us: it is always
a third party which says 'me'. Contemplation is always
hidden, it has no action in itself, things are done
through it. difference. Difference lies between two
repetitions. Repetition lies between two differences.
The repetition allows the passage from one system of
difference to another. The duration of a presentation
is dependent on the natural decrement of its material.
fatigue is a real component of contemplation. Need marks
the limits of the variable present. The present exists
between two instances of need, and is the duration of
a contemplation. repetition is inside need, as need
only exists through repetition. natural signs are founded
on passive synthesis. They are signs of the present.
Artificial signs are those which refer to the past or
the future as distinct dimensions of the present, dimensions
on which the present may depend. Artificial signs imply
active synthesis - the passage from spontaneous imagination
to reflective representation, memory and intelligence.
repetition is a condition of action before it is a concept
of reflection.
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There are three stages in cyclical conceptions:
The intracyclic repetition, that is, the manner in which
the two events repeat one another - or, rather repeat
the same act or event to come. Secondly, a cyclic repetition
which supposes that at the end of the repetition everything
recommences with the first stage. Analogies are drawn
between the two phases. Thirdly, in this case, finally,
the 'thirdly' plays the role of signified in relation
to the other two. The first two states only repeat something
that appears for itself in the third stage, where this
'thing' repeats itself. The present is the repeater
the past is repetition itself . The future is that
which is repeated, having subordinated the other two,
stripping them of their autonomy. The present, therefore
concerns only the content and the foundation of time,
the ground, and the order, the totality and the final
end of time, including the repetition of the repetition.
Again, Hume explains that the independent identical
or similar cases are grounded in the imagination. The
imagination retains the image of the previous case as
the new one appears. It is able to gather cases and
compress their memory into states of being which give
off a particular 'aroma'.
1 1
1
The latest B is anticipated to contain the nature of
previous abs. Not in the sense of memory or reflection,
merely as a synthesis of time. Time in the sense of
the repetition of instants which
constitute the present. The past belongs
to the present - the preceding instants are retained
in the diminution. The future belongs to the present
- expectation is anticipated as a diminution. the past
and future are not therefore different instants from
the present instants - they are contractions of them.
PPP is the
scene of all these repetitions, the rhythms, displacements
and disguises, their divergencies and decentrings. It
is the arena in which they unfold and indoctrinate one
another.
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Blanchot
argues that nothing exists prior to the work, that every
work of art is a reinvention of the practice of art.
Blanchot also writes about the significance of solitude
in that it refers to the way that a work of art and
the processes leading up to its creation cuts itself
off from others. Solitude
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signifies
the failure to interpret the work, to achieve a sense
of 'essence'. Its inability to be perceived 'at a distance',
this instability undermining the possibility of finding
a point [the point]. The receding, the opening up of
the space in which the thing happens, the creation of
that 'space', in which the work PPP
itself no longer inhabits the
ultimate absence of 'the work' itself. The ultimate
'distancing' .The smoothing out and eventual elimination
of the 'object' itself. Poncer v. tr.; conjug. placer (xive; fig., 'rendre plus pur' v. 1280;
de ponce
) ¨10 Décaper, polir au moyen d'une substance
abrasive (pierre ponce, poudre de ponce). V. Décaper, frotter, polir ¨ 20 (1622). Reproduire (un desin) au moyen d'un
poncif (10) _ Dessin poncé (n. m. Un poncé), obtenu par ce moyen de reproduction. ¨3o (1723).
Techn. Marquer (une pièce de toile) avec une
encre spéciale. The slippery surface resistant
to any more questions. In this silence now the
voice is heard ''what is a work and what is the work?
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is
read as separate, isolate, distinct. Solitude refers
to the uniqueness of the works 'space'.
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.................................. secondly, the homony/homophone.
firstly.........................a supplement
Poncif [posif].
n. m. (Ponsif, 1551; de poncer). u 1o Techn. feuille de papier à dessin piqué
qu'on applique sur une surface en y passant une ponce
(2o)
pour reproduire le contour du dessin. Reproduire un
dessin avec in poncif. V. Poncer (2o) u 2o (1832, adj.;
de "dessin fait selon des procédés
conventionnels").fig. et cour. Thème, expression littéraire
ou artistique dénués d'originalité.
V. banalité, cliché,
lieu (commun). Les poncifs acedémiques, romantiques. 9 ant. Original,
personal.
the double supplement,
the double homophone, /obia
The process
thought
packaging
erasing
7 record
8 play ;erase
9 and
so on :
the im/perfect palimpsest, in that
there isn't one. there is no antecedent, only a veil.
The nature of the homonym: penser/poncer/panser. [ PPP ]: also pansée.
In English. The lights illuminate literally, and illuminate
[with reason], good reason, the meaning and the sequence.
The inevitability. The rhetoric. The sense that there
must always be the next . . . . [ art
. . .work . . . ] The getting nearer and nearer to the
near. the augmentation, the hyperbation - kept in check
[cheque/false - economy - of means, of execution]. and
there is the recognition that the blindness is not necessarily
that of the sight. [ palimpsestus parchment cleaned for reuse, from Greek palimpsestos,
from palin
again + psestos rubbed smooth, from psen [poncer] to scrape { rature}]. Blindness
is an absence that enables one to know what sight is.
Blindness is an instance of a truchement - an interpreter,
a spokesman, a representative that causes understanding
between differing or opposing parties. Having no language
of its own, the "truchement" causes meaning
in one idiom to be comprehended in another medium -
what in Greek was called metaphorein, to carry over from one to the other. Blindness
is this metaphoricy itself and can only be signalled
through other metaphors of light and dark. De Man talks
of a reader who " has to undergo the explicit results
of a vision that is able to move towards the light only
because, being already blind, it does not have
to fear
9S U B L I M E : the
power of this light. But the vision is unable to report
correctly what it has perceived in the course 8 of its journey".
Diderot takes up this question of the figural and the
metaphoric in his essay Letter on the Blind for the
use of those who can see. . . . . . Holmes opens with
the argument that the marvels of nature prove the existence
of a Creator. Saunderson [ Professor of Mathematics
and Optics at cambridge University - and blind from
birth] replies that these were not created for his benefit,
that those beauties could only be proof to those who
could see them. To have proof of a God he must touch
him. He asserts that Holmes is using language as a metaphor,
using phrases such as - "seeing the truth",
and, one becomes "enlightened", problems grow
"clear" or are "illuminated". This
idea of "Nature" and "Beauty" and
the "Sublime" and "art" are very
much linked to the division between the falseness that
we can see and the truth to which we are blinded. Between
the shadows of the cave and the reality of the sun -
a blinding reality. In Saunderson's words Diderot saw
a relationship between sensory deprivation and linguistic
metaphor. Saunderson's speech was full of "expressions
heureuses".[wwPwwwwwONC wwRwww][expressions proper to one sense, touch p o
wwwr for example, but metaphoric to another,
such as sight , resulting in a double image - the true
image and the reflection, the metaphor. For Saunderson
there was always surplus of words over 'ideas' because
he used visual words without being able to perceive
their referents. For the foreigner or the writer there
is a surplus of ideas over words [as in peintures and
nuances [nuages]]. It is this breach between idea and
language, this truchement that produces metaphors.
Diderot takes these ideas forwards in this discussion
centred around the 'Molyneux'
Problem'. His proposition
was - 'if a person blind from birth were suddenly to
see again, were shown a cube and a cylinder, would s/he,
just by looking at them, be able to tell the difference?'
Diderot asked to be present at an operation, but this
was refused. Diderot decided that more would be gained
by questioning another blind person who had not had
their sight restored, but had a philosophical and /or
scientific training. Diderot's implication is that one
should try inwardness and introspection as much as outward
observation and, in a word, do without eyes. Diderot's
letter is in the form of an allegory, the paradox of
blinding oneself in order to see better as in Democritus
blinding himself in order to think better. There is
an emphasis on substitution run parallel to a work preoccupied
with how a blind person finds substitutes for sight.
Vision produces the possibility of seeing perfectly
and yet seeing "nothing". Between objects
and the retina there is a "nothing", a "truchement"
a "difference", that enforces accuracy, but
because we see only representations that are different
than what created them, "sensations have nothing
that resembles objects essentially", we must patrol
this space, backwards and forwards, in the act of continual
comparison [simile], of the precise conformity between
an object and its representation. Diderot saw blindness
as a metaphor for this space between object and image
and with the language of veils, blindness and ignorance.
The lowering of the literal veil (blindness/cataracts)
had no effect on the figurative one (blindness/ignorance).
Diderot's interest in blindness [reflects] his belief
that vision represents itself perfectly. His other conviction,
that Language can represent anything and everything
manifests itself in the Encyclopaedia - a work intended
to represent and explain all knowledge - structured
as a dictionary of the French language. "A nation's
language is a picture of the nation's knowledge".
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it refers
to the way the work 'speaks'. Blanchot speaks about
the work as being about how the author's silence takes
shape/manifests itself. Silence . . . .deaf and dumb
becomes the form of the author's speaking. Another source
of fascination is the image. Blanchot does not automatically
accept that the image is an unproblematic reflection
of the object .
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Blanchot's
images do not necessarily arrive from the seen. Blanchot
writes 'Speaking is not seeing.' They escape mimesis.
They escape the embrace of original and copy. He opens
the possibility of the discussing inside the frame in
the same breath as outside the frame. Residue within
the One . The double character of vision. The desire
to see and not to see is resolved in terms of trauma:
the over-the-edge scene of the near-blinding, the desire
to see past the visible, the propositioning of the visible
to fill the role of veil. Blanchot writes that Narcissus
is not narcissistic. This contradicts the common reading
of Narcissus being unable to love another because of
his own self-love. Blanchot shows that his inability
to love another is because, not recognising his own
image, he cannot relate to another since he has no relationship
to himself . Narcissus tries to eliminate the 'blind
spot', to have a relationship with the image without
any mediation such as time or space.
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. . . . the
image is a way of understanding the object through distancing
or objectifying. Blanchot is interested in paradox.
The image is brought to book by distancing . . . this
indeterminacy. Blanchot separates the image from meaning
and relates it instead to ecstasy.
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Blinding,
distancing, terror. Burke links distancing with infinity
and the possibility of terror. The arrival of spatial
perspective and the distancing in the narrative points
to, figurally, an infinity representing the unknown
and the borderlines between objects and illusionistic
space. To perceive an object is the same thing as to
perceive its bounds. This infinity identifies the possibilities
of the space for terror. Burke connects infinity with
repetition and madness, Terror and torture. When repetition
ceases it has created an elicit echo whose diminution
lasts long after its need has expired. it has its own
infinity, independent of others. But this echo must
have some end, a finite end - it must always bow eventually
to the laws of rhetoric . . as Burke points out . .
. 'No greater in the manner can effectually compensate
for the want of proper dimensions.' Is this the echo
that creates the multiplicity of images that are heaped
on each other to create the sense of emotional turmoil
that is a necessary condition to/of the terrible? This
unknowing, this, if necessary, unlearning that needs
to take place to effect the condition of the sublime.
The sublime is dangerous, it is terrible, fearful -
in so far as fear is an apprehension of pain, the pain
and fear that robs the mind of rational thought. The
blinding light, the cutting of the veil steals out pleasure
and submits us to pain. The blinding is out of control.
it acts against our will, throwing us against the wall.
breaking the glass: the subliminal act consummated in
halo - gen. Panser
[pãse].v. tr. (penser
de 'prendre soin de', 1190;
lat. pensare 'penser'. v. penser) ¨10 (XVe). soigner
(un animal domestique, et spécialt, un cheval) en lui donnant les soins de propreté.
V. Bouchonner, brosser, étriller; pansage. ¨20 (1314,
penser de 'soigner'; 1680 panser une plaie). Vx. soigner,
traiter (un malade). 'Je le
pansai, dieu le guérit'
(attribué à Ambroise Paré) à
Spécialt. et mod. S oigner (qqn. unr partie du
corps) en appliquant un pansement*. Panser
la main, le pied de qqn.V.
Bander - Panser un malade un blessé. à
Fig. 'La femme est faite pour
panser les plaies, non pour les aviver' (L. Daud). V. Calmer. à hom Penser;
pensée. |
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Death. forgetting.
waiting. finality. are also key concepts in Blanchot's
work. He writes about the impossibility of experiencing
the experience of death. waiting is the event that becomes
impossible when it finishes, forgetting is caught between
the given moment and the wanted moment. Blanchot does
not attempt to reconstruct the experience of dying,
he writes about the impossibility of the experience
of death. He points out ways in which finality does
not occur - or at least cannot be experienced. the 'last'
word always calls for an explanation - thus for more
words. Chance is present in his works, especially in
connection with death. As chance gives rise to uncertainty
and intermediacy, time can move backwards or forwards,
[ 7 8 9 : ;]
events may or may not have taken place,
or, through chance, a moment happens. Blanchot raises
the question of writing as an event, and its relationship
with indeterminacy.
In his later works Blanchot
develops a type of moment form, an open architecture,
free to be decided by the reader, giving him/her the
greatest level of meanings.
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. . . .
. . . . and thirdly
...
Derrida entertains the curious hypothesis of a 'programming
machine' . It is a notion related to the metaphor of
'multiple reading heads', ( record, playback, erase
) [and fast forward, fast rewind]
7 8 9 : ;
intending to
suggest that we read simultaneously what there is in
front of us and also, in the process, a potentially
infinite range of intertextual meanings and illusions,
some of which may very well obscure or efface the meanings
of the 'words on the page'. In Otobiographies, Derrida discusses the textual 'machine'
in terms of a regulatory system, one that somehow programmes
in advance the possibilities of aberrant reading . .
. .what is it about the texts of Nietzsche, Hegel ,
Heidegger which give rise to many contrasting interpretations/
. . .[mimetic perversion, as Derrida suggests] , or
are there latent properties in the text and structure
of the text which warrant / encourage this? In 'Freud
and the scene of writing', derrida discusses the models
and metaphors to which Freud had recourse in describing
psychic drives and desires. The
Mystic writing Pad, a device
involving a stylus and waxed paper which enabled inscriptions
to be preserved in a latent or invisible form long after
they had been apparently erased from the surface. Derrida
suggests that Freud was thinking of the unconscious
as a kind of 'writing machine'. Psychical content will
be represented by a text whose essence is irreducibly
graphic. The structure of the psychical apparatus will
be represented by a writing machine. derrida asks not
'is the psyche a kind of text?' but, 'what is a text
and what can the psyche be if it can be represented
by a text?' This exceeds the classical opposition of
self-present speech and written signs. freud is forced
to consider the possibility of writing before speech
- what can be described in a language of traces, differences,
subliminal marks and inscriptions.
'It is with a
graphematics still to come , rather than with a linguistics
dominated by a phonologism, that psychoanalysis sees
itself destined to collaborate'. Freud inverts the received
order of priority between conscious and unconscious
thought. The differential character of writing makes
it possible to hold back, to postpone or to conserve
that which would be exhausted in the moment of immediate
perception. This would fall outside any possible means
of representation. Pure perception, derrida says , does
not exist. We are written only as we write, by the agency
within us which always keeps watch over perception.
The subject of writing [i.e. the subject who writes]
is a system of relations between strata: the Mystic
Pad, the psyche, society, the world. freud tries to
explain memory in the manner of the natural sciences.
He writes " a main characteristic of nervous tissue
is memory - a capacity to be altered by single occurrences".
He explains the simultaneous as firstly a permanence
of the trace and the virginity of the receiving substance,
and secondly as the engraving of furrows in the perennially
intact bareness of the perceptive surface. Freud puts
forward a concept of contact barriers and breaching. These he describes in terms of the figural
and the metaphoric - the breaching, the tracing of a
trail, the opening up of a conducting path. Violence,
the terrors, are inherent in this scene. In Freud's essay 'piece of wax and the three
analogies of writing', he describes an analogy between
a writing apparatus and the perceptual apparatus. Freud
considered writing as subservient to memory, an auxiliary,
external memory which is not memory itself.
the first analogy
"If I distrust my memory - neurotics,
as we know, do so to a remarkable extent, but normal
people have every reason for doing so as well - I am
able to supplement and guarantee (ergänzen
und versichern) its working
by making a note in writing (schriftliche
Anzeichnung). In that case
the surface upon which this trace is preserved, the
pocket-book or sheet of paper, is as it were a materialised
portion (ein materialisiertes
Stück) of my mnemonic
apparatus (des Erinnerungsapparates), the rest of which I carry about with me
invisible. I have only to bear in mind the place where
this "memory" has been deposited and I can
then "reproduce" it at any time I like, with
the certainty that it will have remained unaltered and
so have escaped the possible distortions to which it
might have been subjected in my actual memory".
A sheet of paper preserves indefinitely but is quickly
filled.
A blackboard (slate) can be erased, but
this does not preserve.
All traditional writing
surfaces have only either of these properties.
"an
unlimited receptive capacity and a retention of permanent
traces seem to be mutually exclusive". Auxiliary
apparatuses - spectacles , cameras, ear-trumpets, are
deficient when it comes to memory. Freud anticipated
that the answer (to his dreams) to this problem would
involve two systems or organs of the mental process
- 'A double system contained in a single apparatus.:
a perpetually available innocence and an infinite reserve
of traces".
The Mystic Pad is a slab of dark
brown resin or wax with a paper edging; over the slab
is laid a thin transparent sheet, the top end of which
is firmly secured to the slab while its bottom end rests
upon it without being fixed to it. This transparent
sheet is the more interesting part of the device. It
itself consists of two layers which can be detached
from each other except at their two ends. The upper
layer is a transparent layer of celluloid; the lower
layer is made of thin translucent waxed paper. When
the apparatus is not in use, the lower surface of the
waxed paper adheres to the upper surface of the waxed
slab.
To make use of the Mystic Pad, one writes
on the celluloid portion of the covering-sheet which
rests upon the wax slab. for this purpose no pencil
or chalk is necessary, since the writing does not depend
upon on material being deposited upon the receptive
surface. It is a return to the ancient method of writing
upon tablets of clay or wax: a pointed stylus scratches
the surface, the depressions upon which constitute the
'writing'. In the case of the Mystic pad this scratching
is not effected directly, but through the medium of
the covering-sheet. at the points which the stylus touches,
it presses the lower surface of the waxed paper on to
the wax slab, and the grooves are visible as dark writing
upon the otherwise smooth whiteish-gray surface of the
celluloid. if one wishes to destroy what has been written,
all that is necessary is to raise the double covering-sheet
from the wax slab by a light pull, starting from the
free lower end. The close contact between the waxed
paper and the wax slab at the places which have been
scratched (upon which the visibility of the writing
depended) is thus brought to an end and it does not
recur when the two surfaces come together once more.
The Mystic Pad is now clear of writing and ready to
receive fresh inscriptions.
The Mystic Pad can be
thought of as depth without bottom, an infinite allusion
,a stratification of surfaces. It connects infinite
depth in the implication of meaning and the skin-like
essence of being, the absolute absence of any foundation.
the second analogy
"if we lift the entire covering
sheet - both the celluloid and the waxed paper - off
the wax slab, the writing vanishes, and, as I have already
remarked, does not appear again. But it is easy to discover
that the permanent trace of what was written is retained
upon the wax slab itself and is legible in certain lights"
"This is precisely the way in which, according
to the hypothesis which I mentioned just now, our psychical
apparatus performs its perceptual function. The layer
which receives the stimuli - the system Pcpt.-Cs. -
forms no permanent traces; the foundations of memory
come about in other, supplementary, systems. Writing
supplements perception before perception even appears
to itself [is conscious of itself] "Memory"
or writing is the opening of that process of appearance
itself. the "perceived" may be read only in
the past, beneath perception and after it.
The blackboard
or the paper is an abstraction , a perceptual layer.
The Mystic writing pad represents the unconscious .
. . "I do not think it is too far-fetched to compare
the wax slab with the unconscious behind the system
Pcpt.-Cs."
The becoming-visible which alternates
with the disappearance of what is written would be the
flickering-up (Aufleuchten) and passing away (Vergehen) of consciousness in the process of perception..
the third analogy
The first and second analogies concern
themselves with the space of writing, its extension
and volume, reliefs and depressions. There is also the
time of writing - the wax slab has a temporal quality
- the three analogies of experience - permanence
- succession
- simultaneity
"But I must
admit that I am inclined to press the comparison still
further. On the Mystic Pad the writing vanished every
time the close contact is broken between the paper which
receives the stimulus and the wax slab which preserves
the impression. This agrees with a notion which I have
long had about the method in which the perceptual apparatus
of our mind functions, but which I have hitherto kept
to myself."
Freud links the withdrawal or removal
of the pen with the fading of consciousness. He compares
this to the feelers [antennae] which the unconscious
would stretch out to the external world, and the subsequent
retraction of these upon discovering a threat to the
unconscious. . . . . the note ends
"If we imagine
one hand writing upon the surface of the mystic writing
pad while another periodically raises its covering sheet
from the wax slab, we shall have a concrete representation
of the way in which I tried to picture the functioning
of the perceptual apparatus of our mind".
. . . . . . . . and fourthly
. . . Derrida's 'Envois' which make
up the first half of the Post cards consists of (love)
letters (or postcards), the fragmentary inscription
of forbidden love, which identify neither their author
nor their addressee . They are intense, passionate,
elliptical, elusive, impenetrable. They undermine our
confidence in our ability to read by refusing to indicate
how they are to be read, when they are coded to avoid
a possible censor, when they are ironic, when they allude
to 'reality'. They blur the boundaries between fact
and fiction. and in all these ways they constitute textual
performances (performatives) of desire.
. . . The 'Envois' are full of gaps.
They may be the remainders of a recently destroyed correspondence.
destroyed by fire or whirlwind, by the terrors. Names
withheld, identities confused, ciphers introduced to
protect the anonymity of the participants. fifty two
typographical spaces mark ellipses within the texts.
Who can say what is deleted, censored or repressed?
The existence of this correspondence assumes the separation
of the lovers.
The love letter demonstrates the
impossibility of communication as the transmission of
immediate, transparent meaning. Meaning and truth are
differed, disrupted by time differences and intervals
which interfere with transparency. No letter can reach
its destination. Much of the correspondence concerns
a lost letter, which was 'true'. It was returned to
the sender, never opened, but continues to haunt, even
dominate the relationship.
. . . . . . . . .writing
with a knife . . . . . . . . There is always a remainder,
left unwritten, off the card . . . . . . . . . they sometimes fail to
arrive, cards enframe . . . . . the posting interrogates the effect
of the letter . . . . . the message and the signature
are both meaningless, but readable, but the message
is poverty-stricken to all but the recipient. Its message
is open to all as it is posteddynamic [the message is postedstatic] . In this message - camouflaged in the sense,
is the censorship, the deletions, blanks and disguises of writing,[though
there is no code that is secret] addition . . . . .
repression,
veils, conceals, blinds the recipient and the author.
Umbrella Umbra, ambre solaire, factor 8 [facteur 8]
Le Facteur.
And back 7 to
the postcard. Writing is by definition 'posthumous'
- it lives on [post,] natal.
. . . .
. . . A written sign is proffered in the absence of
the receiver. how to style this absence? One could say
that at the moment I am writing, the receiver may be
absent from my field of present perception. But is this
absence merely a distant presence, one which is delayed,
or which, in one way or another, is idealised in its
representation? . . . . . . . . . A writing that is
not structurally readable - iterable -beyond the death
of the addressee would not be writing. . . . . . . .
. imagine a writing whose code would be so idiomatic
as to be established and known, as secret cipher, by
only two 'subjects'. Could we maintain that, following
the death of the receiver, or even of both partners,
the mark left by one of them is still writing?
This is a review of the background, environment, ambience
. . call it what you will of/for my work penser/poncer/panser. There
are still some questions about how these are absorbed
into the work. In Barthes' Sollers
writer there is a footnote
on page 30 . On the same page, sollers quotes wittgenstein's
remark that.
'The limits of my language are the
limits of my world', and adds 'These limits are grammatical
in so far as I want to remain within communication -
but I know that I shall really achieve communication
only if, by a breaking movement that has no return,
I am also the person who denies these limits, who by
this meaning reaches the pulsation of meaning.'
In PPP drama
and poem are words that are very close together. They
are 'doing', 'making', 'playing'. In the playing the
doing takes place within the story - the action is used
to form the narrative. the subject of the drama is the
beholder. In the poem, the making is done outside the
story, by the technician, the poet.
PPP is the record
9:;of
an event, the event being 'itself' a record 7 of
an event 8. To an extent it is not consecrated - it
is subject it to his own creation - but in so doing
contributes to its creation. It is also a game about
rejection 9 - sous
rature - where we must try to stop ourselves ; just
as we begin to 'read' it. The ;is the author of two
separate actions, separated by time, the action itself
and the writing it down - remembering , narrating. There
is no 'bad faith'. the narrator is completely absorbed
in telling the story. PPP
encourages these two ;'s to come together,
so that the psychology between them disappears.
The narrator no longer has to bring together what he
did in the past and is saying now. The telling of the
story cannot be entrusted to a personal pronoun. It
is narration itself that speaks the "it" is
of literature, not of a person. The two persons of the
narrative are separated merely by their order. In PPP the order
is ordained and not ordained. Only the beholder can
intrude. By reading, by looking. Too closely. Too close
a reading provokes a refusal to inherit readability.
an act of denial, a casting off of the natural acceptability
of the old texts. A cleaning of the palimpsest, a refusal
to let it read 'palimpsest'. It transfers concepts of
subject, reality, expression, description, story, meaning
to the figural. It calls into question the role of representation
in writing. As writing has modelled itself on painting
- stories, descriptions, portraits, PPP
casts around for the eschatological -
what happens when the thought (or the desire) of a particular
goal goes beyond the present moment, beyond immediate
calculations. It refers you to the idea of a much more
distant goal than a tactical or strategic one: a goal
that the writer perceives in his solitude. PPP casts writing out, substituting
instead the "feature", moving backwards and
forwards 8
7 from the page to the canvas
[object]. Instead of the "voice" there is
this movement, this action, the continual movement which
negates the role of author. It is no longer possible
to put a person behind the writing. You cannot "see"
the author. You are blinded. The imagery has left the
writing, the writer and the reader the same. They are
lost in a mirror of mirrors in which it is impossible
to see the mirrors. The movement creates a no-go area,
a frontier-land lawlessness,, a scene of a place so
bleak that no palimpsest can survive. A land scoured
even of a real language, what language there is nourished
by cracks, stains, breaches, gaps, chasms. PPP is half spoken
word, half writing [writing which is spoken - the exact
opposite of spoken words written down]. The discourse
is set in motion by contacts, by relays. The words,
the sounds, the letters reflect the physical qualities
of the voice. but not the "expressive" . PPP frees itself
from its author. 'By detaching my name I free (discontinue)
myself'. Composition, rhetoric, development, memory
(length). Has none of these [ but a secret plan? a game?]
. The text sets out, it cannot "get there".
The author does not wait to see the effect of what has
been uttered : he does not keep watch over the reader.
Something to do with the sublime, with Burke's notion
of terror . One Terror for the seeing is the blindness.
The madness of the day, the blindness of the day. The
irrational nature of the outrageous terror. How do the
word and the image fair under the terrors? Tell me.
poncer panser
pensée [ penser ]
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