Our short but longer proposal...

In the following pages we present one of Page Pavlov’s two research proposals: The Wind Rose of Success, an instruction manual for its use and a commentary on a homonym text by Walter Benjamin.

The theme of this work is twofold. On the one hand we confront Benjamin’s historical reading and on the other hand some consequences we can draw from its application on the present contemporary situation. The core of the work, which can also be seen as the passage between this two main concerns is constituted by Die Windrose des Erfolges, a short piece he wrote in 1932 and which literally helps to orient the present considerations.

1. Benjamin’s historical reading

Although the dense magma of Benjamin’s writing remains open to sporadic excursions which have no interest in spanning the entire oeuvre of the philosopher and that often even condemn such attempts in Benjamin’s name and for his sake, certainly there have been as many philosophical efforts to investigate ‘his thought’, ‘his concerns’, ‘his method’, ‘his philosophy’. Among the latter, several (messianic and/or materialistic) interpretations of ‘Benjamin’ immediately developed, thanks to Adorno, Scholem and Arendt, just to name some of the most influential authors who also shared Benjamin’s friendship. In a letter he wrote to Scholem on the 26th of July 1932 we read about a Privatdozent who picked Benjamin’s Der Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels for one of his semester seminars: it was the young Adorno.

Between dialectical materialism and messianism, the last years witnessed the development of some deconstructionist readings of Benjamin’s oeuvre which seems to culminate in ulterior attempts at deciphering, already in Benjamin, a more or less clear deconstructive attitude. In this provisional context it may suffice to mention Werner Hamacher, Samuel Weber and Sigfried Weigel among others. Derrida’s La force de loi, critical of Benjamin’s Zur Kritik der Gewalt, and the sole complex study Derrida dedicated to him, probably slowed down but could not prevent the assimilation process of Benjamin as one of the forefathers of deconstruction.

To a certain extent, the present research proposal might be interpreted as a confrontation of Benjamin’s reading with deconstruction, starting from the assumption that Benjamin did confront themes that deconstruction will address more systematically later. One might think again of Zur Kritik der Gewalt (which, not surprisingly, poses great difficulties, also to Derrida) and the 1934 essay on Franz Kafka.

Observing Derrida and Agamben’s confrontation surrounding Kafka’s short piece Vor dem Gesetz, we also encompass a tradition of thought on Benjamin’s work. For summary’s sake, we could refer here to two different concepts of citationality: the idea of suspensive profanation plays in Agamben the role that différance plays in Derrida. We have therefore also two different concepts of justice: where Derrida will affirm (just as he confronts Benjamin) that deconstruction (the movement of différance) is justice, Agamben comes to the conclusion that only in suspension, in interruption, can justice be instantiated. Unequivocally both philosophers refer to movement/s (be it plural or singular, Nancy would have the last word here: singulier pluriel) precluding an alternative (which not even Levinas’ Autre seems to provide): either différance triggers the movement or suspension interrupts it; in either cases all references are to the all-encompassing movement.

This ‘movement’ and a stronger formulation of it in all its variations, seems to have connected Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida. This very movement – and this is the presumably strong thesis of the present work – was addressed and also opposed by Benjamin’s work. It was actually identified as “eine Überlieferung, die Katastrophe ist.” The interruption of the movement must be accompanied by a positive, propositive otherness, so that revolution does not simply mean to interrupt the movement but also interrupt it ‘positively’. Benjamin’s studies on dialectical images, illuminations, thought-images are all dedicated to provide this positivity. The meeting between theology and materialism which we meet in all these representative images is turned towards such positivity.

Before skipping to the next part, we will help the reader to visualize the present argument with an image: Tradition might mean the carrying over of the spoils. But such transmission implies their reactualisation every time anew including therefore change, revisitation, contamination. However ‘liberal’ this vision may be, it focuses on the ‘victors’ who transmit their conquests generation after generation (or second after second). From a deconstructive perspective temporality gets enclosed so that second after second is already in the second; the victor must necessarily also be the victim; différance is already in sameness. The ‘victimisation’ of the victor and the ‘victorification’ of the victim do not diminish the argument, indeed strengthen the thesis that such tradition means ‘the tradition following the victors.’ Such fate or destiny would after all but mirror the Heideggerian Unverborgenheit of Being/Truth, where Nietzsche’s impasse already moves towards the différance or aporia between master and slave.

And yet one might give another reading of tradition, following which any ‘reactualisation’ of the spoils would not do justice to the spoils and to the way they ‘talk’ and ‘express themselves.’ They may well be carried over but their ‘voice’ is independent from this carrying over. And this voice would be intimately bound with the oppressed. Their timing in coming to expression would also be totally independent from such carrying over. In this respect, the revolutionary action would certainly imply (1) the interruption of the carrying over but more importantly (2) listening to this voice. One might easily imagine a deconstructive reply. In fact – the argument would run – if the transmission of the spoils is intentionality-based, nonetheless any intention ultimately cannot be disjoined from its unconscious ghost, some sort of im/possible thing-in-itself that deconstructs it. One could likewise also think of the spoils’ voice as the non-intended other which then would be preserved within intentionality. And yet this voice would still be bound and nested within the intention as its inscribed other and ultimately reduced to the différance from the intention – its otherness would be irreducibly reduced: its voice – even where (necessarily) admitted, would not be heard. Exactly the extent of this ‘openness’ to alterity is what makes of such openness the greatest danger, since it implies its most convolute reduction.

Theology and materialism work together for the conceiving of a constellation where such otherness would appear in dialectical images. Therefore, Benjamin’s historical reading means first of all hearing these voices and their traditions: the history of the nameless (or das Gedächtnis der Namenlosen). They don’t have any other relation to their being carried over than a history of violence. To acknowledge such violence and fight against it is a clear demand.

2. Application of Benjamin’s historical reading to the contemporary situation

Having tried to elucidate the relation of the themes in the present work with the history of philosophy, and the way they contextualize themselves in the more or less academic controversies (that is the mobilizations they produce and in which they fit, at once), the second part of this introduction will shortly address that which is more historically needed in the present work. This implies a concrete application of Benjamin’s historical reading to the contemporary situation.

To this aim we will need some sort of transposition of the above mentioned controversy. The hypothesis is that our time is ‘deconstructive’ and deconstruction can help us to read the mediatic nature of quite a long time-span: from the beginning of the European fascist movements of the XX Century to the present times.

One of the first consequences drawn from Benjamin’s argument involves the conception of power, a term that achieves its greatest relevance in the history of philosophy with Foucault. Certainly, although the position taken here diverges from the one the French philosopher adopted, by ‘power’ we understand Foucault’s areas of interpretation of it. Through Benjamin we suggest here to substitute success for power. Only the former seems to correspond more pertinently to an idea of power which is first of all mediatic and deconstructive.

The choice of success rather than the more established term power, far from being a simple stylistic preference, helps us to show the distance we take from any a-historical theory of omni-comprehensive power. Indeed the phenomenon of success is contemporary large-scale and our attempt at imagining it does not imply that we share the assumption that there is no alternative or no other grasp on the state of things. Actually our aim is to present other possible memories and histories which not only disconnect themselves from power but do it positively. In other terms: here lies the difference between (1) thinking of power as a developmental force of periodical change and then enforcement between paradigms and (2) thinking of power as success, that means as a contemporary phenomenon: a contemporary paradigm.

Our assumption is not only that we can do without this contemporary paradigm of success, disconnect ourselves from it and still have plenty of positive images and realities, but also that that is what actually must be done if we want to arrive to such images and realities. To mark here once more the same distance, we can add that deciphering the living traits of a tradition is different from trying to encompass the paradigmatic system of a time. Although the two procedures are apparently similar, the clarificatory, resentful attitude manifested in the latter and the obscuring passion hidden in the former are clear symptoms of a deep conceptual difference; it is the same difference which also lies between dialectical images and genealogical studies. Where the former break the paradigm apart to reach living traditions, the latter seems to be willing to shape paradigms on the basis of limits, of negative determinations.

Success is the paradigm we propose for the contemporary times. The term success constitutes itself at a precise distance from and in dialogue with Nietzsche-Foucault’s lineage on the one hand and with Nietzsche-Heidegger-Derrida’s on the other hand. Our aim then is to deal with this ‘paradigm’ through historical reading, going by a wind-rose of success: positively breaking such paradigm apart in order to imagine revolutionary potentials and rescue sparkles of memory in the very same elements that are otherwise successful and paradigmatic.

Here also, before skipping to mention some insights into the logic of success, we will help the reader to visualize the present argument with an image: a Broadway show perfects in its entirety and complexity living traditions which get spoiled of their inner sense. Great studies and performances are senselessly piled up for sale so that their commercialization deprives them of any living, revolutionary potential. And yet the machine and budget of Broadway production lives on these feasts. To believe in Broadway’s logic would not be of any help. To understand it, on the other hand, would be helpful although not decisive. Instead, a study of the defeated traditions which imbue the show and foster it, while resisting it, suffering from it, keeps alive revolutionary energies. The language (the performances, the show) is certainly the same, but how different! The language of success is in no way different from the language of the oppressed, but how different! To listen to the voice of the oppressed in the language of success means to break the show and the paradigm to rescue living traditions. This requires more obscurity than clarity, less understanding and more reading.

Nonetheless helpful but not decisive insights into the logic of success take up a large part of the present work. Following the logic of re/nommée (cfr. renown), one can discern the deconstructive stakes in success and also the twisting point in which history and language get intertwined in a paradigmatic way. The mediatic process constitutes, through renommée, the ‘ontology’ of the characters, prescribing them their fate. Going by a process of deconstruction, not only of ontology, but more importantly of history and language, the media subsume the latter in renommée, so that the ultimate principle is mediatic and this determines only itself.

Following the principle of renommée the becoming name of the word can be seen. Indeed it seems that the word becomes renown (mediatic) only thanks to its patenting/copyright. Such renommée certainly has huge implications, but it would be wrong to accept certain easy reductions of bio-politics, following which power would have inner control over our bios. It is rather our name that only becomes a name as renown (following the logic of success rather than power); it also means that there is no control over our ontology, rather the media substitute every ontological criteria on the evaluation scale. If there might have previously been a collapse of power and ontology in every applied paradigm, the present age dismisses this stage entering the media time: differences, multiplicities are not set aside rather, like the great span of language/history are brought back to their mediatic principle in renommée. So that, for example, ontology is neither denied nor directly controlled or determined, rather it happens mediatically in re/nommée.

In this perspective the identity card is an anachronistic instrument of renommée. In the same way words are archaic embodiments of pixels and other unities. Their emptiness betrays this state of things where the digital still pretends being analogical, and pixels pretend being words. Actually we only confront names (in renommée). This fact is confirmed, for example, by translation engines, by the proliferation of corporations’ brands in their endless names or also by user names. Statistics and administration are mediatic rulers, as Baudrillard and Luhmann have already taught us.

It seems, to provide a key example, that the translation engine is already substituting grammars to establish the correctness of a sentence. Only when the sentence is clear (taking into account emotional, cognitive and moral contents) and therefore can be translated, is it correct. This is a clear example of the sealing value of the name in the word: it’s translatability and renommée.

We are then confronting a reality which would correspond to a deconstructive reading. Such a reality probably constituted one of the main areas of work and interest for Benjamin in the ´30ies as he was thinking of a book on Kafka. Contemporarily he was working on another form of reading, since his 1921 ´divine violence´ to the dialectical image of the later years. Mentioning the word ´word´ above we are already referring to another perspective which we aim to explore by recourse to Benjamin´s notions of: hope, happiness, translation, character, comedy and tradition.

Indeed the present work aims at presenting an ´instrument´ for such alternative reading of history, language and the media, an instrument which should allow us a positive journey through our time image – not only of suspending a deconstructive attitude, but also presenting another reading reality.

We hope to provide the reader with several good reasons to embrace the thesis presented here, acknowledging the dangers that are implied and, hearing those voices still waiting to be heard but also ever heard, actively moving towards a historical reading which could awake revolutionary powers.

From a stylistic point of view, this project would have the form of a commentary on or, more precisely: an instruction manual for Benjamin’s Windrose des Erfolges which I believe can constitute – much better than a compass – an aid to navigation. Certainly historical considerations of the contemporary situation will not be straightforwardly evinced from the Windrose, and yet it will be literally used as a wind-rose in this journey.

3. The Wind Rose of Success

After the two previous sections, methodological outlines of the philosophical thesis presented here, this third and last part of the work introduces the reader to the real object, the content of this study, the short piece Die Windrose des Erfolges, of which the present work aims at being a commentary (more precisely, an instruction manual). In fact the contents of the first two parts of this proposal will not be explicitly addressed in different sections of the work, rather I hope to lead to a confluence of the themes treated there with the commentary on the Windrose.

Our belief is that the short note on the Windrose with the different drafts and some first preparatory sketches, the drawing Benjamin made of it and some other short texts more or less explicitly related, offer a precious entrance to the idea of historical reading he elaborated and applied. And yet, as it is always the case with Benjamin, methodological considerations are immediately imbued with historical contents. As already mentioned in the second part of the proposal, the concept of success plays a key role; the contraposition between character and destiny also represents a basic dichotomy for our considerations while the choice of a wind rose rather than a compass allows us to think immediately of one of the first methodological notes in Convolute N in the Passagenwerk, where he admits of being much more interested in time-disturbances in navigation than in the successful accomplishment of the journey. After all the Windrose is a metonym, and like metonyms in general, it is the figure of a disturbance in language.

We might try to imagine the Windrose as a compass for historical reading – with the important difference that it cannot be a compass but, to the aim, must indeed be a wind rose. As someone could study the logic of thinking, or more profanely learn a manual for good-writing, be it the philosopher searching for the basics and legitimation of thought or the tourist memorizing “How to learn Spanish in ten days”, we confront the wind rose as a ‘historical transcendental’, a cipher, an image for learning historical reading.

The Windrose des Erfolges was first published in the Ibizenkische Folge, a collection of short pieces Benjamin wrote/assembled during his stay on Ibiza in the spring/summer 1932 and then published in the Frankfurter Zeitung Nr. 410-411, on the 4th of June 1932. A drawing of it was made for Marietta Noeggerath or just eventually addressed to her, in Ibiza on the 17th of May 1932. Presumably around end 1929 he wrote Zu den Thesen über Erfolg which follow with Zur Lehre vom Erfolg a piece Benjamin published in the Frankfurter Zeitung on the 22th of September 1928: Der Weg zum Erfolg in dreizehn Thesen. The connection of the above pieces with the Einbahnstraße is testified to by many letters Benjamin wrote in those years. A fascinating testimony (among many others) for Benjamin’s early questioning of his interest on related subjects (an interest which started long before and probably never abandoned him), which is also extremely important for our argument, is provided by a letter Benjamin wrote to Hugo von Hofmannsthal on the 13th January 1924. Neither here nor in the work will it be possible to provide the reader with all the links between this subject and the rest of Benjamin’s oeuvre, since they are virtually everywhere. The abundance of references the few lines of the Windrose mention makes it equally impossible now to name any other subjects and texts.

Some of the above pieces, which only recently first appeared in German – cfr. Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften: Werke und Nachlaß. Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Band 8: Einbahnstraße, (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2009) – as far as my knowledge goes, have not been translated into any other language yet. Texts and original translations of some pieces will be provided here.

The reader will find in this work an instruction manual for the wind rose of success. S/he knows by now why this dissertation will certainly be an unusual commentary: we will use the Windrose to orient ourselves in contemporary times; meanwhile we hope that a commentary on the short piece will emerge besides.

Addendum, 1:

The Wind Rose of Success

No convictions			Success at the price of all convictions Normal case of success Chichikov or the impostor The man without a name		Success
Lack of success at the price of all convictions Genius case of lack of success Schlemihl or The man without a shadow		Don Quixote. The man of one conviction Indifference to both		Success by accepting every conviction Genius case of success Svejk or the saboteur The man without a face
Lack of success			Lack of success by accepting every conviction Normal case of lack of success Bouvard et Pécuchet or the philistine The man without a head		Every conviction
For Mrs. Marietta Noeggerath San Antonio 17 May 1932 Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin Archive. Bilder, Texte, Zeichen, (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2006), bearbeitet von: Ursula Marx, Gudrun Schwarz, Michael Schwarz, Erdmut Wizisla, p. 194.

Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften: Werke und Nachlaß. Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Band 8: Einbahnstraße, (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2009), pp. 206, 207.

Addendum, 2:

An Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 13.01.1924:

„So versucht ich vor Jahren, die alten Worte Schicksal und Charakter aus der terminologischen Fron zu befreien. (...) Aber gerade dieser Versuch verrät mir heute auf das klarste, welchen, unbewältigt in ihm verbliebnen, Schwierigkeiten jeder derartige Vorstoß begegnet. Dort nämlich wo die Einsicht sich unzureichend erweist, den erstarrten Begriffspanzer wirklich zu lösen, wird sie, um in die Barbarei der Formelsprache nicht zurückzufallen, sich versucht finden, die sprachliche und gedankliche Tiefe, die in der Intention solcher Untersuchungen liegt, nicht sowohl auszuschachten als zu erbohren. (…) Sollte ich, wie es angezeigt wäre, auf die Probleme jener früheren Arbeit zurückkommen, so würde ich den Frontalangriff auf sie kaum mehr wagen, sondern, wie ich es mit dem ‚Schicksal‘ in der Wahlverwandtschaftenarbeit hielt, den Dingen in Exkursen begegnen. (…) Heute läge es mir am nächsten, von der Seite der Komödie her sie zu beleuchten.“

An Gershom Scholem, 4. Februar 1939:

„Wie dem nun immer sei - ich denke mir, dem würde der Schlüssel zu Kafka in die Hände fallen, der der jüdischen Theologie ihre komischen Seiten abgewönne.“

Multiple identity as politicised lifestyle choice

The post below is copied over from my livejournal (the blog where I talk mostly to my goth-geek circle of friends from Cambridge). But it probably deserves a disclaimer: it isn't about the comics.

I mean, I'd love to turn you all on to the subversive, counter-cultural glory of the British Invasion of comics in the 1980s. Here the radicals seized the means of distribution in a way rarely seen before or since. Anarchist gnostic Alan Moore led the trend, followed by the more emotionally-oriented Neil Gaiman and the punk mysticism of Grant Morrison


Before them, comics were replete with American patriotism, obedience to authority, and the resolution of problems by sheer muscular force. Somehow this group replaced that with anarchism, rebellion, and constant deconstruction of identity. And the public loved it -- it's hard to imagine how many teenage eyes must have been opened by this new breed of comics.

But, as I say, that's a side issue. What I [sic] really want to talk about is the political value of assumed identity. It seems ridiculous for me to preach about it -- I'm one of the few activists who has never managed to settle behind a pseudonym. Still, it seems the perfect path by which to resist surveillance, without vanishing into the cliquey cul-de-sac of total secrecy.

So, let me ask those of you who have pseudonyms here:

• How did you choose to become, for instance, Belvino?


• Does it affect how you write or behave, in contrast to using your 'real' name?


• How do you deal with the inevitable situations where contexts collapse, and your pseudonymous identity is confronted with your other personality?

Now, that post...

I've never been good at pseudonyms, collective identities, self-reinvention. Nonmetheless, I consider them a Good Thing at a fundamental level. Your identity, or mine, is the accretion of social conformism, gender roles, the acceptance of our own position in society. You can try to unpick it, layer by layer, but the chances are you'll never get to a 'real you'.

Or you can take the shortcut: choose another identity, put it on, change it once it's no longer useful. Be Luther Blissett, be Spartacus. Be your friends, or your enemies, or some combination of them all.

Laurie Penny just gave a wonderful interview, where she defends political action without a true name:

Anonymous is its own separate thing, an anarchic and brilliant thing, but the wider concept of anonymity itself as a political statement - whether online or offline - is gaining more and more ground as a way of rebelling against a political culture that not only seeks to root out unsavory elements with surveillance but which mandates individuality as a form of rigid conformity. Think about it: it you grow up being commanded to self-actualise, to be the best individual you can be, to define yourself by buying things, to be yourself and find your special centre and compete with your neighbors and colleagues, then choosing to be anonymous is an inherently revolutionary act, quite apart from the organising possibilities the phenomenon offers. Plus, there’s a growing sense that there is a great deal of power in the collective, in sharing a sense of solidarity, symmetry and protection in anonymity.

It's perhaps not a coincidence that Laurie writes this in an interview with a comics blog. If there's one area that comics have picked over in every possible regard, it's the secondary identity. Start with a world that has Clark Kent/Superman as the mainstream, where almost every hero wears a mask or leads a double life. Then in the 80s, along come Alan Moore and friends, devote their considerable talents to picking apart every aspect of the superhero identity. The Guy Fawkes mask now identifying Anonymous is just the smallest part of this.

The climax of this tendency, to my mind, is Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. A cell of superpowered freedom fighters draw their personalities by lot; each necessary identity is filled by a different person each week. Characters live under layers of assumed identities, brainwashing themselves at each level to forget the next layer. Heroes and villains turn out to be the same groups, veiling their consciousness in order to play out their roles. The end result is reminiscent of, say, Shaiva Tantrism. By the end, it seems that everybody is part of the same identity: a character in a dream, a player in a video-game, the 'fiction suit' with which God walks the earth, or part of a hyper-dimensional being.

Yes, this is part plot device, part stoner esoterica. But it's also a guide to discarding the unwanted parts of your past, and to acting as a group not based on prior hierarchies. And, as Laurie suggests, to dodging surveillance. When government and corporations devote so much energy to tracking and correlating our behaviour, it becomes almost a matter of duty to thow a spanner in the works. That is to adopt some identity not linked to a passport and a birth certificate. To dream a fiction suit, be it, share it, discard it, and move on to the next identity.

Nazi without Nazis

The 64th Cannes film festival threw Lars Von Trier out yesterday (May 20th, 2011). Until now, Trier had long been the festivals’ daring darling, with over 20 personal award nominations and 6 wins for various tasks from directing to technics (not to mention those of his actors, etc.). What kind of policing power does Cannes embody in its act of expulsion; or perhaps more pertinently, what do Trier’s statements signify?
I happen to watch the entire video of the “Melancholia” press conference, where Trier offered his quasi-confessional Nazi sympathies in a long-winded attempt at making fun of the superficial hype surrounding the release of his Hollywood-esque film. All over the news the excerpts seem to speak for themselves. Viewers watch them stupefied— with relief: he declares himself a Nazi openly and repeatedly (not unlike some children shit in their pants). Shocked? Have you seen and loved his films, or did you simply enjoy the new nihilist fad in which laughter, however shallow and weak, sadistic and sad, wears a uniform, waving a flag?
Immediately, I knew this was a publicity stunt: Trier, the bad (film/cow) boy shooting off at the smoke-screens of status quo Hollywood-ism. (Yes, Cannes is something else, but not enough something else.) While Trier’s films were already popular, esp. “Breaking the Waves,” “Dancer in the Dark,” “Dogville,” etc., after the 11 million spent to make “Antichrist,” it grossed millions less than expected. Let’s say that it’s not unlikely that Trier needs the (big) money, which as we know is counted per click or per head (not per insight or word). What’s better than days of front page news for free advertising to match Hollywood’s own? And what other choice is there to compete—how else can one get that kind of coverage?
If you answer this all too un-rhetorical question you can also see how the statement converges with suicidal historical attempts in more way than one. Trier has likely miscalculated if the comments were meant as a publicity stunt, as they arguably appear to be; not only because the Argentinean distributor of “Melancholia” has dropped the film and even less due to being kicked out of Cannes, but rather because even if the infamy spelled big bucks for the now (as it is still likely to do), in the long run he has shot himself in more than a foot in terms of Hollywood-esque financial success.
Now, after the preliminaries, we should ask head-on what is going on with Trier’s remarks, which he repeats, poignantly: first, saying twice, “I am a Nazi.”
I spent the night thinking about this comment of his. Actually two nights. Not because I like his work in particular, but because I am interested in the history of the Holocaust and its contemporary legacy. Also, I was profoundly stunned by my reaction to Trier’s statements: I laughed, along with the progressively mortified K. Dunst and the shocked, giggling press. Second, I could not place his remarks: something about them simply didn’t work.
Trier’s work is marked by visual sadism (a concept that surely requires greater clarification elsewhere; suffice it to say here I mean it outside any BDSM related context): that is, the strongest effect of the films tend to be psycho/emotional torture, undeniably from “Breaking the Waves” to “Antichrist.” Hearing the plot of “Dogville” is enough - before sustained feminist analysis, out of basic defensive experiential considerations.
The point is that there is nothing surprising in itself, when Trier admits to being a Nazi. Nazism certainly is a precise and definite historical movement, which should not be quoted in vain, and yet the reference to “Nazi” reawakens a laughing terror in front of a sneaky consideration: what made Nazism “Nazism” (that is: the name of horror for antonomasia) could not actually be dead and buried in the bunker where Hitler died if a director at Cannes is still suffering, he says, from the same pain.
It was clear from the beginning to anyone who thought about Trier’s work that many of its elements were marked by sadistic extremes verging on annihilation, a clear hatred of life wherever it would pulse with hope —but, and this is a giant but—the work did not evoke thought, it blocked it, sufficiently enough to turn away from any intellectual content and be torn apart psychologically by the experience. But why, one should ask?
Before we tackle this question, we should look at the status of his statement as such: the status of the declaration made in the context of a Cannes press conference by an important director: I am a Nazi. After the disturbed and disturbing laughter that follows such a declaration (due to its absurdity and incongruence) the statement settles and leaves a trace.
This trace demands to be thought. It must considered on its own terms, in a context, a culture, a civilization and last and most importantly: history. A statement such as this is irreducible on the following counts: 1. It is made. 2. It is made in a particular context. 3. It refers to a specific history. Let’s examine these irreducibilities step by step.
First of all, there is something particular about this statement that takes time to see, after the knee-jerk revulsion abates and allows thought to re-emerge, bringing horror out of the coldness of what language can do. The statement is a contradiction.
This throws us without return into the second element outlined above. Whether or not Nazis admitted to each other or outsiders being Nazis historically, a Nazi today, which Trier claimed (twice) to be [he claimed it today] does not admit to being a Nazi, certainly not publicly. This has not only to do with the repercussions such statements can bring in certain realms (which are more associated with publicity) but with the fact that a Nazi today, and I would argue historically as well, is not interested in debating his position in language, instead he acts through violence.
Trier’s films have been interesting precisely in this respect: as non-physical, mediatic acts of violence. Someone once described them to me as psychological rape (- or perhaps that was Matthew Barney’s films). The question is not why someone would make such films, which is easy enough to explain, but why they are loved. And I say loved and not liked or watched or praised intentionally, although all of the latter verbs apply as well.
Trier’s films have been loved not despite his “Nazism” – that is their non-physical violence – but for it, of course. Because so-called “Westerners,” though in fact, I mean the majority of citizens from “economically developed countries” have a guilty conscience. However, the guilt will take more than digesting a few virtually nervous breakdown-evoking films, however cathartic this may appear to some, to address.
The question of violence, physical and psychological, visual and invisible, historical and cultural, imposes itself with the greatest of urgencies. Trier’s films, as well as his inflammatory statements, can be credited with bringing this question into a cultural midst where superficiality dominates, even if he himself cannot.
Who can understand Hitler? Infamously, as quoted in every webpage, Trier said he can. If taken seriously, Trier should be asked to explain Hitler more so than himself. But for too many global citizens, the question is moot, more often than not below the level of consciousness. It was not a minority of Germans who understood Hitler, as is so well documented and rejected by turns. Hitler did not cast a magic spell on Germans in order to elicit their cooperation. The history of not only National Socialism, but also its continuing aftermath has yet to be thought genuinely on a wider scale.
Cannes’ expulsion of Trier signifies not their allegiance to the victims of the Holocaust, numerous as they are, and having little to nothing to do with Israel as a whole except by Nazi logic, but their potential allegiance in the perpetuation of the crime of non-thought which pervades economically developed culture(s) and society(ies), enabling global collaboration of monstrous oppression.
Our monsters are not those who understand Hitler, but those who refuse to understand how Hitler and their own daily activity contribute to mass oppression, (self-)destruction and death. It is unlikely that Trier intended to incite this thought directly and does not deserve much more credit than to take him seriously, something that is being diverted by the press and anti-Semitic discourse in all quarters of the globe.
What is interesting and worthy of note is less Trier’s comments in which he insisted on being a Nazi and understanding Hitler, and Cannes consequent expulsion of its darling bad boy, but the relation of culture and work in which violence insistently, if indirectly, plays the major role; as well as what passes under the surface of applause and behind the fake smiles of producers and consumers worldwide refusing to engage with a work only after trigger-statements no longer allow the denial of what has been going on under our nose all along.
Although at this point the controversy will likely spell even greater financial disaster for Trier’s work, it could be a great move for whatever creative elements may move alongside the visual violence constituting his films. And what will decide our fate as a whole on the planet we share is not whether Cannes expulses a director for spurious Nazi claims (notwithstanding the importance of taking political stands), but how the living breathing history of disaster is addressed and subverted. Nazism is more than a relevant topic today when the heart of Europe rages with racist violence, physical and psychological.

21.05.: Demo gegen Naziübergriffe

21.05.: Demo gegen Naziübergriffe
Im Zuge des von Antifas erfolgreich verhinderten Neonaziaufmarsches am Samstag, den 14. Mai 2011 in Berlin-Kreuzberg griff eine große Gruppe Neonazis vier auf dem Boden sitzende Gegendemonstranten an. Diese vier Jugendlichen wurden offenbar gezielt ausgewählt, da sie deutlich in der Unterzahl waren und aufgrund ihrer sitzenden Position keine Gegenwehr zu erwarten war.

>>>Insbesondere für die Vorfälle im U-Bahnhof und auf dem Mehringdamm werden ZeugInnen gesucht. Wir bitten alle ZeugInnen sich beim Ermittlungsausschuss zu melden unter: Telefon: 030/692 2222 oder per Mail: ea-berlin@riseup.netDiese E-Mail Adresse ist gegen Spam Bots geschützt, Du musst Javascript aktivieren, damit du sie sehen kannst Die Sprechstunde findet immer Dienstags von 20 bis 22 Uhr statt.

Antifaschistische Gruppen werfen der Berliner Polizei im Nachgang Desinformationspolitik und Vertuschung vor und wollen nun selber die Täter beim Namen nennen. Auf der Seite www.antifa-berlin.de findet man ein Dossier, indem anhand von Fotos diverse Situationen aufzeigt. Ausserdem wird klar belegt, wer die Angreifer sind.

La Rosa dei Venti, 4

1) Il copyright, come diritto di copia, sarebbe del tutto superfetativo in un contesto ove l’autenticità dell’originale non fosse questionata.

2) Infatti, ben prima di salvaguardare i diritti di copia in un contenuto in cui la possibilità di riproduzione aumenta esponenzialmente, il copyright sposta il carattere ontologico ed economico dell’‘oggetto riprodotto’ in carattere prettamente mediatico.

3) Stabilire il diritto di copia non si caratterizza come un procedimento additivo all’oggetto in sé, piuttosto significa stabilire il diritto di ri/produrlo. Come la rinomanza, anche la riproduzione è caratterizzata da due momenti (il momento produttivo ed il momento riproduttivo) che non possono essere scinti.

4) Nella valenza mediatica della ri/produzione confluiscono sia ontologia che economia. Sarebbe erroneo pensare che la realtà mediatica divenga ontologica ed economica (in qualsivoglia visione utopica o apodittica) o che possa sostituire tali realtà. La realtà mediatica (o virtuale) solo apparentemente ambisce a sostituire la realtà ontologica. In realtà le si pone accanto alterandone la valenza, come la riproduzione si accosta alla produzione: la realtà ontologica diventa allora mediatica “in se stessa.” In altri termini: l’essere non smette d’essere, ma esiste soltanto mediaticamente. Non comprenderne a fondo la valenza, può risultare fatale.

5) Ontologia ed economia continuano a sussitere soltanto mdiaticamente nel copyright.

6) L’altro polo del diritto di ri/produzione è l’invenzione.

7) Se il bottino di guerra nel processo culturale poteva esser considerato un accumulamento di oggetti autentici che fossero contemporaneamente preservati ed abusati, il bottino di guerra mediatico è l’informazione: sempre e soltanto una questione di copyright. Significa il diritto di riproduzione ed accesso alla rinomanza. Significa anche sigillare la rinomanza: il nome nella parola.

8) La costituzione del nome nella parola: la sua rinomanza, è il dominio mediatico del copyright.

9) Le implicazioni della componente mediatica in qualsiasi ontologia emerge considerando l’aspetto del brevetto nel copyright. Quest’ultima non potrebbe essere imposta su alcun ritrovamento ontologico. Eppure la ‘natura’ mediatica ella scoperta è l’in/venzione. Il sigillo mediatico è appunto il brevetto che viene posto sull’invenzione [inventare/trovare].

10) In questa prospettiva non vi è ninete che non possa essere brevettato perché non vi è essere che non sia mediatico. Si è mediaticamente.

11) Il nome è un arcaico strumento per il copyright. La carta d’identità sancisce il diritto di copia sulla persona o la ‘natura’ mediatica dell’individuo. Se inizilamente aveva potuto sembrare uno strumento biopolitico di determinazione ed identificazione, infatti sancisce la veste mediatica della perosna. Di qui l’inquietudine che si ha guardando vecchie carte d’identità che si appellano ad una sistematizzazione tanto anacronistica come le misure del corpo, i colori e l’immagine del volto della persona.

12) Tutto ciò che porti seco un senso storico o temporale, ogni residuo mnemonico, deve venire abolito nel coyright che mantiene inalterato soltanto se stesso e nessun dato contingente che minacci la mediaticità.

13) In tal senso il nome sulla cartà d’identità, l’arcano della rinomanza rivela nel suo ‘corpo’, nella sua ‘nudità’, un anacronismo. La rinomanza privilegia infiniti pseudonimi o microchips.

14) L’immagine digitale è un ottimo esempio d’in/venzione. Indica, oltre la riproducibilità, immediatamente la medialità. In tal senso, dove il copyright aderisce alla riproducibilità, il brevetto esprime direttamente la medialità del digitale.

La Rosa dei Venti, 3

1) La parola diventa nome quand’ha successo: diviene rinomata.

2) Nel fenomeno della rinomanza il nome diventa tale. Questo accade attraverso un processo che parallelamente dicostruisce stabili dicotomie quali: mittente/destinatario, privato/pubblico, segreto/aperto...

3) Il nome è il mittente, privato, segreto della rinomanza, cioè del destinatario, pubblico ed aperto. La loro inscindibilità è il segreto della ri/nomanza.

4) Rinomati non sono né la produzione né l’ascolto, piuttosto la comunicazione mediatica è essa stessa rinomanza. Il copyright qui non è l’indice di possesso del messaggio da parte del mittente o del destinatario; esso è il farsi nome della parola nel messaggio.

5) Il copyright sigilla la rinomanza. È il nome stesso della rinomanza: l’arcano.

6) Il copyright non indica quindi la proprietà del nome da parte di un qualsiasi soggetto, piuttosto il successo del nome stesso: la sua rinomanza: ivi confluiscono mittente e destinatario, offerente e consumatore in/differentemente.

7) Ontologicamente, offerente e consumatore partecipano equalmente nella rinomanza, e nel copyright che la sigilla.

8) Solo il copyright stabilisce quando una parola diviene nome.

9) La carta d’identità è una forma primitiva di copyright. Con essa il soggetto cede i propri diritti personali, ‘soggettivi’, al successo della rinomanza.

10) Allo stesso modo la codificazione dei diritti umani è un’espropriazione della parola (della nudità e povertà della parola).

11) Sarebbe incorretto ricercare il soggetto del successo, come si sarebbe prima ricercato il vincitore del potere. Il successo decreta solo rinomanza.

12) La patente è soltanto una forma particolare, specifica di copyright. Questa ha il beneficio di illustrare il passaggio ontologico dal concetto di proprietà all’essere che si attua col copyright. La proprietà che la patente stabilisce sull’essere rivela soltanto la trasformazione dell’essere in proprietà: il copyright.

13) In tal senso, solo anacronisticamente la biopolitica vuole la patente sul DNA rivelare un occulto potere di controllo politico ed economico sull’essere. In realtà la patente rivela il copyright come unica forma ontologica.

14) Il riferimento all’ontologia è comunque incorretto. L’ente o l’essere che il copyright definisce è rinomato, pertanto non corrisponde al significato/oggetto fisso d’un significante: esso è invece contraddistinto dalla sua medialità fra nome e rinomanza. Più precisamente il suo valore non è ontologico ma mediatico.

15) Anche il riferimento alla proprietà rimane incorretto. Il copyright non indica proprietà, la quale presupporrebbe un proprietario. La relazione è infatti una mediazione. Il copyright si limita a sancire il successo della mediazione; il suo effetto è mediatico.

16) Il copyright, in breve, lascia confluire essere ed appartenenza nella medialità della rinomanza; conferisce successo.

17) Soltanto il copyright legittima la medialità d’una parola nella rinomanza. Se c’è ‘l’essere anziché il nulla’, questo accade in virtù del copyright.

18) La parola però resiste.

La Rosa dei Venti, 2

1) Nel campo semantico della parola ‘successo’ un prestito dalla lingua francese sembra particolarmente idoneo alla sua qualificazione nel muldimoderno: renommée, la rinomanza. Colui che ha successo è rinomato. [Renommé; provenç. renomada, renomnada; ital. rinomata.]

2) La ri/nomanza ha anche successo nella realtà multimediale

3) Il nome segue e precede la rinomanza: se è necessario conoscere il nome da ripetere, un nome può solo ripetere se stesso in principio, se vuole re/identificarsi qua nome.

4) Tale re/identificazione, o rinomanza, in principio affetta il nome e lo altera, così che sia il nome che la rinomanza differiscono da se stessi.

5) Essere nominati significa intrinsecamente venire rinomati.

6) Successo ed insuccesso sono allora immediatamente implicati nella ri/nomanza: in/successo è ri/nomanza.

7) Il nome è dettato dal successo e lo detta in un processo commutativo e comunicativo continuo.

8) Sulla base del successo vengono in/determinati sia nome che rinomanza. La fluidità della rinomanza sulla base del successo è condizione sine qua non per la liberazione dallo status quo, con le sue categorie simboliche determinanti; nonostante ciò, l’in/determinazione del successo, lungi da liberare dal vincolo della determinazione, ingloba quest’ultima al suo servizio.

9) Si può immaginare che la rinomanza corrisponda alla realtà multimediale come la gloria abbia corrisposto al potere assoluto.

10) Successo e potere appartengono a due diversi paradigmi di dominio.

11) Una grande multinazionale, in senso stretto, non ha né potere né una tradizione, un’etimologia del nome, piuttosto gode di successo e rinomanza. Questo non la rende nient’affatto meno dominante che disponesse, anacronisticamente, d’un diretto potere politico.

12) Benché corruzione e influenza giochino un grande ruolo nell’accesso delle multinazionali al potere politico, di fatto il potere politico va scomparendo mentre solo il successo conduce i giochi. Solo l’accesso al multimediale e il successo sono interdipendenti.

13) I nomi (in senso tradizionale) delle multinazionali scompaiono sotto la loro ri/nomanza in provvisori, sempre nuovi brand’s names.

14) Il momento del servizio/acquisto costituisce la ri/nomanza. La rinomanza corrisponde allora alla circolazione multimediale.

15) La trasmissione del dominio nel multimoderno segue una logica decostruzionista: non l’affermazione sempr’identica d’un potere, piuttosto successo come rinomanza. Il bottino economico e culturale: l’informazione, non viene più accumulato nel patrimonio del vincitore che esercita il proprio potere, pittosto, il vincitore stesso si assoggetta alla logica del successo.

16) L’alterità del bottino viene tradotto in informazione come possesso del vincitore, che nel movimento della rinomanza ri/afferma il proprio successo. Il cambiamento non procede dall’alterità del bottino ma dal movimento continuo del successo come ri/nomanza del vincitore. Alterità è allora soltanto rinomanza: la differenza nella ri/nominazione.

17) Vincitore è un termine arcaico che, corrispondendo alla logica del potere, non è più idoneo per l’ambito del successo. Anziché di vincitori e vinti, il soggetto multimoderno è (il) rinomato.

18) La trasmissione dell’informazione multimediale differisce sistematicamente dalla tradizione d’un’espressione. Nel primo caso domina la logica del successo, nel secondo caso l’espressione tradotta rimane salvaguardata dalla propria chiusura alla logica del successo: la logica che la dis/pone non è capace di leggerla.

19) Fra espressione ed informazione regna la distinzione che, in termici acronistici, si potrebbe immaginare fra la trasmissione del messaggio dei vinti e la trasmissione del messaggio dei vincitori. Quest’ultima si impone come forma multiculturale, mentre la prima segna le vie che le diverze tradizioni perseguono.

20) Quel che non viene al nome non può essere ri/nomato. Se l’idea simbolica del nome manteneva l’innominato come suo innominato, la ri/nomanza coinvolge la sua alterità disconoscendo l’innominato. Chi non ha successo viene dimenticato.

21) Pure chi ha successo viene dimenticato. Quel che non viene al nome non ha spazio né nel successo né nell’insuccesso.

22) Quel che non viene al nome è la parola. Una parola non può essere rinomata.

Still putting out

Voyou:

There’s a strange way in which today’s capitalism is repeating in reverse the early capitalism in which although workers are, in reality, wholly dependent on capitalism, they are formally – legally and ideologically – treated as independent contractors. This spurious reconfiguration of the worker as entrepreneur unites informal workers in the third world and precarious workers in the first

This is something that struck me very strongly when reading The Making of the English Working Classes. Industrialisation began with outsourcing. Or rather, with putting-out, which Weber describes like this:

The peasants came with their cloth, often (in the case of linen) principally or entirely made from raw material which the peasant himself had produced, to the town in which the putter-out lived, and after a careful, often official, appraisal of the quality, received the customary price for it. The putter-out’s customers, for markets any appreciable distance away, were middlemen, who also came to him, generally not yet following samples, but seeking traditional qualities, and bought from his warehouse, or, long before delivery, placed orders which were probably in turn passed on to the peasants.

This is the system which was gradually absorbed into factory-based textile production -- and with it the destruction of previous social life, and the structuring of life around the working day.

Now, as with so much else, we've taken a loop around from centralised production, and are replaying the pre-industrial system at an octave's difference. That means opportunities to recreate social life, to escape the homogenous regimentation of the factory -- but also a return to the forms of exploitation most present just on the cusp of the industrial revolution.

Hence there's plenty of reason for politicised microserfs to turn back to history, explore how the peasants of the 18th century were -- and weren't -- able to assert themselves against the putters-out.

[crossposted to ohuiginn.net]

La Rosa dei Venti, W. Benjamin

1

Alla persona che fosse dato l’intero alfabeto non riuscirebbe mai di inventare una sola parola. Fossero poi a disposizione molti alfabeti diversi la voglia di creare anche solo una parola crescerebbe all’infinito. Provvisti di così tanti segni ed immagini del mondo multimediale né c’è speranza di afferrare l’idea di cosa una parola sia né di contenerne comunque il desiderio. Forse ‘il fatto che gli animali e le cose non parlino’ è la più veritiera prova della sordità alla parola.

2

Col multilinguismo si confronta un tema relativamente nuovo nella società multimediale. La figura del poliglotta, capace di intendersi in diverse lingue o dialetti non ha alcuna contiguità col multilingue. Per quest’ultimo i sistemi linguistici giacciono paralleli e intersecantisi su una stessa interfaccia.

3

Pertanto aprire questo trattato ponendo il problema della scelta della lingua in cui è scritto si costituisce come un problema, sotto molti aspetti, multimoderno.

4

Significa contestualizzare la scelta linguistica in relazione a un ambiente multilingue, dove pertanto lingue non sono ambasciatrici di accesso al potere e potere, sotto ogni qualsivoglia forma di nazionalità, classe sociale o appartenenza politica. L’unica forma di accesso sotto il criterio della pertinenza è invece fornito dall’accesso alla multimedialità.

5

Non occorre un grande sforzo immaginativo per visualizzare un canone di correttezza che non corrisponda ad una grammatica sviluppatasi per uso interno o corroborazione con l’esterno, piuttosto al soddisfacimento dei requisiti che rendano possibile la traduzione. La combinatoria delle possibili soluzioni linguistiche verrebbe dunque ristretta all’inequivocabilità del messaggio (incusivo di aspetti emotivi, cognitivi e morali) che, riconosciuto dal motore di traduzione, possa venire tradotto in qualsiasi lingua. Traduzione significa più esattamente decodificazione.

6

Parole sono pixels arcaici, un residuo anacronistico dello status quo: e il presente ripiegamento dell’apparato multimediale alla parola costituisce una tendenza reazionaria di subordinazione del nuovo potenziale al potere usato. Solo la liberazione del multimediale dalle vecchie istituzioni linguistiche lo conduce nel suo più pieno potere. Ricreare parole o immagini coi pixels corrisponde alla scelta che venne fatta nel XIX secolo di impiegare il ferro per costruzioni che sembrassero chalet di montagna.

7

Il senso di vuoto che proviene dalle parole somiglia, per rimanere con la metafora presa in prestito da Benjamin, a questi chalets di ferro. Cercare le parole porta via dalla corrente universale del multimoderno, rinchiusi fra le vecchie professioni dell’umano.

8

Pertanto, porre in principio la domanda della lingua in cui scrivere, non contraddistingue una scelta linguistica tout court, né è il frutto di questo anacronismo storico di cui l’umano è il maggior residuo: il regno umano animale e cosale (nel nome della parola). Eppure potrebbe facilmente essere null’altro che questo, se una distinzione forte non venisse tracciata fra la sperata traduzione e la possibile traduzione: due incompatibili aderenze del concetto di traducibilità.

9

Infatti, di quale lingua si faccia uso nel configurare pixels rappresenta chiaramente un falso problema, inessenziale e arcaico. La possibilità della traduzione gioca qui il ruolo di codice assoluto nella configurazione: lungi dall’essere una considerazione secondaria, costituisce il criterio essenziale di accesso e pertinenza nel multimediale. L’unica domanda rimane: soddisfa la formazione i requisiti della traducibilità?

10

Ma traducibilità rimane criterio essenziale anche sotto la prospettiva della sperata traduzione. Qui l’irriducibilità della parola a dei pixels va di pari passo con l’impossibilità della traduzione stessa. L’impossibilità di decodificare un testo linguistico significa l’effettiva impossibilità di tradurlo. Mentre viene asserita la distanza fra la parola e il multimediale, l’inaderenza delle parole al codice, sfuma anche la possibilità della traduzione ma non la traduzione stessa: solo parole formate nel codice sono essenzialmente traducibili in possibilità, mentre parole disconnesse dal codice rimangono al di fuori di una connessione di possibilità. Eppure solo la speranza nella traduzione costituisce una parola disconnessa dal canone: la parola emerge solo nella speranza della traduzione, che non coincide con la sua effettiva im/possibilità.

11

In questo contesto, problemattizzare non il soddisfacimento dei requisiti per la traducibilità (l’unico nodo problematico per la multimedialità che deve ridurre i termini alla loro im/possibile traducibilità) bensì porre la questione della scelta linguistica – devia dagli interessi del multimoderno. Nondimeno, tale problematizzazione non vuole inserirsi nella logica problematica del multimoderno, bensì problematizzare la stessa multimedialità, e solo a questo secondo livello di problematizzazione si situa la presente domanda di scelta linguistica. Di consequenza, come non può essere subordinata sotto il modello del codice e dei suoi requisiti, tantomeno può essere ridotta ad un arcaica, anacronistica domanda sulla scelta di lingua o di dialetto, di retorica o di genere: una posizione che si rivelerebbe cieca alla realtà multimediale coi suoi processi di decostruzione.

12

Dopotutto la scelta della lingua in cui scrivere è secondaria. Sembra, secondo l’antico modello, una problematica inviolabile posta in principio – una scelta onnicomprensiva di luogo, provenienza e destinazione com’anche di tempo e storia – inoltre un paradosso invalicabile d’in/comunicabilità: la porta da entrare che si chiude dietro, per scrivere, la lettura. Questo paradosso linguistico ha marcato la soglia d’accesso facendosi verbo, come debito al potere: politico, sociale, economico. Lo scogliersi del vincolo del paradosso, con l’appacificarsi delle lingue nel canone, ha spianato gli accessi differenziali al potere (di classe, nazionalità...) nell’unico accesso alla multimedialità, un unico potere aterritoriale, apolitico, senza classi... La scelta di lingua rimane qui, sebbene indifferente, aperta: nella multimedialità la scelta linguistica procede parallelamente alla sua possibile decodificazione in ogni altra lingua.

13

Affermare nondimeno che la scelta linguistica, dopotutto, sia secondaria, significa non porla in principio, ma come motivo centrale di speranza. Infatti l’attenzione cade non sulla lingua ma sulla parola, che a sua volta, lungi dal richiedere la lingua, necessita della sua rottura.

14

Allo stesso modo si può pensare alla composizione delle lettere negli anni. Gli interlocutori cambiano come cambiano la terra ed i confini. Chi emigra accelera il tempo fino a perdere nella lingua l’interlocutore e nell’interlocutore la lingua. Alcuni issano la vela sulla pagina avendo perso il colloquio. Può darsi significhi essere in preda alla parola.

15

Che la parola sia lettera e la lettera parola è testificato dalla pagina bianca spenta dal sole. Come per la traduzione, vi sono due modalità di orientamento: secondo la bussola e secondo la rosa dei venti. Quest’ultima non rispetta un canone di riferimento, piuttosto cresce per niente come per tutti, la parola. La traducibilità rimane muta con i suoi colori. Anche la speranza non si pronuncia. Quest’accade quando un alfabeto si rompe in una parola.

16

L’alfabeto porta via con sé le prime due lettere che l’avrebbero compiuto.