Copy, Archive, Signature

Author: Jacques Derrida
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 080477501X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 84

Book Description
This book makes available for the first time in English—and for the first time in its entirety in any language—an important yet little-known interview on the topic of photography that Jacques Derrida granted in 1992 to the German theorist of photography Hubertus von Amelunxen and the German literary and media theorist Michael Wetzel. Their conversation addresses, among other things, questions of presence and its manufacture, the technicity of presentation, the volatility of the authorial subject, and the concept of memory. Derrida offers a penetrating intervention with regard to the distinctive nature of photography vis-à-vis related technologies such as cinema, television, and video. Questioning the all-too-facile divides between so-called old and new media, original and reproduction, analog and digital modes of recording and presenting, he provides stimulating insights into the ways in which we think and speak about the photographic image today. Along the way, the discussion fruitfully interrogates the question of photography in relation to such key concepts as copy, archive, and signature. Gerhard Richter introduces the volume with a critical meditation on the relationship between deconstruction and photography by way of the concepts of translation and invention. Copy, Archive, Signature will be of compelling interest to readers in the fields of contemporary European critical thought, photography, aesthetic theory, media studies, and French Studies, as well as those following the singular intellectual trajectory of one the most influential thinkers of our time.

Copy, Archive, Signature

Author: Jacques Derrida
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 106

Book Description
This book makes available for the first time in English--and for the first time in its entirety in any language--an important yet little-known interview on the topic of photography that Jacques Derrida granted in 1992 to the German theorist of photography Hubertus von Amelunxen and the German literary and media theorist Michael Wetzel. Their conversation addresses, among other things, questions of presence and its manufacture, the technicity of presentation, the volatility of the authorial subject, and the concept of memory. Derrida offers a penetrating intervention with regard to the distinctive nature of photography vis-à-vis related technologies such as cinema, television, and video. Questioning the all-too-facile divides between so-called old and new media, original and reproduction, analog and digital modes of recording and presenting, he provides stimulating insights into the ways in which we think and speak about the photographic image today. Along the way, the discussion fruitfully interrogates the question of photography in relation to such key concepts as copy, archive, and signature. Gerhard Richter introduces the volume with a critical meditation on the relationship between deconstruction and photography by way of the concepts of translation and invention. Copy, Archive, Signature will be of compelling interest to readers in the fields of contemporary European critical thought, photography, aesthetic theory, media studies, and French Studies, as well as those following the singular intellectual trajectory of one the most influential thinkers of our time.

Deconstruction and the Work of Art

Author: Martta Heikkilä
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793619050
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Book Description
The contemporary idea of the “work of art” is paradoxically both widely used and often unexamined. Therefore, we must re-evaluate the concept before we can understand what the deconstruction of aesthetics means for thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe. By examining their analyses of works of visual art and contextualizing their thinking on the matter, Martta Heikkilä asserts that the implications of the “work of art,” “art,” and “the aesthetic” apply not only to philosophical questions but also to a broader area. Instead of the totality represented by the historical concept of Art, poststructuralist thinkers introduce the idea of the radical multiplicity of art and its works. From this notion arises the fundamental issue in Derrida and the poststructuralist tradition: how can we speak philosophically of art, which always exists as singular instances, as works? In Deconstruction and the Work of Art: Visual Arts and Their Critique in Contemporary French Thought, Heikkilä shows that the deconstructionist notions of art are still influential in the discourses of contemporary art, in which artworks proliferate and the concept of “work” is open-ended and expanding. This book offers an introduction to the deconstructionist theory of art and brings new perspectives to the complex, undecidable relation between philosophy and art.

Archive Fever

Author: Jacques Derrida
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226143361
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 140

Book Description
As a depository of civic record and social history whose very name derives from the Greek word for town hall, the archive would seem to be a public entity, yet it is stocked with the personal, even intimate, artifacts of private lives. It is this inherent tension between public and private which inaugurates, for Derrida, an inquiry into the human impulse to preserve, through technology as well as tradition, both a historical and a psychic past. What emerges is a marvelous expansive work, engaging at once Judaic mythos, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Marxist materialism in a profound reflection on the real, the unreal, and the virtual.

All This Stuff

Author: Judy Vankin
Publisher: Libri Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1907471979
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Book Description
Introduced by Clive Phillpot, and including artists and writers such as Gustav Metzger, Bruce McLean, Barbara Steveni, John Latham, Barry Flanagan, Edward Burra, Penelope Curtis, and Neal White, "All This Stuff "breaks new ground in the field of archive theory. It documents the innovative ways in which the arts are challenging the distinctions, processes, and crossovers between artworks and archives. This critical reexamination exemplifies how the field of art archiving is changing theory and practice as well as our understanding of what an archive is, or could be. Valuable insights are given into the archival process and the book also explores how archives can be made accessible and the unpredictable ways in which they may be explored and reinterpreted in the future.

Libraries, Literatures, and Archives

Author: Sas Mays
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135013853
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
Not only does the library have a long and complex history and politics, but it has an ambivalent presence in Western culture – both a site of positive knowledge and a site of error, confusion, and loss. Nevertheless, in literary studies and in the humanities, including book history, the figure of the library remains in many senses under-researched. This collection brings together established and up-and-coming researchers from a number of practices – literary and cultural studies, gender studies, book history, philosophy, visual culture, and contemporary art –with an effective historical sweep ranging from the time of Sumer to the present day. In the context of the rise of archive studies, this book attends specifically and meta-critically to the figure of the library as a particular archival form, considering the traits that constitute (or fail to constitute) the library as institution or idea, and questions its relations to other accumulative modes, such as the archive in its traditional sense, the museum, or the filmic or digital archive. Across their diversity, and in addition to their international standard of research and writing, each chapter is unified by commitment to analyzing the complex cultural politics of the library form.

Archives and Recordkeeping

Author: Caroline Brown
Publisher: Facet Publishing
ISBN: 185604825X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
This groundbreaking text demystifies archival and recordkeeping theory and its role in modern day practice. The book's great strength is in articulating some of the core principles and issues that shape the discipline and the impact and relevance they have for the 21st century professional. Using an accessible approach, it outlines and explores key literature and concepts and the role they can play in practice. Leading international thinkers and practitioners from the archives and records management world, Jeannette Bastian, Alan Bell, Anne Gilliland, Rachel Hardiman, Eric Ketelaar, Jennifer Meehan and Caroline Williams, consider the concepts and ideas behind the practicalities of archives and records management to draw out their importance and relevance. Key topics covered include: • Concepts, roles and definitions of records and archives • Archival appraisal • Arrangement and description • Ethics for archivists and records managers • Archives, memories and identities • The impact of philosophy on archives and records management • Does technological change marginalize recordkeeping theory? Readership: This is essential reading for students and educators in archives and recordkeeping and invaluable as a guide for practitioners who want to better understand and inform their day-to-day work. It is also a useful guide across related disciplines in the information sciences and humanities.

Paik's Virtual Archive

Author: Hanna Hölling
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520288904
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Book Description
Two works -- Conceptual and material aspects of media art -- Musical roots of performed and performative media -- Zen for film -- Changeability and multimedia art -- Time and conservation -- Heterotemporalities -- The material and the immaterial archive -- Archival implications -- Conclusion: the many archai of conservation and curation

Event of Signature

Author: Michaela Fiserova
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438489749
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Book Description
Event of Signature formulates a new philosophical problem which focuses on the handwritten signature as sign of legal identification. Author Michaela Fišerová works with three metaphysical expectations, which are shared in discourses of graphology and forensic analysis. The first expectation tends to reveal the signer's soul: a handwritten signature "naturally" mirrors the unique psychological qualities of the signer. The second expectation tends to guarantee the originality of the signer's trace: a handwritten signature proves physical contact between the signed document and the writing tool "authentically" moved by the signer's hand. The third expectation tends to recognize the signer's legal identity: a handwritten signature is expected to reproduce the signer's personal style, which enables identification by legal authorities. In a methodologically inventive and semiotically-based dialogue with Derrida's deconstruction, Fišerová situates this triple expectation in the interval between life and law. Challenging coverage of this topic finally shows that none of the metaphysical expectations will ever be fulfilled in the event of manual signing. Legal uses of handwritten signature are characterized by the complex aporia of repeating the unrepeatable.

Athens, Still Remains

Author: Jacques Derrida
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823232050
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 73

Book Description
Athens, Still Remains is an extended commentary on a series of photographs of contemporary Athens by the French photographer Jean-François Bonhomme. But in Derrida's hands commentary always has a way of unfolding or, better, developing in several unexpected and mutually illuminating directions. First published in French and Greek in 1996, Athens, Still Remains is Derrida's most sustained analysis of the photographic medium in relationship to the history of philosophy and his most personal reflection on that medium. At once photographic analysis, philosophical essay, and autobiographical narrative, Athens, Still Remains presents an original theory of photography and throws a fascinating light on Derrida's life and work. The book begins with a sort of verbal snapshot or aphorism that haunts the entire book: "we owe ourselves to death." Reading this phrase through Bonhomme's photographs of both the ruins of ancient Athens and contemporary scenes of a still-living Athens that is also on its way to ruin and death, Derrida interrogates a philosophical tradition that runs from Socrates to Heidegger in which the human--and especially the philosopher--is thought to owe himself to death, to a certain thought of death or comportment with regard to death. Combining philosophical speculations on mourning and death, event and repetition, and time and difference with incisive commentary on Bonhomme's photographs and a narrative of Derrida's 1995 trip to Greece, Athens, Still Remains is one of Derrida's most accessible, personal, and moving works without being, for all that, any less philosophical. As Derrida reminds us, the word photography--an eminently Greek word--means "the writing of light," and it brings together today into a single frame contemporary questions about the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction and much older questions about the relationship between light, revelation, and truth--in other words, an entire philosophical tradition that first came to light in the shadow of the Acropolis.