Mirrors
A reflection is a reflection of form; a mirror forms a reflection of us, but not us. Before a reflection can form, it is formless. This formlessness, this Bataillian l’informe regenerates forms infinitely, tirelessly, without exhaustion, without exhausting us (but supplementing us). The mirror is an endless space of presence in absence.
(Aporos: unable to bridge, no route. Pantaporos, many ways to go through, to bridge, many routes. The phrase comes from Sophocles' Antigone.)
When we touch a mirror’s surface and look closely we note the impassability from reflection to reflected. We are witnessing a sublime, unbridgeable rift, an aporia. Our touch never touches but asymptotically. Our reflection never reflects but hauntologically. Our bodies are there but not there, we are what Derrida calls ‘becoming-body’.
A reflection is a reflection of form; a mirror forms a reflection of us, but not us. Before a reflection can form, it is formless. This formlessness, this Bataillian l’informe regenerates forms infinitely, tirelessly, without exhaustion, without exhausting us (but supplementing us). The mirror is an endless space of presence in absence.
We touch it again and look closely, again.
Now we note the impassable is ‘pantaporos aporos'. A sublime multitude of bridges, a network of networks and routes, a pantaporia. Everything touches everything, but no shores, no ‘rims of the abyss to be crossed’ (Lyotard) are laid bare to discover. We are suspended over the abyss. Indefinitely.
(Aporos: unable to bridge, no route. Pantaporos, many ways to go through, to bridge, many routes. The phrase comes from Sophocles' Antigone.)
