Towards a Critical Culture of the Image – J. Derrida and B. Stiegler, Echographies de la télévision. Hacia una crítica de la cultura de la imagen - J. Derrida y Stiegler B., ecografías de la télévision. Entretiens filmés, Galilée-INA, Paris: 1996 Entretiens filmes, Galilée-INA, París: 1996
Richard Beardsworth Richard Beardsworth
Four thousand years of linear writing have accustomed us to separating art from writing. Cuatro mil años de escritura lineal nos han acostumbrado a separar el arte de la escritura. André Leroi-Gourhan André Leroi-Gourhan
Beginning to write without the line. Empezando a escribir sin la línea. Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida
One of the most evident effects of the increasingly explicit technicization of the world is the predominance of the image – or, more often, "tele-" image – in ever broader but converging domains of experience. Uno de los efectos más evidentes de la tecnificación cada vez más explícita del mundo es el predominio de la imagen - o, más frecuentemente, "tele-" de la imagen - en cada vez más amplias, pero convergentes dominios de la experiencia. For many, the subordination of experience to the image has come to represent best the cultural fate of modern technology. Para muchas personas, la subordinación de la experiencia a la imagen ha llegado a representar mejor el destino cultural de la tecnología moderna. The judgment is not fortuitous. La sentencia no es fortuita. Since human consciousness is more immediately implicated in the effects of the image than of those of other processes of technicization, the image has become a major collective site of reflection upon technics. Dado que la conciencia humana es más directamente implicados en los efectos de la imagen que de los de otros procesos de tecnificación, la imagen se ha convertido en un sitio importante colectivo de reflexión sobre la técnica. This is also not fortuitous. Esto tampoco es fortuita. The predominance of the image in contemporary actuality is due, precisely, to its ability to affect us quasi-immediately. El predominio de la imagen en la realidad contemporánea se debe, precisamente, a su capacidad de afectarnos casi de inmediato. This quasi-immediacy is a consequence of at least three factors: digitalization, what is called "real time," and the present sway held by economic "logic" over political and cultural processes. Esta cuasi-inmediatez es una consecuencia de al menos tres factores: la digitalización, lo que se llama "tiempo real", y la influencia actual en poder de "lógica" económica sobre los procesos políticos y culturales. Inextricably linked, these factors form part of a technico-economic complex that has made the image into the prevalent contemporary vehicle of human communication, identification and symbolization at a world level. Íntimamente ligados, estos factores forman parte de un complejo técnico-económico que ha hecho la imagen en el vehículo prevalente contemporáneo de la comunicación humana, la identificación y simbolización a nivel mundial. This complex is explicitly transforming traditional and modern forms of organization (economic, social, political and cultural) as well as the terms in which reflection and judgment (political, cultural and ethical) upon such transformation are to be articulated. Este complejo está explícitamente la transformación de las formas tradicionales y modernas de organización (económica, social, político y cultural), así como los términos en que la reflexión y el juicio (político, cultural y ético) sobre dicha transformación se articula. The tele-image, together with the complex which makes it possible, have thus become the site of negotiation for the future of culture as such. La tele-imagen, junto con el complejo de lo que lo hace posible, se han convertido en el sitio de la negociación para el futuro de la cultura como tal.
In the last few years critical reflection upon the increasing predominance of the image within society has as a whole tended to be reactive (in the Nietzschean sense). En los últimos años la reflexión crítica sobre el predominio cada vez mayor de la imagen dentro de la sociedad en su conjunto ha tendido a ser reactivas (en el sentido nietzscheano). For it has been pitched in terms of "resistance" to the image and to the poverty of indifferentiation that has accompanied its socio-cultural growth. Para ello se ha lanzado en términos de "resistencia" a la imagen y la pobreza de indiferenciación que ha acompañado su crecimiento socio-cultural. Such critiques – at times profound and welcome with regard to their adversary, the politically empty neo-liberal affirmation of contemporary technical processes 1 – have often come from radically heterogeneous cultural formations (both religions and secular, ethnic and cosmopolitan, the Left and the Right of the political spectrum), as if the process of indifferentiation that accompany the image's rule has until now also oriented critical reaction to it. Estas críticas a - a veces profunda y dar la bienvenida con respecto a su adversario, el vacío neoliberal afirmación política de los procesos contemporáneos de técnica 1 - a menudo provienen de formaciones heterogéneas culturales radicalmente (tanto las religiones y laicos, étnicos y cosmopolita, la izquierda y la derecha del espectro político), como si el proceso de indiferenciación que acompañan a la regla de la imagen ha sido hasta ahora la reacción crítica también se orienta a la misma. This is at least the case in Europe. Esto es al menos el caso en Europa.
It is in this context that Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler's Echographies de la télévision. Es en este contexto que Jacques Derrida y Bernard Stiegler de ecografías de la télévision. Entretiens filmés is an important and welcome book. Entretiens filmes es un libro importante y bienvenida. Made up of a long interview with Derrida, conducted by Stiegler, on the contemporary teletechnologies, flanked by two individual pieces by each philosopher (respectively "Artefactualités" and "L'image discrète"), Echographies constitutes a reflective intervention in the field of the tele-image, and the teletechnologies in general, that has important implications for both our understanding of the image and our relation to it. Compuesto de una larga entrevista con Derrida, realizada por Stiegler, en la teletecnologías contemporánea, flanqueado por dos piezas individuales de cada filósofo (respectivamente "Artefactualités" y "L'image discretos"), ecografías constituye una intervención reflexiva en el ámbito de la Tele-imagen, y la teletecnologías en general, que tiene implicaciones importantes tanto para nuestra comprensión de la imagen y nuestra relación con él. For Echographies sets the terms for a critical relation to the image which re-inscribes the above positions of economic "affirmation" and cultural/intellectual "resistance" within an economy that exceeds their pertinence. Para ecografías establece las condiciones para una relación crítica con la imagen que re-inscribe las posiciones mencionadas de los derechos económicos "afirmación" y cultural / intelectual "resistencia" dentro de una economía que supera su pertinencia. It does this by situating the image within its present technical and economic actuality as well as by relating this actuality to wider questions of inscription, time and space. Para ello, situar la imagen dentro de su actualidad técnicas y económicas actuales, así como mediante la relación de esta actualidad de cuestiones más amplias de la inscripción, el tiempo y el espacio. This is the first importance of the volume; other reasons for its interest emerge from it. Se trata de la mayor importancia del volumen; otras razones por su interés de ella se derivan.
It is, for example, to the credit of Bernard Stiegler to have arranged such an interview given that its axes of reflection carefully foreground the political pertinence of Derridean deconstruction today: not only in terms of its specific reflection upon technics but also, and more importantly, in terms of its more general reflection upon the relations holding between contemporary technics, time, space, politics, and thinking or reflection as such. Es, por ejemplo, para el crédito de Bernard Stiegler haber dispuestos de tal forma que una entrevista concedida sus ejes de reflexión cuidadosa en primer plano la pertinencia política de la deconstrucción de Derrida hoy: no sólo en términos de su reflexión específica sobre la técnica, sino también, y lo más importante , en términos de su reflexión más general sobre las relaciones existentes entre la técnica contemporánea, tiempo, espacio, la política y el pensamiento o la reflexión como tal. The very nature of the conversation between Stiegler and Derrida gives Derrida occasion to be precise about how his own thought appraises and responds to contemporary actuality in political, ethical and critical terms. La propia naturaleza de la conversación entre Stiegler y Derrida Derrida da ocasión para ser más precisos acerca de cómo evalúa su propio pensamiento y responde a la realidad contemporánea en términos políticos, éticos y críticos. At a time when the political credentials of deconstruction are often still suspected, Echographies serves, therefore, as a sharp reminder of the general importance of Derridean thought to innovative political reflection of the future. En un momento en que las credenciales políticas de la deconstrucción son a menudo todavía se sospecha, ecografías sirve, por tanto, como un recordatorio de la importancia general de Derrida cree que una reflexión innovadora política del futuro.
Echographies is, however, not just a mise au point of Derrida's philosophy. Ecografías, sin embargo, no sólo una mise au point de la filosofía de Derrida. This is because Derrida's interviewer, Bernard Stiegler, has himself a very powerful and original philosophical position regarding the teletechnologies. Esto se debe a que el entrevistador de Derrida, Bernard Stiegler, se tiene una muy poderosa y original con respecto a la posición filosófica teletecnologías. As a result the interview not only borders on a true exchange of ideas, it also bears witness to an important intellectual tension between the two men concerning the relation between philosophy, technology and politics. Como resultado de las fronteras de la entrevista no sólo en un verdadero intercambio de ideas, también es testigo de una tensión intelectual importante entre los dos hombres sobre la relación entre la filosofía, la tecnología y la política. As we shall see, the tension concerns ultimately the relation between determination and the future. Como veremos, la tensión en última instancia, se refiere a la relación entre la determinación y el futuro. Now if Echographies is all the more interesting a text for not just being an interview, it is at the same time disappointing for this very reason. Ahora bien, si la ecografía es aún más interesante un texto para ser no sólo una entrevista, es al mismo tiempo decepcionante para esta misma razón. For the tension between Derrida and Stiegler is never properly articulated given that their conversation remains in form and diction precisely too much of an interview. Por la tensión entre Derrida y Stiegler nunca es debidamente articulado, ya que su conversación se mantiene en forma y la dicción precisamente demasiado de una entrevista. Stiegler's thoughts are as a result cramped, and Derrida's responses to his questions and interventions remain too much within the ambit and terms of his own philosophy. Stiegler pensamientos son como consecuencia de hacinamiento, y las respuestas de Derrida a sus preguntas e intervenciones siguen siendo demasiado en el ámbito y los términos de su propia filosofía. Having read both the interview and the separate pieces from each philosopher, the reader is consequently left at the end with the sense that an important articulation between technology, politics and reflection has been entered upon but not brought to a satisfactory intellectual conclusion (be it one where the lines of disagreement are simply made clear). Después de haber leído tanto la entrevista y las piezas separadas de cada filósofo, el lector, en consecuencia, a la izquierda en el extremo con el sentido de que una articulación importante entre la tecnología, la política y la reflexión se ha visto, aunque no entró a una conclusión satisfactoria intelectual (ya sea un donde las líneas de desacuerdo son simplemente dejó en claro).
In the following I will be concerned with these three aspects of the book: Derrida's important elaboration of a critical relation to the image, Stiegler's own dense response to the question of the contemporary teletechnologies and, finally, the nature of the tension between the two that Echographies articulates and yet only organizes at a symptomatic level. En lo que sigue se refiere a estos tres aspectos del libro: elaboración importante de Derrida de una relación crítica con la imagen, propia respuesta densa Stiegler a la cuestión de la teletecnologías contemporánea y, por último, la naturaleza de la tensión entre los dos que ecografías articula y organiza sin embargo, sólo a nivel sintomático.
* *
Near the beginning of the interview, having pointed out that, for deconstruction, writing is already a teletechnology, Stiegler asks Derrida in what "specificity" contemporary teletechnologies lie. Cerca del comienzo de la entrevista, al señalar que, para la deconstrucción, la escritura es ya una teletechnology, Stiegler Derrida se pregunta en qué "especificidad" teletecnologías contemporánea mentira. The question returns under many guises throughout the interview, a return that suggests both the strategic importance of the question and a certain sense of dissatisfaction on Stiegler's part with Derrida's answer (one which will serve us later as guide to Stiegler's own preoccupations with this specificity and to what the interview does not articulate in its regard). La cuestión de la readmisión por muchas formas a lo largo de la entrevista, una declaración que sugiere tanto la importancia estratégica de la cuestión y una cierta sensación de insatisfacción por parte de Stiegler es con la respuesta de Derrida (uno que nos servirá más tarde como guía a las preocupaciones propias Stiegler con esta especificidad y de que la entrevista no se articula en su sentido). Derrida's response is both highly consistent with his thinking upon writing and arche-writing since Of Grammatology and permits him to rehearse the ethico-political implications of this thinking that have explicitly come forward in work from the 1980s. la respuesta de Derrida es a la vez muy coherentes con su pensamiento sobre la escritura y la arqui-escritura desde De la gramatología y le permite ensayar las implicaciones ético-políticas de este pensamiento que han de presentar en forma explícita el trabajo de la década de 1980. It thus threads together, in a prudent and impressively economic manner, the relations holding between the trace, writing, technology and the ethico-political purchase of the absolute future – what he has theorized since the middle 1980s in terms of the "promise" or the "messianic." 2 Por lo tanto, hilos juntos, en una impresionante forma prudente y económica, las relaciones existentes entre la huella, la escritura, la tecnología y la compra ético-política del futuro absoluto - lo que ha teorizado desde mediados del decenio de 1980 en términos de la "promesa" o lo mesiánico "." 2
Derrida's response to the question of the "specificity" of the contemporary teletechnologies is twofold. la respuesta de Derrida a la cuestión de la "especificidad" de la teletecnologías contemporánea es doble. On the one hand, he stresses the fact that there is nothing new, that is, that Por un lado, hace hincapié en el hecho de que no hay nada nuevo, es decir, que
whatever this specificity, it does not suddenly replace a natural or immediate speech with prosthesis, teletechnology, etc. There have always been, there always are such machines, even in the age of handwriting, even in the course of a so-called live conversation. cualquiera que sea su especificidad, no de repente reemplazar un discurso natural o inmediata con prótesis, teletechnology, etc Siempre ha habido, siempre son estas máquinas, incluso en la era de la escritura, incluso en el curso de una conversación en vivo la llamada . (p. 47) (P. 47)
On the other hand, he emphasizes that their singularity lies in the fact that Por otra parte, subraya que su singularidad radica en el hecho de que
the greatest compatibility, the greatest coordination, the liveliest possible affinity appears to be imposing itself today between what seems the most alive, live, and différance or delay, the delay in the exploitation or diffusion of the living. la mayor compatibilidad, la mayor coordinación, la más viva posible afinidad parece estar imponiendo hoy en día entre lo que parece el más vivo, en directo, y différance o el retraso, la demora en la explotación o la difusión de los vivos. (ibid.) (Ibid.)
With this dual response, Derrida tackles the "today" of the tele-image as a new epoch of "writing" (rather than of an image in distinction to writing) through which moves, and is to be articulated as such, the general movement of différance, discreteness and spacing. Con esta respuesta dual, Derrida aborda el "hoy" de la tele-imagen como una nueva época de la "escritura" (en lugar de una imagen en la distinción a la escritura) a través del cual se mueve, y se articula como tal, el movimiento general de la diferencia, discreto, y que el espaciado. The tele-image is accordingly approached theoretically qua a singular synthesis of time and space (one that "appears" immediate), which singularity is nevertheless analyzed and understood from within a differential movement of synthesis (an economy) that includes all types of marks. La tele-imagen es consecuencia abordado teóricamente qua una síntesis singular de tiempo y el espacio (uno que "aparece" inmediata), que la singularidad, no obstante, analizar y comprender desde dentro de un movimiento diferencial de la síntesis (una economía) que incluye todo tipo de marcas. This major point carries several implications which I will group together for reasons of clarity although they are deployed by Derrida over the time of the interview as a whole as well as in his separate piece "Artefactualités." Este importante conlleva varias implicaciones que voy a agrupar por razones de claridad a pesar de que se hayan desarrollado por Derrida en el momento de la entrevista en su conjunto, así como en su pieza separada Artefactualités "."
- First: any opposition of the image to the written word – together with the cultural and political stakes accompanying such an opposition – is seen to be untenable. - En primer lugar: toda la oposición de la imagen a la palabra escrita - junto con las apuestas culturales y políticas de acompañamiento, una oposición - se ve que es insostenible. For both the image and the written word are effects of what Of Grammatology called "arche-writing" (a differential structure of discrete marks, or spacing) which includes the digital image as much as the ideogrammatic, pictographic, phonetic or alphabetic mark. Por tanto la imagen y la palabra escrita son los efectos de lo que De la gramatología llamado "archi-escritura" (una estructura diferencial de marcas discretas, o el espaciado) que incluye la imagen digital tanto como el ideogramática, marca pictográficos, fonéticos o alfabéticos. This means that just as one cannot oppose the image to the word, so, also, one cannot not think the contemporary technologies in relatively specific terms. Esto significa que así como uno no puede oponerse a la imagen a la palabra, así que, también, no se no se puede pensar las modernas tecnologías en términos relativamente específicos. It is consequently from the backdrop, as it were, of arche-writing that Derrida constantly resists seeing the teletechnological as something "absolutely" specific: I will come back to this later when developing Stiegler's own response to the terms of this specificity. En consecuencia, es desde el telón de fondo, por así decirlo, de la archi-escritura que Derrida constantemente se resiste a ver la teletechnological como algo "absolutamente" específicos: Volveré a esto más adelante en el desarrollo de la propia respuesta Stiegler a los términos de esta especificidad.
- Second: Derrida analyzes the above spacing of the tele-image in terms of the spacing between temporal ecstases that the immediacy of the image in real time appears to flatten out. - Segundo: Derrida analiza el espacio por encima de la tele-imagen en términos de la separación entre éxtasis temporales que la inmediatez de la imagen en tiempo real parece aplanarse. With the teletechnologies, the near and far are brought together in such a way that the "spacing" of time and space is radically reduced. Con la teletecnologías, la cerca y de lejos se confronten de tal modo que el "espacio" de tiempo y espacio se ha reducido drásticamente. For Derrida, it is this reduction which characterizes the "specificity" of contemporary actuality. Para Derrida, es esta reducción que caracteriza a la "especificidad" de la realidad contemporánea. Thus critical reflection upon the tele-image is placed within a more broad thinking of the spacing of time and space. Así, la reflexión crítica sobre la tele-imagen se coloca dentro de un pensamiento más amplio de la separación entre tiempo y espacio.
- Third: for Derrida, just as this reduction of time and space carries crucial and urgent ethical and political connotations, so it is here that the task of philosophy in relation to actuality is located (see especially, pp. 13, 19 and 28 of his "Artefactualités"). - Tercero: para Derrida, al igual que esta reducción de tiempo y espacio lleva crucial y urgente connotaciones éticas y políticas, por lo que es aquí donde la tarea de la filosofía en relación a la actualidad se encuentra (véase especialmente, pp. 13, 19 y 28 de su "Artefactualités"). For if the end of totalitarian regimes was due more to the pervasiveness of the teletechnologies than to human rights, the post-Cold War world is one in which time and place are now foregrounded as immediately ethical and political issues. Porque si al final de los regímenes totalitarios se debió más a la omnipresencia de la teletecnologías que a los derechos humanos, el mundo post Guerra Fría es aquella en la que el tiempo y lugar son en primer plano como las cuestiones éticas y políticas de inmediato. The ethico-political cannot, that is, be thought today either without reflecting upon time and space as such or without articulating the relations between the spacing of time and space, on the one hand, and technics, on the other (the most contemporary form of which are the "teletechnologies"). El no puede ético-política, es decir, pensar hoy, ya sea sin reflexionar sobre el tiempo y el espacio, como tal, o sin la articulación de las relaciones entre el espacio de tiempo y espacio, por una parte, y la técnica, por otra (la forma más contemporánea de los cuales son los teletecnologías "). In foregrounding so decisively the political nature of time and space today, Echographies makes an important contribution to the terms in which political reflection is to be rethought after the demise of the traditional Left. En primer plano tan decisivamente el carácter político del tiempo y el espacio de hoy, ecografías hace una importante contribución a los términos en que la reflexión política es necesario reconsiderar después de la desaparición de la izquierda tradicional.
- Fourth: concomitant with the twofoldness of the above response to teletechnological specificity, Derrida understands this reflection throughout the interview in aporetic terms. - Cuarto: concomitante con la twofoldness de la respuesta anterior a la especificidad teletechnological, Derrida entiende esta reflexión durante toda la entrevista en términos aporética. If the image takes one to questions of time and space, to reflect upon it critically is not to argue for a particular temporal ecstasis – for example, the past of traditionalism the present of metaphysical thinking (including that of consumerism) or the future of avant-gardism – against de-temporalization. Si la imagen tiene una de las cuestiones de tiempo y espacio, a la reflexión crítica no es argumentar a favor de un particular, éxtasis temporal - por ejemplo, el pasado del tradicionalismo el presente del pensamiento metafísico (incluido el de consumo) o el futuro de avant -vanguardismo - contra la de-temporalización. Nor is it to argue for a particular locality or example (ethnic, national or cultural) against de-localization. Tampoco es argumentar a favor de una determinada localidad o ejemplo (étnicas, nacionales o culturales) en contra de la deslocalización. In this sense, Derrida is immediately concerned in Echographies with political reflection, but never with the elaboration of a particular politics (see, especially, pp. 75-76). En este sentido, Derrida es directamente interesados en ecografías con la reflexión política, pero no con la elaboración de una política en particular (véase, especialmente, pp. 75-76). His thinking of the political is made in terms of aporia. Su pensamiento de lo político se hace en términos de la aporía. As I have argued at length elsewhere, aporetic thinking does not take Derrida away from the political, it is at the very heart of his understanding of political invention. 3 Echographies gives a clear example of this "logic" with regard to the teletechnological. Como he argumentado ampliamente en otros lugares, el pensamiento aporético no tiene Derrida lejos de la política, es en el centro mismo de su comprensión de la invención política. 3 ecografías da un claro ejemplo de esta "lógica" en relación con la teletechnological.
Several times in the interview, for example, Stiegler brings to the foreground of the conversation the issue of the "cultural exception" in the 1993 GATT talks, considering it as an important, if in itself problematic, example of a political response to the risk of indifferentiation that accompanies the technico-economic complex informing the tele-image. Varias veces en la entrevista, por ejemplo, Stiegler trae al primer plano de la conversación el tema de la "excepción cultural" en el 1993 las negociaciones del GATT, considerándola como un importante, aunque en sí misma problemática, ejemplo de una respuesta política al riesgo de indiferenciación que acompaña el complejo técnico-económico informar a la tele-imagen. To recall briefly its history: during the GATT talks the American negotiators attempted to make cinema part of the trade negotiations. Para recordar brevemente su historia: en el GATT de conversaciones los negociadores estadounidenses trataron de hacer parte del cine de las negociaciones comerciales. The attempt failed due to a concerted refusal on the part of the French, and then Europe in general, to lift its quotas on American products, in particular, and audiovisual material, in general; quotas with which the French state supports its own cinema industry. El intento fracasó debido a la negativa concertada de parte de los franceses, y luego Europa en general, para elevar sus cuotas a los productos americanos, en particular, y material audiovisual, en general, las cuotas con que el Estado francés apoya su industria cinematográfica propia . Now, Derrida responds to this example with the argument that, in the context he would indeed argue for the state's regulation of the markets (pp. 92-98, especially p. 98). Ahora bien, Derrida responde a este ejemplo con el argumento de que, en el marco de hecho diría que para la regulación del estado de los mercados (págs. 92-98, especialmente p. 98). The "cultural exception" is one important strategy at a world level of resisting both economic short-term calculation and the latter's profound complicity with the temporality of "real time." La "excepción cultural" es una estrategia importante a nivel mundial de resistir tanto el cálculo económico a corto plazo y la complicidad profunda de este Estado a la temporalidad del "tiempo real". Conversely, Derrida argues that as soon as a states resistance to the market inhibits the very flexibility of consumption, and productivity of consumption, that the markets also nourish, the market should be affirmed, reminding his audience that the historical emergence of democracy from out of the market precludes one from making any axiomatic opposition between the values of democracy and those of the market (pp. 95-100). Por el contrario, Derrida sostiene que tan pronto como la resistencia a los estados en el mercado inhibe la flexibilidad del propio consumo, y la productividad de consumo, que los mercados de la alimentan, el mercado se debe afirmar, recordando a su audiencia que el surgimiento histórico de la democracia desde fuera del el mercado se opone a una oposición de hacer cualquier axiomática entre los valores de la democracia y las del mercado (pp. 95-100). Neither for the state nor against it, neither for the particular nor against it, Derrida deploys here a reflective logic in relation to a particular politics of the image (the neo-liberalism of the Hollywood lobby) that is predicated on the impossible "experience" of aporia. Ni para el estado ni en contra de él, ni para el particular ni en contra, Derrida despliega aquí una lógica reflexiva en relación a una política particular de la imagen (el neo-liberalismo del lobby de Hollywood) que se basa en lo imposible "experiencia" de la aporía. His inscription of the tele-image within "arche-writing" leads Derrida, consequently to show how this inscription works at the same time towards a quasi-politics of aporia according to which the impossibility of aporia is the condition of political invention. Su inscripción de la tele-imagen dentro de "archi-escritura" lleva Derrida, por consiguiente, para mostrar cómo funciona esta inscripción, al mismo tiempo hacia una cuasi-política de la aporía, según la cual la imposibilidad de la aporía es la condición de invención política. In the context of the progression of this argument, Echographies provides, again, a succinct rehearsal of Derridean themes regarding the immediate and actual. En el contexto de la progresión de este argumento, ecografías proporciona, de nuevo, un ensayo breve de los temas de Derrida con respecto a la inmediata y efectiva.
- The above point takes us to the two most profound conclusions that come out of Derrida's initial response. - El punto anterior nos lleva a las dos conclusiones más profundas que salen de la respuesta inicial de Derrida. We recall that, for Derrida, the immediacy of real time and the tele-image is only ever an apparent immediate synthesis of time and space since they are inscribed within arche-writing. Recordamos que, para Derrida, la inmediatez del tiempo real y la imagen de la tele-es sólo alguna vez una síntesis de aparente inmediato de tiempo y espacio, ya que se inscriben dentro de la archi-escritura. This means that the spacing of time is irreducible to technicization. Esto significa que el espacio de tiempo es irreductible a la tecnificación. As a result of this irreducibility, "real time" is never real, but is only ever a technical "artifact." Como resultado de esta irreductibilidad, "tiempo real" no es real, pero es sólo una técnica cada vez "artefacto". The inscription of the tele-image within arche-writing takes us to the first conclusion, then, that a critical practice of selection is possible in the name of something like the "contingency" of the technical. La inscripción de las tele-imagen dentro de la archi-escritura nos lleva a la primera conclusión, entonces, que una práctica crítica de la selección es posible en nombre de algo como la "contingencia" de la técnica. It is within the radical (that is, constitutively "unfillable") opening between processes of technicization and the irreducible spacing of time and space that a critical relation to the image is always possible. Es en el radical (es decir, constitutivamente "imposible de llenar") la apertura entre los procesos de tecnificación y el espacio irreductible de tiempo y el espacio que existe una relación fundamental para la imagen siempre es posible. For Derrida, whether it be theoretical or practical, philosophical or artistic, reflection upon the image inevitably situates itself in this "between" between, on the one hand, the spacing or différance of time and, on the other, the technical synthesis of "real time." Para Derrida, ya sea teórica o práctica, filosófica o artística, la reflexión sobre la imagen, inevitablemente, se sitúa en el presente "entre", entre, por una parte, la separación o différance del tiempo y, por otra parte, la síntesis técnica de " tiempo real ". This "between" allows one, in turn, to evaluate and re-organize what and how real time selects to be "live," allowing thereby for the deconstruction of the "artifactuality" of the image that presents itself to consciousness as apparently "real" at the same time as the necessary possibility that there are always other selections (see the chapter "Artefactualité, homohégémonie," pp. 51-65, and pp. 144-5). Este "entre" permite, a su vez, para evaluar y re-organizar lo real y la forma en que se selecciona el tiempo "en vivo", permitiendo por lo tanto para la deconstrucción de la artifactuality "de la imagen que se presenta a la conciencia como aparentemente" reales "al mismo tiempo que la posibilidad necesaria de que siempre hay otras selecciones (véase el capítulo" Artefactualité, homohégémonie ", pp. 51-65, y págs. 144-5).
Opening up this divergence, reflecting upon it in terms of the différance of time and space does not offer, for Derrida, other rules of selection contra those of short-term profit that permits economic hegemony over the image in contemporary society (the so-called globalization of "Hollywood"). La apertura de esta divergencia, reflexionando sobre ella en términos de la différance del tiempo y el espacio no ofrece, para Derrida, otras normas de selección de los contras de los beneficios a corto plazo que permite la hegemonía económica sobre la imagen en la sociedad contemporánea (la llamada la globalización de "Hollywood"). For we have just seen that Derrida's relation to any determinate invention (like state intervention) is aporetic. Porque hemos visto que la relación de Derrida a cualquier invención determinada (como la intervención del Estado) es aporética. These rules are to be found: they come, that is, from the future. Estas normas se encuentran: que viene, es decir, desde el futuro. Hence – second conclusion – with regard to the contemporary teletechnologies Derrida places stress throughout Echographies on something like the ethical horizon of the future, an absolute horizon that translates in "temporal" terms the radical opening above. Por lo tanto - segunda conclusión - con respecto a la teletecnologías contemporánea Derrida coloca tensión a lo largo de ecografías en algo como el horizonte ético del futuro, un horizonte absoluto que se traduce en "temporal" términos anteriores a la apertura radical. This future is not to be thought of as a future present (a teleological horizon to come) but as the absolute futurity of time, described by Derrida with reference to his work in Specters of Marx, in terms of the "promise" and the "messianic" (pp. 140-3). Este futuro no debe ser considerado como un presente futuro (un horizonte teleológico de venir), pero, como el futuro absoluto del tiempo descrito por Derrida en relación con su trabajo en Espectros de Marx, en términos de la "promesa" y el " mesiánico "(pp. 140-3). In Echographies this radical future orients deconstruction's critical relation to the teletechnological reduction of time and space, giving a further clear ethico-political dimension to the above experience of aporia. En relación crítica ecografías esta deconstrucción radical orienta el futuro a la reducción teletechnological de tiempo y espacio, dándole una mayor dimensión ético-política clara a la experiencia por encima de la aporía. As Derrida puts it, the "imperative" is Como lo expresa Derrida, el "imperativo" es
to leave the future to the future, to leave it or make it come, in any case to leave open the possibility of the future and, therefore, to negotiate between rhythms in order that, at the very least, this opening is not saturated. para dejar el futuro para el futuro, para salir o hacer que viene, en todo caso dejar abierta la posibilidad del futuro y, por tanto, a negociar entre los ritmos para que, al menos, esta apertura no está saturado. (p. 98) (P. 98)
Or in the words of the earlier piece "Artefactualités," O en las palabras de la pieza anterior "Artefactualités"
the coming of the event is what one cannot, nor must not prevent, another name for the future itself. virtud de la entrada del evento lo que uno no puede ni debe impedir, otro nombre para el propio futuro. Not that it is good, good in itself, that everything or anything happens; not that one must give up preventing certain things happening (there would be no decision, no responsibility – ethical, political or other), but one only ever opposes events which one thinks bar the future or bring death, events which put an end to the possibility of the event, to the affirmative opening for the coming of the other. No es que sea buena, buena en sí misma, que todo o cualquier cosa que pasa, no que uno debe renunciar a la prevención de ciertas cosas sucediendo (no habría ninguna decisión, no se hace responsable - éticos, políticos o de otro tipo), pero sólo una vez se opone a los acontecimientos que se piensa en el futuro o barra de traer la muerte, los acontecimientos que pusieron fin a la posibilidad del evento, a la apertura positiva para la venida de la otra. (p. 19) (P. 19)
It is in these terms of absolute futurity that Derrida's above aporetic reflection upon the state and the market makes political sense. Es en estos términos de futuridad absoluta que por encima de la reflexión aporética de Derrida sobre el estado y el mercado tiene sentido político. The following comment on the part of Derrida can be understood in this context: El siguiente comentario por parte de Derrida puede ser entendida en este contexto:
[regarding the French resistance to the inclusion of cinema within the GATT talks] it was in a sense a question of using an exemplary exception to loosen the grip pertaining to one kind of domination and act in such a way that, following usage, time was given to time, that all opportunities for a certain type of invention, innovation or creation in the cinema were not muffled in advance, including for the Americans themselves. [Con respecto a la resistencia francesa a la inclusión del cine dentro de las negociaciones del GATT] fue en cierto sentido, una cuestión de utilizar una excepción ejemplar a desafiar el poder perteneciente a una clase de dominación y actuar de tal manera que, siguiendo el uso, el tiempo era dado a tiempo, que todas las oportunidades para un determinado tipo de invención, la innovación o la creación en el cine no eran amortiguados por adelantado, incluso para los propios americanos. (p. 99) (P. 99)
Derrida's resistance to Hollywood hegemony is thus ultimately made in terms of a radical "ethics" of time. Derrida resistencia a la hegemonía de Hollywood es, en definitiva, realizado en términos de un radical "ética" de tiempo.
Bringing the above six points together, we can see that, for Derrida, critical reflection upon the image re-inscribes it within the spacing of time and space. Llevar las seis puntos juntos, podemos ver que, para Derrida, la reflexión crítica sobre la imagen vuelve a la inscribe en el espacio de tiempo y espacio. This spacing leads in turn to an aporetic reflection upon political determination which is itself governed by – or, inversely, itself releases – something like a "categorical imperative" of the event, one of "guarding" the futurity of the future [l'à-venir de l'avenir]. Este espacio, a su vez conduce a una reflexión sobre aporética determinación política que se está regida por - o, al revés, se libera - algo así como un "imperativo categórico" del evento, uno de "guardar" el porvenir del futuro [à l' -Venir de l'] avenir. As a result, Derrida's responses in Echographies stress two major concerns regarding the relation between reflection and technical actuality: i) in response to the de-localizing and de-temporalizing effects of the contemporary teletechnologies, there can be no more pertinent and inventive a thinking than that of letting time happen/take place (celle de laisser avoir lieu le temps), and that, therefore, the issue today of a critical culture of the image is that of the multiplicity of time/space, the localities and singularities, that is, accompanying the taking-place of time; and ii) that this response is "political" if one understands by political imagination the reinvention of a critical relation to actuality, and yet other than political if one understands by the "political" a gesture of organization and decision shaped by a particular territory, by a particular temporality, by a particular subject or by particular rules. Como resultado, Derrida respuestas en ecografías destacar dos grandes preocupaciones respecto a la relación entre la reflexión y técnica actualidad: i) en respuesta a la des-localización y los efectos de-temporalización de la teletecnologías contemporáneo, no puede haber más pertinente e inventivo un pensamiento que el de dejar pasar el tiempo / lugar (celle de laisser lugar avoir le temps), y que, por tanto, la edición de hoy de una cultura crítica de la imagen es la de la multiplicidad de tiempo / espacio, las localidades y singularidades, que es decir, que acompaña a la asunción de lugar del tiempo, y ii) que esta respuesta es "política" si se entiende por imaginación política de la reinvención de una relación crítica con la realidad, y sin embargo, que no sea político si se entiende por la "política" un gesto de organización y decisión en forma de un territorio determinado, por una temporalidad particular, por un tema en particular o por una normativa particular. Bringing these points together so economically, Stiegler's interview with Derrida in Echographies allows one a clear and careful appreciation of the major importance of Derridean thought to future negotiations with our times. La unión de estas puntos juntos para económicamente, entrevista Stiegler con Derrida en una ecografía permite una visión más clara y cuidadosa de la gran importancia de Derrida cree que las futuras negociaciones con nuestros tiempos.
* *
By presenting Derrida's response in isolation from the exchange with Stiegler, this review has so far not conveyed the fact that much of what Derrida says is partly in resistance to, or out of a seeming wish to qualify Stiegler's own appreciation of the specificity of the contemporary teletechnologies, as well as the ethical and political consequences ensuing therefrom. Con la presentación de la respuesta de Derrida al margen del intercambio con Stiegler, esta revisión hasta ahora no ha transmitido el hecho de que gran parte de lo que Derrida dice es parte de la resistencia a, o fuera de un deseo aparente de calificar propia apreciación Stiegler de la especificidad de lo contemporáneo teletecnologías, así como las consecuencias éticas y políticas que siguió las mismas. The above distinction, for example, between the political and the "other than political" nature of reflection upon technical actuality is one that Derrida makes all the more precise (again, see especially p. 75) when Stiegler's own position during the interview comes to stress the elaboration of "a politics of memory" and a concomitant desire for "a political will" (p. 56, p. 62, p. 67, p. 71, and, more broadly, pp. 85-97 and pp. 115-120). La distinción anterior, por ejemplo, entre lo político y el otro "que político" de la reflexión sobre la realidad técnica es la que Derrida hace tanto más precisa (de nuevo, ver especialmente p. 75) cuando la posición propia Stiegler durante la entrevista viene a hincapié en la elaboración de "una política de la memoria" y un concomitante deseo por "una voluntad política" (p. 56, p. 62, p. 67, p. 71, y, más ampliamente, pp. 85-97 y págs. 115-120). Given that Stiegler is much more than a passive interviewer in this book and that both the quality and the concreteness of the exchange between Derrida and himself is due in part to the profundity of his own interventions, it is important to elaborate his own appreciation of the specificity of the contemporary teletechnologies. Teniendo en cuenta que Stiegler es mucho más que un entrevistador pasiva en este libro y que tanto la calidad y la concreción del intercambio entre Derrida y él mismo se debe en parte a la profundidad de sus propias intervenciones, es importante elaborar su propia apreciación de la especificidad de la teletecnologías contemporáneo. Once we have done this, we can then situate the tension which, in my opening comments, I argued ultimately marked the overall rhythms of the book and, unarticulated, made it a disappointing text at the very moment of its interest. Una vez que hayamos hecho esto, podemos situar a la tensión que, en mis comentarios de apertura, he defendido en última instancia, marcó el ritmo general del libro y, desarticulado, convertido en un texto decepcionante en el momento mismo de su interés.
Stiegler's response to this specificity shares much with that of Derrida. Stiegler respuesta a esta especificidad comparte mucho con la de Derrida. He is indeed the first to recognize his debt to the Derridean concept of "arche-writing" in the elaboration of what is progressively becoming a highly articulate philosophy of technology. 4 It is in this very debt, however, that a difference is struck: the nature of all of Stiegler's questions and, progressively, interventions in Echographies bear this out. Él es de hecho el primero en reconocer su deuda con el concepto derridiano de "archi-escritura" en la elaboración de lo que se está convirtiendo en una muy elocuente filosofía de la tecnología. 4 Es en esta deuda muy, sin embargo, que una diferencia es golpeado: la naturaleza de todas las preguntas de Stiegler y, progresivamente, las intervenciones en ecografías así lo corroboran. Given that the interview format allows Stiegler poor occasion to develop his theses properly (his interventions are consequently often too dense, if not at times, rather turgid), I will first give a brief background to the nature of his participation in Echographies in order to give these interventions appropriate weight. Dado que el formato de la entrevista permite ocasión Stiegler pobres para desarrollar su tesis correctamente (sus intervenciones, en consecuencia, a menudo demasiado denso si no, a veces, en lugar turgentes), en primer lugar le dará una breve reseña a la naturaleza de su participación en ecografías con el fin de dar a estas intervenciones peso adecuado.
Informing Stiegler's initial question concerning the specificity of the contemporary teletechnologies is his express wish, going back more than a decade, to pursue the Derridean logic of supplementarity (formulated at length in "Plato's Pharmacy" and the sections on Rousseau in Of Grammatology 5 ) in terms of the history of technics. Información inicial de la pregunta de Stiegler sobre la especificidad de la teletecnologías contemporánea es su expreso deseo, se remonta a más de una década, para seguir la lógica derrideana de suplementariedad (formulada en profundidad en "la farmacia de Platón" y las secciones de Rousseau en De la gramatología 5 ) en términos de la historia de la técnica. Put simply, Stiegler wishes to articulate the "logic" of Derridean quasi-transcendentals with (the history of) technical supplementarity. En pocas palabras, Stiegler deseos de articular la "lógica" de Derrida cuasi-trascendentales con (la historia de) suplementariedad técnica. As I have argued in this journal and elsewhere, Stiegler's move is complex increasingly so, and does not simply reduce différance to empirical historicity (although there are moments in Technics and Time which give one the occasion to think this). Como he argumentado en este diario y en otros lugares, mueva Stiegler es cada vez más complejos es así, y no simplemente reducir différance a la historicidad empírica (aunque hay momentos en los Technics y el tiempo que dan un motivo para pensar esto). This reduction, as Stiegler knows, would have no purchase on Derrida's thinking. 6 What he is rather arguing through this articulation is that technics is the constitutive condition of thought and of our relation to the temporal ecstases as such. Esta reducción, como Stiegler sabe, no tendría ninguna compra en el pensamiento de Derrida. 6 Lo que es más bien discutiendo a través de esta articulación es que la técnica es la condición constitutiva del pensamiento y de nuestra relación con los éxtasis temporales como tal. It is with this thesis (what Stiegler best calls, I believe, "tertiary memory") that the originality of his move lies, constituting, from out of Derrida's quasi-transcendental problematic of arche- writing, a major and indisputable move into, and advance within, the fields of twentieth century Continental philosophy: most particularly, phenomenology, hermeneutics and deconstruction. 7 It is where Stiegler has begun to re-articulate both modern and contemporary concerns with time and space (since the transcendental aesthetic and analytic of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason) with the history of human organization. Es con esta tesis (lo que es mejor llamadas Stiegler, en mi opinión, la "memoria terciaria") que la originalidad de su movimiento se encuentra, lo que constituye, desde fuera de Derrida problemática cuasi-trascendental de la archi-escritura, un paso importante e indiscutible en, y anticipo dentro de los campos del siglo XX la filosofía continental: muy especialmente, la fenomenología, la hermenéutica y la deconstrucción. 7 Es donde Stiegler ha comenzado a volver a articular a la vez moderno y contemporáneo se refiere con el tiempo y el espacio (ya que la estética trascendental y analítica de la Crítica de Kant de la razón pura) con la historia de la organización humana. This articulation presents at the same time an impressive, often more than impressive, politico-philosophical address to the disciplines of philosophy, the human sciences, the life and cognitive sciences and the arts. Esta articulación presenta al mismo tiempo, una impresionante, a menudo más que impresionante, la dirección político-filosóficas a las disciplinas de la filosofía, las ciencias humanas, la vida y las ciencias cognitivas y las artes.
In other words, for Stiegler, if technics is the originary supplement to all forms of life (all life is in this sense pro-grammatic, inscribed within "arche-writing"), this supplementarity appears as such within the human species qua the technical specificity of the human. En otras palabras, para Stiegler, si la técnica es el suplemento originaria de todas las formas de vida (toda la vida es en este sentido pro-gramaticales, inscrito dentro de "archi-escritura"), esta complementariedad se presenta como tal, en la especie humana la condición técnica especificidad de lo humano. As a result, technics is neither a means nor an instrument (as the metaphysical tradition has always conceived it), but the way in which life lives. Como resultado, la técnica no es ni un medio ni un instrumento (como la tradición metafísica siempre lo ha concebido), pero la forma en que vive la vida. For Stiegler, consequently, the Derridean problematic of "arche-writing" must always be historically differentiated since it is nothing but its differentiations. Para Stiegler, en consecuencia, de la problemática derrideana "archi-escritura" debe ser siempre históricamente diferenciadas, ya que no es más que sus diferenciaciones. This is what is lying behind his question to Derrida in Echographies that concerns the "specificity" of the contemporary teletechnologies (p. 48). Esto es lo que yace detrás de su pregunta a Derrida en la ecografía que se refiere a la "especificidad" de la teletecnologías contemporánea (p. 48). Given the originary technical complexity of time and consciousness, a change in the technical support means both a change in intelligibility and a change in relation to time and space. Dada la complejidad técnica originaria del tiempo y la conciencia, un cambio en el apoyo técnico: tanto un cambio en la inteligibilidad y un cambio en relación con el tiempo y el espacio. For Stiegler, the contemporary technologies constitute as much a break with the past as they do a supplementation of arche-writing. Para Stiegler, las modernas tecnologías constituyen tanto una ruptura con el pasado como lo hacen una suplementación de la archi-escritura. Derrida would, of course, agree: it is the very logic of supplementarity. Derrida, por supuesto, están de acuerdo: es la propia lógica de complementariedad. For Stiegler, however, stress must be consequently placed as much on the break as on the continuity. Para Stiegler, sin embargo, el estrés debe ser colocado en consecuencia tanto de la ruptura como en la continuidad.
It is here that Stiegler's emphasis upon the specificity of the contemporary teletechnologies becomes clear. Es aquí que el énfasis de Stiegler a la especificidad de la teletecnologías contemporánea se hace evidente. This specificity is to be found in the particular way in which technics and time are today organized around each other. Esta especificidad se encuentra en el modo particular en que la técnica y el tiempo son hoy organizada alrededor de la otra. I said above that, for Stiegler, given the temporally constitutive role of technics, a change in technical supports will fundamentally alter the way in which we relate to time, that is, the way in which we synthesize the past, present and future ecstases. He dicho antes que, por Stiegler, dado el papel temporal constitutiva de la técnica, un cambio en los soportes técnicos alterará fundamentalmente la forma en que nos relacionamos con el tiempo, es decir, la forma en que se sintetizan el pasado, presente y futuro de éxtasis. We have seen that, for Derrida, "real time" is a technical artifact that is so rapid in relation to human perception that it appears to hide its syntheses – this is real time's "artifactuality." Hemos visto que, para Derrida, en "tiempo real" es un artefacto técnico que es tan rápida, en relación a la percepción humana que parece ocultar su síntesis - esto es en tiempo real de "artifactuality". A critical relation to the image is seen to emerge, accordingly, in the analysis of real time's processes of selection, an analysis whose horizon is the future. Una relación crítica con la imagen se ve a surgir, en consecuencia, en el análisis de los procesos en tiempo real de la selección, un análisis cuyo horizonte es el futuro. Stiegler is in agreement with Derrida on the overall orientation of this reasoning. Stiegler está de acuerdo con Derrida sobre la orientación general de este razonamiento. That said, his argument around tertiary memory, its evolution and the differences within technical constitutivity lead him to stress something within that specificity that Derrida's own emphasis on the différance of the tele-image does not take into account. Dicho esto, su argumento en torno a la memoria terciaria, su evolución y las diferencias dentro de constitutividad técnica le lleva a subrayar algo dentro de esa especificidad que el énfasis de Derrida sobre la différance de la tele-la imagen no tiene en cuenta. At several points during the dialogue he implies that the specificity of contemporary technicity lies in the coincidence between the flux of the object (for Stiegler, image or sound: what he has come to call, following Husserl, the "temporal object" 8 ) and the flux of (living) consciousness. En varios puntos durante el diálogo que implica que la especificidad de tecnicidad contemporánea reside en la coincidencia entre el flujo del objeto (por Stiegler, la imagen o el sonido: lo que él ha venido a llamar, después de Husserl, el temporal "objeto" 8 ) y el flujo de la (vida) la conciencia. Without becoming embroiled in the niceties of the argument, 9 I want to stress here that, for Stiegler, contemporary modalities of archiving are an "absolutely" (p. 48) specific form of inscription since there is today – a specific stage of human organization – no distinction possible, at a phenomenological level, between the temporal flux of the technical object and the temporal flux of consciousness. Sin llegar a ser envuelto en las sutilezas del argumento, 9 Quiero subrayar aquí que, por Stiegler, modalidades contemporáneas de un archivo son "absolutamente" (p. 48) forma específica de inscripción ya que hay hoy en día - una etapa específica de la organización humana - sin distinción posible, a un nivel fenomenológico, entre el flujo temporal del objeto técnico y el flujo temporal de la conciencia. The effects of "real time" are in this sense to be analyzed in strict relation to the temporal nature and effects of cinema. Los efectos de "tiempo real" son en este sentido deben analizarse en estricta relación con la naturaleza temporal y efectos de cine.
Thus, briefly put, the technical object used at earlier stages of the history of technical supplementarity to supplement the finitude of human memory (the silex of the Zinjanthropus to the writing of the protogeometrician), this object, now itself temporalized, has become coincidental with (the flux of) memory itself. Por lo tanto, pocas palabras, el objeto técnico utilizado en las primeras etapas de la historia de la complementariedad técnica para complementar la finitud de la memoria humana (el sílex de la Zinjanthropus a la escritura de la protogeometrician), este objeto, ahora se temporalizado, se ha convertido en coincidencia con (el flujo de) la memoria misma. In Stiegler-Husserlian terms, "tertiary memory" (the support of the technical object inscribing our memory beyond our life: a past that has never been present to us) now introduces "secondary memory" (recollection of ours or others' past presents) into "primary memory" (the way in which we temporalize time now, unify our retentions and pretensions). En términos Stiegler-husserliana, "memoria terciaria" (con el apoyo del objeto técnico inscribir nuestra memoria más allá de nuestra vida: un pasado que nunca ha estado presente con nosotros) introduce ahora la "memoria secundaria" (como la recopilación de los nuestros o presenta otros en el pasado) en la "memoria principal" (la forma en que temporalizar tiempo, unificar nuestras retenciones y pretensiones). As a result, the relation between perception and imagination that Derrida was the first to deconstruct in Voice and Phenomena 10 has become so entwined, Stiegler argues, that a reflective reaction to the passage of time, and therefore events within it, risks being radically reduced. Como resultado, la relación entre la percepción y la imaginación que Derrida fue el primero en deconstruir, en voz y Fenómenos 10 se ha vuelto tan entrelazados, sostiene Stiegler, que una reacción reflexiva para el paso del tiempo, y por lo tanto los eventos dentro de él, corre el riesgo de una reducción radical de . This reduction risks, in turn, reducing the possibility of the future ecstasis. Esta reducción de riesgos, a su vez, reducir la posibilidad de que el éxtasis futuro. According to Stiegler, "real time" represents the example of this threat. De acuerdo con Stiegler, en "tiempo real" representa el ejemplo de esta amenaza.
From the above it is clear why digitalization both effects a radical change of intelligibility and precipitates the danger that this intelligibility could be stultified as our relation to the ecstases of time are foreshortened by the tele-image's syntheses of time and space. De lo anterior queda claro por qué la digitalización tanto de los efectos de un cambio radical de la inteligibilidad y se precipita el peligro de que esta inteligibilidad podría ser embrutecido como nuestra relación con el éxtasis del tiempo están en escorzo por la tele-síntesis de la imagen del tiempo y el espacio. If the indifferentiation of reflection today is a necessary risk of the tele-image (one presently blocking the passage of the future more than it is opening it), then, for Stiegler, a more determinate response is needed than Derrida countenances in his above responses. Si la indiferenciación de la reflexión de hoy es un riesgo necesario de la tele-imagen (en la actualidad uno que bloquea el paso del futuro más de lo que es de apertura), entonces, para Stiegler, una respuesta más determinado que se necesita de rostros Derrida en sus respuestas anteriores . The specificity of contemporary teletechnology calls, in his terms, for a "politics of memory" or, more generally, a "political will" (p. 56, p. 62, p. 67, p. 71, etc.). La especificidad de las llamadas teletechnology contemporánea, en sus términos, de una "política de la memoria" o, más generalmente, una "voluntad política" (p. 56, p. 62, p. 67, p. 71, etc.) During one intervention in the penultimate chapter of Echographies, "Phonographies: Meaning – from Heritage to Horizon," Stiegler says for example: Durante una intervención en el penúltimo capítulo de ecografías, "Phonographies: Concepto - de Patrimonio a Horizon", dice Stiegler por ejemplo:
If it is true, on the one hand, that there is a congruence between the exactitude of orthothetic writing and a certain form of temporality, and if it is true, on the other, that the new modalities of archiving are modalities of recording that one could say are in a certain manner more exact, the paradox [of today] would be that the present development of exactitude is inscribing in the streets the slogan "no future." Si bien es cierto, por una parte, que existe una congruencia entre la exactitud de la escritura orthothetic y cierta forma de la temporalidad, y si bien es cierto, por otra, que las nuevas modalidades de archivo son las modalidades de grabación que un se podría decir en cierto modo más exacto, el [paradoja de hoy] sería que el actual desarrollo de la exactitud es inscribir en las calles la consigna "no hay futuro." Beyond the production of this slogan, initially limited to the margins of the industrial communities, entire regions, whole countries, whole classes, or people excluded from every social class are saying today: "No future." Más allá de la producción de este lema, inicialmente limitada a los márgenes de las comunidades industriales, regiones enteras, países enteros, clases enteras, o las personas excluidas de todas las clases sociales están diciendo hoy: "No hay futuro." Moreover, all those who feel politically impotent understand this slogan. Por otra parte, todos aquellos que se sienten impotentes políticamente entender esta consigna. The question, then, is how the exactitude of the modern modalities of archiving is likely to bring about, not a form of reflexivity which would simply be the pursuit and development of the reflexivity linked to writing, but new forms of intelligibility. (p. 117)
Stiegler's constant call to a politics of memory is to be understood in relation to the release of this new form of reflexivity. 11 For Stiegler, given that there is no absolute distinction between writing and the image, the intelligibility forged by new forms of technical supports, specifically the analogico-digital image, could be more interesting than reflexivity specific to writing. The fact, however, that economic terms of selection hold sway over the general production and dissemination of images and tele-images means that the possible terms of this intelligibility – that is, our relation to the past, the present and the future – are curtailed. Whether it be the predominance of Hollywood production in the "globalization" of the cinema industry or the increasing commercialization of Internet (an uncritical congruence between the flux of capital and the flux of real time), the economic organization of the relation between technics and our opening to the temporal ecstases is blocking the release of new forms of intelligibility and experimentation. Calculation according to short term profit has little interest, for example, in slowing the flux of images down. It promotes, rather, narratives that give a unilinear direction to the flux, ones that are closed to their own contingency and temporality. These narratives are all the more stultifying and possibly debilitating given the coincidence between the flux of the technical object (the image) and that of our consciousness that is afforded by the temporalization of the former object. In this radically specific context Stiegler considers it urgent to develop "a political will" that can counter this economic hegemony in such a way that new forms of intelligibility springing from the teletechnologies can flourish. For Stiegler, there is at the same time nothing new about this need to double up politically on the technico-economic. Technical processes are constitutively always in advance upon political and cultural processes: a straightforward Marxist thesis. What is new is the speed at which this advance is taking place today given the historically specific congruence, since the gradual amalgamation of the sciences, technics and the economy from the seventeenth century onwards, between technology and the economic regime of capital. The stake today is to invent, therefore, at an international level, a politics of memory, in response to the "economic" and "phenomenological" specificity of the contemporary teletechnologies that allows for the future to take place in a manner that is more than less interesting, itself more than less promoting of the future.
Given this, the question of the cultural exception in the 1993 GATT talks will necessarily carry for Stiegler more symbolic purchase than it would seem to have in Derrida's aporetic response to it: hence Stiegler's recurrent recourse to it in the context of a politics of memory (see especially pp. 51-54 and pp. 80-93), a recourse that might otherwise seem exaggerated or unnecessary. For the question of the cultural exception is an example of the kind of politics needed to slow these processes down (p. 97). Thus, while always careful to demarcate himself from the protectionism and nationalism that could easily be associated with a politics of cultural exceptionality, Stiegler opposes such a politics to the criteria informing the economic selection of images that maintain the opposition between production and consumption (on these terms, see "L'image discrète," pp. 177-183). 12 Such a slowing-down would be one important condition of that intelligibility that these same technologies could bring about if they were less subordinate to the ideology of short-term economic interest. Read from out of the particular context of the GATT talks, a politics of exceptionality anticipates, then, a politics of idiomaticity which would work toward, the mobilization of what is already potentially there in the teletechnologies but which is at present reduced by economic domination (p. 163, and "L'image discrète," pp. 182-3). Political mobilization is, consequently, for Stiegler, one important condition of reflection and invention upon the movement of différance and spacing that constitute the teletechnologies in the first place, a movement of which these same technologies, in alliance with the economic, are reducing rather than increasing consciousness.
It is here that the tension between the two philosophers exists, although it is never articulated as such by either one of them. I said at the beginning of this review that this tension actually provided the rhythm of Echographies as a whole: one can now see retrospectively why. Derrida's emphasis throughout the interview on the movement of différance within the teletechnologies, his aporetic relation to the political, and his location of the image within the spacing of time and space – all point to his inscription of contemporary technology within arche-writing and to his articulation of the relation between reflection and contemporary actuality within its terms. In this articulation, the question of the future is the issue of contemporary reflection, but this question must necessarily be both political and other than political. Stiegler's greater emphasis on the radical specificity of the contemporary teletechnologies, as well as the particular terms in which he casts such specificity, make him stress the political instance more. For he sees within that instance the very means to facilitate the release of an intelligibility appropriate to the new forms of writing, one at present stymied by the historical confluence between the technical and the economic. According to these two ways of stressing the relations between différance and technics and reflection and actuality, the tension can be couched in the following terms. Both philosophers are concerned with the incalculability of the future, its continued "taking place" with regard to processes of technicization. Each, however, think determination and calculation differently in relation to it, and, thereby, situate the political and thinking (la pensée) differently as well.
- For Stiegler, in distinction to Heidegger's understanding of the relation between thinking and technics, calculation does not necessarily fill the future in. Here his argument on the technical constitution of temporalization remains crucial for present concerns in continental philosophy regarding the "logics" of invention. For Stiegler, then, calculation opens up the future, releases the contingent, as did technics from the very beginnings of hominization. One form of calculation is thus set against another (the political against the economic), or doubles up on the other (the political appropriates the technico-economic) in order to enlarge the "horizon" of future time. This "horizon" is, precisely, one of disappropriation – the fact that there is a future – and not one of appropriation or mastery. Without political calculation, the cultural – for Stiegler, the incalculable which is the very value of the cultural – risks remaining subordinate to the economic hegemony that holds over technical processes: in this case, there is, and would be "No future." A voluntarist gesture of "acculturation" (p. 56, p. 89, p. 98) testifies in this sense – but only in this sense – to an "avant-gardist" political philosophy. 13
- For Derrida, the "categorical imperative" (p. 19 and p. 20) of any decision is, as for Stiegler, to act in such a way that the future is not barred. Letting this alterity come also means negotiating between tendencies of acceleration and stasis in the constant awareness, however, that an invention that would promote the incalculable is itself impossible to calculate. Thus, for Derrida, waiting to see what happens, placing the focus of thinking on the active affirmation of leaving the opening to the future open, constitutes an acknowledgment that the terms of negotiation cannot be fully anticipated, that they are also already taking place and that, therefore, it is to be seen what philosophy can say or not say. Here, Derrida distinguishes philosophy qua thinking from politics, arguing that the différance of the technical, together with the aporias it engenders, always already deliver the political over to an unknown future the respect of which thinking guards.
- Thus, where Stiegler looks for political determination between différance and the technical, for the future to remain open, given that determination opens up the future as much as it may close it, with this same horizon in mind, Derrida both looks to political determination and takes distance from the political instance, leaving the future of the technical to be decided, given that, for him, anticipation always runs the risk of filling the future in.
* *
Derrida and Stiegler both have strong arguments and a powerful repertoire of discursive strategies to enforce their points. Derrida is right to stress the irreducibility of différance to technics, the political prudence that must ensue and the undecidable relation between thinking and actuality that follows. Stiegler's theory of tertiary memory represents a profound and pertinent intervention in the concerns of contemporary philosophy, one that offers, from out of Derridean problematics, an original purchase upon technical actuality. He is therefore right to place emphasis on a certain specificity to the new teletechnologies, to stress the technical reduction of différance, and to argue for the political implications of this reduction with the industrialization of memory. It is nevertheless clear that the two positions are from the first irreconcilable with regard to the relation between determination and the future. Given the above difference, it is clear for example, that for Derrida Stiegler's call to the political appropriation of the economic risks filling in the future at the very moment that he wishes to facilitate its release. In this sense Stiegler's call for a politics always runs the risk of bringing the openness of the political to an end. From Stiegler's recurrent insistence upon the need for a politics of memory, one can equally surmise that, for Stiegler, the imperative of "letting the other be other" runs the risk, conversely, of leaving actuality as it is, and that if calculation is needed for the future not to be anticipated, too great a stress on the need to take a distance to the political (where Derrida is both political and other than political) can itself end up condoning one particular politics, one particular actuality rather than another. Here Stiegler's wish to stress the historical differentiations of arche-writing is at the same time, further down the line, a wish to underscore the necessarily political dimension to the imperative of absolute futurity. Since the difference between the two positions is one of stress, but since the stakes that this stress carries are at the same time of considerable import, its lack of articulation can only leave the reader with a sense of missed opportunity. For what is most important within the interview is left unsaid. The theses of the two separate pieces, "Artefactualités" and "L'image discrète" do nothing from this perspective but reinforce this sense of a missed opportunity. Echographies remains a disappointing text as a result. Let me end this review with three examples of what I mean. The first two concern where Derrida does not engage with Stiegler, the third where Stiegler does not engage with Derrida.
The first comes around the question of the rule (pp. 52-65, especially p. 60). Derrida maintains that the question of the rule is that of the criteria of selection which inform the choice and disposition of images that stand as "real time." In analyzing the rules of this selection, a critical relation to the image is elaborated. From here Derrida goes on to argue forcefully that it is at the same time not the role of the philosopher to pose a rule against the rule of the market, but to invite invention of other rules. In so arguing, he clearly suspects that Stiegler's call to a "politics of memory" could precisely fall into such a trap, all the time aware that Stiegler is as concerned as he is with the invitation to the invention of other rules. As we have seen, Stiegler's call for a politics of memory is made in the belief that this invitation needs indeed political work. Now, with this argument Stiegler is stressing the fact that the rule (of selection) has already been given by technology itself qua the historical congruence between the new rules of perception, emerging from the tele-image, and the markets of short-term profit. The rule for Stiegler is, in other words, not one of one "criterion" of selection against another, as Derrida gives us to understand. It is an actual state of matter, one with which we have to negotiate. Stiegler's description of the political "doubling-up" of the technico-economic follows from this sense that history gives the rule. Thus, what I called above a shift of stress between the participants is seen here to be actually articulating a major difference of approach concerning the relation between reflection and matter and philosophy and history. Echographies suffers from the fact that this difference is kept by the two participants in the wings of the interview.
The other two examples of a missed opportunity emerge in an important chapter of the interview "Phonographies: Meaning – from Heritage to Horizon."
After his comments concerning the general possibility of "no future" quoted above, Stiegler makes the point that the greater the exactitude of inscription that comes with digitalization, the greater the discreteness of the inscription, and, therefore, the greater the possibility of breaking down and analyzing its rules of composition. The point is part of his argument for elaborating a forum within which new forms of intelligibility particular to this exactitude are facilitated. Derrida, agreeing with Stiegler, makes the following response,
Meaning and intelligibility can only open out – in relation to what you have called the "discrete," the spacing of the discrete – by multiplying what forms the condition of this very discretization, namely spacing, non-sense, the blank, the interval, everything which borders in a sense the meaning of non-meaning, exceeds it or fissures it. The origin of meaning has no meaning. This is not a negative or nihilist statement. What carries intelligibility is not intelligible. From this point of view technics is not intelligible: which is not to say that it is irrational or obscure. (p. 121)
To which Stiegler interjects:
[Technics] constitutes meaning if it participates in its construction.
And Derrida continues:
Yes, but what constitutes meaning is deprived of meaning. Sí, pero lo que constituye el sentido queda privado de significado. The origin of reason and the history of reason is not rational. When one says that one is quickly accused of irrationalism which is stupid, ridiculous even. Whoever poses a question concerning the origin of meaning, the origin of reason, the origin of the law, the origin of humanity, and in view of posing the question, must go to the edge of what he is questioning: the condition of the question does not belong to the field it questions. To accuse those who pose questions concerning the subject of man, of reason, etc., of being inhuman or irrational is a primitive reflex, a primitive instance of fright. (ibid.) (Ibid.)
Derrida's comments are, to say the least, odd in response to Stiegler's concerns, both at a juncture of the interview when the two men are acquainted with each other's preoccupations and, more importantly, at a moment in cultural history when the terms of philosophical reflection upon the real are shifting. As we have seen, Stiegler's interest lies, precisely, in the historical differentiation of this "other" of reason and meaning together with the political implications of the articulation of this "other." To respond by reiterating a series of propositions that are well-known from within and around the thought of deconstruction and post-structuralism, but that do not engage as such with the explicit wish on Stiegler's part to genealogize, after the last twenty years thinking, what lies prior to the opposition between reason and unreason, meaning and unmeaning is intellectually and culturally dissatisfying. A clear occasion for discussion of, and engagement with the relation between history, the quasi-transcendental structure of spacing and the ethico-political purchase of the future in its relation to determination is, very simply, missed.
Conversely, when Stiegler argues in the same chapter (especially p. 143) that orthographic writing constitutes "deferred time," and as a result a greater sense of discontinuity, in comparison to the pictographic or ideogrammatic, he is knowingly demarcating himself from the Derridean thesis of Of Grammatology that alphabetic writing follows the linearity of the flux of speech and constitutes the concept of the present with which the epoch of metaphysics is instituted. Since this demarcation makes him consider the contemporary teletechnologies in terms of a "general crisis" (p. 180) – a term that, for many, after the last twenty years of thought is too Marxist in its temporality – it would have been interesting for the reader to see Stiegler debate this difference in the appreciation of writing with Derrida more. The stakes are, to say the least, important, and yet discussion of the point is minimal.
It is these types of lacunae in the dialogue that make of Echographies a structurally uneven and unfinished exchange – Derrida's responses to Stiegler's question concerning the specificity of today point eloquently to the need for multiple strategies across the social spectrum, one that includes a more positive appreciation of the markets than Stiegler seems willing to accept. They point in consequence to the possible paradoxes of elaborating a politics of memory with regard to the stake of the future and to the need, always, to think of a culture of the image "from below." That said, Derrida does not engage with Stiegler around the thesis of tertiary memory nor, consequently, with the kinds of historico-technical determinations that Stiegler is looking for within, but also beyond the present deconstructions of metaphysical logic. Stiegler points, on the other hand, with great precision and conviction to the urgency of the questions that haunt technical actuality and, as the appended article "L'image discrète" signals better than his actual interventions within the interview, has a fine eye for the relations between matter and consciousness, one intimating a relation between reflection and matter beyond the present terms of deconstruction. On the other hand, pushing Derrida on the place of the technical and political within deconstruction, he tends at the same time to equate the problematic of différance with technical supplementarity, risking, thereby, to think différance in exclusively technical terms: a risk which qualifies in part the intellectual originality of his thesis. Echographies is the record of this tension, rather than its articulation. In this respect it both covers an enormous amount of ground concerning a critical relation between reflection and the contemporary teletechnologies – for which many will be grateful – and signals, in its very ellipses, where further work awaits.
Notes Notas
1 1 The work of Paul Virilio has been especially important in this respect. See, for example, his recent Cybermonde, la politique du pire, Paris: Les éditions Textuel, 1996.
2 2 The radical structure of the promise is first developed by Derrida in relation to negative theology in "Comment ne pas parler: dénégations" in Psyché (Paris: Galilée, 1987, pp. 555-596), to the Heideggerian problematics of debt and engagement in De l'esprit. Heidegger et la question (Paris: Galilée, 1987, noe1: pp. 147-154), Eng. trans. trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby, Of Spirit. Heidegger and the Question (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989, note 2: pp. 129-136), and to Paul de Man's reading of Rousseau's Social Contract in J. Derrida, Mémoires for Paul de Man, trans. Cecile Lindsay, Jonathan Culler and Eudardo Cadava (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). The distinction between the "messianic" and messianism in the context of the promise is first fully developed in relation to Marxian thought and its modern and contemporary fates in J. Derrida, Spectres de Marx (Paris: Galilée, 1994: esp. p. 56, pp.111-2, 124-6 and 265-268); Eng. trans. trans. by Peggy Kamuf, Specters of Marx: the State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International (London and New York: Routledge, 1994, p. 28; pp. 65-6, pp. 73-5 pp. 167-169). The relation between the promise, the messianic, religion and technology with which Spectres de Marx closes has been since elaborated in detail in Derrida's profound "Foi et savoir: les deux sources de la 'religion' aux limites de la simple raison" in La religion, Ed. by Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo (Paris: Ed. du Seuil, 1996, pp. 9-86); Eng. trans. trans. by Samuel Weber, Stanford University Press: forthcoming.
3 3 See my Derrida and the political (London and New York: Routledge, 1996) for an elaboration of this thesis.
4 4 See B. Stiegler, La technique et le temps. Tome 1: Le faute d'Epiméthée, Paris: Galilée, 1994 (Eng. trans. Richard Beardsworth and George Collins, Technics and Time: Vol. 1. The Fault of Epimetheus, Stanford: Stanford University Press, Spring 1998) and B. Stiegler, La technique et le temps. Tome II La désorientation, Paris: Galilée, 1996 (Eng. trans. Richard Beardsworth and George Collins, Stanford University Press, forthcoming).
5 5 In J. Derrida, La dissémination. Seuil, 1972: pp. 69-198 (Eng. trans. Barbara Johnson, Dissemination, Chicago: University of Chicago, 1981, pp. 61-172) and J. Derrida, De la grammatologie, Paris, Minuit, 1967: pp. 203-378 (Eng. trans. Gayatri Spivak, Of Grammatology, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1976, pp. 141-268).
6 6 See particularly his "Fidelity at the limits of deconstruction and the prostheses of faith," Eng. trans. trans. Richard Beardsworth, in a collective volume on Jacques Derrida, ed. Tom Cohen, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. Stiegler's equation between différance and technical supplementarity in this latter text, Echographies and the two volumes of La technique et le temps is nevertheless highly problematic. That said, I wish to stress here, as elsewhere, the equation's positive aspects in the desire to elaborate further, with others, the terms of present philosophical culture. It seems to me important in this respect, and at this point, to see where Stiegler is going than to criticize him in terms of what he has until now partly underestimated.
7 7 See especially Chapters 2 and 3 of Part II of La technique et le temps. Tome I: la faute d'Epiméthée (pp. 211-278) and Chapter 4 of La technique et le temps. Tome II. La désorientation. See also B. Steigler, "Persephone, Oedipus, Epimetheus," trans. R. Beardsworth, in Tekhnema, Issue 3, pp. 69-112, esp. pp. 83-76 and, again, his "Fidelity at the limits of deconstruction and the prostheses of faith," ibid.
8 8 See B. Stiegier, "Persephone, Oedipus, Epimetheus," Tekhnema, Issue 3, p. 84. 84.
9 9 The argument is best made in "L'image discrète," pp. 165-183. See, also, Stiegler's article in this issue of Tekhnema, "The Time of Cinema," trans. George Collins, pp. 62-110, esp. p. p.
66. 66.
10 10 J. Derrida, La voix et le phénomène: introduction au problème du signe dans
la phénoménologie de Husserl, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967. Eng. Ing. trans. trans. David B. Allison, Speech and Phenomena, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973.
11 11 That the passage could be criticized for its "apocalyptic" tone (especially from a Derridean perspective) would, I think in this context, be to miss the interest of Stiegler's argument.
12 12 That said, the simple ease with which French examples appear in Stiegler's interventions in Echographies, together with the ease with which he can generalize remarks concerning the United States, suggests, at a deep level perhaps, a resistance to a non-exemplary logic.
13 13 In this sense, Stiegler remains faithful to the political imperative of determination emerging out of Hegelian Marxism while elaborating theses on technical constitutivity that re-organize and transform the Hegelian and Marxian corpuses (most importantly Hegel's understandings of reflection and spirit and Marx's understanding of the relation between matter and consciousness).
la escritura es ya una teletechnology (del testo de arriba) sabia observación...
ResponderEliminartoda la oposición de la imagen a la palabra escrita - se ve que es insostenible. (del testo de arriba): Viva derrida, que ve una continuidad con la escritura y arquiescritura. habra que mirar su gramatología. Así la nueva cultura de la imagen no es original ni específica, como me gusta pensar,
ResponderEliminarCon la teletecnologías, la cerca y de lejos se confronten de tal modo que el "espacio" de tiempo y espacio se ha reducido drásticamente. Para Derrida, es esta reducción que caracteriza a la "especificidad" de la realidad contemporánea. (del testo de arriba): entonces apunta a nuestra comprensión "cuántica" de la realidad del nativo digital, en la que el espaciotiempo ya no es lineal, ni plano, sino superpuesto cuánticamente. de hecho los transistores de los microchips están diseñados con las formulas de la mecanica cuántica, y por tanto...lo disho
ResponderEliminaraporía, le da mucha importancia a ese juego mutuo espaciotemporal del ahora tecnologico. Ya está el espacio tiempo en las cuatro dimensiones de selby educacion global... que es un muy bonito modelo que creo también serviría para este texto...
ResponderEliminar