Wednesday, September 10, 2008

In Steve's post, he touches upon the subject of imagination, a concept that is constantly moving. Very rarely (or ever?) does our imagination produce images of stillness... Which makes me think about museums, and their propensity to imagination. For in museums, stillness is everywhere, yet when you are standing in front of an oeuvre, you see (or you imagine) movement, movements that have already begin or that haven't yet ended, movements in time, through time, through space, movements of the artist or of the subject of the piece. Museums are, just like cinema, a great mise-en-abîme of movement: what exactly is movement? What moves? The apparatus, or the subject, or our vision of it? Movements can't stand in front of us like ouevres in a museum, for movement is around us, happening behind our backs, while our eyes are closed, in us. It takes only our imagination to structure it, to give it a beginning, an end, a goal.

Deleuze asks: "How are the production and appearance of something new possible?" I'd answer, "through imagination".

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