Return to Saussure

Tâche. AI image Introduction In 1990, Jacques Derrida was invited by the Louvre to curate an exhibition as part of its Parti pris series, an initiative that paired thinkers from other fields with the museum’s vast archives. Derrida’s contribution, Mémoires d’aveugle: L’autoportrait et autres ruines ( Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins ), explored themes of sight, self-portraiture, and blindness. The accompanying text, printed on the gallery walls, transformed the exhibition into a hybrid space where word and image intertwined. The project was neither purely philosophical nor strictly artistic, but rather a meditation on how the visible and the legible overlap and complicate one another. Among its many reflections, Derrida dwelled on the notion of tâche —the artist’s mark or touch. This simple gesture, the trace left by the hand, opens a deep reflection on creation, interpretation, and the production of meaning. Seen through a broader lens, the tâche can be r...

Memoirs of the Blind. AI image   Introduction Jacques Derrida’s philosophical project has long been associated with the dismantling of binary oppositions underpinning Western metaphysics: speech/writing, presence/absence, and sense/reference. In Mémoires d’aveugle: L’autoportrait et autres ruines (1990), Derrida extends this deconstructive inquiry to the field of visuality. Conceived initially as a text for an exhibition at the Louvre and later published as a richly illustrated book, the work questions the privilege traditionally accorded to sight and redefines the relationship between vision, memory, and representation. Derrida’s meditation on blindness, self-portraiture, and the ruin continues his exploration of the trace —the mark that both reveals and conceals, inscribes and effaces. Through the intertwined figures of the hand and the eye, Mémoires d’aveugle exposes the fragility of all acts of seeing, drawing, and knowing. From Text to Exhibition In 1990, the Louvre in...

Splitting . AI image   Cutting the House: The Gesture of Splitting When Gordon Matta-Clark received permission in 1974 to work on a condemned suburban house in Englewood, New Jersey, he did not decorate, preserve, or restore it—he cut it in half. The resulting work, Splitting , transformed an ordinary dwelling into an open wound. The gesture was simple yet profound: by slicing through the center and slightly lowering one section, Matta-Clark revealed the invisible scaffolding that sustained the structure. What had been the image of stability became a vision of fragility, a space simultaneously opened and undone. Born from the architectural debris of post-industrial America, Splitting occupies the uncertain ground between art and demolition. The house—typical, middle-class, anonymous—was already destined for destruction. Matta-Clark intervened before its erasure, turning loss into revelation. He shaved the foundation, sawed a vertical line through the entire building, and allow...

Signifier? AI image   Introduction Understanding the dynamics between the signifier and the signified, as expounded in Course in General Linguistics (CGL), forms a cornerstone of linguistic theory. Saussure’s depiction of the sign—represented through diagrams illustrating the intimate relation between signified and signifier—lays the foundation for his project. Lacan’s reinterpretation of these theories, however, especially his claims regarding the primacy of the signifier and the notion of pure signifiers , introduces a set of complexities that demand careful scrutiny. This article examines Lacan’s selective reading of Saussure, assessing its implications for linguistic theory and psychoanalytic thought alike. Understanding the Sign in Part One of the CGL In Part One of the CGL , General Principles , Chapter 1, §1 Sign, signification, signal [CGL] [97], Saussure presents his well-known diagram of the sign. Here, the signified rests atop the signifier within a circle divide...