The Signature in the Age of AI: Derrida, Art, and the Paradox of Authenticity

A Pair of Sneakers. In the style of Van Gogh. AI image

Introduction

The modern obsession with verifying authenticity—whether through passports, biometric scans, blockchain tokens, or signed certificates—echoes a paradox Jacques Derrida identified decades ago. In Signature Event Context (1972/1988), Derrida argued that a signature only functions if it can be repeated: “A written sign carries with it a force that breaks with its context, that is, with the collectivity of presences organizing the moment of its inscription” (p. 9). In other words, the very possibility of recognition depends on iterability—the capacity of a mark to be reproduced elsewhere, detached from its origin. This principle undermines the notion of pure originality. In a time of AI-generated art, deepfakes, and digital collectibles, Derrida’s insight feels uncannily prescient.

Marks and Identity

Identity has always been tied to external marks. To prove who I am, I produce documents bearing signatures, photographs, or fingerprints. These symbols of uniqueness operate only because they can be verified against copies stored elsewhere. Derrida insists: “The signifying form must be able to be detached from the present and singular intention of its production” (Signature Event Context, 1988, p. 9). This logic destabilizes the very thing it secures: the authentic self.

Artistic identity operates under the same paradox. The “touch” of an artist—the brushstroke, line, or stain—is taken as evidence of presence, even though the artist’s body is absent from the canvas. Connoisseurship in the nineteenth century, exemplified by Giovanni Morelli, sought to identify painters by the unconscious repetition of forms such as ears or hands. Freud, fascinated by Morelli, compared this method to deciphering the slips of the unconscious, likening memory to a “mystic writing pad” that preserves traces beneath its erasable surface. Derrida develops this notion in Writing and Difference (1978/2001), where he emphasizes that identity is constructed from such “repeated psychic impressions” (p. 211). In both art and life, the self is written in a series of iterable marks that are never identical, always differing from themselves.

The Artist’s Touch in the Digital Age

The paradox of repetition has intensified in the digital sphere. AI-generated images mimic styles with uncanny precision. A Midjourney composition can approximate the brushwork of Van Gogh or the geometries of Mondrian. But if the value of style lies in its repeatable marks, does an algorithm’s replication invalidate or extend authorship?

Derrida’s notion of iterability clarifies the problem. “Iteration alters, contaminating pure repetition with difference” (Limited Inc, 1988, p. 40). Every copy bears deviation, even as it claims fidelity. The so-called “original” was itself already iterable, already marked by repetition. In this sense, AI-generated art does not create a new dilemma but reveals the instability that was always present. The mystique of the artist’s touch is displaced onto a dataset, yet the structure remains: identity through repeatable yet non-identical marks.

The same tension surfaces in debates over NFTs. A digital artwork, infinitely reproducible, gains “authenticity” only through a cryptographic certificate. Here again, the copy authenticates the original, reversing the traditional hierarchy. What is sold is not the image itself but the mark of ownership attached to it. The Derridean paradox resurfaces: authenticity is guaranteed by the possibility of duplication.

Shoes, Fetishes, and Sneakers

Derrida illustrates the instability of attribution in his essay Restitutions of the Truth in Pointing (1978/1987), where he critiques Heidegger and Meyer Schapiro’s conflicting readings of Van Gogh’s shoes. Were they peasant boots or an urban painter’s footwear? Each interpretation, Derrida shows, projects a narrative that cannot be grounded in the work itself. The shoes resist definitive identity, occupying a liminal space between inside and outside, utility and fetish.

This example resonates with contemporary culture in an unexpected place: the sneaker market. Sneakers, like Van Gogh’s shoes, accumulate meanings beyond functionality. Limited-edition Jordans or Yeezys derive value from marks of authenticity—logos, stamps, certificates. Yet these signs are constantly forged, prompting elaborate systems of verification. Platforms such as StockX employ digital tags and blockchain records, but their authority ultimately rests on the repeatability of the very marks they seek to secure.

Sneakers thus exemplify what Derrida described: “Iterability alters, and this alteration is not an accident but the very structure of repetition” (Limited Inc, 1988, p. 40). The desire to authenticate reveals that originality never stood alone; it was always dependent on iterable traces. The sneaker as fetish object shows how cultural value circulates through marks whose reliability is structurally unstable.

Thinking Without a Box

In the conclusion of The Truth in Painting (1978/1987), Derrida highlights thresholds—shoes, frames, doors, bodies—that blur the line between inside and outside. These liminal zones embody what deconstruction exposes: that binary oppositions (authentic/forged, original/copy, inside/outside) cannot hold. Instead, meaning is produced in the unstable interplay between them.

In the digital era, where AI can replicate signatures and images, and where NFTs function as certificates of presence for inherently reproducible files, Derrida’s lesson rings clear. Identity, authorship, and authenticity are not stable essences but effects of iterable marks, forever suspended between repetition and difference.

Rather than lament the collapse of originality, we might embrace the space opened by deconstruction—a space where creativity and interpretation are unbound from the myths of purity. To think, as Derrida suggested, “without a box” is to acknowledge that the structures we use to stabilize meaning are themselves provisional traces.

Conclusion

From signatures on cheques to the brushstrokes of Van Gogh, from Freud’s mystic writing pad to NFTs and sneaker authentication, the paradox of identity has always rested on repeatable marks. Derrida’s reflections on trace and iterability illuminate a culture where the authentic is authenticated only through duplication. In an age of artificial intelligence and digital reproduction, the lesson is not that originality is dead, but that it was never absolute. What persists is the play of différance: identity as a mark that is always repeated, never self-identical, always already open to the other.

References

Derrida, J. (1987). The truth in painting (G. Bennington & I. McLeod, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1978)

Derrida, J. (1988). Limited Inc (S. Weber, Trans.). Northwestern University Press.

Derrida, J. (2001). Writing and difference (A. Bass, Trans.). Routledge. (Original work published 1978)

Derrida, J. (1988). Signature event context. In Limited Inc (pp. 1–23). Northwestern University Press. (Original work published 1972)

Freud, S. (1961). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 19, J. Strachey, Trans.). Hogarth Press.

Morelli, G. (1995). Italian painters: Critical studies of their works (Vols. 1–2). Garland Publishing. (Original work published 1890)