Derrida's Structural Survival
Posted by Kathleen Clare Waller on Thursday, July 26, 2012
Living through Différance
Différance : A term used by Jacques Derrida in the greater realm of deconstruction, making sense of the dissonance in our lives that lead to truth. Derrida favors truth in the practice of writing, hope in the play and movement of words and ideas, and structural survival (see below) that allows both knowledge and near immortality through the layering of texts and the world. Read more in Derrida's "Différance" and my Mise-en-abyme in Wayne Wang's New York and Hong Kong films (to learn more about how I see Derrida's positive layering method that works in contrast to a suffocating and frightening black hole of despair).
Difference and Repetition: Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze's book and concept of difference. The authors value dissonance in juxtaposition of closely related things or concepts to reach more acute truths. They also value repeated activities to make understand more about ourselves and the world through slight differences in their repetition.
Becoming: Deleuze's term for living in an active sense. It assumes the person is living through difference and repetition to have a heightened awareness of their reality and living through the Virtual.
Virtual: Deleuze's term for our imagined reality that is, paradoxically, the real reality instead of the physical, Actual world. The Virtual encompasses dreamworlds, imaginations, and memories that come from focal points in our Actual worlds.
Examples of Living through Différance:
Différance : A term used by Jacques Derrida in the greater realm of deconstruction, making sense of the dissonance in our lives that lead to truth. Derrida favors truth in the practice of writing, hope in the play and movement of words and ideas, and structural survival (see below) that allows both knowledge and near immortality through the layering of texts and the world. Read more in Derrida's "Différance" and my Mise-en-abyme in Wayne Wang's New York and Hong Kong films (to learn more about how I see Derrida's positive layering method that works in contrast to a suffocating and frightening black hole of despair).
Ellipsis: Derrida discusses the Ellipsis as the 'space of play' in "Before the Law." Here a gap is created through différance; a friction opens up a porthole. The space may be in the inbetween, the framing of an object or notion. How do we enter a painting? A new city?
Difference and Repetition: Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze's book and concept of difference. The authors value dissonance in juxtaposition of closely related things or concepts to reach more acute truths. They also value repeated activities to make understand more about ourselves and the world through slight differences in their repetition.
Becoming: Deleuze's term for living in an active sense. It assumes the person is living through difference and repetition to have a heightened awareness of their reality and living through the Virtual.
Virtual: Deleuze's term for our imagined reality that is, paradoxically, the real reality instead of the physical, Actual world. The Virtual encompasses dreamworlds, imaginations, and memories that come from focal points in our Actual worlds.
Examples of Living through Différance:
- traveling & comparing a new culture or city to one's own (difference)
- learning about something in one's life or recalling a memory through viewing a film (Virtual)
- writing in a journal (Différance)
- taking time to write a letter by hand
- reading about the life of someone one strives to be
- visiting an art museum (framing)
- cooking from an old family recipe found in a box
- shaping reality through memories (Virtual)
- looking at old photographs (Virtual)
- tasting wines...especially very close varietals
- keeping a weekly schedule, but also breaking from it
- celebrating a yearly holiday (repetition)
- In what ways do you live through différance?