Dialectics at a Standstill

For the historical index of the images not only says that they belong to a particular time: it says, above all, that they attain to legibility only at a particular time…Every present day is determined by the images that are synchronic with it: each “now” is the now of a particular recognisability…It is not that what is past casts its light on what is present, or what is present its light on what is past; rather, image is that wherein what has been comes together in a flash with the now to form a constellation. In other words, image is dialectics at a standstill.

Walter Benjamin

Louis Henderson. Untitled (2009)

Constellations

Rational Correlation

Only a few days ago, Louis Aragon pointed out to me that the sign of a Pourville hotel showing in red letters the words: MAISON ROUGE consisted of certain letters arranged in such a way that when seen from a certain angle in the street, the word MAISON disappeared and ROUGE read POLICE. This optical illusion would have no importance if on the same day, one or two hours later, the lady we shall call the lady of the glove had not taken me to see a tableau changeant which was part of the furnishings in the house she had just rented. This object was an old engraving which, seen straight on, represents a tiger, but which, regarded perpendicularly to its surface of tiny vertical bands when you stand several feet to the left, represents a vase, and, from several feet to the right, an angel. I offer, in closing, these two facts because for me, under such conditions, their connection cannot be avoided and because I find it quite impossible to establish a rational correlation between them.

André Breton. Nadja

Aesthetic Revolution

I finally walked out into the passage. By that time the lights had already been switched off. My attention was suddenly attracted by a sort of humming noise which seemed to be coming from the direction of the cane shop, and I was astonished to see that its window was bathed in a greenish, almost submarine light, the source of which remained invisible. It was the same kind of phosphorescence that, I remember, emanated from the fish I watched, as a child, from the jetty of Port Bail on the Cotentin peninsula; but still, I had to admit to myself that even though the canes might conceivably possess the illuminating properties of creatures of the deep, a physical explanation would still scarcely account for this supernatural gleam and, above all, the noise whose low throbbing echoed back from the arched roof. I recognized the sound : it was the same voice of the seashells that has never ceased to amaze poets and film-stars. The whole ocean in the Passage de L’Opera. The canes floated gently like seaweed. I had still not recovered from my enchantment when I noticed a human form swimming among the various levels of the window display. Although not quite as tall as an average woman, she did not in the least give the impression of being a dwarf.

Louis Aragon. Paysan de Paris