Moment of holding the signifier to another signifier / Derrida

…For in general one conceives of the instant precisely as a pointe, as stigmê, as Punkt, and the punctuality of the point would be, first of all, indivisible. But in the situation that we are evoking, we have to do, paradoxically, with an experience of the singular, of the non-iterable, of the unique that would, however, be divisible enough for an archive to separate off from it somehow.
recording an image would become inseparable from producing an image and would therefore lose the ref- erence to an external and unique referent.

Derrida, J., Amelunxen, H., Fort, J., Richter, G. and Wetzel, M. (2010). Copy, Archive, Signature : A Conversation on Photography. 1st ed. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

Referent of the moment, Signature preserves a referent as a reference. To understanding about the consciousness of the sign of the meaning, I often use photography as a metaphor. The moment when preserving the picture, reference became referent – now became present as a slide of the image. Now we can iterate the image of that point through freshly introduced referent. It preserved the present. Photocopied slices refer multiformity of the interpretations. It could be photocopied on same paper or wood or even on unfixable materials.

Is that means each photocopy has different Referent? It could be holding many references but, I believe, eventually, they are A picture.

What is the structure of the picture/painting ( or two objects would have different structure )

1. observer
2. Frame
3. moment of the capture
4. So on

Then, another question arises again. What is the moment between before taking and after taken? In Japanese, there is a word ‘Aida 間, the moment’ in definition, this Chinese letter comes from the image of the sunshine between the gap of the door. Aida also means the relationship caused by the gap. However, this gap is not constituted by opposite position but the horizontal relationship/distance. Aida could use for the chronological gap. Aida is the relationship of the moment/existence.


Clements, S. (2017). Shall I This Time Hold You?.

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