Athens, Still Remains

The Photographs of Jean-Franr;ois Bonhomme

JACQUES DERRIDA
_)
Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael N aas
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK 2010
Copyright Fordham University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may he reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or hy any me:1ns-electronic,
mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in
printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Athen, StilL Remains was published in French as Demeure, Athenes
by Editions Galilee, Editions Galilee.
Library of Congress Catal(!ging-in- Publication Data
Derrida, Jacques.
[Demeure, Athenes. English]
Athens, atill remains, the photographs of Bonbomme I
Jacques Derrida; translated hy Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN (cloth' alk. paper)-
ISDN (pbk. 'alk. paper)
L Death. z. Grief. 3. Sepulchral monuments-Greece-Athens-Pictori:ll
works. 4 Athens {Greece)-AnliquiL1es-P.i.clul"ial wu1kt>. I.
1943- !L Brault, Pascale-Anne. IlL Naas.
Michael N. Title.

Contents
LIST 0 F ILL US T RAT I 0 N S vii
T R A N S L AT 0 R S' N 0 T E ix
* * * * *
ATHENS, STILL REMAINS
* * *
NOTES 'l'3
Illustrations
1 Kerameikos Cemetery, Stn:t'l orTombs, Sepulcher
Oroonia Sqwn-e-the Old 1\ eon Cafe
3 A Few Moments in theN eon
4 Strt:Ot'l Organ
5 Athinas Street
6 Athinas-Meut Mal'ket
7 Athinas-Fruil and Vl':getable Market
[J
9 Photop;rapher un Lhe A:ropolis
10 Kerameikos Stde
n The Parthenon Phulogl'aphy in Waiting
1:.: Statue in
18 Athinas-Fish Market
14 Agora--Column Fragments
5 Kerameikos Cemetery-Lck)'thus
J(, Dealer in Monastirnki
17 Agora, Tnsc:ripti.on
18 Keramcikos C:P.metery Museum-Detail fom a Funerary Stele
19 Market
40 i\drianou Street Market
SundayattheAdrianouSio'ef".tMD.Tket
Market-Two Brothers
il .Bouzouki Player
Persephone Street
25 N ea1 the Tower of the Winds
Kl"rameikos Cemctcry--Suet:Ol ofTomh;;
27 Site oft he Tu .... er ofthe Winds
Stoa of Attalos
29 Agora-Apollo Patroos
3o
Agora--Sarcophagus
3:.>, Theater of Dionysus-Thmnr, of the Priest
33 Frieze of the Theater of Dionysus Zt:Ous Seaterl
.14 frieze ofthe Thcate1' of Dionys11s-the Silenus
Translators' Note
Atheros, Remo.i11.s w.a.:: published in 1996 by
Editions OLKO s (Athens) in a bilingual Fnmch-Modem Greek P.rlition.
it appeared there as the preface to a wllection of photograph:; by Jeari-
Fr:tn'<ois Ron homml' puhli.o,hed under the titleAth..ens-in the Shad.c-u- of
theAcropoli; de !'tlcropolc). Derrida' s prdar,e was sub-
sequently published alone in French. along with Bullhumme's photo-
graphs, by Editions Galilee in 2009. This .English translation is based on
the C!!lilee edition.
Oerrida's original French title, llthenes, can be heard in at
least three differentwa}'s, as an imperative, "Stay, Athens!"' as a descrip-
tion, "Athens stays'" or "Athens remain.;;," or a fo!'mulation typically
found on official to .refer to one's place of :residence, '"lleR-
idtmre: Athens." The word demeure can thus be heard either as a notm,
meaning house, dwelling, or re.c;idenr.e, or as a verb, meaning to remain,
stay. or reside. The verb dcrn<'tHcr also originally meant "to defer .. or ""to
delay."' Denida c;-.:ploits all of these meanings in work. along with a
number of relatr.d idioms. Because no single English word or even phrase
can cover alllhe diffeie.nl m valenr.P..c; ofthe French demeure,
the titleA.I"he71$, Still Remains is less a tran:;lation than a 1ra into
;1. "emantir. field that is akin to the original but overlaps it only pa1tially.
Parts or this workwP.TP. by Da.vidWills and published in his
translation of Jacque:; Dt:uida aud CaLhexinfl Malahou's Goa1lterpath:
Tro.vcling'!JJi.thfaaqueslJerrida (Stanford, Stanford University Press,
o3-f\). are grateful to David Wills for allowing us to adopt so many of
his wmd dw.ices.
A graduate seminar in the Dc:pal"llllt:nl al DePaul Univer-
sity in autumn allowr.d us to reli.ne and improve this translation.
We wuuhl.like to express our gratitude to the mP.mbers of the seminar, as
well as to our colleague at DePaul, Elizabeth for their
excP.lltmt
Firwlly, v.e v.ould likl>. fo thank the Summer Grants Program ofthe
College of Liberal Art;; and al DePaul forits [\"ener-
ous supp art ofthis project.
nous devons a. la mort.
1
V/e owe owselves to death.
I twas thiR past July3. right around noon, close to Athens.
It was then that this took me b)' surprise, in the light-"we
owe ourselves to death"-and the desire immediately overcame me to
cngra.,.e it in stom, without dda)': a sna-pshot Iun in.sta.ntane], I said to
myself, without any further delay.
As the of an example, no doubt, but .'II'> if it had to
me these VI"Ords in advance. what iuunediately flashed before me was
one of these photographs: Kera.m.!.!ikoR CemetfffJ' Street of Tombs, Sepu.t-
cher (no. 1): on the distended skill of an erection, just below the pre-
puce, asodofphallic column hears an inscription that l had
ciphered, except fonhc proper name, Apollodorus. And what ifit v.ere
!ha.tApollodorus, the .author of a history of the gods? T would have loved
to sign 1hc.:8C words; I would have loved to be the aulhor of an epit.aph
for the author of a history of the gods.
I had been traveling in Greece with these photographs ever since
Jean- Fram;oil:! Bo.uhomme had given them to me. A risk had already
been taken when I promised to write somethingforthe publication of
these photog1aphs, and 1 had already begun lo approac.b. thf'm with the
hmilia.rity of a neophyte. where fascination, admiration, and aston-
ishme.ut were nil bound up together, all sorts of troubling questions
as well, in particular regarding the form my text might take. Without
bwwingit, I must have decided on that day, thethirdofJuly. having not
yet v.'Titlcn a word, that the form would be at once aphoristic and
Making lli!C in this way of black and whitf', shadow aud light, I -w-ould
thus disperse my "poims of view-'' ur perspectives," all the while pre-
tendingto gather them togF-ther in the d(;quence of their very separa-
tion, a bit like a narrative always on the verge of being intcnupted, but
also like those funeraryr stones standing upl'ight in lhe S!ret:t ofTvrnbs
(no. . .Arollnd the one on which the name Apollodorus be
read, I had alrearly rloticed the insistence of tt serial motif. Dack and
forth from one to the other, from one column Lo anoLh4;r and one limit
Ol'tlli'ning poiuttu the nroxt, this serialicyis i.n. mourning or mourn-
ing [porte de.uil}. Tt bears mourning through its discrete structure
( interntption, separation, reperitlon, sw\lival); it hears the mourning
uf aU b:yitself, beyond the r.hings of death that form its theme. if
you will, or the content of the images. It's not just in the Keramciku:;
Cemetery or among its funcraiJ :;tel ciS that this can be seen. \Vhether
we are looking at the whole pir.ture orjllst a detail, nev-er do any of these
photographs fail to signifY death. Each death without saying it.
Each one, in any case. n::c.;alls a death that has already or one
that is promised or threatening, a sepulchral monumentalily. mem-
ory in the f:tgure of min. A Look uf t:pitaphs, in short, which or
wears mo r.uning [p ortc le deuil] in photo graphic (Porter deui/.-
what a suangf! irlionh how is one to translate such a bcar.i.ug or rnch a
range of meaning lporl.eeJ? lmd bow is one to suggcstthatthF. far
from being borne by the survivor, who, al' we 5:1y, goes into mourning
or bP.an:. mourning, is actually the one who fust heal's il, it within
or comp.l'ehewh it likt: a specter that is greater tha.n the "living" heir,
who still heli1wes that he contains or comprehends death, interiori:ting
or saving the departed whose mourui11g he must bear'?) We thus ger.
the impression that what I have ventured to ca 11, vrithout too much im-
pudence, the phallus or the colossus of Apollodorus immeclialc:ly
comes the metonymic f1gwe I or entire series of phowgraph" C'.ol-
lcctcd in this book. But each one of them remains in its turn whal il
becomes: a funerary inscription with a proper name. Having to keep
what it loses, namely lhc departed, does not every photograph actin ef-
fect through the experience of such a proper name, through
the irresistible singula1ily of its referent, itll hercnow. ils date? And
thus through the irresi"tible singularity of its rapport with or relation tu
what it ::lhow3, its ferance or its be.aring, the portee that constitutes its
proper visibility? It thus seems impossible, and t.hat's the whole para-
d.ox, to stu p Lhis metonyrnic substitution. There is nothing but proper
names, and yet everything rem.:1.ins metonymic. That's photography:
seriality does not r,ome to affect it by accident. What is accidental for
it, and ineluctable. My feeling was lobe connrmed as it came
into sh..'trper for.ns. Yes, each photograph whispers a pruper name. bnt
it also becomes the appellation of all o lhers. You can already vcr
ify without compromising in the least its absolute
each of them is what it is, no do LAbt all on its ovm, but each one calls at
once <Jorne other one and a.H the mhcrs. I will be able to sa.ythis better
later. Whence the idea of a series of aphorisms analogous to till: multi-
ple tries or takes of thP. amateur photographer I am, a stream of snap-
fihots or stills I clichesP-now th(';re's a possible title-sometimes just
negativefnvaitingto developed. Here and there a few enlargements-
of the "thing" itself or of a detail. I would thus <til ow myself a series of
trials and errors: to prolong in one place the timt: of the pose, to multi-
ply in anothervarious ":wums" or discontinuous close ups ofthesame
place, affonl.ill!{ myself the liberty to feel roy way as r go, to multiply
the stereotype!! and the polaroids, to my own steps. to take a
shadow by surprise-and always w own up to my inexperience: inepl
framing, overcxposLue, underexposure, shoo Ling into the light, and !!O
on. (Speaking of which, what would Plato or Heideggcr have thought
of thi::; thing caJied the shutter or, in French, using a name that has
been part ofthevocalmlaryof photography since 1868, the obtura.teur?
Would they ho.ve conside1ed this little mer.hanism that allows one
to calculate the light passing through, the impression of sensible
subjectile-and the delaying of the "right momcnl" I moment voulu.].)
3
Still I
We owe ourselves lo death.
\\'hat a (ientence. Will it be more oJless for being fu:ed
or on in this way by a lens or objective, as if one were to lcL it
sink hack just as soon, without any celebration, into the nocturnal an-
onywity of its origin'? We owe oursdvci:i to deaTh. Once and for all, one
for all rimes. Tht sentence took me by surprise. as I said, hut I
knew right away that it must have been waiting for me for centuries,
lurking in the: shadows, knowing in advance: wheretof:md me (whereto
fmd me'? does that mean?). And yet-and I would he prepared to
swear to thig.-it appeared only once. Never d.oes it lend itf\elf to com-
mentary, never does it specify its modality: is it an obse1vation or a
piece of advice. owe ourselves to death"? Does this sentence ex-
press the law of what is or the law that prestrihes what nu,ght to be? Does
it let hear that. in Iact or in truth, we 0"\V"e ourselves to death"? Or
else that we are obliged, that we ought, w owe ourselves to death? For
it came to me, so to speak, only once, this oracular thing. this one awl
nnt another. only one Lime, the fust and last time al the same time, on
a certain day in July, .and at a certain moment, and e\'ery time l make it
come or rather each time I let it reappear. it is once and Joru.ll, une
time for all #mes, or rather I shouln all the times for a single time.
Like death. (One might insert here a short trcatil'le on the idealization
of ideo.tit)'"-Or on ideal objectivity-through the iterabiliLy of the "one
time for all Limes." and, to stay in Greece, introduce the question of
photography, between Plato and Husser}, in the context of what eidos
will have meant.)
Tell me, who v.'ill ever have photographed a sentence? And. its silence
of things stifled on the surface? Wbo v.dll have photogtaphed any
thing other lha.n this silcncfl?
from who kno"'-s where, the in question nu
longer belonged to me. h had, in fact, never been mine, and I did not
4
yet feel responsible for it. Having in!'ltantly fallen into the public cit"J-
muin, it had traversed rw.:. It passed through me, saying from wilh.i..u
me that il was .iust passing through. Having become its hostage rather
than its host, I had to offer it hospitality, indeed, to keep it I was,
to be sure, responsible for its safekeeping, for safegll.qrding each of its
words, accowtlable for the immuni1:yor indemnity of each joined
to the ne-,xt. But the same debt, the same obligation, dictated to me that
I IJ.ol take this sentenr.e, not take it as a whole, that I not under anycir-
Cll take hold of it like a sf'ntence sig.w.:d by me. _And it did in
fact remain impregnable.
Thi::s acknowledgement of debt, this wu, was like a thing, a. simple
thinglo11tin thewurld, hut a thing already owed, aln:adydue, and I had
to keep it without taking it. To hold on to it as if holding it in trusl. as
if on consigned to a photoengraved safekeeping. What
does this nhligation, thil! u.rst indebting, have to du wilh the verb of
th.i.s declaration that can never be appro pxiated, "we mtll [devons] our-
3elves to d(>ath?" What does the obligation have to do with what the
declaration to mcaiJ.? Not "we owe ourselves to the death," not
"we owe ouTselves death," hut "we owe vurselves to de<1th."
just who is death? (Where is it-or .<ilic to be foLind? One says,
cLUiously, in 1
1
nmch, trouver la rrwrt, to ":find death," '"to meet with
de:rr.h"-- and thal means to die.)
5
Still II
But just who is death? The <:an be posed at each and every step
in this phorographicjourneythroughALhens, andnotonlyin the cern
in from ofthe airuLsscd tombstone!'., the fun era lsteles, the col-
umns and the crossefl, the sites, the decapitated statues,
the temples in ruins, the chapels. the <mtiquc dealers in a flea mar-
ket, the displays of dead animalfrmeat and flsh-on a market street .
. The pfm;on who took his time to tnke these images of Athens over a
period of almost f1fteen yean! did not just devote himself to a photo-
graphic revie1c of certain sites that already constituted hypomnesic m-
ins, so many monumental signs of death (the Acmpolis, the Agora. the
Cemetery, the Tower of the \v'inds, the Theater of Diony-
sus). He also saw disappear, as time passed, places he photographed,
to speak, "li..,ing," which are now "gone," "departed" [disparusJ. this
son of flea market onAdrianou Street, for example, or the Neon Cafe
in Omonia Square. most of the streetoxgans, and so OIL world that
was the Athens of yesleLday- aLcady a certain modernil:y of the city-
everyday Ar:hens photographed in everydayness, is the 1\thens that
is nmv no longer inAtherts. Her soul wowd dsk being even less pres
ertt, it might he said, than the archeological vestiges of ancient Ath-
ens. Their ruin. the only telling :1rchi.,.-e for this Market, this Cafe, this
Street Organ, the best memory of culture, would be photograph,;.
We would thus have to meclitate tlpon this invasion of photography
intcnhP history ofthe city. An absolute mutation, though om: l:'n;parcd
from lime immemorial (physis, phos, helios, tekhne, epiMem.ii, phiioso-
phia). Thi!'l book thlls bears the signature of someone keeping vigil and
bearing more than one mourning, a witness who i::s UfJubly
a lover lcndcrly taken by a city that has died more than once, in many
time!'!, a hu sy watching over all that is noncontemporaneous within
it, a living city nonetheless. Tomon-ow, livirtg Athens will be seen
keeping and keeping an eye on, guarding anrl regarding, reflecting and
reflecting on its deaths.
Still \II
We lo death.l had in any case to pay my debt toward this
sentence. No matter the cost.ll had taken me, taken me by surprise
{as ii it had photographed without my knowledge. unexpectl";dly,
exaiphnes); it had overtaken me, outfltripped me, perhaps like death.
a death thar would have found me where I was still hiding; it had en
truf:!kd mevrith I don't knowwhat perhaps myself, and
perhaps us; it had el:!pr.:ci.ally entrusted itself to me by making advances
on me, by giving me an advance. It had granted me an advancl";. An ad-
vance, that's what it was, whatever el.c;e it might have wherever it
might hnve come from and l"i hatever it might have meant. In the eyes of
thi::; advance, 1 was not a nl) the debtor but I was late. Given n ntice [mis
en demeure] to pay 1eslilution. I couldn't lose any mon: lime; my nrst
obligation wa.o; to save the scnle.11ce as soon as possible, \\ithout any
further dday. This urgent Mntence, moreovCI', suggested something
about urgency. It imi.11uaLed at least, on the brink ofurgen<..j' leaving
me free or pressing me vithout pressuring r.ae-alaw of imminence.
Whence tht: idea, the nrst ide.1, my original impulse. of inscribing it
in stone, right here. right away. the idea offtxing it or focusing on it
precisely like an idea, eidos or idea, a form, a 1'1gure, in this element
of eternity that our imagin.'l.tio:n naivelr wiLh Greece and its
petroglyphs. T WOllld thus be ablt: LO settle up with it and then settle on
leaving it, leaving it without losing it. This was precisely my desire, or
else the opposite: to dis Lance myself from it, to set out from il without
evt:r leaving it.
7
l .
6
Still IV
I was taking a a few hours later, and I was having a hard time sep-
arating myself from everythi.ng, and especially from it, and so I began
to dream of a camera equipped with a ''delay mechanism": after se-t-
ting up the camera, after adjW:!ting the time of the po!:lc and activating
the "triggering device," 1 might he able, I said to myself, to run ovt:I' lo
the side words loaned, not given -so that the
might gather us all togethf:r once and for all. J would thus let
. taken by surprise for a time without f!nd, a time .in proximity to which
I would feel more nnite than ever, myself now entrusted 01 consigned
in turn to thi!:l sentence of stone, consigned for life and up until death
Lei /.a vie a La m.ort], linked thus to what would nev<.:r be mine, but linked
to it d. demeure, that is, for the duration.
Still V
A he Sa)1!. There is nothing here that is not already lodged,
that ia, d demeure, in the French from the house to the tem-
ple, along with everything that happens to he r se trouoe.] photographed
here, right up to /,a demiere dcmeu.re, the fmal resting place, everything
can he found here, from the injunction stay!) to d1e m.ise en
demeurr.. arc mi.s en demeure, wr: are given notice, to pay what we
owe wjtbin a certain time period, for example, to death, at death, to
sett1e our accounts, in the end to he released from our obligations, and
to do so wirhout delay!.) Ever:;1hing having to do with debt and delay
can thul:l already be found in the word demeure, as in the sentence "we
owe ourfl.elvcs to death." every1:hing, eternally, having to do with ob-
ligation and rime, everything and the refl.t-remains, destiny, defer-
ral, delay (demora.ri: to rf!main, to sLop, to take one 'g time or to delay-
whichstrangelyrescmblesdem.ori: to die, to waste away). 1\yntax
remai..usuntranslatahle, and I was notyetdonewithevt.:I)'thingitkeepf\
9
2
10
in reserve. l.h&td the impression thal. h,y l'oCLts.ing on
a photograph. on<.: could-and the analysis would be endless-discover
v.'ithin them many that their letters showed by concealing
themselves, refllllining [dem<:urant] inunobile. exposed,
too ob.,.ious, although suspended in broad daylight in some dark room,
some ca.mem obscu.m, of the French language.
Still VI
For I had already sensed, through these photographs, a p.atient medi-
tation, one that would take its time along the way, giving itself the time
for a slow and leisurely stroll through Athens (f1fleen yeaLs!). the pace
of a meditation on being and time. being-and -time in Greek tra-
dition, to be sure, from the exergue from the Sophist that opens Being
and Time. But being and time .in lhc age of photography. HaJ not many
trips to Greece m'er these past few yr:arl> prP-pared me for this feeling?
(There first of all, Athens (three times in fact), and Mykonos and
Rhodes (where I had Lhc impression uf swimming for the very f:t:rst
timF:), and and P.atmos. v.'ith George and Myrto, and then
the .Knisariani l1onasleqwilh Calhe1ine Vel.issa1is and DemoiiSthenes
following the footsteps of Heidegger, who, near the very
same Greek Orthodox temple, did not fail to indict yet again in his
not ouly Rurne, along with its Ch1,1rch, its law, its state, and
its theology, but technology, machines, tourism. tourist atrractinnF>-
and above all photography. the operating of cameras and video cam-
eras," which, in organized tours, the authentic experience
of the stay orth e sojourn.)
We owe ourselves to death, we owe ourselves to death, we owe our-
selves to death. we owe ourselves to death: the sentence kept on re-
peating itself in my head, so full of sun, but without reproducing itself.
11
. .
12
IL produced itself each time fo1 Lhe llrst time, the same, to be SLAre, but
each time anew completely new. like an original-or a negative without
origin. Once and fur all, the thing lacking in this original
nt:gative.
It's now time; let us begin to lohk. Look at the Plwtogro,pher on. the
AcropoUs (no. 9), whom you can see meditating or sleeping. his head
resting on his chest, in the middle of the book. I -w-onder-if he ha.sn'tsct
up in front of him, in I runt of you, an archaic figure of this delay mech-
anism. In order to photograph the photograph and its photographer. in
order to let to do with photography be seen, in or-
der to bookmark everything in this book. What exacdywould he ha,re
done, the author-photographer of this book, the author, therefore, of
this self-portrait? He would h.we !'lettheanim.al machineU'p on a Del-
phic tripod. In following here the echo of myf.:mtasy. everything would
be suspended in the i11terval of this dela')'. a sort of diaphanous
time in an air of invisibJ.lity. His e.reR are closed, but Lhe photographer
protects them further from the lighl with The author o a
photograph would have also looked for, indeed even sought out, the
shade of a parasol, unlc:,;:; it happens to he a reflector.
Still VII
We owe ourselves to death. This semeucc was right away, al'i we have
comf- to understand, greater than the inlltant, whence the desire to
photograph it without delay iu lhe noonday sun. Without letting any
more time pass, but for a latenime. Whythi3 lime delay'! .An untrans-
latable sentence (and I was sure, from the very :f:trst instant.. that the
economy of this sentence belonged to my idiom alone, or rather, to
the domesticity of m,y old love affair with this ::;tranger whom 1 call my
French a sentence that resists trani;lation, as if one could
13
14
only photograph it. as if had to take its by
surprise at its birth: immobile. monumental, impassive. singular. ab-
stract. in retreat from all treatment, unreachable in the end by any peri
phrasis. by any transfer, by rhetoric itself, by the eloquence of tr.1111\-
position. Reticent like a word that know::; how w keep sJenl in order Lo
say so much, a word frmen in itF: tracks [trlm.hPe Fm. a.rrP-t], or pretemrl-
ing. rather, to be freeze-framed lmTit su.rima.gd before a video cam-
era. An oracle of silence. It gives itself in refusing itself. One time for
all times. As soon as it takes [prend] in language (but who will trans-
late Lhis p,.endl'e i.n the phrase "des qu' elle prend dans la langue"), and
once it is taken by it, it resembles a photograph. The sentence takes in
photography, or takes a photograph of the language that photographs it
(like the photographer who photographs himseli when he lakes a pho-
togri!ph hook). aretakf.n, t.he one and the other,
in the unique example ofthis apparition. this sentence here and not
another, in this irreplaceable language; it thus, it was thus, it hap
pened, it took place, this here, time for all as "we
owe elves to ut:alh."
Still VIII
Prendre u.n.e photographi.e, to take a photograph. prendre en photographie,
to take a photograph but also to take in photography: is this translat-
able? At what moment docs a photog-raph come to be taleen? And taken
by whom"? lam perhaps in the process, with :mywordB, of making off
with his photogJaphs, oftald.ng rromhim the photographs that he once
took. Can one appropriate another's mourning? And if a photograph is
taken as one takes on mourning [prend le deiti!], that is, in separation,
huw would. such a Lhcil be possible? But then also. how could such a
theft be .a.voinerl?
15
16


Still IX
I was coming back that day with friends from Brauron to Alhens. It was
around noon, and we were on our way to go gwimming. after having
paid our respects to the young girls walking in a procession tOivard the
altar of Artemis. The Q.ay before I had already yet ltga.in to
Athens, butthattime itwasfromthe tip S01mion, where we
went swimming, and I had recalled at the time the other signature of
Byron, the other petroglyph marking his passage-at Lerici this time,
near Porto Venere. And 1 d the time it took for Socrates to die af-
tcrthc verdict cundcmn.i.ng him (and lhe name So union, as we know. is
ins epa m hie from this) . .Thi:; was my third stay in Greece. Barely stays,
regrellably, more like visits, multiple, fleeting. and all too late. \'V'hy so
late? Wny did I wait so long to go there, to give myself over to C reece?
So late in life?
But a delay, day:>. is something I always love as what gives me
the most to think, more than the present moment, more than the fu
ture and more than eternit:j, .1 del a)' before time itself. To think the at-
present of the now pal:!t, or to come). lo L'eLhinkinstantaneity
on the basis of the delay not thfl othP.r way armmd. Bm: delay is not
exactly the right word here, for a delay does not exist, strictly speaking.
It is something that v..ill never be, never a subject or an object. \i;'hal I
would rather cultivate would be a perm.a.n.en.r.ly delo.yed am;i.on [retarde-
mcnl a demeure I, the chrono-dissymmetrical process of the morato-
rium [moratoi.rn], the delay that carves out its calculations in the incal-
culable.
Still X
I have always associated such delayed action rretardementl with the ex-
perience of the photographer. Not with photography but with the pho-
tographic experience of an "image hunter." the snapshot or
17
6 .
18
instamatir. [intantane] that, from the lens or objective. freezes for
near eternity what isnaivdy called an image, there would thus he
tk!ayed CJction. And tho U$'hlful meditation o:n this delayed action always
gets woven within me along the lines of two Atlumian threads, pltotog-
raph) (the writing of light-is there a word more Greek?) and the enig-
matic thought of the aiiin (the .interval full with duration [1,
d"une duree], an inces!';ant space oftime, and sometimes
called clcrni.ty ). The intriguing possibility of a delayed .a.cti.on gets wo
ven or out in advance along lhc l.i..nes of these threads. lnces-

[incessamment J, what a word.l
Whenee my for delay, and for the delay within delay (ape-
riphrasisfoLtheadvance, Since time iS l1f'.f',ded tO makethismovc). anu
my mad love for all the figures ohhis moratorium en abyme that are or-
ganized "';thin photographic invention-and with almost the sole aim
of illustrating or hiuging such invention to light-by the technique
tha.t goes bythf' namr. ofthe delay mechanism, the automatic timer, or
the autom.'ltic shutter
le retard automtLtitjtlel. At once banal in its possibility and F;ingular and
unprecedented in itFI opr.rational workings, it has given rise today to
mechanisms that are so much more sophisticated than so many imag-
inable sop his tics. Everything is going to be in place in just a mament,
at any moment now [incegso.mment], presently or at prt;senl, so that,
later, a few from now, sometimes a lot later or very
longtime from now, anotherprcscnllo come will be tnken bysurprifle
. by the click and v:ill he forever reproducible, archivahlc, saved
orlostforthis present time. One does not yet knowwhatthe image
give or show, hut the interval must he objectively calcu.lab!e. a certnin
technology is required, and this is the origin or the essence of
technoloSY.
19
7
. 8 .
zo
Stiii.Xl
Let's go back to thP. Photogrnpher on the Acropoli-s, whom you ran see
meditating or sleeping, his head slouched dovm, in the middle of this
book. Hns he not set up in front of him, in front of you, an archaic fLg-
urr. of delay mer.hanism? Did he not decide, after some reflec
tion, to ph()tograph photography and its photographer, in o1der to let
everything that has to do with -photography be :.;een. in order to book-
mark evel)rt.hing in this hook? He would have set the animal- machine
on a Delphic tripod. His eyes are closed, you can seF:, and he protects
them even further from the light with sunglasses; he even sought out
the sharle of a it's a reflector.
AI; in an anti que store, make an inventory of everythingyou can count
11p around lhisPhotographeron theAcropoU.s. Con:hgurcd on the or
stage of a single image, accnmulakd in the studied rlisorder of a pre-
arrangt:d taxonomy, there's an example, a representative, a sample of
all visible aspects, of all the .!lpecies, idols. icons, or simu.lacrn of possible
things. of"ideas," if you will. of all those shown in this book: within a
space whe1e all time!! or cross paths (an arclllteolog) of ruins,
a cemetery of phantoms, authentic antiquities nr the rw.:rchro1dise of
antique dea lerl\, a conservatory o Athcniam., both living and dead, a
market or n:sale store in a street of yesteryear, and so on), there is also
a crossing of all the kingdoms of the world (crossing in the of ge-
nealog_v and genres, but also in the senille of fortuitous encounters, of
this tu.khethat gathers the mall together along the way, the1e where they
just happen to he, as it just may happen in a photograph that perhaps
feigns improvisation), all the kingdoms whose sediments this hook an
alyzes: (i) everywhere you look, the petrogiyphs of a miner-a.! memory:
lJeg"etation, rare but visible, r;rov.'ing between the s-wncl!; (3) an
archeology fuc.ed in stone of the Athenian divinities (the allusions of
the book Dionysus rather than the livu1g
21
. 'J.
22
thf'; photozoography or a black pigeon o:n thF. left (are its feathers black
or nre they just in the 3hadow of this skiagr<tphy?); (5) the living hu
man, the photographer himself or his model, the one as the other, the
one producing or re-producing the other, the one as the generator OJ'
the proge11 i tor of the other; (6) technical obj Ls, whether (a) everyday
implements (Lhe bench. the bucket next to .1 fountain, if I'm seeing
it right) or (h) machine instru.mems (rno cameras, at least, from two
generations, one large one sma 11, one old one young. one more archaic
than the other, an archeology of -photography; (7) and then so n1any
or ref!.ecting (the cameras themselves, the sunglasses,
the parasol-reflector); (8 .;- n) :md, fmally, the dis-
play.;d on the camera itself and under the paraBol. These representa-
tions, these photogr:1phs of photographl:l (Lhese phantasma;to., .1::; Plato
would ba;c hastened to say, and that is why one can no longer count
here, no longer count on tllis process of reflection, for as soon as you
counl on it you can no longt=:r count, you lose yuw head or y-ou lose tht=:
!ngos), these copies of copies that you can see, in two places, at uncc in,
frunt of the phntographer, on the body of the camera set on the tripod,
and behind, behind the hack oft he photographer. under the -paraso.l-
these are perhaps some of the photographs of the book. The book an
nounces itself in thifl way.
:Z3
. 10 '
24
Still XII
\Vhen. exactly, does a shot [pri.se de vu.e] take \1:iJten, exactly, is
it taken? .lffid thus .whc rc? Given tht! workings of a delay mechanism,
giYen the "time lag" or "time differenr.e.," if I can put it this way. is
the photvgraph taken when the photographer takes the thing in view
and on it, when he adjusts the diaphragm and seLs the tim-
ing mechanism, or else when the click signals tne capture and the im
pression? Or later ::still, al Lhe moment of development'! And should
we gh-e in to the verti gn llf this and this innnitc nJ..irror.i.11g
when they draw us into the folds of an endless refle,..ivity? Does not
one of the other 1he Pa,rLhenon (no. H). exhibit, at least in
part, the same camera 011 a tripod, the same parasol or the same rdlcc
tor? Does not the ::;ame camera also display photographs. on it.s side?
OthMphotographs this time, it is true, the poilraitof a man and. in ad-
dition (n supplementar:r mise en. o.b;me), size images of this
very Parthenon, which form:; background for everything else? My
hypothesis iF; that this structure is generalilcd throughol.ll lhe book.
It is its lai<t, aad it will even have engendered thir; so cleverly calcu-
lated hook, engendered it through a IHlllSponLaneous generalilarion.
Whence the putting to thf! tes.t and the program that I would he able to
skett:h out later: incessantly to walk along this line of the to try
to lookw-ithoutt:remblinga.tthis in:ilnite mirruring Lhal can-.i.es there-
flection of all these photogrnphs, to take up tne list ofthe il + n catc
gories or of Lcing" and play at sorting each of these shots into
ontological boxes or squarer;, hopscotching, as it were, from one to
the Like cards on a m.<lp, a sort of Cartesian Bnt I
know in advance that metonymy will make Lhis classifwation impos-
sible and lacking in rigor. to repetition, each take-each shot
[dichel-w.ill ha....-e more than one place in this classificatory
But it matter; I will try this another lime, if only to do or to
plove the impossible.
. Tl
26
Still XIII
I
Imagine him, _yes him, through the images he has "taken." Walking
along the edge, as I said just a moment ago, of the abyss of his images,
I am retracing the foott!1eps of the photograph'"r. He bears ,;n, advance
the mourning for Athens, for a city owed to death, a city due for death,
and two or three times rather than according lo different trmpo-
ralities: mourning for an ancient, archeological, or mythologicul Ath-
to be sure, .mourning for that is gone and that shows the
body of its ru.ins; but also mourning for an Atheni$ that he knows, a.<;
he is photographing it, in the present of his snapshots, will he gone or
will riisappear tumoiTow, an .Athens that ia already condemned to pass
av.11y and whose witnesses (Adrianou Street Market [no. 20 I, the Neon
Cafe un Omo:nia Square Street Organ [no. 4,1) have. indeed, dis-
appeared since the "shot'' wasta ken; and fmally, the third anticipated
mourning, he knows that other photographs have captun;d sights that,
though still visible today, at the present time, at the time thi:. book ap
pears (Athinas-Meat Market [no, 6] and fish I no. I::l]), will hai'P.
[devrunl] to be destroyed tomQITOW. A question of debt or of neces-
flity, a question of economy. "market," all the sights along these
streets, all these cafes, these markets, these musical im;trwnents, wil.!
have Ldevront] to die. That is the law. with death or
promised to death. Three deaths, three three temporalities
of death in the eyes of photography-or if you prefer, since plw tography
makes appear in the light of the three of dis-
appea r.ance, three phenume na of the being that has "disappen H' d" or
is "gone": the nn>.t before the shot. the secondsin.ct< the shot was taken,
and the last later still, for another day, though it is imminent, after the
appearance of the print. But if the imminence ofwhal is thus due for
death suspends the c:omingdm.:, as me epoch of eve-ryphotogTaphdoes,
it signs at the same Lime the verdict. It confu:ins and seals jts ineluc
table authority: this v..ill have lo die, the m.i..c;e. en demeure is underwny,
27
12 .
28
nol.i.ftcation has been given, the r.ountdovm. ha;; already st:.rrted, there
i" only a delay. the Lime to photograph. though when it comes to death
no one even dreams of escaping il -or dreams that .:mything will be
spared. I am thinking of the dei!th of Socrates, of the Ph.aedo and the
Cri.to. Of the incredible reprieve that delayed the datP. of r:xccution for
so many day-s after the judgment. They awaited the sails, their appear-
ance off in the dis lance, in the light, at a prtlcise, unique, anJ. inevitable
moment-fatal like a click.
Still XIV
We what Cape Sounion meant for the death of Socrates. It is from
there, in short, that Athens s<J.w it death, that is. By ship.
Fromthetempll'lofPoseidon, at the tip of the cape, duringmynrST:>'isit
(itwasthc day before the sentence "we owe ourselvcl:! to death"), I imag-
ined .a photograph, and I saw il before me. It eternalized, ina
the time of this extraordinary moment: awaiting death. That
he was told aboullhe passing oft he Rails so close to AtlH;ns, just off the
cape, offthiR wry cape and not another. from the heights of this very
promontor:r where l found friends before going sv..imming
down below, atth<.;foo{ of the temple, thatthiswas the same cape, im-
passive, immutable, silent like a photograph-thatiswhat.,.,'ill continue
to amaze me to my dying day. AJI of this belongs to the luminous mem-
ory of Athens, to its phenomenal archive, and that is why I dare insh>t
upon it here. I would thus have photographed Socrates awniting death,
Socrates knov.'ingly awaiting a death that had been while
others art': on the lookout al Cape Sounion, he k:nov..ingly awaits during
the entire time of this delay. But he decided not to esca-pe: he knows
be but a tempora:r}'reprieve, thi;; benreen the speak-
ingofthe verdict and the taste of lhe phcmnakon in his own mouth. He
29
. 13 .
30
prepares himself for it and y<:..:t he to his friends about preparing
for death, about the exercise, care, or practice of death (epi.meltiu.
thanaLoU-), a discourse that still WJ.tches over us, a discourse of rn ourn-
inganrl of the denial of mourning. all of philosophy. This discourse en-
tertains ilTesistibJe an11.logies to, but ha R .1 bRolutP-ly nothing to do with,
I am certain, the verdict "we owe ourselves to death" -a sentence that
might even say the Mntrary and always remai11, moreover, some-
thing that belongs to the J:o'rench idiom. Yes, we still sharP. the :>ame
;wonder (etha.umazomen) expressed by Echecrates. He is the one who
asks Phae do what happcn.e.rl .. exactly. took place;? W'hile the vcrdi c L
had been pronounced long before (pata,O. the death had been put off
until "much (poLlOi hysteron phain.etai To answer the
question of what happened (Ti (l]Ln tolltrl, a Pha.idon). Phaedo invokes
chance, tukhe (it happened in this way because it just so happened th.H
way); it wAs "a matter of r.hanr.t'!." "It happened that the :;tern ol' the
ship which the Athenians send to Delos wa.s crownf:d on the day before
thetrial."What ship? The one. following an audentAthenian tradition
(we are stiJl recounting the history of Athe-ns), that once carried the
seven buys Ufld. seven girls whom Theseus led to Crete and whom he then
saved in his own skin. It is. in sho1t, this saving, and the pledge
that followed, that is responsible for granting Socrates a reprieve of a
few days, a in this case, the time for an unforget-
table discourse on tme f:.alvation, salvation by philosophy. Because in
order to give thanks lol' lhe safe- conduct of the young boys and girls
led by Theseus, the Athenians had made a pledge-a pledge to Apollo.
They pledged to organi:>:e yl'.nly pilgrimage or "procession" (theona)
to Delos. The law (nonws) of Athens thus prescribes that
tire. time ofthe theoria "the city must he pure and no one may be pub-
licly executed until the ship has gaM to Delos and back" (Ph(J,e;do s8b).
This time is not calculable. and neither is the delay, the.refore, bec:mse
31
. 14 '
32
the voyage took a lorig time and the v.i n cl.;; were so metirnes, w1fo1esee-
ably. unfavorable. Such an uncontxollable delay (what is
calledph:rsis), suchincalculahihry. grants an indeterminable
reprieve. One knows when thetheiiria begins, hut one does not see the
end. One can determine the Les lheoria.s. the moment the
priest of Apollo crowns the stern of !-he ship. hut one.: never knov.-s when
the theiiria v.ill end, and when a sail will announce the return from off
Cape Sounion. That is the inten..-al that :separates the verdict from the
death; that is the delay lhat_ stands between these TWO morm.:nls. That is
why, Phaedo ... Socrates a longtime [polw; khrorws]
in prison between his trial anrl his death [mela::cu tis dikes te kai tou.
thana.tou]" (Phaedo sSe). One never knows when the theona will end.
And yet-a story of the eye.-Socratcs claimt:d lo know it; he r::l.a imed to
knowwhen the &heona. would end thanks to a dream or, mort;:
by means of a kr\owledge [sa voir] based on a seeing [voir]. the seeing of
a vi:sion (enupnion) come to vi sir him in the middle of the night in the,
course of a dream. A dream in black nnd white that was awaiting us. It
will await us even longer. It is right ttt th.i.s moment of presumption that
I dreamed of photographing him, photo graphing Socra lcs as he speaks
and claims to have foreseen the instant of his death. Wbcn he claims.
by a kind of knowledge, ;m unconscious knowledge, it is tme, to l';ee in
adva-nce, to foresee and no longer let himself he taken by :surpdse by
the delay of death. My own dream Lelesympathized with his. It was in
accord with whalhe says about it.
33
. 15 I
34
Still XV
Meeting with aPhotographel'on t/LeAcropol.is. He seems to he sleeping,
dreaming perhaps, unless he has died, dovm right there by a
sun stroke, his head slouched do-w-n on his He is perhaps the au-
thor of this book. He would have photographed himself. in full sun-
light. Here, then, is the heliogl'aph: he a hat on his head, hut he
is still too exposed because the 11ar.1fiol or the reflcclor behind him is
no longer 0\'er his head, protecting, il would seem, only other photo--
graphic images, already a few reproductions, no doubt. You can make
out another camera, much smaller, behind him. And in front of him,
on a Delphic tripod, a camera from another age is looking at him. 1.m--
less it is looking elsewhere, perhap.'\ equipped wiLh a delay mecha-
nism. The has laid out around him, as if he had saved
them onh.is ark, an e:xample or copy of every species ofthing, not each
ofthe genres of being distinguished in Plato's {being, move-
.inent and rest, the same and the other). not each of the ontological rt!-
gions of transcendental phenomenology. not the categories orexis-
tenti.als of Being and Ti.mc Vorhandensein, hut
8 + n "other He thought he had. thus divided up phJ'Sts or the
kM;mos, the world and then the world of culture within it, if you want
to hold onto these later categories, the world or its photographic ar-
chive: in8 +nkinds of"things." He dreamed lhat all these photograph:;;
would take these things by surprise, in order or out of order, at random,
there .where they h.nppened to be found. He and inventoried
them.
1. The mineral and canhen tl1ing, materiali1y withoul life, whether
ruins or not, whether with or withoul inscription: a.!/. these photos he-
long in way to this first class.
2. The growing thing: almost all the photos (the onl.Y ex-
ceptions to this form of physis, to this more or less "natural" form of
growth, arc a few images of the or the cafe, a few f1agment.o;
35
. 16 .
36
of frescoes, Zeus ::;eated in the frie1.e from the Thcaler of Dionysus, a
detail of a funeral stele, Lhmne of the priest of Dionysus, and the
bouzoUki player: everywhere else, somdhing isgrow&ng).
3. The divine thing (nearly all the statues and the ;$tclcs, all the tem-
pies, a good hnlfthe images).
4 The anima! thing. Dut here things get a Lit too complicated, for
there is the subclass of Lil'in.g beings (the pigeon outside, m;ar !he pho-
tographer, for example, and the dog in!iide. just as black. the
sculpture in the Stoa ofAtta.!os [no. 29]) and then Lhe subclass of the
dead (ofthose put to death in tmlh. killed en m.a.5se, hut less "naLural."
already "merchandise M or" commodities" in the meat or nsh market.
in the hands ofmcrcha.uts): and then there are the livmg beings roam-
ingfredy (whether "natural," thr.; pigeon, or the dug)
and living beings in ca,ptivity (this ()thcr kind of me1chandise in thl'
form ofhahychicks in cages in the Athintts [no. 8]). The dream
run:; uul of steam, but tht'\ dreamer gucs on. fu does his taxonomy. Wt:
arr, only about halfway there. One is reminded of all the classincatio ns
of the (one wo-uld be lcmpted to try them om. but this has
to be given up). all those we encounter even before getting to the nu-
metic arts, notably, the photographer :1" n!';herman or angler, an im-
age art is bec<J.use it
ously, being ncither a mimetics nor a of all the categories
set in opposition to one another b_y the Strangr,r, "poetic" or prod-uc-
tiYc arls as opposed to acquisitive arts, acqu.i.::;ition through exchange
as opposed toby coccion, coercion hyftghtingas opposed to hunting,
hm1ting irumi mate things as opposed to living things. lhing things ox
anirnala that walk on land aE; oppoP.f'd to those thai swim, animal;; that
"s,.im" through the air as opposed to those that swim in water (2l')C-
The hunter has all of this in his book, hut who would be
able to decide whether his is an art of production or reproduction? Ju.c>t
37
l(
'1ryto adapt all thePlatoDic categories here, for example, the ''mime lie"
'arid the just give it a try. and have a tield day!
, , 5 Thehumc.nthing (thethingwith ahu.manjace, subcatego.ries' art-
a photographer and the specter of nn ah::;e:nt painter. m.r:rchan(s
and.pa,ssersby, and thtm merchants of art ()I" like the org:m-
grinder).
6. The thing (a hLlman thing as well, b1Jt thi,; time without
u,face) seems to defy classification even more. Vi'hy? Beyond the dif-
ncult di:otinctio.ll between tool and machine, b ffVrf' P.ll everyday impJe-
ments (chair,; and glasses inA Few Moments in the Neo1t Ca:fe [no. 3],
the little bench of Photographer on theAcropolis [no. 9], the scales of the
Athinas Market the bouzouki of Dou.zmiki [no. 23]) and
machine-tools (tht! fltreet organ, radios, telephones. the fan, the cam-
eras themselves). one has to acknowle.dge tha1 nothing il; altogether
natural in world, everything is shot thro\1gh with Jaw, convention-
ality, technology thesis, (Tlu:se have in adYance in-
vadedph.ysis and ruined its principle or phantasm of purity. HistOl}'
as well, and th:1t ill fmough to in the photographer's drt':am,
this classification compulsion.) For the same
an unprecedented art of composition in the RP.r.ir.e: of his mourning. In
the service not of a perMnal nostalgia but of a melancholy that markR a
certain of historical experience or. if you prefer, the meaning
or sense for history. For photography has a sense of history, hut it also
oppo:;es an impassive and implacable sensibility. an insensible sensi-
bihty, to the hisloricity of what is still going or going well or not going
or not going so well, to what is no lunger goingwell.but nonethe-
less and, in going, goes away, rem.aing in the procc:s:; uf going away,
fornfteen years, the fifteen rears during which the photographer
paraded his meditation throughAthcru;, camera in hand, curious about
everything. Multiplying the spectacles of ruins, and of ruin:; of modern
39
IR
41)
itiJl1es; s.omeone thus went out of his way to rerall the emblem of such
1
'. im.a.ges of .a flea market, whose studied order exposes :;o
many "technical" or" cultural" that have in common their be-
ingdefunct (defUnctus), that is, ""'ithoutfunction, ohsole1e, uul of com-
. mission, dysfunctional, fallen into The tool and the
machine are stripped down lo being mere "things." But the. thing is
also a fetish, a disused objeCt, divested of u.se but then rrnnvested w ilh the
surplus value of a fetish, a fetish to keep an eye on, to keep, to ;;ell, to
see being sold. An original affect, an affect with om: pathos, surrounds
the aura of these photographs: the sense o1' obsolescence U'aff'ect la
desa,ffgction], precisely. the affect of the one affected by this disuse or
obsolescence oftechnical objects. defunct of culture. Is not this
affection ofthe photographer for these imiJlements or signs fallen imo
disuse also an affect of lhe delay, of the delay withoul reLurn'? With-
out return, and that is why I he8itale to use the Greek word Lhat you
no doubt ha\'C on Lhe tip of your tongue, the Creek word that speaks of
the longing for return, oi homesickness-nostalgia .. If there is nostal-
gia in these photographs, nothing makeil it ohvio11s. But that il! not aiL
Among these fetishes (and it v.'ill be incumbent upon us later to re-
callthat the photograph of a fetish fetishizes in it3 turn its own ubyss,
for every photogr-aph is a fetish), hiswry, history 3R the historidty of
technology, is seen to be discreetly but surelr recounted, a.na-
lyzed, "objectified" by the objective or the lens-precisely as the hiswry
of ruin or disuse, the history of ohflolescencc. Two or three examples:
besides the measuring instrume.a.ts (scales and weights), besides
recording or transmitting devices (radios, tape record-
ers), besides the 'instruments of and technology (music, painting,
and photography), )'011 'Nlll be able tO connrm that, Wheiher in use Or
out of use, the cameras belong to !levcral different technological gc.:n
, erations. Is this just a coincidence? Tt is at the very least the sign of a
41
. 19 .
42
history of photographic technology and, as always, of its min and its
mourni-ng, The:n are the musi-
cal instruments: they are not alone in reca.lling a history of sonogra-
phy, jllilt a,; the tape rccunkr recalls a history of phonography. Here is
a telephonography (and Socrates' daimon enters momentarily into the
dream of the photographer) that annoLtnces Lo you its pmg.ram: there
are at least two old telephones for sale (one has to wonder what was the
last message to be interrupted at the moment of disconnecting these
conveyers of voices), and the two telephones are both to be found in
the in the of lvl'o different merchants, one at the Mo-
uastirald. Market (no. 19) and the other at the Adrianou Street Market
(no. 20). Neither ofthcm is working, true, but one Ia oks like the ances-
tor of the other. (It is, moreover, right next to a photographed ances-
tor. a prominent Athenian, I imagine, with a full mustache in an oYal
frame, an effi.gy t.hat the heirs wanted to get rid of for a little money.
yet another v.-ay of mourning.) The ancestral telephone has a dial, the
younger one is a louchlonc. Black and white too en a byrne: the old tele-
phoneis black...,oith awhitespot in the miclrile; theyrmnger cme is light,
with a dark s-pot on its tummy. Each telephone is placed on top of an
old radio. It's as if we were being reminded, in the middle of all Lhesc
musical instruments, that these photographs bear the mourning of
sounds ami voices. of sonvgrams or of phonograms, mulli-
mediainmourning, compact disks (ens, video cassettes, or c..w ROI\ors)
all of a sudden voiceless-allowing us to hear all that much better the
spectral echo of what they silence. The echo becouH::; in us the origi-
nal. The.c;e photo grams would resonate like echo graphic whispers; they
v.uuld immediately emanate from out of memory. That is the photog-
rapher's touch, in the service of his gaze, of his of the light
he projects or reflects. And somf'times it is an a.rtifr.ci.a.lligh t.
? UndeL' the heading of precisely. there would be even
43
. 20 .
44
more to say: everything is reflected and reflected upon, of course, by
both the photographer and the photographic process. But in addition,
the art and artifice of reflection, such as those found
in arli.Uciallighting. turn ou ll o be represented at every moment. Count,
fort:xamplt:: (1) the numerous light bulbs above the displays of the meat
market or the fish market (nos. 6 and t3), and then those in the Neon
Cafe 11\'ltich hang down from the ceiling on a long wire (given
a11 the discarded appli.'lnces or instruments exhibited here-ndio,
recorder, fan-this book fuc:es or focuses on a certain epoch of electric
culture in modern domesticity, a short history of Athenian electric-
ity, arid every1hing seems to be calculated on the basis oft his electro l-
ogy, right up to that calculating tlring that by the name of an ,elec-
tric meter, just to the left of the two brothers in the Athinas Market
. [no. (2) parasol-r'4f!ectors; (3) the mirrors in the ::-leon Cafe and be-
hind the two brothers in the Athinas Market.
fl. on rdlection and the inf:mite mirroring of the mise
en. a.byme (in the large sense of the term: the metonymic represen-
tation of a representation), reflections on the phantasms of simula-
cra or the sim11lacra of phantasms (to or tn F>irletrark Pla.to)-the
innumerable, playful ways in which photography, or else painting, is
photographr.d. H r-re again, between painting and photography mere is
a pseudo-difference of generations, as the art of one generation repre-
sents in its own fallhion the art of an earlier generation. J W:!t look at the
easel on which there is .a pa.inti ng ofmins in perspective (Ne.arth.P-TouJer
of the Winds. no. the painter is gone, the -photographer remains
invisible, and the woman spectator, seen from behind, seems at once
to look on v.'ithoutunderstanding and to let heTself be taken in by the
spectacle. Even though. in a certain sense. everything is "representa-
tion" in what is photographed in this way. one can count the represen-
tations of representations, for example, certain photographs or paint-
45
. Z2 .
48
all thMe mul':ieal instrumentt;. rad.ios, telephones, and tape
did not recall it, the phonogram of this mW:!ic of J.caLh \vould resonate
here in black and while, from one photo to the next. Like a silent song.
Like a dirge of mourning that recalls, for example, Demeter weeping
for Persephone, who bad been abducted by Hades and whom Theseus,
him again, tried to carry away by descending into the underworld.
At the center of one of thr. photographs, a spectacular street sign. the
only one, commemorates Kore, the young girl: 011m: ITEPl:E4I>01\"Hl:, just
above itF. transliteration. (no. 24). Does not Persephone
reign over tbis entire book, Persephone, vl'i.fe of Hades, the goddess
of death and of pha:utoms. of souls wandering in search of their mcm-
ory? But also (and this is another world of significations v.ith which
the ngure of Persephone is associated) a goddess ofthe iinagc. of wa-
terand of tears. at once transparent and reflecting, mirror :md pupil?
Kore, Persephone's other name, both young girl and the pupil
of the eye. "what is called the pupil [korenkn.Lmkmen)," and in which, as
Plato'llAI.cibi.ades I reminds us, our face is reflected, in its image, in. its
"idol," when it looks at itself in the eyes of another. One must thus look
at this divinity, the best mirror of human things (t33c). And all that
would be due to along with the spectei'S, and the photographic
pupil, and the symphony of a II musical in!ltru.mcnls.
49
24 .
51)
Still XVI
To photograph Socrates as a instrument. And musical instru-
ments al:l so many Socrateses. For what does Sorrates do? He waits. bu.t
withm1t waiting: he awaits death and dreams of annulling its delay by
composing a sacrificial hymn. De<Jth is indeed slow in coming. buL he
knows, he bcliGvcs he knows, how to calculate the arrival of the day of
reckoning. Not that hP. it coming, sees dt.:ath coming. from Cape
Sounion, uo, he k!s il come, he hears it coming, recall. and this
too is a kind of music. He dreams, he dreams a lot, Socmtes does, a:nd
he interprets his dreams. He describes them and wards to comply with
what they prescribe. He wants to do what he has to and he kno'\11-s what
he Mfl to do, what he owes. One uf lhese dreams announces death to
him: it tells him tvhen death v.ri II r.ome. when the delay will end, along
>vithits imminence. The otheJ' enjoins him to pay a debt by composing
music to to the god whose ''otivc fcsti\al was re:;punsilile for de-
ferringhi:; death. In the Grito, as we know, Socrates owes to a dream the
powerto l':alculatethc death. The dream of a nightallov.>:
him to see and to hear. Apparition and appellation: tall and bea1..1Liful,
clothed in white. a woman calls him by name in order to give him this
rende1.-vou;;, the moment of death, thu:; annlllling in advance both the
delay and the contretemps. (Is this :not the very desire of philoaophy,
the destruction of the delay, as will soon be eonf:trmed ?) She comes to
him. this woman does, a;; beautiful, perhaps, as the name of Socrates:
he "thuugbl he saw" her coming, thus seeing the death that would not
be long in coming. One has the feeling that his own name has all of a
sudden become inseparable from the of this woman. Ncilher
thisbcautynorhis name, as a result, can he separated from the: news of
his death: news announcing to him nullhal he will die, but
he will die at a particular moment and not another. The woman pre
for him not a departure but an arrival. More precisely, she
ents the departure-for it is indeed ne ccssary to de part and part ways,
51
' ~ '
5.2
to leave and take one's leave-Jrorn the voyage's l'uint of by cit-
ing; the But Crito persists in deeining this dream to be extrava-
gam, l>trange, or mad (otopon to en.upnion), and he continues to dream
ofSoctates' "salvaLiou."
so W'hatilo this news? Has the ship comcfrom Delos, attheax-
rival ofwhiflh J .:lm to die?
C"R T ro, Jt has not e"ll".actly come, hut l think it will come today from the
reports of some men who have come Imm So 1.miou amlldt it there. Now
it is clear from what they say tha1: it v.'ill come torlar, and :;;o tomorrow,
Socrates, your life must end.
soc R A I' E s, Well, Crito, good luck be with us! If this is the "'ill of the
gods, so be it. Howcvc1, I do nut think it will come today.
c:ano: Whal is your rc1Ulon for not thinking so?
so CRA'IE s: I will tell you. I must die on the day after the ship comes in,
mm;t I nnt?
C:R ITO: So those say who have charge of these matters.
Well, I think it will not come in today, but tomorrow . .And
my reason.forthi;;; is a dream which I had a little while ago in the course
ofthls night. And perhaps you me juRt at right time.
CRITO: What was the drt:a.m?
socR P.Tl': s: I thought I saw a beautiful, fairwoinan, clothed in white rai-
ment, who came to me and called me and said, "Socrates, on the third
dar thou wouldst come to fertile Phthia. "
4
A little later, so to speak, on the next day in the Phaedo, "'the
day before. when we left the prison in the evening we heard that the
53
. 26 .
54
ship had aniv\:d .from Delos"
5
), adrea.m again dictates the law. Un-
like the other dream, this one does not give Socrates a.aythingto see
or to it gives an order, it "prescribes or orners him to compose
and devote a hymn to the god who, while ghing him death, thereby
grants him the time of the delay or the reprieve as well as that
which puLs an end to the reprieve, the delay that does aw:ly with it-
self. Socrates owes him this temporary slay of execution. and he is be-
holden to this And this music, "the greatest music," is philusu
phy. Socrates must thus transform himself into a music..1.l instmmem
in the service of thit; philosophical music. He has j u.s L recalled that the
same dream (to auto enupni.on) has visited him regt.llarly throughout
the course nfhis life. The vision was nut always the s.ame, neither the
image nor the 'phenomenon" ofwha1: "appears to the <.:ycs"-the pho-
tograph, if you will but the words alway-s said the 5ame thing (ta auta
de legon): '"Socrates,' it !'laid, 'make music and workaL il. "'Socrates is
that that's what he has alw:Jys Clone:
Because philosophy was the greatest kind of music and I was working
at that. But now, after the trial and wh.i.le Lhe festival of the god delayed
my execution, I thought, in case rep ea. ted dream really meant to tell
me to makt: this v;hich is called music, I ought to do so and
not to disobey .... So n.rst I composed a hymn to the god whose festi-
val itwas.
6
55
. 21 .
51>
Still XVII
We owe ourselves to death. To commemorate the arrival of this sen-
tence iuto my language, l would have to dedicate centuries of books
to this memory. I immediately declared it to bt untnmslatable, lurn-
ing to Myrto (who was behind me, to my left, beautiful like her name,
in lhe back of the car), to Georges, who was driving and laughing like
a demon-tender. sarcastic or 3ardonic, innocently perverse (more
or less perveTse than he believM orwoulrllike others to believe, like
all sclf-rcspc{-1ing individuals of this sort), and first and foremost to
V.:mghelis, behind me on the right, whose genius would appreciate
more than anyone the aporia called "translation" (and I Frtill hope that
he vl'ill agree to traru!latc this tcxl. for nothing better could happen to
these words in Greek).
I began explaining to my friends the different ways in which, forme,
nou.s rwus demns ala mort would forever remain photographed. in some
sense, in the French language. The grammatic::JI of this sen-
tcnc c lcnl to its logic, an innocently perverse logic, perverse despite it-
self, a desperate taste of eternity. lending thi11 taste then to liS, who, al
that moment, felt our desire being burnt by a sun the likes of whic:h I
had never known. The!'e was but one sun, and it had only a homonymic
rebtion with all the others. Over the road that led us back to Athens,
lhal Wednesday, july 3. 1996. there blazed a sun like no other Thad
ever known. We were coming hack from Brauron, vo'hen: we had seen
the Chapel of Saint George, with itB small ritual drinking cups deco-
rated withy oung naked girls running or virgins in a procession toward
the alt!irof Artemis, the so-called votive bas rchef"ofthe gods" (Zeus,
Apollo,Artemis-lphigenin in nhsentia), fltatueB of young girls (arlctos),
Artemis the hunt Ancmis on hu 1hrone, I\rtemis Kourotrophos.
the remains of the necropolis of Merenda (on the rim of an amphora I
recall an" exposition of the dead"), and we were going to go swimming.
I had to take a plane later that day; delay was on the day's ageLJ.da, and
17
28
56
we were laughing about it. My friends know that if llove delayed action
[le retardem.entl. the least delay kills me, !:!Specially when I am about to
leave for the train or the airport, is, at the moment of arriv-
ing at the point of rlep:n1:ure. I began to explain all these reasons why,
for me, n.ous devons a !a murtwould remain foreveruntranslated,
spelled out, phororthograp hed in an album of the French language.
it did not necessarily have to be understood in the of the
greal Socratic and sacriii.cial tradition this
of dedication o:r devotion that immediately comes to take this
sentence into its purview in order lo say, for example: we must devote
oUl'sdves to death, we have duties vdth regard to death, we must dedi-
cate on:r meditations to it, our care, om concern, our exerci:.;es and our
practice (eplrneleia. !au hanawu, mdete thanatou, as it is
8ta), we must devote ourselves to the death to which we are destined,
and so on. ln addition. one musl respect the dead (so as, the implica-
Lion would he, to keep death at a respectful distance, out of a respect for
life).ltis the death of So crater;, in short, that never stops watching over
us. the culture of death ur the (.:ult of mourning, the v.,ray in whir.h thit=;
poor Socrates, between the verdict and the pMsin g of the sails off Cape
Smmi on, believed that by not fleeing or saving h.i.s skin he wa:l ::saving
and ::;aving within him, at the samr. moment, philosophy, all
th:lt mm;ic that is philosophy, "the greatest kind of music." But as for
me, I persist in belie.,-.i.ng thal philu:mphy might have another chance.
This ethico-Socratic virtue of "we owe ourselves to death" can easily
be translated into every language and no doubt every "world view ... Bu:c
that is .not Lhe only meaning that is held in reserve in my sentence, and
I proteste.d against it.
As for the redoubling of the nous in no u.s no us devunli, it is no doubt
difficult, inot impossible (I meanaccordingto the economy of a word-
fM-word translation), to retain in another language its relation to the
59
<19
60
sole and irreplaceable word deuons, which snsp ends, in so me sense, it::s
status as a grammatical sLtbject ot as a subject at all. Wbat I wanted to
suggest to my would be, in short, the following: the fust ncus,
the would come after the second one (thP. reflecting object,
the one taken in view, shot, the one that begins to look at us from over
there, like a ''photographed" nhJect) .It would con::stitutc itself as "sub-
jed' only after having rellecled the now;, which is itself con-
stimted as all "objftct" due or owed: nous, we, are "due" (rnolatorium.
delay, giving notice), we appear to our,;elves, we relate to our::sdves,
we take ourselves in view as what i.s due lduJ. taken by a debt or a duty
that precedes us and institutes U!l, a debt that contracts us e"en before
wt: have contracted it. Taken by in this nous, I would be from
the outset situated, already a fetish, merchandise. a pledge or a hos-
tage, something promised or something due in the e..xchange. some-
thingtradcd in Lhe transaction (a bit like the nsh or meatfor sal F. in all
these Atht'\nian markets). And all the f1gures of autonomic obligation
tha L govern our morality or our ethics would be taken in view, shot, by
this orit.linary heteronomy.
To what, then, would we owe ourselvc:.? To whom? To death. which
would be someone or something? A lid ill owing ourselves, owing our-
selves rather than this or Lhat, do we owe all or nothing? Or do we owe
ourselves, are"'-e oursl"lvesdue, to death, which is nothing? Due, then,
to nothing and tu no one't Or else to some dead person, him or her,
some particular death? Who knows. (The Eoglish phrase" to he due to"
pe1haps conveysratherwell this intertwining of debt, duty, obligation,
and what comes due at a specifiC date, at a particular moment in time,
at the a.ppointed tim e.)
But that is not all, and it is not even what's essential, for thill m.ighl
still he translated into a common idiom (i-Hetzschean, lleideggerian,
or Lacanian). What this French j:lentencc, this sentence that took me
61
. 30 .
62
by surprise in the sun, would forever leave guspended, better than any
other sentence. more economically than <tny other, the pragmatic
moda.lit:r of its event. For it came alone, this sentence nid, as decon-
textu.alized as a photograph. It was impossible to decide, with-
out any other conlcxt, as if its inli<'.ription were being read on a piece
of funerary stone or on its photograph, whether it was a matter of an
ethico-philosophical exhortation, with the performative polcntiality
thal comes alongv.'ith it, or a constative description, or even an indig-
nant protel>ta.tion th...1.t would rai<Sc the curtain on centuries of de4.!ep-
ti.onand obstinacy: So (you say that, it is believed that, lhcy claim that)
"we owe ourselves to death"! --well, no, we refuse this debt; not only do
we not re<:Ogni7.e it, but we rduse the authority of this anteriority, this
a priori or lhis supposed origin.arity of obligatiun, this
religion of mou-rning, tb..is culture of loss and of lack, .and so on. (The
a.n.d so on. is essential here, for it signs the suspension, the "pho-
tographic" structure, the decontextualized aphorism of this sentence
that assaile-d me on that day, around noon, in full sunlight, in the do-
mesticity of my old love affair with this stranger whom I call my French
language.) Against debt, this obl.igatiun, this culpability, and this
fear ofthe dead, a "we" 1rright, perhaps, protest (and this would not
necessarily be me, me or some other me): we might be able to protest
innocently our innocence, one "we" protesting against the other . .Nous
n.ou.s devons a ta mort, we owe our.:;elves to death, there is indeed a nous,
the second one, who owt:F. itself in this way, but we, in the first place,
no, the fm;t we wh.o looks. obs\.:rves. and photographs the other. and
who speaks here, is an innocrmt living beingw"ho foreYer knows noth-
ing of death: in we we are infinite-that is what I might have wanted
to say to my friends. We ar'C infmite, and"o let's he infmite, ett!rnally.
It is, in any case, from this thought, beneath the sun, at the moment
of returning to Athens, that we could at least d:ream 'of pronouncing,
. 31 .
64
and rnmrnoningto appear, but in the mode of a denunciation, the lit-
tle sentence "we owe ourselves to death." The sun itseli is flllite, as we
know, and its light might one day to an end, but us? Let'$ leave
finitude to the sun and return in another way to Athens. 'iXlhich v.-ould
mean: there is mourning and is death- notice I am nut saying
memory. innocent memory-onlyforw:hat regards the sun. Every pho-
tograph is ofth.a. sun.
Still XVIII
Is not this impassioned denunciation the last sign of mourning, the
sunniest of all stele$, Lhe weightiest deniaL the honor of life in its
wounded photograph?
Still XIX
So many hypotheses! Wlwt could have been going through the head of
this photographer on the Acropolis? Was he sleeping? Dreaming? \Vas
he simply pretending. feigning the whol!': thing? Was he playing dead?
Or playing a living being who knows he has to die? Was he thinking of
everyday Athens, of the Athens of today, or of the AtheilS of always,
aei? he already haunted by the stratilied min of all the Athenian
memories he would have wanted to in view, to shoot, this day, to-
day, under this sun, but for every day and forEWer? Or V!l-ag he haunted
by what took place, one fllle day, between photographic technology
and the light of clay? Or else by what took place, one day. between pho-
logiaph)'. the day or night of the unconscioui':, a.r<:haeology, and psy-
choanalysis? Would he recall, for example, a certain "disturbance of
memory on the Acropolis?" ("Eine Erinnerungil:otorung auf der Ak-
ropolis," 1936), which I have never stopped thin king ahout, especially
65
. ~ z .
at the point where Freud upon whal he calls in French the
"rwn
One might as well ask what takes place when, photographed in the
process of photographing (himself). photographed photographing,
active and passive at rhe same time, in the same time, that is, during
time itself-whiC'h Vv'ill always have been this auto-affective experience
of passactivity-a p takes a shot of himself. One might
well ask wlliit happc.:ns Lo him. and to us, when his action thuf> takes up
taking itself by surpril'>e, hut without ceasing to await lhis surprise. He
awaits (himself), this bonhomme does, this good fellow photographer.
Right there in the theater of Dionysus, he reckons with the in('.alnula-
ble. 1 then dream his "Iris ion, the fire of a declaration of lo\'e, a flash in
bnJad daylight, and one would say to the other, "lt takes me. by surprise
to he waiting for you today. my love, as always." Dion.ysianism, philos'--
Qp]J,y, photography. It remains tO he known what is (ti esti) the
of the photog1a ph.ic form from the point of view of a delay that gf.tE! car-
ried aw:1y with overtaking time. A silcnl avo"\1\ial, perhaps, and reticent
as well. because it knows how to keep silent, an infmitely elliptical dis
course, mad with a single desire: to imp1ess time. ll.-i.th all times, at all
times, and then furtively, in 1he night. like a lhief of fuc, archive at the
speed oflighlthe speed oflight.
67
33 .
68
Still XX
Heturn to Athens. Let one not hasten to conclude that photography
away with words and can do without translation, as i:f an art of si
lenr.e would no longer be indebted to a language. "After all,'' the tour-
ist of photographs "'-ill say, these images of .Athens are all the .more
precious to me insofar as they speak to me in a univerl;allanguage. If
they reJruJ.in untranslatable and untransJatably singular, it is because
oftheirveryunivelsalit_y; they show the same thingto everyone, what-
ever their language may he: the di.,.ine play of shadow and light in the
Kerameikos Cemetery, in the Agora, the Acmpolis, the Parthenon, the
AdriB.nou Street Market, the pause of a photographer before the name
PerF>ephnne."
No. photographs are um.ranslatable in another way, according to the
laconic rnse of a or .a phantasm, when this economy acts as a
letter, when it succeeds in saying to us. with or without words. that we
owe oun1dvcl! to death.
-Wf:? What "we"? And, fm;t of all, who is inclndedin this we? Like
a negative still in the camera, an impressed question remains in abey-
ance, still pending. Willit ever he have signed the
nons, whether the f:trst or the second, of this nous no us devons d ta, mort?
Me. rou, she, he, all of you? And who will have inherited iL in the end?
-But I am reading this in translation, am I not? It v.Titten in
French and I am reading it in Englishu ...
.v.;'hat docs that prove? Evl:ry time you look at these photographs,
you will have r.o hf':gin again to translate, to recall that one day,
around noon, for ha11ing come J.rom Athens and on their way
ba<;k to it, the vcrdi<.."t had come down but the sun was not yet dead.
69
30::::
70
Notes
1 The phrase no us ToQ!tS devons t1 kl. mtJrl. from the nrst person plu-
ral form of the reflexive verb se deHJir d. Collins Diclwnmy g:ives as its
ouly t:x8ml'l of rhis reflexive furm: 1-m.e mere se do it cl sa Jamille, "K mother
has to or must devote }u:::l'l:lel f tr. her family." Hence nous nous de(ons t.i Ia mort
would mean "we must devote Lo death" or, asve it
1.hroughout. "we owe ourselves to l:lut following Derrid;t' s
in Right uflrspcc!itm that the se regarden.t be b.eard as either are-
lexive relation. "they look at rhemaelves." or a re<'i pmcal one, look at
one 3nnt.lwr," nous ctevons ida mort might also be read as a
reciprocal relation: "we owe each other or we owe one another to death (or up
until death)." Vihilewe have this phrase .as a reflexive thro-ugh()ut.
the reader may want to experiment with this othr:H' especially in
Still XVTT.-Trans.
2 In addition to Lht:: ng it carries in English, the French word diche
can mean either a photographic IJCglllive ,,.. plate or else, more generally .and
mon; colloquially, a photograph. Derrida gives the clicM-which we have
translated 118 "Mill"-to each ofthe twenty sections of hls commentary.-Tnms.
3 What a W()rd is right. Thuugh the adverb ince.ssamrr..en.t typically means in
modern French not "incessantly" but "what is about to what is on
lilt' ergll of happening, what could happen at any il is occasion-
allyusctl in French letters to "without intem.lption or pause." that is.
"continually or incessantly." In "'hat follows Oerrida seems to be trading on
bo1h MnRes of the term.-lrans.
4 -f.3c-44h; trans. 1-T amid North Fowler ((.;ambridge, Harvard Univer-
sity Press. 1982). Translati(Jnslighlly morlif1erL
s Ibid . 59d -e.
6 Phaetlo 6a-bllram:;. Harold :--;orth fowler (Cambt:'idgc: Harvard
sity Press. 1982).
7 Sigmund Freud. "ADisturbancc inTheSta,n.-
tlruTl Edition of the C<Jmplete Works Preuli, unrler the editor-
ship of Jam<:::l; Str;JchAy, in collaboration wi.th.tuma Freud (Lond(Jn: Tht:: Hog-
arthPress and the Institute or I9G4)' 22;:239-41!, thep.luasc
nonarrire canbefound o:up. :z46.
B The French text reads here engrec-"in Greek" sinut::, i!S we learn rrom
Still XVII, DeHida. was the Modern Greek translation of this
work.-Trans.
73