Abstract
Image is born as a technology of memory, that is, the image realizes the possibility to access a disappeared past from the perspective of our finite present. However, the original image, as an object petrified by Medusa, has frozen a past which we cannot penetrate from our finitude. Indeed, Agamben doesn't think that the existence of image will thoroughly petrify our past; on the contrary, there are crevices between the petrified stones. It is in these crevices that lies the possibility to dialectically articulate the images, that is, Walter Benjamin’s dialectical image. Nevertheless, what fascinates Agamben most is not the articulation of images, but the poeisis that sutures those crevices, a Nymph-like possibility. Only in this way can we find under the eyes of Medusa an image of future for our singularity.
First Page
61
Last Page
68
Recommended Citation
Lan, Jiang. 2015. "Between Medusa and Nymph: On Agamben's Theory of Image." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 35, (6): pp.61-68. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol35/iss6/4
