A Pictureless World (From the Icon to “Saturated Phenomena” and Neural Networks)

Abstract

The article considers how the world and culture might be understood without any recourse to the idea of a picture (“representation” would be the philosophical term). Three concrete examples illustrate the proposition that, within a culture that is oriented toward pictures (or representations), non-representable — immanent — forces are always at work. The Shroud of Turin clearly shows agraphic stains that resist signification. In the tradition of acheiropoietic images, they exist alongside symbolic elements of representation and suggest a new reading of the icon as a dynamic sign. Jean-Luc Marion attempts to create a version of phenomenology that would be adequate to the excess of the world. His term “saturated phenomenon” refers to disturbances that interrupt the intentional aim. Among them are paintings that indicate to what extent we are dazzled with pure visibility, and it is precisely pure visibility that saturates our sight. Finally, neural networks that have lately become ubiquitous provide clear evidence that rationality and causal relations are yielding to magic and correlations. Theories of memory that present brain function as a set of unlocalized and changing interactions are of great importance in this connection. In all three examples, the world surpasses human beings and challenges their very rationality. The world’s speeds can be captured through dynamic signs that are transformed together with the transformations of matter. Thus, the current cultural and technological situation reveals what has always been latently felt: a world neither encompassed by culture nor reducible to it. This world is much richer and more diverse than human ideas or representations. It is devoid of transcendence and resists objectification.