Abstract
Abstract This essay uses the work of Bernard Stiegler to explore some philosophical and theoretical implications of his project with regard to the ways in which mnemotechnics can be found to function in moving-image culture. In particular the untele focuses on Stiegler's rendering of the ancient Greek myth of the titans Prometheus and Epithemeus as a heuristic device for philosophically thinking mnemotechnics, as well as his relationship to important precursors including Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Roland Barthes, in the elaboration of a philosophy of mnemonic, technological and temporal inscription. Christopher Nolan's 2000 film Memento si used as a filmic vehicle for sounding Stiegkr's concepts of mnemotechnics and 'orthographic' temporal objects, as well as his rich yet sparingly articulated appeal for a 'critical culture' of the image.Keywords mnemotechnics, orthographic temporal objects, genealogy, prosthesis, inscription, being, time, technology, tools, memory, theory, critical cultureWe all need mirrors to remind us who we are.Leonard Shelby, MementoDo we, cultural theorists, recognize ourselves in the rushes?Brian Massumi, Parables for the VirtualIn an age where theoretical postmodernism has past its nadir, an age that some scholars have seen fit to describe as 'post-theory', one would be rightly forgiven for wondering what is to be gained by introducing yet another French philosopher into the annals of the Anglophone arts and humanities. This question is all the more likely to be asked of scholarly endeavours that plead the case for the ongoing veracity of French philosophy in cultural studies and cultural theory, in its purported potential to trump other fields, in its applicability to the concerns affecting contemporary culture and society and its power to diagnose the complex forces at work at the heart of our current age and its many problems. Whilst such concerns are far from misplaced, what is to follow amounts to an appeal - by the two-fold means of introductory exposition and case-based illustration - for the consideration of the work of one such philosopher: Bernard Stiegler.Bernard Stiegler's major works translated into English to this point are primarily comprised of the first three volumes of his major ongoing study Technics and Time: The Fault of Epimetheus, Disorientation and most recently Cinematic Time and the Chustion ofMalaue.1 Also published in translation are his Acting Out and Taking Care of Youth and the Generations, For a New Critique of Political Economy and first two volumes of his Disbelief and Discredit series: Decadence of Industrial Democracies and Uncontrollable Societies of unaffected Individuals. Despite these major philosophical achievements, to date Stiegler is probably best known in cultural studies and cultural theory circles for the book of 'televised' interviews and assorted essays undertaken in conjunction with Derrida and published in English as Echographies of Television.2A prolific author, Stiegler's work broaches many areas of interest - philosophical and extra-philosophical - including the history of technology, the uses and abuses of audiovisual media and culture, individual and collective memory, European identity, contemporary disenchantment and corresponding subjective, cultural, social and educational malaises. As a philosopher he draws on a very diverse and sometimes idiosyncratic pool of precursors including Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida, Simondon and Deleuze. Importing other ostensibly non-philosophical materials into his conceptual inventory, he notably makes extensive use of the paleontologist and little-acknowledged pioneer of French structuralism Andre Leroi-Gourhan.In combining the philosophical and conceptual powers of these and odier thinkers, Stiegler simultaneously sits within a longstanding and established tradition of twentieth-century thought and yet manages to straddle a range of discourses and disciplines, following the two main trajectories of philosophical critique and empirical history - what Arthur Bradley has called his 'twin-track' approach: 'oscillating back and forth between transcendental critique (metaphysics, phenomenology, deconstruction) and empirical history (evolutionary biology, paleontology, techno-science) without ever coming to rest in one or the other'. …
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