My Being is for Time to affect itself. I can pretend it is the same for the Other. One way of describing the manner through which Time affects itself would be something like: “This took x minutes to complete.” One would have very well said the same thing had one stated: “Once upon a time…” or, “Jack and Jill went up a hill…”
Time is conceptual. Being as Dasein might be a mode of Time (see here), but Being is Time.
Any action is first a seeing. Walking is a seeing prior to the act being seen as an action, a drawing out, that sets in motion movement, a pushing away. Time, as a mental action, is a seeing… albeit always a retrospective one. Hence the reason why it is logical to say that Time retains the memory. It is this a priori seeing common to all actions (including mental ones – thoughts) that we invoke when we speak of ‘the photographic’. ‘The photographic’ is this primordial seeing that cannot be seen, that is seen seen nowhere.
Everything can be photographed. The taut relationship between the photograph and the world, that is to say, this neat and precise explanation of a three-dimensional world through a two-dimensional image, puts everything into question. Yes, everything photographed is an illusion. Through the photograph, distance and proximity are no more – everything is now at hand. Yet, distance and proximity are a reality in the world, in a world experienced first hand, that is, in a world not mediated through photography. There is no truth in photography; the truth in photography is contingent on its indication. Clearly, and minimally, a photograph always indicates the world.
Vision is not a sense.
Whatever it might be, the future is not Time.
Featured Image:
Between the sheets. October 2022 at Paola, Malta. Photograph by the author.
