Self – Marco Montalto

Till Death Do Us Part

One knows one has hit rock bottom. Verity of verities, to believe in one’s beliefs is necessarily to fail. One hits rock bottom… and realises that images, understood as copies, are done in imitation of one’s cares, of what one cares… to remember – of what one cares to care about. There is no end…

Boxes

The truth is that which happens. Everything that happens happens. But about something which has already happened, one can always say that that which happened to happen, then, happened to happen, then, only in the mind. But who is to say that that was not the way in which that which happened to happen, then,…

The Investiture of that Name

Paintings are atemporal; a painting can be painted at any time. History is the history of the photograph. History, then, is the history of colour. Following Runge, white and black are to be treated as colours and not as transparencies. Colour is colourful but must still appear to appear as such. Following Heraclitus very loosely,…

Thrownness, thrown

As corroborated by the Book of Genesis, the notion of poverty came to be the day Dasein felt the need to manifest its realness to itself, that is to say that poverty defined itself as such on the very day Dasein appeared to itself as Dasein. First problem experienced: If Man exists, it’s his problem.…

Timeo Dominum transeuntem, et non revertentem

knowledge (n.): “early 12c., cnawlece ‘acknowledgment of a superior, honor, worship;’ for first element see know (v.). The second element is obscure, perhaps from Scandinavian and cognate with the -lock ‘action, process,’ found in wedlock” (HARPER 2001-2021). know (v.): “Old English cnawan (class VII strong verb; past tense cneow, past participle cnawen), ‘perceive a thing…

Eskhaton

A painting can look painted. A painting can look like a photograph. A photograph can look like a painting. A photograph can clearly look photographed. A painting can be intentionally made to look painted. A painting can be intentionally made to look like a photograph. A photograph can be intentionally made to look like a…

*bheue-

Imagine yourself standing in a room full of diverse objects. You begin to levitate to just a few centimeters above the floor, enough for your toes not to be able to touch the floor anymore. All of a sudden, all your muscles stiffen, and you cannot move at all. Only your eyeballs are now able…

Everything is in itself

The Other irks perception; perception cannot withstand otherness. The Other is a thorn in the side of perception. The world is first seen. The perturbation, the anomaly, is an Other mindlessly perceived, the Other impinging upon perception. The world is first seen. Everything approaches Dasein from a future; all beings hold a futurity in perception.…

Defining ‘the photographic’

Vermeer was a painter. He painted photographs. This is to say that ‘the photographic’ has been with us for a very long time, at least since the happy discovery of daubing paint on walls and stuff. Paintings evince ‘the photographic’; but ‘the photographic’ could have only become known and identified as such with the invention…

On pain and how to photograph it

Let us start by postulating that pain is staged. Such a postulation would make pain somewhat irreal, a game even. But we know that when we feel pain, we feel its pangs genuinely enough. In experiencing pain, we do not sense anything irreal about it, let alone do we consider that it might all be…