Love, it is said, was the inventor of drawing

4th December 2013Butades, Dani Leventhal, drawing, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pliny the ElderMinus Plato

Dani Leventhal, Untitled, 1999 This startling quotation comes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Essay on the Origin of Language, which I stumbled across while idly leafing through Jacques Derrida’s Memoirs of the Blind. The statement is a reference to the famous anecdote about the origin of drawing or painting that was first described by Pliny the Elder […]

the words that matter most: Thirteen ways of looking at Paul Chan’s Phaedrus Pron

7th May 2012Alain Badiou, Hypertranslation, Jacques Derrida, Marquis de Sade, Paul Chan, Phaedrus, Plato, SocratesMinus Plato

American artist and activist Paul Chan’s Phaedrus Pron, a ‘hyper-translation’ of Plato’s Phaedrus, is worth looking at. Here are thirteen ways you can get into it: 1. You can watch the trailer (yes, this book has a trailer): ****Viewer Discretion Is Advised**** 2. You can listen to Chan reading an excerpt for you and here […]