Act I.

Scene 1: The Freiburg-Paris Express

Martin Heidegger: ... in principle, the objectness in which at any given time nature, man, history,
language exhibit themselves always itself remains only one kind of presencing, in which indeed that
what presences can appear, but never absolutely must appear. That which is not to be gotten
around ... holds sway in the essence of every science. Is this, then, the inconspicuous state of affairs
that we should like to bring into view? Yes and no.1
Antonin Artaud: e intend to base the theater upon spectacle before everything else, and we shall
introduce into the spectacle a new notion of space utili!ed on all possible levels and in all degrees of
perspective in depth and within this notion a specific idea of time will be added to that of movement
.. Thus, theater will be utili!ed not only in its dimensions and volume but, so to speak, in its
undersides "dans ses dessous#.2
Jacques Derrida: e touch here on one of the most difficult points of this whole problematic, when
we must recover language without language, this interplay of forces which are mute but already
haunted by writing, where the conditions of a performative are established, as are the rules of the
game and the limits of subversion.3
Martin Heidegger: The establishing of truth in the work is the bringing forth of a being such as
never was before and never will be again... Truth establishes itself in the work. Truth is present only
as the conflict between lighting and concealing in the opposition of world and earth. Truth wills to
be established in the work as this conflict of world and earth. The conflict is not to be resolved in a
being brought forth for the purpose, nor is it to be merely housed there$ the conflict, on the contrary,
is started by it. This being must therefore contain within itself the essential traits of the conflict. In
the strife the unity of world and earth is won. %s a world opens itself, it submits to an historical
humanity the &uestion of victory and defeat, blessing and curse, mastery and slavery. The dawning
world brings out what is as yet undecided and measureless, and thus discloses the hidden necessity
of measure and decisiveness.4
Jacques Derrida: In the fleeting moment when it plays the law, a literature passes literature. It is on
both sides of the line that separates law from outlaw, it splits the being' before'the'law, it is at once,
like the man from the country, (before the law( and (prior to the law( ""devant la loi" et "avant la
loi"#. )rior to the being'before'the'law which is also that of the doorkeeper. *ut within so unlikely a
site, would it have taken place? ould it have been appropriate to "y aura-t-il lieu de# name
literature.5
The Chorus: e want to begin by contextuali!ing this discussion in the space of a very large
problematic which we don+t propose to address fully, but into which '' through certain figures of
,artin -eidegger+s '' we would like to make a series of forays. /ur &uestion concerns the manner
in which space is constructed in a particular time and place, in or as a particular episteme, and how
the space of literature '' or the spaces of literatures '' figure and reconfigure these constructions,
how they can, in other words, (play the law(...
According to -eidegger, a space cannot exist unless there is, first, a site and a site cannot exist
without there first being a boundary. (% boundary is not that at which something stops, as the
0reeks recogni!ed, a boundary is that from which something begins its presencing.(6 In other
words, the boundary, or the marking, always precedes and makes possible, a space. -eidegger tells
us, further, that the essential characteristic of (man+s( existence is dwelling in this space whose
mark or bounds founds its existence and that 1drawing this out2 the particular dwelling that
characteri!es the *eing of any age, and thus the existence of beings in relation to it, is (mapped,( so
to speak, by the particular boundaries, sites, and spaces that exist there.
Issues of space and site are important in a number of -eidegger+s essays, including (The /rigin of
the ork of %rt,( (The %ge of the orld )icture,( and (3cience and 4eflection.( In these essays,
however, -eidegger focuses on the spaces produced by various '' and always shifting '' forms of
representation. -eidegger shifts the conventional definition of representation as something that
stands in for something else and rather conceives representation in terms of a particular spatial
arrangement, or more precisely, through a number of them as each period in the history he sketches
out for us has its own diagram. These forms of representation then determine the (truth of an age.(
The first diagram is the )latonic one. -ere, a beholder viewing a thing also (sees( the form, or
eidos, which exists (behind( it, linking vision, by a straight line through empty space, to a static
Idea. The second diagram -eidegger describes, the 5artesian',odern, is dominated by the back and
forth motion of the subject+s relationship to the objective which constitutes the world as (picture(
and as calculable objective system. The third diagram that I will discuss might be called the )re'
3ocratic -eideggerian. -ere, the (metaphysics of sight( is displaced in favor of a physics of site.
)lacement, positioning, spacing determine the production of truth now conceived, precisely, as a
production. The third diagram moves from the representation that characteri!es the first two
1Vorstellung2 to a model of presentation 1Darstellung2. It reacts &uite explicitly, however, to the first
two, playing their laws. 6irst, -eidegger cuts the thread that binds both beholder and (thing( to the
static idea$ and second, he reconfigures the subject'object movement of the modern form 1which,
-eidegger suggests, results in the stance of (mastery( that stages an (assault( on the objective
world.2 Truth is produced, in the third diagram, not through correctness, or a model of reference in
which the thing perceived as true is so because it refers to something else, but rather truth is
produced in and as an event, a (happening.( The &uestion (what is it( as the inaugural gesture of
philosophy is shifted as -eidegger instead asks, (where and how does it occur.(
%t the risk of digressing here, let me attempt to first characteri!e the conception of truth as aletheia,
and the form of representation or presentation, that characteri!es -eidegger+s third diagram. -e
introduces it in the space of his criti&ue of truth as correctness. The conventional determination of
truth, he suggests, proceeds through an ade&uation of one thing with another. The (thing( is true
because it corresponds with an idea 1as in )lato2 or, the idea is true because it corresponds with the
(real( conditions of a material thing 1as in the mode of scientific in&uiry2. This model of truth as
ade&uation, or correctness, he suggests, draws us around in a kind of circle. -ow can we establish
the (truth( of the first thing, how does its truth (become visible(? The only manner in which, he
suggests, something can become visible is in the space of the open, a space in which two things, or
entities, confront one another. In the open, these beings regard one another, seeing only those angles
made visible by the particular standing '' or placement '' of each. 7ach being appears then not as an
absolutely known or knowable entity, but rather in the particular aspects of it that are unconcealed
in the context of the particular relation. To vastly oversimplify 1and leave out the &uestions of what
we might conceive as foreground and background, the relation of being and *eing that also
determine this relation2, when you look at something you see only its (front($ both its (back( and, to
use an %rtaudian term, its (undersides( remain concealed. It is in this sense that -eidegger speaks
of truth as determined by both an unconcealing and a concealing, or a veiling and an unveiling.
8othing (appears( absolutely but rather (presences( in a particular way determined both by its
position and by the position of the other (beholder.( 1I say other because the (thing( always returns
the ga!e$ it is never merely an (object.(2 It is in this sense that -eidegger conceives truth as
radically historical, dependent on the situation in which it (becomes visible,( a situation governed
by both spacing and the temporal condition always inherent in the relation of being to *eing as
temporal.
The /pen then and, as I will discuss below, the opening engendered by the artwork, is conceived in
terms of what I want to read as a kind of theatrical space but a reconfigured theatrical space in
which the beholders, or spectators, are not outside of but rather in, or on, the scene and one in
which, as I will discuss more fully below, the substitution of site for sight opens a spatiality 1which
the first two diagrams, in different ways, bind to the past or to a pre'established ground2 to the
future. -ere, the (open context of relations( 1with, of course, its shadows and concealings2 posits, or
positions, the opening of space as a new beginning and a new beginning as the opening of space.
9 9 9 9
To make something of a leap here, on to the 6reiburg')aris 7xpress, -eidegger+s theater of truth 1a
truth produced through, among other modes, the artwork or (creative &uestioning(2 is a kind of
theater of cruelty. To both -eidegger and %rtaud 1The Theater and its Double, (The /rigin of the
ork of %rt( and (The %ge of the orld )icture( were all written in the thirties2 a certain form of
theatricality with its alternative topography appeared as a kind of answer to what they conceived,
albeit in often &uite different ways, as the repressive coordinates of a modern form of representation
1to employ a rather totali!ing formulation2. %rtaud does not play as large a role in this essay as I had
originally conceived. -owever, as he provides the t1r2opology through which I+ve been thinking
-eideggerian space I will '' at the risk of vast oversimplification '' lay out certain aspects of
%rtaud+s criti&ue of the (petrified theater( and propositions for a theater of cruelty.
:ike -eidegger, %rtaud is preoccupied with deconstructing a particularly modern form of
representation which %rtaud characteri!es in his criti&ue of the modern theater. %rtaud (contests( a
conventional text'based theater in which the action on the stage represents in the conventional
sense, that is, stands in for, a text, and where the text, in its turn, represents (real( characters. This
chain of representation that connects the play to the (real( world '' to, %rtaud suggests,
(psychology( and (current events( '' has another link. (ith the spectacle on one side and the
audience on the other'the masses are not shown anything but the mirror image of what they are.(
This series of representations differ from one another only in degree, or position, with each one
anchored by the others, or by the function of mirroring, to an (original( idea of (psychological(
man.
%rtaud+s answer is to rearrange the space of the theater, to do away with the stage, to put the
spectators in the middle of the action, to construct space in such a manner that the spectators are as
much characters in the drama as the actors, and to light with shadows. %rtaud+s conceptions of actor,
character and spectator explode the conventional meanings of these terms. These theatrical
(subjects( whose separation from one another is abolished by the theater of cruelty are imaged as
being, contemporaneously, willing entities who can radically transform themselves( and the world
around them and (passive and neutral elements.(! (The spectator ... is caught in the theater as if in a
whirlwind of higher forces.(" (/ur petrified idea of the theater,( %rtaud writes, (is connected with
our petrified idea of a culture without shadows, where, no matter which way it turns, our mind
1esprit2 encounters only emptiness, though space is full. *ut the true theater because it moves and
makes use of living instruments, continues to stir up shadows where life has never ceased to grope
its way.(1# The true theater, or the theater of cruelty, which %rtaud proposes to (substitute( for the
petrified theater, makes use of this (full space.( (The problem,( %rtaud writes, (is to make space
speak.( The (diffusion of action over an immense space will mean that the lighting effects of a
performance will sei!e the audience as well as the characters....(11 (Theatrically these inversions of
form, these displacements of meaning could become the essential element of that poetry of ... space
which is the exclusive domain of ise-en-scene.(12
If we follow -eidegger+s definition of space, there is no such thing as space without boundary and
thus space (itself+ cannot speak, only particular spaces, or spacings, can speak. Thus, and as ;errida
has pointed out, the theater of cruelty has never, and could never, exist as a (real( theatrical
production.13 %rtaud+s absolute rejection of representation coincides with an attempt to erase
repetition as well, and to conceive a space without boundary. to, in other words, constitute the
theatrical production as an absolute and thus impossible origin. 1%s we learn from -eidegger,
repetition precedes originarity and space and boundary exist in a relation of co'originarity.2
-owever, %rtaud+s conception of ise-en-scene and, perhaps, its very position at the (limit( of the
(problem( of representation provides a kind of extreme case in relation to -eidegger+s third
diagram, or theatrical space. hile the theater of cruelty demands the absolute transformation of
man, who is to be stripped of his organs, or organi!ation, on the basis of an absolute origin,
-eidegger+s theater attempts to constitute a new relation between the past and an as yet unknowable
future by diagramming a new version of representational space and putting it up for decision. The
third diagram thus occupies the most complex place in these essays because it has both a descriptive
and a prescriptive function or perhaps it would be better to say a descriptive and a scriptive
function. These reconfigurations of space occur, of course, in or as literature. %rtaud+s manifestos on
the theater of cruelty are, more than anything else, statements on his own poetics. -eidegger+s
reconfiguration of space also takes this double form of a (theoretical( content performed in writing
1i.e. the (accompaniment,( in (/rigin,( of his criti&ue of propositional structure with consistent
reversals and shifts from active to passive, subject to object where truth sets itself to work and is set
to work, where the artist is the origin of the work and the work the origin of the artist, etc.2. The
problem, however, is not (properly( (literary( or philosophical or techno'mediatic but rather
(improperly( all of them. It is literary in its (improper( or extended sense. %lthough I hardly want to
posit the theater of cruelty as some kind of redemptive possibility, it seems that this 1textual2
reconfiguration of the space of representation might suggest a kind of ethics based on a vision of
history, to use )eggy <amuf+s term, as a (historicity of the future( and on the dynamics of the
-eideggerian theater which, to use his own formulation, (let the other be what it is( or (let the other
be other.(
-eidegger and %rtaud both suggest that it is precisely (the inconspicuous,( (the undersides, (the
(shadows( of what appears in representation that becomes the space for the reconfiguration of
space. -ow and why is it that what erupts in this shadow is a scene? ;oes the modern form of
representation (call( for the reconfiguration of representational space, for the eruption of
theatricality? Is the call a call for (an antidote( or for an alter'native figure that will (bring up for
decision( an image that points to an always' unknowable future? 5an we read in -eidegger+s figure
both a call to heed the figure, a calls that calls for, more than anything else, a response or a
responsibility, and one based on the conception that (truth( is dependent on the very otherness of
the other?
Scene 2: Fr$% The$r& t$ Theater
In (3cience and 4eflection,( -eidegger analy!es the modern definition of science and scientific
knowledge through looking at what he posits as the definition of science. (3cience is the theory of
the real.( (The real,( he writes, (in the sense of what is factual, now constitutes the opposite of that
which does not stand firm as guaranteed and which is represented as mere appearance or as
something that is only believed to be so.( 14 *ecause scientific in&uiry only engages that which is
already guaranteed 1that is the knowableness of things in their ability to be measured2 it disregards
what is, for -eidegger, essential in the (knowledge( of a thing, that is, the manner in which it
presences or becomes visible and, with this, the acknowledgement of the aspects of the thing that ''
because of the structure of the open with its relative positioning of entities which determine the
conditions of its visibility '' must remain concealed.
The (real( meaning of theory, he suggests, invoking the source of the word in 0reek thought, is
determined not by what can be known or measured in a (thing( but rather by a lingering with it in
its outward appearance, which can be traced, at least in part, to a concept of the theater in which the
thing (presences( to those (lingerers(. (The word (theory( stems from the 0reek word theorein. The
noun belonging to it is theoria. The verb theorein grew out of the coalescing of two root words, thea
and horao. Thea 1cf. theater2 is the outward look, the aspect in which something shows itself, the
outward appearance in which it offers itself. )lato names this aspect in which what presences shows
what it is, eidos. To have seen this aspect, eidenai, is to know. The second root word in theorein!
horao, means. to look at something attentively, to look it over, to view it closely. Thus it follows
that theorein is thean horan, to look attentively on the outward appearance wherein what presences
becomes visible and, through such sight '' seeing '' to linger with it.(15
4eflection, -eidegger suggests, must follow this path to the theater.
Scene 3: 'hat is( an) the F$r% $* +epresentati$n
In (/rigin,( -eidegger dislocates the (inaugural gesture of philosophy,( the &uestion, (what is,( that
&uests after a static essence and asks instead, where and how? -e begins the essay by drawing us
around in a circle regarding the &uestion of the work+s origin.
(/rigin here means that from which and by which something is what it is and as it is. hat
something is, as it is, we call its essence or nature. The origin of something is the source of its
nature. The &uestion concerning the origin of the work of art asks about the source of its nature. /n
the usual view, the work arises out of and by means of the activity of the artist. *ut by what and
whence is the artist what he is? *y the work$ for to say that the work does credit to the master
means that it is the work that first lets the artist emerge as a master of his art. The artist is the origin
of the work. The work is the origin of the artist. 8either is without the other. 8evertheless, neither is
the sole support of the other. In themselves and in their interrelations artist and work are each of
them by virtue of a third thing which is prior to both, namely that which also gives artist and work
their names '' art.
%s necessarily as the artist is the origin of the work in a different way than the work is the origin of
the artist, so it is e&ually certain that, in a different way, art is the origin of both artist and work. *ut
can art be an origin at all? here and how does art occur?(16
-eidegger defines essence in what, at first, may not seem to be too surprising a manner. It is (that
from and by which something is what it is and as it is.( *ut, rather than discovering a definitive,
static eidos in an a'temporal, extra'spatial realm, the essence derives from the thing+s '' in this case,
the art'work+s '' spatio'temporal unfolding. /ne should not be too &uick to say (the art work,(
however, because -eidegger indicates that this (formulation( applies just as definitely to the artist.
(In themselves and in their interrelations artist and work are each of them by a third thing which is
prior to both, namely that which also gives artist and work of art their names ' art.( The (event( of
the artwork2, its (occurrence( determines the essence or nature of both artist and work. %rt
(happens( and it is through its (happening( that artist and work find their (natures.( %s I suggested
above, -eidegger+s definition of the essence as located in space and time, as spatio' temporal, runs
counter to the definition of essence that was inaugurated by )lato and that founds, according to
-eidegger, the modern form of representation, that (prepares the way( for its development.
The move I+m making here 1in which, I hope, I am following -eidegger2 is to link the &uestion
(what is( to the modern form of representation which, -eidegger asserts, is based on a relationship
between subject and object and which constitutes the world as picture. In order to clarify the
particular problem of representation and its relationship to art as -eidegger presents it, I want to
take a short detour into the 4epublic and examine the terms of the problem of art and representation
as )lato describes them. It will be recalled that )lato wants to ban poets from his ideal republic
1(6or if you grant admission to the honeyed muse in lyric and epic, pleasure and pain will be lords
of your city instead of law and that which shall from time to time have approved itself to the general
reason as the best.(1 2. 3ome forms of poetry are, however, worse than others. )lato counterposes
an ideal of (pure narration( in which the poet recites, while maintaining his own persona, voice and
perspective to (imitation in voice and gesture( in which the poet changes persona, taking the form
of, in the worst case scenarios, women or madmen.1! hat )lato appears to object to is the
constitution of a second scene. The (good( poet re'presents what has already occurred. The (bad(
one introduces a second scene, another event which no longer refers to the first. The poet who
imitates thus offends )lato for a number of '' imbricated '' reasons. True knowledge, for )lato, (is
the knowledge of that which always is and not of something which at some time comes into being
and passes away,(1" the knowledge of an original idea governed by the (true idea of the good.(2#
The poet, in imitating both creates something at a far remove from the idea and, at the same time,
contaminates his own essence by changing form. hat I want to indicate in regard to )lato is,
firstly, the manner in which in the spatial configuration he describes the unfolding spatio'temporal
remains tied to a static (idea( and secondly, the conservatism of this schema, that is, literally, the
manner in which it attempts to bind art to a past or an unchanging law, of (that which shall from
time to time have approved itself to the general reason as the best.( To perhaps overstate the point,
time moves but (general reason( and (the best( remain the same.
The modern form of representation as -eidegger discusses it in (3cience and 4eflection( and in
(The %ge of the orld )icture( derives from the )latonic schema with, -eidegger suggests, a
constitutive detour via ;escartes. If we can envision representation in the )latonic schema in terms
of a subject 1although perhaps this term is not really acceptable here2 looking at an object and
seeing the idea behind it 1as in )lato+s famous discussion about the couch2, the structure of
representation changes with the 5artesian cogito when the basis of certainty becomes not the
(grounding( idea or essence but the subject itself. e can read the 5artesian structure of
representation from the propositional structure of the cogito itself 1although, of course, a
grammatical analysis would not function in these terms.2 In saying (cogito ergo sum( 1and here I
am following -eidegger and have not returned to ;escartes2, the subject constitutes itself as both
subject and object. (I think( being the subject of the proposition and (I am( the object. The
conditions for certainty are then deposited in the thinking subject through a new kind of
correspondence, the correspondence of the object to the subject+s mental representation, the very
constitution=certainty of the now'objective world becoming dependent on the subject+s ability to
represent. -eidegger consistently calls our attention to the spatial dimensions of this form of
representation 1Vorstellung2 and the ramifications of this configuration.
(To represent means here. of oneself to set something before oneself and to make secure what has
been set in place, as something set in place... 4epresenting is no longer the apprehending of that
which presences, within whose unconcealment apprehending itself belongs, belongs indeed as a
uni&ue kind of presencing toward that which presences that is unconcealed. 4epresenting is no
longer a self'unconcealing for but is a laying hold and grasping of'hat presences does not hold
sway, but rather assault rules ... That which is, is no longer that which presences$ it is rather that
which, in representing is first set over against, that which stands fixedly over against, which has the
character of object ... 4epresenting is making'stand'over'against, an objectifying that goes forward
and masters. In this way representing drives everything together into the unity of that which is given
the character of object. 4epresenting is coagitatio.(21
The modern scene of representation differs from the )latonic one in that here there are two positions
or terms that determine the relation 1rather than three which, to be more precise, can '' in )lato ''
develop into a series, differing merely in degree of difference=distance from the eidos2. There is a
thinking=representing subject standing (over against( what now takes the character of object. %s
-eidegger suggests, this (setting in place( is what establishes the conditions for a series of concepts
that, for him, characteri!e the modern (world(. mastery, calculability, the systematic, the (world
picture( 1as well as a series deriving from, or prepared by, the )latonic diagram. identity and self'
identity, unity 1as opposed to multiplicity2, and differences in degree (substituted( for differences in
kind 1as in the relationship between the thing and its pictorial representation22. It changes the type
of essence that the &uestion what is searches for, but does not change the &uestion. The essence of a
thing now lies, according to -eidegger, in what can be measured and calculated by science. (In the
coagitatio, representing gathers all that is objective into the +all'together+ of representedness,(22 and
it is this (all'together( which allows for=constitute the calculability of things '' which are not
viewed each in its own (presencing,( but rather as part of the system constituted by the (all
together( and in relation=comparison both to each other and to various systems of measurement. In
other words, the form of representation constitutes the thing as it appears and when the &uestion
(what is( is posed by science, the (answer( is pre'determined by the form of representation.
%ccording to -eidegger, what appears to scientific in&uiry does not 1and cannot2 encompass what
the thing is (in its unconcealment( but rather can only describe it in the terms pre'established by
representation.
Scene 4: Fr$% Sha)$, t$ Scene
You may have noticed that in the &uotation above, -eidegger introduces the third diagram. If the
first one I described is the )latonic and the second the 5artesian',odem, the third is the )re'
3ocratic -eideggerian. This scene occupies an essential and complicated position throughout
-eidegger+s essays and is, precisely, the site at which -eidegger reconfigures the &uestion (what is
it( into his essential &uestion '' through which he discusses the production of truth, the task of
reflection and the activity of the art work '' where and how does it occur. *efore I confront this
scene and its &uestion, however, I want to position it, to light the space in which it is posed.
-eidegger+s shift from (what is it( to (where and how does it occur( does not occur in a vacuum, so
to speak, but rather in the shadow of the world picture. -eidegger introduces the shadow in the
context of a discussion of (the gigantic( which he characteri!es, with the (increasingly small,( as
the particular &uality of (our( historical age.
(... as soon as the gigantic in planning and calculating and adjusting and making secure shifts out of
the &uantitative and becomes a special &uality, then what is gigantic, and what can seemingly
always be calculated completely, becomes precisely this, incalculable. This becoming incalculable
remains the invisible shadow that is cast around all things everywhere when man has been
transformed into subiectu and the world into picture.
*y means of this shadow the modern world extends itself out into a space withdrawn from
representation, and so lends to the incalculable the determinateness peculiar to it, as well as a
historical uni&ueness.(23
hat I want to draw out of -eidegger+s formulation is the structure, or scene, of the (shadow(
where differences in degree produce differences in kind. e can read here an intimation of what
-eidegger sees as the limitations of a scientific'modern form of representation. If calculation and
calculability can be seen as an essential characteristic of the modern'scientific world view 1(our
present day world is completely dominated by the desire to know of modern science( 242 then what
(withdraws( from calculating'representation is what cannot be calculated, i.e., the immeasurable
aspect of the (thing.( *ut neither is this (immeasurable( or (incalculable( an absolute or essential
1defined in the conventional sense2 &uality. It arises as an effect of calculability. It is what happens.
occurs, comes to pass '' with an emphasis on the temporal aspect of these formulations '' when the
numbers get too big ... %nd lest we are too &uick to read the shadow (dialectically,( -eidegger 1in
what seems to be a reaction against his contemporaries of the 6rankfurt 3chool2, rejects this
approach and points to another.
(*y means of this shadow the modern world extends itself out into a space withdrawn from
representation, and so lends to the incalculable the determinateness peculiar to it, as well as a
historical uni&ueness. This shadow, however, points to something else, which it is denied to us of
today to know. *ut man will never be able to experience and ponder this that is denied so long as he
dawdles about in the mere negating of the age. The flight into tradition, out of a combination of
humility and presumption, can bring about nothing in itself other than self'deception and blindness
in relation to the historical moment.
,an will know, i.e., carefully safeguard into its truth, that which is incalculable, only in creative
&uestioning and shaping out of the power of genuine reflection. 4eflection transports the man of the
future into that (between( in which he belongs to *eing but remains a stranger amid that which
is.(25
The image of the shadow, and, of course, shadows (themselves( are always (determinate,( their
shape informed by both the figures from which they are cast and the particular lighting which casts
them 1and it is essential to keep in mind that the (figure( the (scene( 1site, stage2 and the (lighting(
are '' all three '' (radically( historical2. 1The scene of the shadow brings us back to the formulations
introduced in the encounter of the first scene, above.2
The shadow, -eidegger suggests, (extends itself out into a space withdrawn from representation.( It
introduces the possibility for another (figure( of space into the modern figure of representation
which functions without shadows, through a spatial configuration which posits the mastering ga!e
of the subject stretched across empty space to the (objective.( To return to %rtaud+s figures. (/ur
petrified idea of the theater is connected with our petrified idea of a culture without shadows,
where, no matter which way it turns, our mind 1esprit2 encounters only emptiness though space is
full. *ut the true theater, because it moves and makes use of living instruments, continues to stir up
shadows where life has never ceased to grope its way.(26 %rtaud proposes to use the shadows of the
modern scene of representation to transform the theater and thus to transform (a culture( that,
positioning spectators across an empty space from the spectacle, binds both into a static, or merely
oscillatory, relation. (3tir"ring# up shadows,( %rtaud suggests, will un' bind the static oscillation
that keeps both spectators and spectacles in their predetermined positions. %nd, as I suggested
above, this reconfiguration of space has everything to do with %rtaud+s attempt to transform the
(subject( who, released from its particular positionality, becomes something else altogether.
-eidegger also sees a kind of theater as an answer to the spatial bind of modern'scientific in&uiry
which only asks &uestions the terms of whose answers are established in advance. The real
&uestion, he suggests, the one which will point the way to the (men of the future( is asked in the
space of the shadow.
It+s interesting to note, in this regard, that in 7nglish, the word shadow and the word scene share the
same root. 7ric )artridge+s etymology has an uncannily -eideggerian ring to it. the word scene
derives from the :atin scena which derives from the 0reek s"ene, a covered place 1e.g. a tent2,
hence a stage, hence a scene thereon, hence a scene in general. The 0reek word derives from the
3anskrit, (chaya, brilliance lustre, but also,( )artridge tells us, (by that perversity that characteri!es
language, shade, a shadow....(2 It seems that in the word scene we have the connotations of both a
lighting and a shading, a brightness and a shadow.
Scene 5: The E-ent
)erhaps the (dilemma( of visibility presented in the shadow'scene points the way toward the
necessity of a certain wariness in reading -eidegger+s formulation of the third diagram as the
theatrical space of art %fter all, -eidegger tells us that (hat art may be is one of the &uestions to
which no answers are given in the essay. hat gives the impression of such an answer are
directions for &uestioning.(2! %nd, further, that (The foregoing reflections are concerned with the
riddle of art, the riddle that art itself is. They are far from claiming to solve the riddle. The task is to
see the riddle.(2" hat is the (task( that the riddle imposes on (me( as a reader of -eidegger? If art
is not what -eidegger says it is, then what is the (status( of -eidegger+s own text? It seems that we
have to read philosophy or, at least, -eidegger+s philosophy, as -eidegger (reads( the work of art,
as a production, event, happening which does not reproduce a pre'existent truth, but opens up a
possibility for=the possibility of the future.
(Art then is the becoing and happening o# truth. ;oes truth, then, arise out of nothing? It does
indeed if by nothing is meant the mere not of that which is, and if we here think of that which is as
an object present in the ordinary way, which thereafter comes to light and is challenged by the
existence of the work as only presumptively a true being. Truth is never gathered from objects that
are present and ordinary. 4ather, the opening up of the /pen, and the clearing of what is, happens
only as the openness is projected, sketched out, that makes its advent in thrownness.(3#
%rt, as the happening of truth, (becomes( from projection and through thrownness, from a
particular set of possibilities of being determined by the historical *eing of an age and then handed
over to human being, to its own responsibility. hich of these possibilities will be reali!ed? hich
manifested in the art work or in (creative &uestioning(? /ut of the almost 1but not2 infinite
possibilities of the virtual 1possibilities of an age2, which will be actuali!ed in the (figure( of the
work? %nd what will happen when they, these figures, are (brought up for decision(? In what
manner will these decisions move history, and the (men of the future,( into the future?
I hope that this set of &uestions begins to bring out 1if I have not already done so2 the reasons for the
sections of this essay, above, which detail 1fragments of2 -eidegger+s criti&ue of historical forms of
representation. The third diagram, as I have suggested, plays the first two. Truth does arise out of
nothing, -eidegger suggests above, if we mean by nothing (the mere not of that which is, and if we
here think of that which is as an object present in the ordinary way, which thereafter comes to light
and is challenged by the existence of the work as only presumptively a true being.( That which is, is
determined by a particular regime of representation$ the (mere not,( as -eidegger advises us in
(orld )icture,( is not the negative of what is but rather its shadow or, to extend this further, the
hidden conditions of a thing+s appearance which allow it to appear as it does. This shadow contains(
1a part of2 the virtual possibilities to be reali!ed in the figure, the work, the philosophical
presentation 1Darstellung2 or fictioning. *ut the (setting forth of the figure( is not a tracing of the
shadow+s contours but rather takes place in the drama of the /pen. The shadow, in other words, is
only one actant in the drama.31 %nd the stage is constructed, shaped, by the overlapping and
intersecting shadows of all of them. 1*ut here is where we contact the (fiction( of -eidegger+s
(philosophy,( the place where the figurings of artwork and reflection meet in the modality ascribed
to them by -eidegger.2
The very doubleness of the meaning of the /pen establishes -eidegger+s problematic '' and its
point of convergence with %rtaud+s. It links temporality to spatiality. The open is both an opening up
of being to the future, to an always new beginning, and an opening up of a space in which a future
can happen. it is the space of the coming'to'pass. It confronts (a &uestion of tie and of an
alteration in its relation to space,(32 or, a &uestion of space and of an alternation in its relation to
time. If the conservative 1in the literal sense2 forces of culture are often thought in terms of
architectural structures 1i.e. *ataille+s (anti'architectural( stance and his criti&ue of monumentality,
6oucault+s asylums and )anopticon2, both -eidegger+s /pen and theater of the artwork and %rtaud+s
theater of cruelty posit a kind of potentially transformative space not bound to the past but bounding
into the future. The difference between %rtaud and -eidegger is that %rtaud, in wanting (to make
space speak( wants to constitute the impossible originary event. There is no (space( per se, only
particular spaces. -eidegger makes these spaces speak. The space of the )latonic diagram speaks
the conservative force of the eidos as guarantor of truth, the 5artesian',odern the assault of
scientific (correctness( on the objective world$ -eidegger responds with his theater...
In (/rigin,( -eidegger begins to look for the work+s origin in the (thing( but ultimately &uestions
whether the work is, in fact, a thing at all. The essay turns around this first in&uiry, staged in the
terms of a scientific procedure which seeks the nature of something by first determining its (thingly
substructure.( -eidegger, however, criti&ues and reconfigures the &uestion that is asked by
scientific in&uiry and posed in 1terms of2 the space of the modern diagram. Towards the end of the
essay he writes.
(e can now return to our opening &uestion. how do matters stand with the work+s thingly feature
that is to guarantee its immediate reality? They stand so that now we no longer raise this &uestion
about the work+s thingly element$ for as long as we ask it, we take the work directly and as a
foregone conclusion, as an object that is simply there. In that way we never &uestion in terms of the
work, but in our own terms. In our terms''we, who then do not let the work be a work but view it as
an object that is supposed to produce this or that state of mind in us.(33
-eidegger+s analysis of what a work, in fact, is depends upon (let"ting# the work be a work.( 4ather
than asking a &uestion the terms of whose answer are established in advance, -eidegger waits for
the work itself to speak. The work becomes an actant in an unfolding drama. /f the famous, or
infamous, >an 0ogh painting, -eidegger writes, (This painting spoke. In the vicinity of the work
we were suddenly somewhere else than we usually tend to be.( The work '' if we respond to its call
'' transports us into the theater of truth.
I want to trace the transposition of -eidegger+s (we( in the two &uotations of his text above. 6irst,
there appears the (we( of (In our terms''we, who then do not let the work be a work but view it as
an object that is supposed to produce this or that frame of mind in us($ then appears the (we,(
transported. (In the vicinity of the work we were suddenly somewhere else than we usually tend to
be.( This movement of the (we( draws me, or us, into the heart of -eidegger+s conception of space,
which he develops most fully 1as far as I know2 in (*uilding, ;welling, Thinking.( e might relate
the first (we( to this assertion.
(e do not represent distant things merely in our mind''as the text books have it'' so that only
mental representations of distant things run through our minds and heads as substitutes for the
things.(34
In this &uotation, -eidegger refers to the same problem as he does with the first (we(. the thing,
when viewed in (our own terms( '' and here -eidegger refers to the pre'existent ground of modern'
scientific in&uiry which asks for the work+s thingly element '' (produces this or that state of mind(
or a (mental representation.( This modality of in&uiry maintains us in the oscillatory relationship
between subject and object that characteri!es the 5artesian',odern diagram, where the mental
representation is the guarantor of the objectivity of the thing. %s I discussed above, in reference to
both -eidegger and %rtaud, it is precisely this relative positioning, and its oscillation, which
guarantees '' or maintains '' the subjectivity of the subject as well as the objectivity of the object.
:et me now present a more complete version of -eidegger+s formulation.
(7ven when we relate ourselves to those things that are not in our immediate reach, we are staying
with the things themselves. e do not represent distant things merely in our mind''as the text books
have it''so that only mental representations of distant things run through our minds and heads as
substitutes for the things. If all of us now think, from where we are right here, of the old bridge in
-eidelberg, this thinking toward that location is not a mere experience inside the persons present
here$ rather, it belongs to the nature of our thinking o# that bridge that in itsel# thinking gets through,
persists through, the distance to that location. 6rom this spot right here, we are there at the bridge''
we are by no means at some representational content in our consciousness. 6rom right here we may
even be much nearer to that bridge and to what it makes room for than someone who uses it daily as
an indifferent river crossing.(35
In this passage, -eidegger contrasts the two (we(s we encountered first in (/rigin,( the (we( of
representational thinking and the (we( (transported into the vicinity of the work.( If we do not think
in the spatial confines of the modern regime of representation, we move outside of mental
representation, &uite literally$ we think outside of our (minds and heads( and at the place of the
thing thought. *ut this formulation does not (solve( but rather just begins the problem of the (we.(
*ecause (who we are( is not determined in advance. (e( as pre'constituted entities or, as
-eidegger adds (encapsulated bodies,( do not just jump around, promiscuously, thinking from thing
to thing. The thinking at the thing rather constitutes the (we( who are thinking.
*ut this last statement may demand some further explication. -eidegger writes, (To say that
mortals are is to say that in d$elling they persist through spaces by virtue of their stay among things
and locations,(36 and (;welling ... is the basic character of *eing in keeping with which mortals
exist.(3 *eings 1beings2 are, -eidegger suggests, through their dwelling '' or persisting '' in
particular spaces. If *eing can be defined as the particular character of an age which allows beings
to appear as they do, then dwelling also, as -eidegger makes clear in this essay, has this historical
character. (/ur reference to the *lack 6orest farm in no way means that we should or could go back
to building such houses$ rather, it illustrates by a dwelling that has been how it was able to build.(3!
(The real dwelling plight lies in this, that mortals ever search anew for the nature of dwelling, that
they ust ever learn to d$ell.(3" Thus, the historical character of both *eing and being always
tends toward the future, is always becoming. The particular manner of this becoming of *=being is
dependent upon the building of particular buildings, the creation of particular spaces. If we think at
the place of the bridge, if to think is to dwell at a particular site, the very particularity of our
thinking, and of (who we are,( is determined by the thought generated in this dwelling. *ut
whatever transformation the transposition effects always occurs against the background of *eing.
The manner in which we think at the bridge is determined first by the *eing that allows the bridge
to appear as it does, but this *eing is always transformed by the site'specific thinking which, as I
will discuss below, may bring a particular figure up for the decision of (historical humanity.(
To leap back now, into the vicinity of the work, I think we can see how -eidegger+s conception of
the artwork will tie into this issue of the (we.( The work turns out to be a kind of entity in that it is
not inactive as is a (mere thing( or object, but rather actively creates a site at which a drama can
unfold.
(The temple, in its standing there, first gives to things their look and their outlook on themselves.
This view remains open so long as the work is a work, as long as the god has not fled from it. It is
the same with the sculpture of the god, votive offering of the victor in the athletic games. It is not a
portrait whose purpose is to make it easier to reali!e how the god looks$ rather it is a work that lets
the god be present and thus is the god himself. The same holds for the linguistic work. In the
tragedy nothing is staged or displayed theatrically, but the battle of the new gods against the old is
being fought. The linguistic work, originating in the speech of the people, does not refer to this
battle$ it transforms the people+s saying so that now every living word fights the battle and puts up
for decision what is holy and unholy, what great and what small, what brave and what cowardly,
what lofty and what flighty, what master and what slave.(4#
-eidegger uses the image of the temple precisely because architecture can not, he suggests, be
viewed as representational, as a thing which stands in for something else. The temple, rather, creates
its surrounding landscape, unifies it into what might be called a landscape by creating a location and
a site, by creating a space in which (nothing is staged or displayed theatrically, but the battle of the
new gods against the old is being fought.( %s in %rtaud+s theater of cruelty, the (theater( is no
longer a place of (display( where the action lion stage( refers to a battle fought elsewhere, but
rather the artwork establishes '' or opens '' the space where the battle itself is fought.
I+m going to reproduce a rather long section of the essay in which -eidegger characteri!es this
space, the (theatrical( site.
(here does a work belong? The work belongs, as work, uni&uely within the realm which is
opened up by itself..
% building, a 0reek temple, portrays nothing. It simply stands there in the middle of the rock'cleft
valley. The building encloses the figure of the god, and in this concealment lets it stand out into the
holy precinct through the open portico. *y means of the temple, the god is present in the temple.
This presence of the god is in itself the extension and delimitation of the precinct as a holy precinct.
The temple and its precinct, however, do not fade away into the indefinite. It is the temple work that
fits together and at the same time gathers around itself the unity of those paths and relations in
which birth and death. disaster and blessing, victory and disgrace, endurance and decline ac&uire
the shape of destiny for human being. The all'governing expanse of this open relational context is
the world of this historical people. /nly from and in this expanse does the nation first return to itself
for the fulfillment of its vocation.(41
(3tanding there, the building rests on the rocky ground. This resting of the work draws up out of the
rock the mystery of that rock+s clumsy yet spontaneous support. 3tanding there, the building holds
its ground against the storm raging above it and so first makes the storm itself manifest in its
violence. The luster and gleam of the stone, though itself apparently glowing only by the grace of
the sun, yet first brings to light the light of the day, the breadth of the sky, the darkness of the night.
The temple+s firm towering makes visible the invisible space of air. The steadfastness of the work
contrasts with the surge of the surf, and its own repose brings out the raging of the sea. Tree and
grass, eagle and bull, snake and cricket first enter into their distinctive shapes and thus come to
appear as what they are....
The temple'work, standing there, opens up a world....(42
8o thing can come to appear outside of its place. %ppearance is governed by site and positioning.
8o thing can be seen '' or come to appear '' out of this (context.( In -eidegger+s theater of cruelty,
as in %rtaud+s, a metaphysics of sight gives way to a physics of site. >ision '' and appearance ''
only occur in their place. There is always place, but this is not to be confused with (everything in its
place.( The place '' space ''is always changing. In the theater of the temple where the battle is
fought, the new gods van&uish the old and a new temple is erected in its place, changing the
configurations of the landscape. If we follow -eidegger, at the site of the (new temple( which we
can+t designate in advance as temple, hence. at the unknown site of the future, we have to ask if and
how what we now know as (cricket( and (snake( will come to appear. %nd, further, to ask how
(we( will come to appear.
The idea of a theater, you might want to object, is conventionally conceived not only in terms of a
text, a play, and of spectators+ relationship to a staged spectacle, but rather also in terms of the static
placement of the theater, of a theater as an edifice. 7ven %rtaud, whose theater of cruelty seeks to
bring about the most radical transformations of man '' who is to be stripped of his organs, dis' and
re'organi!ed, so to speak '' still 1or, at least, at many moments in his work2 speaks of a theater as a
place, always the same place, into which actors and spectators enter and stand. -eidegger+s theater
of cruelty does not occur always in the same place, in this sense, but, on the contrary, always occurs
at a different site, and at a site unknowable in advance. To conceive -eidegger+s reconfiguration of
representational space as a theater then demands that we push this concept one step further than
%rtaud has done.43 To perhaps overstate the point here, -eidegger+s theater of cruelty always exists
at a site, but never at the same site. -eidegger himself affirms this.
(...the open space in the midst of beings, the clearing, is never a rigid stage on which the play of
beings runs its course.... The unconcealedness of beings ... is never a merely existent state but a
happening.(44
The manner in which the art work+s production of truth gives rise to this t1r2opology of the theater is
in the conception of the theatrical production as a happening, or event, one that is (produced( by a
number of actants, and one that, perhaps most important, (produces( truth through the (substitution(
of site for sight, producing an (open context of relations,( opening both spatiality 1as constituted
through various regimes of representation2 and temporality. the opening of space as a new
beginning, a new beginning as an opening of space...
-eidegger+s thinking releases the work from its objectivity as constituted by the modern'scientific
world view and from its bind to an a'temporal eidos. In the discussion of )lato, above, I pointed out
)lato+s abhorrence of the artist+s, or mimetician+s, second scene as a departure from (pure
narration(+s proximity to truth. 6or -eidegger, truth is produced in=as a second scene '' and as a
second scene not preceded by a first. (It is not a portrait whose purpose it is to make it easier to
reali!e how the god looks$ rather it is a work that lets the god be present and thus is the god
himself.(45 The essence of the work 1as discussed in scene ?2 is determined by the where and how
of its appearance rather than by its correspondence to an original. *ut, as I suggested above, the
work only appears at and as a particular site which unites a number of actants. The work is always
an event. ithout its relationship to preservers and to its putting something up for decision, it is not
a work. It is performative not just in the sense that certain of its aspects exceed the constative '' or
representation '' but in that its status as work is dependent on its constitution of, and its
performance at, the theatrical site. 1I want to recall here the structure of co'originarity that
-eidegger ascribes to the work as (entity( and as (site( '' and to all of the actants in its production
of truth. (here does a work belong? The work belongs, as work, uni&uely within the realm which
is opened up by itself.(2
6inally, I come to the actants in the unfolding production of the work and of truth, gathered together
by the work+s creation of the site.
(The establishing of truth in the work is the bringing forth of a being such as never was before and
never will be again...
Truth establishes itself in the work. Truth is present only as the conflict between lighting and
concealing in the opposition of world and earth. Truth wills to be established in the work as this
conflict of world and earth. The conflict is not to be resolved in a being brought forth for the
purpose, nor is it to be merely housed there$ the conflict, on the contrary, is started by it. This being
must therefore contain within itself the essential traits of the conflict. In the strife the unity of world
and earth is won. %s a world opens itself, it submits to an historical humanity the &uestion of
victory and defeat, blessing and curse, mastery and slavery. The dawning world brings out what is
as yet undecided and measureless, and thus discloses the hidden necessity of measure and
decisiveness.(46
%ighting and Concealing& e are called upon to think of these not as background or auxiliary
effects but as actants in the production of truth. hat comes to appear depends upon the conditions
they create. 6alling over the stage, light casts shadows. 5oncealing is tricky$ it does just not conceal
in the sense of (not reveal,( but also conceals through dissimulation or (double concealing.( (Truth
is untruths insofar as there belongs to it the reservoir of the not'yet'uncovered, the un'uncovered, in
the sense of concealment.( 4 The truth produced by the work is what appears to the characters and
preservers '' but what appears depends upon a certain amount of dissimulation, un'uncovering. The
truth of the ise-en-scene is as much produced by concealing as by lighting, or unconcealing. (The
nature of truth, that is, of unconcealedness, is dominated throughout by a denial. Yet this denial is
not a defect or a fault, as though truth were an unalloyed unconcealedness that has rid itself of
everything concealed. If truth could accomplish this, it would no longer be itself. The denial! in the
#or o# a double concealent! belongs to the nature o# truth as unconcealedness&(4! :ighting and
concealment then determine, at least in part, the essence of a thing insofar as they work to
determine how it will appear. Truth is not governed by identity '' or essence in the conventional
sense '' but by a constant process of simulation and dissimulation, by the always'(artificial( effect
of the theatrical production.
'arth& The 0reek phusis. (hat this word says is not to be associated with the idea of a mass of
matter deposited somewhere, or with the merely astronomical idea of a planet.(4" 7arth, also, is an
active character in the drama. (husis is (the being that grows out of its own accord.(5# It is an
active force that acts without man+s intervention. Techne, or technites, is not the opposite of phusis
but rather (imitates( it '' not at all in the sense of reproducing it as object '' but rather in its active
process of emergence, growth, happening, production. The earth is concealing in the sense that it is
self'closing. 8o (lighting( can unconceal it completely$ it (resists( the processes of world... :ike
the other actants, earth does not possess its own, absolute (truth( but participates in the production
of truth as unconcealment and appearance. It only appears in its opposition with world.
)orld& (The world is not the mere collection of the countable or uncountable, familiar or unfamiliar
things that are just there. *ut neither is it a merely imagined framework added by our representation
to the sum of such given things. The $orld $orlds, and is more fully in being than the tangible and
perceptible realm in which we feel ourselves to be at home.(51 The world, which is always
becoming, is neither that which exists, or that which we perceive to exist$ it is rather the constant
process through which the (ever'nonobjective( sphere $ithin which we live changes through its
constant conflict with earth and through the productions of truth 1i.e. artworks or (creative
&uestioning(2 which bring the becoming'world up for decision. The world, as the (old( world is
thus an actant in the unfolding drama of truth$ the work also is a world, a present or presencing
world, and opens up the possibility for a new world. The work, by opening the open, draws its
preservers into a relation not determined by its link to a predetermined ground, but through its
particular installation. (% work, by being a work, makes space for that spaciousness. +To make space
for+ means here especially to liberate the /pen and establish it in its structure. This in'stalling
occurs through the erecting mentioned earlier. The work as work sets up a world. The work holds
open the /pen of the world.(52
*i#t& The stroke or rending by which a world worlds, opening both the (old( world and the self'
concealing earth to the possibility of a new world. %s well as being this stroke, the rift is the site ''
the furrow or crack '' created by the stroke. %s the (rift design( it is the particular characteristics or
traits of this furrow.
+igure& (The strife that is brought into the rift and thus set back into the earth as figure, shape,
gestalt. 5reatedness of the work means. truth+s being fixed in place in the figure ... hat is here
called figure, 0estalt, is always to be thought in terms of the particular placing 1,tellen2 and framing
or framework 1-e-stell2 as which the work occurs when it sets itself up and sets itself forth.( 53
Creator& The createdness of the work, as -eidegger suggests above, is related to the figure. The role
of the creator is not to make something out of nothing, but rather to set the figure of the rift forth.
This figure, however, is not a representation of a pre'existing design 1or rift'design2 but is created in
its setting forth. It both (describes( '' or is produced out of '' the conflict between world and earth
figured in the rift and, through its framing, produces a new entity. The creator makes the site of the
rift into the site of a theater. The world constituted by the artwork'as'theater then sets itself back
into the earth and the rift, reconfiguring them, opening up a new world and a new conflict.
(reservers& (@ust as a work cannot be without being created but is essentially in need of creators, so
what is created cannot itself come into being without preservers.(54 (To submit to the displacement
effected by the work means. to transform our accustomed ties to world and to earth and henceforth
to restrain all usual doing and pri!ing, knowing and looking, in order to stay within the truth that is
happening in the work. /nly the restraint of this staying lets what is created be the work that it is.
This letting the work be a work we call the preserving of the work. It is only for such preserving
that the work yields itself in its createdness as actual, i.e., now. present in the manner of a work.(55
The work, then, cannot exist as a work without preservers. ithout preservers it remains non'
actual. an unreali!ed virtuality or potential. The act of preservation entails a response '' a listening
to, or lingering with, the appearance of the work '' and a decision. )reservers do not regard the
work voyeuristically, but are necessary, as actants, to the work as a production of truth. They
participate from within the drama of the work, in what -eidegger calls the (standing'within of
preservation,( rather than from outside of the work.
Decision& (The ... work ... puts up for decision what is holy and unholy, what great and what small,
what brave and what cowardly, what lofty and what flighty, what master and what slave.(56 (The
dawning world brings out what is as yet undecided, and thus discloses the hidden necessity of
measure and decisiveness.(5 The work, -eidegger suggests, calls on us for a decision about what
is to be done, and about who we, in the vicinity of the work, are. (e( always make the decision
without knowing its outcome in advance and this decision effects the becoming of *=being and
history. In light of -eidegger+s radical reconception of who (we( are, we might ask who it is that
makes this decision. e can safely say that it is not sub.ects who decide, but rather whoever it is
that we are, and will become, in the theater of the work.
9 9 9 9
%lthough, for -eidegger, the problematic of representation is, in its extended sense, one of
temporality or the relationship of the past to the possibilities of an unknowable future, he sets up
issues of representation in terms of their spatial arrangements, their configurations because, I+d like
to suggest, it is space which is generally seen to bind the present and future to the past through
(conservative( regimes of representation or, more concretely, through the confines of monumental
and institutional architectures. It seems then that the problem that faced -eidegger 1and %rtaud2 was
how to conceive of a transformative space, and how to figure it, how to /pen space to the future
and how to figure, to sketch, a space that is, in fact, unfigurable in the sense that it is unknowable in
advance. -eidegger develops this sketch, what I have been calling the third diagram, by releasing
the art work from the pre'established grounds constituted first by the Idea and secondly by science+s
assumption of universal calculability. here you are positioned determines what you see and thus,
for -eidegger, site comes to replace sight in what is now a production, rather than a reproduction,
of truth. *ut, as I suggested above, -eidegger is very careful to position this sketch as projective
rather than as a diagram of what is.
-eidegger+s theatrical space presents a particular kind of alternative, or alterity, to conventional
modes of representation. It (returns( the (repressed( ga!e of the other '' so that the other returns the
ga!e. /r, perhaps better, it returns the repressed ga!e of otherness '' whether this (otherness( refers
to what is now 1that is, in modernity and for science2 the object of the representing subject, or the
otherness of the artwork which differs in kind 1rather than degree2 from what it represents, or the
otherness of the future whose openness and unknowability is acknowledged in the active role of
decision in the production of truth in the work. The opening of space to the future, to potential
transformation, revolves '' says the theatrical diagram '' around a particular vision of the future
which -eidegger puts up for decision. 6rom the shadow of the world picture -eidegger draws the
scene of its other, where the other becomes incalculable, the object in terms of measure, the copy in
terms of (distance( from an (original,( the future in terms of the past. In this scene, truth is the truth
of the theater, of always shadowy appearances, of entities never identical to a previous (self(, of the
vision and decision of spectators always on, or in, the scene. Truth is always in the relation to an
other 1of an other to an other2.
I+m not sure what a building, or an (ethics,( built from the third diagram would look like, except
that it would not look, or function, like a )anopticon which makes a knowable subject into a
calculable object. *ut, of course, -eidegger does not prescribe a particular space, a particular
edifice, but rather presents the space of his own text, bringing it up for decision. -ere, (we( exist ''
or persist '' where the world, in its intransitivity, worlds, where we are always in'between the
subject and object of what we might not want to call a proposition, and in the space of &uestions
posed always to be posed again.
Act II. Scene 1....
.$tes
A ,artin -eidegger, (3cience and 4eflection,( in BThe Cuestion 5oncerning Technology and /ther
7ssaysB, translated by illiam :ovitt 18ew York. -arper D 4ow, AEFF2, p. AFG.bac/
H %ntonin %rtaud, (The Theater of 5ruelty 13econd ,anifesto2,( in BThe Theater and its ;oubleB,
translated by ,ary 5aroline 4ichards 18ew York. 0rove )ress, AEFE2, p. AHI. bac/
? @ac&ues ;errida, (*efore the :aw,( translated by %vital 4onell and 5hristine 4oulston, in B%cts
of :iteratureB, edited by ;erek %ttridge 18ew York and :ondon. 4outledge, AEEH2, p. HAG. bac/
I ,artin -eidegger, (The /rigin of the ork of %rt,( in B)oetry, :anguage, ThoughtB, translated
by %lbert -ofstadter 18ew York. -arper D 4ow, AEFJ2, pp. GH'?. bac/
J ;errida, (*efore the :aw,( p. HAG. bac/
G -eidegger, (*uilding, ;welling, Thinking,( in B)oetry, :anguage, ThoughtB p. AJI. bac/
F %rtaud, (%n 7nd to ,asterpieces,( in B%ntonin %rtaud. 3elected ritingsB, translated by -elen
eaver, edited by 3usan 3ontag 1*erkeley and :os %ngeles. Kniversity of 5alifornia )ress, AELL2,
p. HJI. bac/
L %rtaud, (The Theater of 5ruelty 16irst ,anifesto2,( in B3elected ritingsB, p. HJM. bac/
E %rtaud, (%n 7nd to ,asterpieces,( p. HJE. bac/
AM %rtaud, ()reface. The Theater and 5ulture,( in BThe Theater and its ;oubleB, p. AH. bac/
AA %rtaud, (The Theater of 5ruelty 16irst ,anifesto2,( p. HIE. bac/
AH %rtaud, (,ise en 3cene and ,etaphysics,( in B3elected ritingsB, p. H?G. bac/
A? 5f. ;errida, (The Theater of 5ruelty and the 5losure of 4epresentation,( in Briting and
;ifferenceB, translated by %lan *ass 15hicago. Kniversity of 5hicago )ress, AEFL2, pp. H?H'
HJM.bac/
AI -eidegger, (3cience and 4eflection,( in BThe Cuestion 5oncerning TechnologyB, p.AGH.bac/
AJ Ibid., AGI.bac/
AG -eidegger, (/rigin,( p. AF.bac/
AF )lato, (4epublic,( translated by )aul 3horey, in B)lato. The 5ollected ;ialoguesB, edited by
7dith -amilton and -untington 5airns 1)rinceton. )rinceton Kniversity )ress, AELH2, p. L?H.bac/
AL Ibid., GIH.bac/
AE Ibid., FJE.bac/
HM Ibid., FGG.bac/
HA -eidegger, (The %ge of the orld )icture,( in BThe Cuestion 5oncerning TechnologyB, pp. AIE'
JM.bac/
HH Ibid., AJH.bac/
H? Ibid., A?G.bac/
HI -eidegger, (3cience and 4eflection,( p. AJF.bac/
HJ -eidegger, (orld )icture,( p. A?G.bac/
HG %rtaud, ()reface,( p. AH.bac/
HF 7ric )artridge, B/rigins. % 3hort 7tymological ;ictionary of ,odern 7nglishB 18ew York. The
,acmillan 5ompany, AEGG2, pp. JEH'?.bac/
HL -eidegger, (/rigin,( p. LG.bac/
HE Ibid., FE.bac/
?M Ibid., FA.bac/
?A I will be using the term (actant( to describe the (characters( involved in the production of the art
work. %lthough this term may be less (theatrical( than character or actor, it allows me to avoid the
personification implicit in the word (character( and the very un'-eideggerian sense of individual
agency that the term (actor( connotes.bac/
?H 3amuel eber, (,ediauras,( p. J.bac/
?? -eidegger, (/rigin,( p. GE.bac/
?I -eidegger, (*uilding,( p. AJG.bac/
?J Ibid., p. AJG' F.bac/
?G Ibid., p. AJF.bac/
?F Ibid., p. AGM.bac/
?L Ibid..bac/
?E Ibid., p. AGA.bac/
IM -eidegger, (/rigin,( p. I?.bac/
IA This line of -eidegger+s essay, invoking the notion of (national vocation( is, of course,
incredibly troubling particularly, but not even solely, because of his engagement with 8a!ism.
hile a discussion of -eidegger+s involvement with 8ational 3ocialism falls outside the scope of
this essay, I want to note that it is something that I feel must be interrogated.bac/
IH Ibid., pp. IA'H.bac/
I? %rtaud+s discussions of theatrical site are, not surprisingly, &uite inconsistent. This may not be a
fair, and is certainly not a full, characteri!ation of his writings on the subject.bac/
II -eidegger, (/rigin,( p. JI.bac/
IJ Ibid., I?.bac/
IG Ibid., pp. GH'?.bac/
IF Ibid., p. GM.bac/
IL Ibid., p. JI.bac/
IE Ibid., p. JI.bac/
JM Ibid., p. JE.bac/
JA Ibid., ). II.bac/
JH Ibid., p. IJ.bac/
J? Ibid., p. GI.bac/
JI Ibid., p. GG.bac/
JJ Ibid..bac/
JG Ibid., p. I?.bac/
JF Ibid., pp. GH'?.bac/