Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“In all human societies there are multiple categories of scenes, which include collective events such as religious ceremonies, stage productions, or speeches, as well as everyday conversations between two or more individuals or, at a minimum, a single individual conceiving or thinking about an object or idea, contemplating an artwork, reading a novel, watching a film, etc. In all these cases, the scenic configuration is characterized by the deferral of the immediate, “appetitive”/appropriable reality of the referent and its removal to the sacred/untouchable status of the referent at the center of the scene. The scene of representation is the minimal element of what we may call “culture,” the ultimate extension of the domain of the sign. In this configuration, a sacred interdiction cuts off the designated object from the world of action and makes it, whether a thing or an idea, an object of contemplation . This “cultural” or contemplative structure of the scene was prefigured in L’être et le néant by Sartre’s figuration of the pour-soi or human consciousness as a thinking self, separated from its object by a néant or empty space permitting contemplation—in contrast to the non-thinking world of the en-soi , which Sartre figures by the lack of such space, all things being “crowded together.” Scenic presence, in other words, is mediated by absence.”

— Eric Gans, The scene of culture and consciousness I · Saturday, December 2nd, 2023 · Chronicles of Love & Resentment