Percival Frankenstein

Using pictures to understand words

Gustave Le Gray, Grande vague – Séte, 1855, albumen print from collodion on glass negative or negatives (Sotheby’s London, 27/10/1999, formerly Marie-Thérèse and André Jammes collection)

“What is this distinct-obscure which corresponds to the clear-confused? Consider Leibniz’s famous passages on the murmuring of the sea. Here too, two interpretations are possible. Either we say that the apperception of the whole noise is clear but confused (not distinct) because the component little perceptions are themselves distinct and obscure (not clear): distinct because they grasp differential relations and singularities; obscure because they are not yet ‘distinguished’, not yet differenciated. These singularities then condense to determine a threshold of consciousness in relation to our bodies, a threshold of differenciation on the basis of which the little perceptions are actualised, but actualised in an apperception which in turn is only clear and confused; clear because it is distinguished or differenciated, and confused because it is clear.” – Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (1968), trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 213.

Good luck everyone!