Please make a comment on a passage of your choice from Jorge Luis Borges’ ‘Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’.
This might turn out to be a difficult text. Please see some suggestions on how to approach it.
Please make a comment on a passage of your choice from Jorge Luis Borges’ ‘Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’.
This might turn out to be a difficult text. Please see some suggestions on how to approach it.
Borges gives us an interesting perspective on the objective and subjective sides of reality.
Especially interesting in relation to our discussions (do images exist or are they created?) are the passages on the lost coins and the hronir (recreated lost objects).
As the text says, even when things are outside of our awareness they exist, as do the subjects and the circumstances of our images. Borges elaborates on this question in some detail, explaining how difficult the tlonistas find it, before relating the concept of hronir, which is likely to be challenging to us. The hronir also speaks to our discussions, as the idea of replication vs reality has been a central concept. The idea of recreating something “no less real but closer to expectations” has an obvious relevance. Considering the theories of the coins and the hronir in relation to the creation vs discovery of images has led to a rough theory-
The subjects and the circumstances of our images exist, as do those of many other potential images that we miss, are ignorant of, or lose. The images themselves, as representations of combined subjects and circumstances, also exist as possibilities, but are created through our interpretations. In this way we can, as Borges suggests, sometimes create things that are more to our expectation than the things themselves. By this reasoning creators of images are interpreters, creating within certain possibilities. Interpreting, at least to me, seems the best way to describe the making of images, which reproduce and create, are found and created, sometimes equally and sometimes more one than the other.
One final interesting note, the only way to accurately describe within Borges’s thlon is to provide “a single plot with all it’s permutations… both the thesis and antithesis”. Accomplishing this is impossible even at the lengths Calvino’s protagonist goes to, which implies that images can only ever be a hronir (subjective), never an original object (objective).
Though this reading was challenging to fully absorb all the details and nuances of philosophical debate, I enjoyed the narrative and the author’s articulate and poetic reflection on reality. Being written as a believable story, the first person perspective influences the perception of the reality being presented. This harkens back to the question proposed in class about whether reality/the image is pre-existing or is being created.
To understand this writing, I did some background reading into the philosophies presented and learned that the root word of idealism is “idea”, which comes from the Greek “to see”. It seems that Tlön was imagined, or seen, in the minds of a group of highly educated men and the continued development of this fictitious reality somehow led to an eventual acceptance of its truth. Through the story, the line between reality and imagination begins to blur. Having been reproduced so many times, the idea of Tlön begins to take on more concrete shape. In this way, the idealist reality is mentally constructed such that the physical forms are subordinate to thoughts.
Furthermore, thoughts are influenced by language. In this imaginative world of Tlön, “their language and the derivations of their language – religion, letters, metaphysics – all presuppose idealism,” and time “is successive and temporal, not spatial.” This is reflected in the nature of the verbs and nouns and adjectives used to describe things with infinite possibility; “the fact that no one believes in the reality of nouns paradoxically causes their number to be unending.” Similarly, “Works of fiction contain a single plot, with all its imaginable permutations.” This infinite potential of reality seems to encourage the multiplication of the universe, which is in fact all one.
In relation to photography and digital image production, the continual capturing and duplication of reality begins to give the images a reality of their own, somewhat removed from the initial source of inspiration yet still a version of it. The perspective of the photographer inevitably influences the image that is captured and presents reality in a particular way. As such, there are infinite possibilities for an image to be reflected from reality.
Borges text is very dense and there is much to be discussed, here I will briefly focus on the passages about language. The idea of a language without nouns, of a world that is “successive and temporal, not spatial” is very interesting, as it denies the idea of inherent existence of objects. The same idea is apparent in the other language Borges describes, which “abounds in ideal objects, which are convoked and dissolved in a moment, according to poetic needs.” Here words form a “poetic object,” created by the author to evoke an experience. Reality is conveyed only though these images. This relates to our discussion in class of the nature of an image and raises questions about the existence of an objective reality.
Though I had a tough time completely unpacking this text, and still believe I am in need of further understanding, I find myself agreeing with the key point Laura raised above.
The text appears to indicate that if something is fabricated or produced, even if it isn’t reality before its fabrication, once it has ben produced it slowly emerges into the realm of reality. Through an increasing amount of accounts of Tiön being produced, the lines between reality and the non-existent begin to blur, and as these accounts increase and continue to develop deeper, our perception of what is real and what is not continue to be skewed.
A point in the text that seem to drive this home with me is:
“In the “Eleventh Volume” which I have mentioned, there are allusions to preceding and succeeding volumes. In an article in the N. R. F. which is now classic, Nestor Ibarra has denied the existence of those companion volumes; Ezequiel Martinez Estrada and Drieu La Rochelle have refuted that doubt, perhaps victoriously. The fact is that up to now the most diligent inquiries have been fruitless. In vain we have upended the libraries of the two Americas and of Europe. Alfonso Reyes, tired of these subordinate sleuthing procedures, proposes that we should all undertake the task of reconstructing the many and weighty tomes that are lacking: ex ungue leonem. He calculates, half in earnest and half jokingly, that a generation of tlonistas should be sufficient. This venturesome computation brings us back to the fundamental problem: Who are the inventors of Tlön? The plural is inevitable, because the hypothesis of a lone inventor – an infinite Leibniz laboring away darkly and modestly – has been unanimously discounted. It is conjectured that this brave new world is the work of a secret society of astronomers, biologists, engineers, metaphysicians, poets, chemists, algebraists, moralists, painters, geometers… directed by an obscure man of genius. Individuals mastering these diverse disciplines are abundant, but not so those capable of inventiveness and less so those capable of subordinating that inventiveness to a rigorous and systematic plan. This plan is so vast that each writer’s contribution is infinitesimal. At first it was believed that Tlön was a mere chaos, and irresponsible license of the imagination; now it is known that is a cosmos and that the intimate laws which govern it have been formulated, at least provisionally.”
This relates to my understanding and meaning of the text as it indicates that when the characters of the story begin unearthing more and more accounts of Tiön, the more the understand Tiön to be reality, and the further the dive between real and unreal is broken. Though the narrator is aware that Tiön must be a products of fabrication, of the length of story we see that Tiön becomes and increasingly more real and integrated element of the real world.
To bring this to photographic context, I believe this can be used as a comment on the digital image. Though the digital image is a falsified, or approximation of, reality, the production of the digital image has become ubiquitous and as these images are increasingly produced, are understanding of what is real and what is not when it comes to the digital image begins to be skewed itself.
“The nations of this planet are congenitally idealist. Their
language and the derivations of their language – religion, letters,
metaphysics – all presuppose idealism. The world for them is not a
concourse of objects in space; it is a heterogeneous series of independent
acts. It is successive and temporal, not spatial. ? pg6
In many ways this shows how language dictates, shapes, and manages the way you view reality. While, the author is depicting a fictitious world/ planet what he is getting at is a depiction and assertion that the language you are using in many ways is not unlike a camera. The words, the logic, the sounds produced and the inherent history tied within the binds and fibres create the parameters of that can limit you to the way in which you can interact with life, very much akin to the parameters set by the camera?s viewfinder. On the subject on language Borges further elaborates on Tlön language unlike others, “resisted the formulation of this paradox . . .by usge and alien to all rigorous thought? The example provided was equality is one thing and identity another. As Borges writes ? would it not be ridiculous-they questioned-to pretend that this pain is one and the same? .. if equality implies identity, one would also have to admit that the nine coins are one?(10). In many ways I find this to be more of a statement against inherent nature of simplification. The need to act as if one entity is the same as the next in the name of simplification (and even arrogant this I am simplifying). If we re constantly looking to identity with one and other while simplifying and trying to create a degree of homogenization then as Borges says ?the truth? is perhaps a labyrinth created by man. To decipher one persons meaning from the next would mean a decoding of homogenization that humans are so keen to assert.
Though I found this reading to be difficult to ingest (mainly the highly philosophical areas) I was able to enjoy the story and the really lovely poetic tone that was present throughout. I think the believability of the piece was emphasized by the story being told in first person perspective which was a component I related again to this idea of something existing or being created. The text implores the reader to see both subjective and objective sides of actuality.
I found a lot of connection between our class discussion of digital images and whether or not they exist and what by definition they are. Though the digital image is a fabrication, or representation of reality, the action of producing the digital image has become a universal action. As the world sees more and more digital images our understanding of what is real and what is not when it comes to the digital image becomes twisted.
This narrative presents the idea that the perspective of the photographer will naturally influence the image that is captured and will therefor present reality in a particular way. This opens up the conversation to say there is an unnameable number of images that could be created from ones perceived reality. The text seems to be on the side of the argument that says once something is created it enters a realm of reality, with that being said the text also presents with reader with an idea the line between real and not is becoming increasingly blurred.