How many deaths? Auto-bio-graphy as death-writing

109 ŠTÚDIE / ARTICLES MIROSLAV KOTÁSEK How many deaths? Auto-bio-graphy as death-writing DOI: 10.31577/WLS.2024.16.1.8 © Institute of World Literature Slovak Academy of Sciences © Miroslav Kotásek 2024 Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 ŠTÚDIE / ARTICLES World Literature Studies 1  vol. 16  2024 (109 – 119) Miroslav Kotásek Department of Czech Literature Faculty of Arts Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0002-0784-3153 How many deaths? Auto-bio-graphy as death-writing Autobiography. Death. Jacques Derrida. Media. Spectrality. This article concerns various aspects of autobiography as they have been introduced by Jacques Derrida, who himself used the term “autobiographical” to refer to his philosophical writing. Unlike most scholars who stress the link between autobiography and philosophy in Derrida’s writing the article attempts to link it primarily to the “literary”. In this endeavour, most attention is paid to the numerous metamorphoses in which “death” structures and haunts (auto)biographies and our thinking about the genre. Here, the greatest influence, apart from Derrida, was Maurice Blanchot. “Death” and negativity figure at many levels of autobiography, where, unlike in a fictional narrative, they cannot be suspended easily: they can be found in the question about the very usage of language and its relation to the autobiographer, in the construction of the “I”, and in the medial situation of the literary. The article concludes by suggesting a potential transformation of the autobiographical practice brought about by techno-cultural changes and developments regarding both the “archive” and “media”, which are transforming the status of memory, legacy, and the past. Department of Foreign Languages Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication Brno University of Technology Czech Republic [email protected] 110 MIROSLAV KOTÁSEK […] we are held, forever, between life and death, inastate of non-existence and non-death, from which our whole life perhaps takes its meaning and its reality. Maurice Blanchot ([1947] 1995a, 252) I remember. I think. I write. I write to remember. Iwrite to(re)invent some lost or non-existing memories. AsIremember, as Iinvent my memories, Ithink. Therefore Iam. Therefore Idie. Ibecome amemory. Through these (mainly linguistic) acts which are anindispensable part ofevery autobiography, Iam going tooutline thedistinctiveness ofacertain outlook onthis type ofwriting (narrative) act that was most importantly inspired bythework ofJacques Derrida. Theopening sentences should indicate, among other things, that what is questioned bylooking atautobiography from this point ofview is thevery possibility ofsubsuming autobiography under thecategory ofa“literary genre”, while simultaneously questioning thecategories both of“literature” and “genre”. “Literature” gets problematized inautobiography bymaking it impossible tosuspend thetension between “fiction” and “reality” (“narrative” and “what really happened”), not even intheact ofreading. Theontology ofautobiography is unstable, tosay theleast. There are obviously different primary impulses that instigate theautobiographical narrative act, which are defined bytheir relation towards language ingeneral and thepre-existing “biography” material. Atthesame time they pre-define thenarrative procedures used inthewriting act itself: tonarrate anautobiography Ican use exclusively those particular events Iremember, because Ijust passively describe what Iknow (assume toknow) has already happened; there can be anexcess ofinformation and Iwant tochoose only therelevant ones, thus giving my personal archive adistinct structure; or Ican be putting together thenarrative because Ido not know what happened, so Ineed tofabricate amemory to“make sense” ofthepast (and thepresent) – there is alack ofinformation and/or understanding and thenarrative is supposed tofill these lacunae. Theinventio (narrative invention) ofthe“I” (therealm of“auto” inauto-bio-graphy) is atthesame time theinventio oftheother (thetext). Thebody ofthetext is co-extensive with thebody oftheautobiographer; thefabric oftheautobiographer’s “I”is co-extensive with thefabric ofthenarrative. As for “genre”, theuncertainty about genealogy (Who amI? Where do Icome from?) not only etymologically, but also practically compromises genology (Am Iusing theautobiographical genre? Am Iusing itjustly?). Unlike Robert Smith (1995), who concentrates onDerrida dealing with and commenting on“philosophical” autobiographies, Iam interested more intherelationship ofautobiographical writing with the“literary”. Itis inmany ways adelicate and dangerous liaison – autobiographical writing is capable oftesting themutual interrelations ofliterature, fiction, truth, narrative, and Self. AsDerrida suggests, for this liminal sphere theterm “autobiography” is “perhaps theleast inadequate name” (Derrida is referring here tohis writing occupying thespace somewhere between philosophy and literature) “because itremains for me themost enigmatic, themost open” (Derrida and Attridge 1992, 34). “Philosophy” here is not tobe understood primarily 111 How many deaths? Auto-bio-graphy as death-writing as theacademic field of“history ofphilosophy”, but inits relation to“auto-bio-graphy” itmanifests itself specifically as the“art” tolive and die properly: “Learning tolive should mean learning todie […]. That’s been theold philosophical injunction since Plato: tophilosophize is tolearn todie” (Derrida [2005] 2007a, 24). Ipropose this “problem oflife and death” (therealm of“bio” inauto-bio-graphy) tobe central toautobiography as well. Here the strategic position of autobiography in relation to literature can beglimpsed, as if thevery grounds ofliterary theory come tobe disputed and laid bare byautobiography. One reason might be that autobiography does not let thereader forget “strategically” about theauthor and writer ofanautobiographical text (toavoid theliterary-theoretical heresy ofpsychologizing interpretation), but onthecontrary highlights theposition ofthewriter and thesituation ofwriting (narrating), including thepsychological, cognitive, sociological, or unconscious setup ofthewriter as theprivileged starting point ofany interpretation. Consequently, thequestion about thestatus ofthewriting subject appears fundamental since autobiography is capable ofrevealing theprecariousness ofthis position as italways already finds itself inthetension between the(true) life-story (life ingeneral) as opposed to“fiction” (or phantasm) of what is tobe formulated bylinguistic means. Through theact ofwriting (therealm of“graph” inauto-bio-graphy) that tension is supplemented bytheinterdependence ofthewriting subject and theresulting text (thework). That is theway Iunderstand theinsight ofPaul de Man: The specular moment that is part of all understanding reveals thetropological structure that underlies all cognitions, including knowledge ofself. Theinterest ofautobiography, then, is not that itreveals reliable self-knowledge – itdoes not – but that itdemonstrates instriking way theimpossibility ofclosure and oftotalization (that is theimpossibility ofcoming into being) ofall textual systems made up oftropological substitutions. (1979, 922) Even though I tend to agree with de Man, ithas tobe pointed out that especially autobiographical writing practice (but thesubsequent reading acts as well) is subject tothepsychic, existential, and material (biological) economy ofhuman life, which means that not all self-knowledge has tobe tropological: cognition might be underlain bytropology but this tropology stems from and inhabits thematerial corporeal being. Meaning is tropological and embodied atthesame time. Thepsychic economy can also potentially suspend thedistinction between fantasy and reality (fiction and knowledge), which become indistinguishable, depending ontheaction ofthepsychic apparatus (Sigmund Freud stresses that itis not thegoal ofpsychoanalytic practice toreintroduce thedistinction; see [1916] 1924, 382–383). In trying to answer the question of the relationship between writer and work (albeit inmore general terms, not limited by“autobiography”), Maurice Blanchot views it as one that is built upon aspecific negativity (Blanchot is making repeated refer - ences toHegel): “before his work exists, not only does he [thewriter] not know who heis, but heis nothing. Heexists only as afunction ofthework” ([1948] 1995b, 303). According toBlanchot the“writer” acquires his/her status only through writing thetext. Upon finishing thework, he/she as awriter ceases toexist. Thesuggest- 112 MIROSLAV KOTÁSEK ed dependence oftheauthorial being upon thewriting process is close totheoutlook onautobiography Iam proposing. But autobiographical work not only leaves thewriter dead behind, italso allows him/her to“live on” or “survive”. Ofcourse, inautobiography itis not so much theproblem of“writer” and “work”, but ofthe“I” and “mylife story”. Yet, as autobiographical writing never lets me (both as reader and autobiographer) forget about this substantial link, unlike fictional literature, “thebiographical, insofar as itis autobiographical, cuts across both fields inquestion: thebody ofthework and thebody ofthereal subject. Thebiographical is thus that internal border ofwork and life, aborder onwhich texts are engendered. Thestatus ofthetext – if ithas one – is such that itderives from neither theone nor theother, from neither theinside nor theoutside” (Gasché [1982] 1985, 41). (Auto)biographical text then deconstructs theinside–outside/subject–object dichotomies as itconstitutes thewriter who is simultaneously producing thetext. The inevitability of “death” (intheform ofa“natural law” posing alimit to“life” and any “life-story”) positions theautobiographical endeavour, which “isnot tobe inany way confused with theso-called life oftheauthor, with thecorpus ofempirical accidents making up thelife ofanempirically real person” (41) within ahorizon that, paradoxically, can never acquire thestatus ofaproper “horizon”, being atthesame time inevitable and inaccessible, following thesame deconstructive logic Gasché finds intheinside – outside dichotomy. Ifautobiography narrates alife story, then even before Ibegin towrite, death lurks inthedistance, because “tolive, bydefinition, is not something one learns. Not from oneself, itis not learned from life, taught bylife. Only from theother and bydeath. Inany case from theother attheedge oflife. Attheinternal border or theexternal border, itis aheterodidactics between life and death” (Derrida [1993] 2006, xvii). Inanautobiography, more importantly, this heterology problematizes thestatus ofthe“I” and the“other”, because autobiographical writing is built upon aninternalized transformation ofthe“I” into the“other”: theobject tobe described, understood, analyzed, and remembered. Hence, theheterological situation ofautobiography makes unsure not only thedivision between fiction and reality, inside and outside, but also between theauthorial control and that which can becalled “myself”, pointing out thenarrative procedures present intheconstruction ofthe“I” and their intrinsically problematic nature. Returning to Gasché’s remark on the body ofthetext and thebody ofthewriter and their relationship to(auto)biography, something needs tobe added. Wewill readily accept theaxiom or claim that every human (and animal) life is singular, despite its seemingly universal grounding inthebiological that isinscribed inthe“universal” language ofDNA code. This common ground could then bereferred toas bio-graphical. InLife Death Derrida tries toproblematize this seemingly unproblematic sphere ofmodern natural sciences, “this graphics oflife, this non-phonetic writing that [Georges Canguilhem and François Jacob] claim tobe ‘without writing’ and that they are ready toreinvest with all thevalues linked tologos inits most enduring Platonic-Aristotelian-Hegelian tradition” ([2019] 2020, 23]). The term “auto” does not necessarily refer tothat which is mine, i.e. “singular”, as this chance 113 How many deaths? Auto-bio-graphy as death-writing ofsingularity is guaranteed exclusively byits grounding inrepeatability (hence: universality), that which can beidentified, looked back upon, turned into signs: “Theidentity ofthesame […] known as theauto, is generated bythevery thing – iterability, thepower-to-be-repeated – which prohibits its stability and autonomy” (Smith 1995, 100). The“prohibition” Smith mentions is not so much anaction oflegal authority (like that ofapositive “natural law”). Rather, theguiding principle recognized here bySmith is thedifferential structure oftheauto. Its imprisonment within thelinguistic structures employed leads tothefeeling ofentrapment inthis differential structure that does not belong tolanguage (as that which is “outside”) but splitting the “I” as that which gives it its/his/her identity. Here stems theurge (and possibility) tonever stop narrating while simultaneously deepening thegap between thetime ofnarrating and thenarrated time (theexample ofTristram Shandy is illustrative here). The“I”, as theauthor of“myself” isconfronted with theprovisionality oftheexisting linguistic construction, amounting totheprovisionality ofits “life”, its inability tofind its dwelling within thealready existing narrative and linguistic structures. “I”is then not tobe identified with “ipseity”, as Derrida clearly states, “but intheuniqueness or singularity ofagathering together ofits difference toitself” (Derrida [1996] 1998, 68). Rather than prohibiting, iterability guarantees identity as that which is changing (because it always manifests itself anew through singular events: that which cannot becalculated), opened towards thepast horizon ofmemory and thefuture horizon ofdeath, “Derrida perceives autobiography as apractice aligned with writing indifférance, thenot-here and not-now. […] Simultaneously gazing toboth past and future, Derrida locates theautobiographer inatemporal entanglement that suspends theborders between life and death” (Ergin 2017, 347). Theproblem is, ofcourse, with Meliz Ergin using thevisual metaphor of“gazing”, as human vision is unidirectional (unlike hearing). Inmetaphorical terms, Iwould say that the“presence” ofhuman being, as modelled byautobiographical practice, is leaning out towards thepast and thefuture. More productive than identifying the “universality” ofthehuman situation with thebio-graphy ofDNA coding would beanalyzing the(biological) body involved inwriting, thebody invested inthetext, and thebody as amaterial carrier oflife. That is why Derrida showed such aprofound interest inAntonin Artaud, who inhis poetry, fiction, diaries, and letters, as well as inhis “theoretical” work (TheTheatre and its Double, 1938) was testing precisely this corporeal sphere ofidentity inits relation to“life” and “language” (see Derrida [1969] 1978). Derrida “strips naked” thecorporeal dimension from adifferent point ofview inThe Animal That Therefore IAm. What especially should not beavoided is the“affective” body together with thequestion ofwhat the(physiological) affect is able totell. Arthur W.Frank states that “thebody is not mute, but itis inarticulate; itdoes not use speech, yet begetsit” (1995, 27). Inautobiographies themost acute memories (ifthey are not repressed) are often those that are inarticulate and/or inarticulable because they are connected toaspecific, often traumatic situation, where theonly available response might be theprimarily bodily affect that is not, as Derrida suggests, necessarily understandable or meaningful: 114 MIROSLAV KOTÁSEK We would need to make new inroads into thinking concerning thebody […] inorder toone day come closer towhat makes us tremble or what makes us cry, tothat cause which is not thefinal cause that can becalled God or death […]. What does thebody mean tosay bytrembling or crying, presuming one can speak here ofthebody, or ofsaying, ofmeaning, and ofrhetoric? ([1992] 1995, 55) My mute body talks to me, e.g. through “butterflies inmy stomach”, as itis punctured bytheaffective “punctum”. Yet theaffect is not necessarily an“effect” ofwhat has happened, not necessarily a “re-action”, it can also be oriented towards that which is about tohappen inhowever distant afuture. Thetrembling Derrida talks about does not have tobe connected toaparticular event intheautobiographer’s life (tothe“source” or “origin” oftheaffect). Theaffect can speak also ofthat which is not yet there, inanticipation ofthefuture Derrida calls l’avenir (as opposed tolefutur): that which arrives unannounced, cannot be calculated, or predicted using causality, thefuture which bears witness totheabsence ofany structure ofthefuture. Another name itcan metonymically bear is, ofcourse, “death”: We tremble in that strange repetition that ties anirrefutable past (ashock has been felt, atraumatism has already affected us) toafuture that cannot beanticipated; anticipated but unpredictable; apprehended, but, and this is why there is afuture, apprehended precisely as unforeseeable, unpredictable; approached as unapproachable. (54) Returning to the paradox of the (repeatable) sovereign auto, and of course tothemuteness, and inaccessibility ofthe(biological, physiological body): autobiography promises toturn this universality into singularity bytheusage of(byprinciple repeatable, general, differential) signs ofalinguistic code. Derrida describes theparadox common toall graphic signs illustratively: To be a mark and to mark its marking effect, amark must becapable ofbeing identified, recognized as thesame, being precisely re-markable form one context toanother. Itmust becapable ofbeing repeated, re-marked inits essential trait as thesame. […] Theideal iterability that forms thestructure ofall marks is that which undoubtedly allows them tobe released from any context, tobe freed from all determined bonds toits origin, its meaning, or its referent. (1984, 16) In autobiography (and in everyday discourse as well) Ican speak or write about what happened tome inthepast, Ican comment onthepresent and even speculate about thefuture or “invent” it. Ifthere was only positive meaning inlanguage and if that positive meaning was what gets repeated, then our lives would not be distinguishable. Rather, so that language can work as thecarrier ofindividualized meaning, there are always already certain forms ofnegativity atplay. There is little positive inlanguage, thepositive arises despite language and not thanks toit. Saying “I” does not amount toanchoring my whole being around afirm center ofcognition. There is probably not even an“I” before itgets pronounced: itis theact ofuttering (inautobiography, atapsychoanalytic sitting, inasoliloquy) that makes theabsent (invisible, unheard) language simultaneously with theabsent “I”apparent through parole, through anutterance. Thewritten utterance and theusage ofvoice visibly/ audibly marks language (langage) as absent, as negative: 115 How many deaths? Auto-bio-graphy as death-writing The Voice, as the supreme shifter that allows us tograsp thetaking place oflanguage, appears thus as thenegative ground onwhich all ontology rests, theoriginary negativity sustaining every negation. For this reason, thedisclosure ofthedimension ofbeing is always already threatened bynullity: […] thefield ofmeaning ofbeing is originally disclosed only inthepurely negative articulation ofaVoice. (Agamben [1982] 2006, 36) The structure of the present in which Iuse my voice is not anunproblematic (phenomenological) “now”, but itis differentially and deferentially constituted bythepast and thefuture. Itis grounded inthenullity Giorgio Agamben refers to(that guarantees iterability). Itis not that Ican speak despite this nothingness, itis this nullity that allows me tospeak. Asthemute body teaches me tolisten tonon-linguistic signs, as Ispeak thanks totheabsence ofthelanguage, my present self is affected byits future death that marks it “alive”. In autobiography “the Voice” is most prominently represented bythepronoun“I”. Thearticulation ofthepronominal shifter not only grounds meaning inthepresent (performs the“presence” ofmeaning), but itis also thespace-time where thenegativity oflanguage makes itself audible/visible: anyone can refer tohimself or herself through thepersonal pronoun“I”, yet bythevery utterance this possibility vanishes: Iforce thelinguistic means. Iviolate them tomean only “me”: the “I” is always posed autobiographically. Itrefers toitself. […] Theauto-biographical does not have tooccur toan“I,” living or dead, that would come tospeak ofitself. Theauto-bio-graphical derives from thefact that thesimple instance ofthe“I” or oftheautos can beposed as such only totheextent that itis asign oflife, oflife inpresence, themanifestation oflife inpresence, even if thewhat, or who, male or female, that thereby gives this sign oflife finds itself tohave passed over totheside ofdeath. (Derrida [2006] 2008, 56) It can be observed that the relationship Blanchot ascribed tothe“writer” and “work” mirrors therelation between“I” and its “utterance”. Ifthis relation conditions the“autobiographical”, as Derrida suggests, itmeans that itcannot beforgotten, unlike inafictional narrative, thus presenting aproblem as toits “literary” status. Yet things do not stop here. IfIpoint my utterance attheworld, atobjects intheworld, another side ofthis negating power oflanguage manifests itself. Blanchot states inhis “Literature and theRight toDeath”: when I say “This woman,” real death has been announced and is already present inmy language; my language means that this person, who is here right now, can bedetached from herself, removed from her existence and her presence, and suddenly plunged into nothingness inwhich there is no existence or presence; […] that deferred assassination which […] my language is. ([1948] 1995b, 323) This is the price that ought to be paid for the “ideal iterability” oflinguistic signs and thereason Derrida is so attracted toBlanchot. Blanchot ascribes ablood-sucking, vampire-like quality towords. They seem toprovide us with aphantasm of“eternal life”, ofproviding thepower tospeak toinarticulate mute objects, but they do it atthecost ofdeadening theobjects they aim their power at: “Theword gives me thebeing, but itgives it tome deprived ofbeing. Theword is theabsence ofthat being, its nothingness” (322). Itis here, intheseemingly unproblematic everyday 116 MIROSLAV KOTÁSEK language use, that theethical dimension ofbeing opens up. Inautobiography, regarding my attempt toutter my “being”, my “life”, theconsequences are similar: in me, the power to speak is also linked to my absence from being. Isay my name, and itis as though Iwere chanting my own dirge: Iseparate myself from myself, Iam no longer my presence or my reality, but anobjective, impersonal presence, thepresence ofmy name, which goes beyond me and whose stonelike immobility performs thesame function for me as atombstone weighing onthevoid. When Ispeak, Ideny theexistence ofwhat Iam saying, but Ialso deny theexistence oftheperson who is saying it. (324) In autobiography I make myself asepulcher inside my Self, inexactly themanner Freud talks about thework ofmourning. Imake myself into aninanimate object that can be described and fantasized about, so that Ican see myself and talk about myself as about “that man”. Iam not acting as anunderstanding, compassionate subject even though Ikilled, buried, and mortified myself, but thanks tothat very act. Itis inthis sense that Iunderstand Joseph Kronick’s remark that “Every time ‘I’begin towrite (thelife of) myself, death interposes. Every autobiography is anallegory ofthewriter’s death, anautobiothanatography” (2000, 1014). Thefundamental split (which is not only “autobiographical”, but also “psychoanalytic”) between thenarrating/telling “I”and theobjectified, immobile “I”as aprotagonist of“my” story introduces into my understanding thesplit between thenon-fictional (me telling thestory) and thefictional (me as theone being narrated). Autobiography instructs me about thepsychological basis ofmy understanding of“fiction”. Itmakes itvisible inaself-referential, specular manner, where “thepossibility offiction has structured – but with afracture – what is called experience. This constituting structure is destructuring fracture. Itis thecondition that is common toliterature and non-literature, tothepassion ofliterature as well as tothis passion tout court towhich literature cannot not refer. Here, inany case, theborder between literature and its other becomes undecidable” (Derrida [1996] 2000, 92). And again, itis also here, inthis primarily narcissistic identification, where theethical dimension ofthe“other” takes its form, opening thedimensions ofresponsibility towards theother and towards stories. And if, as Derrida claims, this is thesphere oftheundecidability between literature and non-literature, then itis also here where thepolitical dimension ofresponsibility and debt instigated bythepossibility to“say anything” opens: A part of us is wounded and itis with ourselves that we are conversing in thework ofmourning and ofErinnerung. Even if this metonymy oftheother inourselves already constituted thetruth and thepossibility ofour relation totheliving other, death brings it out into more abundant light. […] Thenarcissistic wound enlarges infinitely for want ofbeing able tobe narcissistic any longer, for no longer even finding appeasement inthat Erinnerung we call thework ofmourning. Beyond internalizing memory, itis then necessary tothink, which is another way ofremembering. (Derrida [1987] 2007b, 9) In autobiography I turn the oppositions on their heads: Ican make “myself” into asubject byturning “myself” into anobject tobe studied, described, analyzed, and dissected. Based onthis reversal Ican remember (those past, dead memories), Ican think, Ican write to(re)invent lost or non-existing memories (for him/it). This trait, this trace, this breach announces inme theimpossibility for thetrace or writing tobe 117 How many deaths? Auto-bio-graphy as death-writing positive: itannounces theimpossibility oftrace, ofwriting. And so, theautobiographical act (thanatographical act) becomes themodel of“understanding” self. Byburying myself, Ifree myself from genealogy: “Life, as structurally indistinguishable from death, may be considered outside ofgenealogy and generation. Inother words, life death can pass without relation, without apriori submission toalaw ofgenealogical belonging” (Smith 1995, 150). Life becomes still life. Yet what happens to this “still life”, this picture, this memory ofme? Isthere another death relating tothis materiality or “mediality” ofthe “I”? Derrida does not hesitate: “Ileave apiece ofpaper behind, Igo away, Idie: itis impossible toescape this structure, itis theunchanging form ofmy life. Each time Ilet something go, each time some trace leaves me, ‘proceeds’ from me, unable tobe reappropriated, Ilive my death inwriting” (2007a, 32–33). Itis this death inwriting, this offering that allows theDerridean trace/trace ofDerrida/Derrida’s trace to“live on”, to“survive”. This answer is made possible byunderstanding writing as alinguistic performative act (performing simultaneously the“self” and “truth”) resulting inasingular text, text considered as anevent. Ido not think we can stress this way oflooking atwriting (as suggested by Culler 2008) without placing it within themore general logic ofmedia. Preceding thepassage Ihave just quoted you can read: “Atthemoment Ileave ‘my’ book […] Ibecome, appearing-disappearing, like that uneducable specter who will have never learned how tolive. Thetrace Ileave signifies atonce my death, either tocome or already come upon me, and thehope that this trace survives me” (Derrida 2007a, 32). Derrida accepts thespectral logic offered tohim bythemedium itself, thespectral logic that is not exclusive towriting or literature but applies tomemory media ingeneral. Thespectral logic is de facto adeconstructive logic. Itis intheelement ofhaunting that deconstruction finds theplace most hospitable toit, attheheart oftheliving present, inthequickest heartbeat ofthephilosophical. Like thework ofmourning, inasense, which produces spectrality, and like all work produces spectrality. (Derrida and Stiegler [1996] 2002, 117) A “still life” can be hung inagallery, placed inabank safe, or hung onawall intheinterior or intheexterior. Inother words, itrequires aplace to“store” it and make it accessible (inthis respect “bank safe” is not themost appropriate place). Theproblem ofthearchive, its accessibility and changes instigated bydigitization and digitalization ofarchived content transform theduration and relevance ofthe“surviving trace”: Thetechnical structure ofthearchiving archive also determines thestructure ofthearchivable content even inits very coming into existence and inits relationship tothefuture. Thearchivization produces as much as itrecords theevent. This is also our political experience oftheso-called news media. (Derrida [1995] 1996, 17) Today there is the possibility torecord, simultaneously stream, and store “everything” down tothemost tedious details. And here theproblem arises: if nothing can be forgotten, as itis stored just aclick away, then nothing must beremembered. Thetheoretical possibility torecord everything is, ofcourse, problematic,