Semiotic Drift

008 · Parataxis

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[F]ood is never anything but a collection of fragments, none of which appears privileged by an order of ingestion […].1

To produce writing served like a plate of food. ‘A collection of fragments.’ No hierarchy on the plate. No fixed order of consumption. No set introduction or conclusion. More parataxis than hypotaxis.

The plate becomes a text without a centre. Each choice rearranges what remains.

To taste a bit of that, then a bit of this. To return to that. Mix this with this. Themes dispersed through the text.

Will the work finally rest as words on a digital page? Documents, books, linearity. Dream fragments disrupt thought and theory. Connect to larger narratives. Explore the subject.

I have left trails of coincidence. Details that link the years. Carriers of emotion and thought.

[T]he book is by its status obliged to progress […].2

  1. Roland Barthes, Empire of Signs, trans. by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), p. 22.

  2. Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, trans. by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978), p. 8.