Constellations
“Each epoch not only dreams the next, but also, in dreaming, strives toward the moment of waking. It bears its end in itself and unfolds it – as Hegel already saw – with ruse. In the convulsions of the commodity economy we begin to recognize the monuments of the bourgeoisie as ruins even before they have crumbled.” (Walter Benjamin)
The constellation: a symbol of the relationship which emerges when the historian places a number of apparently unrelated historical events in significant conjuncture. The constellation “links past events among themselves, or else links past to present; its formation stimulates a flash of recognition, a quantum leap in historical understanding.”
(http://www.wbenjamin.org/passageways.html)
20th century German critic and writer Walter Benjamin understands history as a constellation of events rather than a linear progress through unidirectional, homeostatic time. I don’t presume to think that what I’m doing represents a “quantum leap in historical understanding” … but I am exploring Benjamin’s idea of the constellation in this series of work.
The Convulsions of the Commodity Economy: Mannequins in Ruins
