Representation makes the new appear predetermined and therefore old

Evidence

The extent of the processes of representation begins to reveal the elusiveness of their apparently simple structural effect. The structure of meaning in a system of representation arises, it is suggested, from the distinction maintained between the realm of representation and the external reality to which it refers. Yet this real world, outside the exhibition, seems actually to have consisted only of further representations of the real. Just as the imitations in the exhibition were marked with traces of the real (were the natives on display not real people?), so the reality outside was never quite unmediated. Colonising Egypt is not concerned so much with this necessary elusiveness, but with the question of how it comes to be overlooked. How does the colonising process extend the world-as-exhibition, supplanting with its powerful metaphysic other less effective theologies? — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 37 (#expands, via linked claim)

Fashion, to be sure, is concerned only with change, yet like all phenomena it tends to conserve energy; it endeavors to attain its objects as completely as possible, but nevertheless with the relatively most economical means. For this very reason, fashion repeatedly returns to old forms, as is illustrated particularly in wearing-apparel; and the course of fashion has been likened to a circle. As soon as an earlier fashion has partially been forgotten there is no reason why it should not be allowed to return to favor and why the charm of difference, which constitutes its very essence, should not be permitted to exercise an influence similar to that which it exerted conversely some time before. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 743 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Perceptual differentiation retroactively presents objects as having always been in the prior undifferentiated ground.; Representation makes the absent present through a fundamental paradox; The present is overdetermined yet fundamentally open to contingency — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 1196 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Representation makes the absent present through a fundamental paradox #expands (0.85)
• Fashion recurs cyclically because old forms regain the charm of difference once forgotten #complicates (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 743
• The supposed boundary between representation and reality dissolves because both sides are representation #expands (0.75) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 37
• The present is overdetermined yet fundamentally open to contingency #complicates (0.70) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 1196
• An outdated interpretive framework can reveal the postmodern by failing to fit its object #complicates (0.70)