Representations reveal more by failing than by succeeding

Evidence

Nor is such a process merely a matter of thinking new thoughts, but rather that quite different and more tangible thing, the production of representations; indeed, the priority of literary and cultural analysis over philosophical and ideological investigation in this respect lies very precisely in the concrete fullness of detail afforded by every representation as to its own failure. It is the failure of imagination that is important, and not its achievement, since in any case all representations fail and it is always impossible to imagine. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 471

Categorization

• XREF: Inverts the usual view of cultural analysis as studying successful works; connects to a cognitive-map idea — failed maps are more diagnostic than successful ones. — connects to: Speech failures and evasions reveal more than moments of clear articulacy. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 590; Interpretive presentations fail through excess, not just deficiency of content — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 485
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that all representations fail and it is always impossible to imagine is dense enough to sit with: it reframes the whole critical enterprise around impossibility.