The dialectical optic

The "dialectical optic" starts out by perceiving "the everyday as impenetrable and the impenetrable as everyday". It was such a glare - a penetration of the curious everyday - that Benjamin had already invoked in his fragment collection called ‘One Way Street’. There a section titled ‘Optician’ had coined phrases that tried to renew perception of the everyday - remarking thereby on the curious inconsistency of vision: how brightness or dullness draws or repels attention, how the final shape of actuality might expose the history of what has taken place in a space.

A double exposure: Sam Renseiw's optic on one of Elina Brotherus' Suites francaises 2, in a former church space in Copenhagen. View the footage with Finish ambient by clicking here or enter by mouse-lip-sinc on Elina above. (patafilm # 301, 01'41'', 7.5 MB, Quicktime/mov - Flash version for PC: here)