TRACES OF THE CATACOMBES

Joel Weishaus

"Traces of the Catacombes" takes its name from the "hollow (hallowed) ground" of Early Christianity, excavated in what was then the suburbs of Rome. But there are other catacombs, such as those beneath Paris, and layers of "creative impulses" and "differed meaning" to be uncovered. So that the title plays on the name of French artist Mireille W. Descombes, who plays with the non-presence of bodies of text.

M.W. Descombes. Quoted In C. Gandelman, "Torn Pages of Deconstruction: The Palimpsests of Mireille W. Descombes. In, L. Edson, et al., editors, Conjunctions-Verbal-Vistual Relations. San diego, CA., 1996.

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We begin with a circle that is also a link:

The definitive choice of one specific trace prevailing over all others, but the blurring of traces is done through their superseding one another constantly and at an ever increasing speed which accelerates so that the trace becomes  intellectual permission to grasp the fact that the distinct shape of our person  has been

developing across untold vistas of time. We have permission to see that evolution has  been patiently shaping not only whole species but also, ultimately, a stream of fragmentary word-impressions. This fragmentary stream of quasi-words becomes the only graspable 'tracing'...to collapse into the dense mass of Memory...

 

C.M. Bache, Dark Night, Early Dawn: Steps to a Deep Ecology of Mind. Albany, NY., 2000.

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© Joel Weishaus. Revised 2011