Mise en abîme, embedded intrusion, the logic of collage, the absent Whole, & the Arbitrary

  Recursive framing, mise en abîme, we endlessly intrude into each other's field, in infinite nestling regression, back and forth. The Master Subject becomes a scaffolding against this proliferation of framing without end, a preeminent ''voice.'' It reduces this to a linear and singular movement, using various binding principles like theme or context, which filter out the multiple as noise, thereby producing information and narration.

  Surrealism can be seen as a major moment in the entry or reentry of multiple frames as post-rational collage. Although collage can be made with preeminent centers, its very format is the opening it affords for the intersection of multiple frames without the necessity of ''strong'' or ''rational'' binding principles. That is, no narrative line takes precedence to organize the ensemble into a symphony or symgraphy. The simultaneity of a finite viewing or working field with multiple dimensions forces time to be nonserial, even if the duration in which we observe and speak necessitates performance or interaction in a serial motion. Nevertheless, the collage creates this dialectical tension between the nonlinear, multiple, & simultaneous proposition and the serialized demand of human duration.

  It is similar to an orchestra, but with instruments in the role of frames. The simultaneous presences of frames can then be subject to a symphonic theme in which a unified movement happens in serial duration. Here we have a single plot with its binding principles. If we keep to the collage, we would have multiple frames with no preeminent plotline, a decentered simultaneity resisting our perception as durational seriality. Hence, resisting the ego in the model of a linear god and monocular history.

  As a corollary of the challenge to the monocular god of the single point ego-observer, the proposition of the collage, apart from the nestling of frames without any resting point or ''points d'appui,'' engages our durational seriality in the suspension of the arrival of the Whole, maintaining not only a decentered multiplicity but also a paratactic incompleteness. (The problem with [most?] languages is that there is just really one pronoun. Everything seems to be just a variation of the I.)

   There is, of course, a similarity here to the experience of rich frames and post-print multi-tasking in the New Media ecology. The next question we ask, after the consideration of the temporal and dimensional aspects of the logic of collage, is then: collage of what exactly? Images, objects, symbolic entities, of just "matter," that is, the materials that are assembled themselves? Perhaps it is the question of this question, at a certain point, for the more self-critical performance of this logic. What is it, in the end, are we "manipulating" or "handling"? And, more acutely, is there someone indeed who "handles" or "manipulates" like the "artist"? How much arbitrariness is involved, or "intentionality"?

   The questions become larger and larger, straining at the limits of our concepts like the "arbitrary." Instead of being the simple opposite of Necessity, the Arbitrary must be seen as the highest form of Necessity. It is our only Necessity, as beings whose origin, arrival, and destiny are unknown. The essence of fantastic objects is the Arbitrary and, as their essence, is of the highest Necessity.