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06876_Field_TCUM T441.txt
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1996-04-10
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substance of those beings that we grasp in words, then Joyce
may well have meant that the photo was a new creation from
nothing (ab-nihil ), or even a reduction of creation to a
photographic negative. If there is, indeed, a terrible nihilism in
the photo and a substitution of shadows for substance, then
we are surely not the worse for knowing it. The technology of
the photo is an extension of our own being and can be
withdrawn from circulation like any other technology if we
decide that it is virulent. But amputation of such extensions of
our physical being calls for as much knowledge and skill as are
prerequisite to any other physical amputation.
If the phonetic alphabet was a technical means of
severing the spoken word from its aspects of sound and
gesture, the photograph and its development in the movie
restored gesture to the human technology of recording