I am in the process of developing a series of new pieces of writing which further explore the idea of restlessness as a critical practice or even as a form of method, within which the quotes below operate as two points of reference, of departure and also of return.
“Contradictory words seem a little crazy to the logic of reason, and inaudible for him who listens with readymade grids, a code prepared in advance. In her statements she retouches herself constantly. She just barely separates from herself some chatter, an exclamation, a half secret – a sentence left in suspense – When she returns to it – it is only to set out again from another point of pleasure or pain. One must listen to her differently in order to hear an ‘other meaning’ which is constantly in the process of weaving itself, at the same time ceaselessly embracing words and yet casting them off to avoid being fixed, immobilized. For when she says something it is already no longer identical to what she means. Moreover, her statements are never identical to anything. Their distinguishing feature is one of contiguity. They touch (upon). And when they wander too far from this nearness, she stops and begins again from zero” - Luce Irigaray, ‘This Sex Which is Not One’, in New French Feminisms, eds. Elaine Marks and Isabelle de Courtivron, (University of Massachusetts Press, 1980), p.103. Originally published as Ce sexe qui n’en est pas un (Minuit, 1977)
“There are intangible things but the moment we name them, their meaning disappears or melts like jellyfish in the sun" - partially remembered quote from Tarkovsky's film Stalker