The present article considers the avant-garde as experience, and primarily as the experience of perceiving avant-garde art in terms of interruption, estrangement, and arrest. The focus is on the “internal”—utopian—time of the avant-garde, or the dimension of the social imagination. This is directly related to Walter Benjamin’s concept of history, and his idea of the interruption of time. The article analyzes the connection between the continuing interest in the avant-garde and the problem of representing utopia. Avant-garde art is considered as (...) a “sign of history” according to Kant: it takes on the function of an index in that it delineates space for new social relations. Avant-garde art is a form of mapping out a new community, which precedes any institutionalization. Such an intrusion of the “invisible” into avant-garde imagery is explored with the example of Jean-Luc Marion’s reflections on Rothko and Marie-José Mondzain’s conception of the icon as the forerunner of modern abstract art. (shrink)

This article considers two models of the future based on Jacques Derrida's distinction between le futur and l'avenir. The former is related to technology, including political technology, and the latter involves an experience of participation, which allows for the existence not of “the future”, but of “forthcoming”. L'avenir is on the side of direct democracy and unmediated political action. The future and l'avenir are different kinds of time. The future is projective, l'avenir is event driven. The future is predictable; l'avenir (...) refers to what we might call absolute openness. L'avenir is the experience of encountering the other, including in the field of politics. The author believes that Maidan creates a space for this second conception of time, continuing the line of political philosophy coming from Baruch Spinoza and his idea of multitudo and absolute democracy. (shrink)

The author analyzes the interrelations of the concepts of symbol, sign, image, and consciousness. She establishes connections between the theories of Mamardashvili and his colleagues and those of the French semioticians Derrida and Deleuze.