“This is a universe”

In Michael Snow’s film, the author says, “the author would like to have been first (to make films that concentrate on texts), but it’s too late. In some respects this is first. Obviously this is not the first time that this has been used for the first time. This belongs to everybody.” It was definitely a diversion of thinking. I found an interesting point there: a transformational meaning of the word “this.” At the beginning, “this” indicated “films that concentrate on texts.” But its meaning got changed to a just demonstrative pronoun, a word “this,” which means “this” could be or indicate anything. “This” became a representation of universe. As author says, “this belongs to everybody. This means this, you think this, wee see this, they use this.” This is a signifier.


This arbitrariness is shown in paintings as well. Surrealistic artist, Rene Magritte draw a pipe and write like this: “ceci n’est pas une pipe(This is not a pipe)”, right under the pipe. When we see the painting, we immediately and almost automatically think “this” image is a pipe, and “this” is a pipe, that is why we get confused when we see the sentence “ceci n’est pas une pipe.” It is arbitrariness. Since image is a just imitation, and language is a just representation, image and language both are arbitrary.