The origin of visibility: Marie-José Mondzain, André Leroi-Gourhan on the establishment of image, speech and desire

Abstract

This article examines the elements of the philosophy of image of Marie-José Mondzain in light of the problem of relation between image, speech and desire. Although the main subject of Mondzain’s research is the iconic image and correlation between patristic concept of depiction and the modern technical regimes of its production and circulation, in a number of work she turns from the analysis of iconic image to studying the phenomenon of rock painting, analyzing interrelation and difference of the ability to production and performance of the image and speech. In these works, proceeding from the paleoanthropological theory of André Leroi-Gourhan, Mondzain analyzes the process of production and performance of rock painting as an event that defines the movement of anthropogenesis and forms human as a “desiring and speaking spectator”. The philosophy of image of Marie-José Mondzain is usually analyzed in the context of constructs of the modern French phenomenology and its “theological turn”. At the same time, a synthetic in its nature project of Mondzain sidesteps from the unambiguous affiliation with one or another philosophical tradition. This article reviews the elements of Mondzain’s philosophy of image not only in the context of paleoanthropological theory of André Leroi-Gourhan, but also a number of position of the philosophy of Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard, genetically connected with the phenomenological tradition of projects, but overcoming it in their own way. The analyzed in such context research of Marie-José Mondzain allow clarifying the meaning of invisibility, hollowness in structure of the image, attribution of the image to a speech or visible sign, and transformation of desire in the process of production and performance of the image.