File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0310, message 151


From: gvcarter-AT-purdue.edu
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 17:29:01 -0500
Subject: Memorial 



All,

NPR just featured a story about the German company Degussa to withdraw a 
product that would be used to protect a Jewish Holocaust Memorial.  A 
subsidiary company associated with Degussa produced Cyclon-B gas used during 
the war.  

I find this story interesting as is raises issues about how far a country or 
business can move from the past, particulary as that past is concentrated in 
such things as a Memorial.  Although Degussa's product is intended to protect 
the Memorial from outside elements like acid rain, it would appear that there's 
a compelling case for even the unseen.  Although such a product might be 
considered a "common noun"--I realize the company copyrights its particular 
mixture of protection, but one can imagine an American company that produces a 
like product--it retains the full "proper noun" status.  

Names adhere even more than a monument that will otherwise melt in the acid 
rain.

There are Germans who work for other companies that, of course, are linked to 
the horrible events of WWII.  One could imagine, for example, that the trains 
used to move the Memorial in place share a distant culpability with the long 
lines of cattle cars taking families to the chambers.  There is something so 
close in this product being used as a protective layer no less.  There's 
something real about this skin of a name.  (Does anyone know the root for 
proper name "Degussa"?)  

This story moved me like the story of the sacking the Baghdad museum months 
back.  There's a pattern here in museum and memorial that maybe warrants closer 
inspection.  

Does Lyotard speak to the matter of memorials? 

Best,

Geof

P.S. Eric, I'm still interested in hearing more about Lyotard on Duchamp, if 
that particular line of inquiry is still of interest...

 

   

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