Reflections on a reflection

I am fascinated by things that I struggle to understand, elusive things that don’t quite present enough mystery to be completely impenetrable and yet that hide from me a complete assimilation of what they are. I am of a generation that recalls the cult novel by Robert Heinlein called Stranger in a Strange Land and the concept of “grocking,” which involved such a complete understanding of a concept that it became part of you. My life, perhaps, is a continuous journey towards grocking, a place I never really get to and where I am not sure I want to go.

I love looking at things that confuse me and having to work to find the sense or to come to the conclusion that there is no sense to be found.

I am fascinated too by reflections in glass and the virtual impossibility of reconciling in a rational way what is seen through the glass and what is behind the viewer-what is reflected when you look and how the secondary substance becomes part of the first. There is no sense to this. It places the viewer in an impossible position and disorients, like you’ve suddenly sprouted a second pair of eyes in the back of the head. What you get when you study a reflection is a static image-that which is through or behind the glass-and the world to your back that is reflected in the glass-people passing by, traffic, leaves shivering in the wind, sometimes people stopping beside you in an attempt to figure out what you are looking at and unwittingly becoming part of the tableau. The motion behind you is magically entwined in the vision before you and the evolving plot is likely much better than anything you’ll find on television.

The French philosopher and semiologist Roland Barthes suggested two fundamental elements to the way we look at things, which he called studium and punctum. Studium is the intrigue in something you see, that which appeals to you and which bids you look carefully, which compels you to study the motif. Punctum is a lot less comfortable. It is that part of the vision that strikes out at you, with a sense of shock, or fear, or anger, or just surprise-it is that part of an image to which you react viscerally and that makes you uncomfortable.

Reflections exemplify those concepts. What you look at is studium; the intrusive part behind you is punctum. A reconciliation of the two is a place you’re likely never going to get to, although watching it all happen and grasping at the possibility of meaning even as multiple possible meanings present themselves never endingly is a rather fascinating way to spend a few minutes.

* * *

I imagine him at court in a post-medieval country in Europe, a young boy immaculately dressed in sparkling blue, playing the flute. I can hear his music, the sounds he conjures from his simple instrument. He can bring affairs of state to a momentary standstill through the enchantment of the music he makes. He draws glances to himself and makes cynical men pause and smile. A more total sorcerer there never was, nor one who looked less like one. He stands beside two young girls, one younger or at least smaller than the other. The taller girl either ignores the boy or stares off into the distance, perhaps carried by the music or perhaps by some reverie that has nothing to do with it. The smaller one gazes right at him with the hint of a smile and an expression that might be the birth moment of love. In the background, totally incongruously, there are symptoms of a modern city. A car is going by, and bits and pieces of trees can be seen.

It isn’t real, this thing. It’s a display in a store window, albeit a pretty imaginative one, with a streetscape reflected in the glass. Studium and punctum. An image that captivated me for most of this past summer.

* * *

I love that this is all nonsense and I cherish the impossibility of agreeing on a meaning. I love that you can stand beside me looking at the same window and conjure up from where you exist a narrative totally different from mine, that you can spin a second story that exists in a world I did not even see. The stories and their meanings are marvellous and the more there are, the richer we become. They are what they are and we are where we are, two perceptions of a common thing that might be eons apart, yet sprung from the same experience. That we read the image differently is good fun, a reason to smile, and a way to add to each other’s experience. That we stand together in a common place, even if we reach separate destinations, that is everything.