The Membranes

by Chi Ta-wei

When a child failed to detach from the parent in a timely fashion, were the obsessive behaviors and arrested development the child’s fault? Or was the mother to blame, for overindulging her? Or maybe the responsibility lay with neither the child nor the mother.

An ancient sage known as Derrida once spoke of “différance,” whereby your well-intentioned pursuit of the authenticity of sensory experience only produces endless variations, shifts, and evolutions; the meaning you seek, inconstant and ephemeral, is elusive as a chameleon. “Mise en abyme,” they say—no matter how many layers of clothing you fold back, another layer of clothing always lies underneath;