[notes on] WINGS OF DESIRE
(Der Himmel über Berlin)

by Nathan Wolfson

And that's really the only thing I have to say about stories: they are one huge, impossible paradox! I totally reject stories, because for me they only bring out lies, nothing but lies, and the biggest lie is that they show coherence where there is none. Then again, our need for these lies is so consuming that it's completely pointless to fight them and to put together a sequence of images without a story -- without the lie of a story. Stories are impossible, but it's impossible to live without them.

- Wim Wenders

with each sentence we have to ask what in the world of the tale would have to be different from our world in order for such a sentence to be uttered -- and thus, as the sentences build up, we build up a specific dialogue with our present conception of the real.

- Samual Delany

By habit, I have broken these collections of notes into the following seven sections. No section is a complete essay on it's own. Several topics appear in multiple sections. For an example of a distillation focussed on a particular topic, please drop me a line via the CONTACT link, at left, and I can send you a copy of "Engendering Desire," the paper derived from some of these essays for presentation to the Society for the Philosphical Study of the Contemporary Visual Arts. (Formal publication is pending.)