Effaced Names: Art and the Ethics of Immortality

Abstract

In a renowned lecture delivered by Gilles Deleuze in 1987, later published under the title “Qu’est-ce que l’acte de création?” (“What is the Act of Creation?”), the French philosopher defined the creative act as an act of resistance—one that draws its energy from the shame of being human. A short fable by Marcel Proust and, above all, the sculptural intervention Palimpsesto, created in 2017 by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo at the Palacio de Cristal in Madrid, will serve as catalysts for reflection on this intimate relationship between art and resistance. The piece, an imagined cemetery where droplets of water emerge from tombstones to form the names of those who perished attempting to cross the Mediterranean in search of Europe, not only makes those absences palpable but also embodies the processes of political invisibility that underpin such deaths. By bringing Salcedo’s work into dialogue with the philosophical thought of Deleuze, as well as that of Jacques Derrida and Quentin Meillassoux, we will explore how Palimpsesto compels us to reconsider art’s role in reshaping how we feel and, in turn, transforming our subjectivity. In this sense, art becomes essential in the creation of a people yet to come, fostering an ethics of immortality in which new, peaceful bridges may be forged between the living and those who have suffered harrowing deaths—whose names, bodies, and lives have been erased.