October 176 (Spring 2021)

Writing, in its method and style, writing in its liberty, can coincide with real liberty only when the latter enters into crisis and opens a void into history. —Maurice Blanchot

Large, complex, high-voltage systems are generally equipped with a “primary burnout fuse.” Its function, like that of every fuse, is to burn out at exactly the right moment. What moment? The moment when the load on the system exceeds its capacities; the moment when a surge in power (or a spike in demand) threatens the integrity of the apparatus. Delicate circuitry will be fried. There is a risk of fire. If the fuse “works,” the system stops. If the fuse does not “work” (if the finely calibrated ribbon of current-bearing fusible material at the heart of the fuse does not melt, does not burn up, and in the process sever the circuit itself), the system will be destroyed. In this sense, the fuse is the canary in the coal mine of every circuit. But this is not quite right. The canary’s death is a sign. The canary thus represents the pure conversion of “being” into semiosis—without remainder. In the fuse, by contrast, burnout is a direct intervention, by means of disruptive nonexistence. Two revolutionary images converge: the martyr and the arsonist.

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