In his lecture course on ‘The Neutral’, Barthes describes a bottle of ink he had purchased with the colour named as ‘neutral’. Before he can put the ink safely away, he manages to knock the bottle over. He writes: ‘Well, I was both punished and disappointed: punished because Neutral spatters and stains … disappointed because Neutral is a colour like the others, and for sale (therefore, Neutral is not unmarketable): the unclassifiable is classified …all the more reason for us to go back to discourse, which, at least, cannot say what the Neutral is’.

Associated Materials:
Cultural Typhoon – Inter/Space , Sendai Mediatheque, 28-29 June 2008 – Paper presentation: Neutral Position: Picturing a Critical Moment In-Between Theory and an Unsustainable World