Publisher's Synopsis
Two Be or Not Two Be is an inquiry into the construction of identity, the concepts of sameness and self regarded from a postal perspective and postal economy of sendings and returns. Through a reading of Derrida´s The Postcard and Freud´s Beyond the Pleasure Principle the self is brought from stasis to movement, from a given to a gift: The gift of self that one must ceaselessly give and hand over to one-self. Following in the footsteps of the animal and in particular the territorial animal marking out a piece of land, manifesting it-self through repetitions and returns, the author asks: In what way does this animal practice differ from the everyday practice of humans and our influence on our surroundings? Are we not as well constantly engaged in a doubling practice turning our surroundings into mirrors and surfaces for our image and its return? Endlessly engaged in a writing and a marking of objects and each other? What in this sense is in other words not auto-biographical in our conduct? A life self-written, a self-writing of life, and a life-writing of self.
