Juno Moneta Atlas: Warburgian production or performing context change

Abstract

This paper sketches some connections between symbolic, pecuniary and formal economies in light of the question ‘what identifies Warburgian production?’ I propose that method occurs recursively throughout Warburgian production, across scales of scheme and impulse, subject and figure, miniaturization and affect. In this I claim, that along with his favored book, Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus, Warburg’s practice shares some characteristics of poioumenon, the Ancient Greek term for ‘product’ and a term employed by Alastair Fowler to refer to a metafiction in which the story concerns the process of creation. According to Fowler, "the poioumenon is calculated to offer opportunities to explore […] the limits of narrative truth." What is the process and productive topology of the Mnemosyne Atlas? Drawing from probability theory, set-theory and engaging Elie Ayache’s discussion in his book ‘The Blank Swan’ of the technology of the derivatives market and context-change in contrast to probability theory I sketch a shape for a Warburgian production where interpretation is severed from iconological representation, existing in the intervals and velocity changes between contexts.