We desire, we pray Illuminated screens are full of promises. Television and cinema screens, light boxes for advertising – the city is aglow with neon ads. Historic fa- cades are irradiated by spotlights at night for the tourist’s pleasure, the football stadium is bathed in floodlights, the lawn of the pitch glistening in anticipation of the game; the intricate indirect lighting systems of metro- politan restaurants and bars turn walls into screens and transform spaces into shrines of desire. The power of all these gestures of illumination lies in the force of the promise they formulate: the promise of all consumption to come. 1 Like all things that elicit desire, the illuminated screen creates the sensation of encountering a void that promises joy. This void represents that which is not yet present but about to come; it verges on being filled with yet unknown pleasures, the significance of which we currently know nothing except for the fact that they will be true once they become real. In anticipation of that moment we move through the illuminated void that the screen opens up. Alienation? Yes sure, we are never satisfied, but we are exhilarated nonetheless by the glow of the void. And who wants to be satis- fied anyway. Saturation is a terrible state. Exhilaration is much more sub- lime. It’s a religious feeling. It’s the religious feeling. 1 ‘The promise of all consumption to come’ is a phrase I borrow from Irit Rogoff who used it once in conver- sation. 089
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