Enunciation and punctum: ecology of the local and spectacularity

Abstract

This paper proposes to re-examine Barthes’s notion of punctum focusing on enunciation as a situated practice and mostly adopting the approach of tensive semiotics. The aim is to study how it is inscribed in the text. Thus, the emphasis is placed on an ecology of the local, i.e. on a principle of image composition that implements the model of the rhizomatic labyrinth according to Umberto Eco.
Besides, it is important to show how Sophie Calle, in Douleur exquise, uses three enunciative strategies: (i) she cultivates ambivalence, (ii) she creates surprising relationships, (iii) she erects ambivalence itself as a punctum, provided that it is designated and exhibited (passage to the meta-discursive and metaenunciative level).