A related technique that Benjamin does not only describe but also employs is montage. Here, the idea is that by juxtaposing unlike things, a text and photographs for example, barriers between conventions are broken down, leading to a larger diffusion of categories and taxonomies. Often this effect can be achieved even without the use of different forms of media. Once again in the Arcades Project, Benjamin explains his strategy of what he calls literary montage. He writes:

Method of this project: literary montage. I needn’t say anything. Merely show. I shall purloin no valuables, appropriate no ingenious formulations. But the rags, the refuse-these I will not inventory but allow, in the only way possible, to come into their own: by making use of them.

Anarchist All The way Down: Walter Benjamin’s Subversion of Authority in text, Thought and Action,  James R. Martel in PARRHESIA , Number 21, 2014, 3-12.

 

 

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