halo

the space of ease

the space between an object and itself

auratic























… it is not necessary to destroy everything or begin a completely new world. It is sufficient to displace this cup or this bush or this stone just a little, and thus everything…

Everything will be as it is now, just a little different.

Benjamin / Scholem / Bloch

This tiny displacement does not refer to the state of things, but to their sense and their limits. It does not take place in things, but at their periphery, in the space of ease between a thing and itself

The theory developed by St Thomas in his short treatise on halos is instructive in this regard. The beatitude of the chosen, he argues, includes all goods that are necessary for the perfect workings of human nature, and therefore nothing essential can be added. There is however, something that can be added in surplus [superaddi], an 'accidental reward that is added to the essential'', that is not necessary for beatitude and does not alter it substantially, but that simply makes it more brilliant [clarior].
The halo is the supplement added to perfection - something like the vibration of that which is perfect, the glow at the edges…
One can think of the halo. in this sense, as a zone in which possibility and reality, potentiality and actuality, become indistinguishable……

Agamben / The Coming Community / XIII