ABSTRACT
The idea that the Absolute would be identical with the world, just different, describes again the parallax of the minimal difference that characterises performance. This tiny displacement cannot of course really be down to the state of things. It does not refer to such states of things, but rather to their sense, and their limits. It does not take place in things but at their periphery, in the space between everything and itself. This periphery in Christian iconography was represented as the halo. Nothing can be added to the perfect of the redeemed world, but there is something that can be added as a surplus, what Saint Thomas described as an ‘accidental reward that is added to the essential’, that is not necessary for beatitude, but that simply makes it more brilliant. As Agamben describes the halo: ‘The halo is the supplement added to perfection – something like the vibration of that which is perfect, the glow at its edges’.
