ABSTRACT
According to Blanchot, literary language doubles up on this split from the world, for not only is it always already separated from the world, it also enacts a very particular kind of treatment of the linguistic sign such that the possibility of tracing lines of reference or referral from signifier back to the signified existing in reality is rendered impossible. Blanchot finds the highest exemplification of this paradoxical nature of literary language which is premised on a double absence that brings into the fray its own presence in Mallarme. The foundations of Leitner’s artistic practice are then rooted in what he calls “artistic-empirical experiments in a laboratory-like situation, whereby all experiences were noted down”. Leitner’s comments on the operations of music here are highly problematic if considered through the lens of Blanchot’s thought, for they suggest that music arrives fully formed, that it, in and of itself rather than via the relation with the reader/listener.
