Versetzungen. Das Diorama als ontographische Apparatur

Abstract

Following Merleau-Ponty, one may ask about the possibility of an ‘ontography,’ which would register both the existent and its way of ‘being’. Such reflections on an “écriture de l’être” can transgress the field of graphical or diagrammatic notation. As a dispositive that not only registers being but also ‘assembles’ it, this paper analyses the habitat diorama of natural history. The focus is on the ontographic operation of ‘displacement,’ from which specific effects of evidence and immediacy emerge.