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Examples

  • If the answer is, Nothing, then a novel might at least be the proper means for examining that infrathin difference between a mode of narrative that depends on looking and a mode of narrative that depends on listening.

    Cahiers de Corey Josh 2010

  • Duchamp endorsed the poetic idea of the “infrathin” — sensations or qualities that are outside the five senses, that represent “states between states,” as Kenneth Goldsmith once put it.

    TAoN No. 41: Indoor (Bonus) Issue Rob Walker 2020

Comments

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  • See inframince.

    July 7, 2008

  • Duchamp supposedly coined the word (french: <i>inframince</i>) as a "notion" that could not be defined, but could be captured by usage examples, viz.

    * the warmth of a seat (which has just/been left) is infrathin
    * when the tobacco smoke smells also of the/mouth which exhales it, the two odors/marry by infrathin
    * 2 forms cast in/the same mold (?) differ from each other by an infrathin amount.

    The last one is actually, to my mind, the best example.

    I think Duchamp was being a bit haughty when saying it could not be defined. I think it certainly can be. My proposal would be to define something like this: 

    noun 1. "the sensation of difference where the difference is too small for our senses to actually have noticed it"

    noun 2. " the sensation of two things sharing a similarity, but this physical similarity can not be attributed to any particular sense-able attribute"

    noun 3. An ineffable physical similarity or differance. This similarity or differance can also be time-based.

    January 29, 2015