essay
by ANDRÉ MICHEL
A cavern, 36,000 years ago, in Ardèche, France. A hand in the dark drags charcoal across stone: a horse, a lion, a rhinoceros. At the Chauvet cave, more than a thousand drawings cover the walls; most of them are animals. Lions, mammoths, bears, woolly rhinos. Some were hunted. Some were feared. They were seen first. Eaten later.
The philosopher Bernard Stiegler uses the image of an Inuit fisherman who carves figures into his harpoon before going out to spear a seal. These marks are not ornament. They are a debt carved into the weapon before the weapon enters the animal. In the caring for his tool, the predator declares respect for his prey. He asks permission from the animal he is about to violate. Stiegler’s argument, as I understand it, is that art begins here. Not in the cult of beauty, but in remaining human in…