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In the following essay I will examine the terms "presence" and its counterpart "absence" from two perspectives1. First, from a historical perspective, as historical constructions, situated within the framework of contemporary discourses, practices, and uses. My question is how this binary pair (which has played one of the central roles in post- structuralist theory) is to be conceived today and to what an extent it differs from that of nineteenth century? I will approach these binary terms within the discursive spaces and representational systems of the nineteenth and twentieth century in order to better grasp the roll they play, the assumptions they have fostered, and the belief systems they have confirmed. Second, I will approach the duality of presence and absence semiotically, as part of a larger system of visual and representational communication, as both a conduit and an agent of ideologies, as a sign system which contains a contingency of visual and signifying codes which in turn determine reception and instrumentality. To grasp the politics of representation of presence/absence I will relocate it within the discursive spaces and representational systems of two illnesses: hysteria and AIDS, each of these illnesses representing the illness par excellence of a specific century (nineteenth the former and twentieth century the latter). These illnesses are, as I intend to show, not only in relation to the duality of presence and absence, but moreover through specific ways of their representational politics they function as a part of a larger visual-communication and social system. Two other important implications are present in my decision as to why hysteria and AIDS were chosen.

First, I chose hysteria, because of the linkage of this illness to women - hysteria embodied the mainstream male image of a woman2, while AIDS is overtly connected to another discrimination mainstream image, to that of homosexuals. Both illnesses are used to describe fantasmatic and marginalized correspondences, acknowledging also specific historical conditions. Second, because of my interest to analyze the binary terms of presence/absence in connection with the way in which these terms correspond with a specific representational strategy, one representing the human body (i.e. representations of historically, gender and class-determined bodies). Hysteria, the illness of incongruence of image and thought, was recognized as illness only through making visible the woman's hysterical body. AIDS, the illness par excellence of our times, because of specific representational techniques practiced in the media for the general public, coincides with new media technologies, virtual environments and/or cyberspace. All of them appear to be insisting on and fostering the erasure of the body. My thesis is that the mass media techniques of representations of AIDS are fostering the absence of the "real" ill body, similarly to the way contemporaneity is fostering the disembodiment of the subject within new media technologies. Never, or rarely, it is possible to see film documentaries of persons ill with, or dying of AIDS. This process has gone so far today, that one of the theoretical options of investigation of the politics of representation of our present is to find ways to put the body back into the picture.3

In the last part of this essay I will try to synthesize different interplays between presence/absence and hysteria/AIDS by using the semiotic square, a technique of discursive analysis, developed by A. J. Greimas. The semiotic square was designed to disclose the implications inherent to such binary relationships, thus helping to make explicit the "hidden" meanings which "stabilize" and generate significance.

[intro] [part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [notes]