Under Suspicion

In the essay «Under Suspicion» (2000), Boris Groys suggests considering what lies beneath the semiotic surface of our culture — the dark submedial space lurking behind the picture of the world. For the viewer, it always becomes a source of doubts and fears, but on the other hand, a source of unexpected discoveries and involuntary insights. In a situation of exception, a piercing critical gaze, hungry for medial candor, finds a crack where the truth is momentarily exposed. This moment turns into the emergence of new signs, which are subsequently woven into the overall fabric. Relying on various philosophical texts that explore doubt and the gaze of the Other (from Descartes, Heidegger, Sartre, Moss, and Bataille to poststructuralist inquiries of Lacan and Derrida), Groys defines ontological suspicion as the medium of all media, as the foundation ensuring the reproducibility and constancy of the archive of our culture.