"…why is it an act of vital faith to choose “the scream more than the horror,†the violence of sensation more than the violence of the spectacle? The invisible forces, the powers of the future – are they not already upon us, and much more insurmountable than the worst spectacle and even the worst pain? Yes, in a certain sense – every piece of meat testifies to this. But in another sense, no. When, like a wrestler, the visible body confronts the powers of the invisible, it gives them no other visibility than its own. It is within this visibility that the body actively struggles, affirming the possibility of triumphing, which was beyond its reach as long as these powers remained invisible, hidden in a spectacle that sapped our strength and diverted us. It is as if combat had now become possible. The struggle with the shadow is the only real struggle. When the visual sensation confronts the invisible force that conditions it, it releases a force that is capable of vanquishing the invisible force, or even befriending it. Life screams at death, but death is no longer this all-too-visible thing that makes us faint; it is this invisible force that life detects, flushes out, and makes visible through the scream. Death is judged from the point of view of life, and not the reverse, as we like to believe."
Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sensation.
