in homage to Magritte's provocative pipe : "Ceci n'est pas une pipe".

and in connection with Deleuze's saying: The painter does not paint on a virgin canvas. The writer does not write on a blank page. But, the page or the canvas are already covered over with pre-existing, pre-established cliches. (habits of sight & habits of thought).

The cliches must be scraped away to find a singular vital space of possibility. For cliche is precisely what prevents the genesis of an image. (just as opinion & convention prevent the genesis of thought).

The painter does not need to cover a blank canvas, but on the contrary, to empty the canvas of all these 'givens' that are present in it .. (these cliches and ready made perceptions, actual or virtual), for one can really think only where what is to be thought is not already given.

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