Infra-thin is Marcel Duchamp's word for measuring the almost imperceptible
margins of difference between two seemingly identical items. Infra-thin
measures the all but immeasurable interstice between two things or ideas as
they transition into and between one to the other, the passage between sense
and non-sense, and the delay or deferral of these passages between the senses
themselves.
Infra-thin is impossible
to define; it can only be illustrated. The difference between adjectives and
nouns is infra-thin. So is the act of forgetting. Other examples from Duchamp
include an object at one time and then one second later (the identity
principle), the warmth of a seat that has just been left, a stare, people who
go through subway gates at the last moment, the whistling sound made by velvet
trousers when walking, a painting on glass seen from the unpainted side, or the
space between recto and verso. And Infra-Thin Press.
Infra-Thin Press minces
words with contemporary visual culture, both in the content and design of our
books. We currently publish or plan to publish scholarly and experimental texts
at the interstices of philosophy and literature, critical theory and design, philosophy
and technology, poetry and visual studies, and selected marginalia in between.