Not An Alternative

Video - Picture New York

Often, it is stated that to name something is to limit and constrain meaning.
One can envision the argument that those organizing as representatives of the group Picture New York are speaking in place of New Yorkers who aren’t represented by their group. This type of charge typically follows with the claim that to speak for others is to erase those who are not immediately present.
But I would like to make the case that there is a problem with this understanding.
This is due to the fact that the argument supposes that a name describes what is present in the object to which the name refers.
In this video entitled Picture New York.. it is made evident that there is another way of understanding the possibility of what a name describes.
Here representatives of the group Picture New York articulate what the name Picture New York means to them.
After only a couple of attempts to describe what Picture New York means it becomes clear that picturing New York is not a definition limited to personal articulation but is rather something that is beyond any particular description.
Picture New York is not a name that represents something is the positive sense but would be better understood as a call shouted into darkness with an expectation that there will be no answer.
The words are a not call to something that is presupposed but a call to a void.
Calling to the void in the act of giving something a name does not serve to limit and constrain but does just the opposite.
Only through the act of encircling what the individual calls collectively try and fail to articulate does the undefined and unlimited “picture of New York” that they all individually speak to become evident.