Flesh, Folds and Texturality: Thinking Visual Ellipsis via Merleau-Ponty, Helene Cixous and Robert Frank JENNY CHAMARETTE Abstract: Certain forms of art privilege the ellipsis. For example, in poetry, one has only to think of Mallarme's Un Coup de dis^ for eUipsis to mark its peculiar trace upon the processes of meaning. Nonetheless, because ellipsis situates itself so curiously between meaning and signification, a formal defmition may seem too categorical in explaining what eUipsis can do in its between-state, flanked by visuality, semiotics and signification. This article examines how Merleau- Ponty, Derrida and Deleuze, employ textual-visual and ontological-perceptual strategies for making sense of this slippery signifier. These strategies allow us to think through examples of eUipsis in the writing of Helene Cixous and in the photographs of Robert Frank, in terms of semantic, affective, aesthetic and material qualities. Kejrwords: Derrida, Deleuze, Merleau-Ponty, Cixous, Robert Frank, ellipsis, flesh, the visible The aim of this article is not to arrive at a fonnai definition of 'visual ellipsis'. Instead its intention is to problematize what might otherwise be considered a fairly standard linguistic, literary and textual device. Furthermore, as the title suggests, the article will attempt to 'think' visual ellipsis — to examine its problematics, to explore its perceptual, material, semantic and affective potential w^ithin w^ritten text, and to extend and invoke the potential of visual ellipsis within what might be described as a visual, but non-textual, art object. A more traditional 'definition' of ellipsis might invoke it as a linguistic device. Understood in this w^ay, ellipsis is a standard sign whose conventional textual significations include stuttering, lapsed utterance, censorship, concealment of identity and abbreviation. This sign is clearly demarcated within linguistic and literary convention. It signifies a voluntary omission of a structure, which nonetheless does not prevent the production of meaning. Traditionally but not exclusively, represented by three dots {the points de suspension), ellipsis is a reflexive and flexible representation of meaning that can be Paragraph 30:2 (2007) 34-49