It's not that what is past casts its light on what is present, or what is present its light on what is past; rather Image is that wherein what has been comes together in the now to form a constellation. In other words, image is dialectics at a standstill. For while the relation of the present to the past is a purely temporal, continuous one, the relation of what has been to the now is dialectical: is not progression but image, suddenly emergent. - Only dialectical images are genuine images (that is, not archaic); and the place where one encounters them is Language.
Awakening.
Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, On the theory of knowledge, N2a.3
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