Cinq minutes: intimations of imminent virtuality

In 'Matter and Memory' Henri Bergson's discussion of the manifold of duration and memory sets the scene, we might say the mise en scene, of contemporary discussions of the virtual. Bergson describes the identity of memory as a residue of the past, 'a cloak of recollections' and at the same time 'a core of immediate perception'. In his study of Bergson Gilles Deleuze describes this manifold texture of memory as a 'virtual coexistence' and concludes that one of the most profound aspects of Bergsonism is the extrapolation of the theory of memory as a theory of the virtual. Speculative fiction, an unrecognized branch of philosophy also concerned with virtuality, offers insights to the metaphysical and ontological nuances of the affective implications of memory as virtuality.