The Wake of Latency

The term latency finds its etymological root in the Latin latere, meaning “to lie hidden, to lurk,” which conceptually resonates with the Greek λανθάνω (lanthánō), “to escape notice.” Both terms evoke a state of concealment, something that is not immediately manifest. In Aristotle’s distinction between dynamis (potentiality) and energeia (actuality), the latent is that which possesses the ability to become. Plato’s concept of anamnesis, instead, posits that innate knowledge of universal truths lies dormant within the soul, possessing it since before being born. In Dante’s Purgatorio, the Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, can purify memory by erasing the memory of having committed sins, suggesting that latency serves as both a cleansing and a loss, a necessary veil that covers memory to allow redemption. Since the end of the 19th century, the concept of latency has been largely set aside in favor of a psychoanalytic hegemony, in which it refers to a developmental phase, a temporary dormancy of instinctual drives, during which a predetermined form is presumed. This approach appears to privilege only the visible and conscious endpoints of a drive, rather than interrogating the structures that keep certain forces concealed. It is therefore necessary to reimagine latency not only in its repressed state, but also as a mode of being, knowing, and creating.