Moths, those butterflies that have a tendency to get lost, that feel a fatal attraction by light to the point of being burned to death, seem to us disturbing creatures. Their scorched wings remind us of Icarus’ suicidal impulse. On the other hand, perhaps they look to us unsettlingly familiar because we do nothing but flit around blinding electronic lights.

Moths have fascinated writers and poets. The glimmer of light they leave in their wake around a candle served Sebald to delve into the retinal persistence of the illusory images. Another diver in the images of the memory, Didi-Huberman, discovers in the nocturnal beating of wings a fragile perceptive state, a flicker between the illusion and the reality, between the symptom and the symbol.