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There is a fragile power in the phenomenon of cracks at work in different sensitive areas: in the texture of cities and in contemporary art. These are both physical and mental and blend into a becoming-ruin specific to existential territories. We sense this kind of process in the interplay between the outside and inside of buildings in some cities, or with certain designs. Time is nestled in the bumps, in the traces, in the minute details; this forms part of the secret decomposition of the structures of an order. A future past is manifested through delicate living specters built by coexistences experienced in urban sedimentation, or by an aesthetics of vacancy. Contrary to systemic modeling, the mind wanders, transient things take place, along with the disorder that we experience in sensitive areas. The more the system (urban, visual, mediatized, political, economic) closes in on itself, the more leakage paths prosper. Ultramodern surfaces are perforated by secret crevices; the crack becomes a fault or a landslide. It is about understanding the imperfection of the real; glimpsing the world in its obscure movements, in accordance with a singular anthropology.