Spoken performance has become a key form for my research and writing practice and for this 45 mins performance, I speak of how ‘figures’ have always appeared in my writing, enabling me to say something I have found difficult to say. Through giving examples of mine and others written images/figures (here the work of Michel Serres is flagged up as key) and drawing upon the writing of my book Pure Means (Oct, 2013), this performance introduces questions as to ‘voice’, divisions between the human and the animal, ‘dividing divisions’ (Agamben and St Paul) and gestures towards a body of new writing that centers upon the figure of ‘as not’ (inoperativity), which can be found in the philosophical and political writings of Giorgio Agamben. This performance also contributes to my longstanding concern to trouble presupposition.