For the concept of the supplement
Which here determines that of the representative image
Harbors within itself two significations whose cohabitation is as strange as it is necessary.
The supplement adds itself, it is a surplus,
a plenitude enriching another plenitude,
the fullest measure of presence.
But the supplement supplements.
It adds only to replace...

It intervenes or insinuate itself in-the-place-of.
If it represents and makes an image it is by the anterior default of a presence ...
the sign is always the supplement of the thing itself.