In this chapter Gibbons analyzes works of Whiteread, Ishiuchi, Goldin and Fontana in relation to indexical traces of life.

Gibbons applies the concept of degeneracy of the traces to Whiteread's and Ishiuchi's works. Does it mean that traces do not reflect the whole object/subject, which was traced, so they always (or not?) are incomplete in a way? How the society as the viewers took back pretextual knowledge from looking at paintings to looking at photographs? How does photography works within this painting-related field of knowledge? Can pretextual knowledge from the photography can be applied back to the painting, for example for Richter's or Tuymans' works? Can the rules from other arts: music, architecture, cinema, literature, poetry be applied to painting or photography?

Different works discussed in this chapter arise different questions, like questions of housing, domesticity, family, friendship, relations to historical events, relations with the dead, monuments, memorialization, etc.

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