Die Kaaba geschlossen – Christoph Schlingensiefs Blog

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Seminar Proposition

CATALOG OF SITUATIONS

A Seminar on aesthetics of reception and the topography of aesthetic encounters

Theme

Aesthetic experience is a characteristic way of experiencing situations as structured space and time. In an aesthetic situation, the subject separates a specific space and timespan from the continuum of experiences and distances himself from his surrounding. This situation does not necessarily contain the encounter with an artwork, it can take place in a natural surrounding as well as on a street or within a cultural institution. In other words: having an aesthetic experience means to take up a specific position within a situation. When and how this position is taken by a person is depending on personal sensibility as well as social conventions. We want to investigate these situations in their social dimensions and develop strategies to denote and discuss the net of relations between beholder and surrounding.

Background

Since 2008 Jan-Philipp Possmann and David Weber-Krebs have been engaged as artists and theoreticians in a research project on aesthetics of reception, entitled CATALOG OF SITUATIONS. We have been investigating and creating different aesthetic situations and we have been developing strategies to communicate our experiences in the format of lecture performances or installations. We also have been engaged in an intense correspondence in the form of our internet platform. Through these activities we aim to not only communicate experiences but to create new deep spaces of encounter and reflexivity.

Approach

In this seminar/workshop we intend to combine the theoretical and the practical elements of artistic research as we have been pursuing them in CATALOG OF SITUATIONS. We propose to engage the students in a critical analysis of aesthetic theory and art history writing as well as in a creative process of developing a language and a formal toolbox for communicating aesthetic experiences as situations. The seminar therefore requires the participants to equally concentrate on theory and analysis as well as in a creative process of producing new forms.
For this we propose three modules:

1) framework. We want to start by reading together some key texts on aesthetics of perception and some examples of personal accounts of aesthetic encounters. These texts will establish the theoretical framework of the seminar and the terminology (such as space, encounter, interaction, relation, experience).

2) analysis. In a second step we propose a close reading of a number of cultural artefacts – visual arts, performance art, film, literature, pop culture and commercial images – constituting our personal canon of aesthetic situations. We will cover a wide range of historical art forms and genres – from religious art from the pre-enlightenment period to contemporary works – as well as fields that go beyond the world of arts. These different fields will be approached from a perspective of theatre practice and performance theory. The analysis will include personal experiences as made by the students. We will analyse the social space of the situation as well as the poetics of the work. In this second module we plan to ask the students to bring their whole personal background as “aesthetes” and artists into the seminar. The students will be asked to document, share and discuss their personal experiences and emotions.

3) catalog. Thirdly we will present an approach to communicate and discuss aesthetic situations, mainly in the form of lecture performances, which in our view is a form that allows a continuous switch between fascination and distance. We will discuss this approach and develop concrete formats for a number of experiences, resulting in several short lecture performances. The students will be asked to work individually as well as in small groups. The results will form a small catalog that will be added on the web platform of CATALOG OF SITUATIONS.

Addressees and Duration

The seminar is best suited for a relatively small group of participants – maximum 15 people – since the close reading and the development of individual presentations will be very difficult to realise in a larger group. The participants can be either artists or theoreticians. They must be undergraduate students or have some working experience in the arts and theatre fields. A personal history of encounters with and an interest in art and art history is required.

The seminar can be realised either in two or three longer blocks or on a regular, monthly or bi-weekly cycle. Depending on the academic structure, we are able to shorten or enlarge the material and time needed. The two first blocks would take the form of analysis and discussion and the third block would be more directed towards praxis.

Equipment

We would need a seminar space equipped with a video beamer. For the third module it would be best to have three or four spaces available and some technical support – such as minimal light and audio and video technique.

Literature

Basic texts – to be read (in excerpts) and discussed with the seminar:

Umberto Eco: Opera Aperta (The open work, 1962)

Hartmut Böhme: Atmosphären. Essays zur neuen Ästhetik
(Atmospheres, Essays on the new aesthetics, 1995)

Georges Didi-Hubermann: Ce que nous voyons, ce qui nous regarde. (1992)

Brian O’Doherty: Inside the White Cube (1986)

John Dewey: Art as Experience (1934)

Walter Banjamin: Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, 1936)

Das Bild stellt nichts dar

Gegen die zeichentheoretische Vermutung, ein Bild stelle etwas – beispielsweise ein Ding – dar, hält König fest, dass es der Maler ist, der etwas darstellt, nicht aber das Bild. Und der Maler malt nicht ein Ding, sondern ein Bild des Dinges. Das Tun des Malers ist die Darstellung eines Dinges als Bild. Bildet man von hier aus eine strukturelle Analogie zur Rede von Spiegel, Spiegel-Bild und bespiegeltem Ding, so trifft man auf den merkwürdigen Sachverhalt, dass zwar einerseits gesagt werden muss, es sei das Tun des Spiegels, dessen Produkt das Spiegel-Bild ist – so wie das Produkt des Tuns des Malers das Bild ist. Andererseits aber kann genau nicht gesagt werden, dass das Produkt des Tuns des Spiegels – das Spiegel-Bild – ein Bild des bespiegelten Dinges sei, sondern das »Ding selber«. »Denn wir sehen im Spiegel nicht so etwas wie das Bild des Dinges, sondern in ihm das Ding selber.«

Josef König, Sein und Denken, Halle 1937. zitiert in : Siegfried Blasche, Mathias Gutmann, Michael Weingarten. Bilder und Spiegel-Bilder.

Roland Barthes – Mort de L’Auteur

Es gibt nur die Zeit der Äußerung, und jeder Text ist immer hier und jetzt geschrieben.

R. Barthes

The legend of Wu Dao Zi

There was once a painter who one day painted a landscape. [.] The artist was so delighted with his picture that he felt an irresistible urge to walk along the path winding away towards the distant mountains. He entered the picture and followed the path towards the mountains and was never seen again by any man.
- Béla Balázs, Theory of Film

Just as his contemporary the poet Li Bo [Li Bai] had drowned in a river trying to catch hold of the reflection of the moon, about whose beauty he had so often sung, legend recounts that Wu Daozi disappeared into the mist of a landscape he had just painted.
- cited and translated by François Cheng, Empty and Full: The Language of Chinese Painting, [Boston: Shambhala, 1994], pp. 28-29

“In the palace of Ming Huang, the walls were of great size and upon one of these the Emperor ordered Wu Dao Zi to paint a landscape. The Artist prepared his materials, and concealing the wall with curtains commenced his work. After a little while he drew aside the veil, and there lay a glorious scene, with mountains, forests, clouds, men, birds and all things as in Nature. While the Emperor gazed upon it with admiration, Wu Dao Zi pointing to a certain part of the picture, said: ‘Behold this temple grot at the foot of the mountain – within it dwells a spirit.’ Then clapping his hands, the gate of the cave suddenly opened. ‘ The Interior is beautiful beyond conception’, continued the artist. ‘permits me to show the way, that your Majesty may behold the marvels it contains.’ He passed within, turning round to the beckon his patron to follow, but in a moment the gateway closed, and before the amazing monarch could advance a step, the whole scene fade away, leaving the wall white as before the contact of the painters brush. And Wu Dao Zi was never seen again.”
- Andersons Catalogue of Chinese and Japanese Paintings

Borges über Metalepse (Mise en Abyme)

“Warum beunruhigt es uns so sehr, dass die Landkarte in der Landkarte beinhaltet ist und die 1001 Nächte im Buch Tausendundeine Nacht? Warum beunruhigt es uns, dass Don Quichotte Leser des Quichotte, Hamlet Zuschauer des Hamlet ist? Ich denke, die Ursache herausgefunden zu haben: solche Vertauschungen legen nahe, dass, wenn die Figuren einer Fiktion Leser oder Zuschauer sein können, [auch] wir, ihre Leser oder Zuschauer, fiktiv sein können”
(Jorge Luis Borges, Partielle Magie im Don Quichotte, in Obras Completas, Bd. 2, Buenos Aires: Emecé 1989, S. 47).

Herausforderung angesichts des Anderen

Was heißt das Andere im anderen Menschen? Dieses Andere heißt seine „Zukunft“. „Die Zukunft ist das andere. Das Verhältnis zur Zukunft, das ist das eigentliche Verhältnis zum anderen.“ Levinas spricht kurz zuvor vom „Nahen des Todes“, und eben das ist ja „Zukunft“ im genauen Sinne dieses Wortes. Was entscheidend ist im Nahen des Todes, ist dies, dass wir von einem bestimmten Moment an nicht mehr können können; genau darin verliert das Subjekt seine eigentliche Herrschaft als Subjekt. Dieses Ende der Herrschaft zeigt an, dass wir das Sein auf eine solche Weise übernommen haben, dass uns ein Ereignis zustoßen kann, dass wir nicht mehr übernehmen, … nicht einmal mehr durch das Sehen.“

(nach S. Rütter. Herausforderung angesichts des Anderen. 2000. 188. / M. Levinas. Die Zeit und der Andere. 1995. 47f.)

Zitate Böhme Einführung in die Ästhetik

ZITATE BÖHME Einführung in die Ästhetik

- Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten: “Aesthetica” von 1750: “Ästethik ist die Wissenschaft der sinnlichen Erkenntnis”

- Ästhetik ist die Position, die eine ästhetische Situation beobachten läßt. Keineswegs ohne Interesse, wie Kant meinte, wohl aber aus mittlerer Distanz, die Kant auch im Sinn hatte, geht es um den sinnlichen Mitvollzug der gegenwärtigen Situation nach ihren beiden Seiten hin, der [Produzenten] sowohl wie der [Zuschauer]. Der ästhetische Blick bleibt dabei keineswegs nur auf die erscheinenden Zeichen beschränkt. Sondern das Ästhetische besteht gerade darin, das Erscheinende nicht nur in einer Art imaginärer Mimesis mitzuvollziehen, sondern auch zu entziffern. Das Ästhetische und das Hermeneutische gehören zusammen, ja konvergieren. In einer Vielzahl, ja, vielleicht in allen Situationen emergiert der soziale Sinn im ästhetischen Schein wie dieser umgekehrt jenen erst codiert. Man kann den sozialen Sinn vom Ästhetischen nur ablösen um den Preis, ihn zu bloßer Information zu mortifizieren. Das wäre Soziologie. Der Ästhetiker dagegen ist Vivisekteur. Das macht seine Fragwürdigkeit aus und seinen Vorteil. Immer ist er beim Besonderen, hält bei ihm inne und ist doch niemals ganz dabei. Er ist notwendig präsent und doch der Gegenwart eigentümlich entzogen. Er ist dichter an den Phänomenen als die Wissenschaftler, weswegen all sein Erkennen die Züge seiner Subjektivität trägt (was er nicht verleugnet, sondern reflektiert). Und doch ist er gegenüber den involviert Handelnden nur ein nachfolgender Schatten.

- Eine ästhetische Nullpunkt-Situation [gibt es] nicht. Eine solche scheint Kant anzustreben, wenn er das ästhetische Urteil an Interesselosigkeit, Allgemeingültigkeit, Zweckmäßigkeit und Übersubjektivität bindet. Vielmehr sehen wir, daß im wahrnehmenden Subjekt eine komplexe intermediale, intertextuelle und historische wie biographische Vermittlung stattfindet, welche es in der Ästetik nicht zu reinigen, sondern zu entziffern gilt. Das geschieht hier in einer inszenatorischen Ritualität, die durchaus ein Grundmerkmal des Ästhetischen darstellt.

- Ästhetik als bloße Theorie des Kunstwerks wäre eine heute nicht mehr vertretbare Reduktion des ästhetischen Phänomens. Dieses umfaßt potentiell jedes Moment des Alltags, der Gesellschaft, der Kunst und der Natur. Ästhetik wäre damit Theorie und Analyse des Ästhetischen von Alltag, Gesellschaft, Kunst und Natur.

- Kunstwerke an sich und für sich sind nicht weniger tot als Steine – so wie Steine im ästhetischen Prozeß nicht weniger lebendig sind als Kunstwerke oder Tiere. Das liegt daran, daß der ästhetische Raum nicht Subjekt und Objekt scheidet und folglich auch einen Objektraum nicht nach organisch – anorganisch, künstlich – natürlich, tot – lebendig usw. aufteilt. Der ästhetische Prozeß realisiert Atmosphären, die von Leblosem genauso wie von Lebendem, von Technischem wie von Natürlichem, von Menschlichem wie Nicht-Menschlichem gebildet werden. Und das Ästhetische realisiert Bedeutungen, die nicht an Rede und intentional hervorgebrachte Zeichen gebunden sind, sondern jedem und allem zukommen können. [Dies] ist der Grund für die hermeneutische Endlosigkeit des ästhetischen Prozesses.

- Ästhetik als charakteristische Form des Erlebens und der Erfahrung von ‘gegliedertem Raum’ und ‘rhythmisierter Zeit’

- in welcher Weise die Entscheidung für die Raumperspektive oder für die Vektorialisierung der Zeit eine Ästhetik begründet

Manual Draft 190810

MANUAL DRAFT 190810

By understanding art as situation, the beholder becomes a central agent of the aesthetic process. Not only in the sense that his or her view on a given object and the accompanying mental processes create the aesthetic situation, but also in the sense that he is the protagonist of these situations. Without him – and this means, without his sensual experience – there is no situation. Generalizations about the aesthetic qualities of an object therefore become rather difficult. The interpretive authority of the aesthetic scholar, the art theoretician, is at stake if we regard art as situation. As we have tried to show, art theory and art exegesis do not become superfluous, but their function and nature change fundamentally. Instead of offering definite readings of art works in order to premeditate future encounters with them (“I tell you, what to look for and how to feel about it”) and thereby bereave the beholder of exciting and potentially existential experiences, the task lies in opening up roads to valuable yet highly subjective personal experiences. In other words: to further the emancipation of the beholder from other people’s beholding.

There clearly is a strong element of pluralist and anti-authoritarian thinking in such a view on art. We believe that the openness of the aesthetic process has to resonate in the way we talk about this aesthetic process. An academic practice that grounds in this view has to reflect the same pluralist and anti-authoritarian attitude in it’s form as well as in it’s content. What could such an academic practice look like? How can we share our personal experience, contextualize it in art theory and art history and at the same time further a subjective approach to this very art work? And: How can the complexity of the interplay between the numerous factors in a situation become sinnfällig?

As artists and researchers we propose a combination/synthesis of the live art practice of performance and the academic practice of lecture. The practice of lecture performance involves elements of both formats, argument as well as sentiment, abstract logic as well as concrete mimesis. What we find more important than a simple addition of techniques (which is furthermore highly questionable in its scientific and artistic justification) is the fundamental question of the role of the lecturer/performer. If we regard the personal experience of each beholder as the main agent of the aesthetic experience (and we assume that any academic audience is made up of potential beholders), what then is the position and value of the academic scholar and his experience?

Over the course of the last three years we have developed a set of techniques for creating presentations – not necessarily in the strict format of live lecture performance – that further a pluralist and anti-authoritarian discourse about art as situation. Let’s call it a method. The role of the lecturer/performer stands at the center of it. While this method is born out of our live art practice, it is our aim to adapt it for the needs of the academic institution and hence to offer a new, possibly alternative pedagogic tool. This is the theme of this section/manual.

Chapter 1 – The multi-identity of the lecturer

At the heart of this method stands the creation of a character, a poetic creation, to be enacted by the lecturer/performer. Obviously, describing the activity of the lecturer as enactment of an aesthetic figure changes the view on the whole activity of giving a lecture. If done so openly, the lecture becomes a show, a work of art in it’s own right thereby loosing much of his discursive authority. While it has become common to adopt the vocabulary of acting technique (such as: performing a stage-role) in rhetorics our proposition differs in so far as acting techniques are not used here as means to a rhetoric goal, but instead to clarify the dependencies and connections between rhetorical object, agent of this object, lecturer and the listeners.

In such a lecture performance the lecturer holds indeed six different positions: As author of the lecture performance, as agent of an aesthetic situation (the one who is in/is creating the situation), as reporter of his experience made in this situation, as researcher in the aspects and influences underlying this situation as well as his experience of it and last but not least as object (role) of a performance/work of art.

Chapter 2 – remembrance and reenaction

The lecture performances start from the memory of an experience made in an aesthetic situation. This does not have to be explicitly verbalized, but as a common understanding it positions what is to be said as a personal, that is a subjective statement. By doing so, we state the dominance of the subjective experience thereby attempting to bridge the hierarchical gap between professional and non-professional statements.

This personal experience has to be reported. Instead of reporting it in a descriptive verbal manner, we propose to reenact the situation or elements of that situation to make it immediate thus allowing for similar experiences to be made by the audience. This is where the lecturer takes up the role of agent of the situation, as the one creating it at a certain time and space. The audience is allowed to both view this as a reenactment of a otherwise distant and past situation as well as to get caught within the actual situation in the here and now.

Central to this process of reenacting is the repeated switch between distance and engagement, observation and performance, reflection and experience, both on the side of the lecturer as well as the audience. This switch creates an opening between factual account and interpretation trough the lecturer, since the statements are repeatedly opposed and corrected by immediate experiences. This opening is the space for a self-conscious emotional as well as intellectual involvement.

Chapter 3 – staging situations, the use of space

Creating a stage for the lecture performance allows for the lecturer to use the spatial conditions to clarify the aesthetic situations. As we have found in our research, spatial categories and metaphors are highly useful to explain aesthetic situations (the fictional space, the frame, the position of the beholder, the galery/mueum/theater space etc.). If situations are staged in that sense the relationships can be made much clearer than expressed verbally. This relates to the spatial arrangement on the stage as well as between stage and auditorium. Where and how the audience is seated (or standing) has a significant impact on their involvement in a situation as well as on their understanding of what is said and/or performed. Our own lecture performance have in some cases taken the form of installations or guided tours instead of lectures with a central perspective.

Chapter 4 – steps towards a dramaturgy of remembrance

John Dewey defines an experience as “esthetic” if it consists of dynamic parts and constructs a whole, comes to a close. How would then the account of such an experience be structured?

A lecture like any complex presentation is structured in such a way as to enhance the understanding of the object and to guide the audience’s attention through the time span of the presentation. The author of the lecture performance can choose between several dramaturgies to build the presentation upon. Memory has a different dramaturgy than the aesthetic situation in question might and understanding theoretical problems has again a different time structure. The lecture performance as a spectacle might require a different dramaturgy still. If one chooses to take the process of remembrance as grid this will lend itself towards making the audience follow in this process of remembrance, constructing a situation step by step and analyzing each step in regard to a whole. Whether to choose a dramaturgy that derives from and answers to the audiences awareness (or lack of knowledge) thus making the presentation more theatrical or whether to choose a dramaturgy that is guided by logic (knowledge production) or the lecturer’s personal process of remembrance, has significant impact on what exactly the object of the lecture performance is and how it will be experienced and understood.

Case example:

Moorsoldaten – in making a lecture performance about a recording of Die Moorsoldaten by Hannes Wader

- Where and how have I heard the recording (age, situation, medium, location)

- What is the spatial and temporal conditions of the hearing (intimacy, atmosphere, ownership relations, sequence)

- What is the spatial and temporal conditions and the within the art work (who is dong what, what is evoked, what do i imagine, what do i know)

- What is the background of this art work (history of the art work, social and political circumstances), how is it embedded in social life

- What role do these circumstances play for the experience, how is it influenced

- How do I relate these to the audience

- What position does the audience take up, what is their knowledge at what point in time

- What scenic elements can be used

- What is the resolution, result

- …

Scenic Example:

Lecturer enters the auditorium and starts to speak about the recording and his personal experience. The recording is not heard. He enters into more and more details about his experience and the background information. At the same time singers of a small choir enter the auditorium one by one and position themselves at a designated choir stand on the side of the stage, facing the lecturer. As he advances in understanding the experience, the group of silent singers grows and watches him, he is increasingly faced with a second audience. When the choir is complete the lecturer either sings the song to this choir, or the choir sings fractions of it back to him, or they sing simultaneously at/against each other.

Notes on Walter Benjamin – Das Kunstwerk…

I have reread the benjamin essay and noted some basic quotes Andy arguments which i find useful for us. Generally speaking benjamin or rather this essay by him is a founding text for aesthetic of reception. This is actually not surprising because Benjamins materialist approach to art must absolutely result in a historical view on perception. He stated so himself, calling the essay the „erste Kunsttheorie des Materialismus, die diesen Namen verdient.“

the materialist proposition is: „During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence.“ (III)

We could paraphrase: historical conditions define the situations art works and beholders find themselves in and the mode of human sense perception. Both – situation and sense perception – influence each other reciprocally.

In this text Benjamin researches conditions of perception and not art works: reproduction, presentation, context, social conditions, spaces, media.

His main focus is not so much the technical reproduction as the masses. The question of the masses is the most important one for the german marxist thinkers of the period like Canetti (Masse und Macht) or Krakauer. If you loook at german fascism, it becomes very evident why and how this was the main issue of concern. Benjamin positions his text as an effort in fighting back the nazi aesthetics and politics.

“The greatly increased mass of participants has produced a change in the mode of participation.” (XV)

If the masses are the main historical agent, aesthetics have to be thought in reference to the masses as well. How do the masses change reception? What kind of art will survive in a society of mass media and mass culture? These are the main questions for Benjamin.

In thinking about situations of encounter, the materiality is central. Benjamin speaks of the history of the art work as the changes and conditions of its material existence: ownership, decay, usage etc.

„its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership.“ (II)

This of course determines the history of situations of this art work.

Historically the art work has emancipated from the cult and reproduction is crucial in this development. The cult object is unreproducable. The more reproduction, the more exhibition opportunities:

“An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these relationships, for they lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual.” (IV)

„With the emancipation of the various art practices from ritual go increasing opportunities for the exhibition of their products.“ (V)

This is particularly evident in photography:

“The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the cult value of the picture. For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face. This is what constitutes their melancholy, incomparable beauty. But as man withdraws from the photographic image, the exhibition value for the first time shows its superiority to the ritual value.” (VI)

Under the conditions of the masses the question of exhibitability and therefore the potential of the art genres changes drastically:

“Painting simply is in no position to present an object for simultaneous collective experience, as it was possible for architecture at all times, for the epic poem in the past, and for the movie today. Although this circumstance in itself should not lead one to conclusions about the social role of painting, it does constitute a serious threat as soon as painting, under special conditions and, as it were, against its nature, is confronted directly by the masses. In the churches and monasteries of the Middle Ages and at the princely courts up to the end of the eighteenth century, a collective reception of paintings did not occur simultaneously, but by graduated and hierarchized mediation. The change that has come about is an expression of the particular conflict in which painting was implicated by the mechanical reproducibility of paintings. Although paintings began to be publicly exhibited in galleries and salons, there was no way for the masses to organize and control themselves in their reception. Thus the same public which responds in a progressive manner toward a grotesque film is bound to respond in a reactionary manner to surrealism.” (XII)

Benjamin defines two modes of perception very schematically: contemplation and distraction. And he explains them socially and historically:

“In the decline of middle-class society, contemplation became a school for asocial behavior; it was countered by distraction as a variant of social conduct.” (XIV)

The prime example of an art practice that would break with the bourgeois contemplation is Dadaism, which Benjamin says, premeditated the film aesthetic:

“From an alluring appearance or persuasive structure of sound the work of art of the Dadaists became an instrument of ballistics. It hit the spectator like a bullet, it happened to him, thus acquiring a tactile quality. It promoted a demand for the film, the distracting element of which is also primarily tactile, being based on changes of place and focus which periodically assail the spectator. Let us compare the screen on which a film unfolds with the canvas of a painting. The painting invites the spectator to contemplation; before it the spectator can abandon himself to his associations. Before the movie frame he cannot do so.” (XIV)

I find Benjamin’s spatial terminology useful. To my mind our research always leads towards spatial categories and terminologies. In this case it is the notion of “hitting the spectator”, “standing before” and “assailing”. These metaphors are used repeatedly in the text. For example:

“The magician heals a sick person by the laying on of hands; the surgeon cuts into the patient’s body. The magician maintains the natural distance between the patient and himself; though he reduces it very slightly by the laying on of hands, he greatly increases it by virtue of his authority. The surgeon does exactly the reverse; he greatly diminishes the distance between himself and the patient by penetrating into the patient’s body, and increases it but little by the caution with which his hand moves among the organs. In short, in contrast to the magician – who is still hidden in the medical practitioner – the surgeon at the decisive moment abstains from facing the patient man to man; rather, it is through the operation that he penetrates into him.

Magician and surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain.“ (XI)

The most striking passage for me is this one:

“Distraction and concentration form polar opposites which may be stated as follows: A man who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it. He enters into this work of art the way legend tells of the Chinese painter when he viewed his finished painting. In contrast, the distracted mass absorbs the work of art.” (XV)

Two things are interesting here:

The Chinese painter was called Wu Daozi and he is one of the three art heroes in far eastern art history. There is a whole taoist philosophy behind the idea of walking into the picture. The story concludes with the painting – actually a mural! – disappearing once Wu walked into it. So there remains nothing to be seen, which is an image for the Dao, a taoist term for the wholeness of nature and man, if i understood it right. The legend was also retold by Bela Balasz in his book on film, interestingly he used it to explain the film aesthetic while Bejamin uses it to illustrate the opposite, the old mode of perception.

Secondly the idea of the masses absorbing the art work. What does this mean precisely? I think it is a bit of a poetic picture, rather than an acute analysis, but fascinating all the same. What is the place of the art work here, how does Benjamin imagine mass perception? He refers to architecture and tactile perception. But can we imagine a perception of art works, that functions like that of architecture, that is completely passing and tactile?