Strategies of Tension:A. Boissier’s Les amants électrisés par l’amour(1797)

The article analyses A. Boissier’s image Les Amants électrisés par l’amour in view of the larger question of how something is able to arouse interest on first sight, but also in repeat encounters. Highlighting the engraving’s didactic iconography, the article shows how it revolves around the solution to a riddle and uses a typical design of the Enlightenment to show the uncovering of a deception. As such, the engraving is part of a long tradition of showing (supposedly) supernatural events, more specifically the tradition of Magia naturalis. At the same time, the image contains dissonances and can be seen to simulate suspense through dichotomies that can be identified as antagonistic historical concepts. The article furthermore discusses the amalgamation of love and electricity in contemporary discourses and addresses the temporal dimension of the engraving, which constructs itself out of an absence, out of something yet unseen

Sigmund Freuds ›Momente‹ und ›Technik der Magie‹

Eine Vielzahl von ›Momenten‹ führt Sigmund Freud in seiner Abhandlung »Das Unheimliche« (1919) an, um darzustellen, was das Unheimliche tatsächlich sei: Zunächst wird der Begriff anhand von E.T.A. Hoffmanns Erzählung Der Sandmann (1816) entfaltet, wobei das Unheimliche auf die Angst des kindlichen Kastrationskomplexes zurückgeführt wird. Dieses »infantile Moment« wird dafür verantwortlich gemacht, dass der Sandmann den Lesern unheimlich erscheint

Geister versammeln:Vorwort

Bereits zu Beginn seiner Abhandlung »Das Unheimliche« (1919) weist Sigmund Freud darauf hin, dass »dies Wort nicht immer in einem scharf zu bestimmenden Sinne gebraucht wird«. Entsprechend charakterisiert sich für Freud das Unheimliche durch eine Vielzahl an schwer zu fassenden Eigenschaften: Es bezeichnet eine seltsame Nähe zwischen Wissen und Nichtwissen, erscheint als etwas Vertrautes in fremder Gestalt oder als etwas Fremdes mit vertrauten Eigenschaften. Diese Unfassbarkeit und Definitionsresistenz führt Freud implizit darauf zurück, dass das Unheimliche als »abseits liegendes« Thema vom ästhetischen Fachdiskurs weitgehend vernachlässigt wurde.Martin Doll und Rupert Gaderer, »Geister versammeln: Vorwort«, in Phantasmata: Techniken des Unheimlichen, hg. v. Martin Doll, Rupert Gaderer, Fabio Camilletti und Jan Niklas Howe, Cultural Inquiry, 3 (Wien: Turia + Kant, 2011), S. 9–17 <https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-03_01

Titelei

Titelseite / Reihenbeschreibung / Impressum / Inhal

Anhang

Auswahlbibliographie / Autorinnen und Autoren / Personenregister / Bände in der Reihe Cultural Inquir

Contribution

Rupert Gaderer, Contribution to the discussion Querulanz: Über Recht, Paranoia und Bürokratie, ICI Berlin, 23 November 2012, video recording, mp4, 14:05 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e121123_2

Strategies of tension : A. Boissier's "Les amants électrisés par l'amour" (1797)

The article analyses A. Boissier's image "Les Amants électrisés par l'amour" in view of the larger question of how something is able to arouse interest on first sight, but also in repeat encounters. Highlighting the engraving's didactic iconography, the article shows how it revolves around the solution to a riddle and uses a typical design of the Enlightenment to show the uncovering of a deception. As such, the engraving is part of a long tradition of showing (supposedly) supernatural events, more specifically the tradition of Magia naturalis. At the same time, the image contains dissonances and can be seen to simulate suspense through dichotomies that can be identified as antagonistic historical concepts. The article furthermore discusses the amalgamation of love and electricity in contemporary discourses and addresses the temporal dimension of the engraving, which constructs itself out of an absence, out of something yet unseen

Love in the Age of Electricity. The homines electrificati of E. T. A. Hoffmann

At the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, the gap between science and technology on the one hand and humanities and the arts on the other was just about to open up. However, the connections between the two were still highly visible, particularly to E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822). Like other writers, he watched the developments of technical progress closely, especially innovations in electricity and galvanism, and translated these new approaches into poetry. In this way, his literary conception of love focuses on the cultural practices of natural sciences, aesthetics and poetry. The article first explores knowledge about electricity from a historical and technical point of view, especially of electric bodies in the 18th and early 19th century. The second part researches the interrelation between electricity and mesmerism around 1800. The third and main part analyses the relation between the literary staging of love and electricity with reference to several stories and novels by Hoffmann. In his literary work women and men in love can be understood as electrical devices. Specifically, the bodies of women in love are charged with electricity, which they then discharge when they come in contact with another body. With this transformation of technical knowledge into poetry, a new code of love arises. The literary description of electric love conceives love as being impulsive, women as being active and men as passive and is therefore diametrically opposed to the concept of controlled emotions. Accordingly, the paper presents new literary concepts of love inspired by electrical experiments at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century.At the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, the gap between science and technology on the one hand and humanities and the arts on the other was just about to open up. However, the connections between the two were still highly visible, particularly to E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822). Like other writers, he watched the developments of technical progress closely, especially innovations in electricity and galvanism, and translated these new approaches into poetry. In this way, his literary conception of love focuses on the cultural practices of natural sciences, aesthetics and poetry. The article first explores knowledge about electricity from a historical and technical point of view, especially of electric bodies in the 18th and early 19th century. The second part researches the interrelation between electricity and mesmerism around 1800. The third and main part analyses the relation between the literary staging of love and electricity with reference to several stories and novels by Hoffmann. In his literary work women and men in love can be understood as electrical devices. Specifically, the bodies of women in love are charged with electricity, which they then discharge when they come in contact with another body. With this transformation of technical knowledge into poetry, a new code of love arises. The literary description of electric love conceives love as being impulsive, women as being active and men as passive and is therefore diametrically opposed to the concept of controlled emotions. Accordingly, the paper presents new literary concepts of love inspired by electrical experiments at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century

Contribution

Panel II: Literary LifeRupert Gaderer, Contribution to the panel ‘Literary Life’, part of the conference Reconfiguring Cultural Inquiry, ICI Berlin, 29–1 July 2017, video recording, mp4, 29:42 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e170729_09

Sigmund Freuds 'Momente' und 'Technik der Magie'

Von Okkultisten und Spiritisten an- und aufgeführte 'Geister-Zitationen' waren auch Sigmund Freud nicht entgangen. Sein Begriff einer 'Technik der Magie' nimmt in mehrfacher Hinsicht, so Rupert Gaderer in seinen Überlegungen, eine zentrale Rolle für das 'dynamische' Modell des Unheimlichen ein. Einerseits ist die 'Technik der Magie' ein Referenzpunkt zum 'primitiven' Zeitalter des Animismus, andererseits kann sie als spezifische Operation verstanden werden, die ein ambivalentes Wissen über das Unheimliche entstehen lässt. Dem folgend weist Gaderer darauf hin, dass Freuds Analyse der 'Technik der Magie' die Psychoanalyse selbst hat unheimlich werden lassen