Outline 12/25/10
1. Introduction: Reconsidering Léger's machine period:
* Survival of Cubism / Cubist space after 1919
* Motif of the machine / topos of the factory
* Marx and Hegel in the age of automated machines
To what extent, and in what ways, did Léger's Cubism pertain to the machines he claims inspired him? How do we reckon with the conspicuous absence of actual machines and machine parts in the paintings of his so-called "machine period"? What "knowledge of the machine" do his pictures ultimately provide? To answer these questions will necessitate, as I hope to demonstrate, a revolution in our understanding of machines and paintings.
1. Léger and Cubist space. Transition from Contrastes de formes to post-1918 Cubist paintings. Several claims to make here: 1) Léger was never more Cubist than after WWI--in other words, after the moment of Cubism's apparent death. But his relationship to painting, though authentically Cubist, was diametrically opposed to that of Picasso and Braque; the world of his Cubism could not be further from theirs. 2) More so than any of the other Cubists, Léger begs comparison to traditions of pre-classical depiction, Egyptian art (wall painting/relief carving) in particular. Readings of Schafer and Groenewegen-Frankfort. 2) Importance of circular forms; multiple valences of the circle in Léger's paintings: as design motif, object-part (or part-object), as token of a post-Cubist "planetary" space. These possibilities are held in the balance, so to speak; all are suggested as directions for a post-Cubist spatiality, though it's not until the late 1920s that Léger arrives at a conclusive spatiality--though not necessarily a post-Cubist spatiality--appropriated from Kandinsky and El Lissitzky (to be discussed more fully in Chapter 3). 3) The machine object as a "center of energy" (Einstein), an absolute, an obsession. Though Léger insists on the importance of machines throughout the Cubist years (1918-1924), neither machines nor machine parts are visible in his paintings, not even in the "machine period" of 1918-20. To what, if not the machine--or some machinic imagination of the modern city--can we attribute his turn to Cubism?
2. Leger's "machine period" (1918-20) reconsidered. Argument turns on the unpaintability (resistance to depiction) of modern machinery, and in particular the factory. Machinery: "a mechanical monster whose body fills whole factories, and whose demonic power, at first hidden by the slow and measured motions of its gigantic members, finally bursts forth in the fast and feverish whirl of its countless working organs" (Marx). History of painting of machines from Bonhommé to the 1920s. Chapter to be written in two sections: 1) The topos of the factory. Status of factories in his earliest "machine" paintings. Importance of factories as sites of radical uprisings: the Italian biennio rosso, Russian Revolution, Spartacist revolt. Urban sociology of Paris proletariat in aftermath of First World War. 2) Early theories of automatism; boosterists of automated factories; their critics. Influence of Cendrars, Pound. Machines as "absolute objects." Marx and the penseurs de la technique (Reuleux, Maurer, Lafitte, Mumford, Leroi-Gourhan, Canguilhem, Simondon). Several theoretical claims to pursue here: Hegelian status of the unpaintability of power-driven machines. Leroi-Gourhan's theory of the autonomous genesis of technical objects applied to painting: autonomous genesis of the "painting machine," and its technical inoperability in a world become the milieu of a global autonomous machine. Revision of the Hegelian argument about art and absolutification: does painting have access to a mode adequate to the material absolute? No, but cinema and architecture both do--again, Egyptianism.
3. Einstein's Léger, 1929-30: Equivalence and the apotheosis of objects.
4. Conclusion: Schmitt's machines. The earth, enemy of the proletariat? Machines, metal, etc.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Hegel, Jena lectures 1805-6:
ii. [Law and Property] This law [relating to] the individual’s immediate existence is, as law, the will of the parents, or sustains their will as such. In the disappearance of the contingent being (death of the parents), the law becomes positive, taking over the existence which they previously were: the state [takes charge]. Law is the actual validation of property, the element of actual existence through the will of all. The law protects the family, leaves it in its being – but like the family, the law is the substance and the necessity of the individual. It is the unconscious guardianship over the individual whose family has “died out” – i.e., insofar as he appears as individual. It is the substance and necessity – the rigid aspect in which the law presented itself.
Law is the universal right, property in general, protecting each one in his immediate possession, inheritance and exchange. But this is merely formal right, which remains quite free in regard to content (the element of chance in inheritance). The individual presents himself as earning by means of labor. Here, his law is only that whatever he works upon or exchanges belongs to him. But the universal is at the same time his necessity, a necessity which sacrifices him in his legal freedom (die ihn bey seiner Rechtsfreiheit aufopfert).
(a) The universal [i.e., the social substance] is pure necessity for the individual worker. He has his unconscious existence in the universal. Society is his “nature,” upon whose elementary, blind movement he depends, and which sustains him or negates him spiritually as well as physically. The individual exists through immediate property or inheritance, completely by chance. He works at an abstract labor; he wins much from nature. But this merely transforms itself into another form of contingency. He can produce more, but this reduces the value of his labor; and in this he does not emerge from universal [i.e., abstract] relations.
(b) Needs are thereby diversified; each individual need is subdivided into several; taste becomes refined, leading to further distinctions. [In the production of goods a degree of] preparation is demanded which makes the consumable thing ever easier to use. And so that all of the individual’s incongruous aspects are provided for (e.g., cork, corkscrew, candlesnuffer), he is cultivated as naturally enjoying [them] (er wird gebildet als naturlich geniessendes).
(c) By the same token, however, he becomes – through the abstractness of labor – more mechanical, duller, spiritless. The spiritual element, this fulfilled self-conscious life, becomes an empty doing (leeres Thun). The power of the Self consists in a rich [all-embracing] comprehension; this power is lost. He can leave some work to the machine, but his own activity thereby becomes more formalized. His dull work constricts him to a single point, and his work becomes more consummate the more one-sided it becomes.
Yet this multiplicity creates fashion, mutability, freedom in the use of forms. These things – the cut of clothing, style of furniture – are not permanent. Their change is essential and rational, far more rational than staying with one fashion and wanting to assert something as fixed in such individual forms. The beautiful is subject to no fashion; but here there is no free beauty, only a charming beauty (eine reitzende Schonheit) which is the adornment of another person and relates itself to [yet] another, a beauty aimed at arousing drive, desire, and which thus has a contingency to it.
Similarly incessant is the search for ways of simplifying labor, inventing other machines, etc. In the individual’s skill is the possibility of sustaining his existence. This is subject to all the tangled and complex contingency in the [social] whole. Thus a vast number of people are condemned to a labor that is totally stupefying, unhealthy and unsafe – in workshops, factories, mines, etc. – shrinking their skills. And entire branches of industry, which supported a large class of people, go dry all at once because of [changes in] fashion or a fall in prices due to inventions in other countries, etc – and this huge population is thrown into helpless poverty.
The contrast [between] great wealth and great poverty appears: the poverty for which it becomes impossible to do anything; [the] wealth [which], like any mass, makes itself into a force. The amassing of wealth [occurs] partly by chance, partly through universality, through distribution. [It is] a point of attraction, of a sort which casts its glance far over the universal, drawing [everything] around it to itself – just as a greater mass attracts the smaller ones to itself. To him who hath, to him is given. Acquisition becomes a many-sided system, profiting by means or ways that a smaller business cannot employ. In other words, the highest abstraction of labor pervades that many more individual modes and thereby takes on an ever-widening scope. This inequality between wealth and poverty, this need and necessity, lead to the utmost dismemberment of the will, to inner indignation and hatred. This necessity, which is the complete contingency of individual existence, is at the same time its sustaining substance. State power enters and must see to it that each sphere is supported. It goes into [various] means and remedies, seeking new markets abroad, etc., [but] thereby making things all the more difficult for one sphere, to the extent that state power encroaches to the disadvantage of others.
Freedom of commerce: interference must be as inconspicuous as possible, since commerce is the field of arbitrariness. The appearance of force must be avoided; and one must not attempt to salvage what cannot be saved, but rather employ the suffering classes in other ways. [The state power] is the universal overseer; the individual is merely entrenched in individuality. Commerce is certainly left to its own devices – but with the sacrifice of this generation and the proliferation of poverty, poor-taxes and institutions.
Yet the [social] substance is not only this regulatory law, as the power that sustains individuals. Rather, it is itself productive [of a] general benefit, the benefit of the whole (Gut des Ganzen).
Taxes [are of two types:] direct taxes on fixed property, and indirect taxes. Only the former type is in accordance with the physiocratic system. Raw materials alone are the abstract base, but [this is] itself a distinct particular that appears too limited; it is abandoned. This branch is missing in the totality, and then incomes are lessened. The tax system must establish itself everywhere, make its appearance inconspicuously, taking a little from everyone, but everywhere. If it is disproportionate on one branch, it is abandoned. Less wine is consumed if heavy taxes are imposed on it. For everything there is a substitute that can be found, or one does without. But even so, this necessity turns against itself. The costs of detection become more considerable, the discontent ever greater, since the enjoyment of everything is spoiled and is entangled with complicated details. State wealth must be based as little as possible on the landed estates (Domänen), but rather on taxes. The former are private property and contingent, exposed to waste, since no one seems to lose thereby but either gains or hopes to gain. Taxes are felt by all, and everyone wants to see them used well.
ii. [Law and Property] This law [relating to] the individual’s immediate existence is, as law, the will of the parents, or sustains their will as such. In the disappearance of the contingent being (death of the parents), the law becomes positive, taking over the existence which they previously were: the state [takes charge]. Law is the actual validation of property, the element of actual existence through the will of all. The law protects the family, leaves it in its being – but like the family, the law is the substance and the necessity of the individual. It is the unconscious guardianship over the individual whose family has “died out” – i.e., insofar as he appears as individual. It is the substance and necessity – the rigid aspect in which the law presented itself.
Law is the universal right, property in general, protecting each one in his immediate possession, inheritance and exchange. But this is merely formal right, which remains quite free in regard to content (the element of chance in inheritance). The individual presents himself as earning by means of labor. Here, his law is only that whatever he works upon or exchanges belongs to him. But the universal is at the same time his necessity, a necessity which sacrifices him in his legal freedom (die ihn bey seiner Rechtsfreiheit aufopfert).
(a) The universal [i.e., the social substance] is pure necessity for the individual worker. He has his unconscious existence in the universal. Society is his “nature,” upon whose elementary, blind movement he depends, and which sustains him or negates him spiritually as well as physically. The individual exists through immediate property or inheritance, completely by chance. He works at an abstract labor; he wins much from nature. But this merely transforms itself into another form of contingency. He can produce more, but this reduces the value of his labor; and in this he does not emerge from universal [i.e., abstract] relations.
(b) Needs are thereby diversified; each individual need is subdivided into several; taste becomes refined, leading to further distinctions. [In the production of goods a degree of] preparation is demanded which makes the consumable thing ever easier to use. And so that all of the individual’s incongruous aspects are provided for (e.g., cork, corkscrew, candlesnuffer), he is cultivated as naturally enjoying [them] (er wird gebildet als naturlich geniessendes).
(c) By the same token, however, he becomes – through the abstractness of labor – more mechanical, duller, spiritless. The spiritual element, this fulfilled self-conscious life, becomes an empty doing (leeres Thun). The power of the Self consists in a rich [all-embracing] comprehension; this power is lost. He can leave some work to the machine, but his own activity thereby becomes more formalized. His dull work constricts him to a single point, and his work becomes more consummate the more one-sided it becomes.
Yet this multiplicity creates fashion, mutability, freedom in the use of forms. These things – the cut of clothing, style of furniture – are not permanent. Their change is essential and rational, far more rational than staying with one fashion and wanting to assert something as fixed in such individual forms. The beautiful is subject to no fashion; but here there is no free beauty, only a charming beauty (eine reitzende Schonheit) which is the adornment of another person and relates itself to [yet] another, a beauty aimed at arousing drive, desire, and which thus has a contingency to it.
Similarly incessant is the search for ways of simplifying labor, inventing other machines, etc. In the individual’s skill is the possibility of sustaining his existence. This is subject to all the tangled and complex contingency in the [social] whole. Thus a vast number of people are condemned to a labor that is totally stupefying, unhealthy and unsafe – in workshops, factories, mines, etc. – shrinking their skills. And entire branches of industry, which supported a large class of people, go dry all at once because of [changes in] fashion or a fall in prices due to inventions in other countries, etc – and this huge population is thrown into helpless poverty.
The contrast [between] great wealth and great poverty appears: the poverty for which it becomes impossible to do anything; [the] wealth [which], like any mass, makes itself into a force. The amassing of wealth [occurs] partly by chance, partly through universality, through distribution. [It is] a point of attraction, of a sort which casts its glance far over the universal, drawing [everything] around it to itself – just as a greater mass attracts the smaller ones to itself. To him who hath, to him is given. Acquisition becomes a many-sided system, profiting by means or ways that a smaller business cannot employ. In other words, the highest abstraction of labor pervades that many more individual modes and thereby takes on an ever-widening scope. This inequality between wealth and poverty, this need and necessity, lead to the utmost dismemberment of the will, to inner indignation and hatred. This necessity, which is the complete contingency of individual existence, is at the same time its sustaining substance. State power enters and must see to it that each sphere is supported. It goes into [various] means and remedies, seeking new markets abroad, etc., [but] thereby making things all the more difficult for one sphere, to the extent that state power encroaches to the disadvantage of others.
Freedom of commerce: interference must be as inconspicuous as possible, since commerce is the field of arbitrariness. The appearance of force must be avoided; and one must not attempt to salvage what cannot be saved, but rather employ the suffering classes in other ways. [The state power] is the universal overseer; the individual is merely entrenched in individuality. Commerce is certainly left to its own devices – but with the sacrifice of this generation and the proliferation of poverty, poor-taxes and institutions.
Yet the [social] substance is not only this regulatory law, as the power that sustains individuals. Rather, it is itself productive [of a] general benefit, the benefit of the whole (Gut des Ganzen).
Taxes [are of two types:] direct taxes on fixed property, and indirect taxes. Only the former type is in accordance with the physiocratic system. Raw materials alone are the abstract base, but [this is] itself a distinct particular that appears too limited; it is abandoned. This branch is missing in the totality, and then incomes are lessened. The tax system must establish itself everywhere, make its appearance inconspicuously, taking a little from everyone, but everywhere. If it is disproportionate on one branch, it is abandoned. Less wine is consumed if heavy taxes are imposed on it. For everything there is a substitute that can be found, or one does without. But even so, this necessity turns against itself. The costs of detection become more considerable, the discontent ever greater, since the enjoyment of everything is spoiled and is entangled with complicated details. State wealth must be based as little as possible on the landed estates (Domänen), but rather on taxes. The former are private property and contingent, exposed to waste, since no one seems to lose thereby but either gains or hopes to gain. Taxes are felt by all, and everyone wants to see them used well.
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