Phenomenology, New Materialism, and Advances In the Pulsatile Imaginary : Rites of Disimagination

Phenomenology, New Materialism, and Advances In the Pulsatile Imaginary: Rites Of Disimagination brings together scholars from art history and image theory, literary studies and philosophy. Chapters of this volume engage with the overarching theme of imagination as a pulsatile force embedded in words, images, and all imaginative modes of instantiation of the work of art in their elemental aspects, expressed in visual arts, and literature, as well as bodily schemata of choreographic and musical performances. The papers employ contrasting and complementing methods from literary studies and image theory, especially phenomenology and new materialism, such as G. Bachelard and M. Merleau-Ponty, G. Bataille, J. Kristeva, P. Lacoue-Labarthe and J. Sallis, G. Didi-Huberman, H. Belting and A. Warburg, J. Bennett and Jason M. Wirth, as well as performance studies. Chapters in this volume inquire into the imaginative forces that disrupt and disinhibit the traditional habits ofimagination to create pulsatile imaginaries, i.e., a dynamic process of “emergence-resurgence” of image manifested in the act of creation and in perception. This process does not properly imply a destruction of image, but rather a withdrawal of image from the realm of representation to give way to new images and new imaginative experiences. The newly coined term “rite of disimagination” points out to this operation, consecutively implying imagining and disimaging that both denies, as well as validates image – it valorizes matter. The affirmation of the materiality of image is “the re-incarnation of image.” Contents Notes on Contributors Contents Part I: Theoretical Advances in the Pulsatile Imaginary and Disimagination Chapter 1: Introduction References Chapter 2: Elemental States of Image: Elan, Pulsion, Rapt, Rupture, Caesura, and Syncopation Pulsion – Σφυγμός Χώρα Rhythm, Rupture, Sacrifice Caesura, ‘Change of Rhythm’: Unheimliche Urvater’s Yowl Informe: Interruption, Souffle, Abyss Pathei Mathos: Rite of Disimagination in Le Sacre Kiefer’s ‘Practice of the Wild’: Life Force. Entstellung—Disfiguring Brancusi’s Aphairesis—Le Don, L’envol, L’êlan References Part II: Emergences – Resurgences. Pulsatile Flow Chapter 3: Emergences – Resurgences: Notes on the Unformed in Conversation with Henri Michaux References Chapter 4: Pulsatile Choreography: Rhythm, (Dis)Enchantment, and Disimagination in Premodern Dance Rhythms of the Carole The Enchanted Carole An Alternative Pulsatile Imaginary: Peasant Dance Early Modern Dance: An Aesthetic of Disenchantment References Chapter 5: Passing and Flowing: Rhythmical Entanglements of Writing, Painting and Knitting in Virginia Woolf and Berthe Morisot Chapter 6: Confusion at Sea: The Return to Water The Sea Frothing Forth Tremendous Waves Aids to Worship References Part III: Tearing Mimesis – Ways of Disimagination and Re-incarnation of Image Chapter 7: Incarnation and “Déchirure”; Annunciation and Crucifixion Incarnation as a Breach in Mimesis From Annunciation to Crucifixion Suspense of Figure, Excess of Materiality Color Pools of Virtuality Materializing the Sun Light and Plucking Poultry: Anna Ancher Angelic Cows and Slaughtered Oxes: Theodor Philipsen Porosity and Material Ecstasy: Wilhelm Hammershøi References Chapter 8: Paint Matter and Trace: Reflections on Horia Bernea’s Art References Chapter 9: Rite of Spring—Rite of Disimagination: An Inquiry into the Pulsatile Imaginary of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre Le Sacre’s Philosophical Frame Psychological Ground: Le Sacre’s Pathosformeln—An Iconography of Passion The Imaginary of the Sacrificial Dance of the Chosen One Final Demise: Nijinsky’s ‘Ordeal of Dancing’—Rite of Disimagination Pathei Mathos and the Pathos of the Creative Process Life and Death: Pulse, Rhythm, Accent, Tolchok References Chapter 10: Kneading Dreams: Material Imagination and Agency in Performative Clay Works Imaginaries of Matter The Agency of the World Paste (la pâte) Touching Clay Appearances and Dissolutions Through Time The Rhythm of Kneading Hands Conclusion References Part IV: Vibrant Mimesis, New Materialism, and Otherness Chapter 11: Vibrant Mimesis: New Materialism to Mimetic Studies Mimetic Influx & Efflux: Encounters Erotic Logos & Nonhuman Pathos Doodling Poetics: “Lo a Shape!” Mirroring Influences in the Anthropocene References Chapter 12: Motor of Darkness: On the Cartographic Visual Drive of Anthropocene Culture The Destruction of (The Image of) the Globe Artificial Darkness The Impulse to Map Classical Representation’s Topological Relations Chiaroscuro’s Illusory World Mapping inner Space’s Concave Sphere The Motorization of Modern Cartography References Chapter 13: A Venture into the Realm of the Nonhuman—or How Artistic Performative Methods Can Propose a Practice of Exchanging Knowledge with Matter Introduction A Meeting Between Stone and Human Dismantling Anthropomorphism A Discursive Metabolism Between Phenomena The Potential of Artistic Fabulation Conclusion References Internet References Index Phenomenology, New Materialism, and Advances In the Pulsatile Imaginary: Rites Of Disimagination brings together scholars from art history and image theory, literary studies and philosophy. Chapters of this volume engage with the overarching theme of imagination as a pulsatile force embedded in words, images, and all imaginative modes of instantiation of the work of art in their elemental aspects, expressed in visual arts, and literature, as well as bodily schemata of choreographic and musical performances. The papers employ contrasting and complementing methods from literary studies and image theory, especially phenomenology and new materialism, such as G. Bachelard and M. Merleau-Ponty, G. Bataille, J. Kristeva, P. Lacoue-Labarthe and J. Sallis, G. Didi-Huberman, H. Belting and A. Warburg, J. Bennett and Jason M. Wirth, as well as performance studies. Chapters in this volume inquire into the imaginative forces that disrupt and disinhibit the traditional habits of imagination to create pulsatile imaginaries, i.e., a dynamic process of “emergence-resurgence” of image manifested in the act of creation and in perception. This process does not properly imply a destruction of image, but rather a withdrawal of image from the realm of representation to give way to new images and new imaginative experiences. The newly coined term “rite of disimagination” points out to this operation, consecutively implying imagining and disimaging that both denies, as well as validates image – it valorizes matter. The affirmation of the materiality of image is “the re-incarnation of image.” is docteur ès lettres (Sorbonne, Paris IV), art historian and theorist of image equipped in Classical studies engaged with the imaginary within Bildwissenschaft, Bild Anthropologie, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis, while teaching and researching at Copenhagen University. This enabled her in seizing the paradigm shifts of image throughout time in comparative and interdisciplinary studies on patterns of imagination, as they emerge in the visual, the acoustic, and the sensorial as extreme phenomena of violence of image (The Wrath of Image. The Violent Origins of Art), and saturation (Dazzling Presence). She is the author of The Dance of Adam. Byzantine Chorography (2011), and Elemental Chorology (2020), advancing the original concept chorós related to chôra -a groundbreaking, decisive dispositif in performative studies.