(Re: [-empyre-] Holbein thread)

eugenie <eugenies@onetel.net.uk> · Fri, 03 Oct 2003 19:17:35 +0100

hi again,

ta for the baltrusaitis reference - it's a classic text on anamorphosis.
another classic text is of course jacques lacan's chapter on 'anamorphosis'
in 'the four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis'.

according to lacan, holbein's picture demonstrates the 'annihilation' of the
subject. his is a tricky argument to synopsize, but i'll try: lacan's schema
of the subjectifying relation is very closely based around alberti's
perspective construction. his 'double dihedron' of vision schematizes the
way that the subject functions within the order of language and
representation. step outside this relation - i.e. step away from the correct
point of view - and you enter the domain of the 'real', you cease to be a
subject as such. this, in a nutshell, is what holbein's picture demonstrates
- so says lacan. 

within lacan's argument, then, the border between the discursive and the
material is recast as the border between the symbolic and the real - and it
is not subject to blurring. you're either a subject under the gaze (i.e. a
subject in/of discourse), or you're nothing at all. i think this is a bit
harsh, and i think holbein thinks so too, which is why i find his picture so
interesting. i wouldn't go so far as to say it 'devours' the situated
subject - it simply points out that it's really tricky to 'situate' subjects
in the first place.

from the phenomenological point of view, which is basically (as far as i
understand it) what holbein's picture demonstrates, subjectivity is a kind
of an 'unsituated' concern by definition, an unstable mix of the material
AND the discursive.... which is also what we find lucidly demonstrated in a
lot of recent videogames. which is why i find them so fascinating.

later
e

on 3/10/03 8:11 AM, -empyre-owner at empyre-owner@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
wrote:

> vince.dziekan@artdes.monash.edu.au
> Friday, 3 October
> HI.
> Sorry, don't want to jump in or preempt Eugenie's response, but I'd
> recommend you check out:
> 
> Author:Baltrusaitis, Jurgis, 1903-
> Title:Anamorphic art / by Jurgis Baltrusaitis ; translated by W. J.
> Strachan.
> Publisher:Cambridge [Eng.] : Chadwyck-Healey, 1977.
> 
> The idea of Renaissance, Cartesian Perspectivism containing this
> 'alternative' within it is an interesting position to think about (the
> application of perspective as a technique can be considered equally "right"
> whether using it to form or inversely to deform. Somewhere along the way,
> one of those positions has become "right" and the other deemed "wrong").
> Looking at this in this way, does this sort of soften the borders between
> the "discursive" and the "material", as indicated in an initial observation:
> 
> 
> I¹ve just read troy¹s first post and it looks  interestingly  as though
>> we¹re approaching the issue of anamorphism from two distinct angles  the
>> discursive (troy) and the material (myself).
> 
> Thoughts?
> Cheers.
> Vince
> (ps. I'm a colleague of Troy's  in the dept of Multimedia & Digital Arts at
> Monash --- so thought I'd better put in my two cents worth...)
> 
> 
> 
> Alan Sondheim wrote:
> 
> Can you say more about Holbein's scheme? It's almost as if his painting
> devours architecture and the situated body. Did he do other such work? Why
> was this brilliance abandoned, if it was? Could his other work contain
> secret geometries? (I realize not, but want to speculate.)
> 
> It reminds me, what you're saying, of the multiply perceived painting of
> Kuo Hsi -
> 
> Alan
> 
> On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, eugenie wrote:
> 
> 
> hi all,
> 
> big thank you to christina, melinda, michael and jim for inviting me to
> participate in this month¹s discussion.
> 
> I¹ve just read troy¹s first post and it looks  interestingly  as though
> we¹re approaching the issue of anamorphism from two distinct angles  the
> discursive (troy) and the material (myself). my interest in anamorphosis is
> historically based  I arrived in the digital realm by the somewhat
> roundabout route of c18th landscape aesthetics  so I¹m going to begin by
> giving a bit of historical background.
> 
> anamorphosis, for me, is a way of approaching the issue of Oembodied
> vision¹. the argument is simple and probably highly self evident to most of
> you posting to this list  vision and thought issue from an active body
> rather than a disembodied eye  but it¹s also one that western philosophy
> has traditionally had a great deal of trouble accepting.
> 
> Hans Holbein¹s Ambassadors (1533) is a well-known example of an anamorphic
> picture and an excellent demonstration of the way that so called Orational
> perception¹ has always involved more than just the perspectival eye/I.  The
> vanishing point and Ocorrect¹ viewing position in Holbein¹s picture are
> clearly indicated by the precise rendering of the various perspectival
> objects in the image. Looking from this position, the anamorphic skull in
> the foreground appears as nothing more than a meaningless shape. In order to
> see it properly, the viewer has to approach the painting and look obliquely,
> from a position on the right, about halfway up the frame.
> 
> Viewing Holbein¹s picture was a sort of play in two acts. Holbein was quite
> specific about the manner in which the picture should be hung: in a room
> with two doors, each one corresponding to one of the picture¹s two viewing
> positions. In the first act, the viewer enters the room and sees the picture
> from the Ocorrect¹ point of view. Captivated by the realism of the painted
> scene, the viewer is also perplexed by the indecipherable object at the
> bottom of the picture. Leaving by the second door, the disconcerted viewer
> casts a brief backward glance at the painting, and it is at this point that
> the strange object resolves itself into an image.
> 
> Traditional theories of representation have paid a lot of attention to the
> way the viewer is constructed as/at the Ocorrect¹ point of view  i.e. as a
> distanced, disembodied, monocular eye. they have had much less to say about
> the transient state(s) between points of view  what I¹m calling the
> Oanamorphic moment¹. Holbein¹s picture calls attention to those moments in
> the event of seeing where the viewer exceeds the Cartesianesque
> configuration of the disembodied eye. It foregrounds the subject in its
> environmental sense: a mobile, embodied agent that acts in the real world of
> objects. As a concept of transformation, then, anamorphosis allows us to
> understand subjectivity as a Odynamic¹ condition, a matter of a constantly
> changing body schema rather than a fixed body image. Holbein¹s little
> theatre of representation, in other words, has a lot to tell us about the
> way we interface with virtual environments in the present dayS and this is
> where it links up to my current interest in videogames, and affect, and the
> way that we traditionally understand the history of virtuality.
> 
> wow, I¹ve run on and on. I¹ll leave it there for now.
> 
> bests
> eugenie
> 
> 
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