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 IMAGES AT WORK
Holl's entry for Kiasma and Lordi,
the works of two over-determined images
João Francisco Figueira
Edition:

João Francisco Figueira

Centre for Urban and Regional Studies

Helsinki University of Technology

Department of Architecture
Helsinki University of Technology

Series:

Centre for Urban and Regional Studies Publications A 35

ISBN 978-951-22-9687-3
ISSN 1455-7789

Studies in Architecture 2009 / 35

ISSN 1797-3511

Espoo 2009

Distribution:

Centre for Urban and Regional Studies

Helsinki University of Technology
PO Box 9300
02015 TKK
Finland
T: +358 9 4514083
E: ytk-tilaus@tkk.fi

Layout:

João Francisco Figueira and Patrícia Cativo

Printing:

Yliopistopaino Oy, Helsinki

 ABSTRACT
We still see in one world and think in another. Indeed, ours is the civilization of
image, yet our thought remains trapped into "representation": that is, into
straightforward correspondences and univocal determinations, into transitivity and
transparency, into the privilege of language and linguistics in the identification of
images. However, this is no longer an adequate frame for thinking about them and
about the rich phenomenology that they prompt. Lordi, the Finnish "monster rock"
band that won the 2006 Eurovision song contest, was identified with "low culture",
which is another way of saying that it was qualified and translated into trivial terms,
and, of course, the discussion revolved around these. Yet Lordi's image is also a
composite and exuberant montage of signs that constitute cornerstones of the
Western imagination. As to the entry with which the American architect Steven
Holl won the competition for the Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art, it was
discussed on the basis of its architectural merits and demerits, which is another way
of saying that the entry was taken for its manifest referent. Yet it is not just in this
light that some people perceived this entry, which also opened the imagination,
something that played a fundamental role in the outcome of the competition. While
this kind of images work at the heart of contemporary societies, so far they have
been granted inadequate critical attention.
The aim of this thesis is to bring that world in which we think closer to that
in which we see. Instead of addressing the meanings of Holl's entry and Lordi's
image, I shall, rather, start from the mapping of their materials. Despite the obvious
difference between the two, it will emerge, nevertheless, that they both constitute
rich montages of heterogeneous and heterochronic materials, that they are haunted
and blur disciplinary and hierarchic distinctions, that they are fluid and open, they
convey and prompt emotions.
I shall approach these case studies very much as Aby Warburg (1866-1929)
did. Indeed, aspects of his approach and findings are relevant to the study cases.
Furthermore, there is a striking convergence between Warburg and fundamental
aspects of Sigmund Freud's (1856-1939) theorization on the symptom. Therefore I
will borrow from Freud the fundamental notion of "over-determination". This and
other notions and observations of Warburg, of Freud and of Georges Didi-
Huberman (b1953) seem particularly apt both for making sense of the images at
stake and the phenomenology that they prompt. In addition, they make sense of
these signs so central to the cultural conjuncture that Jacques Rancière (b1940)
names "the aesthetic regime for the identification of arts".

Keywords: Kiasma, Holl, Lordi, representation / image, determination / over-

determination, tautological gaze / open gaze, Warburg, Freud, Didi-Huberman,
Rancière.
TIIVISTELMÄ
Yhä vielä näemme yhdessä maailmassa ja ajattelemme toisessa. Kulttuurimme on
tosiasiassa kuvan kulttuuri, mutta ajattelumme on vielä nykyään “representaation”
ansassa: toisin sanoen ajattelemme kuvia suorasukaisten vastaavuuksien ja
yksimerkityksisten määrittelyiden, transitiivisuuden ja transpa-renssin kautta, ja
annamme kielelle, kielellisyydelle, etuoikeutetun aseman kuvien tulkinnassa. Repre-
sentaation viitekehys ei kuitenkaan enää tarjoa riittäviä puitteita kuvien ja niiden
herättämän rikkaan fenomenologian tutkimukselle. Lordi, suomalainen “monster
rock” -yhtye, joka voitti Eurovision lau-lukilpailun vuonna 2006, tulkittiin
“alakulttuurin” piiriin kuuluvaksi, mikä tarkoitti, että sen merkitys rajattiin ja
trivialisoitiin, ja keskustelu tietystikin urautui samalla banaaleihin kysymyksiin.
Kuitenkin Lordin kuva, image, on monielementtinen ja äärettömän rikas
merkitysmontaasi, jossa länsimaisen mielikuvituksen perustavat merkit kohtaavat.
Vastaavasti ehdotusta, joka toi amerikkalaiselle arkkitehdille Steven Hollille voiton
Helsingin Nykytaiteen Museon arkkitehtuurikilpailussa, tarkasteltiin keskusteluissa
sen arkkitehtonisten ansioiden ja puutteiden kannalta, mikä tarkoittaa että
kilpailuehdotus itsessään samastettiin sen manifestiin viittauskohteeseen. Siitä
huolimatta kaikki asianosaiset eivät nähneet Hollin kilpailuehdotusta yksinomaan
tässä valossa vaan kilpailun lopputulokseen vaikutti ratkaisevasti se, millä tavalla
Hollin ehdotus avasi mahdollisuuden mielikuvitukselle. Vaikka tällaiset moni-
merkityksiset kuvat vaikuttavat nykyisten yhteisöjen ytimessä niitä muovaten, kuvat
eivät vielä toistaiseksi ole saaneet osakseen riittävää kriittistä huomiota.
Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on tuoda maailma jossa ajattelemme
lähemmäs maailmaa jossa näemme. Sen sijaan että aloittaisin tarkastelemalla Hollin
kilpailuehdotuksen ja Lordin kuvan merki-tyksiä lähden liikkeelle kartoittamalla
aineksia, joista ne rakentuvat. Vaikka näiden kahden välillä on huomattavia ja
ilmeisiä eroavuuksia, tutkimuksen kuluessa käy ilmi, että molemmat muodostavat
heterogeenisten ja -kronisten ainesten rikkaan montaasin, että niissä kummassakin
häämöttää kerros kerroksen jälkeen, että ne sumentavat disiplinäärisiä ja hierarkisia
erotteluja, että ne ovat virtaavia ja avoimia, että ne välittävät ja herättävät tunteita.
Lähestyn näitä kahta tapaustutkimustani hyvin samantapaisesti kuin Aby
Warburg (1866-1929) lähestyi tutkimusaiheitaan. Warburgin lähestymistavan tietyt
näkökohdat, jopa hänen tietyt tutkimustuloksensa, ovat relevantteja tutkimuskoh-
teideni kannalta. Lisäksi Warburgin tutkimusotteen ja Sigmund Freudin (1856-1939)
oiretta koskevan teorian olennaisten aspektien välillä on huomattavaa yhtenevyyttä.
Sen vuoksi lainaan Freudilta “ylimääräytymisen” keskeisen käsitteen. “Ylimää-
räytyminen” samoin kuin tietyt Warburgin ja Freudin sekä Georges Didi-
Hubermanin (s1953) ajatukset ja huomiot tuntuvat soveltuvan erityisen hyvin niin
kohteena olevien kuvien kuin niiden herättämän fenomenologian ymmärtämiseen.
Niiden avulla on mahdollista tulkita merkkejä, jotka ovat keskeisen tärkeitä
kulttuurisessa tilanteessamme, jota Jacques Rancière (s1940) on kutsunut “taiteiden
identifikaation esteettiseksi järjestykseksi”.

Avainsanat: Kiasma, Holl, Lordi, representaatio / kuva, määräytyminen / ylimää-

räytyminen, tautologinen katse / avoin katse, Warburg, Freud, Didi-Huberman,
Rancière.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia -
Práxis XXI, who awarded me a four-year scholarship, and of the Faculty of Archi-
tecture of Lisbon University of Technology, who granted three years of leave. In
2000-01 I did research at Goldsmiths College, London. I thank my colleagues,
Paula Wong, Mariana Pana and Panayis Loverdos for their friendship, and Fran
Tonkiss and Paul Filmer for their courses and generous tuition. For the attentive
and demanding tutorials on linguistic and cultural translation matters, for the crucial
doses of professionalism and touching doses of affection that she gave in revising
this dissertation, my wholehearted thanks to Angela Cockett. I enrolled at Gold-
smiths for research under the supervision of Nikolas Rose, and I was priviliged to
start with such a professional as Nikolas who is committed to his students. After a
brief passage through the Department of Landscape Planning of SLU in Alnarp
thanks to the kind hospitality of José Ramirez, Gunnar Sorte and Ole Reiter, I re-
sumed research activity in 2003-04 at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
(EHESS), Paris, which, to put it briefly, is what a university should be. To Carlo
Severi and Giovanni Careri, for their courses and tuition, grazie. To Jean-Paul
Colleyn and Marc Augé, merci. To my colleagues Cyril Crignon, Philippe Rousseau,
Maud Revol-Bordone, Claire Fristot, Sophie-Silvia-Alice-Grazzia-Carlos-Guilherme
and, particularly, Giuseppe di Liberti, merci de votre soutien et amitié. To François
Lissarrague, for his fundamental course, merci. To Danièle Cohn, for her course, a
number of crucial tutorials and her friendship, un très grand et amicale merci. I enrolled
at the EHESS for research under the supervision of Georges Didi-Huberman. For
his books and courses, for the very broad horizons that his tutorials opened, pour ce
magnifique bout de chemin et pour votre amitié, merci. I returned to London in 2005-06
thanks to the hospitality of Nikolas, now at LSE. During this stay I undertook part
of the iconographic research related to Lordi, at the Warburg and the Courtauld
Institutes (London). My gratitude to the staff of the latter institutions, particularly
to Elizabeth McGrath (Warburg), and especially to Nikolas. Thanks also to Hannah
Abdullah and to Olivia M.-R.-Oscarsson. Thanks to the Finnish National Gallery
libraries and staff, and to the Finnish Architecture Museum and staff, for their
invaluable support. Thank you also to the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies
(YTK-TKK), to Mervi Ilmonen and Hilkka Lehtonen for the continuous support
and encouragement over the last ten years. Gunnar Olsson (Uppsala University) has
supported this enterprise for the same length of time. For your support, tuition and
exquisite friendship, thank you Gunnar. Kimmo Lapintie (A-TKK) also joined this
group later, and his support was no less decisive as indeed he is the main super-
visor. To YTK, for having warmly welcomed this research, and to the four of you,
without whom this research would simply have not existed, kiitos. Thanks also to
my colleagues from YTK, to Christer Bengs and all that contributed to the research
on Lordi: particularly Anne Holappa and Mikael A. Manninen. To Hans Stenius,
Päivi Montola, Tuulikki Terho, Kai Wartiainen, Pekka Korpinen and, most espe-
cially, to Tuula Arkio, for the fundamental insights on the Kiasma competition,
kiitos. To Riikka Stewen (Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki), who over the past three
years has provided full support to this research, kiitos. For their vital friendship,
kiitos to Yannick Pellet and the Finn-Brit Players, Petri Heino, Henna Helander,
Miklos Gaál and Katriina Lankinen, the Juhannus 2005 team, Markus Rissanen,
Timo Airas and especially to Ilona Kiviharju and Rikhard Manninen. Thank you to
my parents and brother, Marta Mestre, Alberto Carneiro, Jorge Silva Melo, Pedro
Maurício Borges, Manuel Fernandes de Sá, Álvaro Domingues and, most
particularly, to Vítor Silva (Faculty of Architecture of Porto University), for their
support in the long run.
An earlier version of this dissertation was preliminarily reviewed by Professor
Kari Jormakka (Vienna University of Technology) and by Professor Altti Kuusamo
(University of Turku and University of Lapland). I am grateful for their criticism,
comments and support, which was essential for revising, clarifying and expanding
the argument.
Lastly, for their continuous and inspiring commitment to the exploration of
the joys of images, many thanks to Ukri, Maria and Marta, to whom this disserta-
tion is dedicated.
The image is somewhat more than the immediate fulfilment of meaning. It has its
own density, and the laws which govern it are not solely significant propositions,
just as the laws of the world are not simply decrees of will, even a divine will.
Michel Foucault, "Dream, Imagination and Existence - An introduction
to Ludwig Binswanger's 'Dream and Existence' ", p. 35.
 Pour moi l'image la plus importante est l'image entre deux images,
donc il s'agit de travailler sur la troisième image; l'image que n'existe pas, mais qui
est dans les connexions, dans l'esprit, le corps du spectateur. [...] Souvent c'est
une image qu'arrive soudaine dans l'esprit du spectateur.
I consider the most important image to be the image between two images,
therefore the task is to work on the third image; the image that does not exist,
except in the connections, spirit and body of the spectator. [...] Often it is
an image that emerges all of a sudden in the mind of the spectator.
Romeo Castellucci in conversation with the audience of the
Avignon Festival, Cloître Saint-Louis, July 7, 2008.

[Watercolours] remain a probe of intuition and

chance, aimed at liberating the imagination.
Steven Holl, Written in Water, preface.
CONTENTS
PART 1 - INTRODUCTION
1. Sign, gaze and image ........................................................................................ 17
2. Two images at work ........................................................................................... 18
3. Interpreting
3.1. Within the aesthetic regime for the identification of arts ............................ 20
3.2. Within the representative regime for the identification of arts .................. 27
4. The way of Warburg ......................................................................................... 32
5. Excursuses around images ............................................................................... 36

PART 2 - HOLL'S ENTRY - ART IS THE WINNER

1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 41
2. The crystal
2.1. A contemporary art museum ........................................................................... 49
2.2. A vast area at a standstill .................................................................................. 54
2.3. An art museum for untying Helsinki's Gordian knot and
prompting the development of South Töölönlahti and Kamppi areas ............ 58
3. The architectural competition
3.1. Conditions and aims ......................................................................................... 62
3.2. Outcome ............................................................................................................. 64
3.3. Assessment ......................................................................................................... 66
4. The reception of Holl's entry
4.1. BOOM, an epiphany ......................................................................................... 74
4.2. The punctum of the entry ................................................................................... 77
5. Holl's watercolours
5.1. From the image-space to the image-image .................................................... 79
5.2. Heterogeneous series ........................................................................................ 82
6. Over-determination
6.1. Warburg
6.1.1. Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring ............................................................. 85
6.1.2. The Sassetti chapel ......................................................................................... 91
6.1.3. Method ............................................................................................................. 95
6.1.4. Ninfa ................................................................................................................. 96
6.2. Freud
6.2.1. Symptoms ........................................................................................................ 103
6.2.2. Dreams ............................................................................................................. 108
6.2.3. Dream-work .................................................................................................... 109
6.2.4. Condensation, displacement and imperative of figurability ..................... 110
 6.2.5. Symbols in dreams and the symbolism of dreams .................................... 115
6.2.6. Sources of dream materials ........................................................................... 117
6.2.7. Affects in dreams ............................................................................................ 118
6.2.8. Pictures, dreams and images ........................................................................... 120
6.2.9. Interprétation ...................................................................................................... 125
7. Determination and over-determination in Holl's "hands"
7.1. Determination: "chiasma", "intertwining", "hands", "porosity"
and Merleau-Ponty .................................................................................................... 151
7.2. Over-determination: a network of "hands" ................................................... 158
7.3. A map of "hands" .............................................................................................. 166
7.4. A handmade model ........................................................................................... 169
8. Gaze
8.1. Tautological and open ...................................................................................... 174
8.2. Tautological-architectural gaze ........................................................................ 177
8.3. Holl's watercolours: image, stoppage and open gaze ..................................... 179
9. Governing with imagination .......................................................................... 183

Annex - Excerpt of the Jury Report, assessment of Steven Holl's entry ........... 196

PART 3 - LORDI - THE DEVIL IS THE WINNER

1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 201
2. Lordi is haunted by reminiscences
2.1. The Western-Christian track ............................................................................ 206
2.2. Ancient and East connections ......................................................................... 209
3. Temptation: metamorphosis and imagination ......................................... 215
4. The archive and the work
4.1. Montage, style .................................................................................................... 220
4.2. Intertextuality, intervisuality, carnival ............................................................. 230
5. The orders of the image
5.1. Images and textual traditions: Panofsky ........................................................ 239
5.2. Images and iconographic traditions: Pasolini ................................................ 242
5.3. The distribution of the sensible in arts: the representative
and the aesthetic ........................................................................................................ 244
6. The vital point .................................................................................................... 249

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 255

 Part 1

INTRODUCTION
1. Sign, gaze and image
In a well-known essay, Gilles Deleuze puts forward a rather simple and pertinent
thesis: a perception is the encounter of an exterior image with an inner one, the
latter determining what is kept, or perceived, of the former.1 The exterior image is
what I shall call an image-sign, or "sign", itself made of other signs (lines, colours,
sounds, words, etc). I shall call the inner image "gaze", and the perception, in very
general terms, "image", the outcome of a certain amount of work, of a certain gaze.
Gaze is the light that definitely turns signs into images; it selects, according to cul-
turally constructed patterns, as well as it desires, either with or without restraint,
possibly the latter.
Gazes and signs are the source of an enormous variety of images. As images
always and only exist for and in conjunction with the gaze that perceives them,2 it is
easy to understand that they are subject to historical variation (the same sign cor-
responding to different images in different historic periods), to socio-cultural varia-
tion (the same sign corresponding to different images for persons with different
professional or cultural backgrounds) and to personal variation. There are signs that
are pretty conventional, which can be prescriptive, informative, in a straightforward
relation to their manifest referents... signs that claim for calculator-like gazes (tau-
tological gazes). There are also signs that are carnivalesque, mock conventions, blur
historic, geographic and disciplinary boundaries, merge the most disparate memo-
ries... signs that claim playful or imaginative gazes (open gazes). Then there are
plain images and there are images that strike us like lightning flashes, move our
passions and make us dream. In this dissertation we shall be dealing with two case
studies which have fundamental aspects of images of the latter kind.

1 G. Deleuze, "Three questions on Six Times Two", p. 42.

2 G. Deleuze, "On The Movement-Image", p. 54: "the eye's already there in things, it is part of the image,
the image's visibility". From which derives the fact that it is the same thing analysing one term, the
other or both.

17
2. Two images at work
Both case studies constitute multiplicities that work: the first, Steven Holl's winning
entry to the 1993 competition for the design of the Helsinki Contemporary Art
Museum (Kiasma); the second, Lordi's image, a fundamental aspect of Lordi's
show, the winner of the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest. Crafted in America, Holl's
set of images won the competition for designing a landmark in the capital of
Finland and for housing a main national institution, whereas Lordi, crafted in
Finland, caught the eye of millions in the European contest. Holl's winning entry
contributed to the untying of a Gordian knot in the planning of Helsinki, Lordi's
winning performance put an end to decades of Finland's unsuccessful participation
in the Song Contest and granted to the country the possibility of organizing the
event. Molar economic, symbolic and imaginary consequences derived from the
work of these images. Among others, the contemporary and international repre-
sentation of Finland is no longer merely passing through Aalto and Sibelius alone,
but also through Holl's Kiasma and Lordi, whose images were the object of intense
and passionate disputes.
However, these are also images that work at undoing. While images jump
across national borders with some ease, it is that same ease which also undoes the
certainty of those narrow and clearly outlined domains to which they are supposed
to belong: architecture and planning; music and popular entertainment; other cer-
tainties such as the assumption that architectural prefigurations concern architec-
ture alone and the certainty of representation; also the traditional divide between
high and low culture and between the contemporary and the archaic.
Although we shall deal with such multiplicities both belonging to and open-
ing onto worlds that are far apart, they show a number of common features at a
molecular and structural level. Indeed, I believe they belong to the same sub-cate-
gory of images.
We shall discuss open images, fluid and impure patchworks, images made of
heterogeneous and heterochronic materials, and images that activate gaze, with an
enormous plasticity in relation to the desires of their beholders. I believe that such
openness accounts for the success of both Holl's entry and Lordi, abroad and
beyond the narrow circle in which they saw daylight, catching the eye of a specific
member of the jury with a background different from Holl's, and, in the case of
Lordi, a huge audience.

18
 We shall be dealing with something that is alien to clear-cut objects, that is to
say, with images,3 meaning over-determined images. They link up a wide and an open
array of references - images that are haunted, that suffer from reminiscences, that
rouse emotions, that do while undoing, and in the process they represent by short-
circuiting representation, i.e. univocal and conventional correspondences.
It is in the paradoxical sense of doing while undoing that the notion of
"work" ought to be understood. I refer to Freud's "dream-work", for whom the
psyche works because it transforms and distorts symbols and affects, and in trans-
forming it symbolizes.

3I shall be using the italics with the sole purpose of distinguishing the category images from the sub-
category images (i.e. over-determined images) contained in the former.

19
3. Interpreting
3.1. Within the aesthetic regime for the identification of arts

By using the expression "over-determined" images I am already referring to an

important concept of Sigmund Freud's work on the structure of the formations of
the unconscious, namely of the work on dreams and, especially, on the symptom.
However, this is not to psychologise images. My approach is strictly critical, rather
than clinical. The Freud at stake is a fundamental thinker for a critical tradition that,
despite its diversity, settled its relations with him long ago, dismissing the frail
Oedipal, disciplinary and clinical Freudianism, in favour of reassessing and
recovering the relevant theoretical Freud. It is this Freud who smashed the box of
representation and discovered unconscious production: the domain of free
syntheses where everything is possible. I refer to the seminal work of Jacques Lacan
and his heritage including the work of both François Lyotard and of Gilles Deleuze
and Felix Guattari, together with specific developments on the interpretation of
images by researchers such as Hubert Damisch, Daniel Arasse, Louis Marin and
Georges Didi-Huberman. In continuity with their scholarship, I will argue that
Freud's elaboration on the formations of the unconscious, the theoretical invention
of "over-determination" and related matters are particularly relevant for thinking
and guiding us through the structure of both images.
The fact is that this interpretative frame suits rather well objects from a world
in which, according to Jacques Rancière, the distribution of the cultural sensible, of
what is capable of aisthethon or capable of being apprehended by the senses, is
characterized by the abolition of any hierarchy of the arts, their subject matters and
their genres.4 By "arts" Rancière intends the contemporary large array of cultural
productions, crafted by professionals and non-professionals, including not only the
old fine arts, architecture and literature, but also cinema, outsider and do-it-yourself
arts, any form of musical expression, etc, each with its relevance. Indeed, no one
claims that a cultural production drawing on the life of a person in a position of
power or prestige, such as a holder of public office, is necessarily nobler or more
important than, say, the depiction of farm animals, a theme dear to children.
Furthermore, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, the story of the adulterous daughter of a
farmer, is in its own right acclaimed as a masterpiece of modern literature.
Courbet's Burial at Ornans (1850), the monumental portrait of rural bourgeoisie at a
burial, Manet's Olympia (1863), a nude portrait of a prostitute, and Picasso's

4See J. Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, pp. 85 and 81. The translator, G. Rockhill, established the
"Glossary", pp. 80-93.

20
Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), a group of nude call-girls, are unquestionable
masterpieces of modern painting. Then, concerning genres, portrait is not
necessarily more praised by the public or critics than landscape; an historical drama
is not necessarily worthy of higher admiration than the theatrical performance of a
handicapped person; nor classical music more than world music or musique concrète;
etc.
Crucial for my argument is the abolition of the privilege of speech over
visibility acknowledged by Rancière, as well as, in relation to speech, the abolition
of the privilege of language in relation to the imagery that supplements it.5 The
consequences of this are immense: firstly, for the dignity of image makers, who
were freed from the need to place themselves at the height of men of letters;
secondly, for the expansion of visual imagery, which grew exponentially; thirdly, for
the understanding of its nature, boldly connecting to the economy of the "low"
body, something that became apparent with the raising of the system of censure
previously in force; fourthly, for the reconsideration of emotion, once perceived as
dangerous, being on the side of the "low" body, but which is considered today with
much more benevolence.
The privilege of speech over visibility in the interpretation of images were
also contested and had massive consequences in the realm of critique. Thus the
identification of images tends to do without plain linguistic meanings and pathos
emerges as a major critical issue in the identification of arts and images. The days of
the Kantian disinterested - and disembodied - aesthetical judgement have already
passed. Indeed, Rancière goes so far as to recognize that one of the characteristics
of the "aesthetic" sensible is the paradoxical unity of pathos and logos. Feelings,
affects, emotions, became recognized indexes of truth and knowledge. Although, as
Freud acknowledged, there is enough evidence that cultural perception always ran
along these lines, it is also true that the savant West always did its best not to see it.
While meaning is not always that fundamental, emotions, love and death are major
forces driving images (and life). Indeed, while a film may well be merely "a girl and a
gun", for this unashamed admission to be possible, a long history and, crucially, a
deep transformation in the rules of the game of culture were necessary.
The aspects that I have boldly identified characterize a cultural conjuncture
that Rancière designates, as already indicated, the "aesthetic regime for the
identification of arts". It has a history that overlaps that of modernity to a large
extent, but it is different from it. A "regime" is an arrangement of objects, of
perceptions and of conceptualisations. It is a particular way of "distributing the

5 Something of which Deleuze had an acute awareness: "language has no self-sufficiency, at least that
is my view. It follows that language has no significance of its own. It is composed of signs, but signs
are inseparable from a whole other element, a non-linguistic element, which could be called 'the state
of things' or, better yet, 'images'. As Bergson has convincingly shown, images have an existence inde-
pendently from us. What I call an 'assemblage of utterance', is thus composed of images and signs,
moving and circulating in the world" ("Letter to Uno on language", p. 201 - translation slightly modi-
fied).

21
sensible", with implicit laws of inclusion and of exclusion that underlie the sensible
order, that is, underlying the constitution of objects (signs and gazes) and their
interpretation.
What is the condition of these images that are so congenial to the aesthetic
regime? It is now apparent that image-signs are floating in an entanglement of lines
thrown in every direction, which connect to a heterogeneous and heterochronic
outside where there is no longer language and linguistic categories, something of
the order of the narrative, or manifest referents alone. Rather, there tend to be
things of a completely different nature, particularly other images and often ghost or
dream-like images. When the idealistic blanket of plain and objective meaning which
used to cover images had gone, that is, language and linguistic categories, meaning,
manifest referents, the ideal of art as a window opening to the reality (of stories), as
the imitation of the visible or the representation of ideas, it became apparent that
images are transformations and distortions of other images, fundamentally
patchworks of materials which convey and displace affects, and that they are
reminiscent and open intensities. They are thought-forms, but immanent to their
condition of bricolage, rather than using concepts. Malgré tout, when the night of
language and meaning arrived, one kept seeing and perceiving. One started
imagining and it became apparent that before an image there are other images; it also
became apparent that a strong image unfolds into, and affects, other images, as if they
had entered a crystalline regime, a large room of mirrors, in which images respond
one to another, lighten, displace, distort and affect each other.
Indeed, for Francis Bacon "there is a sort of influence of image upon image".6
Also when analysing the critical enterprise of Serge Daney, Deleuze mentions
"every image now slips over other images, as 'the root of an image is already an
image'."7 Signs and images are reflected in and inflected by other images, drawing vast
and open networks of affected images. Images have started to dream. Therefore,
architectural representations, once in a straightforward relation to their manifest
referents, are metamorphosing into images and begin suffering from reminiscences
(Holl's entry). Equally, what is called contemporary entertainment are the dreams of
a peripheral fan of the Kiss, Tomi Putaansuu (Lordi's bandleader), but, crucially,
these dreams are the dreaming of our collective memory, which put it in motion
and give it a new life.
How does the exuberant phenomenology of "aesthetic" images reshape critical
activity? Before answering, it is important to bear in mind that a regime is like a
snake biting its tail: neither a system of the production and reception of objects

6 M. Archimbaud, Francis Bacon in conversation with Michel Archimbaud, p. 148.

7G. Deleuze, "Letter to Serge Daney", p. 71: "each image now slips across other images, 'the back-
ground in any image is always another image'."

22
alone, nor a viewpoint alone, but both.8 This means that images reshape critical
activity as much as they are shaped by it.
Within the new interpretative frame meaning tends to be approached in terms
of the ramifications of materials (and of meanings) and the materiality of signs from
a materialistic, eventually low materialistic, viewpoint, neither binding this
materiality to interpretative idealizations nor to such preconceived correspondences
as reference-referent, image-author, etc. The focus is placed upon the raw materials
of image-signs, the transformation of these traces, their displacement,
condensation, metamorphosis, etc, combined by the work of ghost hunting, or the
mapping of latencies. Empathy (pathos, the Dionysian...) emerges as a key research
question. With the undoing of the hierarchy of arts and of the split between art and
non-art, the interpretation of images has opened to a broader range of objects,
including the already mentioned photography, cinema and video, cartoons and
tattoos, outsider and do-it-yourself art, and to authorless objects such as votive
images. Research has embraced the open and fluid continent of images and of image
related practices gaining an anthropological profile. Beholder and researcher, desire
and gaze, no matter how unrestrained, are approached as endowers of meaning.
Within the new interpretative frame images tend to acquire depth, weight and
opacity.
With these observations I do not pretend either to embrace or to exhaust the
broad multiplicity of directions in the contemporary interpretation of images, which
would be pointless. Rather, this is intended to be a bold overview on aspects related
to or prompted by the research undertaken; this is neither its outcome nor its
starting point. The focus on singularities (or rather singular multiplicities) is co-
essential to the research viewpoint at stake. Indeed, as Deleuze points out, "the
universal does not explain anything, it is it that must be explained".9

-----

By assuming the theoretical frame of over-determination and the interpretative

frame just described, I have therefore adopted a viewpoint which accords with a
specific and contemporary cultural conjuncture, particularly as far as it concerns the
production and reception of images: the aesthetic regime. By "contemporary" images

8 Inother words, interpretation is interior to its objects; in other terms, the latter constitute the imma-
nent conditions of the former.
9G. Deleuze, "What is a dispositif?", pp. 342-343: "A universal explains nothing; it, on the other hand,
must be explained". Proceeding: "All the lines [of visibility, utterance, lines of force, lines of subjecti-
vation, of cracking, breaking and ruptures] are lines of variation, that do not even have constant coor-
dinates. The One, the Whole, the True, the object, the subject, are not universals but singular proc-
esses of unification, of totalization, verification, objectification, subjectivation, immanent to an appa-
ratus [dispositif]. Each apparatus is therefore a multiplicity where certain processes in becoming are
operative and distinct from those operating in another apparatus". And concluding: "This is how
Foucault's philosophy is a pragmatism, a functionalism, a positivism, a pluralism".

23
I mean not only images crafted in the last few decades, but the images by which the
contemporary and "aesthetic" world is weaved, whether crafted last Thursday or
centuries ago. A few of these "aesthetic" images were crafted recently, but most of
them are older images reframed by aesthetic gaze.
However, the interpretation of this rich phenomenology is, to some extent,
disputed by another interpretative frame or viewpoint, both quite prestigious and
pervasive, which can be named, after the main theorist of this tradition, Panofskian
iconology. Panofskian iconology is congenial with the "representative" regime of
arts and its images. It is particularly inadequate, therefore, for interpreting the over-
determined images of the "aesthetic" regime. Indeed, it emphatically excludes, as a
non-sense, the possibility of the over-determination of images. Louis Marin tells a
personal story that is illuminating in relation to the caesuras and choices that
Panofskian iconology makes.
In Oxford before 1958, Louis Marin had written his first paper on L. B.
Alberti's medal. On the one side it has Alberti's puzzling emblem: a chimerical
image constituted by an eye with eagle wings and "mysterious" flames, and, below,
the Ciceronian motto "Quid tum" ("what then"). Marin tried "to show that 'what
then' was a sort of 'phatic' expression10 with a multiplicity of meanings". He alluded
to Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams and to the quote of Goethe's Faust, "A thou-
sand threads one treadle throws, // Where fly the shuttles hither and thither, //
Unseen the threads are knit together // And an infinite combination grows":

That "what then", at every turn between the image and the eye and the text,
gets a new meaning; at every turn in this back-and-forth interpretative
itinerary, "Quid tum" acquires a different meaning, apocalyptic, anagogic, and
so on.
Edgar Wind responded that he had found my article very interesting, while
adding, in substance, that he was quite familiar with psychoanalytical
interpretations of works of art, but that, under the circumstances, if "Quid
tum" had so many different meanings in my essay, this was because the text
from the period that gave the meaning of the formula, and thus of the work as
a whole, had not yet been found. Finding the text, that was the ideal of
iconography [Panofskian iconology].

And Marin concludes...

But perhaps there was no text at all; perhaps Alberti had manufactured his
medallion with that motto for making meaning wander or go astray, like the
"thought-factory" that Freud mentions in relation to the weaver's masterpiece
of Goethe - i.e., a dream. [...]

10 Expressions with the sole purpose of establishing communication or contact, without any substan-
tive informative content, a "function" that R. Jakobson comments in "Linguistics and poetics", p. 337.

24
 Wind asserted that my paper was very good, but also that at its core
something was lacking, a missing text.11

Although Marin's account by no means exhausts the criticism of Panofskian ico-

nology, which constitutes a large corpus of literature (in which Wind deserves to be
included), it touches two points with enormous interest for us, as they put in
evidence the structural disagreement between this tradition of research, or inter-
pretation frame, and images like the ones at stake in the pieces of research that will
follow. Firstly, Panofskian iconology identifies the erraticism of images with errors,
insufficiencies and, often, with excesses of interpretation. Fundamentally, this is
because it inherited its instruments from humanism, or several types of humanism,
with their idealistic side.12 These foundations constitute an obstacle to the under-
standing of the "vital need" for images and art, their "vital" efficacy, that is some-
thing which would imply other instruments, drawing on other traditions of thought,
on other economies of signs and subjects. Some of these instruments are available
in psychoanalytical theory, but art history still has enormous difficulties with it.
Major thinkers of this iconological and critical tradition such as Panofsky and
Gombrich either never really cared enough about psychoanalytical theory or openly
rejected it.13 This is bewildering, considering that psychoanalysis was a major force
in the transformation of Western episteme and gaze during the 20th century.
Although art history could turn to the work of Aby Warburg, who in the infancy of
iconology first put the questions we are nowadays debating, which grants him fairly
and squarely a place at the centre of contemporary scholarship on images, the truth
is that art history, iconology, as well as studies in visual culture remain to a large
extent alien to the work of Warburg, trapped as they are in humanistic and positiv-
istic research demands, alien to the nature of images. Secondly, as Marin rightly
stresses, Panofskian iconology is still fixated on the "text" which it tends to read
plainly, not to say trivially. In the introduction to a book constituted by iconological
essays, Daniel Arasse makes the point on the relation between texts and images
within the classic tradition:

This iconography [iconology] will be practiced in an unusual fashion, as the

discontinuities14 researched prove that the transparency between texts and
images (to which standard iconography [Panofskian iconology] often limits its
scope) does not exist.

11 L.
Marin, "The concept of figurability, or the encounter between art history and psychoanalysis", pp.
56-57 - translation slightly modified.
12See E. Panofsky, "The History of art as a humanistic discipline". For a brief critical assessment of
the humanistic roots of art history see G. Didi-Huberman, "Critical reflections".
13 In
"Psychoanalysis and the history of art" E. H. Gombrich reiterated the skepticism of art historians
toward the contribution of psychoanalysis to the understanding of art, and, in particular, to that of
Renaissance art.
14 "Écarts" in the French original, with the double meaning of discontinuity and error.

25
 Firstly, this transparency is a hoax because those texts of which images would
constitute the supposed illustration are not transparent themselves. Often, far
from having one source only, paintings, frescos, drawings and sculptures
superpose, intertwine and condense several texts (and sometimes heteroge-
neous ones) - texts that must be interpreted, as they were not chosen without
having already been interpreted for being "programmed" in the work that
"illustrates" them.
Secondly, the transparency of images in relation to texts does not exist, as
images re-work the texts that were used as their "pretext". Although not
forcefully, the image may always mix up, blur and merge what texts parcel.15

-----

The question of this dissertation is: what are the two images at stake? Therefore, the
case studies are approached as images. Research sought interpretations that could
consider the rich phenomenology that they arouse, doing without any axiomatic
starting points. It sought interpretations that neither treat images as self-sufficient
systems of signs nor presume in advance their nature (as representations, as archi-
tecture, as monsters, and the like). Certainly, over-determination and the aesthetic
regime frame the research, but instead of determining a univocal direction, they
define a broad range of possibilities. However, they also play an important role in
skipping the cultural a priories which are meant to tame images either by dismissing
the role of beholders (gaze) in endowing them with meanings (something that is
crucially important in relation to Holl's entry) or by dismissing the multiplicity and
openness of their determinations (something that applies to both study cases).
What were the obstacles to this enterprise? Of necessity, in dealing with images and
their interpretation, I had to confront the still pervasive interpretative frame and
hypotheses congenial to the representative regime.

15 D. Arasse, Le Sujet dans le Tableau, p. 11: "Cette iconographie sera pratiquée de façon originale car les écarts
étudiés démontrent que la transparence entre les textes et les images (à laquelle l'iconographie traditionnelle réduit trop
souvent son champ d'interprétation) n'existe pas. // Elle n'existe pas d'abord parce qu'en eux-mêmes les textes
qu'illustraient les images ne sont pas transparents. Le plus souvent, loin d'avoir une source unique, tableaux, fresques,
dessins, sculptures superposent, entremêlent et condensent des textes différents (et parfois hétérogènes) - et ces textes eux-
mêmes doivent être interprétés car ils n'ont pas été choisis sans avoir été déjà interprétés pour être 'programmés' dans
l'œuvre qui les 'illustre'. // La transparence des images aux textes n'existe pas non plus parce que les images font à leur
tour travailler les textes qui leur servent de 'prétextes'. Sans nécessairement devoir le faire, l'image peut toujours mêler,
confondre, associer ce que les textes distinguent." See also D. Arasse, "Fonctions et limites de l'iconographie",
where he develops the notion of "figurative network", "réseau figuratif" (briefly mentioned in p. 13 of
the previous reference), for accounting on the productive relation between images and sources.

26
3.2. Within the representative regime for the identification of arts

What characterizes Panofskian iconology are a certain number of questions and

beliefs and a specific strategy for identifying the meaning quintessential to this
regime. In other words, it prioritises meaning believing that it can be unmistakably
ascertained, that it can and ought to be uttered, and that it proceeds from or points
to a univocal and coherent centre. This ascertainment of meaning passes through
the parcelling of an image into rather large parts (i.e. this or that character, in this
place, among a number of objects...), by unequivocally naming them and by identi-
fying the actions in which they are engaged, thereby confronting, word by word,
image (i.e. characters, places, actions) with the relevant textual source (title, pro-
gramme, literary or mythological source). That is to say, Panofskian iconology is the
correlative of a tradition of production and reception of images that was ordered
around the narrative. To think of images in this light is to think a specific sort of
image: artistic ones (which supposes a clear split between artistic and non-artistic
realms) and classifiable within specific genres. They are chiefly signs supposed to
translate literary and mythological narratives, crafted by artists and destined for
beholders who were supposed to share this same system of references and values,
this same gaze. Thinking images in this light is thinking signs ductile to language or
words out of place. Indeed, this interpretative tradition tends to make images trans-
parent in relation to the plain language of the programme, or of the "basic text", to
the commentary of savants and critics, rather than that of artists, often more
demanding than the former; that language had absolute priority in the interpretation
of images for a very long time.
Panofskian iconology was trustworthy as long as perceptions were organized
accordingly: images enchaining with univocal meanings, with language, pointing to
specific authors, to specific disciplinary frames, in a straightforward relation to
manifest referents, etc, and gazes playing this same game. This large arrangement of
things, gazes and critical positions fits into what Rancière names "the representative
regime for the identification of arts" and it functioned well for a rather long time.
What, then, went wrong? On the one hand, artists themselves challenged and tore it
apart (Dada, for instance). On the other, beholders became progressively less
savant in Latin, the classics, the Bible, on the rules of social and cultural propriety,
and so on. However, neither art nor artistic perception ended. Flaubert, Courbet,
Manet... Picasso and Breton, still managed either to amaze or shock their contem-
poraries. The art crafted in the past and in other continents ended up re-emerging
in a new light. Art(s) would proliferate. The passage from the representative to the
aesthetic regime, this large transformation of the laws underlying the "distribution
of the sensible",16 i.e. the order of culture and arts, ended up inflecting the episteme.

16The "distribution" of "what is aisthethon". For further clarification and development see note 541
below.

27
This is the argument developed by Hans Belting in L'Histoire de l'art est finie? and Art
History after Modernism.
Panofskian iconology does not exhaust the representative regime. As we shall
see in the research on Holl's entry, if the architectural world is still under the rule of
the representative regime this is not because it "reads" architectural representations
in the light of texts, but because it tends to see or imagine them as straightforward
representations of architecture. This has little to do with Panofskian iconology,
except that it is the same game of binary and straightforward correspondences
between images and their referents, a game typical of the regime of "representa-
tion", in the sense of Rancière but also of Foucault. Just as "the transparency of
images in relation to texts does not exist" (see Arasse, pp. 25-26, above), much of
the architectural imagery included in competition entries is not transparent in rela-
tion to architecture; such transparency is a worn myth.

-----

Although, as Marin rightly asserts, Wind truly believed in the indispensability of the
"text" and textual exegesis in the ascertainment of the meaning of images, the fact
is that he was particularly sensitive and careful in relation to the ambivalences and
fluidity of images. The objects that he selected and the research approach confirm
it. He dared to choose images and themes "manifestly eccentric" and "extravagant",
and to approach them in the light of corpuses of literature such as Picco della
Mirandola, Nicolaus Cusanos, as well as Politien, and in the light of the paradoxes
of hermeticism and mysticism, with their eminent openness and over-
determination. In Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, for example, he openly contested
the trivialization of the "exceptional" through "commonplace" exegesis.17
The man about whom Marin complained in relation to his paper on Alberti's
medal, would dedicate a section of Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance to Alberti's em-
blem. After a savant excursus through the symbology and iconology of the different
parts of the chimerical image, wings and eye,18 and motto, Wind draws on a recently
discovered passage in a minor dialogue of Alberti. While the other sources dis-
cussed by Wind were generic and of third persons, this passage relates to the em-
blem and belongs to its author, Alberti, a major theorizer of the Renaissance. Yet,
Wind notices:

The passage hides as much as it discloses. In describing the emblem Alberti

omits the motto, and while giving a full explanation of the eye, hardly
accounts for the wings at all. The promising phrase with which the argument
opens - "these mysteries then need to be explained" - is half withdrawn in the

17 E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, pp. 236-238.

18Strangely, not a word about what Marin perceived as flames, and that indeed do not quite resemble
eyelashes.

28
 next sentence: "I shall speak only of one or two things so that you can
recognize the rest for yourself."

And Wind summarizes:

This commentary by Alberti is a perfect example of how the Renaissance

thought one should speak about mysteries: giving a baffling account, patently
incomplete, so that the reader may be induced to figure out the concealed
part for himself.19

Wind seems to acknowledge that there are signs that do not have fixed meanings,
that are constituted by gaps, the vocation of which is to make imagination wander.
In my view, this acknowledgement has absolute value. It would be wrong to
diminish it with the argument that it was proffered in the frame of research on the
"pagan mysteries" that the Renaissance actualised.
Wind admits that Karl Giehlow had intuitively understood the meaning of
the emblem, which became clear to him only after the careful inspection of textual
sources, especially of the recently discovered dialogue of Alberti. Therefore, Wind
asks: "why bother to find the exactly relevant texts if it is possible to grasp the
correct meaning of an image without knowing them?". He replies in a surprising
way:

An answer is given by the history of Giehlow's interpretation which, although

essentially right, failed to gain universal acceptance. Historical texts are
needed not so much for the discovery of a symbolic meaning as for its
conclusive demonstration.20

One readily understands that the "universal acceptance" of which Wind speaks is
the acceptance by those that play a certain game with images - a game of knowledge
but also of power - constituted by "conclusive demonstrations" on "symbolic
meanings", that is to say, iconologists. It is for them that "texts" are fundamental.
After all, the "universal" that Wind is referring to is a specific class of academics
operating within a specific conjuncture. But Wind also admits - and in this resides
his grandeur - that meaning may pass through other ways. Although he gives the
example of Giehlow, the fact is that, intuitively, my young nieces, aged nine and
eleven, also understand Alberti's chimerical image. Besides a symbolic side they
have a rather strong imaginary one. We are dealing with a system of signs, a

19 E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, pp. 233-234.

20 E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, p. 235.

29
chimerical image21 and a motto, that is fundamentally open to imagination and over-
determined; this is a system of the order of a "mechanism of desire". The enterprise
of ascertaining a meaning is, therefore, inappropriate. We are face to face with a
system of signs meant to short-circuit a stable system of meanings and make
meaning wander. Still, Wind reiterated the need for the "text". We know that this is
not any text, but that it should be coeval to the image. This is a desire characteristic
of historians, the desire of understanding the past through the concepts of the past,
an ideal that Georges Didi-Huberman named the "euchronic model".22 This model
conceals the fact that each historical time is weaved by a multiplicity of temporali-
ties, as was the case of the Renaissance which revived "pagan mysteries". And it
also disregards the fact that there are systems of signs that, besides refusing a
meaning, resist belonging to their own time. Although the need for the "text", and
for a text coeval to the work, is expressed in Wind's book and research efforts, he
clearly understood that he was dealing with something "manifestly eccentric". So,
Wind ends up admitting...

The case [Giehlow's understanding] proves that the image has an inherent
eloquence, that it speaks the universal language of imagination, but that like
the lovers' emblems in Politian, it was "meant to be understood by the lovers
only, and exercise the conjectures of others in vain".23 Perhaps the hope that
Alberti entertained with regard to these images was not quite so ill founded as
has been supposed. "All over the world", Alberti mentions in De re aedificatoria
[On architecture, VIII, iv], "they would be easily understood by experienced
men, to whom alone the noblest subjects should be communicated".24

There are, of course, images like this: images that communicate through gaps, by
prompting the exercise of imagination and desire. In relation to these there can be
nothing more damaging than the interpretative imagination that wants to fill all
gaps with texts and meanings, with its obsessive desire for plain and univocal
meanings, and for "euchronism". These images have always existed. But for this
awareness to become accessible to us it was necessary to cross the threshold from

21Chimeras drew the attention of Warburg on the occasion of his excursion to the pueblo region, for
which he accounted in "A lecture on serpent ritual". Carlo Severi has recently assessed this encounter
with chimeras in "Warburg anthropologue".
22 See G. Didi-Huberman, "Critical reflections", pp. 64-65.
23Wind comments in Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, p. 164, in the following terms: "Although as
impatient with obscurity as he was with platitude, Erasmus relished in a good emblem (like his own
Terminus) the art of suggesting a thought by withholding it; and the busy Politian, who had solved the
ancient aenigmata of Varro and Ausonius, included in the list of his employments the invention of
cryptic symbols for lovers, which would be understood by the lovers only, and 'exercise in vain the
conjectures of others' (Politian, Epistolae II, xii; Opera I, fol. 19r)."
24 E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, p. 235.

30
the representative to the aesthetic regime for the identification of arts. In the
domain of critique, two names achieved this: Freud and Warburg.

31
4. The way of Warburg
The interpretative frames described above can be thought of as distinct viewpoints,
in literal terms. The first, Panofskian iconology, resembles one of those belvederes
on the top of a green hill, with a magnificent view over the landscape, the same
view as in a postcard on sale in the small kiosk. The place still exists but in the
meantime a forest park has grown on the hillside. Now, instead of taking the road
that goes up hill, one can also walk through the park. And as one climbs the hill
there are different views, at different heights. But there are more than views,
because stops can be made for notable vegetal species or geological outcrops. Also,
a few huts for picnicking have been developed. Informal paths connect a number
of landmarks that can be visited in no particular order. And so one ends up
exploring a rather different landscape. There are no longer any postcards; now each
person takes their own pictures which are all different.
This transformation of the hill gives an idea of how the interpretation of im-
ages has changed. In the belvedere there used to be a small built network of walk-
ways, flower beds, etc. Now a wider network of paths covers the whole hill.
Whereas the former was built, the latter and more recent paths are imprecise and
bifurcate every five steps. One tries to follow the footsteps of those that have
opened the way, but these traces, washed by rain and taken over by grass, have
almost disappeared. One has to make one's own way. No hay caminos, hay que
caminar... soñando, as Luigi Nono put it.25
This is the route taken by Aby Warburg, the father of "iconology" and a pio-
neer in the interpretation of images. He climbed the hill several times and each time
took a different path. He tirelessly covered the gap between viewpoints and objects.
Warburg aimed at understanding the force, power and life of symbols and images,
researching in an unprejudiced manner their constitution and itinerancies. Instead,
Panofsky sought to understand their meaning. Whereas the latter thought that
questions of signification were raised by symbols and images, the former understood
that matters of empathy were also strongly at stake. The difference is crucial.
Warburg tends not to speak of Renaissance, but rather of the "renewal of pagan
antiquity". The notion of Renaissance covers a semantic field constituted by redis-
covery and voluntary restoration, revival and re-invention of the artistic lexicon and

25 After the titles of three works of Nono after a poem in a cloister in Toledo (L. N., Écrits, p. 336):
Caminantes... Ayacucho (1986-87), No hay caminos, hay que caminar... Andrei Tarkovskj (1987), "Hay que
caminar" soñando (Nono's last work, 1989). Nono was acquainted with Antonio Machado's well known
poem: "Caminante, son tus huellas // el camino, y nada más; // caminante, no hay camino, // se hace el camino al
andar. // Al andar se hace camino, // y al volver la vista atrás // se ve la senda que nunca // se hade volver a
pisar. // Camiante, no hay camino, // sino estelas en la mar " (A. M., Antologia Poética, p. 150).

32
grammar of the Ancient world, a world that had - through necessity of this
intellectual system - disappeared. The notion of "renewal" supposes that of
"survival", Nachleben, so that the Ancient world never really disappeared but con-
tinuously metamorphosed. That Ancient culture was not so much an artistic syntax
and grammar but a system of forms-forces, of errant ghosts making way into the
future, embodying a number of promises and threats. In the first case signs and
images are constituted as "intellectual signs or aesthetic forms appealing to enlight-
ened intelligence". In the second case there is the awareness that they oscillate
between this pole and that of signs "compelling superstitious worship or fear",
"magic forces".26

When we speak of "survival of the classics", we mean that the symbols

created by the Ancients continued to assert their power upon subsequent
generations. But what do we mean by the word "continue"? Is their
significance constantly retained? Or is it not rather forgotten at times,
regained and transformed at others? 27

As Wind, after Warburg, puts forward, their signification and polarity change over
time, most often following paths that are other than logical in a conventional way,
which indeed resemble the weaver's masterpiece of Goethe, i.e. the "thought-
factory" that Freud recognized in the dream, weaving with a multiplicity of times
and materials and displacing affects. Warburg had an acute awareness that through-
out history signs oscillated between the poles of rationality and magic. Naturally, by
referring to "magic" Warburg integrates a fundamental aspect of the phenomenol-
ogy of images into his thought, the already mentioned affective dimension. But
there is more, because there is mobility itself, a sort of mobility that undoes the
illusion of straightforward and univocal signifier-signified correspondences. As we
have argued, the image-sign becomes an image through the mediation of gaze and
therefore also of desire. Furthermore, any sign is a patchwork, weaved by a multi-
plicity of threads. Put bluntly, dismissing these aspects and thinking of the sign
solely in relation to a univocal signified is idealizing it. Instead, if one considers that
gaze and desire play a role in endowing them with a sense and that they were
crafted, naturally, it becomes possible that there is an inadaptation between signifier
and signified, that can only be resolved by a sleight of hand.28 This is what Jacques
Derrida, drawing on Claude Lévi-Strauss, calls the "supplement".29 According to

26 E. Wind, A Bibliography on the Survival of the Classics, vol. 1, pp. vi-vii.

27 E. Wind, A Bibliography on the Survival of the Classics, vol. 1, p. viii.
28See C. Lévi-Strauss, Introduction to the work of Marcel Mauss, p. 62: "Man has from the start had at his
disposition a signifier-totality which he is at a loss to know how to allocate to a signified, given as
such, but no less unknown for being given. There is always a non-equivalence or "inadequation"
between the two, a non-fit and overspill which divine understanding alone can soak up".
29 J. Derrida, "Structure, sign and play in the discourse of the human sciences", p. 365.

33
Derrida, there is a structural inadaptation where, as in the classical hypothesis, the
finite of language cannot cover the "too much" and "more" that there is to be said
(for which our culture invented symbolic entities such as God and the Devil, and
ideas such as infinitude). But there is also such inadaptation where there is no
centre or origin arresting and grounding the game of substitutions. The two aspects
are clearly articulated by Lévi-Strauss. Derrida considers that mankind has always
distributed the supplementary allowance constituted by signification so that "on the
whole the available signifier and signified it aims at may remain in the relationship
of complementarity which is the very condition of the use of symbolic thought".30
On the other hand, this same mankind has always needed "floating signifiers"31 such
as the mana that Lévi-Strauss comments on in the Introduction to the work of Marcel
Mauss. This proper noun stands for a whole larger than that which the sign may
reasonably stand for. The most radical antinomies attach to the paradoxical mana:
"force and action; quality and state; substantive, adjective and verb all at once;
abstract and concrete; omnipresent and localised". The mana is an outburst of coa-
lescent opposites:

Indeed, mana is all those things together; but is not that precisely because it is
none of these things, but a simple form, or to be more accurate, a symbol in
its pure state, therefore liable to take any symbolic content whatever?32

The function of mana type notions is that of opposition to the absence of

meaning, without possessing any particular meaning.33

"Magic"!... Warburg would have claimed. Indeed, magic is necessary for covering
the gap between the given and absolute sign - "symbols are more real than what
they symbolize, the signifier precedes and determines the signified"34 - and the
unlimited and open real. This something-anything, this form that may stand for
anything is, crucially, the thread with which its transformation is weaved - "the
surety of all art, all poetry, every mythic and aesthetic invention", still according to
Lévi-Strauss.35 The mana and proper nouns alike are façades of factories of symbolic

30 C. Lévi-Strauss, Introduction to the work of Marcel Mauss, pp. 62-63; quoted in J. Derrida, "Structure,
sign and play in the discourse of the human sciences", p. 366.
31 C. Lévi-Strauss, Introduction to the work of Marcel Mauss, p. 63.
32 C. Lévi-Strauss, Introduction to the work of Marcel Mauss, p. 64. See C. Lévi-Strauss, "Introduction à
l'œuvre de Marcel Mauss", p. l.
33 "La fonction des notions de type mana est de s'opposer à l'absence de signification sans comporter par soi-même aucune
signification particulière". In C. Lévi-Strauss, "Introduction à l'œuvre de Marcel Mauss", p. l, note. Oddly
this last section of the note in the French original is not included in the English translation.
34 C. Lévi-Strauss, Introduction to the work of Marcel Mauss, p. 37.
35 C. Lévi-Strauss, Introduction to the work of Marcel Mauss, p. 63.

34
thinking, factories of poetic and aesthetic creation. These factories weave with
thread from unwoven fabric. Indeed, "art is like fire, born from what it burns".36
This phenomenology is both the driving force of arts and what challenges the
orderly account of their unfolding: "history". What is the time, the rhythm, of this
force? It is a time that unfolds in bumps, a time that is an effect of "memory", with
its forgetting and remembering, with its epiphanies, involuntary memories, trans-
formations of sense, with its affects. Warburg is the man of this other history that
one can name "memory", whereas Panofsky is a man of "history", that supposes an
orderly and regular unfolding of time, as if seen at distance, from a belvedere.
"Memory" results from the coming and going between objects and their surround-
ings, from the struggle against the accidents of the ground and the involuntary
findings that they propitiate. As is well known, this ground constituted the dusty
archives of Florence, which he privileged to the dictums of art theory, and his
remarkable library, with a unconventional system of shelving that made it possible
to find books side by side that would not be so close according to modern criteria
of bibliotheconomy. The use of a triple classificatory principle, with correspon-
dence to three stripes of colour still visible in many spines at the Warburg Library,
prompted their mobility. Warburg used to say that the solution of a problem is
likely not to be in the book one looks for but in the one by its side. This was his
way.
The memory at the centre of Warburg's enterprise brings him near to Freud
although, in his lifetime, he did not develop much sympathy for him. Nonetheless,
there is a striking convergence between the objects, research concerns, categories
and findings of both men. This is not alien to the circumstances that led Warburg
to becoming a patient of Ludwig Binswanger, a major Freudian with whom
Warburg developed a deep friendship.

-----

The interest for some aspects of psychoanalytical theory has prepared the ground
for the rediscovery of Warburg in recent years. A small but influential circle of
French researchers on the image gravitating around the École des Hautes Études en
Sciences Sociales in Paris (EHESS) and who were close readers of Freud, of Foucault,
Lacan, Lyotard, Deleuze and Derrida, played or still play an important role in the
reassessment of Warburg.
As a result, it was crucial for the development of the two pieces of research
that constitute this dissertation to frequent the EHESS, to read Freud, starting
from the fundamental The Interpretation of Dreams, and to read Warburg.

36 J.-L. Godard, Histoire(s) du Cinéma, 2B - Fatale beauté, 13' 40''.

35
5. Excursuses around images
Although both aspects which I have elaborated on, the viewpoint and the land-
scape, are important, I wish to stress that this dissertation concerns neither of them
directly. That is to say, it concerns neither the changing paradigms in the interpre-
tation of images, their dynamic or the reasons underlying these transformations,
nor indeed the emergence of new objects, the broader artistic or cultural changes
that occurred throughout modernity and after the late 1960s.
In addition, I am not aiming at any general knowledge on images. Contrary to
what I may, eventually, have suggested in the previous pages, I am simply aiming at
understanding two particular images: Holl's entry and Lordi's image, including the
rich phenomenology they rouse. Indeed, these two pieces of research emerged out
of my encounter with these overwhelming and "mad" images (as Roland Barthes
once put it). This encounter was my starting point. Certainly the assessment of
these multiplicities would not have been possible from a naive and absolutely
empirical viewpoint. However, I have not proceeded from the theory, from the
order of discourses, to the objects, but, rather, the other way round: from the
disorder of images to discourses. The theoretic frame was developed for the purpose
of this research. Only in the second instance is this topical research. I have started
from the two objects: neither from landscape nor from viewpoint.
Therefore, the two pieces of research are excursuses: excursions and digres-
sions. These excursuses do not revolve around any axiomatic centre but draw a
specific heuristic37 around images themselves. As happens in other fields of research,
the language and writing style is congenial to the research object, to its fluidity and
over-determination. At times it will be rich in metaphors, effects of inter-textuality
and inter-visuality, in paradoxes, so hopefully, the open language will offer broad
possibilities to readers. Naturally, images themselves are part of the unfolding of the
argument. Indeed, the same conditions apply to research on images which Lévi-
Strauss defined in relation to myth, and on which Derrida comments in the
following terms:

There is no unity or absolute source of the myth. The focus or the source of
the myth are just shadows and virtualities which are elusive, unactualizable
and nonexistent. Everything begins with structure, configuration, or
relationship. The discourse on the acentric structure that is myth itself cannot
have an absolute subject or an absolute centre. It must avoid the violence that
consists in centring the language to describe an acentric structure if it is not to

37 From the Greek "find", heuristic knowledge proceeds by finding by chance, meeting, discovering.

36
 shortchange the form and movement of myth. Therefore, it is necessary to
forego scientific or philosophical discourse, to renounce the episteme which
absolutely requires or indeed is the absolute requirement that we go back to
the source, to the centre, to the founding basis, to the principle and so on.
Unlike epistemic discourse, the structural discourse on myths, that is,
mythological discourse, must be mythomorphic. It must have the form of that of
which it speaks.38

After which Derrida quotes from Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked:

It would not be wrong to consider this book itself as a myth: it is, as it were,
the myth of mythology.39

-----

Finally, in relation to what follows I would like to make the same wish as that made
by Barthes in 1977 concerning the yearly excursus which he started at the Collège de
France in Paris:

I should like the speaking and the listening that will be interwoven here to
resemble the comings and goings of a child playing beside his mother, leaving
her, returning to bring her a pebble, a piece of string, and thereby tracing
around a calm centre a whole locus of play within which the pebble and the
string come to matter less than the gift full of zeal that was made.
When the child behaves in this way, he in fact describes the comings and
goings of desire, which he endlessly presents and represents.40

Barthes described the focus of both the child's activity and his teaching as ghosts.41
I cannot put it any better, as the researches presented here also revolve around

38 J. Derrida, "Structure, sign and play in the discourse of the human sciences", pp. 362-363 - transla-
tion slightly modified.
39 C. Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked, p. 12.
40 R. Barthes, "Inaugural lecture", pp. 476-477.
41 R. Barthes, "Inaugural lecture", p. 477: "I sincerely believe that at the origin of teaching such as
these we must always locate a fantasy [...]. It is to fantasy, spoken or unspoken, that the professor
must annually reconsider, at the moment of determining the direction of his journey". "Phantasme" was
translated in English into "fantasy", which is not wrong in the psychoanalytical sense and which is
clearly congenial to Barthes. Nonetheless, the French word also means "ghost", a sense that is present
in his lines; see R. Barthes, Leçon, pp. 42-44: "Ce que je souhaiterai pouvoir renouveler, chacune des années qu'il
me sera donné d'enseigner ici, c'est la manière de présenter le cours ou le séminaire, bref de "tenir" un discours sans
l'imposer. [...] Et je me persuade de plus en plus, soit en écrivant, soit en enseignant, que l'opération fondamentale de
cette méthode de déprise, c'est, si l'on écrit, la fragmentation, et, si l'on expose, la digression, ou, pour le dire d'un mot
précieusement ambigu: l'excursion. J'aimerais donc que la parole et l'écoute qui tresseront ici soient semblables aux allés
et venues d'un enfant qui joue autour de sa mère, qui s'en éloigne, puis retourne vers elle pour lui rapporter un caillou, un

37
ghosts, not metaphorically, not in order to stress that the object of research activity
is always a ghost, but literally, as I shall be drawing on haunting images and haunted
by reminiscences; images that shape our inner and material world, while they undo
some certainties on the efficacy and nature of images.

brin de laine, dessinant de la sorte autour d'un centre paisible toute une aire de jeu, à l'intérieure de laquelle le caillou, la
laine importent finalement moins que le don, plein de zèle qui en est fait. Lorsque l'enfant agit ainsi, il ne fait rien
d'autre que de dérouler les allés et venues d'un désir, qu'il présente et représente, sans fin. Je crois sincèrement qu'à
l'origine d'un enseignement comme celui-ci, il faut accepter de toujours placer un fantasme, qui peut varier d'année en
année. Ceci, je le sens, peut paraître provocant: comment oser parler, dans le cadre d'une institution, si libre soit-elle, d'un
enseignement fantasmatique? Cependant, si l'on considère un instant la plus sure des sciences humaines, à savoir, l'His-
toire, comment ne pas reconnaître qu'elle a un rapport continu avec le fantasme? C'est ce que Michelet avait compris:
l'Histoire, c'est en fin de compte l'histoire du lieu fantasmatique par excellence, à savoir le corps humain; c'est en partant
de ce fantasme, lié chez lui à la résurrection lyrique des corps passés, que Michelet a pu faire de l'Histoire une immense
anthropologie. La science peut donc naître du fantasme. C'est a un fantasme, dit ou non dit, que le professeur doit
annuellement revenir, au moment de décider du sens du voyage; de la sorte il dévie de la place où on l'attend, qui est la
place du Père, toujours mort, comme on le sait; car seul le fils a des fantasmes, seul le fils est vivant."

38
 Part 2

HOLL'S ENTRY

Art is the Winner

 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
1. Kiasma, overall view 2. Idem, lobby at the inauguration 4. Idem, helicoidal stair-ramp 5. Idem, 4th floor gallery
3. Idem, lobby

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6. South Töölönlahti and Kamppi, early 1990s 7. South Töölönlahti and Kamppi, early 1990s, with the superimposition
of the outline of Aalto’s 1st plan (1961)

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1 - Parliament House (J. S. Sirén, 1931) A - Töölönlahti
2 - National Museum (H. Geselius, A. Lindgren and E. Saarinen, 1910) B - Kamppi
3 - Finlandia Hall (A. Aalto, 1971-75)
4 - Main railway station (E. Saarinen, 1919)
5 - Post and telecommunications building
6 - Glass Palace (Lasipalatsi; N. Kokko, V. Revell, H. Riihimäki, 1936;
P. Ilonen, M. Lukander, 1998)
7 - Villa Hakasalmi (1846), premise of the City Museum
 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
8. Aalto’s plan, 1st version, 1961 9. Aalto’s plan, 3rd version, 1971, 10. Idem, model
with the superimposition of the
outline of the 1961 plan

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11. P. E. Blomstedt, the “green 12. E. Saarinen, Greater Helsinki Plan, 1918, 13. B. Jung, proposition for Master 14. B. Jung, the “central park”,
wedge”, 1933 bird’s eye view of the Töölönlahti development Plan, 1911, with “central park” 1911

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15. The legacy of Aalto’s plans
3 - Finlandia Hall (A. Aalto, 1971-75)
11 - New Opera House (1993)
JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
16. The Kiasma effect
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20 - Kiasma (S. Holl, 1998)
21 - Newspaper hall (Sanomatalo, 2000)
22 - Hotel (2001)
23 - Parliament offices (2002)
24 - New Concert Hall (design competition, 2000)
25 - Kamppi multi-functional complex (2006)
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17. Cultural institutions around Töölönlahti 18. South Töölönlahti and Kamppi component plan, 1991, detail

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2 - National Museum (H. Geselius, A. Lindgren and E. Saarinen, 1910)
3 - Finlandia Hall (A. Aalto, 1971-75)
7 - Villa Hakasalmi (1846), premise of the City Museum
10 - Tennis Palace (Tennispalatsi, 1937, refurbished in 1999 by M. Nurmela,
K. Raimoranta and J. Tasa for the City Art Museum)
11 - New Opera House (1993)
20 - Kiasma (S. Holl, 1998)
24 - New Concert Hall (design competition, 2000)
40 - Ateneum Art Museum (C. Th. Höijer, 1887)
41 - National Theatre (O. Tarjanne, 1902, extension by K. & H. Sirén, 1954)
42 - City Theatre (T. Penttilä, 1967)
 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
19. K. Liukkonen, F. Lindberg, S. 20. Idem, axonometric, 21. Idem, model
Lauritsalo and J. Aittoniemi, “Nyt from panel 4
Nykki“ [Class II], from panel 2

From above to below:

- Floor 1
- Ground floor (lobby to
the right; in grey)

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11 bis. 22. J. Leiviskä, “Pähkinäsärkijä” [Class III], 23. Idem, model
site plan, from panel 1 24. Idem, perspective, from panel 4

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25. V. Helminen, “Lähteellä” [2nd prize], 26. Idem, model
from panels 2 and 3

From above to below:

- Ground floor
- Floor -1 (main gallery to the right)
- Longitudinal section
- View into the main gallery

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27. K. Leiman, “Iron and blood” [honourable mention], model 29. K. Shinoara, “Stages” [2nd prize], model
28. C. Bearman and M. Mäkipentti, “Cothurnocystis“ [purchase], model 30. Idem

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31. S. Holl (SH), “Chiasma”, panel 1 32. Idem, panel 2 33. Idem, panel 3 34. Idem, panel 4

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37. Idem
35. SH, “Chiasma”, model
36. Idem
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38. SH, “Chiasma”, from panel 1 39. Idem, from panel 2 40. Idem, from panel 3

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41. SH, “Chiasma”, from panel 2 43. Idem, from panel 3
42. Idem, from panel 4 44. Idem, from panel 4

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45. SH, watercolour for Kiasma 47. Idem
46. Idem 48. Idem

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50. Kiasma, upper floor gallery 49. SH, watercolour for Kiasma 51. G. B. Piranesi, Study for a palatial interior, 1745-48
52. G. B. Piranesi, Carceri, pl. XI, 1745

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47 bis. 53. G. De Chirico, Italian square with 54. G. De Chirico, The mystery and melancholy
48 bis. equestrian statue, 1936 of a street, 1914

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45 bis. 55. P. Lumikangas, Two Gateways, 1978 56. P. Lumikangas, Exhibition Room (Näyttelyhuone), 1972
46 bis

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5 bis. Kiasma, 4th floor gallery 57. SH, watercolour for Kiasma 58. G. B. Piranesi, Carceri, pl. VI, 2nd state, 1760

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59. SH, watercolour 60. G. B. Piranesi, Study for a Carceri, c1743

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61. SH, watercolour for Kiasma 62. Idem 63. SH, watercolour
64. Idem

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65. O. Mäkilä, Mechanical composition, 1950s 67. O. Mäkilä, Painting, 1950s 68. M. Duchamp, Mariée [Bride], 1912
66. O. Mäkilä, Composition, 1950

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69. SH, watercolour 71. Picasso, Figures au bord de la mer, 1931
70. SH, watercolour 72. Picasso, Femme au fauteuil rouge (Marie-Thérèse), 1932

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73. S. Botticelli, Birth of Venus, c1485 74. S. Botticelli, Spring, c1482 77. D. Ghirlandaio,
75. Sassetti Chapel, Santa Trinità, view of the lower part 76. D. Ghirlandaio, Adoration Francesco Sassetti, 1482-85
of the Shepherds, 1482-85

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78. D. Ghirlandaio, Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule
(Sassetti Chapel, Santa Trinità), 1482-85
80. D. Ghirlandaio, The Birth of Saint John Baptist
(Tornabuoni Chapel, Santa Maria Novella), 1486-90
JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
79. Giotto, Confirmation of the Franciscan
Rule (Santa Croce), 1325

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81. A. Warburg, Ninfa Fiorentina, 1896-1900, 82. A. Warburg, Mnemosyne atlas, plate 6
cover of the manuscript

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80 bis. Detail 83. Maenad, neo-attic 84. Unknown Italian artist, 85. Donatello, Judith 86. S. Botticelli, The Return of Judith
bas-relief, late 2nd century Judith, 15th century and Holofernes, 1455-60 to Bethulia, c1472
BC (after 5th century BC
bas-relief )

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87. Bertodo di Giovanni, 88. D. Ghirlandaio, Slaughter of 89. A. Dürer, Death of Orpheus, 90. Jan Matsys, Judith, 91. Giorgione,
Crucifixion, c1485, detail the Innocents, c1486-90, detail c1494, detail 16th century Judith, c1504

80 bis. Detail 92. Gradiva, bas-relief at Freud’s
office in Vienna in 1938
JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
93. Maenad, Roman 94. Maenad dancing, projection 95. Laocoon, Roman c 50 BC, after
bas-relief, 1st century of neo-attic bas-relief Greek original of c 3rd century BC
BC (after Greek 5th
century BC bas-relief )

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96. Asclepius, Roman statue, 2nd centu- 97. Hopi Indian during 98. Hopi Indian during the snake
ry (after Greek model, 4th century BC) the snake ritual, c1910 ritual, 1924

99. Hopi schoolboy’s drawing of a storm with two snake-
lightnings, 1896
100. Hopi sand painting (altar) in the floor of the Kiva,
with four snakes shooting out from the clouds, early 1890s
JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
101. S. Freud, “The architecture of hysteria”, 1897, manuscript page 102. S. Botticelli, Birth of Venus,
related to the researches on hysteria. See S. Freud, “Extracts from the c1485, detail
Fliess Papers” (SE 1), pp. 250-253. The scheme illustrates the mecha-
nism of over-determination: below the layered unconscious material
and above the symptoms.
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103. SH, preliminary watercolour 104. Idem 105. Idem 106. Idem
for Kiasma 107. SH, watercolour for the Belvedere
Art Museum, Washington

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108. W. Aaltonen, Builder’s hand 109. Domenico Cresti da Passignano, Michelangelo 110. Ambrogio Borgognone, Gian Lorenzo
(Rakentajan käsi), 1960 presenting his model to Pope Paul IV, 1619 Visconti presenting the model of the Certosa di
Pavia to the Virgin, c1488-1510

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111. K. Kaivanto, poster of the exhibi- 112. K. Kaivanto, The Hand, 1969 113. K. Kaivanto, A Question of efficiency, 114. K. Kaivanto, Blue thinker -
tion at Artek Gallery, Helsinki, 1969 1969 Rodin theme, 1971

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115. K. Kaivanto, Chain (Positive visionary diagonal) - 116. K. Kaivanto, 117. K. Kaivanto, From time 118. A. Giacometti, Suspended ball, 1930-31
Dedicated to the friendship between European peoples, My opinion, I said..., to time, 1998
1972. Glass fibre and steel sculpture between floor 1966-68
and ceiling mirror.

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119. A. Giacometti, Main Prise, 1932 121. A. Giacometti, La Table 122. A. Giacometti, The 123. A. Giacometti, Hands
120. A. Giacometti, La Main, 1947 Surréaliste, 1933 Invisible Object - Hands holding the void, detail of print
holding the void, 1934-35

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124. R. Lichtenstein, poster
of the “American Pop Art”
exhibition, Moderna Museet,
Stockholm, 1963
125. P. Osipow, Gloves, 1968
JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
126. A. Breton, Poème-objet, 1941
127. Woman’s glove, bronze from the
former collection of A. Breton (from
A.B., Nadja, 1928)
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128. Stills from L. Buñuel (direction and screenplay) and
S. Dalí (screenplay), Un Chien Andalou, 1929

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4

5
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129. Stills from spot shown by YLE for decades, preceding
the presentation of educational short films, 1st version
130. Idem, 2nd version

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131. U. Jokisalo, Iconostasis, 1995 (version exhibited
at the Finnish Museum of Photography, Sept. 2005)

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132. U. Jokisalo, Together, 1996 (now in Iconostasis) 135. U. Jokisalo, Autobiographical series 1-7, part 3, 1995 (now in Iconostasis)
133. U. Jokisalo, Cutting, 1995 (now in Iconostasis) 136. Idem, part 1, 1995 (now in Iconostasis)
134. U. Jokisalo, I’m cutting, 1995 (now in Iconostasis)

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137. H. Hiltunen, L’Éducation sentimentale, 2000
(from H.H., Personal Songbook, 2000)
JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
138. G. de Chirico, Love Song, 1914
139. Fragments of the colossal statue
of Constantine, c320, at the Palazzo
dei Conservatori, Rome
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 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
140. H. Hiltunen, An Attempt at a Biography, or The Story of How She (slowly) Learned 142. Idem, first four images of the series
the Names of Things, 1991-93, partial view (from H.H., Personal Songbook, 2000)
141. Idem, complete series

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 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
143. Caravaggio, The Sacrifice of Isaac, 1601-02 145. Caravaggio, The Fortune teller, 1596-97 146. Caravaggio, Magdalene, 1596-97
144. Caravaggio, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas,
1601

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 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
147. B. Nauman, Untitled, 1996 148. B. Nauman, Untitled (Hand group), 1997 150. A. Dürer, Hands of Christ, 1506
149. B. Nauman, Finger touch # 1, 1966-67

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 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
151. A. Ederfelt, A study 152. H. Moore, Hands 153. P. Veronese (attr.), Portrait of 154. Hélène Bamberger,
of two hands and arms of a (Self-portrait), 1969 Vincenzo Scamozzi, 1590s Gilles Deleuze, 1980s
seated woman (Kaksi käsi-
ja käsivarsiharjoitelmaa
istuvasta naisesta)

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155. V. Granö, Veijo Rönkkönen in his
sculpture park in Parikkala, c1986-89
156. V. Granö, Matias Keskinen working
on the monumental bust of President Kekkonen, c1986-89
JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
157. Unidentified DIY artist, Couple (exhibited on the background
of Kiasma on the occasion of the exhibition “in Another World”)
158. Edvin Hevonskoski, President Tarja Halonen and her two cats, 2005 (exhibited in front
of Kiasma on the occasion of the exhibition “In Another World”; on the background the
statue of Marshal Mannerheim and behind it the Parliament House)
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159, 160. J. Kaila, Villa Juice
(from J. K., Elis Sinistö, 1986)
JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
161. J. Kaila, I am a mystery for myself
(from J. K., Elis Sinistö, 1986), view of
the whole and photos 1, 2, 7, 8, 14,
19 and 20
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 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
162. SH, watercolour 163. B. Marden, Cold mountain addendum, 1991
164. O. Zitko, Wall drawing, 2005 (Kiasma)

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 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
165. Le Corbusier, the “open hand” of 166. Le Corbusier, the “open hand” of
Chandigarh (project: early 1950s) Chandigarh (construction: mid 1980s)

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 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
167. D. Judd, Burnt Siena, 1979
(piece exhibited at ARS 83)

Tautological

Bruce Glaser - Are you suggesting that there are no more

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solutions to, or no more problems that exist in painting?
Frank Stella - (...) I always get into arguments with people
who want to retain the old values in painting - the
humanistic values that they always find in the canvas. If

20:18
you pin them down, they always end up asserting that
there is something there besides the paint on the canvas.
My painting is based on the fact that only what can be seen

Page 49
there is there. It really is an object. Any painting is an
object and anyone who gets involved enough in this finally
has to face up to the objectness of whatever it is that he’s
doing. He is making a thing. All that should be taken for
granted. If the painting were lean enough, accurate
enough, or right enough, you would just be able to look at
it. All I want anyone to get out of my paintings all I do
ever get out of them, is the fact that you can see the whole
idea without any confusion... What you see is what you see.

Bruce Glaser, “Questions to Stella and Judd” (1964), in G. Battcock (ed.),

Minimal Art, 1995, pp. 157-158.
 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
168. T. Smith, Die, 1962 169. S. LeWitt, Buried cube containing an object
(steel, 183 x 183 x 183 cm) of importance but little value, 1968

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 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
170. R. Morris, Column, 1961 171. R. Morris, Untitled - Box 172. Leonardo, Homo ad circulum, study
for standing, 1961 (with R.M.) on proportions after Vitruvius, c1487

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 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
173. S. LeWitt, Six-sided tower, 1993

Open

When we find a mound in the

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woods, six feet long and three feet
wide, raised to a pyramidal form
by the means of a spade, we
become serious and something in

20:18
us says: someone is buried in
here. This is architecture.

Page 52
Adolf Loos, “Architecture”, in The
Architecture of Adolf Loos, 1985, p. 108.
 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
174. SH, watercolour 175, 176, 177. SH, Edge of a city, 1991

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 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
174 bis. 178. R. Morris, without title, 1965
175 bis. 179. R. Morris, exhibition at the Green Gallery, New York, 1964

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180. S. LeWitt, Incomplete
open cube, 1974
181. S. LeWitt, Schematic drawing
for incomplete open cube, 1974
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182. S. LeWitt, Schematic drawings
for incomplete open cubes, 1974
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174 bis. 183. S. LeWitt, exhibition
175 bis. “Incomplete open cubes“, 1974
184. S. LeWitt, exhibition, Rhona
Hoffman Gallery, Chicago
JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
185. S. LeWitt, exhibition
“Structures”, John Weber Gallery,
New York, 1977
186. S. LeWitt, Zigzag, 1980
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JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp 08/12/04 20:18 Page 57
189. Idem
188. Idem
187. SH, Simmons Hall, 1999-2002

190. Caspar David Friedrich,
Wanderer above the sea of fog, 1818
JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
44 bis. SH, “Chiasma”, detail of panel 3 192. E. Brotherus,
(see fig 33) Der Wanderer, 2003
191. Caspar David Friedrich, Woman
at the window, 1822

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132 bis.
193. M. Ray, R. Desnos in
André Breton‘s studio, 1922
194. Paul Éluard and
A. Breton
JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
171 bis. 195. M. Kella, from the series 197. M. Kella, Woman in a 198. Jan Van Eyck, A man in a red
“reversed“, 1997 state of hypnosis, from the series turban, 1433 (Oct 21)
196. Idem “hypnosis“, 1997
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195. bis. 44. bis.

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Jan Kaila - (...) by emphasising
the surface, you give the specta-

Page 60
tor plenty of space to imagine
what remains invisible in the
pictures. (...)
Marjaana Kella – A photograph
is dumb and still. That’s why we
can observe what’s on display in
a very special way. At the same
time, we can observe what hasn’t
been displayed in it, but which
can be guessed: I mean clues or
possibilities that can be found
inside the pictures. (...)

Marjaana Kella in dialogue with Jan

Kaila, in Marjaana Kela, 2002, p. 44.
 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
199. T. Smith, detail of p. 83 of ARS 69 catalogue 200. Swinside megaliths (England), Neolithic period

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JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp 08/12/04 20:18 Page 62
201. R. Tuttle, pp. 182-83 of ARS 83 catalogue
 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
202. M. Aiha, Fids and Fatmi (title of set of 2 sculptures), 2000 203. SH, watercolour

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 JoaoPhD-02-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
204. Teppo Sillantaus, “Mannerheimin tilalla on naula”
(“There is a nail in Mannerheim’s place”), in Helsingin
Sanomat, 20/8/1993

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Page 64
1. Introduction
On May 29, 1998, the Prime Minister of Finland Paavo Lipponen solemnly inaugu-
rated Kiasma (figs 1-5). Museum staff and friends of the museum, the art and
cultural worlds, public officers, foreign guests, holders of State and City public
offices, architects and the public at large gathered for the opening, which went on
for three days.
What is Kiasma? Firstly, it is an institution, the Museum of Contemporary
Art and the trustee of a collection of art dating from the 1960s. While having
"museum" in the name, Kiasma does not have a permanent exhibition of the
collection, functioning rather as an art centre. Although the museum was founded
in September 1990, it occupied temporary premises until 1998. The new premises
constituted a fresh start for the museum, as it took account of adequate galleries, a
theatre, cafeteria, bookshop, a specialized library, workshops, a "project room" and
the "studio K", among others. The institution was renamed "Kiasma" after the
name of the entry submitted by Steven Holl, who won the architectural
competition.
Secondly, Kiasma is a building, or a piece of architecture. It is a surprising
and peculiar landmark standing prominently at the core of the Finnish capital, con-
stituted by the intertwining of a waterline and two volumes of construction: the
first defined by straight lines, box-like ("rationalistic", in architectural jargon), and
the second, a curved and elongated volume stepping over the former ("organic", in
jargon). The entrance is on the south side of the building, towards Mannerheimintie
(Mannerheim Road). It leads into a high and elongated lobby between the two con-
structions, where their intertwining is visible. On the ground floor of the straight
west side part of the building are located the cafeteria and bookshop. Easily acces-
sible and disposing of optimal conditions of lighting, these spaces merge remarka-
bly well into the daily life of the city. The auditorium is positioned between the
ground floor (entrance) and floor -1 (stage). The exhibition galleries are located in
the upper floors. Floor 1 can be accessed by a long, smooth ramp. The visit to the
museum revolves around the lobby, rediscovered at different heights and from new
angles as one proceeds. The museum looks judiciously and sensibly to the outside: a
large wall of glass opens to Mannerheimintie; a horizontal window opens from the
"studio K" to the equestrian statue of Marshal Mannerheim; a vertical glass façade
in correspondence with the helicoidal stair-ramp and a nearby window opens to the
Parliament House; finally, a large window at the northern top of the upper gallery
opens towards Töölönlahti (Töölö bay).
The building feels spacious from the inside and is adequate in size from the
outside. In my view, this is a quite remarkable building. However, it must also be

41
acknowledged that some genuinely dislike Kiasma. Considering that its outlook is
rather unconventional, or even odd, and that the lobby and circulation are also
unconventional, it is understandable that it does not please everybody. Notwith-
standing, it must be stressed that the exhibition galleries are adequate and interest-
ing: though these galleries were not designed in a "white cube" perspective, there
are no obtrusive details at all and no elements of the technical facilities are visible;
the galleries dispose of natural light, which in some cases require rather ingenious
solutions, and their spatiality / geometry varies significantly, partly due to the east
curved wall-roof.
Thirdly, Kiasma is Finland's response to a context of symbolic competition
between European cities. In the 1990s cities strove to get international visibility as
centres of innovation and culture as this was perceived as constituting a key factor
for attracting leisure and business tourism, a qualified population and investment.42
This competition was played out in the context of modern and contemporary art
museums. As is well known, the most important museum built in these years was
Guggenheim Bilbao, also designed by an American architect, Frank O. Gehry, and
inaugurated in 1997.43 In the full sense of the word, it spectacularly redefined the
functional profile and vocation of the city. However, in relation to Kiasma and
Helsinki we are talking about transformations of another degree of importance. Of
course, Bilbao was at a crossroads whereas Helsinki was already an administrative,
academic, cultural and productive centre, but unquestionably Kiasma became an
important reference in the artistic and architectural landscapes, for locals as well as
for visitors. This is highly relevant since architectural tourism is important for
Finland, a country with a remarkable and internationally acknowledged tradition of
modern architecture. More important than the comparison with Guggenheim
Bilbao, which is in many respects distant, Kiasma can or indeed should be com-

42 The reshaping of the "dull and desolate" Helsinki, for instance as presented in Jim Jarmusch's Night
on Earth (1992), into a culturally vibrant and exciting city, with a polished image, was to a large extent
orchestrated by the City of Helsinki. According to the 1992 Master Plan, "the City will harbour a more
active policy towards commercial activities inherent in urban culture, street life, and events. [...] In
order to reinforce the public image of Helsinki and create a highlight of culture and leisure services
providing diversity in the city life, a project should be initiated to attract international interest"
(Helsingin Yleiskaava 1992, pp. xxx-xxxi, quoted in P. Lehtovuori, Experience and Conflict, p. 178). One of
the objectives of the 1995 Strategic Planning Advice reads: "Cultural Helsinki - To improve the city's
international image as a science, art and congress city as well as creating lively and multidimensional
arts and cultural pursuits for its residents and workers" (in Helsinki - City in the forest, p. 203). As the
culmination of a broad array of initiatives, the City successfully applied to be the European Capital of
Culture in 2000. Laura Mäkelä, a researcher at the City of Helsinki Urban Facts, wrote that "an image
of an active city where there's always something going on is at least partially created by culture. [...]
The application process for the Capital of Culture in 2000 can be seen as a project through which the
city is developed in a desired direction. The project provides a chance to raise the city's cultural and
financial profile in the European context" (L. M., Kulttuurin Muuttuva Kenttä, pp. 9 and 13, quoted in
P. Lehtovuori, cit.).
43Also a singular museum as, unlike the others, counts with the association to a brand with universal
recognition: Guggenheim.

42
pared to Stockholm's Moderna Museet, also inaugurated in 1998. The decision to
build Kiasma followed that of building Moderna Museet. Equally, the inauguration
of Kiasma followed shortly after that of Moderna Museet, demonstrating perhaps
that Sweden and its capital have in many respects always constituted examples for
Finland. As the neighbouring capital Stockholm was perceived as being wealthier,
since it has always been an important economic, cultural and artistic capital in the
Nordic context with an immense power of attraction. Moderna Museet is located
on an historic island before Stockholm's Old Town and enjoys good views over the
surroundings, while strives to disappear in the townscape. Constituted by large
quadrilateral rooms with zenithal lighting, the exhibition galleries have a neoclassic
character whereas Kiasma is its polar opposite. With its peculiar outlook, Kiasma
stands prominently in the cityscape. It risked more and, in my view, rather success-
fully copes with the challenge.
Fourthly, Kiasma was a turning point in the urban history of Helsinki. Like
many contemporary and modern art museums developed in Europe in the 1990s, it
was expected to boost the transformation of a larger urban area, so it was the
cornerstone of a policy for the development of an inner city area which constituted
a Gordian knot in the planning of Helsinki. It is a project of "acupuncture":44 self-
contained, due to intervention in a small area - the plot where the museum now
stands - but which was intended to contribute to the transformation of a much
larger area. Indeed Kiasma rearranged the townscape, directly, as it is a rather visi-
ble landmark and popular institution, and indirectly, it constituted an important
lever for the transformation of the surroundings.
Therefore, Kiasma is (i) a cultural project in the field of contemporary art, (ii)
a new and affirmative architectural monument in the cityscape, (iii) a statement
about Helsinki's forward and innovative positioning in the cultural domain and (iv)
a project of acupuncture which boosted the transformation of a larger urban area.
This is the grand story of Kiasma. However, I am first and foremost interested in
the small story, something of the order of the event,45 the rich and intense encounter
of an image with a gaze, that moment in which the outcome of the competition for
the design of the museum was decided in favour of Holl's entry. I wish to give
stature to an aspect largely neglected by the critique and theory of architecture: that
moment when commissioners and / or users encounter an architectural proposi-
tion at an early stage of its development; a moment when the interlocutors of the
architect may get enthusiastic or disappointed, without really knowing why. Often
this is the moment when the fate of the project is decided. There is, of course, a
certain relation between the small story and the big one; they are boxed one into

44 A term that Bernardo Secchi used in the early 1990s for naming the, by then, emerging strategy of
intervening in the city structure with self-contained projects, however that aimed at transforming
larger areas and that condensed exquisite urban policy goals.
45In French, émergence: "the moment of arising"; "the entry of forces, their eruption" (M. Foucault,
"Nietzsche, genealogy, history", pp. 148 and 149, respectively).

43
the other, like matryoshka dolls. I insist that it is the former aspect that constitutes
the focus of the research; as to the latter, I shall mainly draw on secondary sources.
I proceed in a rather conventional way by starting from the grand story.

-----

Kiasma belongs to that lineage of projects that started with Berlin's IBA
programme46 and Paris' grand travaux,47 followed by the modernization of Spanish
cities48 which includes the Herculean modernization of Barcelona for the Olympics
of 1992, by the development of waterfronts, by the construction of modern and
contemporary art museums in the early 1990s,49 and towards the turn of the century
the development of concert halls. It is an art museum and a relevant case of the
protagonism of architecture in the transformation of a European city after the late
1980s. Like Kiasma, the projects at stake are projects of architecture either con-
cerning buildings and / or public spaces, both paying strong attention to the archi-
tectural and symbolic (re-)organization of the intervened sites and, as a rule, also
aiming at more, often at sets of objectives similar or comparable to the "four in
one" of which Kiasma is the crystallization. In this sense, this is why these are not
mere projects of architecture, but also measures of urban policy. What made them
possible? Specifically, what made Kiasma possible? I shall recall that Kiasma is the
corollary of a specific cultural and institutional history and the outcome of the
determination of the Ministry of Education (MINEDU, which in Finland is in
charge of cultural affairs). It was also achieved thanks to a land agreement signed by

46Internationale Bauaustellung, or "international exhibition of construction [architecture]", according

to its mentor, Josef Paul Kleihues, a programme for the "critical restoration of the city".
47The New Louvre was launched in 1983. The Gare d'Orsay Museum was launched in 1982 (interior
by Gae Aulenti), La Villette Park in 1982 (Bernard Tschumi), Bastille Opera in 1984 (Carlos Ott), La
Défense Arch in 1983 (J. O. von Spreckelsen) and the French National Library in 1991 (Dominique
Perrault).
48The decision to prepare a new master plan for Madrid, of 1981, signalled the beginning of a busy
decade for the modernization of Spanish cities. 1992 is an important temporal reference, as it was then
that Seville Expo, the European Capital of Culture in Madrid and the Olympics of Barcelona
occurred. The modernization of Santiago de Compostela followed, having had as horizon the Jubilee
of 1999.
49Neue Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (1984, Stirling, Wilford & Associates), New Louvre (Paris, 1989, I. M.
Pei's pyramid), Museum für Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt, 1991, Hans Hollein), Centro Galego de Arte
Contemporánea (Santiago de Compostela, 1993, Álvaro Siza Vieira), Guggenheim Bilbao (1997, Frank
O. Gehry), Moderna Museet (Stockholm, 1998, Rafael Moneo), Casa de Serralves (Porto, 1999, Álvaro
Siza Vieira), Tate Modern (London, 2000, Herzog & De Meuron), the Great Court of the British
Museum (London, 2000, Richard Rogers), the Jüdisches Museum (Berlin, 2001, Daniel Liebeskind),
the new extension to the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid, 2005, Jean Nouvel), among others.
Three important projects are being planned in France insisting on this same formula: the construction
of a satellite of the Louvre, in Lens, France, a satellite of the Centre Pompidou, in Metz, France, and a
clone in Hong Kong, China. If the crystal-museums of the 1990s have a predecessor, this is Centre
Pompidou.

44
the State and the City and to the proactive support of the City. Last but not least,
Kiasma is the outcome of an architectural competition and was both designed and,
to a large extent, empowered by an architect. Indeed, due to their nature and com-
plexity, buildings like Kiasma strongly need the concourse of architects in their
design. I wish to stress particularly the role of the work of the architect in empow-
ering the proposition, not just a mere building but rather a crystal. Indeed Steven
Holl put his skill not only to the service of giving shape to the building in
Mannerheimintie which faces the Parliament House, but also to making it accept-
able and, as much as possible, desirable. In this sense Holl ended up empowering
the crystal. Whether he did it consciously or unconsciously as a mere side effect of
other concerns does not matter that much. More important, I think, is that his
work and skill were at the service of the cause. What is this skill? Briefly, the exper-
tise in the production of images, over-determined images, images that managed to
make one crucial member of the jury dream as meeting the dispositions that
structure her gaze, the same gaze of a large stratum of the public.

-----

Often the implication of architecture in the construction of policies for the trans-
formation of cities has been justified by an urban conjuncture characterized by the
transformation or redevelopment of the existing city rather than merely its expan-
sion, and by the growing importance of themes such as the architectural composi-
tion of the cities ("the architecture of the city", the title of an influential book that
Aldo Rossi published in 1966), by the qualification of the built and natural envi-
ronment,50 and by sustainability: all themes that, obviously, to a higher or lower
degree, touch the field of expertise of architects.
Although it is apparent that the social and economic demands draw a trajec-
tory that seems to point to the domain of architectural expertise, this is too narrow
an explanation for the rise of architecture in the construction of policies for the city
after the mid-1980s. It is not a sufficient justification for the fact that the project of
architecture became omnipresent in the media and was spectacularized, playing a
crucial role in translating the abstract equations of urban development into terms
accessible to the public at large as well as in empowering the transformations at
stake; it sought the acquiescence of the public and often managed to catch its eye.
Here I am not referring to the detailed project, constituted by scaled representa-
tions,51 technical specifications, estimations and so on, that is, the kind of specifica-
tions that are necessary for building, but, rather, to the representations or prefigu-
rations that are typical of architectural competitions and of early stages of the

50 Quality versus quantity, as if the city had entered a post-fordist cycle of production.
51"Prosaic signs of a material reality" as A. Pérez-Goméz notes in Architecture and the Crisis of Modern
Science, MIT, Cambridge (Mass.) and London, 1985, p. 288, that H. Lehtonen quotes in "Are architec-
tural visualizations reproductions?", p. 2.

45
development of a proposition, when it has to be negotiated with commissioner,
City and / or public. Alternatively, I refer to the prefigurations that are produced at
a late stage of development of the project for promoting it. In both cases we are
dealing with montages of signs that may include plans, sections, elevations,
perspectives, 3D renderings, models, sketches, photomontages, as well as repre-
sentations with colour and shadows, and eventually some text. The rise of archi-
tecture after the mid-1980s is coincidental with the rise of architectural prefigura-
tions, images that tend to play a role in the empowerment of the transformation of
cities. This is an exquisite discursive topic, that should not be confused with the
emergence of the themes that the expression "the architecture of the city" boldly
encapsulates. To identify the two would be to presume the contiguity between, on
the one hand, words and images and, on the other hand, things: a contiguity that
does not exist but is a myth. Indeed the rise of architectural prefigurations has
reasons and responds to needs that are rather different from the reasons and needs
underlying the new tendencies in the transformation of cities. These are different
realities, each with its own field of immanence.
The adequate plan for assessing discursive transformations is, as Foucault
suggested, the plan of discourse (constituted by what is proffered and what sustains
it).52 And if one thinks in these terms a fundamental question arises: how is it that
the modernization of cities such as London after WW II, was empowered on the
basis of omni-comprehensive narratives such as Sir Patrick Abercrombie's Great
London Plan; yet, since the mid-1980s, their transformation tends to be empowered
on a piecemeal basis53 and on the basis of prefigurations? What are the reasons
underlying this discursive shift which occurred to the advantage of architecture, as
most often the prefigurations at stake have an architectural nature and / or were
made by architects? What happened, then?
At an early date and very clearly Bernardo Secchi expressed the view that
between Abercrombie and the (discursive) tradition of planning, on the one hand,
and the mid-1980s, on the other, the instances and conditions for the empowerment of policies
for the city and territory changed.54 This is a consequence of a major transformation that

52 M. Foucault, "The order of discourse".

53Term that I borrow from Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, pp. 58-74 (section "Piecemeal vs
utopian engineering") and pp. 76-84, that, with an enormous historic anticipation and applied to a
domain that does not fully coincide with his own, pinpoints with unexpected exactitude the ideologi-
cal conditions that tend to underlie the projects for the transformation of cities in an "advanced liberal
society" (see N. Rose, "Governing 'advanced' liberal democracies", and the last section of this Part).
54This point of view was expressed in numerous literature starting from Il Racconto Urbanistico, 1984,
where the transformation of narrative structures and styles of planning was assessed in a systematic
way in the light of the social, political, economic and cultural conditions in which planning developed
and planners operate, in the articles of the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in Casabella and Urbanistica
(partly gathered in B. S., Un Progetto per l'Urbanistica, 1989), and in Secchi's Prima Lezione di Urbanistica,
2000 (see pp. 129-182). Finally, this was a major topic of his studio course at the Istituto Universitario di
Architettura di Venezia, which I attended in the early 1990s. But this same point of view was also
expressed in the way Secchi crafted a number of important master plans, where architectural prefigu-

46
occurred between the late 1960s and the 1970s, the crisis of those forms of political repre-
sentation inherited from the post-WW II.55 The time had gone when a political elite
democratically elected and the technical staff assessing it could, in our name and on
our behalf, empower the policies for the transformation of the city and the terri-
tory. Rather, the public emerged as the entity that, in the last instance, can validate
or invalidate these policies. This public, daily targeted by the mass media of com-
munication, has become acquainted with modern and contemporary art and culture
(through museums, monographs, magazines, TV, etc) and has a culture rather
different from that of the holders of public offices who empowered Abercrombie's
plan. Broadly speaking, whereas the culture of the former is fundamentally visual,
that of the latter was fundamentally literary. This public became the bearer of a
basic aspiration. A stratum of this public had passed through the pacifist, anti-
nuclear, environmental and other movements, that is, the "new social movements"
out of which came the fundamental idea of "public participation" in the taking of
decisions concerning the habitat.
In sum, I am focusing on the rise of architectural prefigurations and stressing
that it constitutes a discursive shift and a response to the new conditions for the
empowerment of policies to transform the human habitat, characterized by the
emergence of the public as a participating player. I am therefore suggesting that the
architect who entered the scene and gained prominence in the mid-1980s is not only
an expert in a number of themes that in the meantime had become relevant, such as

rations play a central role, a fundamental aspect of search for the legitimacy of the plan. The following
quotes make it manifest. B. Secchi, "Le Tecniche", p. 23: "The emergence within the panels of master
plans of both architectural projects of open spaces and of projects of architecture is likely the
distinctive aspect of a number of recent cases of urban design (progettazione urbanistica) in Europe. [...]
Those acquainted with this professional field know that this is the outcome of minute research work:
the search for a technical language capable of setting the terms for social interaction in the long run, to
give it a shape that allows for verification and that legitimately aims to be 'pre-written'" ("La comparsa
entro le tavole del piano generale di progetti di architettura degli spazi aperti e di architettura urbana è forse ciò che
connota in modo più evidente e problematico alcune recenti esperienze di progettazione urbanistica in diverse città europee.
[...] Chi fa esperienza di queste cose sa che si tratta di una lunga ricerca: di un linguaggio tecnico mediante il qualle
organizzare un processo de interazione esteso nel tempo ed a numerosi soggetti sociali, di dargli un esito che possa essere
intrevisto e proposto alla verifica od alla falsificazione, che possa aspirare ad essere legittimamente 'pre-scritto' "). B.
Secchi, "Un Principio di responsabilità", p. 47: "To give to all of that [to the new demands that society
puts in relation to the transformation of city and territory and, therefore, also to planning] a coherent
response, translate it into an adequate project for the living habitat, requires conspicuous imagination
and this may be what we lack the most. It requires that the project is understood as an hypothesis;
crafted in order to be legitimated or falsified" ("Dare a tutto ciò una risposta coerente, rovesciare tutto ciò in un
progetto di spazio abitabile adeguato, richiede grande immaginazione ed è questa la cosa che forse più ci manca. Richiede
sopratutto che il progetto venga concepito come un'ipotesi; prodotta per essere sottoposta alla verifica od alla
falsificazione").
55E. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, pp. 316-317 (feminism), pp. 324-ff (youth culture), p. 332 (May
1968), p. 334 (individualism), p. 342 ('identity politics' / community), p. 417 ('new social movements'
and rejection of 'old politics'), pp. 428-429 (limits of 'identity politics') and, of course, the blurring of
the left / right dichotomy.

47
those encapsulated by the heading "the architecture of the city", but also and crucially,
he is an expert in the use of images, thereby playing a vital role in the
empowerment of the transformation of the city. I am also suggesting that the
prominence that architecture achieved owes much to the fact that it responded to
these new conditions for the empowerment of policies for the habitat. In the last
instance this is a case of pursuit of political ends through means that apparently are
non-political.
I am not pretending that in a period of over two decades this is true across
Europe. This research concerns a single case of study, Kiasma. However I hope
that the research will suffice to raise the possibility that it could, indeed, be the case.
Kiasma confirms it. Holl's images substantially empowered a proposition that, of
course, is his own and has an architectural character, but as already mentioned, it
also changed in a sensible way the distribution of symbolic value throughout the
city and between cities. It concerned the common city and required conspicuous
public resources: that is, the proposition has an exquisite crystalline nature. Further-
more, the crystal was empowered through images, images that roused the emotive,
imaginative and linguistic-communicative capacities of beholders, or, as I argue in
the end, the political competence of these beholders. This was not achieved
through dull architectural representations, but through signs that are intense, open,
over-determined... and which, I believe, deserve to be recognized for their success.
These images have always occupied a central position in our culture, a position that
was renewed in the 20th century.
I shall argue therefore that Holl used a number of quite remarkable over-
determined images for empowering the crystal, a quality that is both intrinsic to the
images and granted by gaze. If images succeeded in the task this is not because they
share properties of their referent (which to some extent they do), but rather
because they are congenial to the world of their beholders, meaning not only the
world of a specific member of the jury but also our world as that gaze is also ours,
structured by dispositions that became fairly pervasive by the end of the 20th cen-
tury.
Consequently, the protagonist of my story is image, a professional capacity for
architects and a desire of the public.

-----

Starting in section 4 I shall unfold the argument on image, gaze, and related matters,
and propose an interpretation of Holl's entry. Before that, in the following section,
I will draw on a number of aspects constitutive of the crystal.

48
2. The crystal
2.1. A contemporary art museum

The Museum of Contemporary Art is a cultural-artistic project and, as already indi-

cated, was founded in 1990. However, its deeper roots lay in the 1960s, more pre-
cisely around 1969, the date of the second edition of ARS exhibitions and a sample
of what was happening in the international art world.
The first edition had been held in 1961, presenting a selection of Finnish,
Italian, French and Spanish art, including Alberto Burri, Jean Dubuffet, Lucio
Fontana, Hans Hartung, Emilio Vedova, so with a strong "informalist" vein. How-
ever, the ambition and reach of this exhibition was limited by national and cura-
torial criteria (if one can speak in these terms in relation to an exhibition that was
partly "ready made"?!...56). In contrast, ARS 69 constituted a quite remarkable cross-
section of international contemporary art. Artists such as Francis Bacon, Christo,
Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, Yves Klein, Roy Lichenstein, Claes Oldenburg,
Eduardo Paolozzi, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Georges Segal, Frank Stella, Tony
Smith (with Wandering rocks, 1967) and Andy Warhol were present. Nevertheless,
according to Leena Peltola, the focus of the attention of the public were on works
such as Nicolas Schöffer, Great prism (1955), and Edward Kienholz, Roxy's (1961),
an installation reconstructing a Los Angeles brothel. This was the same public who
were supremely irritated with a heap of water taps by Arman (Hommage à Mac
Mahon, 1961).57 Although the previous listing corresponds with already-established
names in the art world, they were obviously unknown to the Finnish public and
possibly elsewhere. The art that was being made in those years was surely more
distant from the public than the art of today. Academia was at a distance of some
30 years from it and information did not circulate through magazines and art cata-
logues the same way as it does today; nor did people travel as much as nowadays.
There was no internet and obviously there were no contemporary art centres giving
public visibility to the activity of contemporary artists. Rather, those galleries deal-
ing with contemporary art were also distant. Consequently, the difference between
then and now is dramatic, which stresses the importance of this and of the follow-
ing editions of ARS. Furthermore, in Finland there were neither public nor private
collections of modern art with an international relevance open to the public. As the
only close contemporary-modern art museum was in Stockholm, so the impression
caused by the 1969 and following editions of ARS must have been enormous.

56 Leena Peltola, "ARS exhibitions in Ateneum 1961-83", p. 21, in ARS 83.

57 Idem.

49
Either way, the initiative caught the attention of the public: while ARS 61 received
39.000 visitors, ARS 69 had 70.000 visitors, ARS 74 had 120.000 visitors and ARS
83 had 180.000 visitors.58
ARS 74 was held under the banner of "realism", that is "hyper-realism,
photo-realism, magical realism, socialist realism, etc"59 and seen from today it was
not a particularly exciting edition.
However, 9 years later, ARS 83 presented a large and remarkable cross-
section of international art. Again, the selection and number of international artists
was impressive and although constituted by established names, these were largely
unknown to the public: Carl Andre, Dieter Appelt, Georg Baselitz, Bernd & Hilla
Becker, Joseph Beuys, Daniel Buren, Francesco Clemente, Tony Cragg, Dan Flavin,
Simon Hantaï, Donald Judd, Anselm Kiefer, Iannis Kounellis, Wolfgang Laib (Pine
pollen, 1983), Sol LeWitt (Wall drawing, 1983), Richard Long, Agnes Martin, Mario
Merz, Nam June Paik, Mimmo Paladino, Richard Serra, James Turrel (with the light
installation Avaar, 1983), Richard Tuttle (with an exhibition-installation of water-
colours, 18 other works, 1983), Cy Twombly, among others. A significant number of
these artists were present in Helsinki to produce and / or install their works. As had
been the rule previously, the exhibition was held at the Ateneum. But in 1983 for
the first time the whole building was devoted to the exhibition.

-----

Situated by the main railway station, the Ateneum had been inaugurated in 1887
and was conceived as a "house of the arts". One half of the building was occupied
by the Finnish Art Society's School of Drawing and art collections, and the other by
the School of Applied Arts, the offices and the collections of the Finnish Associa-
tion of Crafts and Design. The motto carved above the building's main entrance,
"Concordia res parvae crescunt " ("Amidst harmony even small matters grow"), is often
referred to in relation to the coexistence under the same roof of the Fine and
Applied Arts which, in reality, was never pacific. Notwithstanding, this relationship
lasted until the late 1970s, when progressively the collections of the Association of
Crafts and Design (now Designmuseo), the School of Applied Art (now TaiK, the
University of Art and Design) and the Drawing School of the Art Society (now
Kuvataideakatemia, Academy of Fine Arts) started to move away, leaving the art
museum as the sole occupier of the building. This was so that the building could be
fully devoted to the ARS exhibition of 1983 and as it had not yet been refurbished
after the previous residents left, artists were given a free hand to develop their
projects.

In "The Museum of Contemporary Art celebrates its 10th anniversary", in http://www.kiasma.fi/

58

www/viewresource.php?id=3LoIe9KxdBJhpjZU&lang=en&preview=, August 2007.

59 ARS 74, p. 11.

50
 Up to 1983 the institution of the Ateneum Art Museum had been the organ-
izer of ARS exhibitions. It was the inheritor of the collections of the Art Society
which grew through purchases and donations and it possesses a large and rich
collection of Finnish art, including Albert Edelfelt (1854-1905), Akseli Gallen-
Kallela (1865-1931), Pekka Halonen (1865-1933), Hugo Simberg (1873-1917) and
others. Indeed this is the country's most important national art collection of the
19th and into the turn of the 20th century (including the remarkable "national
romantic" period). It also possesses a small collection of international art including
Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne and Edvard Munch (part of the
Antell Donation), a few international artists up to the 1950s and a relevant national
collection of the same period. Furthermore, the collections of the Ateneum
Museum integrated national and international contemporary art (starting in the
1960s). After several unsuccessful attempts between the 1960s and 1980s at
creating a museum of modern art, finally, in 1990 the Museum of Contemporary
Art was founded and became the trustee of the collection of contemporary art. As a
consequence, the foundation of the museum is the logical outcome of a continuous
investment in contemporary art. Here "investing" means two things mainly. On the
one hand, ARS exhibitions were occasions on which international art was exhibited
but also on which some art was purchased. On the other hand, the Ateneum Art
Museum and its successor, the Museum of Contemporary Art, have also presented
and purchased Finnish - as well as Nordic and Baltic - art.60 So it is possible that
ARS exhibitions impacted on the development of Finnish art but I cannot judge
this.61
Since the foundation of the Museum of Contemporary Art, in 1990, and
1998, when the new premises were inaugurated, it has shared the Ateneum building
with the homonymous museum. These institutions together with a third museum
(Sinebrychoff; Ancient art) and a horizontal service (the Art Archive) became inte-
grated as the Finnish National Gallery after its foundation in 1990.

-----

60In "The Museum of Contemporary Art celebrates its 10th anniversary", cit., it reads: "The time in
the Ateneum was one of the most important international exhibitions. Shows by visiting artists during
the first years included Lothar Baumgarten, Daniel Buren, Jan Fabre, Jeff Wall, and Ilja Kabakov. The
museum also organised retrospectives of important Finnish artists, including Paul Osipow and Pekka
Nevalainen. The series of smaller exhibitions was already introduced at 'studio N' in the Ateneum
building, featuring guest artists such as Rosemarie Trockel, Markus Raetz, Olav Christoffer Jenssen,
Jaakko Sievänen, Kirsi Mikkola, Marko Vuokola, and Jussi Kivi."
61The view of the main curators of ARS 95 is the following: "The first ARS exhibition even sparked
off a small revolution in the Finnish art world, the effects of which were reflected in our art. The same
has been true of subsequent ARS exhibitions" (T. Arkio and M. Jaukkuri, "Foreword", p. 21, in ARS
95). Kiasma Director, Tuula Karjalainen, stressed that the distinctive aspect of ARS exhibitions has
been "their contemporary and international nature", an encounter of cultures "providing a range of
new impulses that can be easily traced in the history of Finnish art" (T. K., "Foreword", in ARS 01).

51
In 1995 another ARS exhibition was held and again the whole building, now the
renovated Ateneum, was exclusively devoted to it. Whereas a committee had
organized the previous editions, selecting artists and works without concern for
framing the event with a theme, ARS 95 had a curatorial project. It was organized
under the umbrella of a bold theme: the divide "public / private", which unfolded
in complementary perspectives through the essays that open the catalogue. This
large exhibition was subdivided in four thematic sections: "Image-Language",
"Society", "The Individual" and "Artificial Reality". Once more, the selection and
number of artists is impressive. Among the international artists - i.e. other than
Finnish, Nordic and Baltic whose names are only incidentally known to me - can be
counted Dan Graham, Garry Hill, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Gerhard Richter,
Rosemarie Trockel, Rachel Whiteread, Marlene Dumas, Tony Oursler, Luc
Tuymans, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Louise Bourgeois, Anish Kapoor, Yayoi Kusama,
Sarah Lucas and Juan Muñoz.
ARS 95 was curated by Tuula Arkio and Maaretta Jaukkuri62 and this was the
year in which the construction of the contemporary art museum started. The com-
petition had been held two years earlier and Tuula Arkio, the museum director,
played a crucial role in its outcome. She had worked most of her life in the field of
contemporary art and in 1968 she had began working at the Ateneum. In 1969 she
assisted the secretary of ARS 69, Leena Peltola and for ARS 74 Peltota assumed the
function of "assistant commissar" leaving Tuula Arkio as secretary. By ARS 83
Tuula Arkio had started playing a role in the planning of the exhibition as assistant
to Leena Peltola who had become, by then, the "exhibition commissioner".

-----

The story that I have told here of ARS exhibitions up to 1983, is both the prehis-
tory of the Museum of Contemporary Art as an institution and a fundamental
chapter in the intertwining of international and Finnish contemporary art. But this
is also, as I shall stress further ahead, the story of the weaving of an imaginary and a
gaze, both of Tuula Arkio and also of the public of ARS, structures that are both
personal and embodied, and also socio-cultural. In the last instance it was these
structures that played a fundamental role in the successful reception that was
granted to Holl's entry.

-----

In 2001 and 2006 ARS exhibitions were held at Kiasma building, the former of
which I visited and that has relevance for this dissertation. It was curated by a
group of six persons including Maaretta Jaukkuri and Tuula Arkio (by now General
Director of the Finnish National Gallery). The cross-section was no longer limited

62 With Asko Mäkelä, that curated the section "Artificial Reality - Searching for the nature of life".

52
to the Western world but gathered artists from four continents. The Babel was one
of nations, languages (spoken and visual), migrations, social, political and environ-
mental problems, contested and negotiated identities, theoretical questions, ques-
tions condensed in "everyday" experiences (the intertwining of the local with the
global; of traditions and historical heritages with their spectacularization through
the mass media; etc). However, this Babel gathered neither at the door of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor in the home or at school... but in an "art" museum.
It was a temporary exhibition of contemporary art including recognized artists such
as Jimmie Durham, Anna Jermolaewa, Anish Kapoor, William Kentridge, Michael
Lin, Ernesto Neto, Gabriel Orozco, Doris Salcedo and Wang Du, as well as a large
selection of Finnish and Nordic artists. In particular, Anish Kapoor and Elina
Brotherus, as well as Michael Lin and Wang Du, were distinguished in their field.
As was the case, for there to be art, it is necessary that works suspend the contin-
gency of the political,63 social and "everyday". It is also necessary that they gain
stature in this multi-layered field that we call "art". As Nikos Papastergiadis, quoting
Jean-François Lyotard, acknowledges, there can well be an art of the everyday, but
"art" is the "flash that rises from the embers of the everyday".64 These flashes exist
when a number of conditions, to a large extent silent or unconscious,65 are met.
Although these conditions vary according to the cultural and artistic context, often
and paradoxically they consist in the rending, twisting and distortion of the sym-
bolic systems that regulate the "everyday". Indeed as Gilles Deleuze mentions,
quoted by Maaretta Jaukkuri, art often manifests itself as a "stuttering" ("bégaiement")
in language.66

-----

As already pointed out, Kiasma functions as an art centre rather then as a conven-
tional museum. Two or three exhibitions and other activities in the theatre or in the
free ground floor may run simultaneously, related or not to the exhibitions. Very
often the same artwork is exhibited within different frames. Furthermore, Kiasma

Art is political not when it is a representation of politics but when is a political representation. See
63

N. Papastergiadis, "Art in the politics of the everyday", p. 41, in ARS 01.

64 N. Papastergiadis, cit., p. 44.
65 N. Papastergiadis, cit., p. 43: "The critical work of art is related to its ability to expand the contours
of perception and experience, rather than to reinforce or accentuate political views on existing social
divisions. Art is doing its work not when it is serving external objectives but through its own repre-
sentation[s] [...]. While its content is derived from, and always returns to, society, its significance can
only be grasped within a framework that includes the interplay of social and symbolic processes. As a
sign that is made in society art always has a historical consciousness, however this consciousness is
often only articulated through the non-literal work performed on the material content of art".
66M. Jaukkuri, "Unfolding perspectives", p. 23, in ARS 01. Quoting from G. Deleuze, "Mediators",
p. 133. See also G. Deleuze, "Three questions on Six Times Two", p. 39, where he speaks of a "stam-
mering of ideas".

53
publishes a small free magazine (focusing on ongoing events) and runs internet
based projects. The museum also participates in the production of art works
(among others, through the "project room") and has an ongoing visiting artist and
curator programme (running in the "studio K"). Between a period of some weeks
up to a couple of months, one can readily expect to find something new in the
museum. While there was a visitor projection of 200.000 for the first year, in the
first two years Kiasma actually received 870.000 visitors in the exhibition galleries
and theatre (paying) and over 1,5 million in the ground floor (free).67

2.2. A vast area at a standstill

Although it was not until 1987 that the last railway related activities moved away
from South Töölönlahti, it had been some time since the disaffected structures had
played a relevant function; large areas have long remained overrun by wild vegeta-
tion, litter, and occupied by decrepit warehouses, while the largest building,
Makasiinit, would become famous as an object of an unusual movement of public
appropriation. Until the early 1990s, therefore, the South Töölönlahti and Kamppi
areas, at the centre of Helsinki, looked pretty much the same as they did in the mid
1940s (fig 6). Briefly, the whole area resembled a wasteland on the outskirts of the
town, except that it was right in front of the Parliament House, by the side of the
main railway station and within a short walk to Helsinki's commercial district.
Nearby, along Mannerheimintie, stood Lasipalatsi (Glass Palace), a functionalist
building completed in 1936, in front of a regional coaches terminal. A former mili-
tary barracks stood behind it and the terminus of the north and west buses. The
whole area, including both buildings and large asphalt squares, was known as
Kamppi. Since WW II, the only major transformation that occurred in Töölönlahti
was the construction of Finlandia Hall, a large concert and congress hall designed
by Alvar Aalto and inaugurated in 1971 (concert hall) and 1975 (congress wing)
constituting a fragment of one of a series of impractical plans.
In 1961, Alvar Aalto, late in his career and when he was already internation-
ally and nationally recognized as a main reference in the architectural world, drafted
a detailed plan for the development of South Töölönlahti and Kamppi areas (fig 8).
He thought of developing South Töölönlahti as Helsinki's new centre, to celebrate
the status of Finland as an independent nation. Therefore, this was intended as a
modern counterpoint to the Senate Square, the centre of the Russian Grand Duchy
of Finland. His plans included the construction of a motorway above the railway
(on the east shore of the bay) up to South Töölönlahti and Kamppi, where a large

67In "The Museum of Contemporary Art celebrates its 10th anniversary", cit. During the opening
week the museum attracted 30.000 visitors. In May 2001 it received its millionth visitor into the
galleries and theatre, and five years later, in May 2006, its second millionth visitor (in "History", in
http://www.kiasma.fi/index.php?L=1&FL=1&id=319, August 2007). Impressive numbers consider-
ing that Helsinki is around 0,5 million inhabitants and that Finland is 5 million.

54
car park and bus station would be built (figs 8-10). On top of the South Töölönlahti
car park, Aalto planned a huge fan-shaped deck that became known as the Terrace
Square (Terassitori). It extended from Mannerheimintie (where Kiasma now stands)
up to the shore of the bay, well in front of the Parliament House. The plan of 1961
also included the construction of a row of buildings for cultural purposes along the
west shore, opposite the incoming motorway. Although the later version of the
plan, of 1971 (figs 9, 10), considered fewer buildings, all three plans intended a
thorough regularization of the bay and were strongly car oriented. Though these
plans received enormous criticism and none was adopted, they left a lasting imprint
on the collective imaginary. At a date before the opening of Kiasma, Mikael
Sundman, an architect of the Helsinki City Planning Department, wrote:

If you tell a taxi driver to take you to the "Terrace Square", he will drive you
to a place near the main post office without hesitating for a moment. On
getting out, your gaze will be met by the imposing state of chaos that reigns
between the Parliament House and the main railway station, where a motley
collection of warehouses, parking lots, service facilities for Russian railway
carriages and wild vegetation has spread itself out in the heart of the city.
This, then, is Terrace Square, a place that has never existed as an official
name, nor indeed as a square.68

"A place that has never existed" except, he acknowledges, as a ghost in the
collective imaginary. I was told that at some point, in relation to the competition
for the contemporary art museum, that the Head of the Helsinki City Planning
Department and later Head of the Town Planning Division, Paavo Perkkiö,
recommended that the doorstep level of the new museum should be the same as
that of the second floor of Finlandia Hall, thus envisaging an eventual connection
between the two, as Aalto intended with the Terrace Square. This memory was not
only alive in Mikael Sundman's spirit but he also thought it should have constituted
a condition for the construction of the contemporary art museum: "in the
meantime [in 1993], the American Steven Holl won the competition for the
museum of contemporary art, now nearing completion, unfortunately at a spot to
the south of Terrace Square that Blomstedt, Aalto and the jury69 insisted should be
kept open and unobstructed".70 On the other hand, Panu Lehtovuori regretted that

68 M. Sundman, "Finland's virtual centre", p. 147, in Helsinki - A city in the forest.

69 This is not the position that the jury expressed in relation to Holl's winning entry. But it was,
eventually, the position of Paavo Perkkiö, who, when we informally met in 1999, I felt was unhappy
with the outcome of the competition. I had the pleasure of interviewing Paavo Perkkiö for my master
dissertation and expected, as we had agreed, we could meet within the frame of this research. Unfor-
tunately, soon after this fine professional died. A vivid imprint has remained of the remarkable pres-
entations that he made in 1995 and 1996 to the IFHP summer school ran by the YTK.
70 M. Sundman, "Finland's virtual centre", p. 155, in Helsinki - A city in the forest.

55
the 1985-86 competition for the planning of the area considered South Töölönlahti
a tabula rasa without Makasiinit:

The layers of old plans were regarded as a more real context than the existing
built form. [...] The taken-for-granted symbolic importance of the planned
ensemble of State and cultural buildings made it difficult for the architects
[the competitors] to imagine any use and value for the existing industrial and
rail yard landscape.71

Indeed unaccomplished promises have a remarkable pregnancy as a result of which

Aalto's modernistic plans persisted lastingly on the collective memory. However,
these were neither the only plans for the area nor those that more radically aimed at
transforming it, but only the reactualization of older memories. Indeed, two years
after the completion of the Parliament House, in 1933, P. E. Blomstedt put forward
a proposition that included the development of the rail area as a park, a "green
wedge" riveted up to Marshal Mannerheim's statue. The "wedge" was extended by
Mannerheimintie's rows of trees, which connect to Esplanadi (fig 11). This idea was
adopted and transformed by Aalto, the lower part of the "green wedge" becoming
his Terrace Square.
Back in 1918, one year after the independence of Finland, Eliel Saarinen and
Bertel Jung had put forward the Greater Helsinki Plan.72 This plan was the expres-
sion of a desire to reshape Helsinki as a modern city in the manner of Europe's
most developed cities: the centre of a large metropolis with industry and harbour,
with a modern network of rail transportation and, naturally, constituting an
adequate frame for the development of bourgeois life. Töölönlahti had a role to
play, with the bay being filled in for the construction of residential districts and of a
majestic boulevard that in Saarinen's remarkable bird's eye view has a Parisian
character (fig 12), despite being dedicated to a German sovereign. The plan also
envisaged the moving northwards of the newly inaugurated and rather large main
railway station, a project of Saarinen himself.
Both the plans of Saarinen & Jung and of Aalto were impractical, although
for different reasons. That of Saarinen & Jung was so colossal that the newborn
country could not have realised it. Finland had lost almost everything in WW I and
in the Civil War that followed. Actually the situation became such that Saarinen
ended up emigrating to the USA in 1923. Although Aalto successively scaled down
his plans, they were anachronistic or rapidly on their way to becoming so. Indeed
by 1973, the oil crisis had made a dramatic impact on car and concrete oriented
schemes such as Aalto's. Furthermore, Aalto's plans had an exquisite modernistic
character, which attracted the violent criticism of "aesthetic elitism". As elsewhere,

71 P. Lehtovuori, Experience and Conflict, p. 207.

72Pro Helsingfors Plan, acknowledging that the drawings are by Eliel Saarinen and the text by Bertel
Jung (see R. Nikula, "Eliel Saarinen...", p. 147, in La Ville).

56
in Finland dramatic cultural changes occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In
1966, in the context of such criticism and disappointment with the modernistic city,
Aldo Rossi published the already mentioned and influential The Architecture of the
City, in praise of the persistence of the historic city, both as a material, architectural,
and as a cultural fact (the "archetype" articulates both aspects). It seems to me that
the shock waves of this major event were rapidly felt in Finland. Indeed in 1971-72
the competition for the development of the tip of Katajanokka in Helsinki was won
by Vilhelm Helander, Pekka Pakkala and Mikael Sundman with a proposition com-
posed of city blocks, with buildings aligned, defining open spaces such as yards,
streets and squares. Their proposition also included the preservation of pre-existing
buildings. The area was developed between 1979-86.
The plans of Saarinen & Jung and Aalto had also strongly artificialized
Töölönlahti, which was possibly not in their favour. Indeed, one of the milestones
of the urban history of Töölönlahti is the proposition that Bertl Jung put forward in
the master plan of 1911 to create a central park in Helsinki, starting in Töölönlahti
and developing northwards (figs 13, 14). While this park did not interfere with the
rail area integrating Makasiinit, P. E. Blomstedt thought of overriding the rail area
to extend the park up to the centre. Whereas the southern section of the park never
materialized, the development towards the north and beyond the city was eventu-
ally successfully achieved in the master plan of 1978. Today the Central Park
(Keskuspuisto) covers something like 1.000 hectares and is eleven kilometres long.
The wind of history blew fairer for Jung and Blomstedt.
The propositions for Töölönlahti and surrounding areas discussed above73
were not the only ones but they are the most interesting, because they constituted
rather distinct and affirmative approaches. Put kindly, Töölönlahti was always a
"central issue of city planning in Helsinki",74 or a "fertile soil for a number of
visionary concepts";75 but put more brutally, "for almost all of the 20th century
Töölönlahti was a black hole, swallowing up Finland's biggest city plans",76 or "was
the graveyard of the plans and projects of both well known and not so well known
designers and planners". The latter quote was the view of Pekka Korpinen, the
Deputy Mayor for City Planning and Real Estate.77 It captures rather well the
fatigue and exasperation that was felt by politicians, planners, architects and people
at large on the eve of the competition for the contemporary art museum. The area
was, indeed, the Gordian knot in the planning of an otherwise thoroughly well
planned city - a knot that had good reasons to remain tied. As recently as in 1985-
86 a Nordic ideas competition for a comprehensive plan had been held, but it was a

73In sum and in chronological order: the plans of Jung (1911), Saarinen & Jung (1918), P. E.
Blomstedt (1933) and Aalto (1961, 1964 and 1971).
74 R. Miyake, "Learning from Helsinki", p. 50, in Helsinki - A city in the forest.
75 M. Sundman, "Finland's virtual centre", p. 147, in Helsinki - A city in the forest.
76 R. Nikula, Wood, Stone and Steel, p. 202. See also R. Nikula, Töölönlahti-suunnitelmia, 1910-1990.
77 From our meeting in the end of August 2005.

57
flop. The jury awarded three equally placed first prizes and recommended further
consideration of the proposals. The awarded entries insisted on the "wedge", in one
case green and terraced, and in the other two cases, watery. The only main differ-
ences were the amount of new floor area around this monumental "wedge".
Panu Lehtovuori sheds light into the pregnancy of Töölönlahti's "wedge" in
the collective and professional imaginary:

The story says that from the heart of the capital city there is a view to the
north, to the rest of the country. Metaphorically, it is even possible to ski
from the Mannerheim statue to the forests beyond the city. This story lives
on in national symbolism and myth. Its power lies in the combination of the
Finnish nature ideology and the assumed role of Töölönlahti as the new
monumental centre for the country, a dream nurtured since the decision to
build the Parliament House there.78

Aalto had already referred to his Terraces along the same lines:

I would like an elk to be able to come and greet Mannerheim's horse in front
of the post office without meeting cars on the way.79

The story relates the "wedge" to deeper layers of the collective imaginary. It is
interesting because it also says the opposite: that the collective imaginary is not
completely prior and exterior to the professional imaginaries but, as is evident, it
was weaved to a large extent by the architects and planners of Helsinki.

2.3. An art museum for untying Helsinki's Gordian knot and

prompting the development of South Töölönlahti and Kamppi areas

In 1990 the disposition of South Töölönlahti and Kamppi was as shown in fig 6.
Fundamentally, there was wasteland between Villa Hakasalmi and the post building,
and between the Parliament House and the tracks leading into the central railway
station. Right in front of the Parliament House, the former and decrepit ware-
houses of the railway freight yard were vacant. Lasipalatsi was in urgent need of
repair and, as already described in 2.2., behind it stood a small coach terminal, and
behind the military barracks a huge asphalt square serving as bus terminal. Both
areas were pretty desolate.
I have also already indicated that the outcome of the 1985-86 competition for
a comprehensive scheme for the development of South Töölönlahti and Kamppi
areas were three uninspired propositions having as common denominator the

78 P. Lehtovuori, Experience and Conflict, p. 210.

79 Alvar Aalto, quoted in G. Schildt, Alvar Aalto - The complete catalogue..., p. 34.

58
reiteration of the "wedge". The conclusion was also that the comprehensive
approach was put in question. While the Head of the Planning Department, Paavo
Perkkiö, insisted on the necessity of proceeding from a comprehensive view to each
detailed project, the Deputy Mayor for City Planning and Real Estate, Pekka
Korpinen, defended an incremental approach to the transformation of the area.
"The incremental approach received much criticism, and the debate grew into an
open conflict between the two men".80
The competition would have two main succedaneum: a land agreement
(1986) and a "component plan" (1991).
The land agreement was celebrated between the City and the State, as both
entities had land in Kamppi and South Töölönlahti. The State got 38% and the City
62% of the building rights, with a few coefficients balancing the floor area of shop-
ping, offices, culture and housing. The agreement was particularly open in relation
to the location of these developments, one of the purposes of which was to free
planners from the boundaries of landownership.81 It was on the basis of this agree-
ment that the City developed a multi-functional complex in Kamppi with housing,
shopping, offices, bus and coach stations, with connection to the subway, and they
sold a plot of land for the Newspaper Hall (Sanomatalo), which would be developed
behind Kiasma. The State would develop Kiasma and a block of offices for the
Parliament. Secondly, the City would fund the construction of Kiasma and as a
concession would get a large area on the outskirts of town for new housing. This,
therefore, eventually smoothed the position of planners, reluctant to accept the
transformation of the area on a piecemeal basis. Many of these professionals pos-
sessed a vivid memory of Aalto's grand gesture for the development of a modern
centre in the capital of Finland.
Again, drawing on the 1985-86 winning entries, the "component plan" of
1991 (fig 18) had an ambiguous character, like a glass of water which is either half
full or half empty according to whose viewpoint. Hesitatingly, it gave some form to
the shapeless land agreement and put forward a comprehensive view for the devel-
opment of the area. Although on the one hand it defined the land use for the whole
area, on the other, this was often indicated in the conditional and admitted many
variants (the word "proposed" is recurrent in the "guidelines"). Indeed it served
well the purposes of the incremental approach, as it seems to me that the "compo-
nent plan" was no more than a bold frame for the development of the area on a
piecemeal basis. Besides, it was not respected, as some notable variations have
occurred in relation to what is indicated in the plan. First and foremost Kiasma
would be built by the side of the post and telecommunications building near the
statue of Marshal Mannerheim, therefore occupying the beginning of the "wedge"

80P. Lehtovuori, Experience and Conflict, p. 207, referring to P. Mäenpää and others, Sanat Kivettyvät
Kaupungiksi.
81 P. Lehtovuori, Experience and Conflict, p. 210.

59
and making obsolete the Terrace Square, the wreck of which persisted in the com-
ponent plan.
In discussions between the State (MINEDU, the promoter of the museum
and the competition) and the City (with whom MINEDU agreed the terms of the
competition), this plot of land had been designated as the site for the museum. The
small importance of the plan for both parties is in evidence in the competition Brief:
"The town plan for the site of the Museum of Contemporary Art will be drawn up
on the basis of the entry chosen as an outline for further development",82 which
indeed would be the case. With a few exceptions, most competitors developed their
propositions also on the basis of the conditions of the site, as suggested in the Brief:
"As the Töölönlahti plan has been a subject of controversy, and given that its
development is scheduled to cover a protracted time-span, entrants should prepare
for the contingency that the area north of the museum plot will remain in its pre-
sent state for quite some time into the future".83

-----

On the eve of the competition for the museum a land agreement and a component
plan were in force. However, all parties agreed (with the exception, possibly of the
partisans of the comprehensive approach) that the latter was not imperative. The
state of uncertainty in relation to the transformation of the area stressed the
importance of the site. Finally, there was what Panu Lehtovuori names a "tabula
rasa", as already indicated, but, against his suggestion, I believe this is less a misper-
ception or inattention in relation to the real occupation of the area, but rather more
the result of a long history of plans and ideas for the development of the area. This
tabula rasa was woven and is not modernistic; it is not an absence of memory but
the effect of a multi-layered, stratified, memory.
These conditions stressed the importance of the competition for the contem-
porary art museum. Naturally, it is one thing to promote a competition for a build-
ing within an urban development duly empowered, but it is quite another to do it
within one that is not, bearing in mind that this was the first building to be devel-
oped in the area (fig 16), which added to its importance. Boldly, the success of the
competition would have meant a confirmation of the road undertaken (the incre-
mental approach) whereas its failure would have meant almost restarting from
scratch. Of course, the programme was perfect as everybody agreed that this
constituted a fundamental addition to the city and bestowed international affirma-
tion on Helsinki.
Certainly, the land agreement was a vital enabling condition for the
transformation of both areas, including the construction of the museum, but it was
not enough as a guarantee of the success of the whole operation. One of the

82 The Museum of Contemporary Art, Brief..., hereafter referred to as Brief, p. 49.

83 Idem.

60
lessons of the stormy history of South Töölönlahti is that it is necessary for the city
to develop in such critical locations, much more than the public ownership of land
and / or a strong political will. Although most land had been in public hands for
about a century, not a single plan or project materialized properly (with the excep-
tion of Finlandia Hall but this is only a fragment of a plan).
The architectural competition would therefore be a crucial test of the strategy
adopted based on starting the development of the crystal-museum. While the
intrinsic nature of the land agreement was unlikely to attract much public attention,
what tends to happen with architecture is exactly the opposite: it interests the public
and arouses passionate discussion. Nowadays, when a policy becomes visible to the
public eye, it is the critical moment for its empowerment. And when this multifac-
eted crystal became publicly visible during the architectural competition, that was
the moment when it became architectural. Therefore, this constituted a critical
moment not only in the empowerment of an architectural competition and an
author, but also of a programme, a strategy for the international affirmation of the
city and for the breaking of the memories that were opposed to its transformation.
In sum, this strategy untied the Gordian knot. Indeed the architectural competition
and the subsequent construction of the museum constituted the turning of a page
in the history of South Töölönlahti and Kamppi areas, and in the history of
Helsinki.

-----

Although in this research an "architectural" competition is at stake, its object far

exceeds what "architecture" currently means as it is in itself a multifaceted crystal.
In the next sections I will focus on the unfolding of this competition and its
outcome. As we shall see, it constituted a moment of exchange in which imagina-
tion played a crucial role. A competition is a moment of intense production of
discourses and what competitors put forward are signs. At first, these signs were
assessed by the jury; secondly, the entries and the jury's decision were scrutinized by
the public. Reading these signs simply as straightforward representations of build-
ings is certainly possible or even necessary but it is not the only possibility. Indeed,
this constitutes a highly oriented form of gaze and imagination, specific to profes-
sionals like architects. I will argue that Holl's entry also opens other possibilities to
sight, something that was tangibly grasped by a specific member of the jury, Tuula
Arkio, and which proved to be crucial in the outcome of the competition. Reading
signs in one way or another is a matter of imagination, and this is something that is
both culturally crafted and subject to variation according to the professional back-
ground of beholders, their age group and personality. I shall draw on the
phenomenology that occurred between signs and beholders, which was at the basis
of the empowerment of the crystal.

61
3. The architectural competition
3.1. Conditions and aims

In the Finnish context, and especially in Helsinki where the tradition of architec-
tural competitions is very strong, it is hard to imagine that the design of the
contemporary art museum could have been commissioned in a different way.
Architects would not have accepted any other process for commissioning this
important building, since this is the normal way to do it. The same can be said
about the specifications concerning the form and content of entries.
The "Instructions for the presentation of entries"84 specified that plan
schemes should be presented in four A1 panels. "Entrants are expected to elaborate
their ideas with isometric views, axonometric views, perspective drawings and
details, diagrams and other drawings". Furthermore, entrants were asked to hand a
black and white copy of these panels reduced to A3 size, plus a summary of the
main aspects of the proposition in a single A3 page. Finally, a 1:400 scale model
was requested, with predefined boundaries so that it could fit in the white model
prepared by the promoter of competition. As usual, the content of each panel was
specified:

Sheet 1 - Integration of the building with the surrounding urban structure

The first sheet should show how the entrant proposes to integrate the
museum building with the urban fabric (1:4.000). A sufficient amount of the
surrounding urban structure should be included. Entrants may also present
ideas for the future development of the Töölönlahti area. [...]

Sheets 2 and 3 - Functional layout of the museum building

Floor plans, and section and elevation drawings (1:400) are required. The
drawings should indicate the titles of the rooms and facilities as used in the
competition brief. The proposed floor areas (in square meters) and floor
levels are also to be specified.
[...] Entrants must include a sufficient number of section drawings with
heights marked. The drawings should give an indication of a general scheme
for the exhibition areas, lighting and display arrangements, with preliminary
space allocations for HEPAC technology.
The main materials to be used in the construction of the façades should be
indicated in the elevation drawings, which should also show, within a

84 Brief, pp. 58-60.

62
 sufficiently wide radius, how the museum is to be integrated with the PTT
[post and telecommunications] building and the immediate surroundings.

Sheet 4 - Technical detailing

Entrants are expected to illustrate their basic proposals for the museum's
display arrangements and the air conditioning, lighting and canalisation in the
main display areas. The standard scale for detail drawings is 1:100.85

The competition was launched on September 1992 and was open to designers from
the Baltic and Nordic countries. Four foreign design teams were also invited to
participate:

- Steven Holl, from USA;

- Kazuo Shinoara, from Japan;
- Coop Himmelblau / Wolf D. Prix and Helmut Swiczinsky, from Austria;
- Álvaro Siza Vieira, from Portugal.

These participation modalities are usual, although it is not so often that a competi-
tion combines both open and invited entrants. The list of invited participants
responds to a wish initially formulated by the City, soon embraced by MINEDU,
that the competition would be international. The Association of Architects,
MINEDU, the City and others put forward propositions until the invitees are
chosen. Although the four invitees were internationally recognized designers, inter-
estingly none had before designed a contemporary art museum and they repre-
sented rather divergent architectural aesthetics. The promoter of the competition
stated in the Brief that it was "conscious of the heavy criticism attracted by many
new art museums from both artists and museum officials" and therefore was
"looking forward to new approaches to design".86 The promoter also stressed that
"art should be given priority in the design of the new museum",87 and it hoped that
the propositions could account for the dual role of the contemporary art museum
as a "temple" and as a "forum"; on the one hand, a tranquil place allowing for
concentration, and, on the other hand, a place propitiating interactive and unset-
tling encounters.88 The aims would be further rationalized and detailed in the
evaluation criteria expressed in pp. 6-10 of the Jury Report. This clarified the search
for propositions without a clear symbolism and unidentifiable with main architec-
tural "trends", i.e. non-conventional. According to the jury "rather few" had such a
quality. The jury stated that integration into the urban structure had also been a
major concern. It was assessed both from a symbolic point of view (preferring

85 Brief, pp. 58-59.

86 T. Arkio, "The museum of contemporary art", p. 1, in Arkkitehtuurikilpailuja, 5, 1993.
87 Brief, p. 47.
88 See the references indicated in the previous two notes.

63
monumental and composite propositions to cubes, cylinders, and the like, and to
those more conventional, constituted by two volumes aligned according to the two
main directions)89 and from a functional point of view (ranking higher the proposi-
tions with the main entrance clearly visible from the main public spaces, lobby
contiguous to it, with sheltered and pleasant outdoor areas, etc).90 The jury looked
for an entry that fitted into the existing site, pondering the options it offered for the
future development of the area.91 The jury acknowledged that many entries handled
well the composition of the main functional units of the programme (lobby, cafete-
ria and shop, administrative areas, galleries, etc) and also the public circulation in
the building. However, a fewer number of entries proposed innovative galleries or
considered natural light in all galleries, or they were clustered around some spatial
entity and opened to the outside, propitiating an easy orientation throughout the
visit.92

3.2. Outcome

505 anonymous valid entries were submitted, which even by international standards
constituted a record number in the 1990s. Due to the amount of material entered
(four panels and a model submitted by each competitor) and considering that the
jury was international and included non-architects, the selection of a winner could
have been a problem. The jury adopted an informal but, it seems to me, rather wise
and practical approach to the task. Each member of the jury was given the possibil-
ity of selecting the entries they considered the best. Therefore, at an early stage a
short list was established which would constitute the basis for the work of the jury
panel. Consequently, a major partition of the entries was then made that would
result, at the closing of the competition, as follows: a total of 69 entries were ranked
high according to Classes I, II and III, and 436 entries were placed in a Class IV.
Although it is not possible to tell how many entries were integrated into the first
short list, I know that its original number was smaller but that it grew as the jury
proceeded with the assessment. Thus it was only at a later stage that the more
systematic procedures described in point 2.6. of the Jury Report were adopted, in
order to make sure that entries with equivalent merit were ranked in the correct
Class and that all entries had been scrutinized. Whatever the number of the entries
in the first shortlist may have been, the activity of the jury focused on narrowing its
growth as the work proceeded which explains the creation of the three classes.
By the end of May 1993 the jury had reached a decision, unanimously. The
following prizes, purchases and honourable mentions were awarded:

89 Jury Report, p. 7.
90 Jury Report, pp. 7-8.
91 Jury Report, p. 7.
92 Jury Report, pp. 8-9.

64
 - 1st prize: "Chiasma", submitted by Steven Holl;
- 2nd prize equally placed: "Lähteellä", by Vesa Helminen;
- 2nd prize equally placed: "Stages", by Kazuo Shinoara;
- purchase equally placed: "Cothurnocystis", by Christopher Bearman and
Meri Mäkipentti;
- purchase equally placed: "New-seum", by Coop Hilmmelblau / Wolf D.
Prix and H. Swiczinsky;
- honourable mention, for functional merit: "Eos", by Tuomo Siitonen;
- honourable mention, for meritable urban planning: "Iron and blood", by
Kirsi Leiman;
- honourable mention, for meritable contribution to the urban structure:
"Mellanrum", by Anders Wilhelmson and Gert Wingårdh;
- honourable mention, for overall impression: "Nikama", by Mimma Haili,
Marko Santala and Teemu Seppälä.

The jury was composed as follows:

- Jaakko Numminen, Secretary General, Ministry of Education [MINEDU];

- Matti K. Mäkinen, Director General, National Board of Public Building
[now Senaatti];
- Tuula Arkio, Museum Director, Museum of Contemporary Art [art
historian]; (*)
- Juhana Blomstedt, Professor, artist;
- Knud Holscher, Professor, architect MAA, Danske Arkiteters
Landsforbund;
- Reijo Korhonen, City Engineer, City of Helsinki;
- Pekka Korpinen, Deputy Mayor [City Planning and Real Estate], City of
Helsinki [economist]; (*)
- Veijo Rossi, Chief Engineer, National Board of Public Building [now
Senaatti];
- Jyrki Tassa, Professor, architect, appointee of the Finnish Association of
Architects;
- Tuulikki Terho, Chief Architect, Ministry of Education [MINEDU]; (*)
- Kai Wartiainen, Architect, appointee of the Nordic Architects'
Associations. (*)

Jury's expert adviser:

- Paavo Perkkiö, Head of the Helsinki City Town Planning Division [†2000].

(*) The designated jury members were interviewed within the frame of this research. Mauri
Karttunen [Chief Engineer] and Päivi Montola [Chief Architect, National Board of
Public Building, now Senaatti] were the appointed secretaries and were joined by a number
of professionals when the high number of entries became known. I have interviewed both a

65
 secretary and one of the professionals that joined the jury, hereafter indistinctly designated as
"jury staff".

3.3. Assessment

A through evaluation of the jury assessment is not possible as only a record of 26

entries in black and white was kept, but for 12 of these there is also a record in
colour.93 It is therefore only possible to confront the assessment of this small
sample of entries that nonetheless includes the nine awarded entries (Class I), most
Class II entries (13 entries with only one missing, but that was published in
Arkkitehtuurikilpailuja, 5, 1993) and only four Class III entries.

-----

Leaving Holl's entry aside for now, I believe the following three constitute the most
interesting of the sample. For example, the first of these could eventually have been
awarded the first prize, considering the assessment criteria put forward in the Brief
and Jury Report. However, these entries were rather unevenly classified and some of
the justifications put forward for down-grading them contradict those justifications
of the better classified entries, including the winning one.
The first entry is "Nyt Nykii" ("Now first"), of Karri Liukkonen, Fredrik
Lindberg, Sami Lauritsalo and Jussi Aittoniemi, and was ranked in Class II (figs 19-
21). As the jury acknowledged, the functional layout was superb. The lobby was
spacious and as the main galleries, public circulation and other functional units
bordered it, the orientation throughout the visit would have been very easy. The
cafeteria, shop and auditorium were located on the ground floor, and the galleries
in the upper floors. All spaces were very well dimensioned and all galleries disposed
of natural light. The whole was enveloped by curved walls and a sloped roof which
was appealing. However, the jury criticised the exterior for seeming "unfinished".94
This is puzzling since Holl's model (see figs 35-37) also seems "unfinished", an
aspect that was remarked upon by the members of the jury that I interviewed and
other persons that followed this competition closely (architects and friends). It is

93The Museum of Finnish Architecture owns a collection of black and white photos of 26 entries. A
broad selection of these materials was published in the supplement of the architect's magazine on the
competition, Arkkitehtuurikilpailuja, 5, 1993. Holl's winning model is held at the same institution.
MINEDU holds a collection of colour slides of 12 entries (plus a partial record of another entry and
one only slide of another model). Entrants have delivered a black and white copy of the panels
reduced to A3 size and a summary of the main aspects of the proposition in another A3 sheet. Most
unfortunately I was unable to locate this 2.525 pages record of all the entries. Kai Wartiainen thought
he had kept this, but he could not find it.
94 Jury Report, p. 21.

66
true that Holl's entry included a "thoroughly thought out" 1:100 section,95 whereas
"Nyt Nykii" did not. However, this is clearly justified by the conspicuous effort that
the design team made for boxing together bits and pieces and by the quality of the
outcome. The jury also mentioned that surprisingly the building looked "incoher-
ent" and "slightly swollen" when placed in the white model. Of course, it is difficult
to evaluate this aspect only on the basis of the model photos. However, it must be
stressed that the jury also referred to the necessity of scaling down Holl's proposi-
tion: "the design is large in scale; it exceeds the limits defined in the competition
brief. The calculated construction costs also exceed the set target. However, the
basic design concept is flexible, and can thus be scaled down to meet the cost
target".96
The second entry is "Pähkinäsärkijä" ("Nutcracker"), of Juha Leiviskä (figs
22-24), ranked in Class III. The museum galleries were located on the north side of
the terrace, in the volumes of construction that detach from the edge of the terrace
for advancing through the green. Roughly, the museum was developed on one main
floor, which was an enormous advantage as this very much simplified the clustering
of the different functions that indeed, as the jury recognized, were very well
arranged. However, this large floor was under the square, something that obviously
limited the provision of natural light. What is most striking in this proposition is
how vigorously it reiterated the idea of the "green wedge", which so strongly and
remarkably emphasized this memory and surely counted in favour of this entry, at
least for those for whom this memory still mattered. But this also went against the
entry. While the strategy of the City was that of developing the area on the basis of
self-contained pieces of architecture which would leave the largest number of pos-
sibilities for later consideration, Leiviskä's entry entailed the development of South
Töölönlahti as a park. However, as already mentioned, the Brief had indicated to
entrants that plans for South Töölönlahti would not be considered for discussion
until a later occasion, thereby leaving the area north of the museum in its current
state until then. So it was only the town plan for the site of the Museum of
Contemporary Art which would be drawn up according to the winning entry.
Notwithstanding, Leiviskä chose to swim against the tide with his entry including a
plan for South Töölönlahti. The subsequent Jury Report reiterated the highly
disputed nature of planning for the area as a result of which it was considered that
those "entries whose quality or good functioning called for wide measures outside
the competition area were considered unrealistic" and "that a design not depending
on other projects for the area was a merit".97 In my interview with Pekka Korpinen
I ascertained that this was the strategy in which he believed: to develop a self-
contained museum, not foreclosing but rather opening a number of options for the

95 Jury Report, p. 12.

96 Jury Report, p. 12.
97 Jury Report, p. 8.

67
future development of the area.98 In spite of the duly justified position of the jury, it
came as a surprise to see the award of an honourable mention to the entry "Iron
and blood", of Kirsi Leiman (fig 27), for "meritable urban planning", in reality an
apparent inconsistency, since it was a proposition extending outside the designated
museum plot and beyond the competition area.99 Although I understand that
developing a proposition outside the designated area(s) may not be the same as that
from inside the designated area entailing the transformation of another area beyond
it, the assessment is somewhat erratic: too condescending in relation to the latter
case and too severe in relation to the former. Though Leiviskä's entry entailed the
transformation of a quite large quadrant of South Töölönlahti while Leiman's only
took possession of a triangle marked as a garden in the component plan (years later,
this would be designated for the construction of the block of offices of the Parlia-
ment), Leiviskä's entry was visibly better arranged functionally. On Leiman's entry
the jury commented that "the design extends beyond the designated competition
area; part of the building passes under Mannerheimintie and impinges on the park
across the road", and, as to its functionality "the sculpturesque nature of the build-
ing sets limitations on its functionality. The long, narrow mass containing the
exhibition areas makes their shape unappealing and impractical".100 This only adds
to the disparity of the assessments.
The third entry is "Lähteellä" ("On a spring"), of Vesa Helminen (figs 25-26),
also awarded a 2nd prize equally placed. As the jury acknowledged, this was a
proposition with "exceptionally innovative interiors", constituted by the intersec-
tion of small rooms around a central gallery five meters lower than the entrance
level. The galleries also disposed of good lighting conditions. The main functional
units were all located on the ground floor, forming a rather "convenient ensem-
ble".101 The volume of the building, characterized by the predominance of vertical
lines, had obvious aesthetic qualities and fitted rather nicely in the site. But as the
jury also remarked and in my view fairly, the presentation was "sketchy" and "sadly
deficient".102
Finally, to return to Holl's winning proposition (figs 31-40) the jury stated:

The exhibition areas are clearly articulated, flexible and distinctive in

appearance. The interiors can be adjusted and grouped in conventional

98 From our meeting in the end of August 2005.

99 The Jury Report mentions "some entrants placed their buildings mainly or completely outside the
building site, or even the competition area. These entries were judged on an equal footing with the
rest, but were not found to offer any radical advantage. The most interesting entry [...] among those
sited outside the competition area was 'More than meets the sky', a 'non-building' offering fascinating
views of Töölönlahti" (p. 7). Unfortunately a record of this as of most entries was not kept.
100 Jury Report, p. 14.
101 Jury Report, p. 14.
102 Jury Report, p. 15.

68
 ensembles. In the absence of any distracting ceiling or wall structure, the
effect of the main galleries is very restful, with the emphasis on light and
space. The design allows for a wide range of different spatial and lighting
combinations to meet changing exhibition needs. The layout thus marks a
departure from the conventional, mechanical approach to arranging
exhibition spaces.
[...] Natural light plays a key role in defining the overall shape of the building.
Meanwhile the building itself reflects light outwards during the dark season
thanks to its broad illuminated surfaces.
[...]
Although the entrance hall is long and somewhat tube-like, the curving forms
and ramps give it a distinctive appearance. The café and teaching facilities on
the western side of the building are light-filled and spacious. The auditorium
and other public access areas are linked directly to the entrance hall. The
entrance floor thus neatly ties together the various public facilities in the
building. Combining the reading area and clubroom for the Friends of the
Museum is a neat, practical solution.
The design of interiors allows for easy movement around the building. In
addition to the central ramp, the stairways on the south and northern sides of
the building facilitate orientation. The large number of accesses allow for
unobstructed passage throughout the building, even while new exhibitions are
being mounted.103

The jury therefore appreciated that the lobby gave access to the auditorium, café,
shop and other public areas (in the same floor), and, through a ramp
complemented by two staircases, to the galleries (in the upper floors). However, on
the whole, the entry "Nyt Nykii" offered similar conditions. The jury also praised
the flexibility of the galleries remarking that, indeed they are gathered in clusters
which, combined with the ramps and the two staircases, can be opened or closed by
turns without seriously disarranging a visit to the museum. But the three entries just
described, each in their own way, also enabled it. As to the spatial qualities of Holl's
exhibition galleries there was "absence of distracting ceiling or wall structures",
"restfulness" and "emphasis on light and space". Indeed there was something
singular and new about them, which is very well in evidence in the museum that is
now built. Nonetheless, and as the jury also acknowledged, the three entries
discussed also had their own qualities in this respect. If there is an aspect that
definitely and radically singularised Holl's proposition it is, I think, the public
circulation through the galleries. The jury acknowledged that the ramp and two
staircases "facilitate orientation". Indeed these, combined with the position of the
clusters of galleries and their diversity, constituted a quality of the proposition, but
rather in the sense that they propitiate getting lost or, at least, endow the visit with a

103 Jury Report, p. 12 - see annex in pp. 224-225 below.

69
sense of surprise and mystery. It is easy to be oriented though, thanks to the
circulation around the lobby and to the views to the outside.
I think that on good grounds, the jury's judgement was also positive in
relation to the layout of work areas and goods lift, but, again, the same was
acknowledged in relation to other entries, such as "Nyt Nykii".

-----

In sum, it seems to me that the justifications put forward for differentiating the
entries at stake are not totally coherent. The negative aspects or low rating in one
entry could be highly praised in another or ignored in yet others. Again, some
aspects highly rated in Holl's entry were not equally valorised in other entries, and
the like. I do not mean that the jury did not assess the entries properly. Rather my
criticism is more limited, as it focuses on the terms of the assessment. Although
after the attentive, though rather partial, inspection of the entries I believe that
"Nyt Nykii" and "Pähkinäsärkijä" merited a higher rank, I trust the jury's gaze and,
therefore, accept the final decision. For reasons that will emerge clearly with the
unfolding of the argument on the reception of Holl's entry, and assuming that this
case is a relevant one, I am led to relativize the difficulties that the jury had in
justifying its preferences. Besides, I believe the jury did a fine job by awarding the
first prize to Holl's entry, not least because it resulted in a remarkable building. Yet,
I cannot help feeling puzzled by some of the uneven judgements which was further
stressed with the reading of point 2.4. of the judging criteria and of the first
paragraphs of the assessment of Holl's entry, both drawing on the same matter -
briefly, on the symbolism of the proposition(s). Both passages are rich in
oxymorons and paradoxical formulations.

-----

Point 2.4. of the Jury Report, entitled "Architecture", starts by stating that
contemporary art is exquisitely anti-conventional, an aspect that the architecture of
the museum could be expected to express. Thus the jury had hoped for "forward-
looking" propositions, that did "not merely repeat what has already been seen and
experienced". The jury, in recognizing that "a museum of contemporary art is a
building for which there is no obvious architectural model", looked for something
new, other than propositions aligned with "main trends". "There proved to be
rather few entries with this kind of architecture".104 They explained what was meant
by "this kind of architecture" as follows:

104 Jury Report, p. 9.

70
 The successful entries are sculptural in their architectural approach. On the
other hand, some of the proposals seem like enlarged works of art; this is
particularly clear in the models. Although these mini-sculptures might well be
experienced quite differently when built to their full size, their non-
architectural character is nonetheless conspicuous.105

Indeed a "new" architecture is one that is beyond "trends" and "conventions"; this
is not problematic. What is problematic is the formulation an architectural entry that is
sculptural and non-architectural. Obviously this is an oxymoron. Eventually the individ-
ual assessments, specifically that of the winning entry, could have brought some
clarification on this point. However, it was exactly the opposite that happened. The
assessment of Holl's entry starts:

The design has a mysterious, sculpturesque quality. Although the curvilinear

mass does not integrate the townscape in the conventional sense of the word,
the curved and straight part of the building tie together the motifs of the
surrounding urban structure, thus providing a carefully thought-out,
harmoniously placed design.
[...]
The articulation of forms is eye-catching, sensitive and innovative.106

The assessment suggests that the proposition does not integrate with the surround-
ings but also that it does. It also affirms that the proposition incorporates the curved
and straight masses / lines present in the surroundings, but the fact is that curved
lines are unknown in the vicinity of Kiasma.107 Consequently, the formulations of
the assessment are paradoxical and they are also revealing of the preference for this
entry. Indeed this entry "caught the eye" of the jury. As to the reasons for this, in
my opinion, the Jury Report only offers a glimpse, which it cannot move beyond for
four main reasons.
Firstly, it is necessary to consider that the jury report of an architectural com-
petition is a highly codified text. Like the content of the panels, it covers a prede-
fined and limited number of topics, from the integration of the proposition in the
urban context to technical detailing, which includes the functional and symbolic
integration in the context, the hierarchy of the inner spaces and their (symbolic and,
strictly speaking, functional) adequacy for the functions that the building is due to
shelter, their dimensioning, the circulations (public and private), the relations

105 Jury Report, p. 9.

106 Jury Report, p. 11.
107It was explained to me that the phrase at stake was meant to establish a parallel between Holl's
proposition, the Old Student House and the Swedish Theatre, all three irregular, on the east side of
Mannerheimintie, where two differently oriented urban grids meet. Though interesting, I can hardly
accept such a justification, since only the faraway Swedish Theatre is composed by straight and curved
masses.

71
inside-outside and the quality of the lighting and materials, among others. It is one
thing to cover all these aspects, as the Jury Report rightly did, but it is quite another,
in the full sense of the word, to justify the preferences of the jury, or to shed light
into the determinations underlying these preferences. For instance, preferences may
well be grounded in empathy with aspects other than those mentioned, which
eventually is unclear for the person at stake, or it may well pass for emotional
adherence to a specific proposition. However, none of these reasons fits in with
tight criteria such as that of transparency which persons fulfilling public duties must
observe. Notwithstanding and reading between the lines,108 it is perceptible that the
decision partly ran along the line of empathy. What the Jury Report is supposed to
mask, it also discloses.
Secondly, the "jury", in the singular, is a cultural-institutional fiction, as
indeed it is composed of singularities, more or less heterogeneous, and particularly
so in the case of this competition. This collective was constituted by persons with
rather different professional and life experience and surely with very different
sensibilities, something that hardly can be shared and negotiated. I believe the
extraordinary heterogeneity of the awarded entries bears witness to this.
Thirdly, even if there was only one judge there might have been no greater
objectivity. Even though objective parameters can be established for some basic
aspects of the assessment of architectural propositions, for others it is hardly
possible, as is the case with matters such as the symbolic interest of the
propositions. We are dealing with aesthetic judgements, inescapably rooted in
dispositions not directly accessible to the jury members, that is to say, they are
unconscious, as well as personal. When a jury is too heterogeneous, its members
even have difficulty in sharing the criteria.
Furthermore, the evaluation of a number of entries and of the jury assess-
ment that I have put forward implies a certain imaginative relation with the materi-
als entered, a relation that tends to be taken for granted but should not be. Indeed,
seeing an architectural proposition in four panels and a model means taking the
entry as transitive, transparent, in relation to its virtual content (the piece of archi-
tecture). This is both acceptable and necessary, but it relies, as already mentioned,
on largely unconscious cultural-professional competences with the consequence
that such professionals tend to have difficulty in understanding the perception of
third persons. After all, playing such a game with panels and models, while charac-
teristic of the gaze and competence of architects, is not universal but actually a
specialist talent. In other words, people with other cultural memories tend to see
the materials submitted very much in their own terms. Finally, such reasons are
likely to stress the opacity of the report of an architectural competition by rendering
the preference of architects unintelligible to others. Even when the jury decides to
do the work on the basis of clearly and consensually defined criteria, inevitably each

108 That is to say, through oxymorons, paradoxes and the like.

72
jury member cannot but judge with their own eyes and own dispositions and
memories.

-----

The aspects put forward are not intended to determine the irrationality or radical
subjectivity of the choices that individual members of the jury made and, in the last
instance, of the outcome of the competition. But they limit the relevance of the Jury
Report in understanding what underlay these preferences, especially taking into
consideration both the heterogeneous nature of the jury and the diversity of the
awarded entries.109 Surprisingly, perhaps, the final decision was unanimous, in spite
of all the paradoxes and oxymorons in the Report. I therefore felt the need to inter-
view the jury110 in order to focus on why Holl's entry had won, an objective more
commensurable than the totality of the assessment process. The main question that
I addressed to the jury members was: what, if anything, caught the eye (or was
disliked) in Holl's entry? The interviews were conducted in 2004-05 and produced
two major results.
First, each person, again surprisingly, either barely remembered the contents
and terms of the Jury Report or not at all. This, however, made my task easier as I
was mainly interested in the personal views and memories of each of my interlocu-
tors.
Second, I learnt from the interviewees that Tuula Arkio played a crucial role
in the outcome of the competition. It was she who spotted Holl's entry amidst the
avalanche of materials entered. She was also a main protagonist in the final decision
on the awards. In the next section I shall clarify the course of events and the likely
determinations that weighted her preference and led to the awarding of the 1st
prize.

109It is enough to focus on the awarded entries from the viewpoint of the important judging criteria
constituted by the outlook of the building, its novelty and non-conventionality (see Report, p. 9).
Although Holl's winning entry and Shinoara's (figs 29-30) indeed are rather monumental and surpris-
ing, the same can hardly be sustained in relation to the entry "Cothurnocystis", of Christopher
Bearman and Meri Mäkipentti (fig 28).
110 The persons designated in p. 65 above, members of the jury and staff.

73
4. The reception of Holl's entry
4.1. BOOM, an epiphany

In describing the entries in the terms I outlined in the last section, I have played a
rather specific, conventional and common game in relation to those montages of
signs chiefly constituted by visual ones, as is the case with work entered for an
architectural competition. It is a game that the jury of a competition also cannot
help playing because it consists of reading the "manifest content" of entries, that is,
reading them in a literal key.
However, in confronting the four panels and model of Holl's entry (figs 40-
46), the experience may have been rather different. This is what happened with
Tuula Arkio, the jury member who spotted Holl's entry. Ms Arkio recalled the
moment in which she found the entry "Chiasma" in the following terms:

...and then, when I saw Holl's entry, and the watercolours in there, because he
had them in there, I knew immediately that this is someone that understands
about art. [...]
I am not exaggerating in any way, it was like a BOOM for me.111

This response runs along lines that have little or nothing to do with the reading of
manifest content. While the jury report bears witness to this, Arkio's statement it is
also revealing of quite another phenomenology, which involves affects, emotions. It
is of the order of hastiness and occurs through flashes, as a revelation or an
epiphany. This is a phenomenon that the ideology of objective judgement forecloses,
not happening regularly, but more often than is usually acknowledged.
The fact that Tuula Arkio mentions the watercolours specifically is not
without interest since they were also noticed by both jury members and public in
the debate that followed the announcement of the jury decision. Indeed, they are
often the object of attention when Steven Holl's work is published.112 I shall briefly
comment on the model, which also drew attention.
When I arrived in Helsinki in 2004 to start a year of fieldwork one of the first
persons I met was an architect who had been on the jury staff, who commented on
Kiasma and Holl's entry in the following terms:

111 From our meeting in the end of May 2005.

There are at least two publications with these watercolours alone: S. Holl, Written in Water; and S.
112

Holl, Sketches - Watercolours by Steven Holl, the latter published by Kiasma.

74
 Kiasma, is an artwork in itself. The jury had no difficulty at all awarding the
first prize as Holl’s entry clearly stood out... It was very artistic.113

A number of other responses from jury members and staff converge in relation to
the previous statement:

Holl’s entry was very different from the others because of the watercolours,
and the model... that was handmade. It was very different from what Finnish
architects do: they are very trained at doing competitions; they do a lot of
them; and they have specific ways for presenting them. [...]
The building [as his entry, or as announced in his entry] is like a sculpture. It
is architecture, but it is sculpture... Do you see!?...114

These and other responses imply a relation to an image that far exceeds the response
to its manifest content, having exquisite emotional and unconscious components.
The same is true in relation to many rude responses to the entry and building,
which are fundamentally of the same type only with a different "polarity". It is the
image that rouses such responses, rather than the architectural proposal alone. To
pretend that an entry such as the one at stake concerns architecture alone is in fact
to curtail images, an operation sanctioned by the all-embracing system of
representation at work in the field of architecture. Although this is a considerable
act of epistemological censure in relation to images, they resist such simplifications
as indeed emerges clearly from the dilemma that Holl's entry aroused: it raised the
question of whether it was architecture or art? While for some this signifies a
quality, for others it can be an irremediable handicap.

-----

Alongside phenomenologists, one could say that Holl's entry opened the visible to
the invisible, at least in the case of Tuula Arkio's reaction, but actually it went
beyond that. This entry did not trivially communicate with this jury member nor
did it merely represent Holl's proposition. The moment Tuula Arkio felt "BOOM",
it functioned as the lever and the screen on which her existential structures were
fully projected.115 Images may have this effect on us, this mad power. Every now and
then we are confronted with such images - a sound, a flavour or a piece of iconogra-
phy - that overwhelm us. It is happening all the time. Though the viewpoints of
phenomenology and existential analysis (Daseinsanalyse) are important, they are too

113 A member of the jury staff.

114 Another member of the jury staff.
115See M. Foucault, "Dream, imagination and existence", p. 68: "To imagine is not to actualise the
fable of the little mouse, it is not to transport oneself into the world of Peter. It is to become the world
where he is" - emphasis added.

75
general. The fact is that we are dealing with specific images, that can be analysed.
Either way, it is only through form, whether external (graphic or other) or internal
(psychic), that there is emotional engagement and the opening of the senses (or of
the being).116 But, indeed, images seem to constitute perfect levers for this purpose.
An early experience of Alvar Aalto converges in relation to this phenomenology. At
some point he recalled:

On an early winter morning, in a town embedded in the depth of northern

Finland's snow I found on the table where the post used to lie, a magazine
which caught my eye: an attractive, red-covered periodical with a heraldic lion
decorating the cover The Young Finland. Inside two pages of coloured pictures,
architectural illustrations. Hardly any text at all accompanied these pictures,
only the word 'Interior' in the lower left corner and the name 'Eliel Saarinen'
in the lower right. [...] The impression made upon me by those architectural
drawings was indelible.117

The testimonies of Arkio and Aalto show evidence that such an opening of the
senses may happen perfectly in relation to that same architectural imagery that is
usually understood in terms of "representation". It could be argued that what
causes empathy in such "representations" is not the wholeness of the image, but
precisely, its "manifest content", the architectural proposition. Such claim would be
defied by both Arkkio, Aalto and many others. Though those images, and specifi-
cally Holl's, relate to an architectural proposition, there is much more in that they
are also characterized by a specific shape and size, a specific framing, a specific
technique, by a specific system of representation... and, fundamentally, they are
haunted, they suffer from reminiscences. In boiling down these images to their
object and identifying it with the project of architecture, they are forced into repre-
sentations. Yet the response of Arkio and Aalto is neither exclusively nor primarily
to architecture.
One could say alongside Michel Foucault - in the very first essay that he
published - that the "epiphanic image" is an image that is "addressed to someone".
Inevitably this does not go without questioning the status of representation:

The image is no longer the image of something, totally projected toward an

absence which it replaces; rather, it is gathered into itself and is given as the
fullness of a presence, it is addressed to someone.118

116 See G. Deleuze, Proust et les Signes, pp. 118-ff.

117 A. Aalto, "Foreword", p. xiii.
118 M. Foucault, "Dream, imagination and existence", p. 74 - translation slightly modified.

76
4.2. The punctum of the entry

Everything in Holl's entry informs on the proposition: isometrics, axonometrics,

the perspectives of the 3D model, diagrams, watercolours, sections and elevations.
Going through it implies application, a general commitment "without special
acuity". This sort of engagement is what Barthes - in relation to photographs -
names "studium".119 However a second element may intervene, breaking or punctuat-
ing the studium. This is the element "which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like
an arrow, and pierces me".120 "This second element which will disturb the studium I
shall therefore call punctum; for punctum is also: sting, speck, cut, little hole - and also
a cast of dice. [...] Is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant
to me)":121

Many photographs are, alas, inert under my gaze. But even among those
which have some existence in my eyes, most provoke only a general and, so
to speak, polite interest: they have not punctum in them: they please or displease
me without pricking me: they are invested with no more than studium. The
studium is that very wide field of unconcerned desire, of various interest, of
inconsequential taste: I like / I don't like. The studium is of the order of liking,
not of loving; it mobilizes a half desire, a demi-volition; it is the same sort of
vague, slippery, irresponsible interest one takes in the people, the
entertainments, the books, the clothes one finds "all right".
To recognize the studium is inevitably to encounter the photographer's
intentions, to enter into harmony with them, to approve or disapprove them,
but always to understand them, to argue them within myself, for culture
(from which culture derives) is a contract arrived at between creators and
consumers. The studium is a kind of education (knowledge and civility,
politeness) [...].122

The experience of the punctum is totally different from the studium for what concerns
the level of affective engagement. However, as Barthes will develop, the acquisition
of knowledge is not a prerogative of the studium, the experience of the punctum also
provides the acquisition of knowledge, and of a knowledge that is intimately
perceived as radically true.123 As related earlier, when Tuula Arkio saw Holl's entry
and watercolours, she "knew immediately" that she was engaging with someone
who understood about art. This does not only converge with Barthes conception of

119 R. Barthes, Camera Lucida, p. 26.

120 R. Barthes, Camera Lucida, p. 26.
R. Barthes, Camera Lucida, p. 27. I am therefore using the notion of Barthes beyond the frame of
121

photography, just like, for instance, G. Banu does in L'Homme de Dos, pp. 48-50.
122 R. Barthes, Camera Lucida, pp. 27-28.
123 See also G. Deleuze, Proust et les Signes, pp. 118-ff.

77
the punctum but also in relation to Walter Benjamin's understanding of the ways in
which knowledge is acquired through and on images. As Barthes and Benjamin were
both readers and lovers of Proust, their conceptions of images, of their phenome-
nology, of the chiasm of emotion and knowledge that they appease is, naturally, not
without relation to him. For Gilles Deleuze, Proust is indeed a crucial critic of
voluntary and methodic thought: truths remain arbitrary and abstract as long as
they remain grounded in "the good will of thought"; most unfortunately only
gloomy conventions are explicit and reason can only engender the possible. This is
why Proust posits necessity and the involuntary as roots of thought and of truth.124
For Benjamin: "In the fields with which we are concerned [certainly history and
culture, but also images], knowledge comes only in a lightning. The text is the long
roll of thunder that follows".125

-----

The notion of punctum, in a bold and general way, enables us to start thinking about
the question of emotion in images, or in the response to them. First and foremost it
raises the question of localization as indeed for Barthes the punctum can be
pinpointed. In relation to the montage of signs that Holl entered all my interlocu-
tors agree that the following caught their attention:

a) Watercolours;
b) Model.

I would like to add the following:

c) The name of the entry: "Chiasma";

d) An image that Holl has always proposed and still proposes in relation to
his creation, that "Kiasma is like the clasping of two hands".

124 G. Deleuze, Proust et les Signes, pp. 116-117.

125 W. Benjamin, Arcades Project, p. 456.

78
5. Holl's watercolours
5.1. From the image-space to the image-image

Figs 41 to 49 show us or enable us to foresee something. They rely on a specific,

known and conventional system of representation, that is perspective, and on a
conventional framing of the subject matter, use of light and shadow, line and
colouring. It is thanks to these conditions that one can foresee something of the
order of spaces and architecture. Therefore, they function as representations, giving
weight and consistency to spaces that are virtual as they only exist through them.
Though these watercolours refer to intermediate steps in the development of the
project, it still is possible to identify the correlative spaces. For instance, fig 49
relates to the upper gallery of the museum (fig 50).
To experience and think of this arrangement of signs as transitive in relation
to the virtual referent is to remain in the order of representation. This happens
when straightforward relations are established between the virtual referent of the
image and the system of signs that constitute it. Representation has a binary struc-
ture: this drawing represents that thing, but also the author of this drawing is that
person... i.e. one standing for / corresponding to an-other. In the architectural field
there is a magical notion ascertained in this straightforward and mechanical relation:
the already mentioned "scale". Scale is not simply the metrical scale that enables the
translation of a drawing "in scale", as can be the case of a plan or an elevation of a
detailed project, into the geometric space of the plot or of the city. It is also a
disposition of gaze, which consists of seeing in the multiplicity of signs that consti-
tute the output of the architect nothing but the representation of something. It is as
if this output could be boiled down to something like the contents of each compe-
tition panel listed in the beginning of section 3, above. It is in this sense that "scale"
constitutes a magical notion, a notion that covers a large array of visual signs, prac-
tices, the production and the reception of projects of architecture, which posits a
dogmatic truth about the nature of this phenomenology, that is to say, a truth that
over-simplifies the matter. It is this whole economy that can be called "representa-
tion". Although some arrangements of signs, such as detailed and scaled plans and
sections, constitute exquisite representations, those entered into an architectural
competition, though scaled, are usually not detailed, often with colour and shadow
and mounted among other images and texts in an arrangement that has nothing to
do with the detailed project. They are often haunted and end up evoking much
more then a univocal sign does, as well as rousing emotions. Figs 41 to 49 seem to
be representations and in some professional circles they are indeed, received as
such, but they are not; rather they are over-determined images or images.

79
 Firstly, they are multi-determined. Fig 49, for instance, is reminiscent of two
images of Giovanni Batitsta Piranesi, Study for a palatial interior (fig 51) and of the
Plate XI of the Carceri (fig 52). In Holl there is the low vaulted roof and in Piranesi
the large low arches. Furthermore, a light with similar quality and coming from
above characterizes both images. Finally, Holl's image and Piranesi's Study for a
palatial interior share the same watery materiality.
Like the images just mentioned, figs 47 and 48 are based on the same
conventional system of perspective and rather conventional framing. In this case
light enters through the multiple openings of the space and draws sharp and well-
defined shadows. Though these are perspectives, therefore enabling the viewing of
the totality of space, there is a tension between what is shown and what remains
unseen: that is, a glimpse is offered through doors and other openings on the
spaces beyond the one in the foreground, but without satisfying our scopic curios-
ity, as indeed very little is shown. Sharp shadows, perspective, showing and not
showing are all aspects which evoke the images of Giorgio De Chirico: for instance,
Italian square with equestrian statue (fig 53) and The mystery and melancholy of a street (fig
54).
As to figs 45 and 46, they are strongly evocative of Pentti Lumikangas' Two
Gateways (fig 55) and Exhibition Room (fig 56), for instance, among many other
artists. Two Gateways is recurrent of the sharp, ruler drawn, shadow, apparent in
Holl's previous watercolours (figs 47, 48) and in De Chirico (figs 53, 54). In con-
trast, the light of Lumikangas' Exhibition Room (fig 56) has a different quality: it is
smoother, very much like the watercolours Holl presented in his entry.
I am not arguing that in his watercolours Holl quotes the references just
mentioned; it is neither a question of references nor of Holl's visual culture, but of
the cultural memories of which images are reminiscent. Besides, Piranesi and De
Chirico constitute two fundamental references in the visual culture of many archi-
tects, especially of Holl's generation - something that applies both to architects that
submit entries to architectural competitions and to those jury members who are
themselves architects. Furthermore, it is not the case that Holl's watercolours are at
the same time evocative of Piranesi, of De Chirico and of Lumikangas. This affinity
relies on a long tradition that passes through Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1574),
Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (1507-73), Nicolas Beatrizet (1515-1665), Vicenzo
Scamozzi (1548-1616), Giovanni Battista Falda (c1640-78), among others, culmi-
nating in Piranesi (1720-78), the engraver who signed his work as "architect", which
was the case. De Chirico, Lumikangas and Holl are simply an integral part of the
extraordinary rich descent of this tradition in which these architectural images
shaped European visual culture and imagination for centuries. They hung in librar-
ies, living rooms and public offices; they were collected and discussed as objects of
special attention, with the academia ensuring their reproduction.
However, it is true that Holl's greyish, almost sepia like watercolours do not
have the chromatic richness of De Chirico's oil paintings and the same can be said
about Lumikangas' etchings, but such a relation exists. The difference of mediums

80
and techniques implies and enables a transformation of some pictorial variables,
without compromising a deep aesthetical affinity, which perfectly passes through
sideways. This is precisely one of the aspects that may make an image so fascinating
and striking in its co-incidence of repetition and difference.
What is it that this story conveys? Obviously, it is far more than mere forms
and systems of representation. Piranesi's etchings, for instance, caught the eye of
generations of art lovers and artists. If one could speak of "representation" then
these would be "affective representations". Indeed they are images, in the full sense
of the word, and their second characteristic is that they convey emotions. It is impor-
tant to bear in mind that this is not a detail, or a curiosity, but a structural aspect of
art. As Deleuze and Guattari rightly, in my view, acknowledge, the work of art is "a
compound of precepts and affects", "a being of sensation", "we paint, compose,
and write with sensations. We paint, sculpt, compose, and write sensations".126
In Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot, le fou, when Samuel Fuller is asked "what exactly
is a movie?", he answers "a film is like a battleground: love, hate, action, violence,
death... in one word, emotions" (7'20''). Already for Alberti emotions were a major
issue in the production and reception of images. The construction of space provided
the "foundations" of the istoria, understood as the assemblage of composition, lines
and colours, perspective, theme and figures,127 "the composition of bodies", of their
members, movement and gestures, that does not go without some variety, or with-
out the work on light and shadow, on colour, and the like. According to Alberti,
this is what makes a painting great, as well as granting "riches and perpetual fame to
whoever is master of it".128 "The istoria which merits both praise and admiration will
be so agreeably and pleasantly attractive that it will capture the eye of whatever
learned or unlearned person is looking at it and will move his soul".129
In relation to Pentti Lumikangas and to the tradition that he cultivates we are
confronted with an aesthetics of space itself: not the stage where the istoria unfolds,
but an aesthetics of this drama space before characters come to occupy it with their
lives. Serlio, as early as in 1545, realised that the scenic space possessed dramatic
qualities in itself,130 regardless of the fact that it is devoted to theatrical performance,
destined to be filled with characters, plots, cries and whispers. What we are talking
about could be termed, alongside Binswanger, "aesthetical space of representation"

126 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, What is Philosophy?, pp. 164-166. These authors proceed by dissociating
art (with the broad sense of visual art, literature, music, cinema, etc) from representation in terms that
I fully subscribe: "As percepts, sensations are not perceptions referring to an object (reference): if they
resemble something it is with a resemblance produced with their own methods; and the smile on the
canvas is made solely with colours, lines, shadow, and light" (cit., p. 166).
127 L. B. Alberti, On Painting, pp. 77-ff.
128 L. B. Alberti, On Painting, p. 67.
129 L. B. Alberti, On Painting, p. 70.
130 S.Serlio, The Second Book of Architecture. I am referring to the three theatre scenes depicted and codi-
fied by Serlio: tragic, comic and satiric.

81
("espace esthétique de la représentation")131 but, in effect, it would be more adequate to
term it "affective space" ("espace thymique").132 The spaces that Lumikangas builds -
with perspective, shadow, graphic techniques... - convey affects.
Holl makes use of the same or similar visual formulas, specific to the
empathic composition of space in arts. It is these images that are emotionally
effective, not necessarily the virtual space to which they refer. But they are also
memory bearers. They were crafted and the line of their development can always be
pulled so that actually for many of them an archaeology already exists. The same
techniques, systems of representation, effects of light and shadow, themes and so
on recur in or through them. These images suffer from reminiscences. That which
returns must return otherwise, otherwise they would be mere citations of the tradi-
tion. Fig 57, for instance, is no longer a straight perspective but, on the one hand,
somehow a cubistic representation of space (on the left side the floor goes up and
the two balconies above the doorway on the right side are collapsing). On the other
hand, it is reminiscent of the Carceri of Piranesi (fig 58). However, it is still possible
to relate it to what seems to be its spatial referent, fig 5.133 In sum, although it seems
to be a representation (an image-space) because a referent is recognizable, it is
reminiscent of specific iconographic and cultural traditions, not only Piranesi, but
cubism as well, i.e. it points to other and heterogeneous images and cultural tradi-
tions (it is an image-image). This diversity, or the heterogeneity of reminiscences, is the
third and fundamental characteristic of over-determined images. Holl's water-
colours do not simply, or in a straightforward way, offer a preview of a space of his
invention, but are haunted, not only by the architectural imagery of Lumikangas
and the like, nor by references that are part and parcel of the basic cultural and
artistic background of architects, but by a much larger and heterogeneous corpus of
images, cultural references and others.
Fourthly and lastly, images also tend to merge heterochronic materials and reminis-
cences, an aspect that will emerge the more clearly in relation to the research on
Lordi.

5.2. Heterogeneous series

So far I have commented on the sort of watercolours that are usually published in
architectural magazines and refer to one project or another. In the most extensive
publication of Holl's watercolours, Written in Water, 366 are reproduced water-
colours in the same size as the originals and on watercolour-like paper. As to the

131 L. Binswanger, Le Problème de l'Espace en Psychopathologie, p. 123.

132 L. Binswanger, Le Problème de l'Espace en Psychopathologie, pp. 81-122.
133 Even if the watercolour should not refer to this room specifically, it refers to some other room
either further up or down this same floor of the museum. The curved wall-roof that is depicted on the
left side of the watercolour is the same as that on the left side of the photo.

82
textual apparatus, it is very slight, as it is constituted only by a three page intro-
duction by Holl and by a five page interview at the end. Also the "architectural
watercolours" are published among watercolours of other kinds. Whereas the
former are referenced with a three-digit number and three letters indicating the
project to which they relate (for example, "KIA" designates Kiasma), the latter are
only referenced with the three-digit number and are unnamed. The editors of
architectural publications prefer the former to the latter. Unnamed, they are what
architects and the editors of these publications call "experimental watercolours", a
name for oddities, for that which resists the architectural frame of intelligibility.
I believe the assessment of the "architectural images" cannot do without
these, in the same way, for instance, as the Foucault of the "heterotopias" (1976)134
does not go without Discipline and Punish (1976) and without the essay on Ludwig
Binswanger, "Dream, Imagination and Existence" (1954). The images at stake
question the silent myth of representation and ruin the very possibility of a clear
separation of the waters, between "architectural representations" and "experimental
watercolours". These images are, like the previous, over-determined, with the
advantage that architectural referents do not overshadow the much broader web of
relations of which they constitute the node.
Figs 61 and 62 are the sort of watercolours one easily finds published. Both
refer to Kiasma, a referent that is easily identifiable. Fig 62 is a study of architectural
composition referring to the north top of the building. It lies somewhere between a
perspective and an axonometric. Fig 61 refers to the spiral stair-ramp in the inter-
section of the straight part and the curved part of building. It is a childish and
clumsy pseudo-perspective. However in Written in Water one also finds watercolours
like figs 63 and 64. If I ask what do they represent? my question misses the point. It is
like asking, for instance, in relation to a vacuum-cleaner how many pages a minute does
it print? Therefore, of figs 63 and 64 the question is pointless. Only ask, eventually,
to which other images do they relate? Of which iconographic and cultural traditions are they
reminiscent?
Due to the organicism of form, it seems to me that they strongly evoke
surrealistic images: for instance those of Otto Mäkilä (1904-55; figs 65-67), Finland's
most exquisite surrealistic artist. They may also evoke the early Duchamp, Bride /
Mariée (fig 68) and eventually also the Picasso of the early 1930s (figs 71, 72), the
same Picasso about whom André Breton first became enthusiastic.

-----

An image always opens onto something else. The whole question lies in the nature
of this "other". The frame of representation narrowly posits that the output of
architects is always and only architecture. Although this may be true in relation to
the practice of many architects as well as some output of most architects (the

134 M. Foucault, "Of other spaces".

83
detailed project), this is not the whole truth, as Holl's production puts in evidence.
The watercolours commented upon here are obviously and strikingly reminiscent of
a large array of images, from different times, including some milestones of modern
art and culture with which Holl is probably familiar; others almost surely are
unknown to him. However, Holl's rich corpus of images opens onto a hetero-
chronic and heterogeneous multiplicity that it does not quote but rather re-works
and transforms. Holl's images are over-determined.

-----

Thinking images in this light is seeing them through the gaze of Aby Warburg. It was
he who first thoroughly grasped the mad over-determination of images.

84
6. Over-determination
6.1. Warburg 135

6.1.1. Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring

In 1893 Aby Warburg (1866-1929) published his first piece of research, which had
been delivered two years earlier for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy in
Strasbourg. It draws on Botticelli's (c1445-1510) Birth of Venus (c1485) and Spring
(c1482).136 Warburg started from the question of movement such as the action of
the wind putting in motion garments and hair: what he termed "accessories in
movement" or "outward movement". What might look like typical research on a
minor iconographic motive would enable Warburg to re-assess the relations of the
artistic world of the Renaissance both to Antiquity - as the subtitle of the essay
enunciates (see note 136 below) - as well as to other historical times including the
time of their production. Warburg argued that the two paintings of Botticelli were
weaved or interweaved with the most disparate times, with anachronisms, or, one
would better say, with heterochronisms. However, it is only half true that his
research concerns the temporality of art137 as indeed he also focused on the
paintings' surface, their materials and sources. If the paintings are made of hetero-
chronisms this is first and foremost because they are weaved with heterogeneous
materials.
In a time when the general perception was that painting in 15th century
Florence was a steady and linear development towards the naturalism of represen-
tation, the artwork pushed Warburg to pageantry celebrations, jousts and theatre.
Not the grandiose and tranquil Antiquity of Winkelmann, but rather the graceful,
emotional and erotically charged movement that the ruins of the Ancient world
exhibited, signs that ultimately drew Warburg back to Dionysian rituals, to the
pagan Ancient and primitive worlds, that is to say, these signs constituted a battle-
ground where archaic fears and phobias are precariously sublimated. Although the
identification of the figures and subject matter of the paintings demanded
conspicuous work from Warburg, he despised these questions. What interested him

Besides the works cited, this section owes much to the contents of the course of Georges Didi-
135

Huberman at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, in Paris, from 17-11-2003 to 2-2-2004.
136 A.Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring - An examination of concepts of Antiquity
in the Italian Early Renaissance", in The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity, pp. 88-156 and pp. 405-431.
It is understandable to put it in those terms since Warburg is a man of the 19th century, a century
137

obsessed with History.

85
was something rather different. By proceeding the way he did, he unveiled complex,
rich and impure socio-cultural constructions conveying and "constituted" by
pathos.138 The rigorous map that Warburg drew of the paintings of Botticelli is an
assemblage of the most disparate materials and of heterogeneous times, materials
and places. It is the map of a complex hydrological basin, with surface and under-
ground streams, not exhausted by the reference to a single literary source, but
rather by a multiplicity of sources that converge only to ramify and diverge again. In
these paintings the imagination of the past is an idealization of the present; it is a
remembrance and re-actualisation of archaic rituals and fears, and, ultimately, of the
mystery and openness of symbols.

-----

Warburg's first move is rather conventional. He begins by reading the literary

sources of the Birth of Venus (fig 73): Poliziano's Giostra (Joust) and what is the
manifest source of Poliziano's stanzas 99-103, where the birth of Venus is
described, the second Hymn to Aphrodite of Homer. The action in the painting
proceeds rather closely to the poem. There are only a few exceptions to this, as, for
instance, the three Horae that receive Venus in the poems of Homer and Poliziano
are condensed to a single female figure. But literary sources and the later painting
also converge in relation to the focus of Warburg's attention: movement. Poliziano
depicts the wind that touches the three Horae as follows:

The Horae, all in white, now tread the strand;

The wind toys with their loose and flowing hair...139

It is the very same wind that blows through the hair of Venus and through the hair
and dress of the female figure greeting her on the shore ("a single female figure in a
coloured, floral dress girt with a rose branch"; "the three Horae [...] combined into
one"; the "Hora of Spring"),140 as well as in the mantle that is to cover Venus. As
Warburg mentions, this interest in capturing the movement of hair and garments
corresponds to a tendency in the painting of the period, which Alberti had

138 See A. Warburg's prefatory note to "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", p. 89: "Artists and
their advisers recognized 'the antique' as a model that demanded an intensification of outward move-
ment, and they turned to antique sources [...]. This evidence has its value for psychological aesthetics
in that it enables us to observe, within a milieu of working artists, an emerging sense of the aesthetic
act of 'empathy' as a determinant of style". Therefore, it is not only a force that acts upon beholders,
but that affected the artist - which says something fundamental about the way they related to the
materials they assembled in their works - and is a determinant of style.
139Poliziano, Giostra, 100, 5-6, quoted in A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring",
p. 92.
140A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", p. 95 (1st and 2nd quote) and p. 102
(3rd).

86
acknowledged in On Painting. They were movements that delighted Alberti, rousing,
in the words of Warburg, his "anthropomorphic imagination", or animistic
identification: "hair should twist as if trying to break loose from its ties and to
ripple in the air like flames, some of it weaving in and out like vipers in a nest";
"folds should grow like branches from the trunk of a tree".141 But it also ought to be
tempered by "analogical reflection": "these [folds] should be gentle, moderate
movements, as I frequently remind you, appearing to the onlooker as something
pleasurable rather than an effort to be marvelled at"; "the painter must take care not
to show any drapery as moving against the wind".142
The idea of hairs like flames or twined serpents, hair moving and becoming
something else... are the sort of things that interested Warburg in symbols and
images: the fact that they move, that they always differ, that they always unfold
beyond (and in opposition to) their manifest content. For Warburg, the serpent that
primitive man ritualistically handled in order to exorcise its dangers and to act upon
the world was nothing but precariously sublimated in the locks of hair of a young
girl, in the manner of a Medusa. I shall return to this crucial issue in the end of
section 6.1.4., below.
-----

The topic of "accessories in movement" is both prosaic and unusual, but Warburg
proceeds in a rather conventional manner, confronting the painting with relevant
literary and theoretical sources, in an especially rigorous way, typical of the compe-
tent philologist that he was.
Warburg proceeds by confronting the Renaissance iconography of "accesso-
ries in motion" with their formal referents, so that he recalls the borrowing from a
vase existing in Pisa ("the celebrated krater"143) of the female garments of a figure in
a relief of Agostino di Duccio, also of the Dionysus in Nicola Pisano's pulpit in
Pisa, of one of the apostles of Donatello and, eventually, of the princess in the bas-
relief below Donatello's statue of Saint George from Orsanmichele. He goes on to
recall other verified borrowings from antique sources, namely Duccio's borrowing
from Roman sarcophagi. In the same way as Poliziano looked to the poets of
Antiquity for accounts of motifs of movement, so Agostino di Duccio, "as a
sculptor, looked to antique sculptures for the representation of hair and garments
in motion".144 Naturally these literati and artists also borrowed mythologies, but, for
Warburg, the crux of the matter was the borrowing of "accessories in movement".
It is from this loan that the nature of the relation of the early Renaissance with
Antiquity unfolds.

141 As quoted in A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", p. 96. Cf. L. B. Alberti, On
Painting, p. 81.
142 Idem.

143 A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", p. 97.

144 A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", pp. 97-98.

87
 Though Warburg recognized in Poliziano, Botticelli and their contemporaries
an interest in these "accessories in movement" and though he identified the general
sources known to them from the Ancient world, he also recognized that they
proceeded with a high degree of freedom, adapting motives from one source into
new contexts, to the point that motives from sarcophagi and representing pagan
rituals ended up being used in Christian sculpture and finding their way into
modern Renaissance painting. Fifteenth century artists extracted from antique
sources what interested them and also saw the fragments and ruins before their
eyes with their own "preconceived ideas" about their nature and interest; in other
words, they saw them as art and with the eyes of artists.
Warburg shows, therefore, that an image, or rather a single motive within it,
can have numerous heterogeneous sources. Furthermore, the motives of movement
are not exhausted by literary references. Other sources, material and visual, no
matter how prosaic they might seem, or precisely because of this, were worth
Warburg's assessment. To the heterogeneity of materials corresponds the anachro-
nism or heterochronism of these same materials. The notion of Nachleben, Survival,
fundamentally takes account of the plurality of the times with which images are
weaved. This was why Warburg started to explore the over-determination of images
and it is not by chance that he became interested in breezes, air and winds, as images
are very much like fluids. These winds put in motion "accessories" and started to
drag away the savant categories that foreclosed the thinking of the fluidity of images,
or their mad polyvalence and plasticity, such as the pretence that images are
synchronous with the world that is contemporary to their production.

-----

Warburg approached the second painting, Spring (fig 74), very much in the same
way as he approached the Birth of Venus. He confronted it with Alberti's On Painting
and other relevant literary sources, including Poliziano's Orfeo as well as a number
of theatrical performances. As to the latter, he recalled - as he would do throughout
his lifetime - Jacob Burckhardt's thesis that "Italian festive pageantry, in its higher
form, is a true transition from life to art".145 Warburg realised that festivals and thea-
tre provided a translation of classical mythology and culture from which artists
could derive the inspiration to produce their images. Theatre inspired by classical
myths communicated both with the Ancient world, due to its intrinsic nature, as
well as with the contemporary world and with the prosaic. The characters of these
productions relied on the bodies, gestures and voices of living actors and their
garments, hairdressing and expressions, which were deeply rooted both in the
bodily lexicon and other lexicons and grammars. Thus, these productions are the

J. Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, p. 261, quoted in A. Warburg, "Sandro
145

Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", p. 125. I am quoting from Warburg's essay.

88
constitution of an "imaginary space".146 By confronting various sources, Warburg
managed to distinguish dress codes and come closer to the identification of such
figures as Venus, Spring and Flora, thereby bringing both the Spring and the Birth of
Venus into close contact with the contemporary and the everyday. Naturally, these
paintings constitute idealizations (in ways that we shall see, particularly in relation to
the "bella Simonetta"), but they are grounded in specific materials contemporary to
their production, sometimes idealized, at other times rather prosaic.
On good grounds Warburg considers that the Birth of Venus and Spring
constitute the two related and sequential scenes of the "birth of Venus" and "Venus
in her realm" (the latter in full regalia, with her faithful helpers: Hermes, the Graces,
Cupid, Spring, Flora and the West Wind).147 Taking into consideration the probable
date of the painting, Warburg relates it to the death "of the 'nymph' Simonetta, in
real life Simonetta Cattaneo, the beautiful Genoese-born wife of the Florentine
Marco Vespucci".148 Confronting the figure of Spring in both paintings149 with the
literary sources referring to her (and to the three Horae) and with a poetic reference
to Simonetta (in which her dress is described) and with one certain portrait of her
and two probable ones,150 Warburg exemplarily relates Spring with this historic
"nymph". However, the different figures of Spring do not constitute a portrait of
Simonetta, but "an idealized depiction of Simonetta as a nymph".151
Central to Warburg's argument are the already mentioned dress codes, their
iconography, and the observation of hairdressing: the "filmy garments that flutter
and cling in the breeze", revealing "the form of the limb", as Leonardo admon-
ished;152 the hairdressing of the real Simonetta and of her idealized depictions as a
nymph, and of real nymphs, in the real-fantasy world of the joust and, naturally, of
painting.153 Proceeding in this way, not without risk but as up-to-date scholarship

146P. Francastel (in Pintura e Sociedade, p. 197) uses this expression for designating the image that the
audience makes while in the theatre-architecture, the projection into or re-evocation of a play, of its
sense and meaning, while it unfolds. I am, therefore, borrowing from Francastel but slightly changing
the meaning of the expression.
147 A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", pp. 132-133.
148 A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", p. 133.
149 A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", p. 125: "the girl who scatters roses as she
advances toward the viewer [in the Spring] - although she differs from the corresponding figure in the
Birth of Venus in a number of ways [the figure at the place of the three Horae mentioned in Poliziano's
Giostra and other sources] - is the goddess of spring. Like her counterpart, she wears a rose branch as a
girdle round her floral dress".
150 Though the sure portrait was not painted from life.
151 A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", p. 136.
152Warburg reports on a joust in Padua in June 1466 ("Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring",
p. 136) and other sources related to it (idem, p. 139).
153 A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", p. 136. On the idealized nature of Piero
de Cosimo's Simonetta Januensis Vespuccia see P. Francastel, Pintura e Sociedade, p. 76. The same painting
is attributed to Antonio Pollaiuolo in P. Francastel, La Réalité Figurative, pl. 11.

89
demonstrates, the theses of Warburg were fundamentally correct.154 This is how he
convincingly brought both paintings into close and meaningful contact with the life
of his contemporaries,155 not as a step further towards the naturalism of representa-
tion, but rather, as we have seen, as an amalgam of materials from the world where
they were produced, some older, some newer, some with an aureole of idealism and
others prosaic.
Warburg's achievement consisted in revealing in detail the vast network of
references, literary and material, sometimes contradictory, that the two paintings
articulate. He therefore thought of artworks in terms of images, that is to say,
beyond the categories of Art History. His achievement is even more remarkable if
one thinks that the specific "order of discourse" we name Art History was still
strongly indebted to the heritage of figures like Vasari and Winkelmann, names that
obviously constitute part of the cultural background of Warburg.
To summarize: on the one hand, the images at stake are mythological repre-
sentations, thus necessarily idealizations of the past. They are made with a mixture
of materials from the present and materials borrowed from Antiquity - which did
not go without re-staging the ruins of this past, as Warburg showed. They are a
testimony of the desire to grasp that golden and imagined past, an aspiration that
was not distributed in an even way but was characteristic of the upper and domi-
nant class. As with the vocation of images, this did not go without the capturing of
objects like those garments, hairdressing, facial types, gestures, flowers, ruins of the
Ancient past, spaces,156 a system of representation157 and art theories, i.e. materials
constituting social, cultural and historic constructions. Indeed it went through a

154 See K. W. Forster, "Introduction", p. 11: "A whole century after Warburg's dissertation, the author
of the latest book on the Spring [Charles Dempsey, The Portrayal of Love, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, 1992] concludes in so many words that Warburg's correlation between textual sources and
pictorial idea are unshakable". Forster proceeds by saying that (cit., p. 64) "Dempsey, rightly acknowl-
edges that 'virtually none of the serious scholars who have studied the painting has questioned the
essential correctness of Warburg's establishment of the textual foundation for the invention of the
Spring' (Dempsey, cit., p. 36)". However, it is necessary to stress that enterprise of Warburg did not
concern the ascertainment of "textual" sources alone, but far more than this.
155 Lessacceptable is Gombrich's "Botticelli's mythologies" (first published in 1945 and republished in
a revised edition in 1970 in Symbolic Image - Studies in the art of Renaissance, 2, pp. 31-81). Though
Gombrich demonstrates the circulation of neo-platonic ideas among the Medici circles, which is
unquestionable, the relevance of this for the interpretation and history of the painting is scarce or null.
Legends such as that of the "bella Simonetta" are by far more relevant, as constituting an integral part
of the history of paintings. Furthermore, Gombrich proceeded without referring to the painting, but
only to a vague and bold scheme, black and white and that could fit into a post stamp, making the
reader wonder if he actually saw the painting. Taking in consideration the premises, no wonder that he
ends up conceiving Venus as an abstract and chaste Venus-Humanity. Clearly Gombrich missed the
point.
Which Warburg does not analyse but P. Francastel does in La Réalité Figurative, pp. 229-268,
156

complementing and converging in relation to Warburg's interpretation.

157 The symbolic form of perspective (see E. Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form).

90
system of visual signs that communicate with realms beyond the pictorial, that have
a social, cultural and historic immanence. At a time when Botticelli's religious
paintings had the preferred attention of experts and public, Warburg's interest in
the Birth of Venus and Spring was not casual. On the other hand, and indeed, as
Pierre Francastel points out, the two paintings of Botticelli constitute "allegories of
the real" ("allégories réelles"), "as real as, for instance, the Studio of Courbet, or the Bar
at Folies Bergère of Manet, in modern times".158

6.1.2. The Sassetti chapel

The answers to the questions that Warburg posed were not therefore to be found
in art libraries, even though the objects on which he focused his attention were in
places like the Uffizi Galleries and Florentine churches. For him, these places had
become ritualistic (tourist) places where the art lover could pay tribute to art for
art's sake and rejoice with the developments of style in Florentine painting. Yet,
those were the grounds where a very real battle occurred, between Ancient pagan
divinities and Christian values, in which Warburg fully engaged as a meticulous and
emotional observer. As to libraries, it is known that he created his own, where the
transformation and continuity of images and symbols could be researched across
iconographic types, historical times, cultural contexts and disciplines. Furthermore,
Warburg spent much time in the Archivio, the historical archive of Florence. There
he was removed from the idealizing standpoints of Art History and criteria of art
appreciation prevailing in his time. In such a non-hierarchic archive and among
documents relating to business, among testaments, ricordanze, letters of commis-
sioners and artists, he felt such an intimacy with the social life of the Florence of
the 15th century and to the ghosts that populated the Archivio that he commented
that there "the voices of the dead lived on" and he felt that their "tone and timbre"
could be brought back.159 Essentially, Warburg thought of art as a "social organ"
(echoing his Burckhardtian background), at the intersection of social and artistic
determinations, where reality, imagination and affects intertwine. Within his major
achievements is the essay on the Sassetti chapel in Santa Trinità, the memorial
chapel of a partner in the administration of Lorenzo de Medici's bank in Avignon
and Lyon, which is covered with frescoes of Domenico Ghirlandaio, dedicated to
Saint Francis of Assisi with scenes from his life, to be read alongside the remarkable
essay on Francesco Sassetti himself.160

158 P. Francastel, La Réalité Figurative, p. 261.

159 A. Warburg, "The art of portraiture and Florentine bourgeoisie", p. 187.
160A. Warburg, "The art of portraiture and Florentine bourgeoisie - Domenico Ghirlandaio in Santa
Trinitá: The portraits of Lorenzo de Medici and his household" (1902) and "Francesco Sassetti's last
injunctions to his sons" (1907), in The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity, pp. 184-221 and pp. 435-450, and
pp. 222-262 and pp. 451-466, respectively.

91
 In relation to Ghirlandaio's Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule in the Sassetti
chapel (1482-85; fig 78) there are two main aspects that matter. The first is that
Warburg identified the characters in the foreground of the Confirmation. These are
Francesco Sassetti, Lorenzo de Medici, his sons and some of the members of his
household, including Poliziano and de Medici's favourite jester, who he described
as "one of the first and dearest members of his household". It is the depiction of a
splendorous, urban, self-confident and opulent bourgeoisie (in a fresco dedicated to
Saint Francis...), the celebration of temporal life and an art piece that reflects a full
mastering of the new system of representation - perspective - which ought to be a
step further towards the naturalism of art and representation. As Warburg under-
lines, "Ghirlandaio and his patron extend the donor's traditional modest prerogative
of being devoutly present in some corner of the painting, and coolly assume the
privilege of free access to the sacred narrative, as onlookers or even as participants
in the action".161 Indeed, this new and self-confident bourgeoisie occupies the fore-
ground of the scene, relegating the papal confirmation to the background (fig 78).
The contrast with Giotto's Confirmation in Santa Croce is striking (1325; fig 79).
This may not seem much, as the identification of the characters in a fresco is
perceived to be a typical task of the activity of the art historian, but Warburg did it
with brilliance and in a remarkably competent way. However, he also went further,
believing that art history should be much more than this. He could not accept that
iconographic programmes in which patrons put their full commitment, as costly
enterprises in which their prestige was so strongly at stake, could be treated as mere
steps forward towards the modernization of pictorial codes, or the laicisation of
representation, life and, ultimately, of the religious. For him, this simply did not
make any sense.
Warburg was too sensitive to the devout and God-fearing iconographic
programme of the lower part of the chapel, where the tombs of Francesco Sassetti
and his wife lay. Although, on the one hand, the tombs themselves (see fig 75) were
designed by Giuliano da Sangallo and owe everything to the restoration of Ancient
art, on the other hand, the altarpiece of the chapel, the Adoration of the Shepherds
(1482-85; fig 76) of Ghirlandaio, the kneeled presence by its side of the donors (see
figs 75, 77), and the depiction in grisaille of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents, all
project Sassetti into a world of Christian devotion, which emerged very clearly in
"the last injunctions to his sons".162 However, presented in this way, it seems that
the question is that of a trivial assemblage of themes that ought to be incompatible,
that is, Christian devotion and Ancient pagan culture. Yet, for Warburg the ques-
tion was not a futile one, as he perceived in the montage of different styles and
references a profound moral dilemma. After all, Savonarola was about to enter the
scene.

161 A. Warburg, "The art of portraiture and Florentine bourgeoisie", p. 188.

162 See A. Warburg, "Francesco Sassetti's last injunctions to his sons".

92
 The second aspect of Warburg's argument, and the one that most interests us
deriving as it does from the apparent incongruence between the lower and the
upper parts of the chapel, is that those same features which define the modernity of
the upper part (naturalism and realism of the representation, the proud self repre-
sentation of bourgeoisie, etc), could be put in relation with something rather
archaic: the diffuse, popular, emotionally engaging, cult of voti (vows); votive wax
figures; or boti, in Florentine dialect.
From the Archivio Warburg exhumed a number of documents reporting on
the pervasiveness of the offering of votive, hyper-realistic, wax figures. Though this
was a widely accepted and popular ritual, because it constituted "cagione di continua
trepidanza per i devoti " ("a source of constant trepidation to the faithful"),163 it had
pagan origins and a pagan nature, a dimension that was unequivocally acknowl-
edged. A source of the 19th century says:

Everyday votive effigies like this are made, which are more a form of idolatry
than of Christian faith. And I, the writer of these lines, have seen a man, who
had lost a she-cat, vowing that if he found her he would send her image in
wax to Our Lady of Orto San Michele; and so he did.164

Introducing the presentation of 15th century sources, Warburg goes on:

In the beginning of the 15th century, votive effigies seem to have gotten so
much out of hand that on 20 January 1401, the Signoria found it necessary to
decree that only citizens that qualified to hold office in the senior guilds
might erect a voto. In 1447 the figures at SS. Annunziata were rearranged in an
orderly fashion in the nave, to the left and right of the tribuna. Of course, the
proprietors of the side chapels found that these life-size figures, on their
rostra - some of them even on horseback - blocked their view; and, after
effective protests from the powerful Falconieri family, the equestrian voti were
moved to the far side of the nave.165
The interior of the church must have looked like a waxwork museum. On
one side stood the Florentines (including the figure of Lorenzo il Magnifico
and a number of prominent condottieri, mounted and in full armour) and
alongside them the popes (Leo X, Alexander VI, Clement VII). Particular
objects of pride were the foreigners who, out of veneration for the Santissima
Annunziata, had left their own life-size effigies in wax by way of visiting
cards: among them King Christian I of Denmark, who passed through

163Andreucci, Il fiorentino istruito nella Chiesa della Nunziata (1857), p. 86, quoted in A. Warburg,
"Francesco Sassetti's last injunctions to his sons", p. 207.
164 Francesco Sacchetti, Novelle (1888), p. 264, quoted in Aby Warburg, "Francesco Sassetti's last
injunctions to his sons", p. 204.
165 A. Warburg, "Francesco Sassetti's last injunctions to his sons", p. 204.

93
 Florence in 1474, and - a particular curiosity - a Muslim Turkish pasha, who,
unbeliever though he was, dedicated his voto figure to the Madonna to ensure
a safe journey home. [...]
Perhaps the Hofkirche in Innsbruck, with the tomb of Emperor Maximilian I
and the two rows of portraits in bronze that line the nave, gives a similar
impression (mutatis mutandis) of the pagan Sculpture in the Christian church;
the difference is, however, that Maximilian and his counsellor, Konrad
Peutinger, were engaged in a deliberate reproduction of the Roman ancestor
cult, whereas what happened in Florence was a spontaneous reversion to a
popular pagan custom legitimized by the church.166

On the one hand, the realistic frescoes with the portraits of Lorenzo de Medici and
his household could be affiliated to this devotional practice of Ancient and aristo-
cratic origins. On the other hand, by the 15th century this tradition had metamor-
phosed into a practice that, though common to all classes and specially liked by the
lay people, was already perceived as "a form of idolatry". Finally, the artists who
created the modernity of Florentine art were implicated in this productive chain,
directly and indirectly.167 According to Warburg, these practices were by no means
opposed to the new artistic ideals, but rather opened the way to them:

This lawful and persistent survival of barbarism, with wax figures set up in
church in their moldered fashionable dresses, begins to cast a truer and a
more favourable light on the inclusion of portrait likeness on a church fresco
of sacred scenes. By comparison with the magical fetishism of the waxwork,
this was a comparatively discreet attempt to come closer to the Divine
through a painted simulacrum.168

The co-incidence of Florence's modernity with these forms of archaism has

massive consequences for the most pregnant myth of Art History. If the Florentine
modern, naturalistic and resembling portrait is a simulacrum of, or can be put in
relation with, the very old, archaic and magic wax mannequin, then the hypothesis
of an artistic progress, the teleology underlying the writing of the history of the
portrait and of Art History after Vasari, loses ground.169 Florentine "modernity" is
therefore traversed or haunted by a fundamental ambiguity. The "new" individual-
ized and naturalistic portrait uncannily resembles the boti, the former fulfilling rather
well and far more "discreetly" the function of the presentation in effigie. As Julius

166 A. Warburg, "Francesco Sassetti's last injunctions to his sons", pp. 206-207.
167 See J. von Schlosser, Histoire du Portrait de Cire, pp. 81-93.
168 A. Warburg, "The art of portraiture and Florentine bourgeoisie", p. 190.
169 J.
von Schlosser, in Histoire du Portrait de Cire, proceeds in a decisive way in such a direction. See also
G. Didi-Huberman, "Pour une anthropologie des singularités formelles".

94
von Schlosser points out, later this place was taken by photography, suiting the
purpose more "scientifically" and "economically".170
Naturally, some of the interests of Warburg are shaped by formative readings
from the fields of art theory and history, and political and cultural History (such as
Lessing's Laocoon, on the relation of pain and art). Nevertheless, since the first
moment, Warburg tends to disentangle the study of art from art-related literature.
He starts thinking of artworks in terms of images, and in terms of ramifications.
These ramifications are grounded in the material, cultural and social conditions in
which they are rooted; but also they are fundamentally mobile, connecting both to
the near and the far: images as split forms with a capacity for conveying both the
ethic and moral aspirations of patrons and artists and their dilemmas.

6.1.3. Method

The three pieces of Warburg's research that I have briefly explained are among the
works that made his reputation, eventually the "most famous among the
unknown".171 Nevertheless, the 15th century themes that interested him are obvi-
ously not what matters for us. Rather, it is his approach to the study of images and
the consequences for their status.
The first aspect that must be stressed is that Warburg approached images such
as the two paintings of Botticelli and the frescos of Ghirlandaio, in a rather
unprejudiced way. Guiding his research were simple, though radical hypotheses, in
which art constituted an "organ of social memory". Warburg refused the concep-
tion of the artist as a superman, as an inventor or a hero, so pervasive in his time,
having one of its paradigmatic expressions in Vasari's life of Michelangelo, a
conception that, of course, is also a heritage of Romanticism. Instead and as already
mentioned, following Burckhardt, Warburg believed that art does not constitute a
sphere separated from life but is organically tied to socio-cultural life and that this
life is haunted. He realised that the art he researched in Florence was a matter of
social representation, which implied figuration and portraiture, the articulation of a
number of recognizable signs as belonging to the shared material culture, and a
number of references cultivated by a small group of artists and patrons as well as,
crucially, the conformity with the symbolic-imaginary order characterized by the
persistence of ingrained archaisms. He explored the "context of situation" with the
sensible gaze of the anthropologist, philologist and psychologist. He realised that
the art at stake was fundamentally impure. Artists have crafted with what they had to
hand and what touched them. He raised the question of what idea Florentine artists and
patrons had of the Ancient world and this led him to compare modern poetry with
Ancient sources and aspects of the morphology of artworks with the ruins of the

170 J. von Schlosser, Histoire du Portrait de Cire, p. 142.

171 K. Mazzucco, "Prefazione", p. viii.

95
Ancient world co-present in the Florence of the fifteenth century. It also led him,
as already described, to the comparative research of dress codes in paintings and in
art theory books, in theatrical representations, in the everyday, etc. He could not
have done this had he not plunged into the dusty Archivio, in the kund,172 and had he
not constituted his own library. Neither would it have been possible if he had
merely stuck to artistic literature. The understanding of the relations between the
frescos in the Sassetti chapel and the wax votive images passed through the Archivio.
But the consequences of the finding of the wax boti far exceeds the interpretation of
Ghirlandaio's frescos. As Georges Didi-Huberman rightly stresses, "it questions the
choices - read: the censures - operated by Art History after Vasari".173
This is why, in order to understand the reception of Holl's entry, it was also
necessary, on the one hand, to scrutinize its materials, imagine what its referents
may have been and, fundamentally, track the reminiscences that haunt it. On the
other, it was necessary to leave between brackets the hypotheses - the censures - on
the meaning and motivations of Holl's production cherished by historians, critics of
architecture and by Holl himself. Finally, Holl's entry was hurled onto the
dispositions and memories of their beholders and onto the context in which it was
received. It is important to bear in mind that meaning, in the largest sense of the
word, is a construction of the latter: that is the encounter of cultural productions
with the frames of reference and expectations of beholders.

6.1.4. Ninfa

By displacing the focus of his attention from the centre of the representation to its
periphery, to the "accessories in movement", and by lodging at the Archivio,
Warburg managed to identify the multiple and heterogeneous threads with which
images are weaved. He had to disregard the narrow domains into which academia is
subdivided, which resulted in the constitution of his library. These displacements
were rather productive. And what are the images at stake? As we have seen, they are
the nodes of large networks of materials, wishes and images. Each constitutive
element of these images has not a single referent but many and it is subject to differ-
ent levels of elaboration in different realms. For instance, Spring is a mythological
figure and, likely also the idealized portrait of an earthly person (thus not necessarily
a resemblance). But what is meant by saying that it is a mythological figure? For

172A notion that designates the memory of a community, as constituted by its objects and stories,
regardless of their quality and without concerns in relation to their hierarchy, as often happens in
small informal countryside museums. I recall having heard Danièle Cohn describing Warburg's enter-
prise in these terms, in 2003-04 at the EHESS. See also G. Bing, "Aby M. Warburg", p. 106, on the
Realienkunde.
173 G.Didi-Huberman, "Viscosités et survivances", p. 145. See also J. von Schlosser, Histoire du Portrait
de Cire, chapter "Fin de l'ancienne sculpture en cire, Sa mise au ban par l'esthétique classique" ("The end of
ancient wax sculpture, Its banishment by classical aesthetics").

96
Warburg, it meant that it "condensed" myths elaborated in Ancient literature, re-
elaborated in different ways, by poets contemporary with Botticelli. But it also
meant that it condensed antique models, codes of dressing and hairdressing with
uncertain origin but subject to particular attention, in some way contemporary yet
(mis)perceived as being antique, and it carried traces of "barbarism". As we have
seen, such literary and material sources were jointly re-elaborated in theatre and in
musical drama, which were for Warburg re-elaborations of something present in
but prior to image, something that had a crucial importance for him: ritual and its
gestural traces. The gestures staged in theatre and images do not merely make visible
qualities of the external world such as bodily postures and movement but they also
convey emotional states which constitute reminiscences of Ancient rituals, likely
Dionysian ones (echoing Warburg's fundamental Nietzschean background).
From Darwin's The Expression of Emotions in Men and Animals (1872) Warburg
learnt that besides reasons of inner necessity (physiological, the need to dissipate
174

emotional states, etc) and their ancestral biological necessity, outward expressions
could be associated to causes that barely justify them (i.e. they could be displaced)
and intensified. He understood that there was an unconscious memory at work in
the expression of emotions, that perpetuates and actualises primitive expressive
movements and detaches them from straightforward physiological or psychological
necessity. This entailed two major possibilities that Warburg's fundamental notion
of pathosformel (formula-of-pathos) captures: on the one hand that such forms
standing for emotional states can be fixated (through carved stone or other means)
and, on the other, that they are open to cultural elaboration. Such possibilities are
suggested by Darwin himself, who ends The Expression of Emotions... with the
following verses from Shakespeare's Hamlet:

Is it not monstrous that this player here,

But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his whole conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing.175

-----

174G. Bing, "Aby M. Warburg", pp. 108-109; G. Bing, "A. M. Warburg", pp. 310-311; E. H.
Gombrich, Aby Warburg - Una biografia intellettuale, pp. 71, 210, 243; C. Ginzburg, "From Aby Warburg
to E. H. Gombrich", p. 20; aspect that G. Didi-Huberman developed in all its richness in L'Image
Survivante, pp. 234-240, as well as in " 'Dialektik des Monstrums' - Aby Warburg and the symptom
paradigm".
W. Shakespeare, "The tragedy of Hamlet", II, 2, 553-559, in S. Wells and G. Taylor (eds.), The
175

Oxford Shakespeare - The complete works, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998.

97
The aspects mentioned here entwine in the iconographic theme of the "nymph"
that Warburg investigated in depth. She was already present in the two paintings of
Botticelli on which Warburg wrote in 1891 (published in 93). He had referred to
the "bella Simonetta", represented in both paintings as Spring, as a nymph. In the
essay, Warburg characterizes the "nymph coiffure" that in narrow terms he identi-
fies with that of the Spring, i.e. with the coiffure of the idealized portraits of the
"bella Simonetta".176 But, what is a nymph? In general terms, it is a female figure
with delicate bare feet, with fluttering hair and light garments and, in a Portuguese
expression, "blown at the wish of the wind" ("a voar ao sabor do vento"). Warburg had
also identified the two characters on the right hand side of the Spring as the "pursuit
of the nymph", i.e. Zephyrus's erotic pursuit of Flora, a theme deriving from the
Odes of Horace and known to the circle of Poliziano.177 This is the figure that
Agostino di Duccio had represented and developed in so many ways in the Tempio
Malatestiano in Rimini. Actually all the female figures of the Birth of Venus and the
Spring are nymphs. This female figure in motion haunted Warburg through his
lifetime.
After the research on Botticelli Warburg focused on this single iconographic
figure. He filled a folder with sparse observations on the "Ninfa Fiorentina", which
he never published.178 The Ninfa at stake here is the young girl that rushes into
Ghirlandaio's the Birth of Saint John the Baptist, with a basket of fruit on her head and
garments in motion (in the Tornabuoni Chapel in Santa Maria Novella; c1486-90;
fig 80). She is clearly a figure extraneous to the scene. According to Gombrich, for
Warburg the whole iconographic cycle was a large votive offering rather than an
exhibition of bourgeoisie vanity at the expense of a holy programme. He therefore
established a parallel between the naturalistic frescos and the wax boti,179 an argu-
ment that, as we have already seen, he would develop in the later essay on the
Sassetti Chapel. While on the one hand the Tornabuoni frescoes are rather static
(with the understandable exception of the Slaughter of the Innocents), on the other,
there is this dynamic and vitalistic figure that rushes into this and other scenes
depicted in the chapel. It suffices to compare the light dress of the Ninfa of the
Birth of Saint John the Baptist with the heavy dresses of the other figures (fig 80).
Warburg also identified a duality between the programme of a patron devoted to
the Virgin Mary, to whom the church is dedicated, that is, a patron who is a mem-
ber of an upper bourgeoisie whose conduct observes strict rules of decorum, and
the cathartic impulses that are symmetric to this restrained attitude. However, in
order to sustain his thesis Warburg mentions a bas-relief that he thought belonged

176 A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", p. 134.

177 A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring", p. 129.
178The main sources for my account are A. Warburg, Mnemosyne - L'Atlante delle immagini, the Italian
publication of Warburg's Atlas, where the Ninfa is a major topic, E. H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg - Una
biografia intellettuale, and G. Didi-Huberman, L'Image Survivante.
179 E. H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg - Una biografia intellettuale, p. 110.

98
to the tomb of the wife of Giovanni Tornabuoni and which is based on a Roman
sarcophagus. Therefore, the Ninfa herself is a split creature. This gay and joyful
Ninfa has doubles such as the Ninfa in pain (Ninfa adolorata) and the terrified one.
So, both extreme eroticism and pain, terror and death are sentiments expressed by
the same gestural codes and embodied by the same figurative model. The Ninfa far
exceeds the domain of Art History as a history of objects insofar as she raises issues
with an exquisite psychic nature, or rather psychoanalytical.
Warburg followed attentively the path of this nymph. The atlas Mnemosyne
bears witness to this, and not only through the plates 46 and 47, specifically dedi-
cated to her. She is literally everywhere: she is a figure that unfolds in every direc-
tion of space, time and also of emotions. On the one hand, the historic thorough-
ness of the Ninfa is impressive: she is a Survivor; she traversed millennia as through
Roman sarcophagi and sculpture (figs 83, 93). Renaissance artists became
acquainted with her. On the other, she affected these same artists. Indeed, she is
the utmost example of Warburg's pathosformeln (formulae-of-pathos), formulae that
make visible "states of emotion".180 These formulae may oscillate between opposite
poles of emotions, for which Warburg made use of the notion of "polarity", and
between meanings. How is this possible? As Warburg realised, it was the emotional
intensity of these forms-formulae that caught the eye of artists. As Gertrud Bing
makes clear, such images were chosen "not for the sake of their conceptual content
[or meaning], but on account of their very intensity".181 Warburg realised that when
artists and commissioners chose figurative models it was not the meanings of the
pre-existing figurative models that was primary, but what mattered the most was
the focus on the "accessories in movement" and their emotional intensity.182
The Ninfa is cruel and dangerous like the Maenad armed with a knife in plate
6 of the Mnemosyne atlas (figs 82, 83) or the murderers of Orpheus (fig 89). She is
also Judith (figs 84-86), a figure that may exhibit some erotic charms, a femme fatale:
the Judith of Giorgione, exhibiting her knee and bare foot (uncannily resting over
the head of Holofernes; fig 91); the Judith of Jan Matsys (fig 90), exhibiting under
filmy garments a splendorous and refined torso. All transformations are possible: a
basket of fruit is transformed into a knife or a sabre; a cruel beheader into a
seducer; the erotic nymph is also the same as the terrified nymphs of the Slaughter of
the Innocents, of Ghirlandaio (at the Tornabuoni Chapel; fig 88). Then again, the
remarkable Magdalene of Bertoldo di Giovanni, which below the crucified Christ
holds in her hand the plaits she tore out (fig 87) and is at once an erotic and a
passion figure. This is what the formula-of-pathos and the Ninfa are: formulae that
admit all the transformations, even the apparently most incompatible ones and even
condensing within the same figure.

180 G. Bing, "A. M. Warburg", pp. 310-311.

181 G. Bing, "A. M. Warburg", p. 311.
182 G. Bing, "Aby M. Warburg", p. 108.

99
 In plate 6 of the Mnemosyne atlas (fig 82), Warburg places the Maenad
holding the knife on the way to conduct a sacrifice (fig 83) alongside the Laocoon
(fig 95), the utmost passion of the Ancient world. Certainly, both are sacrificial
images, but they are also dancers. The nymph is par excellence a dancer, which
includes dancing with serpents (fig 94); and the Laocoon is a group of figures that
contort with pain in a form of rather dramatic dance. Although these are figures
from the Ancient world, Warburg came across them in the New World on the
occasion of the formative tour he made in 1895-96 at the age of 29. He became
acquainted with the rituals of the Pueblo and Hopi Indians including the Hopi
snake dance (figs 97, 98), in Arizona, in New Mexico, at the Smithsonian Institution
in Washington and through documentation. Warburg would describe this crucial
encounter much later, in 1923, at the age of 57 and six years before his death, in a
lecture known as The Serpent Ritual, delivered at the clinic of Ludwig Binswanger in
Kreuzlingen, Switzerland. This was where he was confined in 1921 and where he
would be rescued from madness. Ludwig Binswanger had promised to discharge
him if the conference was a success, which it was, so Warburg was allowed to
return home.
I will refer briefly to that lecture. For Warburg, the primitive ritual of the
"snake dance" was a lever for acting upon the world. The snakes at stake are mostly
live rattlesnakes. They are also symbols and images depicted in the ritualistic space
of the Kiva (fig 100). During the ritual the live snakes are hurled onto the sand
painting where the snakes are represented as shooting out from the clouds.
Warburg explains that "this magic throw is intended to make the snake provoke the
lightening or produce rain. [...] In the most patent way, the snakes thus initiated
become petitioners and provokers of rain, in conjunction with the Indians them-
selves. They are living weather-saints in the shape of animals".183 The dance itself is
played out in just over half an hour and is constituted by the carrying of the snakes
through the square of the village, held in the mouths of the dancers (figs 97, 98).
This dance thus constitutes the other side of the coin, that of symbols and
images which indeed are the movement itself, a dance between one and another,
between times, cultures, meanings and emotions. Equally, the Ninfa is one of its
utmost expressions. As Georges Didi-Huberman acknowledges, Warburg's Ninfa is
a "floating signifier, running from one incarnation to another and managing to
escape each and every attempt at arrest".184 "Ninfa designates the impersonal
heroine of the Nachleben [Survival] - the survival of those paradoxical things that

183See A. Warburg, "A lecture on serpent ritual", or the more careful French edition, Le Rituel du
Serpent.
184 G. Didi-Huberman, L'Image Survivante, p. 292: "Ninfa demeure un signifiant flottant, court d'une incarnation
à l'autre sans qui rien ne cherche à la circonvenir".

100
time bequeaths, barely existing, thus indestructible, that reach us from very far and
are indeed incapable of death".185
In the preparatory notes for The Serpent Ritual Warburg acknowledged: "after
my trip to America the organic relationship between the art and religion of
'primitive' peoples emerged with such clarity that I plainly saw the identity, or rather
the indestructibility of primitive man who remains eternally the same throughout all
epochs, in such a way that I could demonstrate that he was as much an organ of
Florentine Renaissance as he was, later, of the German Reformation".186 Therefore,
the trip that Warburg made when he was 29 haunted most of his activity as
researcher, something he acknowledged after his encounter with Binswanger.
As to the indestructibility of the primitive man, indeed during the American
journey, Warburg met westernised Hopi schoolchildren and asked them to illustrate
the German fairy tale Johnny-Head-in-the-Air (Hans-Gluck-in-die-Luft), which they did
not know. Warburg explains: "I chose a story in which a storm happens to occur,
for I wanted to see whether they would draw the lightning realistically or in the
form of snakes". The result was the following: "Out of fourteen drawings, all of
which were very graphic but obviously influenced by American instruction, twelve
were realistically drawn; but two of them used the irrepressible symbol of the snake,
sharp as an arrow (fig 99), just as it occurs in the Kiva (fig 100)".187 One could say:
just as it occurs in the Laocoon.

-----

Aby Warburg never used the notion of "over-determination", a concept of Freud,

whose work Warburg could not embrace due to the central position in which Freud
placed sexuality. However, this notion is particularly apt in accounting for the
polyvalence and plasticity of symbols and images, their mobility throughout times
and cultures (grasped by the Nachleben), throughout meanings, gestures and emo-
tions (grasped by the pathosformel) and briefly, the stubborn persistence of this
phantasmagoria. Although Warburg did not join the Freudians, both shared cultural
sources188 and problems. There is even a strong and crucial link between the two in

185 G. Didi-Huberman, Ninfa Moderna, p. 11: "Ninfa désigne, chez Warburg, l'impersonnelle héroïne du
Nachleben - la survivance de ces paradoxales choses du temps, à peine existantes, indestructibles pourtant, qui nous
viennent de très loin et sont incapables de mourir tout à fait."
186 A. Warburg, "Souvenirs d'un voyage en pays Pueblo", p. 255.
187 A. Warburg, "A lecture on serpent ritual", p. 292.
188 For instance, the authors that worked on matters of empathy (the Vischers, father and son,
Hildebrand, Schmarsow, etc) or the crucial and convergent reading that both made of Darwin's The
Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals. On Freud and Darwin see L. B. Ritvo, L'Ascendant de Darwin
sur Freud, trans. P. Lacoste, Gallimard, Paris, 1992 (1990). G. Didi-Huberman has on a number of
occasions and at length argued on the convergence of Warburg and Freud. Particularly, see his L'Image
Survivante, part 3; and " 'Dialektik des Monstrums' - Aby Warburg and the symptom paradigm". See
also S. Schade, "Charcot and the spectacle of the hysterical body - The 'pathos formula' as an aesthetic

101
Ludwig Binswanger, who was a major successor to Freud. Significantly, after
Warburg's discharge from the clinic of Binswanger in Kreuzlingen, he went back to
work to develop his system of thought with renewed assurance. In 1929, the year of
his death, he was perfectly aware of the convergence of his research efforts with
psychoanalysis:

Sometimes it seems to me that, in my role as psycho-historian, I have tried

to diagnose the schizophrenia of Western culture through its images, as an
autobiographical reflex. The ecstatic (manic) nymph on the one side, and
on the other, the (depressive) river god in mourning.189

As he acknowledged, he was a revenant, a Survivor. In the following years he

drafted his psychic-history of art without words, the Mnemosyne atlas. Already The
Serpent Ritual bore witness to the confidence with which he returned to his under-
standing of symbols and images: as motion, dance; something that flows. What does
this dance bring into circulation? First and foremost, it conveys unconscious
memories, that which was repressed or simply forgotten but that stubbornly
returns, often transformed; it is a matter of ghosts and, therefore, also of emotions.
Images lead us well into the realm of the unconscious and of the psychic symptom.
Indeed I believe that Freud (the theoretical Freud, as we shall see) is crucially
important for framing the mobility of images, an open and endless task, as Warburg
experienced and as Freud clearly acknowledged. My focus will be Freud's invention
constituted by the notion of "over-determination". It grasps at a theoretical level
what at an empirical level Warburg had already observed in relation to images, with
an approximate and mobile language, certainly adequate but not as powerful as
Freud's remarkable theoretical constructions.

staging of psychiatric discourse - A blind spot in the reception of Warburg", in Art History, 3, 1995,
quoted in Didi-Huberman, " 'Dialektik des Monstrums'...", cit.
189A. Warburg (1929), quoted in E. H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg - Una biografia intellettuale, p. 258. The
reference to manic-depressive psychosis is directly related to his therapy with Binswanger - see
G. Didi-Huberman, " 'Dialektik des Monstrums' - Aby Warburg and the symptom paradigm", p. 626.

102
 Our hysterical patients suffer from reminiscences. Their symptoms are
the residues and the mnemic symbols of particular (traumatic) experiences.
A comparison with other memory symbols from other sources
will perhaps enable us to better understand this symbolism.
Sigmund Freud 190

6.2. Freud

6.2.1. Symptoms

In 1895, the publication of Joseph Breuer and Sigmund Freud's Studies in Hysteria
opened the way to the understanding of the peculiar nature of hysterical symptoms
as well as to a radically new symbolism, of which the latter aspect obviously and
chiefly matters for us. The deeper roots of this book lay in 1880 when Breuer took
as a patient Anna O., a hysterical 21 year old girl. In June 1882, as the result of
Breuer's multiple efforts, mainly through suggestion and under the state of hypno-
sis, her symptoms progressively came to a close. The young Sigmund Freud, who
had a friendship with Joseph Breuer, already a well known Viennese doctor and
academic, knew of this story and was greatly impressed by it, even though by this
time his interests lay far from hysteria. However, this would radically change in
1885-86, when Freud received a fellowship in order to work with Jean-Marie
Charcot at the Salpêtrière Hospital, in Paris. Charcot was the leading researcher in
the field and responsible for circumscribing the pathology. As a result, once back in
Vienna Freud started accepting patients with hysterical symptoms. Indeed, as Freud
bears witness, the fellowship with Charcot had a crucial role in his formation, but
by antinomy, as Freud's theses are in every respect the antithesis of Charcot's.
The knowledge that Charcot sought was fully grounded in the visual descrip-
tion of hysterical symptoms, their aspect or eidos. Indeed, Freud reports having
heard Charcot saying: "I practise pathological morphology, I even practise a bit of
pathological anatomy; but I do not practise pathological physiology, I expect that
someone else may take care of that".191 With the support of a full photographic
studio and other graphic resources, Charcot would map the exuberant, excessive,
ballet of the "major hysterical fit". With recourse to hypnosis and with the complic-
ity of a number of hysterical patients, he crafted a remarkable and visual theatre of
hysteria. Certainly, hysteria in its most acute manifestations is quite an impressive
visual phenomenon, something that Charcot easily managed to stage in his famous
"Tuesday lectures". The hysterical body is wholly, in its contractions, transforma-
tions and choreography, the visible and enigmatic, ciphered, expression of suffer-
ance. This knowledge entirely based on the ordination of visual matter and their

190 S. Freud, "Five lectures on psychoanalysis", p. 16.

191 S. Freud, "Preface to Charcot", p. 135: "Je fais de la morphologie pathologique, je fais même un peut de
l'anatomie pathologique; mais je ne fais pas la physiologie pathologique, j'attends que quelqu'un autre la fasse".

103
mise en tableau192 would be challenged by Freud and Breuer. They would discover
behind this visual theatre traumatic sources and repressed memories. The visible
was only the upper part of the iceberg, below lay the invisible strings that pull the
visible symptom. Their achievement was remarkable from a practical-clinical as well
as from a symbolic point of view. They understood that the ciphered symbol did
not call for deciphering, but ought to be understood and interpreted in unforeseen
terms. Opening a series of introductory lectures on psychoanalysis delivered to a
general audience between 1915 and 1917, Freud remarked:

In medical training you are accustomed to see things. [...] A medical teacher
plays in the main the part of a leader and interpreter who accompanies you
through a museum. [...] In psychoanalysis, alas, everything is different.193

As he would clarify, psychoanalytic treatment is based on the exchange of words

and images194 between patient and analyst, words and images which are worth
nothing if read in the light of a ready-made symbolism such as that of museum
labels. For Freud, rather, words and images are the tiny whispers from a distant and
dark realm only within the reach of a metapsychology.

-----

Through hypnosis Joseph Breuer had managed to turn around both Anna O.'s
unwillingness to participate in the cure and her amnesia in relation to the causes or
sources of her sufferance. Fortuitously, Breuer ended up accessing a large array of
unconscious traumatic memories, otherwise unreachable either by patient or doc-
tor. As these memories were brought back to conscience they produced sufferance,
the pain from which they had been dissociated through a mechanism of repression.
As this process went on symptoms started diminishing one by one. "Each individ-
ual hysterical symptom immediately and permanently disappeared when we had
succeeded in bringing clearly to light the memory of the event by which it was
provoked and in arousing its accompanying affect".195
The mechanism underlying the hysterical symptom is, in the first instance,
rather simple. In normal circumstances experiences involving conspicuous pain are
handled in such a way that their cause remains present, conscious, while the pain
dissipates. In the hysterical patient the cause is dissociated from the affect and
repressed deep into the unconscious. The hysterical symptom may therefore be
regarded as a "mnemic symbol", the symbol of a repressed memory.196 Conse-

192 On the epistemology of the tableau see M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, p. 8.
193 S. Freud, "Five lectures on psychoanalysis", pp. 16-17.
194 S. Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, p. 90.
195 S. Freud and J. Breuer, Studies in Hysteria, p. 6.
196 S. Freud, in J. Breuer and S. Freud, Studies in Hysteria, pp. 90-91.

104
quently, the mechanism underlying the therapy consisted in bringing back from the
unconscious to conscience the memory of the cause of the pain, so that it could
meet its affect and be discharged, or "abreacted".

Almost all the symptoms had arisen [...] as residues - "precipitates" they might
be called - of emotional experiences. To these experiences, therefore, we later
gave the name of "psychical traumas", while the particular nature of the
symptoms was explained by their relation to the traumatic scenes which were
their cause. They were, to use a technical term, "determined" by the scenes of
whose recollection they represented residues, and it was no longer necessary
to describe them as capricious or enigmatic products of the neurosis. [...]
What left the symptom was not always a single experience. On the contrary,
the result was usually brought about by the convergence of several traumas
[...].197

The symptom is an outburst of these mnemic traces repressed into and inscribed in
the unconscious at different levels, like a geological stratification. The symptom is
always the result of more than one unrelated mnemic trace and these traces may
determine more than one symptom. It is on this that the over-determination of the
symptom consists.
Some time before the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Freud
had already a very clear perspective on the mechanisms of repression (and desire)
underlying the construction of the formations of the unconscious of which
symptom and dream are paramount. In a draft of 1897 entitled "The architecture of
hysteria" Freud sketched the little scheme below (fig A) and wrote (see also fig
101):

197 S. Freud, "Five lectures on psychoanalysis", p. 11.

105
 Fig A

It is probably like this: some scenes are accessible directly, others only by way
of phantasies set up in front of them. The scenes are arranged in the order of
increasing resistance: the more slightly repressed ones come to light first, but
only incompletely on account of their association with the scarcely repressed
ones. The path taken by [analytic] work goes down in loops [...]. Our path
makes repeated loops through the background thoughts of the same
symptoms. 198

Though this scheme concerns the interpretation of symptoms (the work of analysis
is indicated with dashed lines numbered 1, 2, 3, etc), it makes clear the relation
between symptoms, the triangles above, and their multiple and stratified determina-
tions, below (I, II, III, etc). This system is open: the same determinations may
prompt new symptoms as well as these new symptoms offering a glimpse into
unforeseen determinations; the number and interactions between determinations
and symptoms are not closed or established once and for all. In short, a symptom is
over-determined both synchronically (the symptom relating to several determina-
tions at the same time) and diachronically (each set of determination transforming
the nature of the symptom over time).199 Significantly Freud gives the name "work"
to the lines connecting symptoms to the multiple and heterogeneous determina-

198Freud, "Extracts from the Fliess Papers", pp. 250-253. See G. Didi-Huberman, L'Image Survivante,
pp. 318-319.
199See G. Didi-Huberman, "'Dialektik des Monstrums' - Aby Warburg and the symptom paradigm",
p. 636.

106
tions, establishing a network of crisscross references.200 As it can be significantly
seen, the lines that establish the link are unstable. They represent the work that
comes about between determinations and symptoms, as the correspondence
between the two is not a straightforward one. Indeed, how could it be otherwise?
In The Interpretation of Dreams Freud would zoom in on the processes through which
determinations are translated - one would better say transformed - into dreams.

-----

The symptom is a paradoxical structure. It is an effect of repression and the return

of the repressed; amnesia made remembrance. As Freud put it, "where the symp-
tom arises, we also find an amnesia, a memory gap".201 The symptom is like one of
those little mementos used for remembering something and that one then forgets
what it was supposed to remind one of, typically without any relation to what is
supposed to be remembered, as can be the case of a rubber band in the finger.
What the symptom shows is that it hides. According to Freud, it is also a battleground
where opponents contend, a contradictory simultaneity:

In one case which I observed, for instance, the patient pressed her dress up
against her body with one hand (as a woman), while she tried to tear it off
with the other (as the man). This simultaneity of contradictory actions serves
to a large extent to obscure the situation, which is otherwise so plastically
portrayed in the attack, and thus well suited to conceal the phantasy that is at
work.202

It is an "admirable lesson in looking", as Georges Didi-Huberman remarks.

Whereas Charcot (and Richer) could see no more than an enigmatic dance, with its
illogical and clownish moments, a visual choreography of which an iconographic
mise en tableau would be the only possible form of knowledge, Freud "was able to
release the formula for this corporeal pathos, the formula for this gestural chaos exploding in
this tangle of disorderly movements, in this 'body transformed into image' ".203 As
Didi-Huberman acknowledges, this formula is Freud's symptom, with its over-
determination, with its capacity to integrate thesis and antithesis, with its dialectic,
with its plastic and dancing phenomenology.

-----

200 See S. Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, p. 173.

201 S.
Freud, The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis, 1.22. Later translated as S. Freud, "Five lectures
on psychoanalysis", p. 20.
202 S. Freud, "Hysterical phantasies and their relation to bisexuality", p. 166.
203 G. Didi-Huberman, "'Dialektik des Monstrums' - Aby Warburg and the symptom paradigm",
p. 634.

107
Warburg's Ninfa and Freud's hysteric symptom are, on the one hand, gestural and
visual forms and, on the other, the "residues or mnemic symbols" of past
experiences either forgotten and / or repressed. These forms or percepts convey
emotions or affects, being inextricably intertwined. What do these forms-emotions
stand for? Obviously, they stand for a multiplicity of heterogeneous, heterochronic
and contradictory determinations, which entail their over-determined character. Just
as the Ninfa is at once archaic and modern, erotic and dangerous, gentle and
terrified, so the psychic symptom is the convergence of several divergent elements,
like the patient handling her dress both as a man and a woman.

6.2.2. Dreams

After a while, besides symptoms Freud's patients started bringing him their dreams,
which is how he began to pay attention to what he would consider "the via regia to
the interpretation of the unconscious".204 Although symptoms and dreams, the two
major formations of the unconscious, reciprocally enlighten their structure, the
hysterical symptoms are specific to individuals suffering from a neurotic pathology,
whereas dreaming is a general human capacity. The precipitating causes of the
hysterical symptom were traumatic events, but those of dreams are the normal
activity of the psyche, the unconscious interaction of desire and of the forces that
oppose its accomplishment. Dreaming is wishing, it is desiring. That such force is
present in the psyche, something that the dream makes fully apparent, is not
without interest and consequences for thinking of gaze in a context such as an
architectural competition and in relation to images like Holl's. Indeed, as Jacques
Lacan and many others after him have stressed, desire is a fundamental aspect of
gaze. I will draw on gaze in a specific section below.

-----

According to Freud, thanks to the relaxation of deliberate and critical activity

during sleep, desire finds an opportunity for expressing itself through the dream,
enabling our wishes to come through, especially those that are not fulfilled in daily
and social life, in the form of visual and acoustic images. Freud concluded, "the
dream represents a particular state of affairs as I should have wished it to be - thus
its content was the fulfilment of a wish and its motive was a wish".205 However, the dream is
not the direct or straightforward fulfilment of wishes, but rather a formation of
compromise. It is an effect of desire as well as of censorship, the force that
restrains our behaviour during daytime, that partly falls asleep and partly remains at

204 S.
Freud, The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis, 3.11. Later translated as S. Freud, "Five lectures
on psychoanalysis", p. 33.
205 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 196.

108
work while we sleep. Thus dreams, as we remember them, are the result "of two
psychical forces (or we may describe them as currents or systems); one of these
forces constructs the wish which is expressed by the dream, while the other exer-
cises a censorship upon this dream-wish and, by the use of censorship, forcibly
brings about a distortion in the expression of the wish".206 "The distortion in
dreams is thus shown in fact to be an act of censorship".207 This would lead Freud
to correct the initial assertion, that the dream is the fulfilment of a wish, into:

A dream is a (disguised) fulfilment of a (suppressed or repressed) wish.208

This is certainly an important assertion, particularly because it posits the funda-

mental kinship of repression and desire, which may well be the force behind the
production of dreams. Yet it says less about the specificity of dreams and the way
they symbolize than is usually thought. Indeed as Freud acknowledged, dreams are
projections of desire (or desire-censorship), a desire that does not find expression
in a specific set of symbols (although this may also happen) but primordially in the
transformations that the raw material of dreams undergo. The symbolism of the
dream is chiefly a matter of dream-work.

6.2.3. Dream-work

Freud put forward a rather detailed description of the transformation modalities

that the raw materials of dreams, "latent dream-thoughts", undergo up to becoming
the "manifest" dream.209 The manifest content of the dream is neither the direct translation of
wishes nor the result of any molar process of symbolization, but the outcome of an articulated and
progressive process of transformation of dream-thoughts, often to the point of their complete
lack of recognition. This process of in-depth transformation is what Freud names "dream-
work", the title of a fundamental chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams.
The dream-work proceeds through two fundamental operations: "condensa-
tion" and "displacement". Freud also mentions the "imperative of figurability" that
the elements that access the manifest dream must meet. Lastly, he mentions a final
stage of transformation, the "secondary revision", that I shall not comment on as it
is not crucial for my argument.

206 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 225.

207 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 244.
208 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 244.
209 Dream-thoughts that play in relation to the dream a role analogous to the "psychic traumata" in
relation to the hysterical symptom.

109
6.2.4. Condensation, displacement and imperative of figurability

Dreams are over-determined entities par excellence as they are the outcome of the
dream-work, the process through which latent dream-thoughts are transformed
into the manifest content. If a correspondence can be made with fig A above, the
dream-work is the nervous lines that connect the mnemic traces to the upper
symptoms.
One of the first occurrences of the notion of over-determination in The Inter-
pretation of Dreams210 is in relation to the content of Freud's dream of the "botanical
monograph": "each of the elements of the dream's content turn out to have been
'over-determined' - to have been represented in the dream-thoughts many times
over".211 The manifest content of this dream is worth recognition in full:

I had written a monograph on an (unspecified) genus of plant. The book lay

before me and I was at the moment turning over a folded coloured plate.
Bound up in the copy there was a dried specimen of the plant.212

The focus of Freud's attention are two elements that play a central, ostensible, role
in the manifest content of the dream: "botanical" and "monograph". Ultimately the
two elements do not refer to any relevant botanical monograph, but rather are the
result of a specific and long process of transformation of the dream-thoughts that
would lead to the manifest dream. Firstly, "botanical monograph" is an impression:
it is a mnemic trace, an imprint of the glance at a monograph on the genus of
Cyclamen in a bookshop window on the same day as the dream. Secondly, "botani-
cal monograph" with the two elements separated, relate to Freud's writing of an
essay on the use of cocaine, to infancy memories, his precocious love for books,
artichokes, to thoughts about Italy, to a large array of figures with names or quali-
ties directly and / or indirectly related to one of the elements. This parade of char-
acters, objects, events... relate closely to the latent dream-thoughts which are at the
source of the dream.213 The latent content of this dream is constituted by complica-

210 See J. Laplanche and J.-B. Pontalis, The Language of Psychoanalysis, pp. 292-294.
211 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, pp. 388-389.
212S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 386. Freud presented a slightly different and more vague
version of the dream in p. 254: "I had written a monograph on a certain plant. The book lay before
me and I was at the moment turning over a folded coloured plate. Bound up in each copy there was a
dried specimen of the plant, as though it was taken from a herbarium".
213Freud used "latent content" and "dream-thoughts" indistinctly and J. Laplanche and J.-B. Pontalis
(in The Language of Psychoanalysis, entry "latent content", pp. 235-236) present them as synonymous.
Indeed between manifest content and interpretation Freud introduced a psychic instance that he
named latent content: "We have introduced a new class of psychical material between the manifest
content of dreams and the conclusions of our enquiry: namely, their latent content, or (as we say) the
'dream-thoughts', arrived at by means of our procedure. It is from these dream-thoughts [and from
dream-work] and not from the dream's manifest content that we disentangle its meaning" (S. Freud,
The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 381).

110
tions and conflicts arising between colleagues about their professional obligations,
and the charge that Freud was sacrificing too much for the sake of his hobbies.214
As we can see, the manifest content of the dream is rather different and does not
correspond in a straightforward way to the dream-thoughts. The relation between
the two is a mediated and indirect one, that is to say, a number of operations
occurred in-between resulting in the distortion of dream-thoughts. For instance,
each element of the dream may refer to (or "condense") several dream-thoughts at
the same time. Also the same element of the dream-thought may determine differ-
ent elements of the dream. This results in what Freud calls the "over-determina-
tion" of the manifest content of the dream.

The nature of the relation between dream-content and dream-thoughts thus

becomes visible. Not only are the elements of a dream determined by the
dream-thoughts many times over, but the individual dream-thoughts are
represented in the dreams by several elements. Associative paths lead from one
element of the dream to several dream-thoughts, and from one dream-thought to several
elements of the dream. Thus a dream is not constructed by each individual
dream-thought, or group of dream-thoughts, finding (in abbreviated from)
separate representation in the content of the dream [...]; a dream is
constructed, rather, by the whole mass of dream-thoughts being submitted to
a sort of manipulative process in which those elements which have the most
numerous and strongest supports acquire the right of entry into the dream-
content [...]. In the case of every dream which I have submitted to an analysis
of this kind I have invariably found these same fundamental principles
confirmed: the [manifest] elements of the dream are constructed with the
whole mass of dream-thoughts and each one of those elements is shown to
have been determined many times over in relation to the dream-thoughts.215

The opposition that makes Freud makes between "dream-thoughts" and "work"
must be taken seriously. Indeed, although dream-thoughts are the raw materials of
dreams and work is undertaken upon them, this work is unlike the work of a trans-
lator of a text into another language or of an academic making textual exegesis. The
difference is larger. In fact, one should rather speak of opposition because the work
of transformation involves processes of mise en scène and translation in the geometric
sense ("work", or "work of figurability") operating upon materials initially con-
ceived as having a linguistic nature ("dream-thoughts").

-----

214 See S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 414.

215 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 389 - emphasis added.

111
The over-determination of a dream is, first and foremost, the result of the work of
condensation. One of the typical effects consists in condensing many figures in a
single one. The latter figure thus tends to exhibit contradictory characteristics. This
is what happened in Freud's dream of the night of July 23 to 24, 1895, the dream of
Irma's injection.216 It gravitates around a patient of Freud, Irma, who he could
clearly and distinctly identify in the content of the dream. After the analysis it
turned out that the Irma of the dream represented not only the real Irma but also
stood in the place of a number of other persons.

The construction of collective and composite figures is one of the chief

methods by which condensation operates in dreams.217

One of the outcomes of condensation is that different elements of dream-thoughts

are transformed into a single element of the manifest dream; the latter do not refer
in a straightforward way to the thoughts, but indirectly and to a multiplicity of
them, eventually to contradictory ones, very much like Warburg's Ninfa, condensing
a broad multiplicity of figures and emotional states. But the pure and simple sup-
pression of latent thoughts or their very partial consideration in dream are also
consequences of the condensation work. Therefore, unsurprisingly, the dream
content (the verbal translation of the manifest dream) is usually shorter than the
unfolding of the dream-thoughts. Whereas Freud initially conceived dream-
thoughts as having a linguistic nature, the condensed objects of which the manifest
dream is made do not. Rather, they have an ostensive non-linguistic nature. The text
of dream-thoughts was crushed into things. The dream therefore is not the trans-
formation of a text into another text through the mediation of desire. It is its trans-
formation into objects or visual entities, that are not linguistic signs. Hence we can
begin to see why their interpretation is problematic.

-----

Further to the already mentioned differences between dream-thoughts and manifest

dream, Freud discovered that their centre was not coincident. A displacement
between the two centres was noticeable:

The elements which stand out as the principal components of the manifest
content of the dream are far from playing the same part in dream-thoughts.
And [...] what is clearly the essence of dream-thoughts need not be

216 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, pp. 180-199.

217S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 400. This is also typical of some cultural productions, for
instance think of A. Tarkowsky's Mirror, where the role of Tarkowsky's mother in her youth and of his
wife is played by the same actress (who also plays the brief role of a girl with whom Tarkowsky fell in
love during his adolescence).

112
 represented in the dream at all. The dream is, as it were, differently centred from
the dream-thoughts - its content has different elements as its central point.218

In the dream of the botanical monograph, for instance, whereas one of the central
points of the dream-content was the element "botanical", dream-thoughts "were
concerned with complications and conflicts arising between colleagues from their
professional obligations, and further with the charge that I [Freud] was in the habit
of sacrificing too much for the sake of my hobbies".219 The element "botanical" had
no place whatever in this core of dream-thoughts, unless - as Freud indicates - it
was loosely connected with it by an antithesis: the fact that botany never had a
place among Freud's interests. Such displacement is partly and secondarily due to
the work of condensation, but also partly and chiefly due to the work of displace-
ment. Freud discovered that the special degree of vividness, interest or value that
could be attached to some dream-thoughts perceived in daily life as more relevant
than others, could be totally disregarded in the process of dream formation.

In the course of the formation of a dream these essential elements [of dream-
thoughts], charged, as they are, with intense interest, may be treated as though
they were of small value, and their place may be taken in the dream by other
elements, of whose small value in the dream-thoughts there can be no
question.220

Thus, the emphasis shifted from an important element to a relatively unimportant

one. Freud argues that what constitutes the core of dream-thoughts can be neither
represented in the manifest content of the dream nor at its core. Under such
circumstances one could ask, as Freud himself did, how is it possible to remount to the
centre of dream-thoughts? To what extent and in which way are they still present in the dream
content? They were not suppressed and they were not totally excluded from the
dream content. Instead, they were "displaced" to the margins of the dream.

Among the thoughts that analysis brings to light are many which are relatively
remote from the kernel of the dream and which look like artificial
interpolations made for some particular purpose. That purpose is easy to
divine. It is precisely they that constitute a connection, often a forced and far-
fetched one, between the dream-content and the dream-thoughts.221

218 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 414.

219 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 414.
220 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 415.
221S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 416. It is at this point that the methodological proposition
put forward by Freud earlier in The Interpretation acquires its full meaning: the interpretation must
progress en détail, not en masse (cit., p. 178).

113
Freud stresses that "if these elements were weeded out of the analysis the result
would often be that the component parts of the dream-content would be left not
only without over-determination but without any satisfactory determination at
all".222
In addition to this form of displacement a second one is noticeable, and a
more basic one. An element of the latent content may be represented in the mani-
fest dream by a vague, not logically related, allusion. These processes of substitu-
tion, of displacement, have something of the arbitrary.

-----

In the chapter "considerations to representability", Freud discusses the require-

ments that the elements that accede to dreams must meet, that is, the imperative of
figurability.223 The previous transformations consisted in the substitution of some
elements by others that could be common to several chains of dream-thoughts
("condensation"), and in the displacement of psychic intensities and the substitu-
tion of some elements by unrelated ones ("displacement"), operations with an
exquisite geometric nature. Also in this chapter Freud stresses the material aspect of
the dream by arguing that for some thoughts to access the dream, typically "abstract
expressions", they must be replaced by "pictorial" and "concrete" expressions of
the things of the dream-content.

A thing that is pictorial is, from the point of view of a dream, a thing that is
capable of being represented: it can be introduced into a situation in which abstract
expressions offer the same kind of difficulties to representation in dreams as
a political leading article in a newspaper would offer to an illustrator.224

Verbal abstract forms must be translated into visual concrete forms to gain access
to dreams; as long as they are abstract, they are unusable. There is an imperative of
figuration. This imperative augments the over-determination of images and works
the other way round in relation to their interpretation. When thoughts that could be
expressed with plain language are translated into a figural language,225 with no
indication of whether they should be understood literally, symbolically, or as
memories, directly or through the interpolation of some intermediary element, it
becomes obviously difficult to return to the chains of dream-thoughts from which

222 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, pp. 416-417.

223 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, pp. 454-ff. Rücksicht auf Darstellbarkeit: "the consideration, or
taking into account, of representability", "representability" in the sense of mise en scène, or "figurability":
prise en considération de la figurabilité. See pp. 122-123 below.
224 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 455.
225However this is not a prerogative of dreams alone, but also happens in relation to visual and
performing arts, religion and other forms of social life. See note 244 below.

114
they originated. This is because the exchange of which Freud speaks is not again
like conventional translation from one language into another, but includes the sort
of literal translation-exchange that Surrealists cultivated, namely whereby the
expression "reconnaissance infinie" ("deep gratitude") was represented by Magritte as a
man in a suit walking on an empty planet floating above desert mountains bathed in
a dull cosmic light, indeed doing the reconnaissance of the void.226 Furthermore,
Freud acknowledged that desire was not written from the outset with words (as the
first formulation of the idea of dream-thoughts makes believe) but also with things,
objects, spaces, etc, entities that establish between themselves relations of the same
kind as those of Magritte's painting.

6.2.5. Symbols in dreams and the symbolism of dreams

Among the vast array of materials that dreams may make use of, architectural forms
have some prominence: rooms, doors, columns, buildings, stairs, etc. According to
Freud, most often these signs, that meet the conditions of representability, are not
surrogates for dream-thoughts but already symbols. They are not the effect of the
operations of transformation just mentioned, but function as pretty straightforward
symbols. According to him, these symbols have an intrinsic sexual nature, but this
is unlikely to be true over a hundred years after the publication of The Interpretation of
Dreams. There is a cultural-historic dimension in the construction of these symbols.
Freud suspected that there was a dimension of cultural learning in the establish-
ment of this symbology, though both this learning and the resort to these symbols
was unconscious and, thus, also personal. However, Freud acknowledged that
dreams might exclusively contain symbols of this sort, in which case the analyst
could interpret them almost without questioning the dreamer.
Notwithstanding, the presence of this kind of symbols in dreams and the
existence of dreams exclusively composed by these should not be confused with
the symbolism of dreams. The symbolism of dreams crucially depends on the dream-work, on
the work of distortion, of manifestation and concealment, i.e. of transformation, of which they are
the outcome.

One cannot give the name of 'dream' to anything other that the product of
the dream-work - that is to say, the form into which the latent thoughts have
been transmuted by the dream-work.227

226 SeeA. Breton, Le Surréalisme et la Peinture, p. 349. See also J.-F. Lyotard, "The Dream-work does not
think", p. 28.
227S. Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, p. 173. An aspect that Foucault did not recognize in
Freudianism, as we shall see below.

115
And, as Freud had already posited:

The dream-work is not simply more careless, more irrational and more
incomplete than waking thought; it is completely different from it
qualitatively and for that reason not immediately comparable with it. It does
not think, calculate or judge in any way at all; it restricts itself to giving things
a new form.228

The same applies to images. These are imaginary-symbolic constructions, but their
symbolism does not depend only on the manifest symbols that populate them (their
subject matter). It crucially depends on the double, triple and unforeseen meanings
of those image-symbols, their latencies and mise en scène, on the system of representa-
tion, framing, technique, expression... briefly, on expression and style. The symbol-
ism of images depends on the condensations and displacements that they operate in
relation to their sources, visual and literary, explicit and implicit. It crucially depends
on the contradictory reminiscences from which they suffer. An image is a network of
analogies, differences and dissemblances. Like the symbolism of dreams, the sym-
bolism of images derives from work and calls for a work of interpretation to be
done. This is the polar opposite of a dictionary or encyclopaedic-based symbology,
no matter how much inspired by Freudianism it may be. This or that image, this or
that index or trace, this or that style, shall not be interpreted in a polarized and
Manichean way, as symbols of masculinity, femininity, gayness, lesbianism, black-
ness, of Englishness or Finnishness, of affiliation in this or that class, of joy or
despair, of this or that literary or philosophical reference... forcing the symbolism of
images to a stereotypical symbology, to the usual and usually monotonous teleology
of meaning. Although some images may be conventional in the way some symbols
are, therefore authorizing such processes of translation, these are just words out of
place. Images in the full sense of the word are much more mobile, dialectic, haunted,
far more singular and far less disciplined.
Images have properties like the Warburg Ninfa and the "botanical" element of
Freud's dream, for example. Both images are multiple, an aspect that can be mapped
(though not exhaustively, due to their open nature) and that inevitably haunts their
interpretation, but to which interpretation cannot be curtailed. They are also
contradictory simultaneities conveying emotions. Both images were to a large extent
detached from their previous meanings, or, if you prefer, what was kept was the
percept, a percept that would be re-haunted, re-affected and, to some extent, re-
signified. Finally, their interpretation cannot do without the consideration of the
mechanisms at work in their constitution, including expressive and stylistic aspects,
and in their reception, or their phenomenology. Naturally, I do not mean that the
findings of Warburg and Freud exhaust what there is to be known about all and
every image, as this would make little sense. My proposition is rather that these

228 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 650.

116
authors are worth being taken into consideration in the interpretation of images,
something that becomes imperative if one should be speaking of over-determined
images. Naturally, in relation to some images, some aspects will emerge with a
particular eloquence, whereas others will not.

6.2.6. Sources of dream materials

Among the sources of dream materials, Freud identified the following, already
acknowledged by previous researchers: (i) impressions of an early date, specially of
childhood, trivial and such remote impressions that one would expect them to be
forgotten, often impressions and memories otherwise inaccessible;229 (ii) impres-
sions of the days preceding the occurrence of dreams;230 (iii) impressions selected
"upon different principles from our waking memory, since they do not recall what
is essential and important but what is subsidiary and unnoticed".231 "Dreams yield
no more than fragments of reproductions",232 or percepts. As already argued, the
dream of the botanical monograph, in which relations between professionals and
upsetting remarks about Freud's interest were at stake,233 is based on a transient
impression of the same day of the dream: the glancing in a bookshop window at a
monograph on the genus of Cyclamen in which the dream kept two elements only,
"botanical" and "monograph". As mentioned above, the process by which transient
impressions take the place of psychically significant ones is the dream-work (the
imperative of figurability). It is highly relevant that in Freud's symbolism dream-
thoughts, wishes and desire are translated into montages of materials or signs, often
trivial and improbable, such as remote infancy memories, impressions of the same
day of the dream, transient impressions. Indeed, it is striking that shortly before the
publication of The Interpretation of Dreams Warburg had discovered, as described
earlier in detail, that Botticelli and some of his fellow artists copied formal motives
from sarcophagi, dress codes, hairdressing styles, and so on, for composing works
that were, on the one hand, thought of as the translation of literary sources such as
Poliziano's Giostra or as condensers of the spirit of the time, and, on the other,
conveyers of emotions or affects. There is a striking parallelism between the figural
mechanisms underlying the paintings and frescos of Warburg's hypotheses, and the oneiric
mechanisms that Freud described.

229 See S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, pp. 74-76.

230 See S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, pp. 76-77.
231 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, pp. 247-248; see also pp. 77-79.
232 A self-justification and a plea for Freud's own rights. See S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 80.
233 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 259.

117
6.2.7. Affects in dreams

According to Freud, whereas latent thoughts are thoroughly transformed until the
manifest dream, affects remain unchanged in their intensity and - in Warburg terms
- in their polarity (i.e. an affect of joy remains an affect of joy, of fear remains of
fear, etc).

Analysis shows us that the ideational material has undergone displacements

and substitutions, whereas the affects have remained unaltered.234

In these circumstances, deep incongruities arise between the visual, manifest,

content of the dream and the affects that are attached to it. This is an aspect recog-
nized by a number of authors preceding Freud. For example, Sticker - as Freud
reports - pointed out the singular nature of the coincidence of the feeling of fear in
a dream of robbers and robbers themselves. He realized that whereas robbers were
perceived in an imaginary way, the fear was experienced in a rather real way; it was
real fear that was experienced, not a representation of it.235 Therefore, affects
remain unchanged and dependent on the latent dream, whereas its manifest content
was thoroughly transformed. Obviously, affective intensity will necessarily be
incongruent in relation to the manifest content:

There is no lack in dreams of instances [...] where an intense expression of

affect appears in connection with subject-matter which seems to provide no
occasion for any such expression. In a dream I may be in a horrible, danger-
ous and disgusting situation without feeling any fear or repulsion; while at
another time, on the contrary, I may be terrified at something harmless and
delighted at something childish.236

Still according to Freud:

The dream-work is at liberty to detach an affect from its connection in the

dream-thoughts and introduce it at any other point it chooses in the manifest
dream.237

The outcome of the combination of affects, which remain coherent with the
precipitating causes of the dream, with the visual track, resulting from the long
series of transformations already described, is one that further over-determines the

234 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 596.

235 See S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 595.
236 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 595.
237 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 601.

118
dream and stresses its oddity. The final result is like the montage of an odd filmic
sequence with the wrong (indeed the right) soundtrack.238

-----

Concerning emotions, both Freud and Warburg have acknowledged that they are a
fundamental aspect of the phenomenology of images. However, on the one hand,
Freud claimed that in dreams emotions were defined upstream, i.e. that they were
coordinated with dream-thoughts, maybe consistent with the observation of his
patients. On the other, he claimed that the propulsive force behind dreams is
desire, a force that remains recorded in it just as Francis Bacon's brush-strokes
remain recorded in his paintings. The dream does not record this force through
symbols, but through the imaginary activity of transforming both symbols and
objects jointly. Warburg also considered that emotions were defined upstream, but
for him this was the primitive Dionysian ritual. As already discussed, the notion of
formula-of-pathos is owed to Darwin but as for the source of emotions, particularly of
the Ninfa, Warburg was obviously influenced by Nietzsche and by the convergent
observation of Indian rituals. Naturally, the sources indicated by Freud and
Warburg at best have aged or eventually make us smile. But if we leave the issue of
sources aside and focus on the common denominator to both authors, it is evident
that, on the one hand, they have both dealt with composite images and, on the other,
with images of a particular salience due to the incidence of affects.
This is highly relevant since today we know that the affects attached to
cultural images are not independent of montage styles or strategies but intrinsic to
them. This is confirmed by several cinematographies (Griffith, Eisenstein, etc),
cinema studies (the important books on cinema of Deleuze) and a number of
studies on painting (Stoichita, Careri, etc). We also know that the composition of
heterogeneous and contradictory materials was a path undertaken by Dadaists and
Surrealists in the intensification of their images, namely collages. Furthermore, as
we have seen, shortly before the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams, Warburg
acknowledged that Botticelli's paintings were large compositions of heterogeneous
materials, of contrasting aspects of stillness and dynamism (in relation to the Venus
of Botticelli's the Birth of Venus), the merging of different semiotic structures (image
and poetry), paintings with a salience in relation to which he was particularly sensi-
tive, and something that also went in relation to the Sassetti chapel, a montage of
the same sort of heterogeneous materials. Think of the contrast, or juxtaposition
without mediation, of the impassibility of Venus' gaze and body, and the motion of
her hair (fig 102), of the waters, of the mantle that is to cover her. In this respect
Warburg's observations converge in relation to aesthetical strategies that have

238 Forinstance, Jean-Luc Godard used and abused the effects of montage that intensify the image and
that can easily be put in relation to this and other mechanisms of transformation, of composition, at
work in dreams.

119
become quite familiar to us. Pippo Delbono, the director of an acclaimed contem-
porary theatre company, refers to cats and their unlikely wish to impress us with
their "art" and nevertheless succeed in doing it: "there is a great deal of 'drama' [...]
in cats: they observe, change rhythm and everybody looks at them".239 This "drama"
is intrinsic to the bodily choreography or to the drastic change of the dynamic. In
fact, it has got nothing to do with meanings or intentions presumably embodied by
the actor, nor with states of spirit or with sincerity, something that Delbono
remarkably stresses in the play Il Tempo degli Assassini, or that Christoph Marthaler
does in his own plays (for instance, in Which Only). As Delbono very lucidly
acknowledges, signs, and in particular gestural signs, may be totally deprived of any
meaning and yet convey strong and specific affects:

Eventually one thinks that the actor's generosity is in feeling so vividly and in
expending so much emotion. Instead, it is in provoking emotion in the
audience with a rigorous sign. My shows are deeply emotional, but the work
we do is lucid, actors do not work on getting emotional, but on signs.240

Finally, both Warburg and Freud have focused on images through which, in Freud’s
terms, the repressed returns. In the former case a cultural-historic repressed and in
the latter a personal-psychic repressed, which, in my view, makes such convergence
the more striking.

6.2.8. Pictures, dreams and images

To clarify, the over-determination of dreams is fundamentally the outcome of a

series of processes of transformation and of the exquisite visual nature of the
dream, that Freud names, as already indicated, the dream-work: condensation,
displacement and the necessity of meeting the imperative of figurability. As we have
also seen, in Freud's theory the propulsive force behind the dream is desire (of
which censorship is an integral part). Some bold consequences derive from it, also
valid in relation to images: these are structures of compromise; they show as much as
they hide; they are contradictory simultaneities; each dream element is determined
by a multiplicity of heterogeneous and heterochronic elements, or over-determined;
they are affected; last but not at least, these are open symbols.
To stress the singularity of the dream, Freud distanced himself in relation to
the interpretation of pictures: that is to say, in relation to a specific approach to the

239 P.Delbono, Mon Théâtre, p. 31: "Il y a énormément de 'dramaticité' chez les [...] chats: ils observent, changent de
rythme et tout le monde regarde".
240 P. Delbono, Barboni, p. 29: "A volte si pensa che la generosità dell'attore è sentire tanto, sprecare tanta emozione.
Invece è provocare con un segno preciso emozione nel pubblico. I miei spettacoli sono molto emotivi, ma il lavoro é lucido,
gli attori non lavorano sull'emozionarsi, ma sui segni". Remarks convergent with the practice and some
statements of Francis Bacon - see below my research on Lordi, particularly, pp. 249-250.

120
interpretation of pictures (and dreams) that relied on the straightforwardness or on
the certainty of symbolization. At the opening of chapter VI, on the "dream-work",
Freud dissociates the interpretation of dreams from the "reading" of "pictures" in
the following quite remarkable terms:

The dream-content [...] is expressed as it were in a pictographic script, the

characters of which have to be transposed individually into the language of
the dream-thoughts. If we attempted to read these characters according to their pictorial
value instead of according to their symbolic relation, we should clearly be led into error.
Suppose I have a picture-puzzle, a rebus, in front of me. It depicts a house
with a boat on its roof, a single letter of the alphabet, the figure of a running
man whose head has been conjured away, and so on. Now I might be misled
into raising objections and declaring that the picture as a whole and its
component parts are nonsensical. A boat has no business to be on the roof of
a house, and a headless man cannot run. Moreover, the man is bigger than
the house; and if the whole picture is intended to represent a landscape,
letters of the alphabet are out of place since such objects do not occur in
nature. But obviously we can only form a proper judgment of the rebus if we
put aside criticisms such as these of the whole composition and its parts and
if, instead, we try to replace each separate element by a syllable or word that
can be presented by that element in some way or other. The words which are
put together in this way are no longer nonsensical but may form a poetical
phrase of the greatest beauty and significance. A dream is a picture-puzzle of this
sort and our predecessors in the field of dream-interpretation have made the mistake of
treating the rebus as a graphic composition.241

Just as Warburg had done shortly before, Freud also distanced himself in relation to
that tradition of visual exegesis that is called Art History with its specific "order", its
Vasarian, Winkelmannian, neoclassical and idealistic foundations; a tradition
indebted to the myth of mimesis, i.e. grounded on the certainty of representation.
Freud posits that the error had been to read dreams as if they were pictures or
graphic compositions. It is understandable that Freud disentangled the dream from
Art as this would have meant projecting upon the former the myths of the
transparency of image in relation to its referent and of its coincidence with the
manifest subject matter, the priority of the manifest subject matter (often
designated by a title) in relation to the plastic material, the belief that artworks can
be "read" and "deciphered", i.e. that they are "legible" signs. If Freud had drawn on
the categories in use in the critique of Art, he would have projected upon dreams
the rules and conventions shaped in a small constellation of fields (Fine Arts, Art

241 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, pp. 381-382 - with some emphasis added to that of Freud.

121
Theory and Art History), beaconed or "ordered" by constraining interdictions,
caesuras, in relation to what could and could not be thought; for instance, that
which determined the impossibility of even considering the fundamental contiguity
between the realistic portrait with the death mask and, thus, alongside the magical
powers of the latter. These are interdictions which, as we saw, Aby Warburg and
Julius von Schlosser dared to challenge, significantly with little or no impact in the
field of Art History. The dream needed to be thought in other terms; Freud was
concerned with a kind of symbolism that had little to do with conventions,
definitions, concepts or with high culture but which was much more unstable,
mobile, creative, that is to say, open. In a phrase, Freud smashed the box of
representation, and by doing so he quite rightly identified the dream with the visible
and with the artwork of the "aesthetic" regime:242 constituted by materials, but also
events and situations, with the most disparate sources, that are affected and may be
re-affected (i.e. their polarity may be changed), assembled and transformed
according to criteria (such as condensation, displacement and conditions of
representability) very different from those around which the art of the
"representative" regime was "ordered"; materials, events and situations, with their
fundamental mobility and apparent disorder, that is, with their symbolism
characterized by openness. Thus, Freud in the end reframed the dream beyond
representation and language (it is rather language that would become haunted by
imagination), as art or as images:

The incapacity of dreams to express these things [logical relations between

dream-thoughts, the sort of relation that language may easily convey] must lie
in the nature of the psychical material out of which dreams are made. The
plastic arts of painting and sculpture, indeed, labour under a similar
limitation.243

Hubert Damisch spoke of an "expressive incapacity" (défaut d'expression) common to

dreams and arts:

Freud thinks neither in terms of "periods" nor of "styles", and his project has
nothing to do with "art history". He does not reframe "art" in terms of any
formal criteria, but of figuration, or rather figurability (Darstellbarkeit), as
defined in The Interpretation of Dreams. Indeed, visual arts, painting and
sculpture, operate in conditions that are similar to that of the dream, as Freud
himself clearly stressed. Just like the dream, arts work at expressing what we
are doomed to name "thought", a "thought" characterized by transcribing,

242 See p. 127 below on the position of Jacques Rancière on the relation of the unconscious to the
artistic "aesthetic".
243 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 422 - emphasis added.

122
 transforming into "pictorial" language: the expressive incapacity (défaut
d'expression) is related to the raw materials of art, to the means it disposes - as
it happens with the dream - and to the figurative processes (Darstellungsmittel)
that art makes use of.244

Georges Didi-Huberman stresses: "Freud thus broached the question of the

figurable from the angle of a constitutive rend or incapacity".245 This "constitutive
incapacity" is not a flaw but a quality and strength of images. Didi-Huberman
acknowledges that there is a close affinity between the structure of images, of the
visible and the Freudian symptom, and in my view he is right. According to him:

The symptom symbolizes, to be sure, but it does not symbolize in the way
that a lion symbolizes strength - even if we are aware that a bull can also
symbolize it. The Panofskian identification of symbolization with meaning -
that is, with "intrinsic" meaning, linked to the famous "essential tendencies of
the human mind" - here deserves to be left behind. The eminent symbolicity
of the symptom is not understood in Freudian theory as a relation between
one term and another, but as an open set of relations between sets of terms
that can themselves be opened... each term assuming "the minimum of over-
determination constituted by a double meaning".246 What, then, does a
symptom "symbolize"? It symbolizes events that have taken place and also
that have not taken place.247 It symbolizes each thing and also its contrary,
being "an ingeniously chosen piece of ambiguity with two meanings in
complete mutual contradiction", as Freud wrote.248 And in symbolizing, it
represents in a way that distorts. It bears within it the three fundamental
conditions of a withdrawal, a presented return of this withdrawal, and a fraught

244 H. Damisch, "Le gardien de l'interprétation", p. 305): "Freud ne raisonne pas plus ici en termes d' 'époques'
que de 'styles', et son projet n'a rien de commun avec celui d'une 'histoire de l'art'. La limite qu'il assigne expressément à
l' 'art', cette limite ne renvoie pas à une autre norme formelle que celle même de la figuration, ou pour mieux dire de la
figurabilité (Darstellbarkeit), telle que la Traumdeutung en a produit le concept. Car les arts plastiques, peinture
et sculpture, sont à cet égard - Freud lui-même y insiste - dans une situation analogue à celle du rêve. L'art, comme le
rêve, travaille à exprimer ce qu'on est réduit à désigner comme sa 'pensée', une pensée qu'il lui appartient de transcrire,
de transformer en langage pictural': là comme ici le défaut d'expression est lié à la matière utilisée, aux moyens mêmes
dont l'art - comme le rêve, dans le registre qui lui est propre - dispose, aux procédés figuratifs (Darstellungsmittel)
qu'il met en œuvre".
245 G. Didi-Huberman, Confronting Images, p. 153.
246G. Didi-Huberman quotes from J. Lacan, "The function and field of speech and language in
psychoanalysis", p. 222.
247 G. Didi-Huberman quotes from S. Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, p. 367.
248 G. Didi-Huberman quotes from Freud, idem, p. 367.

123
 equivocation (équivoque tendue) between the withdrawal and its presentation: such,
perhaps, would be its elementary rhythm.249

249G. Didi-Huberman quotes from J. Lacan, "Variations on the standard treatment", p. 297: "The
symptom is the return of the repressed in compromise". And Didi-Huberman adds: "Note again the
paradoxical equivalence, repeatedly underscored by Lacan, of repression and return of the repressed in the
symptom. This could be the starting point for a deeper reading of the seminar on the 'sinthome' of
1975-76, where Lacan broached the question of art through that of the symptom. Another paradoxical
equivalence is intimated there, one according to which, with art and equivocation - both deeply impli-
cated in the symptom - 'we have only id (ça) as weapon against the symptom'... Another way of saying
that the work of art 'makes use of' and 'plays with' [joue] the symptom as much as it 'thwarts' [déjoue] it"
(quoting from J. Lacan, Séminaire XXIII - Le Sinthome, p. 17). This footnote from G. Didi-Huberman,
Confronting Images, p. 301 and the above quote from p. 179 - translations slightly modified.

124
 L'œil existe à l'état sauvage.
The eye exists in the savage state.
André Breton 250

6.2.9. Interprétation

In The Language of Psychoanalysis, regarding the entries on "over-determination" and

"over-interpretation" (pp. 292-294), J. Laplanche and J.-B. Pontalis acknowledge
that dreams are touched by a fundamental openness. Equally, at different moments
in The Interpretation of Dreams Freud clearly says that a dream may admit more than
one interpretation and wonders if a dream may ever be completely analysed.

They [dreams] frequently have more than one or even several meanings [...].
This ambiguity of the symbols links up with the characteristic of dreams for
admitting "over-interpretation" - for representing in a single piece of content
thoughts and wishes which are often widely divergent in their nature.251

The acknowledgement of such over-determination and openness grants relevance

to the work of Freud that far exceeds the clinical realm. Indeed those characteristics
of openness are not just typical of the dream but are constitutive of a new episteme
as well as of a new symbolic order. Foucault acknowledged these aspects and
considered that psychoanalysis and cultural anthropology rightly occupied a "privi-
leged place" within the new episteme as they epitomize the emergence of social and
human sciences, particularly their oscillation between what is given to representa-
tion and what makes representation possible, the unthought or the unconscious on
which the conscious is (un)founded.252 As to the latter, Foucault pointed out that

250 A. Breton, Le Surréalisme et la Peinture, p. 11.

251 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 470.
252 M. Foucault, "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx", p. 61, and M. Foucault, The Order of Things, section
"Psychoanalysis and ethnology [cultural anthropology]", particularly pp. 397-398: "The human
sciences, when dealing with what is representation (in either conscious or unconscious form), find
themselves treating as their object what is in fact their condition of possibility. They are always
animated, therefore, by a sort of transcendental mobility. They never cease to exercise a critical exami-
nation of themselves. They proceed from that which is given to representation to that which renders
representation possible, but which is still representation, so that, unlike other sciences, they seek not
so much to generalize themselves or make themselves more precise as to be constantly demystifying
themselves: to make the transition from an immediate and non-controlled evidence to less transparent
but more fundamental forms. This quasi-transcendental process is always given in the form of an
unveiling. It is always by unveiling that we are able, as a consequence, to become sufficiently general-
ized or refined to conceive of individual phenomena. On the horizon of any human science, there is
the project of bringing man's consciousness back to its real conditions, of restoring it to the contents
and forms that brought it into being, and eludes us within it; this is why the problem of the uncon-
scious - its possibility, status, mode of existence, the means of knowing it and of bringing it to light - is
not simply a problem within the human sciences which they can be thought of as encountering by

125
the work of Freud also constitutes a qualitative change in the nature of symbols and the way
they are interpreted.253 Such understanding came to Freud through the forking path
which Foucault describes in the following terms:

It is well known how Freud progressively made the discovery of this

structurally open, structurally gaping character of interpretation. It was first
made in a highly allusive manner, quite veiled by itself, during Freud’s
analyses of his own dreams in The Interpretation of Dreams and he invokes
reasons of modesty or non-disclosure of a personal secret in order to
interrupt himself.
In the analysis of Dora, the idea appears that interpretation must indeed be
halted, not be allowed to go through to the end in consideration of
something that will be called "transference" some years later. Furthermore,
the inexhaustibility of analysis asserts itself across the entire study of
transference in the infinite and infinitely problematic character of the relation
between analysand and analyst, a relationship that is clearly constitutive for
psychoanalysis, which opens the space in which psychoanalysis deploys itself
without ever being able to complete itself.254

chance in their steps; it is a problem that is ultimately coextensive with their very existence. A tran-
scendental raising of the level that is, on the other side, an unveiling of the non-conscious constitutive
of all sciences of man. // We may find in this the means of isolating them in their essential property.
In any case, we can see that what manifests this peculiar property of the human sciences is not that
privileged and singularly blurred object which is man. For the good reason that it is not man who
constitutes them with a specific domain; it is the general arrangement of the episteme that provides
them with a site, summons them, and establishes them - thus enabling them to constitute man as their
object. We shall say, therefore, that a 'human science' exists, not whenever man is in question, but
whenever there is analysis - within the dimension proper to the unconscious - of norms, rules and
signifying totalities which unveil to consciousness the conditions of its forms and contents. To speak
of 'sciences of man' in any other case is simply an abuse of language". In 1984 Foucault recalled the
writing of this book and the importance of psychoanalytic theory in the following terms: "You cannot
imagine the moralizing tide of humanist sermons in which we were plunged in the post-WW II [...].
The self was taken for a self-evident category of foundation. [...] The unconscious was not accepted,
except as a sort of a shadow, something marginal, a surplus; the sovereign rights of consciousness
should not be challenged. [...] The idea of unconsciousness [...] enables the possibility to think from
beyond the question of the self. I have tried to approach history in this light" ("Interview de Michel
Foucault", pp. 666-667: "Vous ne pouvez imaginer dans quelle mare moralisatrice de sermons humanistes nous
étions plongés dans l'après-guerre. [...] Le moi se comprenait comme catégorie de fondement. [...] On ne pouvait accepter
la catégorie de l'inconscient. On ne l'admettait que comme une sorte d'ombre, quelque chose de marginal, un surplus; la
conscience ne devait pas perdre ses droits souverains. [...] L'idée de l'inconscient [...] permet de répondre pour ainsi dire
du dehors au problème du moi. J'ai essayé d'appliquer cette même pratique à l'histoire").
253M. Foucault, "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx", p. 61: "It seems to me that Marx, Nietzsche and Freud
have not somehow multiplied the signs in the Western world. They have not given a new meaning to
the things that had no meaning. They have in reality changed the nature of the sign and modified the
way in which the sign in general can be interpreted."
254 M. Foucault, "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx", p. 63 - translation modified.

126
It is important to bear in mind that what is relevant is not the clinical aspect, but
the fact that it sheds light into the very structure of the new symbolic order. Indeed
as Foucault mentions, "from the 19th century on, signs are linked together in an
inexhaustible as well as infinite network, [...] because there is irreducible gaping and
openness".255 Is the convergence between the clinical and the cultural fortuitous?
Not so, according to Jacques Rancière, as Freud was able to detect the unconscious
while mapping the psyche because this instance was already at work in the artistic
realm:

If the formulation of the unconscious by psychoanalytical theory is possible,

this is because beyond the clinical realm it is already recognizable as an
unconscious mode of thought, and the realm of art and literature is where
such unconscious is at work. My questioning [in L’Inconscient Esthétique] will
concern the anchoring of Freud's theorization in that pre-existing
configuration of unconscious thought, in that idea that there is a relation of
thought to unthought that was already making its way in what is called the
aesthetic realm.256

It is therefore not by chance that Freud became so important for the theory of
culture: indeed, while he was theorizing on the psyche he was already and silently
taking the consequences of a transformation that was on its way par excellence in the
realm of culture. Naturally, it is to his credit alone having theorized in the way he
did on the specific nature of images. However, the recognition of Freud's impor-
tance did not happen by itself but had to be built, an enterprise in which French
thinkers had a hand. The history of the reassessment of Freud post-WW II in
France, is too vast a topic for me to cover here. I shall, therefore, limit myself on
the one hand to a few remarks on some protagonists of this history who were
important for developments on the scholarship on images, such as the already men-
tioned Foucault, but also Lacan, Lyotard and Deleuze. On the other hand, I shall
also pinpoint briefly a number of French researchers on image, probably unknown
to the English and architectural reader but who, in different ways, absorbed the
influx of Freud's reassessment. Finally, I will refer to a small number of problems
and themes, which are telling in relation to the unity and diversity of the response
to Freud by the same researchers. The theory that informed the gaze to which this
text bears witness and in which Warburg and Freud play a prominent role, owes
much to this French revolution.

255 M. Foucault, "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx", p. 63.

256 J. Rancière, L’Inconscient Esthétique, pp. 11-12: "Si la théorie psychanalytique de l’inconscient est formulable,
c’est parce qu’il existe déjà, en dehors du terrain proprement clinique, une certaine identification d’un mode inconscient de
la pensée, et que le terrain des œuvres de l’art et de la littérature se définit comme le domaine d’effectivité privilégié de cet
inconscient. Mon interrogation portera sur l’ancrage de la théorie freudienne dans cette configuration déjà existante de la
pensée inconsciente, dans cette idée du rapport de la pensée et de la non-pensée qui s’est formée et développée d’une
façon prédominante sur le terrain de ce qu’on appelle esthétique".

127
 As is well known, Jacques Lacan (1901-81) was fundamental for the "return
to Freud" through, on the one hand, the re-reading of Freud's original texts to the
"letter", as indeed Lacan reassessed all Freud's main concepts and cases. On the
other hand, through their re-reading in relation to contemporary philosophy
(phenomenology), linguistics and cultural anthropology. He thereby granted
philosophical stature to the theorization of Freud and crafted a theoretical system
in relation to which French thinkers would place themselves with varying degrees
of acceptance and refusal.
Lacan's first major contribution is the essay on the "mirror stage",257 drawing
on the mechanism by which the subject constitutes himself as the split entity of
body and image, a threatening and captivating image traversed by libido. This is an
important feature of the Lacanian register of the Imaginary, the register of percep-
tions, images, of alienating identification, etc. However, Lacan would famously
argue that "the unconscious is structured like a language" and would think the
structure of the register of the Symbolic in the same light, which until the early
1970s would prevail upon the registers of Imaginary and the Real; the three regis-
ters of the Symbolic, Imaginary and Real (SIR) thereby constituting the foundations
of being. As his thought unfolded, it became clearer that both the Symbolic and
language are incessantly haunted by the Imaginary; to the initial prevalence of the
Symbolic would follow the prevalence of the Real, therefore the SIR turning into
the RSI.
The late seminar of 1975-76 on the "sinthome" (symptom, in archaic French)
constitutes an important development of Lacan's thought. As his earlier work had
been dominated by the SIR, and by the pervasiveness of both the Symbolic and
language, it is unsurprising that the symptom had properties like language: it was a
decipherable signifier, with not only one but many possible meanings,258 although
not entirely transparent to language and interpretation. The later "sinthome" is the
pure jouissance (enjoyment or orgasm) of the unconscious; a "kernel of enjoyment
immune to the efficacy of the Symbolic".259 It is, of course, a rather important
development, as if desire, which Lacan places at the heart of human existence, had
taken the lead, so that he ended up adding the "sinthome" to the registers of the
Real, Symbolic and Imaginary. The "sinthome" became the fourth ring, tying the
RSI, Borromean, knot and allowing the subject to cohere, but also permanently
threatening to undo them.
Significantly, the 1975-76 seminar turned around the literary work of James
Joyce and particularly Finnegan's Wake. Luke Thurston reports in an article on the
"sinthome" that for Lacan Joyce became "an exemplary saint homme who, by refus-
ing any imaginary solution, was able to invent a new way of using language to

257J. Lacan, "The mirror stage as formative of the I function as revealed in psychoanalytical experi-
ence".
258 See D. Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, entry "symptom".
259 See D. Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, entry "sinthome" (by L. Thurston).

128
organise enjoyment".260 Thurston's view suggests an incommensurable split between
the "sinthome" and the symptom. However, the fact is that the "sinthome" derives
from the symptom and is jouissance, an utmost case of desire (un)fulfilment.
Lacan always stressed that his theory concerned psychoanalysis and the
subject; his use of mathematics and topological representations, linguistics and
philosophy, were functional to that purpose, eventually affirming that he did not
have much to say about culture and knowledge. Notwithstanding, he said more
than he needed to say. It is therefore unsurprising to see the pivotal role that Lacan
plays in Gilles Deleuze's remarkable "How do we recognize structuralism?", of
1967 (first published in 1972), a cross section on contemporary French thought. At
a time when Lacan's scholarship was still unfolding and just a few years after the
crucial seminar The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (of 1964, published in
1973), Deleuze argued:

There is a structure of the unconscious only to the extent the unconscious

speaks and is language. There is a structure of bodies only to the extent that
bodies are supposed to speak with a language which is one of the symptoms.
Even things possess a structure only in so far as they maintain a silent discourse,
which is the language of signs. [...] The refusal to confuse the symbolic with the
imaginary, as much with the real, constitutes a first dimension of [so-called]
structuralism.261

The sixth criteria that Deleuze proposes in his essay for the identification of a
structuralist mode of thought is what he calls "the empty square" ("la case vide"), in
an allusion to the theory of games, namely to the Marlamean throw of dice that
Deleuze evoked earlier on when he said that "to think is to cast a throw of dice".262
What is the empty square? In 1967, it was the Lacanian "phallus":

The phallus appears not as a sexual given or as the empirical determination of

one of the sexes. It appears rather as the symbolic organ that founds sexuality
in its entirety as a system or structure, and in relation to which the places
occupied variously by men and women are distributed, as also the series of
images and realities. In designating the object = x [empty case] as phallus, it is
thus not a question of identifying this object, of conferring an identity to it,
which is repellent to its nature. Quite the contrary, the symbolic phallus is
precisely that which does not coincide with its own identity, always found
there where it is not since it is not where one looks for it, always displaced in
relation to itself, from the side of the mother. In this sense, it is certainly the

260 See D. Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, entry "sinthome" (by L. Thurston).
261 G. Deleuze, "How do we recognize structuralism?", p. 171 - emphasis added.
262 To which he would return and develop, namely see G. Deleuze, The Fold, pp. 76-77.

129
 letter263 and the debt,264 the handkerchief265 or the crown,266 the Snark267 and
the "mana".268 Father, mother, etc, are symbolic elements held in differential
relations. But the phallus is quite another thing, the object = x [empty case]
that determines the relative place of the elements and the variable value of
relations, making a structure of the entirety of sexuality. The relations vary as
a function of the displacements of the object = x [empty case], as relations
between "partial drives" constitutive of sexuality.
Obviously the phallus is not a final word, and is even somewhat the locus of
a question, of a "demand" that characterizes the empty square of the sexual
structure.269

In 1967, Deleuze designated the empty case as also constituting the kernel of
modern episteme in the following terms, after Michel Foucault's The Order of Things
that had just been published:

In the admirable opening pages of The Order of Things, where he describes a

painting by Vélasquez, Foucault invokes the place of the king, in relation to
which everything slips and slides, God, then man, without ever managing to
hold on to it.270

It is this empty case that Freud first mapped, the variable x without which modern
thought is not possible. This is why Foucault says:

It is no longer possible to think in our day other than in the void left by
man's disappearance. For this void does not create a deficiency; it does not constitute a
lacuna that must be filled in. It is nothing more and nothing less that the
unfolding of a space in which it is once more possible to think.271

263 Of E. A. Poe, The Purloined Letter, or of J. Joyce, Finnegan's Wake.

264 Of M. Mauss, The Gift.
265 Of Shakespeare, Othello.
266 Of Shakespeare, Henry IV.
267 Of Lewis Carroll (Snark = shark + snake).
268 Of C. Lévi-Strauss, Introduction to the work of Marcel Mauss.
269 G. Deleuze, "How do we recognize structuralism?", pp. 187-188.
270 G. Deleuze, "How do we recognize structuralism?", p. 186. G. Deleuze, "A quoi reconnaît-on le
structuralisme?" (in L'Île Déserte et autres textes, cit.), p. 261: "Dans les pages admirables qui ouvrent Les Mots et
les choses, où il décrit un tableau de Vélasquez, Foucault invoque la place du roi, par rapport à laquelle tout se
déplace et glisse, Dieu, puis l'homme, sans jamais la remplir."
271M. Foucault, The Order of Things, p. 342. See also G. Deleuze, "How do we recognize structural-
ism?", p. 190.

130
It is not by chance that in order to shed light into the void that Freud named the
"unconscious", which is also constitutive of modern episteme, Foucault started
with a painting: Vélasquez Las Meninas (1656). Indeed this void is first and foremost
the kernel of images. Authors as diverse as Hubert Damisch (b1928), Daniel Arasse
(1944-2003), Louis Marin (1931-92) and Georges Didi-Huberman (b1953) have
tirelessly explored and amply demonstrated the fertility of this void, and Freud has
been a fundamental companion in this enterprise, naturally a post-Lacan, post-
Foucault and post-Lyotard Freud.
As early as 1954 in the first essay Michel Foucault published - the source of
the quote that I have placed in exergue to this dissertation - he developed the
following criticism:

[In Freudian analysis] the language of the dream is analysed only in its
semantic function. Freudian analysis leaves its morphological and syntactic
structure in the dark. [...] The peculiar imaginative dimension of the
meaningful expression is completely omitted.
[...] The imaginary world has its own laws, its specific structures, and the
image is somewhat more than the immediate fulfilment of meaning. It has its
own density, and the laws which govern it are not solely significant
propositions.272

Foucault blames Freudianism for narrowing images and imagination to matters of

meaning and semantics, by dismissing syntax and the imaginative dimensions.
Foucault is right in addressing this criticism to Freudianism, and not to Freud
himself. As we have seen, for Freud the interpretation of dreams could not do
without the consideration of the dream-work, the imperative of figurability, etc; the
over-determination of the dream is the outcome of all these aspects, that include
the "expressive" aspects and the specific "depth" of the image. In the same essay
Foucault expressed reticence on the enterprise that Lacan was undertaking.273 When
Foucault says that "the peculiar imaginative dimension of the meaningful expres-
sion is completely omitted" from Freudian analysis of the dream, he is rather
vocally reacting to Lacan's empire of the Symbolic and of language, an empire that
would grow in the decades following Foucault's criticism, but also which would
open to the Real, Imaginary and to jouissance.
Years later, Jean-François Lyotard (1924-98) would renew and much expand
the criticism developed by Foucault. The named enemy is no longer broad
Freudianism (as in Foucault, which Lyotard does not quote) but specifically Lacan,
whose seminars Lyotard attended and that he targeted with Discours, Figure (1971).
Lyotard is an obligatory passage point in a survey on the "return to Freud" because

272M. Foucault, "Dream, Imagination and Existence - An introduction to Ludwig Binswanger's

'Dream and Existence' ", p. 35.
273 M. Foucault, "Dream, Imagination and Existence...", p. 37.

131
in opposition to the Lacanian centrality of language and of the Symbolic, Lyotard
will place the Freud of the dream-work with its visual mise en scène and geometric
translations, irreducible to linguistic operations. It might be argued that the Lacan
against whom he argued is not real; in any case it is clearly not the Lacan that we
know today. This might be due to the fact that Discours, Figure was published while
Lacan's thought was still unfolding and that Lacan's fundamental seminar The Four
Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis of 1964, would not be published until 1973. In
any case, Lyotard's book is a large step forward in the "return to Freud" on what
matters to us, as probably nowhere else could the point be made clearer that the
figure, or the visual, continuously haunts language. Indeed it is to Lyotard that we
owe the acute awareness that...

The dream is not the language of desire, but its work. Freud makes the
opposition even more dramatic (and in doing so lets us in on a figural
presence in discourse), by claiming that the work of desire is the result of
manhandling a text. Desire does not speak; it does violence to the order of
utterance. This violence is primordial: the imaginary fulfilment of desire
consists in this transgression.274

The boxing and opposition of the figural vs. language is clearly underscored as
needing no further comment. It is a major criticism of the sign of structural linguis-
tics, of its alleged transitivity and operations. Lyotard swims against the
Jakobsonian and Lacanian tides, in my view rightly, for Lyotard language and lin-
guistics are not all-embracing frames as indeed there is another world beyond them.
This is why Deleuze wrote in a review to this book:275

The importance of this book is due to the fact that it is the first general
critique of the signifier. It tackles this notion which has long been exercising
terrorism in savant literature, and has even contaminated art and our
understanding of art. At last some fresh air in these fusty rooms. This books
shows that the signifier-signified relation is surpassed in two main directions:
towards the exterior, on the side of designation, by figure-images, because it is
not words that are signs, but they constitute signs with the object that they
designate, whose identity they break and open to discover a hidden content,
another face we will not be able to see, but which yet will make us "see" the
word (I have in mind those remarkable pages on dance as designation, and
the visibility of the word, the word as a visible thing, as distinct from both its
legibility and audition). Furthermore, the signifier-signified relation is
surpassed in another way: towards the interior of discourse, by a pure figural
which disturbs the coded gaps (écarts codés) of the signifier, makes its way into

274 J.-F. Lyotard, "The Dream-work does not think", p. 19.

275 Actually Lyotard's PhD thesis whose jury Deleuze integrated.

132
 them, and there again it labours beneath the conditions of identity of its
elements (I have in mind those pages on the dream-work, which violates the
order of language and crumples the text, fabricating new entities which are
not linguistic, like so many rebuses under hieroglyphs).276

This passage was repeated in Gilles Deleuze and Fèlix Guattari's Anti-Oedipus and
followed by a remark on images:

Similarly, in the plastic arts there is the pure figural dimension formed by the
active line and multidimensional point, and on the other hand, the multiple
configurations formed by the passive line and the surface it engenders, so as
to reveal - as in Paul Klee - those "intermundia that perhaps are visible only
to children, madmen, and primitives". Or in dreams: in some remarkable
pages, Lyotard shows that what is at work in dreams is not the signifier but a
figural dimension underneath, which gives rise to configurations of images
that make use of words, making them flow and cutting them according to
flows and points that are not linguistic and do not depend on the signifier or
its regulated elements. Thus Lyotard everywhere reverses the order of the
signifier and figure. It is not the figures that depend on the signifier and its effects, but
the signifying chain that depends on the figural effects - this chain itself being composed of
asignifying signs - crushing the signifiers as well as the signifieds, treating words as things,
fabricating new unities, creating from nonfigurative figures configurations of images that
form and then disintegrate. And these constellations are like flows that imply the
breaks effected by points, just as the points imply the fluxion of the material
they cause to flow or leak: the sole unity without entity is that of the flux-
schiz or the break-flow. The pure figural element - the "figure-matrix" -

276 G. Deleuze, "Appréciation", pp. 299-300: "L'importance de ce livre vient de ce qu'il est la première critique
généralisé du signifiant. Il s'en prend à cette notion qui, depuis longtemps, à exercé une espèce de terrorisme dans les
belles-lettres, et à même contaminé l'art ou notre compréhension de l'art. Enfin un peu d'air pur sous les espaces renfer-
més. Il montre que le rapport signifiant-signifié se trouve dépassé dans deux directions. Vers l'extérieur, du côté de la
désignation, par des figures-images: car ce ne sont pas les mots qui sont des signes, mais ils font des signes avec les
objets qu'ils désignent, et dont ils brisent l'identité pour en découvrir un contenu caché, une autre face qu'on ne pourra
pas voir, mais en revanche qui fera 'voir' le mot (les très belles pages sur la désignation comme danse, et la visibilité du
mot, le mot comme chose visible, distincte à la fois de sa lisibilité et son audition). Et le rapport signifiant-signifié se
trouve encore dépassé d'une autre façon: vers l'intérieur du discours, par un figural pur qui vient bouleverser les écarts
codés du signifiant, s'introduire en eux, et là aussi travailler sous les conditions d'identité de leurs éléments (les pages sur
le travail du rêve, qui violente l'ordre de la parole et froisse le texte, fabriquant nouvelles unités qui ne sont pas linguisti-
ques, autant de rébus sous les hiéroglyphes)". Proceeding: "Partout le livre de Lyotard participa à une anti-dialectique
qui opère un renversement complet du rapport figure-signifiant. Ce sont pas les figures qui dépendent du signifiant et de
ses effets, au contraire, c'est la chaîne signifiante que dépend des effets figuraux, fabriquant des configurations variables
d'images avec des figures non-figuratives, faisant couler des lignes et les coupant suivant des points singuliers, écrasant et
tordant les signifiants comme les signifiés. Et tout cela Lyotard ne le dit pas seulement, il le montre, il le fait voir, il le
rend visible et mobile: destruction d'identités qui emporte le lecteur dans un profond voyage".

133
 Lyotard correctly names desire, which carries us to the gates of schizophrenia
as a process.277

What is the "figural" that Lyotard explicitly sided with?278 It is that which works
beneath manifest language, which is of the order of latencies, of style, and which, to
the expense of jamming communication, "surprises the eye and the ear and the
mind by a perfectly improbable arrangement of the parts", adding:

It is futile to attempt to bring everything back to articulated language as the

model for all semiology, when it is patently clear that [even] language, at least
in its poetic usage, is possessed, haunted by the figure.279

The dream-work is not a language; it is the effect on language of the force

exerted by the figural (as image or as form). This force breaks the law.280

Indeed, this other "return to Freud" - to Freud's work and Darstellung - interested
Deleuze, who adopted Lyotard's coalescent, haunted, intensive and disruptive
"figural".281 Unsurprisingly, Lyotard's "defence of the eye" against the "sufficiency
of discourse"282 also caught the eye of researchers on image.

-----

In The Origin of Perspective (1987, 1993), the philosopher Hubert Damisch departs
from the passage of the age of representation to modernity as described by
Foucault, in the chapter where he draws on Vélasquez Las Meninas, as well as from
Lacan's observations on the scopic drives. These essays Damisch acknowledges as
"classic", although to his surprise they have had little impact on research on
perspective and the constitution of the modern subject. In Le Jugement de Pâris (The
Judgement of Pâris, 1992) Damisch again started from Freud to discuss the
entanglement of the question of beauty with the realms of desire and scopic drive,
in a book that draws on Raphael, Manet and on Picasso's versions of Manet's
Déjeuner sur l'Herbe. Later he published a book on the absorbing Piero della
Francesca Madonna del Parto (c1467), an account of virginity and motherhood, of a

277 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, pp. 264-265 - emphasis added.

278 J.-F. Lyotard, Discours, Figure, introduction: "Le Parti pris du figural".
279J.-F. Lyotard, "The Dream-work does not think", p. 30, proceeding: "The dream is not discourse,
because the dream-work is intrinsically different from the operations of the speech. [...] This statement
runs directly counter to what I believe to be Jacques Lacan's interpretation, as well as counter to the
current tendency to stuff all of semiology into linguistics".
280 J.-F. Lyotard, "The Dream-work does not think", p. 51.
281 See G. Deleuze, Francis Bacon - Logique de la Sensation, passim.
282 J.-F. Lyotard, Discours, Figure, p. 9.

134
representation of femininity barred by a phallus, a fresco that in its labyrinth way
unveils the very Freudian question where do babies come from? This is Un Souvenir
d'Enfance par Piero della Francesca (A Childhood Memory by Piero della Francesca, 1997),
where psychoanalytical literature opens the image and the image opens psychoana-
lytical questions. However, in my view Damisch's most fascinating book is Théorie
du Nuage (Theory of Clouding, 1972), on clouds, the incommensurable object within
the measurable space of perspective. Indeed, those clouds are an emergence of
something of the order of desire and of the unconscious within the so-called
rigorous system of representation.283
Therefore, it is Damisch who most often starts from psychoanalytical themes
and problems among the authors researching on image on which I am commenting.
Indeed, the work and imagination of Damisch have been stimulated by the themes
cultivated by Freud, Lacan, the Lacanian RSI and also Foucault. For example, the
"work of figurability", which is at the centre of Damisch's critical enterprise derives
from the figurative processes of the dream as described by Freud.284 But this is not
actually the only point of the relation of French researchers to Freud, who is often
silently and transversally at work in the interpretation of images. It is important to
bear in mind that I am talking about a specific group of French researchers on
image, neither "poststructuralists" nor cultivators of "French theory". As Slavoj
Zizek rightly remarked, these categories constitute Anglo-Saxon fantasies: "the term
'post-structuralism', although designating a strain of French Theory, is an Anglo-
Saxon and German invention, which refers to the way the Anglo-Saxon world
perceived and located the theories of Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, etc. In France
itself, nobody uses the term 'poststructuralism' ".285 In fact, although Freudian
theory is chiefly important for these philosophers (or researchers with an important
philosophical background), it is not because images validate, invalidate or illustrate it,
nor because it constitutes a jumping-board for theoretical pirouettes, as is often the
case for the commentators on French Theory, but, rather, for the light that
Freudian theory sheds into the structure of images. This is another way of saying
that it informs their gaze, to which research bears witness. This is why theoretical
references as fundamental as Freud often remain unacknowledged. Indeed
Freudian, Lacanian, Foucauldian and Lyotardian theory are first and foremost
introjected objects. The art historian Daniel Arasse expressed himself in this respect
in terms that I consider valid for the group of researchers at stake.

Chapter 1 of Damisch's book is "Signe et Symptôme" ("Sign and Symptom"), including the section
283

"La Machine et le rêve" ("The Machine and the dream").

284 Seenote 223 above. For a brief but particularly substantive outline of Damisch's critical enterprise,
see D. Cohn, "Avant-propos".
285 S.
Zizek, Looking Awry, p. 142. This topic is researched in depth in F. Cusset, French Theory - Foucault,
Derrida, Deleuze & Cie et les mutations de la vie intellectuelle aux États-Unies (an English translation is forth-
coming by the MIT Press).

135
 In presenting the collection of iconological essays Le Sujet dans le Tableau (The
Subject in the Picture, 1997), Arasse clarified in the following terms the role of Freud
for the interpretation of images:

The concepts and method that orient the Freudian interpretation of dreams
constitute a remarkable tool for art history. [...] Dream-work operations as
elaborated by Freud will therefore often play a fundamental role in the
researches that follow. Notwithstanding the fact that the Freudian concepts
of "displacement" and "condensation" are the focus of these researches, each
operation is here and there combined with other "operations" of dream-
work. However, it is out of question to play this petty game because the
results of "applied psychoanalysis" are often disastrous; what matters is
understanding how the artwork itself "reflects those questions, exhibits them
and is affected".286

Freud is a presence-absence in the books of the authors at stake very much as in

Arasse's Le Sujet dans le Tableau, or in Le Détail - Pour une histoire rapprochée de la peinture
(The Detail - For a close history of painting, 1992), which he affiliates in a long tradition
including Warburg. Indeed Warburg's famous motto is "Der liebe Gott steckt im
Detail", "The good God dwells in the Detail".287 But obviously Arasse could have
quoted Freud, as the attention to detail has the same nature in both authors. In The
Interpretation of Images Freud clarified his research project in these terms: "the dream-
interpretation which I practise [...] employs interpretation en détail and not en
masse".288 Naturally, the detail that is at stake is not the devil's detail of Sherlock
Holmes,289 but something like the coloured, non-descriptive, symptomatic and
over-determined detail, the pan surveyed by Georges Didi-Huberman, that startled
Bergotte in J. Vermeer View of Delft (c1658-60), eventually causing his death.290

286 D. Arasse, Le Sujet dans le Tableau, p 14: "Les concepts et la méthode qu'orientent l'interprétation freudienne des
rêves constituent, pour l'histoire de l'art, un remarquable outil. [...] Les opérations du travail du rêve telles que les a
élaborés Freud joueront donc souvent un rôle central dans les études qui viennent. On pourrait même montrer comment,
si les concepts freudiens de "déplacement" et de "condensation" sont au cœur des analyses qui suivent, chacune d'elle fait
intervenir selon les cas, telle ou telle autre "opération" du travail du rêve. On ne se livrera pourtant à ce petite jeu car il
ne se s'agit pas de pratiquer ici une quelconque "psychanalyse appliqué" (ses résultats sont en générale catastrophiques);
il s'agit de comprendre comment l'œuvre d'art elle-même 'réfléchit ces questions, les exhibe et en est affecté' (L. Marin,
"Le concept de figurabilité, ou la rencontre entre l'histoire de l'art et la psychanalyse", in De la
Représentation, Gallimard and Seuil, Paris, 1994, p. 67)".
287 E. H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg - Una biografia intellettuale, p. 19. See D. Arasse, Le Détail, p. 10.
288 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 178 - in French in the original.
289 SeeC. Ginzburg, "Clues". Actually Warburg's motto and Holmes' "devil in the detail" can or indeed
should be reversed, as for Warburg both detail and images tend to open onto spaces that are properly
speaking devilish, whereas Holmes quest was always for the redeeming clue.
290See M. Proust, A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, Gallimard, Paris, 1954, vol. 3, p. 187. Quoted in
G. Didi-Huberman, Confronting Images, p. 246.

136
Indeed the tragic outcome imagined by Proust was not caused by a "representation"
of a yellow wall, but instead by a yellow pan of colour, a "particolare of the painting,
quite simply, but efficacious, electively and enigmatically efficacious; not 'cleansed
of all matter' but, conversely, envisioned as 'precious matter', as a 'layer'; not incited
(suscité ) by a 'photographic still' of time past, but inciting (suscitant ) a tremor in time
present, something that acts all of a sudden, and that 'breaks down' the body of the
viewer, Bergotte. For such a person, the yellow in the painting by Vermeer, as
colour is a whack or a pan, a distressing zone of paint, of paint considered as
'precious' and traumatic material cause".291
After analysing the aporias, tensions and opacities of the Classic sign -
therefore swimming against the belief on its transparency - the philosopher Louis
Marin devoted a number of remarkable works to painting, among which were
Détruire la Peinture (To Destroy Painting, 1977) and the anthology of essays Opacité de la
Peinture (Opacity of Painting, 1970s-1989). With an exquisite attention to detail,
Marin's writings oscillate at a regular pace between language and image, saying and
seeing, at which turn sense stoops into the vertiginous gap, wider and richer at each
turn, the void that lies at the core of painting. With their fulgurant effects of logos
and pathos, Marin's writings re-actualise the nature of the encounter with the images
that fully deserve to be called so. For this man who met Edgar Wind in Oxford in
the late 1950s, Freud and Lacan were fundamental references. In the interview
"The concept of figurability, or the encounter between art history and psychoanaly-
sis" (1986),292 Louis Marin was asked do you have the impression that psychoanalysis,
Freudian theory, has changed things (the science of art)? He replied thus:

The encounter with psychoanalysis and with Pierre Fédida was important to
me, as was the encounter with psychoanalysis for someone of my generation.
[...] The figure of Freud is exemplary, a model. [...] If you assign to art history
the goal of being a theory of the aesthetic individual [artwork], then the
science of art, that history and that theory are, can only be based on indices,
traces and symptoms. [...] Psychoanalysis is fundamental [...], the operations
of dreams are actually visual operations; in the work of painting, not only do
these visual operations exist, but the work shows them: displacement, over-
determination, the work of figurability.293

The "work of figurability" is the over-determined critical tool par excellence: it

condenses the figurative processes described by Freud, Lyotard's elaboration on the

291 G. Didi-Huberman, Confronting Images, pp. 247-248.

292 See pp. 24-25 above.
293L. Marin, "The concept of figurability, or the encounter between art history and psychoanalysis",
pp. 55, 58 and 60.

137
"figural"294 and was appropriated, reworked and transformed by a number of
French researchers on image. Indeed this is a cornerstone of the relation of these
researchers to Freud. Eventually they may start from or refer to psychoanalytical
problems and objects (in Damisch, a childhood memory; in Marin, the Medusa of
Caravaggio, a decapitated head...) but this is not the point. The question is first and
foremost the "work of figurability", particularly that which detours and rends repre-
sentation while it is so essential to the sense and phenomenology of images, as the
example of a sober pan of colour.
In order to clarify, what pierced Bergotte in the View of Delft was not the
eventual fragment of the larger territorial ensemble called Delft, but the "work of
painting": "a work of bedazzlement, in some sense, at once self-evident, luminous,
perceptible, and obscure, enigmatic, difficult to analyse, notably in semantic or
iconic terms; for it is a work or an effect of painting as coloured material, not as
descriptive sign".295 It was not a small extension of Delft that pierced Bergotte
mortally, but a small and intense extension of the painting (this is the Barthesian
punctum). This detail, or pan in Didi-Huberman terms, is not something that is
apprehended by sight, but by (open) gaze: desire is central to this affair. Not volun-
tary desire, but always involuntary. Just as when one is browsing images, or archi-
tectural entries, as if without purpose, and then all of a sudden something arises and
catches the eye or indeed the whole being. Naturally, it is something different from
that for which Sherlock Holmes searched. As Didi-Huberman points out, the detail
or the pan is the part that threatens to devour the whole, like a "zone of coloured
intensity":

A pan does not so much delimit an object as produces a potential: something

happens, gets through, extravagates in the space of representation, it resists
"inclusion" in the picture because it makes a detonation or intrusion in it. [...]
The pan is related to Barthes' intractable; it is what tyrannizes eye and
signification, just as symptom tyrannizes and invests a body, or a fire a city.
[...] One comes upon a pan haphazardly, unexpectedly. [...] The pan leaps into
view, most often in a picture's foreground, frontally, assertively; but it still
does not lead to identification or disclosure; once discovered, it remains
problematic. [...]
Someone at ease with pans [...] is like Dupin in Poe's The Purloined Letter, who
will put on dark glasses and let what he is looking for come to him; and when
he finds it, it is not the end of a series - a last word understood as an answer -

294 Marin is likely to be the author upon whom the impact of Lyotard's book is felt more clearly. As an
example, think of the remarkable section on the "(Dé)négation" in Marin's Détruire la Peinture.
Naturally, a meditation on Freud's "Die Verneinung" ("Negation"), commented on in J. Hyppolite, "A
spoken commentary on Freud's Verneinung", in J. Lacan "Introduction..." and "Response to
J. Hyppolite..." (these three essays in J. Lacan, Écrits, cit.), and, last but not at least, commented on in
J.-F. Lyotard, Discours, Figure, which includes a new translation of Freud's essay.
295 G. Didi-Huberman, Confronting Images, pp. 248.

138
 but one specific word in an endless sequence, a ferreting out of open
questions. [...]
The mimetic detail is a semiotic object tending toward stability and closure,
while the pan, by contrast, is semiotically labile and open. The mimetic detail
presupposes a logic of identity whereby one thing will definitively be the
opposite of another (either knife, or corkscrew): which presupposes in turn
an active, figured figure, a certainty of existential judgement regarding things
seen. But the pan reveals only figurability itself, a process, a power, a not-yet
(the Latin for this is præsens), an uncertainty, [...] it shows figurability at work.
[...]
The pan should therefore be envisaged as the threshold of the iconic sign in
the sense that it constitutes [...] simultaneously its "supplementary trait" and
"indicator of lack"296 in the mimetic configuration. It does not represent
univocally an object in reality; although "figurative", it imposes itself first as a
non-iconic index of an act of paint; in this capacity, it is neither precise nor
aspectual; it is painted... like nothing; we might call it a deficient sign, a sign
dispossessed; it implies not illusion but the collapse of illusionist representa-
tion, something that might be called delusion.297

And Didi-Huberman concludes on the radical difference between mimetic detail

and coloured, formless detail, what he calls pan, by saying:

The object of the pan is not the object of the mimetic detail. The object of
detail is an object of representation of the visible world; even elevated to the
level of a symbol, it presupposes, in the last instance, an object of reality, one
that strives to delineate and render legible. Conversely, the object of the pan,
as intrusion - presence - of the pictorial in the representational system of the
picture, is a real object of paint / painting (objet réel de la peinture) in the sense that
Lacan situated the "real object" of the gaze as a "pulsatile, dazzling, and
spread-out function" in the picture itself: a function related to the
"unexpected arrival", to disturbance, to encounter, to trauma, and the drive.298
In this objet we must first hear the word jet [gush, spurt], and the prefix that
indicates the act of placing there or before us, the act of that which faces and
challenges us (nous fait front) - of which stares at us - when we look. In this
object, simultaneously intense and partial, insistent although accidental, in this

296 G. Didi-Huberman acknowledges that he borrows these notions from Louis Marin.
297 G. Didi-Huberman acknowledges that he borrows from H. Damisch, Théorie du Nuage, p. 186.
298 G. Didi-Huberman quotes from J. Lacan, Seminar XI - The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,
p. 89 and, more generally, pp. 67-119.

139
 contradictory objet we must understand the fragile moment of disfiguration
that nonetheless teaches what is figuring (ce que c'est figurer).299

If we distance ourselves from these detailed matters, what is that we see? Naturally,
it is the dichotomy of representation vs. what detours, rends and intensifies it,
representation vs. image, but also the use that a group of philosophers and art
historians, all of them gravitating around the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
in Paris, make of aspects of psychoanalytical theory, which is why I have quoted at
such length. Naturally there is as much dividing these researchers as that which they
have in common; indeed when they gather for discussion on image and related
matters, it is differences that emerge, not the ground that they have in common.
However this ground is no less real. As a counterpoint to the philosophical use of
Freud by Georges Didi-Huberman, for example, think about the relation of Carlo
Severi to Freud, which has an altogether different nature.
Carlo Severi (b1952) is an anthropologist, a member of the Laboratoire
d'Anthropologie Sociale of the Collège de France and an expert in the native cultures of
Central America. Therefore his background is significantly different from the
researchers evoked so far. While observing the exchange of symbols (both graphic
and choreographic) in situations of contact and conflict between weaker and
stronger groups (Apaches vs. Americans; Christians vs. New Mexico Indians; etc)
he realised that these symbols are characterized by contradiction. The radical and
popular conversion to the Christian faith of the Apaches Silas John and Noch-ay-
del-klinne, expressed by the claim "I am Christ" and by a remarkable resurgence of
ritualistic dances, did not celebrate the arrival of the Messiah. Indeed what
structured those rituals, in appearance impregnated with Christian devotion, was
the Apache Ghost Dance. Likewise, the superimposition of the Christian cross -
that was so smoothly adopted by native Indians - and the serpent, can be under-
stood by the structural importance for Indians of the number four (the four
seasons; the four cardinal points; etc). What colonizers initially mistook as a sign of
the conversion of natives to the Christian faith, was actually a sign of the Survival
of well-ingrained symbols and systems of beliefs. Both groups, Christians and
native Indians, perceived the same symbol within their own frames of reference.
Furthermore, as Severi points out, such appropriation of new symbols, with their
contradictory, ambivalent and paradoxical nature, is not at all a matter of "religious
syncretism",300 but rather the reiteration of the counterintuitive, complex, contradic-
tory, "parallelist" (parallelista) nature of shamanism. In this sense contradiction is not
the outcome of unnatural generation but a structural necessity. When Silas John
asked his fellows and followers to call him Jesus, he did not ply himself to the
religion of the oppressors of his people, but re-actualised a fundamental aspect of

299 Bothprevious and this quote from G. Didi-Huberman, Confronting Images, pp. 268-271 - translations
modified.
300 C. Severi, Il Percorso e la Voce, p. 266.

140
shamanism. Indeed in that way he was saying "I am Jesus because I am a
shaman",301 something not only perfectly understood but voiced so as to be under-
stood by his people in their own terms. According to Severi:

There is not the slightest trace of syncretism in the Apache messianic

movement. When the term 'Christ' is integrated into the shaman universe
(since the first attempt at bringing back to life their murdered leaders, by
dancing over their tombs) with canonical couples (jaguar and bird, woman
and tree, serpent and lightning, voice and image...) which are so essential to
the identity of the uttering of a [shaman] song, it was not the betrayal of the
shaman tradition to call Silas John also 'Christ' but, rather, a new way of
remaining faithful to it.302

Fundamental to this (non-)syncretism of opposing religious messages is the fact

that contradiction and paradox (with its serial aspect) are essential to shamanism.
Indeed Christ and prophet, Gan and Serpent, are not sets of incompatible terms,
but they perfectly fit into the shaman logic.
In the last chapter of Il Percorso e la Voce, Severi goes on to explain the
remarkable itinerary of a Christ that became Saint Sebastian and his subsequent
inversion into Dona Sebastiana, a representation of death that also inverses the
permanent threat that Indians constituted for the small communities of mission-
aries in New Mexico. This tortuous but clearly discernible line connects to the
Central European and Middle Ages' Totentanz and to the Sevillian Carreta della
Muerte, brought into the New World by Spanish missionaries, symbols that were
appropriated locally and merged with native and other Christian symbols. Dona
Sebastiana is a case of "contamination and contraction of different images" - contra-
dictory simultaneity and condensation, as Freud would have said - that strongly
intensify her. According to Severi: "The process in question in the Nachleben of the
European Triumph of Death through Dona Sebastiana includes three steps: icono-
graphic contamination, polarization of ritual meanings (active / passive) and as
result of these operations the intensification of the image that therefore becomes
particularly salient".303 The language adopted by Severi has an unmistakable
Warburghian side. He concludes as follows:

301 C. Severi, Il Percorso e la Voce, pp. 266-267.

302 C. Severi, Il Percorso e la Voce, p. 267: "Non c'è traccia di sincretismo nei movimenti messianici apache. Visto
che il termine 'Cristo' entra a far parte (fin dai primi tentativi di far risorgere i capi uccisi dai bianchi, danzando
direttamente sulla loro tomba) nell'universo sciamanico della serie di coppie canoniche (giaguaro e uccello, donna e albero,
serpente e fulmine, voce e immagine...) che definiscono l'enunciatore di un canto, chiamare Silas John anche 'Cristo' non
era un modo di tradire la tradizione sciamanica. Era un nuovo modo di restale fedele".
303 See C. Severi, Il Percorso e la Voce, p. 290: "Il processo che sembra governare la particolare Nachleben del tema
europeo del trionfo della Morte genera Dona Sebastiana include tre fasi: la contaminazione iconografica, la
polarizzazione dei significati rituali (attivo / passivo) e infine (come risultato delle due operazioni precedenti) un'intesifi-
cazione dell'immagine, che diventa cosi saliente".

141
 An image may have relations not only with a state of things, but also with
other images, or with other series of images. [...] Both cases study confirm
that the presence of negation in visual terms is characteristic of ritual
iconography. [...]
As we have seen, a number of aspects unmistakably point to the figure that
lies in the background of Dona Sebastiana (Saint Sebastian, the Christ upon
whom he triumphs), while they also detour or deny point by point (tratto per
tratto) that figure. [...]
Although images are incapable of negation in linguistic terms, they are
particularly adequate at representing paradoxes - the simultaneous coexistence
of contradictory aspects (tratti) in unresolved conflict. [...] From the
confrontation of opposed cultures, something emerges like a visual illusion,
an ambiguous figure that admits incompatible interpretations.304

Although manifestly Warburghian, this language has a latent Freudian background.

The presence of this ghost is far too perceptible and not at all contradictory
because, as already argued, there is a deep convergence between Warburg and
Freud. In broad terms, this Freud both haunts the research of anthropologists such
as Severi, with a strong structuralist background, with cognitive concerns, etc, as
well as the research of Damisch, Marin and Didi-Huberman, philosophers who in
different ways took the full consequences of the critical revolution that swept Paris
in the late 1960s. In every case, and particularly in the above mentioned cases of
Arasse, Damisch, Marin and Didi-Huberman, all of whom are more congenial to
this research, it is the critical Freud that is relevant, not the clinical or Oedipal one.
The question is not one of looking for sexual obsessions, repressed desires, the
unconscious intentions of artists or the unconscious of iconographic subjects, nor
for the keys or missing links in pictures, as had been customary in relation to
dreams (what Freud called the "symbolic reading", meaning a straightforward
symbolism). What matters is rather the "work of figurability" which Marin and
Damisch brought into and developed in the field of art history, which Arasse
developed into the "figurative network", and that Didi-Huberman developed while
proposing the theoretic frame of the "symptom" as a paradigm for the interpreta-
tion of images. Psychoanalytical theory matters not because images convey psychic
traumas or pathological states, but because the image itself can be thought as a contra-
dictory simultaneity, conveying affects, characterized by a certain "work of figura-

304 See C. Severi, Il Percorso e la Voce, pp. 299-300: "Un'immagine può avere rapporti non solo con un stato di
cose, ma anche con altre immagini, o con altre serie di immagini. [...] La presenza di una negazione espressa in termini
visivi è dunque un tratto evidente, nei due casi, dell'iconografia rituale. [...] Abbiamo visto ad esempio che una serie di
indizi indica inequivocabilmente l'immagine di sfondo cui Dona Sebastiana si rifesrisce (san Sebastiano, il Cristo su cui
trionfa), e contemporaneamente rovescia, o nega, tratto per tratto, quella figura. [...] Se non è capace di esercitare, al
modo linguistico, la negazione, l'immagine può però rappresentare, con particolare efficacia, il paradosso. La coesistenza
simultanea, nel conflitto irrisolto, di tratti contraddittori. [...] Nel confronto tra culture opposte, nasce qualcosa di simile
a un'illusione visiva, una figura ambigua che ammette interpretazioni incompatibili".

142
bility" of which traumatic nodes are an integral part. This is why, in my view with
utmost pertinence, Jacques Rancière affirms that for Louis Marin and Georges
Didi-Huberman the point is not thinking image in the light of the repressed personal
fantasy at the root of the creation of the artist or craftsman, nor does it concern
themes and sources; rather, it is thinking images in the light of the "figural" or
"visual" (dis)order that underlies their production and reception.305 The question of
the detail is, in this respect, telling. While for the Freud of Michelangelo's Moses and
of Leonardo's "childhood memory" the detail was the condensation and the miss-
ing link of an history (biblical or personal), with its typical psychoanalytical topoi,
characters and dynamics, for authors such as Marin and Didi-Huberman, the detail
tends to be a part-object (objet partiel), the emergence of an untimely truth,
something on the side of an aesthetical disorder, like the pan, or on the side of a
figural trauma (i.e. of the order of the Real). Obviously, this approach to the
interpretation of artworks and images opposes in every respect the approach
codified by the late Panofsky, based on privileging the text that they supposedly
illustrate.306

-----

In order to clarify, such use of the theories of Freud, Lacan and other eminent
French thinkers, is in every respect opposed to the use that Slavoj Zizek makes in
"The Matrix, or, the two sides of perversion", the paper that he delivered at a
conference at the Centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe in 1999.
Briefly, Zizek is an expert in Lacan, Freud, Heidegger and 20th century
French thought. He is also the author of a vast bibliography among which are a
number of books where Lacanian theory plays a prominent role, including The
Sublime Object of Ideology (1989) and Looking Awry - An introduction to Jacques Lacan
through popular culture (1991). Although drawing extensively on visual culture and,
particularly, on cinema, as the competent Lacanian and Francophile that he is,
Zizek reads films most often as examples of pure theory or of pure ideology,
without touching the figural work that is so central to Damisch, Marin or Didi-
Huberman; Slavoj Zizek's paper on the film The Matrix is an example.
According to Zizek in bold terms, The Matrix of the Wachowski brothers
(1999) is an allegory of Lacanian theory:

What, then, is the Matrix? Simply the Lacanian "big Other", the virtual
symbolic order, the network that structures reality for us. This dimension of
the "big Other" is that of the constitutive alienation of the subject in the
symbolic order: the big Other pulls the strings, the subject doesn't speak, he
"is spoken" by the symbolic structure. In short, this "big Other" is the name

305 J. Rancière, L'Inconscient Esthétique, pp. 59-60.

306 See J. Rancière, L'Inconscient Esthétique, p. 59.

143
 for the social Substance, for all that on account of which the subject never
fully dominates the effects of his acts, i.e. on account of which the final
outcome of his activity is always something else with regard to what he aimed
at or anticipated.307

Behind the reality that a supercomputer projects and which in the film is called the
Matrix (the world as we know it), there is another and truer reality (a despairing
post-apocalyptic shadow of the world we know, that Morpheus introduces to Neo).
Zizek thinks that this is one of the problems of the film, because it fails to account
for the nature of the Lacanian Real, as indeed this notion does not suppose that
behind reality there is a truer reality. Essential to the Lacanian Real is the gap, or
void, which makes reality incomplete. In this sense The Matrix is an imperfect alle-
gory of Lacanian theory. According to Zizek, there are more elements of "falsity" in
The Matrix such as "the designation of Neo as 'the One' " (for Lacan "the Thing in
itself is ultimately the gaze, not the perceived object"308), the only partial virtualisa-
tion of reality (concerning spoons, but not beings themselves) and, finally, the idea
that "the inconsistency of reality bears witness to the fact that what we experience
as reality is fake", whereas for Lacan such imperfection is at the same time "the sign
of its virtuality and the sign of its reality".309
Despite the remarkable Lacanian tour de force as usual, Zizek's interpretation is
typical of the regime of representation, since it does not think the mechanism
through which the film signifies, which is another way of saying that it privileges
both the question of meaning and philosophical and psychoanalytical literature in
the identification of the film. In Marin's terms, it does not question, investigate or
address the "work of figurability". At best Zizek affiliates the film to the sci-fiction
genre, in virtual reality distopias, etc, but this is clearly insufficient. In short, he
focuses on the question of meaning from a molar perspective without addressing
the figural work.
What can it possibly mean to research the figural work from a perspective
that considers Freud, Warburg and the French tradition of research? Without
creating another study case, it means investigating to what extent the stunning
special effects of this film, with people defying gravity by walking on the wall, on
the ceiling, etc, are at the intersection of Kung Fu, Japanese manga and animation,
computer games and comics (such as Enki Bilal), sci-fiction and action film, and
cyberpunk aesthetics, all aspects acknowledged in Josch Oreck's Making "The
Matrix". Although Zizek shows that Lacanian theory is relevant to this film, so is
Baudrillard, who is mentioned in one of the first scenes. However, in order to
understand the film, the emotional responses that it rouses and the meanings that it
conveys, it is necessary to take into consideration the figural work, i.e. the figurative

307 S. Zizek, "The Matrix, or, the two sides of perversion".

308 S. Zizek, "The Matrix, or, the two sides of perversion".
309 S. Zizek, "The Matrix, or, the two sides of perversion".

144
processes of images. Besides the obvious aspects mentioned in Making "The Matrix",
there is also the relation to Baroque painting such as the ceilings of Saint Ignazio in
Rome (1685-94) by Andrea del Pozzo, or of San Pantaleon in Venice (1680-1704)
by Gian Antonio Fumiani; also there are the flying saints of Tintoretto, the crowds
of Tiepolo and ballet, as indeed the Kung Fu of The Matrix is rather balletic. Indeed
the film is not the first cultural object in the Western world in which there is a
remarkable aestheticization of jumping, running and levitation; there is a long
history back to the Ancient world. To follow this path would have meant investi-
gating the figural work, both the surface and (contradictory, over-determined...)
depth of the network of signs of which the film is weaved and which constitutes
the infrastructure of the emotions that it rouses as well as of the molar and imper-
fect meanings that Zizek mapped.
Better than anyone, Zizek knows that the Lacanian Thing is both that which
is outside language, imagination, beyond symbolisation, the variable x, but also, in
the context of jouissance, it is the lost object of desire, the unreachable mother, that
which Lacan would develop into the "objet petit a". While Lacanian theory deserves
to be taken into account in making sense of The Matrix, since the film seems to
articulate some of its topoi, it is also clear that The Matrix is not an abstract or
immaterial emergence of "the Thing", but rather the opposite. The film is made of
specific signs, specific places, gestural codes, filmic plans, etc, that have their
surface and depth, sources and latencies. It is true to say, as the Wachowski broth-
ers do, that "it is always difficult to answer the question, where do you get your ideas
from? Nobody knows, they just sort of happen".310 But this is only half true, as
indeed it is possible to investigate where signs come from, what their latencies and
reminiscences are, and to create an idea about the effects of logos and pathos that
they produce, an evaluation that cannot do without the context of reception.

-----

The work of Gilles Deleuze (1925-95) and Félix Guattari (1930-92) is also
important for grasping the sense of the "return to Freud" that is at stake in these
pages. Guattari was a psychoanalyst trained and analysed by Lacan, by whom he
was strongly influenced but from whom he also diverged. It is the collaborative
work of Deleuze and Guattari that is crucially important for the matter in hand,
particularly the Anti-Oedipus (1972), since it is both a radical criticism of Lacanian
theory, of contemporary psychoanalysis as "discipline" (in the Foucauldian sense)
and the recovery of a number of theoretical aspects of enormous interest for
research on images.
Deleuze-Guattari's critique of psychoanalysis was developed in the following
and harsh terms:

310 See J. Oreck, Making "The Matrix", 3' 00''.

145
 Instead of participating in an understanding that will bring about genuine
liberation, psychoanalysis is taking part in the work of bourgeois repression at
its most far-reaching level, that is to say, keeping European humanity
harnessed to the yoke of daddy-mummy.311

For them, since its genesis psychoanalysis has confused the fundamental discovery
of the unconscious with what was only one of its historic and regional versions: the
bourgeois and triadic Oedipus ("father-mother-I") of late 19th and early 20th
century Vienna. As Anne Sauvagnargues aptly put it:

Psychoanalysis imposes on the unconscious the code of a specific society, the

Vienna of the turn of the century, and raises it to the condition of the nature
of the unconscious. Incapable of decoding the social conditions that inform
the production of the Viennese unconscious, psychoanalysis proceeded as if
it were an unhistorical nature of the psyche and granted it / itself an erudite
representation, under the enlightened patronage of Sophocles' theatre.312

It was the Freud of sexual, traumatic, infantile, familial and univocal determina-
tions, briefly the Oedipal Freud, that was demolished by Deleuze-Guattari's Anti-
Oedipus, an acknowledged landmark in the criticism of psychoanalysis.313 However,
by the same token and in their own way Deleuze-Guattari rescued the unconscious
with its "over-determined" production:

What Freud and the first psychoanalysts discovered was the domain of free
syntheses where everything is possible: endless connections, nonexclusive
disjunctions, nonspecific conjunctions, partial objects and flows. The
desiring-machines pound away and throb in the depths of the unconscious:
Irma's injection, the Wolf Man's ticktock, Anna's couching machine, and also
all the explanatory apparatuses set in motion by Freud, all those
neurobiological-desiring-machines. And the discovery of the productive
unconscious has what appear to be two correlates: on the one hand, the
direct confrontation between desiring-production and social production,
between symptomological and collective formations, given their identical
nature and their differing régimes; and on the other hand, the repression that

311 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, p. 54.

312 A. Sauvagnargues, Deleuze et l'Art, pp. 129-130: "La psychanalyse impose à l'inconscient le codage d'une
société déterminé, la Vienne du tournant du siècle, et l'érige en position de nature de l'inconscient. Incapable de décoder
les conditions sociales qui informent la production de l'inconscient viennois, la psychanalyse agit comme s'il s'agissait
d'une nature anhistorique du psychisme et s'en donne une représentation érudite, sous le patronage éclairé du théâtre de
Sophocle".
313 For example, Foucault considered Anti-Oedipus a major achievement (M. Foucault, "Truth and
juridical forms", pp. 16-ff; see also M. Foucault, "Preface" to Anti-Oedipus). Besides, Deleuze-Guattari
expanded earlier theses of Foucault himself (see quote of Foucault in Anti-Oedipus, p. 102).

146
 the social machine exercises on desiring-machines, and the relationship of
psychic repression with social repression. This will all be lost, or at least
compromised, with the establishment of a sovereign Oedipus. Free
association, rather than opening onto polyvocal connections, confines itself
to a univocal impasse. All the chains of the unconscious are biunivocalized,
linearized, suspended from a despotic signifier. The whole of desiring-
production is crushed, subjected to the requirements of representation, and the
dreary games of what is representative and represented in representation.314

If the Anti-Oedipus seeks to criticize psychoanalysis, it is in terms of a

conception of the unconscious that, whether right or wrong, is set out in the
book.315

To say that Marin, Arasse, Damisch and Didi-Huberman are Deleuzians would be
excessive. However, all of these authors - Guattari included - have both refused and
yet recovered Freud very much in the terms of the above quote: refusal of the
disciplinary, authoritative, orthodox and familial aspects of Freudianism and
psychoanalysis, the Oedipal Freud; nonetheless, there is also the acknowledgement
of Freud's critical importance, an enterprise in which both Lacan (insofar as he
liberated Freud from the orthodox and trivial, "American", Freudianism) and
Lyotard played prominent roles.

-----

In the Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus (1980) Deleuze-Guattari develop a new

idea of thought and research known (and often misunderstood) as the "rhizome".
The rhizome is a methodological manifesto aimed at overcoming the so-called
"tree" that limits research to prestigious ancestors, origins and roots, and that
submits thought to the progression from principles to consequences, whether by
imposing the law of reasoning from the general to particular or by claiming that
knowledge is, once and for all, founded in a bedrock of truth. The rhizome consti-
tutes a warning against the error of founding thought and research on points of
origin and starting principles and against the prejudice constituted by good and
given methods, authors, rules for thought, clichés, etc. The rhizome warns against
sedentary thought: the "tree" that narrows the work of thought and research. It is
an invitation to nomadism and experimentation, since no relevant progress can be
expected but through unpredictable encounters and unforeseen angles,316 as if the
result of the Marlamean throw of dice. It is a part of Deleuze-Guattari's theory of
multiplicities and proliferations, the moving ground where everything is

314 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, p. 61.

315 G. Deleuze, "On Philosophy", p. 145.
316 See F. Zourabichvili, Le Vocabulaire de Deleuze, pp. 71-73.

147
(un)founded. This is important for the present research as indeed as soon as one
starts seeing images in the light of the symptom it clearly emerges that they are
multiplicities or bodies-without-organs in the Deleuzean sense. Thinking Holl's
images as having "a" referent or "a" meaning (the manifest ones) would be confining
them to "a" world, whereas at least in the light of Tuula Arkio's gaze they have
opened up to a moving flux of images and other materials.
Deleuze-Guattari summarized and developed their conception of the uncon-
scious in A Thousand Plateaus. In the short chapter two, "1914: One or several
wolves?", they theorized on the unconscious and on molecular multiplicities.
Although they recognized that Freud "tried to approach the crowd phenomena
from the point of view of the unconscious", they blame him for not seeing it
clearly: "he did not see that the unconscious itself was fundamentally a crowd".317
Freud boiled down multiplicity onto unity, vital openness onto order and, in
Deleuze-Guattari terms, body-without-organs onto organism. For them it is the
intensive body-without-organs that is primary: "the body-without-organs is not a
dead body but a living body all the more alive and teeming once it has blown apart
the organism and its organization. [...] The full body-without-organs is a body
populated by multiplicities".318 A few pages ahead they explain that the "multiplic-
ity" in its substantive form does not refer to the dialectical opposition of the
"multiple" and the "one": neither "a numerical fragment of a lost Unity or Totality",
nor the "organic element of a Unity or Totality yet to come".319 It is multiplicity that
is constitutive of everything, including the one: "multiplicities [...] do not presup-
pose unity of any kind, do not add up to a totality, and do not refer to a subject.
Subjectivations, totalizations and unifications are in fact processes which are
produced and appear in multiplicities".320 There is a particular character that embod-
ies the primal qualities of the multiplicity: the schizoid; he is the anti-Oedipus.
Thinking the unconscious from the side of the schizoid instead of Oedipus entails a
major consequence for what concerns unconscious production: the passage from
the realm of representation to the realm of production and machine: "the uncon-
scious functions like a factory and not like a theatre (a question of production, and
not of representation)";321 and for what concerns the sources of this production:
"the unconscious isn't playing around (ne délire pas) all the time with mummy and
daddy, but with races, tribes, continents, history and geography, always some social
frame".322 These shifts entail a major consequence: the caducity of the question of
meaning to the profit of functioning:

317 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 33.

318 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 34.
319 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 36.
320 G. Deleuze, "Preface to the Italian edition of A Thousand Plateaus", p. 315.
321 G. Deleuze, "Preface for the Italian edition of A Thousand Plateaus", p. 314.
322G. Deleuze, "On Philosophy", p. 145; see also G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, "Preface to the Italian
edition of A Thousand Plateaus", p. 314; and G. Deleuze and F Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, p. 386.

148
 The unconscious poses no problems of meaning, solely problems of use.
The question posed by desire is not what does it mean? but rather how does it
work? How do these machines, these desiring-machines - yours and mine -
work? With what sort of breakdowns as a part of their functioning? [...] A
tractable gear is greased or, on the contrary, an infernal machine is made
ready. What are the connections, what are the disjunctions, the conjunctions,
what use is made of syntheses? It represents nothing, but it produces. It
means nothing, but it works. Desire makes its entry with the general collapse
of the question what does it mean? 323

The book becomes a "machinic assemblage":324 Kafka - Toward a minor literature

(1975), A Thousand Plateaus (1980) and Francis Bacon - The Logic of Sensation (1981).
For Deleuze there is art where form opens onto such heterogeneous and
intensive multiplicities, where there is over-determination properly speaking. And
this is where desiring-machines are at work, naturally a paradoxical work: "desiring-
machines continually break down as they run, and in fact run only when they are
not functioning properly"; "in desiring machines everything functions at the same
time, but amid hiatuses and ruptures, breakdowns and failures, within a sum that
never succeeds in bringing its various parts together so as to form a whole"325 - "the
work of art is itself a desiring-machine".326 In this context the task of research is
certainly not to look for the whole or the totality that they are supposed to repre-
sent:

Research is a machine. The modern artwork is whatever you want, this, that
and even something else, it is its property being whatever one wants, of
having the over-determination of what one wants, as long as it works: the
modern artwork is a machine and functions as such [...]. To logos, organ and
organon, for which it is necessary to find the meaning at the level of the
totality to which it belongs, opposes the anti-logos, machine and machinery
whose sense (whatever you want) only depends on the functioning, and the
functioning on the detached parts. The modern artwork poses no problems
of meaning, it poses nothing but problems of usage.327

323 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, p. 119 - translation slightly modified.

324 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 6.
325 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, pp. 34, 45.
326 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, p. 34.
327 G. Deleuze, Proust et les Signes, pp. 175-176: "La recherche est une machine. L'œuvre d'art moderne est tout ce
qu'on veut, ceci, cela, et encore cela, c'est même ça propriété d'être tout ce qu'on veut, d'avoir la surdétermination de ce
qu'on veut, du moment que ça marche: l'œuvre d'art moderne est une machine et fonctionne à ce titre [...]. Au logos,
organe et organon dont il faut découvrir le sens dans le tout auquel il appartient, s'oppose l'anti-logos, machine et machi-
nerie dont le sens (tout ce qui vous voudrez) dépend uniquement du fonctionnement, et le fonctionnement des pièces
détaches. L'œuvre d'art moderne n'a pas problème de sens, elle n'a qu'un problème d'usage".

149
 -----

Such views on art and on the role of research are not unconnected, I think, with the
enterprise of Warburg. Indeed it seems to me that in his most important writings,
including those that I have commented on, he posed the question to himself how
does it work? looking for answers beyond received ideas about what is art, about the
Florentine advances in the realistic representation of space, etc. He found the
answers on the side of over-determined multiplicities. In this sense and properly
speaking, the rediscovery of Warburg is in the full sense of the word a contempo-
rary rediscovery. It is as if history had been running towards Warburg, with Lacan,
Foucault, Lyotard, the reassessment of Freud and Deleuze as major emergences in
this history. In several respects, this is indeed what happened to the "psychotic"
Warburg,328 who had an acute awareness that he did not belong to his own time but,
eventually, to a time yet to come. As Gertrud Bing remarked:

There was an apple-tree in the garden of his home which seemed dead and
would have been removed but for Warburg's protest. In 1929, the year of
Warburg's death [while he was working on his atlas], at the end of October,
this old tree had suddenly and unaccountably begun to flower, and the last
words in Warburg's handwriting, found in the morning after his death, were
concerned with it. They were: "who will sing me the paen [the hymn in
honour of Apollo], the song of thanksgiving, in praise of the fruit-tree which
flowers so late?"329

-----

In both pieces of research images are therefore interpreted from a perspective that
owes much to Freud, Warburg and the lens of the French thinkers working in this
and relevant fields; because it was the latter who had mapped in Freud's theory an
altogether new and fundamental symbolic regime, a light within which the sense of
Warburg's enterprise emerges in its full extension. However, although this research
is informed by theory it is not focused on it; theory is important for the light that it
sheds into images, but what it makes visible is not theory itself, rather something
much more mobile and heterogeneous. Therefore, I now wish to return to the
focus on images.

328 See the early assessment of Warburg's mental condition that Binswanger expressed to Freud in a
letter of 8 November 1921, reproduced in G. Didi-Huberman, L'Image Survivante, p. 364.
329 G. Bing, "A. M. Warburg", p. 304. See also G. Didi-Huberman, L'Image Survivante, pp. 503-ff.

150
7. Determination and over-determination in Holl's "hands"
7.1. Determination: "chiasma", "intertwining", "hands", "porosity"
and Merleau-Ponty

From the first moment, Steven Holl put forward three images that became indistin-
guishable from his proposition and from the building: firstly, "chiasma", or chiasm,
the name that Holl gave to the anonymous entry and which was retained for
renaming the institution; secondly, a "handmade" model; thirdly, the image of
"hands". The latter is rather important as it makes explicit an insistence that is
pervasive and constant. Whenever Steven Holl presents the project, whether in
person or in printed form, he mentions that "Kiasma is like two hands clasping
each other". In June 1993, only about one month after the announcement of the
competition results, the magazine Arkkitehti / Finnish Architectural Review had already
published the winning entry and an article based on an interview with Steven Holl
recorded back in 1989. Apart from the exhibition of the competition results and the
publication in the media of one or other image, this was the first example of an
extensive presentation of the winning entry actually preceding the publishing of the
competition results themselves (Arkkitehtuurikilpailuja, 5, 1993). Steven Holl con-
cluded a short text on the proposition as follows:

With Chiasma there is the hope of confirming that architecture, art, and
culture are not separate disciplines but are an integral part of the city and the
landscape. Through care in development of details and materials, the new
museum will provide a dynamic and yet subtle spatial form extending towards
the city in the south and the landscape to the north. The geometry has both
an interior mystery and an exterior horizon which, like two hand clasping each
other, form the architectonic equivalent of a public invitation. In referring
back to the landscape, the interiors are reversible, forming the site which in
this special place and circumstance is a synthesis of building and landscape...
a Chiasma.330

This idea of the intertwining of a line of water ("nature"), and two parts of a build-
ing (one referring metaphorically to the "city", as continuing the city grid, the
straight part of the building, the other referring to "culture", the curved part of the
building) was clearly put forward in the four panels entered, namely at the foot of
panel 1 (see figs 31, 38). Although the A3 summary that Steven Holl handed in,

330 S. Holl, "Chiasma - Notes on design", p. 31, in Arkkitehti, 4/5, 1993 - emphasis added.

151
together with the copy of the panels reduced to A3 size, was not kept,331 some jury
members and other people involved in the competition think that the text
published in Arkkitehti was the same or very similar.332 Either way, what is relevant
from our point of view is the coincidence, from a very early date, of the following
elements indicated above: the "intertwining" of the line of water with a straight part
of construction and the curved one (the three lines of "nature", "city" and
"culture"), "chiasm(a)" and "hands". These images of "intertwining", "chiasm" and
"hands" are sound borrowings from the important cultural-philosophical reference
constituted by the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-61). Indeed, "Chiasm -
The Intertwining" is a key chapter of Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the Invisible, the
posthumous publication of the chapters and notes for the book on which Merleau-
Ponty was working at the time of his death. Also the image of "two hands clasping
each other", is a fundamental image traversing Merleau-Ponty's work. He puts it
forward in the Phenomenology of Perception (1945) and returns to it in the key chapter
of November 1959 of The Visible and the Invisible (published in 1964). Obviously, the
notions borrowed by Holl are not in relation to any virtual architectural or spatial
referent. Yet, they are fully determined, insofar as they are in a straightforward
relation to a rather specific cultural reference.

-----

In the first phase of his work Merleau-Ponty was committed to demonstrating the
fundamental, pre-reflexive, continuity between world and body, and what mattered
in this continuity for thinking perception. The Phenomenology of Perception is the apex
of this enterprise. He argued that understanding embodied experience, chiefly
perception, implied thinking beyond the dichotomy empiricism / idealism, as well
as object / subject, world / self, body / mind, etc. That is to say, in an empiricist
perspective one is a thing (an object) and in an idealistic perspective a constitutive
being (a subject); for the former, things are given and prior to subjects; for the
latter, it is the subject that constitutes reality. Although, science can imply, for
instance, the ideal constitution of a detached consciousness which observes facts
from the world, the knowledge of how humans act and make sense of it cannot be
based on such grounds. For Merleau-Ponty we are our bodies and the lived experi-
ence of our bodies denies the dichotomies object / subject, body / mind, etc. The
perceiving mind is an incarnated body in a situation. Consequently, this notion of
being in a situation means that we are never spectators, as if abstracted from our-
selves and from our situation. From an existential point of view, there is, therefore,
no distinction between the act of perceiving and the thing perceived, this to the

331 As specified in the Brief... See p. 62 and note 93 above.

332After the receiving of the preliminary assessments to this dissertation I have checked this once
more with some of my Finnish interlocutors and with Steven Holl. The former have confirmed what I
had previously ascertained while I did not get a conclusive reply from the latter.

152
point that Merleau-Ponty ends up arguing that in life there are no perceptions at
all.333 Along the same line, Merleau-Ponty also argues against the separation and
sequence of a biological perception followed by the intellectual interpretation of it.
As made clear by the experiment of perceiving a black and white contour picture
either as a vase or as two profiles face to face (depending on whether one considers
the centre to be the foreground or the background, respectively), perception is
never merely passive sensory stimulation but always an act of choice, though to a
large extent involuntary. As Merleau-Ponty put it, perception is "creative recep-
tivity". The body with its wisdom, thing and mind, things and self, are always at
work. Merleau-Ponty gives evidence of this with the clasping of one's hands:

There is a relation of my body to itself which makes it the vinculum of the

self and things. When my right hand touches my left, I am aware of it as a
"physical thing." But at the same moment, if I wish, an extraordinary event
takes place: here is my left hand as well, starting to perceive my right.334

This is neither the impassive touch of two objects, nor the plenitude of the
encounter of the self with the self. Rather, each hand is both felt and in a subjec-
tive-reflexive position, feels the other as otherness. But this reflexive position is
both a bodily situation and a situation that can be reversed: the hand that touches
can change position with the touched. Since, therefore, the position of the two
hands is reversible, right and left hand cannot be fully distinguished; their experi-
ence is always different (touching / being touched) and they are not identical. This
is the singular condition of the body, its being both sentiment and sensible (in this
sense, seeing a portrait, of oneself or of someone else, is like touching one's hand).
The paradoxical condition of the other being me - whether this other is a person,
an animal, an image, an idea - is only paradoxical from an axiomatic viewpoint that
constitutes the other as other, the subject as subject, the object as object, etc, i.e.
that constitutes each of these realities as distinct. However, these separations make
no sense at all from an existential standpoint, as many domains of our personal
existence demonstrate. For instance, a serious personal injury is usually perceived as
an injury to the wholeness of oneself, rather than to one's body. Or if there is a fire
at home, in which one's possessions are completely lost, that loss is a part of the
affected person. Similarly, if a terrorist attacks a town, it is not only about a number
of dead and their families, but it touches a whole city. Finally, within the experience
of driving a car, there is an embodied knowledge of its dimensions, mobility and
plasticity, necessary for the act of parking it.335

333 SeeM. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, p. 281. Deleuze's definition of "perception", that I
have placed at the beginning of this dissertation (p. 17) and that I have identified with "image",
converges in relation to Merleau-Ponty's position, as it already considers the subject, through the gaze
(the inner image).
334 M. Merleau-Ponty, Signs, p. 166.
335 M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, p. 165.

153
 In the second phase of Merleau-Ponty's work, the main outcome is the
already quoted and fragmentary The Visible and the Invisible. Here, Merleau-Ponty
goes beyond the reflection on perception in order to address ontological questions,
that is, what is it that makes existence, the relation with others, thought, etc, possi-
ble at all? Merleau-Ponty thought that his earlier work, the Phenomenology of Perception,
was still constructed from an idealistic position, in other words, still implying the
subject / object dichotomy, which it was necessary to overcome. He saw it as still
the work of a philosopher in a vantage point in relation to the world. One objection
to his previous work was that he thought of the continuity of body and world as
pre-reflexive, whereas these were a product of his craft as philosopher. A pre-
reflexive cogito does not exist without and before language, but rather through
language (in the broadest possible sense). As we have seen, previously he did not
blur the dichotomy body / mind. Likewise, in The Visible and the Invisible pairs such
as being touched / touching, sensible / sentiment, are kept; thus differences are not
blurred, as this is perceived as being necessary and constitutive of existence and
subjectivity. But he would add a fundamental dimension to the reversibility of being
touched / touching and between the two: a difference and an interruption. Being
touched and touching are not only different, not only reversible, as they open to
another possibility: that of being touched by others. When one touches one knows
/ learns one may be touched, and this encroachment is constitutive of our embod-
ied subjectivity. Merleau-Ponty argues that body / mind, object / subject, and many
other dualisms, are chiasmatically associated. The world ceases to be an object. This
does not mean that the dualisms were blurred to the point of their indifference, that
my body came to coincide with the world...

...on the contrary, this occurs because a sort of dehiscence opens my body in
two, and because between my body looking and my body looked at, my body
touched and my body touching, there is overlapping or encroachment, so that
we may say that the things pass into us, as well as we into the things.336

Thus, Merleau-Ponty uses the "two hands that clasp each other" and "chiasm" for
describing the overlapping of a pair that is constituted by non-identical elements, a
pair that is reversible and reflexive, with the possibility of stoppage encoded and
opening to the other. One might say that touching contains the phantasm of being
touched.

-----

336 M. Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, p. 123.

154
Although the four main books of Steven Holl have an exquisite architectural
character the reference to phenomenology is nonetheless constant,337 and indeed he
himself published on phenomenology.338 Furthermore, a number of articles, essays
and academic researches by other authors also bring Steven Holl together with
phenomenology and such authors as Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Merleau-
Ponty.
On June 2-7, 2005, the 29th annual conference of the International Associa-
tion of Philosophy and Literature (IAPL) was held in Helsinki. Tributes were paid
to Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth,
and to Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), who had died shortly before. Steven Holl was
the "keynote speaker" and delivered a lecture at Kiasma Theatre, consisting of an
overview of his built and theoretical production. It was entitled Porosity, which was
the name of the catalogue of the 2006 exhibition in Tokyo on Holl's work.
However, "porosity" is also another concept borrowed from Merleau-Ponty.
Although the notions-images of "chiasma", "intertwining", "hands" and, now,
"porosity" are markers of Holl's explicit adhesion to phenomenology, there is a
radical difference between Holl's use of these "notions" and Merleau-Ponty's prior
elaboration of homonymous "concepts". That is to say, essentially and at best, Holl
works with "notions-images" which, while derived from Merleau-Ponty, are neither
equivalent nor symmetrical to his "concepts". For example, whereas the "chiasma"
of Holl relates the intertwining of two bodies of construction and a line of water,
the "chiasm" of Merleau-Ponty, to put it simply, designates the encroachment
between subject and object, touching and being touched, etc. The architect adds a
petit a to the concept of the philosopher and this makes a big difference. In other
words, it seems to me that Holl's notions-images have precisely the nature of images,
i.e. what he puts forward are over-determined images. And I believe this is the case
for three main reasons.
Firstly, returning to the occasion of the IAPL conference and specifically to a
session on Steven Holl's "architectural and written" work, the architect responded
to the lecturers delivering papers, three of whom interpreted Holl's work in the
light of Merleau-Ponty's concepts and thought.339 Holl's reaction was an appeal not
to confuse his work with that of Merleau-Ponty, as if he was a kind of architectural
translator. He said:

S. Holl, Anchoring (1989-91); S. Holl, Intertwining (1998); S. Holl, Parallax (2000); and S. Holl,
337

Luminosity / Porosity (2006).

338 S.
Holl, J. Pallasmaa and A. Pérez-Gómez, "Questions of Perception - Phenomenology of Architec-
ture" (1994).
339Robert Mugerauer, "Embodied Perception - Enacting colour vision"; Patricia Locke, "Visibility, in
two and three dimensions"; Rachel McCann, "Chiasmi in Holl". Papers delivered June 5, 2005, 14h-
17h30, at Kiasma Theatre. A recording of the five presentations and Steven Holl's responses is
available.

155
 I feel that my use of Merleau-Ponty is a misuse...340

This means that the architect, who is partly responsible for the entwining of his
activity with the work of the philosopher, is also aware that this is not a straight-
forward relation to the letter or ideas of the philosopher, but that it is eventually
problematic, paradoxical and contradictory.
Secondly, no matter how insistently a philosophical affiliation may be
stressed, whether by Holl or by his commentators, this does not mean that there is
a relation between architecture and philosophy, nor a relation between the practice
of Steven Holl and his theoretical activity. Should these relations exist then it
should be possible to prove it, which has not yet been the case. Furthermore, the
claiming of such a relation between architecture and philosophy is an old common-
place in the Western world, a typical way of determining architecture and visual
arts, and of granting prestige to what were once considered to be "mechanical" arts.
It no longer applies as we are far too well aware. Although we recognize that there
are a number of meaningful associations that can be made between Holl and
Merleau-Ponty, this is mainly due to the sensorial richness of some of Holl's built
works (an aspect that Merleau-Ponty himself addresses) rather than to a structural
or deep identity between the work of the architect and that of the philosopher. It is
one thing to see the points of contact that Holl consciously cultivates, but quite
another to pretend that Holl's insistence on the notions-images at stake sanction a
relation between the architect, his architecture, and a philosophical corpus at large.
It is, of course, a prerogative of any author to quote or evoke whatever and
whoever he likes, but this is no guarantee of such an affiliation. Besides, one has
difficulty in seeing more than a superficial relation between Holl's notions-images
and Merleau-Ponty's concepts. Clearly, the practice, theory and mythology of the
architect, and the work of the philosopher lie in rather different realms. On the one
hand, the philosopher did not predicate any architectural, spatial or plastic forms
that the architect might develop. On the other, the architecture of Steven Holl
neither exploits the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty nor exhausts itself within
this philosophy. There is much more in Holl's "hands" than the mere reference to
the work of Merleau-Ponty. Indeed, I believe that Holl's phenomenological
affiliation has been like the tree that hides the forest (read: grass), as the philoso-
phical line, acting in the ideological role, conceals the multiplicity, heterogeneity and
heterochronism of the notions-images that Holl puts forward. At best, Merleau-
Ponty's philosophy is only one determination among others.
In reality, an architectural proposition is fundamentally a system of images and
the outcome of a process of transformation of images, of functional and technical
determinations, among others which may eventually include philosophical refer-
ences and hypotheses. There is nothing particularly exceptional about this and
acknowledging it is certainly not wrong. What is highly questionable is the massive

340 See previous note.

156
identification of the work and creative process of an architect with such a philoso-
phical corpus at the expense of any other determination. On the other hand, equally
questionable is the symmetrical claim that there is nothing but architecture. One
has only to look at the early sketches and models341 of Kiasma to realize that the
proposition is the outcome of a process of formal development and transformation
which naturally encompasses certainties, hesitations and deadlocks (figs 103-106).
In other words, to persist in the claim that notions-images derive from a prestigious
system of philosophy, denies the much broader horizons of these images and there-
fore it constitutes a fallacy. For example, in Holl's work there is a watercolour refer-
ring to a later project, the Belvedere Art Museum in Washington, which presents a
choreographic-bodily-conceptual image of a hand (fig 107) that neither reduces it to
an abstract notion, nor to its bodily dimension. This hand is at once an idea-
mechanism, a thing or the part of a body, and a gesture, i.e. it is an over-determined
image. In my view, it works rather well in making sense of Kiasma's "clasping of
hands", far better than the reference to Merleau-Ponty.
Whether or not the work of Holl is determined by philosophy, the continua-
tion of such argument perpetuates the acceptance of a contiguity between the
forms and the intentions of its author, which happen to repeat the common place
entanglement of arts with philosophy, therefore constituting something like a
mythology. Meanwhile, the perspective of the fundamental role of beholders is
neglected. Although the pair author-image is important, it does not ultimately endow
meaning to these open symbols, but rather should be the task of their beholders,
with their own memory and imagination. Obviously, the philosophical affiliation of
Holl should not orient the research on the reception of his entry, since the outcome
of an architectural competition is clearly about the successful encounter of images
with their beholders, whose gaze and the dispositions that structure it, may or may
not coincide with the author's dispositions. Instead of the author-image, what
matters for us is the pair image-beholder, with all the creative freedom that
beholders possess both to read and misread images. As Merleau-Ponty posited, per-
ception is "creative reception"; or, as Deleuze would later propose, it is the
encounter of an "exterior image" with an "inner one", i.e. with a gaze.
Thirdly and most important, this implication of a parallel between Chiasma
and the work of Merleau-Ponty was not mentioned by any jury member nor other
people whom I met during the fieldwork in Helsinki. No one identified Holl's
"hands" with Merleau-Ponty's, nor was it accepted when I proposed it.
In a review of an earlier version of this dissertation, Kari Jormakka argued
that "the metaphor of hands is meaningful in many contexts, including that of
Merleau-Ponty's philosophy" and that "for any person versed in Merleau-Ponty's
philosophy, the title of Holl's entry, Chiasma, might well evoke the image of hands
or handshake".342 As to this comment, one could say that the title "might well"

341 See Steven Holl, 1986-2003, a special number of the review El Croquis, 2003, p. 24.
342 K. Jormakka, unpublished review of earlier version of this dissertation, dated 17-2-2008, pp. 6-7.

157
evoke both Merleau-Ponty and hands, but in the present circumstance the hands
lead neither to Merleau-Ponty nor does the title lead to hands.343

-----

Thus, the focus on the implication between architecture and philosophy is not
entirely wrong since to some extent Holl seems to borrow from Merleau-Ponty.
However, if we proceed along the canonical line that has been followed by much
architectural critique it would mean focusing on a common place in the inter-
pretation of arts. Rather, the images that Holl put forward both directly and
indirectly - the "hands" image and the "handmade" model - open other possibilities
for gaze and there are other alternatives for their interpretation that are congenial to
the context in which the entry was received and assessed. Although it is not entirely
wrong to follow the canonical line, it is inadequate as an explanation of why he won
this particular competition. Indeed, if the aim of research is to bring that world in
which we think closer to that in which we see, it is those latter possibilities that are
crucially important to explore, because it is necessary to take into consideration
what it is that those idealistic conceptions overshadow or indeed censure: that is,
people perceive images in their own terms, not in those cherished by critics and
theorists. Focusing on the implications inherent in both architecture and philoso-
phy would have meant dismissing images, their over-determination, the fact that they
may relate to other references and images and as such are touched by a funda-
mental openness which is particularly plastic in relation to the frames of reference,
culture, memory and the imagination of their beholders. In particular, Merleau-
Ponty was not so fundamental for Tuula Arkio, who had a final word in the deci-
sion. What was important was that those images moved and merged well in her
world. It therefore seemed important to me to explore such images from the
viewpoint of Helsinki and vice versa, Helsinki through this image.

7.2. Over-determination: a network of "hands"

No matter how hard the architect may have worked in order to determine his
"hands", this is an over-determined image: it not only connects to important critical
references but also to a fundamental ritual of socialization, to a vast web of other
images and to entities deeply introjected into the social and artistic unconsciousness;
it is a contradictory simultaneity forming an open constellation that includes heterogeneous and
heterochronic materials. This constellation is an integral part of the frames of reference
of the people that made their way through that part of late 20th century culture

343 With the possible exception of Kai Wartiainen who must have recognized Holl's entry, and there-
fore may have related the title with the importance that Merleau-Ponty has for Holl. Nonetheless, we
talked about the hands image and he did not relate it to Merleau-Ponty.

158
which can properly be named "aesthetic". It is important to bear in mind that it is
the beholder who bestows meaning and sense on an image, not the architect who
anonymously shipped the entry from the U.S.A.
What, then, is the network which likely sustains or provides the conditions
for the visibility of Holl's "hands"?
In the first instance hands are mediators in a fundamental ritual of social life:
the handshake. But they may also be aggressive enough to beat and even kill. They
are also the organs of touch, of the sensual and erotic sense par excellence,
particularly in Finland, where the economy of touch can be rather frugal. But hands
are also the instruments of work and they are everywhere in Finland, a country
characterized by a late process of modernization and still with a fresh memory of
the recent rural and industrial past. Indeed, there is a telling and realistic sculpture
celebrating hands and work, in the House of Culture, the building that Alvar Aalto
(1898-1976) designed for the Communist Party of Finland. This is Aalto's best
building in Helsinki and a masterpiece, situated in the working class district of
Kallio. The sculpture is by Wäino Aaltonen (1894-1966; fig 108) and descends
perfectly from a long tradition of the representation of the architect who handed the
project, typically the model, to the mighty and divine. This implied a whole
choreography of which the hands are a fundamental aspect (figs 109, 110, also 153).
Furthermore, hands have always played a crucial role in portraits of the artist and
the architect (figs 152, 153). Aaltonen's hand is the hand of "the builder", that is to
say, of both Aalto who created the House of Culture and of the Communist Party
members who built it with their hands.
In the late 1960s, a young artist named Kimmo Kaivanto (b1932) arrived
from the Prague Spring and fascinated his contemporaries with a remarkable and
openly political series of prints, first exhibited at the Artek Gallery in 1969. Hands
and fingers were detached from a body, marching, working, politically incorrect,
saluting and cogitating (figs 111-114). Shortly after he would craft a column of
fingers for the lobby of the Town Hall (fig 115). It is ostensibly reminiscent of
Brancusi's Endless column (installed in Romania in 1938). However, its title - Chain
(Positive visionary diagonal), Dedicated to the friendship between European peoples (1972) -
foretells a rapid, deep and irreversible creative exhaustion. Though Kaivanto's
career started well, with some exquisitely Magrittian objects (fig 116), by the late
1990s, he was burnt out, though still dreaming of references such as Giacometti
(1901-66; figs 117, 118), who himself developed a whole aesthetics of hands,
including the relation between hands and space: hands detached from a body,
holding the void, defining space or caged (figs 119-123).
There are also some remarkable and well-known Pop hands. First and fore-
most Roy Lichtenstein's (1923-97) pointing hand, in the 1963 poster of the Ameri-
can Pop Art exhibition, at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm (fig 124). This influential
exhibition introduced Pop art from the affluent U.S.A. to the Swedish public and
Nordic artists. Short after, Paul Osipow (b1939) would paint his Gloves (fig 125),
which are simultaneously on their way to shaking hands and yet are imprisoned in

159
the grid. In fact, these are not hands at all but work gloves serially distributed on
the canvas. It is a strange irony that whereas Andy Warhol (1928-87) produced a
series of portraits of Mao, Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Kennedy and other
American stars, Osipow gave Finns a series of work gloves.
The already mentioned spatial and detached hands of Giacometti are just a
tiny part of the much larger and varied folder of Surrealistic hands and gloves and
these are often openly erotic, derisory and fetishistic as in the case of a very beauti-
ful reliquary left by André Breton (1896-1966), Poème-objet (fig 126), who also left
the following "woman's glove" (see fig 127):

I also remember the playful suggestion made one day, in my presence, to a

woman on a visit to us at the "Centrale Surréaliste", proposing that she give us
one of the amazing sky-blue gloves she was wearing, and my panic when I
saw she was about to consent, how I begged her not to do any such a thing. I
don't know what could have been so terribly, marvellously decisive for me in
the thought of that glove leaving that hand forever. Yet this did not assume
its greatest, its true proportions, I mean those which it has retained, until the
moment when this woman proposed to come back and lay on the table, on
the very spot where I had so fervently hoped she would not leave the blue
glove, a bronze glove she possessed and which since then I have seen at her
home - also a woman's glove, the cuff folded over, the fingers flat - a glove I
can never resist picking up, always astonished at its weight and interested only
in comparing its precise weight against the other glove which would not have
weighed anything at all.344

Un Chien Andalou (see fig 128), the film that Luis Buñuel (1900-83) wrote with
Salvador Dalí (1904-89) making use of free associations, is a monument to their
multiplicity and openness, as indeed there are many different hands. In the opening
sequence (sequence 1), the deprivation of gaze is the work of a hand razor.345 While
hands are the main protagonists of this film, significantly there are no working
hands at all. The male character gropes the breasts (4) - or ass, maybe - of the
female character. In one of the scenes, the hand of the male character is pierced
and from the hole ants emerge (2). It seems to derive from the French expression
"having ants in the hand", suggesting that someone is dealing with an urge to kill.
But why are they coming from a hole, as if from the hands of the crucified? These
and other questions remain open. In an intermediate sequence (3), an androgynous
daydreamer touches with a walking-cane a cut-off hand lying in the street. It will
become apparent that it had fallen from his / her wallet. A small and agitated
crowd gathers around this character, depicting a sort of hole in the street from a

344 A. Breton, Nadja, pp. 55-56; idem, in Surrealism - Desire unbound, p. 141 - translations modified.
345Although this is an overtly rhetoric scene, as one realizes that the eye that is mutilated is that of a
goat, it is highly effective as truly unbearable.

160
bird's eye view (last image of sequence 3). The pierced hand is also seen in a later
sequence (5), in a totally different context, invalidating the possibility of a straight-
forward interpretation of its meaning. But the fact that neither the meaning of this
motive nor of any other motive is directly accessible does not mean that the film
has no sense. Indeed sense is given by the rhythmic return of the same motives, in a
film whose soundtrack has both pasodoble and Wagner. As Deleuze points out, the
hands, the holes, a thinning cloud which bisects a full moon, "actualised" by the
razor that bisects the eye..., all of this constitutes a specific configuration. No longer
a "recollection-image" (an image that recollects), affected by disturbances and
failures of recognition (as in Italian neo-realism), but a "dream-image", a virtual
image that becomes actual in a following image, which then itself plays the role of
virtual image being actualised in a third one and so on to infinity: "the dream is not
a metaphor but a series of anamorphoses which sketch out a very large circuit".346
This is not unlike Holl's "hands" which are actualised by other and different images,
on and on, drawing a circuit of which they are both a part and the driving force.
In 2004-05 I did fieldwork in Helsinki with the support of the Centre for
Urban and Regional Studies (YTK, in Otaniemi). Naturally my colleagues were
acquainted with some of the basic hypotheses I was working on. Among these, of
course, were that images like those Holl puts forward of "hands" do not have one
single source, but rather a multiplicity, not forming a coherent whole, but an
heterogeneous and heterochronic one, constituted by artistic and non artistic refer-
ences, iconographic references and remnants of practices, forming an open and
mobile folder (open to the gaze of the researcher). My colleague Rikhard Manninen
eventually recollected from memory the most remarkable pair of hands. These are
in two video clips that were shown for decades in the prime time of Finnish televi-
sion, YLE, introducing the presentation of short educational films such as "it is
dangerous to walk on thin ice", "do not drive after drinking spirituous liquor", and
the like.347
In the first black and white spot, after a snapping of fingers the hand points
and moves towards the spectator (fig 129); a choreography remarkably reminiscent
of Lichtenstein's pointing hand (fig 124). Later, in the early 1980s, it would be
withdrawn, perceived as being too aggressive, imposing and authoritarian. The
second spot is in colour. After the snapping of fingers the hand opens with a candle
flame lit at its centre (fig 130).348 Everybody in Finland today of working age knows
these clips. When I showed them on the occasion of presentations of my research
topic, a special and strong empathy was perceptible from the Finnish auditorium.
At this moment images showed their radical truth, as if there was no theatre of

346 G. Deleuze, Cinema 2 - The Time-image, p. 56.

347 Thanks to H. Hänninen from YLE for making these videos available to me.
348Between one and the other video clip, in 1982 Urho Kekkonen (1900-86) left the stage of Finnish
politics.

161
vision. No further explanations were needed, just like Barthes' "I-love-you".349
These images had left a lasting imprint on my interlocutors. When I asked them
what it was that these images, meaningless in themselves, brought back to mind,
there were a most amazing range of recollections, in general related to their youth.
They released the involuntary memory of things, emotions, sensations and other
images from the past, very much like the feeling of the taste of a madeleine dipped
into a cup of tea by Albertine, the character in Proust. It can be said that other
images (including songs, eventually objects. etc) may have the capacity of releasing
the involuntary memory of a large number of Finns, but the fact that among these
images there are these two video clips with hands is, of course, highly relevant,
although in a way unsurprising. At least to the eyes of a foreigner, this is an open
image saturated with reminiscences, but also capable of acquiring many incompatible
meanings precisely because it does not have a univocal one. In the full sense of the
word, it is a "floating signifier".

-----

Hands also have a remarkable presence in Finnish contemporary art. In 1995 Ulla
Jokisalo presented Iconostasis (figs 131) which continued the mise en scène of her
memories, in relation to her mother, her double, a seamstress. On this iconostasis350
she displays images such as the double portrait of herself and of her mother united
/ divided by a scissor (fig 132), a photo of her house, a number of photos with
knitted work, and, especially, photos of hands at work (figs 133, 134). But the
hands are also present in the Autobiographical series 1-7, part 1: "Jokisalo uses an old
picture from a photo album in which she sits in her mother's lap. It is flanked by
pairs of breasts made sensible by the touch"351 (fig 136). These hands also constitute
a destructive potency: the hands that craft that double of the body constituted by
the dress, are at the same time capable of destroying or ripping it apart (fig 135). In
the obsessive presence of scissors, dresses and sewing in Jokisalo's work, it seems
to me that there is the ambiguous and fascinating intertwining of the destructive
death drives, and maternity related life drives.
Not unlike Jokisalo's work, there are no less than three hands at the centre of
Heli Hiltunen's L'Éducation Sentimentale (fig 137), an installation of images. These
include the doubles of two hands, that is, two pairs of gloves. The reminiscence of
the flaccid and feeble rubber glove of De Chirico's Love Song (fig 138) is striking.
The photo with erected stalagmites in the floor opposed to it as well as the larger
canvas on the left are evocative of a vigorous gestural activity. The installation is

349 See R. Barthes, A Lover's Discourse, p. 148.

350 Traditionally an iconostasis is an opaque architectural plan covered with images separating and
articulating the earthly realm of the visible realm with the divine. For instance, see the famous
iconostasis of the Monastery of Saint Catherine in Mount Sinai.
351 A. Elovirta, "Being at once me and outside me", p. 120.

162
largely organized around the idea-sense of touch: on the right side there are close-
ups of the skin (three images, but the installation at least includes a fourth one) and
a decapitated body (or symbolically castrated, an exquisitely Caravaggesque
theme),352 i.e. deprived of the senses of vision, hearing, smell and taste. These works
of Jokisalo and Hiltunen and, to some extent, of De Chirico himself, are maps of
the body and of the senses. Although the facial portraits occupy the place of the
head, it is hands and touch that dominate these maps of the body, that in their
fragmentary nature become reminiscent of Constantine's, with the pointing finger
as, indeed, a sign of authority (fig 139; see also figs 124, 129).
In Hiltunen's work hands and gloves are recurrent. In An Attempt at a Biogra-
phy, or, The Story of How She (Slowly) Learned the Names of Things (figs 140-142; 1991-93;
the same date as the competition for the Contemporary Art Museum), there is a
photo of a glove with embroidered letters (see fig 142). In my view most appropri-
ately, Hiltunen proposes it as a key for reading her work (or touching it?):

The white mitt with its embroidered letters [a page from National Geographic ]
looked like a wrinkled bunny rabbit's ears. It was a finger-spelling glove, an
aid to visualise language when teaching those who cannot hear or speak. For
me, this handwear photographed with didactic care (in a museum) became a
glove for those who are deaf, cannot speak and are blind, which transforms
the sense of touch into a language, with concepts being handled by a left
hand.353

We are not only in the realm of image, but more precisely, as Riikka Stewen
acknowledges in her introduction to the artist,354 we are in the realm of the
"mnemonic image". Therefore, this is far from that episode of the history of images
developing in the Western world between the 15th and the 19th centuries, the age
of the "rhetoric image" or of "representation". With Jokisalo and, chiefly, with
Hiltunen we are well into the centre of the realm of contemporary memory,355 of
signs that are meant to rouse a broad array of associations, indeed a loose or open
one, not unlike Albertine's involuntary memory. Although apparently Jokisalo
pursues her work on her memories, it is not really from this angle that the public
sees it, since her biography is not known. Indeed, it is through associations of images
that the public is led to imagine her work as biographical. Likewise, although there are
some dominant themes in Hiltunen's work, these are often rather loose, in some
cases almost imperceptible; quite often her work just mirrors a vague evocation of
the body, leaving plenty of room for the beholder to exercise his / her imagination.

352 See fig 143, alongside Caravaggio's Judith beheading Holofernes (1598).
353 H. Hiltunen, Personal Songbook, p. 69.
354 R. Stewen, "The narratology of love and memory", pp. 49-54.
355For making a difference with ancient memory, or mnemotechny, that I will briefly evoke in the
research on Lordi. See p. 207 below.

163
 -----

Henri Focillon observes that, "all great artists have paid close attention to the study
of hands".356 The examples are numerous: Bruce Nauman's rhythmic and inter-
twined hands (figs 147-149), Henry Moore's clasping hands (Self-portrait, fig 152),
Albert Ederfelt resting hands (fig 151; see also Caravaggio, fig 146), Dürer's count-
ing hands (Hands of Christ, fig 150). Caravaggio's hands are unsurpassable with
immense variety and drama, playfulness, ambiguity and violence making them
unrivalled (fig 143-146).
Hands are the organs of action or of the transformation of the world.
Without them a human world would not exist: no art, furniture, architecture, cities
or landscape. Hands transform, they build another realm within the realm of nature.
They are the organs of creation. "Art begins with transmutation and continues with
metamorphosis. It is not man's language for communicating with God: it is the
perpetual renewal of Creation".357 They create a world of beings: with their bodies,
plasticity, singularities, weight, space, colour and with their accidents. What the
hand creates "is not a flat apparition in empty space, but a substance, a body and an
organized structure".358 While there is no doubt that the human face is fundamen-
tally "a composite of receptive organs", hands are what the face is not: organs of
action. This is strikingly and beautifully stressed by Chris Marker's large panorama
on the life and death of the idea of revolution in the 20th century, Le Fond de l'Air
est Rouge (The Bottom of the Air is Red, 1977), constituted by the two parts: "Les Mains
fragiles" ("Fragile hands") and "Les Mains coupées" ("Severed hands"). Notwith-
standing, reception, perception and reasoning, are not the exclusive domain of the
face and head. As Godard stresses in a remarkable praise of hands, "spirit is true
only when it manifests itself, and the root of 'manifest' ('manifeste') is 'hand'
('main')".359 Furthermore, as Focillon argues, the other senses cannot do without the
rich impressions of the hand, richer than the language of speech.360 Also as
Rembrandt's anatomy lesson testifies and the experience of medical cure and erotic
experience tell, there is a knowledge that requires the intercession of hands: chiefly
on the body. But there is another kind of knowledge that is eminently tactile: on
objects, on their weight and textures, their density, on space...

356 H. Focillon, "In praise of hands", p. 66.

357 H. Focillon, "In praise of hands", p. 71.
358 H. Focillon, "In praise of hands", p. 77.
359J.-L. Godard, Histoire(s) du Cinéma, 4A - Le Contrôle de l'univers, 5' 05''; see also 7' 39'', "man's true
condition is to think with his hands", therefore through actions. This conception is congenial to that
of C. Marker, Le Fond de l'Air est Rouge.
360 H. Focillon, "In praise of hands", p. 70.

164
 Sight slips over the surface of the world (La vue glisse le long de l'univers). The
hand knows that an object has physical bulk, that it is smooth or rough, that
it is not soldered to heaven or earth from which it appears to be inseparable.
The hand's action defines the cavity of the space and the fullness of the
objects that occupy it. Surface, volume, density and weight are not optical
phenomena. Man first learned about them between his fingers and in the
hollow of his palm. He does not measure space with his eyes, but with his
hands and feet. Without it, nature is like the pleasant landscapes of the magic
lantern, slight, flat and chimerical.361

The transformations that hands impose on forms and materials may touch the
order of time, because hands can shape the material so that it radically actualises the
archaic: "The artist, carving wood, hammering metal, kneading clay, chiselling a
block of stone, keeps alive for us man's dim past, something without which we
could not exist".362 Richard Long, Giuseppe Penone, Picasso, as well as Titian,
Dürer and Rembrandt, the creators of Negerplastik,363 Viennese Actionists (such as
Hermann Nitsch, but also Otto Zitko - fig 164), all of these, through their hands,
gave us back remarkable moments of archaism. This is something that is also
powerfully given back through music, all by the intercession of hands' rhythm:
from Igor Stravinsky, Edgar Varése, Luigi Nono's Con Luigi Dallapiccola, to
Indonesian gamelans, African drums, the hands of pianists, of xylophonists and
harp players.
In addition, there are the hands of actors, of gesture, of the orator, of the
toreador, of pickpockets and burglars (the hands of Robert Bresson's Pickpocket,
1959), Italian hands, hands that pray, writing hands and those where the future is
written (see Caravaggio, fig 145); then the incomparable hands of the philosopher
Gilles Deleuze (fig 154)364 and the reflexive and chiasmatic hands of Merleau-Ponty.
Focillon's hands also have their specificity and their truth as they work,
transform, are implicated in matter, measure the materiality and weight of the
world, opening on to the archaic; they are material, bodily, often playful and
optimistic. No doubt these are the hands of the artist, the architect, the composer
and the musician. Though the "hands" that Holl explicitly quotes are those of
Merleau-Ponty, in fact both rely on a broader and common ground. They are the
hands of Focillon, defining a standpoint, a position, anterior to the architect's
utterance or to the image that he puts forward. He both speaks from and with these
hands. They sustain the enterprise of the architect and are they what make it intelli-
gible and visible, at least in the minds of those with some proximity to the art and
architectural worlds, and to all those who craft with their hands, of whom Holl is

361 H. Focillon, "In praise of hands", p. 68.

362 H. Focillon, "In praise of hands", p. 71.
363 The "Black sculpture" of Carl Einstein (1885-1940).
364 See G. Deleuze, "Letter to a harsh critic [Michel Cressole]", pp. 13-14.

165
certainly one. Focillon's hands are the unthought that sustains thought, or the
invisible that sustains the visible, the unconscious that precedes and sustains Holl's
proposition, and that he actualises.

7.3. A map of "hands"

The mechanism of determination is, structurally, a dual one. In the case of Holl's
"hands" this is particularly obvious as image and its source forms a coherent whole,
sanctioned by its author and within a specific critical tradition. On one side there is
the image, on the other its philosophical, prestigious, source.

Fig B

This is the scheme that Holl proposed, or, more accurately, the image which the
interpreters who read Holl's work in the light of Merleau-Ponty, and vice versa, think
that he proposed. It is, naturally, only an interpretation as images and the system
they establish with the references and habits animating them do not exist per se, but
for and through the gazes of the beholder or of the researcher.

-----

I have argued against the wish to see one main reference in Holl's images, an abso-
lute centre around which his exuberant creativity would turn, and against the mani-
fest effort of its author to determine images such as the "hands" one. Rather, I am
arguing from a different viewpoint: from Helsinki. Indeed it is important to take
into consideration the context of reception, because images not only produce effects
upon the contexts of their reception but also are affected by them. Which Helsinki?
Naturally, the Helsinki that matters is the Helsinki that is relevant for understanding

166
the reaction of Tuula Arkio: the Helsinki of Ars and art, of the blurring of the
borders between art and the everyday, between the art of professionals and non-
professionals, of the passage from the "representative" to the "aesthetic". Indeed it
seems to me that it is fundamentally within this Helsinki that Holl's images became
meaningful. By anonymously submitting an entry for a contemporary art museum
into a competition like this one, amongst so many entries, is rather like throwing a
bottle into the sea. However, Holl's bottle was captured by a narrow net which is
what made it meaningful and visible. This net was made both of national and
imported threads but it was weaved locally. The threads include art, Dadaism and
Surrealism, DIY art, etc, and the weavers were people like Hiltunen, Jokisalo,
Granö, Jaukkuri and Arkio, among many others. What have they weaved? The
"aesthetic", or the soil on which the gaze of many of us is rooted. And, of course, I
include myself, since, as already indicated, the researcher cannot dodge the condi-
tions that apply to the object of his / her research: in the same way as there are no
images beyond the beholders' gaze; this pair can only become the object of academic
research through the intercession of the researcher and his / her own gaze. Let us
recall Deleuze for whom "the eye's already there in things, it is part of the image,
the image's visibility";365 indeed at the base of what is perceived there is always and
only gaze, and such conditions apply both to beholder and researcher.
An attempt was made to represent with fig C the net which captured and
made visible Holl's images. The lower picture is complemented by the upper analytic
diagram. I have focused on representing the threads sustaining Holl's "hands",
whereas those sustaining the "watercolours" are not represented, only the territory
in between: "surrealism". Fig C summarizes the argument developed in the previ-
ous subsection. Fundamentally, this net should be read against the binary and
determinant fig B, which is intrinsically or ideally self-contained, whereas fig C is
open. An image like "hands" is in fact an emergence, the vertical that deforms and
rends the net that sustains it. Images are like the black holes of constellations, being
what they are: emergences; rents in the plane of visibility; the black holes where
time and space deform and connect to other constellations.
Whereas the double-sided arrow in fig B expresses correspondence, the lines
in fig C are the trajectories of work and transformation.

365 See note 2 above.

167
 Fig C

The artistic aspects of hands including those of importance mentioned by Focillon

together with the social aspect of the handshake ritual and many others, throw a
specific light onto the "hands" image. Those aspects both over-determine this image
and make it visible for people like Tuula Arkio, although I am not implying that she
saw each and every aspect of the net that I have weaved. Rather what is important
is that Holl's entry is constituted by a number of images with those characteristics:
those that disrupt or rend the plans of visibility that sustain them, opening onto a
space of multiplicity, heterogeneity and heterochronism, contradiction and affects.
When at an earlier stage of this research I showed Tuula Arkio an atlas of
images it was perceptible that she approved my approach to the interpretation of
Holl's images. Although she could not follow me on a number of associations, clearly
my atlas of images had Tuula Arkio's acquiescence because it drew an open multiplicity as conge-
nial to the "aesthetic regime" of which contemporary art is an integral part. It is this openness that
grants Holl's images the artistic quality to which she was sensitive.366 It is also the reason why
Holl's images make sense to her and to others. The fact that there is art in that net
or, indeed, the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty is not necessarily the point. Rather,
this study case constitutes a fine illustration of Rancière's thesis that in the
"aesthetic regime" the privilege of language in the identification of images was
ousted to the profit of the visible. This does not mean that language, linguistic
categories, philosophy and other savant references, became absolutely irrelevant in
identification, and by implication in the interpretation of images, but they were

366 A quality also acknowledged by others, although not necessarily for the same reasons.

168
passed by, because people tend to lay greater emphasis on the visual and affective
side. Besides, interpretation works perfectly well without that centre of savant refer-
ences or, indeed, without any preestablished centre at all. Deleuze-Guattari were
right in saying that once the tree that ordered research was cut, there would be
room for grass to grow.

-----

Acknowledged by authors such as Arasse, Marin and Didi-Huberman, the theoreti-

cal work of Freud, and particularly the theorization on the formations of the
unconscious in which the symptom has an inaugural and prominent place, consti-
tute, as we have seen, a remarkable tool for the interpretation of images. Indeed the
materials and work of images have striking parallels with the symptom. The
encounter with this aspect of psychoanalytical theory was important for me not
least because this is fundamental for understanding the open tool of "work of
figurability".
One of the aspects of the symptom is its dynamic and open character. As
Freud argued in relation to fig A, the relation between symptoms (the triangles
above) and their multiple and stratified determinations (I, II, III... below) is open;
the same determinations may prompt new symptoms which offer a glimpse into
unforeseen determinations; lines connecting symptoms to their determinations -
that Freud significantly calls "work" - and that are continuously at work.367 It is this
mechanism that entails the over-determination of symptoms and their possible
over-interpretation.368 Within this frame it does not make much sense to discuss
whether perception passed through this or that specific point, as that would mean
imposing a rigidity on the mechanism that it does not have. What matters is the
very over-determination, the fluidity of images, as this is essential to Rancière's
regime for the identification of arts patiently crafted along the 20th century as the
"aesthetic".

7.4. A handmade model

Virtually all jury members and staff369 mentioned that "the model was handmade".
What does this mean? As far as I know, all models are handmade. I even believe
that all the models entered in this competition were handmade. Naturally,
this is a symptomatic observation, not to be understood only literally but also to
be interpreted; a differential observation which singularises Holl's model in
relation to the rest. Indeed Holl's model (see figs 35-37) exhibits extensively

367 See pp. 106-ff, above.

368 See pp. 125-ff, above.
369 Interviewed within the frame of this research as acknowledged in p. 65 above.

169
what architects usually repress with their immaculate, often white, miniatures.
The profession and architectural critique may well represent architecture as
craftsmanship. However, in these days of computer assisted design, of the
virtual, disembodied, etc, one rarely finds traces of the hands of those that drew
and modelled the elements through which architects synthesize the result of their
investigation. Drawings and models are nowadays more immaculate than ever,
but there are some notable exceptions to this: Frank. O. Gehry, Rem Koolhass
and, to some extent, Steven Holl. His model exhibits the rawness and imper-
fections of the materials of which it is made, materials that were poorly and
clumsily assembled. In fact, in my round of interviews among jury members
and other professionals working with them, it was mentioned that during the
assessment of the entries the jury started referring to it as the "piece of
shit": the yellowish plaster of the base and the curved shape of the East side
of the building may have suggested the parallel.
Perhaps the observation that the model was "handmade" should be put
in relation to the assessment of the entry as "very artistic". I believe that the "shit"
corroborates this interpretative key. It is of some importance that in modern and
contemporary art, the scatological fixation with shit and other bodily fluids have
become materials of art production as well as one of its (un)critical categories.
But the fact is that Holl's model is poorly built, which is not usual in the
architectural world. Indirectly and vaguely, due to its materials and the way
they are assembled, it recalls arte povera and art brut objects. In the absence of an
architectural correlative for these artistic movements, one is left with art, a
domain open to these kinds of materials, images, rhetoric, etc. With a few exotic
exceptions, architecture avoids these intrinsically artistic zones, where hands
are still allowed a wild and remarkable visibility - a discloser of the repressive
condition to which they are subject in the architectural world, which is
confirmed by their visibility as concept or idea.
We have seen that although Holl described Kiasma as "two hands clasping
each other", forming a coherent and cohesive system with the work of
Merleau-Ponty, such an image can be put in relation to a broader system or
network of materials and ideas, as argued, which makes Holl's "hands" intelligible,
visible, thereby sustaining them in the Finnish context and among non-architects.
So, does the model bring anything new to this discussion? I believe that it does.
Though Merleau-Ponty is an important reference for the art world and for art
criticism, its concepts, expressions and hypotheses have only incidentally, if not
at all, been associated with arte povera or art brut (art of the alienated, "do it
yourself" art [DIY], etc) or with the aesthetics of poorness and rawness. On the
other hand, they have too often been entwined with a large number of
artistic productions, materials and practices such as conceptual and minimal art.
Consequently I question whether the highly determined system "hands +
Merleau-Ponty" can accommodate Holl's handmade model. In fact, if anything it
does the opposite: it destabilizes it. Does it therefore have a place in the map of

170
over-determination, in fig C? Yes, naturally, it belongs there. Briefly, think of
the properties of the model and how these properties are common to the
aesthetics of poorness and rawness, and consider the importance of an artistic
movement such as art brut and its developments, in giving such an aesthetics rights
of citizenship in our common imagination and particularly in the Finnish one.
In 1986 the photographer and artist Veli Granö presented a large and
documental series of photographs on Finnish folk art and artists. It was
published as Onnela / A Trip to Paradise in 1989 (see fig 155).370 He had discovered
a vast and exuberant country within Finland, which would have a remarkable
impact in the reshaping of perceptive habits and categories as well as impacting
on the structure of a whole new cultural field. Since then the interest in Folk
Art (or DIY art, in Finnish ITE, "itse tehty elämä", "self-made life")371 has grown
considerably. Such interest culminated in a large survey of ITE art, carried out
by the Folk Art Centre of Kaustinen between 1998 and 2000. In 2001 a large
exhibition of folk and outsider art was mounted at the Helsinki Art Museum
(Meilahti), when Tuula Karjalainen was the director of the museum. In the same
year, Veli Granö exhibited at the 49th Biennale of Venice, Plateau of Humankind,
curated by Harald Szeemann.372 Although Granö has a rather productive career
not confined to documentary work or related to ITE art, this is an important
axis of his activity. In 2002 the Contemporary Folk Art Museum was inaugurated
in Kaustinen and in 2005 a larger exhibition was mounted at Kiasma, Omissa
Maailmoissa (In Another World; see figs 157, 158) occupying almost the whole
building as well as a large open area from Kiasma up to Finlandia Hall.
However, while Veli Granö explored unknown territory, he did not do it alone.
Back in 1986 another photographer and artist, Jan Kaila also presented the
first outcome of his documentary work on Elis Sinistö (1912-2004; figs 159-161).
Sinistö was a gymnast and an outsider, doing occasional jobs and working as
a model in Helsinki art-schools when Jan Kaila started working with and on
him. Sinistö lived in a territory of fantasy and is the creator of a dream-like
world. He was also a ghost of Kaila's youth.373 What Elis Sinistö was for the

On the occasion of a large exhibition in Belgium two CDs were published with an archive of Veli
370

Granö's work: V. G., Transit to the Invisible, 1 - Films and video, and V. G., Transit to the Invisible, 2 - CD-
Rom.
371 See H. Saha, "Equality to creativity", p. 9.
372 For Veli Granö's curriculum see: www.veligrano.info, August 2007.
373Elis Sinistö was a distant neighbour of Kaila during his youth whom Kaila's parents admonished
him not to visit: "our parents had told us it was a place not to go to, but they never told us why. [...]
Therefore we knew that there was something in Sinistö that most adults felt threatening. This made
the case even more exciting for us. Once we had entered the area, there was nothing that could keep
us away. Numerous bright-coloured cottages, at least ten different swings and many, many other
constructions kept us busy from day to day. But if Elis Sinistö came out of the funny-looking main
cottage we all fled behind a tree. We were too scared ever to talk with him" (J. Kaila, Elis Sinistö, p.
13).

171
artist Jan Kaila, Mattias Keskinen (1922-97) was for Veli Granö (see fig 156).
Granö worked often with personages that live in exquisitely dream-like or parallel
worlds: Paavo Rahkonen a space designer who always thought of leaving from
this to a better world beyond the solar system; Anne Pajuluoma and Jarmo
Ylänen, the first having been to Sirius C and the second a passionate maker of
copies of Van Gogh; Kirsti, a healer and perhaps a seer.374
These developments have their consequences. So it was somewhat unsur-
prising that on the occasion of a visit to Finland in May 2008 I found the work of
Tapani Kokko in Gallery Sculptor,375 an important venue for the exhibition of
contemporary sculpture in Helsinki. Despite the opinion of Pessi Rautio,376 the
production of this artist, trained at the Academy of Fine Arts, is obviously a major
effect of the expansion of DIY art and symptomatic of the reshaping of Finnish
imagination.
Holl's handmade model becomes meaningful, intelligible or visible against
this background. It is a piece of bricolage poorly built much more akin to this
world of arte povera and art brut with its anti-cultural sources and its far but still
intense Dada and Surrealist roots, than to the world of architectural immaculate
miniatures, as if not made by human hands. It seems to me that the qualifications of
"handmade" and that it looks like a "piece of arte povera" are wholly justified. I am
not pretending that Holl crafted it with these references in mind. My point is
that some of the beholders of his proposition saw it from such a stance,
i.e. a stance that was actualised by the recent encounter of Finnish artists
with their non-professional fellows, often outsiders, and by the encounter of the
Finnish public with these aesthetics. Is it a Finnish story? Definitely yes. But, as we
have seen, not only Finnish, as it has to do with the heritage and dissidences precisely from
Dadaism and Surrealism. However it is not only a matter of history, but of memory,
gaze, symptoms and survivals, reminiscences, over-determined images and of
ghosts, something that is radically other in relation to History. Rightly Julius von
Schlosser considered that "whereas art has a history, images have survivals".377 It
is also a matter of materials and of "low materialism".

-----

There is a particular image that in an interpretative key sums up images such as the
handmade model, with its multiple openings, and the "hands": I refer back to the

374 See V. Granö, Transit to the Invisible 1 and 2.

375 Tapani Kokko, Galleria Sculptor, Helsinki, 30/4-18/5/2008.
376P. Rautio, "Family trees", p. 21: "Linking Kokko to any kind of folk art or the recently launched
concept of 'DIY art' is, however, clearly not right". The evidence that there is a relation between both
aesthetics is striking, although clearly there is also displacement and transformation.
377 See G. Didi-Huberman, "Artistic Survival", p. 235.

172
"dream-image" of Deleuze.378 This image actualises a previous and virtual one, and
is virtual in relation to the following one which actualises it. Deleuze thought
this relation in a linear way, as a sequence of images (intrinsic to cinema).
But nothing obliges us to think of this line as a straight one. Indeed
Deleuze mentions that dream-images form "a very large circuit".379 One can,
therefore, imagine it curved, plied over itself, eventually one line only, but
forming a bundle. Like some of the lines of Brice Marden (fig 163; see also
Holl, fig 162) or of Otto Zitko, where I think the parallel is more adequate, and
the remarkable exhibition-installation in the "studio K" of Kiasma, in 2005 (fig
165). The image, the "handmade" model, neither actualises "one" image only
nor is it destined to be actualised by a following "one". Its place is within a
system of images and other materials drawing a network made of crisscrossed
lines: a bundle of lines, or a system of malfunctioning communicating vessels.

-----

Several facts support the placing of these ideas and images in relation: (i) Holl draws
his watercolours in the morning, when he is "half asleep"380 and in a dreamy mood;
(ii) among these watercolours there are images such as fig 162, obviously reminis-
cent of Marden; (iii) Tuula Arkio at some point mentioned Marden in relation to
Holl; (iv) Marden (fig 163), Holl (fig 162) and Zitko (fig 164) constitute adequate
images of the networks of references developed earlier; (v) Zitko drew a similar
network on the walls of Kiasma; (vi) these images have a relation with surrealism;
(vii) Deleuze-Buñuel's "dream-image" does the same.

378 See p. 161 above.

379 G. Deleuze, Cinema 2 - The Time-image, p. 56.
380 On the occasion of the conference mentioned in p. 155 above, Steven Holl said: "I would like to
start with this problem of the watercolour as a device to find intuition. [...] It is really central to my
way of working. I do these drawings in the morning, half asleep; my wife is also obsessed with dreams,
Solange, she is an artist, and she wakes up and writes her dreams down. When you get into a whole
day of work it is very difficult, your mind is fully activated, and to catch that intuition, this notion of
slightly disembodied, or half-asleep [I draw them early]". See also S. Holl, Written in Water, preface: "By
1978 black and white watercolours in spiral bound notebooks began to take the place of larger elabo-
rate drawings. The 5 x 7 format could be opened on a flip-down train or airplane tray. By 1979 I was
doing these drawings every morning. As a method of catching intuitions and first thoughts it is a
technique which sets the imagination free. [...] [Watercolours] gave intuition a primary position. [...]
Often the small paintings are playfully vague; [...] the free play of intuition takes over with them. [...]
Chance operations opened many paths for the composer John Cage, my next door neighbour who
lived in 6th Avenue in New York. Cage used chance protocols to escape from the tyranny of the ego.
He recommended unintentional acts as key aspects of his method, as a measure of freedom in
producing a musical score. This aim of getting beyond one's habitual attitudes is evident in his own
improvisations and sometimes in forms of automatic art. [...] Of the 365 sketches presented here,
some went to serve as the basis for buildings, such as the dormitory of the MIT or the Whitney
Waterworks. Yet regardless of their fate, they remain a probe of intuition and chance, aimed at liberating the
imagination" - emphasis added.

173
8. Gaze
8.1. Tautological and open

In Ce que nous voyons, Ce qui nous regarde (That which we see, That which stares at us),
Georges Didi-Huberman draws on the two opposite gazes: tautological and open.
The tautological pretends that there is nothing to see but the brute materiality of
things. It imagines gaze as a non-construction, as unframed, without memory and
non-haunted. It imagines the unimaginable: objects and art without aura. This posi-
tion was eloquently voiced by Frank Stella (b1936) in an interview of 1964:

Bruce Glaser - Are you suggesting that there are no more solutions to, or no
more problems that exist in painting?
Frank Stella - [...] I always get into arguments with people who want to retain
the old values in painting - the humanistic values that they always find in the
canvas. If you pin them down, they always end up asserting that there is
something there besides the paint on the canvas. My painting is based on the fact
that only what can be seen there is there. It really is an object. Any painting is an
object and anyone who gets involved enough in this finally has to face up to
the objectness of whatever it is that he’s doing. He is making a thing. All that
should be taken for granted. If the painting were lean enough, accurate
enough, or right enough, you would just be able to look at it. All I want
anyone to get out of my paintings all I do ever get out of them, is the fact that
you can see the whole idea without any confusion... What you see is what you
see.381

The problem with such a claim is that "lean, accurate and right" "objects", as well as
the visible at large, are fully haunted by latencies. As Stella also acknowledges,
people "always end up asserting that there is something beside the paint on the
canvas". Indeed, one always sees other than what is there. Once again, the question
is on the nature of this other. If it is a determination conventionally established, i.e.
if this other is already predicated in the image and in gaze or if it is a simulacrum of
a an-other we stay in the realm of representation, of which tautological gaze is the
correlative. The case is that the works of Stella and his fellow minimalist artists
(Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Tony Smith...) have differ-
ent qualities and prompt a rather different gaze. To the geometric simplicity of

381 B. Glaser, "Questions to Stella and Judd", pp. 157-158 - emphasis added.

174
objects may correspond rather rich and exuberant experiences. Indeed, these
objects are eminently anthropomorphic.
In 1983 Donald Judd (1928-94) exhibited at ARS a piece entitled Burnt Siena
(fig 167). Therefore, it is the title of a pigment, but likely to be a poetic name for
the non-expert. Let's say that the "object itself" is a simple and still plywood box.
The imposition of the title on an object such as this one has nothing of the literal-
ist, but rather opens broad horizons to imagination and experience. This phenome-
nology is exquisitely exemplified by Tony Smith's (1912-80) 183 x 183 x 183 cm
steel cube. This "object", with dimensions coming uncannily very close to the body
of an adult, is entitled Die (fig 168), therefore, as Didi-Huberman acknowledged,
consonant with both "I" and "eye", the infinitive as well as the imperative of the
verb "to die", and the singular of dice.382 There is, of course, something funereal
about this cube, or die, which is stressed by its darkness, towards which light flows
for eventually returning dimly but rather powerfully. Naturally, this is an object that
questions the beholder and / through his body, remembering his mortality.
Certainly, it has something of a memento mori. However, it is not a representation or
an allegory of death, but just a mute black box, although ambivalent and unstable,
very much like the strange phenomenology of the corpse: dead and alive, that
questions us and makes us imagine.383 This object, this cube, is indeed other than a
cube. Moreover, Sol LeWitt's (1928-2007) "burial of a cube" (fig 169) further
stresses the mobility or fluidity of an object that happens to be a cube, i.e. the
imaginary efficacy of pure, simple and closed objects. That which in T. Smith's Die
was the imaginary experience of the tomb, acquires a ritualistic and no less imagi-
native dimension in Sol LeWitt's work. Indeed, as the title posits, this cube is the
receptacle of something, but undetermined ("of importance but little value"),
unknown for us and which we are, thus, led to imagine. Sol LeWitt's cube is both
presence, something tangible, and something that will disappear in the ground. The
tabula rasa of expression and gaze imagined by Frank Stella is indeed a complex
network of reminiscences384 and one that opens to imagination. Indeed, this
simplicity, or "specificity" (as Judd claimed in a fundamental manifesto),385 power-
fully puts imagination at work. In 1973, Robert Morris (b1931) presented two
Columns similar to fig 170, of which one was "standing up" and the other "laid
down", thus in positions that correspond to two fundamental and easily recogniz-
able postures. These terms, used by the critique, artist(s) and public, obviously have
an eminent anthropomorphic nature. Indeed, those columns resemble fig 170, a
Column conceived for being presented as follows: it would stand at the centre of a

382 G. Didi-Huberman, Ce que nous voyons, Ce qui nous regarde, p. 66.

383On the phenomenology of the corpse see my observations in the research on Lordi, pp. 251-253
below.
Something on which I am not drawing, but that goes from Egyptian art to the art of the Middle
384

Ages and Renaissance; see G. Didi-Huberman, Ce que nous voyons, Ce qui nous regarde.
385 D. Judd, "Specific objects". In D. J., Complete Writings, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 1987, vol. 1.

175
theatre stage; after the opening of the curtain, three and a half minutes would elapse
until the Column would fall; another long three and a half minutes would elapse and
the curtain would close.386 What is so uncanny about this project is that the fall of
the Column should have been determined by someone - the artist? - lodged inside
it.387 Thus in this case a real human would be "inscribed" in a form which, conven-
tionally, is retained as absent, although eventually the audience would have noticed
or imagined the presence of a human inside this geometric form. Both the two
Columns and the single one (fig 170), despite their geometric simplicity, are charac-
terized by a rather tangible uncertainty, not exclusive but typical of the "specific"
objects of Minimalists. Robert Morris' Box for standing, of which the most commonly
published photo is that of the box alone, without the artist, is telling in this respect.
This "untitled" "box" indeed looks like an upright coffin, again, in a way that is
both different and comparable to the previous examples: the inscription of the
body and life (the artist standing up), and death (inside a coffin), in a form other-
wise simple and mute. The same goes for the mentioned Die of T. Smith, also a "six
foot box". The fact that Tony Smith evokes Leonardo (fig 172) is highly relevant, as
indeed, for the artists of the Renaissance, geometry was much more than an
anthropometrical tool: it constituted a true anthropomorphic device. Leonardo's
Homo ad circulum is neither encircled by geometric figures nor grasping them, either
literally or with the allegoric meaning of the world or universe; he is those figures.
There is open gaze when imagination works at establishing such coalescences,
roughly in the sense that Adolf Loos (1870-1933) acknowledges in a piece of
writing of 1910 which he parsimoniously named "Architecture":

When we find a mound in the woods, six feet long and three feet wide, raised
to a pyramidal form by the means of a spade, we become serious and some-
thing in us says: someone is buried in here. This is architecture.388

The earth grave is, of course, an image and the gaze that opens it is an open one,
constituted by the voice that speaks from within. Naturally, this specific voice is a
culturally shaped one, that repeats the injunction grave - death in a way that is
reminiscent of Hegel, obviously known to a person with the cultural background of
Loos, and, in this sense, this is somehow a determined voice. But this voice also
speaks from the unstable phenomenology of the corpse, the dead that speaks to the
living reminding them of their finitude, blurring basic dichotomies and, crucially,
the desire that opens imagination.

G. Didi-Huberman, Ce que nous voyons, Ce qui nous regarde, p. 41, quoting from R. Krauss, Passages in
386

Modern Sculpture, MIT, Cambridge (Mass.) and London, 1981, p. 201.

387 G. Didi-Huberman, Ce que nous voyons, Ce qui nous regarde, pp. 96-97.
388 A. Loos, "Architecture", p. 108.

176
8.2. Tautological-architectural gaze

As already argued, gaze is a construction that may partly depend on the professional
background of beholders, although not in a narrow or deterministic way, as it varies
according to such factors as the age group, their cultural memories, their life
experiences, etc. However, it is possible to circumscribe an architectural gaze, as an
example of the tautological gaze. As already mentioned, it consists in seeing in
architecture and in the output of architects nothing but architecture or representa-
tions of spaces, therefore dramatically narrowing down the potential openness of
what architects make and denying the richness of the responses to their work. The
introduction to a monograph on Steven Holl by the important critic and historian
Kenneth Frampton (b1930), who accompanied Holl's career from very early on,389
is bluntly telling in this respect. The first three lines read as follows:

As is evident from a recent anthology of his watercolour sketches published

under the ironic title Written in Water, Steven Holl, like Le Corbusier, has been
as much a painter as he is an architect.390

Then some 30 pages follow which constitute an overview and assessment of Holl's
practical and theoretical activity, destined to constitute a reference work on Holl as
a result of the importance of Frampton and of the lavish edition by the important
publisher Electa, from Milan. As to the watercolours and to the painterly penchant
of Holl, nothing more is said. Indeed, not a single painter is mentioned. The assessment of
Frampton is strictly disciplinary: Holl is discussed through an exquisitely architectural
jargon and his work is referenced in relation to the world of architects, buildings
and the like. The only exceptions to this are a telegraphic reference to James Turrel
- "for whom Holl has always felt an affinity"391 - in relation to the refurbishment of
an office space in New York, a few trivial literary, musical and mythological refer-
ences, and, of course, the reference to phenomenology, although vaguely, as
Frampton seems committed to stress that Holl is an architect (as the title of the book under-
scores), not a painter. We are told that the series of large architectural structures that
Steven Holl designed in 1988-90 for the edge of a number of American cities (the
Edge of a city proposals; figs 175-177) is "a set of variations on the theme of the
urban megaform as this had already been first posited in the inter-war era by so

389Both Frampton and Holl are based in New York and teach at Columbia University. The publica-
tion of a new book by Frampton constituted an opportunity for Holl to return the support during
over 20 years of professional activity: "The material, detail and structure of a building is an absolute
condition. Architecture's potential is to deliver authentic meanings in what we see, touch and smell;
the tectonic is ultimately central to what we feel... Kenneth Frampton's new book [Studies in Tectonic
Culture] is important for architects, students and anyone interested in the secrets of architecture" (from
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=8203&ttype=2, September 2007).
390 K. Frampton, Steven Holl Architect, p. 7.
391 K. Frampton, Steven Holl Architect, p. 12.

177
called German Expressionist architects such as Hans Poelzig, Hans Scharoum and
Erich Mendelsohn and then, after 1945, by Alvar Aalto and later still, by figures
such as Ralph Erskine and Arthur Ericson. [...] Holl's so called 'retaining bars'
superficially recall El Lissitzky's Wolkenbügel project of 1924, that is, the anti-
skyscraper, high-rise office accommodation that he designed for the centre of
Moscow".392 The exercise of imagination that Frampton proposes is absolutely
conventional. However, it eventually has the advantage of, at least partly, adhering
to Holl's architectural memory, as in recent years Holl has indeed been developing a
project for Copenhagen which is vaguely reminiscent of El Lissitzky's (1890-1941)
icon of Russian Constructivism. However, this form of imagination is too narrow,
as it establishes a closed circuit between architecture and architectural memory. It
may well interest architects and characterize their memory, but it is unlikely that it
interests other people or is of any worth for characterizing their imagination.393
These are not the sources of imagination of many architects, nor do people usually
perceive the output of architects and architecture from such a viewpoint. In sum,
the interpretation of Frampton is a striking example of tautological gaze.
A watercolour from Written in Water, of the sort that we have previously
named "experimental watercolours", which Frampton considers "'free' conceptual
esquisses, executed, at one remove, from the actual constrains of the project",394
presents a composition of simple volumes with a number of points of contact with
the Edge of a city proposals. A representation? Not at all, but rather that which blurs
the game of architectural correspondences by bringing in the heterogeneous and
heterochronic, in the form of a contradictory simultaneity, i.e. an over-determined
image. Indeed this watercolour is strongly reminiscent of a number of works of
Robert Morris of the mid-1960s (figs 178, 179). Furthermore, and more strikingly,
both the watercolour and the Edge of a city proposals are reminiscent of Sol LeWitt's
"open cube" series (figs 180-183), that the artist would later develop into spatial
grid structures (figs 184-186). It seems to me that Holl develops these structures
into an architectural scale (fig 187; also the Beijing project, among others).
Naturally, I am not discussing the sources of Holl's imagination or his references, a
topic in relation to which Frampton is much better qualified than I. My focus is the
determination vs. openness of gaze. Although tautological-architectural gaze
narrows the horizon of architectural representations to architecture, I believe Holl's
images (both his watercolours and architectural proposals) have another richness and
potential, but for this to be grasped the gaze must be open.

392 K. Frampton, Steven Holl Architect, p. 34.

393 ActuallyI believe that most buyers of monographs of this sort do what indeed many architects do:
end up seeing the images without reading the essays, and therefore making sense of the images by
themselves.
394K. Frampton, Steven Holl Architect, p. 34. Thus, watercolours are thought in relation to the project,
though obviously many have no relation at all with any project whatsoever, as acknowledged by their
numbering in Written in Water (see my observation in p. 83 above).

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8.3. Holl's watercolours: image, stoppage and open gaze

Certainly, images change according to the gaze that fixes on them, yet it is images that
incite gaze. This is the lesson of Georges Didi-Huberman's Ce que nous voyons, Ce qui
nous regarde: "what we see is not worth our eyes - is not alive for them - but through
what stares at us".395 Although it is clear that the decisive gaze that Tuula Arkio
brought to the assessment of the competition for the Museum of Contemporary
Art is an open one, it is also evident that this gaze was not posed evenly over each
and every entry. As already mentioned, Holl's images have fulgurantly incited it. We
don't know why, but we know how. It is clear that the entry is constituted by a
number of images, including the handmade model, with qualities that make of it an
intense image. Fig 44, a watercolour from the floor of panel 3, is a remarkable
discloser of the economy at stake.
Fig 44 represents a museum gallery with a man absorbed in art. It caught the
eye of Tuula Arkio and made her wonder about the authorship of the art exhibited.
In a way, there is nothing exceptional about this watercolour, yet this is almost the
only human trace in the whole entry, apart from a tiny glimpse of figures at fig 41, a
Volkswagen van at the section in panel 4 (fig 34; just like the van that Joseph Beuys
drove on the occasion of a famous trip) and the equestrian statue of Marshal
Mannerheim (as coming out from a painting of De Chirico). Therefore, in fig 34
this is the only person openly visible in the world of architectural and urban forms
that Holl crafted, and even he / she ostensibly turns their back on us. Immediately,
a number of images come to mind, because the iconography of the figure with back
turned is fairly extensive: from Francis Bacon (Study from the human body, 1949) to
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (The New World, 1791-97), from Jean-Baptiste Chardin
(Young sketcher, 1733-35) to Caspar David Friedrich's (1774-1940) famous Wanderer
above the sea of fog (fig 190) and Woman at the window (fig 191), an author that is
fundamental for the construction of Romantic landscape and important for the
construction of Finland as a landscape. Anyway, Friedrich's images still make an
author such as Elina Brotherus (b1972) dream (see fig 192). These images are like
blind or mute portraits, portraits of people absent, wrapped in their own world, a
theme that Marjaana Kella (b1961) has been exploring in a remarkable series of
portraits: people with backs turned (figs 195, 196) or hypnotized (fig 197). This
theme was dreamt by both Romanticism (Friedrich) and Surrealism (figs 193, 194),
and once again has a presence in Finnish art (besides those already mentioned,
Juhani Harri, 1939-2003, Outi Heiskanen, b1937, and Saara Ekström, b1965).
However, thinking these portraits in this way is to naturalize them, exces-
sively making them fit into an order, whereas there is something deeply unnatural,
disruptive or surprising about them. Most properly, Marjaana Kella named her
series of figures "reversed", as indeed they reverse a well established tradition of

395 G.Didi-Huberman, Ce que nous voyons, Ce qui nous regarde, p. 9: "ce que nous voyons ne vaut - ne vit - à nos
yeux que par ce qui nous regarde".

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human representation: the portrait which is facial and frontal, with distinct gaze and
exhibiting the traits of an individual. It is a tradition likely established by the Man in
a red turban that Jan Van Eyck (1385-1441; fig 198) unequivocally signed and dated,
but the supreme irony is that the identity of the portrayed is not known. Therefore,
Marjaana Kella's "reversed" portraits are not simply portraits of a number of
persons with their backs turned on us, but first and foremost they oppose the
protocol of portraiture. This tradition was the object of the exhibition that the
Nationalmuseum of Stockholm opened in October 2001 on the art of portraiture,
covering a time span of five centuries, which was most aptly named Face to Face.
Indeed, the frontal portrait remained unrivalled among 415 catalogue references.
Notwithstanding, the reversion of the portrait has an impact that is much
greater than the mere code of visual representation since face to face straightfor-
wardness is a fundamental social code. What is at stake is neither the mere détourne-
ment from pose and spectacle to the profit of absorption and inwardness, nor the
fictive invention of the absence or extraterritoriality of the public, (an aspect that, as
Michael Fried argues in Absorption and Theatricality, is a first and fundamental step
towards the autonomization of painting). The person that turns their back to the
beholder and dismisses (re)presentation to the profit of work and inwardness (an engag-
ing work that constitutes both isolation and liberation from the dictums of
(re)presentation) also turns their back to the same protocol of social exchange on
which scenographies or spatial dispositifs of power like the law court or the lecture
room are grounded, thus a non-horizontal protocol. According to Georges Banu, a
crucial realm where this détournement was undertaken was in theatre and its main
instigator was Diderot.396 Indeed in 1965-66 Diderot wrote a famous letter to Mlle
Jodin,397 in which he incited her to turn her back to the audience and to social
protocol, of which the performance protocol was a main and highly codified exten-
sion,398 a sign of the condition of submission of actors in relation to the audiences
of the ancien régime. Diderot even suggested that actors ought "to imagine that at the
edge of the stage there is a high wall cutting it apart from the stalls; and to play as if
the curtain had not opened",399 thus imagining a device known as the "fourth wall".
In sum, as Banu acknowledged, the simple turning of the back constituted a rather
dramatic cut in relation to both the performative and social protocols. To be sure,
neither the watercolour of Holl (fig 44) nor Kella's photographs (figs 195, 196) have
such ambition. However, both cases include aspects of a cut or stoppage, like

396 G. Banu, L’Homme de Dos, pp. 69-150.

397 D. Diderot, "Lettre à Mlle Jodin (IV)", p. 390.
398 G. Banu, L’Homme de Dos, pp. 89-90.
399 Quoted in G. Banu, L’Homme de Dos, p. 92: "Imaginez sur les bords du théâtre un grand mur qui vous sépare
du parterre; jouez comme si la toile ne se levait pas".

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Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt.400 In my view, in a conversation with Jan Kaila, Marjaana
Kella touches the crux of the matter:

Jan Kaila - [...] by emphasising the surface, you give the spectator plenty of
space to imagine what remains invisible in the pictures. [...]
Marjaana Kella - A photograph is dumb and still. That’s why we can observe
what’s on display in a very special way. At the same time, we can observe
what hasn’t been displayed in it, but which can be guessed: I mean clues or
possibilities that can be found inside the pictures.401

Although Kella's images are not the antechamber to a socio-political revolution, they
disturb the perceptual order, make it stutter,402 impose a stoppage. They confront
gaze with the reverse of the protocols to which it is accustomed, opening, as she
rightly acknowledges, a space of imagination. In relation to Holl, this is not
achieved through the reversed figure but, rather, through the watercolour itself; the
watercolour is Holl's Verfremdungseffekt, or his instrument of stoppage. Although
architects have sometimes drawn watercolours, those were rather different: usually
larger and governed by the law of mimetic accuracy. What is more, the drawing
lexicon of architects is not confined to plans, elevations and sections in scale, more
or less detailed, or to perspectives and drawings with shadow. It may also include
sketches and drawings that can be strongly abstract such as those of the Soviet
vanguards, or of Mies van der Rohe, among others. Yet, Holl's watercolours are
rather singular or even unique. While they do not have a clear architectural prece-
dent, as I have demonstrated in detail they are saturated with artistic references and
particularly with those directly or indirectly related to Surrealism. This further
stresses their eccentricity in the architectural world. As such, they suit better the
gazes informed by other kinds of memories, such as those of Tuula Arkio, and
necessarily to open gazes.

-----

Initially, I have argued that the artistry inherent in some of the images in Holl's entry
relied on the fact that they are haunted by heterogeneous and heterochronic ghosts,
which can form contradictory simultaneities. On the basis of the work with Tuula

400Often kept untranslated, eventually translated as "defamiliarization effect", "estrangement effect",

"distantiation", distancing effect", "alienation effect" or V-effect, the latter in F. Jameson Brecht and
Method. I am well aware that Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt is a breach into naturalistic, Stanislavskian,
theatrical protocols, a naturalism partly conquered with the construction of the "fourth wall".
However, the turning of the back and the laying down of the first bricks of the "fourth wall" by
Diderot, at a time when the protocol was straightforwardness, constituted, as Banu suggests, a true
and avant la lettre Verfremdungseffekt.
401 "Marjaana Kella in dialogue with Jan Kaila", in M. Kella, Marjaana Kella, p. 44 - emphasis added.
402 G. Deleuze, "Three questions on Six Times Two", p. 57. See also note 66 above.

181
Arkio, I have reframed this thesis by arguing that it is the very fact that such images
draw a "very large circuit", with a nature of such openness and over-determination,
that fundamentally grant them an artistic quality. This accords with Rancière's
theses on the structural transformations that occurred in the production and recep-
tion (and interpretation) of arts. Indeed images themselves present features congru-
ent with Rancière's frame (although the frame of "over-determination" is narrower
and more specific than Rancière's bolder "aesthetic") and Tuula Arkio's gaze is
clearly not a "representative", but an "aesthetic" one, which is unsurprising as it is
surely not the only one. My approach in this section adds a new aspect to my previ-
ous argument. Holl's watercolours produce an effect of strangeness, of uncanni-
ness, within a specific architectural tradition of depiction of space. While there is a
long tradition of architectural watercolours, this is no longer true in contemporary
architecture. In any case, the size and colouring of Holl's watercolours are unlike
those which were previously customary. Therefore, seen from this stance, they are
like an emergence; they disrupt the order of the field similar to the turning of a
back.
Surely the architectural field is plural enough to accommodate Holl's singular
architecture. However, my main purpose is to remain at the level of the code of
representation, in the broad sense. It seems to me that Holl's watercolours and
model constitute a rent in the representation habits in the field, which is unusual,
thereby distinguishing his entry and further stressing its artistry. A rupture of this
sort is rare in the field of architecture, opening, as it does, on to a phenomenology
that is congenial to art, as discussed by Kella and Kaila.

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9. Governing with imagination
Arguably Holl won because his entry met a wide range of expectations, such as
those of the Deputy Mayor Pekka Korpinen, whose objectives were committed to
prompting the development of the area, albeit on a piecemeal basis, starting with
the Museum; likewise, Kai Wartiainen, who had originally suggested that Steven
Holl be included in the short list of invited participants. Wartiainen identified with
Holl's proposition as he recognized the concerns and values that Holl had
cultivated over years. Indeed, it was Wartiainen who would play a relevant role in
the defence of the jury's decision in the heated debate that followed its announce-
ment.
As the jury was particularly heterogeneous, it was inevitable that different
members would identify with different aspects of the many entries. Notwith-
standing this, Tuula Arkio's role in the outcome of the competition must be
stressed: the jury members and staff whom I interviewed acknowledged that in the
assessment of the entries, Tuula Arkio, as the representative of MINEDU, had the
final word. On what grounds did she do so? Certainly, Holl's proposal met both the
functional and symbolic requirements, but as to the former he was not alone,
whereas in relation to the latter this is not so clear. Either way, it is highly relevant
that the entry as a system of signs was structured as described, in a way particularly
congenial to Arkio's gaze, with her lifetime's experience with contemporary art. As
a result, Holl's entry caught her eye at first sight. The exchange that occurred
between Holl's system of signs and her gaze is destined to be misunderstood by
many yet accepted for itself by others.403 In my view, what makes this exchange so
important is not its singularity, but rather the opposite: it is symptomatic of the
cultural conjuncture we are experiencing and to which I have already referred,
Rancière's "aesthetic regime for the identification of arts", characterized by the
abolition of the privilege of speech over visibility, the paradoxical unity of pathos
and logos... the rise of image,404 which is the outcome of a multiform process of devel-
opment touching arts at large and, to a minor extent, critical activity. What charac-
terizes this economy or phenomenology was the encounter of over-determined
signs with an open gaze; of signs that communicate through gaps and prompt the
exercise of imagination by making it wander, as Wind acknowledges;405 this is an

403As the assessment of the heated and long debate in the press that followed the announcement of
the competition results could eventually clarify. However, I believe that is the case, on the basis of a
brief inspection of about 50 newspaper and magazine articles published between 30/8/1989 and
22/3/1998.
404 See pp. 20-23 above and pp. 244-248 below, where Rancière's theses are presented in some detail.
405 See pp. 28-30 above.

183
economy that blurs disciplinary distinctions and is based on the enchainment of
images with other images, things, practices, etc, thus dethroning the privileged posi-
tion once occupied by narrative and language. We are therefore dealing with a new
cultural symbology, but one whose effects exceed a mere cultural exchange. Indeed
we are dealing with an architectural competition for the empowerment of a
"crystal": a building and a typical programme of the 1990s, the first stone of a strat-
egy for untying Helsinki's Gordian knot and, as we have seen, a project of
acupuncture around which the transformation of the area would revolve, which
impacted on the distribution of value (economic and symbolic) in the city and
between capitals. Therefore, the new symbology is an integral part of a larger
exchange with one of its outcomes being this transformation of the city. How can
this exchange be qualified? I have already put forward the notion of "politics" a
number of times, therefore implying the definition of Aristotle:

Man is a political living being in a sense in which a bee is not, or any

gregarious living being. Nature, [...] for the purpose of making man a political
living being, has endowed him alone among living beings with language
[logos]. The voice is the sign of pain and pleasure, and this is why it belongs to
other living beings (since their nature has developed to the point of having
the sensations of pain and pleasure and of signifying the two). But language is
for manifesting the fitting and the unfitting and the just and the unjust. To
have the sensation of the good and the bad and of the just and the unjust is
what is proper to men as opposed to other living beings, and the community
of these things makes dwelling and the polis.406

Thus, Aristotle identifies the construction of the "dwelling and the polis" as privi-
leged objects of this form of exchange. However, even more fundamental in
Aristotle's definition is the symbolic code underlying the exchange: language, logos,
which he clearly opposes to voice and pathos. While Aristotle's political community
is a community of logos, the economy that underlay the empowerment of Holl's
entry is based on the figural and empathic aspects of symbols, because indeed it
mobilized the kind of symbols that par excellence mobilize these aspects: images.
Therefore, the qualification of "political" is only partly adequate for describing the
economy at stake. Indeed, Aristotle's canonical but old definition was already
outdated some time ago. Since the West became liberal, what constituted "dwelling
and the polis" were much more than language, logos, parliaments and parties, the
liberties, the rule of law and other institutions of the Enlightenment. That is to say,
other aspects must also be accounted for: discipline, police, statistics, Welfarism
and social expertise among others. We owe this awareness to Michel Foucault, who

406Aristotle, Politics, 1523a, 8-17. I am using the translation provided in G. Agamben, Homo Sacer,
pp. 7-8, completed with Aristotle, Politics, trans. T. A. Sinclair, p. 29, adapted according to the terms
that Agamben proposes (such as "living being" instead of "animal", "language" instead of "reasonable
speech"). In the last phrase, I have substituted Agamben's "city" with "polis".

184
in a decisive way dissociated the analysis of power mechanisms from the analysis of
political instances and from juridico-institutional models,407 in favour of an unpreju-
diced analysis of the concrete ways in which power shapes, penetrates and
conforms to life.408 As Foucault aptly put it: "the 'Enlightenment', which discovered
the liberties, also invented the disciplines".409 In other words, the invention of socie-
ties of freedom and free individuals that seemed to accomplish Aristotle's utopia,
was nonetheless also accompanied by the development of strategies and dispositifs
("apparatuses")410 aimed at regulating or "governing" our individual and collective
existence. These dispositifs are "assemblages of diverse components - persons, forms
of knowledge, technical procedures and modes of judgement and sanction -
machines for government only in the sense in which Foucault compared the French
legal system to one of those machines constructed by Jean Tinguely - more Heath

407 M. Foucault, "Les Mailles du pouvoir", p. 184: "c'est de cette représentation du pouvoir à partir de la loi et du
souverain, à partir de la règle et de la prohibition qu'il faut maintenant se débarrasser si nous voulons procéder à une
analyse non plus de la représentation du pouvoir, mais du fonctionnement réel du pouvoir". In p. 183 he posited that
it was necessary to "développer une analyse du pouvoir qui ne soit pas simplement une conception juridique, négative
du pouvoir, mais une conception d'une technologie du pouvoir" (an English translation is forthcoming in a book
edited by J. Crampton and S. Elden to be published by Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, England).
408 See G. Agamben, Homo Sacer, p. 5.
409 M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 222.
410 When Foucault was asked what is the meaning or the methodological function for you of this term, apparatus
(dispositif)?, he answered thus: "What I am trying to pick out with this term is, firstly, a thoroughly
heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory deci-
sions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic
propositions - in short, the said as much as the unsaid. Such are the elements of the dispositif. The
dispositif itself is the system of relations that can be established between these elements. Secondly, what
I am trying to identify in this dispositif is precisely the nature of the connection that can exist between
these heterogeneous elements. Thus, a particular discourse can figure at one time as the programme of
an institution, and at another it can function as a means of justifying or masking a practice which itself
remains silent, or as a secondary re-interpretation of this practice, opening out for it a new field of
rationality. In short, between these elements, whether discursive or non-discursive, there is a sort of
interplay of shifts of position and modifications of function which can also vary very widely. Thirdly, I
understand by the term dispositif a sort of - shall we say - formation which has as its major function at a
given historical moment that of responding to an urgent need. The dispositif thus has a dominant strategic
function. This may have been, for example, the assimilation of a floating population found to be
burdensome for a mercantilist economy: there was a strategic imperative acting here as the matrix for
an apparatus which gradually undertook the control or subjection of madness, mental illness and
neurosis." After which the interviewer asks so the apparatus is defined by a structure of heterogeneous elements,
but also by a certain kind of genesis? and Foucault further develops: "Yes. And I would consider that there
are two important moments in this genesis. There is a first moment which is the strategic prevalence
of a strategic objective. Next, the dispositif as such is constituted and enabled to continue in existence
insofar as it is the site of a double process. On the one hand, there is a process of functional over-
determination [emphasis in the original], because each effect - positive or negative, intentional or unin-
tentional - enters into resonance with the others and thereby calls for a readjustment or a reworking of
the heterogeneous elements that surface at various points. On the other hand, there is a perpetual
process of strategic elaboration [idem]" (in "The confessions of the flesh", pp. 194-195).

185
Robinson than Audi, full of cannibalised parts, strange couplings, chance relations,
cogs and levers that don't work - and yet which work in the sense that they produce
effects that have meaning and consequences for us".411 As Foucault acknowledged
in an interview, architecture has had some prominence among these dispositifs:

In the eighteenth century one sees the development of reflection upon

architecture as a function of the aims and techniques of the government of
societies. One begins to see a form of political literature that addresses what
the order of a society should be, what a city should be, given the require-
ments of the maintenance of order; given that one should avoid epidemics,
avoid revolts, permit a decent and moral family life, and so on. In terms of
these objectives, how is one to conceive of both the organization of a city
and the construction of a collective infrastructure? And how should houses
be built? I am not saying that this sort of reflection appears only in the
eighteenth century, but only that in the eighteenth century a very broad and
general reflection on these questions takes place. If one opens a police report
of the times - the treatises that are devoted to the techniques of government -
one finds that architecture and urbanism occupy a place of considerable
importance.412

The seminal observations of Foucault in Discipline and Punish on this and related
matters inspired generations of researchers. The strategies relying on these and
similar mechanisms can still be named "politics" but on the condition that "politics"
is understood as an assemblage of "cogs and levers" destined to ensure rule as well
as freedom, health, well-being and happiness. Indeed, for Foucault, rather than the
suspension of rule, "liberalism" is a "rationality" of rule which, while retained for
power and authority to be acceptable and useful, must also be restrained and
economic in matters related to economic and social life (in the 19th and 20th
centuries), to the expression of thought and to debate, to religion and family, to
cultural differences and so on. The liberal dream of the 19th century, therefore,
became real through a large array of techniques and knowledge applied to territory
and population, through mechanisms for cure and learning, such as the hospital,
school and prison, through sanitation and water supply,413 and through the develop-
ment of the positivist sciences of statistics, economy, medicine, biology, social and
psy-sciences.
The aftermath of WW I and, particularly, WW II, after 1945, determined a
radical transformation of this dream that was revived and clothed with "social"
concerns, needs, objects, experts and policies. According to Nikolas Rose, "this was
not so much a process in which the central State extended its tentacles throughout

411 N. Rose, "Governing 'advanced' liberal democracies", p. 38 - slightly modified.

412 M. Foucault, "Space, knowledge and power", p. 239.
413 See T. Osborne, "Security and vitality".

186
society, as the invention of various 'rules for rule' that sought to transform the State
into a centre that could programme - shape, guide, channel, direct, control - events
and persons distant from it".414 The provision of basic goods such as housing,
health and education, and the development of urban planning (in fact, holistic
planning) were also among its fundamental instruments. However, the symbolic
date of 1968 marked the decline of this large ensemble of strategies for social rule
and the emergence of a new one. The late 1960s and the 70s were the years of the
Parisian May, of the feminist, anti-nuclear, pacifist and ecological movements, and
of intense criticism of modern planning. Welfarism was criticised "from the point
of view of its alleged failings and deleterious consequences for public finances,
individual rights and private morals".415
Although the conservative government elected in Great Britain in the late
1970s initially had curtailed the Welfare State, as Rose described, this did not mean
the abandonment of a "will to govern", but rather the resurgence of both classic
liberal scepticism in relation to excesses of government and of "the view that failure
of government to achieve its objectives is to be overcome by inventing new strate-
gies of government that will succeed".416 However, what did this dream produce? A
new system of "cogs and levers" or a new "formula of rule" that Rose names
"advanced liberal", which is still difficult to characterize on the whole. Nonetheless, a
number of characteristics with relevance for us can be pinpointed. Whereas
Welfarism traditionally identified those who benefited from its policies as bearers of
needs, the interlocutors of contemporary government were re-constituted as
persons endowed with freedom, liberty and autonomy. Once again voices were
heard in defence of freedom, a realm that the State should not disturb. However,
this realm was already and to a large extent shaped by basic nation-forming devices
such as a common language and skills of literacy, to which the 20th century had
added radio, cinema and TV.417 More recently, cheap richly illustrated art mono-
graphs, the internet, huge modern and contemporary art museums can be added.
The enhancement of living standards, the fulfilment of basic needs, the schooling
of the population, etc, may not have been as successful as imagined by the engi-
neers of Welfarism, yet they have worked insofar as post-Welfare societies are
profoundly different from their predecessors. For example, the contestation of
urban planning is both a symptom of partial failure and yet the benefit of a certain
degree of well-being and aspiration. This uneasiness was to a large extent translated
into the idea of "participation" (see fig D) and the answers to it have been varied.
One of them was the growth of information activities on plans and policies drafted

414 N. Rose, "Governing 'advanced' liberal democracies", p. 40.

415N. Rose, "Governing 'advanced' liberal democracies", p. 40. For a brief socio-politic and cultural
overview on the 1960s from a Nordic viewpoint see Nordiskt 60-tal... The Nordic '60s - Upheaval and
confrontation, 1960-1972.
416 N. Rose, "Governing 'advanced' liberal democracies", p. 53.
417 N. Rose, "Governing 'advanced' liberal democracies", p. 58.

187
for the benefit of all and with a direct impact on the transformation of the habitat.
In this respect Helsinki is an interesting case study. Indeed when I first visited it in
the second half of the 1990s I was very impressed by the vigour of the information
activities of the City. The City of Helsinki surpassed by far the other Nordic
capitals or indeed any other city that I knew. I soon learnt that this was because the
City was the main player in its transformation - thanks to a wise tax policy enabling
the acquisition decades in advance of the land necessary for the development of the
city - and that the information activities had grown very much over the past decade.
Indeed in the 1995 Annual Report of the Helsinki City Planning Department,418
director Paavo Perkkiö reported both on the reduction of expense and on the
growth of information activities.
It seems to me that the promotion of architectural competitions in order to
decide on matters of urban policy is also a way of informing, of counting oppo-
nents and supporters, or of making the construction of policies for the city
"participatory", even in Finland and Helsinki where, as already indicated, there is a
strong tradition of architectural competitions. Naturally, the coeval transformations
in culture and the invention and diffusion of new symbologies are likely to shape
and open new possibilities for social exchange and for negotiating change on
matters such as architecture, due to its very nature potentially at the intersection of
culture and urban policies. I do not mean that all of this is the outcome of a
strategy defined beforehand and planned from above to below. I am simply posit-
ing that once the new symbologies are disseminated and gazes are reshaped these
constitute a potential resource for governing that indeed make it possible to govern
in an "advanced liberal" way. Briefly, governing without governing; governing
through the choices of free individuals. The competition for the Museum for
Contemporary Art shows that it was possible to make decisions on apparently
substantive architectural aspects close to the public and at some distance from both
traditional political instances (the City Council) and technical expertise. In the light
of this bold perspective, the competition for the Helsinki Museum looks like one of
those indirect mechanisms that enable the translation - in the sense of geometric
movement - of molar goals (of urban policy) into the molecular choices of free
individuals. These choices draw on molecular mechanisms of perception and identi-
fication largely unconscious although culturally-historically crafted and therefore
which have a potential for pervasion throughout society. However, obviously, they
also encounter points of resistance as in well-ingrained professional cultures. In
sum, it seems to me that the strategy adopted for empowering the crystal succeeded
at a molar level by relying on molecular mechanisms which, therefore, kept tradi-
tional political and technical instances at some distance.

418Helsinki City Planning Department - Annual Report - 1995, p. 3. This and the reports of 1994 and 1993
account in detail on the public activities held on the premises of the Planning Department (including
exhibition of the results of competitions), number of visitors received, etc.

188
Fig D - On the back of the postcard it reads: "Consulting the experts - Children growing up in
inner cities are rarely consulted by planners and policy makers. Technical Aids [ACTAC]
means encouraging anyone to have a say in shaping their local environment."

One might ask whether the convergence of the new themes and new conditions for
the empowerment of urban policies, of architecture and of the new symbologies
and gazes, is fortuitous? I think not. Indeed, Giancarlo De Carlo had already
imagined the convergence of these factors. Together with the Smithsons and others
that have decisively contributed to the dissolution of the CIAM (International
Congress of Modern Architecture) in 1959 and vigorously attacked the paternalism,
dogmatism and authoritarianism of modern planning, De Carlo recalled the
following from a long experience of active involvement in the making of urban
projects:

When one represents how a place could be transformed, it is already as if it

had become what it just could become. Immediately people take possession
of that representation and, in their minds, they start experiencing, transform-
ing, contradicting and adding value to it.419

Although the "representations" that he mentions were, as a rule, typical

architectural drawings and models, it is necessary to take into consideration that the
historical and socio-cultural contexts within which he did participative planning and
design were very different from ours, and drastically different from a context such
as the competition for the Helsinki Museum. Nevertheless, his testimony is

419 Giancarlo De Carlo, "L'interesse per la città fisica", p. 17: "Se si rappresenta come un luogo potrebbe essere,
è già come se il luogo fosse quello che potrebbe essere. Della rappresentazione la gente si appropria con prontezza e
mentalmente comincia a esperirla, a modificarla, a contradirla, ad arrichirla".

189
important because he opposed the symbology of the architect to the highly
codified, hermetic, symbology of the planners, discovering that the former opened
an opportunity for the participation of the public, through the opening of its
imagination. Furthermore, De Carlo did not consider the architect merely as an
"expert" in the shaping of the habitat but also someone who fundamentally masters
a specific symbology that can play a part in the construction of policies for the
transformation of both city and territory. He was rightly the first to acknowledge it.
When, years later, Bernardo Secchi analysed from a discoursive perspective the
transformations of planning practice, that is, transformations that privileged
architectural forms of representation instead of the abstract symbologies of the
1950s and 1960s,420 he concluded that these were not only to do with a mutation of
its objects and themes but also with a search for legitimacy in an altogether
different context, where the public mattered (including all sorts of associations) and
in cultural conditions radically different from those of the 1950s and 60s. Secchi
acknowledged that this was impacting on the visible side of the activity of planning.
On the one hand, the need for urban policy makers to justify and make visible their
abstract economic-social equations and propositions worked to the profit of
architecture. On the other, the culture of the new interlocutors of policy makers
was drastically changing. This was anticipated by some, who from a very early date
had an acute awareness of the cultural transformations that were on their way.
Think, for instance, of Alison and Peter Smithson's article of 1956 "But today we
collect adds", or of the Independent Group,421 for whom it was obvious that the
culture of the modern-contemporary world would be unlike both that of the past
and that dreamt of by some elitist streams of modernism.
However, the construction and diffusion of new symbologies and the
reshaping of gaze have an exquisite regional character; to my knowledge the
Smithsons and the Independent Group were not particularly influential in Finland.

420 B. Secchi, "Le Tecniche", p. 22: "In Italy and Europe, more and more frequently and insistently
urban planners are speaking of colours, markers, of techniques of doing, organizing, drawing and
saying their projects. I am focusing on designing and drawing (disegno); a few years ago one would have
just focused on [urban planning] objectives and their complementarity to the system of economic and
social relations, or one would have just focused on the architecture of decision processes and how it
gave voice and granted power to specific subjects. // Indeed, as I have already stressed, what can be
at once grasped by "seeing" and "reading" recent plans or those already on their way, is that they are
drawn and written rather differently than they used to be, even recently". ("Con sempre maggiore frequenza
ed insistenza gli urbanisti, in Italia ed in tutta Europa, tornano a parlare di vernici, pennelli, di modi di fare,
organizzare, disegnare e dire il proprio progetto. Ho posto il disegno al centro: qualche anno fa si sarebbero posti solo gli
obiettivi ed il loro carattere di alterità rispetto il sistema di relazioni economiche e sociali prevalenti, o solo l'architettura
dei processi decisionali e la diversa distribuzione dei soggetti cui dava parola e potere. // In effetti, come ho più volte
detto, ciò che immediatamente pùo essere colto "vedendo" e "leggendo" i piani più recenti od in via di elaborazione è il
modo nel quale essi sono disegnati o scritti e le forti differenze che, da questo specifico punto di vista, stabiliscono con un
pur recente passato".) As to the roots of this discoursive turn, see note 54 above.
421On both Alison and Peter Smithson and the Independent Group, see D. Robbins (ed.), The
Independent Group, and C. Lichtenstein and T. Schregenberger (eds.), As Found.

190
The cultural life in post-WW II Finland and Helsinki were similar neither to
London nor to New York. Nonetheless, it is also necessary to acknowledge that the
gap between these was porous. Indeed, by consulting art catalogues I learnt about
the influential American Pop Art exhibition of 1963 in Stockholm, and about ARS.
My interest in these has little to do with an interest on the impact of international
art in the artistic milieu or in the development of Finnish art, but rather to do with
an interest in the diffusion of a new system of signs and on the reshaping of gaze.
By browsing the catalogue of ARS 69 I learnt that, among others, were
exhibited the Wandering rocks (fig 199) of Tony Smith, a work that powerfully blurs
the dichotomy contemporary vs. archaic (see fig 200) and which draws on a
symbology that has nothing to do with "representation" and that was probably seen
by 70.000 persons. I also learnt that ARS 1983, which was visited by 180.000,
exhibited Richard Tuttle's (b1941) 18 Other works (fig 201), an installation of small
watercolours, unlike Holl's but also with many points of contact with them. The
memory of these works and exhibitions is likely to have remained precisely for
those with an interest in the Museum of Contemporary Art, both artists and public,
a memory in any case carved in the respective catalogues. In this sense, Tuula Arkio
just represents a type - open gaze - and is a symptom of a larger cultural conjunc-
ture. Although transformations at the level of gaze are, due to their own nature,
invisible, they are very real and, nonetheless, are perceptible through symptoms
such as the cultural productions of a society and the reaction to them (of accep-
tance or opposition). It so happened that as I arrived at or departed from Helsinki
on several occasions, I crossed terminal 2 of Vantaa airport and I could not help
seeing the massive sculptures of Martti Aiha (b1952; fig 202) right at the exit of the
international arrivals, nor of thinking of them as either monumental tributes to
Surrealism (see figs 65-72) or in relation to a watercolour of Holl (fig 203). The fact
that Holl's watercolour is dated 1992 and Aiha's sculpture 2000, and therefore likely
or unlikely to play a role in relation to the competition, is not the point. What I
mean to stress is that both Holl's and Aiha's images are machines meant to make
imagination wander, not abstract but ascribable to a specific cultural tradition. I also
mean to stress that indeed Aiha's sculptures put my imagination at work, making it
jump over temporal and disciplinary boundaries, connecting one image to another,
and another, and so on,422 like Deleuze's "dream-image". Obviously, today this
perception, congenial to the "aesthetic", is fairly pervasive. Indeed, I believe that
this gaze played a crucial role in empowering the untying of Helsinki's Gordian
knot.
In August 1993, while a heated debate on the proximity of the Museum to
the statue of Marshal Mannerheim was unfolding, Teppo Sillantaus published in
Helsingin Sanomat the article "There is a nail at Mannerheim's place" ("Mannerheimin
tilalla on naula", fig 204). It is illustrated with some 100 photos by Arttu Hyttinen

422 InM. Antonioni's Blowup, when David Hemmings shows to Sara Miles the blow-up with the corpse
lying on the grass, she sees "one of Bill's paintings" (1h 26').

191
and Marjo Korolainen of the equestrian statue of Marshal Mannerheim included
in the models entered. There is a bit of everything here: a few cases in which the
plinth alone is represented but in one instance an "M" was superimposed onto the
plinth; there is another case in which the equestrian statue is represented by two
pins onto a small piece of wood, which, as the author of the article wryly notes, is
reminiscent of a hobby-horse (fig 204, to the left, below); also a competitor uses the
plastic miniature symbol of "White Horse" whisky, which also met with the ironic
disapproval of the author. Sillantaus thought that the most adequate miniature was
the metallic one reproduced larger at the centre-right of the photomontage (fig
204). It is clear that the journalist valorised mimetic accuracy and figuration: he
complains about the use of a single plied nail in one case, and the use of two
abstract masses in another, by Vesa Helminen, the Finnish 2nd prize winner. Of
course, this reveals both his and other pervasive expectations in relation to what
architectural representation or images tout court ought to be - expectations that
constitute the polar opposite of the open symbologies that had already made their
way in the art field some time ago and that have started pervading other realms. But
the examples in relation to which Teppo Sillantaus addressed his irony and sarcasm
are already round the corner, powerfully and inescapably.
What is most striking about the photographic survey of the mini-
Mannerheims is not the difficulty or incapacity of architects to meet the utopian
demand of mimetic accuracy423 but, on the one hand, the prevalence of the culture
of representation among architects and, on the other, the small number of non-
figurative representations which allow an ironic reading, or of strongly stylised
representations on the border between figuration and abstraction. Yet, no matter
how small this group of architects may be, it was one of them who won.

-----

As long as architects design things to be built by others they will necessarily

produce representations, but this has nothing to do with the world in which they
will have to speak (read: show) in order to empower their proposals. Equally, if this
world moves beyond a small elite (like those who empowered Abercrombie's
proposal for post-WW II London) towards an empowered public at large, archi-
tects and urban policy makers will have to speak its language(s);424 "participation"
will only be effective if it is in these terms, which slowly but irrevocably change
over time. In fact, the conditions exist already for a 1992 watercolour of Holl to be

423"Accurate" mimesis is an ideal definition for what is always a dissemblance; or, resemblance is a
form of dissemblance - see G. Didi-Huberman, Fra Angelico - Dissemblance and figuration.
424On the basis of the reactions of the public to an experimental video rendering on a new housing
development (Ruoholahti), Hilkka Lehtonen concluded that beholders "would like to see the subject
more holistically than the aspects of environmental beauty or architectonic quality given place to. The
experiment revealed that it is more to meet the beholders' perceiving interest which yields meanings
than to reach a deep realistic illusion" (H. Lehtonen, Perspektiivejä..., synopsis).

192
considered in the light of a sculpture of Aiha of 2000 located in an important public
space, and for a figurative equestrian statue to be reproduced and understood
through non-figurative means, through signs that may include the heteroclite, poor
and ironic materials of which Sillantaus disapproved: nails, plastic miniatures, etc,
whose key feature may be that of prompting the opening of imagination. That these
phenomenologies may play a role in the government of contemporary societies
should shock no one, as indeed what is at stake is "government", the pursuit of
political ends through non-political and non-coercive means. I am therefore refer-
ring to the Foucauldian notion of "government" or "governmentality" that indeed
designates that set of mechanisms typical of liberal democracies destined both to
govern over societies and to ensure that this is done in an economic way, without
damaging liberty and free will. Whereas the Foucault of the 1970s still thought of
government in terms of the "conduction" by some of the "conduct" of others,425 in
his course of 1981-82 at the Collège de France the term was given a wider meaning.
He clearly thought the subject at the intersection between techniques of domination
and techniques of the self, and, correspondingly, "governmentality" as the "surface
where the ways of conducting individuals and the ways through which they conduct
themselves meet each other".426
Foucault developed the notion of "governmentality" in relation to researches
on "practices of the self" crafted in Ancient Greece and Rome, practices in which
the problematization of sexuality has particular relevance. Of course we are not
dealing here with the self-construction of the self, the binding to aesthetic and ethic
ideals, which is generative of specific forms of social existence as well as being
traversed by socio-cultural determinations. In fact we are dealing with typical politi-
cal matters such as the allocation of public resources and the construction of "the

425 M. Foucault, "Omnes et singulatin" (1981), p. 83: "The characteristic feature of power is that some
men can more or less entirely determine other men's conduct - but never exhaustively or coercively".
M. Foucault, "The Subject and power" (1982), pp. 220-221: "To 'conduct' is at the same time to 'lead'
others (according to mechanisms of coercion which are, to varying degrees, strict) and a way of
behaving within a more or less open field of possibilities. The exercise of power consists in guiding
the possibility of conduct and putting in order the possible outcome. Basically power is less a
confrontation between two adversaries or the linking of one to the other than a question of govern-
ment. This word must be allowed the very broad meaning which it had in the 16th century. 'Govern-
ment' did not refer only to political structures or to the management of States; rather it designated the
way in which the conduct of individuals or groups might be directed: the government of children, of
souls, of communities, of families, of the sick. It did not only cover the legitimately constituted forms
of political or economic subjection, but also modes of action more or less considered and calculated,
which were destined to act upon the possibilities of action of other people. To 'govern' in this sense is
to structure the possible field of action of others". M. Foucault, "Le Sujet et le pouvoir" (1982, French
version of the previous essay), pp. 235-236: "L'exercice du pouvoir n'est pas simplement une relation entre des
'partenaires', individuels et collectifs; c'est un mode d'action de certains sur certains autres", translated as "a way in
which certain actions are modified by others" ("The subject and power", p. 219), which naturally
constitutes a translation flaw, as the subject of the phrase is "subjects" rather than "actions". Foucault
says that power relations are relations through which "some act upon some others".
426 M. Foucault, Herméneutique du Sujet, p. 507.

193
dwelling" (Aristotle), but their resolution passed through mechanisms and resources
that are exquisitely governmental. In the last instance, these concern the funda-
mental aspect of the aesthetic identity of a person, which is not a preference for
one or other images, but a gaze and its extension into a structure of feeling, aspects
that mobilize the free will, imagination and desire. In this case, architecture was
called for and indeed played a relevant role where others had failed, namely those
classic forms of mediation constituted by political institutions (parties, politicians,
vote, councils, etc) and by the planning machine.
It would be misleading to claim that in Helsinki we have witnessed the failure
of two formulas of mediation typical of post-WW II to the profit of a new formula
for socio-political exchange based on architecture. Indeed these classic formulas of
exchange were important both for the outcome of the competition and for the
development of the area, and still play a relevant role in the city and within Finnish
society. Nonetheless, it is also true that architecture played a particularly relevant
role in the empowerment of the crystal. It is my contention that this was the case
because it differed from a previous form of expertise. The expertise that was
empowered alongside the Welfare State is a form of "authority arising out of a
claim to knowledge, to neutrality and efficacy"427 but this can hardly be said of a
competition like the one at stake. Naturally, architecture is also a form of expertise,
but if it can have a role in the "government" of "advanced liberal" societies, it is
surely not because it has the power of ordering social existence in ways dreamt of in
the 19th century428 nor because it is a form of "expertise" based on claims to knowl-
edge and truth.429 No one has ever defended the promotion of an architectural
competition on such grounds, to my knowledge, nor the invitation of a few leading
architects for the redevelopment of a transportation hub such as Les Halles in
Paris, for example.430 The fact is that architecture is an intrinsically "liberal" activity:
on the one hand, competition and competitions are parts of its identity; on the
other, the lay judgement of architecture tends to run along lines of empathy and
desire (a realm perceived as of the personal or subjective); finally, it can indeed
provide both a separation and yet a connection between politics, expertise and the
public. This is why architecture gained such prominence in the early "participatory"
turn in De Carlo's practice, and in the subsequent participatory, informative,
communicative... turns in planning around Europe. I share Secchi's view on why
the visible side of planning became increasingly architectural in the 1990s; it is as if
these heteroclite practices and hypotheses were responding to the exhortation that
planning will either become architectural or it won't be participatory, informative,
communicative... and therefore justified. However, I would risk higher stakes:

427 N. Rose, "Governing 'advanced' liberal democracies", p. 39.

428 Which Foucault mapped within the frame of his research on "discipline" and "liberal rule".
429 See note 427 above as well as N. Rose, The Powers of Freedom, pp. 147-152.
430Jean Nouvel, Rem Koolhaas, Winy Maas and David Mangin put forward their propositions in
2004.

194
government will either take imagination into consideration, or it won't be "advanced
liberal government" at all.

195
 Annex
From the Jury Report, assessment of Steven Holl's winning entry to the
competition for the design of the Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art

Entry no. 396 'Chiasma'

The design has a mysterious, sculpturesque quality. Although the curvilinear mass does not integrate the
townscape in the conventional sense of the word, the curved and straight parts of the building tie together
the motifs in the surrounding urban structure, thus producing a carefully thought-out, harmoniously
placed design. The sculpture patios placed between the building and Mannerheimintie integrate the
building with the park areas surrounding it, thus offering the museum a variety of opportunities for
articulating its role in the townscape. By the same token, a slightly more generous hand would have been
welcome in the design of the sculpture patios.
The design allows the Mannerheim statue to remain in its present location, and the jury sees
no reason for moving it. The metaphorical reiteration of Töölönlahti Bay through the building is an
ingenious idea, although over-ambitious on its present scale. The public thoroughfare enlivened by
the sound of running water which transects the museum building serves as a positive enhancement
to the townscape.
The articulation of forms is eye-catching, sensitive and innovative. The design of the
elevations is effective, the elegantly-rendered incisions endowing them with a sound monumentality.
The design of the southern elevation is somewhat unclearly articulated. The choice of materials is
bold. The technical design is thoroughly thought out and meritably presented.
The spatial requirements and lighting of the museum have, in a unique way, served as a
key point of departure in this design; the architect has clearly set out to create a space for art. The
layout of the interiors, which takes these needs into account, is thus reflected in the overall shape
and appearance of the entire building. The architecture tones down all visually extraneous detail.
The exhibition areas are clearly articulated, flexible, and distinctive in appearance. The
interiors can be adjusted and grouped in convenient ensembles. In the absence of any distracting
ceiling or wall structures, the effect of the main galleries is very restful, with the emphasis on light
and space. The design allows for a wide range of different spatial and lighting combinations to meet
changing exhibition needs. The layout thus marks a departure from the conventional, mechanical
approach to arranging exhibition spaces.
The lighting system, which is designed around a combination of lateral and overhead
lighting, will have to be studied in closer detail in follow-up planning. Natural light plays a key
role in defining the overall shape of the building. Meanwhile, the building itself reflects light
outwards during the dark season thanks to its broad illuminated surfaces.
The picture window facing north on the first floor of the museum offers an excellent point of
orientation. The option of opening the scenic terrace into the exhibition hall should be considered.
Although the entrance hall is long and somewhat tube-like, the curving forms and ramps
give it a distinctive appearance. The café and teaching facilities on the western side of the building
are light-filled and spacious. The auditorium and other public access areas are linked directly to the
entrance hall. The entrance floor thus neatly ties together the various public facilities in the

196
building. Combining the reading area and clubroom for the Friends of the Museum is a neat,
practical solution.
The design of the interiors allows for easy movement around the building. In addition to the
central ramp, the stairways on the south and northern sides of the building facilitate orientation.
The large number of accesses allow for unobstructed passage throughout the building, even while
new exhibitions are being mounted.
The work and service rooms in the basement are functionally designed. The goods lift is
centrally located. Further attention should be addressed to the access from the lift to the exhibition
levels; for the present, a relatively narrow bridge serves this function. The feasibility of linking the
project workshops with the exhibition spaces should also be given further consideration.
The administrative facilities are centrally located. Combining them with the library and
archives is an excellent functional solution. These facilities are also easily accessible to the public.
The design is large in scale; it exceeds the limits defined in the competition brief. The calculated
construction costs also exceed the set target. However, the basic design concept is flexible, and can
thus be scaled down to meet the cost target.
The entry offers an excellent point of departure for developing a superior design that
effectively integrates the architecture of the museum with the surrounding urban milieu.

The report was approved unanimously.

Helsinki, May 28, 1993.

197
 Part 3

LORDI

The Devil is the Winner

 JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
1. Lordi 2. Lordi 3. Lordi, cover of the 4. Gene Simmons, band- 5. Gene Simmons
CD The Devil is a leader of the Kiss
Loser

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6. From the Apocalypse of Saint-Sever, c1028 7. Devil carrying away 8. Devil, tarot card, 9. Hans Memling (c1430-94),
naked woman, from The end of the 17th Devil, c1485
Last Judgement, Chartres century
Cathedral, c1200-50

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 JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
10. Circle of Baccio Baldini, Hell, according to Dante and 11. From Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 12. Mouth of hell, late 15th
after the fresco at Campo Santo in Pisa, c1480-1500 15th century century (?)
13. Mouth of hell, from the
Törnevalla church, Gotland,
late 15th century

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14. Lordi 15. From Les Noces de Pélée et de Thétis, 16. Diabolic creatures wrapped in fire, 17. Diabolic scene, and machine project,
of J. B. Lully (1632-87) and machine project, for work of for work of J. B. Lully (1632-87)
J. B. Lully (1632-87)

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18. Papist indulgence peddlers in the jaws of hell,
broadsheet, Germany, 15th century (?)
19. Ego Sum Papa [I am the
Pope], handbill against Pope
Alexander VI, Paris, late 15th
century
20. The two monks, from Johann
Lichtenberger, Weissagungen, Mainz, 1492,
copy with the captions "Dyth is Martinus
Luther" and "Philippus Melanton"
21. Devils inspiring Savonarola writing, from
Johannes Franciscus Poggius, Contra fratrem
Hieronymum Heresiarcham libellus et processus,
Nuremberg, after 1498
JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
22. Death shows a young man the
hell below and heaven above, from
Girolamo Savonarola, Predica del
arte del bene morire, Florence,
c1500
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23. Devil, from Codex 24. Lekythos with 25. Israhel van Meckenem (c1445- 27. Krater with Satyrs 29. The Mexican god Vitzliputzly, from Pieter van der
Gigas, 1204-30 Sphinx, Greece, late 1503), Griffin (and Maenads), Greece, Aa, La Galérie Agréable du Monde, Leiden, 1729
5th century BC 26. Cylinder seal with hero in battle c480-470 BC
against Griffin, Mesopotamia, c15th 28. Andrea Briosco, Il
century BC Riccio (1470-1532),
Satyr, c1506-8

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30. Manuscript detail, c1280
31. Psalter detail, early 14th
century
JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
32. Illumination from Anglo-Norman Apocalypse, 34. Simon Marmion, Vision of the hell, from The 36. The descent of Christ
early 14th century Visions of the Knight Tundal, Gand, 1475 into limbo, from the
33. Illumination from the Apocalypse, 14th century 35. Souls being released from the purgatory, represented Wolfenbüttel manuscript,
as mouth of hell, from the Hours of Catherine Cleves, after 1235
Duchess of Guelders, c1440 37. Christ in limbo, from
the Delbecq-Schreiber
Passion, 15th century
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38. Utrecht Psalter, f. 9r, 9th century [see head on the right hand
side, below]
"To the right, four angels with spears and arrows are dispersing the
'enemy' who are attacking the psalmist […]. Behind them, figures
writhe in a fiery pit containing a head of Death, the sorrows of
death and hell mentioned in verses 'the sorrows of death surrounded
me: and the torments of iniquity troubled me' and 'the sorrows of
hell encompassed me: and the snares of death prevented me' " (from
http://psalter.library.uu.nl/)
JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
39. Utrecht Psalter, f. 59r, 9th century [see head on the centre,
below]
"To the left in the lower register the bearded psalmist is standing
beside a tree […]. [With the left] hand he points to a fiery pit of
Hell in which souls are being tormented by demons, and in which
there is a huge head of Death" (from http://psalter.library.uu.nl/)
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40. Assembly of wonders of India, from
Sebastian Münster, Cosmographia, c1544
41. Wild man with face below shoul-
ders [wild man + Blemmyae], Råby
Church, Denmark, 15th century
(fresco now destroyed)
JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
42. Projection of the Hereford Map, 43. Norman Capital, Canterbury
1276-83, detail of the "Monstrous races Cathedral, 12th century (?)
and south-western islands"
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44. The Devil of money, from satiric
handbill against loan sharks, France,
c1650
45. The Devil of usury, from John
Blaxton’s pamphlet against loan
sharks, London, 1634
46. Georges Meunier
(1869-1942), advertisement,
1898
47. Leonetto Cappiello (?)
(1875-1942), advertisement,
1906
48. Newspaper advertisement
to Pascal Bruckner, La
Tyrannie de la Pénitence,
Grasset, Paris, 2006
Cover image: Dieric Bouts
(1410-75), The fall of the
damned, c1470
JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
49. Cover of G. Flaubert, The
Temptation of Saint Anthony,
trans. L. Hearn, Modern
Library - Random House,
New York, 1992
Cover image: Master of
Bonnat, Temptation of Saint
Anthony of Padua,
15th century
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50. Hieronymus Bosch (c1450-1516), The Temptation
of Saint Anthony, c1500, central panel
51. Hieronymus Bosch
(c1450-1516), The Forests
have ears and the fields have
eyes
52. Martin Schongauer
(1450-91), The Temptation of
Saint Anthony (Saint Anthony
carried on to the air by Devils),
c1485-91
JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
53. Jacques Callot (1592-1635),
The Temptation of Saint Anthony,
2nd version, 1634

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54. Devil or monstrous creature, 15th
century
55. Michael Wolgemut (1434-1519),
Witch and Devil, from Hartmann
Schedel, Liber chronicarum, Nuremberg,
1493
56. Lordi 57. Devilish creature from Puno
carnival, Peru
58. Devilish creatures from the
Diablada, Oruro carnival, Bolivia
JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
59. El Tío at a mine in
Potosí, Bolivia

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 JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
14 bis. Lordi 61. Amazon, projection from
60. Amazonomachy, projection of Roman Roman sarcophagus
sarcophagus, c140-50

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62. Alberto Giacometti 64. Alberto Giacometti
(1901-66), Le Cube, 1934 (1901-66), Tête sur tige,
63. Pablo Picasso (1881- 1947
1973), Head of weeping 65. Jacques-André
woman, from the Guernica Boiffard (1903-61),
Sketchbook, 1937 ...atrocious terror and suf-
fering make the mouth the
organ of ear-splitting cries,
1930
66. Francis Bacon (1909-
92), Head I, 1948
67. Illustration of mouth
with abscess held open by
forceps, found in the studio
of Francis Bacon
68. Francis Bacon (1909-92),
Head II, 1948
JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
69. Francis Bacon (1909-92), Study after
Velasquez's portrait of "Pope Innocent X", 1953
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70. Edvard Munch (1863-1944),
The Scream, 1895
JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
71. Francis Bacon (1909-92), Three studies for figures at
the base of a crucifixion, 1944
72. Francis Bacon (1909-92), Three studies for a cruci-
fixion, 1962
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 JoaoPhD-04-img-GLUE-BINDING.qxp
73. Still from Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-75),
Mamma Roma, 1962
74. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519),
The Last Supper, Santa Maria delle Grazie,
Milan, 1495-98
75. Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-94),
The Last Supper, Ognissanti, Florence, 1480

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 A 'human science' exists, not whenever man is in question, but whenever
there is analysis - within the dimension proper to the unconscious -
of norms, rules and signifying totalities, which unveils to consciousness
the conditions of its forms and contents. To speak of 'sciences of man'
in any other case is simply an abuse of language.
Michel Foucault 431

1. Introduction
I understand that Lordi, the winner of 2006 Eurovision song contest, drew on
horror movies, heavy metal and hard rock references, in a style overtly Camp.
Apparently, social scientists both in Helsinki and London are speaking of this as a
new phenomenon of low or sub- culture. Their hypothesis is that, since voting was
through text message, it must have been youngsters who voted massively for them
so that they were probably over-represented in the final result. There is even an
insinuation that they may have cheated by sending thousands of votes through the
internet.
Some people felt outraged by what they perceived as the assault of low
culture over Finnish (high) culture and did not hide their discontent with the fact
that such monsters could have represented Finland in this European contest. In
fact, many had predicted that Finland would end shamefully at the bottom of the
classification list. Indeed, a foreign academic working in Finland, on returning from
a trip abroad that coincided with the song contest, was surprised about the so-
called tragic event (événement), commenting "what happened to Finland?" Lordi's
victory moved passions. His presence in the final and the fact that the choice of the
spectators was taken into consideration on an unprecedented scale constituted two
important unknowns in the calculation of the final result. The Greek competitors
asked for Lordi's withdrawal alleging supposed references to Satanism, which,
according to them, undermined the foundations of European culture and values (Le
Monde, 21-5-2006). The same complaint was expressed by members of the Finnish
clergy. Yet, like the majority across Europe, Greek spectators awarded maximum
points to Lordi. The Guardian wrote that this was "the most emphatic victory ever in
the annual festival of kitsch pop" (22-5-2006).
In my view, such terms as "satanic", "subculture" and "low culture" are
inadequate. After all, they refer to a band that had millions of votes and gathered
between 80,000 and 100,000 people in the Market Square in Helsinki when they
returned home. In the Square, I saw a cross-section of people of different ages,
families and socio-cultural backgrounds. Even the President of Finland showed up.
I saw smiling faces. People were amused and entertained, celebrating and dancing
to the rhythm of the exuberant and carnivalesque show of Lordi. In one way or
another, Lordi had touched a vast audience. If the "most emphatic victory ever" in

431 M. Foucault, The Order of Things, p. 398.

201
Eurovision can be dismissed as a mere phenomenon of "Finnish subculture", how
could it have had such a huge appeal to a wide European audience? On the other
hand, Lordi's aesthetics of artificiality and the exaggerated challenged the light
kitsch tradition of Eurovision Contests. However, to put things merely in these
terms is to miss the total consistency, remarkable depth and implications of Lordi's
image. Indeed, it rends the symbolic-imaginary surface, connecting into deeper
cultural streams which have been running below the surface for rather a long time
allowing some chaos to emerge.

-----

My encounter in Helsinki with Mr. Lordi and his band, live from Athens, was a
pleasant surprise. My eyes were glued to a flat screen watching their performance. I
felt as if I was dreaming of the dragons of William Blake and the monsters of the
Middle Ages; that I was witnessing the emergence of what Aby Warburg called a
"survival", an image that is the re-actualisation of distant but stubborn memories.
Indeed Lordi is reminiscent of old figurative and artistic traditions, cornerstones of
the Western imagination and we still live with them: in our Romanesque churches
and Gothic cathedrals, in our Ancient art museums and libraries, and in our art
monographs and history books, but also in some modern forms of entertainment
for all ages of young people. I am referring to signs, characters and sets that were
fundamentally crafted in the second half of the 13th century - in some cases elabo-
rated since the 11th century - and that often constitute the re-elaboration of materi-
als from temporally or spatially distant cultures. These prestigious and popular
images were created by many of the finest craftsmen and artists of the late Middle
Ages and they continued to develop in the sphere of Western Christian mythology
and of some broadly accepted systems of beliefs and shared practices until the late
16th century.
In subsequent centuries, such images, books, beliefs, practices and people
themselves would be systematically and brutally crushed throughout the Reforma-
tion, the Inquisition, and the repression of witchcraft, all of which signified reces-
sion and put the culture at stake. Much has disappeared but much has survived,
particularly the stubborn images. Some have metamorphosed into art, others
survived in memory, in marginal practices or within popular culture, but many were
forgotten in archives and libraries.
The idea of "Survival" implies both continuity and transformation. My first
hypothesis is that Lordi is part of that Survival in that he re-actualises these old
prestigious, popular and repressed traditions. Lordi is an anachronism. They merge
temporally and spatially distant materials, heterogeneous times, contexts and mate-
rials. Indeed, Mr Lordi himself is not only reminiscent of a well-known composite
character and its realm seemingly crafted upon this tradition, but he also looks like
a montage with a number of parallels with Gustave Flaubert's Temptation of Saint
Anthony. Jean Seznec and, later, Michel Foucault stressed the entanglement of

202
Flaubert's book with a vast archive of literary and visual memories. Flaubert turned
what once had been visions, signs of God or of the Devil communicated to either
blessed or haunted hearts, into resources available for crafting anew. Flaubert drew
on and transformed these traditions, his book both summoning and displacing
these memories. Foucault has commented: "in writing The Temptation Flaubert
produced the first literary work whose exclusive domain is that of books. It may
appear as merely another new book to be shelved alongside all the others, but it
serves, actually, to extend the space that existing books can occupy. It recovers
other books and hides and displays them in a single movement, causing them to
glitter and disappear".432
My second hypothesis, is that while Mr Lordi is a montage and a stylistic
construction, comparable to that of Flaubert, as already indicated, he also seems to
be crafted upon a vast archive of images that both evokes yet keeps at some
distance, both manifesting and concealing that which constitutes the background, in
one way or another. Lordi cannot be understood without this archive. In this way it
is perfectly congruent with dispositions that structure our gaze.
In 1969, Julia Kristeva proposed the very fertile notion of intertextuality,
deriving from her famous position that "every text is a mosaic of quotations; the
absorption and transformation of other texts." This does not mean, narrowly, that
authors quote; it means that the meaning of words and texts, chiefly poetic texts, is
always like the relations of a figure against a background; words and texts do not
have a meaning in themselves but acquire it within contexts. This notion will enable
me to specify and further develop the relation between Lordi (and also of the
Flaubert of The Temptation) with the respective archive(s). For Kristeva, poetic writ-
ing is the re-writing of other texts, their absorption and displacement. It is poly-
phonic and a form of dialogue and ambivalence. It is always a double in which the
sign does not have a single signified, but a plurality, a dispersion of them. The sign
is multi-determined, opened to and by the "logic" of nonexclusive opposites and
analogy. Consequently, a relevant part of this theoretic frame has a direct interest
for the interpretation of Lordi. Furthermore, Kristeva, drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin,
considers that the carnivalesque is the discursive structure that epitomizes the
poetic logic and the structure of relation par excellence. Neither knowing logical
contradiction nor social nor linguistic law, the carnivalesque is their affirmation and
/ through their transgression. Thus, it is intrinsically dramatic, a drama of life as
well as a drama of language.
My third hypothesis, therefore, is that Lordi and their bandleader can be
thought of as a form of intertextuality, as a re-reading and re-writing of given texts,
as their carnivalesque dramatization. Indeed, Lordi is a rather straightforward form
of carnival, an exuberant form of transgression. However, they have little or noth-
ing to do with texts, but are rather an image among images. This perception is

432 M. Foucault, "Introduction" [to G. Flaubert, The Temptation of Saint Anthony], p. xxvii.

203
defined by and the result of a pair of gazes, lay and expert - ours - that are cultural
and historic constructions.
If Lordi can be thought of as this image among images, it is largely due to
grounds which do not any longer subordinate images to language or linguistic
categories. These grounds are the outcome of a specific history.433 In shaping lay
and expert gazes they define new possibilities of research. A relevant contribution
to this history is in the early cinema of Pasolini. By putting images in relation to
other images, he further displaced the conditions of the visibility of images, that is
to say, the structural disposition of gazes: their expectations, their ways of animat-
ing images. What are the consequences for this particular research? Put in simple
terms, I am not thinking of Lordi and their image in relation to prestigious textual
sources as in the work of Panofsky. Rather, I am fundamentally articulating them
with other images and materials (neither excluding nor privileging textual sources),
that is, prestigious, popular and banal, in the manner of Pasolini. Images are
animated by gazes, but whether these are of lay people or of the researcher, the
gazes were crafted within culture to a large extent by other images.
Lordi is a montage - a patchwork - and as such a typical product of contem-
porary culture. Indeed, it is a re-elaboration of references like the Kiss, references
from heavy metal and hard rock, from horror and science fiction movies, signs that
can be found in comics and tattoos. This is obviously well known. However, it is
misleading to draw only on these manifest references of Lordi's bandleader because
it is confined to the last few decades only. It ignores Lordi's reactualisation of a
much older references. Lordi is both a phenomenon with typical contemporary
features and one with much deeper historic-cultural roots and implications.
Although Lordi seems to belong to the Camp aesthetics of the ostensibly artificial
and exaggerated, of style taken to its utmost expression and at the absolute expense
of content, this is only a partial truth. So while the Camp frame is interesting for the
light that it throws into these aspects, the fact is that Warburg, the theoretical frame
of the symptom and Bakhtin-Kristeva's carnivalesque are all necessary tools with
which to grasp the depth of Lordi and their implications.
However, this historic depth should not be taken as religious archaism, as
implied by the label of "Satanism”, for two reasons. Firstly, although Lordi draws
on signs once in the realm of religion they were emancipated from it. Secondly, that
accusation is fully grounded in an idealisation about Western culture, values and
history, and it is an interesting one if not taken literally but symptomatically (in the
common sense of the word), i.e. as something standing for an uneasiness. Indeed,
there is something potentially troubling in their show and image, which can cause
nausea.
This brings me to my fourth hypothesis. Lordi is neither merely reminiscent
of other images and parts, nor simply a return to the cultural and iconographic

433Sketched in bold terms in pp. 85-150 above, i.e. in the sections on Warburg, Freud and French
though post-WW II, particularly for what concerns the interpretation of images.

204
repressed. Lordi is animated by an intensity that can be named "death". This is a
characteristic of the paradoxical and unstable phenomenology of images, a
phenomenology similar to that of corpses in which Alberto Giacometti was
immersed on the occasion of the death of T., an experience that opened the way
for him to understand identity in terms of an abstraction, a point, that admits all
sorts of expressions ("a mass in motion tied to a point"). This point is actually the
frontal projection of a line. It traverses and animates the Western imagination, at
least, for what concerns the image of the open mouth, from the Utrecht Psalter
(9th century) to the work of Francis Bacon (20th century).

-----

The problem with qualifications of terms like "Satanism", "subculture" and, partly,
Camp, is that they have an ideological function. They are of the order of judgement
and become the trees that hide the forest. They tend to overshadow the deep
sources and structure of Lordi and of their image. They also overshadow the likely
reason why it makes some people dance and smile while others tremble with fright.
They obscure the reasons for Lodi's successful reception and why such images
touch so many people. Before making judgments, it is better to understand the
nature and structure of the image before our eyes, that is, its materials, constitution
and genesis. It is also necessary to have an idea of the space where such images
come into existence, i.e., of the dispositions of gaze. In following this path one may
come closer to understanding the forms that emerge in the social world.

205
2. Lordi is haunted by reminiscences
2.1. The Western-Christian track

Mr Lordi's image has clear and distinct relations with the iconography of a specific
Western character: the Devil. In the press photos published in dates around the
contest, he (figs 1-3, 14, 56) can at times be seen with black bat wings, with small
protuberances in his forehead, with feline or bird claws, quite often wearing a belt
with a face with open mouth, the so called "belly-mouth". These constitute sure
attributes of the Devil. In an illumination of 1028 from the Apocalypse of Saint-Sever
(fig 6) all of these attributes are visible, with the exception of the belly-mouth. This
latter attribute was conferred on the Devil in the late 13th century, which appears in
the Anglo-Norman Apocalypse of Trinity College (c1230-50);434 it would also
appear in France in Chartres (c1200-50; fig 7) and in Bourges (c1270).435 By the
14th century it became one of his distinctive attributes. The Devil with bat wings,
fingers with claws, with protuberances in the forehead, with its typical excessive
countenance, Gorgon like, and with the belly-mouth, can be found in illuminations,
in the decorative apparatus of cathedrals, in popular imagery and in artworks (for
instance, see the remarkable Devil of Hans Memling, fig 9). Until the 16th century
the Devil was an object of intense re-elaboration but continued to exhibit these
attributes. This composite creature was bequeathed to later generations, including
the present one.
The image of the open mouth with tongue out is recurrent in Lordi's imagery:
Mr Lordi wears a belly-mouth belt; sometimes he is photographed with open
mouth (fig 2); the cover of the CD The Devil is a Loser includes one of these photos
(fig 3); finally, this image was projected on to the large stage screen in the Market
Square in the concert celebrating the return of the victorious band. What is this? Is
it the return of the open mouths banned by Lessing?436 Or are these open mouths
just the visual counterpart of Mr Lordi's powerful shout? Or are they, perhaps, just
reminiscences of Gene Simmons' mouth and remarkably long tongue, the icon of
the Kiss? (figs 4, 5) Although there is some truth in all these hypotheses, this is not
the whole story.
The mouths of both Mr Lordi himself and the one on his belt are reminiscent
of three distinct iconographic themes: belly-mouth, mouth of hell and death-
mouth. Contemporary to the establishment of the iconography of the Devil the

434 The notice of the Trinity College catalogue at: http://rabbit.trin.cam.ac.uk/James/R.16.2.html

435 J. Baltrušaitis, Le Moyen Age Fantastique, pp. 31-33.
436 G. E. Lessing, Laocoön, ch. 2.

206
"mouth of hell" was also established as a central element. The remarkable Devil of
Hans Memling, for instance, dances over a sinner about to be swallowed by a
mouth (fig 9), a theme known across Europe from Italy to Gotland (fig 13). These
mouths may appear in hell, among other attributes such as torture machines. Quite
another thing is the "death-mouth", a head that alone condenses hell and / or
death. Although all of these constitute distinct themes, they are contiguous and
difficult to circumscribe, as is often the case with iconographic matters.
In the first two decades of the 1300s Dante wrote the Divine Comedy. This
poetic text, enthusiastically received by Dante's contemporaries and following
generations, confirmed a number of features of the Devil and, lastingly, of the
Devil's realm. In the centre of the lower circle of hell stands Satan. Trapped waist-
deep in the frozen lakes of hell, the three headed monster devours at the same time
Brutus, Cassius Longinus and Judas Iscariot.437 At the centre of the horrendous hell
stands the hideous anthropophagic creature, this eater of sinners. It is this creature,
this literary creation, that can be seen in early Italian frescos such as the one at the
Campo Santo in Pisa (c1350; see fig 10, after Pisa's fresco). Giotto's Last Judgement in
Padova (1306) anticipated them. These influential images shaped the imagination of
their contemporaries, lay beholders, art patrons and artists. But the Last Judgement is
not exhausted by the presence of this character, the Devil. It is also a place, or,
more precisely, a system of places (loci), where sinners are punished appropriately
and in a specific place by ordeals with frozen water to burning flames, which is
clearly visible in the Last Judgement of Torcello (12th century). Dante's "Hell", with
its system of circles that the narrator travels through, is a similar system. These
constitute exquisite mnemonic landscapes. As Frances Yates recalls, the antique arts
of (artificial) memory consisted in "places and images".438 By travelling through
mental buildings and landscapes, places populated by images of a specific kind
("active images"), orators, for example, could speak with total recall for hours.
Although the arts of artificial memorization died with the decline of the Roman
Empire, with the death of Saint Augustine in the 5th century, they had an afterlife
in the visual arts through the images described above of Torcello and through the
literature of Dante among others.439 Jérôme Baschet has shown that there is also a
correspondence between the detailed and differentiated representations of judge-
ment and punishment in the other world, and the penal forms of this world.440
Notwithstanding, throughout the Renaissance these exquisitely antique mnemonic
landscapes, constituted by a large number of places, tended to decay to the profit of
spatially homogeneous hells, unified according to the principles of Alberti's
perspective. Alongside, the geography of hell changed. Leaving aside representa-
tions of hell such as Doré’s plates for the hell of the Divine Comedy (1861), the

437 Dante, Divine Comedy, "Hell", 34, 37-45 and 55-57.

438 F. Yates, "Architecture and the art of memory", p. 4.
439 The fundamental research on the subject is F. Yates, The Art of Memory.
440 J. Baschet, Les Justices de l’au-delà.

207
frozen landscapes of Dante gave way to the landscapes of fire and flames which
soon became the dominant tradition. This spatially unified hell of fire and flames
was vividly pictured through the colours of Flemish oil painting.
Before horror movies and Hollywood, hell and its creatures were already
appealing subjects for stage creation. For example, an extraordinary moment of
revival of these sets of fire and flames can be found in the work for stage of the
"divine" Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-87) for the court of Louis XIV of France. Lully
sets include mouths of hell, dragons and other monsters, diabolic creatures
wrapped in fire (fig 16) and Gorgons (fig 15). Lully and the operatic tradition that
would develop up to the Wagnerian gesamtkunstwerk ("total artwork"), constitute
clear predecessors of Lordi’s show, with its elaborate dresses and make-up, sophis-
ticated light effects and pyrotechnics (see fig 14), and of Lordi’s mise en scène of
monsters, Devils and so on. Indeed, there is a close kinship between Lordi’s
performance and what is still the custom on opera stages.

-----

Therefore, Lordi is reminiscent of a rather coherent group of themes and images

that constitute cornerstones of the Western imagination. I will return to these
claims later both to displace and add to them.

-----

Apart from the well-established iconography of hell in Last Judgements, the Devil and
his realm is also recurrent in other iconographic series such as the Reformation and
Counter-Reformation propaganda and the iconography of witchcraft.
In the Papist indulgence peddlers (fig 18) there is a monstrous winged creature,
mouth wide open packed with sinners and with hanging breasts like an old woman,
that is, a Devil. (This motive is also present in the Devil of Memling, fig 9.)
However, the Pope was also often pictured with the canonical attributes of the
Devil: fingers with claws, monstrous face and belly-mouth (compare Mr Lordi's
hands, fig 2, to figs 19, 23). Savonarola, after having made use in his preaching of
the rhetoric of heaven and hell (fig 22), was accused of trading with the Devil (see
fig 21) and would end up in the fire of the Inquisition. Also both Martin Luther and
Philip Melanchthon, after having identified the papacy with the Devil, would be
shown / seen in his company (fig 20). Together with artists as important as
Albrecht Dürer, they were testimonies of a remarkable resurgence of monsters.
Either symptomatic of the decadence of the papacy, of this corrupt kingdom and
its idolatrous drift, or of the heresy of Reformists, the iconography of the Devil and
monsters flourished in the service of political-religious propaganda.
As to the witch, she was the earthly and female double of the Devil. In a
popular image of the 19th century she appears as his back face, Janus like. Though
witches could be seen beating the Devil and other monstrous creatures, funda-

208
mentally they were their allies. Their main attribute was their naked, erotic female
body. By the 16th century witches and wizards had begun to be severely and
brutally persecuted, and people were burned in their thousands. In the late 18th
century, this culture would re-emerge magnificently through the hands of Goya. In
his imagery women, witchcraft and the he-goat are central, not only testifying to the
persistence of specific iconographic or cultural themes in Goya’s imagination but
also to the practices of his contemporaries and to the corresponding social system
of beliefs. In this case there is a clear link between images and social memory. Even
by the mid 20th century, witchcraft, magic and related beliefs, had not totally disap-
peared from Portugal, at least; beliefs of this sort still have their place in contempo-
rary societies.

2.2. Ancient and East connections

Although an object of continuous artistic elaboration and possessing a rather stable

and recognizable physiognomy, the Devil was neither an isolated creature nor was
his physiognomy unique. It lived among monsters and borrowed its elements from
a previously constituted stock of parts. Winged monsters have a particular cultural
depth. They can be found as early as the 15th century BC in the Middle East (fig
26). In this respect the West borrowed much from distant cultures as well as from
Greco-Roman Antiquity and from the Far East.
For example, in both Egypt and Greece, the Sphinx was an object of cultural
elaboration (fig 24). The Satyr, this intruder of women's space yet their accomplice,
half human half animal - a human body and, at times, goat legs and tail - was
present up to the Europe of Renaissance (fig 28). The Gryllus, the Griffin, among
many other marvels, found their way from classical Antiquity into modern Europe.
Dragons, on the other hand, likely migrated from the Far East, from China. All of
these creatures joined the marvellous European bestiary to which some animals like
the elephant or the rhinoceros were fully entitled. Many of these creatures are still
the object of cultural elaboration.441
In a press photo of Mr Lordi, a monster grows from his back: a sort of a
dragon (fig 2)442 which is a rather precise detail reminiscent of the Greek Chimera.
Chimeras are dreadful composite creatures, with the head and body of the feline or
of the goat, with snake tail, and, in later iconography, a dragon head growing on the
back. According to Homer, it was Bellerophon that finally defeated this beast,443
which granted him access to the Pantheon as the greatest of the monster hunters.

441 For instance, in the work of Joel-Peter Witkin.

442 Or is it a symmetrical pair of dragons?
443 Homer, Iliad, 6, 155-203.

209
The "chimerical", that nowadays means something wished for but illusory or a
"pure fantasy", derives from the same noun.444
The people of the Middle Ages and Renaissance intensely dreamed of
composite creatures and in the factories of the time images were dismounted and
reassembled, displaced and re-signified, and this crafted the statuary of Roman-
esque churches and Gothic cathedrals, heraldry and coats of arms. Martin
Schongauer and Israhel van Meckenem, among others, have produced masterpiece
Griffins (fig 25) which, together with the Devil and Mr Lordi are all composite and
winged creatures. They are salient images that leave lasting traces in memory and
have much in common with the "active images" of the arts of memory that Frances
Yates researched: "human figures, striking figures, actively doing something, and
strikingly beautiful or strikingly hideous or absurd".445 This, naturally, applies to
Lordi.

-----

All this demonstrates how this "Christian character" is not essentially Christian but,
rather, has a plurality of affiliations, certainly regarded as a Western creation but to
a large extent weaved with threads imported from different places and times.

-----

The mouth of hell also borrowed from pre-Christian worlds with one of its prob-
able sources as the Gryllus, a monster of Roman glyptic art. Pliny thus named the
caricature of a certain man; later it designated the caricature style in general and
ended up designating glyptic art representing monsters with head and legs only.446
Baltrušaitis mentions that these carved gems were objects of particular attention in
the Middle Ages as magic artefacts collected by the church and nobility and they
would leave a lasting imprint on the culture and visual production of the late
Middle Ages. These monsters first appeared in the borders of illuminations (figs 30,
31) and were later integrated into larger representations. Baltrušaitis provides
striking examples of these in illustrations of the Apocalypse, as Leviathan following
the rider Death (figs 32, 33), and in representations of the Descent into limbo (figs 36,
37).447 Although the Gryllus survived as such during the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance (as we shall see, it is pictured in Bosch's Temptation), unmistakably it
was also displaced and transformed becoming the mouth of hell, or, more
accurately, one of its sources.

444 See J. L. Borges, O Livro dos Seres Imaginários [The Book of Imaginary Beings], p. 168.
445 F. Yates, "Architecture and the art of memory", p. 5.
446 J. Baltrušaitis, Le Moyen Age Fantastique, p. 19.
447 J. Baltrušaitis, Le Moyen Age Fantastique, ch. 1.

210
 However, the Europe of the Middle Ages not only borrowed and trans-
formed elements from the Greco-Roman heritage, but also from Islam, which had
kept an important part of the Greco-Roman heritage and communicated it back to
the West. Crucially for our subject, this also happened with the Far East and China,
which is the thesis of Jurgis Baltrušaitis. The Devil apparently borrowed the bat
wings from Chinese dragons. Though this Devil can be found before the 13th
century (fig 6), it only became pervasive throughout Europe after 1220 or 1250.
The same goes for the dragon itself as one of the possible incarnations of the
Devil.448 The dragons fought by Saint George and Saint Michael, also constitute late
13th century borrowings from Chinese culture.
The second half of the 13th century and into the 14th, constituted a period of
frequent exchanges with the East. In 1241 Cracow was taken by the Tartars; in the
following years they would advance over Hungary and attack Wien; around 1245
the Eastern border of Europe was confined within the Mongol empire and on the
other end of this empire stood China. Around the mid 13th century Europe started
developing relations of friendship with the Mongols. Missionaries were sent and
arrived in China, to the Kingdom of Cathay. There they discovered a world both
real and fabulous, a fascinating and artistically sophisticated world, the exploration
of which was continuous and systematic over one and a half centuries. This was
how we received winged monsters and winged dragons from China, either directly
or through second hand Mongol interpretations, so that according to Baltrušaitis,
the definition of the Western prototypical Devil with bat wings owes much to these
Far Eastern contacts. The parts, the physiognomy, are Chinese and sense was given
to these forms by the construction of Tartars as absolute evil, the people of Satan,
the prophesised source of the Antichrist.449 This fundamental borrowing does not
of course exclude others: bat wings also existed in some Greco-Roman creatures
although probably unknown in the Middle Ages. This is also evident in fig 29 - a
Mexican god seen through Western eyes, in every respect resembling a Greco-
Roman satyr (see figs 27, 28) with belly-mouth (i.e., a Devil). Clearly, we are dealing
with multi-determined creatures and images.
Thus, the Orient at stake is half real but fully imagined, like a screen where
preconceived images were projected. Although accurate information about the
Orient had arrived in the West, the most popular travel narrative ever was the Travel
of Sir John Mandeville, of 1356. There are still over 300 manuscripts in 10 different
languages and about 90 editions up to 1600.450 Though it reports on his excursion
to the Holy Land and Egypt, Mandeville was also an armchair traveller. Drawing on
previous authors, first or second hand prestigious antique sources and others, he

448 WilliamBlake called one of his Devils "dragon". It seems to me that at the same time something is
repressed and a source is unveiled.
449For the writing of this paragraph I drew on J. Baltrušaitis, Le Moyen Age Fantastique, ch. 5: "Bat
wings and Chinese demons" ("Ailes de chauve-souris et démons chinois").
450 See C.-C. Kappler, Monstres, Démons et Merveilles à la fin du Moyen Age, p. 51.

211
crafted a collage of mirabilia, of marvels. For instance, he could testify to the
existence of men with the face below their shoulders, which, in fact, was known
long before Mandeville's narrative. These men inhabited distant lands, islands, to
the East, as the Hereford map of 1276-83 recorded (fig 42). They were the
Blemmyae already mentioned by Pliny.451 This is another possible source of the
belly-mouth. As late as 1544-50 Sebastian Münster also records the existence of the
Blemmyae in his geographical encyclopaedia, the Cosmographia (fig 40). In Münster’s
work the Blemmyae is accompanied by the man with a dog head (Cynocephalus),
the man with one eye (Cyclops) and the man with one only large foot (Sciopod), all
of which constitute prototypical monsters from the East. Most properly Münster’s
plate is known as the "Assembly of wonders of India". These monsters could be
found in the 15th century frescos of a church in Denmark (fig 41), now destroyed.
In sum, in the late Middle Ages information circulated between East and West, the
explored Orient and the imagined one, between Europe and its Greco-Roman past,
as well as within Europe.

-----

As argued in the ground-breaking literature constituted by Jurgis Baltrušaitis' Le

Moyen Age Fantastique (1955) and his Réveils et Prodiges (1960), which has been
stressed by recent scholarship,452 the monstrous is not a curiosity or a marginal
cultural phenomenon, but constitutes a structural aspect of the culture of the late
Middle Ages, with continuity in later periods. Religious culture, cosmography and
European territory, the seas and distant lands of world maps and travel narratives
were all populated by a large and exuberant crowd of monsters in which the Devil
and hell have occupied a prominent place. Could this be due to their alliance with
Christian mythology? Clearly this alliance allowed the establishment of an iconog-
raphy and the imaginary, which was the object of insistent artistic elaboration by
particularly talented and popular hands. But the fact is that the Devil, his realm and
his cousin monsters appeal to a fundamental human dimension: imagination.
Michael Camille recalls that Saint Bernard, according to his own testimony, could
spend a whole day "gazing fascinated by these things one by one instead of medi-
tating on the law of God".453 It is likely that "these things" were images structurally
similar to fig 43: a composite creature, a sort of a Griffin with goat or monstrous
head, human arms and a belly face, i.e., a belly-mouth. As Jorge Luís Borges
acknowledges, "we do not know what the dragon means, just as we do not know

451 Pliny, Natural History, 7, 23.

452 For instance, see Démons et Merveilles au Moyen Age (conference proceedings), C.-C. Kappler, Monstres,
Démons et Merveilles à la fin du Moyen Age, the works of Claude Lecouteax, or U. Eco, Arte e Bellezza
nell'Estetica Medievale.
453 M. Camille, "Seeing and reading", p. 37.

212
the meaning of the universe, but there is something in the image of the dragon [and
of imaginary beings at large] that is congenial to humanity's imagination".454
It is true that for some time the Devil and hell were important tools in
"power" strategies, functioning as the effective symbolic-imaginary side of author-
ity. However, this is not an explanation in itself, but rather what demands an expla-
nation. Indeed, this authority was only possible insofar as the Devil, his realm,
contiguous bestiary and imagery were always dreamt of or caught the eye, often
with erotic or satiric content. They fascinated and entertained, or mocked and
parodied the opaque signs of the powers that, for a long time, were written in the
abstract Latin. It is pointless and impossible to ascertain the meaning of images like
fig 43 in the light of the texts that fixate the core of Christian mythology. This
bestiary of hybrid creatures was the détournement 455 of the doubly opaque signs of
authority. This imagery has a genesis but not necessarily a clear meaning, which
applies to the Devil that also comes from these floating, ill-bred and carnivalesque
signs.

-----

After the 16th century the Christian world repressed and distanced itself from the
Devil and its realm and particularly from the iconography. However, they had
already left a lasting imprint in the Western imagination. As a result, the distancing
did not determine the death or decay of the constructions at stake. On the contrary,
it determined new and pretty resistant forms of existence: as repressed, as art and as
popular culture. What once had developed within the realm of religion was emanci-
pated from it.
At the dawn of cultural Modernity, in the Paris of the 19th century, we will
find the Devil marketing drinks (figs 46, 47). This is both significant and unsur-
prising. It is significant of the emancipation of the iconic Devil from the realm
where it grew, and unsurprising because the Devil never really disappeared but
could always rely on skilled hands: for instance, Goya, Blake and Doré. In any case,
the Devil had already appeared before as a character independent of a narrow iden-
tification with Christian mythology in a process that started with Reformation and
Counter-reformation propaganda, and continued in the first half of the 17th
century, where, for instance, the Devils of usury could be found (figs 44, 45).456
Today we may find him and hell in places such as book covers (figs 48, 49). One

454 J. L. Borges, O Livro dos Seres Imaginários, p. 5.

455That can be translated as "diversion", however with the loss of the meanings of "hijacking",
"misappropriation", "corruption", that the French original has (see S. Sadler, The Situationist City, p. 17)
and that are indispensable in the present instance.
456In Romantic literature, that is, authors such as Théophile Gautier (1811-72), Gérard de Nerval
(1808-55)... but also Mary Shelley (1797-1851), for the possibilities it propitiated for the development
of a culture of imagination and the fantastic, it probably deserves to account for the resurgence of the
Devil in the 19th century, but this lies outside the purpose of this research and my field of expertise.

213
might, wrongly, say these are nothing but symptoms of the society of spectacle in
which we live. But this is not the case with the cover of one of the editions of
Flaubert's Temptation (fig 49), which has a quote from Freud,457 a reference to the
introduction by Michel Foucault and an image with several monsters and a little red
Devil, with its belly-mouth, cudgelling Saint Anthony of Padua. The co-presence of
these references has the greatest cultural significance.

457 See E. Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, vol. 1, pp. 174-175: "The two books that made the
deepest impression on him, at least in these years [around 1883], were Don Quixote and The Temptation
of Saint Anthony. [...] He read The Temptation on the journey to Gmunden in Breuer's company and
finished it on the following day. 'I was already deeply moved by the splendid panorama, and now on
top of it all came this book which in the most condensed fashion and with unsurpassable vividness
throws at one's head all the trashy world: for it calls not only on the great problem of knowledge
[Erkenntnis], but the real riddles of life, all the conflicts of feelings and impulses; and it confirms the
awareness of our perplexity in the mysteriousness that reigns everywhere. These questions, it is true,
are always there, and one should always be thinking of them. What one does, however, is to confine
oneself to a narrow aim every hour and every day and gets used to the idea that to concern oneself
with these enigmas is the task of a special hour, in the belief that they exist only in those special hours.
Then they suddenly assail one in the morning and rob one of one's composure and spirit'. [...] 'What
impresses one above everything is the vividness of the hallucinations, the way in which the sense
impressions surge up, transform themselves, and suddenly disappear'. 'One understands it better when
one knows that Flaubert was an epileptic and given to hallucinations himself' [from a letter of Freud
to Martha Bernays, later Martha Freud, July 26, 1883]."

214
3. Temptation: metamorphosis and imagination
Throughout the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance the imagination of the Devil
and of monsters acquired an exquisite iconographic dimension. Apart from the hell
of the Last Judgements, the two themes were also worked in the representations of
the Apocalypse and of The Temptation of Saint Anthony.
Although the Apocalypse is the last book of the New Testament, it is imbued
with the imaginary of the Old Testament. Luther considered it "the lowest kind of
prophecies that speak only in images",458 even though there is a remarkable and
unsurpassed set of prints by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) based on the Apocalypse,
in which dragons and monsters are a fundamental fascinating aspect.
It is with The Temptation of Saint Anthony that the culture of monsters reaches
its apex in which the threads that I have been describing converge and weave in the
most remarkable way. Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1573), Mathias Grünewald
(1470-1528), Israhel van Meckenem (c1405-1503) and Martin Schongauer (1450-91;
fig 52), produced a number of masterpiece Temptations based on the life of Saint
Anthony.459 Together with Dürer, these artists were sensitive to the appeal of the
monster and they constituted some of the major exponents of German art. The fact
that they participated in the culture of their own time, including the culture of the
monster, did not exclude them from the Lutheran world.460 Cranach was both the
author of a Temptation and illustrated the German Bible of Luther. After all
Lutheran reform concerned the religious-spiritual sphere, which was not incom-
patible with the development of art beyond it. Actually Luther did not exclude the
use of images in a religious context if used as memory aids, accompanied by biblical
quotations and not idolatrously taken by the divine. For Luther "the only idolatrous
images are those in which one puts one's trust"461 and what constitutes an image as
an idol is idolatrous gaze.462 Although images were chased from the temple of the
Lord and the path of the monstrous was shortened, both images and monsters have
survived. While reformed churches were empty of idolatrous images, private
collections grew, something that neither interested nor bothered Luther. The
images of previous generations of artists, in which the monster had its place, were

458 H. Belting, Likeness and Presence, p. 549, quoting from M. Luther, the Weimar Edition, 28, 677-8.
459 As well as the Bruegel family, Jacques Callot (1592-1635)... up to Cézanne (1839-1906) and
Salvador Dalí (1904-1989).
460 Luther posted his theses in the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg in 1517.
461 H.Belting, Likeness and Presence, p. 549, quoting from M. Luther, Vorreden zur Offenbarung des Johannes
[1530], in the Weimar Edition, 7, 406.
462 I will argue that indeed it is gaze that constitutes images, but also that this gaze is shaped by images.

215
transformed into "art", and, as such, were both venerated and worshipped. As
mentioned, the monsters and images expelled from reformist theology found their
place and flourished both in the propaganda against the Papacy and in the Papist
response. As testified by the Cosmography of Münster, of 1544-50, referred to earlier,
and by numerous maps and travel narratives, monsters would remain stuck to their
earthly refuges for quite a long time. It is not easy to get rid of these products of
the imagination, objects of continuous re-elaboration within popular culture and by
artists as talented as Cranach, Dürer and Memling.
This brings us back to The Temptation. Hieronymus Bosch (c1450-1516)
bequeathed us what seems to me the most remarkable monsters of all. Bosch's
endlessly metamorphic work constitutes the apex of the culture of the monster (fig
50). Against the views that some modern commentators have expressed, Bosch was
not a heretical, hallucinated, diabolic painter. Though his paintings have puzzled
many commentators, he was appreciated and well understood in his lifetime. Philip
II of Spain (1556-98) owned many of his paintings. The "too catholic king"
declared that he wished to die with Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (1504-15)
within the reach of his eyes.463 There was nothing "monstrous" about the paintings
or the painter, except, maybe, the monsters themselves, omnipresent in the pictorial
surface. They are not limited to the prototypical previously known species, but are
endlessly varying, continuously undergoing metamorphosis. Nevertheless, many
prototypical species can be found there. For instance, in the centre of The
Temptation, the Saint is turned towards a creature with legs and head but no body, a
Gryllus. Other creatures are similar, yet they are always, in one way or another,
different. This is the case of a creature on the left hand side, being driven towards
the Saint. It is structured like a Gryllus, but has the head of a fish, goat legs and
wings - a fish with a long horn, like a Unicorn.
Within the finite panel Bosch depicted the infinite, ever changing, mobile,
metamorphic of the marvellous. The infinite of imagination. One cannot avoid
speaking in terms of the "marvellous" and "imagination" as it is the same move-
ment that animates both Bosch's hells and his heavens.464 Although, from a
religious perspective, these constitute realms affected by radically opposed, or anti-
nomian, values, Bosch is beyond the ethic-religious nomos (law). His is the realm of
the marvellous. No wonder the prototypical Devil, with bat wings, claws and belly-
mouth, is notoriously absent. Yet through its multiple and endless variations, and
the many disguises under which it both shows up and hides, it is present. In the
Christian tradition the Devil is a mutant,465 the one that changes whereas God is the

463 C.-C. Kappler, Monstres, Démons et Merveilles à la fin du Moyen Age, p. 11.
464J. Baltrušaitis (Le Moyen Age Fantastique, pp. 221-225) argued that our Temptations dream with
Buddhist ones. In The Temptation of Mara's Forces on Buddha at the Guimet Museum, in Paris, Mara, the
Lord of Evil, is depicted with three heads. These demons as well as demons with belly-mouths are
recurrent in the painting. Several warriors without head and men with dog head can also be seen.
There are over 110 synonyms in the entry "Diabo", Devil, in the Portuguese dictionary of A. B. de
465

Holanda, Novo Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa.

216
one that is. Therefore, the prototypical Devil was only one of its possible configu-
rations. He had been, for instance, the serpent of the temptation of Adam and Eve,
but throughout the 15th and 16th centuries the Devil continuously declined into
other monstrous forms, as occurred, for instance, in the iconography of the Refor-
mation. Also, as already indicated, it appeared under the guise of the witch, of the
erotic woman466 or of the Antichrist neither of which present the prototypical
features of the Devil. We have seen that the Devil would have an afterlife beyond
the religious realm and into modernity. With Bosch, of course, we are well into the
realm of the monstrous - no doubt a possible realm for the Devil. But the
monstrous is of nature-imagination (as the walls between the two realms are
porous) and also exists as a sign of the grandeur and the glory of God.467 However,
with Bosch the distinctions between hell and heaven, the monstrous and the divine,
though present, are suspended, because the marvellous and the craft of imagination
is beyond these distinctions.468 The realm of the monster is the realm of transforma-
tion and metamorphosis, of imagination and images, an autonomous province
whose fundamental law is transgression.

-----

No other triptych or painting of Bosch is more unsettling than the Garden of Earthly
Delights. It has been a hard nut to crack for generations of art historians and critics,
fundamentally because they have looked for the key that could disclose the sense of
the whole, a key searched for on the side of the subject matter, theme(s), and the
like. In a recent and remarkable book, Hans Belting came very close to answering
or indeed answers the enigma of the subject matter. Convincingly, Belting puts
forward the hypothesis that the Garden is based on "a gap in the Bible", the
paradisum voluptatis, or "paradise of lust", between the Creation and the Fall.469 This
hypothesis suggests that the central panel is a representation of mankind between
the two major episodes of the Genesis, living in a state of plenitude and not yet
knowing any form of deprivation. However, despite the tenacious enigma, this
work has a very rich history and was received with fascination and amazement
throughout the times, namely by art historians themselves. While its meaning has
always been uncertain, its fascination was always sure and its inventiveness well

466 Aslate as in 1935, in Hollywood, Joseph von Sternberg, directed The Devil is a Woman (80'), about a
woman (role performed by Marlene Dietrich) belonging to no one and with the capacity to frustrate
everyone. Significantly, the plot unfolds during a Spanish Carnival.
467 C.-C. Kappler insists a number of times on this point; for instance see Monstres, Démons et Merveilles à
la fin du Moyen Age, p. 225.
468 Different
is the case of fig 6, an illumination from the Apocalypse of Saint-Sever, where the hybrids
man-beast - with a distinct Greco-Roman character - constitute doubles of the Devil that, above,
dominates the composition.
469 H. Belting, Hieronymus Bosch, p. 87.

217
understood.470 It was always, and is still, very clear that Bosch transgressed the rules
of the genre triptych (typical of altarpieces) and patently succeeded in avoiding all
and every aspect of traditional iconography.471 Indeed, this is a rather singular
"virtual world", crafted with a high degree of "personal freedom", which is the
more amazing if one considers that the activity was highly regulated in Bosch's
time. Even today it is apparent that Bosch released painting from "the mimesis of the
world and bound it instead to the creative imagination".472
There is a drawing of Bosch featuring an owl in a hollow tree, a grove with
two huge ears in the background, and seven eyes in the foreground (fig 51), which
contains a very rare statement of Bosch, a caption that seems to converge in rela-
tion to Belting's claims and that in full reads as follows:

It is a poor spirit which only works with the inventions of others, and is
unable to bring forth new ones (Miserrimi quippe est ingenii semper uti inventis et
numquam inveniendis).473

The set is like a rebus that Belting partly answers by referring to the name of
Bosch's home town and to his own name, as these are related. According to
Belting, s'Hertogenbosch literally means " 'the forest (bos) of the duke (hertog)', while
it also contains elements pertaining to the eyes (ogen) and ears, thus lending itself to
punning".474 Should this mean that Bosch observed with wit and contempt the
conformism and the small-mindedness of the world in which he lived? Certainly he
did, which is stressed by the fact that his works often glossed the "miseries of the
world". But the image neither constitutes its ironical and / or self-ironical subject
matter nor its caption alone. Rather, it is an image that is both inventive and
striking but for another set of reasons. It anthropomorphizes the landscape in a
way that is both dramatic, in the sense that this is done with determination, and yet
comic; it is a demonstration of the absolute mastery of drawing, of the scale and
proportion of each part, and of perspective; notwithstanding, the composition of
the whole is unusually disruptive of any sense of realism, or naturalism, of the
representation. At its centre, with penetrating gaze, stands the silent and enigmatic
owl, mysteriously recurrent in Bosch's paintings. The contrast is, again, dramatic: on
the one hand, the dynamism of the margins; on the other hand, the stillness and
silence of the owl, of the dead hollow tree and of the fox nestled in its roots. This is

470 By "well understood" I mean a whole range of reactions between bewilderment, frontal refusal
(also the silence of Dürer, remarkably interpreted in H. Belting, Hieronymus Bosch, p. 77), and the
enthusiastic reception by the Surrealists.
These are fairly recurrent topics in the reception of the Garden and of Bosch's work. See R. H.
471

Marijnissen, Hieronymus Bosch, pp. 23-43.

472 H. Belting, Hieronymus Bosch, p. 98.
473 In R. H. Marijnissen, Hieronymus Bosch, p. 454.
474 H. Belting, Hieronymus Bosch, p. 66.

218
a skilful montage of opposites. The composition of the central panels of The
Temptation and of the Garden follow a similar pattern: a quiet, meditative and impas-
sive centre within dynamic landscapes: the Saint that prays amidst unrestrained and
wild madness; the impassive owl in the centre of a mankind alienated by the joys of
the body, gluttony and lust.
Belting speaks of "creative freedom" and "free invention" in relation to
Bosch and, in relation to his Garden, of a "virtual world" painted with "the kind of
freedom already enjoyed in poetry and literature in drawing upon mutable
fantasy".475 While these qualifications are on the whole justified, they ought to be
moderated. Although Bosch freely and idiosyncratically invented with dream-like
ease, the work of invention and imagination has its immanent conditions. Imagina-
tion does not come out of nothing; it draws on memory; it is the reiteration,
transformation and metamorphosis that are congenial to memory's continuous
work of re-inscription. As we have seen, before Bosch there is the remarkable
history and culture of the monster, that is also the culture of transformation and
metamorphosis, the culture of image. Of course, it is to Bosch's credit alone that he
developed his work the way he did, but it is no less true that he relates to these
specific traditions, which he drove to its apex, moreover that of the triptych, that he
subtly but openly transgressed. It can also be the case that the tradition in question
is that ideology - yet to come - of "free invention" and of "mutable fantasy", but on
the condition that "free invention" is understood in terms of regulated mechanisms
of transformation, no matter how conscious or unconscious these may be. The
amniotic liquid in which artistic invention develops is artistic and social memory.
Although the Garden and The Temptation constitute remarkable works of
idiosyncratic invention, the materials of which they are made have a history, their
force lies in the careful work of the montage of opposites, on what was yet to be
merged and transformed so radically and systematically, on the transgression of
established genres and on the challenging of taken for granted habits of viewing
and appreciation. Indeed these sophisticated and skilful montages create an author,
rather than are created by authors.

475 H. Belting, Hieronymus Bosch, p. 98.

219
4. The archive and the work
4.1. Montage, style

In 1845, Flaubert (1821-81) had encountered The Temptation of Saint Anthony

supposedly by Bruegel the Younger (the "Hell" Bruegel) in the Balbi Palace in
Genoa. He mentions this encounter, at the age of 24, as the moment when his
willingness to write his Temptation was roused. However, this was just the moment
when earlier interests crystallized, as Flaubert had already written several pieces
convergent with the subject. Either way, on "Wednesday, May 21, 1848, at 3.15
pm", at the age of 27, after a long period of preparation Flaubert started writing his
Temptation. After 16 months the first version was completed as a theatre play and
Flaubert read the text in full for four days to two best friends. Of a magnificent but
unrestrained lyricism, the monotonous parade of gods, beasts and hallucinated
visions puzzled Flaubert's interlocutors who understood nothing of it. The Tempta-
tion had to wait another quarter of century before meeting a wider audience. It was
not until 1874, at the age of 53, that Gustave Flaubert published The Temptation of
Saint Anthony, which was, as he acknowledged, his "life's work" ("l'œuvre de toute ma
vie"476).
In the year following the completion of the first version Flaubert travelled to
the Orient, to Egypt and Middle East, and then, between 1851 and 1857, he wrote
and published his masterpiece, Madame Bovary.
By 1856 Flaubert had resumed work on The Temptation. Although, in 1856-57,
he pre-published excerpts of this second version, he abandoned its full publication
because reference had been made to these excerpts in the case for prosecution of
Madame Bovary for obscenity. In the years that followed he published two more
novels, but finally in 1869 Flaubert started working on the third version of The
Temptation. After numerous interruptions and more research work, in 1874 The
Temptation of Saint Anthony saw the light of the day.
The third and final version of The Temptation is no longer a play. Nevertheless,
it has an exquisite theatrical structure. There are set indications concerning the
movement of the main characters, entrances and departures from the set, concern-
ing all sorts of creatures, objects, walkers-on and so on. Although these indications
are largely incompatible with an actual mise en scène, they give the text a strong theat-
rical character,477 which is cadenced by continuous dialogues. Even the typographic
conventions used in The Temptation are typical of play writing. But the text is rather a

476 In J. Seznec, Nouvelles Etudes sur La Tentation de Saint Antoine, inner side of cover.
477 See M. Foucault, "Introduction", pp. xxviii-xxix.

220
narrative, a prose poem, which is a parade of visions, of hallucinations, of philoso-
phic and religious inventions. This parade of temptations defiles before Saint
Anthony in one single night - a night of religion and knowledge, of forgotten and
repressed dreams, desires and imagination, with continuous movement of
dialogues, descriptions, details. In short, The Temptation is a theatrical and solemn
parade of exuberant and fantastic characters, of extravagant phantasmagorias, of
the craft of our culture.
For a long time the opinion was that the book derived from that encounter
with the painting in the Balbi Palace; or perhaps from a puppet show that Flaubert
saw early in his youth, at the fair of Saint-Romain at Rouen, which he later
introduced to George Sand. He may also have been influenced by The Temptation of
Saint Anthony (c1634; fig 53) of Jacques Callot (1592-1635), which Flaubert hung in
his workroom when he was 25. However, today we know that this was not the case,
though certainly these were important moments in the shaping of Flaubert's imagi-
nation. We owe this awareness to the work of Jean Seznec, whose voice would be
amplified by Michel Foucault. Seznec mapped in a rather systematic and accurate
way the network of sources and references on which The Temptation draws and
investigated its genesis through the notes, plans and drafts that Flaubert left on a
work that accompanied him throughout his lifetime. Flaubert felt he was working
on the "fallen trees of the dream", which he crafted with eyes wide open. Drawing
on Seznec, Foucault stressed that The Temptation "is a monument to meticulous
erudition":

To construct the scene of "the heresiarchs", Flaubert drew extensively from

Tillemont's Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, Matter's four-volume Histoire du Gnosticisme,
the Histoire de Manichée by Beausobre, Reuss's Théologie Chrétienne, and also
from Saint Augustine and, of course, from Migne's Patrologie (Athanasius,
Jerome, and Epiphanus). The gods that populate the text were found in
Burnouf, Anquetil-Duperron, in the works of Herbelot and Hottinger, in the
volumes of the Univers Pittoresque, in the work of the Englishman, Layard, and,
particularly, in Creutzer's translation, the Religions de l'Antiquité. For
information on monsters, he read Xivrey's Traditions Tératologiques, the
Physiologus re-edited by Cahier and Martin, Boaïstrau's Histoires Prodigieuses, and
the Duret text devoted to plants and their "admirable history". Spinoza
inspired his metaphysical meditation on extended substance. Yet, this list is
far from exhaustive. Certain evocations in the text seem totally dominated by
the machinery of dreams: for example, the magisterial Diana of Ephesus, with
lions at her shoulders and with fruits, flowers, and stars interlaced on her
bosom, with a cluster of breasts, and griffins and bulls springing from the
sheath that tightly encircles her waist. Nevertheless, this "fantasy" is an exact
reproduction of plate 88 in Creutzer's last volume: if we observe the details of
the print, we can appreciate Flaubert's diligence. Cybele and Atys (with his
languid pose, his elbow against a tree, his flute, and his costume cut into

221
 diamond shapes) are both found in plate 58 of the same work; similarly, the
portrait of Ormuzd is in Layard and the medals of Oraios, Sabaoth,
Adonaius, and Knouphus are easily located in Matter. It is indeed surprising
that such erudite precision strikes us as a phantasmagoria. More exactly, we
are astounded that Flaubert experienced the scholar's patience, the very
patience necessary to knowledge, as the liveliness of a frenzied imagination.478

In his lifetime Flaubert compiled a large library. He was an insatiable bibliophagic

and his erudition was encyclopaedic. As an annex to the second edition of The
Temptation, in 1856, Flaubert published a bibliography containing the list of the
works that he read "from the beginning of July 1870 to June 26, 1872". Naturally,
Seznec's researches found a crucial lever in this bibliography. But, as he points out,
the bibliography does not inform on the works that Flaubert "read" but in most
cases the works he "re-read".479 Seznec added to these bibliographic references from
notes and drafts, records of library borrowings and other references he recognized
in the text. Establishing a complete bibliography would have been a fastidious and,
likely, an impossible task, considering that Flaubert left some 30.000 manuscript
pages on his work. Nevertheless, the efforts of Seznec were more than enough to
place in evidence the vastness of Flaubert's enterprise.
The outcome of a huge work of montage of literary references and images is
the rhapsodic parade of characters, visions and hallucinations. The exuberant night
parade summons important literary and visual memories. Foucault: "The full range
of fantastic apparitions that eventually unfold before the hermit - orgiastic palaces,
drunken emperors, unfettered heretics, misshapen forms of the gods in agony,
abnormalities of nature - arise from the opening of a book [the Bible], as they
issued from the libraries that Flaubert consulted".480 Between the book of books,
that huge reservoir of stories, languages and cultures that is the Bible and The
Temptation, a structural transformation occurred. Foucault continues:

The domain of phantasms is no longer the night, the sleep of reason, or the
uncertain void that stands before desire, but, on the contrary, wakefulness,
untiring attention, zealous erudition, and constant vigilance. Henceforth, the
visionary experience arises from the black and white surface of printed signs
[...]. The imaginary now resides between the book and the lamp. The fantastic
is no longer a property of the heart, nor is it found among the incongruities
of nature; it evolves from the accuracy of knowledge, and its treasures lie
dormant in documents. Dreams are no longer summoned with closed eyes,
but in reading; and a true image is now a product of learning: it derives from

478 M. Foucault, "Introduction", pp. xxv-xxvi.

479J. Seznec, Les Sources de l'Épisode des Dieux dans la Tentation de Saint Antoine (Première version, 1849),
pp. 18-19.
480 M. Foucault, "Introduction", p. xxx.

222
 words spoken in the past, exact recensions, the amassing of minute facts,
monuments reduced to infinitesimal fragments, and the reproductions of
reproductions. [...] The imaginary is not formed in opposition to reality as its
denial or compensation; it grows among signs, from book to book, in the
interstice of repetitions and commentaries; it is born and takes shape in the
interval between books. It is a phenomenon of the library.481

The Temptation is a montage that constitutes a space, literary and imaginative, of

books and images as its background and memory, or as its "unconscious". The
book of Flaubert...

...opens a literary space wholly dependent on the network formed by the

books of the past: as such it serves to circulate the fiction of books.482

However, this is not just the outcome of Flaubert's creative enterprise, but also of
the accumulation of literary and visual memories in a vast labyrinth of libraries and
museums.

All literary works are confined to the indefinite murmur of writing.483

It is the eclipse of visionary experience and visionary writing, to the profit of the
literary culture of the fantastic. For Foucault, here lies the institution of literature.

-----

It is my contention that Lordi exists within, participates in and contributes to the

consolidation of a similar space. Lordi is also an image that draws on, constitutes
and implies an archive of other images as its foundation and "conditions of possi-
bility", i.e., the unconscious that sustains it. The question of whether this construc-
tion is conscious - as in the case of Flaubert - or unconscious, is of some impor-
tance but not crucial. In any case, Lordi can be thought as a montage of bits and
pieces from an archive that gathers important memories, partly forgotten and partly
repressed, but still alive.

-----

Although The Temptation exists amidst literary memories, Flaubert did more than
reproduce the library and iconography on which he drew. It was not a matter of
editing an anthology of texts in the manner of J. L. Borges and A. Bioy Casares' The

481 M. Foucault, "Introduction", pp. xxvi-xxvii.

482 M. Foucault, "Introduction", p. xxvii.
483 M. Foucault, "Introduction", p. xxviii.

223
Book of Heaven and Hell, for instance. The Temptation is other than the archive, as
Seznec showed. The Sphinx and the Chimera had not previously spoken and
moved as Flaubert made them speak and move.
By confronting the books and images on which Flaubert drew, Seznec
managed to ascertain what happened between reading and seeing, with the plume in
his hand, and the final text. In some cases, although there are references and quota-
tions to specific sources in the notes, almost nothing appeared in the final text.
While sometimes Flaubert paraphrased or copied (as was the case with the Diana of
Ephesus mentioned by Foucault), more often he re-elaborated his sources:484 he
condensed, re-assembled and dramatized,485 which is the outcome of a specific
relation to sources. In the labyrinth of libraries Flaubert tried to appease his hunger
for knowledge and truth, but also for the pleasure of researching and from the
fruits it propitiated. The quest was for the acquisition of the knowledge necessary
for "thinking well", but it was also aimed at the acquisition of needs for "writing
well", and that included what was striking, myths and symbols, a language, but,
fundamentally, he needed to dream and to hallucinate. His research enabled a clear
inner view of set and plot, which was fundamental since he filmed in prose. But
those visions were both precise and of the order of the dream, which often led to a
reverie state. In a letter of 1859 he said "on a word, or on an idea, I make
researches, I may get lost in endless readings and reveries" ("À propos d'un mot, d'une
idée, je fais des recherches, je me perds dans des lectures et des rêveries sans fin"486). This research
work stimulated two sorts of reveries. The first one was actual, lived, created by
endless readings and the inspection of images. Besides, the nervous illness of which
Flaubert periodically suffered was probably epilepsy, with attacks accompanied by
streams of images, that he would develop into a capacity for the purpose of writing.
The second sort of reverie was constituted by the final text, the outcome of a
similar process that enabled the mind to reach a hallucinatory state. Indeed he
dreamed, filmed and wrote hallucinations. "Truth" was an imperative, but he aimed
at "crafting beautifully and with liveliness after all" ("faire beau et vivant quand
même"487). It is necessary to bear in mind that, for Flaubert, truth and illusion were
not antinomian categories. Absolute truth was on the side of illusion, of the dream,
of hallucination, of the craft of culture (religion included), of art. As Kitty
Mrosovsky rightly acknowledges, "the Sphinx and the Chimera [of The Temptation],
two monsters, both reflect Flaubert's conviction that monsters are more real, more

484See J. Seznec, Nouvelles Etudes sur La Tentation de Saint Antoine, p. 49. See also K. Mrosovsky,
"Introduction" [to G. Flaubert, The Temptation of Saint Anthony], a good intro to this work, making the
tour of previous exegesis.
485 SeeJ. Seznec, Nouvelles Etudes sur La Tentation de Saint Antoine, pp. 50-51, on the condensation of the
"birth of Apollonius" and the montage-dramatization of the episode of the "meeting of Apollonius
and the satrap".
486 In P.-M. de Biasi, Flaubert, p. 60.
487 In J. Seznec, Nouvelles Etudes sur La Tentation de Saint Antoine, p. 2.

224
surely significant, than normal creatures".488 At the core of human nature lay the
illusory, crafted, realities of culture.
These were such lines that the exploration of written and iconographic
memories ran along. Obviously, the processes at stake are those of transformation.
The images on which Flaubert drew often were flat and black and white. He gave
them depth, colour and put them in motion, dramatizing them. Indeed, Flaubert
gave us something of the order of cinema. However, the translation of visual
sources into text with "erudite precision" - in Foucault's words - does not go
without the adoption of a language, syntax, grammar and style. Flaubert most
adequately named "style" the invisible that structures the final text.
The Temptation is constituted by bits and pieces (characters, spaces, myths, etc)
assembled together without justifications, interpretations, without a conclusion and
with an order that Foucault described as "the linear and naive succession of
figures"489 ("le défilé naïvement successif des figures"490), articulated with "successive enclo-
sures",491 with the "profundity of boxed apparitions..."492 ("enveloppements successifs";493
"profondeur des apparitions emboîtés les unes sur les autres..."494). There is indeed depth
where there only seems to be surface, where there seems to be a mere parade of
figures in the foreground of a puppet theatre, or in the manner of F. Fellini. There
are, according to Foucault, five orders of language and figures successively boxed
one into the other: there is the actual reader holding Flaubert's Temptation (name of
this order: "book"); then an implicit spectator that describes the set ("theatre"); then
Saint Anthony ("Bible"); then Hilarion ("visions"); then, within the vision conjured
by Hilarion, the figures that evoke their histories ("visions of visions"); figures that,
finally, give rise to other figures. However the effect is not of a vanishing perspec-
tive, rather the opposite. The most far-fetched figures and orders are the most
vivid.495 The structure is hyper-hallucinatory. Flaubert constructed this depth. It is a
stylistic construction and gives stability to the surface, as happens with the walls of
the Acropolis, constituted by apparent surfaces, but built with large blocks of
marble with depth.

Je me souviens d'avoir eu des battements de cœur, d'avoir ressenti un plaisir violent en

contemplant un mur de l'Acropole, un mur tout nu (celui qui est à gauche quand on monte
les Propylées). Eh bien ! je me demande si un livre, indépendamment de ce qu'il dit, ne peut
pas produire le même effet. Dans la précision des assemblages, la rareté des éléments, le poli

488 K. Mrosovsky, "Introduction", p. 47.

489 M. Foucault, "Introduction", p. xxxiv.
490 M. Foucault, (Sans titre), p. 304. [The French original of the previous "Introduction".]
491 M. Foucault, "Introduction", p. xxxii.
492 M. Foucault, "Introduction", p. xxxiv.
493 M. Foucault, (Sans titre), p. 302.
494 M. Foucault, (Sans titre), p. 304.
495 M. Foucault, "Introduction", pp. xxxii-xxxiv.

225
 de la surface, l'harmonie de l'ensemble, n'y a-t-il pas une vertu intrinsèque, une espèce de
force divine [...]? 496

I remember having had strong heart beats, having felt an intense pleasure
when contemplating a wall of the Acropolis, a bare wall (the one to the left
when climbing the Propylaeum). Well ! I wonder if a book, regardless of its
content, may not produce the same effect. In the precision of assemblages,
the rarity of its elements, the polishing of the surface, the harmony of the
whole, isn't there an intrinsic virtue, a kind of divine force [...]?

Although Flaubert focuses on the surface, this surface belongs to a wall with depth.
Quite different from modern stonework, like that of the Sainsbury Wing of the
National Gallery in London, for instance. The importance of the third dimension is
clearly acknowledged in the following passage:

Les perles composent le collier, mais c'est le fil qui fait le collier.497

Pearls compose the necklace, but it is the string that makes it.

In this case, the string constitutes the third dimension. The materials employed, the
way they are cut and assembled, their depth, the final polishing of the work, among
others, play a fundamental role in the solidity of Flaubert's Temptation. These aspects
are epitomized by the notion of "style", that fundamentally is meant to be invisible.
This is the case with the depth of the huge marble blocks of the Acropolis' walls
and the string of the pearl necklace. Jean Rousset commented on Flaubert as
follows:

C'est sur les joints que se concentre l'artiste, ces joints qui doivent être forts et souples, mais
invisibles. Flaubert cimente avec un soin infini, et ne met pas moins de soin à enlever toute
trace de ciment.498

The artist focuses on the joints, those joints that must be both strong and
malleable, but invisible. Flaubert cements with untiring care, and puts no less
care cleaning all and every trace of cement.

And Flaubert...

496 In P.-M. de Biasi, Flaubert, p. 101.

In P.-M. de Biasi, Flaubert, p. 99. A quotation from the The Bhagavad Gita, ch. VII, verse 7, with
497

which Flaubert was familiar. See K. Mrosovsky, "Introduction", p. 44 and note 114.
498 In P.-M. de Biasi, Flaubert, p. 117.

226
 Ce qui me semble beau, ce que je voudrais faire, c'est un livre sur rien, un livre sans attache
extérieure, qui se tiendrait de lui-même par la force intense de son style, comme la terre sans
être soutenue se tient en l'air, un livre qui n'aurait presque pas de sujet ou du mois où le
sujet serait presque invisible, si cela se peut. Les œuvres plus belles sont celles où il y a le
moins de matière.499

What strikes me as being fine, what I would like to do, is a book about
nothing, is a book with no external tie, which would support itself by its
internal force of style, as the earth floats in space without support, a book
which would have hardly any subject or at least where the subject would be
almost invisible, if that can be so. The finest works are those where there is
least matter.500

Despite the immense plurality of sources and their stylistic diversity, The Temptation
has a remarkable unity, homogeneity and continuity to the point that the first
impression is of flatness, something that is an effect of style. Style largely conceals
the depth behind the surface. However, Seznec has shown its importance and
Foucault is right in stressing that Flaubert invented a new form of imagination
implying the latent library. The string that holds the pearls together, sequentially,
also holds them at a certain distance from the sea where they came from, and of
which they are reminiscent. In the necklace, they exist in a new order, imposed by
the string. Style plays a similar role: although it apparently distances the text from
its sources, in truth this is a proximity-distance in relation to the library that there-
fore becomes "latent".
Flaubert was right on the importance of style, but, against his opinion, no
book - none of his books, at least - holds up through the sheer force of style and
structure. Flaubert, who said that Madame Bovary was "a book about nothing", could
not have succeeded in writing it without subject matter, without that "nothing" that
is the history of an adultery, nor, naturally, without that "nothing" constituted by
the concealment of the narrator, his omniscience, the proliferation of viewpoints,
the use of free indirect discourse, the writing of images, the prompting of the visual
imagination of the reader, that is, features that chiefly turn it into a stylistic tour de
force and a masterpiece. Neither would he have succeeded in making The Temptation
without Bruegel and Callot, without Migne and Creuzer, or the Queen of Sheba,
the Bhavani, the Blemmyae and the Sphinx. The rhapsodic parade of these forgot-
ten but living creatures, and the stylistic effects of displacement and condensation,
of dramatization of his sources and characters, and of homogenisation were essen-
tial to this task, including the dramatization of "insistent questions about good and
evil, illusion and reality, spirit and matter".501 The Temptation is the outcome of a

499 In P.-M. de Biasi, Flaubert, p. 47.

500 In K. Mrosovsky, "Introduction", p. 44. Adapted and completed on the basis of the source.
501 K. Mrosovsky, "Introduction", p. 10.

227
massive work of montage and stylisation: of characters, sets, sources. Flaubert used
the "fallen trees of the dream" to make new furniture which happens to differ from
the tree, because it has a style of its own, and yet is reminiscent of it. These pieces
of furniture are a patchwork made of bits and pieces, both recalling the tree and
other pieces of furniture, with close and distant origins. Style is the intelligence
behind the selection, cutting and assemblage of parts. For Gilles Deleuze this is a
particular way of recomposing with ready-mades:

The writer uses words, but by creating a syntax that makes them pass into
sensation that makes the standard language stammer, tremble, cry, or even
sing: this is style, the "tone". [...] The writer twists language, makes it vibrate,
seizes hold of it, and rends it in order to wrest the percept from perceptions,
the affect from affections.502

-----

The way Mr Lordi combines the bits and pieces cut from the archive differs
substantially from Flaubert's technique in The Temptation. We are speaking of two
different stylistic constructions. Roughly speaking, Mr Lordi is reminiscent of the
prototypical Devil, but one has some difficulty spotting an exemplar case, as this
creature is, in effect, a mutant. One can, for instance, bring Mr Lordi face to face
with the beautiful Devil of Hans Memling (fig 9). But whereas the skin of the first
is falling off or was flayed (reminiscent of Saint Bartholomew?), the second exhibits
a young and healthy one, despite the old woman's sagging breasts. Again, whereas
the first exhibits a heavy countenance, the second exhibits joy. Although such
expressions constitute stylistic choices, in the case of Mr Lordi they seem to derive
directly from the iconography of the Devil. In the case of Flaubert it is clear that
the sources were re-assembled and homogenized, but they were kept at a wider
distance. On the other hand, there is the dragon growing from Mr Lordi's shoul-
ders. It seems to have a rather specific source, and one unrelated, as far as I could
ascertain, with the iconography of the Devil. The same could be said about the axe
that he often exhibits, in relation to the iconography of amazonomachies (figs 60,
61), for example, and with Astérix, with a popular iconography of the Vikings, etc.
But the fact is that these contributions from iconographic series unrelated to the
vast and mobile iconography of the Devil seem co-natural with it. Mr Lordi, like
the Devil, is a composite creature; the more one adds the more they seem natural.
One may qualify the two faces that Mr Lordi at a certain moment exhibited
on his knees (fig 56), multiplying his own face and the belly-mouth, as an
apotropaic device; those double and triple faces that Ancient warriors exhibited (in
helmets, shields, armoury and in their knees) were intended to frighten their oppo-
nents, such as the faces of Gorgons and Medusas. Although this is the source of

502 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, What is Philosophy?, p. 176.

228
the faces that Mr Lordi exhibits, it happens that there is an iconography of the
Devil with this motive. See, for instance, Michael Wogelmut, Witch and Devil (1493;
fig 55; see also figs 54, 12). Naturally, Lordi's bandleader made a choice among
other possibilities and this is a matter of style. But these choices often are pretty
coherent with the iconography of the Devil to the point that there seems to be
montage without much re-elaboration. The question of whether the two faces that
Mr Lordi exhibits on his knees are either an apotropaic device or a motive of the
iconography of the Devil, can be answered as both. This differs with Flaubert's
Temptation which summons far more heteroclite creatures and materials, suggesting
problems of co-ordination of another nature, implying a higher degree of homog-
enisation and, maybe, a higher degree of elaboration. However, like Flaubert, Mr
Lordi is remarkably precise on the assemblage of motives and on the assemblage of
what the social and cultural game normally keep separated (rock + iconography of
the Devil), including repressed memories, something that is done with remarkable
wit. It is a particularly skilled and heteroclite montage and one that should be
familiar to anyone, as it played a central role in modernity, in and after Surrealism.

-----

For Deleuze style is a matter of musicality: "stammer", "tremble", "cry", "sing",

"tone", "vibration"... Deleuze goes far beyond the usual pictorial lexicon with
musical sources. Interestingly enough, for Flaubert, style concerned a great deal of
musicality:

J'en conçois pourtant, moi, un style: un style qui serait beau, que quelqu'un fera quelque
jour, dans dix ans ou dans dix siècles, et qui serait rythmé comme le vers, précis comme le
langage des sciences, et avec des ondulations, des ronflements de violoncelle, des aigrettes de
feu.503

I can, myself, imagine a style: a style that shall be beautiful, that will be made
one day, within ten years or centuries, and that shall be cadenced like verse,
precise as the language of sciences, and with undulations, like the roar of
cellos, spits of fire.

Une bonne phrase de prose doit être comme un bon vers, inchangeable, aussi rythmée, aussi
sonore.504

A good prose phrase should be like a good verse, unchangeable, as cadenced,

as musical.

503 In P.-M. de Biasi, Flaubert, p. 98.

504 In P.-M. de Biasi, Flaubert, p. 98.

229
As can be seen, the musicality of which Flaubert speaks is the musicality of poetry;
it is a matter of prosody. He aimed at developing prose to the same level of perfec-
tion and force.
Flaubert used to say he was "a visual"; he needed to see, he needed to feel the
emotional impact of the visible for writing.505 He continued the previous quotation
as follows:

Tout le talent d'écrire ne consiste après tout que dans le choix des mots. C'est la précision
qui fait la force. Ce qu'il y a de plus beau et de plus rare c'est la pureté du son.506

After all, the talent in writing consists in the choice of words. It is in precision
that force lies. What is most beautiful and most rare is the purity of sound.

Like Flaubert, Mr Lordi is also "a visual", but the visual force of the latter is less a
matter of the sensitiveness of the montage work as a matter of the building stones
that he combines. Indeed Flaubert and Mr Lordi diverge on these stylistic matters;
the ground that they have in common is the presence-absence of the latent archive
of which Foucault speaks. However, they have a second aspect in common: force is
central in both cases. This entails the validity of the musical vocabulary of Deleuze,
as in effect he fundamentally posits the congeniality between arts and force rather
than predicates this or that way of intensifying the artwork. Due to its intrinsic
nature, musical aspects are involved in Lordi's rendering, but obviously this is not
the point; besides I am not competent to analyse this aspect.

4.2. Intertextuality, intervisuality, carnival

As I indicated in the introduction, in 1969 Julia Kristeva introduced a new concept

in the field of literary theory that would prove extraordinarily fertile: intertextual-
ity.507 Departing from Mikhail Bakhtin and his notion of "dialogism", Kristeva
conceptualised poetic writing (poetry, literature, etc) as an intersection of several
texts, rather than a point or a fixed meaning established by an author. Following
Bakhtin, Kristeva posits that:

505Indeed some of his books are like movie projections, actually they already sound like cinema even
before the invention of the Lumière brothers.
506 In P.-M. de Biasi, Flaubert, p. 98.
507 See J. Kristeva, La Révolution du Langage Poétique, pp. 59-60. See also J. Kristeva, Séméiotikè - Recherches
pour une sémanalyse, pp. 143-173, pages that are translated in J. Kristeva, Desire in Language, pp. 64-91.
Kristeva clarifies the point of departure for this essay as lying in two books by Mikhail Bakhtin,
Rabelais and His World (trans. H. Iswolsky, MIT, Cambridge, 1965) and Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics
(trans. R. W. Rotsel, Ardis, Ann Arbor, 1973). Although the authorial attribution is to Bakhtin-
Kristeva, I will always quote from Kristeva.

230
 Any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption
and transformation of another.508

Primarily, Kristeva does not mean that writers re-use the writings of their predeces-
sors and colleagues. She is concerned with the construction of meaning, "sema".
Kristeva has shown that a new text always emerges in a context where other texts
are already present, deriving their meaning alongside or against them, that is, within
a cultural nexus. By "texts" Kristeva does not mean only texts in the strict sense,
but heteroclite materials such as practices or virtually any chain of signs. This
conception derives from her criticism of semiotics with Saussurean roots,509 a posi-
tion that follows Bakhtin and Jacques Lacan. Whereas in Saussurean semiotics there
is a correspondence between signifier and signified, the poetic signifier of Kristeva
may connect with praxis, may be a trace, and may connect to a multiplicity of signi-
fieds, be multi-determined, ambivalent, polyphonic. Therefore, Kristeva's semiotics,
or "semanalysis" ("sémanalyse"), rather than denotation or representation, has to do
with the fissures of language, with prosody, with symbolic openness. Although
literary creation uses what can be and may look like mono-determined symbols, the
fact is that, on the one hand, some symbols exist as traces of practices, being that
the latter exceeds matters of meaning; the writer may re-write this language of
practice, of lived experience. On the other hand, language can be twisted, rent, in
order to "wrest the percept from perception", to wrest the pathos and the formless
from form. Language is also, and in the first instance, a system of traces, gramma
("gram"),510 even before the game of denotation and connotation starts. The writer
may write in this language, for instance, making of his text a musical partition.
Whereas Saussurean semiotics is a binary system, characterized by the "0-1"
relation, or "0-1 logic", the semiotics of poetic creations is a multiple and over-
determined system, characterized by the "0-2 logic".511 For Kristeva the poetic text
re-writes other texts as its elements are already and in themselves nodes of larger
ramifications, texts connecting to other texts. This has little to do with any claims
or concerns about how much and with what degree of conscience authors quote. In
this way Kristeva's proposition sought to go beyond the investigation of sources
and of the referents of authors. The question she addresses is that of semantics in
relation to poetic creations, a question that invariably pushes her beyond the realm
of linguistic meaning and linguistics.

508 J. Kristeva, Desire in Language, p. 66.

509This does not apply to the Saussure of the "anagrams", that Kristeva acknowledges as one of the
sources of her theory and a standpoint for criticising standard Saussureanism.
510 The fundamental research on the subject is J. Derrida, Of Grammatology.
511 See
J. Lacan, "Function and field of speech and language in psychoanalysis", p. 59: "For a symptom,
whether neurotic or not, to be admitted in psychoanalytic psychopathology, Freud insists on the
minimum of over-determination constituted by a double meaning".

231
 Put in this way, it may seem that Flaubert's Temptation would not be a form of
intertextuality, as there are quotations migrating from the archive to the book,
although to a larger extent, as I have argued, the book is a montage and
transformation of the archive. Still, it may seem that the archive on which Flaubert
drew and that Seznec mapped is one of sources. It is true that Kristeva's intertex-
tuality is not so much concerned with the mapping of quotations and sources;
rather it chiefly concerns the conditions (texts) on which the possibility and intelli-
gibility of poetic creations are grounded. Precisely, the latter aspect constitutes the
nature of Flaubert's archive, although we also know that he drew on, borrowed and
quoted from it. This is even truer in relation to Mr Lordi's archive. Whether he
knows it in detail and / or consciously draws on it, is still an open question. One
suspects that, to some extent, he does. However, this is not the point. By claiming
that Mr Lordi is a form of intervisuality one is claiming that it is the re-drawing of
the references contained in the archive and that he is the transformation and
displacement of that vast and open heap of memories. The force of Flaubert's Tempta-
tion and of Lordi very much lies in the fact that they constitute the focus and re-organization of
larger archives. While it is clear in the case of Flaubert that the archive is also one of
sources, in both cases, the archive is not one of personal sources. It is the archive
of the collective, the repressed and forgotten, but still active memories, the memory
of their readers and beholders. In Warburg's terms, it is "social memory" that is at
stake.
However, in relation to both Flaubert and Mr Lordi we are, I think, face to
face with something that Kristeva did not imagine but that nonetheless can be
named intertextuality/-visuality. Indeed, in relation to these cases, intertextuality/-
visuality also names a form of subjectivity. Flaubert claimed to be a "pen-man"
("homme-plume"), with no other existence than the sentences he read and wrote. In
comparison, one readily imagines Mr Lordi as an "image-man", someone who
became, and is the images he saw, which traversed him, which he both mirrors and
transforms. In this case, the mask does not hide anything but is the perfect
discloser of Mr Lordi and / or the bandleader's subjectivity and identity, so the
archives and intertextuality/-visuality are subjectivities and identities. This seems to
fit into Kristeva's intertextuality, which, for her, is less a matter of borrowings,
quotations, affiliations, as a matter of traces, often unconscious, often difficult to
circumscribe. Precisely, it is the second set of terms that seems adequate to describe
not only the relation of Flaubert's Temptation and Lordi with the respective archives
but also these subjectivities. Although the archive is something that we, readers and
beholders, imagine as an exteriority, it was Flaubert's amniotic liquid and one
imagines that the same may occur in relation to Lordi. Like the air that we breathe,
commonly imagined to be outside ourselves, it is always and at once both inside
and outside us.

-----

232
There is one last and crucial aspect that again puts the Flaubert of The Temptation
and, especially, Lordi, in the orbit of intertextuality/-visuality. For Kristeva the
poetic, dialogic, text ("0-2") is not only different from the logic (monologic) text
but also is its reverse. The logic text ("0-1") is the text in which, among others,
things are either black or white, and the game of representation and transitivity fully
works. Bakhtin identifies it with the realist novel and Kristeva with the epic narra-
tive. The dialogical poetic text is the reverse of these traditions. In the dialogical
text things can at once be black and white, and often language exhibits its intransi-
tivity. Interestingly, for Kristeva,

The only discourse integrally to achieve the [...] poetic logic is that of the
carnival. By adopting a dream logic, it transgresses rules of linguistic code and
social morality as well.512

As she rightly acknowledges, this "transgression" of linguistic, logical and social

codes, does not constitute the freedom to say anything, but is another logic, boldly
identified with that of the dream. What characterizes it? It is the precedence of
symbolic relations and analogy over substance-causality connections, its ambiva-
lence, multi-determination, etc, and the discoursive structure that par excellence
epitomizes it is the carnivalesque.513

Carnivalesque structure is like the residue of a cosmology that ignored

substance, causality, or identity outside its link to the whole, which exists only in
or through relationship. This carnivalesque cosmogony has persisted in the form
of an antitheological (but not antimystical) and deeply popular movement. It
remains present as an often misunderstood and persecuted substratum of
official Western culture throughout its entire history [...]. As composed of
distances, relationships, analogies and nonexclusive oppositions, it is
essentially dialogical.514

Figures germane to carnivalesque language, including repetition,

"inconsequent" statements (which are nonetheless "connected" within an
infinite context), and nonexclusive oppositions, which function as empty sets
or disjunctive additions, produce a more flagrant dialogism than any other
discourse. Disputing the laws of language based on the 0-1 interval, the
carnival challenges God, authority, and social law; insofar as it is dialogical, it

512 J.
Kristeva, Desire in Language, p. 70. Cf. the position of Lyotard exposed in p. 133 above, according
to whom "The dream is not the language of desire, but its work [...], the result of manhandling a text.
Desire does not speak; it does violence to the order of utterance. This violence is primordial: the
imaginary fulfilment of desire consists in this transgression".
513 J. Kristeva, Desire in Language, pp. 78-80.
514 J. Kristeva, Desire in Language, p. 78.

233
 is rebellious. Because of its subversive discourse, the word "carnival" has
understandably acquired a strongly derogatory or narrowly burlesque meaning
in our society.515

Does Lordi put anything in relation? I think they do. The past and / in the present
(anachronism), there are some historic supports of religious beliefs and / in
contemporary entertainment, ugly bodies and / in nice songs. Furthermore the
group has deep popular roots, which is another reason for their general popularity.
Although above I have proposed a parallel between Lordi and opera, there is a
more straightforward parallel that can be established with carnival. The co-
incidence of costume, mask, make-up, music and dance authorize this convergence.
I am particularly thinking of the "diablada" ("dance of the Devils"), the carnival that
occurs every year in Oruro in the Bolivian Andes, bringing into circulation in its
main event, the procession "entrada", something like 28,000 dancers and 10,000
musicians over 20 hours. UNESCO classified it as a "Masterpiece of the Oral and
Intangible Heritage of Humanity" in its first round of classifications, in 2001.
The Oruro carnival lasts 10 days and is based on an immense plurality of
characters and expressive forms (music, dance, embroidery, etc). Although this
event is not familiar to me and I have no reliable research on it, apparently it has a
very simple structure. The "entrada" was transferred from the fight of Saint Michael
with the demon. It is a huge choreographic battle between good and evil, angels
and archangels, and with the help of the people they fight against Devils, demons
and the seven capital sins. Among the crowd of characters there are Devils like fig
58 (see also fig 5). Not excluding borrowings from pre-Columbian iconographies,
these personifications of evil seem to have borrowed much from Christian
iconography. The affiliation is more striking if one considers the kinship of these
Devils with "el Tío" (fig 59), the character that in the form of disturbing life size
sculptures stands inside the mines of this region; these are idols that miners
worship and to whom they offer gifts, for appeasement, for chasing away bad luck
and drawing profits. This Devil, "el Tío", is the Lord of the underworld. Besides the
obvious iconographic kinship with the European Devil (of which it seems the
copy), it is impossible not to acknowledge a more subterranean and structural
parallel between this carnival, or carnival tout court, and Lordi. In effect, the chore-
ography with Christian disguise besides masking the pre-Columbian rituals,
gestures, deities and beliefs, is also their discloser. Naturally, the former shows what
it hides; the latter are disclosed as repressed.
Oruro was a major gathering place for the Uru people who performed their
rituals here. These rituals were repressed by the Spanish colonizers that re-founded
the city at the beginning of the 17th century. The rituals, based on music and dance,
on deities of good and evil, on the realms of heaven and underworld, have survived
under the mask of Christian ritualism; Andean ritualism persisted, thanks to the

515 J. Kristeva, Desire in Language, p. 79.

234
metamorphosis into Christianity. The same dynamic is at work in Lordi: it also
shows what it hides; it is both contemporary entertainment and incorporates the
return of old and intrinsically popular cultural traditions as well as of a repressed.
Mr Lordi is a "figure of compromise".516 One should not insist on deciding whether
it is contemporary or archaic, whether it hides or shows, as it is and does both at
once. Using Kristeva's words, one could say it is a figure of "relationship", a
"popular" one, the survival of a "misunderstood and persecuted substratum of
official Western culture". Carnivalesque discourse both dramatizes the system of
prohibitions in force in a specific society, or in one of its subsystems (as can be the
case of "culture", "entertainment" or the transnational space constituted by
Eurovision), and is its dramatized transgression. The two aspects are co-incidental.
But this is far too obvious in relation to Lordi. Kristeva established a parallel
between the structure of the carnivalesque and that of dream, that for Freud
constitute structures of compromise par excellence. Carnival is not merely an enter-
tainment or game, but also the dramatization of aspects of the life in common. As
Kristeva puts it:

The scene of the carnival, where there is no stage, no "theatre", is thus both
stage and life, game and dream, discourse and spectacle. By the same token, it
is proffered as the only space in which language escapes linearity (law) to live
as drama in three dimensions. At a deeper level, this also signifies the
contrary: drama becomes located in language. A major principle thus
emerges: all poetic discourse is dramatization, dramatic permutation (in the
mathematical sense) of words.517

Indeed the drama of life518 is the drama of the symbolic systems that regulate it,
whether these should be dress or linguistic codes. Carnival is a fairly controlled but
also an excessive eruption of disorder within the symbolic and discoursive order.
As the literary critic that she is, Kristeva speaks of a dramatization of language.
Naturally, in relation to Lordi one should rather think in terms of images, of their
dramatization and "permutation". As a consequence, it does not make much sense
speaking of "intertextuality" in relation to Lordi. Rather, one should think in the
homologous terms of "intervisuality". What looks like a small adaptation of termi-
nology, taking into consideration the nature of our object, is, in effect, the outcome
of a specific process of cultural elaboration, of a specific history, of which both lay
and expert gazes are the outcome. These gazes are what impel us to put Lordi in

516 See S. Freud, "Hysterical phantasies and their relation to bisexuality".

517 J. Kristeva, Desire in Language, p. 79.
518 Any spectator must have realised that Lordi mocked the light kitsch tradition of Eurovision, just as
Finns perfectly realise that it is the reverse of Finnish ideals of frugality and circumspection.
Nonetheless, Lordi also exhibits aspects of coolness and detachment perfectly in tune with Finnish
sensibility, as will be discussed below.

235
relation to other images, to "order" Lordi in this way. In the next section I will draw
on the constitution of this "order", in which images are concatenated with other
images.

-----

Before moving on, some comments on Camp are necessary. In a reference essay
Susan Sontag (1933-2004) sought to critically outline that sensibility which
expressed itself through ostensibly artificial and exaggerated wigs, cosmetics,
clothes, shoes, masks, songs and films of both popular and high culture. According
to Sontag, this aesthetics of the frivolous is a serious aesthetics, or indeed aesthetics
par excellence, since it is style taken to its utmost expression. Camp emphasizes
style to the absolute expense of content, in relation to which it is neutral519 or rather
dismissive. "Camp taste has an affinity for certain arts rather than others. Clothes,
furniture, all the elements of visual décor, for instance, make up a large part of
Camp. For Camp art is often decorative art, emphasizing texture, sensuous surface,
and style at the expense of content. [...] All Camp objects, and persons, contain a
large element of artifice".520 Sontag also points out that the Camp attitude is intrinsi-
cally naïve, innocent, and that attempts at being campy are always harmful.521
Naturally, these aspects apply to Lordi as well as this seems to be their strategy.522
However, I consider that the Camp frame is only partly adequate in relation to
Lordi. Although Camp captures the detached terms of the Finnish discussion-
rationalization on the success of Lordi, I think much deeper reasons must account
for both their international success and for the enormous and contradictory
emotional impact on Finns themselves. Indeed, as already argued, Lordi connects
to cornerstones as well as to deep and repressed layers of Western culture, aspects
in relation to which the Camp frame outlined by Susan Sontag is uncongenial.
Sontag differentiates Camp from the aesthetics of the anguish, cruelty and
derangement of Hieronymus Bosch and of the Marquis de Sade.523 As already
argued, I think Lordi belongs to that other aesthetics, of fantastic imagination,
which has in Bosch one of its utmost representatives, a tradition that is in a perma-
nent situation of tension in relation to the social law.

519 S. Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp' ", p. 277.

520 S. Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp' ", pp. 278-279 - emphasis added.
521 S. Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp' ", pp. 282-283.
522This is the view that A. Kuusamo expresses in the review to the earlier version of this dissertation,
dated 9-3-2008, p. 4, which I accept as reasonable, particularly taking in consideration the privileged
position that Kuusamo has in relation to cultural movements in Finland.
523 S. Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp' ", p. 287.

236
 While Sontag interestingly recognizes Camp aspects in the aesthetic attitudes
of Carlo Crivelli, Jacopo Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino and Caravaggio,524 for her the
Camp attitude is an 18th-19th century phenomenon since she places the "dividing
line" in the shaping of this attitude in the 18th century.525 Indeed, essential to her
definition of Camp are aspects of the flâneur attitude (the taste for the trivial, banal,
for extravagant sampling, among others) and dandyism (a soft retreat in relation to
natural or conventional aesthetic attitudes). Indeed, her essay is dedicated to and
cadenced by quotation from Oscar Wilde, and she defined a Camp attitude as "a
tender feeling" characterized by a "peculiar affinity and overlap" in relation to
"homosexual taste",526 positing that Camp "emerges full-blown with the Art
Nouveau movement in the visual and decorative arts, and finds its conscious
ideologists in such 'wits' as Wilde and Firbank".527 Architects Antoni Gaudí and
Hector Guimard (who designed the famous Art Nouveau entrances of Paris
metro), are also quoted for their exaggerated Camp style.528
In spite of the exaggeration, artifice and remarkable investment on the
surface that Camp and Lordi share, and in spite of Lordi's playfulness and lack of
seriousness,529 I cannot recognize in Lordi the "tender feeling" with Wildean tones
so essential to Sontag's Camp, except for those elements of cool detachment that
constitute features of both Camp, Lordi and Finnish sensibilities. For example,
while the voting was still in progress, it was already clear that Lordi had won but
instead of an effusive expression of joy from the band, one of its members simply
unfolded a note to camera which said "let's meet at the square". The message was
perfectly understood probably only in Finland, because they had written "torilla
tavataan", meaning "let's meet one of this days and party - with a couple of beers - at
the Market Square in Helsinki!". Indeed such a meeting occurred about a week after
their return. This cool detachment is part of Lordi, of Finnish identity and coherent
with the Camp frame, but does it authorize such an alignment? In fact, it presents
problems. Besides those aspects of the Camp frame that are uncongenial to Lordi,
this operation is ideological: the Camp frame is the critical category that bridges the
gap between Lordi and Finnish sensibility, but this is superseded and overshadowed
by its radical singularity, its violence and many other aspects. I believe that these
were much more fundamental for the good reception internationally granted to
Lordi. When the Greek competitors asked for Lordi's withdrawal alleging
references to Satanism, the Greek spectators nevertheless awarded maximum
points to Lordi, which touched on a fundamental key: the sense of the cultural

524 S.
Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp' ", p. 280. It makes me wonder where Sontag would have placed Piero
di Cosimo?...
525 S. Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp' ", p. 280.
526 S. Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp' ", pp. 292 and 290.
527 S. Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp' ", p. 281.
528 S. Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp' ", pp. 283 and 279.
529 See S. Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp' ", p. 288.

237
tradition that I boldly identified with the Devil. They also touched a fundamental
aspect of Lordi and of images at large: their contradictory, open and over-
determined character, all owing something to the history that I will evoke in the
following section, focusing on Rancière. As to the adequacy of the Camp frame, it
would seem that to see Lordi in this limited light is to remain at the surface, to
naturalize Lordi into the Finnish sensibility, domesticate it, and make of it an
epiphenomenona of the contemporary spectacular and superficial image. Indeed,
while this is Lordi, it is also larger and deeper, more interesting, complex and
challenging.
In sum, Lordi may well be an example of "artifice" and "sensuous surface"
but it has a remarkable depth. Lordi is an image, but their playful show is the carni-
valesque reversion of socio-cultural order and the return of a repressed. Lordi is a
madly over-determined contradictory simultaneity and a rent through which some
chaos passes. Indeed, Lordi is a Survival and a formula-of-pathos while Mr Lordi
himself has the gravity of a figure that is reminiscent of the Devil - the over-
determined creature par excellence - and is animated by an intensity that can properly
be named "death".

238
5. The orders of the image
Lordi draws on a large archive composed of materials of different ages and natures
(artworks, popular images, illuminations, sculptures, the image of specific rock
bands, specific cinematographic genres, etc). Images predominate in this archive,
with textual sources playing a minor role, although I have mentioned sources such
as Dante, Homer, the Bible and other Christian sources. Besides, structural parallels
can be made, as we have already seen, with the Flaubert of The Temptation and a
concept such as intervisuality, derived from literary theory, may apply. It seems to
me that in the first instance Lordi and their image are fundamentally ordered
around the visual. This is the outcome of a possibility opened by a vast redistri-
bution of the sensible that has occurred in the last 150 years, and that opens the
way to creations like Lordi as well as imposing a new ordering of images, in relation
to which research must take the full consequences.
I will start by clarifying what was the ordering of images around the textual /
narrative, using the presuppositions of Panofsky’s iconology, which condense the
order that dominated European culture between, roughly, the 15th and the 19th
century, including the identification of images, their production, perception and
interpretation. The battle against this order led to a new one characterized by the
aforesaid ordering of the image around the visual. To illustrate this new order I will
draw on a fragment of an early movie of Pasolini. I shall put in opposition two
different orders of the image and argue that it has been changing at the expense of
Panofsky and to the advantage of Pasolini. The dynamic behind this economy are
the decisions taken by artists and writers in relation to arts during the last 150 years,
decisions that have an impact on the perception of arts at large.

5.1. Images and textual traditions: Panofsky

Erwin Panofsky (1892-68) is the acknowledged father of the scientific interpre-

tation of images. In the "Introductory" to the Studies of Iconology, of 1962, Panofsky
codified his method of interpretation in three main steps: pre-iconographic
description, iconographic analysis and iconological synthesis. Though this method
is still influential in the interpretation of images, mainly by art historians, it was
always an object of criticism, which has increased in recent years. However, this is
not the place to deal with the many objections put forward in relation to it. It is
sufficient to draw on one of the major problems of this method which is the basic
perceptive and cultural skills that it takes for granted, which is illustrated by
Panofsky's comments on Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper.

239
 Although Panofsky was fundamentally interested in the interpretation of the
deeper meaning of works of art (iconology),530 this presupposed a number of
preliminary operations such as the correct discernment of motives, characters
(saints, mythological figures, etc), the actions in which they are engaged, and of
stories and allegories.
Panofsky tells us in very simple terms about the Last Supper of Leonardo (fig
74). The fresco represents a table around which sit thirteen men (or twelve men
and a woman, if the reader prefers), having a meal. The group is agitated; Panofsky
imagines that if, for example, an Australian bushman were to see this fresco, it
might "convey the idea of an excited dinner party" to him.531 Leaving aside that
dinner parties are not in the frame of reference of bushmen either, it is obvious to
the average European that this is not a dinner party, but rather an important
episode in the Passion of Christ. This is the last meal that Christ had with his
twelve disciples, during which the sacrament of the Eucharist was established.
During the Supper, Christ announced to the disciples that one of them would
betray him, which caused enormous agitation among them: "I tell you the truth,
one of you is going to betray me" (John, 13). Leonardo depicted this moment of
agitation. According to Panofsky, this level of interpretation, the second (icono-
graphic analysis), presupposes more than "familiarity with objects and events which
we acquire with practical experience. It presupposes a familiarity with specific
themes or concepts as transmitted through literary sources, whether acquired by
purposeful reading or by oral tradition".532
If one has some knowledge from the relevant textual source, the Holy Bible,
one may try to identify the characters. Christ must be the one in the centre, due to
the symbolism of the position533 and to the singularity of the bodily pose.534 Judas
Iscariot must be one of the figures on the left side of the representation, holding a
purse and defiant. We know that it was he who betrayed Christ and that he did it
for money. Putting these pieces of information together with the singularity of the
attitude, one comes to the identification because, according to Panofsky, we know
the relevant textual source. Without this information or memory one could take it
for a meal among friends or even a banquet. The textual information was at work in
the production of the fresco as well as in its perception and interpretation through-
out centuries. To some extent, Panofsky is right to say that if you do not know this,
you cannot identify the image.

530 The deeper iconological meaning could be ascertained by placing the work in relation to the artistic,
cultural, social histories, contemporary to the production of the images. The aim was to ascertain how
images conveyed "symbolic values", values also conveyed by other works, by a specific time and / or
by a social group. Referring to the earlier Panofsky, the aim was to ascertain how images condensed a
weltanschauung ("world view").
531 E. Panofsky, "Introductory", p. 11.
532 Idem.

533 In the centre, coinciding with the vanishing point of the perspective, against the back window, etc.
534 Frontal and hieratic.

240
 However, there are some problems with Panofsky's claims. His example of
Last Supper is an ideal, if not idealistic. There are a few images in relation to which
one may expect to find a text like John, 13. But the problem is more structural. As
many authors have remarked, Panofsky's approach may have relevance to the
Italian Renaissance images, his field of expertise, but may not apply to other artistic
traditions. While the Italian tradition was programmatically driven by textual
sources, things went in a quite different way in relation to Dutch art of the 17th
century, according to Svetlana Alpers.535 Moreover, there is a second and deeper
problem with Panofsky's approach. His assumption that the interpretation of the
subject matter of images implies familiarity with the "themes and concepts trans-
mitted through literary sources", means that images were produced and perceived
in the same light. This may have been the case with works of the Italian Renais-
sance, in their own time, by some learned circles. Eventually, this also happened
with the reception of the work of Poussin by some of his contemporaries. Lastly,
this was the ut pictura poesis ideal (read: "as is poetry so is painting"), also a
heritage of the Italian Renaissance, around which the production and perception of
art has ideally gravitated. To clarify, Panofsky implies that underlying the produc-
tion of images there is always textual matter and that their perception is also
grounded from the standpoint of textual sources. In effect, the recognition of a
Last Supper, or of the face of Christ, involves a remarkable amount of visual
memory (i.e., perceptive unthoughts; the participation in an imaginary-symbolic
order… which is what makes possible imagining that the frontal figure in the
centre, characterized by a specific pose, gesture, must be Christ). Even if an
Australian bushman completely uninformed about Western culture was taught the
biblical episodes on the basis of the text only, he would not recognize a represen-
tation of the Last Supper as such. An image can only represent a narrative, a
character, an event, if the two terms, narrative / word and image, are cultivated as
mutually related. It is not self-evident that the image of the crucified Christ
corresponds to the crucified Christ of the biblical narrative. Nor, for that matter,
does the image of the prototypical Devil - with bat wings, belly-mouth, etc -
correspond to the Devil of Christian mythology. Furthermore, if an iconographic
theme is re-interpreted beyond the customary range of its variation, the identifi-
cation no longer occurs, even if it should correspond to the treatment of a well
known subject. For example, in 1054 the Christian church split in two causing the
schism of Constantinople. Although Eastern and Western churches share a
common mythology, their history diverged, including their iconographic history. As
Belting recalls,

When the Greeks came to Italy for the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438,
they were unable to pray before Western sacred images, whose form was
unfamiliar to them. Thus Patriarch Gregory Melissenos argued against the

535 S. Alpers, The Art of Describing.

241
 proposed church union: "When I enter a Latin church, I can pray to none of
the saints depicted there because I recognize none of them. Although I do
recognize Christ, I cannot even pray to him because I do not recognize the
manner in which he is being depicted".536

This encounter of one group with the iconography cultivated by another is particu-
larly significant as both groups shared the same myths and the same iconographic
themes. Yet the Greeks could not recognize the same holy figures in different
paintings because their visual memory was based on stylistically different images.
Clearly, the identification of the subject matter of an image does not depend only
on "the familiarity with specific themes or concepts as transmitted through literary
sources". Rather, it crucially depends on visual memory, that is, on the aesthetic
unconscious on which one draws.
Moreover, another step must be taken in analysing Panofsky's claims. Indeed,
he pretends that an image must represent something else, i.e., something beyond
the strictly visual. According to Panofsky, in simple terms, to perceive, identify and
interpret an image is, therefore to ask: what does it represent? The question points
outside of the realm of images and the answer can only refer to prestigious textual
sources like the Holy Bible, literary and philosophical works, historic narratives and
Ancient sources, which thereby endow prestige on the objects to which they refer.
In sum, Panofsky’s method is grounded on and is the rationalization of a
specific order of the visible. It is the interpretative correlative of specific ways of
producing and perceiving images. What is that characterizes it? The enchainment of
images to textual, narrative, prestigious, matter. What is the alternative? Is it
conceivable that an order can be characterized by the enchainment of images to
non-narrative matter in a non-hierarchical order?

5.2. Images and iconographic traditions: Pasolini

The first moments of Pasolini's Mamma Roma are close-ups on a number of

characters. They are talking and eating. After a short while the scene opens up and
one gets an overall view of the set (fig 73). It is striking. The set is strongly reminis-
cent of the iconography of the Last Supper (figs 74, 75).
The perception of Mamma Roma's opening scene implies a rather different
kind of memory from the one Panofsky required of Leonardo's Last Supper.
Pasolini's reminiscent set is in itself the full meaning of the set. He is not pointing
to the biblical episode. Instead, he proposes a self-contained piece of intervisuality.
The pleasure and meaning of the scene lies in the contraposition of a marriage in
the Italian working classes of the 1960s to a specific iconographic tradition
unrelated to the former narrative. Although the set evokes the Italian pictorial

536 H. Belting, Likeness and Presence, p. 1.

242
tradition of the Last Supper, the mythological, biblical, tradition upon which it is
crafted, was left between brackets. Pasolini's set and scene communicate with a
number of other images (with a specific way of framing a table and guests in a
space), subsuming that specific iconographic tradition upon which it was drawn.
Pasolini composed heterogeneous materials: the characters, bodies and language of
sub-proletarians of the 1960s, within a frame that is strongly evocative of a specific
pictorial tradition of the 1300s-1400s.537 The "written language of reality" - as
Pasolini qualified cinema - suffers from reminiscences.
Towards the end of the movie, Ettore, the son of Mamma Roma and the
main character is imprisoned, ill and filmed lying on a table-bed, tied to it, belly
upwards and in underwear. He remains in that position until he dies. Some
sequences were filmed at low height, slightly above the level of the table-bed,
directed from feet to head. They are strongly reminiscent of The Deposition, the
famous frontal foreshortening view of the dead Christ, of 1480-90, by Andrea
Mantegna (1431-1506).
If one tried to identify the characters or both scenes with the corresponding
artworks and, at last, with the biblical figures and episodes of which the latter
constitute the representation, one would rapidly come to an interpretative
deadlock.538 These reminiscent scenes of Pasolini are exquisitely visual. In relation
to these one may, eventually, ask: to what do they relate? Or, more specifically: to
which iconographic traditions do they relate? Pasolini’s images are paradigmatic of
an order of the visible that is other in relation to that epitomized by Panofsky. They
belong to and shape another imaginary-symbolic order, that is, they are the effect
and cause of another way of producing and perceiving images, of arranging images
and gazes.539 As indicated earlier, what characterizes this order is the enchainment
of images to non-narrative matter in a non-hierarchical order, exquisitely to visual
matter.
The possibility of experiencing an image in this way is the outcome of a
history that has dethroned the privilege of narrative and the textual in the identifi-
cation of images. I have already named or briefly evoked some of the key moments
of this long history, of which Pasolini’s film is a small but an integral part, but I

537 Inthe longer version of the documentary Pasolini l'Enragè, of Jean-André Fieschi, Pasolini mentions
that an "abyss" separates the materials that he merges, referring to the ones mentioned here.
538 First and unavoidable problem: there are more characters in Pasolini than in Leonardo / Bible.
539 In two words, images and gazes belong to the same aesthetic unconscious. In a section on the
simplifications that occur between the German and the American editions of the introduction to the
method of Panofsky, Georges Didi-Huberman stresses (Confronting Images, p. 100): "There is no simple
'formal' origin - pure sensible forms, results of the relation of the eye to the world - from which issue
little by little, a world of meaning and representation in organized in quite distinct levels. There is only
representation. […] We do not cross some supposed threshold or limit separating reality from symbol.
The symbolic precedes and invents reality, much as the Nachträglichkeit [après-coup; differed action]
precedes and invents its 'origin'." See R. Stewen, Beginnings of Being, pp. 18-19.

243
draw again on this history by taking a look at Jacques Rancière's propositions in this
respect, as one among other possibilities.540

5.3. The distribution of the sensible in arts: 541

the representative and the aesthetic

One of the fields of research of Jacques Rancière is what he calls "arts", covering a
broad territory synonymous with or even larger than "culture". The configuration
and content of this territory has changed across history, because while it is
governed by implicit laws it is subject to historic variation, which defines what is
admissible within it and what lies outside it: laws of inclusion and exclusion that
enable the identification of a specific chain of signs as expressive, as cultural signs.
Today the field spreads from literature to music (all genres), from visual arts and
design to graffiti and eventually tattoo, from performing arts to do-it-yourself art,
professional and non-professional arts. In the past, the sensible was distributed in a
rather different way, as the laws governing what Rancière names the "distribution
of the sensible" were different. Although the notions proposed by Rancière are of
interest for what one might call the periodization of cultural history, it is not this
that interests him. In different moments a number of implicit rules not only estab-
lished the outline and contents of culture which enabled the identification of
specific objects as belonging to this domain, they also shaped "regimes of identifi-
cation". Rancière has identified three such major regimes in the Western world:
"the ethic", "the representative" and "the aesthetic". It is the last two which are of
particular interest to us.
Plato considered that arts had a role to play in the reproduction of the moral,
religious and social values of the polis, an "ethic" role. The "representative" regime
emerged out of the critiques from Aristotle to Plato. Aristotle defined a domain of
Fine Arts separated from other ways, techniques and modes of doing (crafts). This
was the domain whose proper role was that of fictionally imitating actions, not any

For instance the important H. Belting, L'Histoire de l'art est-elle finie?, and H. Belting, Art History after
540

Modernism.
541 J. Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, p. 85 ("Glossary", pp. 80-93, established by the translator,
G. Rockhill): the "distribution of the sensible" refers to "the implicit laws governing the sensible order
that parcels out places and forms of participation in a common world by first establishing the modes
of participation within which these are inscribed. The distribution of the sensible thus produces a
system of self-evident facts of perception based on the set horizons and modalities of what is visible
and audible as well as what can be said, thought, made or done. Strictly speaking, 'distribution'
therefore refers both to forms of inclusion and to forms of exclusion. The 'sensible', of course, does
not refer to what shows good sense or judgement but to what is aistheton or capable of being
apprehended by the senses." The "sensible" is a two-fold construction, with aesthetic-artistic and
political aspects. As to the former see my development below and, further to J. R., The Politics of
Aesthetics, also J. R., "What aesthetics can mean", and J. R., "History and the art system". As to the
later aspect see J. Rancière, Disagreement, pp. 57-60 and 124-125.

244
actions but those such as heroic acts, mythological subjects, historic events, and so
on. He called these resemblances, imitations (mimesis). However, this does not
mean, necessarily, that the imitation of any object at all could be defined as a
distinctive characteristic of the "representative" regime of arts. As Rancière clarifies,

Rather than reproducing reality, works within the representative regime obey
a series of axioms that define the arts' proper form: the hierarchy of genres
and subject matter, the principle of appropriateness that adapts forms of
expression and action to the subjects represented and to the proper genre, the
ideal of speech as an act that privileges language over the visible imagery that
supplements it.542

What are these genres? For instance: the symphony, the portrait, the romance. They
existed in a hierarchical relation to other genres: in painting, historic painting is the
highest genre; the portrait is lower than historic painting but above landscape, the
lowest pictorial genre. There was also a hierarchy of subject matter: heroic and
mythological matters are ranked above any popular / folkloristic subject. Therefore,
mimesis cannot simply be identified with "resemblance", but is a specific regime of
"resemblance" with its own hierarchies and laws, unlike other activities producing
resemblances. This is what used to separate the "Fine Arts" from "applied arts" and
techniques such as cinema and photography. One of these (unwritten) laws is the
last crucial aspect that Rancière mentions: "the ideal of speech as an act that
privileges language over the visible imagery that supplements it". As we saw earlier,
this priority of language and of narrative over the visual arts was at work in the
humanistic culture of the ut pictura poesis from the Renaissance to the academic art
of the 1800s. Significantly, Horace's simile has always meant "as is poetry so is
painting", whereas, literally, it means the reverse: "as is painting so is poetry".543
Taking these premises into consideration, on the top of the hierarchy are poetry
and literature, philosophy and history; below these are architecture, painting and
sculpture (whose hierarchic order varies according to the authors); at the bottom
are the applied arts. It is this tradition, in which humanities occupied the upper
position, with language taking precedence over image, that constituted the object of
Panofsky's research activity. It structured a method, that is, therefore, culturally
determined and specific, rather than universal. Times have changed in the mean
time.
At a certain moment Courbet (1819-77) decided to paint people at work (The
Stonebreakers, 1849) the impassive rural bourgeoisie (Burial at Ornans, 1850); Manet
(1832-83) decided to paint a Parisian prostitute (Olympia, 1863) and to get rid of
pictorial details;544 later the Impressionists painted colour and light; Flaubert privi-

542 J. Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, p. 91 ("Glossary" established by G. Rockhill).

543 R. W. Lee, Ut Pictura Poesis, p. 3.
544 D. Arasse, Le Détail, especially pp. 252-254.

245
leged description over narration and wrote a romance on the adultery committed by
a farmer's daughter, Madame Bovary, a romance as interesting as the actions of a
great man or of a hero.545 With The Temptation of Saint Anthony, described in detail
earlier, the same Flaubert, created an immense work of montage crafted upon the
religious and visionary tradition that he turned into literary and cultural memories.
It is easy to understand why things went that way by visiting the ground floor of the
Musée d'Orsay where the winners of the Salons are exhibited, the highest represen-
tatives of the academic art of the 1800s. There was no need for this tradition to be
challenged by the modernists because the conventions were already exhausted.
Now in the same museum, it is the work of artists like Courbet, Manet and Renoir,
the Impressionists, which interests visitors.

-----

The "aesthetic" regime was, in many ways, developed against the representative,
against its hierarchies and censures. Indeed, the questioning of the distinction
between art and non-art (i.e., other forms of producing statements, sounds and
images), and the decision to explore new territories beyond hierarchies and
censures, was the force behind many movements that have shaped the culture of
the last 150 years.

The aesthetic regime abolishes the hierarchical distribution of the sensible

characteristic of the representative regime of art, including the privilege of
speech over visibility as well as the hierarchy of the arts, their subject matter
and their genres. By promoting the equality of represented subjects, the
indifference of style with regard to content, and the immanence of meaning
in things themselves, the aesthetic regime destroys the system of genres and
isolates 'art' in the singular, which it identifies with the paradoxical unity of
opposites: logos and pathos. [...] The aesthetic regime also calls into question the
very distinction between art and other activities.546

This general redistribution of the sensible and the structuring of the aesthetic
regime, had two major consequences: firstly and obviously, on the kind of chains of
expressive signs that surround us; secondly, and still in a mitigated way, in the
relevant academic research and literature. The effect of the re-distribution of the
sensible can be perceived in our museums, magazines, books and CDs, TV and
radio. Before this large movement, neither Lordi, nor rock music, nor even pop
music, would have been possible. Contemporary artists owe the abolition of hierar-
chies to their predecessors. Without this abolition, Lordi could not have drawn on
the large array of references and reminiscences in the way he does because many of

545 See J. Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, p. 55.

546 J. Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, p. 81 ("Glossary" established by G. Rockhill).

246
those images that made and make him dream, at the source of his art, would have
been out of reach or would have a qualification precluding their spectacular appro-
priation. I am not opposing the religious personification of the evil to a secular,
"artistic", devil, but rather, the religious and artistic-formalistic devils in opposition
to a devil that is both artistic and deeply haunted from reminiscences. Of course,
the underlying idea of art has little or nothing to do with, say, the flatness of the
canvas in the manner of Greenberg, and everything to with depth, contradictory
simultaneity and over-determination.
Those of us who research images also owe much to this redistribution of the
sensible, even though its impact in the academy remains still very limited. A single
example is enough to throw light on the inertia of academy. As developed in Part 1
above, as early as 1891 Aby Warburg (1866-1929) had realised that the paintings
The Birth of Venus (c1485) and Spring (c1482), by Botticelli (c1445-1510), constituted
a montage of prestigious literary sources (the Giostra of Poliziano), theoretical
prescription on art (Alberti) and classical visual references (reinterpreted); dressing
and hairdressing codes (contemporary to the production of the paintings and
constituting idealizations of the past), together with spatial sets half way between
the real (insofar as most vegetal species existed in Florentine gardens) and typical
gothic sets (the garden of the Spring), among others. Warburg recognized that they
were an assemblage of the most disparate materials, of heterogeneous times and
places, including the most prosaic things.547 Although he explored the field of the
Florentine Renaissance and founded a research institute, now the Warburg Institute
of the University of London, his work remained unexplored, unknown and
untranslated until quite recently. In contrast, the work of Panofsky,548 with its
idealistic premises, would become much better known and much more influential.
Prestigious textual sources endow prestige to the objects that refer to them, as well
as to the researcher. Panofsky had not only researched the Italian Renaissance, but
had also worked in an academic milieu that could accept images as objects of
scientific enquiry insofar they could reach the height of the humanities. This state
of affairs has changed, and the work of Warburg has at last started to receive some
of the attention that it deserves. Although there are some intrinsic disciplinary
reasons for the loss of aura of Panofsky's method and for the reassessment of other
critical positions such as Warburg's, notwithstanding, this is also a sign of the slow
approximation of the academia to a cultural context, ours, in which even the most
prosaic aspects of the material world can be worthy of artistic attention, and in
which the border between art and non-art is reasonably blurred. These
transformations have a dramatic impact on the interpretation of images. It became
not only possible but also necessary to name the materials they are made of, what
their genetic roots are, beyond the idealizations and the cultural predeterminations
that previously imposed their order on the discourse. Interpretation is slowly

547 A. Warburg, "Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring".

548 Who at the beginning of his career frequented the institution that Warburg founded in Hamburg.

247
becoming free of the imperative of the Panofskian "basic text", that used to redeem
both the research and the researcher. In this way the interpretation of images
comes closer to the aesthetic world that we inhabit, in which the privilege of speech
over visibility was ousted to the profit of their material and visual latencies and
reminiscences. This sensible-aesthetic context is as familiar as it is unknown (i.e., to
a large extent it is unconscious) to the public, who I believe must be the
researcher's prime interlocutors. Therefore, I think the task of research is to explore
and map - or "unveil to consciousness",549 as far as this can be done - that which
sustains images. The task is to map the network that images establish with other
products of imagination and human craft, and with materials and other images to
which they relate, which they may evoke and forget or re-invent. In mapping the
reminiscences of images and their transformations we are exploring the structures
and contingencies of their and our unconscious.

549 As Foucault is quoted in exergue to this essay.

248
 Mas o corpo é um buraco onde cai o corpo.
Yet the body is a hole where the body falls.
Herberto Helder 550

6. The vital point

Among all the aspects of Lordi's image and of their show which remain striking,
are, as previously discussed, the open mouth of Mr. Lordi himself and of his
double, the belly-mouth belt, which connects to references such as Gene Simmons'
open mouth. The historic depth and continuity of this motive is remarkable: it is
the Leviathan following the rider Death in two illuminations of the 14th century,
representations of limbo, the open mouth of the Greek Gorgon, the belly-mouth of
Satan, and it is "the fiery pit of hell", the death-mouth, in two folios of the 9th
century Utrecht Psalter now available online. The open mouth returned, obsessively
and disquietingly, in the work of Francis Bacon (1909-92). It is Bacon's well known
"scream".
In two early works of Bacon, Head I and Head II (1948; figs 66, 68), the open
mouth is in convulsion, bent round, that is, the organ of language is distorted into
the supreme organ of pathos. Bacon mentions the famous scream of the nurse shot
on the Odessa steps in Sergej Eisenstein's (1898-1948) Battleship Potemkin (1925).
However, there are more candidates such as the particularly dramatic and deformed
screaming heads of Picasso (1881-1973) from the 1930s, namely from the
"Guernica sketchbook" (fig 63) and from the same painting, Edvard Munch's
(1863-1944) The Scream (1893; fig 70) and illustrations from medical publications of
ill mouths (fig 67). Apparently it is this same scream that cries from the chair where
Diego Velasquez's (1599-1660) "Pope Innocent X" sits (1650).
For pathos or sensation to be released, Bacon had to wrest figures both from
illustration (a vocation of modern systems of recording such as photo and film) and
from narrative: "the moment there are several figures - at any rate several figures on
the same canvas - the story begins to be elaborated. And the moment the story is
elaborated, the boredom sets in; the story talks louder than the paint"...551 "you
immediately come on to the story-telling aspect of the relationships between
figures. And that immediately sets up a kind of a narrative. I always hope to be able
to make a number of figures without a narrative".552 It is well known the care that
Bacon put into isolating the several panels of triptychs and into framing figures
within them, in crafting the coloured backgrounds... in wresting figures from

550"Mas o corpo é um buraco onde cai o corpo. // Esta queda em si mesmo comporta uma ciência derradeira, o saber
de uma profundidade física. // A cabeça é o órgão que freme em baixo, no escuro". H. Helder, Photomaton & Vox,
p. 122.
551 D. Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, p. 22.
552 D. Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, p. 63.

249
figurative and narrative relations. He was rather successful at doing it, and when
this happens figures and images tend to unfold into ghosts, and pathos is released.
These are the roots of the pathos of Bacon's scream rather than a property of the
subject matter or an effect of representation: the scream of a body submitted to
violence or of one that threatens. Indeed the scream is already there as only a
surface, an image, not the horror that causes it:

Francis Bacon - You could say that a scream is a horrific image; [however,] I
wanted to paint the scream more than the horror. I think, if I had really
thought about what causes somebody to scream, it would have made the
scream that I tried to paint more successful. Because I should in a sense have
been more conscious of the horror that produced the scream. In fact they
were too abstract.
David Sylvester - They were too purely visual?
Francis Bacon - I think so. Yes.553

What does it mean to say that the scream is "purely visual"? As Bacon acknowl-
edges, it is beyond representation ("illustration") and narrative. But to this negative
definition Bacon adds another, more positive: that the scream is weaved with
thread from a number of specific and disparate iconographic traditions; it is subject
to violence and does violence to the well established tradition of portraiture. Boldly,
this is achieved through distortion (of "illustration"), through the merging of
opposites (seeing / showing the portrait and the crucifixion in the light of meat554 -
see fig 72), by "injuring" the image.555 Gilles Deleuze mentions in the book on
Bacon that "if we scream, it is always as the prey of invisible and insentient forces
that blur the whole spectacle [...], the scream is like the seizure or detection of an
invisible force",556 which is done through exquisitely artistic means: the spectacle
that is blurred is the conventions, clichés and stereotypes of representation, that
which is stuck onto the empty canvas and that ought to be washed away but none-
theless that persists. As to the force, it can be named "death". One can think of it as
the force that animates images. This is a material of artistic work and if it can be
named death this is because it shares a number of properties with the paradoxical
and unstable phenomenology of corpses. Rather than being a property of repre-
sentations of death, this indeed is a force powerfully animating images.

-----

553 D. Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, p. 48.

554 See D. Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, pp. 46-47. See also M. Capock, "The motif of meat and
flesh", in Francis Bacon and the Tradition of Art, pp. 310-327.
555 D. Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon, p. 41.
556 G. Deleuze, Francis Bacon - Logique de la Sensation, p. 41: "si l'on crie, c'est toujours en proie à des forces
invisibles et insensibles qui brouillent tout spectacle [...] , le cri est comme la capture ou la détection d'une force invisible."

250
In 1946 Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) wrote "Le rêve, le sphinx et la mort de T".557
This is the account of a landmark in Giacometti's life and artistic conscience, the
death of T., one of three or four deaths that left lasting traces in his life, like that of
Van M. in 1924 - "a rend in life"558 - and that of his father in 1933. When
Giacometti saw T. dead, around 3 am in a room contiguous to his own, his corpse
seemed to him a worthless thing ("cadavre nul, débris misérable", p. 29; "lamentable
cadavre", p. 30). His body, with the head bent backwards and with the mouth open,
became a still, unanimated, object. Giacometti wrote:

Immobile debout devant le lit, je regardais cette tête devenue objet, petite boîte, mesurable,
insignifiante. À ce moment-là, une mouche s'approcha du trou noir de la bouche et
lentement y disparut.559

Standing still by the bed, I stared at that head that became an object, small
box, measurable, insignificant. By then, a fly approached the mouth's black
hole and slowly vanished in it.

Giacometti placed a tie around the neck of this lifeless object which would
metamorphose into his / their house, into the people, the objects and landscapes
that Giacometti encountered; and into "a boy from Lipp", who stood by
Giacometti, still, with the mouth open. After a while T. was everywhere, including
in that paradoxical head:

Ce n'était plus une tête vivante, mais un objet que je regardais comme n'importe quel autre
objet, mais non, autrement, non pas comme n'importe quel objet, mais comme quelque chose
de vif et mort simultanément.560

It was no longer a living head, but an object that I stared at like any other
object, no, otherwise, not as any other object, but as something both alive
and dead.

As Giacometti testified, the doubles of T. were numerous. A large disk crafted by

Giacometti's imagination on which he could wander among signals of the most
salient moments of that experience, played the (mnemonic) role as well. Georges
Didi-Huberman convincingly and remarkably went as far as to show that
Giacometti's Cube (1934; fig 62), a polyhedron with thirteen sides, is a figural

In A. Giacometti, "Le rêve, le sphinx et la mort de T", pp. 27-35. For what follows, see G. Didi-
557

Huberman, Le Cube et le Visage, pp. 73-113.

A. Giacometti, "Le rêve, le sphinx et la mort de T", p. 35: "la mort de Van M. [...] fut pour moi
558

comme une trouée dans la vie".

559 A. Giacometti, "Le rêve, le sphinx et la mort de T", p. 29.
560 A. Giacometti, "Le rêve, le sphinx et la mort de T", p. 30.

251
network, that, among many others, is a portrait and a memorial to his father.
Against the idea that death is "unrepresentable", Giacometti and Didi-Huberman,
have shown that it is a powerful figural machine,561 a powerful machine of "permu-
tations". This figural machine operates paradoxically: the corpse's head became an
object; the head of an immobile boy with open mouth became T.; a disk could
condense the whole existential experience; T. appeared here and there; his object-
head was dead and alive. This phenomenology opens the way to a specific aesthetic
that shortcuts the usual relation between referent and reference, as well as the usual
polarity and intensity of affects attached to the reference. It opens the way to an
aesthetic that admits abstraction without foreclosing the path to figuration. It is
hard not to see death in Giacometti's figurative Tête sur tige (1947, fig 64). Where is
death, one may ask? In abstraction or in figuration? Obviously it can be in both or
neither. Both types of images may or may not have the quality that Tête sur tige so
powerfully exhibits which is neither a property of figurative nor of abstract repre-
sentations. It is something that is beyond these stylistic distributions, something
that is culturally crafted, that is of the order of style, montage and ghosts. Although
the West once imagined absolute evil as a personification, a composite and haunted
creature, the Devil, with its realm, this is not the only possibility. Claude
Lanzmann's Shoah (1985), a representation of the unrepresentable, has a radically
different structure. There is neither Devil nor anything like a Temptation, in which
case the film would become an unacceptable fiction. Furthermore, it takes its
distances from Hollywoodesque filmic codes such as those given shape by Steven
Spielberg in Schindler's List (1993). Despite its exquisite narrative and documentary
structure, Shoah dispenses - actually refuses - any archival material. This monument
is made of filmed words, silences and sites. Everything is long and slow: long inter-
views, long silences, long site travellings; this film is over 9 hours long. It is a
monument of a new kind, a new montage of givens, with their respective reminis-
cences, belonging to - and displacing - specific aesthetic traditions.562 It is a monu-
ment and a representation of death radically other in relation to Giacometti's
figurative Tête sur tige. Of course the deaths at stake are radically different. But this is
not what makes the difference of one and the other representation. They are both
different in relation to what they "represent", something that we (those that were

561 G. Didi-Huberman, Le Cube et le Visage, p. 77: "La mort [...] ouvre dans le visible un lieu pour inverser,
comme dit Giacometti, non seulement les représentations, mais encore les affects et les intensités: telle est sa marque
structurelle, sa marque de figurabilité, c'est-à-dire sa capacité à faire trace par-delà tout ce qu'on dit généralement de la
mort, à savoir qu'elle est 'irreprésentable'"; "Death [...] rends in the visible a place for inverting, as Giacometti
says, not only representations, but also affects and intensities: such is its structural imprint, its imprint
of figurability, that is to say, its capacity to produce traces, beyond all that is commonly said about
death, namely that it is 'unrepresentable'".
562 For instance, the importance of the site in Lanzmann's Shoah, recurrently void, is, both, reminiscent
of Alain Resnais, Nuit et Brouillard and of the places that were so important in the depiction of Hell
and for the arts of memory. Already in Resnais they were void, although a void to a large extent filled
by the archival material. Lanzmann goes one step further, leaving these places ostensibly void... except
that there are words and there is the imagination of spectators filling them.

252
neither in the Nazi extermination camps nor by the side of T.) fundamentally
imagine. What is manifest, upon which we start imagining, is that these are different
stylistic constructions, connecting to and displacing different aesthetic traditions
and constructions diversely haunted. Tête sur tige is not necessarily a representation
of T.'s objectified dead head. Its strength does not lie here, at least not for us who
neither possess the memory of T. alive nor of his corpse. It is rather an image of
death itself (read: of what each one may imagine, grounded on the partial and
incomplete image, as the wholeness of death itself), of the same death that, for
Giacometti, dwelled in the open mouth and stillness of the Lipp boy, in the land-
scape, etc. Although the open mouth is not a binding localization for death - Shoah
dispenses with it - there is this possibility. As we have seen, there is a long cultural
history behind such a possibility, and a collective history that orients individual
imagination.
Giacometti provides another testimony that is particularly interesting for
understanding this "death", the node that is active beneath things and that admits
any expression: that may burst through a house, a landscape, a polyhedric cube, an
open mouth, that may burst in the ways recorded by cultural history and, maybe, in
ways yet to be invented. It can be conceptualised as a point:

Les têtes [...] ne sont ni cube, ni cylindre, ni sphère, ni triangle. Elles sont une masse en
mouvement, allure, forme changeante et jamais tout à fait saisissable. Et puis elles sont
comme liées par un point intérieur qui nous regarde à travers les yeux et qui semble être leur
réalité, une réalité sans mesure, dans un espace sans limites.563

Heads [...] are neither cubic, nor cylindrical, nor spherical, nor triangular.
They are a mass in motion, semblance, changing form and never fully
apprehensible. They are as tied by an inner point that stares at us through the
eyes and that seems to be their reality, a reality without measure, in a space
without limits.

-----

A point bright and alive touches us through the open eyes, whereas a dark and dead
point (though alive) touches us through an open mouth. It is not so much the
morphology but rather the vital phenomenology that is important to bear in mind.
Actually, the vital point that is imbued with death in Tête sur tige is the line that is
concealed behind it. It strikes the beholder, makes him stare, seizes him. This line
traverses the paintings of Bacon, the iconography of the open mouth, from the
Utrecht Psalter to Cranach and Memling, up to Lordi's open mouths. The fact that
this point-line traverses times and cultures intensifies it and what it touches. A
parallel can be drawn with black holes which condense stars, planets and entire

563 A. Giacometti, "Carnets et feuillets", p. 218. See G. Didi-Huberman, Le Cube et le Visage, p. 122.

253
constellations. The tiny point condenses the images that the line traverses, striking
images from dusty and digital archives, and from faraway times and places. This line
connects heterogeneous materials and times, draws a network embracing what is
familiar to what became unfamiliar. It connects what we still know to what we have
forgotten. Lordi's reminiscences include anonymous and popular artists, as well as
artists like Cranach and Memling, Bacon and Giacometti, among many others. In
fact, Lordi's reminiscences are our reminiscences. There is a whole and rich
universe in the mouth of Lordi's vocalist. When the mouth of Mr Lordi opens, it
silently shouts, screams and sings our unconscious, that which touches and seizes
us.

-----

In 1905 Aby Warburg published "Dürer and Italian Antiquity", on Dürer's print
Death of Orpheus (1494; see fig 89). Within the culture of the Renaissance this an
intense node of pathos, particularly charged with violence and eroticism. Dürer
draws on a theme which is an object of continuous and pronounced cultural atten-
tion: in 1471, in Mantua, Poliziano's Fabula di Orfeo had already been performed
with musical accompaniment, and in 1607, also in Mantua, Monteverdi would
present L'Orfeo.564 As Warburg showed, Dürer drew on a drawing of Mantegna,
which is an image similar to much older ones. Like Mantegna and Poliziano, Dürer
had drawn on antique visual patterns for giving shape to a moment of intense
pathos. Not the "tranquil, grandiose", Winckelmannian and Neoclassic Antiquity,
but a far more agitated, nervous, Dionysian and haunted one. In the print of Dürer,
Antiquity interweaves with performing arts and music, with marble and sculpture,
and the arts of movement interweave with their fossilization; Eros interweaves with
Thanatos. This print both relates to contemporary productions from other fields
and to a much older iconography. It is haunted. It is both image and gesture (as
well as music, theatre, literature...). But what is it, after all? It is the entanglement of
past and present, of heterogeneous matters. It is the indissoluble entanglement of a
piece of iconography with other cultural forms as well as with emotions.565 It is also
the entanglement of presence and ghosts, of things that neither merge nor can be
separated.566 This is Dürer's Death of Orpheus. The same can be said about Lordi,
who is the most recent, but unlikely to be the last, reincarnation of the Devil, a
Devil that has always been between hell, death, art, stage and carnival, being in
permanent transit, a fluid being, a being-image.

564In the version of Nikolaus Harnoncourt (ed. Teldec, 1969), Cathy Berberian performs Speranza,
announcing the entrance in hell with unsurpassable charm: "lasciate ogni speranza voi che entrate" (act 3).
565 See G. Agamben, "Aby Warburg and the nameless science", p. 90.
566 See G. Didi-Huberman, L'Image Survivante, p. 201.

254
REFERENCES
Pictures:
(Fig. // Owner of rights and/or source)
In the text:
A. S. Freud, Diagram of the symptom and
work, from manuscript M ("The architecture of
hysteria") of the Fliess papers, 1897 // Excerpt
from fig. 102 below. See S. Freud, "Extracts
from the Fliess Papers", in The Standard Edition
of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund
Freud, vol. 1, trans. A. Strachey and others,
Vintage, London, 2001, pp. 250-253. See also
G. Didi-Huberman, L'Image Survivante - Histoire
de l'art et temps des fantômes selon Aby Warburg,
Minuit, Paris, 2002, p. 319.
B. My sketch.
C. My sketch.
D. "Consulting the experts" / Postcard
published by Leeds Postcards for ATAC - The
Technical Aid Network.
Part 1, on Holl:
1. Kiasma, overall view // Hisao Suzuki. From
Steven Holl, 1986-2003, a special number of the
review El Croquis, 2003, p. 243.
2. Kiasma, lobby at the inauguration // Pirje
Mykkänen, CAA. From Kiasma [the free-
magazine published by the museum], 19, 2003,
p. 2.
3. Kiasma, lobby // Same source as fig. 1,
p. 259.
4. Kiasma, helicoidal stair-ramp // Same
source as fig. 1, p. 266.
5. Kiasma, 4th floor gallery // Same
source as fig. 1, p. 272.
6. South Töölönlahti and Kamppi, early 1990s
// Aerial view from the competition Brief...,
appendix 5.10, with my superimposition.
7. South Töölönlahti and Kamppi, early 1990s,
with the superimposition of the outline of
Aalto’s 1st plan // Same as fig. 6.
8. Aalto’s plan, 1st version, 1961 // From K.
Fleig (ed.), Alvar Aalto - Complete works, 1922-62,
vol.1, Birhäuser, Basel, 1995, with my
superimposition.
9. Aalto’s plan, 3rd version, 1971, with the
superimposition of the outline of the 1961 plan
// From K. Fleig and E. Aalto (ed.), Alvar
Aalto - Complete works, Projects and final buildings,
vol. 3, Birhäuser, Basel, 1995, with my
superimposition.
10. Aalto’s plan, 3rd version, 1971, model //
Same source as fig. 9.
11. P. E. Blomstedt, the "green wedge", 1933
// Helsinki - City in the forest, catalogue of
exhibition curated by N. Okabe and P. Perkkiö,
and held in Tokyo, 1-31/7/1997, p. 150.
12. E. Saarinen, Greater Helsinki Plan, 1918,
bird’s eye view of the Töölönlahti development
// From La Ville - Art et architecture en Europe,
1870-1993, eds. J. Dethier and A. Guiheux,
catalogue of the exhibition held at the Centre
Georges Pompidou, Paris, 10/2-9/5/1994,
p. 146.
13. B. Jung, proposition for Master Plan, 1911,
with "central park" // Same source as fig. 11,
p. 147.
14. B. Jung, the "central park", 1911 // From
Urban Guide Helsinki, Helsinki City Planning
Department, Helsinki, 2006, p. 17.
15. The legacy of Aalto’s plans // Same
source as fig. 6.
16. The Kiasma effect // Same source as fig. 6.
17. Cultural institutions around Töölönlahti //
Same source as fig. 6.
18. South Töölönlahti and Kamppi component
plan, 1991, detail // From the competition
Brief..., appendix 3.
19. K. Liukkonen, F. Lindberg, S. Lauritsalo
and J. Aittoniemi, "Nyt Nykii", from panel 2 //
From the records at the Finnish Architecture
Museum, source for the publication of the
supplement of the architect's magazine on the
competition, Arkkitehtuurikilpailuja, 5, 1993.
20. Idem, axonometric, from panel 4 // Same
source as fig. 19.
21. Idem, model // Same source as fig. 19.
22. J. Leiviskä, "Pähkinäsärkijä", site plan, from
panel 1 // Same source as fig. 19.
23. Idem, model // Same source as fig. 19.
24. Idem, perspective, from panel 4 // Same
source as fig. 19.
25. V. Helminen, "Lähteellä", from panels 2
and 3 // Same source as fig. 19.
26. Idem, model // Same source as fig. 19.
27. K. Leiman, "Iron and blood", model //
257
Same source as fig. 19.
28. C. Bearman and M. Mäkipentti,
"Cothurnocystis", model // Same source
as fig. 19.
29. K. Shinoara, "Stages", model // Same
source as fig. 19.
30. Idem // Same source as fig. 19.
31. S. Holl (SH), "Chiasma", panel 1 //
Collection of slides held by MINEDU.
32. SH, "Chiasma", panel 2 // Same
source as fig. 31.
33. SH, "Chiasma", panel 3 // Same
source as fig. 31.
34. SH, "Chiasma", panel 4 // Same
source as fig. 31.
35. SH, "Chiasma", model // Same
source as fig. 19.
36. SH, "Chiasma", model // Same
source as fig. 19.
37. SH, "Chiasma", model // My photo.
38. SH, "Chiasma", from panel 1 // Same
source as fig. 19.
39. SH, "Chiasma", from panel 2 // Same
source as fig. 19.
40. SH, "Chiasma", from panel 3 // Same
source as fig. 19.
41. SH, "Chiasma", from panel 2 // From
Steven Holl, 1986-2003, a special number of the
review El Croquis, 2003, p. 251.
42. SH, "Chiasma", from panel 4 // Same
source as fig. 41.
43. SH, "Chiasma", from panel 3 // From S.
Holl, Luonnoksia / Sketches - Steven Hollin
akvarelleja / Watercolours by Steven Holl, ed. J.
Hirvonen, Museum of Contemporary Art,
Helsinki, 1998.
44. SH, "Chiasma", from panel 4 // Same
source as fig. 43.
45. SH, watercolour for Kiasma // Same
source as fig. 43.
46. Idem // From S. Holl, Written in Water,
Lars Müller, Baden, 2002, ref. 014 KIA.
47. Idem // Same source as fig. 46,
ref. 004 KIA.
48. Idem // Same source as fig. 46,
ref. 005 KIA.
49. SH, watercolour for Kiasma // Same
258
source as fig. 46, ref. 006 KIA.
50. Kiasma, upper floor gallery // Same
source as fig. 1, p. 273.
51. G. B. Piranesi, Study for a palatial interior,
1745-48.
52. G. B. Piranesi, Carceri, pl. XI, 1745.
53. G. De Chirico, Italian square with equestrian
statue, 1936 // From J. M. Faerna, De Chirico,
trans. D. Cobos, Cameo / Abrams, New York,
1995, fig. 55.
54. Giorgio De Chirico, The mystery and
melancholy of a street, 1914 // Private collection.
55. P. Lumikangas, Two Gateways, 1978 //
Ateneum Museum, Helsinki (http://kokoelmat.
fng.fi/wandora, November 2007).
56. P. Lumikangas, Exhibition Room
(Näyttelyhuone), 1972 // Same source as fig. 55.
57. SH, watercolour for Kiasma // Same
source as fig. 41, p. 251.
58. G. B. Piranesi, Carceri, pl. VI, 2nd state,
1760.
59. SH, watercolour // Same source as fig. 46,
ref. 060 BAM.
60. G. B. Piranesi, Study for a Carceri, c1743.
61. SH, watercolour for Kiasma // Same
source as fig. 41, p. 23.
62. SH, watercolour for Kiasma // Same
source as fig. 46, ref. 011 KIA.
63. SH, watercolour // Same source
as fig. 46, ref. 107.
64. SH, watercolour // Same source
as fig. 46, ref. 018.
65. O. Mäkilä, Mechanical composition, 1950s //
Same source as fig. 55.
66. O. Mäkilä, Composition, 1950 // Same
source as fig. 55.
67. O. Mäkilä, Painting, 1950s // Same
source as fig. 55.
68. M. Duchamp, Mariée [Bride], 1912 //
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.
69. SH, watercolour // Same source as fig. 43.
70. SH, watercolour // Same source as fig. 46,
ref. 066.
71. Picasso, Figures au bord de la mer, 1931 //
Musée Picasso, Paris.
72. Picasso, Femme au fauteuil rouge (Marie-
Thérèse), 1932 // Musée Picasso, Paris.
73. S. Botticelli, Birth of Venus, c1485 //
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
74. S. Botticelli, Spring, c1482 // Galleria degli
Uffizi, Florence.
75. Sassetti Chapel, Santa Trinità, view of the
lower part // Santa Trinità, Florence.
76. D. Ghirlandaio, Adoration of the Shepherds,
1482-85 // Santa Trinità, Florence.
77. D. Ghirlandaio, Francesco Sassetti, 1482-85
// Santa Trinità, Florence.
78. D. Ghirlandaio, Confirmation of the Franciscan
Rule (Sassetti Chapel), 1482-85 // Santa Trinità,
Florence.
79. Giotto, Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule,
1325 // Santa Croce, Florence.
80. D. Ghirlandaio, The Birth of Saint John Baptist
(Tornabuoni Chapel), 1486-90 // Santa Maria
Novella, Florence.
81. A. Warburg, Ninfa Fiorentina, 1896-1900,
cover of the manuscript // Warburg Institute,
London. From G. Didi-Huberman, Ninfa
Moderna - Essai sur le drapé tombé, Gallimard,
Paris, 2002, p. 9.
82. A. Warburg, Mnemosyne atlas, plate 6 //
Warburg Institute, London. A. Warburg,
Mnemosyne - L'Atlante delle immagini, ed. M.
Warnke with C. Brink, trans. B. Müller and M.
Ghelardi, Nino Aragno, Florence, 2002, p. 25.
83. Maenad, neo-attic bas-relief, late 2nd century
BC (after 5th century BC bas-relief) // Detail
of the previous fig.
84. Unknown Italian artist, Judith, 15th century
// Collezione Chigi Saracini, Siena.
85. Donatello, Judith and Holofernes, 1455-60 //
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
86. S. Botticelli, The Return of Judith to Bethulia,
c1472 // Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
87. Bertodo di Giovanni, Crucifixion, c1485,
detail // Museo Nazionale del Bargello,
Florence. From G. Didi-Huberman, L'Image
Survivante - Histoire de l'art et temps des fantômes
selon Aby Warburg, Minuit, Paris, 2002, p. 267.
88. D. Ghirlandaio, Slaughter of the Innocents,
c1486-90, detail // Santa Maria Novella,
Florence.
89. A. Dürer, Death of Orpheus, c1494, detail //
Kunsthalle, Hamburg.
90. Jan Matsys, Judith, 16th century //
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten,
Antwerp.
91. Giorgione, Judith, c1504 // Hermitage,
St. Petersburg.
92. Gradiva, bas-relief at Freud’s office in
Vienna in 1938 // Photo Edmund Engelman,
taken at Freud's office in Vienna. Bas-relief
currently at the Freud Museum, London.
93. Maenad, Roman bas-relief, 1st century BC
(after Greek 5th century BC bas-relief) //
From A. Warburg, Le Rituel du Serpent - Récit
d'un voyage en pays Pueblo, trans. S. Muller,
Macula, Paris, 2003, p. 112.
94. Maenad dancing, projection of neo-attic bas-
relief // Part of A. Warburg, "A Lecture on
Serpent Ritual", 1923. Same source as fig. 87.
95. Laocoon, Roman c 50 BC, after Greek
original of c 3rd century BC // Vatican, Rome.
96. Asclepius, Roman statue, 2nd century (after
Greek model, 4th century BC) // Musei
Capitolini, Rome.
97. Hopi Indian during the snake ritual, c1910 //
Photo Warburg Institute, London. Same
source as fig. 87, p. 37.
98. Hopi Indian during the snake ritual, 1924 //
Same source as fig. 93, p. 20.
99. Hopi schoolboy’s drawing of a storm with two
snake-lightnings, 1896 // Same source as fig. 93,
p. 131.
100. Hopi sand painting (altar) in the floor of the
Kiva, with four snakes shooting out from the clouds,
early 1890s // From A. Warburg, Il Rituale del
Serpente, trans. G. Carchia and F. Cuniberto,
Adelphi, Milan, 1998, p. 94.
101. S. Freud, "The architecture of hysteria",
1897, manuscript page related to the researches
on hysteria (from the Fliess papers) // Library
of Congress, Washington. From http://www.
loc.gov/exhibits/freud/images/vc008210.jpg,
August 2007.
102. S. Botticelli, Birth of Venus, c1485, detail //
From L'Image Survivante - Histoire de l'art et temps
des fantômes selon Aby Warburg, Minuit, Paris,
2002, p. 243.
103. SH, preliminary watercolour for Kiasma
// From Steven Holl, 1986-2003, a special
259
number of the review El Croquis, 2003, p. 250.
104. SH, preliminary watercolour for Kiasma
// Same source as fig. 103.
105. SH, preliminary watercolour for Kiasma
// Same source as fig. 103.
106. SH, preliminary watercolour for Kiasma
// Same source as fig. 103.
107. SH, watercolour for the Belvedere Art
Museum, Washington // From S. Holl, Written
in Water, cit., ref. 066 BAM.
108. W. Aaltonen, Builder’s hand (Rakentajan
käsi), 1960 // Wäinö Aaltonen, 1894-1966,
exhibition catalogue published by the Wäinö
Aaltosen museo, Turku, 1994, cat. 283.
109. Domenico Cresti da Passignano,
Michelangelo presenting his model to Pope Paul IV,
1619 // From H. A. Millon (ed.), Italian
Renaissance Architecture - From Brunelleschi to
Michelangelo, Thames and Hudson,
London, 1994, p. 34.
110. Ambrogio Borgognone, Gian Lorenzo
Visconti presenting the model of the Certosa di Pavia
to the Virgin, c1488-1510 // Same source
as fig. 109, p. 338.
111. K. Kaivanto, poster of the exhibition at
Artek Gallery, Helsinki, 1969 // K. Kaivanto
and K. Sarje, Kaivanto, WSOY, Helsinki,
2001, p. 59.
112. K. Kaivanto, The Hand, 1969 // Same
source as fig. 111.
113. K. Kaivanto, A Question of efficiency, 1969 //
Same source as fig. 111, p. 65.
114. K. Kaivanto, Blue thinker - Rodin theme, 1971
// Same source as fig. 111, p. 68.
115. K. Kaivanto, Chain (Positive visionary
diagonal) - Dedicated to the friendship between
European peoples, 1972. Glass fibre and steel
sculpture between floor and ceiling mirror //
Same source as fig. 111, p. 72.
116. K. Kaivanto, My opinion, I said..., 1966-68
// Same source as fig. 111, p. 57.
117. K. Kaivanto, From time to time, 1998 //
Same source as fig. 111, p. 134.
118. A. Giacometti, Suspended ball, 1930-31 //
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
119. A. Giacometti, Main Prise, 1932 //
Kunsthaus - Foundation A. Giacometti, Zurich.
260
120. A. Giacometti, La Main, 1947 //
Kunsthaus - Foundation A. Giacometti, Zurich.
121. A. Giacometti, La Table Surréaliste, 1933 //
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris.
122. A. Giacometti, The Invisible Object - Hands
holding the void, 1934-35 // National Gallery of
Art, Washington.
123. A. Giacometti, Hands holding the void, detail
of print // From G. Didi-Huberman, Le Cube et
le Visage - Autour d'une sculpture d'Alberto
Giacometti, Macula, Paris, 1993, p. 61.
124. R. Lichtenstein, poster of the "American
Pop Art" exhibition, Moderna Museet,
Stockholm, 1963 // Moderna Museet,
Stockholm. From ARS 69, catalogue of the
exhibition held at the Art Museum of Ateneum,
Helsinki, 8/3-13/4/1969, and at the Art
Museum and the Museum of Modern Art,
Tampere, 20/4-11/5/1969, cat. 109.
125. P. Osipow, Gloves, 1968 // Sara Hildén Art
Museum, Tampere. From Paul Osipow -
Retrospective exhibition, catalogue of the exhibition
held at the Museum for Contemporary Art,
Helsinki, 13/8-3/10/1993.
126. A. Breton, Poème-objet, 1941 // The
Museum of Modern Art, New York.
127. Woman’s glove, bronze from the former
collection of A. Breton // From A. Breton,
Nadja, trans. E. Sampaio, Estampa,
Lisbon, 1971.
128. Stills from L. Buñuel (direction and
screenplay) and S. Dalí (screenplay), Un Chien
Andalou, 1929.
129. Stills from spot shown by YLE for
decades, preceding the presentation of
educational short films, 1st version.
130. Stills from spot shown by YLE for
decades, preceding the presentation of
educational short films, 2nd version.
131. U. Jokisalo, Iconostasis, 1995 // My photo
of the version exhibited at the Finnish Museum
of Photography in September 2005.
132. U. Jokisalo, Together, 1996 (now in
Iconostasis) // My photo, as 131.
133. U. Jokisalo, Cutting, 1995 (now in
Iconostasis) // My photo, as 131.
134. U. Jokisalo, I’m cutting, 1995 (now in
Iconostasis) // My photo, as 131.
135. U. Jokisalo, Autobiographical series 1-7, part 3,
1995 (now in Iconostasis) // My photo, as 131.
136. U. Jokisalo, Autobiographical series 1-7, part 1,
1995 (now in Iconostasis) // My photo, as 131.
137. H. Hiltunen, L’Éducation Sentimentale, 2000
// From Heli Hiltunen - Personal Songbook /
Toivelauluvihko / Ett Häfte med Önskel, catalogue
of the exhibition held at the Amos Anderson
Art Museum, Helsinki, 13/10-18/11/2001, and
at the City Art Museum, Oulu, 7/12/2001-
18/11/2002, on the occasion of the Ars
Fennica 2001 prize.
138. G. de Chirico, Love Song, 1914 // The
Museum of Modern Art, New York
139. Fragments of the colossal statue of
Constantine, c320, at the Palazzo dei
Conservatori, Rome // My photo.
140. H. Hiltunen, An Attempt at a Biography, or
The Story of How She (slowly) Learned the Names of
Things, 1991-93, partial view // From Heli
Hiltunen - Personal Songbook..., cit.
141. Idem, complete series // Same
source as fig. 140.
142. Idem, first four images of the series //
Same source as fig. 140.
143. Caravaggio, The Sacrifice of Isaac, 1601-02 //
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
144. Caravaggio, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas,
1601 // Sanssouci Picture Gallery, Potsdam.
145. Caravaggio, The Fortune teller, 1596-97 //
Musée du Louvre, Paris.
146. Caravaggio, Magdalene, 1596-97 // Galleria
Doria-Pamphili, Rome.
147. B. Nauman, Untitled, 1996 // From
www.speronewestwater.com/cgi-bin/iowa/
artists/related.html?record=1&info=works&vie
w=Inventory%20Number&item=13, August
2007.
148. B. Nauman, Untitled (Hand group), 1997 //
Same source as fig. 147.
149. B. Nauman, Finger touch # 1, 1966-67 //
From www.postmedia.net/nauman/
nauman2.htm, August 2007.
150. A. Dürer, Hands of Christ, 1506 //
Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg.
151. A. Ederfelt, A study of two hands and arms of a
seated woman (Kaksi käsi- ja käsivarsiharjoitelmaa
istuvasta naisesta) // Ateneum Museum, Helsinki
(http://kokoelmat.fng.fi/wandora, November
2007).
152. H. Moore, Hands (Self-portrait), 1969 //
Henry Moore Foundation.
153. P. Veronese (attr.), Portrait of Vincenzo
Scamozzi, 1590s // Denver Art Museum,
Denver.
154. Hélène Bamberger, Gilles Deleuze, 1980s //
Cover of G. Deleuze, Pourparlers, 1972-1990,
Minuit, Paris, 1990.
155. V. Granö, Veijo Rönkkönen in his sculpture
park in Parikkala, c1986-89 // From V. Granö,
Transit to the Invisible, 2 - CD-Rom, Kunsthalle
Lophem vzw - Centre for Contemporary Art,
Loppem-Zedelgem, 2004.
156. V. Granö, Matias Keskinen working on the
monumental bust of President Kekkonen, c1986-89
// Same source as fig. 155.
157. Unidentified DIY artist, Couple //
My photo.
158. Edvin Hevonskoski, President Tarja Halonen
and her two cats, 2005 // My photo.
159, 160. J. Kaila, Villa Juice // From J. Kaila,
Elis Sinistö, author edition, Masala, 1992.
161. J. Kaila, I am a mystery for myself, overall view
and photos 1, 2, 7, 8, 14, 19 and 20 // Same
source as figs. 159, 160.
162. SH, watercolour // From S. Holl, Written
in Water, cit., ref. 296.
163. B. Marden, Cold mountain addendum, 1991
// From http://www.thecityreview. com/
f99scon.html, August 2007.
164. O. Zitko, Wall drawing, 2005 // Petri
Virtanen, KKA / Central Art Archives. From
the brochure distributed to the public on the
occasion of the exhibition Otto Zitko -
Walldrawing, held at Kiasma, Helsinki,
18/2-22/5/2005.
165. Le Corbusier, the "open hand" of
Chandigarh (project: early 1950s) // From
Le Corbusier - Une encyclopédie, catalogue of the
exhibition held at the Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris, 10/1987-1/1988, p. 468.
166. Le Corbusier, the "open hand" of
Chandigarh (construction: mid 1980s) // Same
261
source as fig. 165, p. 469.
167. D. Judd, Burnt Siena, 1979 // From ARS
83, catalogue of the exhibition held at the Art
Museum of Ateneum, Helsinki, 1983, p. 127.
168. T. Smith, Die, 1962 // National Gallery of
Art, Washington. From G. Didi-Huberman,
Ce que nous voyons, Ce qui nous regarde, Minuit,
Paris, 1992, fig. 12.
169. S. LeWitt, Buried cube containing an object of
importance but little value, 1968 // From Sol
LeWitt - A retrospective, ed. by G. Garrels,
catalogue of exhibition held at the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San
Francisco, 2000, cat. 339.
170. R. Morris, Column, 1961 // From J. Meyer
(ed.), Minimalism, Phaidon, London, 2000, p. 64.
171. R. Morris, Untitled - Box for standing, 1961
(with R. M.) // Same source as fig. 170, p. 64.
172. Leonardo, Homo ad circulum, study on
proportions after Vitruvius, c1487 // Gallerie
dell'Accademia, Venice.
173. S. LeWitt, Six-sided tower, 1993 // Kröller-
Müller Museum, Otterlo. Same source as fig.
169, cat. 291.
174. SH, watercolour // From S. Holl, Written
in Water, cit., ref. 112.
175. SH, Edge of a city, 1991 // Same source
as fig. 41, p. 120.
176. SH, Edge of a city, 1991 // Same source
as fig. 41, p. 121.
177. SH, Edge of a city, 1991 // Same source
as fig. 41, p. 121.
178. R. Morris, without title, 1965 // From
G. Didi-Huberman, Ce que nous voyons, Ce qui
nous regarde, cit., fig. 10.
179. R. Morris, exhibition at the Green Gallery,
New York, 1964-65 // From J. Meyer (ed.),
Minimalism, cit., p. 80.
180. S. LeWitt, Incomplete open cube, 1974 //
From http://www.artnet.com/Galleries
/Artists_detail.asp?gid=826&aid=10484,
August 2007.
181. S. LeWitt, Schematic drawing for incomplete open
cube, 1974 // Wadsworth Atheneum Museum
of Art, Hartford.
182. S. LeWitt, Schematic drawings for incomplete
open cubes, 1974 // Printed announcement for
262
the exhibition "Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawings and
Structures - The Location of Six Geometric
Figures / Variations of Incomplete Open
Cubes", John Weber Gallery, New York, 10-
11/1974. Same source as fig. 169, cat. 67.
183. S. LeWitt, exhibition "Incomplete open
cubes“, 1974 // San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art. Same source as fig. 169, cat. 68.
184. S. LeWitt, "Five Towers", 1986 //
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Same source as fig.170, cat. 271.
185. S. LeWitt, exhibition "Structures", John
Weber Gallery, New York, 1977 // Same
source as fig. 169, cat. 269.
186. S. LeWitt, Zigzag, 1980 // Same source as
fig. 169, cat. 277.
187. SH, Simmons Hall, 1999-2002 // From
Steven Holl, 1986-2003, a special number of the
review El Croquis, 2003, pp. 514-515.
188. SH, Simmons Hall, 1999-2002 // Same
source as fig. 187, p. 522.
189. SH, Simmons Hall, 1999-2002 // Same
source as fig. 187, p. 523.
190. C. D. Friedrich, Wanderer above the sea of fog,
1818 // Kunsthalle, Hamburg.
191. C. D. Friedrich, Woman at the window, 1822
// Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
192. E. Brotherus, Der Wanderer, 2003 // From
www.exporevue.com/magazine/fr/
elina_brotherus.html
193. M. Ray, Robert Desnos in André Breton‘s
studio, 1922 // From G. Durozoi, Histoire du
Mouvement Surréaliste, Hazan, Paris, 2004, p. 47.
194. Paul Éluard and André Breton // Same
source as fig. 193.
195. M. Kella, from the series "reversed“, 1997
// From M. Kella, Marjaana Kela, Van
Zoetendaal, Amsterdam, 2002.
196. M. Kella, from the series "reversed“, 1997
// Same source as fig. 195.
197. M. Kella, Woman in a state of hypnosis, from
the series "hypnosis“, 1997 // Same source
as fig. 195.
198. Jan Van Eyck, A man in a red turban, 1433
(Oct 21) // National Gallery, London.
199. T. Smith, detail of p. 83 of ARS 69
catalogue.
200. Swinside megaliths (England), Neolithic
period // From G. Didi-Huberman, Ce que nous
voyons, Ce qui nous regarde, cit., fig. 15.
201. R. Tuttle, pp. 182-83 of ARS 83 catalogue.
202. M. Aiha, Fids and Fatmi (title of set of 2
sculptures), 2000 // My photo.
203. SH, watercolour // From S. Holl, Written
in Water, cit., ref. 002.
204. Teppo Sillantaus, “Mannerheimin tilalla on
naula" ("There is a nail at Mannerheim’s place“)
// From Helsingin Sanomat, 20/8/1993.
Part 2, on Lordi:
1. Lordi // Timo Jaakonaho, Lehtikuva.
2. Lordi // Keijo Leväaho, Helsingin Sanomat.
3. Lordi // Cover of the CD The Devil is a Loser.
4. Gene Simmons // From http://www.
nolifetilmetal.com/kiss_cd.htm
5. Gene Simmons // Unidentified web source.
6. From the Apocalypse of Saint-Sever, c1028 //
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, ms.
lat. 8878, f. 145v.
7. Devil carrying away naked woman, from The Last
Judgement, Chartres Cathedral, c1200-50 //
From Y. Christe, Jugements Derniers, Zodiaque,
La Pierre-qui-Vire (Yonne), 1999.
8. Devil, tarot card, end of the 17th century //
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris,
Cabinet des Estampes.
9. Hans Memling, Devil, c1485 // Musée des
Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg.
10. Circle of Baccio Baldini, Hell, according to
Dante and after the fresco at Campo Santo in Pisa,
c1480-1500 // From A. M. Hind, Early Italian
Engraving, Bernard Quaritch, London, 1938-48.
11. From Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 15th
century // Bibliothèque Nationale de France,
Paris, ms. fr. 28, f. 249v.
12. Mouth of hell, late 15th century [?] //
Unidentified source.
13. Mouth of hell, from the Törnevalla church,
Gotland, late 15th century // Statens
Historiska Museet, Stockholm.
14. Lordi // Sami Kero, Helsingin Sanomat.
15. From Les Noces de Pélée et de Thétis, of J. B.
Lully // From P. Beaussant, Lully - Ou le
musicien du Soleil, Gallimard and Théâtre des
Champs-Élysées, Paris, 1992.
16. Diabolic creatures wrapped in fire, and machine
project, for work of J. B. Lully // Same source
as fig. 15.
17. Diabolic scene, and machine project, for work of
J. B. Lully // Same source as fig. 15.
18. Papist indulgence peddlers in the jaws of hell,
broadsheet, Germany, 15th century (?) // From
E. and J. Lehner, Picture Book of Devils, Demons
and Witchcraft, Dover, Ontario and
London, 1971.
19. Ego Sum Papa [I am the Pope], Paris, late 15th
century // Same source as fig. 18.
20. The two monks, from Johann Lichtenberger,
Weissagungen, Mainz, 1492 // Staats- und
Universitätsbibliothek, Hamburg. From A.
Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity, Getty
Institute, Los Angeles, 1999.
21. Devils inspiring Savonarola writing // From
Johannes Franciscus Poggius, Contra fratrem
Hieronymum Heresiarcham libellus et processus,
Nuremberg, after 1498. From L. Sebregondi,
Iconografia di Girolamo Savonarola, 1495-1998,
Galluzzo, Florence, 2004.
22. Death shows a young man the hell below and
heaven above // From Girolamo Savonarola,
Predica del arte del bene morire, Florence, c1500.
From E. Turelli, Immagini e Azione Riformatrice -
Le xilogravure degli incunaboli savonaroliani nella
Biblioteca Nazionale de Firenze, Alinari,
Florence, 1985.
23. Devil, from Codex Gigas, 1204-1230 // From
L. Sebregondi, cit., same source as fig. 21.
24. Lekythos with Sphinx, Greece, late 5th
century BC // Bible Lands Museum,
Jerusalem, BLMJ 5062.
25. Israhel van Meckenem, Griffin.
26. Cylinder seal with hero in battle against Griffin,
Mesopotamia, c15th century BC // Bible
Lands Museum, Jerusalem, BLMJ seal 426.
27. Krater with Satyrs (and Maenads), Greece,
c480-470 BC // Bible Lands Museum,
Jerusalem, BLMJ 4960.
28. Andrea Briosco, Il Riccio, Satyr, c1506-8 //
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
From http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/
hd/scbz/hod_1982.45.htm
29. The Mexican god Vitzliputzly, from Pieter van
263
der Aa, La Galerie Agréable du Monde, Leiden,
1729 // From A. Lafuente and J. Moscoso
(eds.), Monstruos y Seres Imaginarios en la Biblioteca
Nacional, Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, 2000.
30. Manuscript detail, c1280 // Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge. From J. Baltrušaitis, Le
Moyen Age Fantastique, Flammarion, Paris, 1981.
31. Psalter detail, early 14th century //
Lambeth Palace Library, London. Same
source as fig. 30.
32. Illumination from the Apocalypse, 14th
century // Landesbibliothek, Dresden, ms. a.
177, f. 23. Same source as fig. 30.
33. Illumination from Anglo-Norman
Apocalypse, early 14th century // Toulouse.
Same source as fig. 30.
34. Simon Marmion, Vision of the hell, from The
Visions of the Knight Tundal, Gand, 1475 //
The Paul J. Getty Museum, Los Angeles,
ms. 30, f. 17.
35. Souls being released from the purgatory, represented
as mouth of hell, from the Hours of Catherine Cleves,
Duchess of Guelders, c1440 // Pierpont Morgan
Library, New York, ms. 945, f. 168v.
36. The descent of Christ into limbo, from the
Wolfenbüttel manuscript, after 1235 //
Same source as fig. 30.
37. Christ in limbo, from the Delbecq-Schreiber
Passion, nr 20, 15th century // From J. V. der
Stock (ed.), Early Prints - The early prints of the
Royal Library of Belgium, Harvey Miller, London,
and Brepols, Turnhout, 2002.
38. Utrecht Psalter, f. 9r, 9th century //
From http://psalter.library.uu.nl/
39. Utrecht Psalter, f. 59r, 9th century //
From http://psalter.library.uu.nl/
40. Assembly of wonders of India // From
Sebastian Münster, Cosmographia, c1544.
41. Wild man with face below shoulders, Råby
Church, Denmark, 15th century (fresco now
destroyed) // From J. B. Friedman, The
Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA)
and London, 1981.
42. Projection of the Hereford Map, 1276-83,
detail // Unidentified source.
43. Norman capital, Canterbury Cathedral, 12th
264
century (?) // Unidentified postcard.
44. The Devil of usury, from John Blaxton’s
pamphlet against loan sharks, London, 1634 //
Same source as fig. 18.
45. The Devil of money, from satiric handbill
against loan sharks, France, c1650 // Same
source as fig. 18.
46. Georges Meunier, advertisement, 1898 //
Musée de la Publicité, Paris.
47. Leonetto Cappiello [?], advertisement, 1906
// Musée de la Publicité, Paris.
48. Newspaper advertisement to Pascal
Bruckner, La Tyrannie de la Pénitence, Grasset,
Paris, 2006 (October 2006).
49. Cover of G. Flaubert, The Temptation of Saint
Anthony, trans. L. Hearn, Modern Library -
Random House, New York, 1992 (2001).
50. Hieronymus Bosch, The Temptation of Saint
Anthony, c1500, central panel // Museu
Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon.
51. Hieronymus Bosch, The Forests have ears and
the fields have eyes // Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer
Kulturbesitz, Berlin.
52. Martin Schongauer, The Temptation of Saint
Anthony, c1485-91.
53. Jacques Callot, The Temptation of Saint
Anthony, 2nd version, 1634.
54. Devil or monstrous creature, 15th century //
Unidentified source.
55. Michael Wolgemut, Witch and Devil // From
Hartmann Schedel, Liber chronicarum,
Nuremberg, 1493.
56. Lordi // Sari Gustafsson, Lehtikuva.
57. Devilish creature from Puno carnival, Peru
// Postcard of Ediciones de Arte Rep, Lima,
Peru.
58. Devilish creatures from the Diablada, Oruro
carnival, Bolivia // From http://www.
turismobolivia.bo
59. El Tío at a mine in Potosí, Bolivia // From
http://www.travelblog.org/South-America
/Bolivia/blog-70238.html
60. Amazonomachy, projection of Roman
sarcophagus, c140-50 // Museo Capitolino,
Rome. From C. Robert, Die Antiken
Sarkophagreliefs - Bd. 2, Mythologische Cyklen,
G. Grote, Berlin, 1890.
61. Amazon, projection from Roman
sarcophagus // Toronto. From D. Grassinger
(ed.), Die Antike Sarkophagreliefs, Bd. 12, T. 1,
Gebr. Mann, Berlin, 1999.
62. Alberto Giacometti, Le Cube, 1934 //
Kunsthaus - Foundation A. Giacometti, Zurich.
63. Pablo Picasso, Head of weeping woman, from
the Guernica Sketchbook, 1937 // Beyeler
Foundation, Basel. From Francis Bacon and the
Tradition of Art, Skira, Milan, 2004.
64. Alberto Giacometti, Tête sur tige, 1947 //
Kunsthaus - Foundation A. Giacometti, Zurich.
65. Jacques-André Boiffard (1903-61), ...la
terreur et la souffrance atroce font de la bouche l'organe
des cris déchirants / ...atrocious terror and suffering
make the mouth the organ of ear-splitting cries, 1930
// From Documents, 5, 1930, p. 299, article
"Bouche" ["Mouth"].
66. Francis Bacon, Head I, 1948 // Richard S.
Zeisler Collection, New York.
67. Illustration of mouth with abscess held open by
forceps, found in the studio of Francis Bacon //
Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, F105:140.
Same source as fig. 63.
68. Francis Bacon, Head II, 1948 // Ulster
Museum, Belfast.
69. Francis Bacon, Study after Velasquez's portrait
of "Pope Innocent X", 1953 // Des Moines Art
Centre, Des Moines (Iowa).
70. Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1895 //
Collection of Nelson Blitz Jr. and Catherine
Woodard. Same source as fig. 66.
71. Francis Bacon, Three studies for figures at the
base of a crucifixion, 1944 // Tate Gallery,
London.
72. Francis Bacon, Three studies for a crucifixion,
1962 // The Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York.
73. Still from Pier Paolo Pasolini, Mamma Roma,
1962.
74. Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, Santa
Maria delle Grazie, Milan, 1495-98.
75. Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Last Supper,
Ognissanti, Florence, 1480.
Films:
ANTONIONI, Michelangelo (1966): Blowup,
drama, 111', with V. Redgrave, D.
Hemmings, S. Miles & others.
BRESSON, Robert (1959): Pickpocket, drama,
75', with M. La Salle, M. Green & others.
DELEUZE, Gilles (1987): "Qu'est-ce que l'acte
de création?", lecture, in L'Abécédaire, cit.
DELEUZE, Gilles (1996): L'Abécédaire,
interviews conducted by C. Parnet, direction
P.-A. Boutang, 3 x DVDs, Montparnasse,
Paris, 2004.
EISENSTEIN, Sergej (1925): Battleship
Potemkin, drama, 75'.
FIESCHI, Jean-André (1966): Pasolini l'Enragé,
documentary, 99'.
GODARD, Jean-Luc (1965): Pierrot, le fou,
drama, 105', with J.-P. Belmondo, A. Karina
and others.
GODARD, Jean-Luc (1997): Histoire(s) du
Cinéma, 2B - Fatale beauté,
documentary/essay, 29'.
GODARD, Jean-Luc (1998): Histoire(s) du
Cinéma, 4A - Le Contrôle de l'univers,
documentary/essay, 27'.
LANZMANN, Claude (1985): Shoah,
documentary, 550'.
MARKER, Chris (1977): Le Fonds de l’Air est
Rouge, documentary/essay, 240’.
PASOLINI, Pier Paolo (1961): Accattone,
drama, 120', with F. Citti, F. Pasut, S.
Corsini and others.
PASOLINI, Pier Paolo (1962): Mamma Roma,
drama, 110', with A. Magnani, E. Garofolo,
F. Citi, S. Corsini and others.
RESNAIS, Alain (1955): Nuit et Brouillard,
documentary/essay, 32'.
TARKOWSKY, Andrei (1974): Mirror,
autobiographic drama, 108', with M.
Terekhova, O. Yankovsky and others.
WACHOWSKI, Andy and Larry (1999): The
Matrix, fiction, 131', with Keanu Reeves,
Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe
Pantoliano and Hugo Weaving (DVD
including Josch ORECK's documentary
Making "The Matrix").
265
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 La nymphe est l'image de l'image.
The Ninfa is the image of the image.
Giorgio Agamben, "Nymphea", p. 66.

Les images sont le reste, la trace de tout ce que les hommes qui nous ont précédés ont
espéré et désiré, craint et refoulé. Et puisque c'est en imagination que quelque chose
comme une histoire est devenu possible, c'est à travers l'imagination que cette histoire
doit à chaque fois et à nouveau se décider.
Images are the remainder, the trace of all that our predecessors have hoped
and desired, feared and repressed. And as it was within imagination that
something like an history became possible, so it is through imagination
that the future of history will at each turn be decided anew.
Giorgio Agamben, "Nymphea", pp. 68-69.
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