On Analogical Thinking: Jan Švankmajer's Jabberwocky and Alice
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Sera, Mareike. "On Analogical Thinking: Jan Švankmajer’s Jabberwocky and Alice." Global Animation Theory: International Perspectives at Animafest Zagreb. Ed. Franziska Bruckner, Nikica Gili#, Holger Lang, Daniel Šulji# and Hrvoje Turkovi#. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. 29–50. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 1 Oct. 2021. <http:// dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501337161.ch-003>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 1 October 2021, 18:34 UTC. Copyright © Franziska Bruckner, Nikica Gili#, Holger Lang, Daniel Šulji#, Hrvoje Turkovi#, and Contributors and Cover image Zlatka Salopek 2019. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 3 On Analogical Thinking Jan Š vankmajer’s Jabberwocky and Alice Mareike Sera Introduction An ‘intense and emotionally exhausting slice of life’ (Cinephilia and Beyond n.d.). Is fi lm able to cut a slice of life? On the basis of an intense and emotionally exhaustive experience? Is it able to change life? One might think so. Understanding fi lm as a slice of life is a common fi lm critical analogy. Similar to the analogy of fi lm as philosophy ( Rushton 2011 , Read and Goodenough 2005 , Wartenberg 2007 , Vaughan 2013 , Herzogenrath 2017 ). These analogies touch upon mimetic issues. How are representational and real world intertwined, the actual and the virtual? How do we understand each in relation to the other? A dialectical understanding sets both in dramatic tension to each other, expecting the non-identical ‘essence’ of fi ctional and real worlds to reveal the other, in the process of ‘becoming Other’. This understanding accentuates the force of imagination, as Surrealist writing and art makes quite aware. Actual and virtual worlds meet on eye level, transform each other in the elements acted upon, but also in the intimate transmutation of the actor and her/his perception of the world. As Andr é Breton ( 1969 : 174) writes in The Second Manifesto of Surrealism ‘the philosopher’s stone is nothing more or less than that which was to enable man’s imagination to take a stunning revenge on all things’. In a similar vein, Richard Rushton ( 2011 : 2) asks: ‘Why should the creative aspects of the world be deemed secondary, as ornaments, as products 29 30 GLOBAL ANIMATION THEORY devoid of being, a being which is reserved solely for natural or physical objects?’ Rushton refers in this context to Cornelius Castoriadis’ ‘The Imaginary: Creation in the Socio-Historical Domain’. Castoriadis calls on ‘the philosophers to reverse their approach and begin with humanity’s creative acts – dreams, poems, music – as the basis of ontological enquiry’ ( Rushton 2011 : 2). Rushton continues: ‘Let the imaginary aspects of human life be those that determine the reality of things’ ( ibid. ). These passages indicate where one might break with the analogy of ‘fi lm as a slice of life’. The intention is not to place fi ctional over actual realities. The dialectical tension evolving around non-identity, mediation, negation and contradiction remains intact (Kautzer 2015 : 34). As this paper would like to suggest, turning to imagination rather aims to understand the transmutations taking place between real and fi ctional worlds on a different level – the plane of analogical reasoning. The force of imagination – as means of knowledge and practice able to act on reality and transform it ( Schmitt 2016 : 232) – holds real and fi ctional worlds together, weaving them indistinguishably into one another. Dialectics designate the processes of dramatic confrontation and transformation, while analogy points towards hidden aspects of intimate initiation and revelation. At the moment of inspiration, of working through, of passion and devotion, real and fi ctional worlds are at their very nearest – indistinguishably close. The principle of analogy emphasizes how the imaginative experience transforms the acted upon and the actor in due process. It liberates the experience as a form of refl ection that invites multiple perspectives, but dispenses of an ultimate end. It takes the form of an introspection, but turns its refl ective mechanisms inward out – much like an inverted imagination. As it will be put forward, analogy’s relation to its ‘object of imagination’ is marked by an open and integrative attitude, but also by an irritating absence of intentionality. The lack of a specifi c ‘object of imagination’ does not only apply to ‘how’ but also to ‘what’ one imagines. This is crucial to surrealist understandings of imagination and its social role, particularly in the context of Czech Surrealism. This chapter will focus on two fi lms by renowned Czech animator Jan Š vankmajer: Jabberwocky ( Ž vahlav aneb š ati cˇ ky Slam eˇ n é ho Huberta , 1971 ) and Alice ( N eˇ co z Alenky , 1988 ). First, the phenomenon of analogy will be discussed from a broader academic perspective, while introducing in the second part Š vankmajer’s work and the role of analogy to Czech Surrealism. Parts three and four, then, will explore analogical thinking by applying it to different contexts: Jabberwocky is discussed in relation to George Bataille’s Story of the Eye (Analogy I) and, in the following, Alice with reference to the philosophical work of Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi (Analogy II ). The result is a collage technique, which is vulnerable as analogical reasoning, especially if brought in resonance with dialectics, as will become clear. Different sets are to unfold and enrich each other. Accordingly, the argument might appear to jump ON ANALOGICAL THINKING 31 occasionally, with explanatory bridges missing; however, this inconvenience appears worthwhile, as it stimulates and foments the hermeneutic passion of the palimpsest, a page of text written, erased and written over anew again. Analogical thinking: the missing premise Analogical reasoning allows us to stretch the possibilities of describing the world and the experience of it. By comparison, one explores the conjectures between distinct realms and learns new things about them in due course. As Julian S. Weitzenfeld (1984 : 137) observes: ‘One of the attractions of analogical reasoning has been that it is commonly taken to be a form of ampliative reasoning, reasoning that leads to knowledge about the target that is not contained in its premises.’ Describing a fi lm, thus, as a ‘slice of life’ – to return to this example – might evoke a series of spontaneous as well as highly developed concepts that link fi ction and reality. ‘And’ is important in this respect. Analogical reasoning and feeling explores associations in a most open manner. Cognitive sciences have conducted extensive research on the role of analogy in human perception over the past thirty years (Hesse 1966 , Holyoak and Thagard 1995 , Bartha 2010 , Hofstadter and Sander 2013 ). Models explore, for example, mechanisms such as the retrieval of relevant source domains, analogical mapping across domains, the transfer of information and the learning of new categories (Hummel and Holyoak 1997 ). With the philosophical interest, the focus shifts towards the value of connecting and conjoining realms. Berardi’s philosophy is a clear example in this respect, as will be elaborated. If analogy pertains to a central mechanism in human cognition, which criteria set ‘good’ from ‘bad’ analogies apart? This question is diffi cult to answer, as what is to be found, the premise, is and is not (yet) existent. Do you want to judge analogies from the promise of the result? Or the openness of the process? The merit of analogical thinking emerges, once you embrace its uncertainty. This is where it fully develops its creative potential. The outcome is unknown and leans philosophically towards radical suspicion. The lack of certainty does not result from insuffi cient background knowledge. There are ways to methodologically work around it, such as enumeration, surveillance and inference ( Weitzenfeld 1984 : 146). These operations can substantiate arguments based on analogy. Nonetheless, suspicion works like a corrosive force on the underlying idea of sameness that draws different realms together. The shadow of a doubt accompanies the emerging ‘new’ and turns it inside out. Therein, analogical reasoning represents something like an ‘inverse’ imagination, as it does not work towards an expected outcome (premise). Analogy as inverse imagination leaves the imagined object open and 32 GLOBAL ANIMATION THEORY susceptible to injury and failure. It opens an intimate void in a concatenation of references and objects, which is not indefi nitely undetermined, but bare and susceptible to radical suspicion. Czech Surrealism, dialectics and analogy Analogy and dialectics are usually perceived as different types of reasoning, as incompatible or even opposed ways of thinking. The idea to perceive analogy as ‘inverse imagination’, which the next part of the chapter intends to root in surrealist understandings, draws a correlation between analogy and dialectics. According to Krzysztof Fijalkowski and Michael Richardson ( 2016 : 11), G é rard Legrand ( 1971 : 154) has spoken of analogy as the ‘ “clasp” of the dialectical necklace’, noting how ‘[t]he supreme relation of reconciled being does not cease to be dialectical, but it proves to be (or becomes) equally analogical’. Correlating analogy and dialectics is important as it describes a specifi c way to approach the world and with this imagination. Analogy is thought to relate equivocally distinct but mutually participatory terms, while dialectics are meant to relate opposed and annulled propositions. Analogates (meaning the things, terms or concepts analogised) ‘participate’ in a congregation bound together by an uncertain but unifying analogon (meaning analogical principle), where the propositions of dialectics are meant to be annulled and resolved into a higher and richer synthetic unity of opposites. Analogy and dialectics describe different and even confl icting traditions of thought – with analogy associated with thinkers such as Aristotle and Aquinas and dialectics advanced by philosophers such as Plato, Hegel and Marx. Surrealist approaches submerge these traditions.