The Revenge of the Surface: Heidegger, McLuhan, Greenberg

×

text: graham harman

Rachel de Joode, A Peanut, Half a Horse, a Chicken Foot, a Burning Cigarette, and a Black Hole, (2011) �

× 66 × × 67 × In the introduction to his major work Understanding Media, and finally, we will reach the ironic conclusion that the assault justice to the things no less than theo- A totality of equipment is constituted only the background structure of any Marshall McLuhan reports the following anecdote. One of of these three thinkers against surface content does not suc- retical observation does. Our theoreti- by various ways of the ‘in-order-to,’ medium is of any importance; whatever the editors of his book complained that “seventy-five percent ceed. Content takes its revenge, and becomes the unexpected cal remarks, our scientific discoveries such as serviceability, conduciveness, lies in the foreground is for that very of your material is new. A successful book cannot venture to center of gravity of a thinking still to come. concerning a coniferous tree or a poi- usability, manipulability.”7 What in- reason a pointless distraction. The be more than ten percent new.”1 In view of this advice, my aim sonous snake, are in Heidegger’s view terests me here is not the technical good and the bad, the puritanical and in this lecture is to offer no more than ten percent new mate- necessarily flat and impoverished, sin- terminology, but the quietly fanatical the morally dissolute might equally well rial. Yet I will still risk something, since the remaining ninety 1. Heidegger vs. Content ce the richness of being is concealed assertion that there is no such thing take place in Berlin, yet the difference percent will attempt to depict familiar authors in a new light. As we have already seen, Heidegger was initially viewed as deep beneath the theoretical surface. as “an” equipment. In keeping with between these different cases is not Above all it is a question of McLuhan, the celebrated media the crown prince of the phenomenological movement. The Yet praxis is also a kind of surface. The this rigorous metaphysical holism, the so important in comparison with the theorist, and Martin Heidegger, a philosopher as famous as basic thesis of phenomenology consists in the claim that, in “use” of coniferous trees or poisono- world in itself is an inarticulate lump, barely visible role of Berlin itself. Ac- he is controversial. The imaginary encounter between them principle, everything can be directly given in some way to us snakes (no matter what those uses just like the apeiron of the pre-Socratic cording to McLuhan the same holds for becomes more interesting if we add the American art critic consciousness. There is no concealed thing-in-itself, as we might be) is just as superficial as the philosophers. The multitude of things all media, whether ancient or modern. Clement Greenberg to the discussion. For Greenberg, no less find in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and no independent theoretical articulation of them. Prax- appears to be only a derivative illusion. For this reason McLuhan is too often than Heidegger and McLuhan, is a thinker who privileges substance that only occasionally and accidentally observed. is is not a centimeter closer to the world We are apparently deceived; being itself accused of being a technological deter- depth, as opposed to those admirers of the surface who take Reality consists fundamentally of its accessibility to human than theory is, since neither exhausts is only one. And here we encounter the minist, especially in Great Britain in my too seriously the content of experience. Let’s begin with a consciousness. If something is currently not present to any- the objects they encounter. Praxis no seldom-noted ambiguity of Heidegger’s experience (perhaps due to the strong brief overview of the theme. Why is “content” viewed with one’s mind, then at least it could become present someday. less than theory must always translate, concept of the “ontological difference”: influence of cultural Marxism in that such scorn by all three thinkers? Obviously enough, phenomenology is not a noumenology: caricature, or outright falsify. Correct the difference, so important for his phi- country). In any case, McLuhan’s clear With Heidegger it is a question of his (mostly friendly) the philosopher is no longer interested in anything unknow- representation is forbidden to the han- losophy, between being and beings. On lack of interest in the foreground of ex- criticism of phenomenology. The theoretical breakthrough able, and is only barely interesed in the objects of the natu- dyman no less than to the thinker. the one hand, the ontologcial difference perience, which is evidently the realm of Edmund Husserl around 1900 consisted in renouncing all ral sciences except insofar as they are directly given to us. But a further step is still necessary. means the difference between present of all conscious decision, might give the hidden causes and concealed entities. Instead of giving scien- Yet in any event, phenomenology is partly object-oriented, The reality of trees and snakes is not and absent, veiled and unveiled, conce- impression that we humans are only the tific explanations, we limit ourselves to the exact description since (unlike the British Empiricists) it is less interested in only deeper than all human compor- aled and unconcealed, tool and broken puppets of background forces. We will of our lived experiences. A headache, for instance, should the various properties or qualities of an apple than in the ap- tent, whether theoretical or practical. tool, and so forth. This difference is phi- soon see to what extent this accusation not be reduced to its bodily sources. Instead, it is the task of ple itself as a durable core beneath all swirling and changing The problem is not only that we hu- losophically powerful and, in my opini- against McLuhan simply misses the the philosopher to investigate all such experiences in their apple-appearances. Even so, phenomenology remains a sort mans are so tragic in our traumatic on, describes reality truly. But on the point. smallest details, without appealing to physical causation. Yet of idealism, since for phenomenology “being” means nothing finitude. “Oh, poor human race, that other hand, Heidegger is inclined (even An important impulse for the de- according to Heidegger, this phenomenology is ultimately more than representability for a mind. cannot exhaust hammers-in-themsel- if in taciturn fashion) to interpret the velopment of McLuhan’s media theory impossible, or at least somewhat deceptive. The practice of Heidegger eventually renounced this fundamental idea- ves and trees-in-themselves!”, as if ontological difference as that between came from the pressure of his publisher, phenomenology entails a misunderstanding of the world as a lism of phenomenology completely; or more accurately, he the inanimate matter of physics had one and many. And here is “bad” Hei- who requested a new edition of McLu- mere surface. The Seinsfrage, Heidegger’s famous question reversed it. Beginning in his earliest Freiburg Lecture Course the ability to make direct relation degger, the Heidegger who despises all han’s breakthrough work Understan- of the meaning of being, means that we do not take the pre- in 1919,3 Heidegger developed his famous tool-analysis, which with other pieces of matter. Not at all. specific things as somehow sub-philo- ding Media. In answer to this request, sence-at-hand of the world too seriously, since the being of was first published eight years later in his major work Being As several medieval Islamic theologi- sophical. This is the Heidegger who McLuhan and his son and collaborator beings hides in the depths and Time.4 The basic insight of this analysis is found in Heid- ans already saw early on, there is the uses the word “ontic” as a terrifying Eric invented a beautiful geometrical In the works of McLuhan we repeatedly hear that “the egger’s remark that, for the most part, the things of the world same problem in the relation between insult. But what if being were actual- structure for their theory: the Tetrad.8 medium is the message.” What does this mean? The core pro- are not represented by our minds at any given moment. Mostly two stones as there is between human ly only One? In that case there would This fourfold figure, so characteristic of gram of McLuhan’s media theory is found in the assertion that we fail to notice that the ground beneath our feet is stable, that and stone, dolphin and stone, mon- be no reason for the emergence of the the late McLuhan, consists (like almost the content of any medium is of no importance in comparison our heart-beats continue without interruption, that atmosphe- key and stone, or moss and stone. It multitude of objects, and therefore such all fourfold structures in intellectual with its deep and invisible background. As McLuhan puts it, ric oxygen enables the continuation of our lives, and that the is the greatness of Immanuel Kant to an emergence would presumably never history) of two differing axes. It is a in his typically lively interview in Playboy, the content of any absence of political uproar in the streets makes possible our have grasped the withdrawal of the take place. The simple fact that tools question of the two pairs enhancement/ medium is no more important than the graffiti on the casing calm contemplation of phenomenological ontology. Usually thing-in-itself. Yet he should not have are inclined towards malfunction en- obsolescence and retrieval/reversal. of the atomic bomb.2 The much-debated difference between the life of things is not accessible to us, but hidden, concealed, limited this problem of withdrawal to tails that the tool (and that means eve- What do we learn here about the good and bad television shows is actually pointless. Of much or withdrawn. the finitude of humans. Instead, the rything) is never reducible to its current imaginary encounter between Heid- greater significance is the fact that we watch television rather As Heidegger remarks, in his well known example of a imperfect translatability of things position in the tool-system. The tool is egger und McLuhan? First, we see an than listening to radio. The struture of any given medium hammer: “Equipment can genuinely show itself only in de- is a problem that lies in the heart of not holistic; rather, the tool is more like obvious similarity that quickly links shape our consciousness, unnoticed. alings cut to its own measure (hammering with a hammer, relations between objects in general. a reservoir or a surplus deeper than all Heidegger and McLuhan. For all prac- In Greenberg’s case it seems to be otherwise, since he for example); but in such dealings an entity of this kind is not Instead of German Idealism, which holistic relations. tical purposes there is no difference looks at first like the champion of the “flat canvas.” This could grasped thematically as an occuring Thing, nor is the equip- annihilated the Kantian thing-in-it- We have seen that there is a sense between the first McLuhanian axis (en- give the impression that Greenberg is entirely uninterested in ment-structure known as such even in the using.”5 Natural- self all too quickly, there could have in which Heidegger is a rather resolute hanvement/obsolescence) and Heideg- the depth of the world, but only in the two-dimensional sur- ly, this invisibility is not the special property of hammers, been a German Realism movement enemy of the surface content of expe- ger’s fundamental opposition between face to which paint is applied. This seems to be all the more screwdrivers, or keys. Although Heidegger reports that “in (perhaps under the influence of Leib- rience. Nonetheless, the question arises the presence-at-hand of relations and the case, the more he praises cubism as the flattest painting our dealings we come across equipment for writing, sewing, niz) that would preserve the thing-in- as to whether Heidegger’s Being can the readiness-to-hand that withdraws since Byzantine times. But in fact Greenberg is the enternal working, transportation, measurement,”6 it is not a matter of itself without Kantian limitation to exercise its apparent functions with the from all relations. Let us only note that, foe of “literary content” in painting. We can freely admit that a list (however long it may be) of familiar everyday hardware. the poignant finitude of humans in labor of the surface. We will return to curiously enough, the McLuhan’s terms the canvas is normally quite flat. Nonetheless, the canvas is a Instead, every thing, every being, is fundamentally inclined particular. Such a “realism without this question later. are explained backwards. They tell us, medium, and that always means: a creature of the background. towards absence. Only rarely, most often in cases of distur- borders” remains possible today, in for example, that enhancement means According to Greenberg, it is only academic art that concerns bance or total breakdown, do the things become explicitly Germany and elsewhere. 2. McLuhan vs. Content to push something in the foreground, so itself with the so-called literary content of a painting. True present in consciousness. In this way, Heidegger attempts to In Heidegger there is also a se- Although to my knowledge Heidegger as to make it more explicit. And contra- artists (Picasso being a suitably safe example) do the exact outflank the basic doctrine of phenomenology. cond and fateful problem. Namely, never wrote anything about Marshall riwise, obsolescence (according to the opposite, and build up a tension between two poles: a colored This deep, dark unrepresentability of the “tool” (in a bro- Heidegger is always inclined to take McLuhan, McLuhan by contrast did McLuhans) should refer to that which surface of content emptied of all literary anecdote, and a can- ad sense that ultimately includes all things) gives rise to the the world for a holistic totality. That make occasional remarks about Hei- is superannuated, and therefore falls vas medium that always remains deep and invisible despite its assumption that Heideggerian philosophy is a kind of “prag- is already clear at the beginning of his degger, and with the appropriate preci- backwards into darkness and oblivion. two-dimensional character. matism.” In view of the lost priority of explicit representation tool-analysis. As he writes: “Taken sion. In an important respect the two Yet precisely the opposite holds true, We will proceed in four steps. First, we will consider Hei- and theoretical knowledge as priviled models of human com- strictly, there ‘is’ no such thing as an can be considered as brothers: namely, even according to the logic of the Mc- degger’s critique of phenomenology in the name of the dark portment, it is asserted that Heidegger proclaims the priority equipment. To the Being of any equip- in their critique of the superficiality of Luhans themselves. We must not forget obscurity of being itself. Second, we will ask in more preci- of practical over theoretical reason. In this way, the strang- ment, there always belongs a totality phenomenal content. As we have al- that in the intellectual world of Mars- se detail what McLuhan means with his famous slogan “the eness of the tool-analysis is altogether lost, as the analysis is of equipment, in which it can be this ready seen, McLuhan’s favorite saying hall McLuhan, force belongs always medium is the message.” Third, we will ask why Greenberg transformed into a pure banality. What is so disturbing in the equipment that it is. Equipment is is doubtless “the medium is the mes- to the invisible, dark, and occasionally has such a low estimate of dadaism and surrealism. But fourth Heideggerian tool is the fact that practical activity fails to do essentially ‘something in-order-to…’ sage.” Obviously, McLuhan holds that forgotten medium, and not to the obtru-

× 68 × × 69 × sive content of our consciousness. The- our lives nearly destroyed by air pollution, traffic jams, the refore, to “enhance” something cannot burden of insurance, and so forth. The auto is no longer an mean to place it in the clear light of day. instrument of increasing freedom, but is now the chief pri- Quite the contrary. The more a medi- son of our lives. The auto has reversed, precisely through the um functions without obstacles, all the overheating of its most accidental qualities: its heavy, metallic more unobtrusive does it become. Ob- body, and its dependence on fossil fuels. The age of the car viously, it is obsolesced things that push is transformed into something new: not thanks to something themselves ever further into the fore- that is essentially contained in the car qua medium, but rather ground. Yet aside from this terminolo- through the purely accidental properties that the auto itself gical inversion, the encounter between exploits and normally leaves unnoticed. Heidegger and McLuhan is much more The same holds for the second form of metamorphosis: than imaginary, as concerns this axis retrieval. Here, the mechanism is no longer the accidental “Clement Greenberg of light and shadow. On this point they overheating of the superficial properties of a medium. Instead, teach more or less the same lesson: the it is a question of the deliberate labor of the artist. All obso- superficiality of content and the profun- lescent things enter initially into a Hell that does not lie in dity of the background. the center of the earth, but rather directly atop the earth’s Although Heidegger developed his crust. The newly deceased medium is condemned to life as a is internationally own fourfold structure in the 1940’s dead cliché. And it remains a cliché until, one day, it is reborn —a poetical and perhaps over-poetical thanks to the ingenious labors of art. No longer a surface, play of earth and sky, gods and mor- the former cliché now stands in productive tension with its tals—Heidegger’s Geviert does not concealed background medium. known as the discoverer have the same structure as the tetrad For this reason, McLuhan is the exact opposite of a tech- of McLuhan. According to McLuhan, nological determinist. Indeed, McLuhan perhaps grants too the enhancement/obsolescence pair much power to individuals, who thanks to art are sometimes can be described as “morphology,” sin- able to transfigure the world. In any case, McLuhan notices and promoter of ce the form of any thing includes both more clearly than Heidegger and Greenberg that the despite foreground and background elements. surface of the world is not nothing, though certainly not eve- Even the most ancient medium, en- rything either (since the philosophical argument in favor of during for millennia without significant the depth still holds). Yet the surface is the essential trigger for Jackson Pollock. In this change, shows the same dual nature as all relations with the hidden world. But how does it stand with the most recent and fleeting inventions Greenberg, who is so often despised among contemporary of our time. Yet it is somewhat different artists and art critics? with the second axis of the McLuhans. way he is one of the The opposition between retrieval and 3. Greenberg vs. Content reversal has nothing to do with any Clement Greenberg is internationally known as the discoverer static moment. It is not a morphology, and promoter of Jackson Pollock. In this way he is one of the since the two terms pertain instead to godfathers (the German-born artist and teacher Hans Hof- godfathers of the trans- “metamorphosis.” And here we find mann would be another) of the transplantation of advanced perhaps the key concept of this article. or avant-garde art from Paris to New York in the late 1940’s. A medium itself –whether it be radio, Nonetheless, Greenberg has long since fallen out of fashion, newspaper, television, or railroad– can- and in some artistic circles he remains an object of hatred. plantation of advanced not change. According to McLuhan a Indeed, Greenberg was the only name that was met by hisses medium simply dwells in the depths, during my February 2012 lecture at the Transmediale festival like the monster-god Cthulhu in the in Berlin.10 Although Greenberg’s most famous essay (writ- tales of the writer H.P. Lovecraft: a ten in 1939) was entitled “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” he was monster who dominates the world whi- less occupied with Kitsch than with his arch-enemy: academic or avant-garde art from 9 11 le sleeping. The medium is not just the art. In an important late lecture that took place in Sydney in message; beyond this, it always sends 1979, Greenberg attempted the following definition of “aca- the same message and remains always demic”: Paris to New York in the same medium. All change takes place only on the surface. The car, for Academicization isn’t a matter of academies– there were example, exercises various powers in academies long before academicization and before the ni- the invisible background, and drives neteenth century. Academicism consists in the tendency to various things into the daylight. How take the medium of an art too much for granted. It results in the late 1940’s.” does it happen that the situation of a blurring: words become imprecise, color gets muffled, the car qua medium can be transformed? physical sources of sound become too much dissembled.12 According to McLuhan there are only two possibilities: the reversal of the car Marshall McLuhan, who unfortunately suffered a stroke in through overheating, or the retrieval the same year and died the following year, would have rejoi- of the car (following its recent obsole- ced over this passage, especially over Greenberg’s claim that scence), thanks especially to the work “academicism consists in the tendency to take the medium of artists. Let’s briefly consider both of an art too much for granted.” McLuhan always utters his possibilities. slogan “the medium is the message” in almost celebratory How does the car as a medium come tones, and Greenberg could well have done the same. The to be overheated? Initially, the car is an task of painting, according to Greenberg, is not the depic- instrument of speed and convenience. tion of that which he mocks as “literary content.” Instead, the But one day (and in Cairo this has al- content of art is used only as a vanishing index of the deep ready happened) we humans will reach background medium that shows all content to be superficial– the point of an automotive Hell, with almost exactly as, for Heidegger, presence-at-hand has the

× 71 × sole function of collapsing before the might of invisible being. re of the most banal three-dimensional of art cannot be quite as worthless as he specific entities were itself highly un- According to Greenberg it is cubism that finally understands illusionistic space. often asserted. The role of art consists philosophical. And in Greenberg, the this subordinate role of content in art. The goal of painting in From all this we can conclude that for not only in giving signs of the superfi- flat canvas apparently has no sectors or modernity is less to represent this or that, then to take up the Greenberg, as for Heidegger and Mc- ciality of its own images. Even if one regions either. Depth belongs only to formal possibilities of the flat canvas. Luhan, the task of the content or surfa- takes surrealism to be a catastrophic unity, and manifoldness belongs only The failure to take this task seriously leads the artist ce of the world consists almost entirely failure, it is not so plausible to view it to surface content. It is most important immediately back into academicism, no matter whether the in the effort to collapse in favor of an in- as the same sort of failure as bourge- that we change this situation. In philo- artist to be something entirely other than academic. A good visible background. In Greenberg, this ois salon art. Not every recourse to the sophy that is perhaps already happe- example is surrealism, for which Greenberg has so little inte- surprisingly rich (if limited) concept of old methods of post-Renaissance pa- ning, first in the actor-network-theory rest. Despite Dali’s soft watches and long-legged elephants, art has at least two dangerous conse- inting can be condemned as academic of Bruno Latour (whose theory takes Greenberg holds him to be a purely academic painter. Even quences. The first is the relative lack in precisely the same way. It is equally seriously such individual entities as tra- if the surprising content of surrealism deviates so much from in Greenberg of any detailed remarks unhelpful to rate the success of various ins, bridges, beer bottles, and canaries) the norm, he still remains a textbook example of the three-di- on artworks created earlier than Edou- masterpieces of high analytic cubism and later in the so-called object-orien- mensional, illusionistic art that —no less than the boring salon ard Manet. His theory of art as hinting by means of the same criterion of flat- ted philosophies like those of Tristan art of the nineteenth century— tries to reach accurate repre- towards the flat canvas obviously leaves ness. Aesthetic criteria lie not only in Garica, Levi Bryant, and myself.14 In sentations of the spatial position of things. us with little to say about the achieve- the rift in which the tension between art criticism I do not know exactly to A harsh judgment against surrealism! But an understan- ments of Raphaël in comparison with foreground and background plays out. what extent the things of the surface dable judgment, even if we are not in agreement with it. Yet those of Perugino or Piero della Fran- Rather, such criteria must themselves are now permitted to have their own it is not so clear why Marcel Duchamp is also described as an cesca. But Greenberg has perhaps an be embodied in the surface itself. concrete depth. But since (at least in “academic artist,” in view of the fact that perhaps no one less even bigger problem with respect to In Heidegger as well we find two philosophy) the contemporary alterna- took his medium for granted to a lesser degree than Duchamp. the future of art than with respect to problems that are closely connected tives to depth-philosophy have learned In fact, Duchamp’s entire career can easily be viewed (and its past. Namely, modern art’s signalling with these. In the first place, everyone too little from Heidegger’s critique of usually is) as the constant questioning of the genuine medium towards the flat canvas background can knows as well as Heidegger that hidden presence-at-hand, it is now urgent that of art. And here we encounter Greenberg’s unfortunate ten- only be extended up to a certain point. Being cannot do anything without the we repair the remaining weaknesses in dency to use “academic art” sometimes as a pejorative term It is nearly unavoidable (so McLuhan surface. Being hints, sleeps, dominates this critique. Today this is very much of great precision and sometimes just as a global insult for has taught us) that eventually the flatte- us, and someday perhaps destroys us, possible, thanks in no small part to anything that Greenberg happens not to like. On the whole, ning-out of painting will attain a maxi- yet Being cannot change itself, since it Marshall McLuhan. × Greenberg makes six or seven charges against Duchamp: for mal point. And what then? One cannot lacks the needed internal manifold to example, that he only wishes to shock, and even to shock only make the blue sky even bluer, and by do so. Being remains always only Being, 1 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, in the social context of the gallery world without any genu- the same token it may not be possible and this is why Heidegger reports that 1994.) Page 4. ine aesthetic shock; that Duchamp overintellectualizes art; for Jackson Pollock and a few younger Being needs human Dasein in order to 2 McLuhan, M. (1969). “The Playboy Interview: that he overestimates his own independence from art histo- brothers to be flattened even further. appear. Therefore, whatever happens Marshall McLuhan,” Playboy, March 1969, pp. 26- ry; and so forth. Yet the accusation of academicism against Ultimately one needs a new and wider can only happen on the surface of the 27, 45, 55-56, 61, 63. 3 Martin Heidegger, Towards the Definition of Duchamp is immediately weakened as soon as we reflect on principle of innovation in philosophy world. And in the second place, we Philosophy, trans. T. Sadler. (London: Continu- what dadaism and surrealism do not have in common. In fact, no less than in art criticism, following have already seen that since all beings um, 2008.) these two movements (despite overlapping membership and Heidegger and Greenberg’s total flatte- are withdrawn from one another, every 4 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. Mac- quarrie & E. Robinson. (New York: Harper, 1962.) a similar irreverent sense of humor) can be interpreted as ning of all beings im comparison with form of direct influence between enti- 5 Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 98. opposite experiments. While surrealism uses a predictable the dark unity of being or, mutatis mu- ties is entirely impossible. If two entities 6 Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 97. technology of three-dimensional representation, all the better tandis, of the flat canvas. are both in the depths, the first can in- 7 Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 97. 8 to enable the wildest variations in pictorial content, Duchamp fluence the second (or vice versa) only The concept of the tetrad is developed in the 4. The Revenge of the Surface still underread Marshall & Eric McLuhan, Laws in a certain respect makes the opposite maneuver. Namely, through the mediation of the phenome- of Media: The New Science. (Toronto: Univ. of he utilizes the greatest possible banality of content (urinal, So far we have discussed three think- nal world. I have written about this topic Toronto Press, 1992.) bottle rack, bicycle wheel, and so forth), all the better to raise ers who are not often treated together, elsewhere under the name of “vicario- 9 See Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft 13 and Philosophy. (Winchester, UK: Zero Books, the most promising questions concerning the medium of art despite their common opposition to the us causation,” and will not pursue the 2012.) itself. It would merely be confusing to use both strategies si- priority of the surface— against the topic further here. 10 See “Everything is Not Connected” in Graham multaneously: if for example Duchamp created a ready-made presumption that the message is the The first revenge of the surface Harman, Bells and Whistles: More Speculative not from an everyday urinal, from a very complicated piece message, that presence-at-hand is the consists in the fact that, however impor- Realism. (Winchester, UK: Zero Books, forthco- ming 2013.) of machinery. For the same reason it would be nonsensical to message, or that the so-called literary tant being, the medium, or the flat can- 11 Clement Greenberg, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” make surrealistic painting with the pictorial methods of the content of a painting is the message. vas may be, they need the help of a vi- in Art and Culture: Critical Essays. (Boston: Be- cubist avant garde: as if Dali had painted “The Persistence Rather, for all three authors the medi- sible plane in order to achieve anything. acon Press, 1989.) 12 Clement Greenberg, Late Writings. (Minneapo- of Memory” not using recognizable watches, but rather with um itself is the message, just as McLu- But there is also a second revenge. Na- lis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.) Seite 28. the broken surfaces and lines of high analytic cubism. In the han formulated it. But now the surface mely, Heidegger and Greenberg have Emphasis added. natural sciences, one must always investigate one variable af- will take its revenge, in a twofold sense. the additional problem (not shared with 13 See Graham Harman, “On Vicarious Causa- ter another, not both simultaneously. It works the same way In the first place we have the pro- McLuhan) that they mistake the back- tion,” Collapse II (2007). 14 See Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An in art, and this is roughly what McLuhan’s editor meant with blem that depth can do nothing without ground for a unity. And here the sur- Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. (Oxford: his otherwise boring remark that a successful book should not that which is not deep. For McLuhan, face has yet another important lesson Oxford University Press, 2007); Tristan Garcia, risk presenting more than ten percent new material. media change not due to some inner for the depths: that of the manifoldness Forme et objet: Un traité des choses. (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2011.); Levi R. Bryant, Elsewhere, in a rather merciless obituary notice for Wassi- transformative power, but rather due of the world. The strength of McLuhan The Democracy of Objects. (Ann Arbor, MI: ly Kandinsky, Greenberg invented a new and even interesting to the unexpected consequences of the consists inlarge part of the fact that he Open Humanities Press, 2011.); Graham Harman, term for his critical arsenal. Namely, there can also be pro- accidental properties of any medium. is fully conscious of the manifoldness The Quadruple Object. (Winchester, UK: Zero vincial artists, and not only in backwater towns. A provincial The overheating of a medium occurs that we have just stipulated. Despite his Books, 2011.) artist can also be someone who takes part in avant-garde mo- outside of its inner life: reversal is what flashes of a typical “hippie holism” of vements without having clearly understood them. According happens to a medium when it’s making the 1960’s, nowhere to my knowledge to Greenberg, Kandinsky is an example of such a provincial. other plans. The same holds for the re- does McLuhan say that the entire world Kandinsky is said to have misunderstood cubism as abstrac- trieval of a dead medum that was once is a single, unified medium. tion, instead of as an ingenious response to the inherent li- reduced to a cliché, most often through It is entirely different with Heideg- mitation of the flat canvas as a material medium. As a result, the fantasies of visionary artists. ger and Greenberg, for whom manifold- Kandinsky enters into the traditional world of academic art, In Greenberg’s case we find the si- ness resides only in the surface. Heid- since his mystical circles and triangles hover in an atmosphe- milar problem that the literary content egger often speaks as if any interest in

× 72 × × 73 ×