Dissertation--Philosophischen Fakultät--Universität Zürich, 2004. / Filmogr. p. 191-195. Bibliogr. p. 196-207.

This study examines some of the fundamental principles of a number of influential photographers working in Germany in the 1920s and assesses the ways they understood the world through their camera's lens. German photography initiated a complex engagement with the modern world and marked a significant reevaluation of the relationship between the camera, perception and reality. The unique quality of the photographic image's verisimilitude of nature was an important phenomenon in this re-evaluation, as it led to assumptions about the capacity of photography to reveal the truth of reality. László Moholy-Nagy's innovative employment of a variety of photographic techniques provide an effective conduit to modern theories about photography that not only expose the presumptions surrounding the photographic image, but also the inherent complications. I propose that the avant-garde photographic experiments of 1920s Germany radically changed the ways in which humanity perceived and interacted with the surrounding world.

From introduction: In the following essay an emphasis has been placed on manipulated photographic images. Although this implies a whole variety of ways in which these images can be manipulated e.g. in collage, silkscreen etc., the emphasis here is on images that have a fabricated or deliberate manipulation of subject matter to make up the photograph.

In 1936, while an expatriate in London, László Moholy-Nagy signed the Manifeste dimensioniste, crafted by Hungarian poet Charles Sirató, declaring his allegiance to the pursuit of creating artistic works in higher dimensions. In his artworks and writings, Moholy-Nagy was deeply invested in emerging technologies of the early twentieth century in the service of seeing the world differently, augmenting and training the sensory organs to visualize higher dimensions of space, essentially to see what does not appear, what is apparently invisible. Through his work with light and movement, which took many forms, painting, photography, film, kinetic sculpture, and theater, he worked through traditional and avant garde notions of space and time as related to psychophysical experience. Moholy-Nagy held that higher dimensions could be experienced through a re-education of human senses and began to lay out his claim for the education of the senses in order to see the world differently as early as 1922 in "Produktion–Reproduktion" (De Stijl). In Malerei, Fotografie, Film (Painting, Photography, Film, 1925), Moholy-Nagy asserted that through the visual objectivity produced photographs, especially in oblique photographs, "[w]e may say that we see the world with entirely different eyes." In this dissertation, I examine the influence of contemporary psychophysical, space-time theories on a stage/ performance design created by Moholy-Nagy, in particular, the two versions of his design for a synaesthetic theatrical performance entitled, Partiturskizze zu einer mechanischen Exzentrik (Score-Sketch for a Mechanical Eccentric): one a hybrid, mixed media drawing (c. 1923) and the other a revised version printed in Die Bühne im Bauhaus (The Stage of the Bauhaus, 1925). Following the structure of the hybrid drawing, each chapter is an interpretation of a single panel of the drawing, corresponding to the prelude and the five acts of the performance. This interpretation was made through a close reading of the drawing itself, examining the references made in the images and notations, comparing the two versions, and uncovering similar themes in his lectures, writings, and artistic works, and, in turn, pursuing references to physics, psychology, mathematics, and literature, whose profound influence was acknowledged by Moholy-Nagy in those texts. These influences include the writings of Albert Einstein, Hermann Minkowski, János Bolyai, Hermann von Helmholtz, Rudolf Carnap, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Wundt, E. T. A. Hoffmann, James Joyce, and many others. Through this analysis, I reveal the ambitious intention at the heart of the Exzentrik, to immerse the audience in a synaesthetic experience that expands their psychophysical consciousness using electromagnetic vibrations in the form of visible and invisible light and sound, as well as shocking and comedic forms and movements, and that, thereby, opens the audience to the construction of a new vision that endows them with the capacity to envision higher dimensions of space. / Doctor of Philosophy / In 1936, while living in London, László Moholy-Nagy signed the Dimensionist Manifesto, written by Hungarian poet Charles Sirató, declaring his allegiance to the pursuit of creating artistic works in higher dimensions, such as three-dimensional paintings or four-dimensional space-time constructions. In his artworks and writings, Moholy-Nagy was deeply invested in the emerging and advancing technologies of the early twentieth century in the service of seeing the world differently, augmenting and training the sensory organs to visualize higher dimensions of space, essentially to see what does not appear to the naked eye, for instance x-ray images reveal what is apparently invisible. Through his work with light and movement, which took many forms, painting, photography, film, moving sculptures, and theater, he explored how a person experiences space and time both physically and intellectually and Moholy-Nagy began to lay out his claim for the education of the senses in order to see the world differently. In Malerei, Fotografie, Film (Painting, Photography, Film, 1925), Moholy-Nagy asserted that through the visual objectivity produced photographs, especially in oblique photographs, “[w]e may say that we see the world with entirely different eyes.” In this dissertation, I have examined the influence of contemporary space-time theories on two versions of Moholy-Nagy’s design for a theatrical performance called the Score-Sketch for a Mechanical Eccentric, one a hand-drawn and painted collage (c. 1923) and the other a revised version printed in The Stage of the Bauhaus (1925). Following the structure of the former, each chapter is an interpretation of a single panel of the drawing/collage, corresponding to the prelude and the five acts of the performance. This interpretation was made through a close reading of the drawing itself, examining the references made in the images and notations, comparing the two versions, and uncovering similar themes in his lectures, writings, and artistic works, and, in turn, pursuing references to physics, psychology, mathematics, and literature, whose profound influence was acknowledged by Moholy-Nagy in those texts. These influences include the writings of Albert Einstein, Hermann Minkowski, János Bolyai, Hermann von Helmholtz, Rudolf Carnap, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Wundt, E. T. A. Hoffmann, James Joyce, and many others. Through this analysis, I will reveal the ambitious intention at the heart of the performance, to immerse the audience in a multi-sensory experience that will expand their consciousness, thereby, to expand their sensory perception, using shocking and comedic displays to psychologically open the audience to the possibility of perceiving higher dimensions of space.

Cette thèse interroge le dialogue théorique et pratique entre les sens et le design. En éclairant les échanges qui s’instaurent entre les sciences contemporaines de la perception et les nouvelles approches sensorielles du design, elle laisse apparaître un paradigme inédit de la création et de la cognition. Elle montre qu’un modèle de design sensible émerge sous l’impulsion de nouveaux modèles cognitivistes de la perception, qui vient transformer les domaines de la création. Les arts plastiques investissent les sens corporels, amplifiés par les technologies ; l’architecture remet en cause la tradition visiocentrée de l’espace, et s’ouvre une conception spatiale de type atmosphérique. À la frontière de ces mouvements, surgit un paradigme du design focalisé sur la relation tangible et multisensorielle entre l’homme et le monde de l’artificiel. Grâce à la réhabilitation des sens pragmatiques, les théories antidualistes de la perception, en conjonction avec les sciences cognitives et les technologies numériques, inspirent la conception d’artefacts orientés vers l’engagement corporel et les relations matérielles. L’obsolescence du modèle des cinq sens permet de revisiter scientifiquement des phénomènes comme les synesthésies, la plasticité perceptive et les correspondances sensorielles. Le dépassement de l’idée de sens entendus comme des organes récepteurs, conduit à considérer les aspects immatériels de la perception, tels que l’expressivité et l’intentionnalité attribuées aux choses. Dans ce contexte, cette thèse explore la manière dont la sensorialité redevient un sujet de recherche et de création. Entre philosophie, psychologie expérimentale et histoire de l’art et du design, elle interroge le modèle rationaliste du design et montre que l’émergence de ce nouveau paradigme est motivée par l’exigence de s’affranchir du modèle industriel guidé par la relation visuelle et fonctionnelle de la forme et des usages. Suivant un cheminement non nécessairement linéaire, la recherche se concentre sur les moments clés et les figures majeures du dialogue entre design moderne et théories des sens, et montre que ce dernier, engagé depuis la Renaissance, n’a cessé d’alimenter les relations entre perception et arts du disegno. / This thesis examines the theoretical and practical dialogue between design and the senses. Shedding light on the exchanges taking place between the contemporary sciences of perception and the new sensorial approaches of design, it reveals a new paradigm of creation and cognition. The thesis puts forward the emergence of a sensitive design model promoted by new cognitivist models of perception, transforming the domains of creation. Magnified by technology, contemporary arts are permeating the bodily senses; while architecture challenges the visually centered tradition of space, and an atmospheric conception of space opens up.Emerging at the marches of these movements is a paradigm of design focused on the tangible, multi-sensorial relationship between the human world and the artificial world. Anti-dualist theories of senses, coupled with cognitive sciences and digital technologies, conceive artifacts that are inclined towards material relationship and involvement of the body, made possible by the rehabilitation of pragmatic senses. Obsolescence of the five senses model allows the scientific rediscovery of several phenomena such as synesthesia, perceptive plasticity and sensorial interactions. Surpassing the notion of senses as mere receptive functions, leads us to examine the immaterial aspects of perception, such as expressiveness and intentionality attributed to things.In this context, this thesis explores how sensoriality becomes once again a subject for research and creation. Overlapping philosophy, experimental psychology, and the history of art and design, it questions the rationalist model of design; it also shows how the need for freedom from the industrial model, as lead by the visual and functional relationship between form and usage, brings about the emergence of a new paradigm.Following a not essentially linear path, the research focuses on key moments, along with the major features of a dialogue between modern design and theories of the senses ; this dialogue, initiated since the Renaissance, never stopped nourishing the relationships between perception and arts of the disegno.