Journal of Aesthetics & Culture

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The imagination of touch: surrealist tactility in the

films of Jan Švankmajer

Kristoffer Noheden

To cite this article: Kristoffer Noheden (2013) The imagination of touch: surrealist tactility in the
films of Jan Švankmajer, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 5:1, 21111, DOI: 10.3402/jac.v5i0.21111

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.3402/jac.v5i0.21111

© 2013 K. Noheden

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Journal of AESTHETICS & CULTURE
Vol. 5, 2013

The imagination of touch: surrealist tactility in

the films of Jan Švankmajer
Kristoffer Noheden*
Department of Media Studies, Section for Cinema Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract Kristoffer Noheden is a PhD candi-

This article is a theoretical examination of tactility in the date in cinema studies at the Depart-
Czech surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer’s film Down ment of Media Studies, Stockholm
to the Cellar (1983). Švankmajer’s deployment of tactile University. In his dissertation, he ex-
images in a surrealist context shows the need for a amines surrealism’s attempts to create
discussion of the imagination’s role in the embodied film a new, re-enchanting myth with a focus
experience. Departing from Laura Marks’s The Skin of the on its expressions in surrealist cinema.
Film, this article seeks to explore the surrealist embodied He is the co-editor, with Daniel Brodén,
imagination through surrealist poetics of analogy, as of the anthology I gränslandet: Nya perspektiv på film
defined by André Breton, and the link between these and och modernism (Gidlunds, 2013). He is also the translator
Walter Benjamin’s writings on mimesis. Finally, the film is into Swedish of books by William S. Burroughs, Leonora
viewed from the perspective of Gaston Bachelard’s ideas Carrington, Max Ernst, and others, and co-runs the
of ‘‘the imagination of matter,’’ where matter is seen as a surrealist-oriented publishing house Sphinx.
highly potent stimulant for the imagination. Bachelard’s
notion of the imagination’s multisensory properties further
lends credence to Švankmajer’s aims to liberate the
imagination of the spectator through images that invoke
touch.

Keywords: Czech film; mimesis; Walter Benjamin; poetics; analogy; materiality; André Breton; Gaston
Bachelard

In Jan Švankmajer’s 1983 short film Down to the imagination into the equation. This makes Down
Cellar (Do pivnice), a little girl encounters teasingly to the Cellar a telling example of Švankmajer’s use
fleeing potatoes, a man resting on a bed of coal, of tactility, which works as a manifestation of a
and a woman mixing coal dust and eggs into a highly material form of the surrealist imagination.
black dough. The Czech filmmaker and artist For the director is not just a renowned animator
skilfully evokes the tactile properties of these but also arguably one of the most important
phenomena as they are played out in the half- filmmakers to emerge from the surrealist move-
illuminated darkness of a cellar in an apartment ment.1 This not least takes expression through
house. The film fuses reality and the imagination his desire to resuscitate the human capacity for
in a way that recalls both dream logic and a child’s analogical thinking, where likeness relations con-
flights of fancy, but it does so with a concrete nect diverse phenomena that the identity principle
materiality that not only enhances the film’s tactile of scientific thinking keeps apart, and so, from
properties but also invites the viewer’s own active the viewpoint of surrealism, has the potential to

*Correspondence to: Kristoffer Noheden, Stockholms universitet, Enheten för filmvetenskap, Box 27062, SE-102 51
Stockholm, Sweden. Email: [email protected]

#2013 K. Noheden. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)
Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
Citation: Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 5, 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/jac.v5i0.21111
1
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K. Noheden

poetise and re-enchant a world in the grip of habit clearly with Švankmajer’s findings that touch can
and utility. liberate the analogical imagination. Throughout
Film theorists like Vivian Sobchack and Laura the article, I use Down to the Cellar as the main
Marks have established that the film experience example, but I relate many of the questions to
is not merely visual and cerebral but also multi- other Švankmajer films as well.
sensory and embodied, appealing to both touch
and taste.2 A number of Švankmajer’s films evoke
JAN ŠVANKMAJER AND SURREALIST
touch like few others. Transforming matter, pu-
TACTILITY
trefying foodstuffs, coarse or sticky surfaces, and
the sudden stop-motion animated life of otherwise Jan Švankmajer has participated in the Czecho-
inert objects are some of the elements that com- slovak*later Czech and Slovak*surrealist group
bine to create tactile sensations through a com- since 1970, and his work in film has much to gain
bination of the director’s surrealist inventions from being considered in the light of this collective
with the viewer’s own sensory experiences. In this environment. A surrealist group was established in
article, I discuss how Švankmajer’s tactile film Prague already in 1934, but national and personal
experiments call for a partly different approach to politics alike caused the group to dissolve and
tactility than what is dominant in contemporary reform several times up to the late 1960s.3 When
film theory, and how this is connected with the Švankmajer joined the group, it had recently in-
director’s emphasis on the imagination and analo- tensified its activities and entered a phase marked
gical thinking. Neither Sobchack nor Marks de- by a new intensity.4 Soon thereafter, the increas-
votes much space to the imagination. This means ingly repressive regime forced the group into a
that the theoretical understanding of Švankmajer’s secret underground existence. Unable to publish
films in part must differ from the dominant view any writings or hold any exhibitions for almost
of tactility in film, displaying the need for an two decades, they nonetheless kept up their
extended discussion of the role of the imagination activities unceasingly. Working in animated film,
in the embodied film experience. Švankmajer was able to make his work public to a
How, then, can we understand these attempts to larger extent than his fellow surrealists, but even
activate and stimulate the imagination through so his freedom was limited. In 1972, he made un-
tactile surrealist images? Here, I develop the film authorised postproduction changes to Leonardo’s
theoretical views on tactility through a discussion Diary (Leonarduv denı́k), which combines animated
of Laura Marks’s work in The Skin of the Film, drawings by Leonardo da Vinci with documentary
which I negotiate and expand through a meeting sequences of contemporary life. Consequently, he
with Švankmajer’s own research into tactility, as was banned from directing films for several years,
well as surrealist writings on the imagination and and he had to interrupt the making of The Castle of
its relation to perception. Marks and Švankmajer Otranto (Otrantský zámek), which was completed
share the basic conviction that touch has been only in 1979.
neglected in an ocularcentric civilisation. It is, During the intervening years, Švankmajer re-
however, mainly her use of Walter Benjamin, and jected sight in favour of touch.5 He turned from
particularly his work on the mimetic faculty, that the film medium to exploring tactility in art, as a
allows her theories to be readjusted and adapted way to investigate the potential of touch in an
to illuminate the workings of a surrealist tactility ocularcentric civilisation. The tactile experiments
in moving images. This theoretical investigation of were to a large degree executed together with the
the embodied imagination leads to a discussion artist Eva Švankmajerova, but they also involved
of Gaston Bachelard’s writings on the imagination the whole surrealist group and were often done
of matter. I propose that these add a valuable new as one facet of the collective games that were
perspective to the theories of an embodied imagi- especially important for the group in the 1970s.6
nation of touch, concerning both its workings in Sculptures, portraits, objects, collages, and even
the film and its activation of the spectator’s own poems were used as the basis to explore touch
associations. Bachelard’s notion of poetic images in its capacities as both an epistemological tool
of matter as stimulants for the reader’s, or in this and as a stimulant for the imagination.7 Through
case viewer’s, own imagination not least resounds games and enquiries based on the tactile works,

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 The imagination of touch

Švankmajer found that touch has some capacity a lost primordial faculty where perception and
to afford objective knowledge, but, more impor- representation are one (i.e. where the imagination
tantly, in the right context, it can also activate the actively transforms sense impressions).13 Surreal-
imagination in ways that trigger analogical asso- ism scholar Michael Richardson even claims that it
ciations that diverge from the habitual stimulus of was always a surrealist goal not only to enrich the
purely visual sensations. Švankmajer collected the perception of reality through the imagination but
results of the games, some of the answers to the also to lead the imagination away from its purely
enquiries, and reproductions of tactile artworks in visual aspects and strive for synaesthetic experi-
the book Hmat a imaginace, which was first issued ences of the poetic image.14
as a samizdat edition in 1983 and then published Švankmajer’s tactile experiments can then be
officially in 1994. The book also contains refer- seen as one very concrete way of fulfilling these
ences to both various psychoanalysts and Maurice ambitions. He uses tactility to dissolve the de-
Merleau-Ponty, alongside quotes from or repro- scriptive registering of the world that sight is so
ductions by a number of literary and artistic often the hallmark of, in an attempt to liberate the
sources, such as Arthur Rimbaud, Max Ernst, analogical imagination of touch.15 Underlying the
Edgar Allan Poe, Meret Oppenheim, Claude Cahun, experiments were a conviction that touch has been
and a lengthy extract from the futurist F.T. neglected in an instrumentally rational and ocu-
Marinetti’s writings on ‘‘tactilism.’’8 Švankmajer’s larcentric civilisation; the Czech surrealist Bruno
research, then, rested on both readings in medi- Solarik even calls Švankmajer’s work with tactil-
cine and philosophy, and works by artists and ity one aspect of the surrealists’ ‘‘anti-crusade’’
writers that in various ways had incorporated against civilisation.16 Švankmajer’s critique of ocu-
tactility in their work. larcentrism is close to positions found in both film
Švankmajer’s tactile experiments emphasise the studies and anthropology,17 but he diverges by
essential value of sense impressions for the imagi- seeing touch not only as a neglected complement
nation. This is in line with the Prague group’s to sight but also as a vehicle for the imagination.
overall conviction of the need for surrealism to con- This is not least shown in his playful text ‘‘The
front a stagnant historical present by taking root in Magic Ritual of Tactile Inauguration,’’ which ends
raw, brute reality.9 It also calls for a discussion of with the optimistic statement: ‘‘Because touch,
surrealism’s overall attitude towards reality and freed from its practical contexts and constantly
matter. There is still a recurring misconception realised as an experience . . . begins to speak with
that surrealism is an escapist attempt to abandon the voice of a poet.’’18 The embodied imagination,
reality, when the movement in fact has always then, adds another explicit dimension to the
striven towards the experience of more facets of surrealist attempts to liberate dormant faculties
reality by integrating it with the imaginary, not to from habitual existence.
abandon one for the other.10 Indeed, in striking Švankmajer’s experiments also add an emphasis
contrast to the popular notion of surrealism as on embodiment to the Czech and Slovak surreal-
an escape into fantasy, André Breton early and ists’ focus on Invention, Imagination, Interpretation,
repeatedly emphasised its close relation with rea- as their concerns were summed up in the title of
lity. Most tellingly, as early as in ‘‘Surrealism and a 1992 group exhibition in Wales.19 Imagination
Painting’’ (1928), he describes surrealism as re- and interpretation are strongly related to analogi-
lated to a ‘‘particular philosophy of immanence,’’ cal thinking, which has long been a central
which means that it ‘‘would be embodied in reality method in surrealist poetic practice since it offers
itself and would be neither superior nor exterior an alternative epistemology of, and relation to,
to it.’’11 Then, in Communicating Vessels (1932), the world. André Breton’s brief essay ‘‘Ascendant
Breton states that surrealism strives to ‘‘cast a Sign’’ (1948) is perhaps the most beautiful de-
conduction wire between the far too distant worlds claration of the central place of analogy in sur-
of waking and sleep, exterior and interior reality, realist poetics, in the surrealist method at large
reason and madness.’’12 In the essay ‘‘The Auto- even. There, Breton expressly states that poetic
matic Message’’ (1934), he specifies the imagina- analogy can liberate us from the utilitarian relation
tion’s dependence on the material world in a with the surroundings that dominate the current
discussion of surrealism as an attempt to restore order.20 Dictated by analogy, the surrealist poetic

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K. Noheden

image*whether visual or in writing*establishes In accordance with this view, Švankmajer con-

new and unexpected relations between diverse siders interpretation of the world viewed as a set
phenomena, correspondences that stretch beyond of signs and symbols to be a way of uncovering
modern civilisation’s habitual worldview. Breton a more complex reality by going beyond its sur-
therefore believes that through the resuscitation of face.26 At the same time, it is important to
poetic analogy, humans can once again perceive of emphasise the fact that Švankmajer is careful to
the world as a forest of signs to be interpreted. depict this expanded reality with an attention
Ultimately, this means that analogy has the ability to the everyday, a result of his ambition to film
to reintegrate man and the world. The Czech with a style that is as realist as possible, so that
surrealists, not least Švankmajer, have forcefully the eruptions of the imagination are all the more
emphasised the continued importance of poetic striking and convincing.27 This may seem para-
analogy,21 while tempering Breton’s ascendant doxical, but Effenberger stresses the imagination’s
optimism with a more cynical black humour borne absolute dependence on reality in no uncertain
out of decades of despair. All the same, Breton’s terms: ‘‘Imagination does not mean turning away
high-flying hopes echo clearly in Alena Nádvornı́- from reality, but its antithesis: reaching through to
ková’s conviction that analogical thinking has the the dynamic core of reality.’’28
possibility to change not only our perception of When Švankmajer returned to filmmaking after
the world but also our relation with it, so that the ban was lifted, he sought to bring the expe-
‘‘every individual will be a creative mirror of the riences from the tactile experiments with him to
universe.’’22 Vratislav Effenberger more harshly the film medium. While he first thought it para-
posits analogical thinking as a form of antidote to doxical to try to transfer touch from the direct
the narrow identity principle that structures scien- experience of objects and plastic artworks to the
tific thinking as well as realism in its most narrow second-hand experience of touch in film,29 his
sense.23 Unlike this descriptive way of perceiving reading of phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-
the world, ruled by the reality principle, analogical Ponty convinced him ‘‘that sight is capable, to a
thinking is dictated by the pleasure principle, and greater or smaller extent depending on indivi-
encourages the active interpretation of the sur- duals, to transfer tactile sensations in a mediated
rounding world. way.’’30 Švankmajer’s conviction that touch can be
The working of the imagination when liberated mediated via vision is also supported by contem-
from utilitarian concerns by analogy and set upon porary film theory. Like Švankmajer, Vivian
playfully interpreting the world is tellingly eluci- Sobchack largely builds on Merleau-Ponty’s dis-
dated by André Breton in the essay ‘‘On Surreal- covery that the senses are not discrete, but inter-
ism in Its Living Works’’ (1953). Here, Breton related. She writes that the sense impressions of
states that the surrealist poetic image makes us the multisensory film experience are not identical
realise to actual ones, but nonetheless constitute ‘‘a real
sensual experience.’’31 Švankmajer’s experiments
that ‘everything above is like everything
and their subsequent applications in films also
below’ and everything inside is like every-
thing outside. The world thereupon seems to seem to indicate that Sobchack’s insight that
be like a cryptogram which remains indeci- ‘‘[w]e are in fact all synaesthetes  and thus seeing
pherable only so long as one is not thor- a movie can also be an experience of touching,
oughly familiar with the gymnastics that tasting, and smelling it’’32 can be applied to sur-
permit one to pass at will from one piece of realist cinema just as well as to realist films.
apparatus to another.24
The first film in which Švankmajer incorporated
The clash of distant phenomena in the surre- his tactile findings was The Fall of the House of
alist poetic image thus amounts to a revelation Usher (Zánik domu Usheru, 1980), an adaptation
of the world in its heterogeneous unity, an of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story. The director was
attempt to create a totality that does not dissolve especially inclined to employ tactile images after
differences*a central argument already in ‘‘The he realised the importance of touch in Poe’s
Second Manifesto of Surrealism’’25*but contains writing in general and this story in particular.33
them in an ever-expanding, intricate network of The film is made without actors, and instead
correspondences. expresses the tortured mood of the original short

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 The imagination of touch

story through matter in agonising transformation. like when one of the characters kneads bread-
Here, Švankmajer mainly utilises his method of crumbs into tiny balls which she then proceeds to
gestural sculpture, where touch makes a direct suck into her nostrils through two thin rubber
imprint of emotions on clay. The same method hoses, a sight which may cause uncomfortable
recurs in Dimensions of Dialogue (Možnosti dialogu, sensations in the spectator’s own nostril area. One
1982), but Švankmajer’s ways of conjuring tacti- should also note Švankmajer’s use of sound to
lity are otherwise manifold and diverse, and not enhance the tactility of the images. Both aurally
always intentional. For while there is an overall and visually, in Conspirators of Pleasure disgust and
increased emphasis on tactile images in his films in discomfort stand out as key features in creating
the years directly after the tactile experiments, his tactile impressions, whether it is in the form of
striking ability to bring out the coarse materiality direct bodily identification with unpleasant ac-
of objects and things can also be seen in both tions or sensory impressions of matter, dead or
earlier and later films,34 and it is thus not entirely living, that one is reluctant to touch.
dependent on the methods he evolved during
the experiments. Indeed, Švankmajer has said that
TACTILITY, FILM THEORY,
his tactile research made him aware of how
AND THE AURA
important touch had always been for him.35 There
are moments of heightened tactility in early films The premise of Down to the Cellar is not very
such as J S Bach  Fantasy in G Minor (J S Bach  complicated: a young girl is going down to the
Fantasia g-moll, 1965), Historia Naturae, Suita cellar of an apartment building to fetch some
(1967), and not least The Flat (Byt, 1968), where potatoes. This deceptively simple narrative takes
the contents of a cramped flat come alive before on new meaning as Švankmajer skilfully shows
the eyes and touch of the bewildered protagonist. events through the wide-eyed perspective of a
In the same vein, even when Švankmajer ceased child, turning the simple visit to the cellar into a
to actively apply tactile methods to his films, they nightmarish yet humorous journey with heigh-
still abound with the sort of images that invite tened sense impressions. The hazards of the every-
the viewer’s touch, from the putrefying objects in day start even before the girl descends into the
Alice (Něco z Alenky, 1987) to the animated animal underworld: a leering man tries to give her candy
tongues in Lunacy (Šileni, 2005), writhing and when she walks down the stairs, and she has to
slimy to the touch of at least this spectator.36 This make her way past a woman cleaning the floor
is further enhanced by his recurring use of ex- who gives her a stern look. A black cat sits at the
treme close-ups of body parts, objects, and surf- entrance to the cellar, as if to emphasise the pas-
aces, a stylistic device that emphasises textures sage as a gateway to another realm. Once in the
and materiality. semi-darkness of the cellar, things take on new life.
A sampling of Švankmajer’s various methods Old shoes in storage turn out to have mouths,
can be found in the feature film Conspirators of greedily snapping their leather jaws with pointy
Pleasure (Spiklenci slasti, 1996), where the results little teeth. A shovel starts shovelling coal on its
of the tactile experiments are incorporated to the own, suspended in the air. And the man from
arguably most literal degree. Here, several objects upstairs turns out to actually live in the cellar,
created as part of the tactile research are used as where he lies on a bed filled with coal in lieu of a
props. Among them are metal lids with rubbery mattress. The woman from the stairway is also
appendages attached to one side, rolling pins with present, and is in the process of making an odd
nails stuck in them, and a TV set equipped with dough out of eggs and coal dust which she pro-
several pairs of robotic hands, to mention but a ceeds to bake. Once the girl has made her way past
few. In the diegesis, the objects are all designed by these oddities and reached the crate she came for,
the main characters, the eponymous conspirators, the potatoes turn out to have their own will,
as sexual objects made to satisfy their peculiar mockingly escaping her by rolling out of the crate
desires. In Conspirators of Pleasure, then, tactility is and out of her basket. When she has finally
used in a very direct way, through the incorpora- managed to gather enough of them and is about
tion of the results of the experiments. Sometimes to make her way back up the stairs, the black
the film makes for an immediate corporeal impact, cat scares her; twitching, she drops the potatoes.

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K. Noheden

After a sullen look into the camera, she starts her image of concrete things that are too blurry or
descent into the cellar once again. grainy for the spectator to get a good, sharp look
In Down to the Cellar, the imagination trans- at them. Instead, denied a view of the whole, one
forms reality. This is made all the more powerful is drawn in closer to the surface, which invites a
by the highly material qualities of the film, and feeling of touch.38 In Down to the Cellar, when the
further enhanced by the way Švankmajer creates a girl first enters the cellar, the image is largely
feeling of tactility. The worn-down brick walls shrouded in darkness and the field of vision is
shrouded in darkness are almost there to the touch, further limited through close-ups and her flash-
something that is enhanced by Švankmajer’s fre- light that selectively illuminates parts of the walls
quent use of extreme close-ups. The way the and floor and the wooden boards from which the
woman stirs eggs and coal dust together to form storage rooms are constructed. This denies the
a black dough invites the imagination into the spectator an overview and instead forces attention
tactile images: we may never have experienced a to move to the details, bringing increased focus to
mixture of this sort, but it is still easy to imagine surfaces and their materiality and textures. In her
the feeling of the sticky raw eggs when they blend definition of the haptic image, Marks locates it
with the dry coal dust. Sound is highly important primarily in grainy, semi-abstracted images, and
in creating an embodied experience of the cellar. she explicitly turns against any form of identifica-
There’s the sound of dripping water and a con- tion with the body parts on screen as a prerequi-
stant scraping noise in the background. When the site for haptic images, claiming that the haptic
camera lingers on dirty pipes, it is accompanied bypasses identification and instead allows the
by a loud noise of flushing water. Most tellingly, spectator to become closer to matter itself.39
when the shoes fight for the piece of bread, the The final point is valid for parts of Švankmajer’s
sound of growling animals can be heard on the films as well. The extreme close-ups of dirty walls
soundtrack. These are some of the means by which that can at times barely be made out make for
Švankmajer creates a surrealist tactility, which not haptic images of exactly this kind. Likewise,
only lets us experience the touch of things we Švankmajer often conjures up similar feelings of
would never have encountered in real life but also touch through coarse textures and gesturally
may trigger further analogical associations of the impressed clay and earth, as in the already men-
kind that structure the dream logic of the film. tioned The Fall of the House of Usher. As noted in
The evocation of sense impressions through this article, he has however never limited himself
food and objects rhymes well with Laura Marks’s to one tactile method, but rather uses a panoply
investigations of the embodied experience of in- of them. Just as often, the register of the tactile is
tercultural cinema, even though they diverge in evoked through more traditional bodily identifica-
crucial ways. Generally, the films Marks writes tion, albeit with unusual elements. In Conspirators
about refer directly to sensuous aspects of real- of Pleasure, the feeling of tactile sexual objects
ity and the memory of actual events, whereas against the skin of the characters is evoked through
Švankmajer is committed to engaging the viewer’s the use of materials both coarse and gentle: nails
analogical associations and plays on memories and feathers, brushes and metal lids combine to
of childhood to de-familiarise the world from the heighten the tactile sensations. Indeed, against
blasé and utilitarian adult viewpoint. There are the emphasis on the haptic as it is conventionally
some particularly fruitful points of connection defined,40 Švankmajer ‘‘shows us that tactility can
between Marks’s theory and Švankmajer’s films. also be promoted by the very opposite approach:
One similarity is more obvious than the others. through heightened clarity and sharpness of the
Part of the tactility in Down to the Cellar derives image, which renders the object vividly real, virtu-
from images that can be described as ‘‘haptic,’’ in ally tangible.’’41 Through unflatteringly sharp de-
Marks’s definition of the term. She defines the pictions of a world that constantly threatens, or
haptic as a mode of visuality where the eyes almost promises, to metamorphose, Švankmajer brings
function as organs of touch, which rhymes well the viewer closer to objects.
with the sort of multisensory perception that While images that can conventionally be called
Švankmajer seeks to stimulate.37 With the haptic, haptic provide part of the general emphasis on
Marks, however, also refers to a specific type of tactility in Down to the Cellar, other manifestations

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 The imagination of touch

of tactility are more important in the context of potatoes that come alive, so that the very cellar in
Švankmajer’s overarching surrealist ambition to itself turns into a mythical underworld. Marks also
stimulate the imagination through a sense of touch. connects the aura of filmed objects with tactility;
To reach a theoretical understanding of this, we for her, the aura gives the object an almost
need to turn to other aspects of Marks’s writings physical presence that transforms it from some-
that, I would argue, actually invite surrealist pers- thing purely visual. Thus, it invites a sense of
pectives. Marks’s references to Benjamin’s notions touch that can act as the very counterforce to
of aura and the mimetic faculty are particu- Western civilisation’s emphasis on vision that both
larly well suited when it comes to understanding she and Švankmajer oppose.49
surrealist tactility as a simultaneously embodied Benjamin of course, in his most famous text,
and imaginative way of relating to the world. This posited the aura as a negative, conservative pro-
will furthermore, eventually, enable us to see perty that could be destroyed by liberatory ‘‘me-
Švankmajer’s films from the angle of the imagina- chanical reproduction.’’50 Miriam Hansen has,
tion of matter. however, located a fundamental ambivalence in
Benjamin was strongly affected by what he Benjamin’s view of the aura. This, Hansen points
called the ‘‘profane illumination’’ of surrealism. He out, is even evident in the artwork text itself, most
gave voice to this in an insightful and influential teasingly in Benjamin’s cryptic reference to the
essay on the movement,42 and surrealism was one highly auratic ‘‘blue flower’’ of German romanti-
of the main sources of inspiration for his monu- cism.51 Hansen argues that Benjamin, in fact, in
mental, unfinished ‘‘Arcades Project.’’43 Despite both earlier and later writings, displays not only a
this, Benjamin saw his attraction to surrealism as fascination for the aura but also the hope that it
a ‘‘dangerous fascination’’ and sought to keep a can be reconciled with modernity and its secu-
certain distance from the movement.44 Never- larised mode of experience, and that he found
theless, the affinities are far-reaching. Margaret a key to this in the ‘‘profane illumination’’ of
Cohen calls Benjamin, alongside André Breton, surrealism.52 For their part, surrealists have em-
an exponent of a ‘‘Gothic Marxism.’’45 Michael braced the aura in no uncertain terms. In the
Löwy has emphasised that this designation is most collective 1987 statement ‘‘Hermetic Bird,’’ surre-
relevant in their shared fascination for enchant- alists from Paris, Prague, Buenos Aires, London,
ment, the marvellous, and pre-modern cultures.46 and New York, including Švankmajer, argue that
It is here, in the mutual emphasis on enchantment surrealism is in fact ‘‘an obstinate attempt to re-
and its conditions in modernity, that we will find establish the magical aura of art as one could still
the vital links between Benjamin and surrealism find it in the so-called primitive societies or in the
that will allow us to rethink Marks’s theories. esoteric (hermetic) tradition.’’53 Marks is more
Švankmajer has often claimed that he believes cautious in her hopes for the aura, but still sees in
certain objects to be charged with events from the it, in this historical moment, the potential for an
past and that we need to learn to listen to them, a enchantment of the object that differs from the
conviction derived from his interest in esoteri- commodities we are otherwise surrounded with.54
cism.47 Marks writes about objects in intercultural Her view of the emergence of the aura in tactile
cinema in a way that is similar to Švankmajer’s images of objects thus links her writings with
reasoning. Referring to Benjamin’s concept of the Švankmajer, even though Švankmajer’s aims to
aura, she claims that the object becomes auratic restore to art its magic capacities is a less timid
through its capacity to remind us, if cryptically, of and less ambivalent way of embracing the aura.
the past, of situations or phenomena buried deep For Benjamin, auratic art and objects come
down and brought to the surface through the alive to such an extent that they return the gaze of
violent mechanisms of involuntary recollection.48 the viewer.55 In Švankmajer’s films, inert matter
In Down to the Cellar, Švankmajer’s use of the child’s and objects seemingly come alive both within the
perspective effects something similar. Through diegesis and in front of the viewer, and their tactile
the eyes of the child, the world becomes strange properties are but one aspect of their auratic
and the objects in it are once again permeated function. In Down to the Cellar, the phantoms of
with a threatening sense of mystery, as already the childhood imagination materialise and not
exemplified by the shoes that grow teeth and the only strive to be touched or repel touch, but also

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K. Noheden

interact with the world, thus returning a gaze that is a concept that is deeply rooted in the Western
is used to the mute response of an alienated world. philosophical tradition, and in an aesthetic context
In Marks’s view, these auratic moments have the it is most often used to designate the ideal of a
capacity to blur the division between subject and faithful depiction of reality, or what for a couple of
object,56 a division that Švankmajer has similarly centuries has gone under the rubric of realism.61
professed hope could be ‘‘overcome through Mimesis would seem far from compatible with a
tactilism, even if only in special cases rather than surrealist perspective, since surrealism is hostile
as a general principle.’’57 to realism in its most basic forms.62 Ultimately,
realist mimesis can even be equated with the
descriptive identity principle the Czech surrealists
ANALOGY AND THE MIMETIC FACULTY
wish to complement with analogical thinking.
One of Švankmajer’s initial goals with the tactile While Marks does not use mimesis so much as
experiments was to explore touch as an epistemo- an aesthetic category as a tool to describe a form
logical tool, and not least to liberate it from of film and spectatorship that works in tandem
the utilitarian use in which it merely acts as a com- to bring the viewer closer to the phenomena
plement to sight. Here, Švankmajer found that depicted, she does not differentiate her use of
touch has the capability to not only transmit infor- mimesis from its signification of realism. The films
mation but also induce analogical associations* she proceeds to analyse also relate to reality in a
touch does indeed have an imagination. Laura way that, together with her references to Eric
Marks also discusses tactile epistemologies.58 She Auerbach’s influential writings on mimesis as the
is mainly concerned with how film can evoke a representation of reality in Western literature,
sense of touch that rekindles the viewer’s knowl- suggests a conflation of realism and an embodied
edge about things and places, and that acti- mimesis.
vates memories and reconnects the viewer with a There are nonetheless clues towards an under-
past that may be half eclipsed by temporal or standing of mimesis as an embodied imagination
geographical distance or trauma. While she stres- also in Laura Marks’s theoretical construction,
ses how the viewer in certain cases has to fill since she, in her discussion of tactile epistemolo-
in the blanks when memory is not sufficient,59 gies, refers to Roger Caillois’s much-discussed
her theory of tactile epistemologies nevertheless ‘‘Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia.’’ In this
does not explicitly involve the imagination. Tactile essay, written while Caillois was a young surrealist,
epistemology for Švankmajer is also rooted in he describes how certain insects mimic their
memories and sense impressions of the real, but environment so well that they cannot even distin-
it unites these in new combinations, and in the guish each other from it. Caillois gives the terrify-
process it invites the viewer to experience things ing and haunting example of leaf insects whose
never encountered in real life. The concrete de- rugged looks are caused by the fact that they start
pictions of fantastic events arguably enhance the eating from each other, since the leaves they mimic
viewer’s likelihood to associate further through form their very own sustenance.63 For Caillos, this
analogical thinking. But how can we understand shows that nature has its own propensity for a dark
Švankmajer’s tactile epistemologies of things that form of anti-utilitarian poetry. The symbologist
can never actually be encountered in real life René Alleau has even more clearly shown
through film theory? the roots of analogically working mimesis in the
As part of the answer to this, the relationship physical environment, something that strength-
between embodied film theory, surrealism, and ens the connection between the imagination and
Benjamin becomes clearer. For if the aura of the environment that is necessary for the embo-
objects is responsible for some of their tactile pro- died tactile imagination to be a working possibi-
perties, it also plays a part in a more unexpected lity. Analogical thinking and the sort of mimetic
link between Marks, Benjamin, and surrealism: behaviour that is related to it comprise, Alleau
her use of the term ‘‘mimesis.’’ Marks claims that claims, a vital survival strategy for human and
tactile epistemologies in moving images rely heav- animal alike. It is furthermore an activity that indeed
ily on mimesis, since it designates an embodied unites the mind and the surrounding world, much
relationship with matter and the world.60 Mimesis like in surrealist notions. Alleau writes that:

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 The imagination of touch

We should not separate humans, as symbo- imagination of touch, but this mimesis is far from
lizing animals, from our concrete, corporeal, the realist tradition.
and material conditions, our daily existence. In modernity, Benjamin claims, the mimetic
Too often, attempts are made to forget these
faculty has waned, so that, as he expresses it in
connections; we consider only the relation-
ship of symbolism to cultural, artistic, reli- an earlier draft of the text ‘‘The Doctrine of the
gious, and initiatory life, or even to individual Similar,’’ ‘‘[t]he perceived world (Merkwelt) of
and collective psychology. Although we modern human beings seems to contain infinitely
should not deny the obvious importance of fewer of those magical correspondences than the
these relationships, they are not the first, world of the ancient people or even of primitive
original conditions of the analogical process  peoples.’’70 Benjamin did not, however, believe
which comes from a far-off and profound
that the mimetic faculty had disappeared alto-
source that is purely experiential and com-
mon to all living beings.64
gether, but that it had been transformed through
technology. Hansen interprets the modern mi-
If we turn directly to Benjamin, we can further metic faculty along lines that are relevant for sur-
re-think mimesis in Marks in a way that is reve- realist cinema in general and Švankmajer’s films in
latory in its compatibility with a surrealist out- particular, when she writes that the mimetic
look, and which gives an added emphasis to the capacities of film rest ‘‘less on the principle of
analogical imagination’s potential role in tactile sameness . . . than on their ability to render the
epistemology. familiar strange, to store and reveal similarities
In his brief text ‘‘On the Mimetic Faculty,’’ that are ‘nonsensuous’, not otherwise visible to
Benjamin defines his own experiential take on the human eye.’’71 One can certainly claim that
mimesis through examples of both modern phe- Švankmajer’s minute attention to the life of the
nomena, such as a child acting like an airplane, most seemingly insignificant material phenomena
and ancient ones, such as the reading of entrails, in Down to the Cellar lives up to this hope for the
which requires humans to believe that nature is modern mimetic faculty.
full of messages to be deciphered, and interpreta- The surrealist ambition to restore analogical
tion of the night sky, which posits a relation thinking, together with its unabashed fascination
between the stars and events on Earth.65 Mimesis for magic and pre-modern ways of relating to the
in this account has little to do with aesthetics, and world, nonetheless means that Benjamin’s de-
even less with its use in the realist tradition66; scription of the pre-modern mimetic faculty is
instead, it is a way of establishing relations most relevant in this context, since it pre-
between distant phenomena. Margaret Cohen supposes a relation with the world that is associa-
explicitly links the mimetic faculty with surrealism tive and interpretative. Benjamin’s equation of the
mimetic faculty with analogies and correspon-
when she points out that Benjamin’s definition of
dences, with magic and interpretation,72 is re-
surrealism as ‘‘profane illumination’’ echoes in the
markably in tune with surrealist poetics and its
text, since Benjamin writes that similarity emerges
will towards the re-enchantment of the world. Just
‘‘like a flash.’’67 Miriam Hansen has also empha-
like surrealism prides itself on trying to restore the
sised how ‘‘it seems safe not to expect anything
aura, it can then be seen as a way to restore the
resembling a realistic concept of representation’’ mimetic faculty, not least due to its active inter-
in Benjamin’s mimesis.68 In her posthumous book pretation of nature and the surrounding world,
Cinema and Experience, she develops this further, here posited as an ancient way of relating to the
and states that for Benjamin, mimesis signifies ‘‘a world which is undergoing radical transformations
relational practice’’ and ‘‘a mode of access to the in modernity. It is this ancient way of interpreting
world involving sensuous, somatic, and tactile, the world and establishing a new, contradictory
that is, embodied, forms of perception and cogni- totality that surrealism strives for in its attempts to
tion; a noncoercive engagement with the other find the keys to decipher the cryptogram that is
that resists dualistic conceptions of subject and the world.73
object.’’69 Mimesis is then highly involved in the Benjamin’s definition of the ancient mimetic
abolition of the divide between subject and object faculty shows it to be an embodied relation with
that Švankmajer strives for when activating the the world, and surrealist analogical mimesis points

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K. Noheden

the way towards a new form of embodied imagi- THE IMAGINATION OF TACTILE
nation. As already stated, the surrealist search MATTER
for analogies and correspondences is based on
Švankmajer’s use of stop-motion animation means
an intermingling of mind and matter. Michael
not only that he can make the most unusual,
Richardson sees this as a way to work against the
otherwise inert things come alive*he frequently
‘‘Cartesian notion of reality based on an identity
animates meat, skeletal body parts, and furniture
of sensation and image.’’74 Seen through the
*but also that more undifferentiated matter*dirt,
mimetic faculty, the sense impressions can be
clay, and coal*can transform into solid but often
understood as just the beginning of this sensation,
which is then analogically elaborated upon by the temporary shapes, always on the verge of new and
embodied imagination. In fact, as seen through unexpected metamorphoses. This is closely con-
embodied film theory’s stress on the multisensory nected with the locations and props he uses, even
character of the film experience, Švankmajer’s when they are not animated: the environment in
films make it appear as if the modern mimetic itself is highlighted in its materiality. This depic-
faculty once again assumes a decidedly direct tion of the independent life of the surrounding
sensory nature*no longer simply nonsensuous, world and the general focus on matter closely
it actually creates bodily sensations even though aligns Švankmajer with what Gaston Bachelard
physically distant. His work with tactility can thus has called ‘‘the imagination of matter.’’ Bachelard
be seen as part of a dialectical move towards a new shows how the elements infuse and structure the
synthesis of the ancient and the modern versions imagination, manifesting itself in poetic images of
of the mimetic faculty. matter that work through the principle of analogy.
Analogical associations, then, as shown by In his first book on the imagination of matter,
Alleau, Benjamin, and surrealism, do not signify The Psychoanalysis of Fire (1938), Bachelard, as a
a purely mental process, but one that is also philosopher of science, is mainly concerned with
embodied, grounded in human interactions with how the scientific mind can purge itself of these
the surrounding world. The prominent tactility in pre-scientific conceptions of matter*for even
Down to the Cellar means that these moving images though repressed, these are potent and strong,
are not purely audiovisual, but a case of an em- and if the scientist is not wary, he may find himself
bodied form of analogical thinking. Seeing these a victim of them.77 In the subsequent books on the
surrealist theories of the imagination through topic*Water and Dreams (1942), Air and Dreams
Benjamin’s writings on the mimetic faculty adds (1943), Earth and Reveries of Will (1948), and
a highly sensory emphasis to them. Susan Buck- Earth and Reveries of Repose (1948)*Bachelard
Morss explicitly connects this sort of mimetic himself appears to have been seduced by the
practice with an attempt to re-establish ‘‘the con- elements and the attendant imagination of
nection between imagination and physical inner- matter.78 His studies contain ever more breathless
vation that in bourgeois culture has been snapped and beautiful descriptions of the many ways in
apart,’’75 something that Margaret Cohen relates which matter and the elements make their pre-
to Benjamin’s and surrealism’s mutual ambition to sence known, analogically or directly, in poetic
‘‘overcome the modern alienation of the senses.’’76 and pre-scientific thinking*his wide range of
With this elaboration of Marks’s analysis of tactile examples include everything from alchemical
epistemology, we can see how Švankmajer’s films manuscripts and Friedrich Nietzsche to modernist
are involved in a dual liberatory project of acti- literature and Edgar Allan Poe.
vating an imagination of the senses and freeing My aim here is not to argue for a direct and
them from their reductively utilitarian, habitual exact*identical*relation between Bachelard’s
everyday use. This, as well as its relation to the view of the imagination and Švankmajer’s think-
pre-modern aspects of both Benjamin’s and sur- ing. Rather, I wish to use the imagination of
realism’s thinking, can be further elucidated by matter as a tool to further elucidate the workings
Gaston Bachelard’s writings on ‘‘the imagination of the imagination of touch, particularly from the
of matter,’’ which furthermore provides us with viewpoint of Švankmajer’s deployment of poetic
some keys to the importance of the transforma- images and their interaction with a diegetic world
tions of matter in the films of Švankmajer. of heightened materiality. First, it can nevertheless

10
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 The imagination of touch

be worth dwelling on some fundamental simila- closely and obviously related to earth. The murky,
rities in attitude, not least since Bachelard’s enclosed space contrasts sharply with the bright
thinking provides Švankmajer’s views of episte- staircase above ground. Even though both in their
mology and the imagination with a more solid own ways are threatening spaces, the cellar is also
philosophical grounding. the realm of dream logic and the fantastic, and
In Švankmajer’s critique of the diminished with them events that have no place in the light
capacity for analogical thinking in Western civili- of day. The cellar can then, in a fairly obvious
sation, he has stated that this relegates analogical manner, be construed as a locus of the uncon-
thinking to the unconscious.79 For Bachelard, the scious, something that is further emphasised by
imagination of matter is a residue of precisely the black cat, a frequent symbol of the uncon-
an old propensity for analogical thinking, to the scious in Švankmajer’s films,84 that deviously seems
extent that he calls it the unconscious of scientific to lead the girl’s way down there, and then, at
thinking.80 Hence, the many expressions of the the end of the film, scares her so that she drops
imagination of matter demonstrate that there her hard-earned potatoes and is stuck there for
is an ‘‘alchemist in the engineer.’’81 This means another attempt at fetching them. In this case,
that unlike scientific thinking, the imagination of however, the cat can also be interpreted as an
matter is not applied but strictly anti-utilitarian. inverted, diabolical version of the white rabbit
One telling example is Bachelard’s sharp dismissal from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865), a
of theories that the constellations were invented as figure that would later take on a somewhat more
a means to aid navigation*for him, any utilitarian sinister quality in Švankmajer’s adaptation of the
uses of such pre-scientific ways of understanding book, Alice. The cellar is then also a subterranean
the world have to come after their construction, a wonderland, something that serves to emphasise
mere side effect of the imagination’s desire to infer the many interpretative possibilities inherent in
meaning to the world.82 Bachelard instead regards the film, but also shows that Švankmajer here
the discovery of the constellations as the result of effects an almost archetypal descent into the
the constant search for imaginative meaning, the underworld.
dynamic interpretation of the world that results In Bachelard’s writings, the cellar is closely
from the imagination’s active intrusion upon it. related to the element of earth, as a manifestation
This rhymes well with Švankmajer’s, and sur- of the archetypal image of the cave. In Down to
realism’s, wish to render the world meaningful the Cellar, the cellar is in itself charged with an
through poetic interpretation, and in the light of imaginative force that makes it into a particularly
this, it seems that it is precisely the alchemist potent, modern example of this archetype. It is,
within the engineer that is the contemporary however, important to note that, as Švankmajer
human that Švankmajer wishes to give multi- himself has pointed out, there are culturally spe-
sensory voice to. cific inflections related to the layout of the cellar
For Bachelard, the elements are in fact so and the central place that coal takes in it. Here,
potent that he calls them veritable ‘‘hormones of then, there is a dialectic between the archetypal
the imagination,’’83 by which he means that the and the modern and culturally specific. In line
very awareness of them is enough to incite hordes with this, Bachelard shows how the cave is often
of images. The sensory experience of the elements displayed as simultaneously threatening and com-
is thus merely the starting point for their life in the forting, a place for both nightmares and warm
imagination of matter, where they are continu- reveries.85 The latter dimension could be argued
ously transformed in a dynamic dialectic between to lie dormant in Down to the Cellar, since there is a
reality and the imagination. In Bachelard’s view, definite enchantment to the events that take place,
this dynamic is at work in both the writer, or in no matter how dark.
this case the filmmaker, and the reader, or in this Within this manifestation of earth, Švankmajer
case viewer, so that the elements first infuse the unleashes a series of images that are also related to
poetry and then continue to work through the the element. The scattered earth on the floor, the
receiver. coal in both the man’s bed and the woman’s
How, then, are the elements more specifically kitchen, and the potatoes that grow underground
manifested in Down to the Cellar? The film is most and are kept in the doubly dark interior of the

11
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K. Noheden

cellar and the closed casket are all manifestations is what aligns them so closely with Bachelard’s
of the imagination of earth. The hormonal abil- thinking. Because seen through the writings of
ities of the element are then displayed in the Bachelard, these dynamic images of earth are not
unlikely transformations of matter, substitutions just dependent on the director’s imagination of
of things, and collisions of substances that take matter. They are also likely to activate the viewer’s
place. Švankmajer here also enhances the propen- own associations of the element. Here, the tactility
sity for analogical associations by turning matter of the images only enhances the potential for
itself into the kind of surrealist poetic images that further analogical imaginings. For Bachelard also
André Breton describes as ‘‘flashes from the lost favours images that have a multisensory impact, to
mirror,’’86 images that through analogy clash and the degree that he writes that the ideal image
unite separate phenomena to create a poetic should seduce us through all our senses and even
spark.87 This kind of merging of distant phenom- lead us away from the sense that is most obviously
ena can be seen in the absurd cakes baked with engaged.88 In the resulting realism of the imagin-
coal and eggs, and the bed that is made with coal ary, the subject and object are united,89 and
instead of a mattress and a blanket. Seen through humans are reintegrated with the world through
the imagination of matter, Down to the Cellar, their own analogical imagination of the life of
however, shows that the analogies so valued by matter and the elements. Bachelard’s writings thus
Švankmajer work not only through the poetic forcefully support Švankmajer’s conviction that
images or the fantastic depictions of for instance tactility can activate the imagination.
shoes that suddenly have mouths, but also
through the very locations and the matter of the
everyday as it is estranged and enchanted when Notes
put in dialectical relation with the imagination.
1. Michael Richardson, Surrealism and Cinema
As noted in this chapter, the haptic images and (Oxford: Berg, 2006), 134.
the emphasis on the coarse materiality of the 2. See Vivian Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment
surroundings create a particular sense of touch, and Moving Image Culture (Berkeley: University of
which is enhanced when seen through the pers- California Press, 2004); Laura Marks, The Skin of
pective of the imagination of matter. The melding the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the
Senses (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000).
of substances primarily invites a tactile perception
3. For a discussion of the group’s activities up until
that not only appeals to touch but also activates a 1951, see Lenka Bydzovaká, ‘‘Against the Current:
multisensory imagination. The unlikely merging The Story of the Surrealist Group of Czechoslovakia,’’
of raw eggs and dirt is something most people Papers of Surrealism no. 3 (2005), http://www.
have probably not encountered, yet it’s easy to surrealismcentre.ac.uk/papersofsurrealism/journal3/
imagine the sticky feeling of the resulting dough, acrobat_files/lenka.pdf. See also Krzysztof Fijalkowski
against hands and tongue alike. Here, then, the and Michael Richardson, ‘‘Years of Long Days:
Surrealism in Czechoslovakia,’’ Third Text vol. 10,
film also speaks to the other senses. no. 36 (1996): 1528.
As stated before, Švankmajer is interested in 4. František Dryje, ‘‘Formative Meetings,’’ in Anima
liberating not merely his own imagination but also Animus Animation: Evašvankmajerjan: Between Film
that of the viewer. His tactile experiments largely and Free Expression (Prague: Arbor Vitae, 1997),
consisted of registering the participants’ own 1011.
impressions of the artworks and objects, and the 5. Tereza Stehlı́ková, ‘‘Tangible Territory: Inviting the
Body into the Experience of Moving Image,’’ PhD
associations they derived from them, and so
thesis, Royal College of Art, 2012, 127.
showed the associative potential of touch. The 6. Fijalkowski, ‘‘Invention, Imagination, Interpretation:
mimetic faculty shows one facet of an embodied Collective Activity in the Contemporary Czech and
analogical thinking, which reveals a potential Slovak Surrealist Group,’’ Papers of Surrealism no.
surrealist take on the tactile epistemologies Laura 3 (2005): 67, http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/
Marks theorises. Another part of the answer to papersofsurrealism/journal3/acrobat_files/Fijalkowski.
pdf.
how this works can be found in the very materiality
7. See Fijalkowski, ‘‘Invention, Imagination, Interpre-
of the films, their anchoring of the fantastic in tation,’’ 67; Cathryn Vasseleu, ‘‘Tactile Animation:
raw reality, and its material properties as viewed Haptic Devices and the Švankmajer Touch,’’ Senses
through the logic of the imagination, and this & Society 4, no. 2 (2009): 144.

12
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 The imagination of touch

8. Jan Švankmajer, Hmat a imaginace: Taktilnı́ experi- 25. Breton, ‘‘Second Manifesto of Surrealism’’ (1930),
mentace 19741983 (Prague: Kozoroh, 1994/1983). in Manifestoes of Surrealism, 123124.
For an extended discussion of the book, see 26. Michael Brooke, ‘‘Free Radical,’’ Vertigo Magazine
Vasseleu, ‘‘Tactile Animation,’’ 144148. vol. 3, no. 5 (2007), http://www.closeupfilmcentre.
9. See e.g. Vratislav Effenberger, ‘‘The Raw Cruelty of com/vertigo_magazine/volume-3-issue-5-spring-2007/
Life and the Cynicism of Fantasy,’’ in Cross Currents: free-radical/.
A Yearbook of Central European Culture, vol. 6, 27. Ian Walker, City Gorged with Dreams: Surrealism
ed. Ladislav Matejka (Ann Arbor: University of and Documentary Photography in Interwar Paris
Michigan, 1987), 439. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002),
10. Bruno Solarik, ‘‘Golden Silence,’’ in Other Air: 23. See also Brooke, ‘‘Free Radical’’; Sarah Metcalf,
The Group of Czech-Slovak Surrealists 19902011 ‘‘Black Cats Are Our Unconscious: An Inter-
(Prague: Sdruženı́ Analogonu, 2012), 41. view with Jan Švankmajer,’’ Phosphor: A Surrealist
11. André Breton, ‘‘Surrealism and Painting’’ (1928), in Luminescence no. 3 (2011): 57.
Surrealism and Painting, trans. Simon Watson Taylor 28. Effenberger, ‘‘The Raw Cruelty of Life,’’ 439.
(Boston: MFA Publications, 2002/1965), 46. 29. Peter Hames, ‘‘Interview with Jan Švankmajer,’’ in
12. Breton, Communicating Vessels, trans. Mary Ann The Cinema of Jan Švankmajer: Dark Alchemy, 2nd
Caws and Geoffrey T. Harris (Lincoln: University ed., Peter Hames (London: Wallflower, 2008),
of Nebraska Press, 1997/1932), 86. 117118.
13. Breton, ‘‘The Automatic Message’’ (1934), in Break 30. Quoted in Stehlı́ková, ‘‘Tangible Territory,’’ 127.
of Day, trans. Mary Ann Caws and Mark Polizzotti 31. Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts, 76.
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 143. 32. Ibid., 70.
14. Richardson, ‘‘Afterword,’’ in The Myth of the World: 33. Švankmajer, ‘‘Tactilism,’’ in Švankmajer in Wales:
The Dedalus Book of Surrealism 2, ed. Michael The Communication of Dreams: An Exhibition by Jan
Richardson (Cambridge: Dedalus, 1994), 287288. and Eva Švankmajer (Newtown: Oriel 31, 1992),
15. Švankmajer, ‘‘J. E. Kostelec,’’ in Jan Švankmajer: 45; Vasseleu, ‘‘Tactile Animation,’’ 150. See also
Transmutation of the Senses (Prague: Stedoevropská Dagmar Motycka Weston, ‘‘‘Down to the Cellar’:
galerie a nakladatelstvı́, 2004), 71. The Architectural Setting as an Embodied Topo-
16. Solarik, ‘‘The Walking Abyss: Perspectives on Con- graphy of the Imagination in Two Films by Jan
temporary Czech and Slovak Surrealism,’’ Papers of Švankmajer,’’ Papers of Surrealism no. 9 (2011), 15,
Surrealism no. 3 (2005): 5, http://www.surrealismcentre. http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/papersofsurrealism/
ac.uk/papersofsurrealism/journal3/acrobat_files/Solarik. journal9/acrobat_files/Dagmar%20Weston29_11_11.
pdf. pdf.
17. See e.g. Marks, The Skin of the Film; Paul Stoller, 34. See Jonathan L. Owen, Avant-Garde to New Wave:
Sensuous Scholarship (Philadelphia: University of Czechoslovak Cinema, Surrealism and the Sixties
Pennsylvania Press, 1997). (New York: Berghahn, 2011), 196.
18. Švankmajer, ‘‘The Magic Ritual of Tactile Inaugu- 35. Švankmajer, quoted in Stehlı́ková, ‘‘Tangible
ration,’’ trans. Gaby Dowdell, Afterimage no. 13 Territory,’’ 127.
(1987): 43. 36. This is also in line with Jennifer Barker’s view that
19. See the catalogue Invention, Imagination, Interpreta- stop-motion animation is particularly well suited to
tion: A Retrospective Exhibition of the Group of Czech conjure a sense of tactility. See Jennifer M. Barker,
and Slovak Surrealists (Swansea: Glynn Vivian Art The Tactile Eye: Touch and the Cinematic Experience
Gallery, 1998). I would like to thank Ellie Dawkins (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 136.
at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery for kindly providing 37. Marks, The Skin of the Film, 162163.
me with photocopies of this catalogue. 38. Ibid.
20. Breton, ‘‘Ascendant Sign’’ (1948), in Free Rein, 39. Ibid., 171.
trans. Michel Parmentier and Jacqueline d’Amboise 40. See Antonia Lant, ‘‘Haptical Cinema,’’ October 74
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995/ (1995), 4573.
1953), 105. 41. Stehlikova, ‘‘Tangible Territory,’’ 45.
21. Effenberger, ‘‘Švankmajer on the Fall of the House 42. See Walter Benjamin, ‘‘Surrealism: The Last
of Usher,’’ Afterimage no. 13 (1987): 36. Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia’’ (1929),
22. Alena Nádvornı́ková, ‘‘Surrealist Cognition,’’ Analogon in Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical
no. 4445 (2005): xiiixiv. Writings, ed. Peter Demetz, trans. Edmund Jephcott
23. Effenberger, ‘‘Interpretation as Creative Activity,’’ (New York: Schocken, 2007), 177192.
in Surrealist Group in Czechoslovakia, ‘‘Surrealism 43. Michael Löwy, ‘‘Walter Benjamin and Surrealism:
as a Collective Adventure,’’ special issue, Dunganon The Story of a Revolutionary Spell,’’ Radical Philosophy
no. 4 (n.d [1986?]): n.p. no. 80 (1996): 17.
24. Breton, ‘‘On Surrealism in Its Living Works’’ 44. Ibid., 17.
(1953), in Manifestoes of Surrealism, trans. Richard 45. Margaret Cohen, Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin
Seaver and Helen R. Lane (Ann Arbor: University and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution (Berkeley:
of Michigan Press, 1972), 302303. University of California Press, 1995/1993), 1ff.

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46. Löwy, ‘‘Walter Benjamin and Surrealism,’’ 18. 66. Hansen, Cinema and Experience: Siegfried Kracauer,
47. E.g. in Švankmajer, ‘‘Gestural Sculpture,’’ in Anima Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno (Berkeley:
Animus Animation, 74. University of California Press, 2012), 147.
48. Marks, The Skin of the Film, 81. 67. Cohen, Profane Illumination, 41.
49. Ibid., 140. 68. Hansen, ‘‘Benjamin, Cinema and Experience,’’ 195.
50. Benjamin, ‘‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechan- 69. Hansen, Cinema and Experience, 147.
ical Reproduction’’ (1936), in Illuminations: Essays 70. Benjamin, ‘‘The Doctrine of the Similar,’’ New
and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry German Critique no. 17 (1979): 66.
Zohn (New York: Schocken, 2007), 217251. 71. Hansen, Cinema and Experience, 155.
51. Miriam Hansen, ‘‘Benjamin, Cinema and Experi- 72. Benjamin, ‘‘On the Mimetic Faculty,’’ 334. See also
ence: ‘The Blue Flower in the Land of Technology’,’’ Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter
New German Critique no. 40 (1987): 204. Benjamin and the Arcades Project (Cambridge, Mass.:
52. Hansen, ‘‘Benjamin, Cinema and Experience,’’ MIT Press, 1991), 267.
192194. 73. Breton, ‘‘Surrealism in Its Living Works,’’ 303.
53. Vincent Bounoure et al., ‘‘Hermetic Bird’’ (1987), 74. Richardson, ‘‘Afterword,’’ 287288.
in Surrealism against the Current: Tracts and Declara- 75. Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing, 270.
tions, ed. and trans. Michael Richardson and 76. Cohen, ‘‘The Art of Profane Illumination,’’ Visual
Krzysztof Fijalkowski (London: Pluto, 2001), 79. Anthropology Review vol. 10, no. 1 (1994): 47.
54. Marks, The Skin of the Film, 121. 77. Gaston Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire, trans.
55. Hansen, ‘‘Benjamin, Cinema and Experience,’’ 188. Alan C. M. Ross (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968/
56. Marks, The Skin of the Film, 140. 1938), 3.
57. Fijalkowski, ‘‘Invention, Imagination, Interpretation,’’ 7. 78. A revealing example can be found in his lyrical
58. See Marks, The Skin of the Film, 138145. description of the oneiric beauty, and continued
59. Ibid., 5051. poetic relevance, of alchemy. See Bachelard, Earth
60. Ibid., 138. and Reveries of Repose: An Essay on Images of
61. Realism is, of course, not easily defined. For a Interiority, trans. Mary McAllester Jones (Dallas:
nuanced discussion, see Robert Stam, Reflexivity in Dallas Institute, 2011/1948), 236237.
Film and Literature: From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc 79. Effenberger, ‘‘Švankmajer on The Fall of the House of
Godard (New York: Columbia University Press, Usher,’’ 36.
1992/1985), 1017. 80. Bachelard, Psychoanalysis of Fire, 10.
62. See e.g. Breton, ‘‘Manifesto of Surrealism’’ (1924), 81. Ibid., 4.
in Manifestoes of Surrealism, 8. 82. Bachelard, Air and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagi-
63. Roger Caillois, ‘‘Mimicry and Legendary Psy- nation of Movement, trans. Edith R. Farrell and C.
chasthenia’’ (1935), in The Edge of Surrealism: A Frederick Farrell (Dallas: Dallas Institute, 1988/
Roger Caillois Reader, ed. Claudine Frank, trans. 1943), 175177.
Frank and Camille Naish (Durham: Duke Univer- 83. Ibid., 11.
sity Press, 2003), 91103. 84. Metcalf, ‘‘Black Cats Are Our Unconscious,’’ 58.
64. René Alleau, The Primal Force in Symbol: Under- 85. Bachelard, Earth and Reveries of Repose, 133153.
86. Breton, ‘‘Ascendant Sign,’’ 105.
standing the Language of Higher Consciousness, trans.
87. See also Breton, ‘‘Manifesto of Surrealism,’’ 20.
Ariel Godwin (Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2009/
88. Bachelard, Earth and Reveries of Repose, 60.
1976), 5.
89. Ibid., 66.
65. Benjamin, ‘‘On the Mimetic Faculty,’’ in Reflections,
336.

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