{"title":"Critique of Flowers: The Exigency of Life in the Era of Its Technical Reproducibility","authors":"Cassandra Guan","doi":"10.1162/OCTO_A_00415","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n Need, as an epigenetic concept, originated with Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, for whom it referred to the pressure of circumstances that compel animals to develop new organs in the course of evolution. It reappeared in twentieth-century science as the somatic disequilibrium that Sigmund Freud, following Psycho-Lamarckian biologists, first called “the need of life” (die Not des Lebens) and then “the drives” (Trieb). The invention of time-lapse cinematography around 1900, initially as an optical instrument in the experimental study of plant physiology, visibly enlarged the epigenetic paradigm: Plants were suddenly perceived as agential beings, attached to the physical environment not by their roots, but rather by their needs and activities. The disquieting impression of responsive behavior became the selling point of the BASF-commissioned nitrogen-fertilizer commercial Miracle of Flowers (1926), a film celebrated by Rudolf Arnheim as “the most fantastic, thrilling, and beautiful picture ever made.” This article interrogates the sovereignty of need in epigenesis, using Miracle of Flowers as a case study. Through a close reading of the animal-like organisms in this film and the emotional reactions they elicited, need is reimagined as a maladaptive force embodied in technical media that tethers unhappy individuals to punishing environments.","PeriodicalId":51557,"journal":{"name":"OCTOBER","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2021-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"OCTOBER","FirstCategoryId":"1092","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1162/OCTO_A_00415","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Need, as an epigenetic concept, originated with Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, for whom it referred to the pressure of circumstances that compel animals to develop new organs in the course of evolution. It reappeared in twentieth-century science as the somatic disequilibrium that Sigmund Freud, following Psycho-Lamarckian biologists, first called “the need of life” (die Not des Lebens) and then “the drives” (Trieb). The invention of time-lapse cinematography around 1900, initially as an optical instrument in the experimental study of plant physiology, visibly enlarged the epigenetic paradigm: Plants were suddenly perceived as agential beings, attached to the physical environment not by their roots, but rather by their needs and activities. The disquieting impression of responsive behavior became the selling point of the BASF-commissioned nitrogen-fertilizer commercial Miracle of Flowers (1926), a film celebrated by Rudolf Arnheim as “the most fantastic, thrilling, and beautiful picture ever made.” This article interrogates the sovereignty of need in epigenesis, using Miracle of Flowers as a case study. Through a close reading of the animal-like organisms in this film and the emotional reactions they elicited, need is reimagined as a maladaptive force embodied in technical media that tethers unhappy individuals to punishing environments.
需要,作为一个表观遗传学概念,起源于让-巴蒂斯特·拉马克,对他来说,它指的是环境的压力,迫使动物在进化过程中发育新的器官。它在20世纪的科学中再次出现,作为西格蒙德·弗洛伊德(Sigmund Freud)继精神拉马克生物学家之后,首先称之为“生命的需要”(die Not des Lebens),然后称之为”驱动力”(Trieb)的身体不平衡。1900年左右,延时摄影技术的发明,最初是作为植物生理学实验研究的一种光学仪器,明显扩大了表观遗传学范式:植物突然被认为是能动的生物,不是通过它们的根,而是通过它们的需求和活动与物理环境相连。反应性行为的令人不安的印象成为巴斯夫委托制作的氮肥商业片《花的奇迹》(1926)的卖点,这部电影被鲁道夫·阿恩海姆誉为“有史以来最奇妙、最激动人心、最美丽的画面”。通过仔细阅读这部电影中类似动物的生物及其引发的情绪反应,需求被重新想象为一种不适应的力量,体现在技术媒体中,将不快乐的人束缚在惩罚性的环境中。
期刊介绍:
At the forefront of art criticism and theory, October focuses critical attention on the contemporary arts and their various contexts of interpretation: film, painting, music, media, photography, performance, sculpture, and literature. Examining relationships between the arts and their critical and social contexts, October addresses a broad range of readers. Original, innovative, provocative, each issue presents the best, most current texts by and about today"s artistic, intellectual, and critical vanguard.