Camera obscura, camera lucida : essays in honor of Annette Michelson

297 Pages·2003·1.675 MB·English

by  Michelson, Annette, Allen, Richard, Turvey, Malcolm

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Annette Michelson’s contribution to art and film
criticism over the last three decades has been un-
paralleled. This volume honors Michelson’s unique
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legacy with original essays by some of the many film A
CCUULLTTUURREE M CCUULLTTUURREE
scholars influenced by her work. Some continue her
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efforts to develop historical and theoretical frame- R
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works for understanding modernist art, while others IN TRANSITION IN TRANSITION
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practice her form of interdisciplinary scholarship in
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relation to avant-garde and modernist film. The intro- S
C
duction investigates and evaluates Michelson’s work
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itself. All in some way pay homage to her extraordi- R
A
nary contribution and demonstrate its continued cen- ,

trality to the field of art and film criticism. C
A
M
Richard Allen is Associ- E
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ate Professor of Cinema A

Studies at New York Uni- L
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versity. Malcolm Turvey
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teaches Film History at I
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Sarah Lawrence College. A

They recently collaborated

in editing Wittgenstein, A
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Theory and the Arts(Lon-
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don: Routledge, 2001). E
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CAMERA OBSCURA
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Essays in Honor of Annette Michelson
ISBN90-5356-494-2
EDITED BY
RICHARD ALLEN
9 789053 564943 MALCOLM TURVEY
AAmmsstteerrddaamm UUnniivveerrssiittyy PPrreessss
Amsterdam University Press
WWW.AUP.NL
Camera Obscura, Camera Lucida

Camera Obscura, Camera Lucida:
Essays in Honor of Annette Michelson
Edited by Richard Allen and Malcolm Turvey
Amsterdam University Press
Front cover illustration:2001: A Space Odyssey. Courtesy of Photofest
Cover design: Kok Korpershoek, Amsterdam
Lay-out:japes, Amsterdam
isbn9053564942(paperback)
nur652
© Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam,2003
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved
above,nopartofthisbookmaybereproduced,storedinorintroducedintoa
retrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans(electronic,me-
chanical,photocopying,recordingorotherwise)withoutthewrittenpermis-
sion of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.
Contents
Acknowledgements 7
Preface 9
Rosalind Krauss
Introduction 13
Malcolm Turvey
The Logic of an Illusion 35
Notes on the Genealogy of Intellectual Cinema
Mikhail Iampolski
Narcissistic Machines and Erotic Prostheses 51
Allen S. Weiss
Loïe Fuller and the Art of Motion 75
Body, Light, Electricity and the Origins of Cinema
Tom Gunning
Visitings of Awful Promise 91
The Cinema Seen from Etna
Stuart Liebman
Transfiguring the Urban Gray 109
László Moholy-Nagy’s Film Scenario ‘Dynamic of the Metropolis’
Edward Dimendberg
Eisenstein’s Philosophy of Film 127
Noël Carroll
6 Camera Obscura, Camera Lucida
Knight’s Moves 147
Peter Wollen
Hitchcock and Narrative Suspense 163
Theory and Practice
Richard Allen
From the Air 183
A Genealogy of Antonioni’s Modernism
Noa Steimatsky
Dr. Strangelove 215
or: the Apparatus of Nuclear Warfare
William G. Simon
Collection and Recollection 231
On Film Itineraries and Museum Walks
Guiliana Bruno
Afterward: A Matter of Time 261
Analog Versus Digital, the Perennial Question of Shifting Technology
and Its Implications for an Experimental Filmmaker’s Odyssey
Babette Mangolte
Select Bibliography 275
List of Contributors 283
Index 286
Acknowledgements
Anumber of individuals have made this book possible. The editors are pro-
foundlygratefultoDeanMarySchmidtCampbellandTheTischSchoolofthe
Arts,NewYorkUniversity,forprovidingagranttounderwritepublicationof
thisvolume.ChrisStraayer,ChairoftheCinemaStudiesDepartmentatNew
York University also gave unwavering support to our endeavor. Thomas
Elsaesserrescuedthevolumebyhiswillingnesstogivespacetoafestschriftin
hisseriesatAmsterdamUniversityPress.Withouthiscommitment,itwould
nothavebeenpublished.FinallywewishtothankSuzanneBogmanandJaap
Wagenaar for shepherding the book through publication, and Lucas Hilder-
brand for his editorial assistance in the preparation of the manuscript.

Preface
Rosalind Krauss
AnnetteMichelsonreturnedtoNewYorkfromFranceinthemid-1960swith
an intimate knowledge of French language and culture. This meant, among
other things, that a whole world of intellectual speculation was open to her
thatremainedclosedtolesslinguisticallygiftedAmericancolleagues.Inthe
late’60s,thetranslationbusinesshadnotyetgeareduptoprocesstheworkof
Barthes,Saussure,Lévi-Strauss,andDerridaintoEnglish;andsotheStructur-
alistreconceptionoflanguage–inallitssubtletyandelegance–hadnotyet
impactedtheworldofaestheticdiscourse.In1970,inArtandtheStructuralist
Perspective,herlectureattheGuggenheimMuseum,Michelsonspokeoftheel-
egance and reduction of Structuralist diagrams in an effort to fuse cultural
practiceandthisnewdomainofconceptualization.Inclosing,shepassedto
whatshesawasthedisappointmentofStructuralism’shostilitytoabstractart,
a philistinism unworthy of the movement’s extraordinarily formal thinkers.1
Michelson’scriticalprojecthad,fromherentryintoNewYork’sthrivingart
world,committeditselftothosepainters,sculptors,anddancerswhosework
wouldhavebeenmostrecalcitranttotheseParisianheroeseventhough,inher
eyes,itshouldinfacthavebeenmostavailabletotheproponentsofsystem,
exchange, and the formalization of meaning.
In January 1967, Michelson eagerly reviewed an exhibition that her col-
leaguesatArtforumshunnedfromasenseofitsdifficulty,itsclosureagainst
theuniverseofdiscourse.Thiswas‘10x10,’anexhibitionattheDwanGallery
oftheworkofAgnesMartin,RobertSmithson,RobertMorris,CarlAndre,Jo
Baer, Ad Reinhardt, and Michael Steiner – the burgeoning movement of
Minimalism which Michelson had embraced immediately upon her arrival.
Herreviewspokeofthisdifficultyandthewayithadproducedthevocabu-
laryofdismissalintheearlycriticalliterature,aswordssuchas‘rejective,’‘ag-
gressive,’and‘boring’wereappliedtoit.Herassessmentofthesituationwas
quicklystated:‘Theproblem,asIseeit,istheincreasinglyurgentnecessityof
someconceptualorphilosophicalframeworkwithinwhichcriticismcanpro-
pose a comprehension of the dynamics of art history and of art making.’2
Theopportunitytocraftsuchaconceptualframeworkcamein1969when
MichelsonwascommissionedtowritethetextforRobertMorris’smajorexhi-
bitionattheCorcoranMuseum,andthecentralproponentofMinimalismhad
tobeintroducedtoanaudiencewhowouldprobablyfindhiswork,indeed,