This article was originally published in German in: Kerstin Plüm (editor),
The first part of this was published in
Certain basic features of Henri Bergson’s philosophy of life, which was of central importance for Eggeling in particular, become clearly visible in
Little is known about the relationship between Eggeling and Mies. However, it can be assumed that there was a personal relationship between the two: on the occasion of the first Eggeling exhibition after the Second World War, Mies wrote a short catalogue article.
What they also had in common was their interest in Bergson. For Eggeling, Bergson’s thinking seemed to have been of central importance, probably ever since his stay in Paris from 1911 to 1915. His notebook is filled with quotations from
Interestingly, the underlines are in the passage in which Bergson described a vortex of dust that is perceived by the human eye as the “persistence of [its] form,” thus appearing more like a “thing” than as “progress.”
The central role of film in
In Hellerau, it was certainly the
Of particular importance for the festival hall was its active light, which was produced by a lighting system consisting of 3,000 lamps specially patented by Salzmann and built by Siemens-Schuckert. Behind a translucent fabric cladding impregnated with wax, stretched as a permeable membrane over all four walls and the ceiling, there were hidden light elements whose luminous intensity could be adjusted as required .
As von Salzmann wrote, the “illuminated room” became a “luminous room.”
Appia thus used the means of architecture and modern lighting technology to implement his theoretical demand for moving light, which had already been developed in the late nineteenth century. In contrast to stage painting, this is able “to convey the eternally changing image of the world of appearances fully and vividly, indeed in its most expressive form.”
The recurring discursive patterns from
There are some indications that Mies knew the festival hall very well. Not only is it probable that Ada Bruhn took part in the performances of Gluck’s opera
The light wall made of opaque milk glass in the Barcelona Pavilion (1929), which Mies intended to be the only light source, also seems to have had a similar effect on visitors as the rhythmic light space in Hellerau. As with Appia and von Salzmann, light loses its function as a means of making the world of objects visible and rather becomes an “expressive element” that stands in contrast to the visually recognizable.
This desubjectification effect seemed to have been precisely intended in the Barcelona Pavilion. Ruegenberg later described that the light wall had to be turned off shortly after the opening of the exhibition: the visitors, who perceived themselves as “silhouettes,” perceived the light as “psychologically unpleasant.”
The answer to the question of how Mies became a “fighter for film” can thus be found in those attempts to understand cinema as a practice of alternative thinking and creation. His interest in cin ema was ultimately an interest in images - and these, according to Deleuze, are less a reflection of the world than the key to understanding subjectivity and our relationship with the world. What Richter and Eggeling’s films and the rhythmic light room in Hellerau have in common with Mies’s architecture is that they did not aim to record and reproduce an image of reality, but instead to unite the collective’s perceptive
“Eggeling was one of the lonely greats, thought Lionardo, as he said ‘He does not return to those who are tied to a star,’”
Letter from Eggeling to Mies. February 15, 1924. Box 1, Folder E. The Papers of
Letter from Mies to the Ministry of Arts, Science and Education, August 11, 1925.
Mies owned editions of Wilhelm Dilthey’s
Mary Wigman, Interview with Ludwig Glaeser, tape recording, 13.9, 1972,
See Franz Schulze,
Seidl indicates 3,000 as the number of lamp elements. Other sources speak of 10,000.
Thus, approximately one tenth of the total construction costs for the Festspielhaus (800,000 marks) was used for the lighting system.
Adolphe Appia,
Alexander von Salzmann, “Licht Belichtung und Beleuchtung: Bemerkungen zur Beleuchtungsanlage des Grossen Saales der Dalcroze-Schule,” in
“Cette éducation devra régler les rapports de l‘espace et de la durée [...].” Jaques- Dalcroze, Émile, “De la foule et du geste au théâtre,” Tribune de Génève (23 April 1913). In a later essay, Jaques-Dalcroze extended his argument to the cinemato graph. This could contribute “superior effects” to the education of the body, the aim of which was to develop relationships between “dynamics and time, dynamics and space.” Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, “L'art et le cinématographe,” Tribune de Génève (5 March 1921), 5.
Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, “Schularbeit und Schulfest,” in
Ruegenberg later remembered that Mies’s daughters used the empty room as a playroom and scribbled on its white walls. Interview with Sergius Ruegenberg, tape recording. Mies van der Rohe: Research Papers, CCA.
Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, “Was Rhythmische Gymnastik Ihnen gibt und was sie von ihnen fordert » in
“Uns fiel auf, dass nämlich die Menschen, die davor waren, als Silhouetten im Raum standen oder sich bewegten, was sehr unangenehm psychologisch war. […] Die Spanier, die haben das nicht gewusst und die fanden das nicht günstig und es ist nicht wiederholt worden nachher. Aber interessant war überhaupt, dass er dies Problem so angefasst hat und so radikal auch gemacht hat.” [It struck us that the people who were in front of them stood or moved as silhouettes in space, which was very unpleasant psychologically. (...) The Spaniards, they didn’t know that and they didn’t find it convenient and it wasn’t repeated afterwards. But it was interest ing that he touched this problem in this way and did it so radically.] Interview with Sergius Ruegenberg, tape recording. Mies van der Rohe: Research Papers, CCA. In terestingly, Siegfried Kracauer used the exact same metaphor of the disembodied silhouette for his article on the Werkbund exhibition The Apartment as in his description of Mies and Lilly Reich’s glass room. Mies himself re peatedly placed black silhouettes in his drawings (see note 27; interview with Ruegenberg, Mies van der Rohe: Research Papers, CCA.
Justus Bier, “Mies van der Rohes Reichspavillon in Barcelona,”
Innervation is an incorporation of the world into the body. Benjamin writes about yoga, hashish, etc. Emphasizing the neuro-physiological character and the contrast of innervation with visual perception, Ben jamin uses the example of the child playing in the magical world of imagination when dealing with things and mixed materials in a state in which creation and reception are consistent. See
“...What is lost in the withering of semblance and the decay of the aura in works of art is matched by a huge gain in the scope for play [Spiel- Raum]. This space for play is widest in film. In film, the element of sem blance bas been entirely displaced by the element of play.” Walter Benja min, The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty and Thomas Y. Levin (eds.), (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2008): 48-49.
Hans Richter “G,”