This short text is a brief summary of my PhD dissertation that I finished in January 2024 at Koblenz University and Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences. The full dissertation was published as issue 20 in the edition “Medien- und Gestaltungsästhetik” at transcript in late autumn of 2024.
Maschinen und Atmosphären:
Zur Ästhetik des Virtuellen bei E.T.A. Hoffmann
In welchem Zusammenhang steht »das Virtuelle« mit Poetiken, die in der Romantik konturiert wurden? Andreas Sieß zeigt, dass sich die ästhetischen Vorstellungen dessen, was »das Virtuelle« ist, nicht nur bereits um 1800 konsolidierten, sondern dass die (bild-)ästhetischen Maßstäbe, die heute grundlegend für moderne Anwendungen der Virtual Reality sind, bereits damals Gegenstand von Aushandlungen waren. Anhand der Begriffe »Maschine« und »Atmosphäre« verhandelt er zwei gegenläufige Stoßrichtungen des Virtuellen, deren dialektisches Spiel eine neue Perspektive auf Fragestellungen zu der Gestaltung von gegenwärtigen virtuellen Medien anbietet.
Main aspects and hypotheses
The next paragraphs are a tour-de-force of the main aspects of my dissertation. Since most sources originally appear in German, I have included an English translation alongside the original quotation, wherever neccessary.
Although Virtual Reality as a hardware device was endorsed with plenty of research and development funds (mainly by Meta/Facebook) it never disrupted (or at least penetrated) our day-to-day media consumption. With exception of a few niche genres and applications, Virtual Reality seems to be on the brink of irrelevance. Why is that?
We need to look deeper: what is “virtuality”?
Original quote:
»[Das Virtuelle muss] alternative Realitätsdimensionen […] schaffen: keine falschen realen Objekte, sondern wahre virtuelle Objekte, für welche die Frage der realen Realität ganz und gar gleichgültig ist.«
-> Esposito 1998: 270
Translation:
[The virtual must] constitute alternative dimensions of reality […]: rather than false real objects, it offers true virtual objects, to which the question of ‘real’ reality is of no consequence.
In layman’s terms: This effectively means that we should not strive to build a facsimile of reality when developing content and interaction patterns for the virtual. Instead, we need to establish a genuine new reality, were the links to the physical reality are as weak as possible. Above, I quoted a text by Elena Esposito for my argument, but the notion that “the virtual” is a certain quality of a thing is much older:
Original quote:
»Alle jemals stattfindenden Veränderungen sind längst von Anbeginn her in jeder Monade oder vielmehr in dem ihr von Gott eingepflanzten Veränderungsgesetze virtuell vorhanden, und laufen wie aufgezogene Uhrfedern nacheinander ab.
Auf diese Weise wird die ganze reale Welt mit allen wechselnden und bleibenden Zuständen das Abbild einer idealen Welt von Gesetzen in Gottes Verstande.«
-> Leibniz 1847 [1714]: 50
Translation:
All changes that ever occur have been virtually present from the very beginning within every monad—or rather, within the law of change implanted in it by God—and they unfold sequentially like wound-up clock springs. In this way, the entire real world, with all its shifting and permanent states, becomes the reflection of an ideal world of laws within the divine intellect.
Following Leibniz, virtus can be broadly translated as ‘force.’ This suggests that a genuinely virtual object must convey the same ‘force’ as its physical counterpart. This occurs not through the mere imitation (‘mimicry’) of physical properties to create a facsimile or replica, but rather through the transposition of the object’s ‘aura’ or ‘atmosphere’ (in the Benjaminian sense). Consequently, the aesthetics of the virtual must be clearly distinguished from the aesthetics of simulation.
This, however, poses a problem: if we are no longer to mimic reality, what serves as the basis for a ‘Gestalt’ or design language for the virtual? My thesis contends that a re-engagement with historical theory is instructive here. In my dissertation, I demonstrate that Romantic poetics—and particularly the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann—offers an aesthetic theory of production and reception that can be effectively operationalized for the virtual.
Hoffmann and the virtual
Broadly (!) speaking, Hoffmann’s poetics feature three characteristcs that are also highly relevant for the virtual:
- Visuality
- Technical artifacts
- Interactivity
Starting with the aspect of visuality: Hoffmann’s notion that his texts should be interpreted as living pictures is well documented. E.g. his early work Fantasiestücke was subitled “in Callot’s manier” (= in the style of Callot), where “Callot” refers to visual artist Jaques Callot and his specific style that consisted of detailed opulence on the one hand, but also almost abstract minimalism on the other.
Hoffmann played also with the metaphor of technical artifacts in his works. Machines were an integral part of his stories, but also his texts should be interpreted as a (non-deterministic) machine. This deliberate play needs some explanation. E.g. Hoffmann often included visual machines in his works, such as Laterna Magicas, Camera Obscuras or mirror telescopes in his narratives. At first glance these machines seem to depict reality (i.e. follow an aesthetic style that could be described as “simulation”). BUT: Hoffmann uses the specific qualities and defects of these machines as stylistic devices.
In my dissertation I explored these Verfremdungseffekte (alienation effect) not just on a theoretical level, but also via experimental and applied research. Let’s start with the mirror telescope with a quote of Der Sandmann:
Original quote:
»Noch im Leben war ihm kein Glas vorgekommen, das die Gegenstände so rein, scharf und deutlich dicht vor die Augen rückte. […] Doch wie er immer schärfer und schärfer durch das Glas hinschaute, war es, als gingen in Olimpia’s Augen feuchte Mondesstrahlen auf. Es schien, als wenn nun erst die Sehkraft entzündet würde; immer lebendiger und lebendiger flammten die Blicke.«
-> Hoffmann 2009 [1816]: 36
Translation:
In all his experience, no optical instrument had ever rendered objects with such purity, precision, and clarity in immediate proximity to the eye. […] However, as his scrutiny through the lens intensified, it seemed as if humid moonbeams dawned within Olimpia’s eyes. It was as if her power of sight were only then being kindled; her looks flared with an ever-growing sense of animation.
The main character looks at his object of desire (which is, by the way, also an Automat, a robotic machine) using a telescope. When we compare the image qualities between a mirror telescope, we can observe the following:
Experiment (Work in Progress)
The following playground is currently a work in progress. It represents an attempt to provide an experimental and playful approach to fundamental theses that were not only central to the discourse around 1800 but also relevant to the negotiation of the virtual in Romantic poetics.
The central quote is presented by Hoffmann in a text initially published as a music-aesthetic essay within a review of a Beethoven symphony. He later incorporated this text into a fictional work, specifically the Kreisleriana in the Fantasiestücke. Hoffmann writes:
Original quote:
Wie ästhetische Messkünstler im Shakspeare [sic!] oft über gänzlichen Mangel wahrer Einheit und inneren Zusammenhanges geklagt haben, und nur dem tiefern Blick ein schöner Baum, Knospen und Blätter, Blüthen und Früchte aus einem Keim treibend, erwächst: so entfaltet auch nur ein sehr tiefes Eingehen in die innere Structur Beethovenscher Musik die hohe Besonnenheit des Meisters.
Hoffmann 1810: Spalte 6341
Translation:
Just as aesthetic measurers often lament a complete lack of true unity and inner coherence in Shakespeare, and yet, to the deeper gaze, a beautiful tree grows, sprouting buds and leaves, blossoms and fruits from a single seed: so too does a very deep engagement with the inner structure of Beethoven’s music reveal the master’s profound deliberation.
Particularly intriguing is the metaphor of the tree, which emerges through a deep exploration of the structure of a text (or a musical score). In this instance, Hoffmann also references—at least in its Gestalt (i.e. its form)—the symbol of the arabesque, which Friedrich Schlegel introduces to Romantic discourse. Although the Romantics use the arabesque as a metaphor, examining the ’design‘ of arabesques proves interesting. Here, I have included a contemporary example drawn from an architectural theoretical work from 1752.
A central motif of Romanticism was the notion of readers as “extended authors”2. This concept posits that the “actual” (i.e. the historical) author provides merely an initial affordance, which readers then synthesize into autonomous and highly subjective works of art. Romantic authors employ a variety of metaphors to describe this configuration of the text. For instance, Eichendorff writes of a “Jacob’s ladder”3 that the text offers to the reader, which the reader ultimately must ascend on their own. Conversely, Hoffmann speaks of “magical preparations”4 from which an enchanted world can arise.
This indicates that the text merely serves as an initial substrate, from which a work of art emerges through reception. In my dissertation, I argue that this imbues the text with a potential that can be regarded as “the virtual.” As I explicitly engage with literature around 1800, I also employ a definition of the virtual as conceptualized by Leibniz.
Original quote:
Alle jemals stattfindenden Veränderungen sind längst von Anbeginn her in jeder Monade oder vielmehr in dem ihr von Gott eingepflanzten Veränderungsgesetze virtuell vorhanden, und laufen wie aufgezogene Uhrfedern nacheinander ab. Auf diese Weise wird die ganze reale Welt mit allen wechselnden und bleibenden Zuständen das Abbild einer idealen Welt von Gesetzen in Gottes Verstande.
-> Leibniz 1847: 505
Translation:
All changes that ever occur have been virtually present from the very beginning within every monad—or rather, within the law of change implanted in it by God—and they unfold sequentially like wound-up clock springs. In this way, the entire real world, with all its shifting and permanent states, becomes the reflection of an ideal world of laws within the divine intellect.
It becomes evident that the Romantics engage with the motif of infinity: since each text generates a new and genuinely individual work of art with every act of reception, as Hoffmann suggested in his review of Beethoven, a text unfolds into a sprawling tree of plural possibilities. This “unlimited diversity”67 is thus already implanted in every textual “preparation”.
However, it remains to be examined, especially in light of Leibniz’s view that God implants these laws of change in monads (or here: texts), that the Romantics aim for a scenario where there is no singular “creator”/author of texts. Instead, the collective of readers assumes the role of creators, ultimately writing Leibniz’s laws of change themselves. The implicit ideal of the Romantic work of art, therefore, is that it does not take on any form or format of fixed media but rather strives for immediacy8 by existing solely in the subject’s mind.9
Bringing all these aspects together, I consistently envisioned a “mathematical formula” as the initial “seed” while writing my dissertation. As Hoffmann suggests, from this seed, a tree should emerge through deep engagement with the textual substrate or structure. This tree is characterized by its branching into an infinite diversity, thereby achieving an infinite, perpetuating, and recursive depth of reflection. This metaphor can also be visualized, therefore I have attempted to explore this concept visually in the following experiment. With this small tool, I aim to replicate what the Romantics might have meant by suggesting that from a tiny initial seed, a tree emerges, which takes on a new form with each act of reception. The formulas can be edited, and the recursion depth—that is, “how deeply to penetrate the structure”—can be freely determined.