Disformations: Affects, Media, Literature

169 Pages·2021·6.327 MB·English

by  Tomáš Jirsa

Disformations
thinking|media
Series Editors:
Bernd Herzogenrath
Patricia Pisters
DISFORMATIONS
Affects, Media, Literature
Tomáš Jirsa
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA
29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland
BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are
trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in the United States of America 2021
Copyright © Tomáš Jirsa, 2021
For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p. x constitute an
extension of this copyright page.
Cover design by www.ironicitalics.com
Cover image courtesy of the Fondo Emilio Uranga, Departamento de Filosofía,
Universidad de Guanajuato
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
Bloomsbury Publishing Inc does not have any control over, or responsibility
for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses
given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and
publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites
have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jirsa, Tomáš, 1983- author.
Title: Disformations: affects, media, literature / Tomáš Jirsa.
Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. | Series: Thinking media
| Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020033918 | ISBN 978-1-5013-6234-7 (hardback) | ISBN
978-1-5013-6233-0 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-5013-6232-3 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Form (Philosophy) in art. | Form (Philosophy) in
literature. | Form (Philosophy) | Affect (Psychology) in art. | Affect
(Psychology) in literature. | Affect (Psychology)
Classification: LCC NX650.F67 J57 2021 | DDC 701/.8--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033918
ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-6234-7
ePDF: 978-1-5013-6232-3
eBook: 978-1-5013-6233-0
Series: Thinking Media
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com
and sign up for our newsletters.
To Veronika and Zoe

CONTENTS
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments x
WHEN FORMS FALL APART: AN INTRODUCTION 1
Disformations Open Form to New Formations 5
Formal Disturbances Are Grounded in the Affective
Operations that Rewrite Form 10
Aesthetic Forms Think with and through Intermedia Figures 15
Chapter 1
FACING THE FACELESS: MODERNISM, WAR, AND
THE WORK OF DISFIGURATION 23
Shattering the Face in Modernism 25
Toward the Affective Work of the Formless 33
Inflicting Wounds upon Language: Gueules Cassées 37
Rewriting the Faceless Experience 41
Chapter 2
CURVES THAT BREAK THE FRAME: ON THE RELENTLESS
ABSORPTION OF THE WALLPAPER PATTERN 43
Nabokov’s Unruly Geometry of Wallpaper 45
Rococo, or the Broken Frame 48
Boredom, Fascination, and the Screen of Hallucination 54
For a Morphological Reading of Gilman’s Wallpaper 58
Between Excess and Absence: The Patterns of Madness 63
Chapter 3
HOW TEXT BECOMES DIATEXT: GEMINI AND
PERFORMATIVITY OF THE GARBAGE DUMP 71
Speaking for Rubbish: Tournier’s Dandy Garbage Man
versus Waste Studies 73
The Media Archaeology of Garbage 77
Reading a Figure, Trashing the Subject 81
From Metatext to Diatext 86
viii Contents
Chapter 4
THE PORTRAIT OF ABSENCE, OR WHEN THE EMPTY
CHAIRS GET CROWDED 91
Chairs without Sitters: Weiner, Kosuth, and the Missing
Subject 93
Tracing the Present Absence with van Gogh, Derrida, and
Nancy 98
Chairing Not Sharing, Shifting Not Sitting: A Media Swap
in Ionesco’s The Chairs 105
Decentered, Not Vanished 110
CODA: AFFECTIVE COMPOUNDS MAKE A MEDIA EXCESS 113
Notes 119
Bibliography 130
Index 144
FIGURES
2.1 Jacques de Lajoue, Second livre de tableaux et rocailles, 1734.
Museum für angewandte Kunst (MAK), Wien 49
2.2 Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, Livre d’ornemens, 1734.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 51
2.3 Johann Esaias Nilson, Der liebe Morgen, c. 1770. Museum für
angewandte Kunst (MAK), Wien 53
2.4 A screen capture from Ingmar Bergman, Through a Glass
Darkly (1961) 56
2.5 Still from Michal Pěchouček, Pram Room (2004). Pater
Noster Video Stories. Jiri Svestka Gallery 64
2.6 Balthus, La chambre turque, 1963–1966. Musée Nationale
d’Art Moderne, Paris 66
2.7 Jan Šerých, Kubrick’s Carpet, 2005. Dům U Kamenného
zvonu, Prague 67
3.1 A screen capture from Astra Taylor’s Examined Life (2008) 72
3.2 A screen capture from Jiří Menzel’s Larks on a String (1969) 84
4.1 Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965. Museum
of Modern Art (MoMA), New York 97
4.2 Vincent van Gogh, La Chaise de Vincent, 1888. National
Gallery, London 100
4.3 Vincent van Gogh, Le Fauteuil de Gauguin, 1888. Van Gogh
Museum, Amsterdam 101
4.4 Hermann Bigelmayr, Lehrstuhl—leerer Stuhl, 2005.
Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar 111