Preface

5 Malicious Houses 211 Fromtelevision cartoonstovirtual architectures and from 2-D imaging tech-
Animismand Animosity in GermanArchitecture and nologies to 3-Dlogosfloating in space,we evolve anddissolve in a computer
Film from Mies to Murnau (re) generatedculture thatis increasingly possessed by the spirit of animation.
This book attempts to locate the origins of contemporary animatedculture
6 Daphne’sLegacy —263 by inquiring into discourses of simulated movement andinorganic life that
Architecture, Psychoanalysis, andPetrification
evolvedfromthe analogously vivifiedterrain of the precedingfin desiécle.
Founded upon the “enslaved” columns of Vitruvius, incorporated in
Renaissance doctrines of proportion, echoedin classical theories of physi-
Notes 319
ognomy andcaractére, and subjectified in formulations ofempathy theory
Index 363
in nineteenth-century psychological aesthetics, discussions of pneumatism,
Platesfollow page 318
spiritism, or the animismofforms have beenimplicitly central in art andar-
chitectural discourses via the analogicalrelation to the human bodyand,in-
creasingly,its inner agency, the soul. Starting, however, with the physiological
conceptionof the sublimein the eighteenth century, such bodily metaphors
mutated fromexternal morphological correspondencesto inner pathological
symptomsafflicting the organisms of statues, buildings, and modern metrop-
olises. It is withinthis shifting groundof fin-de-siécle Europe thattheartistic
drive, Alois Riegl’s all-encompassing Kunstiwollen, presented an ambiguous
inflection that marks the shift from empathy theory to what Wilhelm Wor-
ringer in his 1907 dissertation, Abstraction and Empathy, prophetically calls
“the uncanny pathos whichattaches to the animationofthe inorganic.’ ‘The
main argumentpresented in my own account is that empathy, the ability to
identify with the objects of the external world, was not erasedbut repressed
by modernist subjects; thus, it had to return metamorphically projected, ob-
jectified, and finally reified in the inorganic form ofthe animistic artifacts of
twentieth-century modernity.
 OE Wye EXHEANAL Wonto
— TE THUAN As OSTLN
oeeecr.
‘This research was provoked by anabiding contradiction: while ourrela-
tionship to objects has evidently changed,the way wetalk about themhasnot.
Fetishism, the uncanny, and now animationdisclose anaflinity with objects
thatis always contested. Objects and subjects appearas the epigones ofan un-
familiar kinship: they may now becloser than ever, yet their communicationis
stalledin the sametypifiedrolesofartifacts andusers, images andspectators,
or buildings and occupants. Without inventing new terms, this book shows
how our renewed deployment ofolder ones, such as animation, may have in
fact created new communicative possibilities that essentially undermine the
subject-object divide. Theultimate objective of this study, then,is to identify a
vital epistemological shift in the status ofobjects that occurred during the turn
of the previous century and has remainedwith usever since.
One could indeed describe the fin de siécle as the time whenartifacts
start having cataclysmic effects on people. Real andtextual subjects collapse
at the sight of these new mesmerizing objects. Althoughglacial andinorganic,
modernartifacts are radiant andelectric; they emanate magnetic powers and
vibrate with energy,life, and desire of their own. Inall their metallic coldness
andaustere sublimity, the industrial artifacts of the early twentieth century
donot lack either pathos orsexual appeal. Fueling this erotic capacityis what
Worringerdescribes as “the intensification ofa resistance,” a traumatic reac-
tion provokedby the hostility of the external world, which the threatened
modernist ego feels compelledto fetishistically displace upon inanimate ob-
jects. Onthe other hand, by constantly investing objects with psychic powers,
modernsubjects gradually renouncetheir ownsubjectivity. Asin the awaken-
ing of infantile sexuality, the issue of agency becomes mysterious andinexpli-
cable: “Things are happening tous, and we don’t know where they're coming
from!” Actions andobjects or causes andeffects are liquidated into abstract
stuff, lowing andswelling. Suchis the “landscapeeffect” of animation created
by leveling the verticality of the humansubject onto the horizontal plane of
materialeffects —a thick tapestry of intertwinedassociations withno essential
distinction betweenpoints of action andforces of motivation behindanevent.
‘The animationof the inorganic promotedby Worringer is thenessentially
an act of transgression; it heralds the infusion oflife in a domain to which
the animate did not formerly belong. Turn-of-the-century monists, such as
Ernst Haeckel, discovered that inorganic materials, including crystals and
other mineral substances, possess sensation and memory, andthus ought to
be granted a soul. At the same timearthistorians like Aby Warburg probed
paintedaccessories and ornamentsthatdisplay a codified behavior based ona
t & _ ee ai eee SSR ARRAS EA Rein
matter ultimately subverts the epistemological framing of both objects and
subjects, as well as the formsofanalogy, sympathy, or antipathy that hitherto
governed the relationships between them.
Suchradical changeinthe status of objects stirs a wave of reciprocal am-
bivalence. Whereasin pantheistic theories of empathy, external objects appear
friendly and amenable to humandesires, the animatedartifacts of twentieth-
century modernismappearfundamentally hostile. From Freud's agoraphobic
Viennaandthe primitive jungle of his Totem and Taboo, to Warburg's animis-
tic Renaissance andthe serpentine links between America and Hamburg,the
basic presuppositionthatthefin de siécle has bequeathedtousis that we are
living in a “hostile external world,” that any relation of humansubjects to ex-
ternal objects can only be either in terms of mastery or mutual destruction.
‘The animismoftribal societies described in nineteenth-century anthropologi-
cal accounts turns into animosity—a malevolent air permeating houses, com-
modities, and images in contemporary metropolitan milieus. The inventionof
empathy theory andtherevival of anthropomorphismand the physiognomy
of objects portray thefailed attempt of turn-of-the-century aesthetics to sub-
jectify (andpartly neutralize) the radical power of artifacts in both archaic.
and modernsocieties. From Freud to Durkheim and from Marx to Lukacs,
terms suchas “objectivity” (Sachlichkeit), “reification,” as well as “fetishism”
andits formeroccult synonym“animism”cast a symbolic web upon concepts,
institutions, artworks, and commodities. Binary oppositions—suchas ani-
mate andinanimate, organic andinorganic,vital and mechanical—uncannily
intermingle to create new hybrid forms. Fernand Léger’s cubo-futurist Nudes
in the Forest of 1911, for example, amalgamates pneumatic technology with
the animistic rites described by social anthropologists such as Durkheim. But
while for Durkheim animistic rites express the belief in a collective soul—
the impersonal animaof the tribe—modernrituals of animation presage the
ultimateisolation within a personal space—the animateduniverse of private
fiction.
By juxtaposing the concepts of cultural anthropology and psychoanalysis
withthose of art, architectural, andcultural history, my aim is to demonstrate
that empathy and animationare something more thanaesthetic theories; they
are attitudes in art andlife with profoundsocial andpolitical consequences.
Althoughposing as bright symbols of modernity, the ubiquitouscrystals, veg-
etal ornaments, and geometric curves of early twentieth-century designact
rather as dark allegories of turbulent geoformations—social, political, eco-
nomic,andracial. Individualism andcollectivism, capitalism and bolshevism,
natriarchv and feminism areall prenarine for battle hv clazinge themselves with
the angular surfaces ofcrystals or by becoming armedwiththeswelling pseu-
dopodia of amoebas.In a few decades, however, both the empathetic curva-
tures of the fin de siécle andthe agitated angles of the Great War would be
flattened by the political inanimate of the late 1930s in whichthestory ofthis
bookreaches its ostensible conclusion.
While animation revives the ancient correspondencesof analogical thinking
between the microcosm of humanartifacts and the macrocosmofuniversal
aflairs, it also reenergizes the world ofpolarities, the splitting of both natu-
ral and conceptualentities into oppositional pairs. Animated objects (such
as Warburg's snake symbols) not only represent but at times embody these
polarities in their dynamically ambivalent behavior.
Basedonthis twofoldattitude,all variable forms of animation could be
summarizedinto twodifferent yet interconnected modes. Thefirst animated
typeis material: it represents changes andtransformationsin the substance of
objects, transitions fromthe organic to the inorganic, fromanimal to vegetal
to mineral, andso on. The secondformofanimationis temporal: it describes
rebirths, survivals, renewals, and anachronisms—the temporal reanimation
of archaic themes withinthe chronological collage of modernism. Like Nos-
feratu, animated characters are essentially vampires: they carry onin a per-
petualafterlife because they neverlive a properlife. Several of the objects of
this narrative embody boththe material and temporal aspects of animation.
For example,following Alberti’s instructions in Della Pittura, the windswept
locks of Botticelli’s Venus transform from humanhair to snakes andto flames,
but following Warburg’s reading in his 1892 dissertation, the same undulating
tresses also act as chronodiagramsofpsychological expressionfromantiquity
to the Italian Renaissance, andthenimplicitly to the art historian’s ownperiod
of turn-of-the-century Europe.
‘These modes of animation are represented by two seemingly opposite
iconographic themes. Ontheonehand,this is a story populated by accesso-
ries, snakes, forests, and women whoturninto trees: the clandestine mytho-
logical streamofthe survival of paganismin modernity analyzed by Warburg
andlater onbythe surrealists. However, it also includes an excess of abstract
shapes, vegetal ornaments, andcrystalline patterns, suchas the visual geom-
etries that crisscross Riegl’s analysis of late Romanartifacts and Worringer’s
reanimationof the Gothic.
Following these iconographic currents, Germanart history provides us
with two distinct forms of animation. One is the external simulation of move-
ment (dussere Beweglichkeit) in inanimate objects detected by Warburgin flut-
tering hair, billowing draperies, and meandering snake motifs. ‘Ihe secondis
the static or innerliveliness (innere Lebendigkeit) of geometric forms in ab-
stract ornamentation, as examined by Riegl and Worringer. This inorganic
formofanimationhas less to do with movementthanwith a form ofenergy
intensified by immobility andstillness. It is an imperceptible vibration, more
“spiritual” (geistig) than sensory (sinnlich), My argument is that muchof mod-
ernist art has espoused that secondinorganic type of animation, while some
_clings anachronistically to the figurativefirst.
It is importantto represent both of these modes andformsof animation
in this narrative. Most of the episodes in this account are illustrated by tran-
sitional images that combine empathy andabstraction, curves andrectangles,
nymphsandcrystals. Such hybridfigures disclose a sense of change in the
making; they describe animal and vegetal metamorphosesthat have not yet
reacheda crystallized state. This explains why Léger’s Nudes in the Forest, an
organic morphology in the process of crystallization, is central in this story.
Léger’s mineral figures manifest the new inorganic human—or the newin-
human, as T. E. Hulme wouldcall it—that modernismsubstituted for (or, in
fact, extended) the models of nineteenth-century organicism. While between
1905 and 1911 (when Worringer’s dissertation was first written and Léger’s
painting wasfirst exhibited, respectively) there was a definite movement from
empathy to abstraction, or from curves to crystals, the myriad contradictions
in Worringer’s text presage that this inorganic phase was comingtoa close.
Soon enough, the petrified nymphs andfossilized snakes of early twentieth-
century modernism would reawaken fromtheir crystalline narcosis. This is
the half-somnolent momentofsurrealism introducedin the final episode of
this narrative. Daphne, Ovid’s forest nymph concurrently resuscitated by art
historians of the Warburg Library in Hamburg andbysurrealist authors in
France andthe UnitedStates, presents the grave moment whenthevertigi-
nous excitement of animationturns into a petrifying paralysis. Half woman
andhalf tree, half myth andhalf history, Daphne’s metamorphosis infact nev-
er ends:it is the sign that the story ofthis book remains open endedandcan
be infinitely protracted by a numberofpossible postscripts.
While seemingly encyclopedic in scope,this book does notaspire to be either
achronological survey or a compendiumof theories ofanimismor animation.
‘The final productis a chronological collage of certain fragmentsof a history
of objects that are historically and conceptually intertwined. While my point
 y—mainly Warburg, cal “addenda” whose perpetual accumulation maintainsthe textual fabric in a
of departure is turn-of-the-century German art histor
ation perennial form of incompletion, yet constantly in motion, andanxiously alive.
but also Worringer and Rieg]—I extend historical theorizations ofanim
Mies In empathy with its subject matter, the book’s method could then be
into early twentieth-century art and architectural avant-gardes: Léger,
the visual and viewed as properly animistic. Early ethnographers describe the archaic be-
van der Rohe, and Dali. One has to underscore the fact that
y ofhis- lief in the extensive powerof “contagious”and“imitative” magic in whichthe
textual materials of this narrative are deliberately chosen froma variet
s. One of sameanimatingprinciple passes from one object to another simply as the ef-
toriographic schools, modernist movements, andnational context
inorganic”is fect of physical proximity or superficial resemblance, thus making it possible
the main argumentsofthis account is that the “animation of the
area to another. to obtain the sameresults from twosubstantially different objects.The sym-
anelusively abstract concept that implicitly migrates fromone
pathetic influence embeddedwithin the principle of contagion allows us to
‘The wide-ranging content of this bookretraces that covert migration.
ric bring together the heterogeneous specimensofseveral historiographical and
Toorganize these disparate fragments, one has to use a clear geomet
y divided artistic currents to establish new, diagonalrelationships. The unformedlegs
frame. The bookis organizedintosix chapters that are symmetricall
s that of a tadpole sketched by Warburg nextto the upright arm of Nosferatuorthe
in two parts: “Animated History” and “Inorganic Culture,” two section
t part raised handof a metallic figure by Léger becomefamilial parts of a totemic ar-
split the animationof the inorganic intoits constituent terms. ‘Thefirs
histo- rangement.The simulating metaphorsoflife and movement (Lebendigkeit, Be-
traces a number ofinterlinkednarratives fromlate nineteenth-century
twentieth- weglichkeit) help diagramaffinities betweenfaculties and practices that seem
riography, while the secondrepresents certain episodesfromearly
overall line of the plot prohibitively distant, such as art history, natural history, ethnography, and
century art and architectural practices. However, the
. ‘The two psychoanalysis. While trying to establishaffinities andsimilarities, diflerences
is meant to be continuous, evenif noticeably circuitous in contour
, producing a anddiscontinuities also become important. ‘The “animationof the inorganic”
sections do not simply follow but rather confront one another
cessories portrayed by Rieg] and then Worringeris different from the life and mobil-
thematological mise-en-abime. Warburg's peripheral animationofac
Daphne as ity of inorganic accessories envisioned by Warburg. Furthermore, Worringer’s
will eventually become interleaved with the vegetal extensions of
disserta- “inorganic” is different fromthat of Nietzsche,Bataille, and Deleuze. Both ani-
illustratedby the surrealists. Worringer’s animate crystals in his 1907
in 1910. mationandthe inorganic are pliable terms and always remain unstable, which
tionwill resurface in the mineralogical landscape painted by Léger
of is whyit is impossible to write a linear history of these two proteanideas.
Following the logic of accessories describedin the first chapter, most
“peripheral” or
the animated objects that appearin this narrative are equally
, andde-
“eccentric”in nature: snakes, vampires, old houses, running nymphs
,like Methodis notthe only element of this work thatis in empathy withits animat-
flated cartires are marginal specimens of phenomenal endurancethat
scenes of a dream ed subject. The book is not meant to be anexternal critique of animation;its
Freud’s “overdeteremined elements,” reappear in several
under mod- primary taskis not to judge or condemnanimation for its suspicious motives,
narrative. This is the substratumof archaeological fossils pushed
e's de- its numbingeffects on humansubjects, or the economic agenciesthatit tends
ernism’s bar of repression—the verylimit that allows modern cultur
break the to conceal. The aimis rather to propose a view frominside: to work with and
pository of“enigmatic signifiers” to flourish. Whatever managesto
serpen- evenlike animationin order to discover howanimation works, howit dissemi-
surface disintegratesinto a cluster of hairy extensions, such as Venus’s
explored in nates, how it perpetually revivesitself, and howit continues to captivate its un-
tine tresses or Daphne's arboreal appendages. ‘The objects being
fabric folds, and suspecting victims. Moreover, by transposing the focus from the psychologi-
this narrative are water spirals, vegetal tendrils, hair locks, or
equally bi- cal responsesofthe perceiving subject to the communicative properties ofthe
the methodological devices being usedto analyze suchobjects are
allogic, objectitself, this narrative strives to reaffirmalternative social potentialities on
furcating andcircuitousin their patterns. Followinga similarperipher
but by a animationthat have often been overlooked byits critics. Turn-of-the-century|
the chapters of this book are not articulated by a central narrative
togetherin social anthropologists, such as Durkheim, describe the unique capacity of
sequenceof“additions,” a series of accessory appendagesstitched
of Warburg's the animated artifact to transcenddistinctions between human, animal, and
the form of a mosaic. Suchis the legacy (andperhaps the curse)
fphilologi- natural agents, andtounite all diachronic members of tribe, whether living,
“accessory” working method: creating fragmentary compilationso
 |
| ensto turninto a bookofits own)is part ofthat allegorical strategy, but also a
departed, or unborn. Perhaps these projective social properties of animation,
its promise of an expandedformofsociability across natural and manmade
objects, may be the secret core that continues to be maskedby the vivified
commodities andthelively images that overwhelm our computerscreens.
‘This continuing displacement givesus anidea of the unfulfilled desire that
keeps discourses of animationin perpetual motion. The constant warping and
digression fromtheir originalaimilluminate the phenomenal eccentricity as-
cribed to animated objects and expands to the methods ofthis study. One
might describe both these subjects and these methodsas peripheralin nature,
yet that may best approximate the nature ofanimation andhowit operates. We
may continuetofail in deciphering the mysteries of modern animist menag-
erie andits unfailing power over contemporary consumersif werefuse to read
closely the worldofits marginal specimens. Perhaps onecan only addressthe
large spherical questions posedby animationby circling aroundthem, rather
than addressing their core, which,in fact, does not exist. There is no substance
or depthin current animatedenvironments. Inspite ofthelatest 3-D imaging
technologies, animationwill always remain a two-dimensional system.
Such animpossibility of in-depthanalysis invokesearlier epistemological
modesof inquiry. Inadvertently, this study has the paratactic structure ofa
medieval book ofwonders, partially updatedfor the requirements of the mod-
ernage. All of its chaptersare interspersed by descriptions of one miraculous
event after another, withlittle or at times no attempt towarda rational expla-
nation. Asin the aberrantly flying fabrics andhair in Renaissance paintingex-
amined by Warburg, the absenceof logicaljustification becomes part ofthe
animatedevent.
‘This book, then, is not only about the animationof objects, but also the reani-
mationofan earlier formof scholarship. Such methodological recurrence ad-
dresses not only the animistic structure ofthe projectin its totemic exploration
of adjacenciesacross disciplines, but also the vast scale of the narrative paired
withtheallegorical detail of the description. Part of the subtext ofallegorical
accounts (whether in their Baroque or early twentieth-century guise) is the
enormity of the’task undertaken; such incommensurable effort unavoidably
leads not to a comprehensive compendium, butto a vast collection offrag-
ments. Animation is everywhere, yet in spite of the books and conferences on
animationinthelast decade,very few of the existing accounts attempt to view
art andarchitectural animationin their larger epistemological implications.
The exnancive character of this book (in whicheachof its six chapters threat-
responseto previous partialcritiques of or tributes to animation.
Perhaps it is not mere accident that the main worksanalyzedin this book,
whichoriginatedas a doctoral dissertation, are either other doctoral disserta-
tions, such as Warburg’s 1892 thesis on Botticelli and Worringer’s 1907 Ab-
straction and Empathy,or “firstborn” essays and “breakthrough”projects, such
as Léger’s Nudes in the Forest of 1911 and Mies’s glass tower modelof 1922.All
of these inaugural efforts are characterized by an omnivorous, encyclopedic
scope: theystrive to say everything with a single gesture as if the first text,
painting, or building couldalso bethe last. What makes these modernistepics
allegorically successful is their inadvertent capacity to turn into landmarks of
their ownfailure. Each piece of these vast mosaics hypothetically condenses
the author's personaltrajectory into the microscopic fragment of a cosmic
whole.
From Daphne's tree to Léger’s forest, the growthofthis endlessly bifurcat-
ing narrative is predicated uponthe process of branching—the split between
andrecombination of heterogeneous practices. In its dual structure between
historiography andpractice, the book polemically argues that studies ofart,
architecture, and historiography should not be viewedseparately, andthat
suchdivisions can potentially impoverish the study of all of them. Suchre-
searchis basedonthe belief that scholars should not be obliged to commit
to any compulsoryrepertory, but be free to participate in diagonalalliances
betweendiscursive terrains andto invent their own composite practices. One
cannot stopaspiring of being either ignorant enough,like the twelve-year-old
(memory) authorof Proust’s Recherche, or more than adequately learned,like
the cosmically erudite Aby Warburg, in order to bypass what the Germanart
historian oncecalled the “border police’—the designated team of academic
patrol officers who demandto examine ourpapers and check ourcredentials
whenever we attempt anexit from our assignedarea ofresearch. ‘The passing
ortrespassing of such perennial checkpoints couldalso gradually becomethe
workof scholarly reanimation.
Acknowledgments
Given the length and complexity of this project, | am deeply grateful to
the institutions that supportedit over the years. 1 am most indebted to the
University of California at Berkeley, for allowing me to create an ad hocin-
terdisciplinary doctoral programin the theory and historiography of art and
architecture, sponsored by the Departments of Architecture, Art History,
Rhetoric, History, German,and FilmStudies; for facilitating a year of study at
the University of California at Los Angeles; andforgranting me the Townsend
Centerfor the Humanities and Chancellor’s Dissertationfellowships. I would
also like to acknowledge the Getty Research Institute for a nonresident post-
doctoral fellowship that funded anadditional year of research at the Archive
of the Warburg Institute in London, and for two residential grants as a Visit-
ing Fellow and Getty Scholar, during which the manuscript of this book was
completed.Six additional monthsofresearch were madepossible as a Visiting
Scholar at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. The University Committee
on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Princeton University
offered a number of summerresearchgrants. The publicationof this book was
also made possible by a generousgrant by the Barr Ferree Publication Fund,
administered by the Princeton University Art and Archaeology Department.
Finally | wouldlike to thank the University of Chicago Press forits ongoing
support of interdisciplinary projects and innovative scholarly research—a
commitment particularly valiant during these financially hard times.
Sincere thanks are also due to a number of individuals. First, the mem-
bers of my dissertation committee: ‘T. J. Clark, Kathleen James-Chakraborty,
Martin Jay, Anton Kaes, Kaja Silverman, and AnthonyVidler, as well as the
rest of my professors at Berkeley, Leo Bersani, Whitney Davis, andthe late
Michael Baxandall; and at UCLA: Carlo Ginzburg, Sylvia Lavin, and Donald
Preziosi. At the Getty Research Institute: Thomas Crow, Gail Feigenbaum,
‘Thomas Gaehtgens, Sabine Schlosser, and my researchassistants Priyanka
Basu and Sandra Zalman. At the Canadian Centre for Architecture: Phyllis
Lambert, Nicholas Olsberg, Mario Carpo, Mirko Zardini, and Alexis Sornin.
At the Warburg Institute: archivists Dorothea McEwan, Claudia Wedepohl,
and Eckart Marchard. At Princeton: Dean Stan Allen, Beatriz Colomina,
Christine Boyer, Ed Eigen, Hal Foster, Rena Rigos, and myresearchassistants
Irene Sunwoo, BrandonClifford, and Daniela Fabricius. | am grateful to the
librarystaffof the Warburg Institute, Getty ResearchInstitute,the Canadian
Centre for Architecture, and the Princeton School of Architecture. Leo Ber-
sani, Anne Cheng, LeonardFolgarait, and Angus Fletcher read parts of the
manuscript and made valuable suggestions. Two anonymousreaders offered
extraordinarily insightful reports solicited by my indefatigable editor, Susan
Bielstein, who endorsed this project and who, withthe help of the team at
the University of Chicago Press, “babied”it to publication. My friends Ron
and Bill offered encouragement during some difficult momentsin theinitial
a ‘a a a a ile mu
stood months of my writing-in-isolation during a number of summersbefore
its completion.
Parts of the manuscript, significantly rewritten andrevised in this book,
were earlier published in Grey Room, as well as edited anthologies includ-
ing Surrealism and Architecture (Routledge, 2004), Biocentrism and Modern-
ism (Ashgate, 2011), and Aby Warburg’s Schlangenritual (Akademie Verlag,
2007). Material fromthe book waspresentedin lectures at UC Berkeley, Uni-
versity College London,the History of Scholarship seminarat the Warburg
Institute, the doctoral programinarchitecture at Harvard University, the pro-
gramin Hellenic studies at Princeton University, the Henry MooreInstitute
in Leeds, the Zentrumfir Literaturforschung in Berlin, the College Art As-
sociation, andthe Society of Architectural Historians annual conferences. Fi-
nally, material from the book was taught a numberoftimesat a graduate semi-
narin the Schoolof Architecture, cosponsored by the program in media and
modernity at Princeton University; | amgrateful to all students whoattended.
‘The bookis dedicatedtoall of the people whohave taught me inthepast.
Being a teacher myself during the past eight years makes me appreciate even
more their uncompromising attitude toward scholarly standards, Particular
acknowledgments are included among the endnotes of each chapter; here,
however, | wouldlike to single out three individual gestures that proved defini-
tive for the orientation ofthis projectinits early stages. ‘The first is by Michael
Baxandall, whoin oneofhis last seminars at Berkeley on Della Pittura pointed
withhis finger at a paragraphof Alberti’s text that offeredinstructionsfor the
pictorial representationof“inanimate objects in movement.”‘The secondis by
T. J. Clark, who, during a tutorial following oneof his legendary class lectures
on“abstraction andfiguration,” looked at a reproduction of Léger’s Nudes in
the Forest and, while scratching his beard, asked: “But don’t you think there
is something mineralogical about this painting?” Andfinally the third memo-
rable gesture is by Anthony Vidler. While he offered his hand to say goodbyeat
the endof ourveryfirst meetingin his office at UCLA,he inquiredas to what
topic I wouldlike to pursue for my dissertation. “Something onthe inanimate,”
I replied. “And next to the inanimatethere is animation,” responded Tony with
his typical (Mephisto-played-by-Emil-Jannings) smile. It took me several years
to fully realize that the inanimate indeedlies next to animation, evenif signs
of this uncanny adjacency became apparent to me early on. The dayafter that
meeting in Los Angeles, I visited Disneylandfor the first time, where I col-
lapsed during oneofthe so-called fun-rides. This was my personal introduc-
tion to the inanimate, or inorganic, mode of animation, whosepetrifying ef-
| Ce ee We ze Se ieES SS. Be Se eS ea See, eS Se Ee Sb eet