Abstract
A medial “composite” presumes separation, which has been taken for granted throughout this study through the category of the modality. Arnheim reflected on the problem of composites prominently in his essay, “A New Laocoön,” where he sought to reason through his disappointment with the talking film. The problem touches mostly temporal modalities, which are highly self-sufficient. As with the discussion of hybridism, temporal composites work by either making hierarchical relationships, or flouting them. Arnheim effectively formulates two “laws,” where one modality must be dominant and when temporal modalities are combined, each should be complete. These rules are for standard uses of media. Although spatial and temporal modalities can be combined, in general their combination is not an important theoretical point. After a brief discussion of spatial composites, which mostly touches on their hierarchical arrangement or its subversion, more discussion is given to the ways in which the three temporal modalities can be combined – what each gains, and based on their characteristics, what issues arise as to their successful combination. Finally, a case study of the contemporary graphic novel Batman, Dark Knight, is given.
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Notes
- 1.
See the early essays in Arnheim, “Tonfilm” in Diederichs, Kritiken und Aufsatze (1977) and the section “Sound Film,” in Film Essays and Criticism, 29–51; as well as the sections of Film als Kunst, xx; “Sound Film,” in Film, 201–276.
- 2.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön;” “Neuer Laokoon.” In the following, I cite both the (authorized) English and original German so that the reader may compare the originally formulated terms.
- 3.
Arnheim, “Composites of Media.”
- 4.
von Hornbostel, “The Unity of the Senses,” 210.
- 5.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 203; “Neuer Laokoon,” 84–85.
- 6.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 205; “Neuer Laokoon,” 86.
- 7.
Arnheim, Radio: An Art of Sound, 7.
- 8.
von Ehrenfels, “Über Gestaltqualitäten;” “On Gestalt Qualities.”
- 9.
von Ehrenfels, “Über Gestaltqualitäten,” 267; “On Gestalt Qualities,” 97.
- 10.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 204; “Neuer Laokoon,” 85.
- 11.
Sowers, Rethinking the Forms of Visual Expression, 48.
- 12.
Greg M. Smith, “Arnheim and Comics,” in Scott Higgins, ed., Arnheim for Film and Media Studies (Routledge: London, 2011).
- 13.
Arnheim, “Lettera dagli Stati Uniti,” Bianco e Nero 9 (1948): 44.
- 14.
See, for example, Theodor W. Adorno. “Transparencies on Film” [November 1966]. Trans. Thomas Y. Levin. New German Critique 24/25 (Winter 1981–2): 199–205.
- 15.
It, too, applies to spatial media, but only in a trivial sense: The different components of spatial composites must persist in time equally. Since this is almost always the case it can be neglected.
- 16.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 202–207; “Neuer Laokoon,” 84–87.
- 17.
Arnheim, Parables of Sunlight, 62.
- 18.
Arnheim, Parables of Sunlight, 62.
- 19.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 209; “Neuer Laokoon,” 89.
- 20.
Arnheim, “Composites of Media,”
- 21.
For a discussion of the art song in a manner very close to Arnheim, see Victor Zuckerkandl, “Words and Tones in Song,” Sound and Symbol, vol. 2, Man the Musician, translated by Norbert Guterman (New York: Pantheon Books, 1973).
- 22.
Rudolf Arnheim to the author, 6 June 1993.
- 23.
Rudolf Arnheim, “Fiction and Fact,” Sight and Sound 32 (1939–40): 136–137.
- 24.
Sowers, Rethinking the Forms of Visual Expression, 32.
- 25.
Sowers, Rethinking the Forms of Visual Expression, 34.
- 26.
Arnheim, Dynamics of Architectural Form, 133.
- 27.
Alex Potts, “Installation and Sculpture,” Oxford Art Journal 24 (2001): 5–24, 17.
- 28.
Guido Aristarco and Rudolf Arnheim, “La bomba dei ritrovati tecnici sulla cattedrale cinematografica: Colloquio di Rudolf Arnheim con Guido Aristarco,” Cinema nuovo 8 (1959): 324.
- 29.
Sowers, Rethinking the Forms of Visual Expression, 74; citing Leo Steinberg, “Leonardo’s Last Supper,” Art Quarterly 36 (1973): 297–410; c.f. Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper (New York: Zone Books, 2001).
- 30.
Sowers, Rethinking the Forms of Visual Expression, 354.
- 31.
Sowers, Rethinking the Forms of Visual Expression, 80.
- 32.
Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, trans. E. F. J. Payne (New York: Falcon’s Wing Press, 1958), vol. 2, 424. Arnheim’s translation is: “The simplest and correctest definition of poetry seems to me to be that poetry is the art of stimulating the power of imagination by means of words.”
- 33.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 207; “Neuer Laokoon,” 87.
- 34.
Arnheim, “Virtues and Vices of the Visual Media,” in David Olson (ed.), The Media and Symbols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), pp. 200–1.
- 35.
Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Routledge, 2002), 145.
- 36.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 218; “Neuer Laokoon,” 95.
- 37.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 221; “Neuer Laokoon,” 98.
- 38.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 221; “Neuer Laokoon,” 98–9.
- 39.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 208; “Neuer Laokoon,” 88.
- 40.
Arnheim, Film as Art, 228; Film als Kunst [1974], 105.
- 41.
Arnheim, Film as Art, 226; Film als Kunst [1974], 104.
- 42.
Arnheim, Parables of Sunlight, 175.
- 43.
Peter Galassi, “Rudolf Arnheim: An interview,” Afterimage 2 (1974): 2–5.
- 44.
Karl Heider, Ethnographic Film (Texas, 1976), 69.
- 45.
Arnheim, “A Personal Note,” Film as Art, 6.
- 46.
Zuckerkandl, Man the Musician, 29.
- 47.
Zuckerkandl, Man the Musician, 40.
- 48.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 207; “Neuer Laokoon,” 87.
- 49.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 224; “Neuer Laokoon,” 102.
- 50.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 222; “Neuer Laokoon,” 99.
- 51.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 182; “Neuer Laokoon,” 99.
- 52.
von Ehrenfels, “Über Gestaltqualitäten;” “On Gestalt Qualities.”
- 53.
Arnheim, “New Laocoön,” 222; “Neuer Laokoon,” 99.
- 54.
Arnheim, Parables of Sunlight, 266.
- 55.
Schopenhauer, book 3 and chap. 39, Arnheim, Visual Thinking, 145.
- 56.
Arnheim, Visual Thinking, 144–5.
- 57.
Arnheim, Film as Art, 223; “Neuer Laokoon,” 99.
- 58.
Arnheim, Visual Thinking, 111.
- 59.
Arnheim, Parables of Sunlight, 135.
- 60.
Smith, “Arnheim and Comics.”
- 61.
For a discussion, see Aaron Meskin, “The Ontology of Comics,” Aaron Meskin and Roy T Cook, eds., The Art of Comics: A Philosophical Approach (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 31–46.
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Verstegen, I. (2018). Medial Composites. In: Arnheim, Gestalt and Media. SpringerBriefs in Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02970-8_8
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