Walter Benjamin and Surrealism Cover Image

Walter Benjamin i surrealizm
Walter Benjamin and Surrealism

Author(s): Marcin Maron
Subject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts
Published by: Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: Surrealism; Benjamin Walter

Summary/Abstract: Maron discusses the way in which Walter Benjamin attempted to incorporate surrealism in his diagnosis of modernity. He was inspired by the basic premises of the surrealist outlook, as well as methodology applied in surrealist works (film, photography, Louis Aragon’s Le Paysan de Paris). Benjamin and the surrealist share the same approach to material reality of the world on the one hand, and deep, subconscious meanings on the other. Psychoanalysis had significant influence on his work and the surrealists’. It was from psychoanalysis that Benjamin developed his concept of shock, and the surrealists developed their idea of higher reality. Both theories were influential in the context of film. The concept of shock, especially shock as a quality of montage, found their use in the Arcades Project, the work in which Benjamin formulated his historiosophic postulate of awakening, which was to become a method of historical epistemology.

  • Issue Year: 2008
  • Issue No: 64
  • Page Range: 18-24
  • Page Count: 7
  • Language: Polish