Eyes,
Lies and Illusions. The Art of Deception
by Laurent Mannoni, Werner Nekes, Marina
Warner
Hayward Gallery in association with Lund
Humphries
London, Hayward Gallery Publishing, 2004
Reviewed by Martha Blassnigg
marthablassnigg@yahoo.com
Eyes, Lies and Illusions was published
to coincide with the exhibition with the
same title at the Hayward Gallery, between
October 2004 and January 2005. Named after
the film title "Sex, Lies and Videotapes",
the exhibition, curated by Clare Caroline
and Roger Malbert, displayed more than
1000 objects, images and devices of optical
invention from the Renaissance until 1895
mainly from the remarkable collection
of the German collector, experimental
filmmaker and film historian Werner Nekes
and also included several artworks and
installations from contemporary artists
with relation to the topic of visual illusion
and deception.
The book contains a selection of illustrations
of optical toys and apparatus from the
Nekes collection, an introduction by the
curators, abstracts and photographs from
the contemporary artworks, and a glossary
by Werner Nekes, all contextualized by
articles by Marina Warner and Laurent
Mannoni. One can understand the difficulty
in choosing a small selection of objects
for the book from the vast variety of
apparatus and optical toys, ranging from
transparent and puzzle pictures, anamorphisis,
blow-books, hand-shadow cards, playcards
with hidden content, peep-hole apparatus,
magic lanterns to animated strips for
rotating apparatus, to mention just a
few. It seems that the editors were driven
by two motivations: one to choose objects
that were easy to display in print in
order to understand their working; the
other motivation apparently draws on a
more active participation of the reader
by displaying for example a variety of
anamorphic images, which the reader/viewer
can test with a self-folded anamorphic
cylinder and cone with a mirroring silver
surface. Some cleverly perforated lithographs
that change their light and even details
in the image when light from behind, are
printed in the two versions: on one page
with daylight, on the opposite page light
from behind displaying the atmosphere
at night. Transparent puzzle pictures
and fold-up-images are also displayed
in their two possible modes.
The amusing dimensions of optical toys
and instruments also form a main strand
in Marina Warner’s article, as the
title "Camera Ludica" suggests
— instead of ‘camera lucida’;
but even more so the ‘uncanny’
dimensions of the unknown, imaginary and
unconscious. Warner, a cultural historian
and Professor of Literature who has previously
been the curator of the exhibition "The
Inner Eye: Art Beyond the Visible"
at the Hayward Gallery in 1996, in her
article dwells into the (usually) invisible
realms of spooky ghosts and the diabolical
imaginary which according to her has been
a favorite subject to early optical apparatus.
With references to the internal perception,
which according to Descartes precedes
the visual perception and Aristotle ascribed
to the soul, Warner takes a tour from
the religious belief in magic, as exemplified
in diabolical illusions and tricks, to
entertainment culture and mass media of
the 19th century. She highlights
some of the more enduring examples of
this collection, for example one of the
first public camera obscura’s from
1835 by Maria Theresa Short in Scotland,
daughter of a scientific instrument maker,
which is still operating at Castle Hill
as "Short’s observatory"
or Robert Paul’s time-machine, a
project he never was able to realize;
but instead he successfully entered the
moving image business as inventor, exhibitor
and filmmaker, and producer. One of Warner’s
important insights is the fact that the
pleasure of being deceived keeps pace
with the pleasure in knowing how the deception
works, which is pertinent with the argument
that the entertainment culture of the
end of the 19th century was
mainly aimed towards display and exhibition
of technology; and through the vast advertising
of the newest inventions, the mass audience
was highly aware of the workings of new
technology. Michael Punt (2000) has developed
this argument in his radical new history
of early cinema in which he points out
that the various products of the cinema
apparatus were not always intended as
such by their inventors, and a history
of technology necessarily needs to be
based on a knowing and critical analysis
of the economic, cultural, social, and
ideological framework of the time in order
to create a thick history, including the
complex networks that drove inventions
either into successful economical enterprises
or into neglect or economical failure.
That the audience and their tastes and
preferences were a driving factor in this
process is recognized by this collection
by focusing on the playful activity of
the reader. What is lacking throughout
the volume, though, is a critical reflection
on a thicker historical context of the
singular items to acknowledge them in
their own right. As it is, it could be
read as a teleological illusion and deception
in itself to present their existence by
a linear historical development from the
camera obscura (first appearing in literature
from 400 B.C.) to the cinema apparatus.
In contrast to vertically thicker accounts
of the history of visual artifacts as
for example in Stafford’s and Terpak’s
Devices of Wonder: From the World in
a Box to Images on a Screen, a book
also associated with a significant exhibition,
the rather linear and determinist approach
in this collection is in particular evident
in Laurent Mannoni’s reference of
the converting forces towards the invention
of cinema, a series of inventions which
clearly do bear important links and foundations
to all these previous discoveries and
experiments, but not necessarily were
destined to find its form in the cinematographic
apparatus. In The Great Art of Light
and Shadow Mannoni had broadened the
history of optical apparatus not only
in the studied timeframe but also in terms
of variety and variation; still, this
history of cinema archeology is accounted
for as the time before cinema and the
problematic of the determinist and teleological
implications are inscribed in its linear
historical account where less the big
names but still dates play a major role.
It needs to be added that Mannoni’s
linear approach in this edition is consistent
with Nekes own accounts of a history of
optics in his film series Media Magica
I-VI, which rather uncritically
displays a succession of inventions towards
the cinematograph.
As a parallel argument, Mannoni establishes
references to interrelations between the
early 20th century avant-garde
(for example Duchamp’s rotoreliefs)
and neurology, psychoanalysis, automatic
writing, and earlier visual experiments,
and emphasizes the complex reiteration,
depiction and recirculation of inventions
and artistic and popular fascinations
with visual deception and concludes that
deceptive art appears to be a school of
avant-garde experimentation. This appears
to segue into the inclusion of eight contemporary
artists: Christian Boltanski with his
fragile "Les Ombres" (Shadows),
1985, Anthony McCall’s spectacular
"Line describing a cone", a
projection beam of light in smoke, first
exhibited in New York in 1974, Carsten
Hoeller’s reduction of vision with
his "Punktefilm", 1989, Ann
Veronica Janssens and her use of light
in installations to infiltrate matter
and architecture, Tony Oursler’s
installation "Blue Dilemma",
a time-line of image transformations,
Markus Raetz sculptures of metamorphosis,
Alfons Schilling’s viewing devices
which synthesize motion with three-dimensionality
and Ludwig Wilding’s deceptions and
visual illusions of depth and motion.
While these artworks bear obvious references
to some devices and images of the art
of deception, within this edition they
are not really integrated in a coherent
discourse and ever extend the range of
influences without explaining the connections
in a satisfactory way.
Eyes, Lies and Illusions succeeds
in gaining interest as a visual collection,
but, apart from Warner’s insights,
such as for example into the interior
and more metaphysical realms of human
imagination, in its theoretical contextualization
it remains within orthodox paradigm and
discourses of representation. When Mannoni
quotes the art-historian Aby Warburg at
the end of his article: "If art has
a history, the images themselves have
an afterlife" (Quote cited from:
Huberman, 2002). It would have been interesting
to see how Warburg’s mnemonic approach
to art history could have created a new
aggregate of ideas arising from the remarkable
collection of Werner Nekes——a
collection asking for new approaches and
thicker histories on the visual art of
illusions. The Hayward exhibition and
publication are welcome events to make
these resources more accessible, but what
is necessary further on is a much more
intelligent and insightful use of the
material.
References:
Didi Huberman, Georges. 2002.
L’image survivante: Histoire de l’art
e tempos des fantomes selon Aby Warburg.
Paris: Les Editions de Minuit.
Mannoni, Laurent. 2000. The Great Art
of Light and Shadow. Archeology of the
Cinema. Exeter: University of Exeter
Press.
Punt, Michael. 2000. Early Cinema and
the Technological Imaginary. Trowbridge,
Wiltshire: Cromwell Press.
Stafford, Barbara Maria, and Terpak, Frances.
2001. Devices of Wonder. From the World
in a Box to Images on a Screen. Los
Angeles: Getty Publications.
http://www.hayward.org.uk/exhibitions/illusion/
