ABSTRACT
The development of the photographic apparatus is an almost necessary result of the previously occurring hegemony of rationalism. It had to be invented in order to realize those images in terms of which one already thought. Actually, the photographic technology came surprisingly late. Through photography and lm, it came to be the central inuence on modes of thought throughout the twentieth century. And although many scientic, artistic, or philosophical ideas rejected the dichotomy of realism and idealism, the vocabulary of the dominating discourse did not allow for a transgression of this dualistic worldview – thus, for example, with the early works of Duchamps, the tendency to convert realistic images or objects into idealistically perceived images (e.g., ready-mades). However, this process functions only in that the original dichotomy is maintained and even reinforces it. EtienneJule Marey’s chonophotography had great impact on the physiology of medicine and on art. Its reception, however, was reluctant to see the works as both artistic and scientic – contrary to the author’s intent. Typical of the two dominant schools of thought, they were inevitably described as either one or the other. In 1927 the 26-year-old quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg developed the Uncertainty Principle of quantum physics, which acknowledges that there is a general inuence of observer perception on the scientic experiment. This epistemological statement is fundamental: the image of the “external” world is inextricably bound to its observation. Perception is an active procedure and is in itself a material process. However, the philosophical implications of the Uncertainty Principle were reduced, as Heisenberg ultimately limited its formulation to a physical, “external” level by applying it solely to the behavior of particles. These examples show how modes of thought, an expanded understanding of the Self, and an understanding of the world could exist without being able to establish themselves in society, i.e., in the discourse. Clearly the paradigm – the dichotomy of realism on the one hand and idealism on the other – was too strong to allow for a third position. It is important to see that the mutual exclusivity of “the idealistic” and “the realistic” maintained this paradigm. Thus, Ideal-ism is the declared opponent of Realism, which guarantees its survival, and vice versa. The saying used by Nils Bohr as the motto for the Principle of Complements in quantum physics thus applies to a completely dierent eld: “Contraria non contradictoria sed complementa sunt” (“Opposites don’t contradict; they complement one another”).
