Viking Eggeling och Diagonalsymfonin
en dematerialisering av konstobjektet
Viking EggelingHans RichterArt historySystems theorySystemCyberneticsFeedbackSystems aestheticsUniversal languageDiagonalsymfoninDiagonal SymphonySymphonie Diagonale
The aim of this thesis is to study Viking Eggeling?s artwork Diagonal Symphony together with Eggeling?s own art theoretical writings. This method of reading Eggeling?s art theoretical writings with the aim to try and create a deeper understanding of his art and especially Diagonal Symphony is a new approach in Eggeling?s art historical discourse. The thesis starts with a description of how the field of art history has understood Eggeling and his art primarily through art historical research aimed at Hans Richter. I then argue that the method of understanding Eggeling?s art through his own art historical writings is a way to create an independent understanding about Eggeling?s art away from it?s explanatory relation with Richter. To understand and to analyze the relation between Eggeling?s art and art theoretical writings the thesis theoretical viewpoint are a system theoretical one with a special focus on cybernetics and the terms feedback and control. The thesis then establish that Eggeling, in his art and art theoretical writings, tried to compose his own method for creating the form figures we can see appearing in Diagonal Symphony and that this method of creating form was a way for Eggeling to control his creativity and to build up a structured system of forms. The study then concludes with the statement that Eggeling worked with the movie and the scrolls Diagonal Symphony as artistic material formations of a system of forms called Diagonal Symphony and that the system of forms called Diagonal Symphony is the result of Eggeling?s systematic method to generate form in a structured and organised way.