eJournals Forum Modernes Theater 32/2

Forum Modernes Theater
0930-5874
2196-3517
Narr Verlag Tübingen
10.2357/FMTh-2021-0022
Es handelt sich um einen Open-Access-Artikel der unter den Bedingungen der Lizenz CC by 4.0 veröffentlicht wurde.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This article delves into the interaction between newly emerging technologies, sciences and a new theory of knowledge that the spectacles of the phantasmagoria were calling up at the end of the 18th century. It claims that – having been established as a permanent attraction – these practices unfolded a specific energy, caused by the anachronistic mix ‘between a science centre and an amusement arcade’, between techno-logics (the scientific discourse on technics) and techno-magics (the experience of sensation, wonder and the supernatural caused by technical effects) in a context in which science – as a theory of nature and a theory of knowledge – drastically changed due to the emergence of new, modernizing kinds of machines, such as steam engines, batteries, electrical and atmospheric instruments.
2021
322 Balme

Techno-Logics and Techno-Magics: Phantasmagoria in the Age of Electricity

2021
Kati Röttger
Techno-Logics and Techno-Magics: Phantasmagoria in the Age of Electricity Kati Röttger (Amsterdam) This article delves into the interaction between newly emerging technologies, sciences and a new theory of knowledge that the spectacles of the phantasmagoria were calling up at the end of the 18 th century. It claims that - having been established as a permanent attraction - these practices unfolded a specific energy, caused by the anachronistic mix ‘ between a science centre and an amusement arcade ’ , between techno-logics (the scientific discourse on technics) and techno-magics (the experience of sensation, wonder and the supernatural caused by technical effects) in a context in which science - as a theory of nature and a theory of knowledge - drastically changed due to the emergence of new, modernizing kinds of machines, such as steam engines, batteries, electrical and atmospheric instruments. “ It is not a frivolous spectacle; it is made for the man who thinks, for the philosopher. ” 1 Prologue One evening in winter 1800, an unexpected visitor of the young German poet and composer, E. T. A. Hoffmann interrupted a strange performance that took place in the bel étage of the house of Hoffmann ’ s uncle in the Leipziger Straße in Berlin. Hoffmann was presenting a technical experimental setup - a “ physical experiment ” 2 to conjure ghosts. He was performing so-called medial phantasmagoria with the help of the technical apparatus called a magic lantern, an early form of slide projector. At that time, necromantic experiments had been staged by popular physicists or experts in the “ science of spectrology ” 3 on a much greater scale in Europe. Mervyn Heard claimed that phantasmagoria began to evolve into a powerful theatrical entertainment, with a repertoire of ghosts plucked from real life and the pages of Gothic romantic fiction: the heroes of the French Revolution, semblances of dead ancestors of members of the audience, and fictional phantoms such as the three witches from Macbeth [. . .] The preoccupation with the Gothic in in all things literary, artistic, and theatrical which had begun in 1764 with the publishing of Horace Walpole ’ s The Castle of Otranto and continued right through until the appearance of Mary Shelley ’ s Frankenstein in 1831, provided the ideal spur for the phantasmagoria. Here were all fearful terrors of the darkened corridor and the dismal dungeon; risen from the grave and recreated ‘ live ’ on stage. 4 Like many other artists of the time (including his unexpected visitor, the German poet Jean Paul), Hoffmann practiced these experiments out of a very specific Romantic interest in all kinds of spectacular technologies, such as self-moving androids, electrotechnical experiments, as well as optical instruments, artificial lightning, and moving images; this interest would mark his writing in the long term. These technologies were all defined by a hybrid twinship of organic and machine forces, that often evoked eeriness. Moreover, popular and spectacular performances of technical experiments - for example, Johann Wilhelm Forum Modernes Theater, 32/ 2 (2021), 238 - 253. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ FMTh-2021-0022 Ritter ’ s galvanic-electric demonstrations and self-experiments applying the poles of a voltaic pile to his own hands, eyes, ears, nose, and tongue - had turned into a scientific vogue that attracted a large and very diverse audience. The late 18th century was fascinated by electricity; in 1799, Alessandro Volta had invented the first electrical battery, the voltaic pile, and had contributed to the creation of an electrical communication engineering system. These kinds of mass entertaining experimental theatrical practices formed an important part of a significant emerging spectacular culture in Europe that was informed by the industrial and political revolutions, and the development of new communication technologies on the cusp of modernity. The small event in the Leipziger Straße, as well as Ritter ’ s demonstrations and the phantasmagorias, are part of what I call a ‘ spectacular culture ’ that contributed significantly to the project of modernity that unfolded around 1800 in the course of the industrial and political revolutions in Europe. This culture went along with rearrangements of knowledge at the threshold of modernity that caused several moments of crisis of perception and representation. This shift has already received considerable attention in cultural-historical research, such as Gabriele Brandstetter ’ s and Gerd Neumann ’ s anthology on Romantische Wissenspoetik. Kunst und Wissenschaft um 1800 (2004). The authors convincingly argue that the transfer between sciences and arts generated an interplay of perception and imagination that interacted in the construction of a modern reality. More precisely, they claim, as Helmar Schramm does, 5 that the dynamics of art and knowledge had been intersected by a third component: the field of media, or the stage, where “ the drama of the poetics of knowledge ” 6 was performed. Consequently, attention to the apparatus of perception, for its medial and technical conditions, gained centre stage: for instance, the microscope, the telescope, the panoramic gaze from a tower or a balloon, mesmeric practices, living images, the camera obscura, electric apparatus, and automatons. Historicizing the Spectacle While I share these considerations, I suggest that we cannot understand these dynamics properly as long as the spectacle is disregarded. 7 To start with, I propose historicizing the spectacle. This proposal includes looking back at the theatre history of the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries from the perspective of the spectacle. Until now, this hybrid field of theatrical practices has been widely neglected, especially in theatre studies, a field dominated for a long time by national theatre histories focusing on text and textuality. These theatrical practices include spectacular staging of new media, such as phantasmagoria, as an intrinsic part of experimental visual and audio culture that was marked by its performative character. The notion of the spectacle is of specific use here, because it allows us to grasp the correlations between technology, popular culture, art, entertainment, performance, and the production of knowledge that were at stake at that time. ‘ Spectacle ’ requires an interdisciplinary approach that connects theatre and opera history, the history of fine arts and visual culture, media history and the history of aesthetics, the history of technology and the history of sciences. For that purpose, I propose to apply a genealogical perspective to the relationship between the spectacle and modernity. Following Nietzsche, this relationship means looking at those events around 1800 that led to particular circumstances which were described as spectacles and, as 239 Techno-Logics and Techno-Magics: Phantasmagoria in the Age of Electricity spectacles, claimed modernity. Modernity was epitomized by new technologies that resulted in rationalization and new knowledge. At the same time, the spectacularism of displays of new inventions within the field of mechanics, electricity, or optics should not be underestimated. Furthermore, theatres and operas in the metropolises of Europe became a spectacular experimental ground for physicists, engineers, painters and set designers (often combined in a single person) with the aim of developing new techniques to imitate nature (for instance, in the field of lightning). These types of stage events interacted with the new media of (mass) entertainment, which emerged, for instance, in the form of panoramas, dioramas, or stereoscopy. If, within this context, a genealogical perspective is applied to the spectacle and to modernity, this means that the use and effects of new technologies within the wider field of theatre (including opera and other media of entertainment related to theatre) need to be closely examined in order to ask: to what extent is the spectacle an integral and constitutive element of modern society from its beginning? Against this broad background, I will take up the case of the phantasmagoria to highlight the specific relationship between spectacle, technology, and the production of knowledge, as well as the methodological problems of tackling them. Phantasmagoria Under Suspicion: In Between Techno-Logics and Techno- Magics E. T. A. Hoffmann had been especially inspired to try out his experiments after he had visited a show of “ magic experiments ” 8 in Berlin that was presented by a “ physicist ” , Paul Philidor. Philidor ’ s roots are difficult to trace; he adapted his identity from the Italian white magic expert and “ Roman professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy ” Pinetti, and the French chess player Philidor, changing his name several times until appearing later on as Paul de Philipsthal. “ As befits a great magician ” , Heard writes, “ Philipsthal ’ s early life seems to consist of a succession of slow materialisations and sudden, spectacular disappearances ” . 9 His first known performances were advertised by “ Charles Phyllidoor, professor in de physique en Mathematique ” to take place at 6 pm on December 27, 29, and 31, 1785 and January 2, 1786 at De Schuttershof in Middelburg. 10 He promised different spectacles for each evening and presented his show as “ Zwarte Konst ” (Black Art), including conjuring tricks and automata. A few months later, he arrived in Groningen and advertised two “ Representaties der Zwarte Konst ” to take place in the local Concert Zaal at 6 pm on March 22 and 23. “ Moved by the lively appreciation and polite manner of several distinguished gentlemen who engaged him ” he would be back on March 28 and 30 for other “ amusing experiments ” , 11 including a trick which involved shooting away a ring that would be returned by Phyllidoor ’ s dove and found inside an orange. Spectators were requested to bring oranges for this purpose. After having travelled with several shows to Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna, and Paris between 1798 and 1800, he returned to the Batavian Republic to exhibit his “ Large Cabinet of Mechanical and Optical Arts ” , 12 including ghostly apparitions and life-size mechanical figures, in several cities. He presented, for the first time, the prototype phantasmagoria show in 1789 in Berlin, including pyrotechnics, physics experiments, hydraulics, hydrostatics, magnetic-mechanical experiments, and electric shocks. This veritable theatrical staging of technical knowledge oscillating between occult forms of necromantic and scientific research with physical experiments attracted 240 Kati Röttger a very diverse audience because of its highly spectacular nature. His shows were especially appreciated because they fell in the domain of scientific recreation, called magic and prestidigitation. For precisely this reason, several popular writings, such as Johann Christian Wiegleb ’ s and Gottfried Erich Rosenthal ’ s Unterricht in der Natürlichen Magie, aus Allerhand Beruhigenden und Natürlichen Kunststücken Bestehend (1779 - 1802), aimed to unmask the secret technologies used to conjure up the dead, according to the discourse of public enlightenment and control of imagination. Philidor ’ s séances finally resulted in an accusation of fraud due to the report of Freiherr von Reck; he was ordered to stop and expelled from Berlin. A few months later, Philidor published a statement that he had never conjured up any spirits, but that he showed how charlatans could deceive people. He regarded his shows by no means as supernatural, but as an art, which had already found praise at the Dresden court, in which he acted as an educating illusionist. In 1793, he took the show to Paris to stage it in a temple. The Belgian Étienne Gaspar Robertson, who became renowned as the ‘ inventor ’ of the phantasmagoria, would remember and later recreate Philidor ’ s delirious procession wreathed in sulphurous smoke. When the terror in France erupted later in the same year, Philidor requested and received a passport to go to England, where he very probably transmogrified himself into Paul de Philipsthal. At that time, phantasmagoria had become a permanent attraction. While the term itself, according to Laurent Mannoni, was originally coined in 1792 by the same Philidor when he advertised his ghostly shows in the Paris daily newspaper Les Affiche for the first time as “ phantasmagoria ” , 13 the spectral performance can be traced back to earlier practices linking ghost raising and showmanship by media technicians, such as Johann Georg Schröpfer (1738 - 1774), Jacob Meyer alias Jacob Philadelphia (1735 - 1795? ), or Emanuel Swedenborg (1688 - 1772). But at the end of the 18 th century these practices unfolded a specific energy, caused by the anachronistic mix of a science centre and an amusement arcade, of techno-logics (the scientific discourse on technics) and techno-magics (the experience of sensation, wonder and the supernatural caused by technical effects). It was the time when science - as a theory of nature and a theory of knowledge - drastically changed due to the emergence of new, modernizing machines, such as steam engines, batteries, and electrical and atmospheric instruments. These machines created uncanny transformations of labour processes - replacing manufactured work at great velocity with mechanical processes such as steam-powered mills or weaving looms. This development was accompanied by amplified effects on the imagination by new technologies of communication and spectacle. The specific synergy that emerged between science and technics at that time is most clearly indicated by the very shift of the notion itself: “ While the word techné had long referred to art or craft in general, it was only in this period that ‘ technology ’ was rising as a distinct set of objects and production processes, often connected with economic developments ” . 14 In this specific constellation, spectacular practices such as phantasmagoria (like the simultaneously emerging panorama, diaphanorama, eidophusikon, etc.) gained considerable cultural significance and attracted urban mass audiences. The then newly coined term of phantasmagoria to denote the eyeand ear-catching mysterious optical show, has been transformed “ into an epistemic figure for the limits of philosophical knowledge ” , 15 achieving a firm place in German speculative philosophy from Kant - followed by Hegel and Marx - onwards. For Hegel, the phantasmagoria 241 Techno-Logics and Techno-Magics: Phantasmagoria in the Age of Electricity meant that stage of interiority that had to be overcome in the subject ’ s teleological progress toward knowing. In his lectures on the philosophy of nature and spirit (1805 - 1806), he refers directly to spectral performances: This is the night, the inner of nature that exists here - pure self. In phantasmagorical presentations it is night on all sides; here a bloody head suddenly surges forward, there another white form abruptly appears, before vanishing again. One catches sight of this night when looking into the eye of man - into a night that turns dreadful; it is the night of the world that presents itself there. 16 It is not clear if Étienne-Gaspar de Robertson knew this passage when he wrote in his Mémoires Récréatifs, Scientifiques et Anécdotiques more than 20 years later, “ It is not a frivolous spectacle; it is made for the man who thinks, for the philosopher ” . 17 But it is clear that he did not mean to overcome the spectacle (and the phantasmagoria) by speculative philosophy, but to insist on the interaction between newly emerging technologies, sciences, and a new theory of knowledge that the spectacle of the phantasmagoria was calling up. 18 Romantic Versus Classic Machines? As we have seen, phantasmagoria (like other entertainment media of that time) refuses any easy categorization. 19 This problem is closely related to the problem of periodization in the history of science and technology and the history of culture. Technoperformative phenomena happening at the emergence of modernity, around 1800, are difficult to define because of their heterogeneity. It seems as if, for this reason, they resist even profound research or - in the few exceptions - contradictory propositions. For instance, the general periodic labels of Romanticism and Enlightenment do not allow us to understand these phenomena properly. At least, this is the conclusion of two outstanding studies, Giuliano Pancaldi ’ s book on Volta. Science and Culture in the Age of Enlightenment (2003) and John Tresch ’ s The Romantic Machine. Utopian Science and Technology after Napoleon (2014). While Pancaldi approaches the early age of electricity - and specifically the case of Alessandro Volta - as a period of inventions “ enforced by Enlightenment ideas and practices ” , 20 John Tresch classifies the same age as mechanical romanticism. 21 It is noteworthy here, that - while defending opposing classifications for the same phenomenon - both agree that exactly these classifications do not fully define the new machines, scientific traditions and new forms of knowledge that emerged as the most important impetus for modernization and industrialization at that time. Due to their heterogeneity - and spectacularism, “ neither party has done proper justice to the wealth, diversity, and unpredictability of the intellectual, technological and social ferment that, under the banner of the vague but compelling Enlightenment notions of useful knowledge and quantifying spirit, led to the age of electricity, and to our industrial societies. ” 22 Tresch, for his part, aims to reconstruct the “ neglected theory of nature and knowledge, one that may be a resource for those who seek to redraft the relationship between machines, knowledge and the earth. ” 23 With this end in view, he coins the notion of the romantic machine, embracing steam engines, batteries, and sensitive electrical and atmospheric instruments. This notion, Tresch claims, not only resists the persistent binary divide between the romantic and the mechanic, 24 but also the dominant notion of the machine as standing for reason, matter, calculation, effectiveness, reproduction, and the domination of nature going back to the classic age of the 17 th century. This notion is exemplified by the 242 Kati Röttger mechanical, meaning most prominently the clock, the lever, and the balance. These machines were seen as stable, self-regulating entities, in strict contrast to the irregularities of nature. According to Jan Lazardzig, the machine was, in fact, central to the 17 th century ’ s efforts to control all dynamics tied to nature with the help of regulatory and calculating systems. Harmony, reason, and functionality materialize in the machine, and the machine conversely becomes a unifying, kinetic model of living nature. The nature of living and living nature find their common vanishing point in the machine. 25 This idea results in an epistemology of detachment of rationality and lifelessness and the implications of external forces and determinism. Even though Tresch ’ s notion of the romantic machine is introduced in opposition to this solidified classic notion of the machine and therefore, bears the danger of again consolidating a binary of enlightenment and romanticism, it is worthwhile closely examining his notion at this point. He intriguingly proves the close relationship between the invention of new machines, a changing concept of nature, and the production of new knowledge, introducing his study in the following way: “ The kinds of machines we use are bound up with the ways we think about nature and the ways we know it. When our machines and our understanding of them change, so does our view of knowledge ” . 26 Hence, his examination of the period of early industrialization helps us to grasp the radical extent to which the new machines modified humans ’ relations to their environment and contributed to the transition from natural philosophy to natural sciences. Consequently, as I will demonstrate further on by returning to the phantasmagoria, they were an intrinsic part of a spectacular culture that performed the interconnection of techno-logics and techno-magics, bringing forth a new understanding of nature as modifiable and complexly interdependent, and of knowledge as an active and sensitive interplay between human and machine. In Tresch words: “ artworks and popular spectacles used new and elaborate techniques to produce powerful emotions and lifelike effects and often took the demiurgic powers of science and technology as their central themes ” . 27 One of the most prominent themes in this context certainly was, as mentioned earlier, electricity, represented not only by E. T. A. Hoffmann ’ s obsession with it: 28 “ The electric effect became a metaphor for the contemporary as such. [. . .] Galvanic arousal, enlivenment and electricity became synonyms. ” 29 Associated concepts, such as circulation, current, and exchanges, were not only relevant for the economy, but also for media-technological fields such as telegraphy. 30 From this perspective, the notion of the romantic machine understood as “ flexible, active, and inextricably woven into circuits of both living and inanimate elements “ 31 makes sense since it was marked by categories such as transformation, animation, the fusion of mechanical and human interaction, and by merging concepts of mechanism and organism. In the first half of the 19 th century, public experiments with electricity became part of an ongoing process of natural production and adaption that included human technology: equivalent machines and tools (like batteries, tellingly also called “ the artificial electric organ ” ) were seen as new organs modifying humans ’ relations to their environment. Volta, for instance, conducted countless performances of his experiments throughout Europe, including a spectacular explosion of a gas pistol in Zürich, on 16 September 1777. 32 To prove new conceptual notions such as ‘ tension ’ and ‘ capacity ’ he demonstrated the effects of newly invented machines, such as the electrophorus (a perpetual carrier of electricity), by triggering 243 Techno-Logics and Techno-Magics: Phantasmagoria in the Age of Electricity bodily experiences in his audience. For instance, he measured the tension of a body by counting the number of turns the friction machine needed to make an electrometer connected to the body rise to a certain degree. At the same time, he struggled constantly with acceptance as a serious natural philosopher and physicist. While the Encyclopaedia Britannica praised the electrophorus as “ the most surprising machine hitherto invented ” , 33 in fact Volta ’ s achievements “ depended more on his machine and on his performances as an electrician than on the notions developed in the long theoretical memoir ” . 34 In fact, “ the safest ground for appreciating Volta ’ s contribution remained the performances of his machine(s) ” . 35 Paradoxically, this need to perform helped to harm his scientific reputation. Benjamin Franklin, for instance, the most renowned American pioneer in electricity of his time, famous for inventing the system of positive and negative electricity and the lightning rod, accused Volta of being “ merely an inventor of ‘ amusements électriques ’” . 36 According to Pancaldi, Volta ’ s career is typical for the period of transition between classical and modern perception: One might say that it was precisely the work of scientists like Volta, and the impact of instruments like the electric battery - which again [. . .] stemmed from laboratory practice and for which no convincing theory was available - that slowly changed the eighteenth-century hierarchy of ascribed ranks of competence within the physicist community. By granting more room and more prestige to men like Volta, that change prepared the way for the emergence of a new, nineteenth-century figure of the scientist, and the partial eclipse of the old, eighteenth-century figure of the natural philosopher that Volta in many respects still was. Volta found himself in the middle of this process, and - unaware - he contributed to it above all with his machines. 37 Only after the invention of the battery in 1799, which marked a turning point in the history of physics, did Volta become widely renowned and allowed to enjoy the rewards that some of his peers had refused to grant him before. An important contributor to Volta ’ s search for recognition was Napoleon Bonaparte, who was impressed by the importance of the battery for his modernization projects. Fig. 1: Guiseppe Bertini (1825 - 1898), Alessandro Volta, demonstrating his battery to the first consul Napoleon, 1801. Painting 1870. 34,4x24, 8 cm. © lookandlearn.com. Pancaldi claims that the endeavours of Volta (and many others like him) were shaped by combinations of several different cultural and research traditions that included a mixed population of natural philosophers, physicists, instrument makers, amateurs, and a huge lay audience, “ within a broad framework provided by Enlightenment notions like ‘ useful knowledge ’ and the ‘ the quantifying spirit ’” . 38 In the conclusion to this article, I will come back to the notion of spectacular cultures as a heterogeneous field where technical knowledge is performed in between romantic techno-magic and enlightened technologics in a close interconnection of scientific experiment and sensational entertainment. 244 Kati Röttger The Phantasmagoria in the Age of Electricity In France, Gaspar de Robertson was the first to report on the invention of the battery, in the summer of 1800. Taking into account that Robertson was an amateur physicist and showman, it is striking that he immediately grasped the ground-breaking effect of this device, without having understood its working in detail. The new experiments made possible by Volta ’ s device appeared “ vraiment étonnants ” 39 to him, but - distinct to Volta ’ s findings - he classified the new phenomenon as part of galvanism, which was quite popular in Paris in that time. Galvanism was - in contrast to battery electricity - very closely linked to living biological matter, as Luigi Galvani had demonstrated in 1780 with frogs. Therefore, galvanic electricity had been mainly perceived as a central characteristic of life. Consequently, Robertson titled his report about the voltaic pile to the Institut National “ Sur le Fluide Galvanique. ” 40 He focused more on the effects of the battery than on the instrument itself. In line with his spectacles, for Robertson, the most intriguing effects were those on the human body. He tested them by touching the top of the pile with nearly every part of his body, including those “ where the skin is especially delicate and sensible ” , 41 while he held the bottom of the colonne métallique with his hand. His speculations on the battery were in line with his (and his contemporaries ’ ) early fierce interest in alchemy and black magic, the proof of Satan ’ s very existence and raising the dead, which he extended in his later career with a study on philosophy, 42 all branches of physics, natural sciences, and the arts, and practicing painting quite well. 43 “ Couldn ’ t this extraordinary fluid be the first of the acids available in nature? ” he hypothesized in his report. “ Couldn ’ t it be the first agent of the living moment, that the ancients called nervous fluid? Couldn ’ t it be a veritable poison? ” 44 His own experiments on galvanism had already become an intrinsic part of his phantasmagoria events two years before he learned about the voltaic pile. If we see the way he depicted himself on the cover of his autobiography, the importance of electricity becomes even more obvious: the physicist Robertson carries a frog in his right hand and touches a voltaic pile with his left hand to cause convulsions in the dead body of the animal. An electrification machine is shown behind him, and a Leiden jar is presented on his experiment table. Both devices served to produce and save mechanical electricity around 1800. His experiments with electricity were part of his main attraction, the performance of apparitions of spectres, phantoms, and ghosts, which premiered at the Pavilion de l ’ Èchiquier on 23 January 1798. An advertisement in the Journal de Paris on 20 January announced “ [e]xperiments with the new fluid known by the name Galvanism, whose application gives temporary movement to bodies whose life has departed ” . 45 Two years later, having moved his show to the Convent des Capucines (an abandoned chapel with a convent “ in the middle of a cloister, littered with broken gravestones ” 46 ), Robertson announced he was to carry out additional experiments on the subject of the voltaic pile in public “ on the first and the fifth day of each decade during the evening sessions ” . Volta himself attended these shows twice after having convinced Robertson of his own explanation of the battery, 47 while Robertson - defending Volta ’ s position - had made physique expérimentale a permanent attraction in his evening shows. 48 But how do we imagine this show? It was a spectacular demonstration of new technology, combining new machines and electric and lightning experiments, as well as “ experiments with arrangement of lenses [. . .] and the 245 Techno-Logics and Techno-Magics: Phantasmagoria in the Age of Electricity superimposition of one picture upon another to create special effects; ghosts rolling their eyes, the flickering flames of hell, a ghostly dance of witches ” . 49 Robertson acted as inventor, painter, physician, and performer at the same time; as hybrid and as innovative his profession was, so was his show. For instance, he was the first to use the new Argand lamp (an oil lamp with a tubular wick, invented by Aimeé Argand in the early 1780s) to project his self-painted phantasmagoria slides made with transparent oil-based colour pigment. Much brighter than the usual candles, the lamp allowed him to play at bigger locations and attract a mass audience to demonstrate, as Marina Warner concludes: “ the huge power of such spectacles and illusions over crowds. ” 50 His main technological device was a new selfinvented apparatus, the Fantascope, an amplified magic lantern. It was housed in a stage area some twenty-five feet deep that lay beyond a huge screen, a theatrical scrim. That way, hidden from the audience ’ s view, it was able to project the transparent glass slides on the screen or on smoke. It showed figures such as Banquo ’ s ghost and the witches from Macbeth, inspired by paintings by Henri Fuessli who had illustrated Shakespeare, and gothic horror show depictions like succubae, skeletons, mad women in white, “ The Bleeding Nun ” , and shades of dead in the underworld, such as Orpheus losing Eurydice. As well as these motifs reaching back to Greek, pagan, and heterodox mythologies and referring to contemporary Gothic emblems, he also brought the political heroes of the French revolution to life; an eyewitness recounted: A decimvir [member of the ruling body] of the republic has said that the dead return no more but go to Robertson ’ s exhibition and you will soon be convinced of the contrary, for you will see dead returning to life in crowds. Robertson calls forth phantoms and legends of spectres. In a well-lighted apartment in the Pavilion de l ’ Èchidquier I found myself seated a few evenings since with some sixty or seventy people. At seven o ’ clock a pale thin man entered the room where we were sitting, and after extinguishing the candles he said ‘ Citizens and gentlemen, I am not one of those adventurers and impudent swindlers who promise more than they can perform. I have assured the public in the Journal de Paris, that I can bring the dead to life, and I shall do so [. . .]. ’ A moment of silence followed, and a haggard looking man with dishevelled hair and sorrowful eyes rose in the midst of the assemblage and exclaimed ‘ As I have been unable in an official journal to re-establish the worship of Marat, I should at least be glad to see his shadow. ’ Robertson immediately threw upon the brazier containing lighted coals, two glasses of blood, a bottle Fig. 2: Étienne-Gaspard Robertson (1763 - 1837), Fantascope with Argand Lamp, illustration in Étienne-Gaspard Robertson, Mémoires Récréatifs, Scientifiques et Anecdotiques [. . .], Paris 1831, vol. 1, p. 326. 246 Kati Röttger of vitriol, a few drops of aquafortis and two numbers of the Journal des Hommes Libres and there instantly appeared in the midst of the smoke caused by the burning of these substances, a hideous living phantom armed with a dagger, and wearing a red cap of Liberty. The man at whose wish the phantom had been evoked seemed to recognize Marat, and rushed forward to embrace the vision, but the ghost made a frightful grimace and disappeared. 51 The terrors of the French revolution were revived on a regular basis by the ghost of Robespierre, haunting the audience ’ s memory of their most recent history: When a journalist from the Courir des Spectacles attended, in February 1799, just after the opening, he seemed taken most of all with the wraith of le monster, Robespierre, ascending from his tomb. Desirous of attending the kingdom of the blessed, the despised revolutionary is instead struck by lightning and reduced, tomb and all, to powder. 52 While this effect was probably created with a lanternslide, Robertson later developed more refined projection techniques and also used actors, masks, and human shadows. The Fantascope ’ s lamp house was so big that it also allowed the projection of reflected images of opaque items, actors, portraits or figures that had been introduced through a door in the back. In that case, a four-burner lamp was used, with a different series of lenses. Installed on wheels, it was possible to move the Fantascope more or less noiselessly back and forth to create images of increasing or slowly disappearing ghosts. Due to this specific technical-human ensemble, “ Robertson ’ s presentation was far more akin to a theatrical entertainment than a series of dry experiments. ” 53 Dispensing with the conventional theatre ’ s raised stage, a puppet show box, and a proscenium arch, it was a mixture of theatrical settings and proto-cinematographic effects. 54 Thanks to the extensive study on the phantasmagoria by Mervyn Heard, it is possible to provide translated sources to get an idea not only of the dramaturgy of these shows, but also of the strange mixture of techno-magics and techno-logics that the shows provided. Robertson ’ s premiere exhibition at the Convent des Capucines took place on 3 January 1799 at 7: 30 pm. The main event was preluded by “ a mixture of ‘ walk around ’ side-show items and platform demonstrations ” such as an optical box, offering twelve views of an initiation ceremony; a labyrinthine walk through a long dark corridor decorated with fantastic paintings into a room containing a cabinet of optical and scientific curiosities; a pictorial tableau of famous statesmen, a panorama-optique of the Port of Naples, and so on. For the main event, newspaper advertisements promised a feast of spectres, which would manifest by various methods attributable to such diverse authorities as the magicians of Memphis and the fictional witches of Macbeth. These were seen in the specially designed Convent auditorium where the audience finally ended up. The dominating force here was darkness. For Robertson, this was an important effect to create a transcendent experience; he observed that almost immediately while entering “ all faces were grave, even gloomy, and people spoke only with lowered voices. ” 55 Once the audience had become accustomed to this special sphere, Robertson stepped out of the darkness to introduce the show. The examples he gives in his Memoire reflect perfectly his ambitions to contribute with his shows to technical knowledge and philosophical education beyond sheer attraction. The first example starts as follows: What you are about to see, gentlemen, is not a frivolous spectacle; it is intended for the man who thinks, for the philosopher who loves to wander for an instant with Sterne, amid the tombs. It is moreover a useful spectacle for a 247 Techno-Logics and Techno-Magics: Phantasmagoria in the Age of Electricity man to discover the bizarre effect of imagination when it combines force and disorder; I wish to speak of the terror which shadows, symbols, spells and the occult work of magic inspire; terror which almost all men have experienced [. . .] in the age of reason. 56 In the second example, he repeats in even clearer terms the philosophical and historical ambition of his show, which was taking place shortly after the experiences of terror in the aftermath of the French Revolution; he referred to the spectres of man-made history that would appear after his prologue, like the spectre of Marat or Robespierre, ascending from his tomb, as if he would foresee the dramaturgy of a modern Europe conjured up as an experience of haunting in Marx ’ manifesto. 57 The experiments which you are about to witness must interest philosophy; here philosophy may witness the history of aberrations of the human spirit, and this is worth more than the political history of nations. The two great epochs of man are his entry into life and his departure from it. All that happens can be considered as being placed between two black and impenetrable veils which conceal these two epochs, and which no one has yet raised. [. . .] Many philosophers have profited by this general curiosity to astonish the imagination subdued to the uncertainty of the future. But the most mournful silence reigns on the other side of this funerary crepe; and it is to fill this silence, which say so many things to the imagination, that magicians, sibyls and priests of Memphis employ the illusions and an unknown art, which I am going to try to demonstrate under your eyes. 58 Resonating as a kind of promethean megalomania of modern progress, Robertson is combining the belief in new technology to intervene in the course of life and death, relying on the new understanding of nature as modifiable and complexly interdependent, and the belief in knowledge as active and sensitive interplay between human and machine; he then would demonstrate this in his show, presenting himself as a magician capable of restoring life to departed souls. While the instruments of lightning, projecting, and the new electric fluids whose applications give temporary movements to bodies whose life has departed helped him ‘ to prove ’ his ability, the effect of the show was intensified by a soundscape mainly created by the glass harmonica, a new instrument ideal for accompanying ghostly apparitions. Invented and refined by Benjamin Franklin and based on the piercing sound of glasses filled with water, it was meant to be able to agitate the nervous system of the listeners and to drive them insane. Additionally, the sounds of rain, thunder, and the tolling of a funeral bell underlay the materialization of the ghosts. Robertson himself described the opening scene as such: At a great distance a point of light appeared; a figure could be made out, at first very small, but then approaching with slow steps, and at each step seeming to grow; soon, now, of immense size, the phantom advanced under the eye of the spectator and, at the moment when the latter let out a cry, disappeared with unimaginable suddenness. At other times, the spectres emerged fully formed from a vault, and presented themselves in an unexpected manner. The ghosts of famous men crowded around a boat and passed over the Styx, then fleeing celestial light, withdrew insensibly to lose themselves in the immensity of space. 59 Robertson ’ s career as physicist, inventor, entertainer, and magician is typical for an époque in which these kinds of spectacles proved to offer interesting clues as to how science and technology were granted a prominent place in public culture and how they raised conflicting themes by mir- 248 Kati Röttger roring the ambiguities between the public merit of the achievements and the doubtful worth ascribed to scientific and technological endeavour. “ These conflicting themes ” , Pancaldi stresses, “ contributed to the (temporary) magic of the rituals performed to celebrate the scientist as hero in the industrial era, but they also caused the rapid disappearance of the magic once the celebrations were over ” . 60 Nevertheless, it should be noted that spectacles like the phantasmagoria contributed to a broad public experience of new technologies and to a curiosity for scientific effects by creating magical narratives told by these technologies themselves: narratives of artificial life and the technically underpinned capacity to make the dead appear. They provide scenes of uncanny transformations and magic powers as reflections of metamorphosis and amplifying effects made possible by new technologies of communication and spectacle. They are part of a culture of spectacular technologies and technologies of spectacles that invested in the regular production of novel phenomena and affective experiences. Just as the physical sciences created new devices to control light, heat, and electromagnetism, [the spectacles were] heavily invested in new technical apparatus to produce illusions [. . .] To do so, in many cases (like in the case of Robertson, K. E.) they used the same technology as scientists did. Both scientists and artists studied the control of light and colour in the camera obscura and the panorama, as well as the sonic properties of musical instruments; scientists were recruited to assist stage designers, and artists, as [. . .] in the case of daguerrotypie, were recognised for their contribution to the investigation of nature. 61 In his Essay on the Philosophy of Sciences, the mathematician, chemist, philosopher, and founder of the basic principles of electro-dynamics, André-Marie Ampère, introduced the term ‘ la technesthétique ’ to express this traffic between the sciences, the arts, and the spectacle. The notion covered the “ means with which man acts upon the intelligence or the will of his fellows [. . .] recalling ideas, sentiments, passions, etc. and giving birth to new ones in the spectator of an art object, the hearer of a piece of music or a speech, or, finally, in the reader ” , 62 reproducing at the same time the shock of novelty, generating new effects and new combinations of senses and new imaginations. Bearing in mind that, in the ‘ age of electricity ’ , we are confronted with that period when ‘ technology ’ was emerging as a new set of objects and production processes, often connected with economic developments (as Marx later in the 19 th century would theorize in Capital, relying on the notion of the phantasmagoria as the fetish object of exchange value), it is not fair to speculate about a new labour theory of aesthetic effects. In this context, I want to argue that the close link between technology and spectacularism is also related to the problem of what is worth knowing. Or better said: the attraction of spectacular scientific demonstrations and new media lies in the proof of their functionality in a life event. “ Playing the performance on two levels, [Robertson] could scare the uninitiated and cast winks to the knowing ” . 63 He challenged the spectator to differentiate between techno-magics and techno-logics. The spectacularism of that experience is part of the project to inscribe techno-logics into reality by transforming it. Conclusion E. T. A. Hoffman became acquainted with Robertson ’ s techno-magic experimental shows from J. F. L. Meyer ’ s Briefe aus der Hauptstadt und dem Inneren Frankreichs (1802), which he took out of the library 249 Techno-Logics and Techno-Magics: Phantasmagoria in the Age of Electricity in the Jägerstrasse in Berlin in 1818. 64 Instead of emphasizing the charlatan, deceiving effects of the shows, he appreciated mostly the technological skills - the combination of popular optical apparatus, such as like lanterns, concave mirrors, and prisms, as well as the innovative form of entertainment. Meyer had described Robertson as popularising electrochemical galvanism in France, 65 and Hoffmann again felt vindicated for his interest in combining electrotechnical theories and practices with aesthetic literary concepts that determined his tales. In the middle of the 1820s, the tales of E. T. A. Hoffmann had been translated into French. From then on, they gained considerable attention, with the most well-known Der Sandmann and Die Automate. His “ Poetics of Technics ” was quite soon imitated, also by authors that inclusively achieved fame as authors of melodrama, such like Théophile Gautier, Alexandre Dumas, Gérard de Nerval, but also - to some extent - Honoré de Balzac. Jean-Jacques Ampère, son of André- Marie Ampère and founder of the field of comparative literature, praised Hoffmann ’ s new style, pointing especially to his technique of raising existential doubts about the power of the unliving. He admired the effect of suspense created by doubts that the ghost sightings, life-like automata, and animated matters that haunted his stories were merely the imaginings of his protagonists, the result of a magic trick, or genuine proof of the reality of the supernatural. 66 This paradigmatic phenomenon of geographic, 67 technoaesthetical and intermedia interplay is part of a specific culture of interconnection around 1800 that only comes within sight when disciplinary bound strict historical periodization, such as Enlightenment or Romantic, do not limit the scope. The cross-linking of technics, aesthetics, poetics, natural philosophy, physics, alchemy, performance, magics, and entertainment as well as the crosslinking of amateurs and professionals, the un-instructed and the connoisseur, and the varied audiences (as in the phenomenon of the phantasmagoria) can only be grasped properly in a combined perspective. It also extends into the landscape of theatre and opera of that time, which, due to limited space, is outside the scope of this article focused on right now. 68 Of these reasons, I think the notion of the spectacle, and more specifically, technologies of spectacle, is of particular use here, because it allows us to grasp the correlation between new technology and its intrinsic spectacular effects performed as part of a popular culture learning to become modern. Technologies of spectacle at that time went beyond a binary understanding of the relationship between man and machine that regained dominance in the course of the 19 th and 20 th centuries. According to George Simondon, this persistent opposition, “ is wrong and has no ground, behind it lurks ignorance and resentment ” , 69 because it does not recognize the presence of men in the machines through their existence in the invention: “ What inhabits machines is human reality, human gesture that is fixed and crystallized in functioning structures ” . 70 This is certainly at stake in the technical ensemble represented by the phantasmagoria, because it was determined by the “ celebration of the fantastic aspects of machines [that] went along with the recognition of the concrete social relation they expressed and maintained ” . 71 The pretention of intervening in the course of life and death also relied on the new understanding of nature as modifiable and complexly interdependent and of knowledge as active, and the sensitive interplay between human and machine that was at stake in the age of electricity. 72 The principle of animation that is invoked here is directly related to the electrotechnical experimental culture around 1800. It stages 250 Kati Röttger the “ immaterial aspects of human experiences [that] have multiplied alongside the extraordinary discoveries of sciences long after Isaac Newton speculated about empty space, [while] Anton Mesmer proclaimed the existence of ‘ vital spirits ’ and Luigi Galvani wandered in the electromagnetic field ” . 73 But I would furthermore like to point to the other side of the coin of human reality that inhabits machines. What we can additionally learn from the phantasmagoria is that that which inhabits machines is also fixed in dys-functioning structures that are located at the threshold between life and death in a frightening way. Mirroring the promethean hope to artificially create life, the new technologies of seeing, projecting, speeding, connecting at the same time have reconfigured human perception in a quite ruptured way. 74 It called for those apparitions, like ghosts, that only the machine can bring forth, combining techno-logics and techno-magics of imagination. Calling up the ghosts of the past in that sense also means reanimating the terror and violence of modern life that unites man and machine. In other words, the specularity of new technologies inhabits both the horror and the promise of the machine at the same time; it is magic, and it is technic. Logics start at the moment at which the working of the machines and how to live with them is understood. But at the same time, the horrifying enigma of magic ghostly apparitions persist into modernity and are refashioned again and again in the light of new technologies. Notes 1 Étienne-Gaspard Robertson, Mémoires Récréatifs, Scientifiques et Anecdotiques [. . .], Paris 1831, vol. 1, p. 278. 2 Frans von Holbein, Eine Lebensgeschichte, Wien 1853/ 55. Here quoted according to E. T. A. Hoffmann in Aufzeichnungen seiner Freunde und Bekannten. Eine Sammlung, ed. Friedrich Schnapp, München 1974, p. 53. 3 Mervyn Heard, Phantasmagoria. The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern, Hastings 2006, p. 166. 4 Ibid., p. 8. 5 Helmar Schramm (ed.), Bühnen des Wissens. Interferenzen zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft, Berlin 2003. 6 Gabriele Brandstetter and Gerd Neumanns (eds.), Romantische Wissenspoetik. Kunst und Wissenschaft um 1800, Würzburg 2004, p. 12. 7 On the history of the concept of spectacle, see Kati Röttger, “ Technologies of Spectacle and ‘ The Birth of the Modern World ’ . A Proposal for an Interconnected Historiographic Approach to Spectacular Cultures ” , in: Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis 20/ 2 (2017), pp. 4 - 29. 8 Freiherr von der Reck, “ Nachricht von der Philidorschen Geisterbeschwörung ” , in: Berlinische Monatsschriften (1789), p. 1 and pp. 456 - 473. 9 Heard, Phantasmagoria, p. 57. 10 Middelburgsche Courant (27 and 31 December 1785). 11 Groninger Courant (17, 21, 28 March 1786 and 4 April 1786), https: / / en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Paul_Philidor [accessed 20 September 2019]. 12 Oprechte Haarlemse courant (23 June 1798), https: / / www.delpher.nl/ nl/ kranten/ view? coll=ddd&identifier=ddd: 010729569: mpeg21: a0012 [accessed 21 May 2021]. 13 Laurent Mannoni, “ The Phantasmagoria ” , in: Film History 8 (1996), pp. 390 - 415, here: p. 393. 14 John Tresch, The Romantic Machine. Utopian Sciences and Technology after Napoleon, Chicago/ London 2012, p. 128. See especially Johannes Beckmann, Anleitung zur Technologie, Oder Kenntniß der Handwerke, Fabriken und Manufakturen, Vornehmlich Derer, die mit der Landwirtschaft, Polizey oder Cameralwissenschft in Nächster Verbindung Stehen. Nebst Beiträgen zur Kunstgeschichte, Göttingen 1777. Here he was the first to introduce the modern notion of technology. 251 Techno-Logics and Techno-Magics: Phantasmagoria in the Age of Electricity 15 Stefan Andriopoulos, Ghostly Apparations. German Idealism, the Gothic Novel, and Optical Media, New York 2013, p. 11. 16 Ibid., p. 163. 17 Étienne-Gaspard Robertson, Mémoires Récréatifs, Scientifiques et Anecdotiques du Physicien-Aéronaute E. G. Robertson: Connu par ses Expériences de Fantasmagorie, et par ses Ascensions Aérostatiques Dans les Principales Villes de l'Europe: Ex-Professeur de Physique au Collége Central du Ci-Devant Départment de l'Ourthe, Membre de la Société Galvanique de Paris, de la Société des Arts and des Sciences de Hambourg, et de la Société d'Émulation de Liége, Paris 1831, vol. 1, p. 27. 18 See, for the relationship between philosophy and optical media in detail: Stefan Andriopoulos, Ghostly Apparitions. German Idealism, the Gothic Novel, and Optical Media, New York 2013. 19 See also Noam Elcott, “ The Phantasmagoric ‘ Dispositif ’ : An Assembly of Bodies and Images in Real Time and Space ” , in: Grey Room 62 (2016), pp. 42 - 71. 20 Giuliano Pancaldi, Volta. Science and Culture in the Age of Enlightenment, Princeton/ Oxford 2003, p. 2. 21 Tresch, Romantic Machines, p. XI. 22 Pancaldi, Volta, p. 6. 23 Tresch, Romantic Machines, p. XII. 24 While the romantic is associated with longing for nature, self-employment, sensation, spirit, expanded experience, unintermediateness, and technophobia, the machine is commonly associated with opposite notions. 25 Jan Lazardzig, Theatermaschine und Festungsbau. Paradoxien der Wissensproduktion im 17. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2007, pp. 16 - 17. 26 John Tresch, Romantic Machines. Sciences and Technology After Napoleon, p. XI. 27 Ibid., p. 3. 28 Rupert Gaderer, Poetik der Technik: Elektrizität und Optik bei E. T. A. Hoffmann, Freiburg i.Br. 2009. 29 Siegfried Zielinski, Archäologie der Medien. Zur Tiefenzeit des technischen Hörens und Sehens, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2002, pp. 195 - 196. 30 Jürgen Barkhoff, Hartmut Böhme and Jeanne Riou (eds.), „ Vorwort. 1800 - 1900 - 2000 “ , in: Netzwerke. Eine Kulturtechnik der Moderne, Köln/ Weimar/ Wien 2004, pp. 7 - 16, here: p. 9. 31 Tresch, Romantic Machines, p. XI. 32 See Pancaldi, Volta, p. 153. 33 Ibid., p. 73. 34 Ibid., p. 123. 35 Ibid. (emphasis K. R.). 36 Ibid., p. 111. 37 Ibid., pp. 142 f. 38 Ibid., p. 5. 39 Ibid., p. 230. 40 E.-G. Robertson, “ Expériences nouvelles sur le fluide galvanique [. . .]; lues à l ’ Institut National de France le 11 fructidor an 8 ” , in: Annales de Chimie, 37 (December 1800), pp.132 - 150, here: pp. 132 - 150 and p. 132. 41 Ibid., p. 139. 42 Heard, Phantasmagoria, p. 85. 43 In Paris, he followed the lectures of Jacques Alexandre Charles, the pioneer of hydrogen gas for balloon flight (and chartering indeed the first flight in 1783), who later became Robertson ’ s mentor. 44 Robertson, “ Expériences nouvelles sur le fluide galvanique ” , p. 139. 45 Affiches, Annonces et Avis Divers 121 (20 January 1798): 2224. English translation quoted from Mannoni, ‘ The Phantasmagoria ’ , p. 150. 46 Heard, Phantasmagoria, p. 94. 47 On 1 October and 24 October 1801, see Alessandro Volta, Epistolario, vol. 4, Bologna 1953, p. 489 and p. 508. 48 Robertson, “ Expériences, nouvelles sur le fluide galvanique ” , p. 144. 49 Marina Warner, Phantasmagoria, Oxford 2006, p. 148. 50 Ibid. 51 Francois Martin Poultier-Delmotte, 28. 3. 1798, in: Marion Fulgence, The Wonders of Optics, transl. Charles W. Quinn, London 1886, p. 6. 52 Heard, Phantasmagoria, p. 98. 53 Ibid., p. 93. 54 Marina Warner, for instance, hints at Meliés and the frightening effects of the early films by the Lumière brothers preceeded by Ro- 252 Kati Röttger bertson ’ s show, in: Phantasmagoria, Oxford 2006, p. 150 and p. 156. 55 David Robinson (transl.), “ Mémoire Recreative: ‘ Robinson on Robertson ’” , in: The Ten Year Book, London 1986, p. 6. 56 Ibid. (emphases by KR). 57 Jacques Derrida, Spectres of Marx. The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, London/ New York 1994, p. 2. 58 Robinson, “ Mémoire Recreative: ‘ Robinson on Robertson ’ , p. 6. 59 Ibid. 60 Pancaldi, Volta, p. 257. 61 Tresch, Romantic Machines, p. 127. 62 Jean-Marie Ampère, Essai sur la pholosophie des sciences, ou exposition analytique d ’ uns classification naturelle de toutes les connaissances humaines, vol. 1 - 2, Paris 1814, 1843, vol. 2, p. 75. 63 Heard, Phantasmagoria, p. 93. 64 E. T. A. Hoffmann, Briefe 1814 - 1822, Bd. 6, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 9 - 246 and p. 138. See Rupert Gaderer, Poetik der Technik: Elektrizität und Optik bei E. T. A. Hoffmann, Freiburg i.Br. 2009, p. 24. 65 Oliver Hochadel, “ Zauberhafte Aufklärung. Étienne-Gaspard de Robertson zwischen Schaustellerei und Wissenschaft ” , in: Brigitte Felderer and Ernst Strouhal (eds.), Rare Künste. Zur Kultur- und Mediengeschichte der Zauberkunst, Wien 2006, pp. 433 - 450, https: / / www.academia.edu/ 1279861/ _Zaube rhafte_Aufkl%C3%A4rung._Étienne-Gaspa rd_Robertson_zwischen_Schaustellerei_und _Wissenschaft [accessed 18 September 2020] 66 Jean-Jacques Ampère in Pierre-George Castex, Le Conte Fantastique en France de Nodier à Maupassant, Paris 1987, p. 45. 67 See “ how scientific instruments and their interpretations travel across cultural frontiers ” during the ‘ age of progress ’ , in: Pancaldi, Volta, p. 4 f., especially about the cosmopolitan network and the expert ’ s map of natural philosophers at the end of the 18 th century, see chapter 5, pp. 146 - 177. 68 See Kati Röttger, “ F@ust Version 3.0: Eine Theater- und Mediengeschichte ” , in: Christopher Balme and Markus Moninger (eds.), Crossing Media. Theater-Film-Fotografie- Neue Medien, München 2004, pp. 33 - 54. Shortened English version: Kati Röttger, “ Faust Version 3.0: A History of Theatre and Media ” , in: Journal of Culture, Language and Representation 6 (2008), pp. 31 - 46. See Tresch, Romantic Machines, chapter 2, about The Devil ’ s Opera in Paris; Rupert Gaderer, Poetik der Technik: Elektrizität und Optik bei E. T. A. Hoffmann, Freiburg i.Br. 2009, chapter 7, about Hoffmann ’ s Theater Technics. 69 George Simondon, Die Existenzweise Technischer Objekte, Zürich 2012, p. 9. 70 Ibid., p. 11. 71 Tresch, Romantic Machines, p. 13. 72 Ibid., p. 12: “ Yet in the early nineteenth century, the distinction between a machine, as that which is moved by an external force, and an organism, as a system whose motive force is internal, often broke down. The exemplary machines of the romantic era, powered by steam, electricity, and other subtle forces, could be seen to have their own motive force within them; they were presented as ambiguously alive. ” 73 Warner, Phantasmagoria, p. 10. 74 See also Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus, Paris 1994. 253 Techno-Logics and Techno-Magics: Phantasmagoria in the Age of Electricity