‘Modest recording instruments without talent’: (psychic) automatism in Surrealism

Dr. Tessel M. Bauduin

Man Ray, The Surrealists at the Bureau of Surrealist Research, 1925.

Left to right: Charles Baron, Raymond Queneau, Pierre Naville, André Breton, J.-A. Boiffard, Giorgio de Chirico, Roger Vitrac, Paul Éluard, Philippe Soupault, Robert Desnos, Louis Aragon. In front: Simone Breton, Max Morise, Mick Soupault.

SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner—the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern. Breton, Manifesto (1924)

Today: “psychic automatism” and the Bureau of Surrealist Research: research of the psyche (psychical research?) a la mode surréaliste

• Development of psychic automatism • Origins in science > medicine > dynamic psychiatry • Research practice of the surrealists – surrealist psychic automatism as

mode of investigation • Being an instrument • A “revenge” of the unconscious?

1. Early Surrealism (1919-1924) (Période flou & time of slumbers)

1. “Inventing” automatic writing: Les champs magnétiques (1919)

Medical-psychiatric background of (early) Surrealism:

“doctor’s club”: Breton, Aragon, Fraenkel, also, Ernst, Soupault, a.o. 1. French (Francophone) (dyn.) psychiatry • Pierre Janet • Jean-Martin Charcot • Joseph Babinski • Théodore Flournoy

2. European (dyn.) psychiatry (in translation/excerpt/etc.): • Sigmund Freud

Breton as medical orderly in St. Dizier hospital, ca. 1916-7; Louis Aragon (medical officer) & Theodore Fraenkel, ca. 1916-7.

‘Attitudes passionelles’ (Augustine), 1928. Aragon & Breton, ‘Le Cinquantenaire de l’hystérie, 1878-1928’, La Révolution Surréaliste 11 (1928): 20-2. Photographs orginally from Bourneville & Regnard under de direction of Charcot, Iconographie Photographique, vol. II. 1877-1880.

Man Ray, Je revois maintenant Robert Desnos…, ca. 1923.

2. “The Time of Slumbers”: exploring automatisms & dream states in one (1922-23)

Automatic writing: Robert Desnos’s ‘sommeils hypnotiques’

Two examples of automatic writing by Desnos, 1922 [archive Breton].

Automatic drawing: Desnos

Two automatic drawings, artist unknown [Robert Desnos], ca. 1922 [archive Breton].

Background of (early) Surrealism in psychiatry & psychical research:

1. French (Francophone) dyn. psychiatry • Pierre Janet • Jean-Martin Charcot • Joseph Babinski • Théodore Flournoy • Later: Charles Richet (later work)

2. European - American dyn. psychiatry (in translation/excerpt/etc.): • Sigmund Freud • Frederic Myers • William James • Albert von Schrenk-Notzing • and others

Hélène Smith, Écriture martienne, 1897. Flournoy in séance with Hélène Smith [supposedly]. Undated photograph (1890s), handcoloured, unknown photographer. “Mme. Sacco”. Unknown photographer, photograph reproduced in Breton, Nadja (1928).

SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner—the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern. Breton, Manifesto (1924)

“Surrealism” designates ‘a certain psychic automatism that corresponds rather well to the dream state’ (Breton, 1923).

Man Ray, Robert Desnos dans l’atelier de Breton, 1924.

André Breton, Autoportrait: L’écriture automatique, 1938. Portrait of Freud, 1930s.

Breton & Freud: ‘fellow explorers of the hidden mind’ (dixit AB)

III. Early Surrealism II: Le bureau de recherches surréalistes (1924-25)

Advertising cards for the Bureau of surrealist research, ca. 1924.

The Bureau of Surrealist Research:

was to be engaged in (press statement): collecting by all appropriate means communications concerning the diverse forms taken by the mind’s unconscious activity [l’activité inconsciente de l’esprit]. No specific field has been defined for this project and surrealism plans to assemble as much experimental data as possible, without knowing yet what the end result might be. LRS 2 (1925): 31.

Man Ray, Waking dream séance, Bureau of Surrealist Research, 1925.

La Centrale Surreáliste (BRS), notebook entries (24 Dec, 1926).

La révolution surréaliste 3 (1925), 2: ‘Rêves’

La révolution surréaliste 9-10 (1927), 11: ‘Visions de demi-sommeil’

La révolution surréaliste (1924- 1929)

Man Ray, The enigma of Isidore Ducasse, or. 1920.

Breton: Surrealist poets should be ‘simple receptacles’, ‘modest recording instruments’… without talent’.

‘But we, who have made no effort whatsoever to filter, who in our works have made ourselves into simple receptacles of so many echoes, modest recording instruments who are not mesmerized by the drawings we are making, perhaps we serve a even nobler cause. Thus do we render with integrity the ‘talent’ which has been lent to us. You may as well speak of the talent of this platinum ruler, this mirror, this door, and of the sky if you like. We have no talent…’. Breton Manifesto 1972 [1924]: 27-28.

Richer: Études cliniques sur l’hystéro-éplisepsie ou grande hystérie (Paris: 1885), fig. 15: ‘Pneumographic traces taken on G’. (1: thorax; 2: abdomen; 3: changes in neck volume)

SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner—the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern. Breton, Manifesto (1924)

‘Thus the whole technical effort of Surrealism, from its very beginning up to the present day, has consisted in multiplying the ways to penetrate the deepest layers of the mental. “I say that we must be seers, make ourselves seer”: for us it has only been a question of discovering the means to apply this watchword of Rimbaud’s. In the first rank of those of these means whose effectiveness has been fully proved in the last few years is psychic automatism in all its forms….’ Breton, The Automatic Message 1934

Paul Nougé, The harvests of sleep, ca. 1929-30. Uit de serie Subversion des images, 1929-30.

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Dr. Tessel M. Bauduin w: http://radboud.academia.edu/TesselBauduin - www.tesselbauduin.nl

e: tessel@tesselbauduin.nl – t.m.bauduin@uva.nl

Woman with closed/opened eyes (Kiki de Montparnasse), 1926. Film-stills from Man Ray, Emak Bakia, 1926.

‘Attitudes passionelles’ (Augustine), 1928. Aragon & Breton, ‘Le Cinquantenaire de l’hystérie, 1878-1928’, La Révolution Surréaliste 11 (1928): 20-2. Photographs orginally from Bourneville & Regnard under de direction of Charcot, Iconographie Photographique, vol. II. 1877-1880.

A copy of “Hysteria or Pithiatism” signed by Babinski and inscribed to André Breton.

Man Ray, Portrait of Rrose Sélavy [Duchamp], 1921; idem, Robert Desnos, ca. 1922-24.

Spoonerisms by Desnos as Rrose: ‘Oh mon crâne étoile de nacre qui s’étiole’

Hélène Smith, Écriture martienne, 1897. Flournoy, Des Indes à la Planète Mars (1900). Hélène Smith, Paysage martien, s.d. (1890s). Victorien Sardou, The House of Swedenborg, 1860s. Augustine.

Automatic drawing: André Masson, Automatic Drawing, 1924.

Frottage & grattage: Max Ernst, Europe after the Rain II, 1940-42.

Décalcomanie: Max Ernst, Epiphany, 1940.

“automatic” photography: the ‘Rayograph’ (= photogram) Man Ray, Rayographe/Sans titre (Les champs délicieux), ca. 1922. Man Ray, Rayographe/Sans titre, ca. 1923.

Automatic walking (“fugue automatique”) and the surrealist object: Giacometti, Invisible Object, 1934.

André Breton, ‘Le Message Automatique’, Minotaure 3-4 (1933).

Freud: dream as locus of the unconscious Myers: ‘subliminal’, & automatic messages [P]roducts of inner audition or inner vision [are] externalised into quasi- percepts [sic]—these form what I term sensory automatisms. The messages conveyed by limbs or hands or tongue, initiated by an inner motor impulse beyond the conscious will—these are what I term motor automatisms. … They will be seen to be messages from the subliminal to the supraliminal self…. Myers, Human Personality, I: 222 (italics original).

Flournoy: the creative and ludic unconscious (Richet: ‘métapsychique’, ‘cryptesthesia’)

1. One can access the subliminal [unconscious]

2. Trances, altered states, etc. = the unconscious. No communication external to one’s self (and no Jungian common unconscious either!)

3. Accessing the subliminal is not limited to patients but possible also for “normal” persons (= men)

4. Subliminal by default: mediums, hysterics, clairvoyants; women in general. Also, outsider artists = the naive, the delusional, patients, children, non-western tribal groups.

5. For “rational” men: instrumentation

‘Two weeks ago … René Crevel described to us the beginnings of a ‘spiritualist’ initiation he had had, thanks to a certain madame D. This person, having discerned particular mediumistic qualities in him, had taught him how to develop these qualities; so it was that, in the conditions necessary for the production of such phenomena (darkness and silence in the room, a ‘chain’ of hands around the table), he had soon fallen asleep and uttered words that were organized into a generally coherent discourse, to which the usual waking techniques put a stop at a given moment.’