Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht:
Production of Presence. What Meaning cannot
Convey
User’s manual
PRESENCE
PRODUCTION
MEANING
METAPHYSICS
A spatial relationship to the world and its objects.
Tangible.
The act of bringing forth an object in space.
If we form an idea of what this thing may be in relation
to use – we attenuate the impact this thing can have on
our bodies and our senses.
An attitude that gives a higher value to the meaning of
phenomena than to their material presence. A worldview
that always wants to go beyond that which is physical.
1. Materialities / The Nonhermeneutic / Presence
Aim of book
PREHISTORY
Materialities of
communication
Inspirational theorists
Media history and body
culture
Production of presence
Challenge the dominating academic hegemony of
hermeneutics/interpretation within humanities.
From focus upon interpretation to focus upon presence.
Or more accurately an oscillation between interpretation
and presence.
The alternative approach that could illuminate aspects
that were not part of an hermeneutic approach of
interpretation and search for meaning.
Materialiteis of communication as all phenomena and
conditions that contribute to the production of meaning
withough being meaning in themselves.
 Kittler: psychohistorical thesis for the dominance
of the paradigm of interepreation. Psychophysics.
 Zumthor – the phenomenology of the voice and
of writing as body-centred modes of
communication.
 Lyotard
 Derrida – critizing the logo-phonocentrism in
Western culture
 Foucault
 Luhmann
How different media affect the meaning that they carry.
The materialities of communication.
The effect of tangibility that comes from the
materialities of communication is also in constant
movement. Any form of communication will touch the
bodies of the persons who are communicating.
1
3. Beyong Meaning: Positions and Concepts in Motion
Beyond metaphysics
Daring to be
substantialistic
Hermeneutic maximalism
Gumbrecht’s wish
Jean-Luc Nancy on
presence
Bohrer on suddenness
George Steiner on real
presence
Critique against
“constructivism”
Judith Butler
Michael Taussig
Martin Seel
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Heidegger moves beyond
meaning
Doing something in addition to interpretation. There is
more to the world than meaning.
The Cartesian worldview and hermeneutics make it
difficult to se what this could be.
Concept such as “substance,” “presence,” “reality,”
“being.”
e.g. Gianni Vattimo/ Interpretation held to be
humankind’s exclusive way of relating to the world.
Try to reestablish our contact with the things of the
world outside the subject/object paradigm and by
avoiding interpretation. The subject/object paradigm
excludes any easy world-reference.
Alludes to a conception of presence that is difficult to
reconcile with modern Western epistemology <-- brings
back physical closeness and tangibility.
Connects presence with extreme temporality: presence is
not something that we can hold on to.
The ephemeral character of aesthetic experience. “the
negativity of the awareness of vanishing presence.”
Substance, not meaning: the substance of the signifier.
The relationship of layers of meaning and layers of
substantive presence in art. Meaningfulness, not
meaning. Substance and immanence.
Realities as constructions of our consciousness, still with
features of consciousness that are common among all
humans (the transcendenal subject). Shared realities are
social constructions.
The materiality of the body and the fixity and stability
this materiality causes. Change requires forms of
behaviour and action maintained over time (not a simple
decision to change as constructivism seems to suggest).
Continues the polemic against constructivism.”If life is
constructed, how come it appears to ummutable? How
come culture appears so natural?” (62).
The true real of substance and materiality
New reflection on aesthetics in the concept of
“appearance:” the conditions through which the world is
given to use and presents itself to the human senses.
Wahrnehmung. Bring back the thingness of the world.
The father of hermeneutics. Suggested a greater
acknowledgment f the nonsemantic, i.e, material
components.
Actually produced a repertoire of nonmetaphysical
concepts. Discontenet witht the philosophy of Husserl:
Husserl’s phenomenology was the endpoint of a
philosophical tradition in which the subject/object
paradigm had led the Western culture to an extreme state
of alienation from the world (human existence as purely
2
spiritual, and the world as purely material sphere).
Heidegger’s decisive
The characterizatoin of human existence as being-in-theconceptual move
world – an existence that is already substantial and in
spatial contact with the world.
“Being”
Obviously of relevance in a discussion of presence.
1. Being takes over the
The place of the truth had been occupied by the “ideas”
place of truth
or other forms of conceptual configurations. Being is not
something conceptual. Being belongs to the dimension
of things. It has substance and it occupies space.
2. Being’s movement in
Accounts for what Heidegger calls the “happening of
space is multidimensional truth.” The three directions in the movement of Being:
vertical (sway), horizontal (idea, look), withdrawal. The
vertical dimension points to Being simply being there.
The horizontal dimension points to Being as being
perceived. Being refers to the things of the world prior to
their interpretation.
The double movement of
Being refers to things before they become part of a
“unconcealment” and
culture. Being only as Being outside of the networks of
“withdrawal”
semantics. But for us to experience Being, it will have to
cross over and become part of culture. And is no longer
Being.
3. The role of Dasein in
Dasein is not like subjectivity. Dasein is being-in-thethe happening of truth
world, human existence that is always already in contact
with the world. Does not concern manipulating,
transforming, or interpreting the world.
4. Heidegger’s tendency to The unconcealment (and the withdrawal) of Being. The
present the work of art as
happening of truth as making us see things in a way
a priviliged site for the
“different from the ordinary way.”
happening of truth
Paralleling with world and “The world is the self-disclosing openness of the broad
earth
paths of the simple and essential decisions in the destiny
of a historical people. The earth is the spontaneous
forthcoming of that which is continually self-secluding
and to that extent sheltering and concealing.” (73).
Being and presence
Are obviously very close. Both imply substance, both
are related to space, both can be associated with
movement. The tension between meaning (that which
makes things culturally specific) and presence or Being.
MEDIEVAL CULTURE
Turning to pre- or nonmetaphysical cultures and
discourses. Propose concepts that can help overcome the
status of interpretation within the humanities. Two
typologies, which are to be understood as Ideal-typen.
1. propose a distinction
None of which have existed in a pure form.
between “meaning
Still some cultural phenomena are more the the presence
culture” and “presence
culture side (e.g. the sacraments of the Catholic Church),
culture”
others are more on the meaning side (the early modern
Spanish Empire).
1. The mind vs. the body The mind is the dominant human self-reference in a
meaning culture; the body is dominating in a presence
culture.
3
2. Subjectivity vs. “Subjectivity” within meaning cultures – eccentric in
cosmology relation to the world. In presence cultures, humans
consider their bodies to be part of a cosmology – part of
the world.
3. Legitimate knowledge Meaning culture: if it has been produced by a subject in
an act of world-interpretation.
Presence culture: legitimate knowledge is revealed
knowledge. Revelation and unconcealment. Not
necessarily conceptual, can be substantial
4. What is a sign Meaning culture: Saussure – the coupling of a material
signifier with a purely spiritual signified (or “meaning”).
When the meaning is identified, the material signifier
ceases to an object of interest.
5. Humans in the world
6. Space/Time
7. Violence and power
8. Innovation
9. Playfulness
Presence culture: an understanding of the sign that is
close to the Aristotelian sign defininition. A sign is a
coupling between a substance (requires space) and a
form (makes it possible for the substance to be
perceived). The spiritual and the material is brought
together in the sign – no side of the sign-concept will
vanish once a meaning is secured.
Meaning culture: transforming the world is the main
vocation of the human.
Presence culture: where humans want to relate to the
surrounding cosmology by inscribing (their bodies)
themselves into the rhythms of the cosmology. No will
to alter these rhythms.
Meaning culture: Time is the primordial dimension – an
unavoidable association beteen consciousness and
temporality (Husserl: Stream of consciousness).
Presence culture: Space is the primordial dimension in
which the relationship between humans and the things of
the world are being negotiated.
Meaning culture: Typical to defer the moment of actual
violence and thus transform violence into power.
Presence culture: The relationship between human
bodies can constantly turn into violence.
Meaning culture: The concept of event is inseparably
linked to the value of innovation.
Presence culture: The equivalent of an innovation is the
departure from the regularities of a cosmology and its
codes for human conduct.
Meaning culture: Playfulness and fiction as concepts
that characterize interactions whose participants have
limited or no awareness at the motivations that guide
their behaviour.
Presence culture: Actions (as motivation for behaviour)
have no place – thus cannot produce an equivalent f the
concepts of playfulness or fiction.
4
10. Meaning cultures: parliamentary discussions.
Presence culture: Eucharist as the prototypical ritual.
Makes God’s body physically present as the central part
of a past situation.
Types of worldFour types: eating, penetrating, mysticism,
appropriation
interpretation/communication
1. Eating the things of the As in eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ.
world
The most direct way of becoming one with the things of
the world in their tangible presence.
2. Penetrating things and
Body contact, sexuality, aggression, destruction. The
bodies
merging of bodies with other bodies.
3. Mysticism
The presence of the world or the other is physically felt
although there is no perception of a real object. In
meaning cultures – the fear of loosing control over
oneself.
4. Communication and
As exclusively spiritual ways of world-appropriation
interpretation
correspond to meaning-culture.
Fear of total communication: of being accessible in
one’s innermost thoughts and feelings.
5