Pharmakon und Formation : Aby Warburgs Ordnungsformate der Psyche
Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft, 12 (22):
31--41 (2020)Publisher: transcript.DOI: 10.25969/MEDIAREP/13652
Abstract
Aby Warburg’s different formations of the knowledge refer to a variety of organization techniques e.g. card indexes, letter copying books, diaries or his writing desk. The paper seeks to explain these acts of formation as existential arrangements of Warburgs mind. In current understanding, these techniques are known for both, the symptom and cure of his mental illness between 1918 and 1924. Connecting the excessive praxis of organization Warburg’s with the figure of the pharmakon, relevant described by Jacques Derrida, we can understand the creating of arrangements as an existential act and also as an act of writing. Therefore, we can ask, how Warburg's arrangement method in making the Mnemosyne Bildatlas, is related to alternative forms as a response to established but sickening scholastic practices. Warburg's answer to this is simply conceiving new formations.