ERIN MENELAWSMCCRIRIE
The Ontological Status of the Plaything and Exploring the Perception of Magic, Myth, and Intermediate Spaces Relevant to Understanding the Plaything
May 2025
Fine Art BA Hons Dissertation
DOI 10.20933/100001379
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Contents:
Abstract:
Acknowledgements:
Contents:
Introduction:
Chapter one: defining the plaything
The plaything as described by Donald Winnicott and Walter Benjamin:
What is myth as described by Roland Barthes and Walter Benjamin:
Chapter two: magic, myth and science
Calder’s Circus (1926–31):
Rabbit in a cabbage (1930):
Paul Klee’s puppets (1916–25):
Chapter three: surrogates, stand-ins and transitions
Hannah Hoch’s ‘Dada Dolls’ (1916):
Oskar Kokoschka’s Alma doll (1919):
Conclusion:
Bibliography:
Abstract:
In this dissertation, I aim to distinguish between the ontology of the plaything and the epistemology of the play we engage in. I will argue that the distinguishing factors are the perception of perceived magic, myth, miracle and science. I will explore Walter Benjamin’s understanding of toys and playing through his selected writings, Volume Two, and his book Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. I will explore the function of myth concerning the plaything through Roland Barthes's mythologies I will also refer to Donald Winnicott’s theory of transitional objects. I will also refer to Walter Benjamin’s concepts surrounding the cult value of art and how they contribute to building and maintaining the language of myth I will discuss five objects I believe embody the notion of the plaything I put forward in this dissertation
I will link the respective practices of art and philosophy through the distinctly human experience of illusion and disillusionment as presented in Donald Winnicott’s Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena A Study of the First Not-Me Possession (see chapter one, what is myth) Th I argue that the task of reality-acceptance is a continual task in which competition is a facet of illusion. No human is permitted freedom from the strenuous task of relating inner and outer reality; intermittent solace from this strain appears in an intermediate area of experience which is not debated, such as the belief in religion and the power of art. This intermediate area is in direct continuity with the immersive play demonstrated by a small child who is ‘lost’ in play. In this intermediate area, the plaything gains its relevance and hold over us, perpetuated by the illusion and disillusionment that hold continuity over our perceptive experiences.
I dedicate this dissertation to my most dedicated proofreader and greatest, most unwavering supporter, my mum. I must give thanks to my wonderfully supportive friends, with special mention to Jessie my childhood friend who I have shared every academic burden and triumph with thus far. This dissertation could not have come to fruition without the endless support of my devoted partner, Joey, with whom support has been unshakeable; I share my greatest successes.
Introduction:
In this dissertation, I will argue that the concept of the plaything can be understood not just as a form of amusement or a time-occupying object but as an instrument to enquire about the materialistic ontology of the thing we play Playthings help describe how matter is shaped for and through play How does ontology formulate an understanding of the plaything? firstly, we must outline the function of ontology and its capabilities and limitations.
Ontology is a branch of philosophy which explores the nature of being and the relative aptitude of entities to relate to one another. It seeks to bring about an understanding of the world through abstract concepts and theories. When arguing that the plaything is an object that holds ontological status, I am not concerned with whether or not the perceived object itself exists and the contingencies of this. One could propose that the material world has grown dematerialised to such an extent that we can no longer perceive what exists and that which doesn’t. Therefore, I will omit engagement with existential ontology, as I do not intend to observe ontology as a whole. Rather, I am concerned with how the plaything provides a vessel for ontological knowledge, delving into what it means for us as subjects of play to exist within an external reality.
Individuation as a process discusses determining what distinguishes one object from another. It relies on analysing an object's host of qualities and characteristics that govern its individual nature. I will implement this process to actualise my understanding of the plaything independent of the toy. Essence is the concept that an object possesses an essential nature that affords it its identity and differentiates it from other objects. I propose that we begin by considering how things and objects integrate with human beings to formulate what we call society and the building and maintaining of history. What role do objects retain in organising and securing a social life? And, more fundamentally, do things make a difference in how we govern ourselves as human beings? The plaything presents itself as a form of communication, a language in which we gain possession of ourselves and first entangle ourselves with the alien rhythms of others through translation and mimicry. The plaything gains its ontological status through semantic languages such as the language myth
presents. Through speech, the plaything can be transformed into a vessel for knowledge different from the situated knowledge gained through experiencing play Rather, the plaything as an ontological object forms a means of relating our inner and outer realities through perception and object entanglements; we continually test reality
Play occupies an important role in defining the plaything, as deciphering its function as an object will inform the capacities of the plaything. Play in Walter Benjamin’s writings is an often-overlooked facet of his thought, although it connects to his enduring concern with structures of repetition and socio-cultural production. The repetition that runs alongside the pleasure of play lies at the heart of Benjamin's inquiry into the means of mechanical reproduction
I present five objects I believe are playthings I will argue thus by categorising them. The first plaything I will discuss is the plaything created and sustained through myth formed through the repetition and rhythms of play, similar to storytelling concerning mythology. The second form of plaything I will discuss is the plaything formulated through the return to the intermediate space through regression, transitions, and stand-ins
One of the challenges of defining the plaything is when the discussion veers too far in favour of new materialism, which complicates all object relationships by insisting that all matter possesses force and energy and can shape itself and influence other matter, including humans Because of this complication, I will only briefly discuss materialism in a broad sense. When discussing the plaything, we cannot ignore its materiality. It may be tempting to discuss materialism at length. However, I will only touch briefly on materialism as it is not my main objective to discern where the plaything's object falls in relation to all matter. Instead, I will focus on the language surrounding the plaything and how this defines matter.
Materialism postulates that all facts of existence are discernible or reliant upon physical matter and processes This is one definition of materialism. However, Marx opposes this. Instead, he argues that materialism sees labour and work as the basic material that builds the world instead of the actual physical matter. I propose that materialism sees play as the basic materialism of the world as a facet of Marx's understanding of work and labour I suggest that this understanding of materialism supports the concept that the language surrounding and supporting play informs matter.
I will support this understanding by referencing Freud's understanding of play Freud discusses play in his work ‘Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious’ (1905). Here, he suggests that psychological pleasure that arises from engagement with play is formatted through repetition of what is near, a recapturing of what is familiar through the similarity of sounds. He postulates that pleasure is acquired both from the economy of repetition and the playful relation to the sheer materiality of language and the dispossess of signification
Chapter one:
Defining the plaything Donald Winnicott’s transitional object phenomena
I propose that the plaything differs from the toy not in the value or function of the object but as a mode for understanding the intermediate area of experience where we begin the undertaking of relating inner and outer reality and continually return to it. I will elaborate on this notion through Donald Winnicott’s writings on transitional objects and Roland Barthes’ writings on myth. To first understand the plaything, we must begin to break down the role of play Play is significant to interpersonal development within the early developmental years. Play can also reveal a lot about the psyche of a child and the welfare of the key figures who provide care. Some of the behaviours developed within this crucial stage of development go on to inform and shape who we are as people in adulthood.
I will now discuss the relevance of Winnicott’s theory on “the intermediate space”, a physical and mental distance that opens up between baby and mother; he discusses how an object, which he refers to as the transitional object, occupies this space. Transitional objects are usually chosen within the first six months of life when weaning of the child may begin, a separation between baby and mother in which the baby becomes attached to their first non-me object; this object is often chosen for its maternal qualities; it is hugable, biteable, strokable, provide security. In early attachment washing, the transitional object may disturb the meaning assigned to it by the child. These patterns of self-soothing may resurface long into maturity when loneliness, depression, or loss threaten our security within ourselves. Security is something that must be won over and over again throughout our lives.
Winning security involves warding off disillusion in many ways, including instilling a new illusion in which we return to that intermediate space mentally or physically through the return of childhood habits Symbolism is key to understanding the transitional object. The infant is already beginning to distinguish between reality and fantasy, between inner and external objects that appear through play. We already see a semiotic language forming detailing how we first create experiences.
Winnicott suggests that even the most reluctant play of the most isolated child relies on the reality of an interpersonal horizon. This limit to play informs us that we live in play; we do not happen upon it as an extrinsic occurrence, and the human being is the subject of play. This is fundamental in building our understanding of the plaything as a means of reality testing and world-building
The mother, in the beginning, must afford the infant 100 per cent adaption of needs, allowing the infant the contingency to foster the illusion that her breast is an extension of the infant; as if under omnipotent control, the breast is fabricated repeatedly by the infant's capacity to need. The eventual role of the mother is gradual disillusionment of the infant's perception of what is perceived and what is subjectively conceived of something. This is achieved by first supplying the sufficient opportunity of illusion. The area afforded to the infant between principal creativity and object perception is built upon by reality testing through the disillusionment that they are not omnipotent, nor are their needs being met in magic.
“There are certain comments that can be made on the basis of accepted psycho-analytic theory. 1. The transitional object stands for the breast, or the object of the first relationship.”1
The word possession is clear in intent, but the word object is also clear in this context; the ‘first not-me’ object is usually considered the breast. The breast is devised as an object due to the infant's lack of possession; rather, the breast is not an extension infant's body yet is not fully recognised as belonging to external reality while in the early stages of illusion
“The transitional phenomena represent the early stages of the use of illusion, without which there is no meaning for the human being in the idea of a relationship with an object that is perceived by others as external to that being”2
Winnicott highlights how the symbolism behind the ‘first not-me’ object is what ascribes extrinsic value to the object itself and defines our interest in further object relationships. I propose that the stronger the attachment to the transitional object in early life, the more likely we are in later life to replicate these relationships; we chase to secure that same level of comfort and security. In some cases, we may instead encourage and aid in fortifying our children's object relationships
“This is a typical example of what I am calling a Transitional Object. When Y was a little boy it was always certain that if anyone gave him his 'Baa' he would immediately suck it and lose anxiety, and in fact he would go to sleep within a few minutes if the time for sleep were at all near. The thumb-sucking continued at the same time, lasting until he was three or four years old, and he remembers thumb-sucking and a hard place on one
1 Donald Winnicott, Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena A Study of the First Not-Me Possession, (1953), p5
2 Donald Winnicott, Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena A Study of the First Not-Me Possession, (1953), p7
thumb which resulted from it. He is now interested (as a father) in the thumb-sucking of his children and their use of 'Baas'.”3
Chapter Two:
What is myth
I now present the notion that the concept of myth fortifies the building of illusion found in the intermediate space throughout our lived experience. First, we must consider what myth is. Myth, according to Roland Barthes in his work Mythologies (1957). Myth is a type of speech, a language consistent with etymology, the scientific study of the semantic meaning of words in both historical and contemporary contexts. Myth is a communication system that is not about events or objects but of semantic meaning and importance formed through language. Barthes discusses the function of myth as a system of two relational semiological systems: a linguistic system, the language or the means of representation related to it, which Barthes refers to as the language-object. He calls it as such because it is the language that myth occupies to formulate a system. Myth itself is referred to as metalanguage due to its classification as a second language used to discuss the first.
Semiology reveals a relationship involving two key terms, a signifier and a signified. This relation deals with objects that belong to different categories therefore, it presents a process of equivalence as opposed to equality. It must be stated that there lies a common assumption that simplifies the way in which the signifier expresses the signified. In actuality, Barthes proposes that three terms within the semiological system do not articulate one after the other; rather, they function under a correlation that unites them. Therefore, there is the signifier, the signified, and the sign, which provides us with the totality of the first two terms. The materials of mythical speech, in this case, the plaything, are reduced in function to a purely signifying as soon as myth
3 Donald Winnicott, Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena A Study of the First Not-Me Possession, (1953), p5
captivates them. Myth observes them as parallel to raw material; all subjects of myth are unified by their reduction to the status of mere language; myth dictates the presentation of such subjects as merely an aggregate of signs.
The understanding of myth provided by Roland Barthes allows for the perception that myth cannot simply be defined by an object, concept or idea. Rather, it presents a mode of signification, a form. myth can be categorized as a form of speech, allowing anything to be a myth, provided it is conveyed through discourse. Myth is not defined or categorised by the object of its message but by how it conveys it. There are no definable limits to that which is considered a myth. Therefore, there are no ‘substantial’ ones, only suggestions.
The plaything can be formed through the language of myth. It is not the object's substance that distinguishes a toy from that of a plaything; rather, it is the discourse we use to convey the nature of play itself that formulates the plaything. The mode of signification we employ fabricates a form independent of the object's function, fertile with suggestion; the plaything is reducible to raw matter. Raw matter, also known as prime matter, is a philosophical convention that challenges our understanding of the material world. In the case of playthings, it throws into question the differentiating of the external world and internal reality Did we fabricate the myth surrounding our childhood playthings, or did we simply discover it?
It is the move from mimicry of relational understanding as a mode of play where repetition and rhyme are one of our first understandings of play where we are not the subject rather, we are a facet of the experience, it is within these rhymes we first gain possession of ourselves before we acknowledge the foreign rhythm of other humans out with our relational understanding. Through the play, we engage in with the plaything we position ourselves as the creator of worlds, of myth and magic. When we as children repeat play out with the paradigm of relational mimicry, we create the entire event fresh and start again from the beginning. In contrast, in adulthood, we may relive through repetition not as a form of play but as a way of relieving our hearts from its
plights and fears to double our happiness. We turn the experience into a story to be retold, one that gains new life
This notion is further developed by Walter Benjamin in his selected writing volume two (1927-1934):
“An adult relives his heart from its terrors and doubles happiness by turning it into a story. A child creates the entire event anew and starts again right from the beginning.”4
Barthes in his 1957 work mythologies discusses how mimicry presents as a negative in play, omitting the perceived intended function of play as an act of creation:
“However, faced with the world of faithful and complicated objects, the child can only identify himself as owner, as user, never a creator; he does not invent the world, he uses it: there are, prepared for him, actions without adventure, without wonder, without joy He is turned into a little stay-at-home householder who does not even have to invent the mainsprings of adult causality; thet are supplied to him ready-made: he has only to help himself, he is never allowed to discover anything from start to finish.”5
Here, we see a clear disdain for how toys have evolved away from the magic in the utility of creation; they have been cast aside by the language of myth. Later, he goes on to state that toys die quickly and that they have no posthumous life for the child. I postulate that the difference between toys and the plaything is their life span. Winnicott discusses how transitional objects may be relegated to live in a state of limbo but are never truly forgotten; they do not experience the same death as toys, and they are not forgotten, or neither are they mourned.
In the language of myth, not all are expressed simultaneously; some objects fall prey to the mythical language for a short period only to dissipate, while others attain the status of myth through repetition, rhymes and fervid storytelling. This storytelling is evident throughout generational and historical communication; it is human history, oral or otherwise, that converts reality into speech. It is this which rules the life span and death
4 Walter Benjamin, selected writings volume 2 (1927-1934), p120
5 Roland Barthes, mythologies (1957), p54
of mythological language. Ancient or not, mythology can only flourish in history; it is its resilience to the warping of time that is indicative of a long life span.
History, whether public or private, dictates myth as a type of speech chosen. Since myth does not grow out of the nature of things, it stands to reason it does not suffer a natural end; rather, it can be reignited under the correct semiotic conditions.
Chapter two:
magic, myth and science
(Waintrob-Budd, 1976)
Calder’s Circus is a mixed-media sculptural installation that blends expressionism and kinetic art through the use of mobile. The figures fashioned from found objects such as wire, fabric and cork are attached to a mobile manipulated by Calder through string pulling and cranking of a handle, everything within the ring is arranged and balanced carefully adhering to the laws of physics in action and through chance, the miracles of the circus performers are permitted as if they have stakes of their own to landing the trick. Calder’s manipulation of the figures to ‘perform’ for a live audience enhances the kinetic lure of his work. Calder’s circus, in many ways, is an act of performance art as well as a sculptural piece. Calder’s performance work borders the line between play and performance. His role as the looming conductor of his performers, just like living performers, there is a chance of mishap or ill performance. I will discuss how Calder’s circus is an example of a plaything.
Alexander Calder, Circus (1926–31)
Calder qualified initially as a mechanical engineer despite the artistic foregrounding of his family in sculpture and portraiture. Later, he enrolled at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1915, where he began to explore movement and momentum within the sculptural medium. By 1932, he grew tiresome of the monotony of the mechanised movement that echoed his preceding profession, which had been done centuries before, as seen in the automatons. This inspired the birth of the mobile, where he placed objects into space and dispensed the mechanical elements altogether, the element of chance movement, creating an almost magic kinetic experience. The term “mobile” was introduced to Calder by his contemporary Marcel Duchamp. A mobile is a kinetic sculpture constructed on the advantage of equilibrium where weighted objects hang from rods that balance upon each other; they hang freely in space, rotating and swayed by a light touch of the wind but not colliding. Calder produced two main distinctions of mobiles: suspending and standing mobiles, the latter aptly referred to as " stabiles”.
At this point in art and design history, "mobile" was synonymous with the term "kinetic art", used to define sculptural works where motion proved an essential focal point. While initially mechanical and clockwork movement within sculptures prompted the term “mobile”, it later defined Calder’s free-moving equilibrium exploiting sculptural works. many of us know the mobile as décor that borders that of a toy, completing a child’s room, engaging and enticing babies through constantly creating new arrangements like a kinetic kaleidoscope. Calder’s circus is built off a mobile that, when manipulated through string pulling and handle cranking, allows the performer's animation. Although Calder directs the performer's movements, there is an element of equilibrium at play which permits the miracles of circus acrobats.
A notable development in the field of kinetic art was the monumental “le Mouvement” exhibition of April 1955 in the Galerie Denise René in Paris. Featuring eight artists notably Alexander Calder. The exhibition proposed that “colour-light-motion time” is the fundamental building block in developing and furthering kinetic sculpture. This postulation was a long way away from the automatons, mechanical objects that manually set into motion a prescribed repertoire of movements; these kinetic sculptures were long
mythologised with accounts of automatised objects completing human tasks like playing instruments and even speaking as far back as 3rd century bce china. These wound-up sculptures still retain a position of mythologised magic despite the introduction of robots to the public. Now, children and adults can purchase robots as toys and aids within the home. This raises the question of why certain objects maintain magic despite the debunking efforts of science.
I propose the question What makes Calder’s circus so magical even without the element of performance by the ringmaster and creator? Why is it that after all these years, we gravitate towards playthings even when they are no longer the subject of play rather, they have been degraded into objects of play over time, does the language of myth create a slip of its tongue where the companions and performers of our play fall into silent disregard when the guise of magic is corrected by science. Or is it that some things carry a magic that defies the normative structures that develop and confine us as people?
circus critic, Legrand-Chabrier, is brought to see Calder perform Cirque Calder. Where he admires Calder’s work so ardently that he writes five articles on the Cirque between 1927 and 1931 in which he states:
“Oh, these are stylized silhouettes, but astonishing in their miniature resemblance, obtained by means of luck, iron wire, spools, corks, elastics . . . A stroke of the brush, a stroke of the knife, of this, of that; these are the skilful marks that reconstruct the individuals that we see at the circus.
Here is a dog who seems like a prehistoric cave drawing with a body of iron wire. He will jump through a paper hoop. Yes, but he may miss his mark or not. This is not a mechanical toy . . . All of this is arranged and balanced according to the laws of physics in action so that it allows for the miracles of circus acrobatics”6
The circus is formulated and balanced according to the laws of psychics according to Legrand-Chabrier’s perception, yet there is an understanding these laws can be suspended by the estimated risk of miscalculation;
6 Calder Foundation. (2016). Alexander S. C. Rower: Cirque Calder | Calder Foundation. [online] Available at: https://calder.org/bibliography/alexander-calder-fischli-weiss-2016/alexander-s-c-rower-cirque-calder/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2025].
it is this risk of falling short that omits the circus’s actors of being mere toys. Rather, they operate under the guise of the illusion that they, too, are capable of human failure. It is this illusion that perpetuates the myth of the plaything as a form of magic.
Rabbit in a Cabbage by Roullet-Decamps (1930)
(House of Automata, no date)
Rabbit in a cabbage produced in 1930 is an example of a Roullet-Decamps automaton, one of the most famous French automata manufacturers; the company was founded in 1865 by Jean Roullet, who later adopted the name Roullet-Decamps in 1889, ten years after her daughter wedded Ernest decamps a mechanist by trade.
The furry rabbit plays two short tunes as it slowly rises from inside the cabbage to observe its surroundings, raises its ears and chews. The rabbit dives back down into the cabbage startled. The rabbit in the cabbage is one of the company's signature automatons being produced and marketed to great commercial success,
becoming something of a collector's item, the automaton is on display at the V&A in London in their young V&A exhibit.
Previously, automata were considered almost unattainable. They were originally designed as ornate frivolous objects, playthings for the wealthy. Because of this status, it was easy to overlook their capacity to perform as playthings. To distinguish a plaything, we first need to believe that we have possibly created it rather than happened upon it; the plaything hosts the illusion that we are creators rather than users. Gabby Wood discusses the status of the automaton in her novel Living Dolls:
“Automata were thought of as glorious feats of engineering, or philosophical toys”7
Wood suggests that automata have the potential to be philosophical in nature. They are the object of dual participation in the spheres of play and philosophy. This dual participation allows for the perception that we are the ones to afford vitality to the objects through play. With each repetition of function, we fabricate a perception of the plaything that adorns our internal reality like a blanket of perceivable magic.
Automatons are complex clockwork dolls and animals that, when wound up, release the same outcome each time. There is a certain delight in a plaything that can be enjoyed repeatedly despite the outcome being known and fixed. I suggest the desire for repetition despite a set income is similar to the winning of security we as infants must do repeatedly to find familiarity in the new uncharted territory of the intermediate space. I argue this is what distinguishes ‘rabbit in a cabbage’ as a plaything; it is the desire to yell ‘again!’ and relive the experience all over again.
7 Gabby Wood, Living dolls, (2003), p16
Automatons operate as if by magic; they have long been held on a pedestal by the language of myth, later making way for robots and cyborgs, all without degrading their prestige and air of wonder. Now, we know the movements presented are an impressive feat of engineering and physics rather than pure magic. In the history of automatons, it is hard to pull apart which is a myth and that which is science; the language surrounding the objects is mythological, with tales that triumph over physics, such as Jacques de Vaucanson’s duck:
“At the command of its creator, Jacques de Vaucanson, the duck rose, flapped its wings and, stretching out its long neck, pecked, nibbled, then swallowed a handful of grain. The duck took water, splashing with its beak (the audience chuckled). It sat. It settled itself, then, with a quack, rose again and miracle upon miracles! defecated onto a silver dish.”8
Vaucanson, the son of a glove maker hailing from Grenoble in France, found himself the herald of a new age of rationalism for a brief moment. While serving as a monk he formulated a machine that served dinner to his fellow monks only for them to later denounce the object as a diabolical display of witchcraft fearing persecution he fled. Here he discovered an audience that always desired more despite the unknown he found this in the wealthiest patrons. This is relevant as it sets the scene for the development of the language of myth that surrounds automatons as objects.
The word automaton has its roots in ancient Greek, and the direct translation is “acting of one's own will.”
Automatons provide the illusion that the machine operates on agency and has free will. This illusion allows for the perception of magic that defies science at first glance; one might conclude that the object is thinking just as we are. We see ourselves within the object as it stares back at us.
An artist who was inspired by automatons perceived free will despite their captive obligation to repetition was Paul Klee with his work “Astrale Automaten”, 1918, in which he depicts a large and a small automaton. He explores the theme of helpless helpers through the angel-like figures that are regulated by the laws of celestial
8 (Mechanical miracles: The rise of the automaton, 2015b)
bodies in that they cannot move freely with the independence of the machinery that allows them the mimicry of free will There is a perceived autonomy at the price of being shackled to an external fixed reality, which erodes the vitality of the object it is this illusion we persist in our storytelling throughout history that is of interest to his artistic practice.
Paul Klee, “Puppets” (1916–25):
(historyofart.org, no date)
Paul Klee was a Swiss-German artist born on the 18th of December 1879; he worked prevalently and to great notability throughout the 19th century and is known for his painting and writing contributions to the artistic Movements surrealism, Cubism, expressionism, and Constructivism. His work was method-based, using a kind of automatism, a method of artistic practice where the artist suppressed conscious control over the making process, allowing the unconscious mind to lead. The drawing technique that Klee applied to the creation of his puppets was popularised in the early 1920s by Andre Mason and Hans Arp. Heralding his childhood drawings as some of his most monumental works, possibly because automatism comes naturally to children as they are not yet privy to the fixed meanings attached to creative medium and process; they are not tied to the burden
of fair representation within their art. As adults, we often find ourselves chasing our earliest creative experiences. This is partly due to the freedom these experiences afford us as creators rather than users of all objects we encounter, just as we believed as infants to have created our mother’s breast.
It was easy to understand Klee’s dedication to his son Felix’s rich interpersonal play, helping with theatrical productions. Klee produced 50 puppets for his son Felix’s 9th birthday. He made them out of beef bones, bristles from brushes, and nuts' shells; his choice of materials reflects the playfulness of his practice. Out of the 50 puppets created, only 30 survived World War II. Although the creation of all 50 puppets was not done with furthering his artistic practice in mind, he did, in effect, see theatrical reality as a world of likenesses, sounds, and images. His puppets proved praiseworthy for their reflected artistic development. Klee’s puppets are perceived to possess cult value despite their later appearance in galleries.
Walter Benjamin discusses cult value:
“This is comparable to the situation of the work of art in prehistoric times when, by the absolute emphasis on its cult value, it was, first and foremost, an instrument of magic. Only later did it come to be recognized as a work of art.”9
Here, Benjamin suggests that magic is the first and foremost distinguisher of cult value within art. I propose that this affords Paul Klee’s puppets the status of playthings as he has transformed ordinary everyday items and decanted waste into instruments of personhood that have delighted not just his son but generations of adults. They are haunting enchantments birthed from the theatre of his rich interpersonal world, breathing vitality into a world most adults have passed through into maturity with little resistance. His puppets form a resistance to the fixed meanings we ascribe to matter once we become privy to the knowledge of what is considered valuable through society's fixed meaning of what is practical or valuable.
9 Walter Benjamin, The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, (1935), p5
What is most interesting about the production of Klee’s puppets is the ritualistic repetition of his use of materials. Walter Benjamin discusses the impulse for repetition in play:
“We know that for a child repetition is the soul of play, nothing gives him greater pleasure than to “Do it again!” the obscure urge to repeat things is scarcely less powerful in play, scarcely less cunning in Its workings, than the sexual impulse in love.”10
Benjamin suggests that there is a radical singularity to the childish act of repetition, which unearths a mode of play that is inhabited by models of fixed meanings, laws, and ordinances of the normative. Play threatens the existing order of things. It is this act of liberation achieved through play that makes way for our future impassions with art, religion and dreaming, the closest mimicry of the impulse repetition holds over a child's reality. The fervid manner in which Klee produced his 50 puppets between 1916 and 1925 is enlightened by the childhood urge for repetition, not just in his son but also in himself.
Freud discusses repetition in play in his work ‘Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious’ (1905), where repetition is favoured through the manipulation of language in favour of its materiality in sound as opposed to meaning. The pleasure achieved from this behaviour starts to wane as words acquire fixed meanings. This loss of enjoyment in the nonsensical soundings Freud attributes to reinforcing the child's reasoning abilities. This reinforcement of reasoning abilities affecting the essence of play within language can be likened to the reality testing an infant undertakes in the intermediate area in Winnicott's understanding of transitional phenomena. In both cases, the child gains an understanding of the external world around them as well as their internal reality.
Winnicott discusses auto-erotic satisfaction in infancy through thumb sucking I propose that Freud's understanding of playful repetition in childhood for the pure principle of the form of language above interaction is the progression of auto-erotic satisfaction in infancy. Freud discusses how the pleasure found in the similarity of sounds derived from the pleasure of the sheer materiality of language dissipates with a
10 Walter Benjamin, selected writings volume 2 (1927-1934), p120
broader understanding of fixed meaning but does not disappear entirely. Rather, it reformats itself as the desire to tell jokes. this shows the progression of repetition throughout play into adulthood, where the principles of play undergo reformatting to fall in line with the fixed functions of our external world. I propose that puppets function as stand-ins for people who are afforded the agency to fabricate intermediate spaces, a space in time which the nonsensical ran rampant as we had yet to adhere to the fixed meanings in the external world. I suggest that Klee’s choice of materials when creating his puppets was chosen in favour of nonsensical tactility instead of nonsensical soundings in early development. The presence of nonsense reflects an impulse we, as adults, rarely, if ever, let ourselves fall to.
Chapter three: surrogates, stand-ins and transitions
1919)
Hannah Hoch’s ‘dada dolls’ (1916) (Sotheby’s,
Hannah Hoch was a German artist, born in Germany on the 1st of November 1889. She was known for her work in developing photomontage, a process for which she was an originator during the Weimar period. Her work revolved around dismantling, dissecting and disavowing fables and dichotomies of the representation and production of the “new woman”: a professional, androgynes woman who is ready to stand alongside her male counterpart in the working world. her interest in the subject matter was understood as a structural issue; she was concerned with how the dichotomy was structured and under what conditions, who structures social roles and responsibilities, and what this means for representation when the semiotic language surrounding women reduces them to a sum of signs. She did this through the use of dolls she created that existed somewhere between dolls and puppets. She was involved in reformatting the fixed meanings of language surrounding identity politics by introducing her own semiotic visual language
The doll and its extensions, the mannequin and puppet, were key visual elements of the Dada movement, which was introduced to Hoch in 1915 through Raoul Haussmann. The Dada movement's use of playthings in the form of dolls and puppets provide a vessel for the translation of the uncertain and fractured political sphere in the first half of the twentieth century. The humanoid objects acted as a distortion mirror to confront a modern bourgeois society through identity politics. Play within artistic practice became a desirable facet of an artist. Their ability to dedicate themselves to total absorption within the narratives and worlds they create through their practice was seen as a higher level of creativity. Similar to that of a child ‘lost in play,’ these artists dive critically into the intermediate space between primary creative engagement and projection of what was previously without acknowledgement introjected, between primary unconscious indebtedness and the recognition of what we are indebted to. We first become privy to this notion through the realisation that we as beings are not omnipotent creators of reality, we create by acknowledging what is external to us. It is, for this reason, I would categorise Hoch’s “dada dolls” as playthings due to the act of creation as a form of reality testing, similar to what occurs when a child plays with external objects that feed into their interpersonal interiority
The doll and puppet play important roles in constructing narratives of modern art in post-expressionist styles, especially Surrealism and German Dadaism The puppet implicates the object in life and, in that, the performer-object dynamics. This instilling vitality into objects through our relations with them is a form of play that fundamentally informs the object's matter I argue the contribution of play shapes the materiality of the object, allowing for perceived vitality that elevates the artistic merit of the object while simultaneously informing it as a plaything. Hannah Hoch’s “dada dolls” appeared in an avant-garde toys exhibit at Museo Picasso Malaga alongside Paul Klees's puppets. This acknowledges that both works of art previously discussed share a quality; rather than simply being toys, there is a suggestion of something more, something reliant on more than matter.
Hoch attended the Dada ball, where she was photographed, revealing a replica of the costumes that adorned her dolls. The performance of replicating her creation through the embodiment of the dolls she created to perform in an abstract burlesque fantasy of femininity was intended to enact the stereotypically passive role to which women were relegated in the first half of the 20th century.
Cult value as a concept is critical to understanding the pushback against the exhibition value of art in the Dadaist movement. Benjamin described cult value within art:
“Originally the contextual integration of art in tradition found its expression in the cult. We know that the earliest art works originated in the service of a ritual first the magical, then the religious kind. It is significant that the existence of the work of art concerning its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function. In other words, the unique value of the “authentic” work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value. This ritualistic basis, however remote, is still recognizable as secularized ritual even in the most profane forms of the cult of beauty.”11
11 Walter Benjamin, The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, (1935), p5
The cult value is parallel to ritual based on magic and religion. This is significant as works of art that are considered compliant with cult value can easily be absorbed by the language of myth, where they can become reducible to nothing more than signs. I suggest that the Dadaists leaned into the degradation by further stripping their work back to a form of matter simply reliant on material over practice.
Walter Benjamin discusses this process observed in the Dadaist’s achievements:
“The Dadaists attached much less importance to the sales value of their work than to its usefulness for contemplative immersion. The studied degradation of their material was not the least of their means to achieve this uselessness.”12
This suggests that Benjamin believes that the Dadaists ascribed more value to the means of creation as a process of immersion rather than the value of the object, often through the degradation of materials implemented through the veneration of the creative process above all else.
This immersion process is immersion in the intermediate space, as discussed by Winnicott in his theory of transitional phenomena. (See Chapter One)
12 Walter Benjamin, The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, (1935), p13
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright and teacher, born 1st of March 1886, he was best known for his impassioned expressionistic portraits and landscapes. However, it is not his work that is of interest to me but the work he commissioned through Munich-based avant-garde dollmaker Hermine Moos where he in painstaking detail instructed him to fabricate an anatomically accurate likeness of Alma Mahler. Although Kokoschka did not create the doll himself, she was used in his practice as a model in photographs and paintings.
His theories on vision formed important developments in the Viennese expressionist movement in which he was a contributor. An important subject to the Viennese expressionists is the doll, mannequin or puppet due to the Viennese expressionist painters forming the Vienna secession reactionarily to conservative artistic
Oskar Kokoschka’s Alma doll (1919)
(Hermine Moos, 1919)
institutions in a pre-World War epoch. The Viennese expressionists explored the human body figuratively for all its possibilities for intense expression of emotions and mood.
In debuted in many ways to Hans Bellmer’s dolls, the doll of Alma Mahler, a jarring life-sized replica spurred by the sudden and intense end of a love affair between the expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka and the composer and socialite Alma Mahler. Although commissioning the doll Kokoschka only experienced frustration with the doll because of its “inescapable thingness”. As a finale to the mock affair he perpetuated with the doll he threw a champagne party with a chamber orchestra playing for the doll. For the last time, he dressed the doll in extravagant clothes. As the party came to a close, a drunken Kokoschka dragged the replica of Alma to the garden, where he decapitated her and broke a bottle of red wine over her. Unable to possess the real Alma, he murdered her stand-in, her surrogate.
The mock Alma, just like Hannah Hoch’s “dada dolls”, occupies somewhere between the doll and the puppet; she performs like a puppet when propped in the seat next to her ‘puppeteer’ adorned in lavish clothes; she fulfils for a brief movement a desire to entertain through the ‘puppeteers’ projection of desire. There is a performative element to his interactions with the doll, as if playing, he invents and sustains his relationship with the real alma through the doll by affording her a certain amount of autonomy. Yet she fails to captivate him when suddenly he is made aware that puppeteering her is only pathologising his perceived loss and betrayal at the hands of the real alma. The mock Alma evolves from being a pathological puppet to a surrogate through one final act of disembodiment.
An example of this phenomenon is the work of Hans Bellmer, a German artist born in 1902 who produced lifesized female dolls in the mid-1930s. In part, he was inspired by meeting his beautiful teenage cousin Ursula in 1932, with whom he quickly developed an unwavering infatuation despite his perversion, as she was only 15 years old. His growing obsession was only fuelled by attending a rendition of Jacques Offenbach's tales of Hoffmann, in which the hero tragically falls in love with a mechanical doll. But most notably, Bellmer received a box of his childhood toys. Included in the box were broken doll parts. I propose that the box of childhood
toys was the last and most influential catalyst of his practice as it was the resurfacing of the transitional object phenomenon (see Chapter 1).
One aspect of the theory suggests that the transitional object can persevere into adulthood. This is discussed by Winnicott:
“Its fate is to be gradually allowed to be decathected, so that in the course of years it becomes not so much forgotten as relegated to limbo. By this I mean that in health the transitional object does not 'go inside' nor does the feeling about it necessarily undergo repression. It is not forgotten and it is not mourned. It loses meaning, and this is because the transitional phenomena have become diffused, have become spread out over the whole intermediate territory between 'inner psychic reality' and 'the external world as perceived by two persons in common', that is to say, over the whole cultural field. At this point my subject widens out into that of play, and of artistic creativity and appreciation, and of religious feeling, and of dreaming, and also of fetishism, lying and stealing, the origin and loss of affectionate feeling, drug addiction, the talisman of obsessional rituals, etc.”13
Here, Winnicott suggests that the transitional phenomena is diffused once we graduate from the intermediate plane that exists between our inner reality and the external world as perceived by many. The success of the transitional object is mitigated once we uncover the fixed meaning of how we are governed by socio-economic structures and once we acknowledge the external as the primary function we must serve. However, play, which is present in artistic creativity, religion, and dreaming, can ignite our desire to rekindle the intermediate space; in some cases, we seek to fashion new transitional objects that reflect the feeling of omnipotent control we held over our first object relationship. When we cannot possess something physically or internally in the external reality, when dreaming fails to serve our desires, we work to create a new reality, one of illusion. I argue that this is the primary drive behind Hans Bellmer’s production of dolls, as well as Oskar Kokoschka’s Alma doll. Both serve the purpose of illusion as a means of mitigating what was lost (in Bellmer’s case, what was prohibited by the external realities' fixed meanings), a loss that mimics the repression of the transitional
13 Donald Winnicott p3 Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena A Study of the First Not-Me Possession
object that once served as our mitigating of our feelings of anxiety brought through the disillusionment of a ‘good enough mother’.
I believe the Alma doll possesses the qualities of a plaything, as it functions parallel to the transitional object, which I have previously asserted the phenomenon’s importance in formulating the function of the plaything. to further solidify the argument, I present that the Alma doll is a continuation of the transitional phenomenon Winnicott discusses how the transitional object can continue into adulthood:
“The transitional object may eventually develop into a fetish object and so persist as a characteristic of the adult sexual life.”14
Here, Winnicott explains the form the transitional object can take later in life, where it evolves alongside our sexuality, blurring the lines between self-soothing and auto-eroticism. This, I argue, partly explains the sexualisation of Kokoschka’s Alma doll in an attempt to self-soothe through the loss of the real Alma (a loss which mimicked the decanting of the illusion of security, replicating the loss of security an infant encounters when its mother withdraws the breast from the child’s control). Winnicott discusses how the transitional object must survive being loved but loathed in equal measures, yet it must seem to provide the infant warmth; it must do something that creates the perception that it possesses a vitality or reality of its own. I propose this as the rationale for Kokoschka’s violent final act upon the doll; she no longer possessed a reality of her own once she was placed into an external reality that unearthed her thingness by contradicting her vitality in a room filled with warm bodies suddenly, she seemed cold. The illusion came crashing down with the disillusionment
14 Donald Winnicott p5 Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena A Study of the First Not-Me Possession
Conclusion:
To conclude, the plaything is afforded ontological status primarily through the semiotic language of myth that is sustained by repetition present in play and language. Similar to the repetition in a ritual that sustains religious practices and beliefs, just as belief in religion formats how we perceive the matter around us, every perceptual experience afforded seems in the presence of a higher power. Throughout this dissertation, I have posited that in conversation with Marx’s understanding of matter, materialism regards play as the earliest substitute for labour in the function of informing the matter of the world. we undergo transitions from omnipotent control to the intermediate space to the fixed meanings of the external world; throughout these transitions, how we perceive matter shifts, too. I am not suggesting that the matter itself undergoes transformation. Rather, it is the semiotic languages we use to translate and understand matter that undergoes transformation. it is the language of myth that takes hold of our earliest object relations
There is a perceived magic that is untouched by what is external; we are still unaware of what it means to live among matter, and we assert omnipotent control over the transitional object. whether we created the plaything or we happened upon it Is not known to us, off the back of this unknown, we build a reality dependent upon play through repetition. The materiality dependent on play soon dissolves, not forgotten or mourned, but rather relegated to limbo when we acknowledge the fixed meanings placed on the matter of the world, including us Through praying to a higher power or chasing control, we felt that when the matter of the world felt dependent on playing, we long to regress, whether it is through art or fetishism of what was once representational of security.
The plaything is revealed through the continual perception of illusion and disillusionment; we begin to tackle through reality testing what is external to us and what is internal. Play's function in this regard is not the learning of situated knowledge and the development of socioeconomic advancements but reality testing The presence of cult value within art, as well as the plaything, is indicative of a form of magic birthed from ritual. I argue that it is the presence and interaction between the transitional object phenomena, the language of
myth, and the cult value that formulates a successful plaything both in a historical context and in the present day.
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