The Phantasmagoria as A Focus of Modernity

The phantasmagoria became a cultural-theoretical focus of modernity through Walter Benjamin. He made it `the visual mastertrope` (Cohen) for the nineteenth century, placing it on the interface of epistemology and aesthetics, philosophy of history and economy, technology, medias and politics. On the base of anthropological materialism, Benjamin wanted the phantasmagoria to exceed the boundaries of representation and inherit the epistemological claim of the dialectical image. This path will be taken to explore the philosophical relevance of the phantasmagoria as a concept and to develop it as a focus of modernity. On the one hand, the historical approach that relates the phantasmagoria with the tradition of illusion and phantasms has been widespread since Plato. One should elaborate the concept`s history from the history of technology, in the Paris milieu around Baudelaire, in Marx and in critical theory. On the other hand, the project seeks a systematic development. It makes the phantasmagoria a key cultural philosophical term of modernity, insofar enchantment and disenchantment are intertwined. Phantasmagoria then becomes conceived formally, related with contemporary aesthetic and epistemological theories. The project`s first part will present phantasmagoria historically in its formation, in its technical staging by the laterna magica, and in the commodity`s fetish character. A second part will examine how Benjamin`s concept of phantasmagoria came into existence when he developed his concept of anthropological materialism, especially when working on The Arcades Project. For this, the cosmological visions of Paul Scheerbart, Charles Fourier, and Louis Auguste Blanqui are of pivotal importance and will be examined systematically. A third part will test the hypothesis of conceiving the phantasmagoria as a simulacrum of the nineteenth century, by developing the concept`s epistemological and media philosophical aspects. The project`s search for a philosophical understanding of phantasmagoria will assess the extent of its actual and critical contribution for today`s debates in cultural philosophy.