Jochen Schuff: Again: Practice, Repetition, Seriality 802e1749da9f411a8eb4a34198e0d91b

Freud’s vivid description of the »Fort/Da«-game highlights the compulsive aspect of repetition, but just as much its aesthetic pleasures. At least at a certain age, children typically rejoice in repeating their favorite game over and over again, and we keep a rest of this joy of repetition throughout adult life. It may be one of the reasons for the connection between aesthetic experience and playing, frequently drawn since Kant and Schiller, that repetition plays several roles in the context of aesthetic engagement. For instance, practicing an aesthetic technique (e. g., learning to play an instrument) involves repeating the same skills and actions until they are habituated. An aesthetic experience (with what we call nature or in artistic contexts) is often something we actively seek to return to. We like to listen to our favorite songs repeatedly (on repeat, sometimes). We like revisit our favorite painting in a gallery, etc. And there is a particular aesthetic interest in the phenomenon of seriality – opera cycles, cinematic universes, the Mont St Victoire in different variations. In my paper, I will sketch some examples of aesthetic repetition, appropriation, and seriality to illuminate their role with regards to self-knowledge. I do not intend to delve all too deep into psychoanalytic theory, but at least as far as to recognize the values (and risks) of repetitive structures in the formation of the self – as well as in aesthetic practices of re-forming and trans-forming it.