Jutta Vinzent presents a working paper 'On Dividuality and Contemporary Religious Iconography'

This essay will contribute to the exploration of concepts of individuality and dividuality. Its focus will be the role of art objects as mediating processes of constructing, becoming and being in/dividuals. 2 Individuality has been defined as ‘indivisible,’ and in terms of society, the smallest unit to which society can be reduced. It also has been described as fixed, autonomous and self-reflective. The term as such has played a major role in many disciplines and centre-stage in the recent project on individualising titled ‘Religious Individualization in Historical Perspective’ under the PIs of Professor Dr. Jörg Rüpke and Professor Dr. Martin Mulsow (University Erfurt, MWK, 2008-2017). In recent years, scholars have increasingly questioned as to whether subjects are self-contained or cannot be rather broken down and thus deserve to be called dividual. In this light, dividuality have been described as permeable, relational and positional, and often also been associated with pre-modern, non-western concepts, as the discussion about the individual and dividual has been dominated by anthropology. 1 Although there are many conceptions of dividuality, none is a synonym for deindividual, if understood as a defiance of individuality or mourning of the loss of the self-contained individual. Instead, dividuality would rather celebrate the partiality of the self, either as division of the self in a process of constant segmentation or as the abandoning of or detaching from a self-contained individual. In modern and contemporary art, the term has not been applied to personhood, but objects. It was particularly Paul Klee (1922) and Gilles Deleuze (1986 and 1992) who developed a theory of the dividual in the light of painting respectively early cinema. Scholars, such as Joanna Latimer (2009), Glenn Peers (2012) and Michaela Ott (2015) have used the term dividual in view of Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits, Byzantine art and new technologies respectively. Latimer defines dividuality with notions such as fragmentation and fragility, unstableness and leakiness.2 Peers uses the term as opposed to ‘discrete entities like individuals’ and for ‘quasi-object’ that are only superficially objects.3 Both do not refer to a specific theory Ott, on the other hand, has based her book on Deleuze. She interprets ‘dividual’ as part-taking and cites particularly new technology as a reason for the end of the ‘distinctiveness and authenticity of the art work.’4 Consequently, she then applies the term ‘dividual’ to digital art works circulated over the Internet,such as UrsulaBienmann’s Egyptian Chemistry (2012), a multi-channel video installation, with which the artist attempts to penetrate real and virtual realities. Some contemporary artists also call their work ‘dividual’, including Victor Timofeev, who explores hybrid worlds.5 Furthermore, an artist couple, collaborating on Facebook, produces and publishes digital photosfrom everyday life. Here dividual (though not specifically defined) is understood as being produced by more than one artist and able to be shared with others who can contribute to the work via the Internet.6 So far, however, the dividual has not played a huge role in the fine arts, particularly if compared with the numerous articles published on individuality and usages of the term individual. Thus, this essay also contributes to an exploration of the terminology and meaning of the ‘dividual’ in art. In the following, I will consider the theories of Klee and Deleuze first, and then apply the term dividual not to new technologies as Ott has done, but to contemporary art with religious themes in a section. The reason for such a focus is not only because religious themes play a central role in contemporary art, as has been noted by a number of scholars, particularly by James Elkins (2004, 2008) and Aaron Rosen (2015).7 Elkins assumes that these themes create two types of art, existing simultaneously side by side, namely ‘serious’ religious art and that which he describes as ‘sceptical, ambiguous, antireligious, mystical, spiritual.’8 These types also differ in their materiality (including reproducible versus original). Instead, Rosen assumes one type of contemporary religious art, emphasising the works’ complexity and providing deeper interpretations to some of the most contested ones.9 The reason for this essay’s focus on contemporary artists in view of dividuality is that these works play with notions of art and spirituality in a sophisticated and complex manner. This is not to say that dividuality in art objects cannot become visible through other art works; however, I would argue that religious themes in contemporary art provide a body of works which openly aim at something beyond being simply an individual art work, candidly manipulating the viewers’ religious beliefs and aesthetic expectations. The analysis of such works in the light of dividuality will provide not only insights into conceptions of dividuality and individuality, but also a new perspective towards such art works. In fact, I will show that, different from Elkins and Rosen, the underlying issue of the conflicts created by contemporary art using religious themes lies in the notion of individuality as defined by western modernism. Drawing upon Deleuze’s conception of the dividual, I will further suggest a new way of their understanding. In the following, I will concentrate on the iconography of the crucifix as an image of Jesus on the cross. The crucifix emphasizes Jesus’ sacrifice which Christians believe brought about the redemption of the world. In Christian Doctrine, Jesus is the mediator between God and human being. He is the son, next to the Father and the Holy Spirit who form the Trinity, as one god in three divine persons. Such a theology assumes of a dividual God, divided into three. Jesus, however, can be described as an individual, although being also a dividual in the Trinity. Believed to be the incarnation of God Father, Jesus also is essential in view of another central issue of this essay, namely the interpretation of the body in art, in which the body can be interpreted as the incarnation of any image, according to Georges Didi-Huberman.10 In other words, the crucifix (with the body of Jesus) already lends itself to probing the term dividual in a number of ways and thus seems to be an appropriate iconography to study questions about individuality and dividuality. The essay is divided into three main sections. A first will introduce into the conceptions of dividuality in modern and contemporary art and their limits, a second will explore affected perception as dividual and end with a suggestion of the viewer as subject, being both individual and dividual. The final section will outline possible benefits of such a new conception on other subject areas.