Vibrating mirrors, automatons and other inventions of optical illusions: To mark the 200th anniversary of the death of ETA Hoffmann, the Frankfurt Romantic Museum introduces the world of the all-rounder with curious objects. The exhibition in the Romantic Museum succeeds in conveying ETA Hoffmann’s visions in a sensual way and in surprisingly playfully bridging the 200-year gap between Romanticism and our present day.
ETA Hoffmann was fascinated by the transitions between humans and animals
A talking insect that, with the help of a microscope, not only appears as big as an elephant, but also befriends a real person in order to experience a chase through Frankfurt with them: ETA Hoffmann wrote his grotesque fairy tale “Meister Floh” about it in 1822. .
Published only a few weeks before his death, it takes up the questions that interested the romantic all-round artist all his life: What transitions exist between man and animal, man and machine? And what imaginary world opens up when microscopes and other technical inventions suddenly make visible what was previously invisible?
Vibrating mirrors unnerve visitors
The Frankfurt ETA Hoffmann exhibition “Uncanny Fantastic” wants to make the feeling of visual insecurity at that time understandable for the visitors – and put two mirrored walls behind the entrance. They are vibrating mirrors; everything you can see suddenly becomes blurred. This creates a very spooky effect, explains curator Wolfgang Bunzel: “One wonders: is there an earthquake now?”
According to Bunzel, this is intended to trigger the feeling in visitors that they are no longer quite sure of their perception. Because with ETA Hoffmann, the mirror imagery is very central.
Mechanical dolls and experiments with electricity and magnetism
ETA Hoffmann brought about experiments with electricity and magnetism, but also mechanical dolls, which were among the major attractions at the fairs of the time, to give food for thought. With a historic trumpeter automaton, the Romantic Museum can show a special example from the early 19th century.
A sensation in ETA Hoffmann’s time: a trumpeter automaton, around 1820: a doll with a sounding drum inside the body.
SWR
Sabine Mahr
21st Century Implantation Party Videos
In order to get the historical objects out of the curiosity corner, videos of comparably strange medical interventions and technical inventions from the 21st century can be seen at the same time. For example, they show how, at a so-called implantation party, individuals have small electronic chips implanted under their skin and how the skin attracts magnetic chips.
“Basically, that’s something that also irritates us today,” says Wolfgang Bunzel. “It goes so far that one person actually had an electronic implant put into the back of their head to enhance their own perception.”
Incredibly fantastic, but also fantastically uncanny – the exhibition in the Romantic Museum succeeds in conveying the visions of E.TA. Hoffmann’s sensuously and to bridge the 200 year gap between romanticism and today in an amazingly playful way.
