Gerald Wildgruber

My work at eikones examines Greek notions of form and image and their afterlife in modern thought (be it poetical or of a more philosophical or scientific nature). The Greek evidence is analytic and heuristic in nature. I am especially interested in the emergence of formal methods and their contexts: in what circumstances does the reliance on "form" become a question of necessity? For this purpose form is firstly investigated in a Greek setting (roughly up to and including Tragedy) in the sense of a technical means of representation and account-giving, and can thus encompass poetical form (rhythm, meter, figure) as well as formal means of reasoning (beginnings of the science of logic).

Representation by formal means can be a form of coping, especially so in religious or ritual settings: it is the art of remaining true under various circumstances. These forms however outlive the context of their emergence, they persist, poorly understood but sanctified by use. A modern name could be form as a form of rationality. A less charged notion would be discretion: my work at eikones is concerned with cultures of discretion (σωφροσύνη) and their modern, often cloaked counterparts.

Of central importance in this investigation is the poetic and philosophical work of Friedrich Hölderlin: as a subject matter, but even more so as a detector of what to look for. Hölderlin is a major archaeologist of form. According to his example then, the notion of rhythm, one of the oldest notions of form in western thought, remains key to my research at eikones.
The constellation of poetic language, religion and logic that forms in the duty of saying the divine has probably never been brought forward with such acuteness as in the encounter of Hölderlin and Hegel that eventually failed but left its stakes for future endeavour. Finally, I'm also interested in concepts of form and image that refer equally to language and vision.

After studies in Comparative Literature and Philosophy in Munich (with H.Birus, G.Neumann, B.Lypp and R.Warning) and Paris (with G.Genette and J.P.Morel) I worked with G.Boehm in the "Bild-Figur-Zahl" research group (with responsability for the domain of "Zahl"), and then became assistant to F.Kittler at the Seminar für Ästhetik of Humboldt University in Berlin. The latter two positions continue to inspire my work at eikones.