Dr. Kōan Jeff Baysa, MD and Don Kunze, directors
The sudden collapse or even death of spectators of works of art, landscape panoramas, musical performances, or even books gave clinical meaning to Walter Benjamin’s idea of the “aura of the work of art,” but it contradicted Benjamin’s claim that aura was no longer available in modern society. The organizers connect the Stendhal Syndrome (named after the 19c. author Marie-Henri Bayle) to the architectural–psychoanalytical construct of the “fourth wall” buffer between performers and audience in theater and film. Expanding this to include all arts as performative, Baysa and Kunze open discussion to see if awe still plays a role in the experience of art, and if this “structure of wonder” is in fact a kind of primordial, psychoanalytical, architecture of awe.
Zoom Session Links
• Video Introduction to the Stendhal Syndrome
• audio recording of second session
Position Papers / presentations
• Introduction to the Stendhal Syndrome
• John Shannon Hendrix, “The Real and the Sublime” (précis)