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Follow Fluxus / Emily
Wardill - Sea Oak / The Diamond (Descartes’
Daughter)
Only towards the end of the film, the
legend of René Descartes’ (1556 - 1650) last
voyage is uncovered: Following the command of
Queen Christina of Sweden who wants to discuss
his views on “love, hatred and the passions of
the soul”, he grudgingly embarks on a ship to
Sweden with all his manuscripts, foreseeing that
he would not return from this trip: He dreaded
that in that country’s bitter cold “thoughts as
well as water would freeze over in Sweden”.
Shortly after his arrival he should die from
pneumonia.
On starting the voyage, Descartes declares to be
accompanied by his daughter Francine who had
died at the age of five of scarlet fever nine
years previously. During a storm, the crew
decide to go looking for the girl in Descartes’
cabin and, horrified, discover in a trunk a doll
driven by clockwork – an android made to look
like five year old Francine. As supposed
artefact of black magic, Descartes’ metal
daughter is thrown over board. Descartes loses
his beloved child whose loss he called the
greatest sorrow of his life, a second time.
Descartes’ daughter is neither just ONE person
nor is she just a PERSON. The almost romantic
notion of the philosopher known as the “father
of rationalism” he could re-construct his
daughter, creates her anew after he death. At
the same time, she is the attempt to prove his
theories – the daughter of rationalism, his
daughter as intellectual heritage living on
through the ages, with a double in the girl
playing Wii.
What can we know? With “Cogito Ergo Sum” (I
think therefore I am), Descartes laid down the
fundament of Rationalism. In his theory on the
separation of spirit (res cogitans) and matter
(res extensa) described in “De homine”4, he takes on the mind/body dualism that has engaged
mankind since antiquity. According to Descartes,
spirit follows the laws of cognition while
matter underlies the laws of mechanics; both are
essentially independent of one another and their
interaction is limited to the transmission of
information which is collected with the body and
processed with the spirit.
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