60

Photography and surrealism

61
1he automatic image
ot elementary automatic mechanisms, vhere the things
that normal individuals do mechanically, vithout think-
ing, had simply collapsed. lor example, a pinch on
the arm resulting in its automatic vithdraval, or tood
placed on the pharynx causing a svalloving action
to occur might cease to tunction in hysteria. anet
summarized:
It, in a general vay, ve call automatism the activation
ot an interior tendency that escapes trom the control ot
superior tendencies and especially the provocation ot
an immediate assent, instead ot a renective assent, ve
may say that the essential part ot the treatments ve are
considering is the provocation ot automatic actions
instead ot superior and renexive actions.
26
lor anet the hysterics automatic actions had tallen out-
side the sphere ot consciousness as though the subject
had torgotten to do them. Without any concept ot
repression or the unconscious, this pre-lreudian theory
determined that automatic actions vere synonymous
vith subconscious actions. Hence anet used sugges-
tion on patients under hypnosis to re-instal automatic
tunctions vhere they had declined or tailed in an
attempt to put them back into the higher tendencies
ot consciousness proper.
Breton argued that in surrealism automatic vriting
vas used to tnd nothing less than the unication ot that
personality.
27
1his vas like anets viev ot hysterics,
in that a part ot the vhole personality vas missing
or lacking and had to be reunited vith the higher
tendencies. In this respect the surrealists could be seen
to be imitating anets treatment ot hysterics, using
automatic vriting in a state ot distraction to capture
unpremeditated thoughts and induce psychically auto-
matic images. Bretons medical experience tor this vas
crucial. He vould certainly have understood that the
subject could be divided trom his experience ot the
traumatized soldiers in hospitals vhere terrible scenes
recurred insistently in their nightmares but not in their
vaking lite.
28
lrom such splitting the surrealists could
conceive psychical automatism as a means to produce
not only images ot stunning vivacity, but also bring
:o Ibid., p. +:.
:; Andre Breton, 1he Auto-
matic Message, reprinted in
l. Posemont (ed.,, What is Sur-
realism? (Iondon: Pluto, +,:,,,
p. +o.
:: 1his is vhat lreud explored
as the phenomenon ot the com-
pulsion to repeat as a symptom ot
traumatic neurosis in Beyond the
Pleasure Principle (+,:o,. 1hat
the patient vas txated to the
traumatic experience in their
dreams, but positively avoided it
in conscious thought is made
clear: I am not avare, hovever,
that patients sunering trom
traumatic neurosis are much
occupied in their vaking lives
vith memories ot their accident
(On Metapsychology, PlI ++,
p. ::,.