人型書寫自動機：從十九世紀魔術和召魂術討論機器書寫之鬼魅性

Human-Shaped Writing Automaton: Thinking about Machine Writing and Its Spectrality through the Nineteenth Century Magic and Spiritualism

蘇秋華(SU Chiu-hua)

魔術 ； 召魂術 ； 自動機 ； 自動書寫 ； 基德勒 ； 德希達 ； 媒體考古學 ； Friedrich A. Kittler ； magic ； spiritualism ； automaton ； automatic writing ； Jacques Derrida ； media archaeology

中山人文學報

43期（2017 / 07 / 01）

45 - 71

繁體中文

本論文將藉由基德勒在《論述網絡一八○○／一九○○》中的論點，說明書寫在機械介入之後，原本由「內」而「外」的有機性連續過程被斬碾成無數漂浮的語音碎片，書寫成為純粹表面的銘繪。我將借用基德勒的理論，將重點放在機械介入語言生成所引發的鬼魅性，並進一步勾連德希達在《馬克斯的鬼眾》所談的，由遠距溝通技術產生的鬼魂、對鬼魂的追隨，以及相應的倫理。從這樣的理論背景出發，我想提出人型書寫自動機作為貫串全文的概念，它同時能代表：以人為造型的寫作自動機、銘繪技術員，以及靈媒。我將分別檢視魔術和召魂術兩個陣營對人型書寫自動機的闡述，檢視機械介入書寫後所帶出的鬼魅性。首先，代表魔術陣營的侯貝－烏丹及胡迪尼的著述中，如何展現從「書寫」到表面「銘繪」的過程流變。另一方面，小說家詹姆士(Henry James)與其女祕書鮑森葵則是召魂術陣營的代表，我將以人型書寫自動機角度重新詮釋詹姆士著名小說《螺絲轉》，並探討鮑森葵如何在小說家過世之後，試著透過自動書寫對詹姆士鬼魂的追尋。

This study attempts to illustrate the transition from writing to inscribing in the nineteenth century through magic and spiritualism. The theoretical base is borrowed from what Friedrich A. Kittler proposed in Discourse Networks 1800/1900. In this book, he indicated that the intervention of machine in the process of writing had fragmentized the organic continuity from the interior thoughts to the exterior inscriptions. Language, henceforth, had become chopped bits, floating and dispersing in the white noise produced by the operation of machine. Kittler’s media theory, furthermore, will be complicated with Jacques Derrida’s Hauntology in order to deal with the Spectrality brought forth by modern media and to discuss the ethics of the ghost. With that being said, I would like to advance an idea of ＂human-shaped writing automaton,＂ an image linking up writing automaton with human shape, scribal technicians, and spiritual mediums. I will investigate respectively how magicians and mediums in the Victorian age reacted to this uncanny figure. First, the camp of modern magicians, represented by Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin and Harry Houdini, had a craze for writing automata, in the pursuit of which the transitional stage from writing to inscribing was laid bare. On the other hand, I will use Henry James and his secretary, Theodora Bosanquet, to serve my purpose of examining spiritualists’ techniques of automatic writing. I thus argue that the governess of Turn of Screw could be re-interpreted as a writing automaton, and that Bosanquet’s following of the ghost of James by means of automatic writing can point out a new route to rethink an ethics of the ghost.

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