![\"pflanzeerfinder.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.joostrekveld.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/pflanzeerfinder.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
As part of (as always) escalating research for an essay I’m writing I’ve recently been reading this little book: “Die Pflanze als Erfinder” (The Plant as an Inventor), by Raoul Heinrich Franc\u00e9, Kosmos, Stuttgart, 1920. It is a popular-scientific version of a more hefty volume I haven’t seen yet: “Die Technischen Leistungen der Pflanzen” (The Technical Achievements of Plants), Veit & Cie., Leipzig, 1919.<\/p>\n
Because of these two books Franc\u00e9 is regarded as one of the founders of the discipline which is now called “Bionics”, but which he himself called “Biotechnik” (or “Biotechnique” in english). The basic idea behind these books is to look at plants and analyze their ‘solutions’ to technical problems. Raoul Franc\u00e9 has been mostly forgotten now, but in his time he was a great popularizer of biology, a best-selling author and a respected scientist and philosopher. I became interested in him and this little book in particular because of the profound influence it had on artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. In many of Moholy’s writings he refers to the “biotechnical elements” or he talks about the “anti-biological” use of modern technology, which are ideas taken from or at least inspired by this little book. Also Moholy-Nagy based an important part of his design philosophy on the ideas contained in it; when he writes about “form follows fuction” he often quotes Franc\u00e9 and in this way gives this phrase a slightly more holistic nuance than some of his other modern collegues would give it.<\/p>\n
Here some notes and quotes about “Die Pflanze als Erfinder”:<\/p>\n One concept which is referred to several times throughout the book is the concept of form as equilibrium, form as the embodiment of a process:<\/p>\n “es gibt f\u00fcr jedes Ding, sei das nun eine sache oder ein Gedanke, gesetzm\u00e4ssig nur eine Form, die allein dem Wesen des Dinges entspricht und die, wenn sie ge\u00e4ndert wird, nicht den Ruhezustand, sondern Prozesse ausl\u00f6st. Diese Prozesse wirken zwangsl\u00e4ufig, n\u00e4mlich gesetzm\u00e4ssig durch immer wieder einsetzende Zerst\u00f6rung der Form, bis wieder die optimale, die essentielle Ruheform erreicht ist, in der Form und Wesen wieder eins sind.” And another important thought which has been quoted several times by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and which was also a great inspiration to Kurt Schwitters:<\/p>\n “Kristallform, Kugel, Fl\u00e4che, Stab und Band, Schraube und Kegel, das sind die grundlegenden technischen Formen der ganzen Welt. Sie gen\u00fcgen s\u00e4mtlichen Vorg\u00e4ngen des gesamten Weltprozesses, um sie zu ihrem Optimum zu geleiten. Alles, was ist, sind wohl Kombinationen dieser sieben Urformen, aber \u00fcber die heilige Siebenzahl geht es nicht hinaus. Die Natur hat nichts anderes hervorgebracht und der Menschengeist mag schaffen, was er will, er komt immer nur zu Kombinationen und Varianten dieser sieben Grundformen.” According to Franc\u00e9 the creativity of nature is far more developed than human creativity:<\/p>\n “In einem derartigen Reichtum hat die Gestaltungskraft der Lebenstoffes jede M\u00f6glichkeit verwirklicht, so das jede K\u00fcnstlerphantasie dagegen nur als st\u00fcmpernde Kopie erscheint. Man hat das unmittelbar durch den Versuch bewiesen, denn man hat K\u00fcnstler eine Form f\u00fcr dekorative Zwecke varieren lassen, und sie haben es nur auf wenige Dutzend Varianten unter Zuhilfenahme ihrer ganzen Phantasie gebracht, w\u00e4hrend in der Welt der Einzeller hunderte fertiger Modelle daf\u00fcr vorliegen.” At some point Franc\u00e9 mentions Ernst Haeckel’s notion of the “Kunstformen der Natur” (Artforms of Nature) and says that aesthetic appreciation of these beautiful natural forms has little value: the real people to study these forms should be engineers, not artists, since engineers have the mental tools to actually understand these forms and do something with them.<\/p>\n The middle part of the book is a discussion of what he calls the “Museum of Biotechnique”, with exhibition rooms devoted to flaggelates, algae, cells, leaves, stems and fruit. All of these examples of the ingenuity of nature he compares to human inventions like turbines, building structures, pumps, where he shows how efficient nature’s solutions are and how crude our high technology is in comparison. When he talks about the technical achievements of single-celled organisms he shows how superior they are by scaling them to the size of ocean liners or buildings; Ocean liners for instance that can travel 200 kilometers in 12 seconds… “Man ger\u00e4t mit den n\u00fcchternen Zahlen und Berechnungen der Biotechnik immer wieder in eine romanhafte Welt von M\u00f6glichkeiten, die vielleicht deshalb der machtigste Ansporn zu weiteren Grosstaten unserer Ingenieure sein wird, weil sie ganz unwidersprechlich beweist, wie weit entfernt unsere Maschinen von der m\u00f6gliche L\u00f6sung der Probleme sind, deren L\u00f6sung sie darstellen sollen, trotzdem wir \u00fcberall auf den richtigen Wegen gehen. Wir beschreiten sie zwar nur deshalb, weil es eben \u00fcberhaupt nur einen einzigen richtigen Weg gibt und eine Erfindung eben so lange nicht gebrauchsfertig ist, bis nicht der Weg des Naturgesetzes beschritten wird.” and a concluding remark:<\/p>\n “Was haben wir in jener Stunde erkannt ? Dass die Welt ein Ganzes sei, dessen Teile sich gegenseitig beeinflussen. … Der Ausgleich und Harmonie mit den anderen allein kann unser, kann jedes dinges Optimum sein. Und um den Ausgleich zu erreichen, dreht sich das ungeheure, gespenstische Rad des Weltprozesses.” and the final words of the book:<\/p>\n “Die Weltmechanik arbeitet in den Maschinen, m\u00f6gen sie von den anderen Lebendigen oder von uns aus den technischen Urformen erbaut sein. Wir erbauen sie auch aus Steinen und sprechen dann von Architektur, sie verwirklichen wir auch in T\u00f6nen und schaffen klingende Organismen, Kompositionen. Wir errichten ein Abbild der Weltmechanik aus Menschenrechten und Pflichten und nennen es Staat. Oder aus begriffen und sagen dann Philosophie dazu. Stets verwirklichen wir damit nur unserer Lebens Gesetz, wir tragen die Lebensgesetzlichkeit damit in alle unsere Werke, in unser ganzes Weltbild.” The flip-side of all this interesting stuff came to my attention when I read this<\/a> essay on the roots of ‘Ecofascism’, which mentions Franc\u00e9 (and especially Ernst Haeckel<\/a>, who used to be another one of my heroes because of his amazing book “Kunstformen der Natur<\/a>“). To check this I read some parts of Franc\u00e9’s magnum opus “Bios, die Gesetze der Welt” (Bios, the laws of the world), and I quote the most depressing bit here, from a passage where he talks about social insects (from Band 1, page 225):<\/p>\n “Wo wir das Optimum des Staatenlebens angen\u00e4hert finden – und bei sozialen Insekten ist es unbestritten angen\u00e4hert -, da wurde es nur erreicht, dadurch dass der Staat keine rassefremden Eindringlinge duldete. Jede Ameise aus fremden Nest wird unerbittlich get\u00f6tet oder versklavt, so wie die Ameiseng\u00e4ste aus dem Kreise der K\u00e4fer und dergl. In den von Krisen freien und dauernd haltbaaren Staaten – die sozialen Insekten befolgen dieses System mindestens seit dem Terti\u00e4r, also seit ann\u00e4hernd zweitausendmal l\u00e4ngerer Zeit als es Mensschenstaaten gibt – ist demnach Rassenhygiene und die Hochhaltung der Reinrassigkeit eine streng gewahrte Vorbedingung des Staatenbildung.” and a bit later, after proposing the introduction of “Rassenpolitik” (“Racial Policy”):<\/p>\n “Man f\u00fchlt es, wie man mit diesen Gedanken an die Wurzeln des Elendes greift, das die Menschheit qu\u00e4lt.” Right, that did make me feel miserable for a couple of days indeed. I don’t know what Franc\u00e9 did during the second world war, before he died in Budapest in 1943, so I don’t know whether he was actually supportive of the Nazi’s. I did read that in 1919 his lab in M\u00fcnchen was destroyed as part of a failed communist revolution attempt, so he must have represented something to these revolutionaries already then. I suppose Moholy-Nagy was not aware of Franc\u00e9’s political ideas, since he quotes Franc\u00e9 in all of his major writings, including “Vision in Motion”. When Moholy-Nagy refers to “biological needs”, he does so mostly when he is advocating more attention for the social dimensions of technological progress, as part of a decidedly left-wing agenda, to remind artists of their responsabilities and role in society. So to end on a more positive note here one of my favourite utopic quotes by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy:<\/p>\n “The photogram for the first time produces space without existing space structure, only by articulation on the plane with the advancing and receding values of half-tones in black and gray and with the radiating power of their contrasts and their sublime gradations. One suddenly becomes aware that there starts an invigorating investigation about the incoherent use of our rich resources. Technological ingenuity provides us with gigantic structures, factories and skyscrapers, but how we use them is shockingly anti-biological – resulting in wild city growth, elimination of vegetation, fresh air and sunlight. To make bad worse, in the shadow of these modern buildings we thoughtlessly tolerate the slums and every bad condition that goes with them. So it seems that the most abstract experiment of space-time articulation carries a sensible reality, if the right interpretation can be made. Such experiments may signalize a spatial order in which not single structural parts, or large spans of openings will play the important part, but the relationship of neighbour units, buildings and free areas, shelter and leisure, production and recreation; leading toward a biologically right living most probably through a right regional planning; toward a city-land unity.” As part of (as always) escalating research for an essay I’m writing I’ve recently been reading this little book: “Die Pflanze als Erfinder” (The Plant as an Inventor), by Raoul Heinrich Franc\u00e9, Kosmos, Stuttgart, 1920. It is a popular-scientific version of a more hefty volume I haven’t seen yet: “Die Technischen Leistungen der Pflanzen” (The … Continue reading plants as inventors<\/span> ![\"turbinen.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.joostrekveld.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/turbinen.jpg\")
\nsingle-celled organisms interpreted as highly efficient turbines.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nin english:
\n“for every thing, whether it is an object or a thought, there is only one systematic form that corresponds to the essence of the thing and which, if it is changed does not cause the position of repose, but which causes processes. These processes work compulsively, systematically by the continually renewed disruption of form, until the optimal, essential position of repose has again been reached and form and essence are again one.”<\/p>\n![\"elements.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.joostrekveld.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/elements.jpg\")
\nthe biotechnical elements by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy<\/em><\/p>\n
\nin english:
\n“Crystalline form, sphere, plane, rod and strip, screw and cone, those are the basic technical shapes of the whole world. These are enough for all events of the whole world process, to lead them to their optimum. All things that exists are combinations of these seven primal forms, but never more than the holy number seven. Nature has produced nothing else, and the human spirit may do whatever it wants, but it will always only result in combinations and variations of these seven basic shapes.”<\/p>\n
\nin english:
\n“The creative force of life-matter has realized every possibillity with so much wealth, that every artists’ phantasy appears as a clumsy copy in comparison. This has been directly proven by an experiment; artists have been asked to make variations on a form for decorative purposes, and with the help of all of their phantasy they could only bring themselves to a few dozen of them, while in the world of single-celled organisms there are hundreds of models readily available.”<\/p>\n![\"plantfactory.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.joostrekveld.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/plantfactory.jpg\")
\nphotosynthesis in moss compared to a factory hall. <\/em><\/p>\n
\nIt is striking that Franc\u00e9 never mentions the different ratio’s between volume and surface at different scales, which is the backbone of d’Arcy Thompson’s book “On Growth and Form”.<\/p>\n
\nin english:
\n“Again and again, with the plain numbers and calculations of biotechnique, we reach a fantastic world of possibillities. Perhaps this will be the biggest incentive for further great feats by our engineers, because it irrefutably proves how far our machines are still removed from the possible solution of the problems; solutions they should [still] come up with, even though everywhere we are going along the right road. But we are going along it only because there is only one right road, and an invention will not be ready for practical use as long as the road of the natural law has not yet been treaded.”<\/p>\n
\n“[Die Biotechnik] ist f\u00fcr die Dinge eine Befreiung vond der hemmungen, eine Erl\u00f6sung, eine Erf\u00fcllung des Weltensinnes, der nach der Ruhe der vollendeten harmonie strebt. So ist Technik der Weltprozess selbst und zugleich sein Mittel, um sich zu beenden.”
\nin english:
\n“What have we now learned ? That the world is one whole, whose parts influence eachother. … Only levelling and harmony with the other can be our optimum, or that of any thing. It is in order to reach this levelling that the monstrous, ghostly wheel of the world process is turning.”
\n“For the things [biotechnique] is a liberation from restraints, a deliverance, a realization of the world-meaning, which strives towards repose and complete harmony. In this way technique is the world process itself, and at the same time its means to end itself.”<\/p>\n
\n“Die Menschheit schafft sich zuerst aus ihren Gesetzen ein Sinnenbild der Natur und eine ganze Kulturwelt und preist dann den als grossen Entdecker eines unerh\u00f6rt Neuen, der diese Gesetze in der Welt wieder aufdeckt. Sie merkt es nicht, dass der Weltprozess selbst den Menschen dazu zwingt, denn Leben wird alles nach dem Lebensgesetz einrichten. Darum ist alle Wahrheit ein Kreis, alles Wissen relativ und die Erkenntnis eine Schlange, die sich selbst in den Schwanz beisst.”
\nin english:
\n“The mechanics of the world are at work in the machines, may they have been built by either the other living creatures or by us out of the technical primal forms. We also build them out of stones and then speak of architecture, they realize themselves in tones and form sounding organisms, compositions. We erect an image of the world mechanics out of human rights and duties and call it a state. Or from concepts and then call it philosophy. All the time we are only realizing our law of life, we carry this law-of-life-ness with us in all our products, in our whole world view.”
\n“Mankind first creates out of its laws a symbol of nature and a whole world of culture, and then praises as a great discoverer of something incredibly new the person who again brings out these laws in the world. Mankind doesn’t realize that the world process itself forces man to do so, because life will always arrange everything according to the law of life. That is why all truth is a circle, all knowing is relative and all knowledge a snake that bites its own tail.”<\/p>\n![\"france1899.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.joostrekveld.net\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/france1899.jpg\")
\nRaoul Franc\u00e9 in 1899 <\/em><\/p>\n
\nin english:
\n“Whereever we find an approximation of the optimum of the life of the state (and in social insects this optimum is undoubtedly approximated) this has only been possible because the state did not tolerate any intruder foreign to the race. Every ant from a foreign nest will without mercy be killed or enslaved, just like the visitors from the circles of beetles etc. Consequently, in the states which are able to preserve themselves for a long time (and the social insects follow this system at least since the Tertiary, that is since almost twothousand times longer than there are human states) racial hygiene and the preservation of the racial purity are preconditions which are strictly observed.”<\/p>\n
\nin english:
\n“We can feel how, with these thoughts, we touh at the roots of the misery that plagues mankind.”<\/p>\n
\n(L.Moholy-Nagy, ‘Space-Time and the Photographer’, American Annual of Photography, 1942)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"