Simultaneit`a, simultan'eisme, simultan'eit'e: conception of simultaneity and its modifications in the avant-garde aesthetics

The article analyzes different hypostases of ‘simultaneous art’, reveals philosophical and scientific sources of the term and traces the transformation of the idea in the avant-garde aesthetics. As a universal avant-garde category, simultaneity provides a means to reproduce historical and cultural context of the epoch and to observe the transformation of the avant-garde aesthetics. Stephane Mallarmé was the one who introduced the concept into poetic discourse: he pointed out that a specific visual configuration of the verse provides ‘an integral vision of the page’ and a simultaneous perception of successive fragments of the text. According to the members of the integralist movement and the Abbey of Creteil group, simultaneity is synonymous to the ‘universal rhythm’ penetrating the ‘monistic Universe’ and reflected in poetic oeuvre. Unanimism turns to the rhythm of urbanistic space and the subject’s perception of synchronized movement of the urban crowd. The central principle of futurism concerned with simultaneity is the ‘aestheticization of speed’; futurist artists aspire to create a certain dimension of ‘spatialized’ time in their works and to transmit dynamics through dislocation of objects, poets seek to create a rapid, telegraphic style imitating the movement of ‘whirling electrons’. Robert Delaunay searches for the same synthetic perception, but, according to him, dynamics is created by the contrast of colours. The simultaneity of the book by Sonya Delaunay and Blaise Cendrars is based on the same techniques of simultaneous contrasts as well as on the specific poetic rhythm and visual configuration of the verses. Henri-Martin Barzun’s conception of ‘simultanéisme’ implicates a simultaneous recitation of poetry by several elocutionists and dramatization of poetic text. Finally, for Dadaists simultaneity becomes an instrument to liberate reading / perception from dictatorship of linguistic logic implied by the linear development of text.