eisenstein: negative dialectics or shock tactics

for eisenstein, his theory of montage was identified with dialectical materialism and hegelian philosophy, and is illustrated in the ‘collision’ of images it creates. this for him demonstrates the idea of negation and the negation of the negation and is therefor inherently dialectical. its formal principles are based on conflicts of scale, volume, rhythm, motion (speed, as well as direction of movement within the frame), as well as more conceptual forms created through metaphor and juxtaposition. this latter form of montage engages the intellect, where new ideas, emerge though conflict. the sequence of shots brought into juxtaposition creates new meaning that were not innate to that original constructed sequence. a moving explosion brings forth a new concept. this he equates with the process that drives historical events and revolutionary change as it employs the same shock effect that we experience as the norm,  in modern life. it is a means to aid apperception and train the senses.  it is an anti-realist, un-natural mode of understanding, a knowledge constructed out of fragments of modern life, in conflict with linear repetitive time, this momentary explosion brought forth in the work of art is akin to temporalities held within habitualized daily life or the moments contained within intense periods of political struggle such as the russian revolution or may 1968, where the city become a momentary art work which promises to transcend philosophy and recoup the aesthetic as an alienated specialised activity.

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