3 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2025
    1. “The library, panels and boxes formed the ensemble of supports on which Aby Warburg’s spiritual work and intellectual creativity were based.” - Benjamin Steiner, Aby Warburgs Zettelkasten Nr. 2 “Geschichtsauffassung”, In: Heike Gfrereis / Ellen Strittmatter (Hrsg.): Zettelkästen. Maschinen der Phantasie (Marbacher Kataloge, 66). Marbach 2013, S. 154-161.

      Aby Warburg used three primary tools for his research: his library, a card index, and panels.

      His panels would be versions of pinboards, chalk boards, dry erase boards, or online versions of things like Canvas in Obsidian. It amounts to the ability to take notes or images on cards and shuffle them around on a table (or affixed to a wall).

  2. Aug 2023
    1. Wer Warburgs Zettelkasten folgt, folgt ihm bei seinenGedankengängen; vom Bankenwesen in Florenz, der mit-telalterlichen Handelsgesellschaft, dem Herausbilden vonIndividualität, der rastlosen Berufsarbeit der Calvinistenund der reformierten Form der Askese bis zu Warburgseigener Herkunft aus alter jüdischer Bankiersfamilie.378Der Zettelkasten ist Warburgs Ariadnefaden durch seinelabyrinthische Bibliothek wie sein labyrinthisches Denken:vom Werwolf zur Geschichtsauffassung. Ein Gedanke,eine Idee oder ein neuer Begriff entstehen nicht in einergeradlinigen Progression, sondern in einem Prozess desHin- und Herbewegens von Idee-Einheiten und Querver-weisen, der so lange andauert, bis sich neue Schnittstel-len und Knotenpunkte gebildet haben.

      machine translation:

      Anyone who follows Warburg's list of notes is following his train of thought; from the banking system in Florence, medieval commercial society, the development of individuality, the restless professional work of the Calvinists and the reformed form of asceticism to Warburg's own origins in an old Jewish banking family. 378 The Zettelkasten is Warburg's Ariadne thread through his labyrinthine library and his labyrinthine thinking: from werewolf to history. A thought, an idea or a new concept does not emerge in a linear progression, but in a process of moving idea units and cross-references back and forth, which lasts until new interfaces and nodes have formed.