A contemporary reflection on the utopian vision of Charles Fourier (1772-1837), framed in a multi-format cinema landscape variously local, regional, global, and cosmic.
Enquiries: info@oculartip.ca
Filmmakers:
Jeff Carter / PICTURE Chris Gestrin / SOUND
The filmmakers previously collaborated on INSIDE PASSAGE (2008), information on which is found elsewhere on this website. So Below represents an expansion of the aesthetic challenges, both thematically and in scale, preserving a balance between a faithful engagement with Fourier’s concepts while shaping a non-literal analogous presentation. The film was never initially scripted or story-boarded. The images were gathered over time, with the “correspondences” realized gradually. The form is an extension of the content, which is the formula we were seeking.
Chris Gestrin’s exceptional work with ambient and compositional audio was recognized with a Theremin Award for BEST SOUND DESIGN at the 2024 edition of the First Hermetic International Film Festival.
WHO WAS CHARLES FOURIER?
Portrait de Charles Fourrier by Jean Gigoux 1835 (CC)
Utopian theorist / proto-socialist Charles Fourier (1772-1837) was largely obscure through his life, though of increasing influence in his later years. This influence spread later in the nineteenth century, such as with mid-century socialist thinkers, while a widespread movement of “Fourierist” intentional communities were established based on his theories, to varying degrees of success. By the second-half of the twentieth century, Fourier’s influence spread to anarchist circles, radical artistic movements, post-60s academia, and temporary autonomous zones.
THE FILM
So Below is constructed as a visual essay, while some might call it an “art film”. The visual motifs - such as the prologue’s initial introduction of earth, water, and air - can be understood as symbolic or archetypal, or seen as simply factual material geography, or contemplated as both at once. This sort of weaving between the literal and the symbolic informs Fourier’s concepts, particularly of Unity and Analogy - as underlined through text late in the film. Fire is present in the form of the Sun, rounding out the Elements. Birds appear, often near the water, intermediaries whose “bird’s eye view” is replicated by imagery from tracking satellites, literally machines but which symbolically find the place “midway between the planets and our natural environment” to cultivate the unity of the system Fourier labels Passionate Attraction.
Although there are no chapter breaks or intertitles, the film appears in 9 parts, each representing a particular focus of attention in Fourier’s work :
1 Prologue / The Exception
“All which follows is subject to the exception of an eighth or a ninth."
"In any classification of Fourier, there is always a portion that is reserved. This portion has various names: passage, composite, transition, neuter, triviality, ambiguity (we might call it: supplement); naturally, it has a number: it is the 1/8 of any collection. First, this 1/8 has a function, familiar to scientists: it is the legal margin of error. ("Calculations of Attraction and Social Mobility are all subject to the 1/8 exception . . . it will always be understood.") Only, since in Fourier it is always a question of the calculation of happiness, error is at once ethical : when (abhorrent) Civilization "makes a mistake" (in its own system , it produces happiness: in Civilization, the 1/8 thus represents happy people. It is easy from this example to see that for Fourier the 1/8 portion does not derive from a liberal or statistical concession, from the vague recognition of a possible deviation, from a "human" failing in the system (to be taken philosophically ) ; quite the contrary, it is a question of an important structural function, of a code constraint. Which one?” Sade, Fourier, Loyola Roland Barthes
2 The Method of Scepticism
“I resolved to apply a method of Skepticism to the opinions of all parties, without prejudice. I am sceptical of all dispositions, not least those which assume universal consent."
“Woven throughout Theory of Four Movements is the obstinate commitment to permanent revolution in service of unconditional liberty which Fourier called ‘l’ecart absolu’ or the ‘total refusal’ of all known theories and models of thought. Total refusal was an integral part of Fourier’s social analysis which he expanded to encompass his complete disdain for civilization, a contempt that was necessary for him in order to supersede the conditions of authority preventing him from imagining something else.” Charles Fourier Prefigures Our Total Refusal - Don LaCoss
3 Laws of Attraction
“Our destiny is guided by Laws of Attraction, which are embodied by the drive given to us by nature, prior to reflection. While it could be said these are simply instinctual forces of which we have little control, once these influences are recognized and permitted free expression, they appear revealed as the key to everyone’s happiness."
“It was Fourier's emphasis on passional fulfillment that made his utopia so unusual. The great task of social thought, he believed, was to show how work and the apparently incompatible desire for pleasure could be reconciled…The elaborately contrived structure of life on the Phalanx would create the natural and proper relationship between the passions and work. This relationship, as Fourier saw it, was absolutely reciprocal: the appeasement of man's desires depended on the products of labor; but work, in turn, could be nothing but ‘eternal torture’ unless it was performed at the urging of the passions. Fourier offered to do no less than to free man from the biblical curse, to liberate him from work that was painful, enslaving, and destructive of his integrity.” The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier: Selected Texts on Work, Love and Passionate Attraction Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu
4 Destiny of All Worlds
“One cannot establish the destinies of one world without possessing a calculus which reveals the destinies of all worlds."
“The microcosmic architecture of the Phalanstery mirrors the macrocosmic architecture of the universe, and in this way can be seen in toto as a temple; for all temples are miniature universes. The key that links the phalanstery and cosmos as mutual hieroglyphs is to be found in Fourier’s radical play with scale, perspective, and closeness.” Fourier! Or, the Utopian Poetics Peter Lamborn Wilson
5 Passionate Attraction
“Passionate Attraction is the archetype which regulates all the modifications of matter, the order of the universal movement, and the social movement of intelligent inhabitants of all worlds.”
"Each of the Passions corresponds to a numeral, a musical note,color, mathematical process, geometric form, alchemical metal… Did Fourier spontaneously recreate the occult theory of analogy out of his own imagination, or had he read Paracelsus? No wonder the Martinists, Illuminists and Swedenborgians thought Fourier was one of them, an adept… Everything is erotic, everything yields to the influence of Passional Attraction.” Fourier! - Or, the Utopian Poetics Peter Lamborn Wilson
6 Theory of Creations I
“Let us propose as theory of Creations. That is to say, the determination of plans concerning the modification of matter, which includes everything from the cosmogony of the solar systems and invisible stars, to the most minute alterations of matter in the animal, mineral and vegetable kingdoms."
“(Fourier) regarded passionate attraction as the central element in a comprehensive vision of the universe. At the very outset of his career he asserted that its discovery would enable him not only to lay plans for the harmonious organization of society but also to uncover the secrets of the natural world… passionate attraction was the ‘key' to a host of new sciences. It was a universal law which would enable him to explain everything from the origins of the heavenly bodies to 'the most minute alterations of matter in the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms.’... Only in recent years, and thanks largely to the efforts of Andre Breton and his Surrealist group, has serious consideration been given to the imaginative qualities of Fourier's stellar reveries and his reflections on analogy.” The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier: Selected Texts on Work, Love and Passionate Attraction Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu
7. Laws of Social Movement / Unity and Analogy
“There is nothing inherently vicious or pathological in our tastes or characters. There is nothing vicious on Earth except the incoherent civilized order in which we live."
“Fourier was disgusted by the degree to which people’s lives could be ruined by an emerging class of professional profiteers and financial speculators…In some ways he predicted the rise of neo-liberalism in our time, calling it 'an art for devouring the future’." Charles Fourier Prefigures Our Total Refusal - Don LaCoss
“Without analogy, creation would become arbitrary, universal unity would become impossible, and the critique of civilization would lack a systematic basis. Fourier’s theory depended on the total purposefulness of creation.” Theory of Four Movements Introduction Gareth Steadman Jones / Ian Patterson
"The rationale behind most of Fourier's strangest speculations was provided by what he called the "theory of universal analogy." This theory rested on two premises: the universe was a unified system, a web of hidden correspondences or hieroglyphs, and man was at its center. Everything that transpired in the world of man had some echo or correspondence in the world of nature." The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier: Selected Texts on Work, Love and Passionate Attraction Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu
“Analogy - everything means something else - no 'coincidences'.
Fourier proposes a hieroglyphic science based on analogies or ‘ orrespondences', as they are known in Hermetic theory. He was not referring to the translation of real Egyptian hieroglyphs carried out in the wake of Napoleon’s looting of the Rosetta Stone, but to the older ‘ hieroglyphs' of the Renaissance neoplatonists and Hermetic revivalists, as in the Book of Horapollo.
As a code which both hid and revealed the archetypal essences of material objects, hieroglyphics could be used to classify, and thus as an epistemological device. Since these essences were able to “act at a distance” (like sight, for example, or gravity), hieroglyphs comprised not only a code of inner natures, a means to ‘read' Nature itself, but also a projective semiotics, a way to influence ‘reality' by the deployment of images (hieroglyphs, symbols)—i.e., by the deployment of imagination—by ‘magic'." Fourier! Or, the Utopian Poetics Peter Lamborn Wilson
8 Theory of Creations 2
“Properties of animals, vegetables, minerals, and even a cluster of stars, contain some effect of what is described in our terms as human passions reflected in the social order."
“Stars and planets are sexual beings. Gravity on the physical plane serves as a metaphor for the erotic attraction which really moves the universe - the Aromal Emanation. Each cosmic body shoots out multi-clored rays of aroma by which they copulate with each other and propagate their kind in a continual orgy of creation. These rays criss-cross Space in a veritable multidimensional web of color just as Space on another level is a webwork of light.” Fourier! - Or, the Utopian Poetics Peter Lamborn Wilson
9 Creative Fluid
“Presently, the Borealis is merely a symptom of the stagnation of Earth under our uncivilized and mindless conduct. The effect is to render an otherwise creative fluid into a rather useless effusion. This fluid cannot extend contact with that of other planets until the human race has accomplished the tasks expected of us."
"The future of the solar system, for instance, involves Earth’s acquisition of five new satellites, Juno, Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, and Mercury, which will leave their present orbits out of sheer attraction to the new Harmonian Earth and move much closer to us and to the Sun. The rest of the solar system will also squeeze closer together, so that Venus, Mars, and Jupiter will appear to us nearly as large as our own satellites, and we will behold even Herschel (Uranus) with its eight moons (La Faquiresse, La Bacchante, La Bayadère, La Galante, La Coquette, La Romanesque, La Prude, and La Fidèle). Our night sky will blaze with huge glowing multi-hued globes ('the effect of a garden illuminated with colored lamps')—we’ll see Saturn’s rings bare-eyed, Venus like a lilac moon, Jupiter a jonquil moon... The planets will crowd together like warm bodies at an orgy, and we’ll be so close we’ll be able to see and converse with the inhabitants of the other spheres via the Extramundane Planetary Telegraph…" Fourier! - Or, the Utopian Poetics Peter Lamborn Wilson
Further Reference:
Charles Fourier - The Theory of the Four Movements (1808) received a new edition by Cambridge University Press in 1996. It is the first English translation of this seminal text since 1857. Edited by Gareth Steadman Jones and Ian Patterson.
This Remarkable book, written soon after the French revolution, has traditionally been considered one of the founding documents of socialism. It introduces the best-known and most extraordinary utopia written in the last two centuries. Charles Fourier was among the first to formulate a right to a minimum standard of life. His radical approach involved a systematic critique of work, marriage and patriarchy, together with a right to a 'sexual minimum'. He also proposed a comprehensive alternative to the Christian religion. Finally, through the medium of a bizarre and extraordinary cosmology, Fourier argued that the poor state of the planet is the result of the evil practices of civilization.
A Historical and Descriptive Sketch of the North American Phalanx, one of the longest running of the 19th century Fourierist intentional communities, written by Phalanx member Charles Sears, was published in 1886 (by a group seeking to establish their own community in Mexico). Sears’ account offers some detail as to the appeal of Fourier’s concepts, and the application of such in a practical “utopian” setting.
Roland Barthes Sade, Fourier, Loyola (1971)
“The least-centered Logothesis is certainly that of Fourier (passions and stars are constantly being dispersed, apportioned), and this is undoubtedly why he is the most euphoric."
The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier: Selected Texts on Work, Love and Passionate Attraction
Published in 1971. Translated and edited by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu.
This book can be accessed on the Internet Archive.
This book concentrates on those aspects of his thought that are relevant to contemporary social theory. Fourier’s thought begins with his doctrines of “absolute doubt” and “absolute deviation.” “Absolute doubt” required Fourier to doubt civilization itself, “to doubt its necessity, its excellence, and its permanence.” “Absolute deviation” required him to dismiss the doctrines, teachings, and moral codes of all previous thinkers and philosophers. Thus he was not a critic of his society, but rather a vehement enemy.
As an answer to his own critique,Fourier planned an extraordinary utopian society based in large part on his law of “passionate attraction,” which was destined to “conduct the human race to opulence, sensual pleasures and global unity.” It was to be made up of interacting phalanxes, perhaps 1600 people housed in one vast building, a phalanstery, where there would be a way of life immeasurably richer and freer than a repressive civilization had ever afforded any man.
Escape From the Nineteenth Century and Other Essays by Peter Lamborn Wilson
Published 1998 by Autonomedia. Available from the Internet Archive.
Wilson’s essay on Fourier - “Fourier! Or - The Utopian Poetics” - originally appeared in the anthology Disembodied Poetics: Annals of the Jack Kerouac School (1993). It served as the original inspiration for this film. Wilson writes with an enthusiastic associative style, and to the sympathetic reader he has the effect of flicking the light switch on and illuminating a wholly new and endlessly fascinating new place, a quality he also ascribes to our subject:
“To read Fourier with feeling gives the same thrill as discovering a new lost cult of ancient times with strange and gnostic truths. If you really love someone, buy rare old yellowing Fourier pamphlets and let your beloved discover them as if by accident in musty library of deceased uncle, or leftist used book store in Montmartre, dusty pages of cheap acidic nineteenth-century paper flaking away like ivory scurf, quaint elongated fancy typefaces, elaborate pseudomathematical diagrams. At first your beloved believes that no one else knows about this unique forgotten genius.. .then your beloved discovers that there are others.. that you are one of them! What a pure and ennobling pleasure!"
“Charles Fourier Prefigures Our Total Refusal” Don LaCoss, FIFTH ESTATE Fall 2003
"Get Thee To a Phalanstery” Dominic Pettman Public Domain Review 2019
Charles Fourier: Passion, Civilization, Utopia Moses May-Hobbs, The Collector 2023