Month: January 2007

ANALYSIS—Deleuze & Guattari—The Material of History

In the process of parsing the section ‘1837: Of the Refrain’ (from Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus1) in preparation for my essay, I think I’m seeing an interesting treatment of thought and life as material.

Towards the end of the section they discuss the three ‘ages’ (“assemblages enveloping different Machines, or different relations to the Machine” p. 382), the classical, romantic, and modern, which represent the processes of becoming that art (and history) demonstrates:

The essential relation is no longer matters-forms (or substances-attributes); neither is it the continuous development of form and continuous variation of matter. It is now a direct relation material-forces.. . . There is no longer a matter that finds its corresponding principle of intelligibility in form. It is now a question of elaborating a material charged with harnessing forces of a different order: the visual material must capture nonvisible forces. (p. 377)

. . . modern philosophy tends to elaborate a material of thought in order to capture forces that are not thinkable in themselves. That is Cosmos philosophy, after the manner of Nietzsche. (p. 377–8)

In order to do this the concept of consistency is developed, which is deterritorialisation, life:

[Life] . . . implies a gain in consistency, in other words, a surplus value (surplus value of destratification). (p. 370)

Life, this consistency, allows us to access ‘forces’:

It is no longer a question of imposing a form on a matter but of elaborating an increasingly rich and consistent material, the better to tap increasingly rich forces. (p. 363)

The problem is no longer that of the beginning, any more than it is that of a foundation-ground. It is now a problem of consistency or consolidation: how to consolidate the material, make it consistent, so that it can harness unthinkable, invisible, nonsonorous forces. (p. 378)

This leads to D&G’s suggestion that perception of these forces governs history:

The most we can say is that when forces appear as forces of the earth or of chaos, they are not grasped directly as forces but as reflected in relations between matter and form. Thus it is more a question of thresholds of perception, or thresholds of discernability belonging to given assemblages.. . . In this sense, all history is really the matter of perception, and what we make history with is matter of a becoming, not the subject matter of a story. (p. 382 – my emphasis)

NB D&G’s texts are incredibly dense and complex. I feel that I’m only scratching the surface of them at the moment and may well be misunderstanding or grossly misinterpreting them. But they’re very rewarding and I’ll continue to work at them.

  1. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987). 1837: Of the Refrain. In A Thousand Plateaus. London: Continuum, 1987, pp. 342-386.

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BLOG—Where are you?

In response to a comment made by Claire in the Lab presentation last week, I’ve added a map to the sidebar to show where the visitors to this site are visiting from. This is a first step to paying more attention to my audience, something that I’ve been reticent to do in the past.

Shi also commented that this blog is really very closed off towards the visitor. I’m really using it to talk to myself, with a very controlling hand over the impression that I put across.

To be honest, I’ve never really been too interested in the visitor – I don’t really think I have anything interesting to say to people, it’s more the activity of saying something that’s important to me. I don’t really ask anything of the visitor except their time and patience, they can take or leave this blog as they wish. I’m mainly using it as an archive of data and events that are relevant to me.

However, in the presentation I was stressing the activity of presenting as an end in itself, either in person in front of a group, or on the blog (or elsewhere). Well, that’s all well and good for me, but why should anyone else care?

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PRESENTATION—Lab Presentation—Notes and recording

Here are my notes for today’s presentation. A recording of the event is at the end of the post.

Introduction

As I’m sure is true for all of us, I’ve found this course to be a bit of an emotional roller-coaster ride. Not only from day to day, but from lecture to lecture, and even within each lecture I can go from elation to depression in the course of a few minutes.

What I think this shows is that I’m at least being challenged by the work we’re doing, which has to be a good thing, when all is said and done. I keep telling myself, when the tasks seem insurmountable, that if I wasn’t feeling this way I wouldn’t have any way of knowing when I was up against my limits and potentially making progress.

There is a distinct difference between this presentation and the first. The first was an introduction to me and my life up until the point at which I entered Goldsmiths, concentrating on personal, anecdotal evidence.

Review the first presentation

List of objects:

  • DVD: Jacques Tati’s Playtime (my sense of humour, modernism, architecture in general)
  • Some Monopoly houses (suburbia – my upbringing, architecture)
  • my iPod (music, electronica)
  • A small maquette for a sculpture (lovely objects, my interest in art)
  • 2 of my own artworks – the erratum slips and the Malevich book (the work I was producing while at College)

New objects

List of objects:

  • Performance
  • Blog
  • Deleuze and Guattari

This time around I’ll talk about specific things which have developed during the course and which I hope will develop during this term and beyond.

Perhaps the main theme (or problematic) of last term was my search for a hook within the course subject-matter on which I could hang my own interests and (potential) work. This has only very recently started to become clear to me.

Up until the end of last term I think I was somewhat at a loss as to how the course actually intersected with my own interests. The main problem being that I’m not sure what my interests are at this point, which obviously makes any kind of connection and subsequent progression difficult. This has always been a problem for me – even before we started this course I was viewing it as more of a move away from a negative than towards a positive, real goal.

Diagrams/Performance

But the presentation that I did with Ian in the last week of term clarified some things for me. Certainly what I enjoyed most in this presentation was the analysis of the display of the Beuys work at the tate, and—perhaps more pertinently—the representation of that analysis through diagrams and performance during the presentation itself.

In relation to this presentation I’ve started making links with aspects of previous work I’ve done (specifically my activities at Middlesex University doing my first degree, where I would write and “perform” those writings). So the writing, and performance of those writings; the concern with space and perceptions of space; the systems of awareness and control of space—I can see this as a method for future work which will now be placed on a far more informed basis than anything I was able to do in the past.

Blog

As a parallel exercise, over the past few years I’ve been keeping a blog on my website. This serves as a repository of thoughts and comments on what’s been happening to me. At the same time I’m seeing this more and more as another performance space for my writings, another area in which they are being presented.

Deleuze & Guattari

Another thing which is developing is my interest in Philosophy.

In what at first appeared to be a huge mistake I chose to take the Philosophy and… course. I originally came to it wanting to improve my knowledge and experience in this subject, but wasn’t prepared for the obscurity of the teaching. To begin with it was very disheartening to have to sit through lectures week after week and not be able to grasp the point of anything that was being talked about. Here was a situation where I felt completely out of my depth, but at the same time knew that I was learning something completely new that could only expand my thought processes, as painful as it felt.

At this point in time I don’t claim to have much more of a clue about what it’s all about, but I have been introduced to some authors whose work I’ve found interesting. I was particularly taken with the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. Right now I’m attempting to write an essay on the concept of ‘the refrain’ as a musical motif as well as a wider concept applicable to other forms of art and society. This is described in frustratingly obtuse detail in their book A Thousand Plateaus. Needless to say I’m finding it quite ‘interesting’ (and challenging). For me, it’s a new way of thinking and thinking about thinking, and I’m keen to see where it leads me.

Conclusion

So essentially my objects are the writing – represented by the blog; the performance – represented by this presentation; and the philosophy – represented by this book, as my objects for this presentation.

I can’t tell you what implications these objects will have for my future activities – that remains to be seen.

Recording – 24mins (Ogg Vorbis format – 10.6MB)

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PRESENTATION—Lab Presentation—Initial thoughts

Next week we’re back at college for the Spring term and straightaway we have a presentation to do for our Lab session.

This follows on from our initial presentation back at the beginning of the course, designed to allow us to introduce ourselves to our colleagues by the selection of six objects through which we could talk about our backgrounds and motives for being on the course.

This time around it’s a review (or “reprise”) of the original presentation, with the effect of progress made over the previous term. Again, the format is to bring a number of objects. We’ll be looking at transformations in our approach to the course and possible lines of development.

—

For the original presentation I talked around the following objects (they are followed by some bracketed notes on how I accounted for their inclusion):-

  • DVD: Jacques Tati’s Playtime (my sense of humour, modernism, architecture in general)
  • Some Monopoly houses (suburbia – my upbringing, architecture)
  • my iPod (music, electronica)
  • A small maquette for a sculpture (lovely objects, my interest in art)
  • 2 of my own artworks (the work I was producing while at College)

—

For the forthcoming presentation the main theme (or problematic) I want to talk about are my search for a hook within the course subject-matter on which I could hang my own (potential) work. This has only very recently started to become clear.

Up until the end of last term I think I was somewhat at a loss as to how the course actually intersected with my own interests. The main problem being that I’m not sure what my interests are at this point, which obviously makes any kind of progression difficult. This has always been my problem – deciding on this course was seen by myself as more of a move away from a negative rather than towards a positive.

But the presentation that I did with Ian in the last week of term clarified some things for me. Certainly what I enjoyed most in this presentation was the analysis of the presentation of the Beuys work at the tate, and—perhaps more pertinently—the representation of that analysis through diagrams and performance.

Relating this back to previous work I’ve done (specifically activities I was initiating while I was at Middlesex University doing my first degree)—the writing, and performance of those writings; the concern with space and perceptions of space; the systems of awareness and control of space—I can see a method for the future forming.

Another thing which is in the process of bubbling up is my interest in Deleuze and Guattari’s writings. Right now I’m attempting to write an essay on ‘the refrain,’ specifically where mentioned in A Thousand Plateaus, and am finding it quite ‘interesting’ (and challenging). For me, it’s a new way of thinking, so I’ll be keen to see where it leads me.

I think those are the two major results of this course so far. They are both effects of extreme and ongoing trauma for my patterns of thought, displacing me from what I already know to new pastures, potentially deterritorialising my thought (I have a feeling that that word will become more common in my writing from now on – this being one of the side-effects of reading D&G).

So, as far as the presentation goes, there is a distinct difference between the first and forthcoming one. The first was concentrating on personal, anecdotal evidence, while the next will be focused on the course itself and it’s effect on my thinking. The objects to present remain to be decided – books would be too obvious, so I must come up with something a little more intelligent to show. A difficult proposition.

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