Art as Abstract Machine: Ontology and Aesthetics in Deleuze and Guattari (Studies Inphilosophy)

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Routledge New York & London

Contents

Abbreviations

VII

List of Figures

xi

Acknowledgrnen ts Published in 21)05 by Routledge iaylor & Francis (iroup 270 isiadison Avenue Ness York, NY 10016

Published in Great Brttatn by Routledge 1aylor & Francis Group 2 Park Square Milton Park, Abtngdon Oxon 0Xl4 4RN

Jntroduction Art as Abstract Machine

201)5 b laulor & Francis (iroup. L1 ( Routlcdge an imprini nt! ax nr & 1 rancis (iroup

xlii

1

chapter One The Artist-Philosopher: Deleuze, Nietzsche, and the Critical Art ofAffirmation

11

Chapter 7ivo Spinoza: Mystical Atheism and the Art of Beatitude

41

Chapter Tbree We Need New Signs: Towards a Cinernatic image ofThought

77

is

Printed in the t.nited States of Anierica on acid—free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 International Standard Book Numher- 0: 0—41 5—97155—1 (1 Iardcoser) International Standard Book Nuniher— 1 3: 978—0—41 5—97155 3 (1 lardcos er) No part of this book mau be reprtnted. reproduced. transmined. or utilized in any torni by any eleetronic. mcc hanical, or otlier means, now knoss ii or hereatier ins ented, including photocopying, microlilming, and rccording, or tn aity intoimatton storage or rrtrieval system, without ssritten permission from the publishers. ‘I‘radcniark Notice: i‘roduct or corporate narnes may be trademarks or registcred trademarks. and arc used only foi identificatiott and explanatton ss ithout i ntent to infringe.

Librar of Congress CataIoging-1nPubIkation Data ( atalog record isavailable from the Library of(‘ongress

jjixformaj i‘.

Tas lor & 1 aiiris (hout, the .•‘scademic Dis ot T&[ tntornia ple. inon

Visit the Taylor & Francis site http://www.ta3lorandfrancis.com and the Routledge eb site itt

C‘hapter Four A Freedorn for the End ofthe World: Painting and Absolute Deterritorialisation

1 17

C‘hapter Five Songs ofMolecules: The Chaosrnosis of Sensation

151

Chapter Six The Agitations ofConvulsive Life: Painting die Flesh

185

Conclusion A Break, a Becoming, and a Belief

219

itt

(ontents

Notes

231

Bibliography

283

Index

295

Abbreviations

AO

Gilles Deleuze and F1ix Guattari, AntiOedipus, Gzpitalism ancl Schizophinia, translated by R. Hurly M. Seern, and H, R. Lane. Minneapolis: Universiry of Minnesota Press, 1983. Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari, LAnti-Gic/zpe. Paris: Minuit, 1972.

ATP

Gilles Deleuze and F1ix Guattari, ii Thousand Plateaus, trans lared by B. Massumi. London: Athlone, 1988. Gilles Deleuze and FIix Guatrari, Mille P/titeaux. Paris: Minuit, 1980.

B

Gilles Deleuze, Bergsonism, translated by H. Tomlinson and B. Habberjain. New York: Zone Books, 1991. Gilles Deleuze, Le bergsonisnze. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966.

Cl

Gutes Deleuze, inernaJ, TheMovernent Jmage, translared by H. ibmlinson and B. Habberjam. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. Gutes Deleuze, Cinema 1: Limage-mouvement. Paris: Nlinuit, 1983.

C2

Gilles Deleuze, C‘inema 2: Jhe Time-Irnage, translated by H.

Tomlinson and R. Galeta. Minneapolis: University ofMinnesora Press, 1989. Gilles Deleuze, Ci,u‘rna 2. L7niage-temps. Paris: Minuit, 1980. Chaos

F1ix Guattari, Chaosmosis: an ethico—aesthetic paradlg?n, trans lated by P Baines and J. Pefanis. Sydney: Power puhlications, 1995. F!ix Guattari, Chaosmose. Paris: GaIile, 1992.

viii

Abbreviations

DR

Gilles Deleuze, D/rence and Repetition, tranalared by P Patton. New York: Universiry ofColumbia Press, 1996. Gilles 1)eleuze, DifJrence et R‘ptftition. Paris: Presses Univer sitaires de France, 1968.

ECC

Gilles Deleuze, Essays criticalandclinical, translated by D. Srnith and M. Greco. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Gilles Deleuze, critique et C‘linique. Paris: Minuit, 1993.

EPS

Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, translated by M. Joughin. New York: Zone Books, 1992. Gilles Deleuze, 5inoza et le problme de l‘expression. Paris: Minuit, 1968.

FB

Gilles Deleuze, Francis Bacon: the logic ofsensation, translated by L).W. Smith. London and New York: Continuurn, 2003. Gilles Deleuze, Francis Bacon logique lz sensation, Paris: Seuil, 2002.

LS

Gilles Deleuze, The Logic ofSense, translated by M. Lester with C. Stivale, edited by C.V. Boundas. New York: Colurnbia University Press, 1990. Gilles Deleuze, Logique du sens. Paris: Minuit, 1969.

NP

Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy. translated by H. ibmlinson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche et la philosophie. Paris: Presses Universitaires dc France, 1962.

REA

F1ix Guattari, “Ritornellos and Existential Affects,“ The Guattari Reader p. 158-171, edited by G. Genosko. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. Flix Guattari, “Ritournelles er Affects existentiels,“ Carto graphies Schizaanalytiques. p. 251-267. Paris: Ga1ile, 1989.

SPP

Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, translated by R. Hurley. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1988. Gilles Deleuze, .5inoza Philosophie pratique. Paris: Minuit, 1981.

TF

Gilles Deleuze, The Fol€t Leibniz and the Baroque, translated by ‘E Conley. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Gilles Deleuze, Le Ph, Leibniz et le baroque. Paris: Minuit, 1988

Abbreviations wP

ix Gilles Deleuze and F1ix Guattari, What Js Philosophy?, translated by H. Tomlinson and G. Burchell. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Gilles Deleuze and F1ix Guattari, Qust-ce que ha philosophie?. Paris: lVlinuit, 1991.

References in the text give the page number of the English transiation, followed by the page number ofthe French edition. References to other texts by 1)eleuze and Guattari arc given in the notes. The tide and page number for other quored sources arc given in the notes, with full details found in die bibliography. When a book is quoted which is not listed in the bibliography, full details arc given in the notes.

List of Figures

Figure 1

Figure 2 Figure 3

Figure 4 Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 8

Andy Warhol, 7zjle Elvis, 1 963, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. © 2004 Andv Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

34

Carl Theodor Dreyer, La Passion dc Jeanne DArc, 1928, Austrian Film Museum.

94

Michelangelo Anronioni, Deserto Rosso, 1 964, Austrian Film Museum.

113

Titian, The Death ofActaeon, 1565-76, National Gallery, London.

137

Jackson Pollock, catiedraI, 1947, Dallas Museum of Art. © 2004 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

147

Marcel Duchamp, Bottle Rack, 1913, Philadelphia Museum of Art. © 2004 Artists Rights Society (ARS). New York / ADAGf Paris / Succession Marcel Duchamp

1 61

Francis Bacon, Porimit ofisabel Rawthorne, 1965, Tate Gallery London. © 2004 Estate ofFrancis Bacon / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS. London

190

Francis Bacon, Trzitych, August 1972, 1972, Tate Gallery, London. © 2004 Estate of Francis Bacon / Aitists Rights Sociery (ARS), New York / DACS, London

213

All efforts have been made to beate the rights holders for the still 5 fiom Dreyer‘s La Passion dejeanne DArc and Antonioni‘s Deserto Rosso. lfanyone has infor mation regarding the copyrighr for these images, please contact Routledge.

Acknowledgments

As is alwavs the case, this hook has heen all exercise in group production. lt has emerged from an assemblage of influence and cooperation to which man)‘ peo ple have contributed. Paul Patton, ric Alliez, Dan Srnith, and Brian Massurni all read and gave important feedback to earlier versions of the text, and their own work on Deleuze and Guattari has heen a constant source of inspiration. Eva BrUckner, Scott Hayes, Yves Mettler, Claudia Mongini, David Quigley and Arturo Silva gave valuable assistance in the preparation ofthe text, for which 1 am most grateful. Thanks also to my family, Nick and Linda, Caynor (Mum), Jeanette and Joshua, and rny friends Ralph Paine and Karma Percy. Finally, Anita Fricek has given her support and love through the long process ofwrit ing, and is this book‘s real condition ofpossibility Many tbanks to all ofyou. S. Z.—Vi enna

lntroduction

Art as Abstract Machine

And the question is still what it was then, how to view Sclu)larShip horn the vantagc point oftlic artist and art frozn the vantage oflife. —Friedrich Nicrzsche, Tue Blirb oflrngefI) “Art as abstract machine“ (ATF 496/619). This book‘s title is not a description hut an imperative. lt urges an action, an undertaking, a perpetual departure, for wherever we start, it rernains to be done. A machine has to be constructed, and art as abstract machine will require an artist adequate te the task: a mechanic. For each rnachine its mechanic: “The painting machine of an artist-mechanic.“ We are already—as always—in the middle of things, a swirling cacophony of questions: A mechanic? A machine? Who? What? Wben? And given all that, what does this machine produce? And for what reasons? But these questions are the necessary conditions for any construction, for their answers will be the corn ponents of new machines that will thernselves depart, to test out new directions. The abstract machine is nothing but this unfolding ofcornplexit a fractal en gineering inseparable from life, a bloorning ofmultiplicity But let‘s step back frorn this complexity that will nevertheless rernain the condition ofour investigation. We don‘t want to crash and hurn, not yet. Let‘s try taking one question at a tirne. Ifour title is an imperative what does it hid US do? To construct an abstract machine, obviously, but how? And to risk an other question, already, what does it do? (We will see how these questions, to irnmediately step into I)eleuze and Guattari‘s vocabuTary will hecome indis cernible.) Deleuze and Guattari give s‘hat seerns a straightforward answer: “The diagrammatic or abstract machine does not function to represent, even sorne thing real, but rather constructs a real that is yet to corne, a new type ofreality“ (ATE 142/177). Art as abstract machine‘s first principle: it is real and not a rep resentation. Deleuze and Guattari, whether discussing art, philosophy or any thirig else, will not stop coming back to this first principle. 2 And sich, it

Art as Abstract Machine iinmediately mplies another—its necessary complirnent—that constructing an abstract machine is to construct construction itseif The abstract machine is the vital mechanism ofa world always emerging anew, it is the rnechanism ofcre ation operating at die level of the real. Here, a new world opens up, a living world in which norhing is given except creation. To open a world, to construct a ne‘ type of realit this is the ontological foundation of the world—of this world and of all the others—on an abstract machine guiding its becoming. The abstract machine creates a new reality, constructs new ways ofbeing, bot although inseparable froin this innovation ofexistence, it has no being. The abstract machine is the entirely immanent condition ofthe new, and thereby re ceives its Nietzschean definition: its being is becoming. For now we will unfold the implications of this ontology rather rapidly, any beginning must involve a certain reckless plunge. The abstract machine doesn‘t represent anything be cause nothing exists outside of its action, it is what it does and its immanence is always active. In the middle oftbings the abstract machine is never an end, it‘s a means, a vector ofcreation. But despite the abstract machine having no form, it is inseparable froin what happens: it is the “non-outside“ living vitality ofmat ter. (But is ir an inside? As we shall see the question marks a certain limit to an old and no longer useful topological vocabular)) As a result, abstract machines arc neither ideal identities nor categories of being, and remain entirely unaf fected by any transcendent ambitions. But before we get into the intricacies of this technical philosophical ter minology we should remind ourselves that we arc speaking ofpractical mat ters, of machines and their constructions. Building an abstract machine is more [)IY than techno-science, and requires a bit of the mad professor.‘ Deleuze and Guattari, macl professors no doubt, adopt the language of the construction site, an earrhy directness reflecting the pragmatisrn required by the job at hand. Machines eat and sleep, they remind us, they shit and fuck. (AO, 1/7) We arc, no niisrake, machines. “Everything is a machine“ (AO, 2/8). Our task—to be done with techno-paranoia—is to turn these machines creative, to liberate their parts in an explosion that remakes the world. The mechanic is, to use another of Deleuze and Guattari‘s colorful phrases, “the cosmic artisan: a homemade atomic bomb“ (ATP, 345/426). “There is a nec essary joy in creation,“ [)eleuze says, “art is necessarily a liberation that ex plodes everything.“ Bot die abstract machine is not an expression implying technophilia either, and is inseparable froni a mechanics of die flesh, an ex aniple of 1)eleuze and Guattari‘s avowed marerialism: “The abstract machine is pure Matter-Furiction“ (ATP, 141/176). The world is a plane of matter force, a material process of experirnentation connecting and disconnecring machines. On this plane ahstract machines act as guidance mechanisms— .

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.3

“probe-heads“ (t&es chercheuses, ATl 1 9 0/232)—steerng the world on its “creative fiight“ (AT1 190/233). The abstract machine is therefore both vital and material, it exists, Deleuze and Guartari write, as the “life proper to mat ter as such, a material vitalism that doubtless exists evervwhere but is ordinar ily hidden or covered, rcndered unrecognizable, clissociated hy the hylomorphic mode!“ (ATI 411/512). Hylomorphism is an Operation that moulds matter into forms according to an ideal mode!, an operation by which the world appears as obedient and predictable representations. Once more, the abstract inachine against representation. We have already sketched—at a speed that no doubt calls out for a subse quent slowness—the underlying structure of this book‘s diagram. First, not only the echo of Nietzsche in the abstract machine‘s against, but Deleuze and Guattari‘s mobilization of his ontology of becoming. Second, the necessity of Spinoza to any philosophy of immanence. Spinoza will be the permanent sig nature of Deleuze and Guattari‘s immanent niachinery, of its expression and construction. Third, a marerialism inseparahle froni a vitalism; in orher words, Bergson. These arc the ahstract co-ordinates of Deleuze and Guattari‘s philo sophical machine, and arc mapped in the first three chapters of this book. These chapters Iay out the basic cornponents of Deleuze and Guattari‘s ontology while seeking to show how they work, how they most be put to work in constructing an expression of the living materiality of the world, in consrructing an abstract machine. Understanding this ontology will therefore confront us with the im niediate necessity of understanding its appearance in and as life, an underst-and ing inseparable from an experience of the new realities that arc forever being created. At this point it becomes obvious that the onrologv of die abstract ma chine implies an aesthetic, because its existence is indiscernible frorn its appear ance in and as experience. What then, to ask the question ofaesthetics, arc die conditions ofthis experience? This question calls to account anotber of Deleuze and Guattari‘s philosophical interlocutors: Kant. Unlike Nietzsche, Spinoza and Bergson however, Kant is less a “fellow traveller“ than an adversary, and the site of combat will be the aesthetic. For Deleuze and Guattari aesthetics is not the determination of the objective conditions ofany possihle experience, nor does it determine the subjecrive conditions of an actual experience qua beautiful. Aesthetics instead involves the determination of real conditions that arc no wider than the experience itself, that arc, once more, indiscernible from this experience. Aesthetics then, is inseparable from ontology, becatise experience is, for Deleuze and Guattari, irreducibly real. 1b construct an abstract ma chine will mean constructing a new experience indissociable from a new real ‘Fhe sensible, like the thinkable, is nothing but the reniporary conditions

4

Art as Abstract Machine

from which an abstract machine departs, following Spinoza‘s “war cry“ (the phrase is Deleuze‘s) “we don‘t even know what a body can do“ (EPS, 255/234). This introduces another of our constant concerns, how can we cre ate a new body, a new sensihility adequate to a life ofontological innovation? Art ernerges here as a privileged site ofcorporeal experimentation. Art as ab stract machine gives a genetic definition of art, one that transforrns both its ontological and aesthetic dimensions. “Everything changes once we deter mine the conditions of real experience,“ Deleuze writes, “which are not larger than the condirioned and which differ in kind from the categories: [Kant‘s] two senses of the aesthetic become one, to the point where the being of the sensible reveals itselfin the work ofart, while at the same time the work ofart appears as experirnentation“ (DR, 68/94). An abstract machine determines the real conditions ofexperience, conditions neither subjective nor objective (they have become abstract), and that can only be experienced in the work of art (in a machine), A work entirely experimental, inasmuch as art is a perma nent research on irs own conditions, and is always constructing new ma chines. Feedback loop. Once more, this will be an overarching concern ofthis hook, to understand the necessary and active immanence of abstract and ac mal, infinite and finite in the machine of art. The work of art understood in this way will give a real experience, an experience of its real conditions, an ex perience of and as irs immanent abstract machine in the process of (re)con structing reality Which is to say—or what can be said before we say everything else—art is an experience ofbecoming, an experiential body ofbe coming, an experimentation producing new realities. The implications arc obvious: there is neither an ontology ofart nor an aesthetics ofart, each in its realm ofcompetency, each with its own all too serious professors. There arc arrists consrructing abstrace machines, mechanics engaged in the prag matic practice of onto-aesthetics. Cosmic artisans everywhere setting off their atom boinbs. Our diagram has already grown quite complex. The co-implication ofon tology and aesthetics in art as abstract machine—the onto-aesthetics of art—in volves a redefinition of experience by which its objective and suhjective conditions arc dissolved in the real, the reality of the world as it becomes noth ing else than itself Art in these terrns is an autogenesis expressing the world (its real conditions) by constructing experience (its real experience). And what is this experience? A simple question that it will take a whole book (and no doubr not just this one) to answer. Art is, before all else, and as Deleuze and Guattari pur it, a sensation. A sensation of this work, hut this work, this sensation, it does nothing ifir does not restore us to our constitutive infinity by creating the world anew. Deleuze and Guattari‘s uiidersranding of art as sensation will set offfrom

Introduction

5

Nietzsche‘s statement serving as the epitaph above, to view scholarship from the vantage of art—it rneans our investigations only begin when we start to create— and art fiom the vantage of life—meaning our creations inust become alive. Art will be nothing (at least not for us) ifit is not this ongoing expression oflife in the construction of living machines. Expression and construction arc the doubled dirnensions ofart as absrract rnachine. The ahstract machine expresses the autogenetic and infinite processu ality ofits real conditions (the infinire, a cosmic world), which appear as the construction of this reality this art-work. But, once more, doubled, the abstract machine expresses the infinite, but also constructs it, right here right now: “The field ofimmanence or plane of consisreflcv must be constructed.“ Deleuze and Guattari write: “lt is constructed piece by piece, and the places, conditions, and rechniques arc irreducible to one another. The quesrion, rather, is whether the pieces fit together, and at what price. Inevitably there will be nionstrous cross breeds“ (ATf 157/195). ib express an infinite world in constructing a finite art work, to make art in orher words, is a process hy which the hecoming of the world is expressed in a construction which works upon its own conditions, which operates at the level of its constitutive mechanisrn. Any consrruction of art then, any sensation, emerges tbrough an ahstract machine to express an in finite plane by way of an actual becorning whose very specificity and precision involves or infolds a change in its real conditions. The world is this genetic plane of inimanence, a Bergsonian niultiplicity wbich in being expressed in a finire construction, an art-work, a sensation, changes in nature. At this poinr it is not a question ofdisringuishing expression and construction as two dirnensions or moments ofsensation, because they have become indiscernible on the single multiplied plane ofonto-aesthetics. All that remains is to affirm their identity constructionexpression. 5 This affirmariorm will be another theme of this book, echoing in its differ ent terminologies. lt appears as Nietzsche‘s interpretation and evaluation of will to powel, as Spinoza‘s affects ofjoy and beatitude in God/Nature, as the actual and the virtual dimensions ofduration in a Bergsonian cinema, as traits ofcon tent and expression in the absrract machine, and finally as the affect and the per cept in sensation itseif In all these cases it is the affirmarion of becoming that puts immanence to work in a feedback loop ofconstruction and expression, making becoming the being ofa work ofait that, as Deleuze and Guattari pur it, “wants to create the finite that restores the infinite“ (X‘R 197/186). We could weil ask, as some already have, whether Deleuze and Guattari arc offering us a modern version ofRomanticisrn here, whether onto-aesthetics is simply art expressing narure. Certainly Deleuze and Guartari pass rhrough Romanticism, and although they find a stopping place in die inhuman rupture

6

Art as Abstract Machine

of the sublirne—a rupture and rapture—they do so only hy changing its Nature, A change that rejects the sublirne‘s Kantian conditions, removing art from any rornantic analogy with the divine, and placing it back among the an imals. All this will be developed later ofcourse, hut 1 mention it bete as the first qualification of what is the necessary correlate of the construction—expression equation, an “atheisric mysticism.“ This is a phrase employed by Deleuze to dc scribe Spinoza‘s philosophy ofimmanence, and is the only way to understand Deleuze and Guattari‘s ironie deification of Spinoza as the “Christ of philoso phers“ (W1 60/59). Spinoza is the philosopher who thought the “best“ plane of immanence, the “best“ God, because through the attributes the plane‘s (God/Nature) expression in the joy of affectual assemblages is nothing hut the ongoing construcrion of an infinite and divine here and now: God yes, but Deus sive natura. Spinoza‘s revolutionary formula introduces an atheist God to phi losophy—an atheisrn inseparable from a true philosophy of immanence-—be cause reason is the way to express God/Nature constructing itseif, and immanence achieves nothing without this idenrity ofexpression and construc tion. To pur it simply, Spinoza overcornes transcendence because, as Deleuze puts it, “expression is not sirnply manifestation, but is also the constitution of God bimself Life, that is, expressivity, is carried into the absolute“ (EPS, 80—! /70).

This strange atheism that in Spinoza never stops speaking ofGod, and in Deleuze and Guattari never stops seeking to become adequate to becoming it self, will be the consistent aim ofapracticalphilasophj Philosophy, like art, is a construction site, a workshop producing abstract machines with cosmic ambi tion. Deleuze and Guattari are continually coming back to this mystical prac tice, the production ofwhat Michel de Certeau has called, “the infinity ofa local 6 From the Nietzschean simulacrum as the superior form ofevery singularity.“ thing that is to the seed/universe of the cinematic crystal image, from the visions of cinema‘s seer to Bacon‘s BwO, from Goethe‘s differential color theory to Leibniz‘s imperceptible waves infolding perception in the ocean ofexperience, Deleuze and Guattari describe the atheistic mysticism ofa philosophy ofimma nence, the construcrion and expression by an abstract machine of a “local ab solute“ (ATI 382/474). This vision ofa mystical Deleuze and Guattari is, 1 am 7 Nevertheless, weIl aware, regarded wirh suspicion by many cornmentators, with the important addition of its atheist condition, this seems to me the best way to approach the profusion of mystical formulations in Deleuze and Guattari‘s work, and their consistent attempts to find our real conditions on a cosmic plane ofproduction. Mystical atheism is the real condition of Deleuze and Guattari‘s pragmatic philosophy. Mysticism is the experience of iminanence, of the construction/ex

Jntroduction

7

pression ofthe at once infinite and finite material plane on which everything happens. Thus, mysticism as an experience of immanence is necessarily atheist, because it cannot involve transcendence of any kind (where to?). Atheist mysti

cism replaces transcendence with construcrion/expression, first of all as a con struction of the body—atheism against asceticisrn. Mysticism is a physical practice: how do you make yourselfa body without organs? Furthermore, mys ticism is a creative process that, whether in the realm of philosophy, art, or somewhere else, is inseparable from affirmation, Deleuze and Guattari identify the same philosophers as philosophers of affirmation as they did the philoso phers ofimmanence, the holy trinity: Nietzsche, Spinoza, and Bergson. lt‘s no accident ofcourse, as in each case it is by affirming the immanence ofa funda mentally creative life that the joy proper to mysticism will explode on its lines offlight, all the way to infinity Deleuze reads Nietzsche‘s affirmation of will to power, the affirmation ofaffirmation as he puts it, as the practical mechanism ofovercoming, the door through which we eternally return. Sirnilarly, it is the Spinozian affect of joy that constructs the rhizomatic composirions of power constituting the ever increasing All, and culminaring in the mystical affect of beatitude, the love by which God/Nature loves itself In Bergson Deleuze finds in the intuition ofrhe !lan vital, an intuition Bergson associates with artists and mystics, an affirmation capable of entering into the creative process itself “If man accedes to the open creative totality“ Deleuze writes of Bergson, “it is therefore by acting, by creating rather than by contemplating“ (B, 111/118). Deleuze suggests as a slogan, and it‘s a joke, but perhaps only half a joke, “Jr‘s all good, hut really.“ 8 Affirmation is the mechanism ofimmanence, the means by which to con struct a joyful expression. No douht Deleuze‘s affirmation of affirmation also has a serious philosophical function as the antidore to that other notahle philo sophical double-banger, the negation of negation (just as overcorning in this conrext is the overcoming of Aufhebung). But it is also the guiding thread of Deleuze and Guattari‘s work in a practical sense, for they very rarely discuss art work, at least, which they do not like, (And in a wider sense this would be the rational behind Deleuze‘s refusal to specifically deal with the philosophy of Hegel.) But behind this seemingly banal observation lies an important new el ement to Deleuze and Guattari‘s abstract machine, and that is its ethical dirnen sion. Affirmation is an ethical choice, a choice for the creative energies of life, first of all our own. This will be an ethics that will irnrnediately appear in our first chapter on Nietzsche, where affirmation returns will to power eternally, a return that will be our own overcorning. Here affirmation takes on a critical function, because a true affirmation of immanence will involve the destruction ofnihilism, of all the resentful negations defining the human, all too human. As

8

Art as Abstract Machine

Nietzsche said, and it is a slogan that will accompany us through the course of this book: no creation without destniction. A motto fir the artist first of all. Affirmation, and the mystical onto—aesthetics it enables, is nothing if not criti— cal. lt is, in fact, the creative process of critique, and involves violence and cru elty, and their correlate: pairl. Just like narure. Any creation worth its name will therefore encompass the destructions necessary ro Set t free, an explosion that destroys negation and propels its liberated matter into the new. Affirmation is therefore like a leap offairh, a leap into the chaos of the world in order to bring something back, in order to construct somerhing that expresses life beyond its sad negation. And how could it be anything else? Because from our subjective perspective, from within irs narrow and blinkered vision, the lif of matter, the cosmic infinity ofour here and now is what cannor be experienced or thought, at least not without some recourse ro mollifying images of a rranscendent be yond. This unrhought ofrhought, the insensible in sensation. this is the impos— sible aim of Deleuze and Guattari‘s project. Not, once more, to transcend the world, but to discover it as it is, to create a thought, a sensation, a life that par ticipates in the world‘s joyful birth ofirself a dancing star. This, Deleuze writes, “is the impossible s‘hich can only be restored within a faith. [ 1 Only belief 172/223). (C2, and hears“ he man sees to what in rhe world can reconnect To reconnect man to what he sees and hears, this is nothing less than the project ofart. A critical project for sure, because art has been overcoded with so rnany merely human ambitions, so many representational limirations. Let Us not forger: “No art and no sensation have ever been represen rational“ (WI 193/182). First, we need a machine to clear rhe canvas (or the screen, the page, the compacr disc) of all the clichs which prevent a crearion. Second, we need an affirmation that is strong enough to acrually create something, because a con stanr risk ofdestruction is that nothing new will emerge from it. Nothing is sad der than a void, nothing so ugly as a black hole. And art can just as easily be these things, a soporific or worse, a poison. Art as abstract machine therefore in volves an ethical choice, a selecrion and conjugation of those marrer-flows which arc in the process of escaping from rhemselves, it must affirm only what is the most deterritorialised. Art must be crirical enough to divert its contents and expressions back ro the plane ofconsistency, ro achieve an absolute deterri torialisation. But then, something must happen, somerhing must emerge, the creative life of this plane must be expressed in a sensation. And sensations must he created, as any artist knows, for the machine to work. In this way the absrracr machine operates at the interstice between finite and infinire. it dererrirorialises the concrete world, breaking matter our of irs overcoded forms, to pur jr back inro contacr with its virality, with its living flows, its inhuman and inorganic nature. This is art‘s infinire material dimension, and ...

Introduction

9

here, absolutely deterritorialisetl, the rnachine begins to work, ‘f1usb with the real“ as Deleuze and Guatrari pur jr. consrructing flows of marrer-force inro ex pressive sensarjons. This is the bacchanaal ofart. immersed in the real, affirming its own creative ecsracies. Deleuze is a laughing Dionysus: “Yes, the essence ofarr is a kind ofjoy,“ he affirms, “and this is the very poinr ofart.“ Here art will become a politics of lived experience, a realm ofexperimen tation that opens life up ro alternative modes ofbeing, afNrrning new realities, new communiries, and new methods ofself-organisation. Art becomes a kind ofbio-politics, an experimenration with life as jr is lived, a contestation in the realm ofexperience with everyrhing rhar seeks ro prevent us from affirming our power of composirion. Art is a mechanism ro increase our power, to liberare ourselves from the limits of represenration (and the polirical Operation of these limits is a constant subtext of Deleuze and Guartari‘s diseussion). Art is the free dom to experiment on our conditions ofexisrence, and is the ethical condition ofany revolution. Art as erhics, and as bio-politics, serves to emphasise the fict that art is always concerned witb very practical problems. In this sense Deleuze and Guattari offer a philosophy ofart-u‘ork, and jr only- hegins—for real—when we pur jr to work for and against ourselves. Finally we have arrived at what bis no doubt been a pulzling absence ro this introduction. Art, 1 mean art as ir is normally undersrood, tivs and things. Qfcourse jr was never absenr, because the path so flur raken was neces sary in order to open the question ofwhat art means for Deleuze and Guatrari, ontologically, aestherically and ethically. lt is the quesrion to which this book will try to provide some answers. Bur nevertheless, and folloving Deleuze and Guattari, much of this book will talk very specifically ahour art, abour arrists, their work, and about how art works. Eacb chaprer—wirh the exception ofthe second on Spinoza, where the introdiiction ofart examples ro a discussion ofa rhinker who barely mentions art at all seems a linie flir-fltched—conrains a more or less lengrhy discussion of an arr—work, an artist‘s work, or an art move menr. In eacb case the general philosophical argument of the chapter is taken tip in an example appropriare to im: Andy Warhol‘s “Dearh and Disaster“ series in relation ro the Nierzschean simulacrum (Chapter One); cinema in rerrns of Bergson‘s ontology of time (Chaprer Three); Venerian Renaissance painting as an abstracr machine (Chapter Four); Jackson Pollock‘s “middle“ period as a di agram for Absrraction opposed ro bis American modernist champions (Chapter Four); the readymades of Marcel Duchamp as machines of chaosrnosis (Chapter Five); and die work ofFrancis Bacon (Chapter Six). In each case the aim is to show how it is meaningless to isolare Deleuze and Cuartari‘s disui— sions ofarr from their wider philosophical concerns, and further rhar their dis cussion ofart can only be fully undersrood within this wider contexr. This is to

10

Art as Abstract Machine

say that Deleuze and Cuattari offer us an onto-aesthetics, but more importantly it is to show it in action, to get dose to the expiosions it ignites, its destruction of inherited opinions about aesthetics and art, and the joyful affirmations it of— fers in their place. This is finallv simply to follow what 1 have oiitlined above, a DeleuzeoGuattarianpract/ce, a practice in which life is both expressed and constructed, and by wbich art restores the finite to its infinite dimension. lt means that in attempting to understand art as abstract machine we will have to understand its onto—aesthetics, its rnystical and yet utterly actual processes of creation. This, as Guattari put it, will be our, and art‘s “dance of chaos and complexity (Chaos, 88/123).

Chapter One

The Artist—Philosonher: Deleuze, r Nietzsche, and the Critical Art of Affirmation

The

110000 of a

“bcyond“ is the rkath of lif.

Friedrich Nieusclic. Jur Antje/irrst. lt is not withont profound sorrow that oiie admits to oncsclt that in iheir highest flights the artists of all ages have raised to heavenly transfigura tion precisely those conccptions which we now recognise as false: rhey arc die glorifiers of the religious and philosophical errors of mankind. Nietzsche, human, All llw Human. Our religion, morality and philosoph‘ arc decadent forms nf man. Ihe counterrnove,nent: art.

-Nietisclie. Will tu

Pinie,:

NIETZSCHE, DELEUZE AND THE NEW

Deleuze‘s reading of Nietzsche is in the spirit of Zarathustra‘s words to his dis ciples: “One repays a teacher badly if one alwavs remains nothing hut a pupil.“ Nietzsche does not want followers, he wants those capable of creating some thing new. He wants to produce, in other words, artists, Deleuze‘s reading of Nierzsche is therefore artistic; in the spirit of Nictzsche he creates a new Nietzsche. This pracrice ofcrearive interpretation affirms an imporranr element ofNietzsche‘s aesthetics, that art is not representational, but is an experimental process hy which the form of representation is overcome, and through which sornething new emerges. The emergence of the new is, for Nietzscbe as for Deleuze, nothing less than the movement of life, the genetic process of life ex

pressing itselE Consequently, Nietzsche‘s aesthetic is inseparable from the ontol ogy that animates it. The creative movement of life is “enrirely different,“ Deleuze writes, “from the imaginary movement ofrepresentation or the abstract

12

Art as Abstract Machine

movement of concepts that habitually takes place among words and within the mmd of ihe reader. Something leaps up froin the book [or art work] and enters a region completely exterior to it. And this, 1 believe, is the warrant for legiti 2 mately misunderstanding the whole of Nietzsche‘s work.“ Ivlisunderstanding before representation! This cry sounds strange to philosophical ears, although perhaps not so strange to artistic ones. Creative misunderstanding (wilat, as we shall see, Nietzsche calls affirmation) overcornes the old ro produce something new, a creative process inseparable frorn art and an art inseparable from life. This onto-aesthetic ecology inspires Nietzsche to in troduce another odd conjunction as its agent: the ‘zrtist-philosopher“ (Nietzsche‘s emphasis). Artist-philosophers practice a creative life, a practice— cominon to thought and the plastic arts—by which they “survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit thern into an artistic plan until every one of rhem appears as art.“ Art, ernbodied by rhe artist-philoso pher, is first of all a process ofself-creation, an ethical and ontological practice 4 as much as an aesthetic one. This, Nietzsche clairns, isa “Higher concept ofart“ that no longer simply describes an object, not a subjective process, hut the mechanisrn by which the creativity oflife, the “will to power“ as Nietzsche calls it, is expressed in a life. Tue problem For the artist-philosopher—the same problem for art and for philosophy—is how to express the will to power despite the forces ofa human, all too human culture that seeks to deny it? How, in other words, is it possihle to live as the afErmation of will to power, or, more simply, how can life create art? The answer is found in Deleuze‘s reading ofNietzsche‘s method ofcritique. (Zritiquc is a “higber concept ofart,“ a vital practice of evaluation and selection through which life is returned to us in a radically revalued art-work, what we 11 a “simulacrum.“ The simulacrum is produced by critique shall see Deleuze ca as an expression of will to power, and will to power lives a this expression. CRITIQUE

Will to power is an ontological energy, rhe living power of everything; jr is, Nietzsche writes, “the unexhausted procreative will of life“ (Z, “Of Seif Overcorning“). This living will seeks to increase irs power, to grow, and doing so nieans overcoming whatever reits ir. “Every living thing,‘ Nietzsche claims, “does everything it can not to preserve itself hut to becotne more“ (WtP, 688). The will ro power is therefore essenrially creative, but this creation involves the necessary destruction ofwhatever seeks to oppose and negate it. To create means to become more powerful and requires an affirination ofwill to power, but, and jr‘s sadly obvious, most people arc not creative and prefcr

The Artist-Philosopher

13

to protect their banality by denying will to power‘s violent vitalit Will to power, Nietzsche argues, is embodied along these rwo trajectories of expres sion: “Every individual may be regarded as representing the ascending or de scending line of Iif‘e. When one has decided which, one has thereby established a canon for the value of bis egoism.“ 5 lEe point is two-fold. Humans gain or lose power, ascend or descend depending on wherher they live an affirmative or negative life. Bur these values arc neither pre-given not fixed, and arc themselves the product ofan evaluation (“when one has decided ) by which will to power is expressed in and as our life. This “notion of value,“ Deleuze argues, “implies“ a “criticalreversal“ (Nl 1/1). Our values arc no longer derived from pre-existing transcendent truths and moral laws, hut arc instead created by our own evaluations, our own affirmations and nega tions of will to power. This leads ro another reversal: for Nietzsche the prob lem ofcritique is no longer to criticise given values, but is to create them (NP, 1/1). Critique is the art ofcrearing values as the direct expressions or “symp toms“ of will to power. “Critical philosophy,“ Deleuze writes, “has two inseparahle moments: the referencing back of all things and any kind oforigin to values, hut also the ref erencing back of these values to something which is, as it were, their origin and derermines their values“ (NP 2/2). The first moment is “interpretation,“ which establishes the “meaning“ of things according to whether they‘ have an active or reactive value, according to whether the forces the embody overcome their lirn its ro become something new, or react against this power to confirm things within their limits. Interpretation analyses things as symptoms offorce, and te— quires, as Nietzsche famously puts jr. a physician of culture. Force, Nierzsche writes, “requires first aphysiological investigation and interpretation, rarher than a psychological one; and every one ofthem needs a critique on tEe part of mcd ical science.“ 6 We will examine this physiological aspect of interpretation a lit dc later, hut staving with medical metaphors we can say that interpretation, by producing a thing‘s value, is a crearive “symptomatology,“ and as such, Deleuze writes, “is always a quesrion ofarr.“ Interpretation however, is inseparable frorn the second moment of cri tique, for a forces value only ernerges rhrough an evaluation that creates it. This second moment is a “re-valuation ofvalue“ thar makes ofthe individual‘s inter pretation of forces an affirmation or negation ofthe will ro power. Evaluation is therefore pre-individual, and expresses will to power jn “perspectives of ap praisal,“ (N 1 / 1) perspecrives which reveal the individual as a resentful human negating will to power, or as tEe human overcome, an Überinensch whose val ues arc alive wirh joy. This is the extraordinary value of the artist-philosopher; their evaluative perspective—the value of their values—is affirmative.

1i

Art as Abstract Machine

Aflirmarion is the Nietzscbean condition fir the creaion ofart, and affirmative evaluation defines rhe perspective of the artist-philosopher, who creates (that is interprets) active things or forces. This is a new critical art which encompasses both an affirmative process and the active things it creates. Art is procreative for Nietzsche, it is a critical practice by which things increase thein power, by which things hecome new, and as such is indiscernible from life. “Art and nothing hut art!“ he writes, “lt is the great means ofmaking life possible, die great seduction to life, die great stimulant oflife“ (WtR 853, ii). We have quickly reached the necessary immanence of ontology and aesthetics in Nietzsche‘s philosopby of art, for, as Deleuze puts it, “Nietzsche dernands an aesthetics of creation“ (NR 102/116). For I)eleuze, as fbr Nietzsche, the ascending line of critique embodies an “artistic will,“ because its creative power is “always opening ne‘.‘ ‘possibilities“ (C2, 14l/l85). On rhe descending line however, there is a completely differ ent method of evaluation. Here “ressentiment itseif becomes creative and gives birth to values“ (GM, 1, 10). ‘[bis resentful crearion, Nietzsche writes, is “the other origin of the ‘good,‘ ofthe good as conceived by the man ofressentiment“ (GM, 1, 13). These resentful men and wornen interpret the strength required to overcome as cvii, so that they, the weak and overcome, will appear good. Thus their evaluation negates the creative energy of will to power, and establishes a trutb and moral system that transcends and judges the life of will to power. Nietzscbe pours scorn on all such evaluations, based as they are on “the belief that the strong man isfce to be weak and the bird of prey to he a lamb—for thus they make the bird of prey accountabie for being a bird ofprey“ (GM, 1, 13). This morality of good and evil requires the fallacy ofunderstanding physiolog ical strength according to a psychological cause. The man of ressentiment imag ines that the eagle chooses to kill die lamb, when in fact that is its function and 9 In judging the eagle to be cvii the sweet necessity, its strength and active force. little lambs justify the “goodness“ of their own ilnpotent negations of will to power. These moral judgements arc symptoms of an evaluation based on differ ent ontological assumptions to those ofthe artist-philosopher. The ontology of shcep, of the “herd“ as Nietzsche calls them, projects “ascetic ideals“ to justilr tlieir moral judgements, ascetic because they arc removed from life and attrib uted to a transcendent God, a divine “beyond.“ This moralistic and mortified metaphysics justifies the ressentiment ofthe herd by privileging the negation of will to power over its active strength. Here it is not will to power that lives, hut God. Nietzsche assumes an immanent will to power as the genetic condition of life, hut its ascending and descending iines ofvaluation give different ontoiogi cal expressions of its vitality. Depending on the perspective, evaluation produces

The Artist-Philosopher

15

values (interpretations) rhat either af}irm or deny life. ‘lc negate will to power means to deny life and resulrs in nihiiism, whereas to affirm is to create, and so participate in life‘s vital becoming. Whichever way we look ar it, there is no extra dimension in which our evaluations and actions arc judged. We arc hat we do, and we get the life—and the art—we descrve depending on our perspecrive. Nietzsche explains it this way “popular rnoraiity,“ he wrires, “separates strength from expressions of strength, as if rhere was a neutral suhstratum behind the strong man, which was&e to express strength or not to do so. Bur there is no such substratum; there is no “being“ behind doing, effectuating, becoming; the “doer“ is mereiy a ficrion added ro the deed—tbe deed is everything“ (GM, 1, 13). The strong man or woman, the artist-philosopher, is defined by their act, an action that overcomes human nihilism and the delicate ego it seeks to pro tecr, just as it overcomes the herds resentful moralirv Man overcome, or the Overrnan, is no longer made in God‘s image, for God—thc ultimate nihilist— is dead, and with him the moral laws that judge man‘s actions from “beyond.“ The art ofcritique frees life from its divine judgement, from its human limita— tions and moral determinations, and affirms (that is embodies) the will to power as creative life. As a resuit, art must be critical because it is only rhrougb the cri tique of man and bis values that something new anti rruiy heautiful can be cre ated. No creation without destruction, as Nietzsche pur ir, “whoever musr be a creator in good anti cvii, veril he must first be an annihilaror and break values. Thus the bighest evil helongs to the higbest goodness: hut rhis is crearive“ (Z, “Of Seif-Overcoming“). Neirher Nietzsche nor Deleuze can be understood apart from this fundamental aggression. The artist--philosopher, and the art he or she creares, affirms will ro power in the face ofeverything—God, man, culture, morality—that tries to negate it. This is the difTicult crirical affirmation by which ascetic ideals, as the derermin ing truths the “good“ man represents, arc destroved and an active “perspecrive“ of will to power emerges. To understand bow, we must enter furt-her into Deieuze‘s reading of the Nietzschean world offorce. l‘he universe, Deleuze ar gues, is made up offorces. But a force exists only through is dilTerence to otber forces, these forces thcmselves existing through differences, rheir ramifying re lations encompassing, at their limit, everythinig. A force‘s quaiity (die object ir constirutes) therefore appears as active or reactive, noble or base, good or bad, according to the quantitative differences between the forces rhat couisritute it. “Forccs,“ Deleuze writes, “express their differcnce in quanritv bv the qualirv which is due to them“ (NR 53/60). lt is interpretation that fixes a force‘s qual iry and so gives meaning to an event, hut jr is the evaluarive perspecrive of will to power that has first put the forces into conract and established rheir quanri— tative relation. As Deleuze puts it: “The relation of force to force is called

16

Art as Abstract Machine

‘will.“ In critique “force is what can, [and will to power is what wills“ (NP, 1 50/57). Force and will (the qualities and quantities of interpretation and evalu ation) are rherefiwe inseparable, the interpretation of forces expressing the will to powers “fluent, primordial and seminal qualitative elements“ (N1 53/60) of affirmation or negation. But a qualiry is never fxed once and for all. because a force‘s constitutive quantitative relation is rising and falling as it overcomes other forces, or is overcome. In other words, a force is a quantitative becoming beftre it is a quality a (human) being or a fact. Differential relations of force embody ascending or descending lines ofevaluation (afTirmation and negation), becomings active or reactive, and these give risc to interpretations of qualities and their accompanying actions or reacrions. The risc and fall of will to power, its becoming, therefore develops through the linlced operations ofinterpretation and evaluation in critique. Critique is either “artistic“ in affirming the differen tial hecoming of forces as will to power, and produces something new, or it negates a force‘s becoming, giving it an identiry a being, in order to “arrive at a semhiance of affirmation,“ 12 j mans nihilist affirrnations of a moral truth. As Deleuze rather dramatically puts it, reversing the Christian trajectories Nietzsche atracks: “Affirmation takes us into the glorious world of Dionysus, the being of becoming and negation hurls us down into the disquieting depths fi-om which reactive foi-ces emerge“(Ne 54/61). PERSPECTIVES

The will to power appears as a force‘s quality because appearance (quality) nec essarily implies an interpretation ofa quantity of force as active or reactive, ancl this interpretation in turn requires an evaluation—the affirmation or nega tion—of and hy will to power. Each quality therefore embodies a perspective, an affirmation or negation of will to power that encompasses the differential in finitv that rnakes it up. In this way interpretations arc perspectives constituting the processes oflife. Critique is therefore the expression ofwill ro power, and life is nothing if not critical. Consequently, we cannot interpret by comparing forces ro ouiside (transcendentai, moral) criteria, and critique cannot give a jiidgmenr that stands as a “true fact.“ Interpretation cannot be conceptually dis ringuished from the becoming that gives jr vaiue, for the evaluation it ernbod jes, as the becoming acrive or reactive of will to power, is its real and immanent condition. Will to power is what constructs meaning aiid value, at the same time in meaning and value express its ‘seminal elements.‘ 3 This has radical epis— temological consequences, for the world as will ro power is the permanent be coming of ideas as much as things. Knowledge. as Nietzsche pur it, is “Interpretation, the introduction of meaning—not ‘explanation‘ There arc ...

Tbe Artist-I bilosopher 3

‘7

no facts“ (WtB 604). An understanding of the world is alwavs a question ofcre ative interpretation and the evaluation it implies. For Nierzschc, as Deleuze PUtS it, “creation takes theplace ofknowledse itseif‘ (N B 173/1 99) 1 Cririque is the crearion of knowledge and things through the interpreta tion of qualities, according to an evaluation ofand by will to power. Evaluation is in this sense a mode ofbeing, and the onrological ground ofthose who inter pret. “This is why,“ Deleuze argues, “we always have the beiiefs, feeiings and thoughts we deserve given our way of being or our style ofiife“ (NI 1/2)15 Critique is the production ofour feelings and thoughts (interpretation) accord ing to their immanent will ro power, the mode of existence they embody (eval uation). As a result, Deleuze rells us: “Fundamenrally it is always a quesrion ‘What is it for mc?“ (NJ 77/87). The answer to this question will embody a per spective; at once the value ofmy life and an expression ofthe will to power. As Deleuze writes: “Willing is the critical and generic instance of all our acrions, feelings and thoughts. The method is as follows: relating a concepr to the will to power [interpretation] in order to make ir the symptom ofa will [evaluation] without which it could not even be thought (nor the feeling experienced, nor the action undertaken)“ (NI 78/89). An evaluative perspective is produced by and as will to power, and is expressed in interpretarions. This means life qua will to power, is inseparable from a life that lives it. The crirical quesrion in regard to the art-work is therefore not “what is it?“ nor “whar does it mean?“ hut “what is it for mc?“ Obviously, art always awaits its critique, indeed it requires ir, hecause critique poses the ethical-onrological problem ofwho is ahle to affirm, before it answers questions as to meaning or value. The question posed by the art—work (‘what is it for mc?‘) is nothing but the question ofwho is ahle tobe an arrist-philosopher. In asking “what is it?“ we assume a rnetaphysics ofessence and rruth and an object that represents ehem. The quesrion “what is it for mc?“ however, asks “whar arc the forces which takes hold ofa given thing, what is ehe will that possesses it? Which one is expressed, rnanifested and even bidden in it?“ (NI 76—7/87). The quesrion “whar is it for mc?“ therefore implies another, about what rhis “mc“ is. lt implies a critique of any assumed subjecrive unity as does any “thing“ or ohjecr. In this way cririque detaches experience from ehe subject/objece relation as inuch as from subjecrs and objects as categories of rhoughr. As Nietzsche purs it: “The origin of‘rhings‘ is wholly the work of that which imagines, thinks, wills, feeis. The concepr ‘thing‘ itseif just as much as all its qualities. Even ‘ehe subject‘ is such a created enriey a ‘thing‘ like all others: a simplificarion wieh the ohjecr of defining the force which posits, invenrs, thinks, as distinct from all individual positing, in veneing, thinking as such“ (WtE 556). In other words, “suhjece“ and “ohject“ arc interpretarions that aetempr to detach a thoughe horn thinking as a force,

Art as Abstract Machine

18

and are negations. For Nietzsche the personal is only ever a symptom or expres sion of the impersonal will to power and must be revalued as such. lt is only in such a revaluation that we will overcome our human nihilism and emerge as artist-philosophers. Henry Miller poses this problem of a transvaluative criti cism precisely: “Why arc we so full of restraint? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Und! we do lose ourselves there can be no hope of finding ourselves. We are of 6 the world, and to etiter fully into the world we must first lose ourselves in it.“ All objective interrogations ofthe form “what is. ?“ must be revalued in an swering the question “what wills?“ a question whose answer in turn revalues the subjective question “what does this mean to mc?“ We lose ourselves in finding the answer, for the answer is neither a subjcct nor an object, but something ex isting between them, a becoming—active or reactive, an affect. Nietzsche puts it in this way: .

.

The question “what is thar?“ is an iniposition ofmeaning from some other viewpomt. “Esscnce,“ the “essential nature,“ is sornething perspective and already presupposes a muhiplicity. At the bottom of it there always lies “what is that for mc?“ (for us, for all that lives, etc.) A thing would be dc— fined once all creatures had asked “what is that?“ and had answered the One may not ask: “who then interprets?“ for the interpre question. [ tation itsclf as a torm of die will to power, exists (but not as a “heing“ hut as a proccss, a becomin& as an affect, (Wtf 556) Any perccption of an objcct is always an interpretation offorces, necessarily dif ferent cach time, which gives an answer to the question “what is it for mc?“ in a becoming-activc or rcactive, in an expression of the will to power in an affect, in a risc or fall of powcr. This means that the art of critique will be, as we shall sec, nccessarily physiological. In L)eleuze‘s Nietzschean aesthetics, will to power‘s affirmative or negative evaluations arc expressed in the active or reactive forces of life. But these forces appear in an interpretation that lays hold of them, and constructs their differ ential quantity. This quantity as quality; emerges from an in principle infinite series of differential relations that at their limit encompass the entire genetic conditions of will to power, co-extensive with life. In being interpreted each force receives a value only tbrough the construction ofthe differential series that composes it. At the same time however, this construction is the expression of will to power in an evaluative perspective. Each force therefore constructs a world, the world of will to power, the world each force expresses. Will to power exists in and as this ongoing critical construction, and as affirmation it creates new and by definition active forces (this is Dcleuzc‘s interpretation of Nir7rhP“ prtrnil reriirn‘ nwn h nrnrnr-rrive This rnen. Delell7e

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writcs: “The condirions ofa truc critique and a true creation arc the same: the destruction of an image of thought [or art] which presupposes itseif and the genesis of the act of thinking in thought“ (I)R, 139/182). Becoming-active will therefore be Nictzsche‘s critical definition of art, a definition as much ontological as aesthetic, and succinctly expressed by Nietzsche‘s famous statement: “To impose upon becoming the characrer of being—that is the supreme will to power“ (WtT 617).‘ Art and philosophy as critical affirmation, and embodied in the artist-philosopher, do not represent a life outside them, but afTirm life as will to power, in a becoming-active, in their active affects. In the ontology of will to power there is no “being“ behind “doing,“ and this insight will be developed by Deleuze borh in terms of an in organic vitality, and the affects that its becoming produces. With no “being“ in the background there is no truth, meaning aesthetics cannor be a science ofrep resentation, because cjuite simply there is nothing to represent. Art without truth; it means that art is nothing but the creation of falsehood. This is one of Nietzsche‘s most important insights about art, which I)eleuze rcpeats: The world is neither true nor real hut living. And the living world is will to power, will to falsehood, which is acrualised in many different powers. To actualise the will to falsehood under any qualiry whatever, is always to evaluate. To live is to cvaluate. Thcre is no truth of the world as it is thought, no reality ofthe sensible world, all is evaluation, even and above all the sensible and the real. (NI 184/191—2)

We get the truths, values, and affects we deserve according to the way we live, the way we evaluate, and the perspectives we create, As Nietzsche wrires: “All seeing is essentially perspective, and so is knowing“ (CM, 111, 12). THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE ARTIST-PHILOSOPHER

Bodies, whcther human or otherwise, arc die mechanisms oferirique because, Nietzsehe claims, “all sense perceptions arc permeated with valuc judgments“ (WtP, 305). Sense pereeptions arc interpretations of forces, vision for example emerges from what he calls “the valuc-positing eye“ (CM, 1, 10). This is a Nietzschcan empiricism that is inseparable from a crirical art, beeause “art“ is always an empirieal question, a question ofwhat sornething is for mc as will in power But the “l/eye“ of die subject perceives the idcntity of things too quickly, and only sees itself through the negation of will to power. Human vi sion is, to steal a line from T. S. Eliot, “eycs assured ofcertain certainties.“ 8 This is the tenacious insistence of human nihilism, its self-fulfilling negations find themselves confirmed in every experience appearing under its tcrms.

20

Art as Abstract

IViachine

“Only we have created the world that concerns man“ (GS, 301), Nietzsche writes. But what exactly is this world, and how have we created it? For Nietzsche it is human rationality which determines our perceptual certainty through its power of negation, a “no“ which preserves the human, as much as each human, by separating us from what we are not. “Slave ethics,“ Nietzsche argues, “begins by saying no to an “outside,“ an “other,“ a non-self, and that no is its creative act“ (GM, 1, 10). Deleuze clairns that the philosophical method ofnegation is the dialec tic, hecause the dialectic understands die differential forces of will to power (difference itself) as a power of the negative. “We already sense the form in which the syllogisrn of the slave has been so successful in philosophy:“ he writes, “tue dialectic. The dialectic, as the ideologv of ressentiment“ (NP, 121/139). The dialectic ensiaves life because it is unable to affirm the consti tutive difference of will to power. Instead the dialecric represents difference as negation, assuming that the essential activity of life is its power ofnegation. This is nothing but the negation ofNietzschean empiricism in thought, be cause br Nietzsche interpretation is the aflirmation of a frces constitutive di fference—an action producing becoming—whereas the dialectic establishes identity only through negating differences—a reaction which cannot be cre 9 The dialectic therefore negates will to power‘s constitutive difference ative.‘ by representing it as the negative itself. Inasmuch as dialectical negation is cre ative then, it is so only within the confines ofa human thought that makes negation its essence and principle ofexistence (N1 9/10). Both thought and art labour under this nihilistic ideology and its dialectical mcthod in atternpt— ing to represent the truth oflife, in attempting to transcend life (i.e. negate it) by giving a representation of truth. For Deleuze dialectical representation “poisons“ philosophy and as the product of the slave it is one of bis most con sistent targets (N1 8 1/92). Nietzsche also attacks the nihilisrn ofrepresenta tion, often directly in terms of the fine arts. “The profession ofalmost every man, even that of the artist,“ he writes, “begins with hypocrisy, with an imi ° 2 tation frorn without, with a copying ofwhat is most effective.“ ‘ and he 2 Nietzsche claims to “possess an instinctive distrust ofdialectics,“ extends his distrust to the dialectic‘s avatar, the artist of negation, the sick and decadent “anti-artist“ as Nietzsche calls hirn or her. These artists, in producing the “arts of man,“ rnerely create aesthetic confirmations of their human sensi bility and its metaphysical consolations. Within this loop, Nietzsche argues: “Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivety rests all aesthetics, it is thefirst truth ofaesthetics. 1.et us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly hut degenerate man—the domain of aestheric judgment is therewirh defined“ (II, “Expeditions of an Untimely Man,“ 20). What is beautiful confirms man

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because it represents bis higber Being, and what is ugly denies this higber truth. Thus the arts of man are fundamentally moral, and aesthetics isa realrn of moral judgment identifying the heavenly truths—unchanging and essential—that act as transcendent standards bv which art is hoth produced and assessed. As a re sult, what is most beautjfui in man is that which is beyond hirn, the ascetic ideals by which he confirms the heaury of bis negations, bis own perceptions, and bis own art. Once more, the stakes in aesthetics arc shown by Nietzsche to be ontological, for with the anti-artist “we have made the ‘real‘ world a world not ofchange and becoming, but one ofßeing“ (Wt1 507).22 In this way anti artists have always functioned as “the glorifiers of the religious and pbilosophi cal errors of mankind“ (HH, 220). In the critical art of the artist-philosopher however, in their affirmations ofwill to power, in their artisric constructions, as Deleuze sirnply puts ir, “there is no longer an)‘ place for another world“ (Nl 175/201). But to arrive in this new world—which has no other world—we will need a new sensibility adequate to will to power‘s active affects, and a new thought ahle to revalue our values. The artist-philosopher will require an en tirely new physiology. For Deleuze dialectical systems and their negation ofdifference (i.e. dif ference as negation) arc “powerless to create new ways of thinking and feel ing“ (NI 159/183). New thoughts and feelings can only einerge frorn affirmation, as Deleuze writes: “For the specularive element of negation, Op position or contradiction, Nietzschc substitutes the practical element of di[ frrence, the object of affirmation and enjoyrnent [jonissance]“ (NI 9/10). Deleuze, like Nietzsche, will turn to a critical art capable of rransvaluing nega tion through the affirmation ofdifference, in order to introduce a new body and new thoughts and feelings into philosoph)‘ and art. In this wav we could say Deleuze and Nietzsche, like Francis Bacon—whose phrase jr is—are brally pessimistic (“We deny,“ Nietzsche wrires, “that anything can be done perfectly so long as it is done consciousl) “2‘), hut nervously optirnistic. This optimism extends to nihilism, which Nietzsche argues still has the will to power as the living pulse of its sad life. “Ifwe say im,“ Nietzsche writes, “we still do what we arc“ (WtI 675). In other words, will to power appears in its negation as an affirmation denied, and this at least implies the possibility ofa critical transvaluation. As Nietzsche explains: “We negate and must negate be cause something in us wants to live and affirm—sornething thit we perhaps do not know or see as yet.—This is said in favor ofcriticism“ (GS, 307). In favour of the artist-philosopher whose creative interpretations change the value of the world in which we live, offering new perspectives, new worlds, or more accurately, a world which is forever becorning new. In Nietzsche thought becomes truly creative, and as such becomes a question ofsensibiliry

22

Art as Abstract Machine

“In knowing and understanding, too,“ Nietzsche writes, “1 feel only my will‘s delight in begetring and becoming“ (Z, “On the Blissful lslands“), Art is in ihis sense ihe artist—philosophers “pure contempt ofman“ (A, 54). Alrhough this sounds harsh, it‘s not. Man justifies hirnseif through negation, and this is the object of the artist-philosophers contempt. But this conternpt is the destructive side of an affirmation in which man overcomes himself to be come sornething new, die verman. Not the negation ofnegation, but the af 2 “The aim of critique,“ Deleuze writes, “is not the firmation of affirmation. ends of man or of reason but in the end the Overman, the overcome, overtaken man. The point ofcritique is not justification but a dif‘ferent way offeeling: an other sensibility“(NP 94/198). The conternpt of the artist-philosopher is not a negation hut a strength, an aggression, an ability to affirm to the point ofover corning man. This will mean the reinvention of man, and—Deleuze makes the point again—“a new way offee1in( (N1 163/188). The human, all too human, was only good for feeling himself, a reassuring masturbation. The artist-philoso pher, the overcorne man, has as Nietzsche puts it: “New ears f)r new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have hith erto remained uiiheard“ (A, preface). This new sensibility, Nietzsche argues, requires a physiological transfor mation creating an inhuman body. Through the artist-philosopher‘s critique of man‘s rational nihilism, Nietzsche proudly announces, “we have dropped hirn back arnong the beasts“ (A, 14). The revalued physiology of the artist philosopher is no longer human, and has becorne artimal. Critique thereby frees a new sensibility an “animal‘ sensibility“ (WtP, 800) as Nietzsche calls it, a sensibility that isn‘t opposed to the human hut is the animal sensibility of the human, the sensibility of a vital will to power capable of affirming what human consciousness has until this point negated. The revalued physiology of the artist-philosopher, of animal-man, is what enables hirn or her to affirm will to power, and create the new. As Nietzsche writes, this feeling “ofanimal well-heing and desires constitute the aesthetic state“ (WtB 801). The artist philosopher‘s animal vigour is the antidote to the poison of representation and human rationality; it overcomes anti-artistic nihilism to restore life to its ani— mal health. Anirnal sensibility affirms active force in its interpretations, con structing perspectives iio longer rational and conscious, hut operating rhrough, Nietzsche writes, “the perfect functioning of the regulating, uncon scious instincts“ (GM, 1, 10). The animal vitalirv of the artist—philosopher will ernerge once we have freed our sensibilities Frorn the nihilist task ofknowing, once we have becorne an anirnal capable of living the un-known, capable of enjoying it, and capable, finally, of embodying becoming as heing. D. H. Lawrcnce knew the feeling: “You‘ve got to lapse out before you can know what

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sensual reality is, lapse into unknowingness, and give tip your volition. You‘ve got to do it. You‘ve got to learn not to be, before you can corne into hei ng.“ 25 The artist-philosopher-anirnal will therefore embody cri tique in p[iysiological becomings inseparable from the production ofart. Nietzsche purs ir clearly: “Art reminds us ofa state ofanimal vigor: it is on the one band an excess and overflow of blooming physicality inro the world of images and desires; on the other, an excitation of the animal functions tbrough the images and desires of an intensified life;—an enhancement of the feeling oflife, a stimulant to it“ (WtE 802). Art and artist arc, in these terms, two poles of an animal perspective that constructs itself, and continually overcomes itseif, in its own affirmarion, cre— ating a feedback loop of/as will to power. As Nietzsche sings: “1 drink back into myself the flames that break from mc“ (Z, “The Night Song“). Instinctual interpretations construct an art-work as a new singularity, a singu larity that affirms (expresses) all ofwill to power in its differenrial genesis, and eternally returns all ofwill to power in the living becorning of its differences, in a construction ofthe art works intensified life. Deleuze explains art‘s feed back loop like this: “According to Nietzsche we have not vet understood what the life of an artist rneans: the activity of this life serves as a stirnulant to the affirmation conrained in the work of art itself, to the will eo power of the artist as artist“ (NE 102/177). But we haven‘r understood, we haven‘t become ac tive, becorne arrisrs, and so from our still human pcrspective a rransvalued and animal art appears as a “play ofmirrors“‘ between art and artist, a paradoxi cal and irrational mystery lndeed we cannor “understand“ it, and the insepa rability of an art of critique from the art-work it produces, an inseparability of an aesthetics and an ontology of will to power, will produce an inhuman stare ofanimal health which Nierzsche calls intoxicarion: “the cffect ofworks ofart is to excite the state which creafes art—iiiroxication“ (WtB 821). To make art we must get out ofit, a Nierzschean practice many artists have raken liter ally. But only if such intoxication gives birth to the animal, the inhuman, iii the work, does it stand up, and indeed, as Deleuze and Guarrari ofren stress, does jr have the sobriety to do so. 27 Art and artist, producer and producr, arc inadequare rerrns to describe the new physiology required to creare art. We need a new concept in which artist and art-work can be undersrood as the becorning of an inroxicated anirnal hody This concepr arrives in Nietzsche‘s figure of Dionysus. 28 Dionvsus is neither subjecr nor objecr, because Dionysus cannot tolerate any personal identities based on human negation. 1)ionysus is the animal-artist in rhe middle ofthings, as the affirmation that creates their sirnulraneous immanence and singulariry. Dionysus, the artist, Nietzsche wrires, “stands in the midst of the universe wirh

2-i

Art as Abstract Machine

a joyful and trusting fatalism, in thefaith that only what is separate and individ nal may be rejected, that in the totality everything is redeerned and affirmed-—— he no longer denies (TI, “Expeditions of an Untimely Man,“ 49). In no longer denying, in affirming the will to power in a cosmic construction, Dionysus creates a new totality. Dionysus no longer denies, he creates. In Dionysus the will to power lives as becoming, and in the Dionysian art-work this creative power is unleashed, This is tFie way we are able to understand the art-work as expression, that is, as the constructive force of a creative will to power, as a I)ionysian art. Under these conditions, Nietzsche notes: “The work of art appears without an artist, e.g., as body, as organization (Prussian officer corps, Jesuit order). I what extent the artist is only a preliminary stage. The world as work ofart that gives birth to itself“ (‘X‘tI 796). ‘I‘he art—work is an in dividuation of the world, an interpretation constructing a singularity in which the will to power is expressed as an evaluation that constructs itself With the destruction, or transvaluation of the ontology and aesthetics of a nihilist anti art, the Dionvsian artist-philosopher introduces art as the material process of life, an expressive vitalism expressed in art, as the affirmative will to power itself This is finally the artist‘s answer to the question “what is it for mc?“ As Deleuze purs it: “[)ionysus, the will to power, is the one that answers it each time it is put“ (NP 77/88). In aftirmative critique the artist-philosopher becomes animal, because his or her actions arc physiologically rather than psychologically determined. The artist and art-work arc nothing but affects, and as such embody the will to power immediately, expressing it without mediation. “One takes,“ Nietzsche writes, “one does not asic who gives; a thought fiashes tip like lighrening, with necessity, unalteringly formed—l have never had any choice“ (EH, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,“ 6). How could artists have a choice when their affects are determined by the vital feedback mechanism ofart, in an interpretation expressing will te power giving birth to itself? We construct the world we deserve. The artist-philosopher is in this sense, and as Nietzsche writes, an “involuntary co-ordinarion“ of will to power, “a kind ofautonomism of the whole muscular system irnpelled by strong stimuli from within“ (WtP 811). lmpelled by an af firmative will to power the artist affirms, and this creates art. The physiology of the artist expresses the necessity and beauty of life in what they create, and so what they create is necessary and beautiful. “1 want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things,“ Nietzsche writes, “then 1 shall be one of those who make rhings beautiful. Amorfati let that be my love hence fbrth“ (GS, 276). Here is a new canon for beauty, and a new aesthetic for art. Art‘s beauty is no longer judged by external standards or formal criteria, or by transcendental faculties through which they would operate. Art is necessary, jr

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is the creation necessary for life, and in seeing this necessiry in feeling it, the artist-philosopher is drawn into its affirmative loop, to becorne wirh it, and to construct will to power once more, embraced in irs eternal return. The world ispeifrct, this for Nietzsche is “the insrinct of the man who says ves to life“ (A, 57). We can contrast the necessity of the work ofart formed in and hy critique with the work of the art critic, another nihilist anti—artist. Jacques Derrida dc— scribes the nihilism ofthe art critic, who, “face to face with art, never abandons his positions in front ofart, who never actually ventures to lay his hands on it, who, even though he at times fancies himself an artist producing works, is con teilt merely to gossip about art.“ ‘- We could irnagine Deleuze agreeing on this 2 point. Practicing the art of critique, for Deleuze aixI for Nietzshe—as artist philosophers—is to embody will to power as will to power. Will to power is art and art work, indiscernibly the affirmation which creates a singular work and the work which expresses all of will to power in its becorning, in its evaluative perspective. There arc many artist-philosophers and man)‘ art-works, hut in the necessity of their construction, each time anew, thev express will to power again as the eternal return of its differenrial infinity Tbe artist-philosopher is the sin gular animal life that affirms will to power, and rhrough which will to power creates art—beyond good and evil and true and false. Art is not the true, be cause, as we have seen, there is no truth. Similarly, art represents nothing be cause there is norhing to represent. Art becomes, and as a result it needs a new name, a name I)eleuze gives it—the simulacrum. “

“

SIMULACRA

Deleuze suggesrs the concept of the “simulacrum“ as a new image of art, one that meets the ontological, aesthetic and ethical requirements of the artistic methodology of affirmative critique. Critique rransforms the represenrational fiarms ofnihilism into the affirmative and animal bodies ofwill to power, and these bodies arc what Deleuze simulacrum. Plato originally suggested nie concept of the simulacrum as the botrorn rung of his metaphysical ladder. On top were “Ideas,“ pure immaterial essences as the truth of things, and absolutely distinct frorn the images thar represented them. These images, or things, existed in the material world anti were the mere copies of the essences that derermined them. Finally, lying b neath things were the degraded simulacra produced by the arts, nothing but dangerous copies of copies that could cause us, through rhe feelings they evoked, to treat them as real and so ignore the Ideas. In the Idea Plato created the definitive structure of metaphysical transcendence and founded, Deleuze

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Art as Abstract Iviachine

claims “the entire domain that philosophy will later recognise as its own: the domain of representation“ (LS, 259/298). In this domain an “appearance“ only exists in relation to the ideal “beyond“ it represents and the philosopher will only arrive at truth by transcending this world to arrive at its immaterial esscncc. The critical powers of Plato‘s philosopher are therefore spent judging this world according to a truth found in an ideal beyond. In this sense, Deleuze writes, Plato‘s Idea‘s were, “a moral vision of the world“ (DR, 127/166), This metaphysical structure was adopted by Christianity, which made full use ofits moral implications. In Christianity as in Plato, our world represents a fall, and contains the danger of illegitimate and evil images dis tracting us from a divine truth. In Christianity Deleuze argues, man is made in God‘s image, hut through the fall our good image turns to bad, and our sin does nothing hut affirm material life. In sin then: “We have become simu lacra“ (LS, 257/297))0 The demonic simulacrurn is inferior to the copy be cause it has no true model, its model being found in an already impure matter. Plato‘s metaphysics as nuach as Christianity‘s condemn the body in privileging the transcendenr, and jr is no surprise that Nietzsche‘s animal artist an— nounces the death of God as the necessary condition for a living body. Atheism and art, as we shail see, are continually co-implicated in Deleuze‘s thought. Plato was in fact one of Njetzsche‘s most cherished targets, he was, Nietzsche writes, “the greatest enemy ofart Europe has thus far produced. 1 the deliberate transcendentalist and detracror of life“ (GM, III, 25). Unsurprisingly Plato is also Deleuze‘s enemy, and escaping Plato‘s system will be a consistent feature of the philosophical lineage Deleuze creates: “In truah,“ he writes, “only the philosophies of pure immanence escape Platonism—from the Stoics to Spinoza or Nietzsche“ (ECC, 137/171))‘ For Deleuze, the simulacrum is the affirmation of a power that escapes the Idea, and embodies Nietzsche‘s explicit atternpt to reverse Platon isni‘s phi losophy of representation.‘ 2 “The simulacrum is not a degraded copy,“ Deleuze writes, “lt harbors a positive power which denies the orzinal and the copy, die model and the reproduction“ (LS, 262/302). Against Plato, and with Nietzsche, the simulacrum is for I)eleuze the image ofa univocal will to power, an expression oflife heyond, not only good and cvii, but also beyond the “be yond“ ofChristo-Platonism. In this sense, “die copy is an image endowed with resemblance, the sirnulacrurn is an image without resemblance“ (LS, 257/297). The simulacrum is Deleuze‘s response to Nietzsche‘s explicit aim of living in semhlance, it expresses life as sembiance undetermined by any idea of truth, The resuits of this overturning of Platonism arc dramatic, fir with die disappearance of essence appearances as representations also disappear) 3 As Nietzsche puts it, “with the real world we have also abolished the apparent u‘orId‘

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(T1, “How the ‘Real World‘ at last Became a Myth“). Without essence as its transcendent determination, the simulacrum is free to continually become something else. As such the sirnulacrum is art, because it is the appearance of becoming (will to power) itseW As this power of the false, Nietzsche writes, “art is worth more than truth“ (WtP, 835, iv). The simulacra arc critical, first, in being destructive, in abolishing the true world of Ideas along with their appearance as represenrations. Sirnulacra arc non-represen tative, because there‘s nothing heyond di is world of representation. Second, the simulacrum as “a Dionysian machine“ (LS, 263/303) is a creative surface of interpretation that affrms will to power in escaping the transcen dence of truth. Here art gains its active onto-aesthetic dimension. As Pierre Klossowski puts it, Nietzsche proposes “a positive notion of the false, which, as die basis of artistic creation, is now extended to eveiy problem raised by exis tence. The 54 art of simulacra now begins to take on a political dimension as the ‘ ethical lie (which shouldn‘t be confused with usual political practice). This is the art of politics in die most creative sense, where lying—as art—is die ethical practice of affirmation, the affirmation of life, 35 Art is an affirmative lie for Nietzsche, a creative and radical politics, “whenever man rejoices [i.e., affirms], he is always the same in bis rejoicing: he rejoices as an artist, he enjoys hirnself as power, he enjoys the lie as his form of power“ (Wt1 853).36 The art of appearances, the creation of sirnulacra, nevertheless requires a technique. This technique will be critical, and will be, Deleuze argues once more following Nietzsche, a question ofselection. “For die artist appearance no longer means the negation ofthe real in diii world hut this kind ofselection, correction, redoubling and affirmation.“ The artist-philosopher selects (in ter prets) what is active in the world, thereby affirming will to power, and actively overcoming nihilist art and thought. Selection is therefore the artistic construc tion ofnew truths as the creative expression oflife. I)eleuze writes: “Then truth perhaps takes on a new sense. Truth is appearance. Truth means bringing of power into effect, raising to the highest power. In Nietzsche, ‘we the artists‘ = ‘we die seekers after knowledge or truth‘ ‘we the inventors of new possibilities oflife“ (NI 103/117). Appearance as construction (interpretation) and expres sion (evaluation) now exist on a single plane of immanence—will to power— which is both existence and essence, a univocal formula Spinoza also uses and which we will come back to in the next chapter. Nietzsche‘s own formulation is similar: “What is ‘appearance‘ for mc now?“ he asks, “Certainly not the oppo site ofsome essence. What could I say about any essence except to name the at tributes of its appearance!“ (GS, 54). To name the attributes of appearance means to interpret, to select and affirm active forces, and so to construct an af firmative expression ofand as will to power. Expression ofthe will to power in

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appearance is therefore insepatahle from its construction as appearance. “The joy in shaping and reshaping—a primeval joy!“ Nietzsche cries, “We can only comprehend a world that we ourselves have made“ (WtB 495). Not a world made in our image, or in God‘s, hut a world without image and without truth, except as pure appearance. The sirnulacrum is the appearance of this world‘s essence, hut this essence only exists as irs appearance in an art-work. This means the sirnulacrum cannot exist in a dimension “beyond“ the human, hut is the mechanisrn by which the human, all too human, world is overcome in being created anew. The simulacral art-work is a repetition ofconstirutive differences (forces) in an individuated series, a series that is constantly becoming-other as it contin ues to affirm (repeat) its difference From itseif “Simulacra,“ Deleuze explains, “arc those systems in which different relates to different by means of difference itself What is essential is that we find in these Systems no prior it/entity no in ternat resembiance. lt is all a matter ofdifference in the series, and ofdifference in the communication berween series“ (L)R, 299/383). Each series is consti tuted through, and includes all the others, the simulacral art—work being the si— multaneous unity and irreducible inultiplicity ofa new point of view on/ofthe world. An art-work therefore, “is“ nothing, because it is, under the impetus of evaluarive affirmation, a simulacruni always “becoming“ something else. But it is not “becoming“ in a simple sense, as ifthis was a simple statement of the type “everything changes.“ Rather the art-work as simulacrum exists only when “everything is change.“ At this, the ontological affirmation operating in and rhrough the transvaluative power of cririque: “Everything has hecome simu lacrum“ (DR, 69/95). The ontological transvaluation of aesthetics marks another important Deleuzian hreak, this time within the tradition ofaesthetics as it is more usually understood. Plato‘s inetaphysics of representation defined the transcendental conditions for all possible experiences, and Kant subsequently maintained these conditions while dividing aesthetics into two realms, one in which the sensible in general appears according to categories ofpossible experience (in his critique ofPure Reason) and another in which the beautiful was defined according to the conditions of real, or actual, experience (in the (}itique ofJudgement) (DR, 68/94). In this way aesthetics is divided on the one band into a theory ofsensa tion describing the ohjective conditions of experience, and on the other as a the ory of the beautiful defining the subjective conditions of experience. With the simulacrum however, we can only have a real experience undetermined by any subjcctive or ohective conditions. There is no “outside“ determining experience (whether this is irnagined to be a transcendent essence, as with Plato, or an im manent transcendental faculty, as with Kant), because the simulacrum expresses ‚

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only its own immanent conditions, as the repetition of its constitutive differ— ence in an ongoing series or becoming (Deleuze also calls this a “sign“). The con ditions of the sign‘s real experience (will to power) arc therefore the same as the sign‘s real experience (will to power). As Deleuze puts it, the will to power “is an essentiallyplastic principle that is no wider than what it conditions, that changes itselfwith the conditioned and determines itself in each case along witb what it determines“ (N1 50/57). The Kantian division of aesthetics is therefore over come by Nietzsche, because will to power as the being of the sensible, as the eter nal return ofdifference in the simulacrum, only exists in and as the appearance ofthe work ofart (DR, 68/94). The simulacrum appears as a singularity with out identity, without subject or object, as the sensation of/as repetition, of/as the eternal return ofdifference, as it overcomes itself Once more any distinction of the artist and art work, as separate identities, is impossible. As Deleuze puts it: “To every perspective or point ofview there must correspond an autonomous work with its own self-sufficient sense“ (DR, 69/94). The art-work is an action, an affirmation in which artist and work arc entirelv immanent in the sensation, and that appears in the revalued physiology—no longer defined subjectively or objectively—adequate to this “affect.“ THE SIMULACRUM AS ETERNAL RETURN

Critical art therefore destrovs as it creares; on the one hand its interpretations overcome the world ofman, and on the other it expresses the cosmic dimension of will to power constructing itseif Art hegins as the transvaluation of represen tation, as the oveicoming of“anti-art“ and its “sad“ reperitions, all the banal and stereotypical re-productions of habit and clich. Art once more emerges here in irs ethical modality, because its action, its affirmation, produces simulacral signs that construcr the world. Deleuze puts it in bis own anti-Platonic terms: “1 hings arc simulacra themselves, simulacra arc the superior forms, and the dif ficulty facing everything is to become its own simulacrurn, to attain the status ofa sign in the coherence ofeternal return“ (DR, 67/93). In Nietzsche tlien, aes thetics attains its properly political and ethical dimension, a dimension equally ontological, where art must overcome man in creating a sirnulacrum, to eter nally rerurn us to what we already are—the becoming of will to power. The artist-philosopher is wbat we could ca 11 will to power‘s “operative,“ he or she is the one capable of giving an interpretation that constructs sirnu lacra as the affirmative evaluation of will to power itself. In simulacra in other words, the conditions ofa real experience (the “seminal“ constitutive differ ences of will to power) arc entirely immanent to that experience, and fulfil the Deleuzeo-Nietzschean conditions of onto-aesthetics: “lt is a matter of

Art as Abstract Machine

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showing,“ Deleuze argues of the one who wills, “that he could not say, think or feel this particular thing if he did no have a particular will, particulai forces, a particular way of being“ (NF 78/88), This means that die simu lacrurn as particular thing, as interpretation, is so only on condition that it expresses a particular will, an evaluation, as the genetic differential relation of forces constituting the becoming of its world. “Each difference passes through all of the others,“ Deleuze writes, “it must ‘will‘ itseif or find itseif through all the others“ ([)R, 57/80). As a result, the simulacrum expresses its genetic differential conditions through affirming them, but affirmation nec essarily unleashes an overcoming, an on-going becoming inseparable from the eternal return and that constructs the world anew. This is the “highpoint of the meditation“ for Nietzsche: “That everything recurs is the ciosest ap proximation ofa world of becorning to a world ofbeing“ (WtI 617). The simulacrum gives a perspective of will to power, but this perspective doesn‘t “represent“ will to power, as in a snapshot, it is die sensation of the be coming—the eternal return—of will to power. The simulacrum is the series produced through i he repetition of its own constitutive differences, as these ex tend to encompass the world. This means, as Deleuze argues: “Every thing, an imal or being assumes die status of the sirnulacrum; so that the thinker of erernal return [ 1 can rightly say that he is himself burdened with the supe rior form of everyrhing that is“ (DR, 67/92). The simulacrum is the conrinual creation of the world, the becoming of a world consrructed into mobile series, differentiating and differentiated. In this sense, “the eternal return concerns only simulacra“ (DR, 126/165). In the simulacrurn, Nietzschean transvaluation is not achieved simply hy changing something‘s value, but by achieving a new, affirmative and artistic way of evaluaring. The simulacrum is not a new truth, because it rransvalues “truth“ as the element from which the value of value dc rives, replacing it with a power of the false, a vital power inseparable fiom an artistic life. Uhis finally is the transvaluation of the creative artist, wbo is no longer content ro simply create things or to express themselves, but constructs a world of simulacra (i.e. interprets the world) through an evaluation that eter nally returns the world, as the affirmative and creative will. For Nietzsche, as for Deleuze, “only the Dionysian artist takes the power of die false to the point where it is realised, not in form, but in transformation“ (ECC, 105/133). Finally, die immanence of expression and construction in the artistic affirma tion of the will to power means, as Deleuze puts it: “Between the eternal return and the simulacrum, there is such a profound link that the one cannor be un derstood except through the other“ (LS, 264/305). for Deleuze it is to the cuedit of modern art, before philosophy, to have rejected representation in favour of producing simulacra. All that we have just ...

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seen, therefore, defines the Nietzschean arrist-philosopher as the pracririoner of a truly modern art. Deleuze argues that the creation ofdivergent series, as diver gent and in a single work, “is, without doubt, the essenrial characteristic ofthe modern work ofart“ (LS, 260/300). Modern art is the affirmation ofa creative becoming, creating divergent series in which the art-work is continually becom ing-other. “Art does not imitate,“ Deleuze argues, “above all because it repeats; it repeats all the repetitions, by virtue of an inrernal power (an imitation is a copy, but art is simulation, it reverses capies into simulacra)“ (DR, 293/375). In this sense, Deleuze believes, modern art shows the way to philosophy, for “when the modern work of art develops its permutating series and irs circular structures, it indicates to philosophy a path leading to the abandonment ofrep resenration“ (DR, 68—9/94). Modernism renounces art‘s ancient metaphysics of true and false, oforiginal and copy, and announces its emhrace of the repetition ofdifference in the eternal return. Although Deleuze‘s examples in DffrrenceandRepetition arc Mallarm‘s Book and James Joyce‘s Finnegans Wake, Nietssche is also privileged in the gen esis ofthe “modern image ofrhought“ as the one who “succeeded in making us understand, thought is creation, not will to truth“ (WP 54/55). But Nietzsche makes a further claim to die invention of a truly modern art in being one of the few philosophers to have managed to “slip in“ to die realm ofart. Zarathustra, Deleuze and Guattari argue, is not only a “conceptual per sona“ but an “aesthetic figure,“ a creator ofsensations, and in rhe serial wan derings of Nietzsche‘s eponymous hero affects as weil as concepts arc produced (WP 2 17/205). Nietzsche‘s concepts of will te power and eternal return arc therefore already at work in aestherics‘ realm ofexperience, and it is in modern art‘s complicarion of its intense “divergenr series“ that the Nietzschean physiology of the artisr-philosopher is fulfilled, and Zaruthusrra dances. The repetition ofdifference as the compositional principle of modern art produces, Deleuze claims, an “internal resonance,“ a “forced movement which goes beyond the series itself“ (LS, 260 1/300—1). This “forced move ment“ is the affect or “affeceive charge“ (LS, 261/301), a sensation ofbecom ing (i.e. ofa repetition) coextensive with ehe differential life of will to power. This affective charge is intoxicaring, and overcomes ehe ohject experienced as much as the subject experiencing it. The identity of die object i dissoived in ehe divergent series constituting the affect (art-work as an expression and not an object), and the identiry of the subjecr is dissolved in ehe multiplicity of differences the affece at once infolds and unfolds (artist as a force under con struction and not a subject). But nothing is lost, Deleuze argues, because each series exists only in the rerurn of all ehe others, and modern art appears only at this poine of rransvaluation, when everything has become a simulacrum

32

Art as Abstract Machine

(DR, 69/95). Modernism is therefore defined by the dismemberment ofevery thing which separates art from the life of will to power, every thing which pre vents its eternal rerurn. What would prevent the eternal return, according to Deleuze, is to only unelerstand art in terms of the artist (pure construction), or only in terrns uf the conditions under which the art work appears (pure 9 The eternal return “repudiates these and expels them,“ Deleuze pression)) writes, “with all its centrifugal force. lt constitutes the autonomy of die prod uct, the independence of the work“ (DR, 90/122). Deleuze was obviously not the first to define the modernist art work as autonomous, but unlike the das sical rnodernism of Clement Greenberg for example, this autonomy will not be defined by a formal purity, but by its formal vitality. THE ART-WORK AS SIMULACRA

Given this profound link between the simulacra and eternal return, how should we approach art works as they normally appear? This is a problem of irnmedi ate urgency, not just to gain an understanding of our own “real experience,“ but also to bring Nietzsche‘s onto-acsthetics into affect within the politics of the everyday. This is entirely necessary as both Deleuze and Nietzsche condernn any aesthetic philosophy separating art from life, ° lndeed, as Deleuze dramatically 4 puts it, “there is no other aesthetic problem than that of the insertion of art into everyday life“ (DR, 293/375). Deleuze immediately proposes an example: “Warhol‘s remarkable ‘serial‘ series“ (DR, 294/375). Given the publication date ofDfftrence and Repetition (1968) Deleuze‘s example must refer to the so-called “screen-print“ paintings Warhol begins in 1962 and developed over the next five years in what is known as the “Death and Disaster“ paintings. ‘ We have already 4 seen Deleuze suggest that modern art‘s use of repetition in composing series is simulacral, hut here he elaborates this suggestion in terms of his concrete exarn ple of Pop. “Even the most mechanical, the most banal, the most habitual and the most stereotyped repetition finds a place in works ofart,“ he writes, “it is al ways displaced in relation to other repetitions, and it is subject to the condition that a difference may be extracted from it for these other repetitions“ (DR, 293/375), This passage dlearly aflirms Warhol‘s use ofcommercial reproduction techniques and their media aesthetic as an insertion ofart into life, which is not in itself such a controversial dlairn about Pop art. More controversial however, is Deleuze‘s suggestion that Warhol‘s use of repetition does not repeat (repre sent) a model, but produces a real and simulacral experience coextensive with the creative repetitions of life. 12 This suggestion is a good example of Deleuze‘s critical method, and repays exploration. Deleuze is certainly not alone in dlaim ing that Warhol reinserts art into life by using the aesthetics of consumerisrn.

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But Deleuze provides an ontological interpretation ofthis “insertion“ by affirm ing it as the creation ofsirnulacra, the production of“a canvas whose very Oper ation reverses the relationship of model and copy, and which means that there is no longer a copy, nor is there a modei To push die copy, die copy of the copy, to the point at which it reverses itselfand produces the model: Pop art.‘1 Deleuze reads Pop art, and specifically Warhol‘s work, as the emergence of mechanical repetition immanent to modern processes ofmechanical reproduc tion, and hence as an art form ‘inserted‘ into everyday life. lt is obvious, looking at Warhol‘s Tri1e Elvis (1963, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) for example, that he transforms a mechanical reproduction through its repetition. 1 This transformation is achieved througb a mechanical technique (the screen print) which retains the in principle infinity of its “Original,“ which it “copies,“ and therefore side-steps any appeal to the mythology of the artist‘s subjectivity as the S Indeed, Warhol‘s whole mediatized personality 4 guarantor of artistic value. even ifironic, sought to engage and deconstruct such mythologies—in this he was utterly “modern.“ Warhol‘s repetition of the process of mechanical repro duction is not “critical“ in any subjective sense, and is instead an affirmation that revalues painting itself Painting is no longer “expressive,“ hut—in Warholian sense—repetitive. As he said: “The reason 1 am painting this way is that 1 want to be a machine.“ 46 Warhol‘s painting process, as a mechanical re production, takes in the case of the Elvis paintings an “Original“ (a postcard of Elvis as he appeared in the film Flaming Star, wbich is itselfa “copy“ (ofa stu dio promotional photo, it is not an image originally in tue film). Each painting is therefore a copy ofa copy, and affirnied in its very mode of appearing as such, it is a simulacrumn, and is elaborated in an in-principle open (the principle of mechan ical reproduction) series. 4 The Warhol-machine understood perfectly that the work of art had lost its aura as original in the age of mechanical reproduction. But he refused to mourn this loss, and instead embraced the living power of repetition it intro duces. He did so by using reproduction technology to produce “original“ art works that had, through this process, and their inevitable appearance in series, attained an entirely modern “aura,“ that of the simulacrum. But this still must be explained, as obviously Deleuze is interested in Warhol‘s images, and not just any old photo of Elvis. Warhol succeeds in producing simulacrum by fore grounding the way an image‘s repetition introduces necessary differences. Each work in the series differs from the others, but this difference is not a consistent object that structures the work (as it would be in Frank Stella‘s paintings or Donald Judd‘s work, or in much conceptual art, such as Sol Le Witt‘s sculptures, for example), but is the genetic element immanent to their production, the dif fering difference which does not stay the same (it is not a “grammar“), and in

34

Art as Abstract Machine

The Artist-Philosopher

35

The Elvis paintings, like all Warhol‘s series ofthc tirne, dissolve their “sub ject“ and themselves as “objects“ in being emptied ofany extra dimension out side that of their own production. What appears on this surface ofevaporation is their own genetic and vital force, thev afNrm the will to power as it continu— ally overcomes itself As their serial production has no heginning (no “original“) nor an end (it is in principle open) it is composed only ofa seif-differing repe tition (the technique does not allow homogeneity hetween paintings) as both subject and object of its multiple affects. This is why Deleuze emphasizes the rial nature ofWarhol‘s work, because it is in the series that the reperition ofdif ference becomes visible, even, or perhaps especially when this serialitv is seen in a single work (Elvis Ezght Times or Elvis (Eleven TYnies) for exantple). ‘X‘arhol is not therefore, a proto—post—rnodernist. as sorne would have it. His series do not mulriply perspectives in order to deny any possibility ofpres ence, but instead foreground presence as the differential process appearing as the real experience of mechanical reproduction itseif Painting for Warhol i.s not a play of signifiers forever deferring presence, but the evaporation ofthe signifier in the presence of the self-differing sign, a perspecrival art work adequate to the serial processes of the everyday. This is Warhol‘s dramaric (and ofcourse utterly banal, Warhol‘s genius was to be able ro combine these elements so effectively) revaluation, from signifier to simulacrum, and from representation to repeti tion. Just another Elvis comeback. As such Warhol‘s series arc the perfect elab oration of Deleuze‘s theorv of modern art: each coinposing repetition nust he distored, cliverred. aml kirn fiOfli its centre. Each poinr of view must itsclfhe the object, er tue ob;cct must be— long to the point ofvicw. The object must thercfore he in no way identical, hut rom asundcr in a difference in which the idcntity ofthe ohjeci as seen by a sceing subject vanishes. Difference must hecome die element, the ul rimate uniry; it must therefore refer to other differences which never iden— tify it but rathcr differentiate it. [ 1 Divergence and decentring must he affirmned in the serics itself Evcry object, ever5‘ thing must see in o•vn iden tity swallowed up in difference, cach heing no mere ihan a dilYerence be— tween differences. Difference must show itselfto he dffrring. (DR, 56/79) ...

Figure 1 Andy Warhol, Tritile Eluis, 1963, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. © 2004 Andy Wirbel Feundation bn tue Vistial Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York fact rejects the same frorn the process ofserial repetition. The first things we no tice arc the difkrenccs. Warhol‘s series arc in this way a repetition, or eternal re rum, ofwhat is already different from irseif Elvis as simulacrum. Elvis as ohjecr has no identiry in Warhol‘s paintings, and exists only as the always differing rep etition of himselfas “sign.“ The eternal return is in this way affirmed in the mid die of the everyday process ofconsumption, a point we will pick up again later.

Pop art produces a Nietzschean perspectival critique in which the eternal return as repetirion ofdifference (i.e. as simulacral art-work) appears in the midst of the modern everyday. Warhol inserts the simulacrum into everyday life hy using a commercial production technique and aesthetic to make images of the people and events already being infinitely reproduced in the media. In using already recogniza ble images Pop art was, as Warhol said, “for everyone.“ But this availahility

36

Art as Abstnict Machine

nevertheless carried with it a transformanve charge, for it made visihle the way mechanical processes extended from “Form“ to “content“ in popular culture, which effectively produced an image with nothing behind it—a pure sur face. “Once you ‘got‘ Pop,“ he said, “you could never see a sign the same way again. And once you thought Pop you could never see America the same way ° This is [)eleuze‘s point, that the transformation in our perspective 5 again.“ achieved by Pop art operates at once on the level of the ontology of the sign (as surface), and within die commercial economy of that sign, within, in other words, everyday life. Warhol succeeded in bringing these levels together to show how life was nothing more (hut also nothing less) than the creation of difference through mechanical repetitions. Warhol thereby affirms the eternal return of will to power in life, as our life. Warhol succeeded in transforming mechanical reproduction into me chanical repetition, hy affirming the former to the point where the distinction of model and copy arc lost in productive difference. In this way Pop art exem plifies Nietzsches own artistic straregy, “we want to be poets ofour life—first of all in the smallest, most everyday matters“ (GS, 299). Perhaps, given Warhol‘s use ofpop culture technologies and subject matter we could say he was the poet of bis life in die smallest, most everyday manner. Warhol is the artist ofthe linie difference, hut bis affirmation of mechanical repetitions nevertheless produced a new relation between art and the world. Warhol‘s Death and Destruction series produced simulacrum, and in these simulacrum the destruction of man is nec essarily connected to die creation of this vital life of die everyday. Deleuze makes this link explicitly: The more our daily life appears standardised, srereotyped and subject to an accclerated reproduction ofobjccts of consumpuon, the more art must he injected into it in order ro exaract frorn it that linie difference which plays simultaneously between other levels of repetition, and even in order to make the two extremes resonate—namely the habirual series ofconsump tion, and the instinctual series of dcstrucnon and death. (DR, 293/3 75) Frorn the suhlirne to die ridiculous: Marilyn Munroe to 7ina Fish Disaste The relation ofrepetition to death in Warhol‘s work can be understood in terrns of Deleuze‘s discussion of Freud in Dz&rencc and Repetition. There Deleuze reinrerprers Freud‘s grounding ofsympromatic repetition in the death drive. Deleuze argues that this drive is not a return to a pure inanimate matter, as most interprerations of Freud would have it, hut is instead the genetic prin ciple of repetition which operates beneatb‘ its sympromatic representation and which this represenrarion represses. As such, death is the realm of instinctuai

Tbe Artist-Philosopher

27 .1/

drives—the Freudian rerni for the ‘seminal qualitative elements‘ of rhe will ro power. These drives can only be lived by being repressed, because the arc by na ture a-subjective. But this repression is their repetition in disguise, and they have no realiry other than becoming disguised. The dearh instinct is then, the rerurn ofthe repressed as disguised, and as what disguises, making dearb (qua rhe un livable) the generic principle of repetition itseif As Deicuze purs it: Repetirion is rruly that which disguises irseif in constituting itself, that which constirures itselfonly bv disguising irseif. lt is not underneatb rhe masks, but is trmed froni one mask to anorher, as from one distinerive Oflt 10 anorher, from orte privileged insrant to another, witb and wirhin rhc variations. The masks do not hide anything exccpr orher masks. (DR, 17/28)

This last sentence would seem an appropriare descriprion ofWarbol‘s celebrity series, hut ratber than their reperirion of masks beitig a critiqiie of either the morbidity or the entropy of popular culture as some have argued, 1 the reperi don ofmasks is the living reality of the genetic power, qita dearh. The mask as simulacrum does not disguise a reality behind it; rather, ir is the only possihle reperirion, the only possible lived reaiiry ofgenetic difference. Warhol‘s “Dearh and Disasrer“ series affirm this in foregrounding the mask as a reperition ofdif ference (eternal return) inseparable froni death. lt is interesting to speculare at this point about the disappearance of the term “simulacrum“ froni Deleuze‘s work after Dij5trence and Repetition. Could we link rhis disappearance to Deleuze and Deleuze and Guarrari‘s move towards articulating art‘s modernirv through die question of color? This hyporhesis is strengthened by the facr that Deleuze makes no further reference to \Varhoi, apart front the brief discussion of bis films in Cinema Indeed, after Dif/‘rence and Repetition and coinciding wirb bis collaboration wirh Guattari, Deleuze moves away fiom many of the rerms and fiwmulations ofDt Jerence and Repetition he had connected to Pop art. For example, in D//rence and Repetition Deieuze emphasizes the role of disguise in any appearance of the repetition of difference, which draws a liiie between ir and its instanriation and radicalises irs appearance as dearh. 5 This is one way Deleuze tends ro elahorare difference as being cancelled in irs extensive represenrarions. This ineans generic forces rend to be repeated in forms (masks) which dissipate their becoming, and ortl)‘ very few exemplary art works arc able ro reveal die viralirv of masks rhemselves, in simulacra. While this argument seems to fit wirh Warhol‘s “Dearb and Disasrer“ series, ir also tends to beate generic will to power in an orherworldly sphere in relation to our own experience (i.e. as death). lt is this aspect of Dzf/‘rence and

Art as Abstract Machine Repetition that Deleuze moves away from after meeting Guattari, who intro b 1 have also tended to 5 duces a less disguised/disguiing value to ontogenesis. avotd this interpretation in my reading of the simulacrum, in line with Deleuze‘s later work. In the reahn of art this shift introduces the centrality of color for Deleuze and I)eleuze and Guattari as the locus ofa sensation that is understood as a living embodiment ofdifference, 57 We will be turning to this philosophy of color in later chapters, but here it is worth noting how this assemhiage ofterms Deleuze uses to articulate Pop art—masks, reperition, eternal return, series, sim ulacra and death—along with Pop art itself all fade from his work. Many of them, however, remain important thematics for Deleuze (the centrality of Nietzsche and the powers of the false in Onema 2 for example), but these the matics arc rethought and so require a new vocabulary. Nevertheless, it is also possible to follow another trajectory through the Nietzschean assernblage of Pop art that ernphasizes its critical, and therefore transformative, possibilities. ‘Ib do this we must return to Deleuze‘s reference to “different levels ofrepetition“ ([)R, 293/375) which is in fact a reference to his theory of the three syntheses of time. ‘Fhe first, habit, operates the material rep etitions necessary for the functioning oforganic processes, and fixes life in apure present that passes. The second, memory, creates a past which die present be comes, and through this repetition institutes the realm of consciousness and thought. T‘he third, the eternal return, is the tinie of the future, where repeti— tion produces “complete novelry“ (DR, 90/122). In the third synthesis time is the repetition ofwhat is to come, dissolving subject and object in a pure differ ence that refuses any identity and is “precisely“ the death instinct (DR, 111/147). As we hae seen, Deleuze‘s equation of the simulacrurn and eternal return implies a radical transformation inseparable from death, and Warhol‘s death and disaster paintings seem the perfect expression of this conjunction. But death is not a pure outside; it is what disguises as lt is disguised. The criti cal question for art would therefore be how to produce the third synthesis of time as it appears (i.e. as it disguises itself) in the other two, immanent to the banalities ofmaterial and subjective life. Deleuze argues the third synthesis must affirm the other two, but in doing so it operates its law ofeternal return, beyond its living cancellation, as the freeing ofdifference in the genetic repetition ofa living future. This will finally be where the simulacrum, the eternal return and repetition find their paradoxical politics—in the death necessary for life. This is the “critical and revolutionary power“ ofart, Deleuze argues, and it is exempli fied in Warhol‘s paintings of Elvis. These paintings embody the resonance be tween the everyday habits ofconsurnption and the eternal return ofmechanical repetition produced by the sirnulacrum. This resonance is what inay “lead us from the sad repetitions of habit to the profound repetitions of mernory, and

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then to the ultimate repetitions of death in which our freedom is played out“ (DR, 293/375). This then, would be Deleuze‘s afErmarion of Warhol‘s Death andDestruction series, they arc nothing less than an overcorning of human sad ness, an overcorning of our memorial sentiment, in a work ofart that eternally returns the inhuman vitality of will to power, that eternally repeats its difference in a simulacrum inseparable from our own dearb. And this indiscernibility, in discernible that is from Lifr, is finally the very freedom ofart. Despite this (only seemingly) morbid end for the Nietzschean artist philosopher in the sirnulacrum‘s eternal return of death, and despite Deleuze ahandoning its vocabulary-, much of what we have seen hirn develop here re mains the focus of our ongoing exploration of an onto-aesthetics. Specifically the univocity of will to power as both critical and genetic principle, and its con struction and expression in the art-work, will continue to he a fouis ofour dis cussion. Similarly, the destruction of representation will remain the “eternal truth of painting“ 55 throughout Deleuze and Deleuze and Guattari‘s work. Affirmation as the necessary “motor“ ofa vital repetition ofdifference will also be a feature of Deleuze‘s onto-aesthetics we will continually come back to. Nevertheless, inuch of the Nietzschean assemblage does drop out of Deleuze‘s account, and is replaced by a much stronger emphasis on the philosoph‘ of Spinoza, in which we will now turn.

Chapter Two

Spinoza: Mystical Atheism and the Art of Beatitude

The morc we understand singular things, the

more we

understand God.

—---Spinoza,

11v FtI‘,.

1 am God nmost of the time. Fclix Guattari. 2 INTRODUCTION

“There is,“ Deleuze writes, ‘a philosophy of‘life‘ in Spinoza; it consists precisely in denouncing everything that separates us from life“ (SIi 26/39). Already the tone has changed from the death and disaseer of Warhol‘s simulacrums. Spinoza‘s philosophy of life understands ehe individual as an expression ofGod, a God Deleuze describes in an old myseical formulation as, “a circle whose cen tre is everywhere and circumference nowliere“ (EPS, 1 6/ 160). Again, we seem far from Nietzsche‘s overcoming of man through the deaeh ofGod. But perhaps not, for in Deleuze‘s reading of Spinoza God exists only as the continual trans formations and creations of the actual world. The world is expressive, and God exists oniv in being expressed in life. This means, as Deleuze weites, “expression is not sirnply manifestation, hut is also the constitution of God himseif Life, that is expressivity is carried inro the absolute“ (EPS, 80—1/70). Once rnore art understood as expression will be inseparahle frorn a process ofconseruceion, and this very indiscernibility will be the principle of a creative life. Of course with Spinoza the terminoiogy will change, but nevertheless the univocitv ofbeing. as s‘hat is both expressed and constructed in becorning, will be Ehe conimon OH tological insight Deleuze draws from both Nieezsche and Spinoza. For Spinoza God is immanent and univocal, meaning its essence is its existence and, to make the obvious connection to the previous chapter, God‘s being is becoming.

Art is /lbstritct Machine

43

Expressionism is Deleuze‘s term for the univocity of becoming, a becoming of life inseparable from the heing ofSpinoza‘s univocal and immanent God. We saw in the previous chapter how Nietzsche‘s concept of art attacks artists who produce nihilistic cultural expressions. These, he argued, must be gene beyond in the critical process by which art overcornes its rational and re active forrns, and truly begins to live. Art, as the process ofconstruction expressing will to powel; defines a way of living, and so Nietzsche‘s aesthetics arc equally an ethics. In Spinoza we will find the definitive formulation ofthis eth ical-aesthctics, even though he does not consider traditional aesthetic questions, nor discuss “art“ in any specific sense. Consequently Spinoza does not set his ethics against art as a cultural product and practice in the way Nicrzsche does, nor does he privilege certain aesthetic practices as “ethical.“ Indeed, ifin the first chapter we were immediately placed within the context ofa critical art practice, then this one will step hack from the explicirly artistic realm to expiore its ethi cal and “mvstical“ dimensions. As a result, most of this chapter will move through the key concepts of ihe Ethics, and refers to art oniy as an implicit ex ample of the ethical world of expression. Nevertheless, at certain points 1 will try to show how these concepts can be used to think about art werks as mech anisms of expression.

ongoing process of expressionism, a process in which, as SpinoLa famously puts it: “God‘s existence and his essence arc one and the same thing“ (Ethics, 1, P20). This is an aesthetic formula, as we shall see, because jr means my ex istence is an expression ofGod, and as Walt Whitman wrires, “a song make 1 ofthe One form‘d out of all.“ 3 There is ne hetter understanding of Deleuze‘s

42

SUBSTANCE There arc three basic distinctions in Spinoza‘s ontology: Substance, Attribute and Mode. Each of these describes a necessary aspect ofa philosophical system in which, DeleuLe writcs, “univocal being is said immediately of individual dif ferences or the universal is said of the most Singular independent of any media tion“ (DR. 39/57). Substance describes being inasmuch as it is everything, the One-All ofGod, but this being is univocal, and is understood in all its forms as through itself God, in Spinoza, is not a suppielnental dimension. Spinoza wrires: “By Substance 1 understand ‘hat is in itselfand is conceived tbrough it— self, that is, that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing, from which it must be forrned“ (Ethics, 1, D3). lf God as Substance is under— stood only through itseif, as causa sui or cause ofitself, then our understanding ofGed will always be a part ef God. This is what we could ca 11 Spinozas mys tical “head-start,“ that God is necessarily immanent in its exprcssions, because an immanent cause is only present in its effects. God, Spinoza argues, has an ab solutely infinite power of existing (Ethics, 1, Pils), and whatever exists cannot bc conceived without God. (Ethics, 1, P15) Simply, every actual thing (er mode) is an expression ofGod, and God er Substance is the essence ef all existing ex pressions. flut this distinction ofessence and existence only appears within the

deciaration: “Spinoza and Us.“ The univecity of being is expressive because of the rele playecl hy the at tributes. God as Substance consists ef an infinity ofattrihutes, each one expressing an eternal and infinite essence of God (Ethics, 1, D6). Modes express Substance in an actual and determinate way, each mode being a modification of Substance, expressed according to the essence of each attribute. So in a schematic sense, Substance expresses itself, attributes express its essence, while medes arc expressions within the attributes, and hence expressions of the essence efSubstance. Modes in relation to the attributes arc, as Deleuze com ments, “an expression, as it were, ofexpressien itself“ (EPS, 14/10). That is, the expressed (Substance) has no existence outside of its expression (modes), be

cause modes express the essence (attributes) ofwhat expresses itself This means, Spineza writes: “Ged must be called the cause of all things in the same sense in which he is called the cause ofhimself“ (Ethics, 1, P25d). God is therefore ab solutely non-hierarchical, and in univecal being, as Deleuze cornments, “all things arc in absolute proximity“ (DR, 37/55). In the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus Spineza argued that it is through the things of this world that God is known, rather than tbrough his revelation in scripture. This radical departure frern traditional Christian theology is implied by Spinoza‘s univocal onteiegy, which argues that God only‘ exists as expressed in Nature. This gives risc te Spineza‘s heretical fermula “Dezis sit‘e natum, “er Ged/Nature. Fer Spinoza, Nature is the infinite unfolding ofwhat expresses it

self the explication ef the One in the many. But this process is sirnultaneously an implication, by which the One is censtructed by its mulritudinous expres sions. Accordingly “one“ and “many“ become rwo ways efdescribing the same thing, the genetic, or vitalist process of beceming, the infinite (un)folding of being in life. Fer Spinoza, Nature is beceming because Ged‘s expressive essence

exists only in its action: “That eternal and infinite being we call God, or Nature,“ he writes, “acts frem the same necessiry frem which he exists. For we have shown that the necessity of nature from which he acts is the same as that frem which he exists“ (Ethics, IV, Pref). God exists as active expression in the medes, which exist as the continual inter-action—---the continual construction— of Nature. Substance, attributes and modes therefore comprise die sysrernatic immanence ef essence and existence in expressive and univocal being. As Spinoza writes, “the whole of narute is one individual, is‘hese parts, that is, all

44

Art as Abstract Machine

bodies, vary in inf:inite ways, without any change of the whole individual“ (Ethics, II, P13L7s), Clearly then, Spinoza‘s Nature is nothing to do with the “natural,“ and eludes any distinction between nature and culture. Nature is in stead a name for a vital and inorganic Substance, and its living expressions can be equally “natural“ or “unnatural.“ ATTRIBUTES

Attributes animate Spinoza‘s system, they arc both expressions ofGod, and what is expressed. Spinoza writes: “By attribute 1 understand what the intellect per ceives ofa Substance, as constituting its essence“ (Ethics, 1, D4). Essence is in finite, and each attribute is an unlimited quality of Substance. Substance (God/Nature) does not pre-exist its attributes, just as it does not pre-exist its ac tual expressions. The attributes arc the immanent formal elements that consti tute God‘s absolute nature, but in being the formal constituents of God‘s essence they arc also the mechanisms of God‘s expression in differentiated things. Attributes arc the way in whicb God remains One/All, in its individual expres sions. “The unity of Substance, and the distinction of attributes,“ Deleuze writes, “arc correlates that together constitute expression. The distinction ofat trihutes is nothing hut the qualitative composition of an ontologically single Substance“ (EPS, 182/166), Attributes arc therefore common to Substance and modes, according to what Deleuze calls the “rule ofconvertibility“ whereby “the essence is not only that without which a thing can neither be not be conceived, but is conversely that which cannot be nor be conceived outsidc the thing“ (EPS, 47/38). This convertibility of the attributes means they sirnultaneously constitute God‘s essence, and God‘s existence. The attributes form the qualita tive composition of an ontologically single Substance, each essence (attribute) being an unlimited, infinite quality of Substance. Within the attribute the mode, in its essence and as Gods existence, is always a certain degree or quan tity of this quality The philosophy ofexpression then, begins and ends with an entirely active and affirmative Substance, whose qualitative essences arc ex pressed in its attributes, and whose quantitative existence is expressed in the ac tions of its rnodes, As Spinoza puts in “God‘s power is nothing except Gods active essence. And so it is impossible for us to conceive that God does not act as it is to conceive that he does not exist“ (Ethics, II, P3s). God‘s essence and ex istence arc expressed in and through the attributes. The affirmative activity of Substance will be the occasion for Deleuze to extend his critique of “that imbecile Hegel“ and his dialectic, which we in 5 Hegel claimed Spinoza troduced in relation to Nietzsche in the last chapter. did not understand negation, and this reading was very influential in the

Spinoza

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subsequent philosophical demonisation ofSpinoza as an atheist. 6 Deleuze‘s reading ofSpinoza‘s expressionism as implying an entirely active essence and an enrirely affirmative existence, rejects Hegel‘s claim that we need negation in order to understand being, or to act. As Deleuze rather bluntly puts it: “When Hegel says, against Spinoza, “ah that one never understood anything ofthe labor of the negative,“ it‘s perfect, the labor ofthe negative is a bad of 7 For Deleuze, this is the beauty of Spinoza‘s philosophy, in it “nega crap.“ tion is nothing, because absolutely nothing ever lacks anything“ (SPP 96/125). The absence ofdialectical negation in Spinoza‘s ontology means, as we shall sec, that negation becomes purely epistemological, existing only as an incomplete understanding of Substance‘s expression. 9 Spinoza claims we only know two attributes, extension and thought, be cause we can only conceive as infinite those qualities—body and mind—that constitute our essence. Thought and extension arc parallel attributes for Spinoza because, as he puts it, “the mmd and the hody arc one and the same thing, which is conceived now under the attribute of thought, now under the attrib ute ofextension“ (Ethics, III, P25). As a result, there is no connection or causal ity berween attributes, as each is conceived through itself(Ethics, 1, P10). God is the cause of all things and all ideas, these modifications occurring in the same order in two parallel series. The parallelism of the attributes means neither mmd nor matter, ideas nor bodies arc privileged over the other. 1‘his opposes what Deleuze calls, “the moral principle“ (EPS, 256/235) running frorn Plato to Descartes (and beyond) in which the mmd or sotil is imagined to be what dc terlilines the body‘s actions. Spinoza puts it simply: “The body cannot deter mine the mm to thinking and the mmd cannot determine the hody to motion, to rest, or to anything else“ (Ethics, III, P2). This implies an “epistemobogical parallelism“ (EPS, 117/1 02) as Deleuze calls it, where every affict of my body corresponds to an affect in my mmd. This parallelism has important conse quences, for, as Spinoza writes, “in proportion as a body is more capable than others ofdoing many things at once, or being acted on in rnany ways at once, so its mmd is more capable than others of perceiving many things at once“ (Ethics, 11, P13s). As ideas and bodies arc strictly parallel, and the intellect can not produce true ideas about Substance without Substance expressing irself in these ideas, the more we experience, the more we know about God (Sli 91/118—19). Consequently, reason provides a way of understanding God not as an object outside ofus, hut as an immanent and constitutive infinity, expressed in the affectuab relations ofmy body and ideas. This does not, Deleuze argues, mean a devaluation of thought in relation to the body, hut a devaluation of

moral consciousncss as the intentional and guiding mechanism of an otherwise

46

Art as Abstract Ivlachine

inert bodv—the hodv is set free. Spinoza provides a new body along with new ideas to understand jr. ATHEISTIC MYSTICISM

The aim ofSpinoza‘s ethics will be to know God—God as Nature—but, once niore, this means that God exists as, and only as, irs expressions. This project of knowing God, despite surface sirnilariries, differs radically from the traditional Christian concept of a transcendent God. The Christian God builds on the Platonic concepr of the “Good,“ and the neo-Platonic concept of the “One.“° The “Good“ and the “One“ are rranscendent rerrns frorn which our lives arc de rived, and againsr which they arc judged, as second order realities. Spinoza, like Njetzsche, will develop his concept ofa univocal and immanent God/Nature in opposition ro hoth, and this will be his irnplicit “anti—Platonism.“ Christianity‘s theology of rranscendence—as a religious Platonism—is exemplified by ‘[‘homas Aquinas‘ sraternent: “God is the essence of all, not essenrially, bur ° For Aquinas, God‘s essence is the transcendental caitse ofexistence, 1 causally.“ and stands in direct contrasr ro Spinoza‘s God whose essence is enrirely irnma nent in exisrence. Similarl) Spinoza‘s God deparrs from the neo-Platonic mys tical tradition emerging frorn Plotinus, in which the whole or One is emanarive. Here God is the cause of being while remaining in himseif being is his gift but not bis essence. As Deleuze explains it: “Ernanation is at once cause and gift: causality by donation, hut by productive donation“ (EPS, 170/154). 11 The One produces being, as a gift that we receive, and through which we participate in the One, But we only participate in the One rhrough what it gives (being) (rather rhan our being constructing rhe One directIy, making the One tran scendent and insuring that, as Plotinus argues, we have with it “nothing in com— mon.U “The giver is above irs gifts,“ Deleuze explains, “as it is above irs products, parricipable through what it gives, bur imparricipable in itselfor as it self therebygroundingparticipation“ (EPS, 171/155). Emanation gives risc to a hierarchy of being as closer or further away frorn the One, and laid out on a mysrical path of redernption/reabsorprion. This path finaliy tra-lscends being because being as exisrence is subordinared and outside the transcendent essence ofGod.‘ Spinoza‘s univocal and immanent God is also an alternative to the Christian doctrine of creatio ex frlihilo, in which God creates the world from nothing. This creation assumes a non-being pre-exisring being, and implies thar God as crearor is outside being, as its immanent bur nonetheless negative shadow. God on this account is expressed in the world in representations which cannot lay hold of bis essential (non)being, and, as Deleuze purs ir, “asserts and

Spinoza

47

expresses himseif in the world as immanent cause, and who remains inexpress

ible and transcendent as the objecr ofa negative rheologv thar denies ofhirn all that is affirmed ofhis immanence“ (EPS, 178/161). As Psuedo-1)ionysus, an important early exemplar of this tradition purs it: “l‘bere is no speaking of it [die divine], nor name nor knowledge of jr.“ 14 For negative theology God can not be grasped in bis essence, becanse this is by definition outside of human in telligence. Meister Eckhart‘s elaborarion of this idea is the most weil known example of this doctrine, and argues that any statement ofthe type “x is“ is said ofbeings, and so cannot be said ofGod. This leads us onto a mysric path to wards God seeking ro leave our human being behind. This mysrical spirirualism rests on a rranscendenral metaphysics, and is expressed in Meister Eckhart‘s claim: “Scripture always exhorts us ro go out of this world.“ 1 Spinoza OOSS rhis tradition, because for hirn God as Nature exisrs only as this world, mean ing our knowledge of the world must also be direct knowledge ofGod, Spinoza‘s Substance exisrs as the affirmative expression of its essence, it avoids a distinc tion between being and non-being, as it avoids a diaiectical rnysticisnl working rhrough negation. Finally, Deleuze writes: “Immanence is opposed to any cmi nence of the cause, any negative theology any method of analogy an)‘ hierar chical conceprion ofthe world“ (EPS, 173/157). Spinoza‘s God/Nature is, paradoxically, atheistic because its essence ex ists only as its expressions, and not in a transcendent dimension. IG In other words, everything is God and tlius God loses bis place. A metaphysics ofrhe divine cannot be maintained on the plane of univocal being. Nevertheless, and as we shall see, univocal being iniplies for Spinoza the rnystical possibil iry of knowing God as God knows itseif Spinoza‘s univocal and immanent God is therefore the conceprual condirion for what Deleuze calls, “a kind of mystical atheist experience proper ro Spinoza.“ ‘This is a strange atheism in which Spinoza ralks of nothing but God, a bit like the poet Pessoa, for whorn: “Only Nature is divine, and she is not divine.“ 18 lt was necessar‘, ofcourse, for Spinoza to talk ofGod in die seventeenth centtiry aithough jr did not pre venr bis excommunicarion from rhe Jewish church. 1) Deleuze argues that Spinoza‘s atheist “God“ is in fact the condition ofhis “radical emanciparion“ from both a religious and philosophical rranscendence. This is not however, to deny Spinoza‘s mysticism, but to affirm thar in formulating a mysrical un derstanding ofGod‘s univocity Spinoza deciares his atheism. In this sense, and as Deleuze argues in relation to Spinoza, “atheism has never been external to religion: atheism is the artisric power at work on religion.“ 20 In other words, Spinoza‘s atheism is a mystical affirmation of God‘s immanence in life. lt is creative in Nietzsche‘s sense, for expressionism is riothing hut die construcrjon ofnew possibilities for life, just as it is mvsrical in an arheistic sense, express-

Art as Abstract A‘Iachine ing a God/Nature enrirely immanent in its expressions. 21 Spinoza‘s mystical atheism will therefore he the formula f‘or an ethical-aestherics that is critical in Nietzsche‘s terms, as the overcoming of religious transcendence in order to live a creative life, in order to experience our real conditions (God/Nature) as they arc constructed in our expressions. Spinozas mystical atheism is therefore Christianiry‘s own artistic power, inasmuch as ir is, as Deleuze puts it, the

“transformation of constraints into a means of creation.“ 22 For Spinoza art mnust be arheistic in order to escape a meraphysics of representation, just as it must be mvsrical in expressing the univocity of God/Narure. As a resuir, my account of a Spinozian ethical—aesthetics will explore its arheistic mysticism, which, 1 argue, culminates in an understanding ofGod in which we find our higbest expressive power, in the creation ofGod/Nature itself. 2 MODES AND TIIEIR AFFECTS.

Unlike Substance, which is being in itseif, the modes arc being in something else (Ethics, 1, D5). They arc modifications ofSubstance, in the form ofpar ticular things. “Particular things arc nothing but affections of God‘s artrib utes,“ Spinoza writes, “or modes by which God‘s attrihutes arc expressed in a cerrain and dererminare way“ (Ethics, 1, P25c see also Ethics, 111, P6d). The modes arc the expression ofGod, as Spinoza says quite specifically: “Whatever exisrs expresses the nature, or essence ofGod in a certain and determinate way, that is, wharever exists expresses in a certain and dererminate way the power of God, which is the cause of all things“ (Ethics, 1, P36d). Extrinsic parts (modes) form a whole, but through their constantly variable relations this is a dynamic whole undergoing conrinual transformation, and forming an infi nitely changeable universe. As a result God, as Narure, and as expressed in the modes, is this permanent becoming, and has an infinite power ofexpression. 24 In Di/J‘rence andRepetition Deleuze seems to question the univocity of Spinoza‘s Substance hy confionring jr with Nietzsche‘s formulation ofeternal return. This raises many interesting questions abour Spinoza‘s relation to Nietzsche, and about I)eleuze‘s changing evaluation of Spinoza‘s philosophy of iinmanence. Deleuze suggests that Spinoza‘s univocity retains a hierarchi cal distinction between Substance and modes, and requires a Nietzschean “correction“ to become truly immanent. ihere still rcmains a difterencc hetween Substance and the modes: Spinoia‘s Suhsrance appears indcpendenr ofrhe inodes, while the rnodcs arc dcpcnd ein on Substaiice, hut as tbough en sornctbing otber than tbcmsclvcs. Suhsrance must itseif be said ofrhe modes and only ofthe inodes. Such a condition can be satisfied oniv at the orice oFt more pelleral caft oricai re—

Spinoza

49

versal aecording to wliicli being is said of bccoiuing, identitv of that which is diffcrent, the one ofrhc multiple, etc. (DR 40/59)

Deleuze believes thar unless Subsrance is said only of the modes Spinoza‘s God runs the risk of re-introducing a transcendenr term. In response to this problem Deleuze posits a Nietzschean Spinoza: “All that Spinozism needed to do for the univocal to become an object of pure affirmation was to make Substance turn around the m odes—in other words, to realize univocity in die form ofrepetition in die eternal return“ (DR, 304/389). Nietzsche appears here as the necessary (Deleuzian) condition ro understanding Spinozian Substance and its “expres sive immanence.“ This reading would avoid the danger Deleuze indicates, of an emanative Being, by affirming a univocal being in hecoining (i.e. univocal being as the repetition of eternal return). But as we bave seen, the “categorical rever sal“ Deleuze requires to fully afDrm Spinoza‘s Substance can he found in bis reading of Spinoza‘s attributcs in Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, published the same year as D/J‘rence andRepetition (1968). The aerributes borb constirute God‘s essence as Substance, while simultaneously and inseparably expressing God‘s essence in the existence of the modes. Deleuze argues that Substance is consrituted by an infinity ofartributes, and their expressions in modes exist on the same plane, a plane of immanence, where rhe attributes simulraneously con stimme the essence of Substance. This means Subsrance (being) is defined en tirely in terms of the modes (becoining), which express the essence ofSubstance 25 This will allow tbe modal expression of Substance in existence to (arrribures), be the simultaneous construcrion of an immanent (and therefore atheist) God in its essence. “What is involved,“ Deleuze explains, “is no Ionger the affirma tion ofa single substance, but rather the laying our ofa common plane ofimma nence on which all bodies, all minds, and all individuals arc siruated“ (SPP 122/164). Substance is, am this poinr, immanent to the modes and is expressed only in and as the process ofmodal becoming wbich constructs it. This will mean the trajectory Deleuze takes after 1968 does not follow the “correcrion“ of Spinoza bv Nietzsche, but insread rends ro privilege Spinoza‘s system inasmuch as it was already Nietzschean. As Deleuze and Guarrari pur it: “Whar we arc talking about is not the uniry of substance bot the infiniry ofthe modificarions that arc part of one another on this unique plane of life“ (AFP 254/311). The ethical question of how ro live therefore becomes a question of how one constructs rhis plane ofimmanence, for, Deleuze wrires, “im has to be construcred if one is to live in a Spinozist manner“ (SP1 123/165). Undersranding whar this could mean will form the bulk of whar follows, but suffice to say ir is the trajectory of Spinozas apotheosis in Deleuze‘s rhoughr, a rrajectory that is, as we have seen, indiscemnible from Deleuze‘s construction of wh,r

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50

Art as Abstract Machine

Let‘s take a closer look at the modal world ofbecoming. Existence is com posed of bodies continually commg into contact with other bodies in chance encounters. There is no prewritten divine plan, although, as Spino7a rather sar castically points mit: “Men have been so rnad as to believe that God is pleased by harmony‘ (Ethics, 1, App.I11). The modes as affections (afJcrio) arc deter mmcd on this infinire plane of modal interaction by their dynamic relations, every finite thing being an effect of another thing, which is itseif the effect of some other thing, aa‘ iifinitwn (Ethics, 1, P28). As a result, Deleuze writes, “a thing is never separable from its relations with the world“ (SPP 125/168). Modes arc determined through their continual interaction, and in this sense they arc “images or corporeal traces“ (SP1 48/68) ofeach other. As Spinoza sug gests: “The idea of any mode in which the human body is affected hy external bodies must involve the nature of the human body and at the same rime the na ture of the external bod‘ (Ethics, II, P16). This modal relation forms an affecr ‘ctus) as either the greater (composition) or lesser (decomposition) perfec— 2 («fl tion ofthe mode resulting from irs interaction with other modes. These modal (de)compositions constitute the tenor ofour lives, for, Spinoza explains, “we live in continuous change, and that as we change for the better or worse, we arc called happy or unhappy“ (Erhics, V,P39s). More usually, Spinoza uses the terms “joy‘ and “sadness“ to describe these changes. “By joy,“ he writes, “1 shall understand in what follows that passion by which the mmd passes to a greater perfection. And hy sadness, that passion by which it passes to a lesser perfection“ (Ethics, 111, Pils). Perfection is measured in terms ofa mode‘s power ofacting, the more a mode is positively affected, the more jr can act. The affect of oy causes the body to be afIcted in a greater numher of ways, (Ethics, IV, P38) whereas sadness decreases a body‘s power to be affected. The aim of life, quite sirnply, is maximum joy, which results in maximum power, and maximum ac tion. This is what Deleuze means when he says Spinoza‘s is an ethics ofaffirma tion. For Spinoza joy is found in a process of perfection that doesn‘t assume a pre-existing concept of the perfect. What is perfect and therefore good is sim ply what increases our power to act, and this is defined only by the immanent conditions ofeach encounter. Spinoza‘s Ethics offers a practical program for the production of joy which is underermined by any metaphysical concepts by which we could judge it. What is good always remains to be discovered, and is produced in the experimenral relations we have with the world. As Spinoza writes, “in ordering our thoughts and images, we must always attend to those things which arc good in each thing so that in this way we arc always determined to acring from an affect ofjo/‘ (Ethics, V, PlOs). Spinoza‘s Ethics is therefore an tithetical to a morality and is another reason it appeals to Deleuze: “Ethics,

Spinoza

5]

which is ro say a typology of immanent modes ofexistence, replaces Morality which always refers existence to transcendenr values“ (EPS, 269/248). Life is a question ofselection and affirmation, not ofjudgment, which presupposes an otherworldly truth represented by metaphysical idols and moral symbols. Christianity is the obvious example of such a system, estahiishiiig God as the ex ternal authority on behalf of vhich one judges. But such a system is always despotic, Deleuze argues, and “condemns Us tO an endless servitude and annuls any libratory process“ (ECC, 128/160). God‘s judgmenr descends on us frorn on high and damns us for our sins, lt is irnpervious to lived particularity and dc— mands oniy obedience, punishing our guilt when ir is not obeyed. Thomas Bernhard gives a beautiful description of this horror: “Whenever 1 entered the chapel,“ he writes, “even at the age offifteen or twenty, lt seemed to mc a place ofterror and damnation, a hall ofjudgment, a lofrv courtroom where sentence was passed on mc. 1 could see the relentless fingers ofthe udges pointing down at mc, and 1 always left the chapel with nw head bowed, as one who had heen humiliated and punished.“ 2 Spinoza‘s Ethics “Have Done with judgmenr,“ and in this echo ofArraud kilis God just as surelv as we will see Artaud kill man‘s or 28 ganism. Spinozian ethics involves making a typology ofour modal affects, ofour joy and sadness. But our joy and sadness arc not predetermined, and our typol ogy is always conditional on each new encounter, and appears onl according to its local and singular condirions. This typology ofaffect can obviously be used in considering art, and this would be the starting point ofa Spinozian ethical aesthetics. We arc, once again, in the heart ofa participatory critical process that defines the artwork, or the work ofart. Once more, we arc required to sense the real forces at play in the artistic field, rather than judge an object rhrough a moralistic aesthetic. Aesthetic experience in Spinoza‘s terms is always under con struction as the ethical process of selecting those encounters that increase our power and perfection. For Spinoza as for Nietzsche, the art-work, erhically un derstood, is this process ofconstruction, a process understood as an increase or decrease in power rather than as an ohject already determined. lmportantlv, this also changes our concept of the subject, as the subject is similarly processual, emerging only in the affectual selections that arc made, as the changing appear ance offorces that arc no longer simply “subjective“ in an organic or psycholog ical sense. The art-work exists wirhin an affecrual economy ofemergence, and cannor be “understood“ (in the precise sense we will see Spinoza give ro this rerm) by any kind ofjudgment. Deleuze is explicir on this point: ‘X h 1 at expert judgment, in art could ever hear on the work to corne? lt is not a question ofjudging otber existing beings, bot of sensing whether ibey

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agree or disagree with us, that is, whether they bring forces to us, or whether they return us to the miscries of war, to the poverty ofthc dream, to the rigors of organitation. As Spinoza had said, it is a problem of love and hate and not judgmcnr. [ ] Tliis is not subjecrivism, since to pose the problem in ernis offirce. and not in other terms. already surpasses all subjectivity. (ECC, 1361169) .

.

‘lb have done with judgment in evaluating art means overcoming the organiza don ofthe subject and object, and entering the artwork to construct its process of expressive emergence. The art work is constituted by modes and their affects, these affects emerging in a perception of the work that constitutes a singular body defined by its increasing or decreasing power and perfection, by the joy or sadness which defines its becoming. Art as affect is constructed in this proces sual life of modes, and as we shall see, it is as such that it expresses the imma nent infinity of God/Nature, This implies a revaluation of the subject-object relation as it is usually understood, and as it operates in aesthetics. A Spinozian ethical-aesthetics, as he puts it, “consider[s] human actions anti appetitesjust as 29 Art is therefore it were a question oflines, planes anti bodies“ (Ethics, III, Pref). an ethical practice, and as such expresses an increase or decrease in power, or force, (a becoming—“Affects are becomings“ (ATI 256/314)) and emerges in a pt) of participation. Art does not appear in a judgment assuming our ex teriority to die work, and requiring transcendeiital values to maintain every thing in its proper place (art in the gallery the market, in the studio, on the wall, but not in our life, not as a question oflife ). In Spinoza‘s ethical-aesthet ics the question ofart would be, as Deleuze puts it, “to make exist, not to judge“ (ECC, 135/169). Art emerges it is created—in our experimental relations, as what lives, as the increase or decrease in a body‘s power to act. This will lead us otit of our human, all too human form ofunderstanding: our imagination, anti the passions it evokes. For an ethical-aesthetic will affirm joyful affects in con structing a new mode ofexistence, an existence that expresses God, and under stands this expression as a becoming through which God constructs and so tmderstands itself This will be the atheistic mysticism of art. Before consider ing this culminating moment of understanding however, we must consider the rest of Spinoza‘s system. MODAL ESSENCE

All modes have an intensive and extensive quantity, each of which is infinite. The first constitutes modal essence, the second modal existence. The essence of a mode is immanent to its existence, but nevertheless exists independendy ofthe modes existence. Spinoza writes: “The essence of things produced by God does

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not involve existence“ (Ethics, 1, P24). How is this possible in a univocal ontol ogy? Modal essence, Spinoza argues, defines the mode‘s power to persevere in its being (Ethics, III, P7). Beyond this essential threshold a mode simply exists as something else. Tbis essence or power is caused by and exists in God eternally, whether or not the mode itselfexists. For Spinoza: “God is the cause, not only ofthe existence of this or that human body, hut also of its essence, which there fore must be conceived through the very essence ofGod, by a certain eternal ne cessity; and this concept must be in God“ (Etbics, V P22d). This necessity is that of an idea comprised in the idea ofGod, that is, an idea caused hy God, as opposed to an object or idea which finds its cause in relation to other objects or ideas (modes). Existence is not added to essence as a distinct actuality (for they remain immanent), hut is Deleuze writes, “a sort of ultimate determination re sulting fiom the essence‘s cause“ (EPS, 194/176). That is, modal essence does not cause modal existence, both find their cause in God, Modal essences form an important part of Deleuze‘s interpretation of Spinozian univocity for it is essence as degree ofpower that will provide the mechanism by which: “Being is said in a single and same sense ofeverything ofwhich it is said, but that ofwhich it is said differs“(DR, 36/53). In other words, it is through the capacity ofthe modes to affect and to be affected, ac cording to their essence or degree ofpower, that difference emerges in modal becoming. Existing modes arc composed of an infinity ofextended parts in relations of movemerit and rest, which express a degree of intensity (modal essence or power). The composition ofextended nature fluctuates in the con tinuous variation ofits affections and affects, but as long as a particular rela tion of movement and rest exists berween modes, it expresses a modal essence or power. Essences all agree on their immanent plane, forming as Deleuze puts it, “an actually infinite collection, a system of mutual implications, in which each essence conforms with all of the others, and in which all essences arc involved in the production of each. Thus God direcdy produces each essence together with all the others. That is, existing modes themselves have God as their direct cause“ (EPS, 184/167 see also 198/181). Modal essences exist in a reciprocal and differential determination ofeach other, and form a plane immanent to all modes, which thereby find their cause in God. “Thus,“ Deleuze argues, “essences form a total system, an actually infinite whole“ (EPS, 194/177). In understanding modal essence, we will understand the in dividuation ofmodes, hut because modal essences exist on a univocal plane of being immanent to existence, understanding modal essence will mean under standing the expressive power of the infinite whole ofGod in its actual expres sion as existing modes. Consequently, Deleuze states, “each finite heing must be said to express the absolute, according to the intensive quantity chat consti

Art

as Abstract Machine

tutes its essence, according, tbat is, to the degree of its power“ (EPS, 1971180). Once more, we are not fiir away frorn Deleuze‘s reading of Nietzsche‘s will to power as a quantity of force appearing in qualities. Individuation for Deleuze, in Spinoza as much as in Nietzsche, is always in tensive. That is, modal essence as power is simply a certain capacity to aff‘ect and be affected, a capacity which determines the individuated lirnits ofmodes in their constitutive relations of motion and rest, and speed and slowness (Ethics, II, PI3LI). l3ut modal existence is constantly hecoming, as each mode increases or de creases its power in the vibration of inorganic life. As a result, understanding modal essence will be a matter of understanding modal relation, and this will mean understanding how the becoming of modal existence expresses the cre ative dvnamism of God. At this point however, there remains the problem of the independence of Substance, as Deleuze posed it in DfJ2‘renceana‘Repetition. For in fact all modes express an essence, but not all essences involve existence. This apparent problem for univocity finds its answer in Deleuze‘s insistence the mutual implication ofessences, which means all modal existence expresses all the modal essences, despite the fiict that not every modal essence has a modal existence. As Deleuse puts it: “They [essences] are all compatible with one an other without limit, hecause all arc included in the production ofeach one, but each one corresponds to a specific degree of power different from all the others“ (SPI 651100).

Within the attribute all essences agree because they share God as their ef ficient and material cause, and together form God‘s infinite whole under that attribute or essence. Because modal essence exists in God as it does in modes, and because each modal essence is deterrnined through its relation to all others, in knowing a modal essence we will know God, This introduces another impor tant aspect to Spinozas philosophy, that any means of understanding essence must he immanent to existence. This means a materialist thought as inuch as a materialist mysticism, and requires us to consider more closely how understand ing ernerges and operates. Unsurprisingly, an)‘ understanding of God will be found in the ideas, which in the attribute of thought, and as moda] essence, arc both ours and Gods. As Deleuze puts it, “the things we know ofGod belong to God in the same form as that in which we know thern, that is, in a form com mon to God who possesses them, and to creatures who imply and know them“ (EPS, 142/128). What we must now understand is the process of reason re quired to adequately understand ideas in their modal essence, and how they ex press God‘s immanence in existence. ThL existence and the essence of the modal idea together titute con sciousness, hut it is a consciousness that will no longer be subjecu and will be

SpillOZil

able to think itself as divine. How? Every iclea has as its object something that exists (i.e. either a thing or another idea), and this idea can in turn become the object of another idea. This idea of an object is the objective reality of the idea. But every idea also exists in the attribute of thought as a rnodal essence, and as such it is independent ofthe mmd that thinks it. This essenrial aspect of the idea constitutes the formal realitv of the existent and objective idea:° liiese two re alities of the idea coexist in any given idea as its reflexive (objective) and expres sive (formal) aspects, these aspects being, I)eleuze savs, “one and the same thing“ (EPS, 139/125). This means consciousness no longer implies a subject as a psychological character or a moral entity consciousness heitig simply the af fect or “trace“ (objective idea) of an essence (formal reality) found in the attrib ute of thought. This implies—contra Descartes—a thought without an “1 am.“ This thought, which Spinoza will develop in the third type of knowledge, op erates in eternity and without a subject, without an organism-body, and with out a consciousness—idea. This subjectless and eternal thought is the thought of God, and is the aim ofSpinoza‘s nwstical atheism. INADEQUATE IDEAS

Inasmuch as we have ideas, they arc representative ideas and shouldn‘t be con fused with the idea that we arc, inasmuch as this constitutes our essence or formal reality We don‘t have this idea we arc immediately, and it is what we strive for in our understanding. The ideas that we have on the other hand, arc those given to us through perceptions of affections and affects. As Spinoza writes: “The irnages of things arc affections of the human body whose ideas represent external bodies as present to us“ (Ethics, III, P27d). These images arc what Spinoza calls inadequate ideas because they teIl us nothing ofour, or other essences, hut arc simply representations ofobjects relative to us (Ethics, III, P23d). Insofar as the mmd has such representative ideas, it is said to imag inc. lt means we imagine that an artworlc is heautiful, hut we dont understand this affectual relation in its essence. Ifwe wish to reach a true understanding of art according to a Spinozian ethical-aestbetics, we will have to overcome imaginative representations and the subjcctive consciousness that supports them. Ethical-aesthetics will therefore begin with the epistemological prob 1cm of the proper way to think, or in Deleuzian terms, the proper image of thought. As we have seen, reflexive ideas represent our random encounters and the consequent variation of affects according to their imagined causes. This knowledge however ordered, is inadequate as it imagines our experience ofthe world entirely in terms of the affects of objects upon Us. As a result, the

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process of representation operates through a human consciousness, hecause it requires a pre-existing subjectivity, as effected, to understand our relations to die world. The problem witb this, Spinoza argues, is that cach onc has judgcd things according to the disposition of his brain; or rat her has acccptcd affcctions of the imagination as things. We sec, therefore, that all the notions hy which ordinary people arc accus— tomed to cxplain Naturc arc only modcs ofimagining, and do not indicate the nature of anything, only the constituuon of the imagination. And be— causc tliey have names, as ifthey were lnotionsl ofbeings existing outsidc the imagination, 1 ca 11 themn beings, not ofreason, but ofimagmanon. [ 1 For the pcrfection oftbings is to be judgcd solely froni their nature and powcr i.e. csscnccl; things arc not more or less pcrfect hccausc rhcy please or offend meu‘s senscs, or because they arc of use to, or incompatible with, human naturc. (Ethics, 1, App.I11)

Spinoza offers a new evaluative framework for our understanding oflife, one in which we will have understood nothing, ofart or ofanything, ifwe remain at the level of the human imagination. Like Nietzsche, understanding life in its real conditions will mean overcoming the false consciousness ofhumans. This ncw way of understanding involves a radical revaluation ofvalue, for it is only frorn our point of vicw as human subjects that a relation could be bad, and could decompose our modal integrity From the point of view ofNature every relation is affirmative and expresses an increase, even those that arc, from our perspective, disasters. Deleuze‘s example is a car crash in which the fire that burns, the air that cscapes its comptession in the tires, and the flcsh combining with the dashboard, arc all compositions. ‘ As a result, bad things, sad affects 3 and all other negations arc simply symptoms of an inadequate and anthro pocentric uncierstanding (we could say “evaluation“) of the world. This means humanity, or at least our way of imagining such negative affects, will only be a hindrance to understanding God/Nature. In Nature, in the midst of its constant compositions, there arc no distinctions between the human and inhuman, just as therc arc none betwccn the natural and artificial: “Artifice,“ Dcleuze writes, “is fully a part ofNature“ (SPP 124/167). Spinozas ontology therefore carries remarkable episternological consequences: “There is nothing positive in ideas,“ he writes, “on account of which they can be called Luise“ (Ethics, II, P33). Whencvcr we regard something as false, and negate it, or when we arc ourselvcs negated and feel sad, we arc sirnply having an inadequate idea, caught in an in complete understanding, or imagination. As Deleuze rather wryly comments: “Sadness makes no one intelligent.“ 32 For in the inadequate idea of an imagina tion, 1 understand only the cffect (as decomposition) and not the cause (the

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composition in Nature), and in this sense, accorcling to Spinoza, 1 have only a “privation ofknowlcdge“ (Ethics, II, P35). On the other hand, however, when 1 understand an effect as causing mc joy, 1 retain this same imaginative cpistemological relation. 1 still expcriencc what Spinoza calls a passion, “a confused idea, by which the iiiind afTirrns ofits body, or of some part of it, a greater or a lcsscr force of existing than before, which, when it is givdn, determines the mmd to think ofthis rather than that“ (Ethics, III, General definition ofthc Affects). This determination ofwhat the mmd thinks by an imagined outsidc causc, wherher good or bad, indicates a lack ofpower, a failure to select and affirm, and an inability of the mode to ac tivcly express thc power of its cssencc, “Man‘s lack ofpower to modcrate and re strain the affccts,“ Spinoza writes, “1 call bondage. For the man who is subjcct to affccts is under thc control, not ofhirnsclf hut offortune, in whose power he so grcatly is that often, though he sees thc better for himsclf he is still forced to follow the worse“ (Ethics, IV, Pref). Modes arc captured by their imaginative representations, in which life is simply a series ofcauses and effects taking place betwcen individual things. Thus wc can only imaginc passions, even ifthese arc joyful, rather than understand them. As we shall sec, Spinoza libcratcs man from the bondage of the passions and, in Deleuze‘s hands, this will becomc a libera tion from the human itself We can casily sec how art exists on the level ofthe imagination, as the causc ofour feelings ofjoy or sadncss, and how these feel ings determine our judgmcnrs of jts qualities. But we can also sec how art‘s cx istencc as thc causc of those fcclings is dercrmined by man‘s faculty of imagination, rather than by anything intrinsic to art, Therefore the liberation of man‘s understanding from its human limitations will also mark a new mode of existence for art. A ncw image of thought will mean a new artistic image. ADEQUATE IDEAS / COMMON NOTIONS

Spinoza argucs that good and bad can only be undcrstood in tcrrns of actual mocial relations. What is bad for us iS contrary to, or reduces, our powcr ofac tion, and what is good for us agrees with our nature and incrcascs our power of action (Ethics, IV, P29—30). This means good and bad do not exist outside the material fluctuations ofour own being, according to the quality of our affccts as they express the changes in our embodied power. But whar dctermincs good and bad as thc increasc or decline ofmy power ofaction? As we bavc seen, thc passions ofjoy and sadness always arise from the imagination, as the affcct of somcthing on US from outsidc. Although joy is rclated to what is good, die pas sions ofjoy and sadness arc not the same as what is good and bad. Rather it is lack ofpowcr that is bad, and the power to act that is good. As Spinoza has it, “lack ofpowcr consists only in this, that a man allows himsclfto bc guided by

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things outsidc hirn. and to be determined by thern to do what the common con stitution ofexternal things demands, not what his own nature, considered in it seif, demands“ (Ethics, IV, P32). lt will be by doing what its own nature demands, in acting according to its essence or power that a mode will do good. This is when it will trulv be active, for then it is determined to action by noth ing other than its own power (i.e. by irs real conditions) and by an understand ing that is entirely adequate (Ethics, IV, P59d). How arc we to have adequate ideas of the essence of things? The first step, typical for the sevenreenrb cenrury, involves the nature of the idea. ‘«An affect which is a passion,“ Spinoza writes, “ceases to be a passion as soon as form a clear and disnnct idea of it“ (Ethics, V, P3). As a restilt, Spinoza ex— plains: “The more an affect is known tO us, then, the more it is in our power, and the less the mmd is acted on by it“ (Ethics, V, P3c). Thus, it is reason that separates an aftct frorn its imagined external cause, forming a true (clear and distinct) idea ofit (Ethics, 11, 1)2). As we can only experience an affect, at least initially, as a passion, as an external body acting upon ours, our understand ing of its essence will begin from an inadequate understanding of its affect. We know that when we feel joy it is hecause joining forces with that of an other mode has compounded our power of action. Alternatively we feel sad ness for the opposite reason, when our power ofaction has been decreased by another mode. As a result our understanding of affects, and our ethical abil ity to select the good ones, will come through knowing our body‘s “agree rnents, differences, and oppositions“ (Erhics, II, P29s). In understanding we turn our attention frorn irnagined effects to modal affect, and this change introduces US to what Deleuze calls “ethology“ Bodies now appear, as we have noted before, according to capacities of affect and af fection rather than any pre-existing identificatory schema. Ethology takes us beyond the form to understand the affectual dynamic of life, and a thing is no longer identified by asking “what is it?“ but by the question “what does it do?“ what is jr for mc? Deleuze explains the consequences: “Concretely, ifyou dc fine bodies and thoughts as capacities for affecting and being affected, many things change. You will define an animal, or a human being, not by its Form, its organs, and its functions, and not as a subject either; you will define it by the affects ofwhich it is capahle“ (SPP, 1241166). Ethology starts with an understanding of the affects, and leads to a clear and distinct idea of what is shared hy two modes, and what it is that enables the joyful affect they produce. What is shared in a joyful affect is a common modal essence, and when the understanding grasps this essence it has an adequate idea. As Spinoza puts it: “ifsornething is common to, and particular ro, the human body and certain external bodies by which the human body is usually affected,

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and is equally in the part and in the whole ofeach ofthem, its idea will he ad— equate in the mmd“ (Ethics, 11, P39). lt is rhrough joy therefore, that a clear and distinct idea ofwhat is common to the bodies in question, their “common no tion“ as Spinoza calls it emerges. This makes joy the prerequisite and first step towards understanding modal essence in common notions. Common notions, or adequate ideas, form the “second“ kind of knowledge through which we will be able to pass to the “third,“of God. As Spinoza argues, “the greater the joy with which we arc affected, the greater the perfection ro which we pass, that is, the more we must participate in the divine nature. To use things, therefore, and take pleasure in them as far as possible—not, of course, to the point wbere we arc disgusted with them, for there is no pleasure in that—this is the part of the wise man“ (Ethics, IV, P45s). This leads Deleuze ro clearly state the line ofethical af firmation laid out by Spinoza: “The primary question of the Etliics is thus: What must we do in order to be affected by a maximum of joyful passions?“ (EPS, 273/252). And as a result: “The second principle question of the Ethics is thus: What must we do to produce in ourselves active affections?“ (EPS, 274/253). These questions compose a Spinozian ethical-aesthetics; how may we create and understand joy? How may we understand the world from our own point ofview (from our active force), in its essence, and as it is related to all other essences in and as God? These may seem questions unrelated or only distantly related to those ofart. But in fact these questions include those concerning the production of art, and revalue thern as ethical and ontological questions. This revaluation removes art from its representarional and inadequate frarne of the subject-object, and from the realrn ofrhe passions, and reposes the question of its function in terms of understanding its affects. The art of creating joyful af fects will in this way find its “higher concepr“ in an understanding indiscernible from an atheist rnysticism. This will be Spinoza‘s “higher concept“ ofart. Deleuze finds this “higher concepr“ in what he calls Spinoza‘s “war cry“(EPS, 255/134), Spinozas claim that “no one has yet determined what the body can do, [...] For no one has yet corne ro know the strucrure of the body so accurately that he could explain all its functions“ (Ethics, III, P2s). For Deleuze, Spinoza offers philosophy a new model with this war cry—the bod 3 but the body as a process of material experimenration. That is, we know noth ing aborit a body until we know what it can do, what its affects arc, and whether its relations with other bodies decompose it, or compose a more powerful hody. The more affections a body is capable ofthe more joy it experiences, each in crease gives the body more power and more understanding (for Spinoza knowl edge is power), right up to the overcoming of its own limits in the mystical stare of heatitude. This path ro the absolute requires a rigorous program of experi mentation, as experirnentation is the way a body, as Deleuze puts it, “transcends

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its limits in going to the limit ofwhat it can do“ (DR. 37/55).Beyond our um— its we have thoughts that overcome our consciousness, thoughts in which an unknown body as the unknown of thought emerges. (SPI 17/28) This “un known“ is so only from the point ofview ofthe limits of human consciousness and organic integrity however, and Deleuze‘s reading of Spinoza quickly pushes beyond such inadequate ideas, As Deleuze and Guattari succinctly put it, “pure aFfects impiy an enterprise ofdesubjectification“ (ATI 270/330). To the point where, Deleuze says: “Experimentation on oneseif, is our only identity.“ 3 The path ofreason, in forming common notions, overcomes the human in us understanding of essence and ultimately of God. This path begins from discovering our maximum possible numher ofaffects, and as this is in princi ple infinite, we must live in a constant process of experimentation, forever seeking what the body cari do, in order to understand the eternal essence(s) of (od. As Spinoza writes: He w/o has a body capable ofa great many things has a mmd whose great Dem.: He wbo has a hody capabic of doing a great many diings is least rroubled by cvii affects, that is, by affccts contrary ro our nature. So he has the power of ordering and connectmg the affec— tions of his hody according te the order of the inteiiect—consequently, of bringing it ahout that all the affcctions of the body arc reiared to the idea ofGod, (Ethics, V, P39) est ptlrt is eterna!.

For Spinoza the formula is a simple one, the more affects the hody is capable of the more knowledge it will have (Ethics, II, P14). The nawre of our ideas therefore, will always be determined by the capacity of our body to experience life—our real conditions—and the process of understanding God (as weil as ofcreating art) will alwavs he carried out through a process ofexperimenta tion with the body. This means, for Deleuze, that Spinozas Ethics like Nietzsche‘s thought, gives us an anti-Platonic physiology ofart. “The body,“ I)eleuze writes in (inema 2, hut in direct relation to Spinoza, “is no longer the obstaclc that separates thought from itseif, that which it has to overcome to reach thinking. lt is on the contrary that which it plunges into or must plunge into, in order to reach the unrhought that is life. [ 1 ‘We do not even know what a body can do‘: in its sleep, in its drunkenness, in its efforts and resistances. To think is to learn what a non-thinking body is capable of, its capacity, its postures“ (C2, 189/246). The result of acting according to ethical reason, and this will have impor tant consequences for an aesthetics constructed on its basis, will be acting ac cording to what increases our power, according that is, ro what is good. In an art of common riotions experimentation is nothing bist the expression of .

.

.

Spinoza

6!

essence as the production, that is the construction, of a new bod a bodv con structed of common notions. Art, adequately understood, is nothing hut this experimental construction of common notions eventually leading to ideas ex pressing a mystical knowledge ofand as God. we understand our jov as the result of a common flotion, WC till— derstand how it is an action, an expression and affirmation ofour own power ofacting (ofour essence, or formal reality). As Spino7a puts it, “insofar as he is determiried to do something from the fact that he understands, he acts, that is does sornething which is perceived through his essence alone, or which fol Iows adequately from his virtue“ (Ethics, IV, P23d). I‘he more we know of what a body can do, the more we understand the essences it expresses. This process will culminate with the removal, or at least the radical minimization ofpassions (Ethics, V P20s). As a result: “Tue moreper/t‘ction each t/‘ing has, the more it acts anti the less it is acted oiz; anti converset» the ‚nore it acis, the more perfrct it is“ (Ethics, V, P40). We arc now in a position to understand more fuily the role ofaffirmation in Spinoza. Affirmation is the active expression of essence, inasmuch as understanding is an afNrmation ofour power to act in which an imagined joy expresses a common notion. Spinoza writes: “7 w 7 mmd strives to imaine only those things which posit its power ofacting. Dem.: The mind‘s striving, or power, is its very essence; but the mind‘s essence (as is known through itseif) affirms oniy what the mmd is and can do, not what it is not and cannot do. So it strives to imagine only what affirms, or posits, its power ofacting“ (Ethics, III, P54). For Spinoza, affirmation is the mechanism by which God is expressed, for it is through affirming my power ofauting that 1 express myselfas essence, this essence being in itseif an expression ofGod. As Deleuze puts it, each finite being must be said to express the absolute, ac cording to the intensive quantity that constitutes its essence, according, that is, to the degree of its power (EPS, 197/180). The degree ofeach things power (i.e. their modal essence) constitutes risc singularity of their modal existence, this existence now being understood in its essence and hence as an expression of the absolute. Through this process of understanding tbought opens out to an understanding of its own infinity Spinoza argues that the move from the first to the second kinds ofknowl edge, from imagination to understanding, involves the transformation of per ceptions of objects mnto concepts of essence. “1 say concept rather than perception,“ he writes, “because the word perception seems to indicate that the mmd is acted on hy die object. But concepi seems to express an action ofth mmd‘ (Ethics, II, D3,Exp.). Concepts, Spinoza will argue, involve knowledge ofour selves, an understanding of our affects not as imaginative, subjective represen tations, but as expressions of immanent essences.“‘ Understanding, on rhis

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account involves a knowledge that emerges Froni the affirmation of essence (conceprs), and as such dissolves subjective and representational distinctions (imaginative perceptions). In this way, and like Nietzsche, Spinoza provides a way for our human, all to human subjective imagination to overcome itseif, not once and for all, hut in an ongoing affirmarion of life. This process of under standing, in which concepts ofcommon notions emerge through an experimen tation at the limits of what a body can do, constructs a body heyond human perception which lives as the expression ofits real immanent power or essence, as the expression of God. Common notions express modal essences, but more than this the under standing that constructs common notions gives an adequate idea of an essence‘s formal reaiity in the attribute. To have an adequate idea or concept of an essence means to have an adequate understanding of all essences, as they constiture any singular in the attribute. As Spinoza explains:

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anothe; ana.‘ so an to injinity“ (Ethics, Ii, P48). The affects of the modes arc generated from their chance encounters, hut these affects arc derermined by the modal essences they express. Reason will be the way in which we may un

derstand these affects not as effects caused hy other modes, hut as acrions ex pressing the modes essence in a common notion. In understanding common notions we construct affectual assemblages expressing God/Narure, in vhich subjective imagination is redundant, and affects arc necessar We hecorne. ro use a term Deleuze introduces in (Jinerna 2, hut which is appropriare here, a “spiritual auromaron“ (C2, 170/221) capable of understanding and Iiving the necessary relation of man and the world, or of modes and rhe God/Narure they express. ART AND ETHICAL AESTHETICS

essence

A truc idca most with that itseif), what iorcllect must necessarily be iii Nature. Bur Nature there is only one Substance, namely, God, and there arc no affections other than those which arc in God and which can neither he nor hc conccived without God. Thcrcfore, a actual intellcct, whether finite or infinite, most comprehcnd (,od‘s artrihutcs and God‘s affcctions, and notlung cisc. (Ethics, 1, Pi0d) agrce

is containcd

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the

in

In understanding the common norion, objective and formal idea come together in the concepr. In understanding therefore, modes break out of the recursive imagination of causes and effects, to express their immanent essence as the expression ofGod. The more we act according to essence, and the more we understand and aflirm that essence in common notions, the more we act and think as imma nent expressions of God. This means that the actions of an intelligent person, beiiig acrions determined entirely by their essence, are actions always already dc termined bv the infinire and necessary connection of essences in God, and as God. Consequently inodal action properly understood, as Spinoza famously ar gues, dispenses wirh the inadequate idea of free will. lt is only the consciousness ofinadequate ideas which gives risc to the subjective illusion of freedom, and so free will only exists in a subject which imagines its passions as caused by outside objects. In understanding the realm of modal essence, everything is already de cided, for when we understand and afTirm a common notion we understand jr as entirely necessary in irs relation to all orher essences. Spinoza purs ir this way: ‘1n the ‚nina‘ there is no absolute, orfiee, will; bat the mina‘ is deterrnined to will this or that by a cause which is iikewise deterinined by anothet and this again by

We have seen how the affectual hody construcred bv an understanding ofcom mon norions arises fiom perceptions, but cannor be understood as such. Common norions arc conceprs, as is art when jr is adequarely undersrood. i‘his introduces another crucia] element of Deleuze‘s onto-aesrherics, one we have al ready seen hirn develop in relation to Nierzsche: art adequately undersrood no longer appears as a represenrational image. Undersranding art as a lepresenra rional image means for Spinoza rhar we experience jr through the affecrions thar make jr present to us. As Spinoza purs ir, “the affecrions of the human body

whose ideas presenr exrernal bodies as present tO us. we shall ca 11 images of things, though they do not reproduce [exrernall figures ofrhings. And when the mmd regards bodies in this way, we shall say that jr irnagines“ (Ethics, II, P17s). But art adequately undersrood cannor be representational in this way and has becorne a concept that is truly expressive. 35 For Spinoza, expressions rarher than representations arc univocal, as only rhey give an jdea thar is equalh‘ in Substance and mode. Furthermore, ir is expression rhat is adequare ro rhe parallelisrn of ideas and bodies, as represenration implies rhar one affects the other. Representarion is ofcourse, a kind ofknowi edge, hut it is an inadequare one that must assume a position ourside of irs ob jecr in order ro create an analogical sign for it.‘ An expression on rhe other hand, encompasses object and idea in expressing rheir essence as a common no tion. As Deleuze wrires: an idea represents an object, and in a was‘ expresses it; hut ar a decper level idea and objecr express something tliat is at oncc common to thcni, and yet helongs to each: a powcr, or risc absolute in nvo ofirs powcrs, those oftbinking or lcnowing, and bcing or acting. Rcprescnrarion is thus Iocatcd •

•

Art as Abstract Machine in a ccrtain exirinsic relation of idea and object, where cach elljoys an ex— picssivitv over and ahove representation. (EPS, 335/3 17)

This means the duality between suhject and object required by representation will be transformed. Expression includes neither suhject nor object inasmuch as it is their common notion, or essence that is expressed. Similarly, art does not represent an ohject for a suhject, and cannot be a signifier (“a crazy concept for Spinoza,‘ Deleuze comments).‘ I)eleuze does not tire in making this point: Uhere is clearly a theory of the sign in Spinoza,“ he writes, “which consists in relating the sign to the most confused understanding and imagination in the world, and in the world such as it is, according to Spinoza, the idea of the sign does not exist. There are expressions, there are never signs.“ 8 Art for Spinoza will consist ofexpressions, and will be an art ofcommon notions rather than represenrational signs. Art will be the construction of assembiages of affects through an erhological understanding of the world, a construction thar ex presses modal essence. As Deleuze puts it: “Spinoza‘s whole Operation consists in making, in imposing a kind of assembiage o,faJJcts which implies likewise a critique of representation.‘ ‘1he understanding of art-works gained through this practice will be conceptual rather than perceptual. This is not to say that art transcends the hody, hecause all understanclings have their parallel in a bodily encounter from which common notions emerge, but understanding art as ir ap pears through a bodily encounrer means forming an adequate idea. How do we reach this concept ofart, and lrnw, precisely, does it involve the body? The physical perception of objects given in an imagined image al ready involves an affect. and is experienced as an increase or decrease in our power to he affected. Experiencing art, even inadequately as an image, is al ready a dynamic experience of relation, ofjoy and sadness. This rneans that although understanding art will produce a concept expressing modal essence, imagination will nevertheless be the starting point for this process, because such an understanding most start from its joyful affects. Ethical-aesthetics al ways begins wirli what we like, with what affirrns our power to act. Spinoza introduces a new understanding of art, no longer as inadequate representation, but as adequate expression. As a result, ethical-aesthetics will not ask what an artwork means or represents, but what it is capable of, what lt expresses. An expressive artist is the one who affirms new common notions, and consrructs new affectual assemhlages. The artist has hecome critical, and is simply the name for the action ofaffirmation tliat emerges f‘rom modal en counrers properly understood. The artwork is, similar to las hapter, indis— cernible from this action as its emhodiment and expression. Unly by asking whar the artwork does, what joys it brings arid what essences it expresses, will

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we understand it. But this understanding is not once and for all, and is proces sual, resumed each time the work is perceived or encountered. This means the art assemblage includes on the one hand the affects emerging from its en counter, and on the other remains open to connections yet to come. Art is al ways under construction. Aesthetics is always a quesrion about “what happens?,“ about the process ofcomposition iliat is expressed in a work. This is entirely appropriate given the ontological assumption ehat, as Deleuze puts it: “Everything in Nature is just composition“ (EPS, 237/216). This is the sense in which ethical life requires a certain artistry, an abiliry ro compose our selves, to select the good encounters and construct frorn them the maximum number of joyful af‘fections. Deleuze states this expandecl concept of art clearly: “The common notions arc an Art, the art of the Erhics itself: organiz ing good encounters, composing actual relations, forming powers, experi— menting“ (SPl 119/161). But common notions arc not only constructed through an ethics that could be broadly described as artistic, they arc also rransformative in a way we have already seen I)eleuze make a condition ofarr. In understanding common notions life hreaks free of i ts imaginative represen tations, and expresses structures that cross the boundaries of the organisrn, of subjects and objects, and the consciousness that maintains theni. Common notions therefore provide the beginnings of an art practice which is: 1) Specific to the body of the affectual assemblage constructed and the essence which is expressed. These assemblages arc always changing as their rela tions change, meaning the work ofart, or artwork is never separate frorn the be coming of the assemblages it is part oE 2) This participatory practice is capable ofproducing new concepts in response to new conditions. Art practice becomes an empirical experiment with what art can do, constructing an experimental body as a real expression of its real conditions, an expression of God/Nature‘s essence. 3) Under these conditions the criteria for successful art-work arc no dif ferent than those determining any successful creation whatsoever. Aesrhetics in these terms is an ethical-aesthetics, a practice rather than a theorv of the object, the practice of composing affectual relations into common notions. This exper irnental art defines a practice, an art-work that is inseparable from the works it creates, as it is from the common notions it constructs and expresses. The question reniains, however, whether art expresses common notions in a way that could be identified as belonging specifically to something called “art.“ lt seems to mc that both in the last chaprer and in this one, Deleuze is consistent in calling for an art and an aesthetics which is ethically and ontolog ically defined, and undetermined by any material or formal givens. Under these conditions art must be understood in terms of Deleuze and Guattari‘s state ment, “art includes no other plane than that of aesthetic composition“ (Wl

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195/1 85). This immanent plane ofcernposition defines art in rerrns of its affec mal relations, in terms ofwhat Deleuze and Guattari will call sensations. ‘Vhat Spinoza shows us however, is that this plane of aestheric composition cannot be understood except as the plane ofetbical action, and this means die revaluation ofart within a wider frarne of ethical-aesthetics. This does not however, exclude an understanding of art as a particular aesthetic practice, with its own mecha nisins ofexpression. lrideed, Deleuze, and Deleuze and Guattari develop van ous typologies witbin specific arts in order to explain parricular aesthetic processes ofcomposition, and we shall look in detail at those developed for cmerna and for painting. But art as an ethical-aesthetics in a Spinozian sense can not be lirnited to these rnechanisrns, and gives instead the conditions by which life—including those things we cornmonly ca 11 “art works“—can be understood as expressive, and by which “art“ becornes art. TOWARDS GOD: BEATITUDE, ORTHE THIRD KIND OF KNOWLEDGE

Adequate ideas, or common notions express essence, and as such find their necessity in their relations to all the other essences making up the infinite at tribute of thought. The less the mmd is acted upon by passions the more ideas it understands adequately, leading to a point where, according to Spinoza: “The mmd understands all things to be necessary, and to be determined by an infinite connection ofcauses [i.e. in and by God] to exist and produce ef fects“ (F,thics, V, P6d). Adequate knowledge understands the affects as they arc in their modal essence, that is, as they arc in God. Such knowledge does not exist subjectivelv as ifofan object, but immanent in God, as a part which expresses God‘s necessary and interconnecred whole. As Spinoza explains it, “our mmd, insofar as it understands, is an eternal mode of thinking [i.e. essenceJ, wbich is determined by another eternal mode ofthinking, and this again by another, arid so on, to infinity; so that together, they all constitute God‘s eternal and infinite intellect“ (Etbics, V, P40s). Knowledge constimted by adequate ideas is not the operation ofa subject hut of an “eternal mode of thought,“ one that affirms the idea qua essence in the attribute ofthought. As a result, suhjective consciousness is overcorne in the understanding, where we do not affirm or deny anytbing of a thing (imagination), the revalued thing (as affectual assemblage) affirms or denies (expresses) something of it self(essence) in us (SPF 8 1/79). This is an important moment in Spinoza‘s “mystical“ thought, atid means, as he puts it, “our mmd, insofar as it perceives things truly, is part of the infinite intellect of God; hence, it is as necessary that die minds clear and distinct ideas are true as that God‘s ideas are“ (Ethics,

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11, P43s). In the adequate knowledge ofcommon notions we begin to know God not frorn the outside as in vere, in relations to the objects that affect US, but from the inside, as expressions ofGod, as God‘s modal essences (Ethics, V, P22). As Deleuze writes, “common notions arc ideas that areforrnally ex plained by ourpower ofthinking and that, materially, express the idea of God as their eJficient cause“ (EPS, 279/258). The conimon notions arc the f)lds from the human to the divine, they express the immanence ofmodal existence and substantial essence, and as a result, “give us direct knowledge of God‘s eternal infinite essence“ (EPS, 280/259). This knowledge of common notions emerges from the affirmation of oy, and charts an etllology in which we be come active. This becoming active is the creation ofa new body, one that 1 ex perience as it is in God, as God‘s expression. The becorning active of ethical-aesthetics makes the art ofethology the expression ofGod, and makes ofthe understanding an atheistic mysticism. lt is this claim, marking the high point of Spinoza‘s path ofreason, that we will now go on to exarnine further. In the first type of knowledge, or imagination, we perceive affects as caused by outside bodies. Our ideas act as representational signs of these ex tninsic deterrninations. In the second type of knowledge we understand what is common to our body and another, and construct an affectual assemblage or common notiori, acting as an adequate idea. This idea expresses an essence, which in turn exists only through its combination with others according to the eternal laws ofGod/Nature. Common notions therefore express essences, but only from a modal point ofview and not yet as ideas that God has ofit seif That is, common notions express God‘s essence but do not give an ade quate (clear and distinct) idea ofit. Common notions remain ideas about the essences of perceived bodies and their relations, which in expressing God‘s essence only point towards its adequate understanding. But in doing so corn mon notions “propel“ (EPS, 299/279) us into a new domain, that of the third type ofknowledge (Ethics, V, P28). “We begin,“ Deleuze wnites, “by forming common notions that express God‘s essence; only then can we understand God as expressing himself in essence“ (EPS, 301/280). Here our knowledge ofGod is no longer restnicted to common notions, and we reach the bearitude of knowing how we arc ourselves modal expressions of the essence of God. Beatitude is the expression of univocity in life, for in the third type ofknowl edge, Deleuze writes: “A reasonahle being may [. . . 1 in ins wa)‘, reproduce and express the effort of Nature as a whole“ (EPS, 265/243). An idea we have is essentially true, and gives the third kind of knowl edge, when we understand in as an expression ofGod‘s essence rather than as an expression ofa niodal essence (the second kind of knowledge). To under stand how this is possible we must rernember certain distinctions Spinoza

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makes, The idea ofGod 1 have is an objective idea, and remains at the second level of knowledge inasmuch as it arises through my understanding of rnodal essence. This idea exists within the attribute of thought, which constitutes God in bis essence, and is inseparable from bis power of thinking as this con stiwtes the formal attribute ofthought. Spinoza began the Ethics by assuming the univocity of God, which meant God could only be understood through itself This in rum imnplies, as Deleuze has it, “the idea ofGod is the idea in its ohjective being. and the infinite intellect is the same idea considered in its for mal being. The rwo aspects are inseparable; one cannot dissociate the first as pect from the second“ (SPP, 80/90—1). As a result, God‘s infinite intellect, in constituting bis essence in the attribute ofthought, and as the formal being of bis essence, constitutes the essence and existence of all ideas (Ethics, 1, P17s11). Consequently, we have the opportunity to understand our thought as God‘s inasmuch as, according to Spinoza: “God is the efficient cause of all things which can fall under an infinite intellect“ (Ethics, 1, P16c1). Beatitude will mark the mystical moment of thought where an objective idea of God will be adequare to and expressive of its formal being, of God as thinking heing. Beatitude will be an understanding of God such as God has ofitself Beatitude will arrive in an idea of the absolute immanence of God and the modes, but vill nevertheless maintain the distinction of Substance from modes, and of God‘s infinite essence fiorn die modal essences and existences thar express jr (Erhics, 1, P1 c3). As Spinoza explains: “God‘s inrellect, insofar 6 as it is conceived to consriture rhe divine essence, differs frorn our inrellect horb as to its essence and as to its existence, and cannot agree with it in anything ex cept in name“ (Ethics, 1, P16s11). This “name“ is the univocal attribute of rhought, in which God‘s essence as intellect is constituted, and the modal essence of an idea is found. Beatitude will be an idea adequate to the attribute as God‘s essence, and which will require the final overcoming of“our“ intellect to become a singular idea God has of itseif. But this overcoming will emerge from “our“ intellecr inasmuch as it understands, because this understanding finds its condition in the univocity of the attribute. This transformation ofthe understanding into beatitude obviously needs careful explanation, as it is both the culminarion, and the most obscure point of Spinoza‘s Ethics. An idea has a cause inasmuch as it has an essence that ir expresses. and which is thought as another idea. But every idea also has God as it‘s formal cause, different fiom the idea in its essence and existence. These rwo senses of idea meet in the uni vocal attribute ofthought, “in which,“ Deleuze writes, “rhe effect is produced and hy which the cause acts“ (SP1 53/78). As Spinoza has it:

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Singular rboughts, or this or thar rhought, arc modes which express Cod‘s narure in a certain and dererminare way. Fherefore there belongs to God an attribute whose concept all singular thoughts involve, and through which they arc also conccived. Thought is one of Cod‘s infinite attributes, which expresses an etemnal and infinite essence of God, or God is a thinking thing. (Etbics, 11, Pl d) The formal cause ofall ideas is God‘s infinire intellect in its essence as attribute, which is expressed in modal form as ideas in their essence and exisrence. The

idea giving the third kind ofknowledge therefore explains its essence qua attrib ute as formal cause, in an idea expressing this cause itself So what constirutes this “rrue idea“ ofthe third kind? God‘s essence is for mal in the artributes that constirure bis narure, God‘s power of acting being the essence or “formal being of things,“ and God‘s power of thinking being the essence or “formal being of ideas“ (Erhics, II, P5d and P6d). As Spinoza ex plains. this simply means that the modes find their formal essence in God‘s at tributes, that is, God is the cause of all thinking and acting things (Ethics, 11, P8). Objecrive ideas find their necessity and order in being caused by God‘s for mal essence. This means, Spinoza writes, “whatever fillows formally from God‘s infinite narure follows objectively in God from bis idea in the same order and with the same connection“ (Erhics, 11, P7c). God‘s formal essence, insofar as we are concemned, is irs infinire intellect and body, and these compose all modal bodies and ideas in the infiniry of affecrual assemblages according ro their di vine order. The artribures therefore constiture the formal heing of all things and ideas, and the rhimd kind ofknowledge will give an adequate idea of this divine essence. Beatitude will only ememge in rhought however, because it is only the attribute of thought which has the capaciry to express all the other artributes and their modes in objecrive ideas, including rhe formal being of thought irself This is the final, remarkable, consequence of Spinoza‘s rheory of parallelism, and opens up the mysrical power ofunderstanding. Reason will, ar irs furrhest reach, comprehend God‘s essence in its formal being as rhinking thing, as the neces sary co-implication of all things and ideas within the attribute ofthought. [-bw is this possible? First of all, Spinoza amgues: Thefrrrnal being ofideas admits God as a cause only insofar as he is explained as a thinking thing, md not insofar as he is explainea‘ by any other attribute. That is, ideas, bot!, ofGod attributes and ofsin gular things, admit not die objects themselves, or die things perceiz‘ed as their effi cient cause, but Godhirnsef insofir as he isa thinking thing“ (Erhics, 11, P5). As we have already seen, rhere can be an objective idea ofanyrbing, including ideas. When inadequare, these ideas understand their cause as an idea ofanother body, “

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hut when they are adequate they understand and express their essence in a com inon notion, whiJ necessarily expresses the interrelated co-determination of essences constituting the attribute of thought. Fiiially, in the third kind of knowledge an idea comprehends its formal reality, meaning it understands its cause not in terms of its own power as an essence, hut as an idea of God expressing itseif in other words, the third kind of knowledge understands an idea as caused by God, iii its formal essence, as expressing the whole of Nature. Between the second and third types of knowledge therefore, we move, ac cording to Spinoza, “from an adequate knowledge ofcertain attributes ofGod, to an adequate knowledge of the essence of things“ (Ethics, V, P25d). This is a move from knowledge ofessence in its attribute, to knowledge of God‘s essence as attribute, expressed in modal existence as an idea. In the second kind of knowledge we have an idea ofGod, hut only through the common notions that express it, the formal reality of God not being one of these notions (EPS, 309/288). An understanding ofessence in the third type of knowledge however, expresses the firmal reality of God as thinking thing as the immanent cause of this idea, and so comprehends God‘s essence in all its attributes and modes. Pierre Macherey describes this final stage ofreason nicely, “by returning into it seif,“ he writes, “without escaping its own order, thought discovers everything contained within Substance, insofr as the latter is expressed in the infinity of all its attributes.“° The final end of pbilosophy for Spinoza is the point where we understand the formal cause of our objective ideas as God‘s infinite intellect, which contains the infinity ofattributes that make up his essence, and the in finity of modes in their essence and existences, An objective idea of God as for mal cause of that idea is therefore an adequate idea of Gods essence. In the third type of knowledge then, an objective idea has moved from an idea ofaffects, as inadequate (imagination) or adec uate (understanding), to an idea of the whole 1 ofGodlNature as cause of and expressed in, this idea (beatitude). To put it in other, inore personal words (Spinoza‘s), it is the adequate idea of my essence, attained in the second kind of knowledge, “which therefore must be conceived througb the very essence ofGod (by 1, A4 [‘The knowledge of an af fect depends on and involves the knowledge of its cause‘]) and this concept must be in God“ (Ethics, V, P22d). Jr is therefore possible fbr a finite intellect to know everything, to t.snder stand its own constitutional infinity as the formal heing of God. At this point our power of comprehension would be the same as our power of expiession, and we would know and express God as God knows and expresses itseif This is the culmination of Spinoza‘s mystical atheism, because it is an understanding ofmy own essence and existence that comprehends and expresses the infinity of all that is. This is an understanding of our existence as the univocity ofGod in the

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immanence of its formal essence and objective expression, and is the meaning ofthe phrase of Guattari‘s that began this chapter, “1 am God most of the time.“ An idea in the third type of knowledge expresses all ofGod, inasmuch as God‘s formal essence in the attribute of thought is its cause, and includes an idea of everything. Ideas of the third kind will therefore be ideas we have of God‘s essence at the same time as they will be ideas of our essence as God conceives them. For in the third kind of knowledge, Deleuze writes: “We think as God thinks, we experience the very feelings ofGod“ (EPS, 308/287). In beatitude, or an atheistic mysticism proper to Spinoza, we reach the full reversibiliry of Substance and mode Deleuze calls for in Df7‘rence anti Repetition. In the third type of knowledge the modes and Substance become entirely immanent to each other on a single univocal plane. “Our essence,“ Delenze writes, “is a part of God, and the idea of our essence a part of the idea of God, only to the extent that God‘s essence explicates itself through ours“ (EPS, 309 10/288 9). In this way, as Deleuze and Guattari pur it, remembering Spinoza: “ihe One expresses in a single meaning all ofthe multiple. Being expresses in a single meaning all that differs“ (ATI 254/3 1 1). Finally then, it is the univocity of the attribute that is capable of render ing God and modes fully immanent in the third kind ofknowledge, hut it is expression that ensures their relation mainrains their distinction whilc being enrirely dynamic and co-determining. As a result, Deleuze writes: “In Spinoza the whole theory ofexpression supports univocity; and its whole import is ro free univocal Being from a state of indifference or neutrality, to make jr the objecr of a pure affirmation, which is acrually realized in an expressive pantheism or immanence“ (EPS, 333/309). This is why Spinoza calls the rhird kind ofknowl edge the “salvation of man,“ because, as Deleuze explains, once more evoking the mystical path of reason: “The path of salvarion is the path of expression it seif: to become expressive—that is, to become active; to express God‘s essence, to be oneself an idea through whicb the essence ofGod explicates itself to have affections that are explained by our own essence and express God‘s essence“ (EPS, 320/298). The salvation of man then, will be, quite precisely, the over coming of man, because the becoming active of man is bis or her becoming ex pressive, and this. in the final moment of an ethical-aesthetics, is a becoming-divine. At this, the high point ofreason, the thinker expresses everyrhing in their idea ofGod, so expressing the “greatest human perfection“ (Etbics, V, P27d) and the greatest joy.But this joyful expression ofones own perfecrion is beyond all affecrions ofjoy or sadness, because one‘s perfection is expressed rhrough a purely “intellectual love“ of God. This love is only found through ideas of the body and irs essence, and is not itseif an extended thing. in this intellectual love,

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or beatitude, all affections and images of things arc related to the idea ofGod, (Etbics, V P14) making the body immanent to, hut distinct froin the mind‘s love o[God (Ethics, V, P16). Things exist in God, but God can only be truly expresscd in die beatitude of the idea. Deleuze develops this understanding of bodies in tcrms of intensity Bodies arc always extended things, and although their ideas lead to knowledge. bodies are not themselves knowledge. Beatitude, as a result, will involve bodies hut not be bodies, the world of ideas being purely intense. “What interests nie in this mystical point,“ Deleuze says, “is this world of intensities. There, you arc in possession, not merely formally but in an ac complished way. lt‘s no longer even joy, Spinoza finds the mystical word beati tude or active affect, that is to say the auto-affect. But this remains quite concrete. The third kind is a world of pure intensities.“‘ The concreteness of intensities is therefore quite different from that of things, and indeed this is what Spinoza argues, that extended things exist in durarion, whereas essences exist eternally (Ethics, 1, DeC8). As he puts it: Whatever die mintlunderstands under a species ofeternitv, it widerstands notfrom thefact that it conceives die body pres ent actual existence, hut frorn die fict that it conceives the body essence under a ipecies ofeternity“ (Ethics, V, P29). In the tbird kind of knowledge it is precisely the body‘s essence that is understood as the eternal and infinite essence ofGod (Ethics, V. P29s). God‘s essence exists in eternity, which means it has an intense existence rather than an extended duration. As a result, in understanding our or another‘s essence as eternal we conceive things, through God‘s esseuce, as real and yer intense beings (Ethics, V, P30d). Again, it is the univocity of the attrib ute of thought whicli is crucial here, as it is only insofar as the mmd itselfis eter nal (i.e. part of God‘s attribute of tbought) that it can have knowledge of the tbird kind (Ethics, V, P31). This is not to finally privilege ideas over the body, for although the eternal is “a certain mode ofthinking“ (Ethics, V, P23s), rhink ing is the expression of “the essence of the body under a species of eternity“ (Ethics, V, P23s), That is, in the mystical and intellectual love of God everything attains its concrete existence as intensity and in eternity Our greatest perfection, our salvation, will therefore leave all notions of ourselves as volitional, affective, and extended subjects behind, in becoming the rhoughts ofGod. Ariy form ofpsychological consciousness has evaporated, leav ing, as Deleuze calls it, a purely “explicative logical formalism“ (EPS, 326/303). We have become purely formal elements in the systematic explication of God/Nature, spiritual automatons in which all “human“ affects have been over come, “not only that love, hate, and the like arc destroyed,“ Spinoza explains, “but also that the appetites, or desires, which usually arise from stich an affecr, caniiot be excessive“ (Ethics, iv P4s). 2 In place oF the human suhjective emo tions is an inhuman intellecrual love that surpasses them, the impersonal mv of “

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God/Nature as ir affirms and expresses itself As Spinoza writes: “7he mind,‘ in tellectua/ love ofGod is die very love ofGod by w/iich Gon‘ loz‘es hinise//‘ not insofrr as 1w is injinite, hut insofar as he can be exp/ained by die human mind essence, con sidered under a species ofeternity; that is, the mind intc/icctual love of God ispart ofthe injinite /ove hy which God loves himseif‘ (Erhics, \/ P36) The in rellectual love of God is an action in which the mmd contemplates itself, inasmuch as God is its cause. In contemplating ourselves we contemplare God, in under standing the part we understand the whole. This is ivhat Deleuze elsewhere calls a “percept“ (ECC, 148/184) or “directvision“ (EPS, 301/281) ofGod, and rhis is a term we will come back to in Chapter Five, vhere it play an important part in art‘s production ofsensation. As Spinoza has it, the third kind ofknowledge is, “an action by which God, insofar as he can be explained rhrough the human mmd, contemplates himself, with the accompanying idea of himself [as the causej“ (Ethics, V, P36d). Finally then, the third kind ofknowledge is the for mula for Spinoza‘s mysticism: “God‘s love of men and the mind‘s intellectual love of God arc one and the same thing“ (Ethics, V, P3 c). Or as Deleuze and 6 Guartari pur it, we have become indiscernible hecause we have hecome the world, and entered the “impersonality of die creator“(ATP 280/343). .

THE AR1‘ OF ATHEISTIC MYSTICISM Knowing what the third kind ofknowledge is namrally leads us ro the question ofhow we rnay attain it. lt is precisely the empirical compositional experiments that the body has made in discovering what it can do, that has lead to the un derstanding of intense essence as an idea ofGod. A body capable ofa great many things has ethically optimised or affirmed its composirional jov. This means it is not troubled by bad affecrs, and does not express affects contrary to its nature. Such a body affirms its own power of acting and has succeeded in ordering ancl connecting its affects according to the necessary order ofessences as rhey con stiture the attribute. As ideas arc always parallel to bodies, the ethical ordering ofaffecrs implies ideas that arc adequate ro these affects. This knowledge ofthe body is, as we have seen, the condition for the cternal and intellectual love of beatitude. The rarefied realm of the rhird kind ofknowledge is therefore insep arable frorn an ethical-aestherics as the critical practice oflife. As Spinoza writes: “Ile who bas a body capable ofa great mmiy diings has a mmd w/‘ose greatestpart is eternal“ (Ethics, V, P39). Although the third kind of know‘ledge is entirely in rellecrual, it emerges from an experimenral understanding of rhings, and under stands rhe essence ofGod only inasmuch as jr involves existence. Consequenrly as Spinoza purs it: “To conceive rhings under a species oferernity therefore, is to conceive things insofar as rhey arc conceived through God‘s essence, as real

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beings, or insofiir as through God‘s essence they involve existence“ (Ethics, V, P30d). Eternitv is not gained by transcending the bod 3 but through under standing its affects. The body under these conditions expresses irs intense eter na! essence, rather than marking our distance from essence. Spinoza‘s iiitellectual love of God is not a transcendence of the body hut is the true im manence of God‘s essence and existence in the attribute ofthought. Only in re lation to this immanence of existence and essence cari we understand the mind‘s ideas as eternal. Eternal essence is expressed in bodies but this essence as God, rather than simply as expressing God, is only understood in the mmd. The point, in relation to art, is that art cannot be thought outside the par allelism of ehings and ideas. Art must be the construction of ethical bodies through a critical practice, as much as the thinking of ideas expressing God‘s essence. The minds mystical comprehension of the essence of God, inasmuch as this emerges from the construction ofaffectual bodies (assemhlages), offers a beatific image of art. Art is an experirnental practice expioring what the body can do, and as such is the continual emergence of new expressions (new exis tences, new affectual assembiages, new becornings) of intense essence. Parallel to this emergence is an understanding of these expressions in a true idea ofGod. Together this expenmental body and its intellectuai understanding, produce a mystical but atheist art. This art exists as the expression ofa dynamic world of affectual assernblage, and as an understanding ofeternal essence as this consti tutes GodlNature. Art in these terms is inseparable from beatitude, which de fines the univocal expressions of an ethical aesthetics. Once more then, we return to our previous problem regarding the status of art as we would usuaily understand it. Ciearly the mystical understanding of the intense world ofdivine essence does not exciude art from a beatific knowledge. Furthermore, important aspects of an ethical practice, such as selection and affirmation couid be broadly defined as “artistic.“ None of this however, could be regarded as telling us much about art‘s specific forms of expression. Spinoza‘s ethics, considered as an aes thetics, can be seen as an affirmative creative process constructing affecrual as semhiages as expressions of intense essence, and wbose ideas, properly understood, cuiminate in a rnystical love ofGod/Narure. But ethicai—aestherics in these terms is not particular to art, even ifit involves, as Deleuze says, an art of the common notions. We can, at this point, both sum up, and look forward to the work yet to be done. The question as to arts specific modality within Deleuze‘s ethical-aes thetics, as it has so flur emerged from bis readings of Nietzsche and Spinoza, no doubt remains. Its answer awaits a consideration ofart‘s various types ofmate riality and bow these Form their specific affectual assemblages. This will teil us much more about how art operates within the broader definition of an onto

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ethical—aesthetics so &r undertaken. As a result mir attention will now rum to Deleuze‘s work on cinerna and Francis Bacon, as weil as to bis and Guattaris dis cussions of painting. But this promissory declaration shouid not detract from whar has already been achieved, most importantly the definition ofa new image ofart, even ifthis has taken us weil away from wbat we may have previously con sidered it to be. Art thought through Spinoza‘s Ethics exists only in its composirional rela tions and their affectual becomings, and is understood as intense expressions of the infinitude of God/Nature. This mystical understanding is aiready a libera tion ofart from its duties ofrepresentation, and its confinement along the sub ject/ohject perceptual axis. Michael Hardt puts it clearlv when he argues that Deleuze‘s use ofexpressionism “constirutes a polemic againsr semiology on on tological grounds. A system of signs does not recognize being as a productive dynamic; it does not help us understand being rhrough irs causal genealogy. [. . . 1 a theory ofexpression seeks to make the cause present, to bring us back to an ontological foundation by making clear the geneaiogy of being.“ Spinoza offers an alternative understanding of art, one in which it expresses the produc tive dynamics of being, and so piaces its ontological foundation on the same plane of immanence as its expressive existence. This is alread a lot, and is clearly the prepararory work necessarv to the more specific examinations of a “mysti cal“ art that are to follow. In a broader sense however, and once more to finish in an ecstatic register as appropriate to a discussion of Spinoza as to Nietzsche, ethical-aesthetics transforms my relations into a question ofart, it challenges me to experiment with joy in order to create common notions which connect mc to the world. This is an art theory that gives the proper weight to the work of art, and gives its proper ontological importance, its proper erhicai dimension (as we shall see, a dimension which is also political), and its properly cosmic nature, even if‘ it does not yet describe its specificity. Spinoza‘s erhical-aesthetics ofexperimenta tion expresses the intense Substance of God, and offers an understanding ofthe way we are folded into the infinite. Spinoza gives a new Image of art, an art of living as a living expression ofGod, and an atheistic mysticism as a new belief in immanence. Art is the expression of this living communion wirh God, the constructjon of an immanent spiritual dimension, as life and in life. God has appeared, as our sensation.

Chapter Three

We Need New Signs: Towards a Cinematic Image ofThought

My eyes arc useless for they render back oniv die image oftlie known. My whole hody musr becorne a constant beam of light. moving with an ever greater rapidiry, never arrested, never looking back, ne er dwindling. F1enry Miller, Jvpic fCapricorn. INTRODUCTION

We have seen the affect emerge within Nietzsche‘s physiology of overcoming and Spinoza‘s mystical trajectory ofreason as the at once singular body and mic unity of art. These arc, we could say, the simultaneous directions of art‘s constant movement. Although this movement defines the onto-aesthetic realit ofart as such, there is nevertheless an art composed specifically of movmg im ages: cinerna. Cinema is a machine for the production ofsigns that both affect the body in a new way, and give us a new image ofthoughr. Deleuze‘s rwe books on cinema will explore this body-brain through a highly innovative taxonomy ofits signs, a taxonomv that develops a new serniotic ofcinema, gives a fresh ac count of cinema‘s historical development, and as the condition of possibility of these contributions, offers a new ontology ofcinenia itself Deleuze has given cinema studies new signs, and the resuits of his startling generosity undouhtedly remain “to come.“ 1 can‘t pretend eo exhaust his store ofexpiosives here, and in stead will limit myseif to tracing Deleuze‘s ontology of cinema‘s temporal signs. in order to explore the ways it gives us a new image ofthought. Deleuze bases his discussion ofthe cinema on the werk of Henri Bergson. Although much ofwhat he finds there will echo what we have alreadv encoun tered in the first two chapters, Deleuze‘s use of Bergson in relation to cinema also has its own necessity. First, jr provides an explicit ontology of perception, which Deleuze takes primarily from Bergson‘s A[atterandMemory. Second, this book was published in 1886, making it directly contemporary to the new artform of cinerna. Deleuze will hegin then, from the idea that Bereson‘s hook

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gives the philosophical elaboration of cinema‘s great discovery: the moving— image. Cinenia invents a neis‘ type of sign, and will require—indeed it almost seems to anticipate—the new philosophy of irnages Bergson provides. But cm-

erna develops Bergson‘s philosophical insights in its own directions, acting as a kind of experimental laboratory for his ideas that soon produces remarkable new inventions. The most irnportant is the time-image, which moves beyond Bergson and, through L)eleuze‘s interLession, offers cinema back to philosophy as a new image ofthought. lt is as ifthe modern exemplar of‘Nietzsche‘s artist plulosopher is a film-maker, an experimenrer in the realrn ofcine-thought. Deleuze begins by outlining two possibilities for cine-rhought, which we could call cinema‘s before and after. The first, Bergson‘s explicir position, sees cinema‘s photographie technology as lirniting it to a “snapshot“ of the present, an “im mobile section“ of the constantly moving aggregate ofimages—each acting on every other—constiruting die becoming of the universe (this is what 2 The second, the position Deleuze, following Bergson, calls “duration“). Deleuze finds in Bergson, sees cinema invent a new image capable ofperceiving and extending this universal movement in a “mobile secrion ofdurarion“ (Cl, 22/36).“ This alternative repeats the by now familiar Deleuzian distinction be rween representation and expression, this rirne in the Bergsonian register Deleuze believes is appropriate to cinema. What is in the prcscnt is what the image ‘rcptescnrs‘,“ Deleuzc writes, ‘hut not the image irself which, in cinema as in painting, is never to he con— fused with what it represems. The image itsclfis ilse system ofihe relation— ships hetween its elements, that is, a Set of relanonships front which tbe variable present oi/y flows. [ What is specific in the image, as 50011 as it is creative, is to niake perceptihlc, to make visible, relationships of time which cannot he seen in the rcprescnted object and do not allow them— selves to be rcduccd to the present. (C2, xii)

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writes: “lt cannot be said that one is more important than the other, whether more beautiful or more profotind. All that can he said is that the movement image does not give us a tirne-irnage“ (C2, 270/354). So although eacli image emerges at a specific tirne (movement-images before, and time-images after WWII), and due ro its own historical conditions (although these remain stirn mary and peripheral in I)eleuze‘s account), their difFerence cannor be reduced to historical factors and is, in fact, ontological. This means that it is not enough for a film to be produced after the war for it to produce a tilne-image. In fact, Deleuze claims that Hollywood persists in using the formulas of the movement image, which in its hands has degenerated into a politicaliv repressive form. This introd uces another i mpo rtan t aspect of Deleuze‘s ci ne-rhoughr, its political dimension. Hollywood after the war, he argues, inberits the Nazi dc— velopmenr of cinema‘s power of producing “psychological automaton“ (C2, 264/345). The cinema of the masses, Deleuze caustically remarks, “has degen erated into state propaganda and manipulation, into a kind of fascism which brought togerher Hitler and Hollywood, Hollywood and Hitler“ (C2, 164/2 14). Deleuze positions the time-irnage as an aesthetic intervention into this realm ofthe Spectacle, opposing the political passivitv produced and re produced in the consumption of mass media. 4 Cinema‘s interventions act as a “shock-therapy“ (appropriately administered in part bi‘ Antonin Artaud, as we shall see), which create new temporal experiences forcing us to think be yond the clich, its repressive politics, and its first and last bastion, the human, all too human. THINGS RE-ENTER INTO EACH OTHERS 5

...

Here Deleuze succinctly defines the Bergsonian conditions of cinerna‘s onto aesthetics—the constiuctiori of an image capable ofexpressing duration in “re lationships of time.“ The cinema hooks develop in detail two cinematic expressions of rirne. First, the movement-image ofclassical cinerna expresses the whole oftime (du ration) as its immanent cause, but indirectly, through already given conditions ofpossibility. Second, modern cinema hreaks wirb these conditions and directly expresses duration in a time-image. Before examining this difference in detail, it is important to point our that the difference between these two cinematic im ages is neither hierarchical nor strictly chronological, but is a difference in kind—they ernerge from different ontological co-ordinates. In fact, Deleuze

Deleuze begins cine,na 1 with a “commentary“ on Bergson‘s concept of movernent. Bergson proposed in Matter anti Memor)‘ that “real“ movement

could no longer be thoughr through its representation, a proposition Deleuze will test in relation to irs contemporaneous instantiation, the cinema. Bergson argues thar previous philosophical atternpts to represent movement through abstract categories of tbought failed. “You cannot reconstitute movement,“ Deleuze paraphrases, “with positions in space or instants in time: that is, with immobile sections“ (Cl, 1/9). Space and time, as categories ofthought, trans late movement into their abstract coordinates, and think movement as a se quential numerical passage appearing as a line drawn through space and time. Movement is thereby reduced to points on a graph. “‘Fhe numher r would al ivays stand for the same thing,“ Bergson writes, “it would still count the same number of correspondences between the states of rhe objecrs or systems and the points of the line, ready drawn, which would be then the ‘course of

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time“(CE, 9). Reason produces this representation by defining movement as a difference of degree berween abstract points that in themselves remain the same. Movement becomes measurement. But Zeno‘s paradoxes bad already shown the impossihiliry of thinking movernent in such a way, and revealed its diffrence in kind from this numerated, “scientific“ and represented move 6 This (mis)representation of time hy tbought rests, for Bergson, on a ment. failure to understand the difference between rwo sorts of time, a scientific present that is continually coming to pass, and duration as all of time co-ex istilig with the present. As Bergson puts it: “The systems science work with arc in an instantaneous present that is always being renewed; such systems arc never in that real, concrete duration in which the past remains hound up with the present“ (CE,22). Science deals with a present that dies and is reborn again at every instant, making of each present instant a frozen image ofdura tion that does not reveal the changes occurring herween these fixed points. in producing these “immobile sections“ of time reason remains unable to think the movement ofchange—becoming—and is therefore unable ro account for its own genetic dimension. At the same time as the movement-image appears in cinema then, a new image of rhought capable of thinking it appears in Bergson‘s concept of intuition. The temporal conjunction of Bergson‘s phi losophy and cinema‘s invention takes us, L)eleuze argues, heyond a scientific as the general and abstract condition of experience, rowards a ment-image expressing its conditions of real experience (B, 27/17). Deleuze‘s use of ßergson in relation to cinema therefore converges with bis attack on Kantian aesthetics that we have already discussed, for in the movement-image time and space no longer form the autonomous transcendental conditions of all possible experience, but “these conditions can and must he grasped in an intuition [. . j precisely because they arc the conditions of real experience.“ 8 The conditions of our experience of movement, Bergson argues, arc found in the virtual dimension ofduration, which although not actual is never theless real, and produces the movements we perceive. Duration is the past, inasmuch as the past is no longer understood as a nurnbered line leading to the present, but as the immanent All, ehe whole oftirne in its continual interaction that constructs the becoming of the present. Duration is the immanent and on togenetic life of becoming, of which ehe present is its expression. As Bergson puts ir, “duration means invention, the creation offorms, the coneinual elabo radon ofthe absolutely new“ (CE, II). Duration can‘t be said to be in space or time, because it is the becomingofspace and time, Deleuze argues duration is an open see, or perhaps beeter, ehe open “itself“ ehe virtual dimension both ex pressed and construceed anew in actual inovemene. 9 For Bergson the infiniee movements ofduraeion and ehe fiiite rnovemene of images arc not differene in .

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kind, for the latter arc the actual expressions of the former once rhey have passed through the brain (B, 24/14). For Deleuze cinema functions in this way—like a brain—and conseruces moving-images, as becornings, expressing their real and immanent conditions: “a change in duration or in ehe whole“ (Cl, 8/18). When irnages arc understood as representations of objects moving in space and time they give, Bergson suggests, “only a snaps/ot view o/‘a transition“ (CE, 302). These snapshots cancel the genetic movernene ofduraeion, and only give a fiozen image ofwhat escapes thern. This snapshor depends on ehe mech anism that produces it, the rather too slow machinery of reason, which only by freezing movement produces its representaeion. Opposed eo this snapshor, even ifit is at 24 frames a second, Deleuze seeks a real image ofduraeion, and this will require both a moving—image, and a ne‘ perceptual (and indeed concep— tual) mechanism to produce ie. Deleuze provides both, and so rehabilitares einerna within Bergson‘s philosophy, by shifeing our perceptual rnechanism from the projector and its projection of snapsboes, to ehe screen. “The brain is ehe 10 This changes evervthing, for on ehe brain-screen a new image and screen.“ new percepeion—a new intuition—emerges. Now, as Deleuze vriees: “lnseead ofgoing frorn the acentred stare ofthings to cenered perception, [we] could go backup towards ehe acentred stare ofehings, and get cioser to it“ (Cl, 58/85). This diseinction Deleuze makes berween “descent“ and “ascene“ is one rnade be eween ewo images of rnovemene. These ewo images emerge from their cerebral rnechanisms, reason (ehe projeceion ofsnapshots) anti intuition (moving images on the screen). As Bergson argues: “The first only unwinds a roll ready prepared. In principle, ie mighe be accomplished almost inseantaneoush like releasing a spring. But the ascending movement, which corresponds eo an inner work of ripening or creaeing, endures essentially, anti imposes its rhythm on ehe firse, which is inseparable from it“ (CE, Ii). As such, intuition is a “superior ernpiri— cism,“ one Deleuze ofeen calls for, thae would be capable of perceiving ehe real ontological conditions of‘ each actual prception. This affirmation of intuition as ehe rnechanism ofa new cine-brain takes us “bevond ehe human condirion“ and ies inadequate raeionality, to reveal “the inhuman and superhuman“ condi— eions ofcinema and ehought—duraeion (B, 28/19), Deleuze calls this inhuman dimension ofduration—and it is a term he takes frorn Bergson—a “spirieual realiey“ (Cl, 11/22). For Deleuze, as for Bergson, ehe spirieual reaiiey of duration is hoth atheist anti mystical, inas— much as it exists as eneirely material “cerebral vibraeions,“ (MM, 23) hut these vibraeions keep every ehing “open somewhere hy the finese ehread which at taches it to ehe rest of ehe universe“ (Cl, 10/21). This “spiritual“ movernene is imparted ehrough ehe percepeual process of intuieive ebought—ehe of ehe cine-brain—ehae returns to things eheir living hecoming in duraeion.

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“Spirit,“ as Bergson puts it, “horrows from matter the perceptions on which it feeds and restores thern to matter in the form of rnovernents which it has stamped with its own freedom“ (MM, 249). As a “mystical“ movement simi lar to that we found in [)eleuze‘s reading of Nierzsche and Spinoza. Bergson‘s “spirit“ is immanent to life as s‘hat gives life, a type of thought utterly mate rial, hut one rhat takes us beyond the rational limits of human being. This life is what I)eleuze believes the Spirit ofcinema discovers as the vital movernent that animates its images. Spirit then, is not a Christian concept, and refers to nothing transcendent. lt is the immanent and inorganic life ofduration, ex pressed in the perceptive rnechanisrn ofthe brain as it constructs the new. The problem for Deleuze will therefore he to show how the cine-brain “ascends“ the immanent and virtual plane ofduration vithout transcending its actual images, to show, in other words, how the cine-brain constructs images in such a way as ro express rheir spirirual dimension. A NEW PRACTICE OF IMAGES AND SIGNS

The conjunction of cinerna and Bergson is an obvious one, Deleuze argues, inasmuch as for l3ergson: “The identity of the image and movement sterns from the idenrity of matter and light“ (Cl, 60/88). This is the simple staternent by which Deleuze shifts cinema‘s mechanism from projector to screen. Deleuzejus tifies this sbift by Bergson‘s physics, a radical physics that posits the equivalence of matter and irnages, and of images and lighr.‘ 2 The movement-image emerges fiom this Bergsonian equivalence of light in its mareriality and an image in movement, because as Deleuze points out, if “light is movement, Ithenl the movement-imnage and die light-image arc two facets of one and the Same ap pearing“ (Cl, 49/73). This is the materialism Deleuze takes from Bergson: “1 he movement-image is matter irself, as Bergson showed“ (C2, 33/49). The materialit ofcinema‘s moving-image is luminosity; it is a propagation ofenergy as lighr. Iniages, as luminous rnoving matter arc “vibrations“ (CI, 8/19), move— ments thar express the infinite connectiviry and creativity of the open and im manent plane ofduration. As Deleuze puts it: “IMAGE=MOVEMENT“ (CI, 58/86). Things arc irnages (i.e. perceptions) as movernents of matter, rather than stade anti immaterial representations ofrhis movement. As a resuk, and as Deleuze suggesrs, the universe is cinematic, “the universe as cinema itself, a meracinema“ (Cl, 59/88). This is the most cosmic and cinematic hrmulation possible of Bergson‘s ontology, one that perfectly expresses Deleuze‘s ontologi cal approach ro aestherics. Deleuze, following the first chapter of Bergson‘s Matter and Memory, now dissolves rational consciousness into the universal action and reaction of

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images in movement. The brain too is marter in movement he argues, a series ofimages of duration. The cosmos-cinemna rherefore involves a new brain, for as Deleuze puts it: “How could iny brain contain images since it s one image among others? External images act on mc, transmit movement to mc, and 1 return movement: how could images be in mv consciousness since 1 am my— selfimage, that is, movenient? And can 1 even, at this level, speak of ‘ego,‘ of eye, ofbrain and ofbody?“ (Cl, 58/86). The implication is that eye, brain and body arc all images, and “perception“ must beconie the ascending movement expressing their duration. Perception has ceased to he representational, and has become expressive movement. 1 The question now is to understand this expressive mnovement as im appears specificaliv in the cinema. Cinema‘s movement-image “perceives“ the world in a “mobile section“ of its movemenrs, this section being composed of die skot, and irs connection to other shots in montage. Montage extends (or “ascends“) shots by constructing an “out of frame“ they express, shors and their out of frame world being in reciprocal presupposition. But this relation is dynamic; each shot expressing changes in die world, while these changes arc in turn re constructed by die world montage has created. This makes of a film an open whole where world and image arc conrinually interacting to compose a film‘s duration. This interaction is further complexified by the fact that perception is not outside this process hut participates in jr. The brairm is a screen. This means the movement-image 110 longer implies a human eye ar the apex ofa cone ofvi sion, hut a cine-brain as the fold of duration. To understand die movement image, and the duration it both expresses and construcrs we niust therefore understand the cine-brain that produces ir. CINEMA-BRAIN Although pre-war cinema produces a new image of movement as a movement image of duration, duration does not appear directly in this image. Deleuze (once more following Bergson closely‘) argues that duramion is a consistent plane of images making up moving matter, and on this plane, he wrires: “The move ment-image and flowing matter arc strictly the same thing“ (Cl, 59/87). But for “things“ to exist as perceptions an image niust be removed from the infinite movenments ofaction and reaction comprising duration, and becomne a “sign.“ This happens with the inmroduction of an interval between the auromatic ments constituting the plane, and lt is onlv this interval that is capable ofcon stituring a “point ofview“—a perception, Deleuze puts jr like this: The tliing and the perception ofthe thing arc one amid the same thing, one and the same image, but related in one or otber of two systems of rcfer—

8q

Art as Abstract Machine ence. The thing is the Image as lt is in itself, as lt is related to all the other iniages to whose action ii completely submits and on which it reacts im— mcdiately. But ihe perception of the thing is die same Image related to an— other special image which frames it, and which only retains a partial action froni it, and onlv reacts 10 it mcdiately. (Cl, 63/93)

We must be careful to keep these rwo sides of the thing, as image and as per ception, in mmd, because Deleuze will tend to use the same term—“rnove ment-image“-—for both of them. ‘l‘he “special image“ that “frames“ the thing as image, is an interval. This interval extracts the thing from its infinite rela tions in duration by confining the reception of these movements to one ofits sides, and its reactions to die otlier, But in doing so the interval performs a further operation, which is to subiract from the image all the movements of duration which do not directly involve die interval‘s own interests. This is the function ofperception that enables the interval to take the appropriate actions eriabling it to develop and survive (Cl, 62/92).1 ‘This “living“ interval is, for Bergson (as für Deleu7e), the brain, the Operation ofwhich remains entirely material. The brain is constituted by the “cerebral vibrations“ ofa things ac tion upon it, and the analysis of this action transrnits vibrations to the body enabling it to make the appropriate reaction. The brain, Bergson writes, is “an instrument of analysis in regard to the movernent received and an instrument ofselection in regard to movement execured“ (MM, 30). The movements of‘ duration now appear relative to the interval-brain operating as a screen, they arc no longer images strictly speaking, Bergson writes, they are “pictures“ (MM, 36). Perception represents the movement of external bodies to the brain, which then determines a corporeal response. Perception and action are the rwo sides and the rwo functions of the brain-interval, and accordingly the centre they constitute is a sensory-motor, in which, Deleuze writes: “One passes imperceptibly from perception to action“ (Cl, 65/95). But this passage through the interval nevertheless involves a further stage, which Deleuze (and Bergson) calls “affection,“ which is “the way in which the subject perceives it selfor f‘eels itself‘from the inside“ (Cl, 65/96). The subtraction ofa percep don-image is immediately connected to memory, which relates perceived movement to a “quality“ or a lived state (an affection), which will determine oHr reaction, or lack of it. ‘l‘hrough this process we arc able to function as or ganisrns, as body—brains whose temporal continuiry is maintained hy rational processes in which, “rhe qualities of matter arc so many stable views that we take ofits [duration‘s] instability“ (CE, 301). Given that the brain is a screen, the sensory-niotor describes cinematic movernent-images as much as jr does die images we in f‘act arc. Cinema before

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the war, in other words, assumes the same perceptual mechanism für its actors as do our actions. Once more, it means that Deleuze‘s investigation into the einerna will be at once ontological and aesthetic. In fact, the basic division of the cinema‘s movemen t-image Deleuze uses: perception-images, affecrion- images and action-images, is that Bergson suggests in bis ontological analysis of human perception. What rernains for Deleuze to do, bis comrnentary on Bergson now over, is to develop these images into a taxonolny of cinerna‘s signs. He will do so by turning to the work of the American serniorician Charles S. Peirce. PEIRCE‘S SEMIOTICS OF THE “SIGNALETIC MATERIAL‘

“Peirce‘s strength,“ Deleuze writes, “when he invented semiotics, was to con ceive of signs on the basis of images and their combinations, not as a function ofdeterminants which were already linguistic. [...] Peirce begins from the phe nomenon or frorn what appears“ (C2, 30/45). In other words, Peirce provides Deleuze with a semiotic system adequate to Bergson‘s ontology of the image. For both Pierce and Bergson, the image as sign is material rather than linguis tic, and as a result this “signaletic material“ is not reducible to representation (C2, 33/49). Peirce puts it in slighdy different terms: “A sign,“ he writes, “must have a real physical connection with the thing it signifies so as to be affected by that thing.“ 16 Furthermore, the sign is für Peirce, as the image is for Bergson, in separable from the brain and its cerebral vibration—thought. Once more this has a slightly different formularion in Peirce, who emphasises how in being thought a sign becomes a thing connected to another sign that signifies it, ad infinitum. “Thus,“ Peirce writes, “there is a virtual endless series of signs when a sign is understood.“ 17 This is Peirce‘s way of emphasising the material conti nuity of thought, für, as in Bergson, thought is a movernent eneompassing the whole of image-matter. Pci rce‘s serniorics is therefore compatible with Bergson‘s ontology as in both the sign shares a materiality wirb what it expresses, and is inseparable from an endless movement of thought as its condition ofpossibil ity, and as what returns it to its constitutive infinirv (für Peirce and Bergsün both, this is the “virtual“). As we have seen, an image is prüduced in the interval-brain, or as Peirce puts it: “A sign is something which stands für another thing to a mind.“ 8 In other words, the sign is the emergence of the movements of duration in thought. To understand how this works we must explain Peirce‘s most famous idea, ofwbich the last quote was a succinct statement, that of the signs “triadic relations.“ Peirce begins, according to Deleuze, from the same point as Bergson, with the perception-image. As a result, the perception-inlage is the degree-zero ofa Peircean-Bergsonian serniotics of the cinerna because it is the simple fact of

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appearance. lt is, l)eleuze writes, “an image which no longer simply expresses movement, but the relation between movement and the interval ofmovement“ (C2, 31/47). The sign‘s first element, its “Firsmess“as Peirce puts ir, is a quality or power as an affect. This is a feeling which refers only to itseif, “t is as it is for itselfand in itself,“(C 1, 98/139) Deleuze writes, and is the appearance of the af fection-image. Peirce‘s “secondness“ refers on the one hand to the affect‘s “real physical connection“ to sornething else, it is “what is what it is in relation to a second“ (CI, 98/139), On die other hand, the “secondness“ ofa sign appears in the action an affect gives risc to, and is in Deleuze‘s terms, an action-image. “Thirdness“ refers to the necessiry of these rwo moments of the sign heing in terpreted in thouglit, which in turn returns us tO firstness as this interpretation also exists as a sign, involving its own triadic relations. In this way any sign passes through thought, which does not determine the sign in an arbitrary fashion, but according to a relation or law, For Peirce, thought gives interpretations accord 20 Thirdness therefore appears ing to “a sense of government by a general rule.“ in “relation-images,“ or “mental-images“ as Deleuze sometirnes calls them, which will constitute for cinema, “a new, direct, relationship with thought,“ (Cl, 198/268) inasmuch as the relation-image gives an image of the rules gov erning the perceptions, affections, and actions of the sensory-motor (Cl, 200/27 1). These images arc “interpretations which refer to the element ofsense; not to affections, but to intellectual feelings of relations“ (Cl, 197/267). Thirdness gives an image of thought as it operates in and as the movement image, and “reconstitutes the whole ofthe movement with all the aspects of the interval“ (C2, 32/47).21 Relation-images, in other words, make thought itself the objcct of an image, showing the laws ancl habits which interpret and con nect sensory-motor perceptions, affections and actions. Each moment in Peirce‘s triadic sign finds expression in cinema, but be fore discussing each sign in more detail we will look at the relation-image, be cause here we gain a first glimpse of the way cinema moves beyond movement-iniages, and so beyond Pierce and Bergson, to produce time-images. lt is Hitchcock, according to l)eleuze, that “introduces the mental-image into the cinerna“ (Cl, 203/274). But Hitchcock, despite creating an image of thought, also pushes these images to their limit, where Deleuze sees something that goes beyond it. This “beyond“ emerges at the limit of the rnental-image, where Hitchcock‘s characters arc “assimilated to spectators,“ (Cl, 205/276) and in this role arc able to re-exainine the “nature and stattis“ ofmovement-irnages themselves. This re-examination, Deleuze writes, is provoked by “the rupture of the sensory-motor links in a particular character“ (Cl, 205/277). Hitchcock‘s films often revolve around the struggle of the protagonist to “understand“ im ages that confound them, images that arise from a rupture of the sensory-motor,

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such as the broken leg of the photographer in Rear Window, or the dizziness of the detective in Vertio. The smooth inental functioning of these characters stumbles over a gap that opens in their sensor —motor interval, a gap that pro duces signs that cannot be understood vithin the hahitual rnechanisms ofa co herent mental-image. These characters can no longer give a rule to the signs that confront them, and arc thrust outside the interval, and rhought. into “a pure op tical situation“ (Cl, 205/276). The hero reduced to the pure uncomprehending eye of his telephoto lens in Rear Window, or the incredihle vortex of ¼‘rzo, where thewhole plot seems eo leap inro the irrational void that opens within the detective, and makes us spin along with hirn. This is a change in the brain of cinema, which no longer produces signs expressing the organic and understand ahle relation berween subject and world, hut like Scott‘ in lrtio, leaps into rhe chasrn ernerging between what is seen and what can be thought. This leap is cine-thought‘s escape frorn the sensory motor and its Peircean-Bergsonian image-sign. This is a necessary leap, Deleuze argues, hecause the “ground-zero“ ofthe perception-image does not take us tO the real genetic element ofvision— duration—which only appears indirectly, according to the conditions of the sensory-motor. The time-image therefore ernerges beyond the sensory-motor, in a cinema that ascends directly to an image ofduration. lt is in developing his theory of the time-image that Deleuze will part ways with Peirce, and by the be ginning of cinerna 2 he writes: “We therefore take the term ‘sign‘ in a com pletely different way frorn Peirce“ (C2, 32/48). Deleuze describes this crucial developrnent as follows, the scnsory—motor link was broken, and the interval of mo erneut pro— duced the appearance as such of an image otlier t/ian the movement—image. Sign and image thus reversed their relation, because the sigit no longer pre supposed rhc movement—irnage as material that it represenred in its speci— ficd forms, but set about presenting die othcr image whose material it was to spcci and forms it was to constitute, froin sign to sign. (C2, 34/50)

Cinema was going to need a new brain. As the cinema moves beyond the movernent-image it moves beyond Peirce‘s conception of the sign (C2, 34/50). But is this also a move beyond Bergson? The answer to this can only be yes and no. Yes, inasmuch as eine thoughr finds its own path beyond the sensory-motor in which indirect move ment-images arc replaced by a “detour through the direct“ (Cl, 206/278). For Deleuze, this new regime ofcine-thoughr implies a new brain capable ofthink ing beyond its Bergsonian conditions: “The soul of the cinema dernands in creasing thought,“ he writes, “even ifthought begins by undoing the system of actions, perceptions and affections on which the cinema had fed tip to that

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polin“ (Cl, 206/278). But, and here is the no ofour answer, in abandoning the sensory-motor cinerna ascends to its truly Bergsonian conditions, an ascension that l3ergson himselfcouldn‘t make, and begins to construct images directly ex pressing duration itseif The brain-screen oF cine-thought thereby attains new ontological conditions (and as we shall see opens out a new aesthetic set ofpos— sibilities), conditions that retain a Bergsonian duration, but one rio longer thought within the conditions of the movernent-image and irs interpretive gen eration ofsigns. Duration emerges in the time-image for itself and cinema dis covers after the war, a Bergson beyond Bergson. THE CLASSIC, GRANDIOSE CONCEPT OF THE MONTAGE KING

Deleuze often describes the move from the movement-image to the time-image, from ciassical to modern cinema, as a disjunction or break. But as Deleuze‘s other example of the breakdown of the relation-image—the Marx brothers— suggesrs. ciassical cinema itselfoften undid the logic of the sensory-moror, and approached the limits ofthe movement-irnage. Indeed, Deleuze‘s analysis priv ileges these cases by always searching for the genetic element to each ofcinema‘s Bergsonian-Peircean signs, that element that ascended the furthest. In looking at some of these examples we will understand better both the Bergsonian char acter of early cinema and the way cinema after the war passes beyond lt. Montage, Deleuze argues, is the “principle act of cinema,“ (C2, 34/51) and is the Operation tbrough which movement-images give an image of the whole, as an “image oftime“ (C2, 14/51). ihe Inovement-image is constituted on one side by single shots in which the positions ofobjects in space vary and on the other by a whole that “flows from montage“ (C2, 35/51). In this way: “Montage is the determination of the whole,“ (Cl, 29/46) and as such is the concepmal/perceptual Operation of the interval-brain as niuch as of cinema. Montage then, is the mechanism ofcine-thought. But the montage ofclassical cinema necessarilv constructs an indirect image of duration, because it is “de duced from movement-images and their relationships“ (CI, 29/46). This is not to say that the movement-image is a formally restrictive category, hut that das sical cinema worked within it as under a certain epistenlological regime. The sensory-rnotor schema, as die brain of cinema, selected images and montaged them according to conditions lt itseifset, conditions which were real, but which nevertheless mediated duration‘s presence to itselE As a resulr, the creative inovement of duration is transformed into a whole relative to the perceptions and actions in which lt appears. The movement-irnage expresses duration, but lt is a duration which has been produced from within one of its parts as it were,

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a whole produced hy montage according to die intervals own laws of rhought. The movement-image therefore expresses duration wirhin an organic relation between the brain and a whole the brain constructs in its own Image. Montage, as the mechanism of this ciassical cine-thought, operated Deleuze writes, “a powerful organic representation [thatl produces the set and the parts,“ throtigh a “rhytbmic alternation“ (Cl, 31/49)22 These alternations take on formal characteristics in the different montage techniques, in rhe differ ent rhythms of composition typical to cach great school of pre-war cinema. Some of these compositional rhythms however, produce in their most exem plary moments images tbat exceed the sensory motor and hroacb another regime ofcinematic images unaccounted for by the Inovement-image. Deleuze asks of these images, “to what extern they would be separate from movement images, and to what extern conversely, they would be hased on certain unknown aspects of these images“ (Cl, 29/47). This is an important question, because jr distinguishes an outside in the movemenr-image, from an outside ofthe move ment-image. The larter position would be occupied by images that seem to move outside the confines of the movement-image bur which nevertheless re tain its logic. On the other hand, images that appear otitside to the movement Image (“separate from“) would be images operating according to another logic. This distincrion will prompt Deleuze to ask the question that defines his over all project: “How are we to delineare a modern cinema whicb would be distinct froin ‘classical‘ cinema or from the indirect representation oftime?“ (C2, 39/57) We can begin ro see Deleuze‘s answer in his discussion of the work of Dziga Vertov. Vertov‘s “kino-eye,“ exemplified by Man with a Movie (Jamera (1929), introduces a new materialisrn to dinema by revealing a plane ofmo lecular and “non-human matter‘ (Cl, 40/61). In Vertov‘s films, buildings, machines, humans and most importantlv cinema itself, all appear on the same plane. This plane is not composed in the manner of Eisenstein, through a dl alectical montage of the human and bis world tbat both urges and assumes their organic connection, but through a dialectic in matter, by which “the whole merges with the infinire set of matter, and the interval merges vith an eye in matter“ (CI ‚40/61). Vertov‘s montage explores an inhuman whole that exists beyond the human sensory-motor, and offers an alternative to the Soviet dialectic of man and Nature. How? Vertov‘s films arc enrirely Soviet inasmuch as they retain its quintessential theme of Nature being rransformed by man inro a new communist world, and its consistent airn of raising the masses‘ consciousness rhrough this dialectic. But Vertov no longer identifies the camera with a human point ofview. The function ofthe camera, Vertov argued, was ro see what the human eye could not, like a telescope or micro scope, and he extended this idea ro montage, incorporating the freeze-frame

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and single-frarne editing to give effects weil beyond those the human eye was capable of 23 lor Vertov the kino-eye embodies a raised consciousness in which Nature and man (whole and interval) have become merged in a new material collective achieving the consciousness of matter. 2 In Vertov‘s kino eye Deleuze finds an entirely material dialectic enacting the “correlation be tween a non-human matter and a super-human eye“ (Cl, 40/60). Vertov‘s montage thus enabled the cinema to “regain the system of universal variation in itseif“ (Cl, 80/116) and produced an “identityofa community of matter

and a commumsm of‘ man“ (Cl, 40/60). Vertov‘s man with a movie camera is for 1)eleuze, nothing less than “the overman ofthe Future“ (Cl, 83/121). On Deleuze‘s account, Vertov‘s montage breaks with the sensory-motor interval and its indirect image oftime, inasmuch as Vertov‘s theory of the inter val “no longer marks a gap which is carved out, a distancing between two con secutive images hut, on the contrary a correlation of two images which are distant (and incommensurable frorn the viewpoint ofour human perception)“ (Cl, 82/118). But to return to our initial question; does Vertov‘s montage tech nique give us images other than movement-images, or simply images which

were previously unknown to the ciassical regime? In fact, Deleuze affirms the latter, arguing tliar Vertov‘s camera, like orher privileged moments in pre-war cinerna, finds a universal variation “which goes beyond the human limits ofthe sensory-moror schema rowards a non-human world where movement equals matter [ 1. lt is here the movernent image attains the sublirne“ (C2, 40/58, italics added). This is a material suhlime, which in carrying perceprion into mat ter and action mto universal interaction, “points to a ‘negative oftime‘ as the ul— timate product of the movement-image rbrough montage“ (C2, 40/58). This is not, Deleuze points out, a negation, hut an image that remains “indirecr or dc rived“ despite its inhuman and communist reality (C2, 288/58). lt seems that Vertov, in breaking with human perception in favour of the kino-eye, produces a sublime movement-image, one that perceives an unrepresentable duration/variarion, a radical ourside which can only be thought as the “negative oftime.“ The sensory-motor is discarded in favour ofa machinic consciousness, hut this retains the epistemological coordinates of the interval (perceprion and action) in overcoming their human dimensions and extending them ro the en tire universe (Cl, 40/6 1). As a result, Vertov‘s films remain within the classical regime because, in overcorning the sensory-rnotor, they erect a machinic inter val (the “kino—eye“) which re—invents, without leaving, (and this shouldn‘r be read as a criticisrn, just the opposire) the philosophical conditions of ehe move ment-inlage. A new cinema emerges after the war, with a new oneology where duration is no longer expressed in eerms of an interval, not even one that is sub urne, hut is absolutely immanent to the image. Modern cinema ehen, does not .

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take Vertov‘s route of ateempting to escape its human conditions to gain a rad ical material exteriorit-y, but instead discovers the way ehe movement-image can be “shattered from ehe inside“ (C2, 40/58). A sublime outside of the sensory-rnotor is also found in expressionise cm erna. There, Deleuze writes, we find irnages of “fu/je noa-oy,anic l/ ofihings,“ (Cl, 50/75) the deep dark negation oforganic life, an Image in which life = 0. This negation appears firse of all in the deep blacks in the Image, againse whicb light, or luminosity defines organic forms in their distance frorn the black zero. But the organic cohesion of ehis ligbt is forever failing back irieo the black and cvii non-organic night. This is also the classic expressionist story-line ofcourse (Lang‘s M (1931), or Siegfied (1924), Sternberg‘s The Blue Angel (1930), and even Murnau and Flaherey‘s sun-drenched L‘zhu (1931)) wbich figures duration (non-organic life) in ehe terms of Kant‘s dynarnic sublime, as a formless power which overwhelms organic life. But as in Kant‘s dynarnic sublime our destruc tion in this dark immensity of an inorganic Nature is sirnultaneously our pro jection into a transcendeneal subjeceiviey As Deleuze puts ie, expressionisrn unleashes “a non-psychologicallf ofihe spirit,“ which is “the divine part in us, the spiritual relaeionship in whicb we arc alone with God as light“ (Cl, 54/80). • We lose our organic sensory-moeor in Expressionism‘s black and inorganic nighe, only eo gain the “ideal surnmie“ (Cl, 54/81) of tue “spirieuai abstract Form“ (Cl, 55/8 1). This super-natural and supra-sensible divine lighe breaks wieh organic composition, but otil>‘ to take us bevond its suhlime conditions “to discover in us a supra-organic space which dominates ehe whole inorganic life ofehings“ (Cl, 52/77). One need only think of the ethics of the criminal com munity aceing no doube under a “categorical imperative,“ that Lang shows pro voked by the sublirne cvii ofM. As wieh Vereov, ehen, Expressionism breaks with ehe organic relation ofthe sensory-moeor and ehe whole ie indirecely represents, only to discover a sublime world, this time ideal rather than material, in which we find a spiritual redemption which reconfirms ehe organic conditions of the movement-image. AS EXPRESSED BY A FACE

Deleuze‘s discussion of ehe affeceion-iinage, and ies expression of an affeet in ehe face, provides anorher example of the way ehe movernene-image retains an mdi rect image ofduration in seeking ies beyond. The affection-image, as we have seen, is in Peirce‘s eerrns a “firstness,“ and is caiied bv Deleuze “the feeling ehing,“ or “the eneiey“ (Cl, 96/1 36). Deleuze goes on to elaborate Peirce‘s def inition: the affect as firstness “is not a sensation, a feeiing, an idea, but the quality of a possible sensation, feeling or idea. [ 1 it expresses ehe possible .

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withont actualising it, whilst making it a complete mode“ (Cl, 98/139). Peirce puts jr rather nicely, explaining that the quality ofa firstness is in itseif, “a mere possibility. [ ] Possibility the mode of being of Firstness, is the eml)ryo of being. lt is not nothing. lt is not existence.“ 2 The qualities of affects therefore, arc “pure possibles“ (Cl, 102/145) which “constitute the ‘expressed‘ ofstates of things“ (Cl, 102/145).2 The affect doesn‘t exist independently of its expres sion, although jr is disrinct from ir, and rogether affect and affection-image form, in Deleuze‘s Peircean vocabulary an “icon.“ The icon‘s bi-polar composi tion, the “likeness“ jr embodies between affecr and affecrion-image, “serves,“ Peirce notes, “ro convey ideas of things rhey represent simply by imitaring thein.“ The aFfecrion—imagc is neither an actualisarion ofaffect in action, nor an expression ofa psycliological state, hut a sign ofa “purely possible“ mode of being (the affecr) expressed by a fttce (Cl, 66/97). “The affect,“ Deleuze writes, “is like the expressed of the stare of things, hut this expressed does not refer to the stare of things, jr only refers to the faces which express it and, coming to— gerher and separating, give jr jr‘s proper moving context“ (Cl, 106/151). Deleuze is once again combining Pejrce‘s semjorics of signs with Bergson‘s physiology, fir an affecr is the change in stare existing between an image‘s per ceprion by a nmtor nerve (a perception-image) and its instanriation in a motor action (an action-image). The affect as a possible “power“ or “qualiry“ expressed in an affection-image therefore emerges within the sensory-motor “between“ perception anti action, and as a possible “break“ in rhe smoorh funcrioning of the movement-irnage of cine-thought. For the affect, Deleuze argues, is “that part of the event which does not 1er itselfbe actualised in a dererminate milieu“ (Cl, 107/151). This exteriority of the affecr, as possihle, is explored and defined by Deleuze in L)/f‘rence and Repetition. There Deleuze distinguishes the possi ble from the virtual, their difference being, as he rather dramatically puts it, “a question ofexisrence itself“ (DR, 211/273). The possible, he argues, exists in relation ro a stare of affairs that pre-exisrs it, in which it is acrualised and ex pressed, while nevertheless remaining outside this state of affairs. The virrual, on rhe other band, exjsts only as the production of exisrence, and does not exist outside of this event. The point for Deleuze is that the exteriority ofthe possi hie (as mere firstness or affect) appears in an affection-image, hut it is this state ofaffhirs (as the inrerioriry of the subject, or sensory-moror) tisat condirions the exteriorirv of the affect. T‘his distinction of possible and virtual is decisive for our purposes here, despire Deleuze employing both terms in his description of rhe affect. This is because although the affect is in irselfa complex virrualiry ofsin gularities in variable relations, it is produced as a uniry (i.e. as a possible) by “the virtual conjunction assured by the expression, face or proposirion“ (Cl, 105/149). This then, is the specifically cinematic way the possible is always .

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“retroactiveiy fabricated in the image ofwbat resembles it“ (DR. 212/273). This is precisely the ontological status of the cinematic affect. “The affect is mdc pendent of all dererminare space-rime;“ I)eleuze writes, “hut it is none the less created in a hisrory which produces ir as expressed and the expression ofa space and a time, of an epoch or a milieu (this is why rhe affect is the ‘new‘ and new affecrs are ceaselessly created, norablv bv the work ofarr)“ (Cl, 99/140). Here Deleuze defines both the ontological status of the affecrs “indcpendence“ from, and “exteriorir‘ to states-of-affairs (as produced by that state-ofiaffairs), and in dicates how this “exteriority“ defines an important creative aesrhetic dimension of the movement-image. Classical cinema constantly created new afEcts, whose affection-images lead awav frorn the clichs of human sensihilitv and actions, towards what Deleuze calls, “an inhumanity much greater than that ofanimals“ (Cl, 99/141). ‘l‘his inhumanity can be understood rhrough rwo of L)eleuze‘s examples which conveniently lie at opposire ends of the facial spectrurn, the expression ofa spir itual heyond found in Carl Theodor Dreyer‘s Passion o/7oan of‘Arc (1928), and the nihilist sensualimy of Ingmar Bergman‘s magnificent women. In Passion of Joan ofArc, “rhe affective film par excel/ence,“ there is on the one band rhe bis torical state ofaffairs, the trial, joan, her accusers and the law, hut on the orher there is her fairh, a pure affecr “outside“ tbe bistorical suite of affairs and ex pressed so beautifully on Falconetti‘s face. Her miniscule trembies and tear tip lifted eyes arc signs for her faith, “this inexhausrihle and brilliant part which goes beyond its own actualisation“ (Cl, 106/151). The film focuses on this inrerrup— tion ofthe spirir, and the moving wayJoan attempts ro remain faithful to it, to attain salvation and peace in irs divine beyond. This affect is the “inhuman“ content ofthe film‘s narrarive, the rrajectory ofmartyrdom, the annihilation of Joan‘s individuality in her 29 becoming-sainr. Bergman‘s faces on rhe otber band arc more monumental, expressing singular aF}ects rather than intensc ments that achieve suspensions of individuarion that teeter on the edge of the void, where the affecr is in a permanent proximity to death. Everything in Bergman seems ro play against this backdrop ofdeath, and his highly formalised dramas arc often reduced to a simple turning toward or turning away of the face, into or away from the void. Cries and Whiipers (1972) is surely the finest, where the women arc no longer characters hut pure affects-faces, locked into a series ofviolenr pirouettes. Bergman will accelerate these savage relations ro the point of an ambiguous schizophrenia merging the women in Persona (1966), who ex change faces in a place “where the principle of individuation ceases ro hold sway“ (Cl, 100/142). In both Dreyer and Bergman the affect emerges for itself suspends individuation, and creates a powerful possibility, an a-subjeerive out side ro the sensory-motor schema.

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These a-subjective affects appear in affection-images—-faces—that, Deleuze writes, “go beyond the state ofthings, to trace lines offlight, just enough to open up in space a dimension ofanother order“ (CI, 101/144). This new dimension is not a state-of-affairs, hut opens at the limit of the lived. This new dimension appears in various ways depending on the director who creates it. in Dreyer the affection-irnage opens up tise fourth anti fifth dimensions oftime and spirit (Cl, 107/152). In Bergman the affection-image tends towards “the effacement of faces in nothingness“ (Cl, 101/144). This new and extra dimension of the affect, Deleuze sug,gests, is “schizophrenic,“ (Cl, 110/156) inasmuch as the schiza pbrenic experience is a turning away from identity into a space of tactile bound iessness, and expresses this corporeal dissolution in a sign detached from its motor continuation in the sensory-motor (paralysis, autism, or delirium). “Schizophrenic“ images no longer take place in rational time and space, nor are they the representative signs of human thought (thirdness). Schizo-images exist outside the sensory-motor interval in an “any-space-whatever,“ as the “genetic el ement“ or “differential sign“ ofaffection-irnages (CI, 110/156). With the “any space-whatever“ we have the unusual insrance of a term traversing the two cinema books, being introduced in the first in relation to the affection-image, and being explored in the second as a crucial new element of cinema after the war, one discovered by italian neo-realism. In both cases however, an “any-space whatever“ is a singular space that has lost any homogeneity imposed by an exte rior standard of measure, making it the site of an infinite number of possible -:

Figure 2 Carl Theodor Dreyer, La Passion deJeanneDArc, 1928, Ausrian Film Museum

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linkages. “lt is,“ Deleuze writes in relation to ciassical cinerna, “a space ofvirtual conjunction, grasped as a pure locus of the possihle“ (Cl, 109/1 55). We have seen Bergman create this opening through a turning away of faces onro death (perhaps most explicitly in the last scene of5hame, 1968). ‘1 he films of Dreyer and Robert Bresson achieve ir in a difhrent wa by discovering this schizo any-space-wbatever through a “spiritual opening“ (Cl, 117/165). Common to both is this “discovery“ being indisringuisbable f+om the act of choosing it (Dreyer‘s Passion o/‘/ean ofArc, or Gcrtriu/e (1964), and just about any of Bresson‘s films. Diary ofa C‘ountry Priest (1950), Pickpocket (1959), or A Man Escaped (1956) to mention a few of the most famous ones). This “open ing“ is sublime in “overcoming“ the “formal obligations and material con straints“ of physical space and the sensorv-motor, but this “opening“ is metaphysically determined by the “decision“ which takes us “from“ the suhjec tive physical space it disrupts, “to“ a “spiritual“ world of the affect, operating— as pure possible—as a super-sensible Idea. This is übe Kantian operation ofthe affection-image, and is, as Deleuze calls it, a “theoretical or practical evasion“ (Cl, 117/165). This “evasion“ finally “restores“ the metaphvsics of the move ment-image by elevating the “decision,“ or the act of choosing choice (what Deleuze calls an “auto—affection“) to rhe point where it “takes upon itself the linking of parts“ (Cl, 117/165). In cboosing choice the sensory-motor is opened onto its outside, onto a pure indeterminability, a pure possibility or any space-whatever acting as a space ofvirtual conjunction, and where übe affect is raised to its pure genetic power or potentialitv (Cl, 1 13/159). But despite its undeniable beauty and power the affection-image is not an image ofduration. In opening onto this beyond of the affects, and in a Kanrian manner, the supersensible becomes, as pure possible, the re-founding of an ontological continuity between this world and its metaphysical dimension. Finally then, affects as pure possibles are determined by the limits of the sensorr-niotor thev exceed, and in this way the directors who arc their masters attain sublirne movement-irnages. When the sublime movernent-image “goes heyond the human lirnits of the sensory-motor,“ ro find “a non-hurnan world where movement equals mat ter“ (Vertov), a “super—human world which speaks for a new spirit“ (Lang), or a pureiy spiritual affect (Dreyer and Bresson), it produces an opening of the sen sory-motor beyond its limits, a beyond acting in a Kantian fashion as a supersensible guaranree of the necessary unirv of man and durarion (however this is figured), inasmuch as it acrs as “the absolute condition for movement.“ As a re sult, “the movement-image remains primary and gives risc only indirectly to a representation oftime“ (C2, 40/58). A direct image oftime must await a new ontology ofcinema, a new ontology that will find its bistorical possibility after tbewar(C1, 120—122/168 172).

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NOTHING BUT CLICHiS, CLICHIS EVERVWHERE..

‘Xe rnust now briefly return to our initial discussion ofBergson‘s ontology, in order to understand rhe transition jr undergoes berween the cinema books. If we remember, within rhe mental space of an interval-brain the sensory-moror schema rranslares the matter/image ofduration inro perceptions, affections, and acrions and their cinematic signs. Although at their limit these images pass into a sublirne outside of rhe sensory-motor, this outside is nevertheless conditioned by openings produced by the sensory-motor, and remain indirect images of duration. The sensory-motor schema therefore installs a perceptual that maintains itselfeven in being passed “beyond,“ so that even in its “sublime“ moments we perceive only “what lt is in our inreresr to perceive,“ once our inrerests have turned spiritual or super sensible (C2, 20/32). Alrhough these images arc a wonderful testament to the creativity of the movement-image, they arc nevertheless exceptions and more generally Deleuze defines the movement-image as a clich. “A clich,“ Deleuze explains, “is a sensory-moror image of the rhing. [... ] We therefore normally perceive only clichs“ (C2, 20/32). As a result, “the image constantly sinks to the state of cliche: hecause it is introduced into sensory-motor linkages“ (C2, 21/32—3). Cinema‘s biggest challenge, the same challenge facing all the arts, is to produce images that arc not clichs, and combat irs “conspiracy.“ Doing so will involve not only the production of new images, hut also a new image ofart, an image which will allow us, Deleuze writes, to combat, “a civilisarjon ofthc clich wbere all the powers have an interest in hiding images from us, not necessarily in hiding the same thing from us, but in hiding something in the image“ (C2, 21/33). What is this hidden “rhing,“ and how can we see it? lt is the image “it self“ the image inasmuch as it expresses duration, in a direcr image, or as Deleuze calls ir, a “time-image.“ We perceive this image through a double movement, on the one hand, “mir sensory-motor schemata jam or break“ (C2, 20/32) and, “[ein the other band, at the same time, the image constanrly attemprs ro break through the clich, ro get out of the clicb. There is no knowing how far a real image may lead: the importance of becoming vision ary or seer [visiannaire au voyant]“ (C2, 2 1/33). The seer or visionary will be ahle to go beyond the sensory-motor without reconfirming its movement in a subhme outside. The figure of the visionary, as we shall see in later chapters, recurs in Deleuze‘s discussions of art and is always associated with a resistance to tlw cIich, er “opinion“ as he and Guatrari finally call jr. In this way (Jinerna 2 brings us back to the mystical and yet atheist dimension of Deleuze‘s ontol ogy we have alrcady encounrered, and develops it further. The visionary artist,

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according ro Deleuze, is able to see and produce rhe new directly, as an onto genetic vision ofduration‘s consrrucrion/expression. “Vision“ operares in this sense as the absolute immanence of duration and the image, beyond the breakdown of the sensory-motor, as the production of a new image and of a new image of thought. There is, Deleuze clairns, “a simulraneous change in our conception ofrhe brain and our relationship to the brain“ (Cl, 210/283). The “visionaries“ ofcinema, those directors considered arrists (i.e. auters), “ar— tack,“ Deleuze claims, “the dark organizarion ofclichs“ and “‘commir‘ the ir reversible.“ These directors “extracr an Image frorn all the clichs ro Set it up against them“ (Cl, 210/283). Modern cinema is de[ined lw rhis rransvalua tion ofits own onrology in turning irs power of rbougbr against itself againsr its own clichs. In this way great directors arc arrists in being ar once political activisrS (against the “dark organization ofclichs“), formal innovarors (break ing with the montage techniques of rhe movemene-image), and philosophers (crearing a new image ofehoughO. l)eleuze claims the historical conditions of the new image in cinema lie in ehe collapse of subjective cerrainty after rhe war.°This collapse of ehe suhjective and objecrive assumpeions of the movemene-image marks the condirion ofpos sibility of cinema‘s seif-transformarion. This change is however, ontological be fore jr is historical. Here Deleuze picks up Bergson‘s own extension of his philosophy of viealism ineo a mysrical understanding of are.‘ In ehis sense Deleuze‘s vocabularv is Bergsonian when he weites: “lt is necessary ro combine the optical-sound image with the enormous forces that arc not those of a sim ply jntellectual consciousness, nor of ehe social one, but ofa profound. vital in tuition“ (C2, 22/33—4). This is nothing less ehan a claim for ehe mystical immanence of acrual images and virrual vital forces (duration), whose “combi nation“ can only be “seen“ in an “aestheric intuition“ or “vision“ as ehe construc tion of an inhuman image expressing irs own genesis, irs own real conditions. In this sense Deleuze echoes Bergson, who helieved the force of mysticism “is exactly that of the vital imperus; it is this imperus itself“ lhis vital imperus an— imates those mystics, those “visionaries“ as Deleuze Puts it, who go beyond ehe forms of man, and man‘s form (the sensory-moeor), rowards ehe genesis of ehe vital iinpetus irseif Such visionary areises arc like rnyseics, Bergson claims, in seeking “the establishment of a contact, consequently of a parrial coincidence with ehe creaeive effore of which life is ehe manifeseaeion.“ Mysricism, for Bergson, has a fundameneally areiseic aspece, not only in ies search for ehe cre ative basis of life, hut also in irs realizarion ofa crearive response to this irnper aeive. Art would eherefore share myseicism‘S task of finding new forms eo express the fundamentally creaeive energy of life ieself Both then, in Bergson‘s words, “consise in working back from ehe ineelleceual and social plane to a poine in ehe

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soul from which there springs an imperative demand for creation. The soul within which this demand dwells may indeed have felt it fully only once in its life time, hut it is always there, a unique emotion, an impuise, an impetus re— ceived from the very depth of things. To obey it completely new words would have to be coined, new ideas woulcl have to be created.“ 3 Mysticism and art therefore come together in the creative art of“visions,“ as in both these arc cfe ated hy “visionaries.“ Such creators, Deleuze writes in bis hook on Bergson, arc “the great souls,“ the “artists and mystics,“ who, at the limit, “play with the whole ofcreation. vho invent an expression ofit whose adequacy increases with its dynamism. [ ] the mystical soul actively p y the whole of the universe, 1 and reproduces the opening of the Whole“ (B, 1 12/1 18). So even if the Second World War introduces the historical conditions for cinema‘s transformatioi, the real impetus for this change is abistorical, it is the vital impetus shared by artists and rnystics—tbc impetus to create a “vision‘ ofand as life itseif This is not to say that cinerna is ahistorical or apolitical, hut that its historical aiid political dc— velopment must first be understood ontologically, as expressions ofa living du ration that is constantly constructing itseif new Now we must see how this mystical art appears in the cineinatic image. .

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THE EYEWE DO NOT HAVE

Cinema after the war Deleuze argues, breaks with the sensory-motor schema and its movement-image, in order to expiore pure optical and sound images that appear under new ontological conditions. These arc images in which the virtual reaim ofduration is directly expressed in an actual image, once “movement has become automatic“ and “the artistic essence of the image is realized“ (C2, 156/203). These statements describe a new way to think as much as a new image. After the war direct images of tirne appear that no longer perpetuate in their delay tbrough the sensory-motor interval, rnovements (acrion-images and affection-images) that express duration in the clichs of the human. These di rect images arc the visions ofa new breed ofcharacters, and ofa new viewer, mu tants who “saw rather than acted, they were seers“ (C2, xi). Seers embody a type ofexperience that no longer finds its genetic conditions in perception-irnages, hut instead produce visions ofgenesis. Vision becomes autonomous and active, a construction expressing duration. Art in its essence—it is a definition Deleuze will repeat in relation to painting—is the creation ofvisions. The painter Henri Matisse, himseif infiuenced hy Bergson, bad already pointed this out, “for the artist creation begins with vision. To see is itseif a creative operation.“ 36 What arc seen/created by modern cinema, Deleuze argues, arc pure optical and sound situations; automatic and unmediated images “which bring the emancipated

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senses into direct relation with time and thought“ (C2, 17/28). 1 hese arc what Deleuze will go on to ca 11 “crystal images,“ irnages oftime in its pure state, im

ages ofduration appearing through a crack in the sensory-motor, and bv wbich the cine—hrain will think time itseif The trajectory of the cinema books can pethaps he summarized by Deleuze‘s question; “How can we rid ourselves ofourselves, and demolish our selves?“ (Cl, 66/97). The movement-image‘s answer to this appears in Samuel Becken‘s Film (1965), where the escape from vision is figured by, as Deleuze puts it, “death, irnmobility, blackness“ (C1,68/99). This would be a kind ofcin ematic summation ofthe way the movement-image figures our escape from the sensory-motor as an opening onto its sublime outside. As we have seen, the movernent-image was only ahle to answer the question ofits limit with an image ofduration that confirmed the genetic powers of the sensory-motor. In ciiema after the war Deleuze finds a new image, one in which our dernolition does not assurne a super—sensible duration as our bevond, but is die creation of the world as it already was, the world Czanne knew, “the world before man, before our own dawn“ (Cl, 68/100). Cinema after the war creates images which arc ade quate to a creative power “before man,“ hefore and not bevond rhe sensory motor, an inhuman power ofexpression adequate to its vital and artistic essence. Here the mystical “ascension“ ofcinema toward the plane ofduration cannot be separated from a simultaneous descending movement of individuation, the folding of (and not an opening onto) the plane of immanence as cine-thought. In this ascension-descension, and here we come back to tbe most imporrant as pect of Deleuze‘s mystical aesthetics, the time-image constructs duration at the same time as it expresses ir—there is no otitside—and this is the creative and artistic “essence“ of the vision of the seer. Cinema construets a new eye, an inhuman eyc that is in duration, that is of matter and in matter, ahle to “see“ time in its simultaneous emergence as the whole of the past being created in the passing present of an individuation. ihus the movement of the time-image constructs a vision of all rirne, and as Deleuze puts it, “time is no longer the rrieasure of movement hut movernent is the per spective oftime“ (C2, 22/34). This is an important distinction, and implies a time-image which does not represent sornething pre-existing it, it has neither conditions ofpossibility nor indeed any super-sensible outside which vould dc termine it. The movements of die time-image give a perspective on all oftime, a perspective which did not exist before, and whose construction exisis as the continual emergence of the new, as the hecorning ofduration itseif. In this way the inhuman eye is a new cine-brain, its images constructing (thinking) time as the expression of duration. As a result, representation is surpassed in a vision that is, Deleuze writes, “at once fantasy and report“ (C2, 19/30). Deleuze argues

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that this thinking-eve of the visionary helongs as niuch to the viewer, as to the character of the film (C2, 19/30). The viewer and the character, as the poles of a single time-image rhey produce between them, constitute a seer who can see in life what is inore than sensory-organic life, “tbe part that cannot be reduced to what happens: rbat part of inexhaustible possibility [the virtual as duration] that constitutes the unbearable, the intolerable, the visionary part“ (C2, 19—20/31 ))6 This is the mvstical dimension ofa vitalist cinema, one which fol lows the Bergsonian intuition: “Wherever anything lives, there is, open some where, a register in which time is being inscribeil“ (CE, 16). The time-image emerges prior to the distinction ofsubject and object, as the immanence ofvision and visionary in a seer, who no longer acts, but who “is prey to a vision, pursued by it or pursuing it, rather than engaged in an action“ ((22, 3/9), This break with the movement-image is accomplished by Italian neo-realism, and the films of Michelangelo Antonioni are some of Deleuze‘s f‘avourite examples) 7 For example, the disappearance ofa woman in L‘4vventura (1960) does not give risc to a series ofactions leading to the res olution ofthis situation, hut instead animates an affair between her boyfriend and best friend, wbosc increasirigly destructive movernents make them vic tims of the absence they arc both pursuing and pursued by. The film no longer expresses duration through the actions and reactions of characters moving through an ordered and pre—existing tirne and space, instead the film is con— structed around a genetic element (the woman‘s disappearance) which dislo cates sensory- motor coherence (the affair is played out as a series of convulsioris which exist “despite“—or to spite—the couple‘s rational protes— tations), in which the characters become the passive spectators of their

emptiness (thus exemplifying Antonioni‘s pessimistic assumption that Eros is sick). But this account should not lead one to think that Antonioni has struc tured the film around a lack. T‘he disappearance ofAnna early in the film does not make it rotate around her absence, and instead this absence becomes cre ative and generates a series ofdisarticulated and intense affects. These mark out a new temporality, and give new images ofduration, not by acfualising its infinite interconnectedness in a sublime break of the interval, but byopening the actual up, and dissolving the interval in a virtual infinity. This is what ex plains both the slowness of the film and its unpredictable trajectory On the one hand nothing seerns to happen because the narrative cohesion suggested by Anna‘s disappearance is quickly ignored, and in its place die lovers Claudia and Sandro seem to “wander“ through disconnected any-space-whatevers. On the other, the situation existing berween the lovers is extraordinary, and un folds according to a seemingly spontaneous rhythm, “subject to,“ Deleuze points out, “rapid breaks, interpolations and infin itesirnal injections of atem—

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porality“ (C2, 8/16). Time has become “unhinged,“ and duration as the ge netic virtuality of the image (even when this is understood by Antonioni as the sickness ofchronos itself expressed in sympromaeic images (C2, 8/16)) has become the “subject“ of cinerna, the real condirions cinerna now ex presses. This is a Deleuzean vitalist cinema, wbere duration as the univocal ge— netic element ofimages is expressed oaly as it is construcred: time-image. THE CRYSTAI IS EXPRESSION

Bergson will introduce the philosophical framework fhr Deleuze‘s direct rirne image in a distinction he makes regarding Inemory. On the one hand we have our automatic or habitual recognition, bv which we recognize objects according to the memories of our sensory-motor schema, both confirmation ofand con fbrming to the world we live in. On the other hand, is what Bergson calls “am tentive“ recognition, a perception ofsornething as truly “new,“ something never seen before. The vision ofa child, the visions ofa visionan an image unin telligible to our sensory-motor schema, hecause jr is the emergence of rather than in, time. Attentive rnemory is continually producing these images by cre ating new virrual connecrions in vision. ‘“e see an image that is continually changing, continually under construction, vibrating in its difference from itselfi And this consrructjon works in both directions at once, producing new actual images that in tumn conseruct the new virtual memories it expresses. Here Deleuze quotes Bergson, “it will be seen thar the pmogress ofattention results in creating anew, not only the object perceived. hut also the ever-widening systems with which it may be bound up“ (C2, 46165). Attentive recognition produces a “mecollection-image,“ in which virtual and actual arc perceived in dynamic and creative relation ((22, 46/64). Bur al though the recollection image transforms itselfthrough the process ofmemory Deleuze argues, it is not in itselfvireual, but simply ehe aceualisarion ofeach suc cessive virtual dimension, ofeach “layer“ of rnemory it acrualises, and therefbre its construction remains representational. “‘[‘bis is w‘hy.“ Deleuze wrires, “ehe recollection-image does not deliver the past ro us, hut onlv represents the for rner presene that the past ‘was“ (C2, 54/75). The recollection-image is therefore already integrated into die remporal lineariey along which the sensory-moror organisni moves, and its virrual relations arc fed back inro spatio-eemporal and suhjective normality. Whar is truly disruptive to this, Deleuze will argue, and fi nally what will give us images making visible the fully reciprocal immanence of the actual and the virtual, is the failure of memory When ehe organism cannot remember, cannor represent ehe vireual in a “new“ actual image, a emuly new image appears, which “enters into relations wirb genuinely virtual elements“ .

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(C2, 54/75). The sensory-rnotor has broken down, but this has produced a vi

sionary funcrion that becornes crearive. A “genuine relation“ with the virtual will be forged in the crystal-image, “the image with nvo sides, actual and virtual at the same time“ (C2, 69/93). Here ‘irtual and actual arc distinct but indiscernible, heing “toraii‘ reversible“ (C2, 69/94). This reversibility; the “continual exchange“ (C2, 70/95) of the acrual and the virtual, means the crysta!-irnage is adequate to and expressive ofduration, In the crystal-image the virtual and actual, the infiuiite and the fi nite, arc truly indiscernible, and we have arrived at a mysticisnl that is entirely atheist. Deleuze suggests as much: “In the crystal-image there is this murual search—hlind and halting—of matter and spirit: heyond the movement image, ‘in which we arc still pious“ (C2, 75/101). Still pious because it still seelcs the super-sensible. As we have seen, the mystical expression of a vital rnaterialism, a vision, is the Deleuzian condition ofart. As Deleuze puts it, the indiscernibiliry ofvirtual and actual has “always accornpanied art without ever exhausting it, hecause art found in thern a means ofcreation for cerrain spe cia! images“ (C2, 76/103). What exactly is this “special image“ and how does it appear in the cmerna? Deleuze argues that the actual image is always present, but that this pres eilt passes as eacb new present arrives. lt is the virtual dimension of the image that preserves all of the past, and so when virtual and actual arc torally re versible in ehe crystal-irnage, it is an image ofboch the passing present and all of the past at ehe same tirne. The differential relation of these simultaneous and “heterogeneous directions“ of eirne Form the image in its “most funda mental Operation“ (C2, 81/108). This genetic and differential relation, Deleuze claims, is the ontological process of a “powerful, non-organic Life which grips the world“ (C2, 81/109), At this point Deleuze‘s taste for taxon omy once more comes eo ehe fore, as he begins the task of classifying crystal images. He finds the first in the films of Yasujiro Ozu, and identifies one technique in ehe film Late Spring(1943), in which a sbot ofa vase is inserted into a sequence sbowing the daughter‘s half smile and tears. The change in the character, as actual change, appears in a differential relation to the unchang ing vase as the form of time (the duration of the virtual), time itself which does not change. “l‘here is becoming,“ Deleuze writes, “change, passage. But the form ofwhae changes does not change, does not pass on. This is time, time itself, ‘a linie eirne in its pure state‘: a direct time-image, which gives what changes ehe unchanging form in which ehe change is produced“ (C2, 17/27). What happens no longer takes place in time, not does time sirnply ure what happens, eime and its image, virtual and actual arc ful!y reversible in a cryseai-irnage. This, quite sirnply, means: “The presene is the actual image, and

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its contemporaneous pase is the virtual image“ (C2, 79/106). The rwo aspccts of the crystal image arc indiscernihle, the virtual frorn “ehe actua! presene of which it is the past, ahsolueely and sirnuitaneously“ (C2, 79/1 06—7). The crys tal-image as indiscernibility or “smallese circuit,“ ofaceual and virtual passes, in its largest circuie, ehe whole universe, all of duration itselE Cryseal—images eherefore, arc rnyseical images in which, as Deleuze puts it, “one and the same horizon links the cosmic to ehe everyday“ (C2, 17/28). They arc images of the present and its own past, “the who!e of the real, life in its entirety, which has become speceacle, in accordance with the demands ofa pure opeical and sound perception“ (C2, 84/122). Deleuze describes this cosmic image with the appropriately mystica! meeaphor of an ocean, in which images “bathe or plunge to trace an actual shape and bring in eheir provisional harvest“ (C2. 80/108).38 That Deleuze‘s language should get particulariy poceic here, where ehe crystal image is delineated in its mystical dimension, should be no surprise, ie is a erait of Deleuze‘s writing which is as expressive as the image he is attempe ing to describe. He continues:

‘Ehe crystal—ilnage has these two aspects: internal limit of all the relative circuits, hut also outermost, variable and teshapable envelope, at ehe edges ofthe world, hcyond even moments ofworld. The little crystalline seed and ehe vast crystallisable universe: everything is included in ehe ca— pacity for expansion of the coilection conseieuted by ehe seed and thc universe. (C2, 80—1/108) The cryseal-image is myseic inasmuch as seed and universe exise in co-impii caeion within je, inasmuch as ehe eryseal eraverses these at once microscopic and cosmic dimensions, each conseruceing and expressing the other in their processual immanence. For ehis co-exjstence is in no way seatic. The crystal image is oneogenetic, ie construces the universe which is expressed in the seed, as jr muse when, once more, nothing isgiven except the to come. Only a myseic seer can produce this image. “The visionary ehe seer,“ I)eleuze wriees, “is the one who sees in ehe crystal, and whae he sees is the gushing of eirne as divid— ing in ewo, as splitting“ (C2, 81/109). This visionary inhuman, “ehird eye“ (C2, 18/29) does not perceive things through passive sensory reception, but conseructs eime-images in s‘hat Deleuze calls “hallucinations.“ This hallucinatory‘ perception, disengaged from spaeio temporal aprioris, as from ehe sensory-moeor ofa subject, conseruces a vision of the vireuai jr expresses in an aetna 1 image. To hallueinate an objece as a cryseai image is eo “see“ the oneogeneeic spiit in eime, as je becomes boeh seed and uni verse, as it passes in the present and inc!udes all of ehe past, an actuai expression rhae conseruces a virtual universe, again. Hallucination is ehe art of seeing the

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image as actual virtualiry as, I)eleuze writes, the “sole decomposed and multi plied object“ (C2, 126/165). In this way a crystal—image “stands for its object, replaces ir, both ereates and erases it“ (C2, 126/165). Hallucination constitutes the “cinema ofthe seer“ (C2, 126/166), a materialist cinematics where the “seer“ is an eye in matter, an eye that is no longer an interval organising the dialectic of man and Nature, hut is a pure vision in which the subject and object are dis— solved in an image of and as an image as, material innovation—the universe as cinema itseif. “What can be more subjective than delirium, a dream, a halluci nation?“ [)eleuze asks, “But what can be cioser ro a materiality inade up oflu minous wave and molecular interaction?“ (CI, 76—7/111). The seer has a vision, as the visuality of matter itseif. as the vision matter creates for itselfas it emerges in images, each time, again. The Vision and the viewer come together in the seer, as the necessary condition to all art-work. 39 Art is hallucination, which i‘ to say art is creation, and cinema after the war hecomes hallucinatory Needless to say, this visionary image can no longer be understood in Peircean or any other linguistic terms. Modern cine-thought is no longer defined by a tri partite sign and its sensory-rnotor, but hy a break it creates through which the brain will escape. A crysralline cine-thought emerges anew, its images rinsed of clich and crystallising in their hallucinatoryellipses a little time in its pure stare, a crystal through which the universe is refracted. Despite the crystal bathing in the cosmic infinite, differentiation is just as important for its crystalline life. At their outer limit all crystal—images rnerge into the single refrain ofa cosmic inorganic life, but they retain a simultaneous parricularity that is their present actuality lt is here and now that crystals express themselves, but unlike the movemen r-image‘s pre-existing conditions ofappear ance, the ‘here and now‘ ofcrystal-images is entirely unpredictable and sponta neous, and depends on a process of experimentation. This is the Bergsonian vitalism of a crystalline artistic process, it is the “bursting forth of life“ (C2, 91 / 121). Does this mean art exists only in the crystal? In ontological terms this is true, although as we shall see and have seen, the crystal-image in this sense has many other names in Deleuze‘s work and in his work with Guattari. lndeed, it is the specificity of this vocabulary to the particular “artistic-machine“ jr dc scribes thar focuses our cosmic and mystical enthusiasms on this world, a world with no “heyond“ but the “to come“ ir creates. Each this will have to be dc scrihed--—it means creared—in its singularity. In the cinema each modern direc tor creates his or her own crystals through a unique diagram that at once constructs acrual images as the passing present, and contains all ofthe past, the virtual dimension mb which it plunges, like a sieve. Constructing this diagram is the action ofcine-thoughr, the site (the sight) ofrhe splitting of time, and the crystallisation of the universe. Deleuze examines a wide range of these diagrams,

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and the ‘crystals‘ they produce, hut a good example is thar of Max Ophüls as jr constructs his film Farrings ofMadinne D... (1953). Briefl Ophüls‘ crystalline diagram operates at all levels ofcomposirion: in the Film‘s specific images (crys tal chandeliers, mirrors, the earrings of Madame D), in the famous camera movements and shots full of faceted reflections, and in the deelopinent ofrhe story whose increasingly complex virtual dimension emerges in series of crys talline circulations and refractions fioin which there is 00 escape (this is rrue of other Ophüls‘ films as weil, Lola Montez (1955) or L r Ronde (1950) for exam 1 ple) As Deleuze stares: “Ophüls‘s images arc perfect crystals“ (C2, 83/111). The crystal is diagrammatic, inasmuch as it creates an acrual state-of-affairs at the same time as this actuality is itselfcreative, consrrucring a virtualiry, a realirv that is ro come. The crystal-image is an image as the splitting of time, each image a present which enfolds and unfolds its past and Future. ‚

IN FAVOUR OF THE FALSE AND ITS ARTISTIC POWER

This emphasis on the constructive powers of the crysral-image has important philosophical consequences For ci nema. The crystal-i mage produces move ments that arc essentially “false,“ the false continuirv and ump-cuts ofGodard, or the merge of fantasy and realiry in Fellini for example. I)eleuze finds in these developments a Nierzschean inspiration, and marks the return, though not by its old name, of the sirnulacra, the “image vithout resembiance“ (LS, 257/297).40 The crysral-image is not a resemblance, not a description, nor is it a represenration, because it has no extra dimension thar would verify or deny irs trurh. This is the decisive Nierzschean intuition for Deleuze: “By raising the false ro power, life freed itself of appearances as weil as trurh: neither rrue nor false, an undecidable alternative, but power of the flulse, decisive will“ (C2, 145/189). Nietzsche is crucial at this point of Deleuze‘s accounr, for “it is Nietzsche, who, under the name of‘will to power,‘ substitutes the pmver ofrhe false for the form of the rrue, and resolves the crises of rrurh, wanring ro settle it once and for all, [. . J in favor of the false and irs artisric, creative power. (C2, 131/172). In other words, the crystal-image enjoys the p ver of the false ontologically, for ir is the vital power constructing and expressing an absolutely immanent and univocal durarion, 00 longer a duration as the “outside“ oftime, but an “internal outside,“ a crearive “will“ of cine-thoughr ernerging in a new cinemaric aesrhetics. Deleuze provides an interesting discussion of documenrarv Film to illus trare this poinr, focussing on the so-called “direcr“ cinema appearing at the be ginning of the 1960s (C2, 150/l96).‘ Don Pennebaker‘s film hier Strauss (1965) for example, is a portrait of the governor ofMunchen in this sryle. The .

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camera follows Strauss in his day to day activities, telling the story without voice over or comment, seemingly “frorn within.“ The camera is so dose it is “like being there.‘ hut this “like“ is precisehr the haHucinatory power of the crystal image whicb no longer represents the truth, as something it “reports“ or “docu— ments,“ but constructs it. The carnera is not dissolved in the “truth“ it represents; rather the carnera dissolves the true in finding its power ofthe false. 42 This has remarkahle consequences, for what we see in Hier Stizuss is not the “re— ality“ o the central character, but the becoming with which he has merged. What Deleuze writes ahout Pierre Perrault‘s “cinerna of the lived“ applies equaliy to Strauss, “as he himselfstarts to ‘make fiction,‘ when he enters into the ‘flagrant offence of making up legends‘ and so contributing to the invention of bis people“ (C2, 150/196). I)eleuze inrends this comment literally, and the eponymous hero of Hier Strauss is Seen prornoting a new united Europe. He has a “vision“ in which a “before“ is inseparable from an “after,“ the film document ing Herr Strauss‘ tireless efforts on behalfofthis world-to-come. This is how the film reveals the splitting oftime, the continual appearance of new “befores“ and “afters,“ in a crystal-image embodying, “the passage from one to the other“ (C2, 150/196). In this way, Deleuze claims, the cinema of the time-irnage is “direct“ cinema inasmuch as it desrroys all models ofthe true in becorning the creator of truth. I)irect cinema will not, he writes, “be a cinema of the truth, but the truth ofcinema“ (C2, 151 / 197). At this point we coulcl weIl ask whether mod ern cinema finaily traveis under a Nietzschean banner rather than a Bergsonian one, or perhaps more generously, whether the artistic power of the false marks Deleuze‘s creation of the indiscerniblity of Bergson and Nietzsche, 3 a hyphen ation giving tue name to a Bergson beyond Bergson.“ With the introduction ofNietzsche the crystal-image becomes ethically as weil as ontologically distinct frorn representation. Crystal-irnages arc not judge ments of life in the name of the higher authorities of the true and the good, they arc immanent evaluations of the life they involve, arc ethical images rather than moral representations (C2, 137/ 179 80). This is the Nietzschean-Bergsonian reality of a cinema of becoming rather than being, of time rather than move ment. These images can express good or bad, but only in becoming good or bad, in other (Nietzschean) words, by transforming themselves in an affirmation of becoming or hy negating themselves in representations of truth. In such a cmerna of immanent evaluation we once again return to the onto-aesthetics we have already explored in relation to Spinoza and Nietzsche. Indeed, at this point in Deleuze‘s account he talks not of cinema, hut of the “artistic will or ‘virtue which gives,‘ [asl the creation of new possibilities, in the ourpouring becoming“ (C2, 141/185). This ontological definition of art will find irs specificity in par ticular art forms, and in and as an ethics of the artist. But tliis is the artist not as

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suhjective genius, hut as Nietzscbe put it as “pure mouthpiece,“ as a Inystical seer or visionary who produces crvstal-images as the expression and affirmation ofthe “artistic becoming“ of—and here L)eleuze‘s rerminology becomes entirely Nietzschean—“the will to power“ (C2, 142/185). Once again: “Only the cre ative artist takes the power of the false to a degree which is realized, not in form, but in transformation. [ ] What the artist is, is creator oftruth, because truth is not to be achieved, forrned, or reproduced; it has to he created“ (C2, 146/191). Behind all the film makers and all the painters, behind all artists, is Zarathustra, “the artist or outpouring life“ (C2, 147/192). Once more we re turn to this mystical equivalence of the artist and life. Nietzsche‘s appearance in the cinema hooks allows Deleuze in make a dis tinction between two concepts ofduration. One duration, or whole, exists for the movement-image and one for the time-image, one for the organic regime and one for the crystalline. Quite simply the first assumes a pre-existing rcality, the second does not. Becoining is at the beart ofduration in both regimes, but they differ in the respective images each regime gives of duration. The organic sensory-motor assumes an open whole, and one which changes, but a.s an exte not “reality“ its movements represent, the movement—image therefore is an “in direct or mediate representation“ of tirne (duration) (C2, 277/361—62). The movernent—irnage constitutes time in its “empinical form,“ in which “the move— ment-inlage gives risc to an image o/‘time which is distinguished from it by‘ ex— cess or default, over or under the present as empirical progression: in this case, tirne is no longer measured by movement, hut is itselfthe number or measure ofmovement (metaphysical represenration)“ (C2, 271/355). This number of time is eirher its minimum unity found in the interval (Joan‘s spiritual face as pure affect for example), or it is the maximum of movement in the universe (Vertov‘s materialist dialectic). But in either case, duration exists onlv in its in— direct representation, as part of an organic whole (inside-outside, individual and Nature) in which the movements of duration arc relative to the actions of the sensory-motor interval. This is the “general system of commensurability“ quired by the classical image (C2, 277/362). That the crystal-image, or direct image of time will come fi‘om the disin tegration of the sensory-motor and its spatio-temporal apriori is at least hinted at by Bergson. “Degrade the immutable ideas,“ he writes, “you obtain, by that alone, the perpetual flux ofthings“ (CE, 3 17). Furthermore, if“we must accus tom ourselves to think being directly, withont rnaking a detour,“ then we must, Bergson suggests, “install ourselves within it straight away“ (CE, 298—9). But how do we do this, and how do we avoid simply “crossing over“ and giving an image ofduration as rhe sensory-rnotors outside? Such an Image finally, would have the same problem Spinoza‘s univocity was found to have by L)eleuze in .

.

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Difti‘rence and Repetilion. Duration may contain all irnages, hut as the outside of the sensory—rnotor it can only exist as the intense possibility or as a sublime impossibility of any expression. This would make the movement-image imma nent to the whole, hut die whole remains transcendent to the movement-image. Deleuze finds in tue crystal-image a cinema adequate to Nietzsche‘s deciaration that “nothing exists apart from the whole.‘“ (Tl, “The Four Great Errors,“ 8) and irs famous consequences. “wben we have abolished the real world: what world is left? The apparent world perhaps But no! With the real world we have also ahalis/ed the apparent world“ (Tl, “How die ‘Real World‘ at last Became a Myth“). We have already seen Deleuze privilege Nietzsche‘s ontological equiva lence of being and becoming as univocity‘s true formula, and in cinerna this equivalence means die abolition of real and apparent worlds in the crystal regime. Here ruhe is no longer subordinate to a movernent which measures it and niovement—now understood as die vibration of time Splitting in the crys tal—creates images adequate to it. These images express rirne in durarion, hut only by constructing or hallucinating its movements, only in other words, by thinking it according to a new image of thought. The eye has seen something new, hut only by discovering a new way to think. As Deleuze and Guattari pur it elsewhere (in relation to painting, hut it is a condition of their aesthetics which also applies to cinema), “vision is through thought, and the eye thinks“ (WI 195/184). This new thoughr of the seer escapes the interval-brain and its sensory—motor in order to, following Bergson‘s advice, install itselfdirecdy in the real. We artive at die plane ofduration, and a time-image adequate to the plane‘s becoming, only when an image expresses the plane by constructing ir. Duration, life in irs entirety as time, does not pre—exisr die vision—thought which grasps lt, because this Vision thinks and construcrs it in its expression. Duration is seen and thought in an image that expresses it, an image that is inseparable from a genetic impulse that is always construcring duration anew. This is the vi talism of cinematic “vision,“ its indiscernibility from the expression/construc tion of duration itseif Deleuze returns this image-thoughr ro its Bergsonian origin, hut only by breaking with die sensory-moror as its interval. A new body brain must emerge adequate to the modern image-thought, no longer a sensory motor inrerval, hut a direct nervous and ceucbral shock: “lt is ollly whcn movement becomes automatic,“ Deleuze writes, “hat the artistic essence of die image is realized: producing a shock iv thought, communicating vibrations iv the cortex, touching the nervous and cerebral system tlirectly“ (C2, 1 56/203). Here the image‘s power ofthe false is co-extensive with philosophy‘s power ofthought. lt is not surprising then, thar the introduction ofNietzsche into Deleuze‘s account ofcinema reintroduces the figure of the artist—philosopher. In relation to cinema diis figure emerges froni I)eleuze‘s discussion ofAntonin Artaud. and is called

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the “spiritual automaron,“ die seer whose visions exist “flusli wirh die real,“ and whose automatic image-thoughr is the appearance ofthe moving matter of du ration in a nervous-cerebral shock. 5 This thought is equivalent to a new vision, because it ne longer travels rhrough a sensory—rnoror that carries perceptions into action, but hallucinates pure optical and sound situatiolis tliat construct a crvstal oftime. A good example of the “spiritual automaten“ appears in Michelangelo Antonioni‘s beautiful film, 11 Deserto Rosso (1964). Here, Deleuze finds Antonioni‘s rypically banal, deserted and evervday any-space-whatevers absorb ing all characters and their actions (C2, 5/12). The empty and torten industrial landscape of IlDeserto Rosso often appears out of focus, emphasising its abstract color compositions over its representational “reality,“ and lending it hallucina tory qualities that are doubly disturbing. First, becausc the space is detached from the character, inasmuch as Guiliano, a wornan struggling with her nienral health, can no longer act. Second, because these hallucinatory images appear as an indirect discourse, as visions ofrhe character, in the sense in which this of‘ seems at once subjecrive (arc they point of view shots?) and objecrive (the ab stract qualities of die landscape arc not hallucinatory hut real). These two as pects of abstraction and hallucination often werk together, as when an out of focus shot picks out certain objects by color rarher than form, making the image swim in an entirely non-representational manner. No doubr it is no longer die point whether what we see is the vision ofa character or the camera, because the question is no longer one ofdelirium ordescription. hut die wav these come to gether in a modern vision as crystal image. The ahstract color composirions of Antonionis any-space-whatevers do not, therefore, act as metaphorical descrip tions of Guiliano‘s mental state. They mark the dissolution ofthe sensory-motor interval into pure and “truly false“ visual and auditory situations which arc nei— ther subjective nor objective. These irnages ne longer appear in die inrerval brain, because Guiliano‘s “visions,“ which arc ours too, arc not located in relation to an)‘ “outside“ by which they could be judged. lndeed it is precisely the detachment of her visions from any encompassing strucrures (from their cause, which is only sketched, and from any narrative developmenr—very little “happens“ and die film begins and ends with almost idenrical iniages) that ehm inates action as such, and makes distinguishing between images of subjective hallucination and objective description impossible, and in fact this distinction ceases to he important. As Deleuze writes of neo-realist film in general, hut it apphies very precisely to 11 Deserto Rosso, “we ne longer know what is imaginary er real, physical er menral, in die situation, not hecause they arc confused, hut because we do not have to know and thcrc is no longer even a place from which to ask“ (C2, 7/15). This unknown constitutes the position ofGuihjano and die

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viewer, both arc cast inro a perceptual uncertainty which is not resolved but ex plored. Their vision is not other-worldly in any transcendental sense, nor does it attempt a higher order oftruth (there is no rornanticism in the wornan‘s rnad ness, nor any pity), it is simply a fact, the fact of a banal and everyday world stripped of its rational nariatives and appearing in its pure visuality, beautiful but not extraordinary sensual hut not sensational. Guiliano‘s struggle to integrate her experience of the “whole“ into a social framework of expectations and roles leads to further hallucinatory passages and 46 But she fails. Sinking fitrther into an emptiness where others cannot ek-stases. follow her, not her lover, nor her husband, who arc all uI with action, with their meaningless lives, a point her lover acknowledges without knowing how to change it, Her Vision of the young girl alone on a beautiful beach perfectly ex presses Deleuze‘s words: “The world awaits its inhabitants who arc still lost in neurosis“ (C2, 205/267). Guiliano yearns for such a world, pure and sun drenched, where everything sings, hut she is lost in sensory-motor banalities, a neurosis which represses her, This neurosis is a sensory-motor limit beyond which lies the psychosis of the “spiritual automaton,“ a schizo-sensation or vi sion of matter in its emergence, a sensation as participation, and Guiliano is continually shocked, overwhelmed, to the point of being a ‘mouthpiece‘ of thoughts she cannot control hut only react to. Her vision is a pure becoming in which she cannot maintain her identity and which hecomes increasingly ab stract. Antonioni afflrms both the beauty and the pain of this utterly modern vision, and the film registers both aspects in opening up spaces of virtual emer gence, spaces on the one side unbearable and experienced as madness, on the other as abstract and tranquil spaces giving refuge frorn the active neurosis of the human interval. In JlDeserto Rosso it is through Antonioni‘s use of color thar a new world emerges, and jr is in color that “the character or the viewer, and the two to gether, become visionaries“ (C2, 19/30). Color is an abstract force encom passing viewer and image in the emergence of a new reality a Vision thar is indiscernibly ofbeing, and whichproduces being. This experience exceeds sen sory-rnotor perception, both Guiliano‘s and our own, and the image and its abstract color compositions give avision ofa virtual infinity uncontained by any shared time, hut nevertheless existing as a creative becoming, as the dura tion created by and expressed in this actual image. Guiliano becomes a vision ary, a spiritual automaton who sees this unbearable excess of life, which is life, the virtual duration ofactual events appearing in a time-image. This is a life that can barely be lived—and Guiliano barely lives—and appears in images which arc often unbearable. This is life seen by rhe seer, Guiliano and us, those who “know how to exrract from the event the nart that cannot be reduced to

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what happens: that part of inexhaustible possibility that constitutes the bearable, the intolerable, die visionary‘S part“ (C2, 19—20/31). Iiiis is, quite precisely, the part Guiliano experiences. There is something terrible in real ity“ she exclaims, “and 1 don‘t knowwhat it is.“ But she sees it, and Antonioni shows it ro us, not as a representation ofmadness, hut in extraordinarily beau tiful shots which envelop tu, shots composed of abstract colors constituting a world both fresh and frightening, a world in which the virtual and creative powers of co-existence emerge for themselves. Once more, this is achieved through Antonioni‘s colorism, which at its abstract limit tends, Deleuze writes, to “efface“ what it describes, and “carries space as far as the void“ (Cl, 119/168). This coloring void is not however, opposed to the genetic element, hut is its emergence in any-space-wharevers (ofwhich Guiliano‘s life is full— the red shack, the cream/purple hotel room, the half-painted empty rooms of her shop, the noisy functionality of her husband‘s factory). In these spaces the compositions of abstract color in the frame act as “the virtual conjunction of all the objects it picks up“ (Cl, 119/167). Iris color then, that is able to trans— form the space ofaction into a space ofvirtual construction, a space opening out into a void ofthe sensory-motor indiscernible frorn the unthinkable plen • itude oflife. In JlDeserto Rosso the void of the any-space-whatever also has an amorphous enveloping power, appearing in the white mists of Ravenna in which the film‘s colors seem to swim, sinking below and rising to its surface. Indeed, Deleuze describes Antonioni‘s voided space as “arnorphous,“ having “eliminated that which happened and acted in it. lt is an extinction or a dis appearing, hut one which is not opposed to the genetic element“ (CI, 120/168). Guiliano‘s sensory-moror is overpowered by this any-space-what ever of color, effaced by the mist, by the room, by the shop, in a continual fade. But in this void emerging around and in Guiliano a new life and vision appears, one, Deleuze writes, “all the more charged with potential“ (Cl, 120/168). Antonioni pushes bis abstracr colorism as far as possible in II Deserto Rossa. Guiliano‘s nervous and cerebral events, her visions, arc both detached frorn any pre-existing world—as pure optical situarions—and arc themselves creative hai lucinations of an unbearably vital world at die heart of this one. But Guiliano‘s wanderings never “cross the bridge“ to the “orher“ side, whether this is imagined as a spiritual “ascension“ or a psychological “decent.“ In her confusion Guiliano remains here and now and of this world. In one scene she drives ro the end ofa pier, a dead end in the sea and not the bridge she thought, as ifto deny her the fatal ahnte of dissolution in a constantly moving ocean, an ocean she cannot look at she says, because then she loses interest in what happens on land, hut a beyond she cannot reach because—as beyond—ir does not exist. Color marks

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the genetic explosion of the world, a “vision“ ahstract and real, an expression of die virtual in the actual (or an implosion of the actual in the virtual color con junction), an explosion entirely cerebral and cinernatic, nothing but (Guiliano‘s) schizo-sensation. The brain. Deleuze claims, becomes adequate to the modern world in this genetic encounter with color (e.g. in Antonioni‘s ab— straction (C2, 317/266)). Deleuze‘s equation ofAntonioni‘s color with mod ernism is consistant with Deleuze‘s discussion of painting, which will be our subject in the chapters to come. To construct a world with color will be Deleuze and Guattari‘s definition ofartistic modernism, an art which will be anti-repre sentational, and whose ontology will be shared equally by cinema and painting. For hoth, I)eleuze writes, “Godard‘s formula, fit‘s not blood, it‘s red‘ is the for mula ofcolorism“ (CI, 118/166). Antonioni is in full agreement wieh this when he commenes: “People often say ‘write a film,‘ why can‘t we arrive at ehe point ofsaying ‘paine a filrn‘“ 47 Such a colorism will require a new brain, a brain de tached frorn the sensory-moeor and operating as a “void“ through which and as which thought ernerges as the “virtual conjunceion“ of“vision“ with an abstrace, “rruly false.“ hut nevertheless actual hallucination. CINEMA CRACKS UP.

In ehis final ineolerable vision of the life which exceeds her, and which she lives, Guiliano undergoes cinema‘s final meeamorphosis, and becomes an Artaudian body, a Body without Organs (BwO). lt may seem paradoxical to say the cmerna can exist without organs, but Arraud‘s Bw() is, as we shall see more fully in

Chapter Six, withour the organization of the organism rather than without or gans. The BwO is not a spatio-temporal body, not a sensory-motor, but an in organic or crystalline body, a crystal-image that creates as it expresses a perspectival and virtual whole ofduration. In Artaud this body-image has a par ticular ontological status, it is the “innermost realirv“ of ehe cinema, bur it can only be conceived ofas “a fissure, a crack“ (C2, 167/218). This crack is the nerv ous vibration which disrupes the organism, and gives the shock required ro make the cinerna think. The cryseal-image is this crack, an image of einie itseif as the crack—and no longer the interval—of thought: Guiliano‘s visions, her

crack tip. For Artaud, cinema expresses ehe powerlessness of human thoughe, ehe impossibiliry of thinking the vhole except as impossible. For Deleuze this is ehe power of the crysral, it gives an image of “ehe inexistence of a whole which could be ehought“ (C2, 168/2 18). Ofcourse je had eo happen, the whole has hecorne a hole, and ehe cryseal-image 15 a hole in ehoughe. “Any work ofare,“ Deleuze has said, “points a way through fot life, finds a way ehrough ehe cracks.“ 18 Art in this sense gives an image to the disruptive force which cracks open our ehought, but only as a “figure of noehingness,“ a .

.

Figure 3 fvlichelangelo Antonioni, Deserta Rosso, 1964,

/\ustrian

Film Museum.

“hole in appearances“ (C2, 167/218). Areaud‘s crack, or (w)bole of thought, meets Nieezsche‘s power of ehe false to provide an abyssal cinenia ofcryseal-im ages. Artaud‘s BwO, as ehe internal outside, as ehe (w)hole of thought which forces us eo ehink, finds in Nieezsche‘s power of ehe false a revalued physiology, the modern body-brain of cinema and of art. Modern cinema conseruces this new physiology in ies visions, its pure oprical and sound situations in which we are animaeed by an image which forces us to think, a “neuro-physiological“ vi bration as Areaud put it, an image which is both the (w)hole which could not be ehoughe, and ehe crack through which ehis (ineernal) outside ehinks. In II Deserto Rosso it is conseruceed by whae Antonioni calls his “psycho-physiology

1 l-i

Art as Abstract Afachine

9 Here, Guiliano‘s increasingly nervous agitation and automation of color.“ open onto a gap in her vision—her inahility to see herseif as whole—and she falls into this hole where things and people merge in an indeterminable mist. But what emerges in their place is a purely ahstract vision, an inhuman convul sion ofcolor as a living thing which attains a new determination beyond the sensory-rnotor. As a result, the climax of 11 Deserto Resso, the consummation of Guiliano‘s afEair, offers im narrarive ciosure, and culminates in her increasing distress in the tbroes ofa hallucination turning the room purple. Avision ofthe (w)hole itself a coloring void-vision. This image-thought can only be false, be cause t 110 longer has an outside which it represents. it is instead a crack in the world hv which cinema goes beyoiid die true and the fhlse to create the new. A cinema of concepnon/perception produces a vision, a BwO, a hole in/of the world, and requires the transformed regime of expression that emerges across the break between the two Cinema volumes. A modern cinema appears here that is not concerned with die movements of narrative, but with the duration that emerges through its cracks. As Deleuze has it: “We no longer believe in an association o irnages—even crossing voids; we believe in breaks which take on an absolute value and subordinate all association“ (C2, 2 12/276). Montage takes 011 its modern meaning, no longer structuring the flow of time to give an indirect image ofduration, but operating as a disjuncrive conjunction, joining images in a break (breaking the movement-image) through which duration is expressed. constructing image-cracks or visions through which duration can emerge as what it is, the creative power oflife. Deleuze argues that when the crystal-image suspends the world with its aherrant movement, when it cracks open thought and appears as what was im possible ro think, it produces an image of “what does not let itself be seen in vision“ (C2, 168/219). As we shall see in the following chapter, this is also what Deleuze and Guattari will find in painting, a visionary power of inorganic life as die unthinkable that makes us think and see something impossible to think andsee. An impossible thought and vision that requires a new hody and brain, the BwO, as what sees (construction) and what is seen (expression). This (w)hole of duration is not totality it is not a reassuring organic whole which is iepresented in our relations with die world, it is the (w)hele as hreak, this un thinkable crack, thought and seen as the being and becoming of thought itself As ontological ground therefore, it is our very groundlessness. The whole is the virtual dimensionalitv to everv actual thing, not pre—existing die thing, but continually re-constiruting the rhing according to die changing perspectives of its construction and comprehensiori in vision. The break or gap, in orher words, is what is produced when we approach the reciprocity ofvirtual and ac tual in the imace. This oroduces a break in our sensorv-motor. as we have seen.

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but rnore than this our own image, the Bergsonian image we have never stopped being, finds its own “vision“ in expressing durarion through its con strucrive—and 110 longer rea‘ucgive—break, a break which changcs duration‘s nature. Now we can see how rhe Bergsonian definition ofdurarion Deleuze gave as “whatdii‘rsfi-om itse‘f“ ° must, in its modern form, be qualified by die 5 definition given hy Deleuze and Guattari: “I)uration is in no way indivisible, but is that which cannot be divided wirhout changing in nature at each divi sion“ (ATl 483/604). At each division, a division made by die “secrion“ or “perspective“ of vision, die virtuality of duration isactualised and expressed, but only by making duration change in narure, an expression ofhecoming in separable from its very construction. The “ourside“ of thoughr is not “out there,“ no matter how dose this may be, it is die abvssal splitting of time irseif within the image. the ontogenesis ofduration. Not rhen die virrual und die tual, whole and part, hut the acrual image in its virtual virality the actual image as the expression and the construction of its virtual becoming, inseparahle and indiscernible. “This is why thought,“ Deleuze wrires, “as power which has not always existed, is born from an outside [durarion] rnore distant than am‘ exter nal world, and, as power which does not i‘et exist, conf‘ronrs an inside, an un thinkable or unthought, deeper than any internal world. [ 1 Thoughr outside itselfand this un-rbought within thought“ (C2, 278/363). ...

THE METHOD OF BETWEEN

In the organic regime, die whole was the open, exprcssed in a remporal interval that produced an image tliat was always indirect. In this xva classical cinema created an out-of-field as, “a changing whole which was expressed in die set of associated images“ (C2, 179/233). But if the whole is neirher ourside nor inside, Deleuze poinrs out, “the poinr is quite difIrent“ (C2, 179/234). The whole, duration as crack, or internal ourside, is instead the “berween“ ofthe cinemaric time—image, rather than an outside the movement—image expresses. This inrer— stice of images however, should not he thoughr ofas the berween ofimages, be cause thoughrs and images are themselves this “berween.“ lndiscernihly virrual and actual, their actual individuation emerges from the virtual (w)hole (expres sion), which they simultaneously arc, as die creation ofa perspective on dura tion (once more we think ofBergson‘s famons cone) as die process of its infinire and virtual movement (construction). The whole is rhis consrant crearive vibra tion, the rhytbmic beatings ofcrystal-life. Cinema becomes in modern times “die merhod ofBETWEEN, ‘berween rwo images,‘ wbich does awaywith all cinema of the One“ (C2, 180/235). But perhaps this is simply the cine-aesrheric of the contemporary itself die moder

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nity of any and eveiy age, a possibiliiy we will come back to, Tbis cinematic transformation parallels an ontological mutation of the whole that ceases being the One-Being, and becomes the constitutive “and“ ofthings, the sirnultaneous construction and expression ofa vital becoming. Deleuze‘s ontological aesthetic oftbe cinema therefore culminates in this univocity ofbecoming, and our route through Bergson arrives at the same poinr as those we took through Nietzsche and Spinoza. Art, cinematic or otberwise, is the creative force of life inasmuch as this expresses an immanent whole jr constructs. Cinema is in this way an atheistic and mystical practice, the production of a crystal-image in which, as Deleuze writes of Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001, /1 5pace Odyssey (1968): The identity of world am! brain, the automaton, does not form a whole, hut rather a limit, a mcmbranc which puts an ontside aiid an inside in con— tact. makes them present to cach other, confronts them or makes thern clash. The inside is psychology die past, involution, a whole psychology of depths which cxcavate the brain. The uutside is die cosmologv ofgalaxies. the future, evolution, a whole supernarural which makes the world ex— plode. (C2, 2061268)

Chapter Four

A Freedom for the End of the World: Painting and Absolute Deterritorialisation

Expression. like construction, signifies botli an action amt its result. lfthe two meanings arc separared the object is viewed in isolation froin the Operation which produccd it, and therefire apart from vision, since

the act proeeeded frorn an individual live creature. [heories that seize upon “expression“ as ifit denoted simply die ohject, always insist to die uttermost that rhe objeet of art is purcly reprcsentativc of otbcr objects

already in existence. Thcy ject something new.

igliore

the contrihution whiclt makes the ob— john

Dewev,

Art

‚

Fvpericiee.

INTRODUCTION

The artwork, Deleuze and Guattari argue, is a productive machine thar does not represent anything, is itselfunrepresentable, and exisrs only as the conunction ofmaterial flows and their traits ofexpression. Nevertheless, and consistent with what we have already seen in the last three chapters, art‘s affirmation gets eap tured in forms which negate it, which imagine it as something sad, and which subjectivise, organicise, and temporalise its inorganic consistenc and emergent becomings. Painting too, like all the other arts. But, like all the other arts, paint— ing also finds a way through the cracks, and operates as a critical practice that resists its formalization and departs on its thousand lines of flight. Once again, painring resists this “capture“ on two fronts. On the one hand, the aesthetics of creation presupposes no material or meaning, and is precisely what escapes stich presuppositions in creating the new, In this sense the creative process, the “art“ of absolute deterritorialisation as it will be developed in this chaptei, is at work everywhere. On the other hand, this revolutionarv force onlv appears within a specific milieu, in more or less concrete assemblages, in paint ings as such. The poinr is not to set painting up in, or as, a dialectic between its specific representations or forms and their absolute deterritorialisarion, but to

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understand how paintings are already the immanence of an absolutely deterrito—

rialised plane and its territorialised formalization. What is required, as Guattari points out, is “a double enunciation: finite. territorialised and incorporeal, infi nite“ (Chaos, 55/82). Painring is, first ofall, an articulation ofits finite and infi nite dimensions, an art of creation that in its finite processes of construction absoluteiv detertitorialises the world (destratifies ir Deleuze and Guattari will say) and expresses its destratified and infinite “plane ofconsistenc“ This chapter will therefore have rwo main objectives: First, a general ac count of the terminological and theoretical terrain on which this “double enunciation“ ofpainting takes place. Central ro this account is an understand ing of the concepts ofdeterritorialisation, both relative and absolute, and how these articulate the relations between the strata anti the plane ofconsistency. Tliis prevides us with die components ofa semiotics capable of revaluing the “sign,“ a semiotic practice that Deleuze and Guattari call schizoanalysis. The second airn of the chapter will be the exploration of the schizoanalysed sign through the examples of Venetian Renaissance painting, and the work of Jackson Pollock. The first will involve a discussion ofart‘s “abstract machine,“ while the second will extend this discussion to its painterly components; the abstract line, smooth space, and haptic experience. Thus, the two elements of this chapter will provide us with a new image of abstraction, one that departs from the work ofWilhelm Worringer, and challenges die ciassic modernist ac count of Pollock hy Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried. This introduces [)eleuze and Guattari‘s concept of modernism, which will be taken up and dc veloped in the next chapter. STRATIFIED

The material world, the Earth, is a plane ofconsistency. a genetic flux ofun formed matter/energy existing at ontological ground zero. But, Deleuze and Guatrari argue, die Earth is constantly conglomerating and concretising ac cording to varions axiomatic relations of content and expression, a “double ar ticulation“ of the Earth emerging through what they call the “strata.“ The strara impose limits on the autogenesis of the Earth as if from above, and as such: “Every stratum is a judgment ofGod“ (ATP, 44/58). lt will come as no surprise that one of the first signs ofpainting, when it is truly art, is an athe ism that attacks these judgments. The strata consist of various axiomatic relations of content and expres sion that determine t-hings md their meanings. This double articulation of the strata is doubled again hy the distinction of form and substance, once for expression and once for content. Content consists of a formed matter (the

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“chosen“ or territorialised matter being its substance—--canvas and paint in painting for example—and the order jr is chosen in, its coding, giving its form—this painting). On the other band, the “choosing“ offunctional srruc tures determjnes a substance ofexpression (the genre ofa painting for exam ple), which it combines into forms (once more, this expression, the meaning ofthis genre painting). In both cases, form is the code, and substance die ter ritory formed. Meaning and rbings (die meaning o[‘things) arc therefore pro duced through die reciprocal presuppesirion ofcontent and expression and their mobile relations within and between strara, (expression in one relation can be the content ofanother, as when an art historian writes about a paint ing). Strata are actualised by what Deleuze and (iuarrari ca 11 “machinic as semblages.“ These work in rwe direcrions, on one sitte rhey face rowards the plane and employ “abstract machines“ ro “extract“ a matrer-function, and on the other the strata formalize this marter-function into “concrere assem blages,“ the actual things and sratements which ernerge through the srrata‘s “pincers“ of content and expression. Deleuze and Guattari suggest three levels of strara, die geologcal or physiocheniical, rhe organic, and the linguistic. Signs emerge in the erganic and linguistic strata, where expression operates in a dimension separateci frem its content. This auronomy ofexpression means it can on the one hand rerer ritorialise a material formlsubstance as its content—consrrucring a sign—and on the other, it can itseifbe deterritorialised and re-formed as rhe content of anorher sign. At the organic level, the sign appears rhrough the process ofre production (life and dearb being the constant dc- and re-rerritorialisarion of content for new expressions), hut the sign takes on its real meaning when this process is extended to language. Here the sign gains an auronomy from the “thing“ it represents, things and signs being produced through differenr tech nical and linguistic regimes. The rwe regimes nevertheless operare in recipro cal presupposirion, as the example ofpainting shows. A painring‘s content as “thing“ consists ofthe substances jr is formed frorn, and the rechnical Opera tions that form them. The painring‘s expression, or whar ir lepresents, exisrs on another level and emerges through a formal organisation of funcrions er 2 Neverrheless, conrenr and expressien must be in recip forms of expression. rocal presupposition for a painring—as sign—to exist, bur rhey remain dis tinct from each orher as “meaning“ and “thing.“ The contours ofthis relation arc, however, dynamic and mulrifaceted. The technological axiomatjc rhat produces a painting, irs historical trajectory of material substances and processes offormation have undergone conrinual change, and the nioe rom a cave painting to Antonioni‘s cinematic painting thar we saw last chapter would describe onl one possible hisrory of painting‘s innevation of material

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and technique. Within the regime of expression there is also an extremely open process at work defining a painring‘s historical meaning (the form ofex— pression), not to mention the history of the meaning of painting (expression‘s substance). For example, is the figure seated nexr ro Christ in Leonardo‘s Last Supper a woman, as one recent theory has it? Similarly, the long dehate around the relative merits of line over color marks only one possihle “phylum“ of the shifting rneani ng ofpainring. Nevertheless, some aspecrs ofpainting‘s expressive regime have remained stable, most notahiv a content-expression relation deter mined by what Deleuze and Guattari ca 11 the “imperialisrn of the signifier“ in which “the sein jotic ofsigns is necessarily linkecl to a semiology of the signifier“ (AFI 65/84—5). Here, where semiotics becomes semiologyand structuralist Im guistics becomes the dominant model, a representational relation is irnposed on content and expression, an “oversimplified“ model in which the painting as sub stantial “thing“ is “subjugated“ to the “increased despotism“ of the regime ofsig nification (ATI 66/85—6). Painting‘s meaning now exists within linguistic assembiages ofexpressions (signifiers) and contents (signifieds), whose recipro cal presupposition with the techniques of formed substances (“things“) remains, but this substance of painting is over coded by the meaning it represents as a sign. Painting‘s materiality and the processes that form it therefore find expres sion onl through the constant circulation of signifiers, or “significance“ as Deleuie and Guattari ca! 1 it. Signifiance implies the autonomy of meaning from materiality in a seemingly free circularion ofsignifiers, but this freedom hides the face of another despor, that ofthe subject. The understanding ofsigns ac cording to a signifier/signified relation implies for Deleuze and Guattari an in dividual subject who expresses it. In this xvay, signifiance and 3 subjectivation arc the two facers ofa representationa! economy that defines not only the meaning ofpainring (as what jr means to paint), but also what it means to think. In DifJ?renceandRepetition Deleuze explains the co-implication ofsignifi ance and subjectivation in terms of a representational image of thought. 4 This “dogmatic“ image of thought, as he calls it, assumes an “1 rhink“ which pre-ex ists and determines perception, and is therefore entirely relevant to a discussion ofart. Here, Deleuze is critiquing the Kantian rationalist mode! where the fac ulties of conceiving, judgment, imagination and memory constitute a “com mon sense“ shared hy all, as the condition of possibility ofany perception. Any perception presupposes this common sense, which in turn assumes a subjective idenrity—a “Seif“ as the unity and ground ofcornmon sense—and an objecrive idenrit) in what the facuiries sense and represent (DR, 226/291). A painring, in being experienced, becomes determined by “common sense“ as a subjective sign representing a singular and selfsame object, an object whose materiality is al wars already taken up in this representational economy ofthought. As a result.

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painting appears in a perceprion that has already been determined as a represen tation ofart object for a subect, a representation given nleaning by the signifier which expresses it and which gives its content. As w‘e shall see. when painting emerges in its materiality or more precisely when the consrruction ofits mate rial becomes expressive, it will no longer be representative, and jr will create a sensation that assumes a new way to think. Deleuze and Guattari‘s understanding of a semiotics of content and expression rests on the work of Louis Hjelnislev. who sought an alternative to the signifier/signified ofstructuralist Iinguistics.S But structuralism is only the latest symptom of a representarional image of thought which has dominated thinking since Plato. lt‘s “the same circle,“ and “we‘re still spreading rhe same canker“ (le marne gangr/‘ne, ATi 65/85). Against the “signifier enthusiasts“ (Äl‘P, 66/86) Deleuze and Guatrari posit the Hjelmslevian sign, whose conrent expression relation has, “the advantage of breaking with the form-content dual ity“ (ATI 43/58). In this sign expression is kept in direct contact with its material dimension, and stands, Deleuze and Guatrari claim, “in radical oppo sition to the scenario of the signifier“ (ATP 66/85). We arc not signified, Deleuze and Guattari argue, we arc stratified, and engaging wirh this process be gins with a “semiotic ofsigns“ opposed to a “semiology of the signifier“ (ATE 65/85). ‘I‘his revaluing of the sign however, is only the first step towards a reval uation of painting, and now we must take the necessarv further steps towards its absolute deterritorialisarion. ABSOLUTE DETERRITORIALISATION

Content and expression allow US to undersrand the way signs only appear in a “specific, variable assemb!age“ necessarily involving both meaning and things (ATE 66/85).But this “concrete assemblage“ ernerges from a deeper “machinic as semblage“ it actualises. The machinic assembiage operates the arricularion ofcon tent and expression on its side facing the strata, but on irs other side ir faces the plane of consistenc 5 where irs “abstract“ machine composes material flows inro trairs ofcontent (degrees ofinrensiry, resisrance, conducrivirv heat and speed) and traits ofexpression (“tensors“ or funcrions operaring as differenrials, such as clear obscure, line-color, or closed-open form). Signs do not, on this accounr, appear as signifiers or as representarions, but as particular assemblages of material forces and functions srratified inro relations of conrent and expression. This under sranding of the sign is rherefore onrological, because jr purs the sign back into contact with rhe material and vital plane of consisrency that consrirutes it. In this sense Deleuze and Guattari propose a critical semiorics that will reveal the signs abstract machine, and in so doing free a sign‘s material becomings frorn the strata,

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allowing them to be sensed in themselves. The abstract machine, while immanent to the sign, is the “destratified“ element that avoids any distinctions hetween con— tent and expression. The abstract machine is the “pure Matter-Function“ of sign, operating on the plane of consistency where “it is no longer even possible to teil whether it is a particie or a sign“ (ATF 141/176). The task of semiotics will therefore be to interpret stratified signs in order to revalue (destratiy) them, in order to make thc operation of their abstract machines sensible. Abstract mach ines are ahsolutely deterritorialised, and are the “primary“ elements ofany machinic assembiage, operating before its territorialisation and coding into signs. “This absolute deterritorialization,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “becomes relative oniy after stratification occurs on that plane or body: lt is the strata that arc always residue, not the opposite“ (ATP, 56/74). The semi otic problem is therefore how to approach signs in their absolutely deterritori alised stare, as particles-signs. This problem has as its condition Deleuze and Guattari‘s assurnption of the “perpetual immanence of absolute deterritorializa tion within relative deterritorialization“ (ATl 56/74).6 Absolute deterritoriali sation does not introduce an “excess or beyond“ (ATP 56/74) to the strata, but is the immanent operation of the abstract machine in stratification. Although the strata subjugate matter-function through processes of relative dc- and re-ter ritorialisation (relative that is to the axiomatic limits of the strata), the abstract maclline is always seeking to conjugate these movements into an absolute deter ritorialisation, a “destratification,‘ as “the abstract machines absolute positive deterritorialization“ (ATT 142/177). This absolute deterritorialisation of the ab stract machine has two important elements that arc necessarily related. First, it

appears within the strata as the absolute deterritorialisation of content and expression. as the crack through which something new emerges. But second, on the ahsolutely deterritorialised plane of consistency the abstract machine oper ates in a “piloting role,“ creating new possibilities for life, creating a real to come, new type ofrea/ity“ (ATP 142/177). As Deleuze and Guattari put it in an ex ample that equally applies to painting: “Writing now functions on the same level as the real, and the real mnatcrially writes“ (ATF 141 / 177). ‘X“e shall shortly see how Venetian Renaissance painting and the work ofJackson Pollock, each in its own way, achieves this. l he abstract machine appears according to rwo “complementary“ move ments, either within the strata which “harness“ it and turn its deterritorialisa— tions relative, or as the absolute deterritorialisation of the strata, in lines offlight a “passage to the absolute“ (ATl 144/180). According to these two modes ofeffectuation we will either remain organicised, signified and subjectified in a stratifed body and thought. or we will be absolutely deterritorialised, destrati fied in the creation of a new reality, emerging as a new I/eye adequate to its

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“properly diagrammaric experience“ (ATP 145/180—1). As a result our question becomes, “given a certain machinic assemblage, ‘hat is its relation ofeffectua tion wjth the abstract rnachjne?“ (ATi 71/91). In other words, bow is the ah stract machine stratified, and in what ways does the assemblage open onto destratification? This question is not easy to answer, because its answer must be construcred through a process ofcritique, tbrough, as Deleuze and Guattari ca 11 it here, a “schizoanalysis.“ The immanence of the ahstract machine implies that the new realities it creates do not exist apart from the strata, hut only appear in the absolute deterritorialisation ofthe strata. just what this appearance could be we shall now go on to see. ‘X‘ith the absolute deterritorial isation of signs. with their destratification, the possibility ofsigns no longer defined by distinctions betveen contents and expressions, or forms and substances is inrroduced. Once more this begs the question, and Deleuze and Guattari ask it, “how can one still identify and name things ifthey have lost the strata that qualified them, ifthey have gone into ab solute deterritorialisation?“ (ATE 70/90). The answer has two parts. First, such a sign appears tbrough the conjugation of deterritorialising movemenrs in the strata, accelerating (or decelerating) deterritorialisamions to an absolute speed, by which the sign appears as destratification. This process frees “variables“ to “op erate in the plane of consistency as its own functions“ (ÄT1 70/90). This brings US tO the second part of our answer, that absolutely deterritorialised “variables“ appear under their own, destratified conditions. Here rhe abstracm machine con structs continuums of intensity which appear as particles-signs, as the non-rep resentative “asignifying traits“ (FB, 100/94) which constitute the plane. These signs appear when relations of content and expression no longer define the ab stract rnachine, and it emerges “flush with the real, [as] it inscrihes directly upon the plane of consistency“ (ATB 65/85). This second sense of an ahstract chine “inscribing“ “flush with real“ implies that in destratifving signs the ab stract machine does not sirnply “return“ them to the plane of consisten but that particles-signs construct the plane at the same time as they express it. How? Particles—signs, we know, arc asignifying traits, but as their hvphenation sug gests, they arc composed from rraits of content and trairs of expression as the matter-function of the abstract machine. As we have seen, rraits of conrent arc ahsolutely deterritorialised contents (marter-flows), and traits of expression arc

“tensors“ inseparable from matter and determining its tendency in relation to irs immanent functions. The abstract machine conjugares certain traits ofcontent to construct a material plane ofconsistencv, and it is this plane tliat the abstract machine‘s functions express (in irs traits ofexpression). The question for painring is how its signs appear as ptrticles—signs, how painting is sensible beyond the common sense ofsubjects, their objects, and

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tiieir representational image, or signifier. Particles-signs express a destratifica— tion, a radical break wirb, or line of flight frorn the strata that introduces something new. But in another sense, they express an abstract machine as the “diagram“ of the plane, a force of construction by wliich the plane‘s vital togenesis is expressed in signs. Particles—signs will therefore appear in painting both as its destratifleation, as what escapes the stratifying articulations ofcon tent and expression, and as a new reality they construct. No creation without destruction. Destratification fractures our harrnonious common sense to con struct a new sensibiliry, a destratifled, desubjectivised sensibiiity adequate to the asignifying particies-signs lt produces. A particle—sign will therefore re— quire a new sensibility because it “is not a sensible being hut the being ofthe sensible. lt is not the given hut that by which the given is given. lt is therefore in a certain sense the imperceptible. lt is the imperceptible precisely from the point of view ofrecognition“ (DR. 140/182). A-subjective and a-signifying particles-signs arc released by the imperceptible and conrinuous variation of matter-function, hy which the ahstract machine constructs and expresses the plane of consistency. And if particles-signs are flush with the real, then so is their sensation. They can oniy be sensed ourside of the schema of subjects and their objects, as tIie insaniry ofcommon sense, and the imperceprible ofra tional perception. ihey arc iriad rather than meaningful, and appear, Deleuze and Guattari argue, in the asubjective sensations of the schizophrenie. “Sorneone“ Deleuze teils us, “who neither allows himselfto be represented nor wishes to represent anything“ (DR, 130/177). SCHIZOANALYSIS IS LIKE THE ART OF THE NEW

Schizoanalysis vili he, quite precisely, the analysis ofstratified matter that lib erates its deterritorialisations and turns them absolute. In this way, schizoanaly— sis will construct serisations as particles-signs. Consistent with its immanence to the material it attempts to destratify, schizoanalysis is a process and not a goal, a pragmatics, a continued experimentation. “The completion of the process,“ DeleuLe and Guattari stare, “is not a promised and pre—existing land, hut a world created in the process of its tendency, its coming undone, its dc— territorialisation“ (AO, 322!384). Schizoanalysis will be the continual process of freeing matter from its determination by the strata, a never-enditig process of revolution that leaves “physical and semiotic systems in shreds,“ and pro duces fiom their ruin “asubjective affects, signs without significance“ (ATP, 147/183). The schizoanalyst isa“mechanic“ because “schizoanalysis is solely functional“ (M), 322/385). Fie or she is a “handyman,“ one who destrarifies signs in order ro create a new reality 8 In this way, “the negative or destructive

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task of schizoanalysis is in no way separable from its positive tasks—all these tasks arc necessariiy undertaken at the same time“ (AO, .322/384—5). The mc chanical nature of this process is important, because it suggests the way in which lt is achieved through direct material interventions rather than through a psychoanalytic interpretation of symbols.‘ The “schizoanaly‘sis“ of particies— signs is a material process, an intervention rather than an interpretation. “For reading a text,“ Deleuze and Guattari write in a passage clearly also applying to painting, “is never a scholarly exercise in search ofwhat is signified, still iess a highly textual exercise in search of a signifier. Rather it is a productive use of the literary machine, a montage ofdesiring machines, a schizoid exercise that exrracts from the text its revolutionary force“ (AO, 106/125—6). Schizoanaiysis is an analysis of stratified signs, 1)cleuze and Guattari write, and is “the onl‘ wav you will be able to dismantle thern [strata] and drawyour lines offlight“ (ATP 188/230). Schizoanalysis attempts to acceler ate (or decelerate) the deterritorialising movernents of the strata beyond their threshold of reproduction and towards an irrevocable “hreakdown,“ a hreak down through which matter-functions “break through“ the strata. But how does the artist achieve this, how does he or she consrrucr the new? The artist and art-work begins by ereating a “catastrophic“ breakdown. “The artist,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “stores up bis treasures so as to creatc an imme diate explosion“ (AO, 32/39). Their example is ihrner‘s late land and seascapes, and especially his last watercolors, wbich produce an “explosive line,“ a line without outline or contour (i.e. it is non-representational), that “makes the painting itseif an unparalleled catastrophe (instead ofillustiating the catastrophe rornantically)“ (FB, 105/98). This explosive qualirv (its anti— romantic quality will become important in the next chapter) of the line will be a constant fearure of Deleuze and Guattari‘s painting diagram, one we will see them trace in Venetian painting, Gothic art, and the work ofjackson Pollock and Francis Bacon. Deleuze and Guattari devote a particularly beau

tiful passage to Turner‘s “breakthrough“ paintings: tbe canvas turns in on itself, it is picrced by a hole, a lalce, a flame, a tor— nado, an explosion. ‘l‘be thernes oftlic preceding paintings arc ro be found again here, their meaning changed. The canvas is truly broken, sundcred hy what penctrates it. All thar remains is a hackground of gold and fog, in tense, intensive, traversed in depih [iv whar bas just sundercd its brcadrh: the schiz. Everything becomes mixcd and conftised, and ii is here rhar the hreakthrough—not the breakdowii----—occurs.“ (AO, 132/1 57—8)°

There arc a couple of important points to note here. The first is one 1 have al ready mentioned, that what appears in this work is preciseh‘ the “breakdown“

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ofstratifled sigus by which the particles-signs of the plane appear as a “break through“: an absolute dererritorialisarion necessarily immanent to the strata. But this break is productive, and the “schiz“ appears as intense matters-func tions at work on/in the plane. This means the “breakthrough“ of‘the painting is not utopic in thc sense in which it, with Hrn Morrison, would break 011 through to the other side (although it does, perhaps, kiss the sky). The utopia oTurner‘s paintings is not another world, but is die appearance of this world in irs reality. in its being as becoming, in its ontological emergence as a sensa tion. In this sense, schizoanalysis is a utopian pragmatics, for, as Deleuze and Guattari explain: “Utopia does not split offfrom infinite movernent: etymo logicallv it stands for absolute dererritorialisation but always at the critical poinr at whicb it is connected to the present relative milieu, and especially with the forces stifled hy this milieu“ (WP, 99—100/95—6). The schizophrenie. in his or her “miery and glory“ (AO, 18/25) expe riences matter as destratified, as an atemporal and intense matter. “The schiz ophrenic,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “is as dose as possible to matter, to a hurning, living centre of matter“ (AO, 19/26). Schizoanalysis experiments with straeified signs in order to bring them as dose as possible to the matter they alreadv arc. to the point where, as in Turner, the “artisan“ paines 1ush with tue real. The schizo-areisan in his or her glory is however, clearly disein guished from the rnisery of the schizophrenie clinically defined. The schizo phrenie as patient escapes the strata of signifiance and subjeceivation only at the price of bis or her abiliey to produce signs. The schizophrenic steps into a silene and painful outside, a madness, living frorn ‘the other side‘ an opposi tion beeweeii ehe strata and plane ofconsiseency that the strata enforce.‘‘ The schizo-artisan on the other hand, “scales the schizophrenic wall“ (AO, 69/8 1) and makes what they arc escaping from escape itseif Their artistic creativiey lies in being able to destratif‘ an asseniblage and through this process express its immanent material flows in particles-signs (AO, 34 1/407—8). We don‘t have to look frr amongst artists eo find examples ofa schizoanalytic practice, and a schizoanalytic life. Henry Miller describes it beaueifully as ehat moment when “the world ceases eo revolve, time stops, the very nexus of my dreams is brokcn and dissolved and rny guts spill out in a grand schizophrenic rush, an evacuation that leaves mc tce to face with the Absolute.“ 12 As ehe passage froin Miller implies. schizoanalysis is neither a psychotic brcakdown, a terrifying and painful autism, nor a purely theoretical aphasia, hut a practice, something we must accomplish for ourselves, in schizo analysing our own lives. Not least the thinker, who‘s ehought must not simply repa-esent the schizo—produceion ofothers, hut muse take a lirele of their ‘mad— ness‘ in oider to construce sonieehing new. L)eleuze makes this poine in a weil—

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known passage from The Logic ofSense. Commenting on the alcoholisrn of Malcolrn Lowry and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and on Artaud and Nietzsche‘s mad ness, Deleuze asks: Arc we Co become ehe professionals who give talks on these topics Arc we to wish only that thosc who have bem struck down do not abusc themselves too much? Arc we gomg to take tip colleetions and creatc spe cial journal issues? Or should we go a sliort wav further Co SCC for our— scives, be a littic alcoholic, and a linie crazy. a Linie suicidal, a linie ofa guerrilla—just cnough ro cxtend the crack, hut not enough to deepen it irreinediahly? [ j How is thispolitics, this full guerrilla warfare to be attained? (LS, 157—8/184) .

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This polieics ofseif-schizophrenization will emerge more fully in ehe nexe chap eer, hut je is also implicie in Deleuze and Guateari‘s suggeseion—a suggestion 1 have eried eo exeend—ofa schizoanalysis ofVenetian painting. ATHOUSAND EINES OF FLIGHT, THE CASE OF VENETIAN PAINTING

Deleuze and Guaetari argue ehae ehe strata of signifiance and subjectiflcaeion form a “seicky mixture,“ a mixture ofa wbiee wall (signifiance) and black holes (subjectivation) dreating faces as recognizable forms of our generic humaniey and individual identiey (ATP 138/172). As such, facialiey is ehe means by which all faces may be cornparecl ehrough a siiding scale ofsirnilarity ehat dc eerrnines their relative positions. But ehe face is not an expression of impartial or universal judgmene, alehough it likes eo appear as such, for ehe face is ehat ofthe White Man himself, Jesus Christ Superstar, ehe rypical European. Quiee simply, “you‘ve been recognized,“ Deleuze and Guattari wriee, and facialiev “has you inscribed in its overall grid.“ Faciality is uleimately a fonn of polic ing, a “deviance deteceor,“ which inscribes any ateempe eo escape ies norma tive System within its houndaries, for all ehere is, is divergence from ehe white-man‘s face, withoue oueside. “There arc oniv people who should he like us and whose crime ie is not to be“ (AT1 177—78/21 8). Their punishmenes include racism, poverey; confinement or death. Obviously: “The face is a pol itics“ (ATP. 181/222), and in ehis political dimension it is easv to see how the ubiquieous production of faces wiehin ehe ares is only one aspece, and not nec essarily ehe worse, of its pernicious powers. The face and its faciality machine have eheir corrclate in the landscape. Landscapification codes ehe world, imposing phvsical and psychological hier archies (deeermining my “place“ in the world) ehat complirnent ehe process of

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flicialisation. In this sense, a sense both aesthetic and political: “The ‘problem‘ within wbich panting is inscribed is that of the face-landscape“ (ATP 301/369)) Painting approaches this “problem“ from two sides, on the one hand enabling its reproduction, but 011 the other creating deviations from its noamarive axiomatic. This latter process is painting‘s “brighter side“ (ATP, 178/218) where, and here Deleuze and Guattari are beginning to talk about the Venetians: “Painting has taken the abstiact white wall/black hole machine of faciality in all directions, using the face of Christ to produce every kind of facial unit and every degree ofdeviance“ (ATI 178/218—9). Painting becomes a deterritorialisation machine: “The aim of painting,“ Deleuze and Guattari rather generously argue, “has always been the deterritorialisation of faces and landscapcs, either by a reactivation of corporeality, or by a liberation of lines and colors, or borh at the same time“ (ATI 301/370). Venerian painting of the Renaissance is a “reactivation of corporeality“ and a “liberation of line and colour“ that introduces material and icono graphic innovarions (new traits of content and expression) to painting, and does so in a way rliat attacks its representational regime, its face-landscape ma chine. This movernent of deterritorialization einerges in painting with the shift in the Renaissance towards a theology of the incarnation, Debates about the meaning of the incarnation were explored in painting, whicb developed a new iconography centling on the passion story, and the Madonna and 4 But more fundarnentally, Deleuze argues, with this shift in theolog Child.‘ ical focus God is no longer a pure transcendent essence, but has become its opposite, the event or “accident“ ofa man‘s death. This “accident,“ especially as it appears in painting, embodies Christianity‘s inherent atheism, an athe ism that would liberate painting in a dramatic way: “Christianity contains a germ of tranquil atheism that will nurture painting;“ Deleuze argues, “the painter can easily be indifferent to the religious subject he is asked to repre sein“ (EB, 124/117). An atheist painting produced frorn within the church structure that nurtures it ernerges when “the form begins to express the acci dent and no longer the essence“ (FB, 125/117). lt becornes a small step for the painter to use the accident of Christ on the cross to explore completely different concerns: a landscape, some drapery, or other more bizarre twists of the imagination. This is, Deleuze claims, tbe “radical break“ in painting that occurs around 1450, in which “the flows of painting go insane.“ 15 At this time, Deleuze and Guattari write: “The most prodigious strokes of madness appear on canvas under the auspices of the Catholic code.“ They mention: “Christ-athlete at the fair, Cbrist-Mannerist queer, Christ-Negro“ (ATF 178/219). lt is not the case however, that painting turns against the church, and starts to disbelieve. 16 lnstead, painting discovers the atbeisrn that is the

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creative part ofChristianity, the descent of the divine into the flesh, and be gins to experiment with this new corporeality, pushing it to extremes: “Christ‘s body is engineered on all sides and in all fashions, pulled in all direc tions, playing the role ofa full body without organs [i.e. the plane ofconsis tency], a locus of connection for all the machines of desire, a locus of sadomasochistic exercise where the artist‘s joy breaks free. Even homosexual Christs“ (AO, 369/442—43). Althougb this last claim seems optimistic, it is certainly true that iconography at this time breaks with the rigid codes of Byzantine and Gothic art. What is crucial however is that these deterritorial isations of the expressive regime are conjugated to others taking place on the level of content, most importantly the introduction of new painting materi als in ltaly at this time. Although these deterritorialisations will be reterritori— alised by the classical aesthetics dominant in central Italy, the Venetians will project the deterritorialisation of material into the absolute, their techniquc and use of color inventing a new painting machine. This will be the abstract machine of modern painting, where painting breaks with representation be cause “the semiotic components arc inseparable from material components and are in exceptionally dose contact with molecular levels“ (AT 334/4 13). Here painting emerges in partidles-signs, wbere the semiotic components (traits of expression) arc inseparable from their material elements (traits of content). Painting will become, with the Venetians, a materialist experimen tation inseparable from the vitalism of the plane, a materialist-vitalism no longer representational but real. Venetian art succeeds in making painting live, and this will be its valuc for Deleuze and Guattati. lt is not a representa tion ofthe ideal and eternal, but a material vitality that finds expression in the construction ofa new reality, a reality painting will not exhaust, to this very day (there is no “death ofpainting“). In this way, Venetian art fulfils one of Deleuze and Guattari‘s dlearest affirmations ofa vital art: art is never an end in itself; it is only a tool for blaiing life lines, in othcr words all ofthose real bccomings that arc not produced only in art, and all those activc escapcs that do not consist in flecing into art, taking refuge in art, and all of those positive dcterritoriali7ations that never reterritorialize on art, but instead sweep lt away wirh them toward the realrns of the asignifying, asuhjective, and faceless. (ATl 187/230) At this point however, we must turn to a inuch more precise account ofVenetian art to understand, exactly, how it achieves this. Venetian painting emerged in part from a Byzantine tradition of images especially present in Venice. Under Byzantine control early in its history Venice, even once independent, maintained

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significant economic links to (Zonstantinople and its empire. As Venice was with out ciassical ruins, the great Byzantine church, San Marco, dominated the city physically and aestheticaHy, its lusb decoration and spectacular mosaics being an imporrant influence on Venetian painting. 17 These are some of the reasons why Venicc, unlike central Italy, did not break with the Byzantine influence in paint ing, and in many ways continued its lines of research, 18 Beyond their aesthetic influence however, the function ofByzantine mosaics wirhin die church was to provide a path by wbich the viewer could transcend their body and regain the di vine realm of the spirit, and this spiritual path was one Venetian painting re jccted. Nevertheless, Byzantine mosaics offered an alternative to the ciassical subordination oflight to line that dominatecl the Italian Renaissance, an alterna tive the Venetian painters developed in their own direction. Ciassical representation utilized the line as an expressive contour impos ing an ideal and organic form on matter. The ciassical line was hylomorphic, and operated as a mould, this function heing privileged over light and color, which merely provided the material elements of the picture. Representation was first of all the representation ofthe organic world, of man‘s world, and in the realm ofarr it was first of all the line that described this world. Byzantine art developed an alternative to this type of representation in abandoning the contour-line, and using instead the modulation of areas of light and shadow to consrruct form. This ‘reversal‘ provided a means ofcomposition Venetian art was to exploit against the ciassical emphasis on line favoured in the Renaissance of central ltaly, a reversal the Venetians accelerated into the ab solute dererritorialisation ofcolor) 9 In the Byzantine mosaic, Deleuse writes: “Beings disintegrate into light,“ (PB, 129/121) and this was a deterritorialisa— tion of both organic representation and the human essence it represented. This Byzantine deterritorialisation nevertheless introduced its own reterrito rialisations, for the alternations of “black shores and white surfaces“ (FB, 128/120) composing Byzantine figures involved an equally rigid system offa ciality. Byzantine art was in fact typified by an extreme emphasis on the face of the “old despot,“ God the father and the son, who appeared in hieratic iso lation in tbe upper reaches of the church. Venetian painting before 1450, Deleuze and Guattari write. “molds itself to the Byzanrine code where even the colors and the lines arc subordinated to a signifier that determines their hierarchy as a vertical order“ (AO, 369/442). This vertical hierarchy works to lead us towards our essence—that to which we are compared and that to which we aspire—but this essence doesn‘t define our “natural“ organism, hut is the spiritual “grace“ of a heavenly world appearing in the brilliance of the mosaic‘s divine light. To ascend into this divine light means transcending our organic form, and the church in this sense was a machine through which we

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could achieve this transfiguration. ° But this ascension inro pure light meant 2 more than a break with the beautiful classical body and its representation; it meant the evaporation of all materiality into a spiritual void. In this sense, Byzantine art expresses the philosophical transition froin Plato to Plotinus. Plotinian mysticism dernanded a dematerialization ofthe soul that was also a radical negation ofconsciousness. This final step in rerracing God‘s ernana tion into being travels up, inro the light defining the spiritual and visual pres— ence ofGod in San Marco, allowing our gaze to pass through the black holes of God‘s eyes in order to gaze upon the internal abyss frorn which Plotinus‘ God emanates bis gift. Being must disintegrate in ligbt, in order to discover the divine void. 21 Venetian painting will borrow the Byzantine dissolution ofclassical line in the modulation oflight, hut it will do so through affirming ratber than negat ing corporeality and the materiality ofpaint. In taking up the Byzantine mod ulation of light in its own ways (ways we shall have to elaborate) Venetian painting broke with the classical line, hut more importantly it broke with this line as it was “re-born“ in central Italy in the fifteenth century. For painrers of central Italy line was the most important element in painting because it defined form, while light was only a secondary element that revealed it. This approach drew on the ciassical philosophical tradition articulated by Aristotle, who dc vated form over matter and the intellectual over the sensuous. In bis Poetics Aristotle privileged line over color hecause it bad the clarity necessary to trans late the intellectual act of invention, whereas color was merely a property of matter, both ofthe thing and of the medium used to represent it. 22 This was a more optimistic response to Plato‘s view of the material world as a dirn and dc ceptive shadow of the transcendent realm of ideas and essences, and found in art the possibility of representing the essential and true. Line was the fundamen tal means by which art could approach the ideal, and light merely gave volume to the forms a line defined and revealed their color, As the most important dc mein in the construction ofform, line was the first step in a painting‘s compo sition, and by the middle of the fifteenth century was achieved by making a fuJi scale cartoon, which was then transferred to the painting surface. The colors of each obect had also been determined in advance, and these were applied fol lowing the linear contours. Color theory at this rime also appealed to an Aristotelian metaphysics, and every effort was made to retain a color‘s purity as a supplement to the painting‘s linear clariry An important element in this prac tice was the belief, once more inherited from Aristotle, that light was separate from color, and inasmuch as light and shadow created an obects volume these effects were gained through the mixture of the “non-colors“ white and black with the color. The first account of such a method appeared around 1390 in

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Cennino Cenninis Libro d(‘llArte, which claimed to explain Giotto‘s painting technique. This involved the practice of “modelling tip,“ where the pure color was placed in the shadowed areas of an object, and two lighter tones were then mixed by adding white, and were used to create plasticity l‘his method bad mu tated by the tirne of Leon Battista Albertis Della Pittura, written in 1435—6, where the perspective system and the color theory of‘ the Renaissance appeared in a sysrematized h)rm. Alberti proposed a rnethod whereby a space was defined by perspective, forms vere drawn within this space, their color determined by drawing an imaginary line through their centre, and then modelled “up and down“ through the addition ofbiack and white according to the degree ofillu minarion. The light source was fixed at a right angle to the picture plane, and gave the direcrion and strength ofthe sbadows and highlights. The ohject‘s color was understood (once rnore following Aristotle) as being a “local tone“ or true color belonging tu the ohject itseif apart fom any visual factors such as light condirions or proximirv to other colors. This “true“ color was revealed but not produced by ligbt. which was helieved to have no color. In Cennini‘s system, colors had different value ranges depending on the inrensity of their pigments, making consistent modelling a problem. Another difficulty from the point of view of naturalism was that the pure pigments placed in the shadowed areas tended to project forward because oftheir intensity counteracting the painting‘s illusion of depth. Albertis system solved both problems by placing the pure color in the middle, and so most projected part of the object, and standardized the tonal range of all colors by adjusring thern both “tip“ and “owu“ through the addition of black and white. 23 Although giving greater naturalism, Alberti‘s coding of color retains the ciassical empbasis on a true, ideal color consistent with its metaphysical com mirments. Central Renaissance painting idealises color and light effects, because its color system ignores empirical experience, giving central Italian painting its timeless, eternal appearance. In empirical experience an object‘s color is insepa rahle fiom the quality of light illuminating it, and the colors of the objects sur rounding it. The Venetians were the first to respond to these conditions, and this led rhein to revalue color‘s value. Starting with Giovanni Bellini, painters in Venice began to explore the empirical lighting effects of the time ofday, or the weather conditions (a good example is Giorgione‘s La 7mpesta, c.1509, Accademia, Venice 2 ). They realized that light did not effect color through a simple binomial graduation ofvalue, and began to experiment with other forms ofmixingwbich lead ro what Deleuze defines as a Modern colorism, where light and dark is achieved through the mixing of pure color. But before we analyse this change in the Venetian regime ofexpression we will have to turn to the var ious new materials being introduced at the time that made it possible.

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The most significant of these fictors was the introduction to Ital ofa new medium—oil—in the 1 60s. This development is usually attributed to the 4 painter Antonello da Messina. Vasari claims Da Messina learnt the technique directly from Jan van Eyck, and alrhough we now know this was impossible (van Eyck died before da Messina was born), recent research indicates he rnay have visited Flanders to learn the technique. 2 Additionalk some of van Eyck‘s works had come to ltaly, and the painters Rogier van der \Veyden and Perrus Christus had visited bv this time. 011 as a medium dramatically effected Renaissance painting, giving a greater depth and vibrancy tu color than that acbieved by mixing the pigments with egg tempera. Most importantly it meant that the lay ering of glazes could create shadow, and black no longer needed to he mixed with a color, a practice often producing rnurky effects, Black was still used in the monochrome under painting that gave the lighting structure ofa scene, hut a color‘s value could now be controlled through the overlay ofdifferent amounts ofsimilar pigments (for example, a series of reds and pinks achieved through the layering ofdifferent intensities of each). This practice did not however, contra vene the classical demands of “pure“ color and its condemnation of “corrupt“ colors (those created through direct mixing) as in glazing eacb color retained its integrity, and only similar colors were overlaid. Oil began being used in Venice in the early l470s, most notably hy Giovanni Bellini, but da Messina‘s presence there in 1475—7, and the influence of the work he did there (especialiv the al tarpiece for S. Cassiano, now in die Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna) was an important factor in its quick adoprion. The Venetians accelerated the possibili ties of‘ the oil medium heyond its use in central Italy in numerous ways. They began to overlay glazes ofcomplementary colors to create shadows (the so-called “colored grey“), meaning the inseparability of light and color in nature could find its adequate expression in a painting technique. They also began tu inflect an object‘s shadow with color from nearby objects, wbich gave a much more re alistic light effect. Finally they directly mixed colors together, adding “broken tones“ to their palette. In these was the Venetians ahsolutely deterritorialise the ciassical line tu start painting with color-light. Deleuze and Guattari put it very succinctly: “whar would appear to be another world opens up, an otlier art, where die lines are deterritorialized, the colors arc decoded, and now only refer tu the relations they entertain amongst themselves, and with one another“ (A0, 369/442). As we shall see, Deleuze will claim that this liberation from the sys tematic addition of white and black to create a color‘s value will be the defini tion ofcolorism, and the condition ofpossihiliry ofa painrer being able tu paint inorganic forces. This deterritorialisation ofthe Renaissance line-color value sys tem did not ernerge in isolation however, and was conjugared tu other impor tant “traits ofexpression“ ofthe new oil medium. These were concentrated in

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technique, where oil‘s greater fluidity and siower drying time enabled the painter to work up the composition on the canvas, and to explore the affects of a much freer brushwork, Venetian painters, starting with Giorgione, stopped working out their compositions in detail before beginning to paint. Drawing im longer prede termined the composition, the composition was worked out through the process of painting. 26 Tbis is another major break with central Renaissance methods, for, as Marcia Hall points out: “Color, rather than line, is the pn— mary nieans of constituting the image, [...] making the painting process the process ofcreation,“ The picture‘s cornposition and color scheme were often 27 reworked duning painting, and this required a new technique. First of all faster, more inruitive and empirical, with the painter responding to problems and inspirations generated through the material process ofpainting. Painting no longer simply rcpresented the idca of the painrer, or his patron, but began to express its matter-force, its paint-painting machine. The central Renaissance painters bad a three step practice, drawing the forms, applying a rnonochroine lighting scheme, and adding the color last. Giorgione, and Titian after hirn, begins with a very broad laying-in of light and dark areas within which colors arc increasingly integrated. 28 “Titian,“ Deleuze and Guattani note, “began his paintings in black and white, not to make oudines to fill in, but as a matrix for each of the colors to come“ (ATP, 173/212). Titian develops this technique to a point in the late paintings where there was no longer a clear distinction between the “under painting“ and the applica tion ofcolor (Tintoretto also used this rechnique extensively). Light and color were applied togetber in the gradual working up of the forms, a process rely ing less on a preconceived drawn plan, than a series ofcontinual reworkings. In the late Titian opaque and translucent paint and dark and bright colors arc applied simultaneously. Furthermore, some passages in die later work seem to have been applicd witb Titian‘s fingers, Truly an artist painting flush with the 29 real! In emphasising the importance of the Venetian deternitorialisation of the line in a painterly construction ofcolor-light, we arc not only following Deleuze and Guattari, but one of their major art-histonical references on this point (and on others), the German art historian Heinrich Wölfflin. Wölfflin‘s Principles of Art History is a remarkable forerunner to what we could call a ‘diagrarnrnatic‘ understanding of art, and provides a taxonomy of five “tensors“ or functions through which to understand art. Each function was bi-polar (linear-painterly, plane-reession, closcd-open form, inultiplicity-unityand clear-unclear) and an art work, Wölfflin argued, appeared in relation to these poles)° Wölfflin‘s pnin ciples arc not outside history, but in Deleuze and Guattani‘s terms arc “prior to“

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history (ATI 142/177). This is the position of die abstract machine, and Wölfflin‘s pninciples arc important examples of how traits of expression appear in die realm ofart. The most important ofWölfflin‘s principles for our purposes arc those of linear-painterly and clearness-unclearness. ‘ Wölfflin explains how 3 a “depreciation“ ofthe line emerges in “die emancipation ofth masses oflight and shade till thcy pursue each other in independent interplay,“ producing what he calls “a painterly impression.“ 32 The art work no longer appears according ro the linear determination of forms, each separate and distinct, hut in an “all over“ affcct in which “everything was cnlivened by a mystenious movcrncnt,“ a movernent in which an “interflow ofform and light and color can takc cffcct.“ 3 This new “intcrflow,“ along with thc brokcn tones and loosc brushwork wc will shordy examine, breaks out of die eternal forms of Renaissance painting to di rcctly involve us. We must reconstimte thc painting through thc active Partici pation ofour eye, and in this way the paintings appeal to our sensual rather than cerebral or religious instincts, enfolding us into the diagram of/as their real con ditions. Like Byzantine art then, Venetian painting rcjccts the linc for an exprcs sion that “has its roots only in the eye and appeals only to die eye.“ As Wölfflin‘s pninciple suggests, the Vcnetian renunciation ofrhe line and their use of the new medium ofoil lcd to an emphatic “handling“ of die paint, and the force of the brushes movement bccame immcdiately visible in the work. This was partly a change in Venetian taste, and rcflectcd die elevation of the artist above mere craftsman. But it was also a technique that Titian developed into an alternative to the layening of glazes. By juxtaposing and overlapping daubs of unbroken paint, he could modulare color-light in a fastcr and morc calligraphic stylc, the activity of bis brush adding drama to bis scenes. Form now appeans through the composition of colored patchcs punctuated by the terscr passages of impasto. 5 Once more this innovation sbows how traits of exprcs sion, here die expressivities of the brush, arc dirccdy connccted ro the ncw ma terial traits of content libcrated in thc Venetian abstract machinc Titian conjugatcd this deterritorialisation of die brush stroke with an other innovation on die levcl ofcontent, the movc froni gcssocd pancls as sup port to canvas. Thc painters ofcentral Italy prefcrred gessoed pancls because they provided a very smooth surface that reccivcd die brush much like papcr received chalk, and suited their ernpbasis of thc lilie. Canvas howcver, bad a weave that when pronounccd remained visible, and disrupted the application of the paint. This disturbcd the linear qualities of thc stroke, and amplificd the softer and more diffused modclling prcferrcd by the Venctians, lt also in troduccd a new possibility for producing broken tones, whcn colored undcr painting lying in the recessions of the wcavc showcd through a color applicd over it with a fast brush.

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Tintoretto employed all of these material and expressive innovations in his work, hut he pushed the Venetian reversal ofthe Renaissance separation ofcolor and light to a new levei. He did so through the practice of working 011 dark grounds, on wliich he laid on ligbt areas with a rapid and often translucent stroke. In a remarkable afflrrnation of the new materiality of the Venetian ab stract machineTintoretto sornetirnes seems to have mixed his dark grounds sim ‘ At this point, Deleuze 3 ply by scraping together all the paint on bis palette. claims, Venetian painting becomes “baroque“ inasmuch as in it everything iIlu minated emerges from an infnity ofshadows. Aithough it is not my intention to focus on Deleuze‘s work an the baroque bere, it is worth noting as a broader abstract machine that functions within Venetian painting as weil as philosophy and mathematics. ‘Ehe haroque emerges from the absolute deterritorialisation of the organic line ofclassical representation into folds, folds that give Form by de scending ro and rising from a dark obscurity The dark obscurity of matter it self, which in Venetian paintilig is folded by the brush into expressive and abstract patches ofcolor-light to reveal Form. In Venetian painting as “baroque“ machine (Tintoretto is Deleuze‘s specific example): Things jump out of the backgrouncl, colors die common base that attests to their obscure nature, figures arc dcfined by tlicir coverung niore tlian tlicir contour. Yet this is not in op position tu Iight; tu the contiarv. it ii hy virtue of the iiew regime oflight. (TF, 31—2/44-5) the

painring is transformed.

sprung froni

‘l‘his ncw regime of light takes the luminism the Venetians inherited from Byzantine mosaics and deterritorialises it, before extending it into a new col orism where relations of light and dark arc not added to, hut constructed by, forces ofcolor. Wölfflin anticipates Deieuze here, arguing that the baroque is a new regime of expression ernerging within the rensor “clearness-unciearness.“ “Für classic art,“ Wölfflin svrites, “all beauty meant exhaustive revelation ofthe fbrm; in baroque art, absolute clearness is obscured even where a perfect render ing of facts is ainied at. The pietorial appearance no longer coincides with the maximum of ohjective ciearness, hut evades it.“ Deleuze will push this dia

grammatic definition of the baroque even further however, claiming that jr is “the inseparability of clarity from obscurity“ which produces “the effacement of the contour“ (TF, 32/45). lt is the new visual clarity ofcolor—light, and its hazy, flowung forms in Venetian painting that is inseparahle from its dark material ob— scurity (‘l‘intoretto‘s scraped palette). Semiotic and material dirnensions arc in absolute proximitv This is where the Venetian abstract machine constructs a plane ofconsistencv, invents a new materiality ofpainting, hut not with out unleashing new traits ofexpression, new ways to paint. Not least of these is

Figure 4 Titian, The Deat/, ofActaeon, 565-76, National Galler‘,‘, London.

the discovery of color-Iighr, which will make Venetian painting adequate to the material-vitaiism, the inorganic life it expresses. Once more Wöifflin describes this new living dimension ofVenetian color in a beautiful passage that could he Deleuze‘s: “We see that the emphasis Iies no longer on being, but on becoming and change. Thereby color has achieved quire a new life. lt eludes definition and is, at every pount and at every moment, different. I)eleuze and Guattari give an account of the deterritorialisation of the line by color that can easily be appiied to Venetian painring. The representa tional line, they argue “proceeds hy articulating segments“ in order to delimit form (in other words, like the Alhertian value scale, the line works by over coding matter). The deterritorialised matter-function ofVenetian color-light the other hand, draws “a metastratum of the plane of consistency“ (ATP, 56/74). This introduces new traits of expression that no ionger function through line, hut through “the architecture of planes and the regime ofcolor“ (WT 179/170). This is not the abandoning ofline, hut its transfiguration, the “‘

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Venetian response to Deleuze and Guattari‘s cry: “Free the line“ ATI 295/362). With the Venetians, the line loses “any function ofontlining a form of any kind,“ and joins the absolutely deterritorialised traits of content, to emerge again in matter-iows ofcolor animating the surface of the painting. “By this token,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “the line has become abstract, truly abstract and mutant, a visual block, and under these conditions the poinr assumes creative functions again, as a color-point or line-point“ (ATP, 298/366). The “living blocks“ ofVenetian color-light arc no longer preformed by common sense into an object the subject represents, nor are they formed by semiological and technical stratifications of the plane. In the abstract ma chine of Venetian painting matter and function arc co-extensive, and color and technique arc the inseparable elements of its construction and expression ofa new plane ofconsistency for painring. This finally defines Venetian par ticles-signs; they arc no longer representational. for in them it is “the material thatpasses into sensation“ (Wl 193/183). This means the technical plane (the new trairs of content and expression affecting the painting‘s construction) is inseparahle from the sensation expressing the aesthetic plane of composirion. In this sense, Deleuze and Guattari write, the technical plane “ascends into the aesthetic plane ofcoinposition and, [...] gives it a specific thickness in dependent of any perspective or depth. lt is at this moment thar the figures of art free themselves from an apparent transcendence or paradigmatic model and avow their innocent atheisin, their paganisrn“ (WP, 193—4/183). Venetian painting is in this respect, Deleuze and Guattari argue, modern. Here, ‘art accedes to its authentic modernity which simply consists in liberat ing what was present in art from its beginnings, but was hidden under aims and objectives, even if aesthetic, and underneath recodings or axiomatics: the pure process that fulfils itself and that never ceases to reach fulfilment as it pro ceeds—art as experimentation“ (AO, 370—1/445). What ernerges in Venetian painfing is a “pure“ process of experimentation comprising the modern “phy lum“ ofart, a phylum defined by its non-representational abstract machine, dc fined by in other words, its ahstraction. Nevertheless, art‘s modernity—its abstraction—appears in concrete historical assemblages that arc obviously very different. In fact, Deleuze identifies two general directions that modernist painting assemhlages may take. One, taken by the Venetians, is to dissolve the representational line in ehe pure opeicality of light-color. The other direction available to ahstraction is ‘hat Deleuze and Guattari ca! 1 the “Goehic“ line, for which ehey offer another famous example, the painter Jackson Pollock. Pollock does not dissolve the line in lighe, but deforms je through a continual move ment, a conseant changing ofdirection in which it is eieher “splitting in break— ing off from itseif or eurning back on itself in whirling movement“ (FB,

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129/121). This line is very different from ehat ofthe Venetians, hut neverthe less performs a similar deterritorialisation, for ir is “never ehe outline of an)‘— thing“ (FB, 130/122). ABSTRACTION—THE RETURN TO SMOOTH SPACE

Pollock‘s paintings arc composed of “drips,“ swirling lines ofpaine someeimes coalescing into patches ofcolor. But rather ehan dissolving the lilie fltO color light, as the Venerians did, Pollock frees the line from ieself, hv unleashing its abstract vitality. “Wieh Pollock,“ Deleuze writes, “this line—trait and this colour patch will be pushed to their functional limit: no longer the transfor mation ofthe form hut a decomposition of matter which ahandons us eo Im eamenes and granulations“ (FB, 105/98—9). This isa succince searement ofehe transition we will now make from Venetian painting to ehae ofPollock, frorn ehe transformation of form eo ehe decornposieion of matter. This transitiOn will involve new materials and new techniques, and will require a new terrni nology to describe it. Pollock‘s abstract line is clearly both material and non represeneational, its thick skeins ofpaint weaving a “smooeh“ space wiehout depth and in which relations arc dynamic. “Smooth“ and irs anripode “seri— aeed“ arc terms for ehe ontological “space“ of ehe plane of consisrency and ehe strata respectivelyi 9 Lines and eheir trajeceories appear within seriaeed space according ro their articularion of poinrs. A line becomes a contour when ir moves from one Oflt eo another, or when je is irselfa sequence of poines dc lirniting inside from oueside. This line-point s stern establishes an extensive space of mcasurcs and propcrries through perspeceive, and populates ie wieh signifiers and subjeces. ‘Abstrace lines“ cscape the “false problem“ ofperspec eive by no longer appearing within its seriations, ehey do not represent ehings, hut compose a moving visual block ehat returns striated space to srnooeh. Sinooth space is traversed bv the absoluecly free lirie, a line thar enoys infiniee movement and is, as Dclcuzc and Guaeeari will say, “an absolute thae is one with becoming itseif, wieh process. lt is ehe absolute of passage“ (ATl 494/617). This free and abserace line eraverses ehe plane of consiseency in seruceing its maeeer-flows and expressing its functions. The ahsrract line, Deleuze and Guaetari wriee, and here we arc once rnore approaching Pollock‘s paineings, is “wirhoue origin, sincc jr always belongs off‘ ehe painting, which only holds jr by ehe middle; jr is wjrhour coordinaees, because ir melds wieh a plane of consistcncy upon which ie floaes and t/iat it creates; ir is withour lo— calizable conneceion, because it has lost noe only its represenrarive funcrion hut any function ofourlining a form ofany kind—by this token, ehe line has becomc abstract, truly abstrace“ (ATP, 298/366, iralics added).

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The first matter-force, or trait of content of Pollock‘s ahstract line is the “drip,“ both the paint and irs various forces of fall and spiatter, its gravity speed and projection. The “drip“ is important for two reasons. First, lt implies the hor— izontality of the canvas, its farnous descent onto the floor of Pollock‘s studio, whicb turns the “drip‘s“ matter—force expressive in a new way (no sign in Pollocks painting of the ‘vertical drip‘ and splasb favoured by bis contempo raries). Second, the rernoval of the painting from the wall deterritorialises Pollock‘s relation to it, allowing hirn to work ‘within‘ it, from every side and even walking through lt. Pollock thereby exemplifies Deleuze and Guattari‘s “law of the painting,“ that it be done at dose range, without any optical distance. This 40 new physical relation to paint and canvas liberates the artist‘s hand frorn tradi tional signs of ‘handling,‘ producing new asubjective traits. Furthermore, ap ,lied with sticks, sponges, and even icing syringes, Pollock‘s “drip“ is the 1 catastrophic hreakdown of traditional techniques in a manual power that de composes the paint material, freeing it frorn conscious control to release new traits of expression. This is Pollock‘s schizoanalytic diagrarn, an absolute deter ritorialisation of painri ng‘s content into matter-forces (traits of content) insep arable from the absolute deterritorialisation of paintings expression onto new functions (traits of expression). No more representation, no more artist. Through this absolute deterritorialisation of painting sornething “abstract“ ap— pears, sornething Pollock called the unconscious, but which can only be under stood in I)eleuze and Guattari‘s terms as something real, “a non-figurative and nonsvmbolic unconscious, a pure abstract figural dimension (‘abstract‘ in the sense ofabstract painting), flows-schizzes or real-desire apprehended below the minimum conditions of idcntity“ (AO, 351/421). This abstract dimension ernerges in Pollock‘s “drips“ and their abstract lines, these “traits ofexpression“ of bis abstract machine, expressing the “plane of consistency upon which it floats and which it creates.“ In this way, a very different way from the Venetians, Pollock‘s abstract lines “assernble a new type ofreality.“ Although it is true that rnodernisrn and the abstraction that defines lt have a long history For Deleuze, jr is important to see how its ahstract machine does not rernain the same, and how its experiments have a definite history. Venetian painting constructed form through the modulation of color-light, which dc spite its radicality remained within an optical regime, and did not entirely aban don a representational Function. The human face emerged frorn color-light, and although this process was ahsrract, the face was not significantly cleformed by it, meaning the Venetian abstract machine retained a certain subjective dimension, a “homely atmospbere“ as L)eleuze calls it (using Francis Bacon‘s term), which “still conserves a menacing relation with a possible narration“ (FB, 134/126). There seems little danger of narration appearing in Pollock‘s work of 1947—50

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(the period of the “drip“ paintings). On tbc one hand there is his non-represen tational line, and on the other his refusal to use value—the interplay of light and dark—to create form or depth. Clement Greenberg bad already ernpbasized this aspect of Pollock‘s work, even though, as we shall see, he interprets it in a very different way from Deleuze. “In several of bis ‘sprinkled‘ canvases of 1950,“ Greenberg writes, “One and Lavender Mist as weil as iVumber One (1948), he had literally pulverized value contrasts in a vaporous dust of interfused lights and darks in which every suggestion of a scuiptural effect was obliterated.“‘ Deleuze‘s difference with Greenberg is not over Pollock‘s “pulverising“ ofvalue effects, but with Greenberg‘s argument that the results arc enrirelv optical. For Deleuze there are two possible rejections of the represenrational line; one, and it is the one we have seen the Venetians take, is through light, and remains op tical. The other is through the Gothic line, the line Pollock takes. which escapes the optical to become haptic. Painring, Deleuze writes, “can only move in one of the following two directions: cither towards the exposition ofa purelv optical space, wbich is freed from its references to even a subordinated tactilitv [je. the colour—lighr of the Venetians ] oi; on die contrar toward the iniposition ofa violent manual space“ (FB, 127/119—20). In this manual, haptic space, lt is the band and not the eye that operates as an organ of rouch and connection. Everything works here through continuiry and conjunction, the hand is dis-or ganised, removed from the human hody and its organic representation through a pure activity, “a speed, a violence, and a life the eye can barely follow“ (FB, 129/121).2 We can already feel that just such a hand, a hand that extends be yond the organism, executes Pollock‘s work. Before going on ro elaborate this Gothic line, and Pollock‘s use of lt. two things need to be noted. First, Venetian painting clearly retains a degree ofrep resentation and narration, and develops thern witbin the still subjecrive atmos phere of irs color-Iight effects. This does not negate the absolute deterritorialisation Venetian painting achieves, but lt is an aspecr of their ab stract machine that is deterritorialised in turn bv a painting that is even more abstract. Second, this evaluation should not be seen to privilege Pollock over the Venetians (as we shall see Deleuze will point out otber problems with Pollock‘s abstract machinc in bis book on Bacon), but rather, as with the classical and modern regimes ofcinema, each have their own beauty and achievernent wbich shouldn‘t be heirarchised in being identifiec! as different. .

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ABSTRACTION AND EMPATHY

Deleuze and Guartari‘s understanding of Pollock‘s abstraction, and more specifically their reading ofhis abstract line, draws heavily on the German art

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historian WiliheIm Worringer. His book Abstraction and Empathy develops the opposition of ciassical and non—ciassical regimes of artistic expression as different types of aesthetic enjoyment, different tvpes of “will to Ernpathy is an “objectified self-enjoyment,“ pleasure taken in an object as die affirmation and confirmation of human “volition in motion,“ a pleasure in other words, in our apperceptive activity and organic vitalit As Worringer .

purs

it: “In die forms of the work of art we enjoy ouiselves“ (AE, 14).

Empathy tends towards an aesthetics of organic naturalism, a subjective ap

preciarion of the beauty of “nature.“ Here: “Man was at horne in the world and felt hirnseif at its centre“ (AE, 102). The world ofPoussin, not ofPollock. Empathy is, in ciassical terms, Apollonian, inasmuch as it overcomes die in dividuated perspectives ofhuinan consciousness by giving us an experience of our shared, harmonious, beauiiful and “purely organic being“ (AE, 33). Through empathy, Worringer writes, “chaos becomes cosmostS The “urge to abstraction,“ on die other hand, is “directly opposed to the empathy impulse“ (AE, 14). As such, the aim ofabstracrion is “de-organicising die organic,“ (AE, 129) in order to hecome “part ofan increasing order supe rior to all that is living“ (FG, 17). Abstraction seeks these transcendent essences in order to express thern through an “abstract eternalisation of existence in the crystalline body“ (Ah, 87). Abstraction therefore departs from mimetic natura! ism and favours geonierric designs. or positioning schernatised figures on a fiat plane that does not imitate space. Abstraction rejects the organic and optical world ofclassical art in favour ofa haptic sensation, a touch revealing the cer tainty of inorganic truths, as die “irrefragable necessity of [an object‘s] closed material individuality“ (AE, 41). As a result in the haptic world ofabstraction, Worringer writes: “l.ife as such is fett to be a disturbance of aestbetic enjoyment“ (AE, 24). Worringer achieves for aesthetics a Nietzschean “revaluation ofvalues“ (which is how Worringer puts it (FG, 9)). Like Nietzsche, he finds the value of aesthetic value in die “will“ (to art), understood in its onto-aesthetic antipodes ofempathy and abstraction. This revaluing ofaesthetics in ontological terms is clearly very important kir Deteuze and Guattari, hut nevertheless Worringer‘s duality of empathy and absrracrion is not sufficient for them, because the ab stract alternative to classical organic representation is a wholly transcendent one. Finallv I)etcuze and Guattari replace Worringer‘s Opposition with their more “primordial duality“ (ÄH 496/6 19) ofthe smooth and the striated. ‘Ib understand this “prirnordiat duality“ and its relation to the abstract line however, we must pass through Worringer‘s discussion ofwhat he calls the “northern line,“ and Deleuze and Guattari‘s understanding of this as the defining feature of Gothic art. ‘ihe northern lilie, Worringer argues, is an ab stract tine that is no longer ‘crystatline‘ hut has become mobile and expressive.

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This abstract line is divorced froni organic life hut is, as Deteuze and Guattari pur ir, “all the more alive for being inorganic“ (ATP, 498/623). The ahstract line of Gothic art Worringer argues, expresses die “cloudy rnysticisrn“ of the German peoples of northern Europe (AE, 107). lt‘s cloudy because it never achieves the clear necessity and regularity ofa transcendental absrracrion, it is forever searching for crystalline vision, a search inspiring an “ecstasy ofmove ment“ (FG, 41). This movement does not express an organic thing, or an ideal and transcendenr “non—thing,“ hut a hybrid “will“ in which ernpathy turns away from the human to discover die “mechanical laws“ of a “living“ matter (AE, 113). These mechanical laws determine the “living movement offorces,“ (AE, 117) an inorganic life construcring, to use a phrase from Worringer which Deleuze and Guattari take as their own, the “vitatized geometry“ (FG, 41) ofGothic art. Gothic art carries us irno die infinirc in an “extravagant ec stasy“ (AE, 117) hut this infinity is constructed by die niechanical forces of an immanent inorganic life. The infiniry of the absrract line, in other words, is none other than our own, once “we lose the feeting of our earrhly bonds; [and] we merge into an infinite niovement which annihitates all finite con sciousness“ (FG, 108). In the Gothic abstract line, Worringer writes (and it is a line Deleuze will also echo), northern man “finds himself only by losing himself, by going out beyond himseif“ (FG, 115), The man or woman who loses their seif in going hevond themselves is, for Deleuze and Guattari, the nomad, who in expressing this movement creates nomad art. The Nomad shares some features with Worringer‘s northerner, first of all what Deleuze aiid Guattari ca! 1 a “vagabond monorheisrn“ whose abstract constructs line a smooth space, or what they here call a “focal absolute“ (ATI 382/474). Unlike the mystics of medieval times however, nomadic monothe ism is, De!euze and Guattari clailn, “singularl)‘ atheistic“ (AFP 383/475). This marks the beginning of Deleuze and Guatrari‘s deviation from Worringer, as they peel the abstract line away from the necessary connection it retains für him with religious worship. 48 lndeed at this point the “take some risks ourselves, making free use of these norions“ (AT 493/6 1 5). This “free use“ begins with Deleuze and Guartari‘s understanding of in organic life as a vital materialism. Jr is nomad art (“and irs successors,“ Deleuze and Guattari note, “barbarian, Gothic, and modern“ (ATE 492/614)), which expresses this vital niarerialism rhrough the “science“ (hut jr is equall)‘ an aes rherics) of “merallurgv.“ Metallurgy acts as an expressive “will“ of matter itself, and as such is a schizoanalyric work, flush wirh the real. We can understand Deleuze and Guattari‘s point, and irs deviation from Worringer, through their respecrive discussions of die Gothic carhedral. Worringer a bues that Gorhic archirecrure is inorganic because the mechanical energies ofrhe stone thar it re

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leases are not material hut mystical. Gotbic arcbitecture expresses these abstract and spiritual forces of transcendence despite the stone, by negating stone‘s ma terial properties (FG, 106). Deleuze and Guattari on the other hand argue that Gothic cathedrals were constructed according to a “nomad science“ that rather than using ff-it and oll-paper plans which provided a hylomorphic form ancl required a uniform ly prepared matter, these schizo-scientists—metal lur gists—constructed their cathedrals through on-the-ground projections which took into account the singular properties and forces ofeach material element. 1 his required cutting stones according to their particular Position in relation to all the others, and was achieved by a technique of “squaring“ rather than with a template. The building is no longer a form that defines a space, nor the expression of immaterial and ideal forces, hut a construction of abstract lines expressing the continual variations of the stones matter-force. In this way, Deleuze and Guattari write: “lt is as if Gothic conquered a smooth space“ (A1T 364/451). Gothic construction was not achieved through a transcendent plan, and this, perhaps, makes it “atheist.“ Deleuze and Guattari‘s abstract line is neither abstract nor Gothic in Worringer‘s sense, because its inorganic vitaliry is immanent to its material, rather than that which attempts to transcend it. For Deleuze and Guattari, the “prodigious idea of Afonorganic Lfi“ that Worringer considered the invention of the Barharians, was in fact “the intuition of metallurgy“ (ATP, 411/512). The metallurgist—a nomad schizoanalyst—produces art in which a “dynamic connection between support and ornament replaces the matter-form dialectic. [. ] Nomad artfiillows the connections between singularities of matter and traits ofexpression, and lodges on the level ofthese connections, whether they be natura! or forced“ (ÄF1 369/457). Rather than search for the transcendent, as Worringer‘s Gothic line does, the nomadic abstract linefollows a vital mat ter, and in so doing expresses its construction of smooth space. The ahstract lilie, “this vital force specific to Abstraction is what draws smooth space“ (Äl1 499/623). The abstract line draws a smooth space in which one senses this force (and has a haptic sensation), “only by touching it with one‘s mmd, but without the mmd becoming a finger, not even by way of the eye“ (ATI 494/616). The mmd parricipares in whar ir sees, beyond stih ject or object (and beyond signifiance and subjectivation), in a sensation insep arahle from the action of a force. The haptic, for Deleuze and Guattari, is the tactile function of the eye, a “grabhing“ or “touching“ specific to a “connective function“ of the gaze. Smooth space therefore emerges through this material participation of the eye—its “touch“—which constructs “visual-blocks“ by fol lowing the matter-force on the inorganic plane. The haptic eye produces a met allurgical vision, a participatory modulation of the plane of consisrency as an .

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open ended “work in progress.“ As Deleuze and Guattari describe it: “In striated space, one closes off a surface and ‘allocates‘ it according to intervals, assigned breaks; in the smooth, one ‘distributes‘ oneseif in an open space, according to frequencies and in the course of ones crossings“ (ATE 48 1/600). lfthe abstract line is the vital force specific to Abstraction, how should we understand it in relation to art, and more specifically painting? As Deleuze and Guattari ask: “What then should be termed abstract in modern art?“ Their an swer follows directly: “A line of variable direction that describes no contour and delimits no form . (ATF 499/624). This abstract line is immediately refer enced to Michael Fried‘s definition of the line in “certain works by Pollock“ (ATE 575/624), the works, obviously enough, of 1947—50. In these works the line has been set free and attains its Gothic dimension, an absolutely unrepre sentational line both mystical and atheist in its expression/construction ofinor ganic life. Pollock‘s abstract line and the smooth space it draws produces a mystical modernity one whose description is now somewhat familiar, in Pollock‘s work “the absolute is local, precisely because place is not delimited“ (ATI 494/617). .

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CERTAIN WORKS BY POLLOCK..

The definition ofPollock‘s line by Michael Fried to which l)eleuze and Guattari refer is one Fried shares with his contemporary, the great modernist critic Clement Greenberg. Greenberg saw Pollock as a crucial moment in painting‘s move towards its constitutive essence, its material flatncss, ° and its production 5 of “sensations, the irreducible elements ofexperience.“ 5 For Greenberg “pure“ (i.e. modernist) painting rejects both the representational line, and value con trasts in creating a new kind ofspace: The picture has now becorne an entity belonging tu mhc same order of space as our bodies; it is no longer thc vehicle ofan imagmncd equivalemit of that order. Pictorial space has lost its “insidc“ and become all “outside.“ Tbe spectator can no longer escapc into it front the space in which he srands. If jr deceives bis eye at all, it is by optical rath( r than pictorial mneans: by relations of color sud shapc largely divorced ftmn desLriptivc connotations, and often by manipulations in which rop sud bonom, as weil as foreground and background, become intercliangeablc. 52 lt is interesting to note the seeming similariry to Deleuze and Guattari‘s ac count, inasmuch as in both the painting exisrs in a corporeal space, and m duces an asubective affect. “You become,“ according to Greenberg, “all attention, which means that you become, for the moment, selfiess and in a sense

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entirely identified with the obect ofyour attention.“ But it is precisely at this point of seeming sirnilarity that we can begin ro map their divergence. Greenberg was also sensitive to the importance of the Byzantine hreak with das sical representation, and also located it in the ‘quasi-abstract‘ use Byzantine mo saics made of light and shade. ‘1 his dissolved the scuiptural illusion ofvolume, Greenberg argued, in favour of affirming the flatness of pictorial space. 54 Pollock achieved this ßyzantine cffect in bis “middle period“ (1947—50) where the aluminium paint and “interlaced threads of light and dark pigment“ ofthe paintings dome forward “to fiu the space between itself and tbe spectator with its radiance.“ 55 Despite this affect being achieved through the materiality of Pollock‘s paintings, finally for Greenberg it “uses the most self-evidently corpo real means to deny its own corporealiry“ Greenberg argues that Pollock‘s paintings “deceive the eve“ into leaving the body for a pure opticality. This op ticality is essential ro modermsm as such, Greenberg argues, because it enables painting‘s “spiritualizing escape“ towards its “fundamental language.“ 57 If l3yzantine art dematerialised reality by invoking a transcendental one, then modernism does somerhing similar through its paradoxical invocarion of the material against itseif Modernism‘s purity of material and flatness ofsurface can finally only be seen, am! in becoming purely optical it is dematerialised, and reaches an essence thar escapes representation by being addressed to eyesight alone. For Grcenberg, Byzantine and modernist art, the “radically transcenden tal and the radically positivist“ extremes of art, meer in a “counter-illusionist 8 “For the cultivated eye,“ he claims, “die picture repeats its instantaneous art.“ unity like a mourh repeating a single word.“ 59 Modernist abstraction therefore achieves an optical mysticism in which painting is ahle to transcend its repre— sentational function, but only bv leaving the body to arrive at its spiritual “be yond.“ Our merge with the painting is achieved only in our disembodiment, and its truth is ideal iather than haptic. Once more, we‘re back to Plato, and Greenherg‘s still spreading the same canker. Where Greenberg sees Pollock as a Byzantine, he is, according to Deleuze and Guattari, Gothic. ° The aluminium 6 patches of Pollock‘s work (Qithedral, 1947, Dallas Museum ofFine Arts) do not reveal the glowing ligbt of tue transcendent, but ratber the pouring ofa metal lurgist. Deleu7e and Guattari part ways with Michael Fried ar a similar point, that at which he starts talking abeut the “disembodied energy“ 64 and the “negation of rnateriality“ in Pollock‘s paintings. 62 Fried writes that Pollock‘s line “is a kind ofspace-fill ing curve of i in mense com plexity responsive to the slightest impulse ofrhe painter and responsive as weIl, one almost feels, to one‘s own act oflook ing.“‘ Thus, perception begins to approach participation, but for Fried, as for Greenberg, this optical participation transcends the body. Pollock‘s line. Fried

Figure 5 Jackson Pollock, C‘athea‘ral, 1947, Dallas Museum of Art. © 2004 Pollock Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Sociery (ARS). New York

Art as Abstract Machine writes, “addresses itseif to eyesight alone. The rnateriality of his pigment is ren dered sheerly visual, and the result is a new kind of space—if it still makes sense to call it space—in which conditions ofseeing prevail rather than one in which 64 We have ohjects exist, fiat shapes are juxtaposed or physical events rranspire.“ left a perspcctivised space for a pure material fiatness, hut as soon as we have done so his materiality evaporates in a disembodied “opticality“ existing as the “conditions ofseeing.“ Pollock‘s “purity,“ his pure “opticality“ transcends all the— atricality (representation) in Fried‘s account, but oniy in an apotheosis arriving at its transcendental conditions of possibility the ideal conditions of sight it 5 This “visual plenum“ transcending subject and object and uniting eye and self. painting in Pollocks work forms, Fried and Greenberg argue, a ‘conrinuum‘ in which the viewer is in indissoluble connection with eternity, but it is an un changing eternal, making the painting curiously monosyllabic, the mysterious 67 We repetirion of as Greenberg put it, a single word. 66 Ummmmmmmmrn. have arrived ar a space far away frotn that created by Pollock‘s writhing and ca cophonic surface oflines. Pollock‘s absrract line is “visionary“ in the sense we have seen Deleuze dc fine jr in relation to modern cinema. The “vision“ ofthe abstracr line is achieved through and in the body, a body whose affectual capacities are no longer organ ised and subjectivised—a vision that is 110 longer optical. Painting‘s task has al ways been to render forces visible, but the hapeic eye conseructed by Pollock‘s paineings and ehe visions they produce, arc very different from the purely opti cal percepeion Greenberg cannot get beyond (because, precisely, it is the ideal beyond). Pollock‘s visions arc, on Deleuze and Guateari‘s account, irreducibly physical, and their expression ofmovemene cannot be separated from the con tinual variation of their material plane. Rarher than a disembodied and disin eerested eye, Deleuze and Cuaetari see Pollock‘s work as producing (and being produced hv) a schizo-eye/I, an eye in matter. “Where there is dose vision,“ they wriee, “space is not visual, or rather the eye itseif has a haptic, nonoptical func tion“ (ATI 494/6 16). Pollock‘s line is, as Deleuze and Guattari write, a “local integration mov ing from point to point and constituting smooth space in an infinite succes sion of linkages and changes in direction“ (ATP 494/617). Pollock‘s abstrace line construcrs a haptic space in which the distinction between what is mate rial and what visual, between subject and object, breaks down in a “pictorial 5 in a sensation othe painting that isa way of being (in) ehe paint vitalism,“ ing, a way of becoming with ie. The abstract line construces a haptic sensation, and creates an eye freed from any optical function conditioned by a eranscen dejital commori sense. As a result, Deleuze and Guattari take Fried‘s defini tion of Pollock‘s abstract line and understand it in eneirely different

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ontological terms: the ontological eerms of ehe abseract machine. Here ehe ab stract line is the mateer-functjon of ehe Pollock machine, on ehe one side con jugating matters-forces into new traits of coneent (ehe “drip“), and on the other releasing the traits of expression of a new type of abstraction, an “ab stract expressionism“ of the vieality ofies inorganic life. Tue paint is alive. This new painting machine deterritorialises the subjective and objective poles ofvi sion absolutely, creaeing a smooth space in which we arc always (in) the rnid— die. lt would only be in ehis sense that we couid understand Fried‘s observation: “There is no inside or oueside to Pollock‘s lilie or eo ehe space ehrough which it nioves.“°‘ Pohlock‘s paintings have a depth ehat is not spatial but ineense; eheir smooeh space does not coneradice their visual flaeness, but conneces ehis surface eo an immanent, infinite, and genetic processuali ap pearing in a molecuiarised matter, as pareicles-signs ofsensation. Not a divine facialiev hut an aeheistic and myseical interface. I)eieuze and Guaetari arc ex plicit on ebis point: “That is whv ie is so wrong eo define sensation in modern painting by ehe assumption ofa pure visual flatness: ehe error is due perhaps eo ehe face that thickness does not neecl to be pronounced or deep‘ (WT 194/183). The materialism of Pohlock‘s paintings is not, in this sense, simplv defined by their materialiey but by eheir material viealism, by ehe expression of ehe abserace and inorganic forces from which they arc conseruceed. lt is ehis vital element that turns ehe celebraeed ehickness of Poliock‘s paintings haptic, a eransformaeion that has as ies condition our imphication in ehe parneings‘ ab strace machine, our part in its ongoing process. Pollock‘s paintings express this merge at ehe same eime as ehey conseruce it, ehrough a sinuous, ropy line “ehat is conseanely changing direceion, a mueane line wbich is wieboue outside or in— side, form or background, beginning or end and that is as ahive as a constane variation—such a line is eruly an abseract liiie, and describes a smooth space“ (AT1 498/62 1). Willem dc Kooning said, “Every so ofeen, a paineer has to deserov paint ing. Czanne did it. Picasso did lt wirh Cubism. Fhen Pohlock did ie. He busted our idea ofa piceure all to hell. Then ehere could be neu‘ paineings again.“° lt was Pollock‘s break wieh those definitions of paineing which had acted as ies cri eeria, most imporeaneiy ehose ofvereicalirv, figuraeion, represeneaeion, and a stri aeed depeh, whieh make his work so importane in the hiseory of modern km. But ehis hiseory, as it is wrieeen bv Greenberg and Fried, and as Deleuze and Guattari wriee je, is not ehe same, and in their respective accounes, Pollock is not ehe same painter. Greenberg and Fried figure Pollock as a radical deeerritoriali saeion ofpaineing, hut one ehae makes hirn sirnplv one of “ehe key staging poSts“ of“ehe modernise-formalist genealogies ofvisua/ahsrraceion.“ 71 Pollock is con sequently reeerrieorialised as ehe modernise represeneaeive of an opeical idealism.

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Deleuze and Guartari on the other hand, see Poliock‘s paintings as particles-signs cornposed by schizoanaiytic abstract lines. Pollock‘s “abstract expressionism“ is defined by the inorganic and material traits of expression it discovers, and the new abstract machine of matter-funetion jr constructs witli them (AlI 499/623). In Pollock‘s paintings then, we sec, Delcuze and Guattari write: “Traits of expression describing a smooth space and connecting with a matter-flow“ (ATl 498/622). This creates, in a beautiful description ofa Pollock painting, a “stationary whiriwind“ (Äl‘e 499/623) both expressive and ahstract. Pollock seems to have sensed the vitai-materialism of bis paintings, of course. “The painting has a life of its own,“ he said, ‘1 try to 1er ii come through. lt is only when 1 lose contact with tbe painting that the resuit is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out weil.“ Pollock the mechanic; an artisan ofimmanence, When he is in contact with the painting, when he does not take a step back frorn it, when he participates in it, then he is one with the life that creates the painting, which is the inorganic life expressed in constructing the painting. “Wben 1 am in my painting,“ he says, “1 don‘t know what 1 am doing. lt is only after a sort of get acquainted period that 1 see what 1 have been about, 1 have no fears about making changes, dc 72 stroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own.“

Chapter Five

Songs of Molecules: The Chaosmosis of Sensation

1 hear the violincello or man‘s heart complaint, And hear the keyed cornet or else the echo ofsunsei. 1 hcar the chorus.

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it is a grand opera.

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this indeed is music!

A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills inc. The orbic flex of bis mourh is pouring and filling mc full. 1 hear the trained soprano ....she convulses mc like the climax of my love-grip; The orchestra whirls inc wider than Uranus flies, lt wrenches unnameable ardors froni my breast, lt throbs mc to gulps of the farthest clown horror, lt sails Inc. 1 dab with bare feet, rhcy arc lickcd by thc indohnr .

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waves, 1 am exposed.

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cut by bitter and poisoncd hail, Stccped amid honcycd morphinc. my windpipc squcczcd in die lilkcs of dcarh, Let up again to fee! the puzz!c ofpu7zlcs, And that we call Being. Walt Whirman, “Song ofMyself“ 1 .

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INTRODUCTION

In Whatls Philosophy? Deleuze and Guattari give a concise definition ofart: “Art wants to create the finite that restores the infinite“ (Wl 197/186). We saw in the previous chapter how the absolutely dcterritorialised particle-sign emerges in painting as the expression and construction ofa plane ofconsistency having simultaneously finite and infinite dimensions. This chapter will continue to ex plore art‘s (in)finitude, this tirne beginning from the “chaosmosis“ ofGuattari‘s “aesthetic paradigm,“ and following its production ofthc affect, the refrain and

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sensation. Where the previous chapter was primarily concerned with art‘s mate rial and technical aspects, this one will focus on what can provisionally be called art‘s “suhjective“ processes. How in other words, is the onto-aesthetic dimension e have already encountered an im 1 active in die experience of die work of art? \X portant element ofour answer; art experiences are real, and are determined by their real and immanent conditions. But how are these experiences produced, how do they work, and what makes them aesthetic? After replying to these ques tions we sIlall look at Guattari‘s “detachment“ of the readymade from Marcel Duchamp as a case stud)‘ ofa revalued aesthetic experience. Then we will have to show how despite surface sirnilarities—not least in the quote from What is ‘? with which we began die chapter—Deleuze and Guattari reject 9 Philosopl Rornanticisni as an aesthetic model, and propose in its place their own concept of“rnodernism,“ a modernisrn that is on die one hand inseparable from actual practices (creating the finite), und on the other from ontological processes both cosmic and chaotic (restoring the infinite). “Modernism“ as Deleuze and Guattari describe it will therefore require distinction from its usual understand ing in the realm ofart, as this was suggested by Ciement Greenberg. This finally will involve an understanding of sensation, especially as Deleuze and Guattari give it in their last book. AFFECT

We begin from the perception in which any work of art first appears. Guattari claims it is die comhination of a “sensory affect,“ the simple empirical percep tion (die views 1 bave frorn the window as 1 work at my desk), and a “problem atic affect,“ die network of associations und feelings evoked hy this particular sensory evenr (the sunset as a planetary event, planes landing make mc miss ab sent friends, my mmd drifts towards thedistant hills.... etc.). In die problem— atic affect connections arc niade beyond my immediate sensual experience, introducing all sorts of temporal und emotional flows. These deterritorialising affects, Guattari suggests, make experience the nexus of series of affectual con nections, “a rnulti-headed enunciative lay-out [tgencernent],“ as he puts it, of which “1“ uni merely the “fluctuating intersecrion“ (REA, 160/255). Perception is, Guattari argues, this fluid process of “individualised subjectivising“ (REA, 160/255) taking place in and through an in-principle (and in-effect) infinite network of affects. This means that not only do 1 pass from sensory to problem atic affect continuously und without noticing, but that the art work, as affect, “sticks just as weil to die suhjectivitv of the one who is its utterer as it does to die one who is its addressee“ (REA, 158/251). The affect is in this sense a “pre personal category“ (REA, 1 58/251) witbout discursive lirnits, and lives beyond

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these limits. ibgerher the sensory und probleniatic aspects of die affict consti— tute what Cuattari calls a “polyphonic and heterogenetic comprehension ofsub jectivity“ (Chaos, 6/17). Tbis process is “subjectivation,“ 2 the continual emergence of new affectual individuations that arc not produced by an “1“ as their subjective reference point, but produce it as part of a wider ontological process of creation constituting what Guattari calls die erbico-aestheric para diga. This new paradigrn is ethical as weil as aesdieric because ir implies, as Guattari puts it, “a crucial etbical choice: either we ohjectif we reif we ‘scien tifize‘ subjectivity or else we attempt ro seize ir in irs dimension of processual 3 creativit“ In this erhico—aesthetic dimension, suhjectivation is die ongoing emer— gence of new affecrive connections opening onro die ourside ofa subjective “1.“ In its aleatory affecrual events subjecrivation is always coming-inro-being, as sembling itself or, ro use a term which is by now farniliar, becoming. To under stand the art work in terms of this becoming means rransvaluing the suhject- and object co-ordinates given bv tradirional aesthetics into “vecrors ofpartial subjec riviry,“ and deterritorialising die fixed subject onto die plane of subjectivation (Chaos, 22/39). This plane, Guattari argues, does not issue “from readv-niade [‘Wej 1‘] dimensions of subjectivitv crystaiiised into structural complexes, hut from a creation which itself indicares a kind of aesdietic paradigm“ (Chaos, 7/19). This aesthetic paradigm constirures die fundamental onrological condi tion of art, as it does for any creation, and at this level, Guattari wrires: “One creates new modalities of subjectiviry in die same way that an artist creates new forms from the palette“ (Chaos, 7/19). Suhjectivation is a crearive process of self-organisation (the selforganisation of die affect beyond the “self“) compos ing a continuous Variation of affecrs, and is the fundamental aesrhetic process constituring (die experience of) a work ofart. The shift to the aesthetic paradigm, Guartari argues, deterritorialises die assumptions ofscience (intended in its widest sense—die human sciences— und so including aesthetic philosophy), because widiin it affects precede sub jects, and problematic affects precede sensory ones. This ineans that aestlierics for Guattari, as jr is wirb Deleuze, is more than a phenomenology (we will see precisely why nexr chapter). lt is in die associative and crearive power ofaffect rather than in subjects or objects, or their perceptual relation, that we shall discover the process rhrougb which subjectivation attains an exisrentiai con sisrency. An asubjective consistency for, as Guatrari purs it: “Affect is a process of existenrial appropriarion through die con tinual creation of heterogeneous durarions of being“ (REA, 159/252). In the aesthetic paradigm affects arc only nominally unified under a subject, und once freed from their subjective over-coding find a seif-organising consistency as a refrain [ritournelle]. \Ve will

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Art as Abstract Machine

come back to this refrain and consider ir fully a little later, hut for now it is our first glirnpse ofarr as a finite creation (a subjectivation), whose processualiry re stores the infinire (irs affecrual aestheric dimension). When we understand af fects as non-subjecrive but nevertheless consistent and communicating networks, Guattari writes, “the complex ceases to be propped upon the elemen tary (as in the conceprion that prevails in scientific paradigms) and organises, at the whim of irs own economy, synchronic distributions and diachronic be cornings“ (REA, 161/255). Subjectivation, in other words, is an autonomous seif-organising process that gives consistency ro a multiplicity of different vir mal elements and expresses their cohesion in a process of becoming. In this sense, subjecrivation is, and once more this is a term we shall return to, the cre ation of ‘an existential territory‘ EVERYTHING IS A MACHINE

The problemarising affect operates, Guatrari writes, as a “virtual fractalisation,“ (REA, 161/255) ofthe subject, through which an infinite connectivity emerges as the intense and virrual dimension expressed in actual experience (sensory af 5 Thjs infinite virtual dimension does not exist outside ofis actualisation fects). in the processes ofsubjectivation, meaning die virtual cannot be experienced in irse1f or, perhaps better, its “in-irseif“ only exists as experienced. Consequently, we cannot ralk about a virtualiry separate from irs actual ernergence, making any quesrion as to the virtual‘s existence entirely fractaL 6 Such a question always in volves a multipliciry ofothers, as Brian Massumi has suggesred: “Which virtual? Under which mode of accompaniment? How appearing? How fully does the virtual range of variations actualize in any given appearing? How fully does die virtual range ofvariations actualize in any given object or substance?“ 7 The care ftl cririque required to answer these questions introduces on the one hand a movernent of deterrieorialisation that frees the virtual from its subjective and semioric deterniinations, and on the other affirms the virtual in its proper place, as the active onrological element expressed in the actual. This critical mode of producrion emerges withour an intentional subject as an “autopoiesis,“ and is, Deleuze and Guatrari argue, “self-positing.“ “Whar depends on a free creative activiry‘ rhey write, ‘is also that which, independently and necessarily, posits it seif in irself die most subjective will be the most objective“ (WP 11/16). Affectual autopoiesis is die “f}ee crearive acrivity“ proper to the aesthetic para digm, neither subjecrive not ohjecrive, but, as Guatrari puts it, “machinic.“ 8 Autopoiesis is rhe machinic infolding of die affects‘ virmal dimensions in rhe unfolding of irs new actualiries. Subjectivarion is such an autopoietic and machinic process, crearing new “existential universes“ rarher than sirnply renroducinu a “self.“ 9 This orocess emernes from the fundamental onrological

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stare of rhe aesrheric paradigm chaosrnosis. Chaosmosis is, according to Guattari, a “chaosmic see-sawing“ (Chaos, 96/133) berween chaos and com plexity, a coming-into-being wbich (rc)creares the affecr‘s finite exisrence “to finally give back some infinity to a world which rhrearened to smorher it“ (Chaos, 96/134). Chaosmosis is die virrual and infinite genetic plane on and through which rhe actual world appears and becomes. In this sense, chaosmo sis is not chaos itseif, hut rhe autopoiesis of chaos inro an expressive matter, what Deleuze and Guarrari call die raw aestbetic “rnomenr“(ATT 322—3/395--6). Chaosinosis is, then, the onrological ground zero of rhe aes thetic paradigm. Chaosmosis, once more, is not chaos, hut is the energetic and material plane in its onrogenetic process ofsuhjectivarion. Cliaosmosis is the emergence of the “directional componenrs“ of chaos, as chaos‘s own “cc stasies“ (ATP, 313/384).b0 In this sense: “Art is not chaos,“ Deleuze and Guattari argue, “bur a composirion of chaos that yields die vision or sensa tion, so that it consrirures, as Joyce says, a chaosmos, a composed chaos—nei ther foreseen nor foretold“ (WP 204/192).h1 On this chaosniic plane of composition a new world emerges (the world is conrinually ernergent), a world ofautopoietic living machines. Chaosmosis is living composition, hut jr is an inorganic life, as presenr in machines as it is in man, for in rerms of irs creative powers, as Samuel Butler wrote: “The difference between rhe life ofa man and that ofa machine is one rather ofdegree than ofkind.“ 12 Life is machinic (i,e. inorganic) because it is the chaosmic composition ofa plane ofvirtual and tual—infinite and finite—consistency inro living abstracr machines “which,“ Guattari argues, “never cease producing new, artisric as weIl as scientific and technical possibiliries.“ 13 To understand art in terms of this new aesthetic paradigrn will mean changing terminology methodology, and most importandy, and as 1 have al ready repeatedly argued, onrology. The embodiment ofchaosmosls in an art work, as the immanence ofvirtual and actual, of infinire and finite dimen sions, iinplies new questions: not “what is it?“ hut “what does jr do?“ or “what does it beconie?“ not “what thing or idea does ir represent?“ bur “what virtual universe does ir embody or express?“ We can understand this change in inter rogarory mode by considering Deleuze and Guattari‘s brjef analysis of arrists who painr machines. Artjsts ljke Leger and Picabia did not represent chines, but introduced machinic processes inro art thar allowed their work to explore new modes of subjectivarion. This is what makes these “machinic paintings“ interesting, Deleuze and Guarrarj argue, rhey “show how humans arc a component part of die machine, or combine with something else to co stiture a machine.“ 1 These art works do not represent machines, hut arc ma chjnes operating at the interface of the acrual and the virtual, “Leger,“ Deleuze -

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and Guattari write, “demonstrated convincingly that the inachine did not represent anyrhing, itseif least of all, because it was itseif the production ofor— 5 Understanding art in the aesthetic paradigm iS 110 ganised intensive states.“‘ longer a matter of asking about painters as subjects, or paintings as objects, but of understanding, as Deleuze puts it: “The painting machine of an artist— 16 mechanic.“ Art machines operate in the aesthetic paradigm under “molecular condi tions.“ Here matter is not forrned by a hylomorphic code, as if from the “out side,“ but is autopoietic and expressive. “Hylomorphic“ is a terin composed of hyle meaning matter, and morphic meaning form, and describes the Operation ofa pre-existing mould imposing form on matter, I)eieuze and Guattari reject this Aristotelian disnnction of matter and Form because, as the Figure of the mould suggests, “Form will never inspire anything but conformities“ (DR, 134/166). Deleuze‘s reection of hylomorphism rests on the “profoundly origi nal theory“ of Georges Simondon.‘ Simondon argues that matter can no longer be thought of asa simple or homogeneous substance receiving its form from an exterior model. Matter, he argues, is made up of immanent intensive and energetic traits or frrces (“singularities“) whose differential relations both determine Form, and maintain tite inherent dynamism ofform, through an im manent process of “modulation.“ Modulation, Deleuze says, is “moulding in a continuous and variable manner. A modularor is a mould which constantly changes the measuring gricl that ir imposes, with the result that there is a con 8 Matter is chaosmic, and tinuous variation of matter across equiiibrium stares.“ ujlibrium states) in refrains that both resolve the 1 finds consistency (expressive ec “problem“ posed hy pre-individual heing, and keep this problem active in a 19 The in tinual modulation producing the living emergence of individuation. dividuarion of matter, no longer understood hylomorphically, but as autopoietic, changes ontological registers. This ontology of individuation is in fict one we arc already familiar with, as Simondon‘s vocabulary teils us: “Individuation must be grasped as the hecorning of the being and not as a ° The finite individ— 2 mode! ofthe being which would exhaust its significarion.“ nal is therefore only the most limited aspecr of the process of individuation, and can only bc properly undersrood according ro the immanent “pre-individual“ (intense and differential) singularities ir expresses. This is the understanding Deleuze and Guattari develop in relation to art as a “refrain.“ COMPOSITIONAL REFRAINS In art it is modulation that composes the affectual assembiages constituting a subjectivation, and it is in the process of subjectivarion that a machinic and iiirnroierir rr nricriu‘u‘ bec‘onws indiscernihle front the arr—work jr oroduces.

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Deleuze and Guattari ca! 1 this composinonal process a “refrain,“ vliich he gins, Guartari writes, with “rhe detachment of an exisrential “motif“ (or leit motiv) which installs irself like an “attractor“ within a sensible and significational chaos. ‘I‘he differenr componenus conserve their heterogeneiry, hut arc nevertheless captured by a refrain which couples them ro die existen tiai Territory ofmy seif“ (Chaos, 17/33). To derach a motif is already to cre— arc, or to change, a world. We arc always in the middle of this process of dc and reterriroriahsation, because any “motif“ is detached from another refrain that composes it. Nevertheless the creative process of rbe refrain begins with dererritorialisation, and rherefore requires, Guartari argues, “a blind trust in the movement ofdeterritorialization at vork,“ ‘ ‘I‘he artist deraches some ma 2 terial, frees the motif so that jr can atrracr and compose new sensations and senses—new affects—according to a new refrain. Art is composed through th is conrin na! process of dererritorial isation. The same refrain emerges in A ThousandP/ateaus in an account ofcom mon experience. In the face ofa rhrearening and dangerous chaos we atrempt to shelrer in a moment of calmness and stabilirn lt‘s onlv natural, Not however, in a caim centre we recognise and which pre-exisrs tu, hut a calm we creare with the comforting rhythms of a song, a motif rhat enacts a processual conversion ofchaos inro a spatio-remporal rerritory in which we can exisr. The refrain con strucrs an existential terrirory or “horne“ our of “landmarks and marks of all kinds“ (ATE 311/382), through rhyrhmical processes ofselecrion, eliminarion and extraction. This home prorecrs and exrends rhe gerntinal forces ofthe ter rirory, acting as a filter or sieve rhrough which it exrracts what jr needs ro trans— form and resist chaos. All we wanr isa lirtle consisrencv Finally the home opens, a window or door leads us not inro chaos, “hut [ro] another region, one created by rhe circle itseif“ (A‘FE 311/383). As if, Deleuze and Guattari suggest, rhe cir dc “tended 011 its own to open onro a future, as a fiincrion ofrhe w‘orking forces jr shelrers“ (ATB 311/383). Through doors and windows opening onto the fu ture the rerritory extends lines of improvisation or experiment (a “prospecrion“ ofvirtual universes as Guatrari purs it), furnier dererritorialisarions creating the becomings ofour world. Crearion here nieans inorganic life, a mulniplicity of sonorous, gesrural and motor forces which bud inro “lines ofdrift“ producing new complexities in the inirial refrain. This ethico-aesrhenic paradigm is rhere fore a new onrology of art, one which will radically change our understanding ofarr‘s experience rhrough ins “immense complexificarion ofsuhjecriviry“ and irs producrion “of new and unprecedenred exisrenrial harmonies, polyphonies, rhyrhms and orchesrrations.“ 22 Despire the refrain being a musical rerm, as an auropoienic machine op eraring in the aesrhetic paradigm ir is applicable ro all art forms, including the

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visual arts, “The image,“ Deleuze writes, “is a little ritornello“ (ECC, 1 59).23 An image is composed of it composes, lines, volumes and colours—its “land rnarks or marks“—into a “rough sketch“ (ATE 311/382). This sketch is elab orated in various affectual rhythms that both express and compose a refrains virtual infinity a singular assembiage ofaffects that is in continual variation. lt lives. “The image is not an object,“ Deleuze writes, “but a ‘process“ (ECC, 1 59). 2 1iiis means that producing an art-work—as refrain—is not the exclu sive realm of the human artist, because the “artist“ is simply the inhuman and asubjective process of subjectivation. Similarly, the refrain is not contained by an objectively defined “art werk“ existing apart from this process in which it is continually recreated. In the aesrhetic paradigm “we arc not,“ Guattari writes, “in the presence ofa passively representative image, but ofa vector of subjecrivatien“ (Chaos, 25/44). The refrain then, is the machinic “interface,“ er “umbilical point“ (Chaos, 80/113) between virtual and actual dimensions, and is the compositional prin ciple ofa werk of art. The refrain assumes a chaesmic cosmos, “a deterministic chaos“ (Chaos, 59/86) from which it emerges as a “chaosrnic folding“ (Chaos, 111/154) er “nucleus ofchaosmosis“ (Chaos, 80/113). As such, the refrain has a double function. On the one hand it acts as a “vacuole of decompression“ (Chaos, 80/ 113), destratifying subject-object distinctions and the schemas of space and time they assume, molecularising them, and reopening contact with their virtual infinity On the ether hand this process produces an autopeietic node er “motif“ through which virtual universes compose themselves, gaining consistency te the peint ofexpression in a subjectivation. The refrain is this two feld and simultaneous Operation of “unclasping“ [tcrochages (AT1 326/402) er “unframing“ [&cradagej (Chaos, 131 / 181) actual coordinates from their stratified systems, in order te “grasp“ (compose) new virtual universes in an on going and actual becoming. There is a deterriterialisation of actual things inte a chaotic virtuality and a reterritorialisation of this virtual chaos inte an au topoienc actuality (an “existential territory“). And both tegether, as Guattari ex— plains: “Formations of sense and states ofthings arc thus chaotised in the very movement of the bringing into existence of their cemplexity“ (Chaos, 80 1/114). This two-step dance is the onto-aesthetic process of art, Guattari writes, where “every aesthetic decentring of points ofview [...] passes through a preliminary deconstruction of the structures and codes in use and a chaesmic plunge into the materials ef sensation, Out ef them a recomposition becornes possible: a recreation, an enrichment of the world [...] a proliferation not just ofthe forms but of the modalities efbeing“ (Chaos, 90/126). Art begins with this refrain: “different questiens.“ Questions leading us beyend the answers we know, and hevend the artworks and artists we love. But

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enly te return them again, differenrly, ne lenger as artists er artworks, but as the werk of art, as refrains of chaosmosis, as the lines of our ewn beceming. “Viewed frem the angle of this existential functien,“ Guattari writes, namely, in rupture with signification and denoration—erdinary aesthetic cate gorisations lose a large part of their relevance. Reference to ‘free figuratien,‘ ‘abstraction,‘ er ‘conceptualisrn‘ hardly matters! What is impertant is te know if a werk leads effectively to a mutant productien of enunciatien, The fecus ef artistic activity always remains a surplus-value of subjectivity“ (Chaos, 131 / 181). In the aesthetic paradigm questiens about an art-werk‘s “meaning“ must be retheught in the light of their “intolerable nucleus of entelogical cre atienism“ (Chaos, 83/117). Here, Guattari argues, meaning ne longer emerges according te the pre-existing poles of artist and viewer, but threugh the expres sive and autepoietic functions (refrains) ef their chaesmic material-affects. In art preperly so-called, and as all efour examples have repeatedly shown, “the ex pressive material becemes formally creative“ (Chaos, 14/29). Guattari hewever, gives an example of his ewn, one very different frem that ofpainting. “—

THE BOTTLE RACK CHANGES DIRECTION

Guattari‘s example is Marcel Duchamp‘s Bottle Rack [“Egouttoi,“ er “Leporte bouteilles“], one of the first readymades from 1913. This werk, Guattari writes “functions as the trigger for a constellation of referential universes engaging both intimate reminiscences (the cellar of the heuse, a certain winter, the rays of light upon spider webs, adelescent solitude) and cennetations ef a cultural and economic order—the time when bottles were still washed with the aid ofa bottle brush (REA, 164/259—60). As we saw with Warhol‘s paintings, Duchamp‘s bottle-rack seems to answer te Deleuze‘s imperative te insert art inte life (DR, 293/375). The readyrnade‘s affectual heterogeneity means its individ uating instance can ne longer be identified with an ebject er a subject, but only as their mutual becorning. Hew is this reading different frem mere traditional understandings ef the readymades? The readymade has eften been interpreted as producing an infinite range efaffects, as an in-principle open field ofassocia tive pessibilities. But it is another claim to argue that this multiplicity ofaffect individuates in a way undefined by, and ceunter te, subjective and objective dis cursive forms. ib make this claim one must radicalise the reaclymade, and argue that it removes these ferms, er at least makes them subsequent te the chaesrnic emergence they ernbedy. This is precisely what Guartari dees, first by claiming that the affect is in itself“pre-personal,“ hut further by arguing that the ready made in particular exemplifies the aesthetic process ef the refrain‘s “ontelogical creationism.“ As such, the readymade is an example ef an art werk in ‘s hich .

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artists “not only create [affects] in their work, they give them tO US and make us become with them, they draw US into the compound“ (WE 175/166). Elsewhere Guattari has coupled Duchamp with Bakhtin to make the argument that this process of subjectivisarion is a “transfer“ berween the creator and “on looker“ of a work of art. 25 l‘he readymade restores infinity to rhe creative process, and iristalls it in the art work‘s actuality, as the continual affectual van— ation the work in fact is. This is what would make Duchamp the archetypal artist, and the readymade the fundamental work of art. As Guattari Suggests: “With art the finitude of the sensible material becomes a support for the pro duction ofaffects and percepts which tend to hecome more and more eccentred with respect to preformed structures and coordinates. Marcel Duchamp dc clared: ‘art is the road which leads towards regions which are not governed by tirne and space“ (Chaos, 100—1/140—1). These regions are those ofexistential emergence, continually re-opening new temporalisations and smoorh spaces. In this sense we could say Cuattari uses I)uchamp in much the same way as he ar gues the readvmade as subjectivation works itseif lt is an extraction or detach ment of an object frorn its discursive field in order to open it tip to new mutations, new virtual universes. Akhough 1 will go on to argue that in many ways this is a problematic use of Duchamp, it is, to be fair, no less than what Guattari calls on orhers to do with hirn: “[W}e invite our readers,‘ he generously writes, ‘to freelv take and leave the concepts we advance. The important thing is not the final resuir but the fict that the cartographic method co—exists with the process ofsubjectivation and that a reappropniation, an autopoiesis of the means of production of suhjectiviry are inade possible. “2(, Gtiatrani‘s detachment of Duchamp‘s Bottle Rack would follow Duchamp‘s own starernent, that “it‘s a bottle rack that has changed direction.“ This “change in direction“ would be the crucial definition of an aesthetic practice ofcreative subjectivation, orie that Deleuze affirms in bis philosoph ical, but no less Duchampian terrns. “One irnagines a philosophically bearded Hegel,“ he wnites in the preface to Dzffi‘rence anti Repetition, “a philosophically clean-shaven Marx, in the same wayas a rnoustached Mona-Lisa“ (DR, xxi/ ). 4 But one can also irnagine that shaving Marx would be considerahly more work than changing the bottle rack‘s direction. By this 1 mean that the success ofDelcuze‘s “ventriloquisin“ of bis philosophical interlocutors, the way it pro duces a new Nietzsche or Spinoza, to take two ofour examples, depends on their “change in direction“ being articulated by the philosophers themselves, revealing a creative liFe immanent to thein own concepts and systems. The problem wirh (iuattari‘s reading of Duchamp is that in changing the direction of the Bottle Rack he seems to ignone Duchamp‘s own dinection, and thus dc termines its Ineaning according to his own, very different rules. This would

Figure 6 Marcel Duchamp. Bottle Rack, 1913, Philadelphia Museum of Art. © 2004 Artists Rights Sociery (ARS), New York / ADAGP Paris / Succcssion Marcel Duchamp

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be an over-coding rather than a trans-coding, an act of transcendence rather than transversality. We remember one of Deleuze and Guattari‘s definitions of the schizo as heing ahle to make what they are escaping from escape from it self(AO, 69/81—2), and this is the dynamic of the aesthetic paradigm we have seen Guattari developing. But in the case ofGuatiari‘s references to Duchamp and the readymade this is not the case, and the best that could be said ofit is that it is a provocative, and perhaps playful, quotation out ofcontext. In fact, the work ofGuattari and Duchamp seem to move in opposite di recrions. Guattari wishes to escape the overdetermination of the subject in a sig nify‘ing system through a material expression of chaosrnosis (a subjectivation) inseparable frorn an actual creation. Duchamp on the orher hand, wishes to es cape materiality by embracing a symbolic system in which art appears only on condition of its semiotic nornination. This would be the direction the ready made takes towards conceptual art, a trajectory developing the practice of art as a “language garne.“ Where Guattari seeks a democratisation ofart by removing its condition of human subjectivity, Dtichamp seeks a democratisation through a nomination depending entirely on an inherently subjective power of signifi canon. The readymade in Duchamps sense is not priinarily a proliferation ofaf fect, but the shifting of art‘s definition onto a purely conceptual act. 27 The

readymade is nothing hut the question “is this art?“ and the insistence that art‘s condinion is the discursive act—“this is art.“ Deleuze and Guattari explicidy re ject this direction for art, arguing that with it art “depends on the simple ‘opin ion‘ ofa spectator wbo derermines whether or not to ‘materialize‘ the sensation, that is to say, decides whether or not it is art. This is a lot ofefforr to find ordi nary perceptions and affecrions in the infinire and to reduce the concept to a doxa ofthe social body or great American metropolis“ (‘VR 198/187). In other words, the readyrnade does not operate as the machinic composition ofprob lematic affecrs into refrains and subjectivations, because it establishes ins own condition in a nominanion that depends on the subjective act ofsignification. Guattari atternpts to consolidate his appropriation of the readyrnade througb [)uchamp‘s farnous affirmation of the artist‘s indifference towards an)‘ aesthetic qualities in the object, lt is this indifference, Duchamp argues, which is the readymade‘s condinion of possihiliry3 8 Giiattai i clainis that this “indifference“ detaches the work frorn the discursive field ofart, and opens jr to a “murant desire,“ one that “consummates“ ins “disinterestedness,“ 2 But it is precisely this moment of consummation that seems most problernatic in re lation to I)uchamp, that artist of onanism and “celibate machines.“ For clearly Duchamp did not see the rejection of art achievecl in the readymade as expressing the “murant desire“ of a genetic material plane of composition. Rather, the readyrnade abstracts art f‘rom vital processes by reducing it to an

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infinire cham ofsignifiers, ro the celehration of “language garnes.“ Iric Alliez has gone the farthest in this crinique ofL)uchamp, arguing that bis reduction of art to the infinire play of signifiers enacts tbe Lacanian cut between the Symbolic and the Real. ° The readyrnade in this sense would be the denial of 3 an asubjective aesthetic paradigm of expressive mareriality, in favour of an immaterial process of linguistic construcnion, one rhat could do nothing hut rep resent suhjects for other signifiers. In this sense, Alliez argues, Duchamp‘s readyrnade is “de—onrological,“ and rnust he placed in opposition to Deleuze and Guattari‘s ontology of the aesrhetic parad igm. Deleuze and Guattari‘s use of the term “readvmade“ in A ihousand Piateaus and What is Philosophy? is therefore non—Duchampian, not only in its ontological comrnitrnents, hut also in describing an anirnal process of art con strucning a terrirory. This process, they argue, is already art hecause it is the con srruction of an affectual assemblage in which matter becornes expressive. “Territorial rnarks are readyrnades. [Les marques territoriales sont des ready made]“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “[thev arc >- this consnirunion. 1 j niere this freeing of matters of expression in the movernent of rerriroriality: the base or ground ofart“ (ATI 316/389). For Deleuze and Guattari tben, and this is a poinr we shaH return to, art escapes human suhjectivity to become—animal, and animal construcnions ofa ternirory rhrough the “unciasping“ ofpre-existing ma terial, as in the hehaviour of the srage-maker bird, is “nearly the birth of art.“ “Take everything and make it a matter ofexpression.“ Deleuze and Guartari teil Us: “The stagemalcer bird practices art brut. Artists arc stagemakers“ (ATR 3 16/389). The artist-animal uses readymade colors, lines and sound to con struct an existenrial territory—a subjectivisation—as an expression ofthe vital forces of an inorganic life. (Art is a natura] expression, but Narure has been “dc narured,“ an imporrant point we will come back to in mir discussion of Kant and Romanticism.) indeed, Deleuze and Guattari claim “art begins with the an imal, at least with the animal that carves out a territorv“ (WB 183/14), We can immediarely see that this definition ofart is travelling in a \‘ery different direc nion ro Duchamp‘s. A conclusion confirmed by Duchamp himselfin the 1955 interview he made vith James Johnson Sveeney, and from which Guattari quoted. “1 believe,“ Duchamp said, “that art is the onlv kind ofactiviry in which man, as man, shows hirnself to be a true individual capahle ofgoing beyond the animal phase. Art is an opening roward regions \vhich arc not ruled byspace and ‘ Art, in other words, opens onto the realm of the signifier, a rtIn thar 3 time.“ transcends the animal and guarantees art‘s immaterial realiry by grounding ir within human thought. Finally then, Guattani‘s use of the Bot-tle Rack as an example ofsubjecti vation is not convincing. lt does not succeed—in Guattari‘s own terms—in ...

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co—implicating the detachment of art from its discursive structures with a “chaosmic pitinge into the materials of sensation“ (Chaos, 90/126). Rather than simply disquaIif‘ing Guattari‘s argument, however, his atternpt at appro— priating Duchamp‘s readymade casts in grearer relief both the difficulty and the radicality of what he is proposing. Similarly, it also serves to ernphasise frorn a methodological point ofview that a ‘blind trust‘ in deterritorialisation must nevertheless, anti in its Nietzschean modality, be a critical practice ofse lection and affi rmation, a careful construction capable of expressing chaosmic forces. Guartari‘s privileging of art and artists in this process remains crucial, not least for the way it points beyond Duchamp‘s conceptualism and rowards art‘s renewed political engagement. As Guartari suggests: “Perhaps artists today constitute the final lines along which primordial existential questions arc folded. How arc the new fields of the possible going to be fitted out? How arc sounds and forms going to be arranged so that the subjectivity adjacent ro them remains in movement, and really alive?“ (Chaos, 133/184). These ques tions take us beyond 1)uchamp to an interrogation ofthe aesthetic paradigrn in rerms of its “ethico—political implications“ (Chaos, 107/149), implications that shall now he exainined. THE POLITICS OF CHAOS

The subjectivation emerging in the refrain is an ontological force of resist ance—a permanent revolution—acting against systematic controls ofcreative 52 ‘Fhe ontology of the aestheric paradigm is cherefore inherenrly becoming. political, because through it we escape our stratified image ofthought—and its representational politics—to restore an infinite freedom to the finite world. The ready-made, once more understood by Deleuze and Guattari in a cornpletely different way to Duchamp, creates a subjectivation always in ex cess of any limited identity (ofa polirical subject as much as an artistic one). This excess operates, in a Nietzschean sense, as the eternal return ofthe ready inade, as its inorganic life as a repetition ofcreative differences. 3 This keeps the ready-made in a constant process of“unclasping,“ in excess of all represen rational systems and any metaphysical determinarions. This “unciasping“ is accornpanied by the refrains political moment, its seif-organisation in an aesthetic composition of the chaosmic plane; the readymade as an chist politics; the readymade as an ontological revaluation/revolution of everyday life. “But most importanrly,“ as Deleuze said in 1968, “all this cor responds to something happening in the contemporary world. [...]You see, the forces of repression always need a SeIf that can be assigned, they need dc terminate individuals 011 which ro exercise their power. When we become the

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least bit fluid, when we slip away from the assignable Scif, when there is no longer a person on whom God can exercise bis power or hy whom He can be replaced, the police lose it.“ 3 Freed from irs Duchampian definition, the readvinade embodies the pol itics of the aesrheric paradigm as an autopoieric subjecrivarion expressing irs in organic Life. In this sense then, the aesthetic paradigm ofthe readymade is not the irnpossibility of defining art, (Duchamp called the readymade “a form of denying the possihiliw of defining arr“) but its redefinition as a living, ereative expression!construction in permanent revolution wirh any preconceptions. As a result, ro undersrand this crearive expression!consrruction requires our own ‘unciasping,‘ our own redefinirion as subjectivation, our own embrace ofa po litical aestherics capable of creating a people yer ro come. At this point the proh lems of polirics arc aesthetic, anti in fact Guatrari uses almost idenrical rerms to describe them. Communism today, he wrires with Antonio Negri, “allows an ‘ungluing‘ of the dominant realities and significations by creating conditions which permit people ro ‘make their territory‘ to conqucr rheir individual and collecrive destiny wirhin the most dererrirorialized flows.“ A communist pol ines is therefore inseparable from aesthetic processes of ereation, and extends “polirical art“ ro include any act thar is truly crearive. Political art—jr means an onto-aesthetics. “When 1 ‘consume‘ a work,“ Guattari argues, “—a term which ought to be changed because jr can just as easily be ahsence ofwork—1 carry out a complex ontological crysrallisanion, an alterificarion of heings-there. 1 summon being to exist differently and 1 extorr new innensities from it“ (Chaos, 96/134). In orher words, rbis onto-polirical definition ofart collapses old dis tinctions between creation and consumption onro a single plane ofproduction. A plane completely unrestricred to art, and rraversing all sorrs offields not ally considered “artistic.“ Guarrari uses the same paradigm when discussing rhe innovative practices an La Borde elinic, for example (Chaos, 69—71/99--102). This extension ofart into the everyday is preciseiv rhe mark of its polirical power and necessiry. liideed, Guarrari argues rhar “aestheric machines“ arc “the most advanced models“ for effecrive resisrance to capitalisnic subjecriviry because they directly confront capital‘s “deafness ro true alterity“ (Chaos, 91 / 1 27). Art—polin— ical pracnice works in borh dimensions of the aesrhetic paradigm, on rhe one hand jr resisrs actual politica] forms of oppressiori, ereaning alternative subjec rivinies (relative deterritorialisarions), but in so doing jr also brings us to a new chaosmic paradigm ofbeing, in which we arc freed ro express our inhuman ma terial becomings. The politics of birds. As a result, art, according to Guartari, “has become the paradigm for every possible liheranion“ (Chaos, 9 1/127). Bur beyond being simply another name for a viralist onnologv, art also has a privileged connection to the aesthetic paradigm as a realm ofexperimentarion

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in which new ways of understanding and living in the world arc constantly ap pearing. “Patently,“ Guattari writes, “art does not have a monopoly on creation, but it takes its capacity to invent mutant coordinates to extremes: it engenders unprecedented, unforeseen and unthinkable qualities of being“ (Chaos, 106/147), Consequently, Guattari sees art‘s production ofaffects as being an es pecially important process ofpolitical resistance. “The aesthetic power offeel ing,“ he writes, “although equal in principle with the other powers ofthinking philosophically, knowing scientifically, acting politically, seems on the verge of occupying a privileged position within the collective Assembiages of our cra“ (Chaos, 101/141). No doubt this privilege would have to be analysed in detail to understand art‘s political possibilities. No doubt contemporary art has been generally unable to do this, not least because ofits insistent retreat into a postmodern “conceptualisrn.“ But nevertheless, because “aesthetic machines“ al ready operate as refrains, they “offer us the most advanced models—relatively speaking—for these blocks of sensation capable of extracting full meaning from all the empty signal systems that invest us from every side“ (Chaos, 90/126). This is not ro claim artists arc the new revolutionary heroes—God forbid—but to affirm art‘s (precisely, art against the all too human artist) revolutionary power. “Revolurionary art“ is hardly a Slogan tO conjure with. But for Deleuze and Guattari it takes a new meaning, that art and politics share the same on tological and ethical imperative: to create! The same imperative to face the same problem. “We lack creation,“ Deleuze and Guattari claim, “W‘ lack re sistance to thcpresent“ (W1 108/104). Aesthetic resistance breaks with our re ceived understandings and perceptions—our “opinions“—the clich4d feelings and expressions which define our present. Opinions arc the corre spondence of perceived qualities and subjective affections, such that these cor respondences constitute an orthodoxy operating in the realm of the lived. In this way, Deleuze and Guattari write, “all opinion is already political“ (WP 145/138). When 1 express an opinion 1 not only express the orthodoxy 1 be lieve in, or which 1 wish to impose, but also express all the constitutive and stratified opinions which make such expressions possible; that 1 am a subject, that 1 think, what thought is. etc. As a result, for Deleuze and Guattari “ehe misfortune of the people cornes from opinion“ (WE 206/194). This task ofresisting ehe opinions of ehe presene gives the firse co-ordinate ofart‘s indis cernibility frorn polieics: rnaterialisrn. As Deleuze and Guattari pue ie: “By means of the material, the airn of art is to wrest the percept from perceptions ofobjects and the states ofa perceiving subject, eo wrest the affece from affec tions as the transition from one staee to another: to extract a bbc of sensa tions, a pure being ofsensations“ (WI 167/158). Art, like politics, begins .

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from this absolute, or perhaps we could say oneobogical, deeerrieorialisation of ehe object and the subject as sensation‘s conditions of possibility. What is re quired is, as the Poet Pessoa pur ie: “An appreneiceship in unlearning.“‘ 7 The aesthetic process of subjectivation is just such an apprenticesliip for in ie the artist “has forgotten the world,“ as Nieezsche said, not eo mention hirn- or herself, not in order eo leave die world, but in order to re-eneer it, to re-creaee it, in its at once aesthetic and political dimension. 8 lt is not simply a matter ofpicking sides, us the artists againse ehem, As if such group identificaeions were enough to produce an effective politics. Just the opposite. Aestheeic singularity and its creative lines of flight always await to be produced, and muse be, for only a permanent revolution can resist the incessant reappropriation of art in the spectacle ofcomrnodified “poses“ and fashionable accessories. But art has one advantage, ehe aesehetic paradigm animaees a mate rial realm it shares with opinion, but which ie retains a prior relationship with. The question is not which is “right,“ hut what is ehe right war machine? lt is al— ways a queseion of means and not ends. Whae ehen, muse be done? The politi cal artist‘s first task is eo clear his or her material of all ehe clichs by which opinion predetermines its possibilieies. This is ehe deseruction which muse pre cede any true creation, and which frees ehe material to express its chaosrnic ma chinery in construceing sensations. “Because the picture stares oue covered with clichs,“ Deleuze and Guaeeari write, “ehe paineer muse confrone ehe chaos and haseen the deseruceions so as eo produce a sensation that defies every opinion and clich (how many eirnes?)“ (WF 204/192). How rnany eirnes? Every eirne ehe finite is creaeed which reseores ehe infinite. Each eime, again. The firse liberaeion will he from ourselves—ehe first clich—even, or es pecially, from ourselves as areists. No longer suhjeceive, aeseheeic creaeion im plies an ongoing and aueopoieeic subjectivisaeion ehae composes affeces inco myseical expressions. The “pre-personab voices“ of ehe refrain, Guaetari wriees, induce “an aeseheeic ecseasy, a myseical efTusion“ (REA, 165/262). The polieics of such a myseicism imply an atheist heresy ehae refuses a subjeceivity conform ing eo God‘s image, and ieselfaspires eo God‘s vision. “1 am God“ is a myseical and atheist seatemene we have already seen Guaeeari rnake, and is indiscemnible from saying “1 am a polieical areise.“ The political art work on this account leads a double life, ae once finiee, and as infiniee becoming: “Fabricated in ehe socius,“ Guateari wriees, “arc is only suseained by ieself This is because each work pro duced possesses a double finality: eo insere iesebf inco a social nerwork which will either appropriaee or rejece ie, and eo celebraee, once again, ehe Universe ofare as such, precisely because je is always in danger ofcolbapsing“ (Chaos, 130/180). Bue art‘s double life confronts it wieh a double danger, on ehe one hand, ofbeing appropriaeed “after ehe face“ by ehe fine-ares syseem, speceacula ised according

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to all the clichs which make it “art,“ and, on the other, of collapsing into a chaos which cannot be actualised in a composition, a deteriitorialisation end ing in a black hole annihilating its own expression. This is the double danger, Deleuze and Guattari write, “either leading us back to the opinion from which we wanted to escape or precipitating us into the chaos that we wanted to con front“ (W1 199/188). 1 hese dangers arc really the Same one, for both reinscribe art into a system in which it exists either as inside or out, as finite or infinite. Art must fight these dangers with its OWfl dual action, as resistance to the control ling forces of the inside (relative deterritorialisation), and as expressive refrains unleashing the forces of cbaosmosis (absolute deterritorialisation). This double life of art is, ofcourse, one life, and this articulation is crucial for our understanding of arts political power and function. As Deleuze and Guattari put it: “There is always a way in which absolute deterritorialisation takes over from a relative deterritorialisarion in a given field“ (WE 88l85). This would justif one presumes, Guattari‘s “blind trust“ in deterritorialisation. As we saw last chapter, an absolutely deterritorialised chaosmic matter is prior to, and has priority over, all metaphysical atrempts at its reterritorialisation. This priority means that the relative deterritorialisations of an experimental art al— ways materialise (subjectivise) this ontological dimension, even ifit is immedi ately reterritorialised. The political question therefore, is not to sirnply strive for the absolute dei-erritorialisation of the refrain in the cosmos (as we shall see, too romantic), but rather to realise this movement as precisely what gives the (our) subjectivation its consistency, what makes the actual autopoietic. How, in other words, can art—bete and now—speak the voice ofchaosmosis, and do we have the strength to believe it Our problem ofcourse, our problem as artists, is not simply to “hear“ this voice—too easy, wo metaphysical—but to sing with this voice, to einbody our own refrains, and “rejoin the songs of the Molecules“ (A‘T1 327/403). With this last quotation we have, perhaps, begun to hear a cer tain romantjc tone to Deleuze and Guattari‘s aesthetics, a tone already echoing in the various ecstasies and mystic moments we have attributed to art. Now has come the tirne to interrogate this possible Romanticism, an interrogation Dcleuze and Guattari undertake thernselves in relation to their most musical concept, the “refrain.“ ROMANTICISM

Deleu7e and Guattari distinguish three “ages“ ofart, Classicism, Romanticism and Modernism. All three arise within certain historical conditions, but arc not determined by thern, each refcrring instead to the diagrammatic features ofdif ferent ahstract machines, found today as much as at other times (AT1

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346/428). The classical artist confronts chaos as a iaw untamed matter upon which he or she imposes form. This process proceeds with a “one-two,“ the bi nary differentiation of form, and the articulation of these forms in series. This is the classical form of form, as it were, acting as the precondition to any cre ation. To recall our discussions of last chapter, the classical artist represenrs the formed substances of this world through a hylomorphic line, an act ofcreation reproducing an organic milieu that is the same borb inside and outside the fi-ame. Art functions to subject a chaotic and unclean matter to the pure beaury of an ideal form. Deleuze and Guattari arc obviously not classicists. Their relation to Romanticism however, is not so clear, and as we have seen their fonnulations re garding art often have a romantic ring to them. The immanence of an infinite Nature to its expression in life is one example that we will return to, but another is the intolerable, unbearable aspect of this creative and cosmic infiniry (chaos mosis), as it assaults and overpowers our perception. Indeed, Deleuze points out this affinity with Romanticism in C‘inerna 2. The purely optical and sound image of modern cinema, we recall, “outstrips our sensory-motor capacities.“ Deleuze gives the example of Rossellini‘s Strombo/i (1950), where Ingrid Bergman‘s Karin is finally overwhelmed by the beauty and power of the volcano and seeks divine consolation. Modern cinema, Deleuze argues, finds something too strong for the human sensory-motor, something that shatters it, and is re vealed in a “vision.“ “Romanticism,“ Deleuze writes, “bad already set out this ajm for itseif: grasping the intolerable or the unbearable, the empire ofpoverty and thercby becoming visionary to produce a means of knowlcdge and action out of pure vision“ (C2, 18/29). Although this connection to Romanticism re mains purely gestural in Cinerna 2, Deleuze seems to be clainiing for modern cinema a new aesthetics of the sublirne. What this might be and how Deleuze and Guattari ‘unclasp‘ it from Kant‘s famous use of the term can be understood through their discussion of Romanticism in A Thousanr/ J‘Lateaus. There they clearly reject Romanticism as a diagram for artistic practice, and posit instead a new definition of“modernism.“° The romantic artist, Deleuze and Guattari argue, abandons the classical proiect of imposing universal forms on the chaos of matter. and instead creates territorial asseinblages which express the Earth as their intense and infinite essence. The Earth as “Nature“ contains all the forces of the universe, and con stitutes the deepest level ofreality. But this depth transcends our ability to com prehend it, and is projected outside any attempt to express it. Nature, for the romantic, is a subterranean, intense, groundlessness operaring as a lost or hid den foundation which the artist-hero sets out to find. This search for the imma nent forces of Nature as our true reality will lead the romantic artist back to the

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transcendentaL This path is laid out in the “profoundly rornantic“ (ECC, 33/47) philosophv of Kant, a path Deleuze will partially follow, hefore inaking it change direction entirely. Experience. for Kant, is deterrnined by various tran scendental and apriori forms and processes. Perception emerges from the fac ulty of the imagination, through the syntheses of apprehension and reproduction mi a sensible manifold (given by intuition) and within die a pri ori forrns of space and time. The perceptual syntheses produced by apprehen sion and reproduction nevertheless remain to be recognized as an object, and this is only possihle Kant argues, because perception presupposes an object form (object=x) as the necessary correlate of the cogito (“1 think“). In assigning pred icates to perceptions according to the apriori categories of the understanding, the final synthesis ofrecognition produces a concept of the object or what Kant calls a synthetic judgment.hl The synthetic judgement producing a concept of an ohject is ‘metrical‘ hecaiise ir applies categories to nur perceptions that are in all cases the same, inaking it Deleuze and Guattari say, “dogmatic“ (ATI 313/385). We have already seen how Deleuze wants tobe done with judgment, and [)eleuze will read Kant (a Kant, we could say, without his sock garters) as wanting the same thing. Th do so Deleuze develops Kant‘s exploration of “aes thetic comprehension“ in the critique ofJudgement. There Kant discovers that the syntheses of imagination in perception presuppose a unit of measure. This unit is not given Ii priori, hut is suhjectively determined OH a case by case basis and is, as a result, in constant variation. Aesthetic comprehension, Deleuze ar gues, produces a refrain that expresses our comprehension of a chaotic Nature in a rhythm. A rhythm is undeterrnined by a concept, and is in this sense con trasted to metrical dogmatism. But rhytlim is constantly changing and as a re— sult I)eleuze says, ventriloquising Kant: “The rhythm is something which comes out ofchaos, and the rhythm is indeed sornething which can indeed per haps return to chaos.“ 2 Rhythms arc composed from chaos by aesthetic com prehension, before being used as variable units of measure in judgments. But, and here Deleuze is still following Kant, rhythin dissolves into chaos when something exceeds mir subjective ahiliry ofcomprehension. This, Kant argues, happens in front ofcertain “sublime“ natural phenomena whose “intuition vey the idea of their infinity.“ At this moment the rhythms ofaesthetic com prehension that form the basis for perceptions and judgments arc “drowned in chaos.“ “My whole structure ofperceprion,“ Deleuze says, “is in the process of exploding.“ 1 This explosion is caused by either an extensive infinity (the math ematical sublime), or an intensive infinity (the dynamic sublime). The latter is a material force filling tirne and space (“Nature“), hut that cannot be compre hended and coded hy the faculties. The dynamic sublime is therefore “pure“ Nature, both the ground of our experience, but also its groundlessness. As such,

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the subliine is die limit of our possible perception and understanding ofNature, and the appearance of an excess, an “outstde to the human organism and its dogmatic judgements. lt is this sublime excess that modern cinema discovers in the breakdown of the sensory-motor, and Deleuze and Guattari will extend this positive function of the sublime (although without using this term) to art in general in What Is Philosophy? Nevertheless, and despitc its suhlime appearance, we can understand this breakthrough proper to art oni hy indicating the ways it deviates from Kant‘s account, even ifthese begin from it.

Three points need to he made here. First, in the Third Critique Kant will discover anorher fhculty “saving“ us from chaos, and this is the faculry of Ideas, or Reason. Kant claims that the ex perience of the sublime actually propels us out of our senses, as jr were, to com prehend the transcendental realm of Ideas, the truth of the supersensible as understood by our “pure intellectual judgment,“ or reason.1S “The sublime in nature is only negative,“ Kant writes, “lt is a feeling of imagination by its own act depriving itself of its freedom by receiving a Final determination in accor 6 The sublinie dance with a law other than that of its empirical enjoyrnent.‘ “awakens“ the faculty of reason, which is able to comprehend die supcrsensihle “substratum“ of infinity and return the sublime to die imagination as the pres entation of the 4 unpresentable. This “emancipation of dissonance“ (ECC, 35/49) as Deleuze puts it, creares “a new type ofaccord“ (DR, 321/187) be tween the faculties, a “discordant accord“ (ECC, 35/49). Thus the sublime, in overpowering imagination opens onto reason; “the faculty concerned with the independence of the absolute totality.“ 8 As Kant writes: the feling ofthe unartainability of the idca hv mcans of die imagination [i.e. by‘ the sublinie], is itsclf a presenrarion of the suhjective Finalitv of the imagination in the interests ofthe mind‘s supersensihle province, and compels us subjccrivcly to think nature itsclf in its totality as a presenta— tion ofsomething supcrsensible, witliout our hcing ahle to effectuare this prcSentation objecnvelv.

The breakdown induced by the sublime allows die breakthrough to the tran scendental, or as Deleuze wryly notes: “When sornething doesn‘t work [for Kant], he invents something which doesn‘t exist.“ ° Here then is the point at 5 which Deleuze and Guattari change directions, vhere, as Deleuze puts it: “Kant held fast to the point of view of conditioning without attaining that of genesis“ (DR, 170/221), Deleuze and Guattari will seek in Nature not the

transcendental conditions of life, hut its genesis. Second, for Deleuze and Guattari the Ideas arc in fact die forces ex pressed by a chaotic Nature, those abstract rhythms which emerge from chaos

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as its genetic movements, its chaosmosis. These forces are precisely what can— not be thought or sensed by our all too human common sense and rational representations. hut whicli nevertheless are the genetic movements of our thoughts and sensations. These “sublime“ forces, Deleuze will argue, will re quire a “superior empiricism“ (I)R, 143/186) adequate to their intolerable and inhuman experience, adequate, as we shall see, to the percepts and affects making up a sensation. As a result, chaotic nature is not, as it was for Kant and the romantics, what both overpowers us and restores us to the divine, but js a destruction that transforms tbe human, mutating our metrical concepts into the rhythms of an immanent and infinite inorganic life. If, for Kant and for Deleuze and Guattari, Nature is chaos or chaosmosis, they understand its affects in completely different ways. For Kant chaos marks the limits ofour humanity, but ihe heginning ofour transcendental essence, for Deleuze and Guartari chaotic Nature is the genetic impulse of Life (chaosmosis), from which rhythmical refi-ains ernerge to construct existential spatio-temporal ter ri tories—subjectivations-—‘that express the 1 iving dynamism from which they were born. This means that although Deleuze and Guattari, like Kant, posit ‘Nature‘ as life‘s immanent field offorces, these arc not reified into a transcen dental plane determining our subjectivity, but form instead and in a Spi nozian manner, our plane of composition—our becoming—our inhuman life. Thus, for I)eleuze and Guattari “the plane of Nature“ is not “a product ofthe imagination“ (ÄFP, 258/375). Third, there is for Deleuze and Guattari, as for Kant, “something intoler ahle and unbearable“ in life, but unlike Kant this is not a source ofterror, and does not reveal our transcendental Ideas, but projects us beyond them. So al though Deleuze and Guattari take Kant‘s concept of “aesthetic comprehension“ as the rhythmical expression of Nature, and his idea that it introduces a sublime and intolerable element into sensihility they arc no romantics because they do not seek life‘s redemption in the sublime‘s “supersensible destination“ ofa “tran scendental origin.“ 52 For Deleuze and Guattari the intolerable is precisely what is already expressed in the natural rhythms of life, as what composes those rhythms, or refrains. Ofcourse reconnecting with these forces is not easy, and requires the inventions ofgreat art—inhuman percepts and affects (mutant sub jectivations) emerging from the difficult task of overcoming the human. The artist must venture into this catastrophe-chaos in order to bring something out of it, to construct something of it, a process that will involve pain, not least, as Nietzsche said, that ofchildhirth. Finally then this is what distinguishes Deleuze and Guattari from Kant, they regard chaos as the genetic and immanent plane oflife (Nature), present, hut not as the unpresentable, in the refrains of an artis tic life. Nature‘s expressivity is, therefore, that of the stagemaker bird, a pure

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constructivism. This means that if art creates the finite that restores the infinite, it doesn‘t do so in the romantic sense of the sublime. Art doesn‘t function to overwhelm our finitude in the infinity ofNature, not does it seek to restore the infinite to us as supersensible and transcendentai Ideas. Rather art seeks to ure ate the finite sensation through which the infinite is restored, not as a “beyond,“ hut as the finite‘s immanent and genetic infinity, not “Nature“ hut t/yis Nature, as it is being expressed and constructed right here and right now, Art in this sense is no longer romantic for Deleuze and Guattari, hut modern. For Deleuze, Kant is the “hinge“ between Classicism and Romanticisrn, because the Critique ofJudgmeut is “the great book which all the Roman tics will refer to. They had all read it, jr will be determining for the whole of German Romanticism. lndeed, when he vrites of the sublime, Kant could be describing not only the iconography, but the clichd affects of generic Romantic scenes: “

Bold, overhanging, and, as it were, ihreatening rock, thundcrciouds piied tip to the vault ofheaven, born along with flashes anti peals, voicanoes in all their vjolence of destruction, hurricanes leavilig desolation in their track, the boundless ocean rising with rebellious force, thc high watcrfali ofsornc mighty river. [ Ehe astonishmcnt am000ting almost to ter ror, the awe and thrill ofdevoot feeling that takes hold ofone when gaz ing upon the prospect of mountams ascending tu heaven, deep ravines and torrents raging there, cleep shadowed solitudes that invite tu brood— ing melancholy. 54

This Kantian iconography of Romanticism is inseparable from its affects of subjective desolation and dislocation. Romanric art, like Kant, finds in the sublitne the expression of a personal longing [Sehnsuchtl for what is forever beyond the artist, the infinity of nature and its dynamic chaos that he or she can never comprehend except as disjunction. The best a romantic artist can achieve through this disjunction is a transcendence hv which ve can contem plate Nature from above, as ii were, as in Casper David Friedrich‘s Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer (c. 1815, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg), or a dissolurion, a death by which we may enter the mysteries of the spirit ofthe world. The Romantics took this dissonance as their thematic, meditating end lessly on “the pull of the ground,“ on the sublime fbrmlessness paradoxically founding our accordance with Narure. This makes the romantic refrain disso nant and despairing, a mournful cry expressing a subjectivity ofexile, the trajec tory of the wayfarer, an always deterritorialised soul (ATP 340/418—9). This was, Deleuze argues, the distincrive feature of the romantic Lie‘/ “to set out

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from the territory at the ca 11 or wind of the earth“ (ECC, 104/132), knowing that: “The signpost now only indicates the road ofno return“ (AT1 340/4 19). As die sad voice in Mahler‘s Ruckert Lieder sings, 1 have lost touch wih the world witere 1 once wastcd too much of my time. Nothing has heen heard o mc or so long that thev may weil think inc dead. Neirher can 1 dcny it, tor 1 am truly dead to thc world and repose in tranquil realnis. 1 live alone in my heavei i, in my devotion, in niy‘ song. 56 The territory is swepr away in the chaos of Nature, and the artist sings with longing of its impossible presence and sublime glory. From these melancholic depths, I)eleuze argues, Romanticism reveals its dialectical logic, seeking “a reconciliarion ofNature and Spirit, ofSpirit as it is alienated in Nature, and ofSpirit as it reconquers itseif in itself This conception was irnplied as the di— alectical development ofa totality which was still organic“ (Cl, 54/80). This attempt ro reconcile an infinite Nature with man‘s infinite spirit in a dialecti cal negation of human finitude, through art, is the Hegelian destiny of Romantic art, and is enrlrely different from Deleuze and Guattari‘s proposal for restoring infinity rhrough art: “Modernism.“ MODERNISM Modernism, Deleuze and Guattari announce, is the age of the cosmic.

Modernism will overcome die romantic groundless/ground dialecric, and as sume a chaosmos in which molecularised matter directly “harnesses“ and ex presses cosmic forces in a “continuurn“ [consistantj, in an immanent plane of composition (ATI 343/423). Once more this is a two-stage process: first, the molecularisation of matter, and then the harnessing of cosmic forces. This im mediately remoyes US from a sublime and romantic Nature, and piaces us in the modernist machine, The machinery of modernist art produces a molecularised material and captures and renders sensible its chaosmic forces, like Jackson Pollock. This implies a move heyond Rornanticism as a pure expressionism, to an art capable of constructing the universe, and a transformation of “Nature“ “niechanosphere“ (AT1 343/423). “The forces to be captured,“ Deleuze into a

and Guattari write, “arc no lollger those of the earth, which still constitutes a great expressive Form, hut the Forces of an immanent, nonfornial, and energetic

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Cosmos“ (AT1 342—3/422 3). Modernism, I)eleuze and Guattari argue, is an artan abstract Maehine—whose matrer-function no longer oheys a rornantic or classical form, but constructs a material expression adequate ro the c(ha)osmic forces it has released—no longer expression tbrough disjunction, but expression through construcrion. This modernist niachine needs to be disringuished from the canonical, and still Kanrian, definition of rnodernism given bv Clement Gieenherg. Greenberg argued that modernism is the “intensificarion“ ofwestern civilisa don‘s “self—critical tendencv.“ Modernism isart‘s self—critical impulse, jr is what renders an art ‘“pure,“ and in its “puriry“ finds die of its stan dards ofquality as weil as of its independence.‘ 55 In painting, this “self-purifi “ initiaily served to free jr from the theatrical representarions of 5 cation“ literature, which painting bad been trying to imitate since the seventeenth century, and subsequently from die equally pernicious state of kitsch, into which, Greenberg thought, painting was sinking. Greenberg conceived of 6 inasmuch as Modernisin is an elaboration Kant “as the first real Modernist“ in the realm ofart of Kant‘s critical philosophy, and finds in the specificiry of each art‘s medium the apriori conditions of an objective and absolute aes thetic judgement. Modernist painting finds its “essence“ by abandoning rep resentation fo r abstraction (Greenberg‘s farnous “flarness“). Modern ist abstraction was thus, for Greenberg, materialist, and he set jr directly against “die dogmatism and intransigence of the ‘non-objective‘ or abstract‘ purists of painting today who support their posirions wirh metaphysical preten 1 Abstract paintirig therefore explored in a self—critical way its apriori sions.“‘ material conditions; on the one hand the painting‘s flarness and color, and on the other the expression of “sensations, die irreducible elements of experi 62 Modernist abstract painting revealed its a priori essence in the pro ence.“ duction of marter-sensations. This, and here die echo wirh Deleuze and Guattari is uncanny, revealed the machine unaided by the mmd,“ and capable ofwhar Greenberg calied, following Kant, “disinreresred contem 63 This disembodied and disinreresred machine eye was capable of piation.“ making a universal aesthetic judgment, it was capable, Greenberg thoughr, of identifying “good“ art as that which exceeded its hisrorical and represenra tional tradition in giving a sensation ofits apriori trurb or essence, Painrings self—crirical “unclasping“ froin irs lirerary and kitsch rraditions is imagined by Greenberg as an immanent and dialecricai process that finds its teleological accomplishmenr (its “absolute opticaliry“) in “American-type“ ab 64 The teleological trajectory of Greenbergian Modernism in life stracrion. (Pollock crowned) was in fact a reflecrion ofits teleological rranscendence oJlife in discovering its own transcendent trurh. In rhis wa>; and despite bis “modern“ guarantee

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vocabulary, Greenberg remains Romantic, not sin4)ly as a Kantian, but also as a Hegelian dialectician on the path to “Absolute Sensation.“ Deleuze and Guattari‘s conception of Modernism is therefore clearly opposed to Greenberg‘s. For Deleuze and Guattari Modernism is neither chrouo- nor teleo-logically dc termined, nur is its a priori essence revealed in a disinterested judgement. Indeed, the two aspects of Greenberg‘s accounr that would seem at first glance to intersect with Deleuze and Guattari‘s account, his empiricism and his rnare rialisrn, evaporate into a prior—and indeed ii priori—optical-ideality Deleuze and Guattari‘s Modern isin is both more materialist and more empirical than Greenberg‘s. Deleuze and Guattari assume a molecular and chaotic matter, whose firces emerge and arc expressed through the refrain that composes and expresses rhern, The modernist problem is therefore, “how to consolidate the material, make it consistent, so that lt can [ 1 capture the inute and unthink— ahle forces of the Cosmos“ (AT1 343I423). This process doesn‘t begin with the purification ofart, hut vith the moleculaiisation of matter (its absolute de territorialisation) allowing the immanent forces of the chaosmos to be “har nessed“ in consistent and autopoletic blocs of sensation. The modernist aesthetic paradigrn assurnes a Nature of “material-forces“ (ATI 342/422) and begins frorn the romantic problem of the sublime: their expression. But Modernism avoids rhe romantic reconstirution ofa transcendental expression ism (as the imagination‘s break down and redemption in a sublime beyond). by composing finite sensations (refrains or subjectivations) that express (that ex press by constructing) matter—forces on a cosmic plane ofchaosmosis. In a sen sation molecular matter is constructed by, and so expresses—“renders visible“ (as the painter Paul Klee pur it)—the immanent forces of inorganic life. Modern isni therefore, is not a representarion of the unrepresentable, hut the creation of a sensation inseparable from its infinite plane of composition. The sensation is the modernist condinon ofart because art is created, as Deleuze and Guatrari \vrite, when “the plane of the material ascends irresistibly and invades the plane ofcomposition ofthe sensations themselves to the point of being part ofthem or indiscernible from them. [... j All the material becomes expressive. Indeed] it is difficult to say where in fact the material ends and sensation begins“ (‘1 166,167/1 57).66 lt is only by means immanent to a molecularised (i.e. a chaosmic) material that lt is possible to create a block ofsensations, a pure heing/becorning ofscnsations (WB 167/157). The crucial term here is “create,“ because it indicates how the relation of finite art works to the infinity of chaos(mosis) (Nature) is not premised on a destruction ofsubjective experience that restores a transcendental trutli. Rather, the catastrophe rendered hy con fronting chaos (absolute deterritorialisation) is die necessary condition of any truc creation, of any sensation. Art is, then, a “passage“ from finite tu infinite .

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(WF 180/171) and back again. hut it is a return through which everything changes direction, not least life itself and puts on the artist the suhjective artist—“the quiet mark of death“ (WI 172/163). The death of man will be the necessary condition for the emergence ofa sensation. 67 This “mark ofdeath“ is nothing but the condition for the artist reaching the “sacred source“ (VI 172/163), life in its capitalized form, the inorganic life of chaosmosis. Materialism and empiricism arc the two conditions of modern art‘s con— struction in and expression of this “molecular pantheistic Cosmos“ (ATfl 327/403). The modernist artist cannot harness the cosmic forces ofchaosmosis without both molecularising the matter he or she works with, (a catastrophic materialisrn extending to their own humanity) and becoming a “visionary“ ca pahle of giving a sensation ofthis process (their “superior ernpiricism“). Artist anti art—work become indiscernible in this cosmic matter—vision, as an inhuman subjectivation ofthe vital matter of the universe. Matter caprures, in the hands ofthe modern artist, the forces ofan energetic cosmos, and as Guattari, the mys tical modern artist exclaims: “No inore than to the cosmos do 1 recognise an)‘ limit tu myself“ (REA, 168/265). Modern art therefore creates the finite which restores the infinite, by cre ating a finite refrain which is forever restoring the processual infinity of its own becoming. As such the refrain creates itselfas jr unfolds, jr is an actual expres sion ofthe constant consrruction of its virtual and chaosmic plane ofcomposi tion. Art creates a finite work, of course, but only as the actual expresslon of chaosmic emergence, a cosmic localir As Deleuze and Cuattari put ir: ‘From depopulation, make a cosmic people; frorn deterritorialisation, a cosmic earth—that is the wish of the artisan—arrist, here, there, locallv“ (ATF 346!427).68 From relative deterritorialisations, attain the absolute! This means the romantic clichs of the child, the lunatic, “still less the artist“ (AT1 345/426), must be overcome, and in their place we must hecome the truly mod ern figure of “the cosmic artisan: a homernade atom 1)0mb‘ (AFP 345/426). The “cosmic-artisan“—it begs Deleuze and Guattari‘s question: “vll)‘ so enor— mous a word, Cosmos, tu discuss an operation that must be precise?“ (ATI 337/416). Once more, in answering, we arc back tu the beginning of the chap ter, and Guattari‘s definition of the affect. 1 look out my window, a banal act, perhaps, hut in it a problernatic universe ofvirtual affects opens in which “1“ am dissolved on lines offlight, becomings the artisan makes visible, becoinings the artist puts into affects. “How can we convey how easy it is, and die extent tu which we du it every da>‘?“ (ATF 1 59—60/198). The artisan hegins simpl) bv looking around hirn or herself, “hut dues so,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, fijl lowing Klee unce more, “in order tu grasp the trace ofcreation in the created,“ in order to grasp die rnovernents ufchaosmosis, the most microscopic and the

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most cosmic. And why Simply to inake a work (ATT 337/4 16). To create the finite that restores the infinite. In this sense rnodernism is a rnysticism, and the modernist artist is an atheist-mystic creating a local-absolute. Modernist art re stores a mystical Absolute, a cosmic infinity by constructing a finite local work, the expression ofthe former being inseparable from the construction ofthe lat ter, because the Absolute ofchaosmosis is never given, and always remains to be created. How? As we have seen in our discussion ofGuattari, modern art begins as an art of destratification, by which artists go beyond the perceptual and af fective states ofthe lived in order to see, “the mutual embrace of life with sorne thing that threatens it“ (W1 171/161), The sublime, chaos, something unhearable. Bot the artist does not discover the transcendental truth of life through this threat (like Kant), but ernbraces the danger as the necessity of transforining life into something that is truly living, the life of a people yet to come. Perhaps no inore than a few strokes of the pen arc required; the lightest touch can contain a new world of infinite movement. “One is then like grass, one has made the world, everybody/everything, into a becoming“ (ATI 280/343). Artists and their works arc “Leaves of Grass,“ like Walt Whitman, that “caresser of life wherever moving,“ “Walt Whitman, one of rhe roughs, a kosmos.“ Walt Whirman, norhing bot the question, “Who need be afraid ofthe 9 merge.“‘

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art and no sensation,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, liave ever been represen tarional“(WP, 193/1 82). Percepts arc not perceptions of an objecr, because they do nur exist in reference to another thing, and an affecr is not an affec tion because jr is not the stare of a perceiving suhject.‘° Perccpts and affects arc not found “in“ an artist or a viewer, nor arc they art works or the mean ings these works may contain. A sensation emerges in the detcrrirorialisation ofthe perceptual co-ordinates of the subject-objecr through a carastrophe, the confrunration with chaos every artist must pass through in order tu compose something from the matter molecularised in rhis passage. Each artist does ir in their own way, and we shall see nexr chaprer how one, nie painrer Francis Bacon, uses precise techniques ro achieve in. This s why an arrwork must “stand up for itself“—because jr most find a way tu get ro its feer once jr has abandoned the support of rhe subject or objecr. Sensatiuns, Deleuze and Guatrari wrire, “arc beings whose validiry lies in rhemselves and exceeds any lived. They could be said tu exisr in the absence of man hecause man, as he is caught in srone, on the canvas, or by words, is himseif a cumpound of per ceprs and affecrs. The wurk of art is a being ofsensanion and nothing else: it exisrs in irseif“ (WP 164/155). In having a sensation we pass ourside the subect and object, and be come inhuman. For Deleuze and Guattari: “AJ72‘cts arcprecise/y these nonhu man becomings of man, just as percepts [ 1 arc nonhuman /andrcapes of nature“(WI 169/160).71 An affect isa risc or fall of power within a machinic assembiage. As such, the affect is the becoming-orher of rhe assemblage, a cor poreal (re)composition expressing rhe cosmic plane of Narure in a Spinozian sense. The affect, Deleuze and Guarrari wrire, is a scnsury becurning, and “sensory becoming is otherness caught in a matter ofexpressiun. The monu menr [rhe art workj does not acrualizc the virtual event hut incurporates or emhodies it: it gives jr a body a life, a universe“ (WI 177/168). Bccuming is the affecr ofpassage between, or as Deleuze and Guarrarj also like tu say, ofa zone of indiscernibiliry irnmediarely preceding, a “narural“ differentiation of places or rhings. The affecr is nonhuman rhen, because jr exceeds the bounds ofrhe “living“ in being a sensation ufthe crearive movement of inorganic bife. Thjs is why rhe affect is inseparable fruin a percepr, because ins becom ing is only the expression ofits real condirions, ufthe percepr or “nonhuman landscape“ in which jr emerges. The affecr we could sav is a material change, the percept rhe empirical experience iinplied by this hccoming. The percepr is wban Debeuze called in relation tu cinema a “hallucinarion“ ur “vision,“ and in What Is Philosoph ‘? Deleuze and Guartari call jr a “creative fabulanion“ (WP, 3 171 / 161). The condirions ofvjsion rherefure, arc nur given (conrra Kann) and jr is visiun—a perccpt—that consrrucrs nhe nun-human landscapes ofnarure. ...

SENSATION

How can we understand this mystical modernism in relation to actual art works, and ro the way art actually works? In What is Philosophy? Deleuze and Guattari give a variety ofanswers that all circle around the sensation, their ex planarion of this concept building on what we have already developed, inas much as the refrain isa sensation (Wl 184/175).The sensation is the specific realm ofarts appearance: “Whether through words, colors, sounds, or stolle, art is rhe language ofsensations“ (WP 176/166). Sensarions, as we shall see, arc the heing and the becotning, the “percept“ and “affect“ ofa modern art. An art work, Deleuze and Guattari state, is “a bbc ofsensations, that is to say, a cornpound of percepts and affects“ (WV 164/154). Percepts and af fects arc first of all the absolute deterritorialisation ofour human perceptions and affections, the “unciasping“ of vision and experience frorn our human sensibility. Once more, Deleuze and Guattari‘s discussion of art hegins from a revalued physiobogy ofarr. Perceprion is a subjective stare induced by an ob ject, and affections arc the subjective increases or decreases of power (“feel ings“) a perception induces. Perceptions and affections arc therefore suhjecrive responses tu objects, and represent a srratified state of affairs. “No

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Once more, these visions will be expressed in the art-work, but in themselves arc cosmicizations of force, a rendering visible of “the imperceptible frces that populate the world, that affect us, make us become“ (W1 1821172). “Visions“ arc percepts ofthe mobile, heaving, and “cubist“ (WP, 171/162)72 landscape where “becornings unfold.“ 7 A percept is in this sense a perspec tive, “a kind ofsuperior vieupoint,“ as Deleuze writes in his book on Proust, “an irreducible viewpoint which signifies at once the birth of the world and the original character of a world, but also forms a specific world absolutely difftrent from the others, and envelops a landscape or immaterial site quite distinct from die site where we have grasped it.“ 74 This viewpoint or percept is not suhjective, and rather than originating in an individual, it is itself a “principle of individuation.“ 75 ‘1 he “superior viewpoint“ of the percept creates a world, but this creation is inseparable from its expression in affects, or be comings. The percept is a perspective that constructs a world, and we become with this world—as the world giving birth to itseif. “We arc not in the world,“ Deleuze and Cuattari write in a mystical formulation, “we become with the world; we become by contemplating it. Everything is vision, becoming. We become universes“ (W 169/160). The affect and percept can be seen as consistent with our previous dis cussions of art. The afft‘ct emerges from a molecularisation of matter in a non human becoming, a release of new traits ofcontent for arts modern machine. The percept is a cosmicization offorces releasing new traits ofexpression, new artistic visions. But ofcourse they inust be brought together, or rather, to un derstand the sensation we must uncierstand how they necessarily appear to gether. We have seen the abstract machine fulfil this function, but here Deleuze and Guattari coin a new term, “aesthetic composition,“ as the ma chinic process specific to art. Guattari gives a good explanation; “a block of percept and affect, by way of aesthetic composition, agglomerates in the same transversal flash the subject and the object, the selfand other, the material and incorporeal, the before and after...“ (Chaos, 93/130 italics added). The percept and affect form the two “pincers“ ofaesthetic composition: “The clinch of forces as percepts and becomings as affects.“ As such, percept and affect arc “completely complementary“ (WP, 182/173). The percept con srructs the virtual, chaosmic plane of forces, “expanded to infinity“ (WP 188/179), as the real conditions of the affect, the actual becoming expressing this plane. The percept gives the plane of consistency in which forces compose matter, while the affct simultaneously actualises this plane in a subjectiva don, a material becoming. In sensation everything happens at once, “the prin ciple ofcomposition itseif must be perceived, cannot but be perceived at the same time as that which it composes or renders“ (ATI 281/345).

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Composition is the real condition of sensation then, not as an abstract and transcendental condition of all sensation, but as the condition of this sensa tion. The plane ofcomposition, Deleuze and Guattari write, “is not abstractly preconceived but consj-ructecl as the work progresses“ (W1 188/178 italics added). Composition is the action of the percept and affcct, it is the construc don of a sensation in which the infinity of the Chaosmos (percept) is imma nent to the finite material which expresses it (affcct), As Deleuze and Guattari write, “colnposition is the sole definition ofart. Composition is aesthetic, and what is not composed is not a work ofart“ (WP, 191/181). But through this aesthetic composition we arc returned to an ontological plane inseparable from art. If with Nietzsche the high point of the meditation is that being is becoming, then bete, art takes on its modern Spinozian modaliry, wbere “everything in Nature is just composition“ (EPS, 237/2 16). How then do we create a sensation, how clo we become artists and com pose art works? 1)eleuze and Guattari take advice from Viiginia Woolf: “Saturate every atom,“ she advises, eliminate all waste, deadness, and super fluity, in order to “pur everything into it“ (WP 172/163 and also ATP 280/343). lt‘s a process of critique, an affirmation, a sclection thar involves necessary destruction. Eliminate cverything of our current and livcd percep tions in order to have avision, a vision of the infinity we arc: “Present at the dawn of the world“ (ATP, 280/343). Only such an absolute deterritorialisa tion will enable us to walk into everything, to creatc a world, everyone/cvery thing, as a becoming which expresses the immanent chaosmos as our infinite plane of composirion. 76 This is Mrs Dalloway‘s reality, who felt herselfeverywhere; not “hcre, here, here“; and she tapped the hack of the seat; hut cverywhere. She wavcd her hand, going up Shafteshury Avenue. She was all thar. So that to know her, or any one, one musr seck out the people who completed them; even the places. Odd affinities she had with people she had never spoken to, some woman in the street, sorne man behind a counter—even trees, or harns. 7 Art composes sensations as the expressive movements of all that is, whilc

ceasing to be singular and precise actual individuated expressions. As Mrs. Dalloway suggests, life and art becorne cocxtensivc in the acsthetic par adigm, and arts crcativc fabulation, its “odd affinities“ arc life‘s absolute dc territorialisation in art, as art creatcs thc world, Living, that is inorganic life, is this proccss ofcrcation, and art cmbodies it in scnsations. “Lifc alone crc ates such zones where living bcings whirl around, and only art,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “can rcach and pencrrate them in its enterprise of co-crc ation“ (WP, 173/169). As if, whcn art creates a sensation it is nothing lcss

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than life, inorganic life, a subjcctivation. Such a creation, such a work ofart has im formal or material preconditions to its modernity; nothing is given, except what is created. “The artist,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “must cre arc the syntactical or plastic merhods and materials necessary for such a great undertaking, wbich re-creates everywhere the primitive swamps oflife“ (WP, 173—4/169). Art‘s onrological status as creation, its ontological creationism, is pre cisely what makes it appear and exist only as a particular sensation. Art is al ways ihis sensation. This sensation makes it impossihle for US tO be lost in the rornantic and mystical mist of an ecstatic transcendence. Art cannot exist apart from its actual singularitv, its now—here, which is precisely what restores its infinite aml cosmic plane of composition, its no wbere. Erewhon, Samuel Butler discovered it, is the land of such great reversals. But Virginia olf has her own version, of course, Mrs. Dailoway-Shaftesbury Avenue Everybody/everything, all together in an immanent mysticism. Each particu lar and artistic creation, each work of art, or sensation, is therefore the creation ofcreation as such (how many times? just One, One eternally return ing). In crcating a finite that restores the infinite art embodies an ongoing arid infinite crcationism. Sensation is, as Guattari puts it, “a permanent ‘work in progress“ (REA, 167/264). This final, mystical evaporation ofa distinction between art and its cre ative chaosmic 1.ife, reinscribes art as a political force. Art first of all acts against art as it is traditionally understood, to open a realrn of aesthetic free dom, a realm where we regain the real, to gain the freedom to live. Art, in the sense of “fine arts,“ Deleuze and Guattari blundy state, “is a false concept, a solely nominal concept“ (AT1 300—1/369). Fine art isolated from life avoids and obscures the vital processes of its aesthetic paradigm, and this is its repres sive politics. Deleuze refuses such an art, writing in relation to Beckett: “We will not invent an enrity that would be Art, capable of making the [represen tative] image endure“ (ECC, 161 ).8 The absolute deterritorialisation of art as a nominal concept is inherently political, hecause it refuses the given; all the opinions, perceptions and affections which teil US who we arc and that pre vent us from creating—from truly living. In this sense, Deleuze argues, “there is a fundamental affinity herween the work ofart and the act 79 ofresistance.“ l‘his “resistance“ begins by rejecting nominal concepts of art, and proceeds through the radical isation of certain movements of deterritorialisation in ex pressing their absolute ontological conditions (as we saw with Venetian paint ing and Pollock in die last chapter). The absolute deterritorialisation achieved by art in the sensation is finally a process of permanent revolution in the name ofthe future, in the name oflife, in the name ofall things yet to come. When

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art is creative its ontology is political, because “promoting a new aesthetic par adigm,“ Guattari writes, “involves overthrowing current forms ofart as much as those ofsocial life. 1 hold out mv hand to the future“ (Chaos, 134/185). This future unfolds in a Cosmic genetic experiment. the becom ing-an imal of the world. Art is a bio-aestbetics: “Not onlv does art not wait for human beings to begin,“ Deleuze and Guattari wrirc, but we niay ask if art ever appears among human beings, except under artificial and helated condi tions“ (AT1 320/394). Art is the becorning-animal of die world, it creates new forms of life outside our stratifications, our comfortable organicisnl, and opinionated thoughts. Art seethes in the “primitive swamps oflife“ currenrlv confined to the edges of our biological maps. hut appearing in sensations that overflow human perceptions and affecrions to take us somewhere else. According to Deleuze and Guattari‘s map: lt is within (aur civilisation‘s telnpcrate surroundings that eqiiatorial or

glacial zones, which avoid thc differentiation of genus. sex, orders, and kingdorns, currcntly function and prosper. lt is a question onulv 01 our— selves, bete and now; hut what is animal, vegetable. mineral, or human in US tS now indistinct—even thongh we ourselves will espcciallv aequite distinction. The maximum of determination conues from this bbc of neighhourhood like a flash (WP 174/164 5).° This flash ofindividuation appears as a sign. a sign ofthings to come, our be— corning—animal, our sensations ofa promiseuous anti humid heterogenesis in which art and life arc indiscernible. The readymade returns—against Duchamp—in the song of a bird. Art is “haunted“ hy the animal, and art works arc “ritual monuments of an animal mass that celebrates qUalities be fore extracting new causalities and finalities from them. i‘his ernergence of pure sensory qualities is already art“ (VP, 184/174). Art works emerge as the intemperate politics ofa life which cannot be lived, but which lives in art and its mutational molecular matter ofsubjectivating sensation. Art and politics as an animal line offlight; mount the witcbes brooni for the tropics!

Chapter Six

The Agitations ofa Convulsive Life: Painting the Flesh

And 1 join my sliine, niy cxcrenent, ny nadness, ny ecstasy to the grear circuit which flows through the suhterranean vaults of the flesh. All this unbidden, unwanred, drunken vonnt will flow on endlessly rhrough the minds of those Co come in the inexhaustible vessel that contains the bis tory ofthe race. Side by side with the human race there tuns another race ofbeings, the inhuman ones. the race ofartists who, goaded bv unknown impulses, take the lifeless mass of humamty and hv the fever and ferment with which thcy inhue it turn this soggy dough into bread and thc brcad into wine and the wine into song. Out of the dcad compost and inert slag they

breed

a song

that

contanunates.

—1—Ienry 1v! iller, Iropic ofCancer

INTRODUCTION

Deleuze develops a “logic ofsensation“ ehrough his encounter with ehe work offrancis Bacon, a logic that is horb explicitiy Bacon‘s, and stands as Deleuze‘s most developed staeemenr of his thinking about painting. I)eleuze‘s logic therefore, iS 011 the one hand a critical pracrice, ehe elaborarion of an onto aesthetic merhodology via a detailed discussion of Bacon and bis oeuvre, and on the other a broader discussion of ehe hisror‘ and function ofpainring in relation to irs crucial term, sensation. Of course, this double register of Deleuze‘s work on art, its at once “micro“ and “inacro“ Operation IS ehe very process we have been following throughoue this book, the process of “Art as abstract machine.“ Tbis machine is explored here rhrough what Deleuze calls Bacon‘s “diagram,“ ehe way he, and by extension any paineer, composes chaos mic forces and expresses ehem in sensarions.‘ Examining this process will therefore involve us direceiv in Bacon‘s work, as weil as allowing a final and full statemenr of art‘s ontological implications. To irnmediately give an example, one which will be occupving us at length here, Deleuze advances the rerm “flesh“ [thairl as both an enrirelv appropriate

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description o Bacon‘s Figures, flayed open or otlierwise disarranged like so much meat. and a philosophical concept for a new corporeality of experience achieved by painting a sensation. Furthermore, the figure of the “flesh“ is im ioitaiit for phenomenolog and we will spend some time clarifjing Deleuze‘s relationsh i p to this other norable philosophical engagement with pain ting. Bacon‘s diagram will also intersect with rnany of the themes we have already dis— cussed, including a ne‘ configuration ofan “Egyptian“ line and the “colourism“ of Qzanne and the post—impressionists. Also important arc Deleuze‘s explo— rations of the wider philosophical connotations of Bacon‘s diagram in terms of Alois Riegl‘s concept of “haptic“ space, and Goethe‘s theory of color. Through these various investigations we will see how the “logic ofsensation“ operates on an indiscernibly ontological and aesthetic surface, the surface of flesh, which once again will open onto an immanent, mystical and “spiritual dimension.“ ‘l‘he immanence of aesthetics and ontology in Deleuze, as we have re peatedly seen, is the necessary result of the ontological ground of his philo sophical system being becoming, tbe continual construction of new actual forms expressing their immanent and productive chaosmic dimension ofmat ter-force, But the cosmic genesis of art is 110 reason to abandon its careful analysis in favour of abstract metaphysical speculations. Just the opposite in fact, because it will only be through a detailed analysis of Bacon‘s paintings and statements that Deleuze will arrive at the chaosmic forces that animate them. The “logic of sensation“ Deleuze finds in Bacon‘s work is therefore sys tematic in hoth an abstract and particular sense, but it is first ofall articulated hy the artist and his paintings. Consequently, in understanding it we will have to overcorne a common problem: “We do not listen enough to what painters have to say“ (FB, 99/93). “We“ arc no doubt philosophers, who have of course, only rarely listened to artists, let alone seriously considered their work. In his book 011 Bacon Deleuze seeks to recrily this problem by giving Bacon‘s paintings as much philosophical weight as that given to any of the individual philosophers he has written about. Bacon‘s “logic ofsensation“ is for Deleuze, eniirely philosophical, and Bacon‘s paintings function as, and give risc to, thought. That a “logic ofsensation“ could he a form of thought is an assertion that rests on their shared genesis in an encounter of forces. “All hegins with sensibility“ (DR, 144/188) Deleuze writes, because a sensation ofontogenetic force can give risc to a painting or a concept, and 011 this level both share the same “logic.“ 2 We will come back to this point repeatedly, as it is crucial to my argument that a “logic of sensation“ not only describes a thinking painting, but is also a mode ofthought. 1)eleuze addresses the ontological, art historical and painterly aspects of Bacon‘s “logic ofsensation“ tlirough the concept of the “diagram,“ the abstract

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1 0/

machine that composes matter and force into a paineing. Wirh the diagrarn we arc immediately within the Deleuzian double dimension ofaesthetics, for the diagram creates a finite w‘ork thar simultaneouslv restores to it an infinite ontological dimension. This restoration will begin with a destruction, one in which, as I)eleuze clramatically puts it, “it is as if ehe two halves of the head were split open by an ocean“ (FB, 100/94). THE DIAGRAM

\Ve begin our discussion of Bacon‘s painrings, appropriately, with a funda mental violence; a Splitting of the head through which we see “the emergence ofanother world“ (FB, 100/94). This other world can he oceanic as weIl as a “Sahara,“ (Jet ofWate 1979, private collection, Sanldune, 1981, Foundation Beyeler, Basel) having the ambiguous geography ofare‘s plane ofconsiseency, the infinite ernergence of its mateers-forces. Bacon‘s diagram hegins with a ca tastrophe by which chaos appears on the canvas, and proceeds by composing this chaos inCo a sensation. As Deleuze pues it: “The diagram is indeed a chaos, a catastrophe, but it is also a gcrm oforder or rhyehm“ (FB, 102/95). Bacon‘s diagram is eherefore “modern“ in ehe sense we developed last chapter, je molecularises matter and cosmicizes forces ehrough a caeastrophe, and ehen composes these mateers-forces into sensations. Nevertheless, Bacon‘s diagram is his own, and like all great artists he finds bis own wav to embrace chaos and assemhle a piceorial order from it. This suggests a “diagramrnaeic“ art hisrory in wbich we can trace differ ences and similarities between diagrams, rather than rehearse ehe biographies of the artists wbo provide their names. Deleuze is not ineeresred in writing a Lives ofthe Artists, although bis diagrammatic art hisrorv is just as precise as an‘ other. “Not only can we differentiate arnong diagrams,“ Deleuze writes, “but we can also date the diagram of ehe painter“ (FB, 102/95). Dating ehe diagram gives it a historical specificity that is potentially misleading. The di agram is neither a eranscendeneal determination ofa hiseorical event, nor is ir simply reducible to a historical evene. Rather ehe diagram operaees a fold he tween chaos and history by which the aceual gains a new power of expression coextensive wieh the new vireual plane of composition ehe diagram draws. Each diagram therefore confrones chaos, dives ineo je, hut only in order to cre ate “a new type of realiey.“ As a result, Deleuze and Guaeeari wriee, “je does not stand outside hiseory hut is instead always “prior to“ hiseory“ (A‘I‘P, 142/177). This “priority“ is ontological rather than temporal, and like ehe prioriey of sensation to thought, ehe diagram acts as hiseory‘s immanent condirion, hut does not exist apart frons ehe history that actualises ie. That‘s why it can be

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dated, Perhaps we could say that the diagram begins and ends in history, but somewhere in the middle it leaves it. “History today,“ I)eleuze and Guattari wrire, “still designates only the set ofconditions, however recent they may be, from wbich one turns away in order to become, that is to say, in order to cre ate somerhing new“ (WP, 96/92). ihe diagram isa way to understand art history as the emergence ofnew artistic realities according to “prior,“ hut nevertheless immanent ontological conditions. This is a significant reconfiguration of our understanding of art histor) focussing nil the ontological work ofpainting, its mechanisms ofseif— creation. In doing so, Deleuze transforms subjective questions of artistic in tention or influence, and formal questions of technique or iconography, into questions about painting‘s ontological machine. Obviously Deleuze is not the trst ro do this, and he draws freely on Alois Riegl‘s concept of a “vilI to art“ [Kunstwollen] here, hoth theoretically and in its quite specific “historical“ for mulations (FB, 122/11 5)) Furthermore, painting diagrams—as abstract ma— chines—create sensations that put us “flush with the real,“ drawing us into their process to both experience and parricipate in the ongoing chaosmosis immanent to a paintings actual historical appearance. As we have repeatedly seen, this is going ro require a new form ofvision, what Deleuze will here ca 11 a “haptic eve.“ ihe artistic diagram is therefore both “visionary“ in construct ing an artwork from chaos, anti is expressed in a “vision“ (the haptic vision of the art work) that renders it visible. An absrract machine‘s date, Guattari writes, is “not syncbronic but het— erochronic“ (Chaos, 4O/62). In other words, a new diagram is not simply the simultaneous appearance of various other art styles according to a new com bination, and as part of an art historical reality that pre-exists and determines this emergence. The diagram creates a new reality out ofheterogeneous reali ties, not just for the time to corne, but also for the time that has been, for the history which has supposedly led up to lt. lt is in this sense that Bacon‘s dia gram recapitulates the hisrory of painting in his own way. Bacon‘s diagram creates a new reality for painting, and in doing so recapirulates (perhaps we could say revitalizes) art history by constructing a new genealogy; one begin fing with the Egyptians and encompassing a rather dizzying trajectory through Byzantine, Venerian, Gothic and abstract art. This “creative“ art his tory obviously shares a method with Deleuze‘s history of philosophy, which similarly “discovers“ (a discovery inseparable froni an invention) a materialist— vitalist tradition opposed to the representational and organ-isational image of thought. The point is that both Deleuze and Bacon undertake an ontological “reinvention“ of bistory, rather than a historical revisionism, and both move through a series of “stopping places“ that rhey compose into a new diagram,

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and the new reality it creates. This is finally the meaning of the “hete rochronic“ diagram, that while jr composes its own tradition, this tradition is itselfcomposed ofcreative hreaks that hoth constiture jr and have created lt anew each time. This heterochronic tradition is therefire fractal rather than historical, each one of its breaks reanimating the others, and making them creative once more. 6 lndeed, Deleuze‘s reading of Bacon‘s “recapitulation“ of history art is itseif a recapitulation, given that Deleuze barely mentions Picasso and Velzquez, two very important figures for Bacon, and does not mention another—Ingres—at all. This should not be taken as a weakness of Deleuze‘s reading however, but as a symptom of its creative energy: “There is no act of creation,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “that is not transhistorical and does not come up frorn behind or proceed by way of a liberated line“ (ATP, 296/363). We will see this lilie in action more preciselv when we rum to Bacon“s use of the Egyptian contour. Deleuze places great importance on art‘s materialirv, hoth its actual mat ter and the material processes that form jr. Each art Form is derermined by these material conditions, and Deleuze mentions line and color for painting, sound for music, and moving light for the cinema. 8 Although line and color give the conditions shared by all paintings as such, just as obviouslv painting employs very different compositional practices verv different diagrams. in re lation to them. These diagrams are not simply “artistic“ however, but arc also ontological. On the one hand, each diagram determines a different set ofma terial and formal relations, and thereby creates a new realiry, and on the other, each diagram embodies a different “will to art.“ Deleuze does not give an ex haustive account oftbese “wills“ here, hut we saw three possibilities emerge in the last chapter with the Ciassical, the Romantic and the Modern. L)eleuze is more interested in Bacon‘s precise process ofpainting, and focuses on those diagrams Bacon recapitulates in construcring his own. lt is to these abstract ontological and particular aesthetic processes of Bacon‘s diagram that we shall now rum. To begin, all diagranis share certain features, and the first is found iii Nietzsche‘s famous pronouncement that there is no creation without destruc tion. The “preparatory work that belongs to painting fully“ (FB, 99/93), Deleuze argues, is introducing a catastrophe onto the canvas that destroys the representational qualities of figuration. This is necessary because, as I)eleuze and Guattari put it in What Is Philosophy?. “The painter does not paint on an empty canvas, [hecause the] canvas is already so covered with preexisting, preestablished clichs that lt is first necessary to erase, to clean, to flatten, even to shred, so as to 1er in a breath ofaii fmom the chaos. (W1 204/192). The “catastrophe“ cleans the painting of clich in the obious sense of removing .

.“

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predictable and received meanings, hut in a niore dramatic sense it breaks with its representational function. All this will he necessarv in order for a sen sation to render the diagram‘s plane ofcomposirion visible. Let‘s return to the splitting of the head with which we began our account of the diagram to sec how this works. Split heads arc uhiquitous in Bacon‘s work, dissecting die face verrically (Stua for a seifportrait, 1982, private collection, New York), hori zontally (Paintin 1946, MOMA, New York), or more commonly, as a “mashing“ of the face occurring without an axis (Three stuc/iesfrr the portrait oflsabelRawthorne, 1965, University of East Anglia, Norwich). This split is a catastrophe that deterritorialises the representational aspecrs of the face, in order for other Forces to appear. Bacon achieves this carastrophe by making random marks ([)eleuze calls these lines—tIaits), and wiping the canvas to Pm— duce “clearings“ on it (Deleuze calls these color-patches). These traits and patches are destrarified lines and colors aceing as bodi die desrruction of rep resentational form and their clichs, and as the pictorial diagram, die basic “sieve“ through which chaos can be composed. As a result, die diagram “has rio form of its own“ (ATP, 14 1 / 176), because it is instead a catastrophe in which “form collapses“ (FB, 135/127). Bacon‘s “insuhordinate color-patches and traits“ (FB, 156/146) arc purely manual (marks and wipes), and introduce the catastrophe inro the eye and its optical space, beginning, as we shall go oH to see, our own dissolution. These traits and patches produce, Deleuze writes, “a frenetic zone in which the hand is no longer guided by the eye and is fbrced upon sight like another will, which appears as chance, accident, automatism, or the involuntary“ (FB, 137/129). These “accidental“ movements of the hand introduce chaos into die process of creation; they arc Bacon‘s hand throwing the dice Deleuze writes, using another Nietzschean figure, a throw thar eternally returns in the act of painting. lt is worth listening to Bacon‘s own account to get a sense ofhis method:

my casc all painring ] is accidcnt. So 1 forcsce ir in my mmcl, 1 forescc ir, and yet 1 hardly cver carry it 0111 JS 1 foresec it. lt trans forms itselfby the actual paint. 1 usc very large brushes, and in the way 1 work 1 don‘t in facr know very oftcn what die paint will do, and it docs many rhings which arc very much bcrrer rhan 1 could niake it do. Is uhar an accidcnt-? Perhaps one could say jr‘s not an accident, because jr bc comes a selective process which part of this accident one chooses to prc serve. Oiw is atternpting, of course, to keep the vitaliry of rhc accidcnr, and yet preservc a conrinuiry. \‘iiu kHow in

Figure 7 Francis Bacon, Po,tmit ofisabel Rawt/;orne, 1965, Tate Gallen,, London. © 2004 Estatc ofFrancis Bacorl / Arrists Ri‘br‘ Snci,‘rv (ARS New MrIc / flAC T mrlnn

.

.

.

This is a wonderful description of the catastrophic aspect of Bacon‘s diagrarn, which employs material and manual rather than menral or optical compositional

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process. The “accidental“ traits and patches of paint are pure matter-force dis located from both a represented object and an expressive subjectivity (Bacon is sirnply the manual component of bis diagram). Paint is rnolecularised in the accident, Deleuze suggests, giving a world of infinite smallness and infinite largeness, “as ifthe units of measure were changed, and micrometric, or even cosmic, units were substituted for the figurative unit. A Sahara, a rhinoceros skin: such is the suddenly out-stretched diagrarn“ (FB, 100/94). The canvas has become a space undecidably microscopic or cosmic, breathing the air of chaos and infolding its infinite distances. But despite this chaotic landscape, or rather because of it, something is going to happen: “The essential thing about the diagram is that it is made in order for sornething to ernerge from it, and if nothing ernerges from it, it fails“ (FB, 159/149). This means the diagram “must remain operative and con trolled“ (FB, 110/103), in order ftr the emergence of what Deleuze, quoting Bacon, calls “possibilities of fact“ (FB, 101/95). These “possibilities of fact“ arc the other side of l3acon‘s catastrophic marks and wipes, they arc the liber ation of“lines for the armature and colours fr modulation“ (FB, 121/113), (we will examine both a little later) and arc the beginning ofa compositional process which will culminate in the “fact“ ofa sensation. The diagram there fore has a dual operation, it “is a violent chaos in relation 10 the figurative givens, hut it is a germ ofrhythm in relation to the new order of the painting“ (FB, 102/95—6). Creation emerges from destruction—Chaosrnosis. We have repeatedly encountered this formula because on the ontological level all aes thetic expressions share the same problem, composing the forces ofchaos into a sensation, according to the same proviso, “no art is figurative“ (FB, 56/57))0 Bacon‘s diagram escapes figuration in order to compose the rhythms ofchaos into new sensations, the sensations of Figures. THE FIGURE

We have already encountered Deleuze‘s argument that in the “entire“ history of Western art the destruction of classical organic representation has taken one of either two paths, that towards “apurely opticalspace,“ 01 towards “a vi olent manualspace“ (UB, 127/119—20), In the first, the contour described hy a line (figuration) is submerged hy a “purely optical play of light and shadows“ in which the tactile elements arc “annulled“ and which produces the form “through an inner relationship that is specifically optical“ (FB, 128/120). The optical pole utilises manual techniques to create the appearance ofdepth, con tour, relief, etc., but the purely optical effects it creates subordinate the hand. At the other pole there is a free-action ofthe hand creating a “manual“ space

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that subordinates the eye. Here there is movement without rest, a “pure activ ity“ and “nonorganic vitality“ (FB, 129/121) within wbich the eye cannot dis— tinguish forrns. These two poles find their modern expression in geometrical abstraction and abstract expressionism. 11 Even a perfunctory view of Bacon‘s paintings shows that he does not conform to either approach, although ele ments of both appear in the fiat colored grounds and random gestural marks which arc the constant features of bis work. Bacon, Deleuze argues, explores a “third way“ which avoids botb these poles. This “third way“ breaks with the figuration of organic representation to produce a “Figure,“ a production whose condition of possibility is the hete rochronic assemblage of Bacon‘s diagram, bis own recapitulation of the bis tory of painting. But Deleuze will not trace the development of Bacon‘s diagram in terrns of historical influence, hecause a diagram is always com posed of active re-inventions. Instead Deleuze isolates the basic “assernblages“ that act as Bacon“s “stopping points and passages“ (FB, 135/127). Bacon‘s reinvention of the “Egyptian assembiage“ exemplifies this “passage“ and such it is the first stopping point of bis diagram. I)eleuze follows Riegl in defining Egyptian art according to the space ofbas-relief, in which form and ground appear on the same plane, botb separated and united by a contour op erating as their common limit. The contour thereby creates a shallow space in which neither optical nor manual functions dominate, but unite in a “haptic function“ of the eye that “discovers in itself a specific function of touch that is uniquely its own, distinct from its optical function“ (FB, 155/146). Deleuze and Guattari call this the eye‘s “cutaneous Vision“ (AT1 1 51 / 187), a vision that emerges between the optical and manual poles of painting, and which undergoes in Bacon‘s “Egyptian“ contour an ongoing series of “logical rever sals and [ .j substitutions“ (FB, 154/145). Bacon‘s contour characteristically marks an armature deniarcating a shallow space from a fiat colored ground, witbin which the Figure appears. In the Egyptian assemblage however, the contour was used to isolate an essential form, so wbile the haptic space lt produces deterritorialises an organic repre sentational schema, it simultaneously reterritorialises die images onto a “for mal and linear presence that dominates the llux of existence and representation.“ In this way form and ground arc re-solidified and their rever sal controlled (FB, 123/1 15).2 Bacon‘s selective recapitulation of the Egyptian assembiage is “scrambled“ (FB, 124/116) because only partial. He takes the haptic space ofbas-relief, but deterritorialises the Egyptian line‘s fig urative, essentializing and unitary functions, so that “a new Egypt rises up“ (FB, 134/126). How? Bacon‘s contour draws a “place“ in which exchanges occur berween the “material field“ ofcolor and what appears in tEe armature. .

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Art as Abstract A!achine

These exchanges occur according to two formulas of what Deleuze calls a “derisory athletics“ of the Figure (FB, 12/21). In the first: “The material structure curls around die contour in order to imprison the Figure“ (FB, 14/22). This produces a “violent comedy“ (FB, 15/23) ofconfinement in which die contour becomes an apparatus for die Figure‘s gymnastic leaps into die field of color (Tritych, 1970, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra). The second formula, operating in the other direction, begins with a spasm internal to the body “in which,“ Deleuze writes, “the body at ternpts to escape from itself through one of its organs in order to rejoin the field or material structure“ (FB, 16/24) (Figure standing at a washbasin, 1976, Museo dc Arte Contemporaneo, Caracas). In the first formula die field confines die body, which in attempting to escape is projected into a Figure, while in die second the bodv‘s escape passes through itseif, produc ing a Figure in attempting to dissipate into die field. In this way die contour establishes a series of necessary reversals hetween the field and the body (in this it is “Egyptian“) which “makes deformation a destiny“ (FB, 18/25). Nevertheless, Bacon‘s Figures arc not deformed in die same way as those of Egyptian art, and here he breaks with the Egyptian diagram to introduce new forces, those of contraction-dilation, which arc combined with other mat ters-forces to create a new Figure and a new sensation. 13 The contour deforms the human organisrn, but only in order for some thing to emerge. This “sornetbing“ can be seen in Bacon‘s paintings of die face. Bacon‘s diagram of random marks and wiped zones wrecks die face, breaks with facialiry, and ‘hat crawls from die wreckage arc “completely anti illustrational“ (FB, 1 76/31) animal traits, as the “common fact“ emerging be rween man and animal (FB, 21128).14 This common fact is what Deleuze calls their “flesh or meat“ (chairou viande, FB, 22/28), a common molecular mat ter traversed bv intense forces producing in die Figure an animal athleticisrn, convulsive contractions and dilations into die field. The becoming-animal of die Figure is not a represented transformation, hut an embodied defrmation; ir is an expression of die meat‘s escape frorn organic form mb the “cutaneous Vision“ of die painting‘s flesh. Bacon‘s diagram operates anorher defrirmation, which is implied by the first. The creation of a haptic space deforms the eye which sees it, liberating the eye from its role in the organism as die apex of optical space. Haptic space implies a new vision and a new visibility, “a haptic vision of die eye“(FB, 1 61/151), coextensive with die sensation. The deformation of the Figure only becomes a sensation rhrough a deformation ofthe eye, a deformation neces sary for die eyc to become capable ofthis “vision.“ This is the reinarkable con sequence of Bacon‘s diagram, its deformations and reinventions cannor be

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limited to the painting, hut also encompass die act of Vision. The “fiesb“ of Bacon‘s pain tings emerges from this double—deformation. fiowing berween the poles of subject and object, the flesh of the Figure inciudcs die seer and the seen. This vocahulary oftbe “flesh“ as both seer and die seen immediately suggests the phenomenological project of Maurice Merleau-Ponry. Bur Deleuze is not a phenomenologist, and we must now disenrangle Deleuze‘s account from its phenomenological formulations, in order to flesh it out more precisely. DELEUZE AND PHENOMENOLOGY Phenomenology is a rernarkable instance of philosoph>‘ taking painring seri 5 As such iris an important forerunner to Deleuze‘s work on Bacon, one ously.‘ Deleuze direcrly acknowledges and engages with.k As Deleuze points out, phenomenology regards Czanne as die painter par excellence (FB, 178/39) because he makes visible a pre-rational world of sensations in which suhject and object arc not clearly differentiated. ‘l‘his is, for the phenomenologists, the ontological insight of Czanne, nodiing less than a vision of the world as a sensation of “being-in-rhe-world.“ Deleuze seems bappy ro adopr this phe nomenological vocabulary, writing, sensation has one face turned towards the suhjcct (the nervous system, the vital noveinenr, “instiner,“ “temperanlent“—a whoie vocabulary common to both Naruralism and Czanne), and onc ficc tnrned toward the ohjcct (die “facr,“ die place, die eveilt). Or rather, jr has im faLe at all, it is both things indissolubly, ii is I3eing-in-the—\Vorld. as the phenome nologists say: at one and die same rime 1 become in die SenSation and soinething happens rhrough die sensation, one thronth die orher. one in die other. And at the limit, it is the same bodv which being both suhjecr and object, gives and receives die sensation. As a spcctalor. 1 experience the sensation only hy entering die paiming, 1w reaching die unity of the sensing and the scnsed.“ (FB, 34—5/39—40) On the face ofit then, Deleuze seems ro share not only the phenomenologists‘ vocabulary, but also their understanding of Czanne‘s sensations. But in fact Deleuze understands sensation, and in parricular die “uniry“ of sensing and sensed it implies, very differently, and bis use of this vocabulary will take on a very different sense. To understand this break we must understand a little ofMerleau-Pontv‘s philosoph>‘ ofpainting. Merleau-Ponry sees in Czanne‘s landscapes norhing less than the ontogenesis of die visible. C&anne‘s paintings arc a perception

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of die invisible genetic world in die visible and actual one, a vision, Merleau Ponty argues, which involves perception in the genetic emergence of die visible. “The painter,“ he writes, “recaprures and converts into visible objects [ 1 the vibration of appearances which is the cradle of things.“ 7 Painting then, ex presses tue pllenomenological reality of the world, it expresses the “texture ofthe real“ as Merleau-Ponty calls it, which “is in my body as a diagram ofthe life of the actual“ (EM, 126 italics added). Once again L)eleuze and Merleau-Ponty‘s projects seem to converge on the body, which in both accounts expresses an im manent, living, and genetic diagram. But it is in their concepts of this bodily “diagram,“ and irs relation to the “flesh,“ that Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty‘s dif ferences become fully visi ble, The “flesh,“ for Merleau—Ponty, incarnates a “reversibility“ an “inter— twining“ or “chiasm“ between die visible and invisible world, between vision and its inisible ontogenesis. Merleau-Ponty in die famous fiurth chapter of The Visible anti the Invisible describes this intertwining or chiasm in terms of die color red. Red, he argues, emerges from virtual and differential relations between ied things, ilnplying a certain “redness“ which is in itselfinvisible but which is the condition for the appearance of red things. In our sensation ofa color, invisible and visible being arc intertwined, meaning red, as Merleau Ponty writes, is “less a color or a thing, therefore, than a difference between things and colors, a mornentary crystallization of colored being or of visibil ity Bet-ween the alleged colors and visibles, we would find anew the tissue that lines thern, sustains them, nourishes them and which for its part is not a thing, hut a possibility, a latency, and ajlesh ofthings“ (Vi, 132—3). The flesh is therefore die condition of possibility of the visible, it is the medium in which things become visible, in which a virtual “redness“ becomes a “red“ thing in the “carnal formula‘ of the “lived body“ (EM, 126). The flesh is the condition of both seer and seen and as such is “die formative medium of the object and die suhject“ (VI, 147). As Merleau-Ponty puts it, “the thickness of flesh between the seer and the thing is constitutive for the thing of its visibil ity as for die seer of his corporeity; it is not an obst-ade between them, it is their means of communication“ (VI, 135). The “lived body“ Merleau-Ponty argues. enconipasses subject and ohject in its vision of flesh, and is the “ele ment,“ the “incarnate principle,“ of “an anonymous visibility,“ or “vision in general“ (VI, 142).18 The flesh is therefore incarnated in a lived body, but it depends on an ahstract hut nevertheless immanent principle that Merleau Ponty calls the “Sensible in general.“ The “Sensible in general“ enahles, Merleau-Ponty argues, “the return ofthe visible upon itself“ (Vi, 142). This is a crucial formulation, for it im— plies that vision involves a process ofreflection by which it is able to “see“ ...

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its constituent element, the flesh of the world. The flesh of things therefore appears in a “carnal adherence of die sentient to the sensed and of the sensed to the sentient“ (VI, 142). In other words, the flesh appears in the vision ofa “lived body,“ but this appearance requires both a sensibility which “sees“ and a sentience which recognises it. In this way die flesh is die “overlapping and fssion, identity and difference“ (VI, 142) ofa Sentience and a Sensible in gen eral. Nevertheless, Sentience in general domes “before“ (VI, 142) the Sensible in general, and “brings to birth a ray of natural light wbich illuminates all flesh and not just my own“ (Vi, 142). The flesh is therefore illuminated by a “Senrience“ which renders it sensible, in and as a lived body. What then is “Sentience“? Despite its priority it cannot be dlearly separated from sensibil— ity, and together they form what Merleau-Ponty calls, once more anticiparing Deleuze‘s vocabulary while producing a very different meaning, a “fold“ (VI, 146), The flesh, he argues, is “folded“ around a “central cavity“ (VI, 146), which is “not an ontological void, a non-being“ (VI, 148), hut is the insepa rability of sentience and sensibility around which the flesh is folded and the body and the world “adhere to one another“ (VI, 148). A sensation emerges from this fold as an ungraspabic moment of re versibility between sentience and sensibility ‘Ibis moment of “hiatus“ (VI, 148), as Merleau-Ponry calls it, is illustrated by his famous example ofa band touching a hand which touches. The point is that i cannot touch touch itseif, and it is this impossibility which reveals the inevitable chiasm between sensi bility and its sentience. “My left hand is always on the verge of tonching my right hand teuching the things,“ Merleau-Ponty writes, “hut 1 never reach co incidence; die coincidenee edlipses at the moment of realization, and one of two things always occurs: either my right hand really passes over to die rank oftouched, hut then us hold on the world is interrupted; or it retains its hold on the world, hut then I do not really touch it—my right hand touching“ (VI, 147—8). Sentience and sensibility never dome together, except as a chiasmic reversibility which coheres in and folds the flesh, hut is never fully present it selE The reversibulity of seer and seen in die flesh tberefore revolves around this central ungraspable cavity forever “niaking itself die outside of its inside, and the inside ofits outside“ (VI, 144). lt is this interminable pulse ofiden— tity and difference which constitutes the flesh and its “paradox ofexpression“ (VI, 144). These formulations carry all the Heideggerian implicarions ofMerleau Ponty‘s flesh, and serve to distinguish it from Deleuze‘s, For Merleau-Ponty the flesh is folded around an “interior armature which jr conceals and reveals“ (VI, 149), an armature of “lines of force and dimensions“ (VI, 148) dasting an ideal light into the flesh as the invisible condition of its visibility. As

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Merleau-Ponry writes, “the experiences of the visible world are [ . . . 1 the ex ploration of an invisible and the disclosure of a world of ideas“ (VI, 149). Flesh acts as a “screen“ (VI, 150) which simultaneously reveals and conceals these invisible ideas, which, as the example of the touching hands showed, “retreat in the nicasure we approach“ (VI, 150). The ideas arc what die sen tient-sensihle flesh forever circles, they arc the invisibility the flesh embodies, and firially they arc “the Being of this being“ (VI, 151). Merleau-Ponty‘s flesh therefore incarnates a metaphysical ideal, a Being that casts its light on the flesh in which 1 am one witb what 1 sense, but this being-in-tbe-world is a presence-absence, a chiasmic intertwining, a veiling/unveiling of an invisible Being in vision. As a result, “Seeing,“ for Merleau-Ponty, “is not a certain mode of thought or presence to seif, it is the means given mc for being absent from myself, for being present from within at the fission of Being only at the end of which do 1 dose up into myseif“ (EM, 146). Painting expresses this “fission“ inasmuch as it reveals the “coming—to—itself of the visible“ (EM, 141). A visibility of “a certain absence, a negativity that is not nothing, [... 1 the invisible ofthis world, that which inhahits this world, and renders it visible“ (VI, 151). Painting then, is being-in-the-world, because it gives a sensation of the flesh‘s “duplicity of feeling“ (EM, 126). This “duplicity of feeling“ occurs in flesh according to its “strict ideality“ (VI, 152), and creates a pathic space in which flesh “feels“ its paradoxical foundation/fission as the visibility of an in visible Being. in Merleau-Ponty the eye becomes a hand, but in its pathic rather than haptic space it can only actualise a virtual idea it cannot touch or sec. The eye is in the flesh, but remains determined by the transcendental on tological dimension it enfolds hut never reaches, the invisible diagram of ideas. Immanence is only ever expressed in an incarnation of its genetic ab 9 To return to color, colored being is the actualisation of an idea (“red sence) ness“) in flesh, and this virtual color “imposes my Vision UOfl mc as a continuation of its own savereign existence“ (VI, 131 italics added). The dia grarn, for Merleau-Ponty, constitutes the immanent conditions of “natural perception“ in the “lived body,“ but it remains in itseif sovereign, as a pure ideality that can never be actualised. As Deleuze points out, phenomenology, in giVing this “natural light“ to vision, returns us to a classical philosophy where the light ofspirit illuminates the darkness of matter (CI, 60/89), Merleau-Ponty posits the ideas as immanent to the flesh, but this does n‘t get us very far because, as Deleuze and Guattari put it: “They arc not sud cessive contents of the flow of immanence but acts of transcendence that traverse it.“ Ideas arc “trajectories of truth,“ and as such constitute an “Urdoxa“ of “orrina1 opinions as proposit-ions“ (Wi 142/135). As a result,

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Merleau-Ponty remains determined by Husserl‘s ftunous phenomenological formula, “all consciousness is consciousness ofsomething,“ and the “flesh“ re mains a subjective category. 2 The natural perdeption of the lived body as sumes the common sense of a sentience-sensible in general, constituting “consciousness“ which is transcendentally determined, and operates a passive synthesis. Sentience, Deleuze and Guattari argue, re-introduces a “proto-con sciousness“ to the “lived-body“ which is determined by the “a priori materi als“ which transcend the lived (WP, 178/168) and remain its “meaning of meanings“ (WF 210/197). As a result, the “lived hody“ can only ever express its conditions of possihle experience, and fails to experiende its real genetic conditions, which remain invisible. This dooms phenomenology‘s account of the flesh to a countlcss retelling ofwhat I)eleuze and Guattari call “the mys tery ofthe incarnation“ (WJ 178/169). This produces a poctic “mixture of sensuality and religion,“ hut is nevertheless too “pious“ (‘VP, 178/169). Deleuze dlearly marks his break with phenomenology here: “The phenorne nological hypothesis,“ he writcs, “is perhaps insufficient hecause it merely in vokes the lived body. But the liVed body is still a paltry thing in comparison with a more profound and almost unlivable Power“ (FB, 44/47).This unliV ahle powcr oflife, Deleuze argues, is not an idea incarnatcd in the flesh ofthe lived hody, hut is the vital force emerging from chaos to be experienced in a sensation. lt is sensation then, which animates thc “flcsh“ of Bacons Figures. For Deleuze the genetic conditions offlesh exist according to a “logic ofsen sation“ different to that of the phenomenologists, a logic hy which thc dia graui hoth constructs these conditions while remaining enrirely immanent in thc sensation. ‘Phe diagram creatcs the finite that restores thc infinite. This is why phenomenological “flcsh“ is finally “too tender,“ its diagram transcends it and it is mcrely a “thermometer“ (WP, 179/169) or “developcr“ of this dia gram (WF 183/173). Phenomenology remains Romantic then, in being a pure expressionism, whercas Deleuze posits the complete immanence of the diagram and flesh, an immanence which enahles painting to construct its ge netic conditions (the eternal return ofthe catastrophe), each time they arc ex prcsscd in sensations. Deleuze and Guattari arguc that for this to be possible the flesh requires a “second element,“ a “house“ or “framework“ in which the flcsh can “bIos som“ (WE 179/169). This takes us back to Bacon‘s diagram and its “Egyptian“ contour, which constructs an armature, a “house“ in which the flcsh of his Figures is convulsed. But this convulsion expresses forces ehat come fiom the field, or more exactly become through the relation of field and Figure as they arc articulated in and by the coneour. The house, in other words, is a diagrammatic opening onto an ineense chaosmos, through which

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forces are composed into a “cornpound“ ofsensation, on one side the sections ofcolor making up the house (percepts), and on the other the non-human be comings embodied in the intense movements of the Figures (affects). “Art be gins,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “not wirb flesh but with the house“ (WP, 186/177). Meaning that art begins with a diagrarn, in Bacon‘s case the con tour, whicb builds a house from the chaos it unleashes, composes chaos, and expresses its forces in the convulsed flesh of the Figures which inhabit it. Bacon‘s paintings arc “agitations ofa convulsive life“ (LS, 82/101). lt is the di agram which consrructs the cosmos-chaos into a house, and through which its forces arc expressed in flesh. The phenomenological flesh is “too tender“ for such a construction and in order for the Sensation tO stand up on its own it needs the armature of a diagrarn. ‘ A diagram that neither transcends the 2 chaos it constructs nor the flesh in which jr is expressed, but marks the imma of their planes in the painting. “The difficult part,“ Deleuze and Guattari wryly comment, “is not to join hands but to join planes“ (WP 179/170). Although rnomentarily on the edges ofour discussion, color neverthe less remains central to this debate. For “jr is through and in color,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “that the architecture will be found“ (WP, 192/182). Color will be the material of sensation for Deleuze, and the modulation of color will construct the architecture of its expression. Deleuze develops this architectural colorism in relation to the painrer (2zanne, and this borh cm phasises his difference from pbenomenology, and introduces another impor rant “stopping place“ for Bacon‘s diagram. 22 Czanne consrructs form through the modulation ofcolor, producing a landscape or an apple that, in one ofCzanne‘s formulations often repeated by Deleuze, gives the world be fore man but conipletely in man, because ir gives the genetic conditions ofthe world as this world, as forces composed into sensation. Czanne‘s paintings do not sirnply make visible an invisible cavity which determines and transcends thern, but construct a house rhrough which the flesh of the world becomes a world, resroring the infinite to sensation. As ric Alliez has pur it, painting forces is no longer a matter ofexpressing the flesh in color, but ofconstruct ing the universe by color. 2 THE HAPTIC EYE AND THE MODULATION OF COLOR

The two signs ofgenius in great painters, Deleuze and Guartari say, arc their use ofcolor, and the care with which they use it to join up planes to create the picrures depth (Wl 179/170). Czanne‘s diagram employs just this kind of colorism: “Planes in color, planes!“ Deleuze and Guattari quote Cizanne, for

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the painting exists at “The colored place where the heart of the planes is fused“ (‘WE 179—80/170). Ctzanne‘s diagram composes chaos rhrough constructing colored planes, and by connecting rhein expresses these chaosmic forces ofthe world on the canvas. C&anne‘s colorism (and Deleuze suggests this is the for mula for any colorism, FB, 139/130) involves replacing conrrasts of value v ith contrasts oftone, crearing and joining planes through the modulation ofcolor rarher than rhrough a modelling achieved by adding black and white. Consrructing value through the addition of black and white is, as we have seen, a “digital“ overcoding of a color‘s tone, and assumes a light that tran scends ir. 24 Against this long tradition of painting Czanne recapitulates an “analog“ colorism, and constructs form by modulating the differential rela tions between “cold“ and “hor“ planes. Deleuze finds the conditions for this modularion of color in Goethe, who argued rhar there were two fundamental colors, yellow and blue (hot and cold), whose differential relations produce all the others. 25 This implies, for Deleuze, a colorisrn that not only modulates the relations berween colors, but assumes that color itself is nothing hut a variable differential relation “on which everyrhing else depends“ (FB, 139/l30).26 The differenrial composirion of color can be understood in terms of Deleuze‘s descriprion of the sensible in DzJ/i‘rence and Repetition. There he ar gues: “Every phenomena refers ro an inequality by which ir is condirioned“ (DR, 222/286). This inequality or difference is the colors “intensiry,“ irs differ enrial equarion, “in so far as rhis is the reason of the sensible“ (DR, 222/287). Every color appears as the differential equarion ofrwo colors which arc rhem selves differenrials, each color being constituted by a hererogeneous series ofdif ferences, an “infinirely doubled difference which resonates ro infinity“ (DR, 222/287). This is a Goethean theory of color in which we see “the aspirarion of each color to totality by appealing to its complimentary color“ (FB, 139/130). This mystical colorism encompasses rbe viewer as much as die painter, for as Goethe purs it, “when the eye sees a colour it is immediarely excited, and jr is its narure, spontaneously and ofnecessity ar once ro produce another which with die Original colour comprehends the whole chrornaric scale. A single colour ex cites, by a specific sensation, the tendency ro universaliry.“ 27 The eye does not see color, ir consrructs the universe by color, because a color is nothing hut a vi sion of all the differential relations which make up a cosmos. As Deleuze wrires, “if you push color ro irs pure inrernal relations (hot—cold, expansion—conrrac— tion), rhen you have everyrhing“ (FB, 139/130). The modulation of pure color is rhe “properly haptic funcrion“ (FB, 133/124) of pain ting, because ir replaces an oprical space defined by a perceiving eye/l and produced through the repre senrational code of light and dark values, wirh a ronal surface agitated by differ enrial color-forces (hor-cold, artracrion-repulsion, a don-negation etc.),

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requiring our involvernent in a “closevision“ (FB, 133/124). This dose-vision marks our indisccrnibility frorn the painting in sensation, and implies a “haptic function of the eye“ (FB, 133/125), Ohjects 110 longer appear in optical space, hut arc “in“ the eye, constructed from colors that exist “within sight itseif“ (FB, 133/125). Colorism then, is the visionary part ofpainting, and, Deleuze writes, “merely claims to give this haptic sense back to sight“ (FB, 140/131). Color cre ates a haptic space where color is within the eye, and vision is coextensive with the construction of Nature by color-forces, as this is expressed in a sensation. “1)ifferential calculus,“ Deleuze clairns, “is the psychic mechanism of perception, the automatism that at once and inseparably plunges into obscu rity and determines clarity“ (TF, 90/119). Vision is automatic because it is not outside what it “sees,“ ir neither “reflects“ a pre—existing object, nor its tran— scendental conditions of possibility hut is instead the necessary immanence of sensation and the differential relations it embodies. Czanne‘s modulated colors do not represent Nature, they arc the necessary and analogical sensa tions which render visible the infinite and obscure (and not “invisible“ in the phenomenological sense) forces of Nature‘s becoming. For Czanne, both painting md Nature emerge in the same way, they pass through a catastrophe in order for their “geologic lines“ to appear as a “stubborn geometry“ or “frame.“ This “fiame“ passes through the catastrophe to give risc to color light, and in this way, as Deleuze quotes Czanne, “the earth to risc towards the sun“ (FB, 11 l/105),28 This poetic image of ascension is the process by which die stubborn geometry of the frame as the “possibility offacts“ become sensations, become “facrs.“ C&annc‘s diagram is analogical in this sense, through the same process as that of Nature itself, it connects natural forces and planes of color, constructing sensations of Montagne Samt- 1/ictoire, of some apples, or ofthe landscape ofProvence (AT 343/423). Q.4zanne does n‘t represent Nature, he constructs with color sensations, as Nature and in Nature; a pictorial naturalism. The autonomism of vision i5 determined by the differenrial caiculus of Nature, independent of the organism, but never theless within a haptic eye, operating as an analogical synthesiser forever cre ating avision, vision as being-in the world. 29 Rather than representing Nature then, Czan ne‘s diagram constructs a sensation of Nature (Natura naturata) as Nature expressing itself (Natura naturans) )° As Czanne said, “art is a har rnony parallel iv nature. “Painting,“ 1)eleuze argues, “is the analogical art par excellence. lt is even the form through which analogy becornes a language, or finds its own lan guage: by passing through a diagram“ (FB, 117/1 10). We rnight say that the painting diagrarn then, is a way “the real materially writes“ (ATI 141/177). Painting writes with the analogical language ofa differential colorisrn, and in

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this sense Bacon is entirely C&annean. 32 But Bacon also departs fiom Czanne. Czanne constructs a “strong depth“ (FB, 119/112) where bis planes join, whereas Bacon‘s paintings form a shallow space. As a result they produce a different deformation by unleashing different forces; C&ianne dc forms the landscape and the still life to deterritorialise perspe(tive, whereas Bacon‘s forces will deform the body. Similarly, Czanne‘s colorism modulates color following the order of the spectrurn. Tbis, Deleuze argues, runs the risk of “reconstituting a code“ (FB, 140/132), as does the fixed size of Czanne‘s “patches,“ which tends to homogenize the forms they ereate. The solutions to these problems arc found in Van Gogh and Gauguin. First, they erect fiat fields of color that provide an armature within which specific forms can ap pear. Second, they introduce a further set of differentials to painting‘s dia gram, the “very fine differences ofsaturation“ in the bright tones of the field, as weil as the differential mixtures of complementary colors in ehe “broken tones“ that define the figures (FB, 141/132—3). Finally, there is the difference between the differentials constituting the fiat fields and the broken tones, through which the whole painting is pur into circulation. Bacon‘s diagram therefore changes direction from that of Czanne to arrive at this new postimpressionist “stopping point,“ where the modulation of colors “takes On a completely new meaning and function, distinct from Czannean modula tion“ (FB, 141/132). With Van Gogh am! Gauguin‘s modulation of the dif ferentiais of the fiat fields and the broken tones of ehe Figure, Bacon finds the solution to ehe two problems Czanne‘s diagram posed; “how, on the hand, to preserve the homogeneity, or uniey ofground as though it were a per pendicular armature for chromatic progression, while on die other to also pre serve the specificity or singulariry of a form in perpetual variation“ (FB, 33 Clearlyhowever, Bacon‘s paintings also differ from the post-impres xii-xiii), sionists, even if he specifically addresses Van Gogh during his “malerisch“ phase (Study frr Portrait of Van Gogh IV 1957, Arts Council collection, London). Indeed, Bacon will depart from Van Gogh‘s homogeneous surface of brushstrokes in the articulation of his three basic elements of armature, contour and Figure. Similarly, Bacon‘s colors differ from Gauguin‘s inasmuch as his catastrophe frees them from the outline, and “we find ourselves before fiows of color“ (FB, 149/141). Bacon‘s diagram will therefore set off from Gauguin‘s and Van Gogh‘s solutions, and recapitulate them in his own way. The unique solution Bacon‘s diagram offers for the C&annean problem emerges, Deleuze writes, when its three distinct elements, the armarure, Figure and contour, “converge on color, in color“ (FB, 144—5/137). This con vergence means that modulation composes ehe uniey of the painting, both ehe distribution ofeach element and the way these act on each oeher. As we have

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seen, the feld of color approaches a dif‘ferential infinity not through differ of value, but in its “very fine differences of saturation“ (FB, 142/133), This consrructs a “color contour“ that articulates the Figures relation to the field, and acts as “a colored pressure that ensures the Figure‘s balance, and makes one regime of color pass into another“ (FB, 152/143). The conrour, in other words, emerges from the fields ofcolor, and in doing so gives the “place“ for the Figure to arise in its “broken tones,“ and to express a perpetual varia tion ofcontraction/dilation in relation to the field. This perpetual variation is expressed through three differential relations, broken-complete tone, broken flat field, and poly-mono chroine. Bacon‘s diagram is therefore composed of its three “basic“ elements working in reciprocal presupposition, hut neverthe less according to their own disrinct differential economies, all ofwhich con verge in the modulation ofcolor. This produces the “flow“ ofcolor in Bacon‘s paintings, and sets them apart f‘rom Czanne and the post—impressionists. lt is in this color-flow that “color-structure gives way to color-f2n‘ce,“ and Bacon‘s diagram creates a new colorism, where color reriders visible the exercise of a force on a zone of the body or head (FB, 150/141 2). This making visible of defiguration will be the “primary function“ [la fonction primordiale] of the Figure, and is, I)eleuze writes, “one of the most marvellous responses in the history of painting to the question, How can one make invisible forces visi ble?“ (FB, 58/58). We will turn to this question, and Bacon‘s answer, a linIe late r. COSMIC RECAPITULATION

Despite these differences between Czanne‘s, Van Gogh‘s, Gauguin‘s and Bacon‘s diagrams (and, we could add, between these and the Venetian‘s and Pollock‘s), all express the inorganic life of the world hy composing it into ana logical sensations, and all create new diagrams for doing so through their re spective use of color. By switching our attention at this point from their differences to their shared “ontological creationistn“ we can understand in more detail how creation is always the function of colorism in painting. 3 Deleuze wrires: “Universal variation, universal interaction (modulation) is what Czanne had already called die world before man, ‘dawn of ourselves,‘ ‘iridescent chaos,‘ ‘Virginity of the world.‘ lt is not surprising that we have to construct it since ii is given only to the cye we do not have“ (Cl, 81/1 17). In other words, we must construct this ontogenetic world in color, but we will do so only by constructiaig an eye capable ofseeing it. This will be where seer and seen come together for Deleuze, in the “pure Vision“ ofa non-human eye, a haptic-eye whose visions construct matter at die same time as perceiving it.

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At this point, Deleuze writes: “One might say that paintels paint with their eyes, but only insofar as they touch with their eyes“ (FB, 155/146). Vision is not “pure“ in any optical or ideal sense, hut purely material and entirely in things. lt is “pure“ in the sense of having im outside, existing as the simulta— neous construction of the world by the eye, and ofthe eve hy the world. The painter‘s “haptic vision“ is of and in color, consrructing its differential rela tions into analogical expressions. ‘T‘ogether these arc visions as “colouring sen— sations. ““Colorism,“ Deleuze writes, “seems to us to he irreduciblv haptic“ (FB, 192/1 25). Coloring sensations arc therefore the “sumniit“ of a logic of sensation (FB, ix), because in them die immanent and ontogenetic universe is rendered visible, through die visions of an eye we do not have, the haptic eye whose sensations both construct and express the inorganic vitaliry of the world. The painter‘s haptic cc and its modulation ofcolor in sensation arc ab stract in the sense we have already seen. Modulation, Deleuze writes, has “nothing to do wjth resemblance“ (C2, 27/41 —2), neither the resemblance of an image to its object (e.g. Bacon‘s portraits), nor the self identical subject (the painter) such a resemblance implies (modulation works through die di agram). Aesthetics is never a quesrion ofrepresentation, but ofinvention, a qustion ofhow to escape formula and clich, how to create something new. And this problem is not confined to the artist or to his or her work, it is the ontological problem of how to re-create die world. Nevertheless, painring has an immediate access to this new world through irs ability to construct a sensation. The modulation ofcolor construcrs a coloring sensation in which the eye both has and is this sensation, and this baptic vision means tlmat die eye is not just in the world, hut that the sensation it is constructs the world. The birth of die world before man .“We arc not in die world,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, once more disringuishing themselves from phenomenol— ogy, “we become with the world; we become by‘ conremplating it. Everything is vision, becoming. We become universes“ (WP, 169/1 60). We can under stand these ecstatic lines better by returning to mv suggestion at the hegin— ning of the chapter that sensation was painting‘s way of thinking. Sensation, we could say, is a haptic thought. 35 l‘his rather odd statement can be ex plained in terms of Deleuze and Guattari‘s account of the brain. The brain, they argue, is where the sensation emerges, each sensation, as we have seen widi the example ofcolor, expressing its infinite differential conditions only by constructing them anew in its haptic vision. In the brain each sensation involves, Deleuze and Guattari argue, “trajectories constituted svithin a field of forces“ this “Vision“ operating as “a surve‘ of the entire feld‘ (WP, 209/197). The brain is on one side “an absolute consisrent form thar surveys ‚

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itscf independently ofany supplementary dimensions,“ a “seif“ extending to the Cosmos inasmuch as it is inhabited by an infinity ofdifferential rela tions as “so many inseparable variations“ (WB 210/198). On the other side lt is an actual sensation, the contraction of all these vibrating variations (dif ferentials) into an expression or “contemplation“ (‘WP, 213/201) of color. This “contemplation“ is the irreducibly sensual movement ofthought, which in being inseparable from the construction of the universe it expresses, re turns the plane to itselfas something new, as the becoming of being. The col oring sensation of one of Bacon‘s paintings is just such a contemplation, an expression of its immanent differential universe achieved in the percepts (vi sions) and affects (becomings) it constructs. Contemplation therefore, does not take place in a dimension apart from a chaosrnic matter-force, because the brain as a nervous system is immersed in matter, and a color is a direct action upon lt. (FB, 52/53) The aesthetics of painting is in this sense both a materialisrn and an empiricism, as Deleuze and Guattari put it: “Sensation itselfvibrates because it contracts vibrations“ (WP, 211/199). The coloring sensation is a haptic thought in which our brain‘s nervous system (the body— brain, or BwO) constructs a new differential universe (a “vision“ or percept) in a “contemplation“ that is expressed in an affect. The coloring sensation is this at once cosmic and quite particular becoming, and as such, as Czanne said: “Color is theplace where aur brain and the universejoin up.“ 6 This is a Deleuzian “eye-brain“ as opposed to a phenomenological “Eye and Mmd.“ The “contemplation“ of the ere-brain isa dose and cutaneous Vision folding the flesh, an affectual flesh enfolding the seer and the seen, sensing and sen sation, the eye and the world. “Colouring sensations“ are therefore the ana logical expressions of the continuous variation of matter-force “within sight itseif“ (FB, 133/125). Once more, sensibility is contemplation, the move— ment ofa nervous thought constructing the universe, and expressing it in a sensation. A sensation therefore, is irreducibly haptic: “lt is color,“ Deleuze writes, “and the relations between colors that form this haptic world and haptic sense“ (FB, 138/129). There is no inside and outside, no Being and being, only the mutual infolding and unfolding of an eye—brain in matter. Coloring sensation is the ongoing birth ofthe world, the world as spatiurn, as Deleuze puts it, “neither an inside not an outside, but only a continuous creation ofspace, the spatializing energy ofcolor“ (FB, 134/126))8 l3acon‘s “Figures“ now expand to embody a vital flesh (a body-brain) in which seer and seen and painting and viewer become indiscernible. How? Bacon‘s paintings, as we have seen, employ a colotism inseparable from sensa tion. Sensation bowever, implies a new sensibilit a new physiology in Nietzsche‘s terrns, constructed in the con templative vision s and compulsive

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affects of the eye-brain. lt is sensation therefore, that articulates an expression ofmatter-forces with the construction ofa haptic eye necessarv for its real ex perience. This haptic eye, as a visual sense of toucb, must be in the painting, one with its flesh, not so much to sense the forces the painting expresses (lt is not a thermometer), but as die condition of possihilit of lt being a sensation at all. As Deleuze writes, and the importance of this passage justifes irs repe tition, “at the limit, it is the same ody whicb, being both subject antI object, gives and receives the sensation, As a spectator, 1 experience the sensation only by entering the painting, by reaching the unity of the sensing and the sensed“ (FB, 35/39—40). ‘X hat emerges in Bacon‘s paintings then, is not narration, 7 nor representation, but a set of ‘ornplctely diffrrcnt relations“ (FB, 157/147), differential relations whose cosmic and particular vibrations compose the ab solute locality of this Figure, of this becoming. The passage to the haptic eye. therefore, “is the great moment of the act ofpamnting,“ (FB, 160/1 50) hecause lt is the culmination of the logic of sensation in the expression/construction of “the fact itseif“ (FB, 160/150). The “ftict“ is sensation as being—in—the— wor1d, as the “single continuous flow,“ as Deleuze writes of Michelangelo, which gathers together all the elements of the painting (including us) in an image that “no longer represents anytbing but its own movements“ (FB, 160/1 50). This, finally, will be painting‘s great moment, its continuous move ment, its vibration ofvibrations. “X/e have, up to this point, examined the visions of the hody—brain antI its haptic eye, its coloring sensations, and now we must enter their flesh to better experience its physical becomings, its convulsions. This takes us beyond the too “tender“ phenomenological flesh, and into thar of the Body withour Organs, whose flesh is strong enough to express its immanent becoming, its eternal and i nfinite movements of construction. PAINTINGS HYSTERICAL FLESH, THE BODYWITHOUT ORGANS

Antonin Artaud lias been a frequently visited “stopping place for our recapit ulation of Deleuze, and he appears once more in Deleuze‘s discussion of Bacon‘s flesh. For Artaud the organs are organised into an organisrn by God‘s judgement, and as such are the structure of our servitude and ofour suffer ing. The hody is a result, to appropriate Milton‘s wonderful phrase, of “the tyranny of heaven.“ 39 This opprcssed organism is the reason fir Artaud‘s feo cious attack on God, for as Artaud famouslv pronounces, “there is nothing more useless than an organ. / / hen you will have made hirn a hody without 7 organs, / then voii will have delivered hirn from all his autornatic reactions

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and restored hirn to his true freedorn,“ ° The body witbout organs, Arraud ar— gues, emerges frorn the “pressing urgency of a need“ to abolish the “idea“ of God and replace it with the “explosive necessity,“ or “asserrion“ ofthe body. ‘ 1 ‘Ihis is the body as a “physical system,“ a “nervous matter,“ before or beyond God. 1 he body “escapes judgement,“ Deleuze writes, “all the more inasmuch as it is not an “organisrn,“ and is deprived of this organisation of the organs through which one judges and is judged“ (ECC, 130—1/164). To be done with judgment then, means dismantling the organic body, and the BwO, “is what rernains when you take everything away“ (ATP 151/1 88). What remains is living matter, its chaosmic vibrations and the sensations which express jr. lt is the living matter of the BwO wliich is constructed by Bacon‘s diagram, first by raking everything away in the catastrophe, and second by producing the “colouI-ing sensations“ in the flesh ofhis Figures, now expanding (or contract ing) beyond the paititing‘s surface and as far as the cosmos in a truly mystical “fact.“ Artaud‘s organs arc a battle ground, the site ofa cosmic combat over the body‘s construction rights—over its “spiritual“ dimension as Deleuze calls it—between the immanent ontogenetic firces of“a powerful and nonorganic life“ (FB, 46/48) and God‘s transcendental judgement. This is also the fight waged by Bacon‘s diagrarn, a corporeal crusade which, Deleuze writes, “attests to a high spiritua/ity, since what leads it to seek the elementary forces beyond the organic is a spiritual will. Bin this spirituality is a spirituality of the body; tbe spirit is the body itselF‘ the hody without organs (FB, 46—7/49). We have seen how Bacon‘s diagrarn constructs Figures convulsed by forces. These convulsions, the ecstasies of chaos itseif, arc the “facts“ which emerge in and as a haptic sensation/eye, and free a new kind of mystical perception. A baroque vision where, Deleuze writes: “The task of perception entails pul verising the world, but also one of spiritualizing its dust“ (TF, 87/116). Bacon‘s diagram opens the body to forces that defbrin it, which produce breaks and disjunctions in its normal organic functioning. In this way Bacon reveals the immanent spiritual dimension of die BwO, the atheistic divinity creared by the paintings‘ catastrophic disjunction, their breakthrough into the living immanence—the construction/expression—of the flesh. Deleuze and Guatrari write: “The body without organs is not God, quite the contrary. But the energy that sweeps through it is divine, when it attracts to itseif the entire process ofproduction and serves as its miraculate, enchanted surface, inscrib ing it in each and every one of its clisjunctions“ (AO, 13/19). The BwO is, as Deleuze stresses, “opposed less to the organs than to the organization ofthe organs we call the organism“ (FB, 44/47). The BwO is a dis-organisation that takes us to “the limit of the lived body“ (FB, 44/47).

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Indeed, the BwO is more a trajectory than a thing, hecause “you can‘t reach Deleuze and Guattari say, “von arc forever attaining it“ (ATP 150/186). The BwO is the limit of the lived inasmuch as it is the poine of emergence of the Iived, it is the point at which the rhythmical ontological conditions of chaosrnosis arc expressed as they construcr sensations. LJnsurprisingly then, the BwO is the destruction oforganic representation: “Norhing here is repre sentative,“ Deleuze and Guattari wrire, “rarher, jr is all life and lived experi— ence“ (AO, 19/26). The BwO, thev write, “is the hodv without an image“ (AO, 8/14). The flesh of the living BwO will be inseparable from its perception, or better its “contemplation.“ “There is a mmd in the flesh,“ Artaud writes, and the sensations which arise when forces meet die flesh arc, as Artaud puts it, “neuro—physiological vibrations. For Artaud then, “whoever savs flesh also says sensibility“ ‘ and, as Deleuze adds in his discussion of cincrna, vhoever says sensation also says thoughr, because on rhe Bw() horb arc analogical vi— brarions ernerging from the dirccr action of forccs. 1 hought, whether in painting or elsewhere, exists in a flesh thar einbodies life‘s confrontation with the unthought, with as Artaud puts it: “These unformulated forces which be siege mc.“ And in thinking this unthought force, or in having a sensation, we truly live, because we hasre created sornething new, something previously un thought or unsensed. “This is ss‘hat 1 mean by Flesh.“ Artaud writcs, “1 do not separate my rhougbt frorn my lif.“ The life offlcsh, rhe convulsions ofa living BwO, express these unrhinkable forces in sensarions. T think—con vulsed with life—does not mean for Artaud “1 am,“ hut that rhe BwO becornes. Sensation exprcsses die action ofa force on a BwO. This gives risc to a strange double dimension in Bacon‘s paintings, on the onc hand forces con vulse the Figure, and on the other it is die Figure which produces sensations within us. We can only understand this double dimension of die Figure througb rhe BwO, which encompasses painring and viewcr in its flesh. The Figure in this sense, and as Deleuze wrires, is “die sensible form related to sen sation; jr acts irnrncdiately upon the nervous system, wbich is of rhe flesh“ (FB, 34/39). The Figure is a BwO, and die BwO borh gives and receives the sensation (FB, 35/39—40). A force traverses the painted Figure, hut this be comes a sensation only in the flesh that encompasses it, in the haptic eye ca pable of such a vision. What is painred is a body a living Bw() that emerges in a haptic eye, and which is “experienced as susraining this sensation“ (FB, 4 1/45). This sensation is a contemplation, and as such “surveys“ irs spiritual dimension in irs act ofappcarance, consrrucring an infnire virrual body as the immanent condition ofirs particularity. This sensation is therefore a spasm or it,“

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vibration of the flesb at once in the painting and in the specrator, a convul sion or sensation, arising froin “the action ofinvisibleforces on the body“ (FB, 41/45). So what are these “invisihle forces“ expressed in the Figures “affective athieticism‘? They are not the invisible as such, but they are not visible accept in their affects. As such, thev are the “obscure“ forces, convulsions “in direct contact with a vital power,“ or, as Deleuze finally puts it, “Rhythm“ (FB, 42/46). Rhythm, as we saw last chapter, is the onrogenetic power of life itseif, and is whar both construcrs the BwO and is expressed in the sensation. “Paint the sensation,“ Deleuze writes, “which is essentially rhythm....“ (FB, 72/71). In a sensation, in its rhythrnical Hesh the chaosmos destroys me, and con— structs mc anew as a BwO, and in ancl through it 1 become with the world, 1 become-universe, hut uni)‘ as the universe creating itseif (FB, 42—3/46) The ßwO emhodies rhythm, that “profound and almost unlivable Power“ (FB, 45/47), rhar is experienced as this sensation. This requires Bacon‘s diagram, which I)otb constructs sensations‘ genetic conditions (through the ca— tastrophe of the BwO) and allows something tu emerge from them (the figure, or figural whole). How? The diagram‘s dual operation ofconstruction and expression forms the rwo phases ofthe BwO. As Deleuze and Guattari expiain ir: “One phase is for the fabricarion of the BwO, the other ro make something cir culate on it or pass across it“ (ATP, 152/188). The BwO is fabricated by the ontogenetic rhyrhm of inorganic life, of chaosmos, at that point “where rhythm itseif plunges into chaos“ (lB, 44/47). Bacon‘s diagram is just such a plunge, hut it brings somerhing back, it expresses this urilivable power in rhe convulsion of the Figure. The BwO is therefore both the genetic condition for sensation (irs “fibricarion“ or construction through the catastrophe as the “pos— sibility of fact“), and rhe sensation irseif (what happens, the “fact irseif“). Deleuze explains the BwO of Bacon‘s diagram precisely and in detail. The BwO is drawn by a wave that “traces levels or thresholds in the body ac cording to the variarions of its amplitude“ (FB, 44—5/47). This “wave“ is at once the catastrophe, hursting the body‘s organic co-ordinates, and what emerges from it according to the series of thresholds and levels ir leaves behind as “possibilities of fact.“ We have already encounrered the BwO then, in Bacon‘s accidents. But these accidents arc inseparable from the rhythms rhey release, the lines and colors they liberate in sensations. The BwO is both pro duced and producer, hecause its thresholds arc continually coming into con tact with new forces, which provoke new vibrations, new sensations or “facts.“ “Sensation is vibration“ (FB, 45/47) Deleuze writes, which would be the ma terialist definition of Bacon‘s paintings, as they synrhesize the vibrations ofthe universe into an analogical sensation, inro a becoming taking place on the level of its conditions. In rhis sense the BwO is the great analogical machine, for its

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vibrations arc not visible signsfrr an invisible level, because jr bas no orher level than that on which forces become visible. The BwO is the rnechanism of rhe Deleuzian definition of absrracrion: “malcing rhe invisible forces visible in themselves“ (W1 182/172 italics added). When a sensation expresses a BwO jr raises irseif ro its own conditions (FB, 57/57). By doing so, sensation gives an analogical expression of the BwOs inrense movements, not represented hut real (FB, 5 1—2/53). In the sensarions of the BwO Bacon‘s diagrani meers Arraud‘s theatre ofcruelty (FB, 45/48), both arc a thearre thar “is in reality the genesis 46 A thearre oflife, a “theatre ofmetamorphosis“ (DR, 240/3 10), ofcreation.“ a thearre of the inorganic and vital life ofchaosmosis. But rhere seems to be an immediare problem, aren‘r Bacon‘s paintings full oforgans? Escaping their eviscerared bodies, or undergoing fhcial spasms perhaps, hut nonetheless organs arc popping our everywhere. The BwO how ever, does not mean the absence oforgans, and is in fact defined hy, Deleuze wrires, “the temporary andprovisionalpresence of dererminare organs“ (FB, 48/50). These organs appear exactly at rhe point where the wave flowing through the RwO crosses a threshold or changes gradienr and encounrers ex rernal forces (FB, 47/49, see also ATP, 153/189). This accounts not just for the appearance oforgans in Bacon‘s work, hut also for the violent movemenrs by which one organ seems to move inro anorher (rhe eye-mourh, or nose-ear ofFour studies/r a setfportrait, 1967, Brera Museum, Milan). Organs, in this sense, and like hapric eyes, arc defined by “a presence acring direcrl on the nervous system“ (FB, 5 1/53). This “hysterical“ presence, as 1)eleuze calls ir, gives risc to the organ as a sensation, for each sensation has its own organ or hapric eye. The BwO is rhe immanent genetic condirion for each ofirs organ sensations, but each sensation expresses these invisible condirions by con srructing a new organ adequare ro irs particular vision. Hysteria enjoys a special relation with painring because, 1)eleuze wrires: “With painting, hysteria becomes art“ (FB, 52/53). Painring is hysterical be cause jr is the atrempr tu release “presences“ which lie beneath represenrarion. to express them in a colored sensation, in a vision and its affecr. Painting is the privileged medium for hysrerical art hecause “color is a direcr action on the nervous System“ (FB, 52/53). Painring, in modularing color, vibrares wirh forces, makes them visible in themselves through its construction of provi sional and remporary organs, its haptic eyes adequate ro these sensations. As a result, and once more, there is a full reciprociry and simulraneiry of arrs dou ble dimension, as Deleuze puts it, the eye becomes virtually the polyvalent indeterminare organ thar sees rhe body witbout organs (rhe Figure) as pure preselice. Painring gives Us

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In hysteria the eye as undetermined (inorganic) organ is immanent to the sen sation jr has and is, and by wbieh the BwO beeomes—visihle. THE COMPLEXITY OF BACON‘S DIAGRAM Rerurning to the speeifieity of Baeon‘s diagram, Deleuze makes an “empiri cal list“ ofthe forees Bacon “derects anti eaptures [... ] like a detecrive“ (FB, 63/62). As we have already seen, Baeon eaptures forces ofisolation by wrap ping the field around the eontour to produee the Figure. Through this foree ofisolation deforming forees emerge in the spasms gripping the body or head of the Figure. and forees of dissipation beeome visible wben the Figure eseapes inro the field. In these simple “aetive“ sensations rhythm appears in the Figure as a physieal vibration (the vomiting and defecating Figures in Triptych May-June 1973, private collection, Switzerland). But other, more eomplex deformations and dissipations become visible when Figures un dergo a eoupling within the painting and rhythm is liberated into the diverse levels of different sensations. Coupling is not a merge of two Figures, but a rendering indiseernible (in this sense I)eleuze calls jr “passive“) in which a single “faet“ eommon to the rwo figures emerges, a single Figure which ex presses the foree of eoupling itself, its “eombat of energies“ (FB, 68/67) (Jhree Stutlies of‘Figures on Beds, 1972. private collecnon, Switzerland). 1 be coupling of energies does not depend on two figures however, and can be dis emhodied. lt exists wherevcr there is a “resonanee“ of firees as the condition ofsensation. Nevertheless, eoupling does not explain the triprych, for there the Figures and eouples remain separared and arc connected by something other than resonance. This means the triptychs have a different “common faet,“ and a different type of rhythm that is ahle to produce it. This new rhyrhm is what Deleuze will call the “rhythm-attendant“ {rythme tmoin], and through it, “it is the rhythm itsefthat beeomes sensation, jr is rhyrhm that becomes Figures“ (FB, 73/7 1 italies added). To discover how this hap pens 1)eleuze asks a simple quesrion: “What is a Triptych?“ The only possihIe response to this question, he argues, emerges from their very precise “empirieal study“(FB, 74/73).

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The triptychs arc composed ofthe three rhyrhms, an active and passive rhythm related to the actions and couplings ofthe Figures, as weil as an addi tional rhythm given in the “attendent-function“ L,fbnction t‘rnoin1 that ob serves these couplings. These “explicit“ attendants can be found throughout the triptychs, but Deleuze quickly discards them as being too “superficial,“ too figurative. What he is interested in is the way these witnesses transform into a “more profound attendant,“ no longer a figurative element of the paint ing but a “figural-attendant“ [telmoinflgural] or “rhythm-attendant“ [rythme t!moin] (FB, 75/73 4). The figural-attendant is defined by “its horizontaliry its almost constant level“ (FB, 75/74), a kind of ground-zero, or “constant value“ by which the other two rbythrns can be evaluated (Triptych, August, 1972, Tate Gallery, London), Thus the “figural-attendant“ is an “attendant wirness“ [t6moin suivant], the becoming-visible of the other rhythms, such that rhythrn “has itseifbecome a character“ (FB, 76/74—5). The active and passive rhythms arc visible in various differential distri butions of force (resonances), which Deleuze lists in relation to their empiri cal appearances in the triptychs; descending-rising, diastolic—systolic, the naked and the clothed, and augrnentation-dirninution. (FB, 77—9/76—7) For our purposes what is important about these differential oppositions is not so much their precise operations, which L)eleuze descrihes in detail, but the fact that these always appear in relation to the attendant function acting as the paintings rhythmical condition. Furthermore, a precise empirical list of the differential forces of a triptych constructs a “perspective“ of (we could say it “witnesses“) tbe “combinatorial freedom“ of the painting, a combinatorial freedom which means, “no list can ever be complete“ (FB, 79—80/77). In other words, the combinatorial freedom ofa Bacon painting is in principle in finite, beause it is—as a 13w0 continually coming mb contact with new forces, with new eyes, it is constantly being recomposed in new visions or per spectives. This takes us back to the argument of chapter one regarding I)eleuze‘s conception of Nietzschean critique: “Everything,“ Deleuze writes, “can coexist, and the Opposition can vary or even be reversed depending on the viewpoint one adopts, that is, depending mi the value one considers“ (FB, 80/77). This means the empirical analysis ofa triptych‘s differenrial forces op erates through the “witness-function“ to construct a perspective, a perspec tive-rhythm which simultaneously gives the painting its specific empiriLal form, its specific sensation, and constructs the BwO this form expresses. Tbis perspectival reality of the triptych however, is not, according to Deleuze, sufficient to expiain how its differential relations in their inherent variability appear as such. To explain this we must look to the condition ofthe perspective—the witness-function—and understand more precisely how it

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works. Deleuze‘s argument calls on Kant at this point, who defined the prin ciple of intensity as an instantaneously apprehended magnitude appearing only in relation to negation=0 (FB, 81/78). Ifintensity is defined in this way then the differential relations of forces appear as sensations through their re lation to the witness-rhythm 0. We recall that the BwO was what appeared when everything was taken away, the “matrix of intensity,“ as Deleuze and Guattari put it, “intensity 0“ (ATP, 153/189). But equally the BwO is dc fined by what happens on it, the differential relations our perspective ernbod ies, which emerge only in relation to this ground zero. The BwO is, as producer and produced, the double dimension in which Bacon‘s paintings exist as and rhrough their sensations. The BwO: “Proa‘uction ofthe real as the intensive magnitude starting at zero“ (AT 1 53/189—90 italics added). This “real“ emerges, according to the specific character of Bacon‘s diagrarn, in the primacy he gives to descent. The differential forces ofa sensation arc experi enced in Bacon‘s paintings as a fall. This gives a seemingly paradoxical formula to Bacon‘s diagram, in which “The active is thefall“ (FB, 80/78). This means that when forces appear as sensations they embody a change in state that is understood in relation to the intensity=0 of the witness-function as a fall (“everything that develops is a fall“ FB, 82/79). As a result, I)eleuze writes: “The fall is what is most alive in the sensation, that through which the sensa tion is experienced as living. [...j The fall is precisely the active rhythm“ (FB, 82/79), and is the rhythm which emerges as specific to each triptych, or at least to each of its perspectives. Finally, the law of the triptychs involves all of die rhythms so far delin eated, the three “rhythm figures,“ active, passive and witness, the wirness rhythm=0, and the active fall. This means the law of the triptych “can only be a movement ofmovements, or a state of complex forces“ (FB, 83/80). In other words, the triptychs arc cornposed directly by rhythm, which appears in itself, and arc entirely hysterical. But the “highpoint of the meditation“ seerns at this point a linie hollow, for doesn‘t it simpiy reiterate whar we have known from the beginning? Doesn‘t it simply repeat the catastrophe of Bacon‘s diagrarn and the resonance of forces that ernerge from it to create a sensation? Despite its complexity the “law“ of the triptychs seems to return us to this fundamen tal Operation of the diagram that was in place from the beginning, and rnerely reiterates the ontology of sensation that we by now know by heart. Indeed, Deleuze seems to confirm this, writing: “These laws have nothing to do with a conscious formula that would simply need to be applied; they arc a part of this irrational logic, or this logic ofsensation, that constitutes painting“ (FB, 83/79). The empirical taxonomy of the triptychs‘ forces therefore leads us back to a point, even before Bacon, of the logic of ontogenetic emergence as =

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such, to the immanence of aesthetics and ontology which has been our topic throughout. Could it be possible that [)eleuze‘s painstaking “empirical“ analysis of the triptychs discovered nothing that wasn‘t, perhaps in the form ofa “secret“ Frst principle, already in place? 1 f this is true tue logic of sensation Deleuze finds in Bacon‘s paintings would be on OHC side an elegant and precise analysis ofone painter‘s work, and on the other already entirely explained by the most ahstract formulations of Deleuze‘s onto-aesthetics. This is clearly seen in the work done by Deleuze‘s concept ofthe fall, which on one side is described as the specific mechanism of Bacon‘s triptychs, and on the other appears as a concept necessarily con nected to the degree 0 of intensit) and already widely used in the conceptual definition of the BwO. ° This leads to the question as to exactly what in Deleuze‘s account of the triptychs is specific to Bacon‘s diagram, and what is simply the application ofa more generalised account ofthe BwO. This prob lem is critical inasnsuch as Deleuze will finally claim that all Bacon‘s paintings operate according to the triptychs‘ logic, for “there arc nothing but triptychs in l3acon, even the isolated paintings arc, more or less visibly, composed like triptychs“ (FB, 85/81). lt seems as if all of Deleuze‘s painstaking empirical work has finally evaporated into an ontological structure which was in place frorn the start, and that empirical appearances arc entirely determined by a higber spiritual, or at least conceptual, reality they simply express. Deleuze and Guattari suggest a rather elegant riposte to this problem in A Thousancl Plateaus. There they ask whether there is a BwO of all BwOs, a higher One in which all its attributes (presumably including Bacon‘s diagram) can be comprehended. This means, is there a single ontological entity (THE BwO) which would finally comprehend and encompass all its instances, all the BwOs constructed as its expressions? (ATP, 154/190—1). Deleuze and Guattari turn this question on its head, arguing that it is not in fact a ques tion of the Otw or the multiple, the abstract or the specific, as if they were op posed terms. Our question then, was badly posed, because it is not a matter of understanding the ground zero of the BwO—chaos, difrence, duration, etc.—as an ontological unity wbich the variety of BwOs would all in their way express. Bacon‘s diagrarn shares a certain abstract machinic consistency wirb other painting diagrams, a necessity by which painting begins with the con struction of a BwO. This leads to other common principles, for example, Deleuze argues: “Most artists [ ] seem to have encountered the same re sponse; the difference in intensity is experienced as a fall“ (FB, 8 1/78). But everything falls differenrly, Each fall is different because the fall is sirnply the activity of difference itself. lfdifference is the ontological ground ofDeleuze‘s system, a likely enough claim, then it does not appear in relation to, or as an ...

7 ‘ 1 e Agitations ofa (‚onvu/sive Lfi‘

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expression of anything hut itself THE BwO is therefore indistinguishable from the infinity of BwOs which constitute it. As a result, the ground zero these BwOs share is not an ontological Substance prior to their activity, and which their activiry expresses, but the real conditiori for the construction of this Substance, as a real sensation, in the inorganic life of Bacon‘s Pigures. The ontological conditions of Bacon‘s paintings do not pre-exist them, as whar they would simply express, bur arc constructed in bis diagram, in their own way and according to their own laws. Bacon‘s diagram and all the orher con structions of the BwO do not come together in a single unity, except, as Deleuze and Guattari say, as “a fusional multiplicity that effectively goes be yond any opposition hetween the one and the multitude“ (ATP, 1 54/191). This means that although all the BwOs form an “ontological uniry ofsub stance“ (ATP, 154/191), these BwOs construct this substance differently in their expressions, that is, in tbe expression of an always mobile constructive difference. The point is not what “is“ the BwO, but how is it constructed bv this diagram, in this perspective, and as t/lis sensation? This is finallv the frac tal logic not just of Bacon‘s paintings, hut of Deleuze and uattaris ontolog— ical system; differenciation means infinity at every level, because hecoming is the immanence of singularity and unity in life. What I)eleuze writes of the laws of Bacon‘s triptychs could therefore equally apply ro Deleuze‘s ontologi cal structure as a whole, with no loss ofspecificity: “The constants thev implv change depending on the case at hand. They govern extremely variable terms, from the viewpoint both oftheir nature and their relations. There arc so many rnovements in Bacon‘s paintings that the law of the triptychs can only be a movement of movements, or a state of complex forces, inasmuch as move ment is always derived from the forces exerted upon the body“ (EB, 83/80). One more time, this body, this painting, this sensation. Finally then, we can say that it is precse1y at its most ahstract dimension that Deleuze‘s account of Bacon‘s paintings attains its greatest specificity The moment the BwO as ground 0 emerges in Bacon‘s paintings in terms no longer their own is also the moment Deleuze bas produced the most empirical construc tion of their expressive forces. This paradoxical coniluence is not hy chance, as it is in fact the necessary result of Deleuze‘s ontological assumprions. Bacon‘s paint ings express the affects of forces on a BwO (as ground 0) in sensations, these sen sations simultaneously construct a perspective in whicb sornerhing happens, in which the BwO lives. The “monochromatic eternir‘“ (FB, 85/81 1 of the Bss‘O, its “spiritual dimension“ exists, and can only exist in its consirnetion, in and as the sensations of Bacon‘s painting. The ontological ground zero of I)eleuze‘s sys tem, the One—All ofSubstance, is a fusional rnultiplicity that only exists as Being orld, that is, in sensations which construct and express our living flesh. 7 in—the—‘(

Conclusion

A Break, a Becoming, and a Belief.

flirters, deserters, wilnps and piiflps, speeding like bulleis, grinning like chimps, ahove die heads of TV watchers. lovers iander tue overpasses, mbytes at maus leuing out, brtght gas Station oases in pure fluoreseent spill, canopied bcncath the paim trees, soon wrapped, down the eorri— dors ofthe surface streets, in nocturnal smog, die adobe air, the smell of disrant fireworks, the spilled, the broken world. 1 homa Pvnclu n, ‘in‘Iand.

THE BROKEN WORlD

The spilled, the broken world. Deleuze and Guattari‘s world as much as Pynchon‘s, a world of creative breaks through which chaos spills. Fireworks. And the hreak also composes chaos, lt‘s a disjunctive conjunction, an eternally remrning ‘and Chaos spills into life—chaosrnosis. But bow to break and how to compose? These arc the questions of art. How to break with the human, all too human, with its clichs, its self-ohsessed egoisrn, its organic thought? How to brealc through these limitations on life in oider to extend our composirions as far as the infinite, to succeed in a becoming-universe? lt requires a mystical art capahle of consrructing and expressing a universe in a sensation, a world from and in t/Yis sensation as a sensation of this world. Art .

.

.

‘

then, is as atheist as lt is mystic, because

tue infinity it restores to sensation

is

nothing but its own living process: a life. Art is the construction of a living world ofsensation; a world that never stops becoming something else, never stops breaking and composing. never stops emerging as somerhing new. “Any work of art,“ Deleuze writes, “points a wav through for life, finds a way through the cracks.“ 2 Art is a guidance device, a machine that finds in the cracks a means of escape and discovery. Because “Art as abstract machine“ hoth breaks and cre ates, it creates by breaking. This has been a constant refrain for us: no creation

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withour destruction. Anti it means, each time, again. This is the first condi— tion of art, to break with the ontological and aesthetic assumptions that negate its life. In doing so art emerges as a compositional process creating new realities, constructing a work that expresses the world, and expressing in a work the unending construction of the universe, This is the definition of art as an active immanence, a creative power always operating n the principle of to conle. In the face of this to come, the artistic element of the present—the contemporary itself—is in a permanent process ofcracking open: “Works are developed,‘ Deleuze writes, “around or on the basis of a fracture they can never succeed in fihling“ (DR, 195/252). We saw this in the Nietzschean artist-philosopher and his or her art of cririque. Critique as affirmation brcaks wirh man‘s nihilism, and overcomes his negation of living will to power. This affirmation gives us a new physiol— ogy, a ne‘.‘ way of feeling. Firsr break: the Overman. This affirination pro duces a new image, an image adequate to becoming, to its powers of the false, to its creative eternal return. Second hreak: the simulacra. This affirmation produces a new image of art and artist, as the work ofart, the vital process hy which the will to power is expressed, anti in which the will to power is forever constructed anew, lhird break: an art ofimmanence. Art as affirmation gives a real experience of its real conditions, beyond the Kantian double definition ofaestbetics, heyond an>‘ pre-given conditions of possibility. Art operates as a libratory innovation, opening tip a Future that is unknown. In Spinoza, the same problem: How can we break rhrough man‘s inade quate understanding o the world? lt means, how can we understand what is beyond man and yet entirely within man, how can we understand the infinity ofGod as we construct and express it in Nature, how in other words, is essence existence? Once more, it is a question ofnew feelings, or as Spinoza puts it, of affects. Affects no longer understood according to the subjects that have them and the ohjects that cause them, bur according to the common notions rhey create. Through understanding common notions another world appears, a world in the process ofheing composed. a vision ofGod!Nature in which 1 see how 1 am (iod, withour (3od either abandoning infinity, or leaving this world his plane of composition. Spinoza‘s art of beatitude emerges as this “atheist rnysticisrn,“ a radical break with a transcendenr God, in a vision of God/Narure as the continual construction ofrhe world. Beatitude begins with the common notion, an epistemology of the /‘ere and now that leaves behind man‘s sad imaginations to actively pursue a joy adequate to an infinitely cre ative God as Nature. To express this God!Nature is nothing but understand ing how our joy, our love, is the ver Force constructing God‘s pantheistic becoming, Nature‘s creative difference fiom itseif Art is nothing without joy.

Conclusion

22]

Deleuze‘s cinerna books arc also consrituted around a break, or rather a series of breaks. That which determines the movement-image, the break be tween the sensory-motor and a duration it givcs an indircct image of, a hreak thar at its limit appears as the suhlime. Anti then anorher break, a breakdown of the sensory—motor, rhrough vhich visions emerge, images as ptire optical and sound situations. This is the direct image of time in “modern“ post—war cinema, and ir emerges rbrough the “crack“ constiruring a new brain, the eine brain of a “neuro-physiological auromaron,“ an auromatism capable of ex pressing durarion as it is constructed, capable of thinking the splitting oftime. And the break between these breaks, the ontological break herween the move ment-image and the rime-image, their differing durations, and rhe different cine-brains they irnply. With cinema images begin ro creare rime, not only producing images that express their ontological conditions, hut construcring irnages as ontological machines. Modernitv emerges here as an art form exper imenring on irs own immanent anti real condirions, anti art opens onto a “to come“ that becomes the definition ofits true conremporaneitv. Painring also appeared according to this logic. First of all the artist achieves a breakrhrough, one determined by breaking down the strata ofsig nifiance and subjectivation, anti the preconditions on perception rhey im pose. This is a break with represenrarion as an image of thought in which painting acts as a signifier, and where its material niovements arc subordinated to a regime of “meaning“ overcoding it. Venerian Renaissance painting exem plifies painting‘s powerofbreakthrough, a crirical or “schizoanalvtic“ process by which onro-aestherics finds irs specific co-ordinates in an abstract ma chine. The abstract machine flees material forces (traits of content) to coni pose new signs (traits of expression), parricles-signs expressing a new corporeality, a corporeality of paint. This new corporeality anti the powers of composirion it unleashes usher in a new modeiniry for painring, one in which color and line break wirh their representarional funcrions rn hecome absrract. Abstraction, as an onto—aesrbetic definition of art and not simply a formal one, implies a new type ofperception as much as a new srvle, a perceprion ca pable of breaking down a subject‘s distance from the canvas, and breaking through a subjecrive oprics, to consrruct a smoorh and hapric space ofsensa tion. This is the abstraction of both Jackson Pollock and Francis Bacon, who push jr in their own directions. This non-optical space is wherc affect breaks free from its subective co ordinates to consrrucr a subjectivarion, an art-work as a mobile affcmal as semblage thar is both autopoietic and machinic. This is a hreak wirh horb rbe artist as intentional agent ofcreation, and vitb rhe art work as pure expiession. Once more we find a new onro-aestheric dimension; an “aesthetic paradigm“

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in which the creative processes ofchaosrnosis arc seen at work “flush with the real.“ Here, the art-work finds a new life, a vitaliry in which its construction is a direcr expression of its ontological conditions. As such, an art work is an affectual subjectivation that expresses a percept, a vision of the universe cm bodying thc construcrive owers of chaosmosis. This implies a further break, as the Arisrorelian concept ofa hylomorphically formed matter is replaced by a molecularised matter. A matter freed ro embody the chaosmic forces of the world, as rhey consrruct the world. This is also art‘s break with Romanticism, by which jr expresses a new construcrivist Nature, a modern nature or “Mechanosphere“ in which the art-work is composed through the cosmic forces jr embodies in an inhuman and animal sensation. Our major example ofrhis revalued art practice was the work ofFrancis Bacon, whose paintings operare a catastrophic “diagram“ that breaks with the clichts occupying the canvas by introducing a chaos that wipes them away. But this chaos is itself‘artisric,‘ it contains the creative forces that arc expressed in being composed hy Bacon‘s diagram. Bacon composes these forces rhrough his fractal art hisrory, a series of engagements wirh historical art sryles by whicli he rakes less than their whole, bur more also, as each ‘recapitulation‘ is a reinvention. Bacon‘s break with an historical style is enrirely affirmative, inasmuch as it rakes eacFi style‘s break, its crearion ofa new onrological space for painring, in order to urilise this power in its own way, and so break wirh ir again. Bacon‘s crearive breaks compose a new body, a Body without Organs, an embodiment of painring beyond irs ohjecrive or subjecrive conditions. The BwO is a painring-body operaring as an Arraudian “nerve-merer,“ expressing irs chaosmic condirions rhrough a srricr consrrucrivism no less rigorous for being hysrerical. Bacon‘s absrracr machine is on one side entirely acrual, a for mal diagram of unerring precision, and on the orher urterly cosmic, plunging into chaos to bring back somerhing new. Bacon arrives in his work at the “Iiicr“ of a hodv beconiing, not just rhose of Bacon‘s figures hut our own, a merge made visible in rhe consrrucrion ofa “hapric eye,“ and irs visions ofa rransversal “flesh.“ And each of these hreaks is itseif produced by anorher, thar of Deleuze and Guarrari‘s machine. I)eleuze breaks wirh Njerzsche‘s eternal return ofthe same, to make the same thar which rerurns difference. Deleuze breaks with Spinoza ro make the artribures the mechanism by which modal existence ex presses a differenrial essence, an essence consrructed by an acrualiry givingjoy. Through the attributes immanence becomes a univocal reality in which ex pression=consrrucrion, an atheisric onro—aesrherics against any rranscendenr or emanarive onro-theology Deleuze‘s cinema will break wirh Bergson. by discovering a crack in the sensory motor rhrough which a crysral-image

(onc1usion

22$

emerges to express and consrrucr durarion. just as Deleuze and Guartari will break wirh Peirce and Hjelmslev, moving beyond rheir semioric theories in purring them ro work in their own wa) The list goes on. A break wirh orringer to free the Gorhic line, a break wirb rhe romanric sublime, a break 7 ‘X with modernisr art—theory ro produce a nindern painring no longer oprical hut haptic. A break with pbenomenology ro find Bacon‘s painring as heing in-rhe-world. No creation wirhour desrrucrion, and Deleuze and Guarrari arc forever serting machines in motion which break with their previous derermi nates in order ro creare somerhing new. This is rhe desrrucrion-creation ofrhe aesthetjc paradigm, and defines the conditions for any work ofarr, the break thar allows it ro creare the spilled and broken world. THE SPILL

The spilled and broken world. Perhaps we should reverse Pvnchon‘s phrase, because jr is rhrough rhe break which somerbing will emerge, spill inro being if you like, somerhing will be creared. Bur of course, and as we have repeat ‘ seen, these two things happen rogerher, and rogether rhey define rhe 1 3 edl a— ramerers of I)eleuze and Guarrari‘s marerialisr-viralisr onrology: a brcak releasing vital marters-forces, the forces consrrucring a becoming-world. Whar is consrructed is a poinr of view, a perspecrive—in other words: a life. Art does not live in the world, nor in US, jr consrrucrs a world whjle sirnuira neously expressing ir, ir lives as this immanent plane of composirion. This plane of composirion is a differenrial plane of forces, expressed in rhe srrucrion of sensarions, and consrrucred by sensario n‘s living refrains of colors and absrracr lines, an irreducible doubled dimension, expressed in a life, as life, in art and as art. Art is rhis process ofcrearjon, at once cosmic and mo— lecular, the internal—ourside of pure immanence. “X7e will say of pure imma— nence,“ Deleuze writes, “thar ir is A LIFE, and nothing else. Jr is not immanence ro life, hut the immanent thar is in notbing is irselfa life. A life is rhe immanence ofimmanence: ir is complere power, complere bliss.“ Pure immanence is onrology as the theory and practice ofa crearive life, because we cannor rhink rhis onrological power “in irself“; ir has no “in itself“ and only exists as rhe becoming-new in rhings, in art. This makes Deleuze and Guartari‘s onrology inseparable from aesrherjcs, inasmuch as pure immanence is whar appears, as whar appears—whar appears when essence is exisrence. What appears is sensation. Sensation is the heing ofsensarion difference— bur rhis differential essence only exists as affects (hecomings and visions (per— cepts), in other words ir only exisrs in ana‘as e.perience: a life. Sensation must be consrrucred in experience, in and as art, for irs infinite and onrogeneric

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plane of matters-forces, its differential field, only exists as such. Nothing is given. Inasmuch as art creates a sensation then, art cieates the finite that re stores the infnite. 1 have suggested that this double dimension ofsensation, of art, implies a Deleuzeo-Guattarian onto-aesthetics as the always doubled interrogation ofart; \vliat is it, and how does it appar? Inseparable questions. Sensation is at once this sensation, this work of art, and its cosmic conditions, art is an expression that constructs the world. “We are not in the world,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “we become with the world; we become by con templating it. Everyrhing is vision, becorning. We becorne universes“ (W1 1 69). Finite and infinite; the artist, the mystical atheist, the visionary, the life. We have seen this visionary art emerge in each of the chapters of this book. In Nietzsche Deleuze finds the ontological conditions for appearance in the will to power, hut will to power is never outside of its expressions in the world, its simulacra. Artists arc those strong enough to affirm will to power, and art‘s expression of life‘s genetic conditions is norhing but the re-crearion ofthese condirions. As a resulr, the simulacral art work embodies the eternal return of will to power as difference, as becoming. In Spinoza Deleuze finds a univocal ontologv of God/Nature, and an expressionism in the modes and through the artribures. The constant variation of the modes, God‘s constant becoming, expresses the affect‘s essence, an essence which is itselfdetermined only by the differential relations it maintains wirh the infnite essences consti— tuting God. i‘hrough a Vision of affectual essence then, through an art of common notions, it is possible to know God as God knows himseif: beati rude. Deleuze uses Bergson‘s term for a creative and univocal being in the cm— eina books, duration. Duration as the past, not previous to the present but coexisting with it, producing the image as it is forever splitting into past and present. Durarion emerges in this absolutely contemporary moment consti tuting the fracture of time. Modern cinema‘s visionarys or seers produce im ages of rhis split, images which construcr time‘s bifurcations as an expression ofits virtual infinity Similarly, in the sensation a finite work produces an ex perience restoring it to irs infinire and immanent plane of composition. Finally, in the abstracr lines of Pollock and rhe complex diagram of Bacon a new vision of painring enlerges, a “haptic“ vision in which the eye “touches“ the painting. Vision is no longer the passive receprion ofa separate I/eye, hut a corporeal convialsion encompassing a becoming indiscernibly in the work and of rhe world. Painting has become the rnaking visible‘ ofsensation, a sen sation which construcrs and expresses the world. Ifwe can say, or have said, that Deleuze and Guattari offer an ontology which cannot be thought apart from its creative processes, apart that is from the producrion of feelings or sensations that borh express and construct the

Conclusion

225

material and energetic world, rben we must say as precisely as possihle, how art does this. This is to undersrand the other (artistic) side of I)eleuze and Guatrari‘s abstract machine. ART AS ABSTRACT MACH INE The abstract machine on the one hand composes the matter and force mak ing up a plane ofconsistency, and on the orher expresses jr in an actual blage. lt is on the one band a general rerm for the onto-aesrherics ofcrearion, and on the other rhe parricular evenr of construction, the construcrion of an infinite plane expressed in a work of art. Art as abstract machine therefore means autopoiesis, the autopoiesis of the chaosmos. The autopoietic abstract machine appears as a refrain or sensation, a composition ofa virrual plane of immanence expressed in an affectual assemhiage rhat is enrireiv acrual. The re frain or sensation is rhe creation of art, art as the consrruction of affecrual bodies or subjecrivations expressing an infinite virruality rbey actualise, an(l a counter-actualisation that constructs the virtual and infinite world anew. Art as Abstract Machine operates specifically in sensation, wbich never theless has a double sense in relation to art. On rhe one side, jr means a trans formation of sensibiliry, a break witb human pel-ceprions and meanings in order for the being ofsensation to appear directly as sensation. Again, this bas various fields of resonance wirhin Deleuze and Guaeeari‘s work. We have al ready mentjoned its relevance to our discussion of Nierzsche, Spino7a, and Bergson. In the later chapters, this revalued or transformed sensibiliry emerged in a haptic, smoorh space co-extensive witli tbe operation ofa hap tic eye. Haptic space and the eye rhat is irs producrive condition appear ro gether in an affecrive assemblage or subjectivation, an anirnal vitaliry or “flesh“ of the BwO. The BwO embodies a new sen sihiliry defining art‘s bio aesrhetic dimension, a dimension in which art is no longer simply the realm of human expression, but sings a song ofmolecules. Along wirh rhe revalued sensibilirv involved in having a sensation, is a revalued artisric technique capable ofproducing ir. This is rhe practical‘ side of the abstract machine, inasmuch as any machine involves a “practice.“ We looked ar various examples, all ofwhich shared a basic necessity; rhey broke wirh representation. Each art form does so according ro irs parricular mate rial modaliry. Painting‘s rnaterialiry involves line and color, and it is bv using line and color against its representarional functions that painting expresses the immanence of inorganic life directly in a sensation, lhis involves freeing color from its overcoding by the line so that form ernerges through the mod ulation of color as a set of differential relations, and freeing die line from its

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represenrational function so as to give it a non-striated movement. In both cases, what is involved is a “rnolecularisation“ of matter, by which its materi ality is able to beco nie expressive, and able to “clasp“ chaosmic forces in a sen sation. “Paintings erernal ohject is this“: Deleuze and Guatrari write, “to paint forccs“ (WI 182/172). For painting, this nieaiis composing a coloring sensa tion, and we looked closely ar the way both the Venetian painters of the Renaissance, and Francis Bacon, each in their own way, do this. In both cases this process involves an absolute dererritorialisation of painting‘s material el ements, both its matter, and its processes of composition. These, in escaping the overcoding ofa ciassical line in the Venetian case, and through the catas trophe with whicb Bacon‘s diagram begins, allow for new mechanisms ofcon srruction and expression to emerge. defining a new reality of painting. ObviousIy this reality is not the same for the Venetians and for Bacon, but each in their own way approach an abstraction in wbich color is able to render the forces of tue plane of composition visible. This means that in both cases an abstract machine is in Operation through which art becomes adequate to its real conditions, and art produces a sensation. Here sensation is gained through colorism, a use of color‘s differential relations that opens painting onto infinity, while cornposing a world. In a sensation, a painting‘s color— forces emerge in niovement, and our perceptual participation in color‘s differ ential quantities enables a becoming to take place both on and in front of the painting‘s surflice. Nevertbeless, colorism emerges in painting according to specific historical contlitions, and we saw how the Venetian break with the painting diagrams that preceded and accornpanied it expressed both the dy narnisms of new materials, and older traditions such as Byzanrine art, to which this materiality was conjugated. In certain ofjackson Pollock‘s painrings it is the line that is freed from any descriptive function. Pollock achieves this breakthrough by inventing a new compositional machine, one that unleashes new abstract and vital forces in paint. Pollock‘s paintings not only create a new type ofabsrraction, but carry abstraction to its limit, bevond any optical perceprion (beyond that is, the “pure opricality“ of Greenberg‘s modernist reading) in a haptic smooth space where the viewer-painring relation is replaced hy rhe vital movemenrs of ab stract lines that traverse ir. Finallv, in cinerna we saw a different materiality, that ofduration, where the universe exisrs as moving images of light. This materi ality ofcinema is nevertheless whar its images borh construct and express and I)eleuze offers an intricate and precise taxonomy of the ways cinema achieves this. With time-images cinerna discovers the way ro move beyond its Bergsonian condirions to direcrly express duration—as whole and as part, as multiple in Bergson‘s rerms—in a vision of and as the becoming oftime.

1

Conclusion

227

‘What is common to all of these examples is the necessarily double di mension oftheir absrract machines. Nevertheless, and as Deleu7e and Cuattari often stress, the absrract inachine is not a “thing,“ it is a process, and irs most important moment is no doubr its crearion, which must be undertaken each rime, anew, andj2r real. This is once inore the imperative ofthis books tide, because “Art as Abstract Mahine“ means norhing unless we do it. I‘his returns US tO the necessity ofaffirmation, ours first of all, hecause it is onlv hy experi menting, by attempting this operation ofinvention, of making a leap offaith inro the unknown that we will have a sensation, and that we can aspire to the ritle of artist (or of art as abstract machine). Affirmation is the engine of Deleuze and Guattari‘s constructivism, the mechanics of their philosophical crearions (even when what is constructed is not altogether convincing, as in the case ofGuattari‘s image of Duchamp), and musr be the starting point for any approach ro their system made in good faith. But what is the meaning of this seemingly banal pre-requisire of Deleuze and Guattari‘s pbilosophy—af firmation? What is affirmed in each case—Nietzsche, Spinoza and Bergson, as weil as the variety of artisric examples we have discussed—is a creative mma nence, a vital materialism both expressed and constructed hy the work of art. And more than iust a simple deciaration offaith in a divine creation, ir is pre cisely this affirmation that is the way that immanence works, that God is Nature, or the will to power returns. Affirmation is the hreak necessary for something to happen: “Hence the sole thing thar is divine is the nature of an energy of disjunctions, when it attracts ro itself the entire process of produc— tion and serves as its miraculate, enchanted surface, inscrihing it in each and every one of its disjunctions“ (AO, 13/19). ‘Fo believe in the break, to affirm a disjunction in which product and production arc in absolute iminanence, to affirm finally, a plane of abstract machines, is the very condirion ofart‘s possi bility, the very condjtion of its actuality Affirmation would he, then, Guatrari‘s “blind trust in the movement ofdeterritorialization at vork.“ THE LEAP OF FAITH

Jr seems paradoxical that I)eleu7e and Guattari‘s philosopby, so avowedly atheist, so utterly materialist, and so ecstarically inhuman, should bring us hack to that most human qualiry, trust or belief Wby thun is belief necessary? Because belief in this world is the atheist, materialist, and inhuman condirion ofits sensation. Because in the end we cannot think rbis inhuman world, it is precisely what cannot be rhought, and cannor he represenred, aml >‘er it is that which our deranged senses arc forever feeling. To return to cmema 2, and one of Deleuze‘s most beautiful passages, be describes ihe spiritual automaton,

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(but lt is equally Nietzsche‘s Dionysus, Spinozas man of beatitude, or the painter hirn or herseif—Pollock “in“ his painting) the one who has received a shock, and has seen avision ofthe world in its infinite becoming. What to do in the face of such an image? Ofcourse we react, we feel and we see, but no longer with eyes which can represent, or a mmd which can explain. “The spir itual automaton is in the psychic situation ofthe seer,“ Deleuze writes, “who sees better and further than he can react, that is, think. Which, then, is the subtle way out? To believe, not in a different world, but in a link between man and the world, in love or life, to believe in this as in the impossible, the un thinkable, which none the less cannot but be thought“ (C2, 170/221). The visionary sees more than his or her humanity can bear, the inhuman univoc ity of the reciprocal construction/expression of the seer and the world. Here all organic complernentarities between man and world are broken, and must be replaced with soinething else, with belief There is, and Deleuze is at his most affirmative here, “the erasure of the unity of man and the world, in favour ofa break which now leaves us with only a belief in this world“ (C2, 188/245). Any construction, any expression of this world, ofthe world as new, requires belief, and belief becomes the complete bliss of pure imma nence. We discover in a sensation, in art as it is understood by Deleuze and Guattari, the necessity for a mystical and yet atheistic belief in man and the world, in their irreducible and incomprehensible link, nothing less than the belief in “the identity of thought and life“ (C2, 170/221). Ofcourse, this is a certain sort of rhought, and a certain sort oflife, the particular expression and niost cosmic construcuion ofa mystical aesthetics, the atheism ofart. But art in these terms is precisely what cannot be thought or lived; lt exceeds our human life and thougbts and must be believed in. Belief as inorganic thought, chaosmic thought, is what comes after man‘s organic relation to the world is broken. Our connection to the world has changed ontological co-ordinates, and is now “the impossible which can only be restored within a faith. [. . Only belief in the world can reconnect man to what he sees and hears“ (C2, 172/223). lt is the beliefofDionysus, who alone has, according to Nietzsche, “thefiith that only what is separate and individual may be rejected, that in the totality everything is redeemed and affirrned—he no longer denies (TI, “Expeditions of an Untirnely Man,“ 49). This is the faith of the truly intoxi cared, an atheistic belief in this world as a being-in-the-world, a mystic mate rialism without any transcendental dimension. This is the belief that our sensation encompasses man and the world in a cosmic co-creation, and is, fi nally, our belid in art, the belief necessary to art. An art that fulfils Deleuze and Guattari‘s fundamental ontological, aesthetic and ethical condition—to create. But believing in art in this post-modern world is not so easy. As .

&nclusion

229

Deleuze and Guattari warn us: “lt may be that believing in this world, in this life, becomes our most difficult task, or the task ofa mode of existence still to be discovered on our plane ofexistence today“ (WP, 75/72), 1 lie art of belief waits to be created. Again. So perhaps this book has been norhing but a staternent of belief Could there be a more perverse ending to a book of pbilosophy than a starernent of belief? No doubt this is not the first. But as the expression ofa life, sometimes painful, often uplifring, it exists, ifas nothing else, then at least as an expres— sion of belief

Notes

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Cilles Delenze, “Cold and 1 leat,“ Pliotogenic Fioziring; i). 64. 1 use “Deicuac and Gnatjaii“ here, as 1 du in tue bonk‘s ndc, w reler 10 nie work done bv Deleuzc alonc, lw (uattari alone, and Iw die two trgerher. ‘herc 1 am discussing the work Delenze or Cnattari bave done separatelv this will be indicated in the text, .is will ans‘ divergences hetween their oeu— vrcs, or across tbem, when they arc relevant 10 onr diseussion. We nced only i-hink of Professor Challenger from A Tbousand Plateain: “Disarticulated, deterritorializcd. Challenger mutrered that he was taking the earth wirb him, thar he was leaving fr the mystenions world, bis poison garden“ (ATP 73/93). (illes Deleuze, “Mystieism and Masoehism,“ Desc‘ri Is/dfldS and Ot/ier 7/‘xts, 1 953—1974, p. 134. (“Mysnique ei masochkme,“ L‘!/e D/serte er Aurres 7?xtes, textes et entretiens, 1953—1974‘, p. 186) This forniulation comes front Iric Allie, who has explored us implications from his earliesr work in La Signature du monde: On questce que /i pbzloso— pure de Deleuze er Guattari? (a translauon is fortbLoming froin (Zontinuum) where it is stated ar the end ofthe first appendix, to bis latest, 1 ‘Oeil-cerveau. Dc lii peinture moderne (willi Jean-CIet Martin) and La Penuie_Matise (wirb j ean—Claucle Bonne) (borb arc forthcoming Front Senil and Gallimard re— specniveh‘) where he develops its iniplications in ici ms ofa new genealogy of modern art. 1 was fortunate enough to arrend ric Allicis seminar at the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien from 2000 2003, and my under— standing of this point, and many otbers concerning Delcuze and Gtiatrari‘s pbilosopliy of art, pays an immeasurahle debt to bis work. Michel dc Cerreau, “Mvsticism,“ Diacritics, 22.2, summer 1992, p. 12. See also The Mystic Fahle, Volume L Ti?e Sixtet‘nth and Seveurceurb Centuries. Dc Certeau‘s work retrievcs inystical cxpressions from theit scientific objectifica fion, and considers rhein instead as “formalities“ (i.e. ahstraet machines) ex— isting across a wide fange of disconrses .md practices. t pro ided an ininial

Notes to hapter One

232

inspiration for my project liere. De Cericau also reccts any separation ofthe ontological elements of mystical discoursc frorn their expressions, suggest— ing a construuivist understanding ofmysticism tltat 1 have also tried to pur— sue. Dc Ccrteau argiles: “Ehe Other that organizes the text is not an outside ofthe text. lt is not an imaginary ohject that one inight distinguish from the movement bv which it is sketched. fh beate it apart, to isolate it from the tcxts that exhaust themselves trying to express it, would be tantarnount to exorcising it hy providing it wiih its own place and name“ (The Ivfystic Fahle, p. 15). ‘l‘his is a precise definition of niysticism in terins of the expression— ism=constructivism equation. 7. John Rajchman for example, has written: “lt is a sharne to present hirn 1 Deleuzel as a metaphvsician and nature mystic.“ (“lntroduction,“ Gilles Deletize, Pure Inimaneuce, Essays an A Lifr, p. 7) Similarly ifless caregorically, Ronald Bogue writes: “Though this blending of bodies and sensations, of people, art—works, and cosntos, niay sound lilce sheer rnysticistu, it is based on a coherent theory of nature as creation“ (Deleuze an Music, Painting, und theArts, p. 170). 8. Tliis is part of the rather hilarious interview “Faces and Surfaces,“ Desert Jslands und Other Jats, 1953—1974, p. 281. (“Faces et Surfaces,“ L‘Fle d/serte et autres texts, textes et entretiens 1953—1974, p .392) 9. Gilles Deleuze, “Mysticism and Masochisni,“ Desert Islands und Other 7xts, 1953—1974, p. 134. (“Mysrique et masochisme,“ L‘ile d6serte et autres texts, textes et entretiens 1953 1974, p. 186) NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE 1. FriedriLh Nictzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, “Of the Bestowing ofVirtue,“ 3. All reference to this hook now found in the text following the abbrevia— “Z.‘ 2. (;illes Deleuze, “Nomad Thought,“ Tl‘e l“/ew /“hetzsche, p. 145. (“Pens& Nomade,“ LYIe De‘serte et Atitres Ttvtes, textes et entretiens, 1953—1974, p. 357) 3. Friedrkh Nietzsde, The Gay Science, 290. All refircnces to this book now found in the text following the abbreviation “GS.“ 4. Friedrich Niettschc, The Will to Power 795. All references to this book now found in rhe text folbowing thc ahbreviation “WtP“ 5. Friedrich Nictzschc, ‘Jii‘ilight of tie Idols, “E‘cpeditions ofan Untimely Man,“ 33. All rcfcrences tu tltis book now found in the text folbowing the ahbrevi— atioit “11.“ 6. Friedrich Nietische, On the Genealotj ofMorals, 1, 6. All refcrences to this book 110W found in the text following the ahbreviation “CM.“ 7. Gillcs Dcleuze “Coldness and Cruelty,“ !vfasochisrn, p. 14. Similarly, Deleuze has writtcn titat “syinptontatobogy is bocated almost outsidc medicine, at a

Notes to chapter One

233

ncutral point, a zero point. where artisis und phibosophers and doctors and patiems can corne togethc‘r.“ “Mysticism arid Masochism“ Desert Islands und Other Ji‘xtes, 1953—1974, p. 134. (“Mvstiquc et masochisme,“ Li‘le l)c.serte etAutres Textes, textes et entretiens, 195.3—1 94, p. 186) lt would be as an art ofsymptoinatobogy that we can tmderstancf Delctizc‘s tahle of types and qual— ines in bis book en Nietzschc. (N1 146/166) Similarlv, bis discussien ufthe “clinical essence“ of eacli art is also a symptomatology (FB,54/55). As he writes elsewhere: “There is always a great deab of art involved in the group— ing of symptoms, in the organisation of a tu hie whcre a part icttbar symptom is dissociated from anothei jnxtaposcd to a third, and forms the new figtire ef a disorder or illness. Clinicians whe arc ahle tu renew a symptomatobugi— cal tahlc produce a werk ofart; coHvcrsclv, artists arc clinicians, 1 1 they arc clinicians ofcivilisarion“ WS, 237/276). This introduces the necessitv of a taxonomy of syrnptorns, a criticai and clinica/ taxonolny, which 1 shall cx— amine in chapters 3 and 6. The passage diese quetations come front aus as a succinct Deleu,ian gboss to the lines frem 7it‘iiiht of‘the Idols circd ahovc: “According to physicists,“ Deleuze writes, “noble energv is the kind capahle oftransfornting itself, while the hase kind can ne bonger do so. Thcrc is will tu power on hotli sidcs, hut the latter is norhing niere tItan will—to—doniinatc in dc cxliansted hecoming oflik, while the former is artistic will er ‘virtue which givcs,‘ the crcation of new possibilities, in the outpouring becoming“ (C2, 141/185). Hence Nietzsche‘s fatnousline: “BeyondGoadandFvii—At least tbis docs not mean ‘Beyond Good anti Bad“ (CM, 1. 17). Bcvond the wcak man‘s “bad“ morality ofgeed and evil, the strength of the eaglc is geod. The Nietzschean art ofcreativc critique will remain a conditien of‘ Dcleuze‘s ptejecr till the cnd, anti is affirmed in thc last book hc s‘rotc vith Cuattari: “Ctiticism implies new concepts (of thc thing criticised) just as much as the most positive creation“ (WIi 83/80). Gillcs Deleuze, “Nietzsche,“ Pure hnmanence, Ftsays an A Lfi‘, p. 73. (Nietzsc/ie, p. 24) Cilles Deleuze, “Nierzsche,“ Pure hn,nanence, Essa ‘s an A Lzfl‘, p. 74. 1 (Nietzsche, p• 25) “To interpret,“ Dclcttie te determiiie thc forcc wltich givcs to a thing. To evabuate is to determine the will to power whieh gives value to a thing. ‘3Ve can ne more ahstract values from the standpoint ftom which they draw value than ahstract incaning frem the standpoint from which it drasvs its signification. The will te power as gencalegical element is that fiem which scnses derive their sigitificance und vahtes their valucs“ (Nli 54/61). As Deleuze writes: “Nietzschc rcplaced thc ideal ef kiiowledge, the discovcry ofthe true, with interpretation und evaluation.“ Cilles Deleuze, “Nictzsche,“ Pure Immanence, Essays an A Lift, p. 65. (Nietzsche, p. 17) ...

8.

9.

10.

11.

12. 13.

writes,

we

14.

can

“is

23 t

Notes to Chapter One

15. As Niettsche puts it: “For assuming that one isa person, one nceessarily also has the philosophy that belongs to that person; but there is a big difference. In sorne it is their deprivations that philosophise; in otbers, their riehes and strengths“ (GS, preface, 2). Similarly, Nietisehe writes: “Ii has gradually become elear to mc what every great philosophy bas hitherto been: a confession on die part of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir; moreover, that die moral (or immoral) intentions in every philosophy have every time consti— tutcd die real germ of life mir of which the entire plant has grown. To explain bow a philosopher‘s most remote metaphysical assertions have actually been ar— rived at, lt is always weil (and wise) to ask oneseif first: what inoraliry does this (does he-) aim at?“ (Beyond Goodana‘Evi4 6) This means, as Deleuze is fond of potnting mir, we always get the thoughts and feeling we deserve. See; Nl 104/119, DR, 159/206—7, and “Flow Do We Recognise Structuralism?“ C.S. Stivale, The Two-Fold Thought of Deleuze and Guattari: Intersections and Anirnatiopis, p. 270. (“A quoi reconnait—on le structuralisme?,“ L1Ye Dtfserte et Autres lixtes, textes et entretiens, 1953—1974, p. 254) 16. Henry Miller, The World ofSex, p. 94, New York: Grove Press, 1965. 17. This passage elearly marks the differences berween Deleuze and Martin Heidegger‘s wcll-known interpretation ofNietzsche. For Deleuze the imma— nence of being and becoming is central to bis univocal ontology, not just in relation to Nierzsebe, hut throughout bis oeuvre. For Heidegger, interpret— ing Nicrzsche as die “last metaphysician,“ this passage “suggests that l3ecoming only is if lt is grounded in Bcing as Being.“ This implies, Heidegger argues, that “for Nietzscbc will as will to power designates the essence of Being.“ Because art is the way will to power, or Being, becomes “geiiuiilely visible,“ lt will be possible to “grasp will to power itself in irs essence, and dereby being as a whole with regard to its basic character“ in art. As we sball see, for Deleuze will to power has im basic eharaeter and is not a metaphysical category because it is always under construction, always erearing the perspectives constituting its becoming. The Heidegger quota tions arc froni Nietz.sche vol. 1, Will to Power as Art, p. 19, 39, 72, and 92. 18. T. S. Eliot, “Preludes,“ The Wastelandana‘atherpoems, p. 10, London: Faber and Faber, 1 972. 19. One of Deleuze‘s most important arguments, his anti-Hegclian affirmation ofdifftrence, is rherefore entirely Nietzschean. Deleuze writes: “Difference is not die negative; on the conrrary, non—being is diffcrence [ 1. This (non)— being is die differential element in whieh afdrmarion, as multiple affirina tion, finds rhe principle of its genesis. As for negation, this is only a shadow of the highesr prineiple, the shadow of difference alongside the affirmation produeed. Once wc confuse (non)-being wirh the negative, contradicrion is inevitably earried mm being; hut contradietion is only rhc appearance or die epiphenomenon, die illusion projecred by the problem, the shadow of a .

.

.

Notes to Chapter One

20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

25. 26. 27.

28.

2$ 5

question wbicb remains open and of a being which corresponds as such to thar question (beHre it lias bcen given a response)“ (DR, 64/89), Friedrich Nietzscbe, Human, All fig, Human, 51. All references to this book now found in the text fbllowing die abbreviarion “1 IH.“ Friedrich Nierzsche, Letter, 2 December 1887, tJnpublished Letters, p. 125. In this scnse, Nietzsehe writes, anti-art gives witness 10 “a specific anti-artis miealimy of instinet—a mode of hcing which impoverishes and atenuates rhings and makes thein consumprivc. And hisrory is in f‘sct rich in such anti— arrists, in such srarvelings of life, who neeessarily havc mo take things to thcm selves, inspoverish thens, make rhein leaner“ (Tl, “Expedirions ol an Unrimely Man,“ 9). Fiiedrjch Nierzsche, The Antichrist, 14. All references to this book now found in die text following die abhreviauou “A.“ Affirmation in irselE Deleuze argues, is hecoming, or will to power. But as rhe object ofanother afflrmarion, ofan interpretation, will io power makes on being: “lt is primary affirmation (becoming) wlsich is being, hut only as the objecr of the second affirmarion“ (NP 186/214). The song of the artist philosopher: “Eternal affirmation qfbeing, eternally 1 am yaur afjirmation“ (Nictzsche, quoted, N1 187/215). These words arc spoken by Birkin, who is considered a self—porrrait of Lawrence, Women in Love, p. 48, 1 ondon: Pengtun, 1985. Gilles Deleuze, “Nierische,“ Pure Immanence, Essays on A Lift, p. 85. (Nietzsche, p. 34) Deleuze and Guamtari suggesm a kind of inroxieated sobriety, quoring Henry Miller: “To succeed in getming drunk, hut on pure ivater“ (ATB 286/350). Intoxication is not rh same as inebriarion, as Nieusche ofren stressed, See Daybreak, 50, 188, 269. Nierzsche introduces the concept of risc [)ionysian in bis firsm hook, The Birth ofTragedy, where rhe indiscernibility of arr-work and artist in inroxica— don is already presenr. Nierzsehe writes of‘ tlse Dionysian artist: “No longer artist, he has hiniseifbecorne a work ofart, the producmive power ofmhe whole universe is now manifest in his rransport, to the glorions satisfa.tion of the primordial One“ (The Birth of Tragedy, p. 24). In The Birth of iagedy tue Dionysian is opposed tu an Apollonian art of representarional forms, an op position Niet,schc rrics to sublate in the Greek art of rragcdy: “1iagedy is an Apellonian crnbodiment of Dionysiac insigbts and powcrs“ (The Birth of 1agedy, p. 8). This sublarion will nsean mbar The Jlirth of 7iagedy “smells of fensively Hegelian“ to Nicrzsche hy risc end of bis working life. (Ecce Homo, “Birth ofTragedy,“ 1 Referenees mo this hook now found in die text fiuiow ing the abhieviation “EH.“) Nierasche progressively distanees himself from this early oppositional fisrmulamion and its Romantie influcnces and gestures (especially in risc seeond Preface, risc “Arrcnspr At A SclfCiiticisni“ of 1886), .

236

Notes to Chapter One

and replaces lt vitli a concept of the Dionysian as the critical anirnal artistic stare necessary ro will to powers transvaluanon. 29. Jacqucs Derrida, Spiiis, p. 77. lt most 1w pointecl ont howevcr, thar Derrida‘s Interpretation of Nietzschc differs markeclly horn Deleuze‘s. for Detrida will 10 0WCt is a 1 leicleggercan Being, whose producrivc presence is forever veiled/iinvejed in an artists work. Art, on this account, is a rnechanisrn of deference that “writes“ will to power‘s presence/absence in a work. In this sense, au artists “style,“ Derrida writes, “uses its spur as i niean ofprotecnon agaifl$t die terrifving, blinding, mortal threar (of rhat) which preseuts itseif, which obsriuiarely rhrusts itselfinto view. And style rhereby protccts the pres— ence, the content, the thing iuself meamng, truth—on die condition at least that jr sliould not a/reatly be thar gaping chasrn whiclu has been deflowered iii tlw uuivciling ot cliffcrence. A/reaa‘J4 such is the name tor s‘hat has been ef— ftced ot suhtracted hclorehauud, bot which has nevertheless left hehind a rnaik, a signarure whiclu is rerracred in rliat very rhing hoin which ir is with— drawn“ (Spurs, p. 39). Sryle, for Derrida, unveils the difference berween that sylt ich prcscnts rselfand its prcsenration, and is die signature of the foniters vi thd tawal 10)111 the lauer. For Deleuze, style is the expression of the imuna— nence of will to power ‚tod hann, its intoxicating prescnce in the self—over— cotning—rhe hecoming—of forins. 30. Similarly, Deleuze writes, “man is in the image and bkeness of God, but througli sb we liave lost uhe likeness wliile renlaining in the image sim— Illacra arc prcciscly dcmonic images. srnipped of rescmblance“ (DR, 127/167). 31. Dcleuie is ever the gcncrous adversary liowever, and in the Coiicept of the sinulacra Deletuze will find Plato escaping hiuiusclf By affiruning the sirnu— lacrurn, Deleuze wrires, Ile is “dernonstrating rhc anti—Platonisrn at the heart of Platonjsin“ (DR. 128/167). 32. Alain Badiou, in a faseinating attack on Deleuze, attcrnprs a “reversal“ of Deleuzianism on the site of de simulacra, by reinserting the distinction hetween essence and appearance (idca and copy) into rhe heart ofDeleuze‘s acconnt of univocal hciuig. Badiou wnitcs, “ifone classes—as one should— evcry difkrerice wirhont a real status, every multiplicity whose onrological starus is tliar ot‘ the One, as simulacruun, theo the world of beings is the thearre ot die simulacrurn of Being. Srrangcly. rhe conseqiueuice has a Platonic, or even Neoplaronic, air to it. lt is as rliongh rhe paradoxical on super—eminent One imrnanently engenders a procession of heings svltose univocal sense it distrihutes, while they refer to ts power and liave onlv a seniblance of heing. Bot in rluis case, whar mean— ing is ro hc given to rhe Nierzsclican program Deleuze constandy validates: rhe overrurning of Plaronisrn? [ 1 Deleuzianism is fiindamentally a Platonisin with a diffirenr accentuation. [ J jr is necessary to affirm the nighrs of siunulaera as so many equivocizl cases oJ‘univocity thar joyously attest

Notes to Chapter One

ro the univocal power of Being“(J)eleuze: 7,t‘ (%arnour of ]3eing, p. ). 7 — 26 Badiou‘s “nevensal“ of Deleuze is ironicallv Deletuzian. iuiasmueh as he at— renlpts to producc a “unutanr child“ rhrotugli this veuitniloqtuisnl. Badiou‘s key suggestion is haar simnulacna arc mercly equivocal eases ol nnivocjly, (‘simu— lacrum ofBeing“) and so conform to a Neoplamonie rnetaphysics ofexpnession in which the univocal One neunajns transcendent. This is the crueial pojnt, and wbene Badiou broadens bis enitque to suggest Delenze most sacnifice a real niulriplicirv in order to maintain a 1. ‘nivoeal Being. As 1 sliall arguc liow— even, for Deleuze die simulacrum is not of Being, bot j‘, bciuig in its becoming. This implies, as we have already sbown, haar jr is only in heiuig constructed hy will ro power that “rhis“ world expnesses will to powel. In other words, rhene is no Being apart fnom becorning, and diene is no slupplernentanv dimension to die platte of immanence (will to power) 011 which rhe 0mw and die rnauuy, beiuig and beeorning arc continuallv const rucrcd ‚tod expnesscd. Tliis expres— sive/constructivc power of univocity Deleuze finds in Niemasche is norhing hut die power of the erernal rettirn, where Rerunning is heing bot only the beiuig of hecorning.“ (DR, 4 1/59) njc Alliez has attempted bis owut “neversal“ of Badiou‘s rejecnion of Deleuze‘s work with Guarmani. Alliei argues: “Badiou enects an image of Deleuze ‚isa metaphysician ofthe One, wliose essentiat 010— notony—in itseifindiftrens so diffrrences, subrraeted as jr is from the ‘mcx— haustible vanicty of die conerete‘ and frorn the anarchie confosioui of die wonld—can and must cause 05 10 disuniss the wonks co—authored wirh Flix Guattani, heginniuig widi the Ansi—Oedipus.‘“ Tue Politics of die Anti— Oedius—Thirtv Years Out,“ in R,id,ca/ P/n/osoph um. 124, manch-april 2004. Alliez omi the otben band, argues diar Deicozian philosophy becornes troly alive, beconnes a “hm —polirics“ tbai overcornes his earlier “bio—philosophy“ after Deleuze hegins to wonk with Guattani. See “The BwO Condition or, The Politics of Sensarion,“ in Biogmpbu‘n des wganlosen Jöipe;s. “Overturning Platonisrn,“ Deleuze vnites, “omeans denviuig the pnivacv of original over copy, ofmodel oven image; glonifying die reigim ofsimulacra and refiecrjons“ (DR. 66/92). Pierne Klossowski, jVieszsc/,e und die Vicions (‘ircli, 132. Klossowski goes 011 ro say, “eveny authentic artist is conscioos ot producing sonierhing haar is fit/se, namel‘ a sirnu/izcrnm.“ p. 223. Klossowski‘s hook ‘aas verv imilluential fon Deleuze. This is rhe problem witb philosophens as opposed mo artisis. rhey don‘r know how ro 1 ic. As Nietzsehe savs abour philosophers: “Thev know wltar ilwv have ro prove, rhey arc lmr1cticsl in tham—thev recoguiise otte anotben liv rhein agrecrnent over ‘trorhs.‘—‘Thou shalt not lie‘—an plam words: uake cane, philosophen, not to teIl the tnoth (T1, “1/spediriomis of an Untimely Man,“ 42). Of‘ course, jr is Ort only philosophens wllo hecorne ard is iii these tenms, as artists have often onderstood rhein wonk as simolacna. Van Gogh. for Cxaiilple, ‘

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33.

34.

35.

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AJtes to Chapter One who wrote: “1 bug most of all tu learn 1mw to produce those very abcrrations, reworkings, transbornianons of reality, as may turn into, well—a lie if you hkc—-but truer titan die litcral truth“ (Vincent van Gogh, Letter to Theo, July 1885, 1 ‘e Lette;s of Vincent van Gag!;, p. 307, translated by A. Pomerans, 7 london: Penguin, 1996). ‘Gui Gogh‘s painnngs arc no douht a good cxalnple eI simulacrum, nasmuch as their agitated colors and hrush strokes, their writbing Ines anti vibrant colors embody in an immcdiate materiality the vital life they alfirm. indeed van Gogh often seems to echo Nictzsche in his letters, aflirming at one poinr the necessary connection ofa vital art to a vital life. He writes te bis sister Wils, “rememher that wbat peoplc demand in art nowadays is somcthing very mnuch alive. with strong colour and great intensity So inten— sify vour own healtli and strengtis and life, that‘s the best study“ (letter, summer autunin 1887, in 7 ;e Lette;a f ½ncent van Gogh, p. 337). Vati Gogh‘s paint— ings arc not representational hut processual, a vital sensation appears in wbicb crows, die sky, tbe shimmering golden wbeat field arc nothing hut matter in movement, fbrces vihrating the world, a material world ofwhich 1 am a part, and wlmose lifi appears only in the inhuman affirmation which interprets it. jean-Clct Martin lias discussed van Gogh‘s work in these terms: “The wall that Vincent dreamned cl‘ passing through. of patiently croding, this was finally the limit separating inside trum outside, the snrface of die pailiting that turned its hack an things. Now this herder is over with, since rhe brain is becorning world even as life euters painting. The memhrane separating the Seen froni die seer has opcmied tip, ahsorhing things into the heart of the cye that contemplates tisemn.“ “Of Images and Worlds: Tbsvards a Geologv of the Cinema,“ in The Brain is ii Screen: Gilles Deleuze md the Phi/asophy ofCinema, p. 75. 37. Aesthctics heconies an “apodictic“ discipline, Deleuze writes, “only when we apprehcnd directly in the sensible that whicb can only he senscd, the very bei ng of the sensible: differcnce, poremial difference and difference in inten siry as ilse rcason hehind qualitative diversity. lt is in difference that move— mcnt is produced as an ‘efticr,‘ that phenomena Flash their meaning like signs“ (DR, 56—7/79—80). 38. Dcleuze‘s gloss on this passage is bclpfnl, amsd also givcs bis rather ingenious interpretation ofthe Nietzschean ctcrnal return ofthesame. “We misinterpret risc expression ‘eternal rettirn‘ ifwe understand it as ‘rettmrn ofthe same.‘ lt is not heimig tbat returns hut ratlser returnimig itseif that constitutes bcing inso— far as it is affirmcd ofbeconming and of tisar whicis passes. lt is not some onc rhing thar rerurns hut rather returning itsebf is die one thing that is affirmed ofdiversty er nsulriplicity. in other words, identiry in rhe eternal rettmrn does not descrihe tlse nature ofthat which rctmmrns hut, on the contrary, the fact of rcturning kir that which diffcrs“ (NP, 48/5 5). 39. Nietzschc writes sonsething similar; “it is always ivell to divorce an artist frons his werk, sud to take Imins bess seriously than ii. lic is, after all, only a condi— tioms of die work, tbte soib from which it grows, perhaps onby the manure of

Notes to (Jiapter One

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that soll. Thus he is, in most cases, something that must lw iiargortemi ifone wants to emmter tise full cnjoyment ofthe werk“ (CM, 111, 4). This is the meaning of Nietzsclsc‘s aflirmation ei selcctioms: “What dees all att da? Does ii not praisc? Docs it not higbbight? Bv doing all of this it strengthens tsr u‘eakens certain valuations Is this na niere than incidental? An accident? Something in which thc instimict ef mlie artist has mio part what— cver? Or is it not the prerequisite for die artist hcing an artist at all is bis basic instinct directed towards die nseanimsg of art, whieh is lift? Towards a a‘esideratum oflift? Art is die great stinsulus to life: how could it he tlsotight purposeless, ainsless, hart pour lart“ (Tl, “Expeditiomis of an Umstinely Mami,“ 24). The artist seleus, and in selecting makes thimsgs mnore heaimriful. The problem is that with the artist, Nietische writes, “tliis suhtlc power tisu— ally‘ comes tu an end where art cnds and life hegimis“ (GS, 299). Thus, risc prohlcni of “art“ is the selection of forccs that overcome tlse artist as human, for as Nietzsche argues, “man bccomes the transfigurer ofcxistencc whemi hc learns tu transfigure himsclf“ (‘sVtl 820). ‘l‘hese paintings, alniost always preduced in serics, bcgimm with the !llarilyn paintings (started in die ninmimh of her suicide), and comstinuc with scrics of Liz Taylor (painted whilc slme was criticalk‘ ill), }ackic Kcmsned Elvis, csr crashes, food poisomsing ( liinaflsb Disasted, suicides (most faniotmsly‘ die young woman lying on a car after jumpitsg te her death flora thc Emiipire Stare huilding) and die first series of Electric (.‘hair werks, among others. Paul Pan-on, for example, fimids rhis unlikeby, wrifing: “Tu die extern that Warhol‘s work still pbays witlm tlsc idea ef represemitation, it is not tue most appropriate aesthetic correlare tu Deleuzc‘s non—rcpresentatiomsal conceptien of thouglit“ (“Armti—Platonisni amsd Art,“ in Gilles De/enze and the Theatre of‘ 4 p. 155). 3 Philosoph, Gilles Deleuze, “Gold and licat,“ P/;otogenic Painting, GertrdFromanges p 65. On thc intricat-e repetitions of the varietms Elvis p mmigs, see Raiji Kuroda, “Collapsing/Collapscd Discoursc cmi \X/arbob. Regamdimsg Two Eh‘is Series.“ Andy iXitrhol 1956—86 Mirror of‘I]is Dme. lt is weIl knosvn that most of these werks were acttmallv execmmted liv W.mrhol‘s assisramir ar this timne, Gerard Mabamsga. Mere te die peint is Warhul‘s ewn af— firmation of this process as “like a Factory woubd da it.“ Gretchen Berg, “‘Nothing tu Loose,“ an interview with Andy Warhob,‘ 1967, Andy Wir/jol.‘ A Facto;:)4 unpaginated. Andy Warhob, “Interview ‘mvith Gemic Ssvamsson,“ Art in 7 ‘eorj 1900—1 990, An Antho/ogy ofGhanging Ideas, p. 731, cditcd bv C. 1 l,srrisun ammd P ‘/(‘ood. Oxford: Blackwcll, 1992. lnterestingly enough, the exact nunther of the Elvis series is not knowmi. See, Raiji Kuroda, “Collapsimsg/Collapsed Diseourse ort Warhol, Regardimsg Twa Elvis Series,“ Andy Warhol 1956—86. Mirror r f‘His urne. 1 .

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43. 44.

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48. A good cxample of this reading is Hai Foster, The Return ofthe Real The Avantgartle at the End ofthe C‘entu, Foster understands Warhol‘s simulacrai series as a play of signifiers over an unsigmhahle and traumatic Real. 49. As Warhol fainously suggested: “If you want to know anything about Andy Wtrhol just look at the surface of tny paintings and films and mc, and therc 1 am. There‘s nothing behind it.“ Gretchen Berg, “‘Nothing to i oosc,‘ an interview wirh Andy Warhol“ (1967, Andy Wzrhol. A Factory, nnpagi nated). 50. Gretchen Berg, “‘Nothing to Loosc,‘ an interview with Andy Warhol.“ 51. See For example Thomas Crow‘s infinential reading of these works as a hu manist Intervention by Warhol “in which the mass—producecl image as the bearer of desires was exposed in us inadequacy by rIsc reality ofsuflering and death. Delcuie, on thc contrary, is arguing that mechanical repetirion is en— tirelv adequate to rhc etcrnal return as cleath. Thomas Crow, “Saturday Disasters: Trace and Reference in Early ‘Warbol,“ Reconstructing Modernisrn: Art in iVew }rk, Paris, ana‘ Montreal 1945—1964, p. 318. 52. Although Elvis was obviously alive whcn the scrics bearing bis name was cre— ated, the image itselt‘ is redolent with death. The film it advertises, Flarning &a; teIls the story ofa halflmidian (Elvis) whose mother and fther arc killed in the coursc of conflict berween Indians and whites. The tide refers to the Indian belief that thc “fiaming star ofdcath“ is seen just hefore one dies, and in thc film both Elvis and bis mothcr otter the words: “1 can see the flanting star of death.“ See Raiji Kuroda, “Collapsing/Coiiapsed Discourse on Warhol, Rcgarding Two Elvis Series,“ Andy Warhol 1956—86: Mirror ofHis Tme, For a fascinating giimpsc iHto the continued “lifc“ of the simulacrum Elvis, after bis “death,“ where “the shade of Elvis is now an anarchy ofpossi— hilities, a stain off}eedom less clear, hut no less suggestive than the man hirn— self“ sec Griel Marcus, Dead Elvis, A (]hronicle ofa cultural Obsession, p. xviii, New fijrk: Douhlcday, 1991. 53. Dcspite heing published cightcen years later, Deleuze‘s description of ‘X“arhol‘s films in cinerna 2 seems to echo Diflrence and Repetition. Deleuze discusses Warhol‘s films in terms of an “cvcrvdav thcatricalization of the bodv,“ (C2, 192/249) or in thc terms of Dijfrrence and Repetition “a verita hIe theatre of mnetamorphoses and permnutations“ (DR, 56/79). This does, perhaps. also suggcst some continuities in Deleuze‘s approach in relation to our diseussion bcrc. Ccrtainly, the appcarancc of Nietzsche in Cinerna 2, in relation to cinema‘s “powers ol‘ die false“ does echo many of the concerns of this cliapter, and will hc dealt wirh more full>‘ in Chapter Three. lt is inter— esting to note that while the term “simulacra“ does fill out of Deleuzc‘s vo— cahulary, he mentions the timc—inlage‘s “sunulation“ in relation to cinema‘s powcr ofthc fiilse, which carries a similar meaning (C2,148/194). 54. “[Ilt is the maskcd,“ Deleuze writcs, “the disguiscd or the costumcd which tnrns out to bc thc truth of the uncovered“ (DR, 24/37).

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55. A “sign,“ Deleuic argucs, exprcsscs diffi.rcnee oh onc sidc, hut on tbc other “tends to eancel it“ (DR, 20/31). ‘1 bis two—sided aspect of thc sign is devel— opcd hy Delcuic, hoth in Di/Jrence and Repetition and in the arm ide “1 bw do we Recognisc Structuralisrn?“ in tcrrns of “stru(turc“ and “strueturalisrn.“ Dclcuzc argucs ihat thc diffcrcnciating demneni, which like death is what causcs elifferences to repcat hut is not iiself given in die rcpceition, is the uninsaginahle element “object=x.“ This “objeet“ “has no idcntiry exccpr in order to be displaced in relation to all places. As a resnlt, for each order of structtire the oh,iect=x is die crnpty or perforated 1tc tltat permims mhis order to he arriculared wirb die orhers, in a spade dar entails as manv direetions as ordcrs. Thc orders of die structurc dn not commumlicame in a common site, hut mhey all Comniunicate rhrough their empt plsec or respcctive ohjcct=x“ (DR, 278/264). For Dcleuze the meaning of srrucrmmralism and its series is fbund in this term without placc amtimating arne structurc. This terni is v hat lies “bcncath“ srructuralism—namelv nothi ng—hecausc all structurcs arc thc repetirion of the ohject=x in series. In this sense, a sense which has a good deal of historical precision, Pop art wommld he type of smructuralism. Bot in Anti—Oed,t,us, Deleuzc rurns on structuralisni amid on one of its major ligures, J acqnes Lacan, and rejccts hoth its negative ontology (as the expression of a real hut ernpty placc), its undcrstanding ofhecoming in terrns ofserial strue— turcs, and irs retennon ofa paradigm ofsignification. 56. Eric Alliez has expiorcd this tcnsion in Dcleuie‘s work hciwecn that done be— forc Guartari and that after—in tcrms of the eonccpt of the BwO—in “Thc BwO Condition or, The Politics of Sensation,“ Biographien des otgan/osen Körpers. 57. This would also be one way to undcrsrand the movc from Nietzsche ro Spinoza as Deleuzc‘s crucial philosophical referemice. Thc question hecomes lcss how to ovcrcornc man, than how man can hecome thc God hc already is. “A freeman thinks ahour nothing lcss titan death,“ Spinoia writcs, “ammd bis knowledge is a meditariomt on life, not dearh“ (Ethics, IV. ). 67 p 58. “Cokl and Heat,“ Photogenic Paintint, Gerhard Fimnangc; p. 65.

NOTE TO CHAPTER TWO 1. Bcnedicr dc Spinoza, Tue Et/‘ics, in A Spinoza Read‘,: All refemences to this hook now found in die text according ro mhe standard fiarns. Fot cxaniplc, die above quote is Ethics, V, P24. That is, The Et/ncs, hook \‘, proposition 24. Defimtitions (D), dcmnonsrratiom-ms (cl), colloquitmmns (c), scholia (s). appcndix (App.), Lcninia (L), and Prcfisec (Pref) also appear as ahhreviarions after quorarions cired in tlme text. 2. Felix Guarrari, “1 Am God Most Of‘l‘he Timnc,“ (Zbaosophy, p.S 1. 3. 1Vait ‘X‘hitnian, “Srarting frorn Pattnsanok,“ Selected Poems, p. . Toronto: 4 Dover, 1991.

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4. The distinction between Substance, attributes and modes can bc understood according Lo a scholastic distinction Spinoza sometimes employs. God ex presses irseif in itseif as natura naturans, while expressing itseif in its modes (produced within itseif), as natura naturata. lt is the attributes however, whicb articulare the absolute immanence ofCod‘s univocity, because the at— tribuics as essence constitute the natura naturans, as weil as being what is ex— pressed by modes as natura naturata. 5. GiHes Deleuze, Seminar Session On Scholasticism anti Spinoza, 14 January 1974. Deleuze is often vehement in his opinion of Hegel: “What 1 detested more than anything cisc was F Iegehanism and the Dialectic.“ quoted hy Brian Massumi, “Translators lntroduction“ (ATi 517). 6. For a discussion of Hegel‘s reading of Spinoza in these terrns, see, Montag, “Prefice“ to The Afew Spinoza. Also, Pierre Macherey, “The Pioblem oftbe Attributes,“ ihe New Spinoza, p.72—3. Aiberto Toscano dis cusses “the compulsive ritual of exorcisni which German pbilosophy bad submitted itseif to with regard to Spinozisrn.“ in “Fanaticism and Production: On Schelling‘s Philosoplty ofindifference“ in Ph, 8, 1999, p/i7. 7. Gilles Deleuze, Seminar Session On Scholasticisin anti Spinoza, 14 January 1974. 8. Antonio Negri, in bis important book The Savage Anomaly understands Spinoza‘s ontology in a similar way, writing: “There is no dialectic. Being is being, nonbcing is nothing. Notlung: phantasm, superstition, shadow. lt is op position. lt is an obstacle ofthc constructive project“ (p. 220). The mutual ad— miration of Negri and Dcleuze, especially in relation to their respective work on Spinoza, is weil known. Nevertheless differcnces and tensions bctween their readings cxist, sOmc ofwhicli will be the subjecr offurther footnotes. 9. Plato‘s metaphysics were revived in a neo—Platonism which emerged in the middlc ofthe third century, and which dominated the ancient world till the beginning of the sixth. lts most important figure was Plotinus, whose lee— tures aixl notes were edited hy Porphyry, and appeared as the Enneatis. This tradition passed into Christ ianity through numerous thinkers, the most im— portant being St. Augustine. Augusrine‘s hook city of God codified in Christian tcrms the rejeuion of the body and the embrace of the spirit he bund in neo—Platonic mysticism. For an accounr ofAugustinc‘s relation to neo-Platomsm see John D. O‘Meara, Studies in Augustine anti Eringena. 1 0. Quotcd in Phillip Goodchild, “Why is Philosophy so compromised with God?“ Deleuze andRehzion, p.l 5. 6 11. As Deleuze cxplains Plotinus, “tue One does not come out of itself in order 10 produce Being, because if it came out of itseif it would become Two, hut Being comcs out of the One. This is the very formula of the emanative cause.“ Seminar an Spinaza, 25 November 1980. Deleuze also gives a brief account ofneo-Plaronism in LS, 255/294. lt would be over the question of Spinoza‘s iinmanent/emanativc Substance that Negri and Deleuze would

Notes to Chapter Two

12. 13.

14. 15.

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first part ways. Deleuze cannot allow for an emanative interpretation of Spinoza‘s Substance as this would lead to a pure expressionism, without thc nsodal construction ofNature. Negri however, sees Spinoza‘s ontology as cm anative, inasinuch as it remains witinn a pamheistic rcalni in which God is in Nature, hut our mystical comprcbension ofGod is Iimitcd to retracing bis emanations. This implies a static divine rather than a God/Nature under construction, and is precisely what Deleuze seeks to avoid. “Spinozism,“ Negri writes, “resortcd to mysticism, and tbrougb mysticistn there re— emerged the old and always repeated pantheistic illusion of the immobility of heing.“ Timefor Revolution, p.2 1 4. Deleu,e‘s rcading of Spinoza‘s expres sionism is directly oppossed to Negri‘s ott this point, For Dcleuie, expres— sionism would “free univocal Being from a statc ofindifference or neutrality, to make it the ohject of a pure affirmation, whicls is actually reali,ed in an expressive pantheism or immanence“ (EPS, 333/309). Plotinus, quoted by Ddeuzc (EPS, 172/156). The question of Deleuze—Spinoza‘s relation to Plotinus res olves around Ilse relation ofan ernanative to an univocal ontology, and the structure ofexpres— siomsm each involves. According to Deicuze, this relation is not always clcar, for: “Expressive immanence is grafted onto die theme of emanation, which in part encourages it, and in part represses it“ (EPS, 178/162, see also EPS, 171—2/155—6). Finally, however, Deleuze argues tliat cmanation represses expressionism becausc it cannot (10 without a “nsininsal transcendence“ (EPS, 180/163). Dcleuze therefore d istinguishes an emanative ontology/the ology front a univocal and immanent otte, and this is the distinction 1 will pursuc in relation to Spinoza‘s “mysticism,“ As an intereseing alternative ac count, ric Alliez explores the conflueticcs of Dclcuze and Plotinus in capitab Times: Tales ftom the canqiiest af Dme, p..3 4 38. Quoted in Jeremy R. Carrette, Fauauht anti Reh,ion, Spirituab capareality anti Political pirituahisy, p.l 00. London: Routledge, 2000. Quoted in Ray L. Hart, “God and Creature in the Etcrnity and “lime of Nonbeing (or Nothing): Afierthinking Meister Eckhart,“ ilse Otherness fGad . Eckhart‘s God is similar to Plotintis‘ One in this respect, that the Otte can— 4 p./s not lte signified because it is “in truth beyond all statenlcnt“ (Enneads, V, 5, 13). Quotcd in Olivier Davies, “Thinking Difii‘rence, a comparative study ofGilles Deleuze, Plotinus and Meister Eckhart,“ Deheuze anti Rehzgion, p27. Michael I-lardt has suggested a provocatis e atheist version of incarnation in these terms. “Incarnation,“ he writes, “is first of all a metaphysical thesis that the essence and thc exisrcncc ofbeing arc otte and the same, There is rio on tological essence that resides heyond thc world. None of beitig or God or Nature remains outside existence, hut rather all is fitlly realiied, fully ex pressed, without rcrnajiider, in the flesh.“ in “Exposure, Pasolini in thc flesh,“ A Shock ta Thought, Eapressianism afier f)eleuze anti Guattari, p. O. 1 shall re 7 turn to this spiritual flcsh in Chapter Six.

24i

Notes to chapter 7vo

17. (illes Delcuie, Seminar Session on Spinoza, 24 January 1978. 18. Fernando Pcssoa, “The Keeper of Shecp,“ The Poems ofFernando Pessoa, p. 20. Translatcd and edited by E. 1 lonig and S. Brown, San Fransisco: City Light ßooks, 1998. Für Deleuze and Guattari on Pcssoa‘s work see W1 167/1 58. Für a short account of Pessoas relation to Deleuze and Guattari see Brian Masstuni, “Deleuze and Guartari and the Philosophy of Expression,“ Ca,iadjan Revieu‘ of (Jinnparative Literature, p. 756—7. 19. Für the story of Spinoza‘s relationship ro the Jewish church, and the signifi— cance ofhis hackground as a Marrano Jew, see Yirniiyahu ve1, Spinoza and Other Heretitz vol.2 The Adventures ofimmanence. 20. Gilles Deleuze, Seminar Ses.ion an Spinoza 25 November 1980. 21. Negri, while acknowlcdging diat atheisin is the creativc moment in Spinoza, nevertheless warns that it docs not avoid “in a dcfinitivc manner“ rhat point in dc judeo—Christian tradition where all experience is hrought back to unity. “1b cxpropriate Cod of us creativity is not decisive,“ he argues. ifwe allow cre— ativitv to hc defined still hy thc unity of rhe crcativc project. By doing so we make rhe divinutv worldly hut do not eliminate it.“ Spinoza‘s atheisin would in this way rcmain wirhin rhc Christian tradition in retaining “the ultimate defin— ing characieristic of die religious concept of creativity.“ Jnsurgencies, constituenj- Power anti the Modern Statt, p. 308. This would not seem a prob 1cm für Delcuic, who does not claim Spinoza‘s creative atheism is not religious, hut that crcativity as stich s die athcisrn proper to religion. Similarly, creativ— ity‘ cloes not rcmain unified in God, 011 Deleu7e‘S accouflt. hecause God‘s unity exisus oniv in the neecssary multiplicity of its creative movenicnts. In terms of Ncgri‘s political concept of constituent power, the crcativitv of Spinoza‘s inul— titude is rcstrictcd hy its retentiott ofan ideal unity in and as God. For Delenze however, and as we shall see, this is not a rcstriction because God‘s ideal unity is nothing hut die immanence of God in the multiplicity of müdes. In other words, it is not a question of unity hut of immanence. lt is God‘s immanence that is articulated through creativity, understood as rhe genetic process in which (,od is constructed (hecoming). as it is expressed (being). The creanve project wonld he bot!, unifed and multiple on this account. 22. Gilles Dcleuzc, Seminar Session osi Spinoza, 25 November, 1980. Deleuze and Guatrari wdl extend this idea to philosophy, writing thar: “Perhaps Cliristianity docs not produce coneepts except through its atheism“ (WI 92/88). 23. Art as ereation therefore defines hoth Nietzsche and Spinoza‘s atheism, just as it defines thcir mysticism. 1 did not develop an argument für Nictzsche‘s atheistic niysticism in die previous cltapter, ahhough 1 believe it lies implicit in much tliat 1 wrote thcre. lt scems to mc that the critical expressionl cmi— struction of will to powcr, and the powcr of die false it implies and emhod— ies in die simulacra, involves an athcistic mysticism which culminates in, and finds us propcr name as, art. As Nictzsche wrote, this is: ‘An art so divine, so

Notes to chapter 1o

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25.

“

infemally divinc ( 7he Anticl‘r,st, 61). Ofcourse, this comnion projecr of Nietzsche and Spinoza is niarkcd hy highly divergent means, and ii hardiy needs pointing out that Nietzschc‘s athcism will ins oive thc death of God, while Spinoza‘s involves his true undcrsanding, as what we alreadv arc. Dcleuzc‘s formulation of Spinoza‘s immanent anti expressive God, or Dcity, finds explicit cchoes in Alfred Notih Whitchcad‘s “proccss“ philosophv. Für an interestilig comparison of Dclcuze and Whitchead framed in terms ofthc enianativc/iininancnt relation 1 havc already discussed, see Arnand Viliani, “Deleuze et Whitehead,“ in Reime dc MetapIi‘sujue et dc Monde, No.2, 1996. Für Deleuze ott Whitehcad sec TF, 76—82/103—1 2. In A Thousand Plateaus Dcleu7c and Guattari oder a similar reading of Spinoza, this Linie through die intcrcession of Antonin Artaud. They arguc that the BwO is an unformed matter with an “intensirv = 0“ (ATP 1 53/189) and thus conforms to the “qualitative identity of die absolute“ (EPS, 197/18(1) Deleuic finds in Spinoia‘s Suhsrance. The BsvO is niodificd in quantitative individuanions measured as intensities, and expressed in acnual bodies and ideas (we will sec that Deleuzc reads Spinoza in preeisely these terms). This implies a siligle plane of immanence. the BwO, as a nnivocal heing which is continually hecoming iii its intensive individuations. “The hody withoun organs,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “is die immanent suh— stance, in the most Spilto7ist sense of die word; anti the partial ohjeers arc like its ultimate attrihutes“ (AO, 327/390). The BwO therefore secms to specifieally replv to Deletize‘s initial ohjection ahotit Spinoza‘s ontologv, inas— much as it, “effectivcly goes hevond anv Opposition hetween the oiie anti die multiple. [ 1 ‘There is a conninutim of all tue antrihutes Ot genus‘s of in— tensity under .1 single substance, anti a continuum of‘ die intensities ofa ecr— tain genus tnider a single t) pe or attribute. A eonununm ofali suhstanees in intensity and ofall intensities in substance, The uninterrupted couti auutn of die BwO. BwO, immanence, immanent hmit“(AT1 1 54/191). Gilles Deleuze. Negotianons. 1972—1990. This “identity“ is elahorated in Deleuze‘s discussions of Nietzsehe and Spinoia‘s shared devaluajion ofcon sciousness and inorality, and thcir sharcd atheisni. See SPR chapter 2, N1 39/44—5, and in Deleuze‘s discussiou of ihe affeet as an immanent es aluation in C2. 141/184—5. Thomas Bernhard, Extinction, p. 188, nranslatcd hy D. McLintock, London: Penguin, 1996. Artaud and Spinoza seem mi die fiiee of in an unlikely comhination, hut für Deleuze thcy hoth rceonstruet die hody outside of God‘s judgemeut. “The judgement ofGod‘ l‘)eleuze and Guartari svrite, “the System ofnlie jtidgernciit of God. the rheological system, is preeisely die operation of 1 le who niakes an organisin. an organisation oforgans ealled die organism, hecausc He can— not bcar the BwO“ (ATl 158—9/106—7). Artatid‘s BwO is Spinoza‘s God/Nature, Spinoza‘s EtIiics heing, they say, “the great hook ol die BwO“ .

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27. 28.

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Notes to chapter Two

29.

30.

31 32. 33. 34. 35. .

(ATP 153/190). The ethical question for botb is the same, “How Do You Make \burselfA Bodv Withont Organs?“ We will piCk up this question again in Chapter Six. This Spitiozian body of affeet is developed bv Deleuze and Guattari in A ihonsand Plateans. “A body,“ they write, “is not defined by the form that dc— termines it nor as a determinate substance or subject nor hy thc organs it pos— sesses or rhc functions it flilfils. On the plane efconsistency, a body is a‘efined on/y by a longitutle and a latitude: in othcr words the sum total of the mate rial elemems belonging to it under given relations of movement and rest, speed and s!owness (longitude); die sum total ofthe intensive affects it is ca— pable of at a given power or degree of potential (latitude). Nothing bot af— feets and bes 1 movements, differemial speeds. The credit goes ro Spinoza for calling attention ro diese two dimensions ofthe Body, and for having defined the plane of Nature as pure longitude sud laritude. Lantude sud longitude arc the rwo elements ofa carrography“ (AT1 260—l/3l 8). Bodies arc mate rial llows distinguishcd hy their inovement and specd, and to which corre— sponds a degree of power that deterntines hodies‘ power to act. The body is akvavs in movement, not just in material and intense transforinations, hut also on a plane whieh is itsclf alive with he vital niovements of nonorganic lif, Longitude and latitude give us a cartography to understand the becom— ing of affect, and the essential affectual capacities available to a given mate rial assemhiage. 1iiis capacity or power gives a “mode ofindividuation“ (ATP 261/318) vcry difkrent from a person, subject, thing or substance. Deleuze and Cuattari ca!l this mode of individuation a “haecccity,“ which “consists emirely of relations ofmovcmcnt sud rest hetween molecules or particies, es pacitics to affict and be affected“ (ATP 261/3 18). Deleuze argues that an idea‘s firmal reality, its reality as an idea in itselfis “the thing the idea is or the degree of reality or perfcction it possesses in irselE audi is its intrinsic character.“ In othcr words this is its essence and cxpresses (jod. Gilles Deleuze, Seminar Session fSpinoza, 24 January 1978. Gilles Deleuze, Session an Spinoza, 13 Januar‘ 1981. Gilles Deleuze, Seminar Session of3inoza, 24 January 1978. (;il1 Delenze and Clairc Parnet, Dialogues, p. 11. (Dialogues, p. 18) See Gilles Deleuze. Seminar Session of.Stinoza, 24 January 1978. Spinoza‘s attack on representatiott implied by bis conccpt of univociry is also a dircet attack upon orthodox theologieal models. These assutned 1) an equivoeal mode! of being, where Cod is unrcpresentab!e and yet inore real than his catthly representations, and so assumes a diffirent sort of being, or 2) an analogical niodel whcre God‘s heing is different front ours, hut is un— dcrstood thiough a proeess ofanalogy. for cxamplc God heing ro man as man is to au art. Theologies of equivoeity and analog) both require representation as their tlieoretieal mechanisni, although analogv becamc the orthodox Christian position, as formulated hy Thomas Aquinas. hceause it assured a

Notes to chapter ivo

36. 37. 38.

39. 40, 41. 42.

43.

245‘

cominon measure and hence a eoinprehensibi!itv to the otherness of God. In being anti—reprcsentational a Spinozian theory ol art will hreak with these or thodox rhcologies. to beconte atheist in die terins we have alreadv discussed. For Deleuze‘s account of the role of analogy in representation. see DR, 137—8/179—80. Gilles Deleuze, Session an Spinoza, 1 3 january 1 981. Gilles Deleuze, Session an St,,noza, 13 Jannary 1981 “The opposition of ex pressions sud signs S one of die fundamental prineiple.s ofSpinotism“ (EPS, 181—2/165). Gilles Deleuze, Seminar Session On Scholasticism and Spinoza, 14 Januarv 1974, italics added. Pierre Macherey, “The Problem of the Attributes,“ i/o‘ iVeu Spinoza, p. 9. 8 Gilles Deleuze, Seminar an .Spinoza. 1.3 Januar‘ 1981 Antonio Negri regards this final moment ol Spinoza‘s Ethicsas the point where bis “aseetieism“ imposes on ulilvocitv a separation ofthe divine front lifi ihat denies a total immanencc of beitig sud hecoming. Spinoza‘s asCcti— cism, Negri argues. “forms an image of beatittade that, in separating itself from the produetion ofdesire touches upon the notion ol heatitude without appropriaring it“ (Tzrnefir Revolution, p. 1 87). This argument takes iii back to Deicuze‘s “correction“ of Spinoza through Nietzsehe in Di,ffrrence and Repetition. lndeed, one could ilnagine the differeuee hetween Deleuze sud Negri on ihis point in the same terms as die diflcrenee betwecn Diffrrence and Repetition sud Deleuze‘s later work. Aeeordingly, Negri‘s appeal to die “void“ in flmefi,r Revolution as being that with which heing eonfronts itself in its ptoecsses of hecoming eehocs Deleuze‘s use of “death“ and the “oh— ject=x“ in DiJf?rence arid Repetition as die genctic element in the lepetition of difference. As we have seen, however, Debeuze ahandons these terms in turn— ing Spinoza avay from the problem of the separation of Substance front tlic modes, sud towards the cntirelv prodtictive plane of iinmanence where die constructioli of Suhsrauce is immanent wirh its expressioli. Obs iously a fa ll 1 discussiou of die relation of Negri‘s work to Deleuze‘s, sud visa versa, 15 001— side the scope ofthis book. For s first ap/roaeli to this quesrion however, see Kenneth Surin, “Reinvcnting a Physiology ofColleeiive Liberation,“ (oing ‘beyond Marx‘ in the IVlarxisni(s) of Negri. Guattari, and Delenze.“ Rethinking Marxism, 7 (1994). There is of course, a strong tradition of bove—mystieisnt sshieh eonstitutes a transversal lilie finding religious, philosophical sud lneaary expression. To gesture at Spinoza‘s conneetion to it is all that can 1w done here, abthough it would he a faseinating haie for further research. For example, Hadewijch of Anrwerp writcs ofthe fenuniue sud loving God: “Iftliev love bier (bove) with the vigour of love. they will soon be one with love in love“ (1 ladewijch of Antwerp, Strophic Poenis) iii eontinne this gesture flauv rd. ir also spesks in Henry Miller‘s words: “Everytliing stands in a certaill av ii s certain place. .

Notes to Chapter Three

Notes ta C‘hapter Three

a mir nnnds stands n telation to Gocl. The world, in its visihle. tangible Substance, is a inap ol uur love. Not Cod hut life is love. Love, love, lovc“ (Henry Miller, ihe iropic o/‘Cspricorn, p. 2—3, London: BCA, 1982). Love 22 is also the culminating state of vital rnysticisrn for Bergson, which he coun ierposed to the religion ofthe church, He writes of the mystic that, “the love which consurnes hirn ii no longer sirnply the love of man for God, it is the love of God for all men. Through God, in the strengrh of God, he loves all mankind with divine love“ (Henri l ergson, The Two Sources ofRelzion and 3 Morality, p. 199). Finally, we rnight add Dcleuze hirnseif to this abstract line of love nwsticisrn, who in the third kind of knowledge flnds, “thc love of a (4od vho is hi usd1 joyful. who loves hinisclfand loves us with the same love bv vhich we love hirn‘ (EPS, 309/288). 44. Michael Flardt, Gilles Deleuze: An Apprenticeshzo in Philosophy, p. 108.

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE 1. Flenri Bergson, Matter andMernor references to this book now found in the text following the abhreviation “MM.“ 2. ‘Ihe plnlosophical iinplications of this universal variation arc, at least as Deleuie explains thern, bv now fantiliar tu Us: “What in elkcr is duration?“ Deleuze asks, “Everything that Bergson says ahout duration always comes hack tu du‘,: du ratiois is what di/frrsfro;n itsef“ “Bergson‘s conception ofdif— fcrence,“ Tue iVew Bergson, p. 48. (“La conception dc la diffcrence chez ergson,‘ L‘ile Dserte etAutres Textes 1953—1974, 3 [ p. 51) 3. Deleuie‘s ontological valorisation of cinema, while being entirely Bergsonian, runs contra tu Bcrgson‘s ciwn theory of the “cinernarogr aphical niechanisin,“ l3crgson argued that cinenianc irnages opcratc in the same way as conscious peiception. Consciousness, he clairned, converts the movement olduration mb a “series of snapshors,“ and throws thern on a screcn “so that thcy rcplacc each other i‘ery rapidly“ (Creative Evolution, p. 305, all refcr— ences to this hook now found in the text following thc abbreviation “CE“). As an example ofnatural perception Bcrgson thought the cinerna could only give an image of movernent which was a fast succession of frozeat attitudes. “Whctlier wc would think becorning, or express it, or evcn perceive ir,“ Bcrgson argues, “we hardly du anything else than set going a kind of cine rnatograph inside us. X e may therefore stirn tip what we have becn saying in 7 the conclusion titat the rnechanism ojour ordinary knowledge is ofa cinemato giiplnctil kinil“ (CE, 306). Dcleuzc reverses Bcrgson‘s view, arguing that movernent belongs to cinema‘s image direcdy, not added from “abovc“ as the general conditions of natural perceprion. Cinerna, according tu Deleuze, “imrncdiatcly gives usa rnovenlent-image. lt does give us a section, but a sec don whicli is mobile, not an iminobile section + ahstract rnovcment“ (Cl. 2/11). I)cLtiie ßnds Bergson‘s onrology so tlioroughly‘ cinernaric that he

4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

249

clainis: “Even in bis crit ique of die cinema Bcrgson was in agrcclnent wiili it“ (CI, 58/85). This rather odd statcmcnt is just ilicd, Deleuze argucs. bv the Eact that Bergson‘s critique is pretnkcd oti bis plulosophy of die mm erneut— image found “in die brilliant Orst chapter of sWatter and Mernory“ (Cl 58/85). Deleuze insists on Matter anti Mernorv as an initial affirniation of cinensa counreracdng Bergson‘s Liter rejection of it. Deleuze‘s insistence on the carly‘ Bergson is both an implicit cririque of Bergson‘s retreat irom the possibility ui percciving duration and bis re—empliasis of a stahle perceptual mechanisin in C‘reative b‘olution, For a discussion ui Bergson‘s relation tu cincrna sec Paul Douglas, “Bergson and Cineuia: Fticnds or loes?,“ Tue Neu‘ Beigson. Ott the Deleuic—l3ergson relation in die cinema buoks sec. Crcgory Flaxinan, “Cinenia Year Zero,“ 7/je ßrun is t/e Setzen, l)e/euze und ti‘e Philosophy ofCineina. The reference is, of course, to City Debord‘s Sociery /‘ die Spectacle. (Translated by D. Nicholson—Smith. Ncw York: Zone Books. 1995). Dchord also proposes an acstheric ofteniporal contestation: “ilw point is tu rake ei— fecnvc possession of the eoinmunity ofdialugue, and tlic playful relationsliip tu tinle, which the works ofthe poets and artists have hefttoforc rnerely rep— resented‘ (section 187). 1 ike Deleuze, Dehord affirms die polirical nccessiry uf‘ re—inserting art mb the evervday, placing creation [sack mb thc midst of life. Debord however, understands this reitisertion through thc operation of the 1-legeliatt dialectic, “Culture,“ he writes, “is the locus ofthc search fir lost unity. In the cuurse of this scarch culture as a separatc spherc is ohliged tu negate itself“ (secrion 180). For Dcleuze, as wc shall sec, the separation ofart and li1i has alwavs bern produced throngh CIsc assumptions. In l3ergson Deleuze finds an (ntology of cinenta capable of aflirming its coexistence wirli life itselE The phrase is Bergon‘s (CE, 319). Zeno‘s paradoxes show how our rational euuccpt of muvement is inadequate hecause it confiates duration and extcntion, wltich arc in fact different in kind (See B, 22/12). Bergson discusscs Zcno‘s paradoxes in CE, 308—3 13. “Intuition is Ilse rnethod of Bergsonisrn“ (B, 1.3/1), Deleuzc argues, and is the conceptual inedsod adequatc tu tinse hecause ii presupposes duration, ‘it consisis in thinking in remis of durarion“ (B, 31/22). Delcuse dcvclops die rnerhodology uf intuition itt lengtls in Bergsonism. Gilles Deleuze, “Bergsun‘s conception ufdiffcreuce,“ The New l ergson. p. 46. 3 (“La conception dc la diff&ence chei Bcrgsun,“ 1 ‘le Dt‘serte it Autres Textes 1953—1974, p. 49) The onrological status of tlus open “whole of duration is anothcr of ilse stakcs in Main Badiuu‘s dispute witb Dcleuze. Delcuze explicirly disrin— guisbes die “whule“ fruni sers, writing: “The wholc anti the wholes‘ must not be confused wirh sds. Sers arc closed, and everidung whicli is closed is arri— ficiallv closed, 1 1 The whole is not a closed set. hut on die contrarv that ...

250

Notes to Chapter Three

by virtuc of which the Set is never absolutely closed, ncver cornplctely shel tered, that which keeps it open by tbe finest thread which atiaches it to the rest of the universe“ (CI, 10/21). Following bis quotation of the latter part of the ahove passage Badiou succinctlv presents one of his major ohjections to Dcleuie. For hirn rhere is a problem with “this providcntial markirig as to the theory of the two—the virrtial and the acrual—parts of the object: lt sorely p1115 untvoeiry to the test, by directly assigning the chance of thought to a discernible division of its objects. lt would seem that it is not vcry easy to definitively abandon the presupposinons of the dialectic“ (Deleuze: The (%amauro/‘Bein, p. 85). Badiou sees rhc Deleuzian whole (durarion) as rran scending the actual, and as with bis reading of Deleuze‘s simulacra, as rein stating a type of Plaronism. This is precisely, as 1 hope to show, what Deleuze attenipts to avoid in bis reading of Bergson. Badiou, in contrast to Deleuze, understands dc multiple (duration in Deletize‘s Bergsonian terms) as a inul— tiplicity of aetna! or closed sets whose becorning is gencrated not by their opening onto each other in tue “open“ universe of durarion, hut by opelling onto the void. The ereative properties ofthe cvent arc thereforc generated by the disjunctive and genetic power of the void‘s radical exteriority. For Badiou, ininianenec excludcd the All and the only possihle end point of the multi ple, wbich is akvavs the multiple of niultiples (and ncvcr the multiple of Ones), was the multiple ofnothing: the empry set“ (Deleuze: The C‘larnour of Being, 46). Finally, Badiou presents bis opposition to Delcuze as, “fir mc, multiplicities ‘wcre‘ sets, for hirn, they ‘were not“ (Deleuze: The 7amour of Being, p. 48) Badiou elahorates bis argument vith Deleuze over die omology olset rheory in. “Cilles Deleuze: Tbe Fold: Leibniz and thc Baroquc,“ Giftes Deleuze und die ii,eatre ofPhi/osopiy, and in ‘One, Multiple, Multiplicities,‘ iheoretical Writings. 10. This is a phrase of Deleuzes, “The Brain is thc Scrcen: an interview with Cilles Deleuze,“ The Brain is the Screen, Deleuze and the Philasophy of Cinerna, p. 366. 11. Or as Bcrgson lias in “Our sun radiates hear and lighr heyond the flirtbest planet. And, on the other hand, it moves in a cerrain fixcd direcrion, draw— ing with it dc planers and their satellites. The thrcad attaching it tu the rest of rhc universe is doubdess very tenuous. Nevertlieless ir is along this thread that is transinitted down to the smallest particle of rhc world in wbich we live the duiation iiiuiii1icnt tu the wliolc of the universe“(CE, 11). 1 2. Against realisni and idcalism, Bergson argues, “it is a inistake to reduce mat ter to the perception svhich we h,we ofir, a mistake also to make ofit a thing ahle to produce in us pcrceptiolls, hut in itselfis ofanothcr nature than they. Matter, in our vicw, is an aggregate of ‘images.‘ And by ‘image‘ we niean a certain exislene which is more rhan that which the idealist calls a represen— tation, hut less than thar which the realist calls a thing—an cxistence placcd ha!fway hetween the ‘dung‘ uid the ‘representation.‘ l‘his conception of •

Notes to Chapter Three

251

matter is silnply that ofcornmon sense. [ For conimon seusc, then, the objcct exists in itse!f, anti, on die other hand, die ohjcci is, in itself, picto— , as we perccivc ir: image jr is, hut a seif—existing image“ (MM, 9—10). 1 na ...

Furrhcr on, Bergson argues thar pereeptions ol‘ tbings—iinages in tbe eve arc “vihrations oflight.“ This means, “there S 110 essential difference“ hetween “light and movements (MM, 41). 13. This ontological rnovcmcnr is also found in images produced hy other art forms. Indeed, Dcleuze argues, around the same rune as cineina‘s hirth die other arts, “even painting, wcre ahandoning figures md poses ro release val— ucs which were not posed, not measured, and which rc!atcd niovement to die anv—instant—wbatever“ (Cl, 6—7/16). Painting explored ihe movemeilt of matter tbrougb its experimenrations vith color. especially die work of Robert Delauney wbicb drcw 011 conternporarv scientific theories ofcolor as a radiant encrgy. T‘his cnergetic—marerialist thcory ol color rejected pai ntiiig‘s representational lunction flur an exploration of die vihrarious produced hy die simultaneous contrast ofco!ors. Building mi the scicntiflc work done by Eugcne Chevreuil, Delauney, De!euze writes, discovered die differcut moe— ments ofsun and 1110011 ligllt, “one constituting a circular, continuous move— incnt of coinplemenrarv colors, the other a fasrer .ind uneu cn movement of jarring, iridescenr colors, the rwo together making tip and projecting an eter— nal mirage on ro the earth“ (C2, 11/20, see also 282 3/20). De!auncy then, like cinema, constructs images in which lighr is inovetncnt, This has impli— cations for paintmg similar tu those Deleuzc flnds for cinenia, Color is strippcd of any representarional ftinetion (as Codird so lamotisly stated, “ir‘s not blood jr‘s rcd“) and revalues die action ofibe eve, which now construcrs a material vihrarory thread envcloping brain and world. (Delaunev explicirlv claiins this for bis work in “Oii thc Construcnion ol Rcaliiy in Pure Painung“ Art in Theory 1 900—1 990, An Anthology of Ghanging Ideas,) Guillaume Appo!linaire exp!ains the materialist aesrbetics of Delauney rather weIl, writ ing in 1913: “Color is saturated with cnergy and its outmosr points arc pm— longed in space. Herc it is die medium s‘bich is the reality. Color 110 lollger depends on die dree known dimensions; it is color whicb crcates them“ ( Tue C‘ubist Painteia: A esthctic iieditations, l 15., translated hy L. Abel. New York: Wittenborn Schultz inc., 1945). In its materialism I)elauney‘s painting shanes an onrological ground with cineina, and his exploration ofsimultanc— ous conrnasts was influennial, Deleuze clainis, oti the pre-war Frencb scbool offilm-makcrs, which “owes much to Delauney‘s colonism“ (CI ‚45/72). As do tbe films ofJacques Rivette (C2, 11/20). Painting and cinema iherefore

horb develop a movement—image, eacli in their own medium. This sbared ontology nevertbeless admits, and iiidced requires. distinctions herween die arts accordmg ro their modalities of exprcssion—cinema at this time was not concerned wirb color fon exaluple. As a result, each art form will require a taxonomy specific ro ir. This is entire!y consislemit sith Deleuze‘s Bergsonian

252

14, 15.

16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

22.

Notes to Chapter Three understanding of duration as a multiplicity, which is neither indivisible nor iinmeasurable, hut whose division implies a change in nature, each division in rum implying a change in the metrical prineiple of its measure (B, 40/31—2, and ATT 483/604). For I3ergson, percepti n “limits itselfto the objects which acrually influence our organs and prepare our movements“ (MM, 179). As we shall see, Deleuze uses this initial “strengrh“ of Peirce, while also point— ing out die ways in which Peirce himselfdeparts from it. lndeed, Deleuze says: “Peirce can sometimes find himselfas much a linguist as the scmiologists“ (C2, 3 1/46). In fact, Deleuze will argue that Peirce finally makes ofthe sign some thing linguisric, because no “material that cannor he reduced to an utterance survives, and hence [Peircel reintroduces a subordmation ofsemiotics to a lan— guage system“ (C2, 31/46). As a result, Deleuze (and Guattari) will, as they say, “borrow his terms, even while ehanging their connotations“ (ATE 531/177). Charles S. Peirce, 76 Definitions ofthe S,‘n, 5 (Collccted Papers 7—356). Charles S. Peirce, 76 Definitions ofthe Szn, 16 (MS-599). Charles S. Peirce, 76 DeJinitions ofthe Sin, 4 (MS-380). Peirce describes it as “a stare of mmd in which something is present, without compulsion aaad withour reason; it is called Feeling.“ “What is a Sign?,“ The Essential Peirce, 5elected Philosophical Writings, Vol. 2 (1893—1913,), p. 4. Charles 8. Peirce, “What is a Sign?,“ The Essential Peirce, Selected Philosophical Writings, Vol. 2 (1893—1913), p. 5. Deleuze exrends Peirce‘s model in applying ir to the cincma, by adding transi tional images moving from aftction to action (die impulse—image) and from action to relation (die reflection—image). Thus Deleuze iclentifies six types of images, each ofwhich aac orgamsed in an opposition reflecring rhe two sides of the sensory-motor interval, hut which also have a genetic aspect rdflecting their genesis in the “ground zero“ ofthe perception image. The six types ofvis ible movement images and their compositional and genetic signs arc listed by Deleuze “in partial conformitywith Pierce“ (Cl, 142/198), as the Perception image (Dicisign, Reume, Gramme), Affection-image ([cnn of power, [con of quality, Qualisign), the Impulse—image (Fetish, Idol, Symptom), Action—image SAS (Synsign, Binomial, lmprint), and ASA (Index oflack, Index ofequivoc— ity, Vector), Reflection-image (Figures of attraction, Figumes of inversion, Discnrsivc sign), Relation-image (Mark, Demark, Symbol) (Sec also C2, 32/48). The nature of this “partial conformity“ can be seen in comparing the disnncnons of Deleuze‘s schema with those Peirce makes in “Sundry Logical Conceptions,“ and “Nomenclatnre and Divisions of Triadic Relations,“ The Essentia/ Peirce, Selectecl Phi/osophica1 Writings, Vol. 2 (1893—1913,). Dclcuze is bete referming to his carlicr disctission of the relation of the “open wholc‘ ofdnraaion as plane ofconsistcncy to the artificial closure ofsets (sec note 9). We will see in what ways classical cinema was ahle to open its mon aagcd sets, and reattach a thread connecting them to the universe.

Notes to Chapter 7 Yree

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23. Both techniques appear in Man with a Movie C‘arnera. 24. Jonathan Bellor has devcloped Deleuze‘s reading of Vemtov in intcresring ways, especially his suggestion that Vcrtov‘s material consciousness is a eilte— tnatic answem to die sovier problem of ‘sclf—conscious dcmocracy‘ (p. 165). “Dziga Vertov and the Film ofMoney,“ Bounda?y 2, 26.3, 1999. 25. This is an echo of Peirce, who descrihes it as a “Feeling.“ Charles 5. Peirce, “What Is a Sign?“ The Ersential Peirce, Selected Philosophical Writings, 14il. 2 (1 893—1913), p. 4. 26. Charles 5. Peircc, “Standry I.ogical Conceprions,“ lhe Essenual Pehce, Se/ectea‘ Philosophical Writzngs, 14;/. 2 (1893 1913,), p. 268—9. 27. We should note bete a changc in Dclcuic‘s tcraninology. In relation to Spinoza, and in A T iousandPlateans, as wc have seen, “affcction“ (afli‘ctio) is 1 a state of the body as it is affected hy another hody, and an “affcct“ (aflctus) is the passage froni one statc to anothem as this indicates abc incrcase or dc creasc of a bodics power. In thc Cinema hooks “affcction“ and “affect“ arc known as “perception-image“ and “aftection—image,“ while “affect“ refers to qualities or powers extracted dom affcctions and treated as pure, au tonoanous, “possihlcs.“ 28. Charles 5. Peirce, “What Is a Sign?,“ The Essentzal Pezrce, Sclectez/ Philosophical Wrztzngs, Vol. 2 (1893—1913,), p. 5. 29. Once again Deletaze focuses on montage as the creative mechanism of Dreyer‘s affectual film. Dreyer, Delcuze notes, avoids die shot—reverse shot constmuc tions which tend to establish suhjective telations, in favour ofthe “virttaal cnn— junction“ of“flowing closc—ups“ (CI, 107/152). This enahlcs hini to focns on the intensive affects ofthe face as die real “suhjects“ ofthc film. 30. The reasons for this bmeakdown, Dclcuic atgues, wcae “the war and its cnn sequences, the unsreadiness of the ‘American I)aeain‘ in all its aspects, die new consciousness of minomities, the risc and inflation of images hoth in the extemnal world anti in people‘s rninds, the influence on thc cinema of the ncw modes of narrative with which literature bad expemimcnted, die crises of Hollywood and its old genres (Cl, 206/278). We may wondem at the telegmapliic natume of this sentencc, which contains almost thc cntirety of Deleuze‘s historical contextualisation ofcincma‘s production of time—iniages. But Deleule‘s purpose is not to pmovide a histomical reading of the time— image, hut a symptomatic one, Deleu,e, in othcr words, is not so much in— tercsted in showing how the world affects cinema, hut an show how cinema remakes die world. 31. As Michael Goddaad has poinaed out, “whilc mysticism is not kfcrred to cx— plicitly hy Deleuze in bis works on cinema, the centraliay of the cmystallinc regime, and its opeaation ofopening to a direct image ofaime and ofahe vir— tual, is a parallel process In die mystical metanioiphosis ofsnhjectivity iden— tified by Bcrgsnn.“ “Thc scattering of tinte crystals: I)cleuie, lnysticism, and cinema,“ Deleuze and Religion, p. 62.

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32. Flenri l3ergson, Ihe 7vo Sources ojMorality andRe1iion, 201. p. 33. 1 Ienri lkrgson, 1 7 7vo .Source o/‘Mora/ity anti Re1iion, p. 188. This cre— w ative lifi is hat l3ergson calls in (rarive Evolutwn life‘s “Intention.“ “This Intention. Bergson argues. “is just what the artist tries to regain. in placing hitnselfhack wirh the object by a kind of sympathy, in breaking down, by an effort ufintuitiott, the barrier that space puts up between hirn and bis mode!. lt is i-rue that this aesthetic intuition, like external perception, only atrains the individual. But we can cuneeive an inqtnry turned in the same direcrion as art, which wuuld take life ingeneral for its object.“ 34. Hcnri Bergsun. ?he 7i‘o Source3 ofAforality anti Religion, p. 217. 35. Henri Matisse, Matisse on Art, p. 217. j. Plam cd., Berkeley: University of Califirnia Press, 1995. tor Matisse‘s Bergsonian approach to painting see, “Notes ofa Painter“ (1908) in the same volume. 36. This intruduces a theme whieh ofren appears in Deleuze‘s discussions ofart, new tactility ofthe image. This taetile image marks the transition from an “upncal,“ or sensurv—niotur regime uf signs, tu “haptie“ signs. frum die ab— stractiun uf representation tu the reality of sensation. As we have seen. this tnaterialism is a ttecessary part of Deleuze‘s acsthetics. Deleuze takes die dis titictiun uf uptic .ind haptic fruns die art hisrorian Alois Riegl, and we will returit tu it in eltapters 4 aitd 6. The hapnc “flesh“ of the tirne—image is bricfly explored in cineni i 2 in rerms Deleuze also crnploys in other eontexts, “it is 1 the tactile whieh c«tti constitute a pure sensory image,“ he writes, “on cundi— nun dmt the hand relinquishes its prehensilc and motor lunetions tu content itse!fwith a pure touching. [ ] The hand then, takcs on a role in the image sshich gues inhnitely beyund the sensory—niutor demands of the action, wliich takes the place of the faee itself for the UtOSC of the affects, and which in tue area ufperceptiun, becuines the mode ofeonstruction ofa spaee which is adequate tu the decisions of spirit. 1 The hand doubles its pre— hensile functiun (uf object) by a eottnective ftinction (of space); hut, frorn that tnotnent, it is the whole eye svluch doubles its optical function by a speeifically ‘grabbitig‘ [ha/tiqueJ one, ifwe follow Riegl‘s firinula fiar indicat— ing a tunching which is speeifie tu the gase“ (C2, 12—13/22). The haptic, in uther wurds, dehnes a space uf sensation in which the sensory—rnutor distine— nun dues nut operate, and die question is nut so much that of percepriun by the eye, hut uf a cunstruetiuti of space by the hand, a “touehing“ in wluch subject and ubject merge. This questiun will be takett up and discusscd at lengrh itt Chaptcr Six. 37. Here Delenzc closely fulluws the wurk of Andre Bazin, whose name appears in the first sentenee of Cinema 2. Deleuze takes horn Bazin what he dc— scribes as the “fundamental requirernent of formal aesthetic criteria“ in order tu dehne the ontulugical hreak in cinema initiated by Italian neu—re— alism (alt hottgh Bazin tinderstands this in phenumenological rather than Bergsunian terms). Deleuze fulluws these criteria and expands thern beyond .

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a itt ict definition uf neo—realism tu later Italian dircctors, and further tu Europcan cinema after die war, in defitting an aestbetics uf time—itnages. Ii ii at this puint tltat Delettse rel‘rs tu Bergsun‘s faitiotts “eune diagrain (IvIM, 162). There Bergson writes uf the “double curretit“ sshteh gues fruni actual image tu tlie ‘thousaitci individital images‘ ss‘hicli arc its virrua! eqiliv— alent in mernory, and which arc ‘always ready tu ciysta/lizi‘ into uttered words“ (MM, 162, ita!ics added). Pur Deleuze‘s rnure detailed discussion uf this diagram see B, 57—62/53—7. “Perhaps,“ Deleuze suggests, “whett we read a huuk, wateli a sliuw, ur look at a painting, and especially whcn we arc uursekcs theautliur, an analuguus proeess can be triggered tu) extraet nun -ehronulugieal time. 1 it ii possible for the wurk of art tu suceeed in ittventittg these paraluxical hyp— notic and hallueinatory shects whuse prupertv ii tu he at unce a past and al— wavs tu cume“ (C2, 123/161—2). \X/e see here that although Deleuze abandons die eutleept ufihe “siinttlaera,“ its disappearanee ii unlv nominal, atid it ii still in upei atiott in cinema 2 as cinema‘s “puwer uf‘ die false.“ Deleuze confiates direct cinema witli cinema verite at tlns point diseussing thern, or at least their representative dirccturs Duti Petinebaker attd Jean Ruuch separatcly, hut argui ng tlte‘ buth aclueve a cittematic cuttstruct ivism in which distinctions between trutli and fislsitv arc dissulvcd itt the prucess uf constructing imagcs, tu die puint uf ineludittg tue Lutistrttction uf the film irseif. Constrtietion hecomes thc “sttbject“ uf ute fi!nt, Fur a mure traditiuttal readitig, which attempts tu make a rigorutis distinetion between “direct“ ein— erna anti cinema verite, see Bill Niehols, Representing Rea/itj fssues anti (Joncepts in I)acuroentvy, p 32—75. Bluotningtuti lndiatia Universitv Preis, 1991. The pruufufthis is that die least cunviticing seene uf Ihr Strauss (at least as far as its “reality“ is cuncerned) is titau in whiclt we find Strauss at home, read ing the paper, tite static nature ufhuth action anti camera ironically re—estab— lishing mir exteriurity at exacdy tlie moment when die “urne“ Strauss supposedly ernerges. Dclcuzc suggests this when he wrires, “die power of die Ctise cannut he sep— arated from an irreducible inultiplicitv“ (C2, 133/174), This formulation curnes hum ric Alliez, whu hai suggested ihat Deletize finds in die Cinema huoks, a “Bergsonism beyondßergson 1 1 a Bcrgsonism projectcd beyond die cacsura hetween the inetaphysical intttitiuii uflife anti the philosuph‘ of thc cuncepr, cleansed of ans‘ spiritnalism uf presence.“ “Midday, Midnight: The Einergetice of Cine—Thinking,“ Tue Brani 15 ii Sereen: Gilles Deleuze anti hie Phizlosop/y of C‘int‘ma, p. 295 anti 297. Dt‘leuze himself stggests such a projection uf Bergsutt when lw claims liii “returt tu Bcrgson“ ii “a renewal ur ati extension of bis prujeu tuday“ (B, 115, a1tr— word tu tue English translatiun), ...

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45. 1 have dcveloped Deleuze‘s 6 gure of the “spiritual automaton‘ in relation to Arraud .ind die films of Carl Theodor Dreyer in “Believing in the BwO: Arraud-Delcuze-Drcycr,“ Biographien des otganlosen Kö;pers. edited hy E. Samsanow and E. Alliei, Vienna: Turia+ Kant, 2003. 46. At one point she cxplains that her doctor told her she most love her husband, her son, her job or her dog, hut not hushand—son—job—dog. Te anticipate the next chapter, Ciuliano‘s schizophrenia is a form ofvisionary mysticism. 47. (uoted in Peter Bondanella, Italian (Jinema, From Neorealism to the Present, p. 219, London and New York: Continuum, 2002. 48. Cilles Deleuze, Niotiations 1972-4990, p. 145. 49. Quoted in Bondanello, Italian C‘inerna, p. 220. 50. Gilles Deleuze, ‘Bergson‘s coneeption ei dilTerence,‘ The New Berson, p. 48. fL.i conception dc la diffrence Jez Bcrgson.‘ Li‘le Dserte et Autres Jxtes 1953 1974, p. 51)

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

The first part ei the tide comes froin DR. 293/375. The epitaph is froin John Dewey, Art us Eperience, p. 82. Tor a good ilUCOttilt ei Deleuze and Giiatrari‘s theory of die content—cxprcs— sion telation, sec l3rian Massumi, A User Guide to C‘apitalism and Schizophrenia, Dcviationsfrom Deleuze and Guattari, chapter 2 “Force.“ Briari Massumj leaves both terms untranslated in A Thousand Plateaus. As Guattari puts it: “The signifying machine was based on the system ofrep resentation.“ “The Place of the Signifier in the Institution,“ The Guattari Reacier, p. 151. Deleuze anti Cuattari write that Hjelmslev was “the only linguist to have ac— tualiv hroken with die signifier and significd“ (ATR 523/85). Guattari in particular has worked extensively on Hjelmslev. See, Plix Guattari, “Semiological Subjection. Seniiotic Enslavement,“ and “The Place of the Signifier in the 1 nsriturion,“ The Guattari Reade,: Deleuze and Guatrari draw heavily on die work of Michel Feucault in their aceeunt of absrracr niachines and their diagrammatic operation. Foucault, tbey say, showed the way fot a diagrammatic analysis ofhisrory, inasmuch as he gave a “machinic“ understanding of power that encompassed beth its “minitiarized mechanisins, er melecular fecuses“ (ATB 537/265), and their cernposi den in “asseinblages of power. er micropowers“ (ATB 531 / 175). These actual assemhlages were singularities of an abstract ‘diagram‘ or ‘hiopolitics of population‘ as an ahstract machine“ (AT1 531/175). Alrhough Deleuze md (uattari give a favourable account ci Foncault‘s inediod they also point out their diffrrences from it by emphasising the way die diagram functions to create a new reality. Foucault‘s analysis, in assum— ing the priority of power relegates creative ferces to reactions to power, and

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so makes ereation relative to the powcr of die strata. “Our onlv points ci dis— agreement with Feucault arc rhe fellowing.“ they write, “(1) ro us the assent— blages seeni fiindamentallv to he assemblages not ei power hut of desire (desire is always assenihled), anti pos‘er seems to be a stranfied dimension ei the assemhiage; (2) the diagram and ahstract machine have lines offiight diat arc primary, which arc not pltenoniena ef resistance er ceunterattack in an assembiage, but cutting edges of creation anti detcrritorialisation“ (ATR 531/176). This is, in fact, a fundamental te—orientation of die Foucauldiait inodel, ene which assunies the pewer ef absolute deterrirorialisatien as im manent te evcry relative deterritorialisatien, and therefiire makes creation “prior te“ power, and operating as its cendirion. As Deleuie writes elsewhcre, “dcsirc is hut one with a given asseniblage, a co—fittictiening“ (“Dsir et

Plaisar,“ Deux Reimes dc 14.us, textes et entreliens J95—J995, p 114).

Furrherntore, absolute deterritorialisation is present in the strata as die revo— lUtionary practice which acts as die cendition of their possihle Operation. See also, Gilles Dcleuze, “Sur lcs principaux concepts dc Michel Foucattlt,“ Detix Rejrnes dc fus, textes et e)/tretjefls 19‘5—]99, anti (illes Dcleuzc. Foucau/t.

7. Deleuze and Guattari give a diagrani of pragniatics in which its processual creation of destratifyiug signs appears as a circle with four stages. lt begins with an analysis ofregimes ofsigns in terms ei thcir expressive forms, and the content they determine. Thc second stage is the allalysi.s ef how regimes of signs transform (dc— and re—territerialise) each ether. Ihc rhird “diagram— matic“ component extracts particles—signs front the regimes by censtructing “abstract— real machines“ which absolutely dctcrri ton al ise the strata. The final “machinic“ cemponent returns us to the actual world, in order to show hew it appears rhrough, and is conditioned by, the destrarifying break praglnatics has iiistiruted. “lii show,“ I)cleuie md Guattari writc, ‘hew abstracr ma— chines arc effectuated in cencrcte asseinblages“ (ATI1 146/182). This final stage, while appearing to rerurn us te the cireles starting peint. has in fact fractured ir hy constr6cting a new rcality. Pragniatics. or schizoanalysis is this critical process ef erernal return. Dclcuze anti Guattari provide a uscful dia— gram. ATB 146/182. 8. In line with this suggestion, Deleuie anti Guatrari claini that ‘artisaii“ is a better terin than “artist“ flur the sLltizoanalyst ef art. The artisan, they write, “is derermi,ied in such a way as te fellow a flow ei matter, a machinicp/y— mm“ (ATP 409/509). in ficeimig “a life proper re mauer, a vital state efmat— ter as such, a material vitalism that deuhrless exists everywherc hut is ordinarily hiddemt er covened, rendered unrecogiusahlc“ (ATB 411/512). Cuattari directly oppeses this “cosnsic artisan“ (ATP 345/426) te the “schizo—analy‘st technician. “There could mtevcr he a schizo—analyst tcchni— cian,“ he says, “this would he a eontiadiction in terms. if sehiio—analvsis must exisr, it is because it already cxists evervwhere; anti not just aniong schizephrcnics, bot in die schii.es, the lines of escapc, the processual ruprures “

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whid arc fiicilitarcd by a cartographic auto—orientation. Its goal? One could say that jr doesn t liave any, hecause it is not so inuch the end that matters hut the “middle“ itseif“ “Instirutional Schizo—Analysis,“ Soft Subversions, p. 276. For an account of Deleuze‘s “stark hiend“ of materialism and viralism, sec John Mallurky, “Delcu7e aml Materialism: One or Several Matrers?,“ SouthAtlantic Quarterly, 96. 3, 1997. 9. in this regard, “schizoanalysis“ is a war machine against psychoanalysis. As Guatrari writes; “The Lacanian Signilier homogenises the variotas semiotics, it loses die mulri—dimensional character of many of rhein. Its fundamental lincarity. jnlieritcd from Saussurian structuralism, does not allow it to appre— hend tue pathic, 11011 disciirsive, autopoietic characier of the partial nuclei of enuntiation“ (Chaos, 72/103). 10. lor an extended account of Dtleuze and Cuattari‘s understanding of these paimings hv Turner sec, James Williams, “Deleuze on J. M. W. Turner, Carastrophism in philosophy?“ De/cuze und Phi/osop/y: The DzjJ/‘rence Engmeee 11. Dcleui.c anti Cuatrari have received ‚a lot ofcriricism over their supposed glam— orisation ofa tragic psyd ic condition, and have vigorously defended theit use ofthe terin “schiioplirenia“ against this charge. Both Deleuze and Guattari re— peatedly‘ cinphasisc the difference herween schizophrenia as a clinical condi— tion, and schiioanalysis or “schizophrenization“ as an “ethical—aesthetic paradigm.‘ As Delcuze wrires: “lt is not a qucstion ofopposing ro the dogmatic image of thought another image horrowed, for example, from schizophrenia, hut rather of reinemhering that schizophrenia is not only a human fact hut also i possihility fir thought—one. moreover, which can only be revealed as stich throngh abc aholition of that image“ (DR. 148/192). The relationship bctwccn schizophrcnia as a clinical condition and as a critical practice is anore ColflpleX in Gtiartari‘s work. 1-je was involved in the institution of La Borde that at— rempted to treat schizopbrenia along anti—psychiatry lines. This involved ex— perimenting with the disrinctions hetween a clinical schizophrenie and schizoanalytic bealth worker in order to elahorate a “schiio“ ruiconscious cnierging hcvond instittational ciisti ictiuns of doctor and patient. So although Guattari states: “Schizoanalysis ohviously does not consist in miming schizo— phrenia‘ (Chaos, 68/98), he nevertheless acccpts that schizophrcnia as a clini— cal condiuon is the ground ofan effective sehizoanalysis. “The complexions of the psychotic real,“ he writes, “in deir clinical emcrgence col,stitutc a priVi— leged exploratory path or other ontological modes of production in that they disclose aspects ofexcess and limit experiences. [ 1 Here a sense ofheing in—itself is esrablished hehre an)‘ discursive scheme. uniqtaeh‘ posirioned across an intensive continuum whose discursive atails arc not perceptihle by an appa— ratus ofrepresentation hut by a pathic, existential absorption, a pre—egoiC, pre identificatory agglomeration“ (Chaos, 79/111). For Guattari schizophrenia can. iii certain specific ways, he seen as exemplary ofan ethical—aesthetics of cx— ...

Notes to Chapier Four

12. 13.

14.

15. 16.

17.

18.

19.

pression: “Just as the sehizo has broken moorings with subjective individtaa— tioti, the analysis of die Unconscious should hc recentred on die non—hunian processes ei‘ suhjectivation dat 1 call machinic, hut wlmich arc niote tlian humnan—superhuman in a Nietzschean sense‘ (Chaos, 71—2/1(12—3). This privileging of schizophrenia is howcver, significandy quali6ed: “Thc problem of schizophrenization as a eure consists in this,“ Deleuze and Cmtattari write, “hew can schizophrenia be disengaged as a power of/?umaniiy and ofNature withotir a schizophrenie thcrcby heing prodticeal?“ “1 synthese disjonctivc,“ LÄrc43. For Cuaatari on La Borde see “La Borde: A Clinic Unlike Any Orher,“ C‘haosophy Henry Miller, lopic ofcance; p. 250, London: BCA, 1982. For a detailed explanation of painting‘s Csee—landscapc problem, see Ronald Bogue, Deleuze on M‘usic, Painting, und the Arts, chaptcr %ur. For a fiiscinaring account of soane of alle tobte surprising results—--itllyplial— lic Christ Childs, itbvphallie crtmcifled (Zhrists, masturhating Christs, and niore, sec Lee Stcinherg, The Se,vua/itj‘ of‘ C‘/rist in J?enaissance Art und in Modern Ob/ivion, Chicago: Universiiy of Chicago Press, 1996. Gilles Deleuze, The Nature ofFlows, seminar I4th December 1971. Steinberg‘s major argument in ihe Sexuality ofhrist in RenaissanceArt und in Modern Ohlii‘ion is that ne matter hew hizarrc we might find paintings of the Christ child wirb an erection, lor example, these were accepaed hy the church as valid theological saatements of Christ‘s incarnarion. Deleuze how— cver, wants to make a more radical claim, arguing daat it is die chtmrch diat supplies “nothing hut die conditions of his ]the artist‘s] radical emancipa— tion.“ Gilles Deleuze, Seminar Session on %inoza, 25th November 1 980. In fact. as weil as tue extensise decuration of the church heing Bvzanaine in style, much ofirs material wealth, incltading die four horses on us reof and die enamels of the Pala d‘Oro, the altarpiece of San Marco, were hrought dircedy from Constantinoplc after its sack aimd leotmg hy ehe Crusaders in 1204. In central Italy, as we shall see, the introducajon of classical approaehes to drawing amid modelling appeared in die early fintrteenth cenaury with Giotro and Cimahue. Peter Hills notes: “Such inaerchangc henveemm ohscurir and brilliance lw— canic [ ] vital to the eolouring of sixteeimah—centamrv Venetian paimg.‘ Vnetian co/mir.‘ Marble, Mosaic Painting und G/ass 1250—1 550, p. 47. In his description of the eleventli cenaury church in die mnonastery of Hosious Loukas, M. Cbadzdakis wrimes, “tue high mnosaics with their gold grounds shine: such /iht, such beauty il/umines the c/mrch. Thc light. element ofvictory and triumph, pe manem symbol of Christ in eeelcsiastical phrase— ology, doniimsates ahreughont, clarifies all the fi)rms ‚mnd mi its diurnal course, vivifies the flowing surfaces and transmutes abc material into preeious spin— rtmal substance.“ Byzantine i‘vfonuments in Attica and Boeotiu, p. 1 2—3. .

20.

29

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21, For die Piotinian aspects of Bviantine art sec ric Aliiez, C‘apital Ti‘rnes: Tales orn the C‘onquestofTirne, pp. 57—64. For a detailed account ofDeIeuze‘s un derstanding of I3yiantinc art, and especially the importance of the work of llcnri Maldinay in this regard, sec Ronald Boguc, Deleuze on Music, Painting andiheAris, p. 143 4. 22. Vasari notes that drawing is die neccssary first stage in the painring process. “l‘hc idea which the artist has in his mmd must be translated into what the eves can see, and only then, with die assistance ofhis eyes, can die artist form a sound judgemenr concerning nie mterventions he has conceived.“ Lwes of the Artists, 1 2,/urne 1, p. 413—4. 23. Light and shadow neverthclcss rctained their ideal value despite the greater naturalism affordcd by Alberti‘s value system, because shadow and light werc created only by mixing black or whine with the local color. This gave, as l.conardo put it .a“true“ shadow. 24. \‘asari writcs ofGiorgione, “he feil so deeply in love with die bcauties of na— ture that he would represenn in his works oni what he copied directly from life.“ Live o/the Art,sts, 14,/urne 1, p. 272. 25. Marcia Hall, (Jo/or anti I!eaning, Pntctice und Theory in Renaissance Painting, i. 71.

26. Tliis proccss has been made visible by thc twcntieth cenrury techniques of die x-radiograph and the infrarcd rcflectograph, which allow us to see the re workings of the painting lying beneath its surface. The most radical example in Gioigione‘s work is the repiacemenr in La Ti‘rnpesta of a bathing woman by die young man iii die lower Ich coruer of‘ die picture. 27. Marcia 1 Liii, (Z‘o/or andMeaning, Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting, p. 210. 28. Titian‘s assistann and well—known painter in his own right, Pairna Giovane, captures die drama ef this proccss. Giovane wrote ofTitian‘s method: “He blocked in bis pictures wirh a mass of colors that served as the ground tipon which he would theo build. 1 myself have seen such under painting, vigorouslv applied with a loaded brush of pure red ochre, which wouid serve as die niiddle ground, tlicn with a strokc ofwhite Iead, with die same brush then clippcd in red, black or yellow, he creared the tighr and dark areas dat give die effecn ofreliel. And in this waywith four strokes ofthe hrush he was ahle re suggcst a magnificent fi,rni.“ Quored in Emmachia Gustina Ruscelh, An Exarninrtion of‘/ate 12‘netia,z Puinting ]i‘chniques. 29. A fine example efall these aspecrs ofTitian‘s tate srvle is The Death ofActaeon (1565—76, National Gallery, London). For a discussion of the rechniques uscd in this work see jill Dunkerton, “Tinian‘s Painring Techniques,“ in Titian, p. 59. 30. Deleuzc fiivoured tliis kind of art lustorical symptomotogy of functions and also draws on die haptic—eptic tensor of Alois Riegl, and Wilhelm Werringer‘s organic—abstract.

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31. Deteuze poinns eur their importance for hini, FB, 190/119. Deleuze also draws on Wölffl in‘s Renaissance und Baroquc in TF. 32. Heinrich Wölfflin, Princzp/esofA;‘tIJistory, p. 19. 33. Heinrich Wölfihin, Princz/es ofArt History p 1 9.20. 34. Heinrich Wölfflin, Princt/es ofArt History, p. 21, 35. Vasari notes hew Titian‘s last werks “arc exeeured witis hold, sweeping strokes, and in panches of coleur,“ than “makcs pietnrcs secm alivc.“ 1 ines of‘ die Artisis, l4duitie 1, p. 458. This developmenr lias an obviotis echo in Deicuze‘s diseussion ofBacon‘s “paiches,“ which ive shall tuns to in Chaprer Six. 36. i\Iarcia Hall, C‘o/or und A‘Ieaning. Pruetice and 71 ‘eon‘ in I?enaissance Rzinting p. 233. 37. Heinrich Wölfflin, Princzles /iIrt Ilistoiy. p. 1 96. 38. Heinrich Wölfflin. Principkt of‘Arr History, p 52. 39. Consistent with our earticr diseussien cl die relation ei‘ the plane and die strata in relative and absolute deterritorialisatien, “smoeth space is cnn— stantly being translated, transverscd into a si riated space: snriatcd space is eonstantly bemg reverscd, rcturned ne a sniooth space“ (A‘l P, 4‘4/593). Dcleuze anti Guantari‘s descriptite repoiegy tcnds ne lay out these poles in their pure state, hut rhis is enly in order te operate a syniptematelogy (a schizo—analysis) that returns striated spaces ne snioethness. That is, in striared space we sec rhings in terms efebjects and their represennatiens, in terms of cause and efl‘ect, in rerms finally, ef‘an apriori space and rime that condirien these relations. In sniooth space hewever, perception changes, and beconscs “based en synsptoms and evaluanions ranher than measures and properries“ (AT1 479/598). Smooth space is a spaee of evaluative cenneetion whercas striated space inspeses distinctions and limins. Neverthcless, Dclcuie and Guatnari suggest than die extension ef a striated representational space gives smoodi space a nulieu ofpropaganien anti renewal, witlietit which ins censis— tcney iniglit remain unexpressed. Snriated spaee herc becomes “.1 mask wirh— our whieh it [snsooth spacej could neither breanhe ncr lind a general Form of expressien“ (AT 486/607). And indeed, niere than just a 1i6. stippert, stri— ated spaee offers a “richness and neccssiny of translations. whieh inchude as many opportuninies tor openings as risks ei‘ clesurc er stoppage“ (AT 486/607). In other werds, striated space is where relative denernitorialisatiens oceur, and in is only through these than a desnratified smoenh space will ap— pear. ‘I‘he ncecssiry efaffiimative evaluation however, remains. and aidieugh die absnract lilie reqtnires srriated spacc in whiehi tu operate, “lt ii less easy,“ Deleuze and Guattani note, “ro evaluate rhe creativc petentialities of srriated space anti tmw it can simultaneously emerge from risc smooth and give evt thing a wische new impetus“ (ATP 494/616). Snrianed space is ncver in itseif creative, and is always atternpting to resrratify things in its various “appara tus ofcaprure.“ Only when the abstract linie draws or “absrracrs“ a vital inat—

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40.

41

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42. 43.

44.

ter front its rcprcscntaoonal signs is an ahsolutely deterritorialiscd smooth spaee created, and an artwork appears whieh is truly “abstract.“ Although it seems that Pollock did view his paintings on the wall, hcfore low ering them again for reworking. Sec Timothy J. Clark, “Jackson Pollock‘s Abstraetion,“ ReconstructinglVlodernism: Art in New York, Paris anti Montreal 1945—1964. Clcmcnt Crccnbcrg, “Abstract, Reprcsentational, and SO forth,“ Art anti Qiluire, (.‘rittcal Essays. p. 228. Dcleuc and Cuattari take the conecpt oF the “haptic“ horn Alois Riegl‘s Late Roman Art fndustry, p 32—3. This concept of die “will to art“ [K,instu‘olIenj also cornes froin Riegl. Riegl regarded art vorks as sy‘mptoms of a historical people‘s experience of space, tirne and matter. “The characrcr of this volition Wn‘/enl,“ Ricgl wrotc, “is always determined hy what mav he tcrmed the conception of die world [Wltanschauung1 at a given tirne“ (Late Roman Art Jndustiy p. 231). Art ex— presses die “artisric will“ ofa culture, its abstract machine, and could only be interpreted by disregarding the more obvious representational or symbolic intentions of thc work, and by suspending judgernents of value. “The mis sion ofour diseipline,“ Riegl thoughi, “is not simply to find the things in the that appeal to modern taste, but to delve inro the artistic voli— art of thc don lKunstu‘o//en] belund works of art and to discovcr why they arc the way thev arc, and why thev could not have been otherwise“ ( The Group Portraiture ofHollani4 p. 63). Kinstu‘ollen is therefore a syrn pto rnmatological tax0110nlic tool, and shorii of its ethnographie pretensions provides a way in which a rigorous analysis of formal qualities could move heyond die art ob— cct and towards its ontological rnechanisms. See also, Alois Riegl, “The Place of tue \spheio Cups in the History of Art,“ in The 1/ienna School Reittier, Politics anti Art Historical Metliod in the 1930s, p. 35. The phrase is horn thc founder of die Einfühlung tradition of German aes— thetics, Theodor 1 ipps, and that Worringer quotes in Abstraction anti Empati A Contribution to the Psychology ofStyle, p. 14. (References now found in die text following die abbrcviation AE‘) Lipps argued that art ex pressed its inner and psychological conditions, conditions that were not sirn— ply confined to the subjective intcriority of the artist, but were shared with die s iewcr of thc work as weIl. Art, according to Lipps, expresscd emotional or phvsiological trurhs that we recognize by‘ finding theni in ourselves, rhrough empathy. Aestherics therehy beconies the study of art‘s ontological condirions, as they arc found in die viewers “empathy“ or “participation“ in the work. What is significanr about this approach is that it did not under— stand enipathy .is dctermincd hy snhjcctive factors in the viewer, but hy a iransccndcntal vital energy that Lipps believed was that of orgaltic life. On Lipps see Moshc Barusch, Theories ofArt3, From Jmpressionism iv Kandinsky, 1 12. ph

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45. Wilhelm ‘X‘orringer, Fo;m in (‚‘oth,c, p. 21. Referenees to this bouk 110W found in die text following the abbreviatiori “PC.“ 46. Deleuze and Guattari criticise Crringer fit this crystallisation of the ab— stract hitie into ‘die most rectilineal frtns possihle‘ (Al P, 496/619). Wot ringer belicved these form 5 appear in the earl test art fornis and so arc t source of art. Delcuie anti Cuattat i pat t ways witlt ‘Woi rittger on this point, writing, “we do not undcrstanci the aesdietic motis ation >f thc abstiact linc in die same way or its identity witlt die begtiuung ol art“ (ATR 496/620). Delcnie and Cnattari also rcjcct ‘X“ot unger‘s rathei negatie understanding ofabstracrion as the produet ofanxiety, in whid feat is rlte impulse foi crcct— ing monuindnts to “the cternity of an In—Itself“ 1 sliall retut n to some of these points in connection ro Fianeis Bacon‘s tisc of Eg ptian art, in (‘hapter Six. 47. ‘ c have alieady heard die echo in C‘inema 1: “How can we rid ourselvcs of 7 ourselves, and dernolish ouisclves?“ (Cl, 66/97). 48. “Wherc die abstract lirie is rhe exponent of the will ro form,“ Wot ringcr writes, “art is transcendental, is conditioned hy die need for deliverance“ (PC, 67). 49. This isa significant reinterprctarion ofRiegl‘s terrns. Fot Ricgl die haptic was associated with tacrile sensation, tlte optic with s‘isual sensation. Consistent

with bis assumption of an organic sensibility Riegl saw thoughr as subsc— quent to eirher experience. 50. Greenberg writes: “Becattse fiarness sas the only condition painting sharcd with no other art, Modernist painting oriented itself to llatncss .is it did to nothing cIsc.“ “Modernist Painting,“ The (ja//rt teil Es.ays an,‘! Cric,sm, Vol. 1, Peceptions antiJudgemenrs 1939—41, p. 87. 1 shall cxamjne the immanent critical process hy which Grccnherg defines modernist art in the next chap— ter.

51

.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

58.

59.

Clement Greenberg, “Towards a New Laocoon,“ 7he Collected Fsrays anti C‘riticism, Vol. 1, Perceptions and /udgements 1939—44, p. 30. Chernent Crecnberg, “Abstract, Representational, and so firth,“ Art anti (7ulture, (jritica/ Essays, p. 136—7. Clemetit Greenberg, “The Case for Absrract At iYe Collected Essays anti C‘ritic,sm, 14‘lume 4 Modernum with a 1ngeaiue, p. 81 Ciernent Creenberg, “B‘zantine Paralleis,“ Art anti (‘nltuu‘, p. 167—8. Ciement Creenherg. “Bv7antine Parallels,“ An ‚in,! (‘ultuic, p. 169. Clemenr Greenberg. “Bi‘zantine Parallels,“ Art ana‘ Cultur‘, p. 1 69. Cleinent Greenberg, quoted in John Rajchman. (jonst, ucuons, p. 69. In ehapter 4 of this book, Rachman offers a critical i iew of Delettic and ‚“

(;tlattai i‘s use ol Pollock. Clement Creenhctg, “Byianrine Paiallels,“ An anti (‘ultun‘, p. 170. Clernent Crcenberg, “The Case f‘ur Ahstract Art,“ ihr (‘ollected L‘uay anti Criticxsm, Volume 4 Motii‘i ‚inni u‘zth a Vengs‘ance, p. 81

26i

Notes to Chapter Four

61). Strangeiv enough, Greenhei also cails Poliock a “Cothic painter“ (“The Present Prospects of American Painting ami Scuipture,“ The (Jo/lected Essays anti Criticism, /uine 2, Arrogant I‘upose, 1945—49, p. 166) hut, as Deleuze points our. “without seenling to give this rerni the frdl meaning it assurnes in ‘/Corringcrs analysis“ (FB, 186/101). 61. Michael Fried, “Morris Louis,“ Art and Objecthood, Ersays and Reviews, p. 106. 62. Michael Fricd, “Three American Painters: Kenncth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank SrelIa,“ Art and Objecthood, Essays and Reviews, p. 223. 63. Michael Fried, “i‘hree American Pairuers: Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella,“ Art and Objecthooa Etsavs and Reviews, p. 223. 64, Michael Fricd, “‘l‘hree American Painters: Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella,“ Art anti Object/iood, Issays anti Reviews, p. 224—5. 65. Deleui.e has elsewhere descrihed the “American critics“ definition ofAhstracr Exprcssionism as “the creation ofa purely optical space“ as “curious,“ and ti— nally, in relation tu his own work, as “a quarrel over words, an ambiguity of words‘ (FB, 106—7/99). This sccins a very gcncrous evaluation hy Dcleuze, and one that ohscures tlw signifkant differenccs in rheir positions. Indeed, Delcuie puts it niore hluntly in a suhscqucnt passage when he wrires: “By lih— ei ating a space that is (wrongly) ciainwd tu he purely optical, rhc ahstract cx— pressionists in fiict did nothing otlier dan to inake visihle an exclusively manual space“ (FB, 107/100). 66. As Timothy J. Clark notes, Fried‘s argument (and this applies equally weil tu Greenherg) only works when the viewer is an ideal distance from the work, at which the “surface volati es.“ ‘At five feet away,“ he very practically points out, “it simply doesn‘t work.“ “Jackson Polloek‘s Absrraction,“ Reconstructing !tiodernism: Art in Neu‘ )4rk, Paris, and Montreal 1945—1964, p. 236. 67. For a crincism of Crcenherg in these terms see Rosahnd Krauss, The Optical Unconscious, p. 307—8. 68. Thc phrase comeS from John Weichman‘s description of Poliock‘s work in Modernism Re/ocatt‘d; Tou‘ards a cultural studies ofvzsual modernity, p. 45. 69. Michael Fried, “Three American Painters: Kenncd Noland, Juies Olitski, Frank Stelia,“ Art anti Object/iooa Etsays and Reviews, p. 224. 0. Quotcd in Irving Sandler, “Ahstraet Expressionisin,“ American Ait in the lis‘entieth (Jentury, p. 78. Edited by C. M. Joachimides and N. Rosanthal, Municls: Prestal-Verlag, 1993. 71. John Welchman, Modernism Relocated; 7iu,ards a cultural studies of visual modernity, p. 226, iialics added. 72. Pollock quorcd in Nancy Jachec, The Philosophy and Politics ofAbstract Espressionism 1940—1960, p. 83. ihis hook gives a faseinating account of Pollock and Crccnberg‘s development in rcrms of the intellectuai context of posr—\X“ar Aincrica. Of particuiar interest is their relation to the risc of

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Existentialisin, and irs roie in redefining Socialisns as a politics ol indis idual within historical processes. unrehued tu dass interesis or agency.

intervention

NOTES TO CHAPTER FWE 1. Walt Whitman, “Sung of Mvsclf“ 26, Leai‘es of Grass, lines 598—610, M. Cowiey cd., london: Penguin, 1959. 2. This term is Ich untranslated in die English translations of (4uattari‘s work. lt must he noted that this is the same word Deleuzc and Cuattari use in A Jhousand Plateaus, and that we discussed in Chaprer Four. Although this term is deseriptive, and in itself dues not carry any pejorative or positive sense, last ehapter we saw irs negative connotatiotis dcveloped, whcrcas in this one Guattari‘s use of rhe terni takes Ott an afiirniativc sense. 3. Ftlix Guattari, “Subjectivitics: Pur Bettcr and fiar \X‘orse,“ The Guattari Reade,; p. 1 98. Clearly this statement prefigures the task of chaosmosis, whcre it is rcpcared: “I‘vly pcrspcctive involves shifring the httnian and social sciences From scienrific paradignis towards ethico—aesthetic paradignis“ (Chaos, 10/24).

4. Fhx Cuattari lnstiwtionai Sclnzo—An,il‘sis,“ So/l Subi‘i‘rsions, p. 271. 5. Pur Cuanari the uneonscious is what cannot he exprcssed in ternis ofthe snh— jeet, and is what suhjectivity‘ represses. Bttt the unconscious is nuneiheless ac— live, and is never figured as a lack. ‘Ilse unconscious is the virtual dimension of affect which fractalises the suhjeet in processes uf subjectivation. “[ljt is not necessary to oppose risc basic logic of latent contenis, tu that of repression.‘ Guattari wrires, “lt is possible tu use a model in which the unconscious is open tu the future and ahle ro integrate atsy heterngencous, semiotic componelits which rnay interfere. Then, meaningful disturtions im lotiger arise Front au in— terpretatious of underiving contents. lnstcad thev heconte part of a niaehinic set—up cntirely on the text‘s surface. Rather than he unutilatcd bv svmholie cas— trarion, recurring incomplete goals act instcad as atutonuunotts purvevors of suhjectivation. The rupture, die breach of nseaning. is usothing else rhan Ilse manifistarion of suhjectivatiouu in irs carlicsr stagcs. lt is the nccessarv adcqu,ite fractalisation which enahles sonuething tu appear wherc the aceess bebte was hlocked. lt is the deterrirorialising opening. ““l‘he Refrain uf Being and Meaning; Analysis ufa Dream,“ Sofr Subversions, p. 233. (“Les rituurnclles dc I‘trc et du Sens,“ Gartographict Schizoanalytiques, p. 235) 6. Deleuze and Guatrari explain tlsis fractal ontolug in A Thousand P/izteaus: “Fractals arc aggregates whusc niumber of dnnensions is fractiunal radier thaus whulc, or else wbole and willi continttal variation in directiuis (ATE 486/607). Suhjectivatiun operates on this model, crcating a “dircctional spacc“ which “doesn‘t have a dimension higher than tliat which moves througli it or is inscrihcd on it“ (A‘I‘I 488/609). “

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7, Brian Massuini, “Chaos iii the ‘Total Field‘ of Vision,“ Hyperplastik, Kunst und Konzept der Wzhrnehmung in Zeiten der rnental rmagely, p. 255. 8. Tue affect is an “atttopoietic“ machine in prcciscly the sense the biologists Hnmbcrto Maturana and Francisco Varela first proposed the term: “the produet o their operation is their own organisation.‘ Quoied in F1ix Guattari, ihe ihree Ecologies, p. 102. As Maturana and Varela write, “an au topoietic inachine continually generates and specifies its own organization through irs operation as a system of produerion of its own componcnts. anti docs this in an endless turnover ofcomponcnts under condirions of contin— nous perttnbations and conipensation of perturbation. [ 1 [Ajutopoietic niachinesare unities whose organization is dcfined by a particular netsvork of processes (relations) ot producuon of cornponems, the autopoietic ncr— work,“ Quorcd in The Three Ecologies, p. 100. Guartari qualifies his usc of iViaturana and Varela‘s term however, inasniuch as they limit it to the unitary inclividiiations of “living‘ or organic bodies. Againsi this limitation Guattari argues: “Autopoiesis deserves tu be rethought in terms of evolutionary, col— lccrive entiries, which maintain diverse types of relations to aherity, rarher than being implacably closed in on themselves. 1 1 Thus wc will view au— topoicsis from the perspeetive ofthe ontogenesis and phylogenesis proper to a mecanosphere superposed on the biosphere“ (Chaos, 39—40/62) This means that art can be understood as autopolette. as Guattari specifically sug— gcsts (Chaos. 93/1.30). For an accotint of Matnrana and Varela‘s relation to Deleuze and Cnattari, see Ronald l3ogue, “Art and Territory,“ A Deleuzian C‘entury? The South Atlantic Quarterly, Summer 1997, Vol.96, No.3. 9. This is another site of Cuartari‘s break with Lacan. “Not only is 1 an other,“ he wrires, “hut jr is a mulritude of modalities of altcriry Here we arc no longer floating in the Signifier, the Subjccr and thc big other in general“ (Chaos, 96/134). 10. (iuatrari deseribes the autogeneric properries of chaos as follows: “The chaotic nothing spins and unwinds cornplexity, purs it in relation with itself and what is other tu ir, wiih whar alters ir. This acrualisation of difference carries otit an aggregate selection 1010 which limits, constants and stares of things can graft theniselves“ (Chaos, 114—1 15/159). 11. joyee writes, “every person, place and thing in the chaosmos of Alle anyway connected with die gobblydumped turkcry was moving and changing every part of die time.“ Janies Joyce, Finnegans Wake, p. 118, London: Penguin, 1992. 12. Samual Butler, E,eu‘hon, p. 219, London: Penguin, 1986. The maehinic world of Erewhon, Deleuze and Guattari suggest. is not just a no—where, hut simultaneonsiy a now—here (WT 100/96), Ineaning its utopian topos ol vir— tual creativity does not transcend our world but eontinually infuses it with an immanent and revolurionary alterity. 9 p. 18. 13. Fclix Cuattari, “So \Vhat,“ chaosopI ...

.

.

.

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14. Gilles Deleuze and Fclix Guattari, “Balance—Sheet Prograin fot Desiring Maehines,“ C‘haosophy, p. 120—1. 15. Gilles Deleuze and Ftlix Guartaii, ‘Balance—Sheet Prograni für Desiring Machines,“ (.baosopI p. 1 28. 16. Gilles Deleuze, “Cold and Heat,“ P/atogenic R‘zinting, Gerard Fromanget; p. 64. 17. Gilles Deleuze, “On Gilbert Sintondon,“ Desert Lt/ands and (»her 7i‘xts 1953—1974, p. 86. (“Gilbert Simondon, Uindividu et st genese physico-hi— ologique,“ L‘ile des‘rte ei anires textes 1953—194, p. 120) 18. Gillcs Deleuze, Seminar Session tu Vincennes, 27 Febrnar‘ 1979. 19. Simondon atgues thar individuation is the resuli ofihe non—identiry olbeing with itself. Being artempts to solve its non—identity through individuation, hut this ean never eradicare irs colistitutive difTrence, which keeps any mdi— viduarion open and in progress (tiw power of repetitioll in Deleuze‘s terms). This inhcrenr non—identirv of beitig takes the form of a problem Simondon argues, a problem which is autopoictic inasmueh as it is that “lw whieh the incompatihiliry within the unresolved System becomes an organising dimen sion in its resolution. “The Genesis of the Individual,“ lnco;porations, p. 311. See also, Gilles Deleuze, “On Gilbert Sinioncion,“ Deert hlandr and Other 7xts 1953—1 974. (“Gilberr Simondon, Lindividu et san gense physieo—bi ologique,“ L‘i/e De‘serte et Autres Ttxtes 1953—1974) 20. Georges Simondon, “The Genesis of the Individual,“ Incoiporations. p. 31). For an aecount of Deleuze‘s risc of Simondon see Ronald Bogue, Deleuze and Guauari, p. 61ff and Brian Massumi, “The Autonomy of die Affeet,“ Deleuze: A C‘ritica/ Reade p. 227ff. Similarly, Guanari opposes a process of “automodelization“ to that involving prc—cxist ing niodels in “Insututional Sehizo-Analysis,“ Sq/I Subiersions, p. 268—9. 21. Flix Guartarj, “lnstitutional Schiio—Analvsis,“ Sofi Subversions, p. 276. 22. Flix Guattari, “Subjetiviries: For Bettet and for Worse,“ The Guattari Reade, p. 200. 23. The essay this quoration comes from, “The Exhausicd“ is not found in die French edition of &ztique et (J/inique. Deleuze‘s essa, ‘Lpuis‘ appears in Sainuel Beckcrt, Quaa Paris: Minuir, 1992. The qilotations come (rom p. 72. 24. Gilles Deleuze, “Ltpuis,“ in Samuel Becken, Quad, p. 72. 25. Flix Guattari, “Snbjeetivities: For Betrer and for Worse,“ The Guattari Reader, p. 198—201. 26. Fiilix Gtiattari, “Suhjcctivities: For Better and for \Vorse,“ TI‘e G,,attari Reade,; p. 196. 27. This reading of Ducltamp has been cxhaustivcly developed bv ‘l‘hierrv dc Duve. Dc Duve argues that die readymade was Duchamp‘s ironie response to painting‘s contcmporaneous re—foundation 011 pure color as the expression of an etertial langilage of abstraetion. This was Kandinsky‘s argument in

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28.

29. 30.

31

.

32.

üncerning the Spiritual in Art, one Duchamp was farniliar with after bis stay in Munich in 1912. The rcadymade is, on dc Duvc‘s accounr, the rc—founda— tion of art on an act of pure nomi ation is an attack on rhe spiritual claims made by Kandinsky for modern abstract art. Dc Duve‘s Duchamp is the post—modern hero, the anti-paiiiter. Dc Duve makes much of Duchamp elainling the tube of paint as the first readymade, and argues thar in so doing Duchainp “switched from one regulative idea to another by giving thar ofhis colleagues, the early abstracnonists, an addinonal reflexive twisr whieh turned it into a referent fi.r bis own idca. ‘l‘heir regulative idca was tue specif. ically pietorial: bis was about the spccifically pietorial. Theirs was gcared to establish their ciafr‘s name, Malerei; bis was a philosophy abont that name, a kind of pictorial nominalism‘ Kitnt Afier Duchamp, p. 165. Duchamp‘s well—known statement is: “There is no art. Irtsrcad of choosing something wltich you like, or something which you dislikc, you choose soinething that has no visual inrercst fbr rhc artist. In orher words w arrive ar a stare of indiffcrcnee towards this objecr; at that moment, jr becomes a ready niade. Quored in j. Cough—Coopcr and J. Caumont, Marcel f)uchamp, unpaginated. RIix (tiarrari, “Subjeetiviries: For Betrer anti fir Worsc,“ The Guattari Reader, p. 198, AlIiea ha.s devclopcd this crititue as part of bis wider projeerion of an alter native direerion to (post) modernism, a trajecrory of “vital absrraetion“ that finds its most important exponent in the painrer Hcnri Matisse. 1 attcndcd Alliez‘s seminar, “On die Eye-Brain of Modcrnity“ at die Akademie der bildenden Kinsre Wien, 2002—3, where Ile prcsented these arguments in de tail. My accounr is heavily indehted to the work he developed there. rie Allica points diis ont in “Rewriting Posrmoderniry (Notes),“ unpub— lished transiation by C. Penwarden and A. ‘Ibseano of an arriele which orig— inally appearcd in 7sors publics 20 ans dc cration dans les Fonds reionaux dzrt contemponun, Paris: Flammnarian, 2003.1 Je also quotes another of Duehamp‘s interviews wirh Sweeney (1946) where he claims: “This is the di reerion that art musr rake: intellcctual expression rather than animal expres— sion.“ Delenze and Cuarrari‘s assumption of a producrive chaos as the privileged ontologieal state has becn criricised hy Anronio Negri and Michael Hardt in tlmeir book Empire (Cambridge (Mass.): Fiarvard Universiry Press, 2000). Civen their artempr to reinvigorate a politics of the left in terms they take from Deleuze anti Guattari, this eriticismn is important. Deleuze and (tiartari, they write, “foeus our attention clearly on die ontological sub— stanee of sotial produetion. Machines produce. The consrant funcrioning of 1 maehines in their various apparatuses and assemhlages produces rhe soda world along with the suhjcets and objects that constitttte it. Deleuze and Cuattari, howevcr, secm to bc ahle tu conceive positively only die tendencies

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roward conrintious mnovcnient and absolute flows, and tlius in their thouglit too, tbc creative elenicnts and the radical omology of the produetion of the social remain insubstanrial and impotcnt. Deleuze and Cttattari diseover the productivity of social rcproduction (ereative prodtietion, production of val ues, social relations, affects, bccomings), hut manage to articulate it only su— perficmally anti ephemerally, as a cliaotic, indeterimmimiate horizon marked by the ungraspable event“ (p. 28). First, given die extensive dcvelopmemmr hy Deleuze and Guatrari of the “negative“ pole of prodmmeti ity in strara, faces, appararus‘ of eapttmre. etc., rhis criticism seenmeat least a little hasr Sceond, jr scemns strange, and not a lirrlc strategie. thar Hardt .md Negri should call “superfieial“ one of die most importanr thcorcm ical umiderpinnings of rhcir own project (whieh rhcv presumablv correet and eomnplcte). Third. die mdc— rerniinahle and ungraspable evenr bas a specific plmilosophical meaning in Deleuic and Cuattari whieh is omily superficiallv rcduecd tu dicir commnon rneanings. ‘T‘he most chaosmic evemtr mav be “ungraspable,“ hut it is, as we have seen, imevertheless enrirely immanent ro die acrtialitv that expresses ir. lt is ironie thar Hardr and Negri shotmld eritieise Dcleuze and Guarrari in this way when rheir own book seenis tu rest mi just stich an tmmmgraspahle evenr, die conhing to power of the mulritude. “‘l‘he ommly event,“ 1 Iardt anti Negri teil us, “rhat we arc awaiting is thc constrtmcrion, or rather thc insurgencc, of a powerful organisation. Wc do not havc any modcls tu offer for this cvcnt. Only the multitude through its pracrieal experimentation will offcr the mod— eis atid derermine when and how die possible becomes real“ (p. 411). As al most thc last words of their hook, and as nie culmination elf nhcir implied promises of a determinatc and graspable produetion elf the multiple, this is more than a litde disappointing. Hcre, jr seems as if Flardt and Ncgri finally accept Deleuze and Cuannari‘s supposcd conimitmemit tu an ontologieal rev— olunion necessarily unknown, hut imevertheless embodied, in Deleuze and Guattari‘s words, hy a “peopic yen tu eome.“ This specific sense elf Deleuze and Cuariari‘s indetcrmninate and ungraspable eveitr, whielt operates as rhe immanent onrological power unravelling stable struetures. seems in l.tct vcry dose tu Hardn anti Ncgris own risc of die term “mulnirudc.“ “The dtterrito— rialisitig power of the multirude,“ thcs‘ write, “is the produetise farce that sustains Empire and an the same time the fiircc thar calls fur anti makes nec— essary its destruction“ (p. 61). Thc mulnirude acrs as the politieal expression ofan onrological and affirmative matter/force whieh is forever over-coded hy Einpirc, hrn whieh forcver escapes jr. As witit Dclcrtzc anti Cuanrari‘s aes thenic paradigmn, Ncgri and Hardt arc also antcmpning an ontologv ofthe so— cial which would scek tu express its most lihratory immanent furees cif creation. Their criricism of Delettze and Cuarnari scemns nhcrefiire, an best ttn— generous, and ar wurst misleading, cspecially in relation tu their own projeer. 33. “Thar which is or returns has no prior constituted idetitity: things arc re— duced tu die ciifferenees whjch fragment thcnt, atsd tu all die differenccs

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34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

which arc implicatcd in it aml through which thcy pass“ (DR. 67/92), As a rcsult: “The same is said of that which differs and remains diffcrcnt“ (DR. 126/165). In this sense Deleuze and Guattari proposc a rigorously Nictzschcaii tcadymadc, a simulacrum or image without resemblancc, which “atrains thc status ofa sign in the coherence of eternal return“ (DR. 67/93). Gillcs Deleuze, “On Nictzsche anti the Image ofThought,“ Desert Jslands anti Other T/‘xts 1953—1974, p. 138. (‘Sur Nictzsche er l‘image dc Ja pcns&,“ LWe deserte et autres textes, 1953—1974, p. 1 91) Marcel Duchamp, quoted in Calvin Tomkins, Duchamp, A Biogiziphy p. 159. Flix (uattari and Anronio Negri, “Communist Proposirions,“ The Guattari Reader, p. 255. Fernando Pessoa, “The Keeper of Shcep,“ in SelectedFoems, p. 81. Translated by j. Griffen. London: Penguin. 1974. Nictzschc, fit Gay Science, 367. Nictzschc discusscs the painter Miraheau‘s creative ability of h)rgctnhig in On die Gcneiilogy ofMorals, 1, 10. This is possibiv the most direct statcmcnt ofthe viralist and materialist ‘per— nianent revolution‘ ot the aesihctic paradigin. lt is one they repeat: “Deformations destincd 10 harness a great forcc arc alrcady prcsent in the small—form refrain or rondo 1 J thc cosmic force was alreadv present in the material, the great refrain iii the lirtle refrain, the great manoeuvre in the Ii ttle manoeuvrc“ (ATI 350/432). Neverrhcless, a numher of commentators have claimed that Deleuze and Guattari arc Romantics. Dana Polan for example, while pointing out that Deleuze “avoids a ftill rolnantic mythology of cxpressiveness,“ nevertheless calls Delcuzc‘s book on Francis Bacon “quasi-romantic,“ and as such part of “thc larger romanric projecr of Deleuze: to go bcyond the surface fixities ofa culture and fincl those Fi)rces, those energies, thosc fluxes, those sensations ihat speeific sociohistorical inscriptions have hlocked and reificd into social etiqucltcs and srulrifying patterns of representation“ (“Francis Bacon, The logic of sensation,“ Giftes Deleuze anti die Theater ofPhilosophy, p. 230), The problem hcre is not Polan‘s descriprion of Deleuze‘s projcct, hut its descrip— tion as rom,mric. 1 hopc the reasons fiar this will he obvious in what follows. In a inorc ‘archacological mode John Sehers (in “Thc Point ofVicw of the Coiuos: Dcleuic, Romanticism, Stoicism“ in Ph 8, 1999) argues that Gcrman Roinanticism is a “central“ infiucncc on Dclcuze and Guatrari in its projcct of “lollowing naturc“ (p. 1). Sehers traces connections from Deleuze and Guattari to Friedrich Schlegel‘s concepis ofa “dircct mcdiator,“ anti a di— vine immanence as the “unity in tnultipliciry and multiplicity in unity“ (p. 1 0). Although these connccrioris arc no doubt acrivc in Dcleuze and Guattari‘s work, Scllers strangcly ignorcs their discussion of Romanticism in A Tljousand Plateaus, and chooscs ro instcad lind cvidence for the connec tions betwccn Schlegel and Dclcuzc and Guattari in their shared interest in ...

40.

Notes to (Jhapter Five

41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

2J

rhc Stoics. Once again thc problem 15 not die conncctions Sehers draws per se, hut the lack of rheir eritical asscssmcnt in hight of what Deicuze aitd Guattari thcnisclvcs writc about Romanticisni, Immanuel Kant, C‘ritique ofPure Reason, A68/B93. Gillcd Delcuzc, ThirdLesson on Kant, 28 March 1978. Immanuel Kant, C‘ritique ofJudgrnent, ss. 26. Gilled Deleuzc, ThjrdLesson on Kant, 28 Marcli 1 978. Kant writes: “The stihlime may bc describcd in this way: lt is an objcct (of nature) the rcprescntation ofwhich dererinines the ntind 10 rcgard the eleva— tion of nature hcy‘ond our reach as equivalcnt to the presentation ol ideas“ Immanuel Kant, C‘ritique of‘ Judgment, General Rcmarks upon the Exposition ofAcsthetic Reflexive Judgnicitts. Deleuze‘s reading ofihis ntove—

46.

47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52,

53. 54. 55,

ment can be litund in Kznt (Jritical Philosophy: The Doctrine oftiie Faculties, p. 5 1—2, Imnianuel Kant, C‘ritique o,FJudgmcnt, General Remarks upon the thc Exposition of Aestbetic Reflexive Judgnients. (;ll Deleuze, “The ldea ofGencsis in Kant‘s Esthctics,“ Dcsert Jsfands und Other lxts 1953—1974, p. 62. (‘L‘idc dc gcn&sc d,uts l‘csthtiquc dc Kant,‘ D‘le Dtserte et autres textes 1953—1974, p, 88) Immanuel Kant, (Jritique ofJudgment, ss. 28. Immanuel Kant, C‘ritique ifJudgnent, ss. 28. Gilled Deleuze, Fourth Lesson on Kant 4April1978. Deleuze specifically makes this point (C2, 18/29), Gihles Dclcuze, “The Idca of Genesis in Kanr‘s Esrhctics,“ Desert lslandt and Other 7xts 1953—1974, p, 62, (“L‘id& dc genise datis l‘csthctiquc dc Kant,“ l‘2‘he Deserte et autres textes 1953—1974, p. 88) Gilles Deluze, Fourth Lesson an Kant, 4 Apiih 1978. Immanuel Kant, (Jritique ofJudgmern, ss. 28 and General Rcmarks, As Deleuze and Guattari dcscrihc Romanticism: “lt is ccrrain rhat thic Earth as an intense poini in depth or in procction, as ratio cucndi, is alwavs in dis junction wirlm the territors‘: and the territorv as the coHdition of “knowl— edge,“ ratio cognoscendi, is ahways in disjunction with the earth“ (ATP

339/418), 56, Gustav Mahiher, “Ich bin der ‘/Vch abhanden gekommen,“ Rucitert 1.iede;: Dcath is a recurring Romantic motif, and was often used as a deseription of the artist‘s journev front individual to universal eonsCiousness, 57. Clement Greenberg, “Modcrnist Art,“ Die (Johlected Essays anti Criticism, Volume 4, !Vlodernisrn 0/th a Ingeance, p. 85. 58. Clcnicnr Grcenberg. “1lodcrnist Art,“ The (.‘ohbccti‘el Essays anti &iticisn/, 1lurne 4, Modernisrn with a Vengeance, p. 86, Grccnbcrg writcs: “Thc essenee of Modernism hics, as 1 sec ir, in rhc use of cltaracteristic methods of a discipline to criricisc thc discipline itsclf, not in order to suhvcrr it bttt in order ro cntreneh it more firmly in its area ofcompcrcncc“ (p. 85),

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59. Clenient (reenlicrg, t\ierican-Fype‘ Painting,“ Art anti culture, (Jritical Essays, p. 208. 60. Clenient Creenberg, “Modernist Art,“ The C‘oiiected Essays and criticism, I4ilume 4, Modernism with a Vengeance, p. 85. 61. Clcinent Greenberg. “Towards a Newer Laocoon,“ The (Jollected Etsays and crttictsm. lunie q, !tlodernzsrn ivith ii 4‘ngeance. p. 23. 62. Cleinent Creenherg, “Towards a Newer Laocoon,“ The C‘ollected Essays and . 0 Citiczsm, 14ilume 4. ilfodernisrn u‘zth a l/‘i‘ngeance, p.3 The C‘ol/ected Euays and Laocoon,“ Newer “Towards a Crccnbcrg, 63. Clement ii Vengeance, with Moa‘ernism p. 29. “The picturc,“ (.)iticism, Volume 4, it produces“ p. 34. Sensation visual the itseif in Creenberg wi ites, “exhausts decline is die most asa ahstraction such art after 64. That Creenberg rcgarded dc Duve, Kant Tliieriy See, teleology. modernist ohvions symptom of his a/ier Ducliamp, p. 216—248. 65. 1—bw. in other words, does art make these forces visible? Deleuze and Gtiattari often quote Paul Klee iii this regard. particularly the line: “Art does not reprodnce die visihle; rarher jr makes visible.“ Paul Klee, C‘reative credo, 1. Deleuie and Ctiattari‘s nse of Klee as the spokesman for Moclernism is ironie, considering the usual association of bis work and thought (not least bis own) wirb Romanticism. (See, Robert Rosenblum, “Other Romantic currents: Klee and Ernst,“ in Major European Art Movements, 1900—1945) But Klee‘s frniulations tbat liave been taken as Romantic arc also open tO Deleuze and Gnattari‘s eoneepr of Modernism. For example. Klee writes: “There, wbeie die power-house of all time and space—call ir brain or hearr of creation—activates every fnnction; who is the artist who would not dwell there?“ (On Modern Art, p. 49). Obviously, space and time arc not apriori categories, but elements of ‚i creation that niakes this there a here, and im— plies a brain and a creative chaosmos wbich arc immanent to each otber in theproduction ofart. This reading is supported by Klee‘s rejection ofwhat he calls tbe “crass emotional phase of Romanticism,“ in favour of a “eool Ronianricism,“ a “new Romanricism“ whieh rejects the heroic solitude ofthe romanric artist in order to “emhrace tlte life force itself,“ at “the souree ofcre— ation‘ (On Modern Art, p. 49). Such an art would be, in Klee‘s words, “a Romanticism wbich is one with tbe universe“ (On Modern Art. p. 43) and would flnd us deflnitively modern statemellt in the words Klee piaced on his own tombstone: “1 cannot he grasped in imnianetice.“ Finally, and impor— tanrly For Deleuze and Guattiri, Klee will ahandon romantic feelings oflong ing and disjnnction, in realising that a “modern Romantieism“ calls for die crcation of a people to come (On Alodern Art, p. 55). 66. This materialisin would he the ground of Guattari‘s ohjections to post—mod— ernismn; tbat it fmils to open irselfro cosmic forces, to niolecularise and deter— ntorialise itself sufficiently, and rhereby accepts a romanrie disjuncrion of diseursive sy‘stemns and wbat grounds themn. Thar is, it is not materialist

Notes to Chapter Five

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enough. As a result, there is no true resistance in post—modernismn hecause there is no true ereation. ‘Ehe virtual etbical and aesmhetic abdication of postrnodern thought,“ Cuattari writes, “leaves a kind o black stain upon bis— tory.“ “Postmoderriism and Eduical Abd icat ion,“ ihr Guattari I?eade7 p. 116. The postmodern projeci of “deconsrructing“ cliehtS and opinion would not be the same as its absoltite detertitorialisation, preciselv because the first operation involves a suppiemental dimension of ironv and die second does not (Derridean differanee cannot. 1 believe, be eqnated to Deleuiian difflr— emice, as tbey do not share die same ontological grounds). Deleuie and Cuattari re—viralise tnodernism ratber than suggest a post—modernism, be— eause tbey far prefer modernism‘s ontobogical ambition to post—modernism‘s epistemobogical pessimism. As Deleuze ssrites, paraphrasing 1). 11. Lawrence on painting, “tbe rage agains! cliclis does not lead to mtich if jr is content only to parodv tbeni; malrrcated, mutilatcd, destroy‘ed, a Clich is not slosv to he reborn from its asbes“ (Cl, 211/284). 67. This is Deleuze and Cuattari‘s version of die “death of the artist,“ and is ex tcnded by‘ Deleuze‘s suggestion that tlie art ivork is a gravestone: “Art is dc— fined as an impersonal process in wbich the work is eoniposed somnewhat like a cairn, with stones carried in hy different voyages and beings in beconung“ (ECC, 66/87). 68. In this sense, Modernism mnarks the point where “Art and pbilosopby con— verge,“ inasrnuch as horb, on Deleuze audi Guattari‘s aucount, enmerge ar a point at whieb, “die constitution of an earth and .1 people tbat arc lacking [ard the correlare of crcation“ (W1 108/1 04). Tbis is not to demiv their very different marerialities—concepm anti sensation—hut to undersrand their

69. 70.

71. 72.

comnion ontobogy, atid tbeir sbared process of cbaosmmmic consrructiomm/ex— pression. Deleuze suggests, and liere perbaps expresses bis agreenient witli Guattari‘s privileging ofart, War philosopby begins witb sensation, ina.smtich as ‘the path that leads to that which is to be tbought, hegins with sensihility. 1 The privilege of semmsihiliry as origin appears omilv iii the fact thar, in an eflCounter, s‘bat ftrces sensation and ilmat whieb cami oniv he semised arc one and rhe same thing“ (DR. 144—5/188). WaIt Wlmitmnan, “Song of i\lyself“ Leai‘es ofGmss, limies 226. 505, and 136. Deleuze and Guattari‘s rerms of percepr and affccm involve a rerniinobogical reconhgurarion iii relation to the work of Spinoza, front where the mcmi “af— feet“ comes. As Deleuzs and Guattari explain, what is biere callcd “pereep rion“ and “affection“ arc whar Spinoza bad prcviously called “affection“ and “affectus“ (Wl 154/145—6), amid wbat Deleu,e anti Guattari bad in ATP called “affeetion“ and “affect“. See B, 28—9/19—20 for a discussion of rbe percept in simnilar terms. Deleuze and Cuartari‘s association of Cuhisni wirb the plane of conipoitiomi is perhaps even more ironie than their exploration of Klee‘s anti—Ronianticism, and musr he rreated as a mnerapbor. Despite die Cuhisrs interest in Bcrgson and

Notes to Chapter Six

274

73 74. 75. 76.

77. 78. 79.

80.

Nietzsche, the weil known Cubist “ca! 1 to order“ is an idealism rather than an crnpiricism, an attempr at ‘ohjectiviry‘ franied in the Kantian terms of a tran— scendental subject. For an art historical account of the Cubist interest in Bergson and Nietzsche see, Mark AntliW Inventing Begson, C‘ultural Politics and the Parisian Avant-Garde, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Especialiy chapter 2 “Du C‘ubisrne between Bergson and Nietzsche,“ Gilles Delen,‘e, Neotiations 1972 1990, p. 146—7. Gilles Deienze, Proust and Sins, p. 97. (Proust et les sines, p. 54) Gilles Delenze, Proust andSzg‘n, p. 98. (Proust et les sznes, p. 56) Some of Delenze and Guattari‘s most beaurifiul passages evoke this creative mystical immanence: “The Cosrnos is an ahstract machine, and each world is an assembiage effeetuating it. If one reduces oneseif to one or several ab srract lines that will prolong itseif in and conjugare with others, producing immediately, direcdy a world in which it is the world that becomes, then one bccomes-evcryhody/everything“ (ATP 280/343). Virginia Wooif, Mrs. Dal/oway, p. 154—55, London: Penguin, 1996. Gilles Deleuze, “Lpnis,“ in Samuel Beckett, Quad Minuit, Paris, 1992. p. 77. Gilles Dcleuze, “1 laving an ldea in Cinema,“ Deleuze and Guattari New Mapping3 in Po/itics, J‘/u/o.ophy and (‘ulture, p. 18. (Qu‘este-ce que L‘acte dc crtanon, Deux R«imes dc Fous, 7xtes et Entretiens 1975 1995, p. 300) 1‘his is a favonrite set of images Deleuze often uses. In relation to Nierzsche: “There arc dimensions here, times and places, glacial or torrid zones never moderated, the entire exotic geography which characterises a mode of thought as weil as a style of hfe“ (LS, 128/153). “lt is tip to us to go to ex— treme places, to extreme times, where the highest and the deepest truibs live and risc tip. The places of thought arc the tropical zones frequented by the tropieal man, not temperate zones or the moral, methodical or moderate man“ (N 110/126). And in relation to German expressionist cinema: “lt is the hour sshen it is no longer possihle 10 distinguish hetween sunrise and sunset, air and water, water and earth, in the great mixture ofa marsh or of .1 tempeSt“ (CI, 14/26).

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX 1. Deleuze and Guatrari wrirc: “An ahstract machine is not physieal or corpo real, any more than it is semionc; it is diagrammatic“ (ATl 147/176). 2. “The privilcge of sensibility as origin,“ Deleuze writes, “appears in the fact that, in an encountcr, what forces sensation and thar which can oniy be senscd arc one and tlw same thing.“ (DR, 144—5/1 88) Sensation marks the inuflanence of ontological and aesthetic dimensions, and is what must be thought, in nng as in philosophy.

Notes to Chapter Six

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3. This date refers to the appcarance ofa diagram or ahstracr maclune. In ATP each plateau carries such a date, for exampic ott November 28 1947 Antonin Artaud announees thc Body without Organs (BwO), As wt. shall sec, this is an important date for Ddeuze‘s aceount of Bacon‘s diagram. 4. For a brief account of Riegi‘s concept of Kunstwollen see Cbapter Four, note 43, 5. The chapter this quotation comes from, “Mahinic heterogenesis“ gives a good account of die machinic history Deleuze is employing in relation to Bacon‘s diagrani. “lt is at the intcrseuion of heterogeneous machinic Universes, ofdifferent dirnensions and wirh unfamiliar ontoiogical textures, radical innovarions and once forgon-en, then reactivated, aneestral ntachinie lines, that die niovement ofhistory singularises itseif“ (Chaos, 41/63). 6. The diagram is “prcsent,“ Deleuze and Guattari write, “in a different way in every assemblage, passing from ont to the other, opening one onto the other, outside any dxed order or determined scqnence“ (ATl 347/428). 7. For an interesting account of Bacon‘s “diagrammatic“ use of Vehizquez and Ingres see, Norman Bryson, “Bacon‘s Dialogues with the Past,“ in Francis Bacon and the Tradition ofArt. 8. Deieuze writes: “Painting invents entirely different rypes ofbiocks. These arc neither blocks ofconcepts nor blocks ofmovemcnts/durations, hut blocks of line/colors,“ Gilles Deleuze, “1 Javing an Idea in Cinema,“ Deleuze und Guattari New Mapping in Politics, Philosophy and culture, p. 1 5. (“Qn“esr cc que l“acte dc crarion?,“ Deux R«imes dc Fous, textes et entretiens 1975--1995, p. 293) 9. David Sylvester, Interviews wit?, Francis Baron, p. 1 6—7. 10. “Paintings eternal object is this:“ Deleuze and Guauari writc, “to paint firces“ (WI 182/172), II. Spiritual or “geometrie“ abstraction, Deleuze argues produces a pnreiy opti cal space without taetile connections, within which the “spiritual“ (transcen— dent) values of the abstract forms signif‘ according 10 a still classical inodel ofrepresentation. In “spiritual“ abstraction color and form arc undeistood in an entirely symbolic way, as representing highcr truths (fi)r example, Kandinsky‘s understanding ofcolor in On the $piritua/ in Art, or Maievich‘s understanding ofform in Suprematism). Abstract expressionism is the other pole, and produces a catastrophe enveloping the entire canvas. Abstract Expressionism, Deleuze writes, “grounds itsclf in a scrambling“ (FB, 117/111). F-lere, optical space disappears in favour ofa manual line that pro duces a sensation that is “irreniediahly confused“ (FB, 109/102). Deleuze‘s critiquc of “spiritual“ abstraction and abstract expressionism, it must be notcd, is specific to Deleuze‘s evaluation ofBacon‘s practiee, and will not pre vent Deienze fiom affirming hoth diagrams elsewhere (he affirms both Pollock and minimaiism as cxpressions of the Baroque fhld (TF, 27/38, 160/168), and gives a posirise evaluation ofMondrian (WB 183/173). We

26

Notes iv Chapter Six

have already seen Deleuze and Guattari‘s affirmation of Pollock in ATR The point is that different diagrams answer different questions, as Deleuze cx plains: “The important question is: Why did Bacon not become involved in either of die two preceding paths. The severiry of his reactions, rather than elaiming to pass judgement, simplv indicate what was not right for him, and explains why Bacon personally took neithcr of these paths“ (FB, 109/101 —2). As a result, l3aeons “middle way“ between geometrie ahstrac— nun and ahstraet expressionism “is called a “middle“ way only from a very external puint of ‘iew“ (FB, 118/111). 12. \Ve recall froni Chaprer Four that this is the aspect ofWbrringcr‘s aceount of Egyptian art Deleuze and G uattari criticize. 1.3. Deleuze takes the rerm “Figtire“ from Jean—Francois Lyotard‘s book Discoii;s,Fzgiire. Lyotard is priniarilv concerned wirh Freud‘s ropological con— struction of the unconselons in whieh surface elements ofa narrative appear as fignrative transformations of an invisible system of uneonscious relations. L.yotard argues that the uneonscious produetion ofeonscious meaning does not ocetir through a process of interpretation—rhat is rhrough the signi— fier—and this is the “iniportance“ of the book fir Deleuze (“Remarks (on Jean-Franeois Lyotard),“ L)esert ts/ands anti Other ]‘xts 195.3—1974, p. 214). (L“ile D6serte et Autres 7xtes, textes et entretiens 1953—1974, p. 299) Instead, meaning enterges through an invisible “matrix“ that exists outside ofany laws of representation and discourse. For Lyotard rhe visible is strucrured by this invisible and uneonseious matrix whieh becomes visible in the Figure, or “figural,“ as the deformation of figurative representations. The matrix, ac— cording to Lyotard, “resides in a space that is beyond the intelligihle, [andj is in radical rupture with the mIes of Opposition; we can already see that rhis property of uneonseious space, whicli is also thar of the lihidinal body, is to have many places in one plaee, and ro block together what is logically incom— patihle. This is the seeret of tlie figural: the transgression of the eonstitutive intervals of discourse and the transgression of the constitutive disrances of representation“ (Lvotard quoted in Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind E. Krauss, ForinlessA (Jsert Guitic, p. 106—7). Deleuze, while adopting the deforinative aspeet of Lyotards Figure. and acknowledging the “extreme importance“ of his hook (AO, 243/289) discards its psyehoanalytie focus. This is hecausc al rhough Lyorard identifies the “fignre—matrix“ wirh desire, correetly in Delenze and Cuattari‘s opinion. he limits desire, and indeed “eastratcs“ it (AO, 244/290) bv bringing it hack “roward the shores he has so recently left behind“ in redueing die Figure 10 “rransgressions“ whieh remain seeondary to whar tliey defiarni (AO, 244/290). For an aecounr of Deleuze‘s relation to lyotard, see Ronald Bogne, Deleuze an Miisic, Paintin anti the Arts, p. 113—16.

Notes 10 Chapter Siv

27

14. In A Thorisand P/ateaus Deleuze and (iuatlari argue that the flice finds us be— coming—aninial in a liead—hody. The head—body is eomposed of “/iciality traits,“ wbieh “elude the Organisation of the fee“ (AFP 171/209). 15. That is, it considers painting as an onrological praetice. See Mauriee Merleau—Ponty, The Visi6 ie anti the Jnvisih/e (referenees now fbund in die text following ibe abbreviation “VI“), and Ins essays “Eye anti Mmd,“ and “Clizanne‘s Douht,“ in Tue Merleau—Ponty Aesihetics Read‘r: Phi/osophy anti Painsing (referenees to “Eye and Mmd“ arc now found in the text following die abbreviarion “Eid“). 16. Apart froni Merleau—Ponrv‘s work, Deleuze also draws 01] and diseusses orlier phenomenologieal aeeonnts of Ctianne, cspeeiallv Erwin Straus, 77o‘ Primaiy V1“ir/ti of the Senses, and Henri Maldinev, RevyI, Iilio/e, Espace. For an aeeonnr of Deleuze“s relanonship to Stratis and Maldinev see, Ronald Bogue, Deleuze an Music, Painting anti tln‘ ilits, p. 116—121 (fiar Straus), and p. 139—145 (on Maldiney). For other aeeonnts of Deleuze‘s relation to phe— nomenology see, Daniel W Smitb, “Delenze‘s Theorv of Sensation: Overeoniing die Kanrian Duality,“ in L)eleuze: A G;itica/ ReatiL‘,; anti Tudv Purdom, “Mondrian anti the destruetion ot space,“ in Hypeiplastik, Kunst und Konzepte der Wahrnehmung in Zeiten der inental imagery 17. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “Clizanne‘s Douhr,“ 7he Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reatier; Phi/osop/y anti Painting, p. 68. 18. As Merleau—PoHty writes, “it is not 1 wlio Sees, liot he WhO sees, heeause an anonymous visibiliry inhabits horb ofus, avision in general, in virtue ofdiat prirnordial property that belongs to the flesh, heing here and now, of radiat— ing everywhcre and forever, being an individnal, of being also a dimension and a universal“ (VI, 142). 19. Merleati—Ponty‘s “pathic“ flesb is elearly distinguislsed froin Deleuze‘s “bap ne“ one in terms of this ropology of absence. if we recall Merleau—Ponty‘s pathic topology of “rhe ourside ofirs inside md the inside ofits outside“ (VI, 144), we ean eontrast this direetly vitIi Deleuze‘s liapnie topologv of a plane of composition whieh “is not internat tu die self hut neither does it eome froni an exrcrnal selfor a non—seif Rarher it is like die absolute Qutside that knows no Selves hecausc interior and exrerior arc eqnally a part ofthe inima— nenn in wbich rhey have fused“ (ATP 156/194). 20. This is inevirable, Deleuze wrires, for “A conseiousness is nothing witliont a svnnhesis of nnificanion. bot nhcre is no synthesis nf unifleanion withour the form of the 1, or the poinn ofview of the SeIf“ (LS. 102/124). 21. “The quesnion of whether fiesh is adeqnate no art,‘ Deleuze anti Cuattari wrirc, “can be pur in this way: ean in snpport pereept anti affict, ean it con— sninurc die heiiig ofsensation, or most ii not irseifbe suppotted and pass inro onher powers oflife?“ (WB 178/169). 22. Interestingly, Cizanne is more of a stopping place for Deleuze‘s recapitula tion of Baeon, than for Bacon himself As Baeon said of Czanne: “I‘m tior

28

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

Notes to Chapter Six sure what place he has in thc history of painting. 1 can sec that he has been important, hut 1 must admit l‘ni not madly enrhusiastic about hint, as many people arc.“ Michael Archimbaus, Francis Bacon. In C‘onversation with Michae/Archimbaud, p. 42. ric Alliez, “Some Remarks on Color in Conternporary Philosophy,“ unpag— inatcd unpublished paper, given at die conference chroma Drama, W‘dc,:tand der Farbe, the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, 2000. Alliez devclops this idea here in some detail, writing, “Deleuze reverses the order in perceptions supposed in Merleau—Ponty‘s phenomenology ofart and instead of thc painter following thc birth of the rhing in its actualisation—a niove frotn the virrual to the actual—has the painter dissolve the thing and niove froni thc actual to thc virtual. To thc ColiSiStclit material virtual discov— ercd by die old (‘annc; to the matter and movement of paint as expresslons of colors—constructions.‘ This independent ligbt illuminating things obviously recalls our discussion of plicnomcnology. The separation of light troni color introduces an optical space and iniplies a discrete eye to see it. \Ve can understand Czanne‘s rela tion to die lmpressionisrs in this ivay, fbr although the Impressionists suc— cecded in dissolving form, this dissolntion was achieved in light, Deleuze and Guattari argue, and depended ott an “optical mixture of colors‘ in an au— tonomons eye (WI 165/155). Czanne said “Monet is hut an eye,“ and this tio doubr a very Delcuzian criticism. Indeed, Deleuze expands on Czarine‘s “lesson against the inipressionists,“ writing that a sensation is not achieved through “die ‘free‘ or disembodied play oflighr and color (impres sions).“ Rather, sensation emerges in the construction of colored planes, solid bodics o colur that do not melt into the air. “Color,“ Deleuze writes, “is in the body, sensation is in die body. and not in the air“ (FB, 35/40). The lmpressionists rhen, not (zanne, were the real paintcrs ofphenonienoiogy. For Goethe: “Two pure original principles in contrast arc die foundation of die wltoie.“ iheory of‘Golours, 707. Goethe offers a whole range of tcrms to descrihe die differenrial relations of yellow and blue (Theo,y qf C‘olours, 696) many of which describe die relations of forces—Repulsion/Attraction, Action/Negation. Deleuze generally sticks to hot and cold. See also Deleu7e‘s discussion of die painter Grard fromanger in diese terms, in “Cold and 1-leat,“ Photogenic Fainting, Gerhard Fromanger. Deleuze gives die example of die color “green: yellow and bitte can surely he perceived hut ifthcir perccption vanishes hy dint ofprogressive diminution, thev enter into a diffrentiai relation (dbldy) that determines green. Anti nothing impedes eithcr yellow or bitte, cach on its own aceounr, from being alrcady dctermined hy die differcntial relation of two eolors that we cannot dctect“ (TP, 88/117). Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Theory ofcolours, 805.

Notes to Chapter Six

279

28. The forces ofthe earth (fiirces offolding, thermal and tnagnetic forces, forees of gerrnination) enierge in Czanne‘s paintings aceording to an abstract geonietry. This absttact geolnetry, Comnton to the niountains and to Czannes paintings, is what Deleuze and Guattari cdli “traits of content,“ with colors beitig dicir “traits of expression“ (ATR 14 1/176). ‘hie forces of thc earth emerge in inseparable traits ofeontent and expression, in Czantte‘s paintings as in Natttre, they form sensations (particle—signs). 29. Sensation, Deleuze says, is “irrcducibly sytitheric,“ hecause ii is its nature “ro envelop a constitutive difference of level“ (FB, 37/41—2). Vision, in other words, is the differential caiculus of Nature aitd gives an analogical expres_ sion of die heconting of its forces. 30. Here we arc not fhr from Spinoza‘s fbrniula 6 r heatitudc -t percept itt which 1 think or experience God/Nature as God/Nature dtitiks itself 31. Quoted in fric Alliez, “Hallucitiating Cciatttte,“ p. 185. in fJpeip/astik, Kunst und Koizzepte der W4dirnehmung in Zeiten der menta! imagcry 32. Wlicre Baeon rentains Czattnean, Deleuze writes, “is in the extreme elabo radon ofpainting as analogical language“ fF13, 120/113). 33. “in Vati Gogh, Gauguin, or todav Bacon,“ Deletize and Guattari write, “we see die immediate tetision hetween flesh and die arca ofplain, unifirtii color surging fiirth, hetween die flows of broken tones [tons rompus] atid die infi nite band of a pure, homogeneous, vivid anti saturated colotir“ P 7 (“X 181/171). More specifically, “Vati Gogh ‚md Gauguin, sprinkle thc arca of plain, uniform eolor with litde bttitchies offiowers so as to turn it iitto wall paper on wbich the face stands out in hroken tones“ (W 1 82/173). This is a device Gauguin frequendy entploys (/eepin (Jhi1a 1884, Josefliwitz col lection, Seqortrait.‘ 1 .es !ttiserab/es, 1888, Vincnt vati Gogh Foundatiott, Anisterdani, La Be//eAnge/e, 1889, Muse d‘Orsay. Paris). In Vati Gogh the “wahlpaper“ tends not so much to die floral as to a swirling pattern (Serpor trait, 1889, Mus& d‘Orsay, Paris). Bacon also took otber things front Gauguin anti Vati Gogh. The hroken tones ofBacott‘s figures arc muclt closer to Vati Gogh‘s “nialerisch“ technique, while die fiat colored grounds and the use ofan arniature to fratite the figatres is closer ro Gattgttiti. In this latrer re spect Deletize argues that Bacon sliares a “cloissotiisttt“ with Gattguitt s hielt, for both, “recuvers a fitnction that is derived front tlic lialos of pretnodern painting“ (FB, 1 52/142). There is also a d.titgcr Bacott‘s “malerisch“ period shares with the eariy- Gauguin. that ofa “hietiditig“ itt the broken tones dark “

ening the painting (FB, 143/134),

34. There arc, fiir example, onlv “ohvions“ dif1retices hetween Bacon .ind Czatine, Ctzantic paints landscapes atid stiii-liFcs, Bacott does not, (zatitte painrs Nature, Bacott intcriors, But these differettces arc ttnitcd, Deleuze ar gues, iti their shared project, to “paint the Sensation“ (1B, 35/40), 35. This would he the only point at which tny aecount of Deiettzc rcadittg of Bacon differs front the odierwise immaculate description Rotiald Bogite

Notes to Chapter Six

280

36.

37.

38.

39. 40. 41. 42.

gives in Deleuze an 31usic, Pitintin, anti t1‘e Arts. “Sensation,“ Boguc argues, ‘registers direetly OH the nerves without passing through the brain“ (p. 158). As we shall see ths is perhaps simply a “quarrd oVer words.“ Quoted in 1ric Allie,, “1 lallucinating Czannc,“ p. 144. 1 have also taken the concept of the eyebrain which fillows from Eric Alliez, who devcloped it in hi seminar 012 tI‘e Eye-Brain ofModernity, at the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, 1999—2003 ‚See ric AlIiez and jean-Ciet Martin, L‘Oeil cert‘eau. Dc la pcinture moderne, Paris: Senil, 2005. “Accord ing to plienomenology,“ Deleuze and Guatrari wrire, “thought dc— pends on maos relations with the world—with which the brain is necessar— ily in agreement heeausc it is drawn frons these relations, as cxcitations arc drawn from the world and reactions from man, including their uncerrainties and failtires. “Man thinks, not the brain“; bot this aseent of phenomcnology be)-ond the brain towards a Being in the world, rhrough a double criricism of inechanism and dynamism, hardly gets ns out of the sphere of opinions. lt leads us only‘ 10 an Urdoxa posited as an original opinion, or meaning of meanings“ (WP 209—10/197). F‘or Deleuze‘s aecount of ihe spatzurn as the intensive differenciation of spa— tio—temporal dvnamisms particular to the Body without Organs, sec DR, 251/323. John Milton, litradise Lost, hook 1, line 124, in The (7omplete English Poems, p. 161, cdited hy C. Camphell, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. Antonin Artaud, “‘Ib F lave Done with the Judgenient of Cod,“ Selected Wiitnigs, P 571 Antonin Artaud, “To 1 lave Düne with the Judgemcnt of God,“ Selected Wriun‘s, p. 565. ‘[‘he lirst quotation is Antonin Artaud, “Situation of the Flesh,“ Selected W‘ritings, p. lii The second is an unreferenced quotation of Artaud by Deleuze (C2, 16S/215). Antonin Artaud, “Situation of the Plesh,“ Selected Witings, p. 111. Deleuze argues: “{Artandl savs that the cinema is a matter of nettro—physio logical vibrations, anti that the image must produce a shock, a nerve—wave whieh gives risc to thought, “for thought is a rnatron who has not always ex— isted.“ ‘l‘hought has no other reason to function than its own birth, secret and pro6mnd“ (C2. 165/215). Antonin Artaud, “Situation of die Flesh,“ Selected iitings. p. 110. Antonin Artand, final letter to Paule Thevenin. Fcbruar‘ 24 1948, Selected W‘itzngs, p. 585. This is die theatre of what Deleuze calls dramatisation. A theatre borh Artaud‘s and Bacon‘s, in which “lt is intcnsity which is immediately expressed in the basic spatio—teniporal dvnaniisms and which determines the ‘indistincr‘ differential relation in a distinct qnalitv and a distinguished extensity“ (DR, 245/316). Deleuie calls this process “individuation,“ and in relation to Bacon .

43. 44.

45. 46. 47.

Notes to the Conclusion

281

conld say it is the act ofpainting. “Individuation,“ he ‘,s lites, “is die act hy which intensity dcterniines diftrejitial relations to hecome actualised, along the lines ofdiffeiznciation ‘md within the qnalities and extensities it ereates“ (DR, 246/317). 48. Deleuze and Cnattari discuss the “rbytlinnc characier“ in ATl 318/391. Deleuze‘s discussion ofihe three dilierent rlivihms coine front die coinposer Olivier Messiaen, 49. lt often appears as such, tor example, in Aiiti-0ec/ipus Deleitac and Gnattari wrirc: “lt must not he thought that thc intensities themselves arc in Opposi tion to one another, arriving at a state of balance arotnid a neutral state. On the conrrary, thcy arc all positive in relation to the icro intensity that desig natcs die full hod‘ it ithout organs. And thev nndergo relanve i ises or falls depending on the complcx rclationship between them and die variations in the relative strength ofattraction and repulsion as determining fictors“ (AO, 19/25), Further down the page thcy mention Kant‘s theory of intensive quanrity. Deleuze also discusscs Kant‘s theory of intcnsity in DR, 23 1/298. The refcrcnces in ATP have alreadv heen given. WC

NOTES TO THE CONCLUSION Thomas Pynchon, Vine/ant4 p. 266—7, London: ?\lincrva, 1990. 2. Gilles Dcleuzc, Negotiations 1972—1 990, p. 14S. 3. Gilles Deleuze, “lmmancnce: A 1 ife,“ Pure Immanenec: Essays an A Lif, p 27, 4. Flix Gtiattari, “Instirutional Schiio-Analysis,“ SaH Subve,sions, p. 276,

B ibl iography

GIIIES DELEUZE—BOOKS Bergsonism, rranslated bv 1—!. imlinsnn anti 13. }1.ihlwrjim. \cw \ork: Zone Books, 1991. Le beigsonisme. Paris: Presses Universitaires dc France, 1966. cmeinal, The Movement Image, rranslaicd by 11. liamlinson and 13. Flabbcrjam. Mmneapolis: University of Miimcsota Press, 1989. cinema 1: Lirnage-moniemtnt. Paris: Minuis, 1983. Cilles Deleuze, cinema 2, Y ie 7me—Image, translatcd by 1 1. ‘lomlmson and R. 7 Calera. Minneapolis: Univcrsirv of Mi Inesota Press. 1989. cinnrn 2. L7mage-temps. Paris: Minuit, 1980. “Coldncss and Cruclry,“ itlasochL,m, translatcd lw McNeil. Ncsv York: Zone J. Books, 1991. Cilles Deleuze and Clairc Parner, J)ialogues, translatcd hv H. Ihmlinson and 13. Hahberjani. New York: Columhia University Prcss, 1 98v. Cilles Deletize and (laire Parnet, Dialogues. Paris: Flammarion, 1996. Desert idanib nd Other ]vts 1953—] 9Tt, iransiared 1w \l. Taorinina. New York: Semiorext( c), 2004. Eile Diserte etAutres 7ates, textes et entretiens J953_J974. Paris: Minoir, 2002. Deux Reimes dc fitus textes et entretlens 19‘5—]995. Paris: Minuit, 2003. Dirence and Repetition, translared by P Patron. Ncw York: University of Colurnbia Press, 1996. Di‘rence et Rep6tition. Paris: Presses Universitaires dc France, 1968. Essays critical anti clinical, translarcd by D. Smith and M. Crceo. Minncapolis: Universiry of Minnesota Prcss, 1997. &itique et C‘linique. Paris: Minuit, 1993. Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, rranslared hy M. }oughin. New York: Zone Books, 1992. Spinoza et Ieprohli‘me dc 1apression. Paris: Minnir. 1968.

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The Folel: Leibniz anti the Baroque, translatcd by T Conlcy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Lt /‘lz, Leibniz ei Je haroquc. Paris: Minuit. 1988 Foucault, translatcd by S. Hand. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Prcss, 1988. JnicauIt. Paris: Minuit, 1986. Francis Bacon: The Logic ojSensatzon, translatcd by D.‘X‘ Smith. LoHdon and New York: Coiitinuuin. 2003. Erancis Bacon /oiqiie Ja sensation. Paris: Scuil, 2002. Kiiite Critical Philosophy: The Docirine f the Eiculties, translated by F{. Toinlinson and B. Flabberjam. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. The Logic of Sense, translated by M. Lester with C. Stivale, editcd by CV. Boundas. Ncsv Yrk: Colunsbia Univcrsity Prcss. 1990. Loique du sens. Paris: v1iiiuit, 1 9(9. Negotiations 192-—199O, translated h XI. Joughin. New York: Columhia University Prcss, 1995. , translated hy H. Tomlinson. Ncw York: Columbia 9 iVietzscbe anti Philosop/ Press, 1983. Universiry Nieizjche et li /iI‘ilosophie. Paris: Prcsses Univcrsitaires dc France, 1962. iVietzschc. Paris: Presses Lnivcrsitaircs dc Francc, 1965. Proust andSins, translared by R. 1 loward. London: Pcnguin, 1972. I‘roust et les sines. Paris: Prcsses Liniversitaires dc France, 1964. Pure fmmanence, Essays on A Lif, translated by A. Boyinan. New York: Zone Books, 2001. Spinoza: Practical PhilosopIy translated by R. Hurlcy. San Francisco: City Lights I3ooks, 1988. 5pinoza, Piulosop/iiepnttique. Paris: Minuit, 1981

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“Bergson‘s conception ofdiffcrence,“ ihe New Bergson, edited byJ. Mullarkey. “Having an Idea in Cinema,“ Deleuze anti Guattari, Neu‘ Mappings in Politics, Pbi/osopliy anti (u/ture, edited [w E. Kaufman and K. J• Heller. (“Qu‘est-cc que l‘aetc dc crario ?‚“ Dt‘ux Regimes dc Fous, textes et entretiens 1975—1995) ‘Thc Brain Is The Scrccn: An lntcrvicw with Gutes Deleuze,“ ihe Brain is the Screen: (id/es Deleuze anti die Philosophy of Cinema, cdited by G. Flaxman. “Cold and 1 leat,“ Photogenic Painting, Gera rd Fromanger, (English and French) translatcd by 1). Roberis. London: Black Dog Publishing, 1 999. “L‘1puis,“ Samuet Beckctt, Quad. Paris: Minuit, 1992.

Semjna, The Nature ofFlows, 14 Decembcr 1971, ranslated by K.l. Ocana, Seminar Session On Scholasticism anti Spinoza, Vincennes, 14 january 1 974, translated hy T. 5. Murphy. On Music, Seminar Session 3 Mav 1977, translated hv T S. Murphv. Seminar Session of‘Spinoza, 24 Januarv 1978, translated by 1 S. Xlurplw. Js‘int: Synthesis anti Tnne, seminar, 14 Xlarch 1 9‘8, translated bv Xl .XleXlahon. T/,jrd/esson on Kint, seminar, 28 Mareh 1978, translated by XI. XlcMahon. Metal, meta1/uigj musjc, Husserl, Simondon, seminar, 27 Fehruary 1979, trans lated hy T. 5. Murphy. Seminar Session on pinoza, 25 November 1980, translated hy T S. Murpliv. Session on Spinoza, seminar, 13 Januar‘ 1981. translated hx 1. S. Xlnrphv. Theoiy qf‘AfuIti/icities in Beigson, seminar, translatrd lw T. 5. XIurphv.

DELEUZE AND GUATTARI—BOOKS Anti-Oeditnts, C‘apita/ism andSchizophrenia, translated hy R. Hurly, M. Seem, and H. R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983. 1.4nti—(Ea‘,e. Paris: Minuit, 1972. A Thousand Plateaus, translated 1w B. Massumi, london: Athlone, 1988. —Mi//eJ‘/ateaux Paris: Minuir, 1980. What Js Philosophy?, translated hy 1-1. ibinlinson and G. Burehell. New brk: Columbia University Press, 1994. Qu‘est-cequelaphi/osophie? Paris: Minuit, 1991.

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cartographies Schizoanalytiques. Paris: Galik:e, 1989. chaosmosis: an ethico-aestheticparadim, translated by P Baines and J. Pefsnis. Sydney: Power pubtications, 1995. chaosmose. Paris: Galihle, 1992. (Jhaosophy cdited by S. Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1 94)5, (Jommunists Like (Zt, (wirh Antonio Negri). translared hv XI. Rvan. New Ybrk: Semiotexr(e), 1990. The Guattari Readei; edited by (. Genosko. Oxtbrd: Blaekwell, 1 996. Molecular Revolution. rranslated hy R. Shced. London: Penguin. 1984. La r/volution moleculaire, Fontenay-sous-Bois: Enere, 1977 SofiSubversions, edited by 5. Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e), 1996. The Three Ecologies, translated hv 1. Pindar and P Sutton. London: Atlilone Press, 2000.

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Antonin Artaud, Witt‘hflelds anti Ruck .S‘cre‘nns: W‘n‘ksßoni tin‘ Final Period, cd— ited and translated by C. Eshlenun wirll B. ilador. Boston: Exact (lange. 1995. Main Badiou, Deleuze.‘ Jhe (darnour of Being, translated by L. Burehill. Minneapolis: University of Minnesora I>ress. 2000. Alain Badiou, “Cilles Deleuze: The Fold: Leibniz anti the Baroqtte,‘ Gi/les Deleuze and t/le Theatre of Philosop/y, cdited by C. \ Bonndas and [). Olkowski. Main Badiou, Yheoretical V‘tings, edited arnd translated by R, Brassier ‚md A. Toseano. London anti New York: Continntim. 2004. Moshe Barasch, Theories of‘Art From Plato iv Wnckeb,,a,,,i, Ness‘ York: New York Universiry Press, 1985. Moshe Barasch, Theories ofArt .3, From Jrnpressionisin to Kandinsky. New York: Routledge, 2000. Raymond Bellour, “Thinking, Recounting, ‘The cincma of Cilles Dclcuzc,“ rranslatcd by M. McMahon. Discourse 2(1.3, (Fall 19911). Henri Bergson. The 7ivo Sources ofA‘Iorality and Religion, translatcd by R. Audra and C. l3rereton. London: Macmillan, 1935. Henri Bergson. Matter andMemory, iranslated iw N.M. Paul and WS. Palmcr. New York: Zone Books, 1998. 1-lenri Bcrgson. (Jreative Evolution, translated by A. Mitchell. Ncw York: Henry Jioh, 1911. Ronald Bogue, Deleuze and Guattari. London: Routledge, 1989. Ronald Bogue. Deleuze on Afusic, Runting, und 1l‘e Arts. London: Routlcdgc, 2003. Ronald Boguc, “Cillcs Deleuze: The Aesthetics of Force,“ Deleuze: A C‘ritical Reader edited by R Patton. Ronald Bouge, “Art and Terrirory,“ A Deleuzian (entury? The South Atlantic Quarter5s (Summer 1997), Vol.96, No.3, edited In‘ 1. Buchanan. Constantin Boundas, “Deletize—Bcrgson: an Ontology of the Virtual,“ Deleuze: A Critical Reader, edited by P Patton. Constanrin V. Boundas and Dorothea Olkowski cditors, Cilles Deleuze anti die Theater ofPhilosophv Ncw York: Routledge. 1994. Mary Bryden editor. Deleuze anti Religion. London: Routledgc. 2001. Norman Bryson, “Bacon‘s Dialognes witlt the Past,“ Francis Bacon und die Tradition ofArt. Milan: Skira. 2003. Michel dc Certeau, “Mvsticism,“ diacritics, 22.2, (summer 1992), translated bv M. Brammer. Michel dc Ccrteau, The Alystic Rible, 1 il. One, ihe S,,vteenth und Sei‘enteent/, C‘enturies, translated by M. Smith. Chicago: University of Chicago Prcss, 1992, Manolis Chadzadikas, Byzantine Monumenis in Attica und Boeotia. Athens: Arhens Editions, 1956.

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Index

A Absolute deterritorialisation; See Deterritorjajjsatjon Abstract expressionism, 149, 193, 261 n.65 Abstracrion, 9, 109-15, 118, 138, 140 50, 188,205,211,221,226; Geometrie abstracrion, 193, 275 6it.11 Ahstraction andEmpath 142 3 Ahstract mc, 118, 138—49, 223, 274 n. 6 7 Absrract macliine, 119, 121 4, 135—8, 1 50, 168, 175, 180, 185, 188, 219, 221- 2, 224, 2r—8 Accident, 191—2, 210 Action-image, 85 6, 92, 98 Actual, 80, 92, 1(11 —3, 110, 112 5, 154, 1S8, 17, 1) 80. 225, 22»‘; Acrualisation, 121; (‘onnter—ac— tualisation, 225 Aestherics, 3 10, 20, 28 9, 60, 64 5, 105, 223, 238 n.37; Aesthetic com position, 180 1; Aesrlseti para— digm, 151, 154 7, 159, 163-»‘. 176, 81 3, 221, 223; see Onto aestberics Affect, 18, 31, 77, 86. 92-5, 1(11), 1 0, 124, 151 5, 1 57—60, 166—»‘, 1 ‘2 3. 1 »‘7—83, 200, 206 21 0— 11, —‚

223—4, 253 n.27; Prohlematic aftc, 152 3. 162: Seinorv af fect, 1 52 3; Spinoiian alkct, 45, 48—6o, 63 0, »‘3-4. 220 1,224 Affection, 84, 86—»‘, 96, 118—9, 182—3, 253 n.2: Affection-image, 85—6, ».

1 i, 98: S jm),ja11 af[ection, 1 50, 55. S$ ‘4, 62 3. 65, »‘1 2 Affection- image: see (tfecjjmmn Aflirmation, 59. 44 5, 49 51, 56 59, 61, 64, 74, 81, 106, 117, 16q, 1111. 220, 222, 224, 227, 235 n.24; in Nietische, 12 4, 16-8, 20 1,24 30, 33, 55 6 Alherti, 1 eon Ilattista, 132, 137 Alliez, Fric, 163, 200, 231 uS, 237 rm.32, 240 n.56. 255 n.44, 268 n.30, 28 n.23, 280 n.36 Analog-. 202, 205, 209—11 Anarchkm, 164 Aninsal, 22- 3, 25, 163. 183. 225: Animal— traits, 194: see Becoming-animal Anti-Oedipus, 2, 124-6, 129, 133, 138, 141), 162, 209, 22»‘, 245, 2‘6, 281 »‘,

‘.

Anronionj, Nlichelangelo, 100 1, 109—14, 119

Any-space-whatever, 94 5, 100, 109 11 Aquinas, lisomas, 46 Aristotle, 131 2, 156, 222 Armature, 193, 200 Art, 41 2,48, 51 2, 55 7, 59 60, 6.3 6, 74-S.97-8, 102, 104, 125, 151 159, 163 9, 11—3, 1“6, 1 »‘8 83, 200, 19 21, 223 8; Art historv, 18--8. 222; Art wort‘., 51 2. 64 5, 152, 1 83. 1 $‘ 8. 222—; Modern arm, ‚10 32, 35, 112. 138; Artaud, Antonin, 51, 9, 108 13, 12»‘, 20»‘ 12, 222, 245 n.25 and 2$ Artisan, 126, 150, 177, 8 tt.8; (‘osmic artisan. 2, 4, 177

Index

296 Artist, 158, 163 4, 166 7, 169, 177 182, 220 1, 224; Aninsal-artist, 23, 26; Anti—artist, 20 1, 235 n22; Artist—mechanic, 1, 156; Artist— philosopher, II 12, 15, 17, 19 25, 2,31, 220 Asceticism, 7, 15 Assemblage, 225; Affectual assensblage, 64 7,69, 4, 156, 163, 221; Cottcrete assemblage, 117, 12!; Machinic assembiage, 119, 121, 123, 179 Atheism, 6 7, 45, 47, 81 96, 118, 128, 138, 143, 145, 167, 178, 208, 219, 222, 224, 227 8; 244 n.2 1; see Mysticism A IlsousandPlateaus, 1 3, 5 6, 49, 60, 115, 118, 120 9, 134 5, 137 9, 142 5, 148 50, 155, 157 8, 163, 168, 169 70, 170, 172 8, 180 3, 187 9, 191, 193, 202, 208 9,257,26!, 263, 265, 270, 274 7, 279, 281 Attribute, 42 6, 48 9, 54 5, 62, 66, 68 74, 224 Automaton, 72, 79, 109, 110, 114, 227 8; Autonomisin, 24, 108 Autopoicsk, 154 60, 165, 167 8, 176, 221, 225, 266 n.8; see Selforganisa tiofl

8 Badiou, Alain, 236 n,32, 249 50 n.9 Bacon, Francis, 6, 9, 2!, 75, 125, 141, 179, 185 217, 221 4, 226; Iliptychs, 212 7; see Artnature; Conrour; Figure; Possihilities of

csct llaroque, 136, 208 Bazin, Andre, 254 5 n.37 Beatitude, 59, 66 75, 220, 224, 228 Beckett, Samuel, 99, 182 Becoming, 2, 4, 16, 18 9, 28, 43, 50, 52 3, 56 7,71,80 1, 102, 106 8, 115 6,153 9,164 5,167, 1‘2, 176 80, 186, 195, 199, 202, 205, 207, 210, 219 24,

226, 228; Becoming-anirnal, 163, 183 Being-in the World, 195, 198, 207, 217, 228 Belieb 228 9 Bergman, Ingmar, 93 4 Bergson, 1 Ienri, 3, 5, 7, 9, 77 88, 92, 95, 97 8, 101, 104, 106, 178, 115 6, 222, 224—7, 248 n.3; and 1)urarion, 80 100; and Intuition, 80-1,97 J3ergsonism, 7, 80 1, 98, 249, 255 Bernhard, 1 homas, 51 Body, 45 6, 49—55, 58 67, 71 4, 246 n.26 Body-brain, 77, 84, 108, 113, 206 7 11 24, Body withour Organs (BwO), 6, 20 12,214 17,222,225;245 is.25 and 28 Rüttle Rack, 1 59 61, 161 Brain, 81 9, 96 9, 108, 112, 114, 205—6, 221; see Body-brain; Eye-brain Bresson, Robert, 95 Broken tones, 133, 135, 203—4 Butler, Sarnual, 155, 182, 266 n.12 Byzanrine art, 129 31, 135, 137, 146, 188, 226; nlosaics, 130, 259 n20 ‚

c Capitalisns, 165, 167 Carastrophe, 125, 176 9, 222, 226 Czanne, Paul, 99, 149, 185, 195, 200 4, 206, 277 8 n22, 279 n.28 Chaos, 8, 10, 118, 152 9, 160, 164 73, 176, 178 80, 183, 187 9, 192, 200, 210, 219, 222, 266 n.10 Chaosmos, 155, 174, 176, 181 2 Chaosmosis, 151 9, 162, 164, 167 9, 172, 176 9, 186, 188 9, 206, 209 11,219, 222 (Jsaosmosis, an ethico-aesthetie paradigm, 153, 155, 157—60, 164 7, 180, 183, Chrisrianity, 26, 48, 51, 128 9; Christian rheology, 43, 46 Cittensa, 77 116, 141, 148, 169, 171, 189, 221, 224, 226

Index (Jinerna 1 Jhe Mouernent-Jrnage, 79, 81 99, 104, 111 2,174,198, 204, 233, 248 53, 163, 174 (Jinerna 2 7 w flme-Jmage, 8, 14, 37 8, 60, 1 63,79,82,85 91,95 116, 169, 205, 22 8, 240, 251 2, 254 5, 280 Classicism, 168 9, 172, 175, 189 (iiclu, 8, 29, 79, 93, 96 8, 104, 166 8, 173,189, 2 , l 9 ll 9,222;see Opinion Cnlor, 39, 109 15, 120, 128 39, 193, 196, 198,200 6,210 11,223, 225 6; Color—patchcs, 191; see Force Coloring sensation, 205 6, 208 Cnmrnnn notion, S_67, 74, 220 Communism, 90, 165 Conceprual art, 162, 164, 166 Concrete asseniblage; see Assernblagc Consciousness, 54 6, 60, 65 6, 72 Consrruction/Expression, 5, 7, 18, 24, 27 8,30, 32,39,41 2,47, 51 2,65, 80, 96, 105, 108, 121, 123 4, 138, 145, 151, 165,1736,186,205,2078, 219 24, 226, 228 Contemplation, 206, 209 Contemporary, 220 1, 224 Conrent and Expression, 118 24 Continuous variation, 156, 158, 180 Cnntour, 193 4, 199 200, 204, 212 Creation/Destruction, 6, 8, 12, 15, 29, 124, 167, 189, 220, 223 Creatiue &iolution, 80 1, 84, 100, 10 Critique, 12—17, 19, 21 3, 25, 27 8, 35, 220, 233 n10 Crysral-image, 99, 102 8, 112, 114, 116,

D Da Messina, Anronello, 133 Dearh, 36 9, 93, 99, 127, 173 4, 177 Jhe Death ofAcraeon, 137 Dehord, Guy, 249 n.4 Dc Certeau, Michel, 6, 231 n.6 Dc Kooning, Willern, 149

297 Derrida, Jacques, 25, 236 n29 Descartes, Rene, 45, 55 Deterrirorialisation, 119, 122 5, 128 30, 133 5, 139 40, 154, 157 8, 163, 165, 167, 173, 177, 179, 182, 203, 22‘; Absolute dcterri— totialisation, 9, 117 8, 121 4, 126, 129, 136, 13$, 140, 168, l6 8, 181 2; Relative dcrerri torialisation, 118, 122, 168, 177 Dewcy, John, 11 1 )iagrans, 104 5, 123, 136, 186 196, 199 2r, 222, 226 1)ialccrk, 20 1, 45, 89, 104, j74 5 Diffcicncc, 15,20 1,31,38 9 L)iffiwice and Repetition, 4, 19, 26, 28 32, 35 9, 42 3,48 9, 53 1,60, 71,92 3,108,12(1,122 4, 156, 159 60, 171 2,21)1,211, 220, 235 8, 240 1,247, 252 6, 25$, 270, 274, 280 1 Dionysus, 9, 16, 23 4, 27, 30, 228, 235 n 28 1)ocunicntary, 105 6 Dreyer, Carl 1 heodor, 93 5, 253 n29; see Ja unsinn dc Jeanne DArc Duchamp, Marccl, 9, 152, 159 65, 183, 227. 267 8 n.27; sep Rüttle Rads; Readynsade Duration, 100 110. 114 5, 221, 224, 226

E Fcology, 12 Egyptian art, 189, 193 4, 199 Ilan vital, 7 Eliot, ES., 19 Flvis, 33 4, 38, 240 n.52 Fmanarion, 46, 49, 13!, 243 nIl and 13 Fmpathy, 141 145, 262 n44 1 mpiricisns, 177; see also Sttperior Fmpn icisns Essays Gritical antI (2linical 26, 30, 51 2, 158, 170 1, l7i, 182, 2(17 Fternal retutn, 18, 2s 5, 29 32, 34, 36, 38, 9, 49, 164, 222, 224, 238 n38 Fterniry, 72 4 ‘,

Index

298 Fihical aesthetics, 42, 48, 52, 55, 59, 63 7, 71, 73 5; Ethical—aesthetic Pam— digm, 153, 157 Ethics, 8—9, 29, 42 75 Ethology, 58, 67 Evaluation, 13 8, 2‘ 8,30, 106, 233 n.10 Event, 92,111, 153. 179, 225 Experimentation. 2 3, 59 60, 65, 73—5, IOn, 124, 126, 129, 138, 15, 168 Expressionlcoiistruction: ‚cc Construetion/expression Expresstonism in Philosopht‘: S‘inoza, ‘1, 6. 41, 43.6, 49, 5!, 53 5, 59, 6!, 6n—‘, 245 Fyck, Jan van, 132 EyeandMinel, 196, 198, 206 Eve-brain, 206

(;e,iealo‘ ofMorals, 14 5, 19 20, 26 Gift, 46, 131 Giorgione, 132 3, 260 n,24 Giotto, 132 God, 6,15,26,41 54,59 75, 91, 118, 128, 130 1, 165, 167, 20‘-8, 220, 224, 227, 244 n.2l Godard, Jean—Luc, 105, 112 (;od/Nature, 6—7, 43 8, 56, 63, 65, 72—5, 220. 224, 227 Goethe, Johann lVolfgang von, 6, 186, 201, 2“8 n.25 Gothic art. 125. 129, 138, 142—6, 188 (;othic line, 141, 143—5, 223 (rreenberg, Clement, 32, 118, 141, 145 50, 152. 226; and Mndernism, 1“5 81, ri n.58; and Kant, 1 “5 81; and Opticalitv, 1 6 —8

F

H

Facialitv, 12‘ 8, 130, 194 Fairb, 8, 24, 93, 227 8; ee Belief Fellini, Frederico, 105 Figurarion, 189, 192 3 Figure, 192 5, 199 204, 206 14, 217, 276 n. 13 lirzgerald, E Scorr, 127 FlesIt, 2, 129, 185 6, 194 200, 206 10, 222, 225 FoId, 18“, 19“ JheI‘old, 136, 202, 245, 261, 275, 278 Force, 15 7, 19 20, 28, 30, 37, 5n, 97, 156—7, 164, 1“l 2. 174, l6 7, 180, 182. 185—6, 192, 194, 19“, 200 1.207—15, 222--3, 226: color force, 202 Form an€1 Gothic, 142—4 Form and substance, 118 123 Foncault, Michel, 256- n.6 Freud, Sigmund, ‚36—“ Fried. Michael, 118, 145, 146 9 Friedrich, Casper flavid, 173 Future, 38, 220

1 lallucination, 103 4, 106, 108 111, 114, 179 llapriceye, 188, 194, 200 5,207,209, 211, 222, 225 Haptic space, 141 2, 144, 146, 148, 186, 193 4,201 2,205-6,221, 224 6, 254 n.36 1 lardt, Michael, ‘S, 243 n.16 hegel, G. W E, 44 5, 160, 174, r6, 234 5 n.19, 242 n.5 and 6 Heidegger. Matrin, 197, 234 n.17 Hier Striniss, 105 6 Historv, 1 8‘ 8, 203 Hitchcock, Alfred, 86 Hjclinslev, Lonis, 121, 223, 256 n.5 Hollywood, “9, 253 n.30 1 lusserl, Fdmund, 198 Hvloinorphism, 3, 156, 169, 222 Hvstcria, 211—2. 222

‘

G Gauguin. Paul, 203 4, r9 n33 Gas‘ Science, 20 1, 24, 27, 36

Index Image ofehought, 19, 55, 57, 97, 120 1, 221 imagination, 55 7, 61—4, 67, 70, 220 lncarnarion, 128, 196, 199, 243 n.16; ice Phenomcnology Indivicluation, 156 Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique, 189 Inorganic 1 ife, 54, 82, 91, 102, 104, 137, 143—4, 150, 155, 15“, 163 4, 172, 1 “9, 181 2, 193, 204 5, 208,210—11, 21“ Intensit 2 4 Interpretation, 13 23, 27, 29 -3(1, 32. 125. 233 n.lO interval, 84—90, 112 Intoxication, 23, 31, 228, 235 nr Intuition, See Bcrgson

J Joy, 9, 13, 28; Spinozian jov, 50 2, 57 61, 64, 67, 71 3, 220, 222 Joyce, Janses, 31, 155, 266 n.1 1 Judd, I)onald, 33 Judgement, 51 —2, 5“ K Kant, Immanuel, 3 4,6, 28 9,91, 95, 120, 1‘8, 214; and aestherics, 169—76, 220, and common sense, 1 20, 172; and the Critiqne ()JJliden,e1lf, 28, 1 ‘0—73, 2“1 n.4 5; and tlte suh— lilne, 91, 169-6, 1“8; and transcendental Ideas, 1 1—3 Kino-eye, 89—90 Klee, Paul, 176—7, 272 n.65 Klossowski, Pierre, 2“, 23“ n.34 Kuhrick, Stanley, 176

L 1 ldea, 197; Adequate ideas, 58—9, 64, 66—73; Formal realirv of, 55, 62, 68 70; Inadequare ideas, 55—7, 60; Objective reality of, 55, 62, 68 70; Plaronic ideas, 25—7 11 Deserto J6ssso, 109 14, 113

La Borde clinic, 165 1 andscapification, 127— 8 Lang, Fritz, 91, 95 La Passion dejeanne DArc; 93 ---5, 94 Iger, Fernand, 155 Leibniz, Gottfried WiliheIm, 6

299 1 ewirt, Sol. 33 1 ighr, 130 138, 140, 146 1 mc, 130 41, 145 6,225 6; Line—stait, 191; ist Abstract line 1 ines offlight. 11“, 122, 12I, 127, 16v, 1“7, 183 1 ived bodv, 196 7, 199, 208 l.ogic ol Sens,ition, 185 6, 199, 205, 207, 216; ‘cc 1 igsc /Sensation; Sensation li‘c / ogic ofSensation, 123. 125. 128, 138 9, 141, 186—“. 189. 191 5, 199, 21)1 r, 33, 261, 26n, 2“5 6, 2“9 Hv‘ Logic of ‚Scn,e, 26 3(1 1, 1 On, 127. 200, 13.3, 1 n2, Y4, roI.ove, ‘l 5, 228, 24“ n.43 1 .owrv, \ Ialcolm, 1 2 1 ‚votard lcan Francoi s, 26 n .2 —‚

—

—

M Maclierey, Pierre, 70 Machinic life, 155 6, 165 Mahler, (;ustsv, 177 Mallaimsi, Stephan, 31 Man with ii Mouie (‘amera, 89 90 Marx brotheis, 88 Marx, Karl, 160 Massum i, Bna ii, 154 Matisse, Henri, 98 Matter anti l1en,or) 79, 81 4 Matter-floss-, $ —9. 123, 139, 150 Marter-force, 139 -40, 144. 186—“. 192, 194, 206 223—4 Matier-funetion, 119, 121 6. 150 Meat, 185, 194 Meister Fckhart, 4 1 Memorv, 38, 84, 1(11 Merlean- Pon iv, Maurice, 1 Q5—200, 2““ n. 1 8 and 1 9: Sec Bei ng—i n die— \Xorld; Etc anti Mmci; I.ived bodv; Plienomenologv; Reversibility; 77ie Visihle anti the invisihie Mera1Iurgs 143 4 Michelangelo, 207 Miller, henry, 18, 77, 126, 185, 235 n.27 ‚

—‚

hic/ex

300 Miln, John, 207 Mmd, 45, 49, 55, 58—62, 72 3 Mode, 42—3. 48—‘S, 224: Modal essence, 44-5, 49, 52 -5, 5% -9, 63 4, 6 ‘l, 3—4. 222, 224 Modernism, 31 2, 139 50, 152, 69 78, 189, 223, 226, 271 n.58, 22 n.68; Modernity, 115 6, 221 Modulanon, 1 56, 192, 200—5, 225 Montage. 88—9 1, 9, 114 Moralitv, 14—16, 21, 26, 45, 50— 1 Momson, Jim, 126 Mrs. Daiowuy, 181 Movement-image, 78 99, 107, 115, 221 Mvstical athcism, 6 Mvsticism, 6, 8, 10, 42, 4, 8) —2, 96 100, 102—4, 1W, 1l, 131, 143, 145 6, 16—$, 180, 182, 186, 201. 208, 21‘), 224, 22-8, 231 n.6, 253 n.3 1; Atheistic mysticism, 46 8, 52, 55, 59, 6“, 70, 73 5

Nihilisns, 7 Nomadisni, 143 4 Nonorganic life; sn‘ Inorganic life.

N

P

Nature, 43, 56 65, 6, —0, 169 6, 1‘9, 181, 202, 220, 222 Negation, 8, 45, 47, 56 Negative theology, 4“ Negri, Antonio, 165, 242. n.8, 244 n.2 1 24“ n.42, 268 9 n.32 Neo—Platonisin, 46. 242 n .9 Neo—realism, 94, 100, 1(19 19 24, 2“, Nietzsche und Philosophy, 13 29 30, 233, 258, 274 Nietische, Friedrich, 1, 3. 5 9, 11 —39, 41—2, 44, 4“—9, 51, 54, 56, 60, 62—3, 74—5,—8,82, 105 8,113, 116, 12“, 142, 160, 163—4, 167, 172, 189, 206, 220, 222, 224 8, 244 n.23; see Affirmation; Critique; Dionvsus: Fternal re— um; Ivaluation; Gay 3c;ence; —‚

‚

(;essnilog) o/Alortilt Interpretation; ()vercoining; Ovenuan; Perspective;

Physioh gy; Ressentiment; [bus

Spake /aoxthustra; 1‘ransvalu.ttion; ‘ht oftiie Idols: Will tu Power 5 In i1i

Index

301

Physiology, 19 25. 29, 31, 220 Picahia, Francis, 155 Picasso, Pablo, 189 Plane of composition. 162, 1 2, 176 181, 18“, 191, 220, 223—4, 226 Plane of consistencv, 5, 8, 118, 121—3. 126, 129, 136 41, 180, 187, 225 1>lane ofimmauence, 49, 53, 66, 82, 225 Plato, 25—6,45 6,60. 121, 131, 146, 2n2 n.9 Plotinus, 46, 131, 242 n.1 1, 243 n. 1.3 Polities, 9, 2“, 29, 38, 9, 9‘ 8, 164 8, 182 3, 268 9 n.32; see Pci manent revolution Pollock. Jackson, 9, 118, 122, 125, 138—50, 14, 204, 221, 224, 226, 228; see Ahsrraci line Pop art, 32 9 Portrait ofLtabel Rawtlsorne, 190, 191 Possibilities of fact, 192, 202, 21<) Post—impressionisin, 185, 203 4 Powers ofihe false, 38, 105—9, 113, 220 Pragmatics, 124, 126, 25“ n.‘; Pragmatism, 2. 10 Psuedo—Dionysus, 47 Psychoanalysis, 125, 265 n.5 Pynchon, Thomas, 219, 223 —‚

0

oh

painting, 132 138 ()nto-acsthetics, 4-5, 8, 10, 12, 29, 32, 39, 63,77 8, 142, 152, 158, 165, 185, 221—2, 224 5 OlpliiiIs, ? lax, 105 ()pinion, 96, 162, 166—7. 1 82--3, 198; see clich ()pticality, 141, 145 50, 191 3,202, 205, 226 ()rgartic. 119, 130. 136, 142—3 ()rganisin, 112, 171, 174, 183, 194, 202, 20—12 ()vercoming, 12, 16, 22, 28. 31, 35, 77, 172 ()verman, 13, 15, 22, 90, 220 Ozu, Yastijiro, 102

Painting. 32—40, 117 121, 123—129, 138 50, 185 217, 221 2,224, 226, 228, 251 n.13; Venetian painting, 9, 118, 122, 125, 127 41. 188, 204, 221, 226 Pantheism, 77, 17, 220 Parallelism, 45, 69, 73 Particle—sign, See Sign Passion, 57-8, 61, 66 Patton, Paul, 239 n.42 Peirce. Charles S., 85—8. 91—2, 104. 223, 252 n.15 and 21 Pennebaker, Don, 1056, 255 n.41 Percept, 73, 160, 172, 178- 83, 200, 206, 223 Perception, 18 25, 61—4, 83, 152, 169—70, 1‘8 83, 221, 225 Perception-inage. 85, 8“, 92, 98 Permanent revolution, 164 5, 167, 182 Perspective, 132, 139, 148; Nierischean per spective, 15 9, 22—3, 25, 29 30, 35, 180, 223 Phenomenology, 195—200, 202, 205, 223, 2v“ n.16, 280 n.3 7

Q QuaJitv, 15 6, 18, 44, 54, 84, 92 Quantitv, 15—6, 18, 44, 52, 54, 84, 92

R Rajchman, John, 232 n.7 Readvmade, 152, 159 65, 183 Recollection image, 1(11 Refrain, 151, 153-4, 156—‘). 162, 166, 168, 170, 12—3, 176—7, 223, 225 Relative deterrimorialisation, see Deterritorialisarion. Repetition, 28 9.31,33 9,49 Representation, 1, 3, 8, 11, 20, 22. 25- 30, 32, 35, 37, 39, 46, 48, 55 6, 61 5,8 81,83, 106, 120 1, 13(1; classical, 130 1, 136, 146; of tinte, “9 80, 107 Repression, 37

Rsvtentiment, 14, 20 Reterritorialisation, 119, 122, 129, 1578, 168 Reversihilitv, l96Rh‘,-thm, 15“- 8, 1“<) -2. 18, 1 92, 2(19—1(1, 212, 21n 5 Riegl, A1oi, 186, 188, 193, 263 ts.49; and will to art, 142, 188 9, 262

Pimmel/us i,iel fr.v,.,tential .-lffi‘cts, 1 52—4, 159, 167. 1“, 182 Rotnantieisni, 5, 125, 152, 168-76, 189, 222, 2“0 1 u.40, 271 n.55 Rossellini, Roherto, 169

s Sadness, 50 2. 56—8, (,4. 1 Smhiioanals 1s, 123 144, 221 Schiiophrenia, 93 4, 11<), 112, 126, 258 9 n. 11 Science, 80 Sereen. 81—4,88 Selection, 2“, 51, 5 8. “s. 84, 15, 164, 181, 2.3‘) n.40 SeIf—organisation, 9, 154, 156; see Autopoiesi Semiology. 121 Semiotics, 85, 118, 121- 2, 12‘) Sensation, 4 5,8,28, 31, 38, 66, 3. 5, 124. 126, 138. 148 9.152, 157 8,164, 166 -‚ 175 8.3, 185.8, 191 7, 199—202, 205 17, 219, 222—8; see ( olori ng Sensation Sensible, .3—4 Sensorv—moror, 84. 86-103, 1 0- 14, 16‘), 1‘l, 221—2; see lntcrval Seties, 28, .31, 38 Sign, 36, 64, 67, 75, 118 26, 162 3; (‘inentatic sign, 77—116; 1>artiele-sign. 119, 122 6, 129. 149. 151, 221 Significance, 1 20. 126 144 Signified, 120 2, 125 Signifier, 35, 64, 12(1 1, 124 5, 130, 221 Simondon, Ceorges, 156, 267 n. 19 Simulacra, 6. 12. 25—39, 41, 224 ‘

-

“,

—‚

Index Singula6ry, 2.3 4, 61, 104, 1 56, 167 Smoorli space, 118, 139, 142 SO, 160, 221, 225 6,261 2n.39 Snapsbot, 78, 81 Spinoia, 3 7, 9, 26 7, 39, 41 5, 77, 82, 116, 160, 12, 19, 106 181. 220, 222, 224—8; and Art, 4! 2,48. 51—2, 55 59 60, 03 6, 4--5; sec Attribute; Beatitude; Common Notion; 1iternit ; Fthologv; (od; Ideas; 1 nlagination ; In: 1 ove; Modal Fssence; Mode: Parallelisni; Passion; Sadness; Substance; Understanding; Univocal being hilosop/;y, 40, 45, 49 50, 5 Spinoza: I‘ractica/ J 54, 56, 58, 60, 65, 68 Spirit, 81 2, 93, 95 6, 102, 1O Stoics, 26 Strata, 118 9,121 7,138 Striaied space, 139, 142, 145, 261—2 n.39 ) t Structuralism, 121, 241 n.55, 258 n. 144, 1 52—4, Suhjecrivation, 120. 126 15o, 158. 160, 162 4, 16 8, 1‘2, 16—, 180, 182 3.221, 225 Suhlinte, 6, 90 1. 95 6, 100, 221, 223: see Kant. Substance, 42 9, 62 3. 0— 1, 21‘ Superior Fnipiricism; 81, 172, 1 Symptom, 56 Symptomnatology, 13, 17 8, 233 n.7 ‚

—‚

‘,

Ih1e hivis,

33, 34

1iptvch, 212 17 ßzötych, August 1972, 213, 214 Tmurh, 20 1, 25, 30; as appearance, 27 Turner, j. M. W, 125 6 Twilight of‘the Idols, 20, 24, 27, 11)8, 228

U Understanding, 54—64, 68—70, 220; Adequare understanding, 58 9, 66—7, “0 Umvocal heing, 42—3, 46 9, 53, 67 8, ‘O 2.“4. 108, 116 Utopia. 126

v Van Gogh, 203 4, 238 n.36, 279 n.33 Veliiquez, Diego, 189 Venetian painting, see Painting Verrov, Dziga, 89—91, 95, 107; see Kino-eye; Man with a Movie (Jamera Virtual, 80, 85, 92, 95, 97, 100—5, 110 5, 154—5, 158, l7, 19 -80, 224 5 Vision, 19, 83. 97 104, 107, 109 15, 169. 19, 180 1, 194—5, 202, 204—5, 209, 211, 220—4, 228 Visionarv, 96—8, 100—4, 107, 109—11, 114, 169, 177, 188, 202, 224, 228 Vitalism, 24, 97, 100, 104, 108, 129, 137, 148 9,223

w lensor, 121, 123, 134 ierritnry, 119, 154, 157, 163, 165, 174 Ihus ‚Soake Zarathustra, 12, 15, 22-3 Time, 38, 221, 226 lime—image, 78, 8 8,96—116, 221, 226 Tintoietto, 134 6 litian, 134 7, 260 n.28 1 raits n content, 121, 123, 128 9, 138, 180, 221 1 ratS of espression, 11, 121—3, 128-9, 133, 137 8, 140, 150, 180, 221 1anscendcnce, 7, 14, 16, 25 8, 46 7 ‘Iiansvaluarion, 21, 23, 28 31

Warbol, Andy, 9, 32 40, 159, 240 n.49; and risc dearb and disaster paintings, 32, 36- 9, 239 n.41 Weyden, Rogier van der, 133 What Is Philosophy, 5—6, 8, 31, 65, 108, 126. 137 8, 149, 151 -2 154—5, 162 3, 166—8, 171, 1“6—83, 188 9, 198 201, 105 6,211, 226. 233, 244, 266, 275 80 Wbitnian, Walt, q3, 151, 178 Will to power, ii 39. 105—8, 224, 227 Willto Pou‘e 11—2, 17 9,21 4, 27—8,30 ölfflin, Heinricb, 134 7 1 (

Index Woolf, Virginia, 181—2 Worringer, Wilhelm, 118, 141 4, 223, 263 n,46

303

Z 71 11, 31 zeno‘s paradoxes, 80