Edited by Stephen Zepke and Simon O'sullivan - Clemencia ...

Edited by Stephen Zepke and Simon O'sullivan

fu

Deleuze ondArt

Contemporory

Edited by Stephen Zepke ondSimon O'sullivon

Edinburgh University Press

@ in this edjtion, Edinburgh University press, 2010@ in the individual contri6utions is reiained 6y the authors

Fdinburgh University Press Ltd22 George Square, Edinburgh

www.euppublishing.com

Typeset in 10.5/13 Sabonby. Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, andprinted and bound in Great Britiin byCPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

A CIP record for this book is available from the British LibraryISBN 978 0 7486 3837 G (hardback)ISBN 978 0 7486 3838 3 (paperback)

The right of Stephen Zepke and, Simon O,Sullivanto be identified as authors of this workhas been asserted in accordanCe withthe Copyright, Designs and patents Act 19gg.

Contents

AcknowledgementsList of Illustrations

Introduction: Deleuze and {

Stephen Zepke and Simo

POLITICS

The Politics of the Scream iGustavo Chirolla Ospina

A Shift Towards the UnnalSuely Rolnik

The Heterogenesis of FleeinGerald Raunig

Anita Fricek: ContemlrcrarStephen Zepke

THE AESTHETIC PARADIGM

Capitalism and SchizophrerOf Relational Aesthetics

Eric AlliezThe Practice and Anti-Dialr'Anartist'

Maurizio LazzaratoEthologies of Software ArcCode Do?

Jussi Parikka

Contents

AcknowledgementsList of Illustrations

Introduction: Deleuze and Guattari and ContemporaryStephen Zepke and Simon O'Sullivan

POLITICS

1 The Politics of the Scream in a ThrenodyGustavo Chirolla Ospina

2 A Shift Towards the UnnameableSuely Rolnik

3 The Heterogenesis of FleeingGerald Raunig

4 Anita Fricek: Contemporary Painting as InstitutionalStephen Zepke

THE AESTHETIC PARADIGM

5 Capitalism and Schizophrenia and Consensus:Of Relational Aesthetics

Eric Alliez6 The Practice and Anti-Dialectical Thought of an

'Anartist'Maurizio Lazzarato

7 Ethologies of Software Art: Y/hat Can a Digital Body ofCode Do?

Jussi Parikka

viiviii

Art 1,

13

15

34

43

Critique 63

83

85

100

116

1

*

III

vi Contents

8 Fractal Phitosophy (And the Small Matter of LearningHow to Listen): Attunement as the Task of Art

Johnny Golding

SCENES AND ENCOUNTERS

9 An Art Scene as Big as the Ritz: The Logic of Scenes

David Burrows10 Abstract Humour, Humorous Abstraction

Robert Garnett7L From Aesthetics to the Abstract Machine: Deleuze,

Guattari and Contemporary Art PracticeSimon O'Sullivan

12 Traps Against CaPtureEdgar Schmitz

TECHNOLOGIES

13 Sign and Information: On Anestis Logothetis'Graphical Notations

Claudia Mongini1.4 Anti-Electra: Totemism and Schizogamy

Elisabeth von Samsonow15 Unimaginable Happenings: Material Movements in

the Plane of ComPositionBarbara Bolt

16 BLOODCRYSTALPOLLENSTARNeil Chapman and Ola Stahl

Notes on ContributorsIndex

Acknowledgemen

The editors would esPeciaftlabour to this Proiect for fithe translators Juan FermruMackay, Victor Faessel and X

Anita Fricek, Leonardo KovlNeighbour, RalPh Paine, Nr

L33

155

157

t76

189

208

225

227

246

266

286

31031.7

Acknowledgements

The editors would especially like to thank all those who gave theirlabour to this project for free, most notably the contributors, andthe translators Juan Fernando Mejfa Mosquera, Tim Adams, RobinMackay, Victor Faessel and Brian Holmes.'We would also like to thankAnita Fricek, Leonardo Kovadevi6, Tom Medak, Petar Milat, HannahNeighbour, Ralph Paine, Nick Thoburn and Carol Macdonald at EUP.

Chopter I

The Politics of the Screom in o Threnody

Gustovo Chirollo Ospino

We do not feel ourselves outside of our time but continue toundergo shameful compromises with it. This feeling of shameis one of philosophy's more powerful motifs. 'W'e are notresponsible for the victims but responsible before them.

Gilles Deleuze and F6lix Guattari, What is Pbilosophy?

Deleuze is interested in the scream.l He asks about the importance of thescream when he thinks about Francis Bacon's painting. How to paint thescream? It is about making visible, not just a particular sound, but thoseinvisible forces that make it come about. The same problem arises withmusic, it is Alban Berg who knew how to 'make music out of the scream'and he put the sonority of the scream in a relationship with the sound-less forces of the Earth, as with Marie's scream in 'Wozzeck and withthe soundless forces of Heaven in Lulw (Deleuze 2002:60). In cinema,Straub and Huillet value the scream; it becomes both a speech act andan act of resistance (Deleuze 1987:289). Vhich movement of art willmake the scream aL act of resistance, and take us from the aesthetics tothe politics of the scream?

This text will revolve around Colombian artist Clemencia Echeverri'swork Treno. From the Greek threnos, meaning lament, and oide,meaning song, Treno is, quite precisely, a funeral song, an audiovisualthrenody. This funeral song ends with a scream, what Deleuze callsa 'cry against death' (Deleuze 2002: 61,). It is not about picking anartwork as a paradigmatic example in order to think the relationshipbetween Deleuze and contemporary art, so that we can comfort our-selves with the application of a number of his concepts to the inter-pretation of such work. Rather, the selection of Treno for this essayresponds to a series of questions this work raises from its very specificway of thinking, and that provokes our own thought in turn. Thesequestions relate to the political realm, and particularly to the notion

l6 Deleuze ond Contemporory Art

of the people. The question of the scream will be my guide in thisinvestigation.

Deleuze has pointed out that both philosophy and art are related tothe people. In Wbat is Philosophyi he writes with Guattari:

The artist or the philosopher is quite incapable of creating a people, eachcan only summon it with all his strength. A people can only be created byabominable sufferings, and it cannot be concerned any more with art orphilosophy. But books of philosophy and works of art contain their sum ofunimaginable sufferings that forewarn of the advent of a people. They haveresistance in common - their resistance to death, to servitude, to the intoler-able, to shame, and to the present. (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 110)

Deleuze won't stop saying that artists like Mallarm6, Kafka or Klee -rather than more populist ones - insist that art needs a people but, nev-ertheless, that the people is what is missing. As a resuk, there is nothingthey can do but srunmon it with all their strength, surlmon a people thatdo not yet exist, a people to come. This will b. -y subject then, the spe-cific relationship between art and politics, a relationship with the peoplethat is missing, the one that is ro come. Maybe there we will also be ableto find keys to think about how that relationship exists with regard tophilosophy.

'What does it mean to think about this subject from a concrete geo-graphical and historical situation? For reasons that I will come ro, thissituation may be described as a thanatopolitics.2 Let's stress for themoment that, as Deleuze and Guattari say, 'A people can only be createdby abominable sufferings.' It is precisely these kinds of situations thatlead us to write about thanatopolitics and the funeral song, the audio-visual threnody by Clemencia Echeverri. Yes, it is a lament! Bur let'sremain calm; if there is something we have learned from Deleuze's aes-thetics it is, as he says, that 'Any work of art points a way through forlife, finds a way through the cracks' (Deleuze 1,995: 143).

A Shame at Being HumanBefore continuing our commentary on the politics of the scream inEcheverri's installation, let us recognise that there are philosophicalscreams also. 'Shame! Shame!' is what we seem to hear every,where inDeleuze's late works. In an interview with Antonio Negri, referring to AThousand Plateaus, after listing a number of problems that, in his view,the book's 'amazingwill to theorise' seems to leave open, the Italian phi-losopher notes: 'I seem sometimes to hear a tragic note, at points where

oooz0)

oEfof

=Eio.=3=xo)e-o!I.B-ooo<Eot_.Co-(DC+oou_rotso-6c()oc)Po)U(J.2E--l<G<.o^.oENo-.LO

oI -E160l>oI 9(Jl-6_-ILU(J

lg$I b"oI EiloEI ...2I :s

TT18 Deleuze ond ContemPorory Art

it's not so clear where the "war machine" is going'' Deleuze answers:

'Yousaythereisr."rtui"tragicormelancholictoneinallthis'IthinkI can see why. I was very.,,"t"k by atl the passages in Primo Levi where

he explains ihat Nazi .r*p' have given us "a shame at being human"'

(Deleuze 1.99 5 : 17 1.-2).Let,sleavethesubjectofthewarmachineaside,asthismaydistract

us, although in his answer Deleuze says that'artistic movements arewar

machines in this ,.rrr"' (Deleuze t99i:172)'Levi's expression' 'A shame

atbeinghuman',otrk.,,beyondthefieldsofexterminationbyDeleuze';;;;;"."perience thi, f".l*g in ,utterly trivial situations, too: in the

face oftoo great a vulgarizaion of thinking" because.what.shames us

in *dry', clpitalism is that 'we've no sure way of maintaining becom-

ings, o, still more of arousing them, even within ourselves' (173)' In

Wiot x Pbilosopby?, at the lnd of the fourth chapter' the reference

to Primo Levi is ,.p.ui.a and the tragic tone becomes more evident'

C..piif"r.phy is the relationship of philosophy to the present because'

,t.v .rv, '*e don't lack communicalion, we have too- much' we lack

creation.Welackresistdncetothepresent'(DeleuzeandGuattartl'994:tio;i.;A shame at being human' becomes a leitmotiv; shame in the face

of all the circumstanc"Jrhr, haunt the existence of today's democracies,

shame in the face of the 'ignominy of the possibilities of life that we are

offered' (107-8). I., ,..oid""te with 'oih ' ttagic fate' Deleuze and

Guattari heroicatly d".1".", 'This feeling of shame is one of philosophy's

mostpowerfulmotifs,(108).Evidentl6inordertoresistthispresentwhatweneediscreation,boththecreationofconceptsandthecreationof beings of ,"t rrtio.r, 'A,t "d philosophy cgnY:rge at this point: the

constitution of ro oit, and a people that are lacking as the correlate of

creation'(108).-*r, '58 is'behind us,3 and between Anti-Oedipus in 1'972 and A

Thousand Plateaus in fggO, eight years have past' The- interview withN"gri and the publication of 'What is Philosophy? take place in the

."riy '10., ,rrd ih.." are no reasons for thinking that the tragic tone is

,,rrr,g" o, ,"rr, ''We are in a weak phase, a period of reaction' (Deleuze

Dg5:.121). There is, then, avery close link between'a shame at being

human, and the people that is missing, and all that surrounded by a

tragic atmosphere, .i.r, , melancholic one' The spirit of the times is

poliuted by reaction, and we live in-a conservative age' 'And there is no

irv ,o ...rp. the iinoble but to play the part of an animal (to grow'

burrow, snigger, dilto.t ourselves)t thought itself is sometimes closer

to an animal that diesthan to a living, even democratic' human being'

(Deleuze and Guatta ri'1.99 4: 1'08)'

Deleuze's reading of kiment, because shame is uand is not the result of i

an aspiration to an idealwould be an undercover fthat remains a Prisoner dhumanist. But that melartoday, that which man hainsignificant, so that whidity of a distinction betwetwould saY, being eliminzfrom that melancholY.

Deleuze's PhilosoPhY isof any moral or Political '

human in itself as a valuea Minor Literature, wiaon the nonhuman becomof animal-becoming, as alogical question that hasrelationship between thefinalty stated with a laPibrain that thinks and notsation of the former (f)elwe find there an aestheiart; works of art are ndspirit.'When Deleuze andthe creation of beings of I

terms in an anti-humanbecomings of man, iust alandscapes of nature (16

The Scream and thelFrancis Bacon meant toDeleuze it is necessarY I

lence: that of the sPeclzfiguration; and that of r

the realm of the figuraltion and rePresentatiomremains faithful to mtilreproduce the visible bu

The Politics of the Screom in o Threnody l9Deleuze's reading of Primo Levi goes beyond any humanist commit-

ment, because shame is what leads us to interrogate our own present,and is not the result of an injustice that reveals, in a negative way,an aspiration to an ideal of the human. If that were the case Deleuzewould be an undercover humanist, just a critic of the human as a valuethat remains a prisoner of a certain faith in humankind, a melancholichumanist. But that melancholy is precisely the situation of humanitytoday, that which man has become, from the most extreme to the mostinsignificant, so that which makes any humanism possible is the possibil-ity of a distinction between the human and the nonhuman, as Agambenwould say, being eliminated. Deleuze's vitalism actually morres awayfrom that melancholy.

Deleuze's philosophy is evidently anti-humanist; it contains a rejectionof any moral or political doctrine centred on human nature, and on thehuman in itself as a value. It is not surprising that, since Kafka: Towarda Minor Literatwre, written in 1,975 with Guattari, Deleuze will insiston the nonhuman becomings of humans and especially on the conceptof animal-becoming, as a way of facing and displacing the ancient onto-logical question that has been the cornerstone of every humanism, therelationship between the human and the animal. This anti-humanism isfinally stated with a lapidary formula in'What is Philosophyi: It is thebrain that thinks and not man - the latter being only a cerebral crystalli-sation of the former (Deleuze and Guattari 1994t 21,01.In a similar waywe find there an aesthetics that goes against every humanist theory ofart; works of art arc not conceived as the highest expression of humanspirit. When Deleuze and Guattari claim that art as a form of thinking isthe creation of beings of sensation, affects and percepts, they define theseterms in an anti-humanist way; affects are precisely these nonhumanbecomings of man, just as percepts - including the town - are nonhumanlandscapes of nature (1,59).

The Scream and the HorrorFrancis Bacon meant to paint the scream rather than the horror. ForDeleuze it is necessary to distinguish between these two kinds of vio-lence: that of the spectacle, which belongs to horror and the order offiguration; and that of sensation, which belongs to the scream and tothe realm of the figural, where the figure has abandoned both narra-tion and representation. Choosing the scream and not horror Baconremains faithful to modern art's motto as stated by Paul Klee: 'not toreproduce the visible but to make visible'. ITith the scream the invisible

f...ooc\.s-.oEoo(Jdoo)

coi=*--cxo

_0)ooo)()ooU

io(J

.c)

o-o)o)LU

;Fcip

F: j.-- oo=oo_c _-c9+ur !b

(J6cOottrld8uo.. (DNO'tr

Tl rttu l

r r:-;s that produce it hecoin.:-,i ugh the conr-ulsion ther--:\i us falter. That risr'rriri

. :le bodv contronrs rht i:c- :-=-1. rhe forces of liie hec,-,r:

-.::h: 'life screams at deari:'-:- one action, an acrion ih,--.r= affirmative forces thar-: :rrure (61). All the vic,len

i::.:in and the horror. beir': ' :-:lirt shorv; hoii er cr. :i..--::: ihat of the former.

' -r us turn to the u-ork ol C-.::llation in rvhich n\-o -..I

- ..:.c uhole exhibition sr:;- - --:.oJi': a funeral sonq : ,r

: ..:-'s:of Penderecki' s T l: r;,: : :.:. rhe reason of the sots. I::,-i henveen the sereens l,-.:: shadorvs. 'W'e see the in..--: i.reens until it is hlle ci. ih:- -:.:.rnarion of tlo$'s i. -:.- : :r-ar the sound of the culi-:r:ics and decreates fi i::: lr-nr voices are heard. r ,i\-:;?:ns that are carried tr- -L

,:.;.. These names are ;:-1.: a -,rneone on the orhel :itior:r.-..tDS. the absenr onr : r- -. l:1s\1'er to the Prcr':''-::- >:s. being taken su1 1-ri il

: -;. of the specrator in l-r::::rsrte side of the river. .',,':

.::,- Lgst the flo$-ing \\-ar-r!.--. ;-rlling r-oicesl the sc:eer: :r:;,es the space. The Pe :'..--:. Sprecbgesiutg. to crr,:r

r .. :he)- estabiish a bridE: ,:

---: :,iher. In Echer-erri's ::r't::1.a: rhat finds no ansl\-ei

:-.* ::rf ri.rmultuous rirei ir,:

The Politics of the Screom in o Threnody 21

forces that produce it become visible, forces of darkness become visiblethrough the convulsion they produce in the body, forces of death thatmake us falter. That visibility takes place 'when, like a wrestler, thevisible body confronts the po\Mers of the invisible' (Deleuze 2002t 62).Then, the forces of life become visible, the forces of the body that resistdeath: 'life screams at death'. The scream concentrates all those forcesinto one action, an action that is the sign of the struggle. Deleuze callsthese affirmative forces that are liberated in the combat the powers ofthe future (51). All the violence in contemporary art moves between thescream and the horror, between the being of sensation and the sensa-

tionalist show; however, the violence of the latter is found more oftenthan that of the former.

Let us turn to the work of Clemencia Echeverri. Treno is an audiovisualinstallation in which two very large projection screens facing each otherfill the whole exhibition space. Here we experience, as the title states, athrenody: a funeral song for the victims of a political catastrophe. As inKrystof Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, the victimsare the reason of the song. In this case, the lament is audiovisual; thespace between the screens becomes filled with images and sounds, silencesand shadows. We see the image of a river, its current grows on one ofthe screens until it is filled, then the current fills the opposite screen untilan alternation of flows is created and repeats itself at variable intervals;we hear the sound of the current, along with frogs and crickets, whichincreases and decreases as it runs through the gallery space. At a givenmoment voices are heard, voices that call out names, names of people,screams that are carried by the current of the river across the exhibitionspace. These names are calls from one side of the river (not necessarilyto someone on the other side), voices that cry out to summon an other(perhaps, the absent one); finally we see the river tainted red, and as theonly answer to the previous calls we see a few clothes, appearing likeghosts, being taken out of the river, spectres of a suffering people. Theplace of the spectator inTreno is paradoxical, both on one and on theopposite side of the river, while also being in the middle of the current,amongst the flowing waters. It is there where the spectator is reached bythe ca[ing voicesl the scream itself reaches the dimension of a song as

it circles the space. The peasants use the strategy of calling out a name,like a Sprechgesang, to communicate across long distances, and in thisway they establish a bridge of sound between one shore of the river andthe other. In Echeverri's installation, the spoken/sung words become alament that finds no answer on the opposite shore, the bridge is brokenand the tumultuous river drowns out the calling voices'

22 Deleuze ond Contemporory Art

Even as a funeral song, it is a mistake to try to interpret this work asa representation of mourning, or as a symbol of a given form of violenceand the way it is suffered by a person or people; as if the propitiatoryexperience of art extended a bridge between the representation of aconflict and the abominable suffering it causes, between understand-ing and feeling. In both cases we would get nothing but a dramatisa-tion and an aestheticisation of the victim. This work is born out of theimpotence, the unbridgeable abyss, experienced in the face of the eventofviolence, and of a singular form of violence: forced disappearance. 'Idon't know what are we going to do, madam. They took my son away',the artist remembers a phone call, a female voice coming from the shoreof the Cauca River that, according to her own words, made evident 'aclamour and a search without an answer'. The impossibility of speakingon behalf of the victim imposes itself on the artist with all its strength;we can no longer confer such declaratory power on art, on the contrary,artistic practice has to be confronted with the very impossibility of testi-mony. Welll return to this.

As we have seen, there is yet another side to the problem of rep-resentation: the sensational. How to avoid the spectacle of violence?How to escape the mediatic clich6s of violence and its representations?I think Treno stays on Bacon's line, but it gives a collective and politi-cal character to the scream that is not evident in the work of the Irishpainter. In her audiovisual installation the Colombian artist places thespectator between the two large projections of the river, with no needto use images of horror or extreme cruelty. As the stream of the rivergrows, she manages to produce a drowning sensation in the viewerwho is placed in the middle of the scene. Only at the end, and as ahint, do we find the traces - clothes - of a thanatopolitics, carriedby the river. The point is not to avoid such representations on moralgrounds but to produce something else, leaving the sensational andthe spectacle of death aside. Treno is the scream, the cry, without thehorror.

What we need now is to find the way in which the scream becomescollective, political. Let us remember that in order to state the politicalcharacter of the human being, Aristotle, inhis Politics, drew a distinc-tion between voice lphone) and speech (logos). By means of the voiceanimals and humans are able to express a sensation of pleasure or pain;with /ogos, which belongs only to humans, they can express what isright and what is wrong, the just and the unjust. For Aristotle the verynature of politics lies in being able to establish the measure of justiceby means of the word. Treno is a lament, a funeral song in which every

The

word has become a scream,this case consists in turning dThis is the politics of those v

On the one hand the scrrhave pointed out, a combatof death. On the other thelciation, the calling and lamthe field of mixed bodies,then becomes a clamour irthat it is about these two e

are irreducible to each othe1988: 70-93), the m2ghinicassemblage of enunciation (1

remember that for Deleuze,mational nor communicatirillocutionary power as a cait constitutes an especiallylonger remain inside the Arassemblage of bodies and dthe scream intrudes into thrintensive power. The screarbut because it is the signaturthe depths of the body.

InTreno several voices folltwo masculine voices call forcalls for Victor. Each one of tname, becomes a clamour a1

fering and resistance, of morvoices resound, each screamIn the whole work of Strautbeen revalued precisely as spof resistance (Deleuze 2006rus from how to make the sscream. First we have the quand painting, but also for c

to try to make the forces trrealm. Second we run in to a

forces in itself, forces of life r

perceptible the forces that crscream against death and ntof resistance.


word has become a scream, and, precisely, the whole exercise of art inthis case consists in turning the voice (pbone) into a political expression.This is the politics of those voices that have been deprived of /ogos.

On the one hand the scream implies a corporal dimension, as wehave pointed out, a combat between the forces of the body and thoseof death. On the other there is an implication in the order of enun-ciation, the calling and laments as speech acts. The scream begins inthe field of mixed bodies, amongst their actions and passions, butthen becomes a clamour in the field of enunciation. 'We may saythat it is about these two aspects of the very same assemblage thatare irreducible to each other, the visible and the enunciable (Deleuze1988: 70-93), the machinic assemblage of bodies and the collectiveassemblage of enunciation (Deleuze and Guattari 20042 97-B). Let usremember that for Deleuze and Guattari enunciation is neither infor-mational nor communicative. Here the physical scream increases itsillocutionary power as a call, as a collective clamour, and thereforeit constitutes an especially political assemblage. As a result, we nolonger remain inside the Aristotelian orbit, because the scream is anassemblage of bodies and the clamour has a linguistic nature; insteadthe scream intrudes into the word, it invades the speech act with anintensive power. The scream is not political because it is discursive,but because it is the signature of the body, it is a speech act signed bythe depths of the body.

InTreno several voices follow each other in the same stream of sound,two masculine voices cal for Nazareno and Orfilia, one feminine voicecalls for Victor. Each one of these particular voices, begging for a propername, becomes a clamour against death, a simultaneous scream of suf-fering and resistance, of mourning and demand. In each voice multiplevoices resound, each scream is a collective assemblage of enunciation.In the whole work of Straub and Huillet, Deleuze says, the scream hasbeen revalued precisely as speech act, as a speech act that is also aL actof resistance (Deleuze 2006a: 323). Let us resume the path that leadsus from how to make the scream to how to make the politics of thescream. First we have the question of making the scream, both in musicand painting, but also for cinema and video-installation; the point isto try to make the forces that produce the scream perceptible in eachrealm. Second we run in to a scream that concentrates a relationship offorces in itself, forces of life that resist death; there the point is to makeperceptible the forces that collide in this uncertain combat. Finally thisscream against death and no other becomes a speech act that is an actof resistance.


The Visible and the EnunciableDeleuze shows how carmelo Bene makes a statement go through a con-tinuum of variations. 'you make me feer terror. . .' Th; ..r"r* uy rrayAnne in Bene's Richard lrr goes through a number of ur.i"tiorr, ,rdthrough a varietyof speech acts that make it'grow into a woman of war,come back as a child, reborn as a maiden'. It is a kind of sprechgesang.Different to the song in which one tries to keep , .or.,rrr, tone (res-Ylo), 'in sprechgesdng we keep suppressing it with a fail or a rise,(Deleuze 1979: toi). carmelo Bene overloadJthe ,.rip, oin; chard IIIwith indications that diminish the importance of the conterrt, a set ofprecise operations are effectuated in ielation to the variables that thestatement goes through, making it, Deleuze says, .just like a musicalscript" words don't form a text anymore, th. tl"atr.-man stops beingan actor or director to become an operator in an experimentation-theatre (89).

clemencia Echeverri dispossesses the words of the song from theiralleged communicative function. In principre it may pro..Id"..ordingto that function, as the voice climbs above the *atirs waiting for ananswer' but as communication fails, the call mutates into a lament thatresounds throughout the room. The rament is a kind of sprechgesangincorporating each and every one of the voices. However it is the wholework, the consolidation of all its heterogeneous elements, not only thevoices, which properly constitutes the lament, as the audiovisuar assem-blage of a scream. In this sense the audio-video installation establishes arelationship berween the linguistic and non-linguistic .t.*.rri..In order to speak about the visibre and the enunciabre Deleuze andGuattari borrow teyqs from Hjelmslev when they .p.rt ,Uor, ,t.form of content and the for- oi expression. As they use them, theseorl:"*. to cerrain aspects of the machinic assemblage of bodies and thecollective assemblage of enunciation. Let us stop for a moment on theplane of content. It is important to be precise, as Deleuze is regardingFoucault, about the meaning of the visible, which do., ,ot d.rigrrt.simply what we see or what we generalry perceive. .visibilities are notfor-ms of objects, nor even forms-that would show up under right, butrather forms of luminosity which are created by the rigit iir"ii and allowa thing or object to exisr only as a flash, ,prrll. o, ifri_*"r;iD.l.rr.1988:. 52). According to this irrterpretaiion the visible that b.lorrg, toartistic practices does not consist in reproducing what *. ,".,L, ir, ,t.

Ihdlnin ryhich the invisibte ILdrttmchforces subsist;mn pespective, that of tdilc contrent non-percepti- mr is comprised Lfmdimages, making up, fiILrc we introduced anL -' - context if the task rhft, non-perceptible fo3n longer that of rlarrer i

rDrer to this obiection is dfuear; instead it is 6ef,t is more direct and pm5rn in the baroque is not afioryh a process of modulilmd arrpar excellence - -mdntz€ 1993: 3 S,translatiomdern baroque artists from{ mr6s1s and makes the Iqling of material-force is_dl other hand, according to[Flmsleq in addition ro forn- content and a non-formerfdon in art in what Deleuze:m fre infinite, but also fromad Guattari 1994:1g0_1)- ,

'a'interlocking of differendyftios hold the compounds oiIt with their upholding wid" system of frames a kind olthi 612y6pse the territory arrmn-formed mafter to followig"di"S material-forces pascfr"rn of content or of expressirdetion of heterogeneous elemee diagram of non-formed man

We have discussed the screamin Treno, and we must now firrmachinic assemblage of bodiescompound of visual and soru


form in which the invisible forces become visible, in the form of visibilityin which such forces subsist as a flash, sparkle or shimmer. From a moregeneral perspective, that of the percept, we may say that under one formof the content non-perceptible forces become perceptible. This form ofthe content is comprised of both luminosities and sonorities, visual andsound images, making up, finally, a compound of sensations.

Have we introduced an ambiguity? How can we talk about formin this context if the task of art resides in making visible, from eachdomain, non-perceptible forces? The relationship that is establishedis no longer that of matter and form, but that of material-forces. Theanswer to this objection is that in the latter relationship form does notdisappear; instead it is the result of the material-forces relationship,which is more direct and profound. ln The Fold Deleaze explains thatform in the baroque is not a mould but the emergence that is producedthrough a process of modulation or permanent moulding. 'Baroque isinformal aft px excellence . . . but informal is not a negation of the form,(Deleuze 1993:35, translation modified). Something similar happens inmodern baroque artists from Klee to Dubuffet. The infinite fold affectsall matters and makes the Form appear, so that: 'In the baroque thecoupling of material-force is what replaces matter and form, (35). Onthe other hand, according to the use that Deleuze and Guattari make ofHjelmslev, in addition to formed matter there is a non-formed matter ofthe content and a non-formed matter of expression. we find this articu-lation in art in what Deleuze and Guattari call'a passage from the finiteto the infinite, but also from territory to deterritorialization' (Deleuzeand Guattari 1994: 180-1). The form of content or expression obeysan 'interlocking of differently oriented frames . . . The frames and theirjoins hold the compounds of sensations, hold up figures, and intermin-gle with their upholding, with their own appearance, (1,57). But besidethe system of frames a kind of deframing operates, where some lines offlight traverse the territory and open it to the infinite, allowing flows ofnon-formed matter to follow a line of absolute deterritorialisation. Thecoupling material-forces passes from the finite to the infinite, from theform of content or of expression, from compounded material or consoli-dation of heterogeneous elements, to the abstract plane of composition,a diagram of non-formed matter.

we have discussed the scream as a collective assemblage of enunciationin Treno, and we must now turn to the form of the content to discuss themachinic assemblage of bodies. Echeverri's installation presents a wholecompound of visual and sound sensations, to install means here to


operate with the heterogeneous components of a material, and to experi-ment through very precise operations. First: the spectator is placed, aswe have pointed out, between two large projection screens where thesame sequence of images of a river are projected at different intervalsof time; the current grows on one side as it decreases on the other, thesound of the current also becomes louder and diminishes as it circles thespace. Being a compound of light and sound we may characterise it asvibration, a simple sensation 'that implies a constitutive difference oflevel' whose intensity rises and falls (Deleuze and Guattari 1994:168).Second: a body-to-body tension (a clinch) operates between the intensi-ties - vibrations - of the voices and the sound and visual forces of theturbulence of the river, 'when two sensations resonate in each other byembracing each other so tightly in a clinch of what are no more thanenergies'(168). Third: through the play of lights and shadows, criedrumours, noises and silence, a space-time is created; a space populatedwith voices. Fourteen minutes of the coexistence of multiple durations,from the discontinuous intervals in which images succeed each other tothe variations and nuances of the colour of the changing surface of theriver. By these means a sensation is produced in the spectator) abizarrefeeling of drowning in the middle of the scene she is participating in,bizarre because'sensation refers only to its material' (166). This is anaudiovisual drowning, the violence of the compound of sensations andnot of the spectacle.

'When Deleuze, also in Foucaub, explains the way in which discursivepractices and non-discursive practices, the visible and the enunciable,the form of content and of expression, are interwoven, he claims thateven in a relationship of knowledge where the privilege of the enuncia-ble over the visible is essential, such privilege never implies a reduction(Deleuze 19BB: 49). The experimental operations we have pointed outshow that this is even more evident in the realm ol art. On the one handthere is an intensive use of language, and on the other, there is no needto privilege the enunciable over the visible. It is not certain, however,that this is true for every type of contemporary practice. Stephen Zepkeshows the existence of at least two lines of development that evolvefrom the readymade; either a conceptual development that privilegesthe enunciable over the visible and the discursive oyer the sensible, ora development outlined by GuattarT's'aesthetic paradigm' where thereadymade as a being of sensation is animated by the forces of life. Thissecond line of development, in which any privilege of the conceptual-discursive implies the 'despotism of the signifier' and the inclusion ofa transcendent dimension, is presented as a politics of resistance. From

:''t'a

oo

-Eo

olo(.)0)o)oE

dooc\d

o..ooxoqoLo)

d.o(Jf,o(Jo

--c

oo_oLo)oo

--co-CJ

pso)oo

LLI

.9UCo)Eo

(-)

"?


this point of view Zepke sees certain avant-garde movements, such asthe work of Brazilian artist H6lio Oiticica, as using the readymade as amechanism of 'sensorial-corporeal participation'. Oiticica attributes tothis expressive mechanism the power to contribute to the creation of apeople (Zepke 2008: 33-9).

If we want to escape both the 'despotism of the signifier' and thegeneralised consensus it enforces, it is necessary to understand that inartistic practices there is a functional independence between the form ofthe content and the form of the expression, between the visible and theenunciable. There is also a constant movement that goes from one to theother, because of resonance, juxtaposition or disjunction. Deleuze andGuattari named this relationship of mutual affectthat nevertheless con-serves the terms' irreducible nature, reciprocal presupposition (Deleuzeand Guattari 2004:87). In the work of Straub and Huillet, for example,there is a disjunction between seeing and speaking, a voice speaks aboutsomething while we see something different, 'the voice rises, it rises,it rises and what it is talking about passes under the naked, desertedground that the visual image was showing us, a visual image that hadnothing to do with the sound image' (Deleuze 2006a:3231.

The artistic task of making enunciable the non-enunciable is whatDeleuze and Guaffari call fabulation. Fabulation owes nothing to amemory; instead it refers to a complex material made up of words andsounds (Deleuze and Guattari 1994 1,71,).It has no other object thanto work on language from inside, to work on its very phonological,syntactic and semantic components to produce a permanent varia-tion. Examples of this appear all through Deleuze's work, and includeKafka, Beckett, Gherasim Luca, Jean-Luc Godard, Pasolini, Bene, etc.Fabulation can be summed up in the formula: 'to make language stutter',which must not be confused with stuttering as a speech impediment. Onother occasions the formula refers to Marcel Proust: 'to speak one's owntongue as a foreigner'. To stutter, or to speak as a foreigner, consists inputting language into continuous variation. On the other hand, fabula-tion is the creator of giants. For Bergson, from whom the notion comes,it corresponds to a visionary power different from imagination thatis in charge of 'creating semi-personal forces or efficacious presences'(Deleuze 19792 173). 'We need, says Deleuze, to recuperate this notionand invest it with a 'political content'. In this way, his proposal contin-ues, the idea of utopia should be substituted with that'of a "fabulation"in which a people and art both share' (Deleuze 1,995: 1,74). The non-enunciable that comes to be enunciated is precisely that excessive andgigantic power that carries abominable sufferings along with it, but at

The

&re -- ^ these are'e{fic" ,g'ftrings Suffering tr'' tmmesapoliticalmur

Idr rcturn to &e subieah fo qxrnects with fabulzryErr ardsils', Deleuze anf*rMapeople-Kafr[q|E- Kke said 6at &e p&mi 2(X)4: 381)- The qrUllnh has changd the artisnr*mitued force'- This&hmocetion of the peopkmsNL If art does not sL tocuse it is addressing aqlEor a people to com€.ftfrbmlation that we say isffis, i[fie people are not e

[nfo6r'- Second, when art a1rer trat trey do not exisqrirfie process of becomirI IIE end art because &ey I

6mrh &ere is creative fat

-"irre4 when suffering a

edtmnciation; a politics of[ar-mgo backto Trenana

e raciprocal presuppmitiordrryression. In the work th rre to the other, becarda speech act at the samedfi is not perceptible andrhe hmenq a threnody. Therh Sr form of conteng anduih-'I['hat remains to be rdftlr and enunciable operadmlclnt we hear vr,dL mement takes place; ilsLrcrm as a call or signifier,LXmative dorcs this movenpodre? fhrsngh a transfiflrm non-enunciable fora


the same time these are 'efficacious presences' that confront the cause ofthose sufferings. Suffering therefore gives rise to a struggle against deaththat becomes a political enunciation shared by art and the people'

Let's return to the subject of the people that is missing to art to see

how it connects with fabulation. 'We are not referring to popular orpopulist artists', Deleuze and Guattari write, 'Mallarm6 said that thegook rr""d.d a people. Kafka said that literature is the affair of thepeople. Klee said that the people is essential yet lacking' (Deleuze and-Grrrttu.i

2004:381). The question of the relation of modern art to thepeople has changed, the artist has ceased to address or invoke the people,, , '.orrrtituted force'. This is still the case for contemporary art, unlessthe invocation of the people is considered to be the reproduction of a

consensus. If art does not stop summoning a people that is lacking itis because it is addressing a people that does not yet exist, a possiblepeople or a people to come. How is this lack of the people connected toihe ?abulation that we say is common to both art and the people itself?First, if the people are not a constituted force neither is art capable ofcreating , p.opG, for ,a people can only be created by abominable suf-ferings'. Second, when art appeals to a people that is lacking it does not

-ean that they do not exist, rather that they do not exist yet, that theyare in the process of becoming. Third, fabulation is common to both thepeople and art because they have suffering and resistance in common. As

" ."irlt, there is creative fabulation when the non-enunciable becomes

enunciated, when suffering and resistance to ignominy become a politi-cal enunciation; a politics of life against death.

Let us go back to Treno now, and consider it from the point of view ofthe reciprocal presupposition between the plane of content and the formof expression. In the work the scream appears in both planes, passingfrom one to the other, because the scream is both a relation of forcesand a speech act at the same time. To scream means to make perceptiblewhat is not perceptible and to make enunciable what is not enunciablein a lament, a threnody. The visual and sound sensations are composedin the form of content, and create the installation's audiovisual space-time. '$7hat remains to be explained is how the relationship betweenvisible and enunciable operates in this work. 'We see a river, we see itscurrent growing, we hear voices soaring, soaring above the waters. . .

A movement takes place; it goes from the deterritorialisation of thescream as a call or signifier, to its reterritorialisation as a lament. 'S7hat

imperative does this movement obey? 'Sfhat does this clamour nowproduce? Through a transformation of the speech act into a scream/lament non-enunciable forces become sound, forces we do not see, the


forces of an abominable tbanatopolirlcs. Visually imperceptible forcesbecome perceptible though the scream's sonority. The problem is stillto catch the forces that produce the scream itself, to place the sound ofthe scream in a relationship with the forces of darkness. In this case thescream does not answer to visible forces that may be exerted directly onone's own body, the scream calls for the other, against its forced disap-pearance, against the production of corpses that the river makes invis-ible. This is what tbanatopolitics means,the concerted organisation thatattributes to itself a power over life, over the decision of life and death,and executes a systematic plan o{ making die (hacer morir) (GiorgioAgamben explores this relationship between the fabrication of corpsesand thanatopolitics [see Agamben'1.999 85-9]). This plan makes theriver a place of invisibility, the place of the disappearance of the corpses.As much as we see the current growing and the voices soaring over thewaters, we hear through the scream what we do not see in what wesee. But the scream does not offer to us only the sound of the invisible(the imperceptible) forces that produce it, the scream is also a lamentthat makes enunciable the non-enunciable, a clamour that enunciatesa suffering and a resistance, that pronounces itself against this makingdie in its act of mourning. The speech act of pronouncing the unpro-nounceable takes place in a given situation, in the space created by thecomposition of the visual image and the sound image. The current of theriver we see, whose turbulent sound we hear, is perceived as a mediumof invisibility, as a hideaway that we perceive in this way only throughthe screams and laments. Only in the end do we see what we did not seebefore: 'corpses' (the ragged clothes that the turbulence reveals). Hencethe clinch between the form of content and the form of the expression:the continuous variation of sound that floods the room, the intervals ofdifferent times in which the visual image is projected on one screen andthen on the other, each voice in the manner of a Sprechgesang falls orclimbs. In the end everything fades, there is nothing left but silence anddarkness surrounding the spectator.

Enunciate the unenunciable. How can such an enunciation be under-stood?'W'e say that it is testimony. The word that comes from the screamis the true testimony of a thanatopolitics. The subject of the phone isthen the witness. He is the superstes) a Latin word used to refer to thewitness, not any kind of witness (fesfis), but the one who has survived anevent of which they are called to offer testimony (Agamben 1999: 17).The survivor is a paradoxical kind of political subject, they are the onethat is called to offer testimony with their scream, with nothing but theirscream because they have been excluded from the authorised record of

Eo.EoZo

oEfo))=io=+-Cx

o)o

-oIo-ooo<.Eot-tro-oCi+oo=>..0_ 3o-56()o0)9o)L'9qE=-t.<o.<.o^'oXNo-,\o

-obo>oe(J(J_\lrr 12nO.= o)Yo6coF-'o.€

-6\rb1'E_f


the /ogos and therefore excluded from politics. Properly speaking'thereis no subject of the testimony . . . Every tesrimony is a process or a fieldof forces incessantly traversed by currents of subjectification and desub-jectification' (Agamben L999: 1,21,).

Finally we must ask: 'V7hat is the relationship between art and testi-mony? n7e can't pretend that the work is the symbol of an abominablesuffering and that the artist can erect himself or herself as the one whospeaks on behalf of the other, in the place of the victim; art has aban-doned such declarative power. The testimony belongs exclusively to thevictim who speaks for herself. The work of art is not 'addressed to. . .'neither is it 'on behalf of'. It is 'before'. It is a question of becoming(Deleuze and Guattai 1994: 109). It is precisely this impossibility oftestimony, the impossibility of being instead of, in the place of. . ., thatmakes the work of art possible. The point is neither that it is about tes-timony, nor that it reflects on testimony, the point is to make the screamand to make a politics of it. 'S7hat the work accounts for is making, byits own means, the non-perceptible perceptible, making enunciable thenon-enunciable. The work does not bear witness but shows the pos-sibility of the scream as testimony. It does not represent a conflict, itactualises a power. Therefore, it makes evident the need of a peopleeven if that people is what is lacking: 'we are nor responsible for thevictims but before the victims' (108). Let us remember that in'Wbatis Philosophy? Deileuze and Guattari say that philosophy books andworks of art have resistance in common with a people. 'Their resistanceto death, to servitude, to the intolerable, to shame, and to the present'(110). In this sense, through this common resistance, there might be inthe philosopher, the thinker or the artist a becoming that links them to apeople, a becoming-people of the thinker. It is a matter of becoming andnot of identification: 'The people is internal to rhe thinker because it isa "becoming people," just as the thinker is internal to the people as noless unlimited becoming' (109).

Translated by luan Fernando Mejia Mosquera

ReferencesAgamben, G. (1998), Homo Sacer I: Souereign Pouter and Bare Life, trans. D.

Heller-Roazen, Stanford: Stanford University Press.Agamben, G. (1999), Remnants of Auschwitz: Tbe Witness and tbe Archiue, tra',s.

D. Heller-Roazen, New York: Zone Books.Deleuze, G. (7979), 'Un manifeste de moins', in C. Bene and G. Deleuze,

Sup erp o sitions, Paris: Minuit.

The

ffiop, Q 4f988i. Eucauk,ran G- r.199-31. The FaH

EmF Fo[s: The linirersitr oiDftm- G- '1995r. \-egorirrio

flflLhrf ia l-]nirersirr Press.rync_ G i2Q02l, Francis BacadD{er}-ork C-ontinu.-

Derc, G- 12.006a1, Yhat is a (

,d frmsrcra.s 1 97 5-799 5 - d-mrYodr: Semiotext{el.ffimo G- r12fi)6b), "^\tas '68ffirn( lod Intenieus 1975-1t'llhdna- New York Semioelll&m, G. aad F. Guanari (2LtcfuandNewYork Comir

Lierm" G and F. Gua6ari (199G"MeIL New York: Colun

Lfolq S. {2008), The ReadsmarK ZrykE ledsl, Deleuze, GudlNes York: Continu.m

msm! Tkcssay is a product of tk l

ffieopht', developed b-v dMcia Universidad Javeria

O- ltr re this term in the seose th

fu do.etopolitics, where cordrieions about dea& (Agaml

f- Er: more detailed view of fr

New York: Semiotext(e).Deleuze, G. (2005b), 'May '68 Didn't

Texts and Interuiews 1975-1995, ed.Taormina, New York: Semiotext(e).

Deleuze, G. and F. Guattari (2004\' A


Deleuze, G. (1988), Foucauft,trans. s. Hand, London and New York: continuum.Deleuze, G.' (1.9i3), Tbe Fold, Leibniz and the Baroque, trans. T. Conley,

Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press.Deleuze, b. (f SSS), Negotiitions 1972-1990, trans. M. Joughin, New York:

Columbia University Press.Deleuze, G. (2002), Fiancis Bacon: Tbe Logic of Sensation,trans. D. Smith, London

and New York: Continuum.Deleuze, G. (2006a\, 'What is a Creative Act?', in Two Regimes of Madness, Texts

and Interulieuts 197 5-1"99 5 , ed. D. Lapoujade, trans. A. Hodges and M. Taormina,

Happen', in Tuo Regimes of Madness:D. Lapoujade, trans. A. Hodges and M.

Thousand Plateaus, trans. B. Massumi,London and New York: Continuum.

Deleuze, G. and F. Guattari (1994),'what is Philosophy?, trans. H. Tomlinson andG. Burchell, New York: Columbia University Press.

Zepke,S. (2008), 'The Readymade: Art as the Refrain of Life', in-S' O'sullivan andi. Z.pk. 1edi1, oeteuze, Guattari and tbe Ptoduction of the Neu, Londonand New York: Continuum.

Notes1. This essay is a product of the research project 'The Spatial Turn in Contemporary

Philosophy,, dieveloped by the Nricleo 'de

Investigaciones en Est6tica of thePontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogota.

2. I use this term in the sense that Gioigio Agamben gives it inhis Homo Sacer I:Souereign Potuer and Bare Life.In today'siocieties biopolitics may be mistakenfor thaiatopolitics, where control of and decisions on life are transformed intodecisions about death (Agamben 1998: 150).

3. For a more detailed view of this period, see Deleuze (2005b: 233-6)'

-------

Notes on Contributors

Eric AlliezEric Alliez is Professor of Contemporary French Philosophy at the Centrefor Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University,London, UK. He is the author of many books on Deleuze, aestheticsand politics, including The Signatwre of tbe World (Continuum,2OO4),Capital Times (University of Minnesota Press, 1996), L'CEil-Cerueau.Histoires de la peintwre moderne, in collaboration with Jean-CletMartin (Vrin, 2007), and La Pensde-Matrsse, with Jean-Claude Bonne(Le Passage I Adam Biro,2005).

Barbara BoltBarbara Bolt is Senior Lecturer in the Theory and Practice of VisualMedia in the School of Culture and Communication at The Universityof Melbourne. She is a practising artist who has also written extensivelyon the visual arts and their relationship to philosophy. Her publicationsinclude a monograph, Art Beyond Representation: The PerformatiuePower of the lmage (I. B. Tauris, 2004), and rwo edited publications,Practice as Research: Approacbes to Creatiue Arts Enquiry with EstelleBarrett (I. B. Tauris,2007) and Sensorium: Aesthetics, Art, Life,withF.Coleman, G. Jones and A.'V7oodward (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007).

David BurrowsDavid Burrows is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Birmingham CityUniversity, UK. He is an internationally exhibited artist basecl in l,ondon.Recent shows include Popnosis, Chungl<ing Projects, Los Angclcs 200.5,Moonage l)aydream, Praz-Dlcavallacle, Paris 2005, Mirrtil Wttrks,

Notes on Contributors 3l I

FA Projects, London 2005, and New Life, Chisenhale (and UK tour),London 2005.

Neil ChapmanNeil Chapman is an artist and writer, and a member of The alt.SPACENetwork of Artist Research Groups. He studied Fine Art at Duncan ofJordanstone College of Art in Dundee, and Critical Fine Art Practice atCentral Saint Martins, London. His work takes various forms, derivingmomentum from shifts between disciplines. Collaboratively, Chapmanhas worked with Anna Best at \7139 gallery, Amsterdam, and as co-editor of her book Occasional Sites (The Photographer's Gallery). Hehas worked with artist Steven Claydon, making sculpture and instal-lation, exhibiting at Hoxton Distillery, Greengrassi and the ICA,London. Chapman's book, The Ring Mechanism (2004) is published byBook'!7orks. He has recently begun a research scholarship at ReadingUniversity.

Gustavo Chirolla OspinaGustavo Chirolla Ospina is Professor of Philosophy at JaverianaUniversity, Bogot6 and Professor of Aesthetics in the Masters Programin Visual Arts at the National University of Colombia. Some of his recentpublications are Gilles Deleuze: Inorganic Vitalism as Philosophy ofImmanence (2002),'El paseo de Orlando: una matriz de subjetivaci6ny de des-subjetivaci6n', in El cuerpo fdbrica del Yo. Prodwcci6n de sub-jetiuidad en el arte de Luis Caballero y Lorenzo Jaramillo (2005), and'Hacia una ontologia critica de 1o viviente', in Biopoliticas y formas deuida (2007).

Robert GarnettRobert Garnett is an artist, critic and writer. Since the mid '90s he haspublished in a wide variety of journals and magazines, including ArtMonthly, Frieze and metropolis m. He is currently completing a doctoralthesis on humour in contemporary art.

Sue (Johnny') GoldingSue Golding is Professor of Philosophy irr the Visual Arts and(lomnrunication Teehnologies at thc Univcrsity of Grecnwich. Shc is

DELEUZE CONNECTIONSSeries Editor: lon Buchonon

lsBN 978-0-7486-3838-3

il1il1ililililil

Edited by Stephen Zepke and Simon O'sullivan - Clemencia ...

Documents

Transcript of Edited by Stephen Zepke and Simon O'sullivan - Clemencia ...