The Triple Synthesis of Rhythm

Abstract

Stemming from a general study of rhythm in the work of Gilles Deleuze, we propose a distribution of this concept throughout three levels: a topic level, in which we place rhythm between chaos and measure; a dynamic level, in which we analyse the formation of rhythm towards its stabilisation as a spatio-temporal dynamism; and an unfolding, in which these dynamisms take on the form of rhythmic machines applied in music (refrain), in painting (sensation) and in cinema (montage and time crystals). In this last phase, the rhythmic devices of various arts lead to a genesis of time. We are thus driven to think and elaborate on the link between these two concepts, rhythm and time, in the writings of Deleuze. Bearing this purpose in mind, we turn to the schema of the three syntheses of time in Difference and Repetition. These syntheses show how time emerges from different ways of understanding repetition, in the place of which rhythm will then appear. We will compare this schema with the argument articulated by Deleuze in Logic of Sensation regarding rhythm in its pictorial form. This comparison will enable us to deduce that both concepts follow a parallel path arising from the same series of processes: vibration, coupling, resonance and forced movement. We will conclude that the schema proposed in Difference and Repetition and its aesthetic purpose delineate the ways in which rhythms unfold creatively. These three syntheses of rhythm are implicated in artistic processes.