Guattari Research Articles

Flows of Inhomogeneous Matter: Improvising an augmented violin

This article reflects on how personal digital musical instruments evolve and presents an augmented violin developed and performed by the author in improvised performance as an example. Informed by the materialism of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, an image of ‘flows of inhomogeneous matter’ provokes reflection on a mode of production common to artisanal craftmanship and digital lutherie alike, namely the pre-reflective skilfulness negotiating the singularities of inhomogeneous matter with the demands of the production – a process which itself may be thought of asim-pro-visation(‘un-fore-seen’). According to Gilbert Simondon, all technical objects develop in this way: functional interdependency emerges when abstractly ideated elements begin to enter into unanticipated synergistic relationships, suggesting a material logic dependent on unforeseen potentialities. The historical development of the acoustic violin exemplifies such an evolution, with, like all technical objects, additional latent potential. Digital artists can work like artisanal craftsmen in tinkering with technical elements, teasing out their synergies through abductive, trial-and-error experimentation. In the context of developing digital musical instruments, model-free design of real-time digital signal processing symmetrising action and perception yields highly refined results. Like musical improvisation – constrained by time – improvised development of these instruments turns the material obstacles into their very means of realisation.

Performance of/or Debt

On the occasion of its one hundredth anniversary, one bank opened a time vault. A group of indebted Croatian citizens decided to place their final testimony in it: The Black Book, a document containing all their memories, testimonies or references to the 2016 climax of the bank crises triggered by the sudden, unexpected inflation of the CHF. In exactly one hundred years someone will open this book, and thus re-discover the economy’s frank face. Meanwhile, Montažstroj offers a performance about the European precariat and the influences of debt-economics in our lives, not only financial, social and political, but existential as well. Their performance is, therefore, put in the context of contemporary political economic theories, mainly because of the intertextual connections with the contract with the Devil notion from Christopher Marlow’s Doctor Faustus, while critical references to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Jacques Derrida, Maurizio Lazzarato, Bernard Stiegler and Franco Berardi Bifo, attempt to re-contextualize the performance’s strategies in a wider problematic field of the decay of capitalism.

‘The world is sinking:’ sand, urban infrastructure, and world-cities

ABSTRACT From the construction of ports to the dredging of access corridors for ships and the production of asphalt and concrete, sand is an inextricable part of urban environments. Focusing on the molecular transformations of sand–from silt to concrete to rubble–the first half of this paper studies the geosocial history of Dubai over the course of the twentieth century, including the dredging of Dubai Creek, the making of Jebel Ali Port, and the construction of the World Islands. I draw on reports, archival records, and newspapers, as well as existing scholarship, to demonstrate the infrastructural exuberance of Dubai, its tendency to marshal vast amounts of sand in the construction of increasingly outrageous infrastructures. In the second half of the paper, I follow some of the threads that emerge from this site in a more theoretical and comparative register. I draw comparisons between Dubai and similar world–cities in the global South, to understand and critique how this infrastructural exuberance exists alongside increasing concerns over ‘sand scarcity'. Drawing on the work of Georges Bataille (1991. The accursed share: volume 1: consumption, tr. by Hurley, R. New York: Zone Books), Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1983. Anti–oedipus: capitalism and schizophrenia, tr. by Hurley, R. New York, NY: Penguin Classics; 1987. A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia, tr. by Massumi, B. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), and McKenzie Wark (2015. Molecular red: theory for the anthropocene. New York: Verso), I develop a framework of antiproductive ecologies that treats incommensurable forms of surplus and waste (such as sand and rubble) as constitutive of world–cities. Developing Deleuze and Guattari's concept of ‘antiproduction’ from an environmental perspective, I argue that in their exuberance and thirst for construction, world–cities like Dubai attempt to organize and render productive the very planetary distribution of sand and silt.

Desiring occupation: Theorising the passion, creativity, and social production of everyday life

ABSTRACT In this paper, we operationalise a postmodern conceptualisation of desire in order to articulate occupation as a passionate, creative, and productive process that is entangled with the social world. Employing the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, we use the concepts of assemblage and desire to theorise how passionate impulses are socially constructed and produce the flows of everyday life. The concept of assemblages refers to the dynamic webs of interconnection that make up our social world. The social and material elements within an assemblage (human, non-human, physical, non-physical) are continually shaping and being shaped by each other, entangled in an ongoing process of social production. In this paper, we theorise occupation as an assemblage, as a dynamic and social process that produces the flows of everyday life. The concept of desire refers to the creative impulse and passion that stirs individuals to create or act within their social world/assemblage. We present desire as a social force, one that is produced by the assemblages of everyday life and also one that produces everyday life. While the assemblages of everyday life have the potential to constrain desire, they also have the potential to creatively liberate the transformative potential of desire – generating liberating occupational flows.

Guattari on air. Félix Guattari y el movimiento francés de radios libres

espanolPsicoanalista y filosofo, autor de varios ensayos, algunos en colaboracion con Gilles Deleuze (L'Anti-Œdipe), otros en solitario (La Revolution moleculaire), Felix Guattari (1930-1992) se implico en el movimiento de la radio libre francesa, a traves del prisma idealizado de la mitica emisora italiana Radio Alice, para la que escribio el prefacio de la traduccion francesa de un manifiesto suyo en abril o mayo de 1977. Nuestro texto tiene como objetivo retratar las circunstancias que llevaron al filosofo a tomar esta causa. Tambien intenta analizar su ambigua relacion con el medio radioelectrico. Para ello, nos basamos en imagenes documentales recientemente recuperadas y en algunas de sus acciones y palabras EnglishPsychoanalyst and philosopher, author of several essays, some in collaboration with Gilles Deleuze (L’Anti-Œdipe), others alone (La Revolution moleculaire), Felix Guattari (1930- 1992) became involved in the French free radio movement, through the idealized prism of the mythical Italian station Radio Alice, for which he prefaced the French translation of a manifesto in April or May 1977. Our text aims to retrace the circumstances that led the philosopher to take up this cause. It also attempts to analyse his ambiguous relationship to the radio medium. To this end, we rely on recently recovered documentary images and some of his actions and words

(Dis)orientation, POV and the Virtual

This essay moves the first steps toward an understanding of the intricate intertwining between the notion of orientation and that of Point of View (POV) across the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (and in his work with psychotherapist Felix Guattari), and revendicates their crucial role in relation to the concept of the virtual.

Spilling Ink and Cleaning Oil

Spilling Ink and Cleaning Oil

Cosmic Subjectivity: Guattari and the Production of Subjective Cartographies

As social scientists become increasingly aware of the limits of dominant models of subjectivity to address contemporary social, cultural, and environmental problems, Felix Guattari’s emphasis on the machinic and processual dimensions of subjective production offers crucial insights. This paper explores the potential of Guattari’s evocation of the “cosmos” for the reconceptualisation of subjectivity. Among the various concepts of exteriority that Guattari employs throughout his work, the notion of the cosmos evokes the ungrounding effects of encounters with radically unfamiliar ontological universes. The paper invents the notion of cosmic subjectivity as a way of theorising a mode of subjective production that draws from a maximum of ontological universes. Open to the diverse existential rhythms and durations of the universe, cosmic subjectivity abandons the myth of an a priori subject and rejects the universal sense of time that provides its ground. To speak of cosmic subjectivity is to entertain the possibility of subjective processes that are not subjugated to the dominant order, but become compatible with immanent processes of mutation. To give flesh to these claims, the paper briefly explores three science fiction films released in recent years, which gesture, in significantly different ways, beyond the human: War for the Planet of the Apes, Blade Runner 2059 and Arrival. Our use of the films is not meant to provide an outline of a new model of subjectivity, but to give a sense of the complexities of keeping subjective production open to the indeterminate forces of other ontological universes.

„W każdej postaci mu się podobało, z wyjątkiem kamienia”. Posthumanistyczne figuracje w Baśni o wężowym sercu Radka Raka

The paper concerns posthuman and emancipatory contexts of Radek Rak’s novel The Tale of the Serpent’s Heart or Another Word about Jakób Szela. The story re-tells a fabled biography of Jakób Szela, the leader of the Peasant Uprising of 1846. The world created by the novel is subjected to non-human laws and relations, as well as to the feudal system. This fantastical– political juxtaposition exposes and deconstructs various inequalities sanctioning the exploitation of the peasant class. The paper points out three interpretative areas of the book, analyzed in the posthuman context. Firstly, describing the fantastical, non-anthropocentric imagination creating the novel’s world as a space of multiple relations and influences, usually non-existent in the historical works. Secondly, the paper focuses on the de-subjectification / virtualization of the subject. This particular point is discussed with references to other analyses of Rak’s novel, as the paper argues with some of the critical stances. Finally, it considers the genre’s distortion between mythical and historical which creates a space for alternative representations of the Peasant Uprising, escaping the dialectics of the “bad” and “good” legend. The paper’s closest methodological points of reference are texts of Rosi Braidotti (one of the most prominent posthuman philosophy scholars), Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari. Using these tools, as well as author’s original propositions, the paper argues that the posthuman dimension of Rak’s novel expresses its critical effect, and postulates to change conservative relations in human and non-human relations.

A Review of Robert Shaw, The Nocturnal City. London: Routledge, 2018, 126 pр.

This review focuses on the book The Nocturnal City written by the British social geographer Robert Shaw. The author’s major objective is to put the night at the center of the research agenda in urban studies, to contribute to urban theory in general, and to open up a new research field — nightology. The theoretical ambition for Shaw is an attempt to establish a dialogue between planetary urbanism (critical urban theory) and the post-structuralist understanding of the city (assemblage thinking). The author employs the conceptual model of ‘three ecologies’ developed by Felix Guattari; it considers the city as consisting of three interconnected layers: ‘self — society — earth’. Another important analytical tool is the post-colonial metaphor of the night as a frontier, which Shaw develops, considering specificities of the nocturnal city: infrastructures of artificial lighting and cleaning, the night-time economy, the changing aesthetics of cities at night and the experience of night-time at home, beyond the public space. The book does not offer a ready-made solution to theoretical problems and reveals just a little of the empirical diversity of nocturnal cities, but it is recommended as an introduction to a new field — nightology (especially for the Russian social sciences) — and as an elaboration of the discussion around the compatibility of critical urbanism and assemblage thinking in urban theory.

Cultural phenomenon of the rhizome concept

The article examines the manifestations of the rhizome concept proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in human narratives, using elements of the postmodern methodology with clarification of terminology tools. The research is carried out by the method of analysis and deconstruction of some cultural archetypes from the standpoint of relevance to the studied concept. The application of these methods to biblical archetypes, which have long influenced the way of thinking of mankind, will allow to analyze the ontological elements of individual ideological constructs, which are the base for the principles of liberal and conservative ideologies. The research is applied to the values called traditional but formed mainly in the XIX century, and their true relation to the deep cultural tradition of the Abrahamic religions. The analysis allows to identify the manipulation of elements of certain cultural and philosophical trends and assess their prospects, including the possible impact on global transformation processes in human culture.

Aleksey Sergienko Essays in Landscape Ecosophy: Space and Creativity in the Philosophical Approaches of Martin Heidegger, Valery Podoroga, and Felix Guattari

Aleksey Sergienko Essays in Landscape Ecosophy: Space and Creativity in the Philosophical Approaches of Martin Heidegger, Valery Podoroga, and Felix Guattari

Beyond Conflict: The Non-Adversarial Aspect of Yitzhak Averbuch Orpaz's Prose Fiction

This paper explores the non-adversarial aspect of two major works by Israeli author Yitzhak Averbuch Orpaz (1921–2015): the novella [inline-graphic 01] (Ants) (1968) and the novel [inline-graphic 02] (Daniel's Voyage) (1969). Both Ants and Daniel's Voyage were written and published over the two years following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and can be read in light of political issues associated with militarism, territorial occupation, and demarcation of borders. Against this background, Orpaz's works present alternative existential modes and a range of unique interactions that deviate from the binary logic characteristic of confrontational situations and breach the hierarchal and patronizing relationship between "Self" and "Other" (both human and non-human). To illuminate the non-adversarial aspects in these works, I draw on three core terms coined by French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari: Becoming, War Machine, and Nomadism.

Drifting and Deterritorialization in Dionne Brand’s Love Enough

Dionne Brand provides the reader with vivid representations of the dilemmas and agonies from which people excluded in the history of belonging have been suffering. One of her latest novels Love Enough (2014) deals with the protagonists’ unceasing trial and error in the process of surviving in Toronto. In this paper, I analyze how Da’uud, Bedri, and Ghost’s process of drifting in Toronto causes a rupture with the monolithic sense of belonging in order to argue that they succeed in developing their own sense of belonging and connection and then reach in-between space, based on a link between Brand’s ideation of drifting and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s conceptualization of deterritorialization. It would be meaningful to elucidate how Da’uud, Bedri, and Ghost’s everyday lives develop the possibility of loving themselves and each other enough, ultimately shedding light on the very beginning of the rupture with the history of belonging.

GEWALT e uma Crítica Socioambiental

Partindo da conceituação das três ecologias propostas por Felix Guattari , como podemos e (se) devemos intervir para tornar ambientes, sujeitos e instituições mais aptos a viver no mundo contemporâneo, propiciando melhor bem-estar aos ambientes e aos membros da população. Só uma articulação ético-política – ECOSOFIA – entre os três registros ecológicos: do meio ambiente, das relações sociais e da subjetividade podem esclarecer as questões. Necessários novos dispositivos de produção de subjetividades individuais e coletivas. Égide ético-estética de uma ECOSOFIA. Gewalt. A violência e suas diferentes esferas de atuação. O poder , aquele aliado da liderança, e o poder que aliena e escraviza, vinculado à paranoia. Humano, que é humano? Desejo. Ação. Liberdade. Responsabilidade. Os estilos de vida, sua escolha no viver. A ação humana. O trabalho.

The Paradox of Schizoid Self: A Critical Reflection on Gender and Spirituality in Uzma Aslam Khan’s The Geometry of God

This study seeks to explore the paradox of Schizoid-self, which is split, fluid and in a constant flux, since it is situated in the interstitial space of gender and spirituality in Uzma Aslam Khan’s The Geometry of God (2008). The present study aims to yoke together Postmodernist implicit dangers of centrelessness, divergence, fragmentation, and chaos on a central pivot to bring resolution, harmony, and reunion in both distinct and shared human experiences. This research employs Postmodernist notions of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1972/1977) about Schizoid-self and further juxtaposes in a single real space several incompatible spaces to unearth the interlink between gender and spirituality. This inquiry is informed by deconstructionist ways of interpreting text through the interstitiality of schizoid-self and gender with its potentials and perils and, thus, traces its spiritual purpose. The present study proposes a circular connection between gender, spirituality and multifaceted self and marks it a way forward in resolving the conflict between males and females regarding their practical and mystical outlook. Moreover, the findings reveal and underwrite that pluralism is a measuring stick of human rights and gender justice in this age of human crisis.

Teatro e comunidade

Na área da pedagogia teatral acadêmica, o tema desta edição – Teatro e Comunidade – apresenta relatos e análises de práticas cênicas em comunidades, que discutem as possibilidades e as múltiplas formas artísticas desse tipo de ação, bem como as consequências estéticas, éticas e pedagógicas dessas atuações. Numa perspectiva alternativa ao e adjuvante do ensino formal, o teatro é partícipe ativo na formação da cidadania. Ao ativar processos de subjetivação, desdobrar diferenças – “onde as forças que constituem o corpo entram em uma zona de vizinhança, fronteiriça, em uma co-presença”, segundo Felix Guattari – a atuação poética e as formas heterogêneas de ação nas comunidades intensifica um imenso campo de celebrações solidárias.

The Face in Visual Representations of Children

In this article, I take on the problem of the face in images and visual research on children. This is a problem that is engendered through the visual representations of children and the act of deploying the visualizing techniques associated with visual methods (pictures, video, etc.). It nevertheless is a problem, I argue, that has been couched singularly within a question of ethics in child studies, criminology, and sociology, among other disciplines. Here, I utilize the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to challenge the unquestioned ethical commitment to the pixilation of children’s faces in publications. To trouble and reconceptualize the problem of visual representations of children, I assert that this problem is intimately connected to the cultural politics of childhood. For illustrative purposes, I analyze how children are represented in Today’s Child advertisements and Roman Vishniac’s Children of a Vanished World. This article concludes with a broader discussion of the (child’s) face, digital images, and (micro)politics.

Aesthetic Multilingualism as Ontological Relativism. Milorad Pavić's Dictionary of the Khazars and Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves

The text is brought to life through reading. This has not only been understood by literary scholars like Wolfgang Iser or Umberto Eco, but also by authors or poets. This can be recognized in some literary texts when, from the first page, the reader is forced by the author to actively shape the story to be read. The concept of fold, coined by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, seems to take into account many strategies of authors to stimulate the negotiation process between author and reader. By fostering non-linear and parallel stories, which lead to many worlds interpretation, the agency of the reader comes to its fore. We can observe very different strategies like this for example in novels of Mark Z. Danielewski and Milorad Pavic. Using the concepts of Deleuze and Guattari, I want to explore how multilingualism can be understood aesthetically and how it leads us to an ontological relativism in literature.

Reconsidering ‘Minor’ Archives: The Case of Australian Architect Nell McCredie

This paper discusses the recent discovery of the archive of the Australian interwar architect Nell McCredie. Finding this archive was crucial to the identification of McCredie as the author of several Georgian Revival houses in suburban Brisbane from the 1920s and 1930s. From an intersectional perspective, this text examines McCredie’s career as a practice outside the canon and presents her design for Uanda House (1928), and her work as a public service architect prior to expanding her career into ceramics. Like it has many other women, gender bias limited her career in terms of both longevity and agency. The aim of this text is to propose an understanding of McCredie’s archive as ‘minor’. The ‘minor’ category for architectural history is a valuable way to reposition canonical ‘major’ histories, especially in relation to the 20th-century history of modern architecture. In doing so, the ‘major’ and the ‘minor’ are understood as connected rather than opposed ideas, following Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s understanding of these concepts. Thus, rather than viewing the work of women and minorities as ‘absent’ from canonical histories of architecture, this text addresses the historiographical potential of their reconsideration as ‘minor’, which shifts the discussion from a dichotomous relationship to one of interdependence. McCredie’s archive is as an opportunity to develop new frameworks through which to analyse the archives of early women architects.