GILLES DELEUZE

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE

Background information
Gilles Deleuze 1925-1995, Paris, France
Philosophy and works: Historical monographs: Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Bergson, Foucault, Leibniz Metaphysics a metaphysical treatise Difference and Repetition (1968) Philosophy of change and becoming, rhizomatic/collaboration with Guattari: Anti-Oedipus (1972), A Thousand Plateaus (1980), What is Philosophy? (1991) Deleuzes ideas are connected and have been applied to : architecture art urban studies geography film studies musicology anthropology gender studies literary studies politics

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE

Main characteristics of Deleuzes philosophy

But also, some concepts must be indicated by an extraordinary and sometimes even barbarous or shocking word, whereas others make do with an ordinary, everyday word that is filled with harmonies so distant that it risks being imperceptible to a nonphilosophical ear. Some concepts call for archaisms, and others for neologisms, shot through with almost crazy etymological exercises (Deleuze and Guattari What is Philosophy)

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE

Affect

What does an affect mean in Deleuzes philosophy?

For Deleuze, affects are not to do with signification or meaning as such, but they occur on a different asignifying register. The realm of affect is positioned as an unreachable (and unsayable) origin the before of language.

In the book Deleuze A Critical Reader, Brian Massumi writes in his essay, that there is no cultural-theoretical vocabulary specific to affect, and that our entire vocabularies have derived from theories of signification that are still wedded to structure.

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE

Affect

Shall we then invent or create a language of affect?

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE

A Thousand Plateaus Introduction: Rhizome

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE A Thousand Plateaus Introduction: Rhizome

To reach , not the point where one no longer says I, but the point where it is no Longer of any importance whether one says I. (p.3 -4)

Illustrations by Marc Nqui

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE A Thousand Plateaus Introduction: Rhizome A first type of book is the root-book. The tree is already the image of the world, or the Root the image of the world-tree (p.5) The radicle-system, or fascicular root, is the second figure of the book, to which our Modernity pays willing allegiance.

A rhizome as subterranean stem is absolutely different from roots and radicles.

Illustrations by Marc Nqui

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE A Thousand Plateaus Introduction: Rhizome

1. Connection rhizome connects any point to any other point 2. Heterogeneity its traits are not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature

Illustrations by Marc Nqui

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE A Thousand Plateaus Introduction: Rhizome

3. Multiplicity rhizome is reducible neither to the One nor the multiple

Illustrations by Marc Nqui

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE A Thousand Plateaus Introduction: Rhizome

Orchid and the wasp

The orchid deterritorializes by forming an image, a tracing of a wasp (a becoming-wasp Of the orchid); but the wasp Reterritorializes on that image. The wasp is nevertheless deterritorialized, becoming A piece in the orchids reproductive apparatus (a becoming orchid of the wasp). But it reterritorializes the orchid by transporting its pollen.

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE A Thousand Plateaus Introduction: Rhizome

4. Asignifying rupture: against the oversignifying breaks separating structures or Cutting across a single structure.

Illustrations by Marc Nqui

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE A Thousand Plateaus Introduction: Rhizome

5. Decalcomania a rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model. All of tree logic is a logic of tracing and reproduction. 6. Cartography - A rhizome is a map (and not a tracing).

Illustrations by Marc Nqui

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE A Thousand Plateaus Introduction: Rhizome

7. Rhizome is an acentered, nonhierarchical, nonsignifying system without a General And without an organizing memory or central automaton, defined solely by a circulation of states.

Illustrations by Marc Nqui

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE A Thousand Plateaus Introduction: Rhizome

An another principle and maybe a summarising one a rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo. Proceeding from the middle, through the middle, coming and going rather than Starting and finishing.

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE

Deleuze and Guattari talk about affects and affections in many different contexts.

For example: - as the change, or variation, that occurs when Bodies collide, or come into contact. - part of the Deleuzian project of trying-to-understand, and Comprehend, and express all of the incredible, wondrous, tragic, painfulAnd destructive configurations of things and bodies as temporally mediated, Continuous events. - the additive processes, forces, powers and expressions of change. ETC.

AFFECT METHODOLOGIES GILLES DELEUZE

Affect

This something can be specified only as sensation. It is a zone of indetermination, Of indiscernibility, as if things, beasts and persons endlessly reach that point that Immediately preceds their natural differentiation. This is what is called an affect. Deleuze and Guattari What is Philosophy