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

158 Pages·2005·5.57 MB·English

by  Stephen Zepke

STuDIEs IN PHIIosoPHY ART AS ABsTRAcT MAcHINE
RoniRi BERNAscoNi, (;‘eneral Editor ONroLoGY AND AEsTHETIcs IN
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Contents
Abbreviations
VII
List ofFigures
xi
Acknowledgrnents
xlii
Published in21)05by PublishedinGreatBrttatnby Jntroduction
Routledge Routledge
iaylor& Francis(iroup 1aylor&FrancisGroup Art as Abstract Machine 1
270 isiadisonAvenue 2ParkSquare
Ness York,NY 10016 MiltonPark,Abtngdon chapter One
Oxon0Xl44RN
The Artist-Philosopher: Deleuze, Nietzsche, and
201)5 b laulor& Francis(iroup. L1( the Critical Art ofAffirmation 1 1
Routlcdge isanimprinint!ax nr& 1rancis(iroup
Printedinthet.nitedStatesofAniericaon acid—freepaper Chapter 7ivo
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Spinoza: Mystical Atheism and the Art ofBeatitude 41
International StandardBook Numher- 0: 0—415—97155—1 (1Iardcoser)
International StandardBook Nuniher—13: 978—0—415—97155 3(1lardcoser) Chapter Tbree
We Need New Signs: Towards a Cinernatic image ofThought 77
Nopartofthisbookmaubereprtnted. reproduced. transmined.orutilizedinany tornibyanyeleetronic.
mcchanical,orotliermeans,nowknossiiorhereatierinsented,includingphotocopying,microlilming,and
rccording,ortnaityintoimattonstorageorrrtrieval system,withoutssrittenpermissionfromthepublishers. C‘hapterFour
‘I‘radcniarkNotice: i‘roductorcorporatenarnesmaybetrademarksorregistcredtrademarks. andarcused A Freedorn for the End oftheWorld: Paintingand
only foi identificatiottandexplanattonssithout intenttoinfringe. Absolute Deterritorialisation 1 17
Librar ofCongressCataIoging-1nPubIkation Data C‘hapterFive
Songs ofMolecules: The Chaosrnosis ofSensation 151
( atalogrecord isavailablefromtheLibraryof(‘ongress
Chapter Six
TheAgitations ofConvulsive Life: Painting die Flesh 185
jjixformaj VisittheTaylor& Francis siteitt
http://www.ta3lorandfrancis.com
Conclusion
i‘.the.•‘scadTeamsiclorD&isi1noaniiroistT(h&o[utt,ntorniaple. and theRoutledgeebsite itt A Break, a Becoming, and a Belief 219
(ontents
Abbreviations
Notes 231
Bibliography 283
Index 295
AO Gilles Deleuze and F1ix Guattari,AntiOedipus, Gzpitalism ancl
Schizophinia, translated byR. Hurly M. Seern, and H, R. Lane.
Minneapolis: Universiry ofMinnesota Press, 1983.
Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari, LAnti-Gic/zpe. Paris: Minuit,
1972.
ATP Gilles Deleuze and F1ix Guattari, ii ThousandPlateaus, trans
lared by B. Massumi. London: Athlone, 1988.
Gilles Deleuze and FIix Guatrari, MilleP/titeaux. Paris: Minuit,
1980.
B Gilles Deleuze, Bergsonism, translated by H. Tomlinson and B.
Habberjain. NewYork: Zone Books, 1991.
Gilles Deleuze, Le bergsonisnze. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1966.
Cl Gutes Deleuze, inernaJ, TheMovernent Jmage, translared byH.
ibmlinson and B. Habberjam. Minneapolis: University of
MinnesotaPress, 1989.
Gutes Deleuze, Cinema 1: Limage-mouvement. Paris: Nlinuit,
1983.
C2 Gilles Deleuze, C‘inema 2: Jhe Time-Irnage, translated by H.
TomlinsonandR. Galeta. Minneapolis: UniversityofMinnesora
Press, 1989.
Gilles Deleuze, Ci,u‘rna2. 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 Abbreviations ix
DR Gilles Deleuze, D/renceandRepetition, tranalared byP Patton. wP Gilles Deleuzeand F1ix Guattari, WhatJsPhilosophy?, translated
NewYork: Universiry ofColumbia Press, 1996. by H. Tomlinson and G. Burchell. New York: Columbia
Gilles 1)eleuze, DifJrence et R‘ptftition. Paris: Presses Univer University Press, 1994.
sitaires de France, 1968. Gilles Deleuze and F1ix Guattari, Qust-ce que haphilosophie?.
Paris: lVlinuit, 1991.
ECC Gilles Deleuze, Essayscriticalandclinical, translated byD. Srnith
and M. Greco. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
Referencesin the textgivethepage numberofthe English transiation, followed
1997.
bythepagenumberofthe Frenchedition. References to other texts by1)eleuze
Gilles Deleuze, critiqueet C‘linique. Paris: Minuit, 1993.
and Guattariarcgiven in thenotes.Thetideand pagenumberforotherquored
EPS Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, translated sourcesarcgiven in the notes, with full details found in diebibliography. When
by M. Joughin. New York: Zone Books, 1992. a book is quotedwhich is not listed in the bibliography, full details arcgiven in
the notes.
Gilles Deleuze, 5inoza et le problme de l‘expression. Paris:
Minuit, 1968.
FB Gilles Deleuze, Francis Bacon: thelogicofsensation, 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 dusens. Paris: Minuit, 1969.
NP Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy. translated by H.
ibmlinson. NewYork: 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
graphiesSchizaanalytiques. p. 251-267. Paris: Ga1ile, 1989.
SPP Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, translated by R.
Hurley. San Francisco: CityLights Books, 1988.
GillesDeleuze,.5inozaPhilosophiepratique. Paris: Minuit, 1981.
TF Gilles Deleuze, TheFol€t Leibnizandthe Baroque, translated by
‘E Conley. Minneapolis: UniversityofMinnesota Press, 1993.
Gilles Deleuze, Le Ph, Leibnizetle baroque. Paris: Minuit, 1988
List of Figures
Figure 1 AndyWarhol, 7zjleElvis, 1963, Virginia Museum of
FineArts. © 2004 AndvWarhol Foundation for the
VisualArts /Artists Rights Society (ARS), NewYork 34
Figure2 CarlTheodor Dreyer, LaPassion dc JeanneDArc,
1928, Austrian Film Museum. 94
Figure 3 Michelangelo Anronioni, Deserto Rosso, 1964,
Austrian Film Museum. 113
Figure4 Titian, TheDeathofActaeon, 1565-76, National
Gallery, London. 137
Figure 5 Jackson Pollock, catiedraI, 1947, Dallas Museum of
Art. © 2004 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists
Rights Society (ARS), NewYork 147
Figure 6 Marcel Duchamp, BottleRack, 1913, Philadelphia
Museum ofArt. © 2004Artists Rights Society (ARS).
NewYork / ADAGf Paris / Succession Marcel Duchamp 161
Figure 7 Francis Bacon, Porimit ofisabelRawthorne, 1965, Tate
Gallery London. © 2004 Estate ofFrancis Bacon / Artists
Rights Society (ARS), NewYork/ DACS. London 190
Figure 8 Francis Bacon, Trzitych, August 1972, 1972,Tate
Gallery, London. © 2004 Estate ofFrancis Bacon / Aitists
Rights Sociery (ARS), NewYork / DACS, London 213
Alleffortshavebeen madeto beatethe rightsholdersforthe s5tillfiom 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
emergedfrom an assemblageofinfluenceand cooperation to which man)‘peo
ple havecontributed. Paul Patton, ricAlliez, Dan Srnith, and Brian Massurni
all read and gave important feedback to earlier versions ofthe text, and their
own work on Deleuze and Guattari has heen a constant source ofinspiration.
EvaBrUckner, ScottHayes,Yves Mettler, ClaudiaMongini, David Quigleyand
Arturo Silva gavevaluable 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.—Vienna
lntroduction
Art as Abstract Machine
And thequestion isstillwhatitwasthen,howtoviewSclu)larShiphorn the
vantagcpointoftlicartistand art frozn the vantageoflife.
—Friedrich Nicrzsche, TueBlirboflrngefI)
“Artas abstract machine“ (ATF 496/619).This book‘s title is not a description
hutan imperative. lturges an action, an undertaking, a perpetual departure, for
wherever westart, itrernains to be done. A machine has to be constructed, and
art as abstract machine will require an artist adequate te the task: a mechanic.
Foreach rnachineitsmechanic: “Thepaintingmachineofan artist-mechanic.“
We are already—as always—in the middle ofthings, a swirling cacophony of
questions: A mechanic? A machine? Who? What? Wben? And given all that,
what doesthis machineproduce? And forwhatreasons? But thesequestionsare
thenecessaryconditionsforanyconstruction, fortheiranswerswill bethecorn
ponentsofnewmachines thatwill thernselvesdepart, to testout newdirections.
The abstract machine is nothing but this unfoldingofcornplexit a fractal en
gineeringinseparable from life, a bloorningofmultiplicity
But let‘s step back frorn this complexitythat will nevertheless rernain the
condition ofour investigation. We don‘t want to crash and hurn, notyet. 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.) DeleuzeandGuattari gives‘hatseernsastraightforwardanswer: “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).Artas abstractmachine‘s firstprinciple: 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 p2rinciple. And sich, it
ArtasAbstractMachine Jntroduction .3
iinmediately mpliesanother—itsnecessarycomplirnent—thatconstructingan “probe-heads“ (t&es chercheuses, ATl 190/232)—steerng the world on its
abstract machine is to construct construction itseifThe abstract machine is the “creative fiight“ (AT1 190/233). The abstract machine is therefore both vital
vital mechanism ofa world always emerging anew, it is the rnechanism ofcre and material, it exists, Deleuze and Guartari write, as the “life proper to mat
ation operating at die level ofthe real. Here, a new world opens up, a living ter as such, a material vitalism that doubtless exists evervwhere but is ordinar
world in which norhing is given exceptcreation. To open a world, to construct ily hidden or covered, rcndered unrecognizable, clissociated hy the
a ne‘ type of realit this is the ontological foundation of the world—ofthis hylomorphic mode!“ (ATI 411/512). Hylomorphism is an Operation that
world and ofall the others—on an abstract machine guiding its becoming. moulds matter into forms accordingto an ideal mode!, an operation bywhich
The abstract machine creates a new reality, constructs new waysofbeing, the world appears as obedient and predictable representations. Once more,
botalthough inseparable froin this innovation ofexistence, it has no being.The the abstract inachine against representation.
abstractmachine is theentirelyimmanentcondition ofthe new, and thereby re We have alreadysketched—at a speed that no doubt calls out for a subse
ceives its Nietzschean definition: its being is becoming. For nowwe will unfold quentslowness—theunderlyingstructureofthisbook‘sdiagram. First, notonly
the implications ofthis ontology rather rapidly, any beginning must involve a the echo of Nietzsche in the abstract machine‘s against, but Deleuze and
certain reckless plunge. The abstract machine doesn‘trepresent anythingbe Guattari‘s mobilization ofhis ontology ofbecoming. Second, the necessity of
cause nothing exists outs.id.e ofits action, it iswhat itdoes and its immanence is Spinoza to any philosophy ofimmanence. Spinoza will be the permanent sig
always active. In the middle oftbings the abstract machine is never an end, it‘s nature ofDeleuze and Guattari‘s immanent niachinery, of its expression and
a means, a vector ofcreation. Butdespite the abstract machine having no form, construction. Third, a marerialism inseparahle froni a vitalism; in orherwords,
itisinseparablefroinwhathappens: itisthe“non-outside“ livingvitalityofmat Bergson. These arc the ahstract co-ordinates ofDeleuze and Guattari‘s philo
ter. (But is ir an inside? As we shall see the question marks a certain limit to an sophical machine,and arc mapped in the first threechaptersofthis book.These
old and no longer useful topological vocabular)) As a result, abstract machines chapters Iayout thebasiccornponentsofDeleuzeand Guattari‘s ontology while
arc neither ideal identities nor categories of being, and remain entirely unaf seeking to showhow theywork, how theymost be put to work in constructing
fected byany transcendent ambitions. an expression ofthe living materialityofthe world, in consrructing an abstract
But before we get into the intricacies ofthis technical philosophical ter machine. Understanding this ontologywill therefore confront us with the im
minology we should remind ourselves that we arc speaking ofpractical mat niediatenecessityofunderstandingits appearance in and as life, an underst-and
ters, of machines and their constructions. Building an abstract machine is ing inseparable from an experience ofthe new realities that arc forever being
more [)IY than techno-science, and requires a bit of the mad professor.‘ created. At this point it becomes obvious that the onrologv ofdie abstract ma
Deleuze and Guattari, macl professors no doubt, adopt the language of the chine implies an aesthetic, because its existenceis indiscerniblefrorn its appear
construction site, an earrhy directness reflecting the pragmatisrn required by ance in and as experience.
the job at hand. Machines eat and sleep, they remind us, they shit and fuck. What then, to ask the question ofaesthetics, arc die conditions ofthis
(AO, 1/7) We arc, no niisrake, machines. “Everything is a machine“ (AO, experience? This question calls to account anotber ofDeleuze and Guattari‘s
2/8). Our task—to bedone with techno-paranoia—is to turn these machines philosophical interlocutors: Kant. Unlike Nietzsche, Spinoza and Bergson
creative, to liberate their parts in an explosion that remakes the world. The however, Kant is less a “fellow traveller“ than an adversary, and the site of
mechanic is, to use another ofDeleuze and Guattari‘s colorful phrases, “the combat will be the aesthetic. For Deleuze and Guattari aesthetics is not the
cosmic artisan: a homemade atomic bomb“ (ATP, 345/426). “There is a nec determinationoftheobjectiveconditionsofany possihle experience, nordoes
essary joy in creation,“ [)eleuze says, “art is necessarily a liberation that ex it determine the subjecrive conditions ofan actual experience qua beautiful.
plodes everything.“ Bot die abstract machine is not an expression implying Aesthetics instead involves the determination of real conditions that arc no
technophilia either, and is inseparable froni a mechanics ofdie flesh, an ex wider than the experience itself, that arc, once more, indiscernible from this
aniple of1)eleuze and Guattari‘s avowed marerialism: “The abstract machine experience. Aesthetics then, is inseparable from ontology, becatise experience
is pure Matter-Furiction“ (ATP, 141/176). The world is a plane of matter is, for Deleuze and Guattari, irreducibly real. 1b construct an abstract ma
force, a material process of experirnentation connecting and disconnecring chine will mean constructing a new experience indissociable from a new real
machines. On this plane ahstract machines act as guidance mechanisms— ‘Fhe sensible, like the thinkable, is nothing but the reniporary conditions
4 ArtasAbstractMachine Introduction 5
from which an abstract machine departs, following Spinoza‘s “war cry“ (the Nietzsche‘s statementserving as the epitaph above, to viewscholarship from the
phrase is Deleuze‘s) “we don‘t even know what a body can do“ (EPS, vantageofart—itrneansourinvestigationsonlybegin whenwestarttocreate—
255/234). This introduces another ofourconstant concerns, howcan wecre and artfiom thevantageoflife—meaningourcreations inust becomealive. Art
ate a new body, a new sensihility adequate to a life ofontological innovation? will be nothing (at least not for us) ifit is not this ongoing expression oflife in
Art ernerges here as a privileged site ofcorporeal experimentation. Art as ab the construction ofliving machines.
stract machine gives a genetic definition ofart, one that transforrns both its Expression and construction arc thedoubled dirnensionsofartas absrract
ontological and aesthetic dimensions. “Everything changes once we deter rnachine.Theahstract machineexpresses theautogeneticand infiniteprocessu
mine the conditions of real experience,“ Deleuze writes, “which are not larger ality ofits real conditions (the infinire, a cosmic world), which appear as the
than the condirioned and which differ in kind from the categories: [Kant‘s] construction ofthisreality thisart-work. But, once more, doubled, the abstract
two senses ofthe aesthetic become one, to the point where the being ofthe machineexpressesthe infinite, butalso constructs it, right here right now: “The
sensible reveals itselfin thework ofart, whileat the same time the work ofart field ofimmanence or plane ofconsisreflcvmust be constructed.“ Deleuze and
appears as experirnentation“ (DR, 68/94). An abstract machine determines Guattari write: “ltisconstructed piecebypiece, and the places, conditions, and
the real conditions ofexperience, conditions neither subjective nor objective rechniques arc irreducible to one another. The quesrion, rather, is whether the
(they have become abstract), and that can only be experienced in the work of pieces fit together, and at what price. Inevitably there will be nionstrous cross
art (in a machine), A work entirely experimental, inasmuch as art is a perma breeds“ (ATf 157/195).ib expressaninfiniteworld in constructingafinite art
nent research on irs own conditions, and is always constructing new ma work, to make art in orher words, is a process hy which the hecoming ofthe
chines. Feedback loop. Once more, this will beanoverarching concern ofthis world is expressed in a construction which works upon its own conditions,
hook, to understand the necessary and active immanence ofabstract and ac which operates at the level ofits constitutive mechanisrn. Any consrruction of
mal, infinite and finite in the machine ofart. The work ofart understood in art then, any sensation, emerges tbrough an ahstract machine to express an in
this waywill give a real experience, an experienceofits real conditions, an ex finite plane byway ofan actual becorning whose very specificityand precision
perience ofand as irs immanent abstract machine in the process of (re)con involves orinfolds achangein its real conditions.Theworld is thisgeneticplane
structing reality Which is to say—or what can be said before we say ofinimanence, a Bergsonian niultiplicity wbich in being expressed in a finire
everything else—art is an experienceofbecoming, an experiential bodyofbe construction, an art-work, a sensation, changes in nature. At this poinr it is not
coming, an experimentation producing new realities. The implications arc a question ofdisringuishing expression and construction as two dirnensions or
obvious: there is neither an ontology ofart noran aesthetics ofart, each in its moments ofsensation, because they have become indiscernible on the single
realm ofcompetency, each with its own all too serious professors. There multiplied plane ofonto-aesthetics. All that remains is to affirm their identity
c5onstructionexpression.
arc arrists consrructing abstrace machines, mechanics engaged in the prag
matic practice ofonto-aesthetics. Cosmic artisans everywhere setting offtheir This affirmariorm will be another theme ofthis book, echoing in its differ
ent terminologies. lt appears as Nietzsche‘s interpretation and evaluation ofwill
atom boinbs.
Ourdiagram hasalreadygrown quitecomplex.Theco-implication ofon to powel, as Spinoza‘s affects ofjoy and beatitude in God/Nature, as the actual
tologyand aesthetics inartas abstract machine—theonto-aestheticsofart—in and thevirtual dimensions ofduration in a Bergsonian cinema, as traits ofcon
volves a redefinition of experience by which its objective and suhjective tentand expression in theabsrractmachine, and finallyas theaffectand theper
conditions arc dissolved in the real, the realityofthe world as it becomes noth cept in sensation itseif In all these cases it is the affirmarion ofbecoming that
ing else than itself Art in these terrns is an autogenesis expressing the world (its puts immanence to work in a feedback loop ofconstruction and expression,
real conditions) by constructing experience (its real experience). And what is making becoming the being ofa work ofait that, as Deleuze and Guattari pur
thisexperience? Asimplequestion that itwill take awhole book (and no doubr it, “wants to create the finite that restores the infinite“ (X‘R 197/186).
not just this one) to answer. Art is, before all else, and as Deleuze and Guattari We could weil ask, as some already have, whether Deleuze and Guattari
pur it, asensation. Asensationofthiswork, hut thiswork, this sensation, itdoes arc offering us a modern version ofRomanticisrn here, whether onto-aesthetics
nothingifirdoesnot restore us to ourconstitutive infinitybycreatingtheworld is simply art expressing narure. Certainly Deleuze and Guartari pass rhrough
anew. Deleuze and Guattari‘s uiidersranding ofart as sensation will set offfrom Romanticism, and although they find a stoppingplace in die inhuman rupture
6 ArtasAbstractMachine Jntroduction 7
of the sublirne—a rupture and rapture—they do so only hy changing its pression ofthe at once infinite and finite material plane on which everything
Nature, A change that rejects the sublirne‘s Kantian conditions, removing art happens. Thus, mysticism as an experience ofimmanence is necessarilyatheist,
from any rornantic analogywith the divine, and placing it backamong the an because itcannot involve transcendenceofanykind (where to?). Atheistmysti
imals.All thiswill bedevelopedlaterofcourse, hut 1 mention it beteas the first cism replaces transcendence with construcrion/expression, first ofall as a con
qualification ofwhat is the necessary correlate ofthe construction—expression struction of the body—atheism against asceticisrn. Mysticism is a physical
equation, an “atheisric mysticism.“This is aphraseemployedby Deleuzeto dc practice: howdo you makeyourselfa bodywithout organs? Furthermore, mys
scribe Spinoza‘s philosophy ofimmanence, and is the only way to understand ticism is a creative process that, whether in the realm of philosophy, art, or
Deleuze and Guattari‘s ironie deification ofSpinoza as the “Christ ofphiloso somewhere else, is inseparable from affirmation, Deleuze and Guattari identify
phers“ (W1 60/59). Spinoza is the philosopher who thought the “best“ plane the same philosophers as philosophers ofaffirmation as they did the philoso
of immanence, the “best“ God, because through the attributes the plane‘s phers ofimmanence, the holy trinity: Nietzsche, Spinoza, and Bergson. lt‘s no
(God/Nature) expression in the joy ofaffectual assemblages is nothing hut the accident ofcourse, as in each case it is byaffirming the immanenceofa funda
ongoingconstrucrionofan infinite anddivinehereandnow: Godyes, butDeus mentally creative life that the joy proper to mysticism will explode on its lines
sive natura. Spinoza‘s revolutionary formula introduces an atheist God to phi offlight, all theway to infinity Deleuze reads Nietzsche‘s affirmation ofwill to
losophy—an atheisrn inseparable from a true philosophy ofimmanence-—be power, the affirmation ofaffirmation as he puts it, as the practical mechanism
cause reason is the way to express God/Nature constructing itseif, and ofovercoming, the door through which we eternally return. Sirnilarly, it is the
immanence achieves nothing without this idenrityofexpression and construc Spinozian affect ofjoy that constructs the rhizomatic composirions of power
tion. To pur it simply, Spinoza overcornes transcendence because, as Deleuze constituting the ever increasing All, and culminaring in the mystical affect of
puts it, “expression is not sirnply manifestation, but is also the constitution of beatitude, the love bywhich God/Nature loves itself In Bergson Deleuze finds
God bimself Life, that is, expressivity, is carried into the absolute“ (EPS, in the intuition ofrhe !lan vital, an intuition Bergsonassociateswith artistsand
80—!/70). mystics, an affirmation capable ofentering into the creative process itself “If
This strange atheism that in Spinozanever stops speakingofGod, and in man accedes to the open creative totality“ Deleuze writes of Bergson, “it is
Deleuze and Guattari never stops seeking to become adequate to becoming it therefore by acting, by creating rather than by contemplating“ (B, 111/118).
self, will be the consistentaim ofapracticalphilasophj Philosophy, like art, is a Deleuzesuggestsasaslogan, and it‘s ajoke, butperhaps onlyhalfajoke, “Jr‘s all
construction site, aworkshop producing abstract machines with cosmic ambi good, hut r8eally.“
tion. Deleuze and Guattari are continuallycoming back to this mystical prac Affirmation isthe mechanismofimmanence, the meansbywhich to con
tice, theproduction ofwhatMicheldeCerteauhascalled, “theinfinityofalocal struct a joyful expression. No douht Deleuze‘s affirmation ofaffirmation also
s6ingularity.“ From the Nietzschean simulacrum as the superior form ofevery has aserious philosophical function as the antidore to that othernotahle philo
thingthatisto theseed/universeofthecinematiccrystalimage, from thevisions sophical double-banger, the negation of negation (just as overcorning in this
of cinema‘s seer to Bacon‘s BwO, from Goethe‘s differential color theory to conrext is the overcoming ofAufhebung). But it is also the guiding thread of
Leibniz‘s imperceptible waves infolding perception in the ocean ofexperience, Deleuze and Guattari‘swork in apractical sense, fortheyvery rarelydiscussart
DeleuzeandGuattari describetheatheistic mysticismofaphilosophyofimma work, at least, which they do not like, (And in a wider sense this would be the
nence, the construcrion and expression by an abstract machine ofa “localab rational behind Deleuze‘s refusal to specifically deal with the philosophy of
solute“ (ATI 382/474). This vision ofa mystical Deleuzeand Guattari is, 1 am Hegel.) But behind this seemingly banal observation lies an important new el
weIl aware, regarded wirh suspicion by many c7ornmentators, Nevertheless, ementto DeleuzeandGuattari‘sabstractmachine,and thatis itsethical dirnen
with the important addition ofits atheist condition, this seems to me the best sion. Affirmation is an ethical choice, a choice for the creative energies oflife,
way to approach the profusion of mystical formulations in Deleuze and first ofall our own. This will be an ethics that will irnrnediatelyappear in our
Guattari‘s work, and their consistent attempts to find our real conditions on a first chapter on Nietzsche, where affirmation returns will to power eternally, a
cosmic plane ofproduction. return that will be our own overcorning. Here affirmation takes on a critical
Mysticalatheism is therealconditionofDeleuzeandGuattari‘spragmatic function, because a true affirmation ofimmanencewill involve the destruction
philosophy. Mysticism is the experience ofiminanence, ofthe construction/ex ofnihilism,ofall theresentful negationsdefiningthehuman, all too human.As