Deleuze

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Damian Sutton
Be David Martin-Jones

LB. TAU R IS

Published in

2008 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd

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Macmillan, a division of St. Martin's Press,
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10010

Damian Sutton and David Martin Jones, 2008

The right of Damian Sutton and David Martin Jones to be

identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them
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1988.

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book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or
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ISBN:

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Page design by Chris Bromley
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Contents

Acknowledgements
List of illustrations

vii
ix

Foreword: Deleuze reframed?

xi

Part One
Introduction. What is a rhizome?

Chapter 1. Gaming in the labyrinth

11

David Martin-Jones
Chapter 2. Virtual structures of the Internet

Damian Sutton
Part Two
Introduction. What is becoming?
Chapter 3. Minor cinemas

45
51

David Martin-Jones
Chapter 4. Becoming art

Damian Sutton

65

27

Parf Three
I ntroduction. What is duration?

85

Cha pter 5. Movement-images, time-images and

hybrid-images in cinema

David Martin-Jones
Cha pter 6. Time (and) travel in television
Damian Sutton
Conclusion: Reframing Deleuze
Notes

129

Select bibliogra phy

Glossary
I ndex

141
145

137

123

107

91

Acknowledgements

This book i s the product of many fruitful discus sions that we have
had together over many years , as well as discus sions we continue
to have as s cholars of philosophy and visual culture. We have both
been excited and frus trated by Deleuze, and we both continue to
enjoy the cut and thrust of the debate ove r h i s work, and are
genuinely thankful that we were introduced to a philosopher who
could make so many new thoughts ari s e in u s . We are aware that
Deleuze and his work can s eem remote or impenetrable to others ,
however, and thus it is als o from the discussions we have had with
colleagu e s and students that we h ave been able to fo cus out
attenti o n on the extrao rdinary contribution of Deleuze to
philosophy, as well as his contributi on with Felix Guattari. We
have re solved to help others understand what we consider to be
the most important concepts that Deleuze developed, and we hope
that this gui de i s succ e s s ful in introducing new thinkers to
Deleuze and his work. We hope the reader will not stop at this book
but remain thirsty for more by and on Deleuz e , as we do.
There are numerous commentari e s on Deleuze, and many
useful analyses made that help develop his ideas and provide new
methods of understanding. It has been a great privilege to get to
know so m any of tho s e writers from whom we h ave drawn ide a s ,
and who have b ecome welcome friends and colleagues . This guide
would not have been pos sible without the fruitful and challenging
discus s i on s we have had with them, almo st too numerous to
mention. For support, information and inspiration we would like to
give special thanks to Antonio C arlo s Amorim, B ettina Bildhauer,

Philip Drake, Amy Herzog, L aura U. Marks, Bill Marshall, Helen

Monaghan, Soledad Montane z , John Mullarkey, Nicholas Oddy,
Patricia Pisters , Anna Powel l , John R ajchman, Angelo Restivo ,
D avid R o dowi ck and Karen Wen ell. In addition, we would like to
thank the staff in our departments for their supp ort, and especially
the students in our undergra duate and p o s tgraduate classes at
Glasgow School of Art, Northumbria University and the University
of St An drews . In particular, thanks should go to students on the
MA in Film Studies at Northumbria University in 2 0 0 3-4, for
engaging deb ates over recent films such as The Cell. Finally, we
would like to thank the editorial team at LB. Tauris for helping us
develop this guide, and for their advice and support throughout.

List of illustrations

Figure 1 . Mysterious Skin (d. Gregg Araki , Desperate Pictures/

Antidote Film s , 2 004) supplied by the Ronald Grant Archive . 5 9

Figure 2. Rachel Whiterea d , House ( 1 993) courtesy of the Gagosian

Gallery Rachel Whiteread. Photo c redit: Sue O rmerod.

77

Fig u re 3. The Cell (d. Ta rsem Singh, New Line C inema, 2000)

supplied by the Ronald Grant Archive .

Figure

4. Doctor Who

99

(B B C , 2007) copyright B B C .

1 13

Foreword: Deleuze reframed?

This book is a brief introduction to some of the key phil o sophical

motifs , theori e s and approaches of one of the twentieth century's
most imp ortant philosophers , and one who s e ideas have strongly
i nfluenced our p a s s age into the twenty first. Gilles Deleuze ( 1 925
95) was b orn in Pari s , and studied under Ferdinand Al quie and
Jean Hyppolite . As a philosopher he developed a fairly predictable
career, which s aw him work at I'Universite de Provence and later
at l'Universite de Paris VIII, Vincennes/Saint Deni s , where he
worked until h e retired in 1 9 8 7 . His colleagues included Jean
Fran<;:ois Lyotard, Michel Fouc ault and, perhaps most importantly,
Felix Guattari .
The impact of Deleuze's philo s ophy is far from predictable,
however, and the works that he produced over his lifetime

on

Immanuel Kant, Baruch Spinoza, David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche,

Foucault, Henri B ergson and Gottfried Leibniz, among others

do

not rest on the bookshelf of the philosophy professor's office, but

create re s onances in new artworks , new visual communications ,
new philo sophies. Unlike the works of some of his contemporaries,
including that of Foucault and Lyo tard but also Jean Baudrillard
and Sl avoj

ZiZ:ek, Deleuze's phil o s ophy i s

sel dom used as just an

interpretative mechanism for cultural criticism. Instead, D eleuzian

ideas aris e in the Internet, in cinema , television and in visual art s ,
in architecture and p o litical thought. C ultural mo tifs s u ch a s
'non linear' thought, for example, can be traced b ack to Deleuze's
work with Guattari, most commonly appearing under the heading
' rhizomatic' , or ' rhizomorphi c ' . In the l a s t few years s ome of the

c ontemp o r ary phil o s o phical world's most impo rtant thinkers

including

Zi zek, Alain

Badiou, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri

h ave turn e d to Deleuze and the legacy of his prolifi c work.

D eleuzian ideas have influenced s cholars of history and economics,
as well as tho se in politi c s , gender studies, and in art and design
theory. D e leuzian influences can be s een in the work of Vilem
F l u s s er, for examp l e , who s e nomadological writing has b een
revisited in theories of visual culture, and Deleuzian ideas echo
in the work of B runo Lato ur, one of contemp orary s o c i o logy's
brightest minds in the study of technology and culture. This is why
we felt tha t the time was right to develop a book such a s thi s ; a
b o o k that we hope will be an invaluable companion for s omeone
meeting D eleuze for the first time, and which will act as a
springb o ard for a new thinker toward new ideas and concepts , new
p roductive relationships between philosophy and creative practice.
We will intro duce the new thinker (artis t/designer, p rofessional
s cholar, s tudent) to s ome of the key i d e a s D el e uze devel oped
through his career, through his adoption of earlier philos ophers ,
and in hi s collab orations with F elix Guattari (19 30 9 2 ) .
We came to this project having worked on our own a s critical
thinkers , finding as we talked together persistent i s s u e s ab out
which we shared intere sts and concern s . We had both noted, for
i n s tanc e , the growing widespread intere s t in D e l e u z e , which
excited some colleagues and exasp erated o thers . We a l s o noted
some of the shortcomings of Deleuzian debate s , however, which
s e emed to be mired in the practice of quoting him like s cripture .
This s eemed to opp o s e the dynamism that D eleuze's practice of
phil o s ophy its elf illus trated, as in his ability to return to earlier
phil o s ophers and deve l o p a relationship with them that leap s
b eyond quotation and produces something new. Famous ly,
Deleuze's practice has been des cribed (by him and otbers) as that
of taking other philo sophers from behind, an inva sive act that
produces by 'immaculate conception' a child of b oth. But it i s
als o a n approach, that Ian Buchanan h a s des cribed as a 'calculated

creativity' , ab out knowing when ideas can b e taken further, when

to return to the text, and when to pick up new texts and broaden
one's scope.l Thi s book, for examp l e , i s a pro ductive result of
individual and collective thinking a s we continue to work with
Deleuz e , and continue to read him.
Deleuze used a numb er of philo s ophical tactics that we have
tried to adopt here. The first i s the principle 'ad fontes', whi ch in
Latin means 'to the sources'. Deleuze's tactic of 'taking philosophers
from b ehind' meant that his relationship to their works bordered
on the intimate. While it is easy to see the influence of Bergs on, for
example, in D eleuze's own phil o sophy of time , this can also give
rise in the writing to a kind of bickering or lover's quarrel between
philo s opher p ast and pres ent. C ertainly, when Deleuze returned
to Bergson in the 1 980s the result was a realis ation of a lover's
renewed p a s sion. This is why, even when Deleuze worked with
Guattari, we have kept with Deleuze as the lead philosopher in that
partnership, because, while their work undoubtedly developed its
own unique concepts , when Deleuze c ollab orated with Guattari he
was in fact already in collaboration with Nietzsche, Bergson and
others , and i t is the ideas from the s e collaborations that give
Deleuz e's philos ophy its characteri s tic voice.
A s e cond tactic that Deleuz e employed is illustrated best in
his last work with Guattari , What Is Philosophy?' The underlying
princip l e of this is to ask a question that will give ri se to new
concepts in an alloying with the creative product. It is the mistake
of the one dimensional theorist to have the theory of the arts in
mind and then take it to the artwork. Instead, we must start with
a hunch about the philosophy, and then see where this is given ris e
in the artwork. So Deleuze a n d Guattari b egin with becoming and
get to Paul Klee, begin with affect and get to the monumental . A
new concept can therefore be taken b a ck to understand again a
conceptual p ower in the work of an arti s t long written off ( a s in
Rob ert Mapp lethorp e , we might argue here) . Simil arly, a new
creative form might better illustrate, and even give new dimension

to, a c oncept alre a dy develop ed, as in the case of minor cinemas .

The p oint here, as John Rajchman suggests , is not that cre ative
practice c annot do p hilos ophy, but that to do philos ophy is 'to
fabri c ate concepts in resonance and interference with the arts ' .3
Phi l o s ophy c anno t do art (in b eing ' applied' to art as a theory)
any more than art can do philos ophy, but instead they have the
c ap a c ity t o raise new thoughts through the mutual contagion,
' in which both art and thought come alive and discover their
res onanc e s with one another' .'
We h ave cho s e n to ask 'What is a rhi zome?' , ' What i s
becoming ? ' a n d ' What is duration? ' , b e c a u s e it i s from thes e that
we can re ally get to grips with the us efulness of Deleuze. We have
taken in discussions of imm anence, p sychoanalysis and the body
without o rgans along the way, but it is these three c o ncepts that
c o n s t i tute D eleuze's mo s t productive l egacy, and which have
the cap acity in the right hands and minds to inform a creative
l ife . The s e thre e que stions p rovi de a s tructure fo r the b o o k ,
and we exp lore t h e m u s i n g original analysis of examples from
contemporary vi sual culture.
The first p art introduces the idea of the rhizome as an ever
exp anding labyrinth without centre, capable of either op ening up
new horizons or cl osing down p o s s ibiliti e s . In our firs t chapter,
' Gaming in the l abyrinth ' , D avid M artin Jo n e s examines the
computer game as illus trative of the interaction b e tween the
rhiz o me and Platonic thinking . The video game provi d e s a
multifaceted examp l e of the ways in which a rhiz omatic
understanding of visual culture (and especially our conception of
Deleuzian de and reterritorialisations of identity) often depends
as much on the manner and context in which we use different
media a s it does on the specificities of the medium. Accordingly,
the different type s of identity that garners exp erience might visit
such contrasting extremes as coloniser or gu errilla fighter. Next,
D amian Sutton develops this in terms of online space and social
re s i s tance, in our s econd chap ter, ' Virtual s tructures of the

Internet' . Virtual structures are tho s e created by television,

telecommuni cations and, most recently, the architectures and
environment of the Internet. Deleuzian thinking , fo cused on the
rhizome , has been instrumental to our understanding of the
Internet and the ' shap e ' it took i n its e arly years , and to the
critical idea of the Internet as promi s ing a democratic access
to information and communication that offers us unlimited
movement and freedom.
We then move on to study social formation through resistance
and through difference, and to do s o we look at these in cinema and
art as illustrative of 'becoming' . 'Becoming' is drawn from Deleuze's
opp o s ition to exis tentialism and ' b eing' , his oppos ition to
p sychoanalysi s , and his intere s t in the vitalism of the universe
indeed, it forms the basis for much of D eleuze's philosophy. D eleuze
and Guattari's proposal for ethical so cial resistance, for example,
was that we must understand otherness through becoming 'Other'
('becoming woman' , 'becoming -animal ' , 'becoming-minoritarian') .
In our third chapter, 'Minor cinemas ' , D avid Martin Jones uses
Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of Franz Kafka to help understand
the ro l e of minor cinemas in p olitical and s ocial critique . Kafka's
grotesque, surre al and bizarre world could b e interpreted as a
critique of the colonial situation in which he wrote. His idea of
making major forms of literature stutter or stammer, to open up
the hierarchie s they inform, can be applied to a numb er of minor
cinemas

S enegalese, Turkish, Queb ecois among other s . In this

instanc e , recent US indep endent cinema is examined as a minor

cinema. For our fourth chap ter, ' B e coming art' , D amian Sutton
shows how D eleuzian political thought has coincided with a visual
arts practice that is often profoundly militated against c apitalist
ideology, the structu res of the c anon and even the notion of the
artwork itself. Underlying this

is p erhaps D eleuze's mos t

important gift t o critical approaches i n contemporary art

theory of percepts and affects that explains why p a rticular

artworks have such

lasting creative , monumental effe ct.

We tum in the last p art to the ' s ubstance' of organis ation, the
full potentiality of time itself. D eleuze was profoundly influenced
by Bergson, and he found in his work a theory of time from the
point of view of the experience of life. From here Deleuze developed
his own philo sophy o f time, one that i s best understood through
our plastic repre s entati ons of it, such as cinema. In chapter 5 ,
' Movement images, time images a n d hybrid images i n cinema' ,
David Martin Jones explains how D eleuze's philosophy of time i s
expressed i n the movement image, which creates a linear narrative
by focusing on the moving body of its protagoni st, and the time
image, which atte mpts to repre s ent the virtual movement of time
itself. The chapter then demonstrates how recent hybrid films
that contain aspects of b oth images explore the difference between
space and time, and the p arallels they draw b etween the mind and
the body, dream and reality, and new media and film. After this, in
chapter 6 , 'Time (and) travel in television ' , D amian Sutton looks at
s cience fi ction televi s i o n to illustrate how Deleuze's phil o sophy
provides for an understanding of our p erception of time, through
his devel opment of B ergson's gift to philos ophy: the realis ation
of mental becoming, informed by memory, within which we live .
Deleuze and Guattari also look for the abs olute ground of life
its elf, the energy and forces that make up b ecoming, given shape
as an idea of the pure, simple universe that lends its elf toward
organis ation. This is demonstrated in the ways in which we tell
stori e s , and the ways in which we narrate and explain our
experienc e of the world and its p o s s ibilitie s .
D eleuze's philos ophy was rooted i n a sense of us efulnes s ,
intended a s a productive philosophy o f life . These are philosophies
that have one eye on the future, and on how we must live . Thi s
means that the value of h i s ideas c a n b e tested b y their continued
u s efuln e s s , on the one hand, and their ability to give ris e to new
concepts on the other. Hence we have tried to include sharp recent
and contemporary examples from creative media
games, televi sion, as well as art and cinema

Internet, video

that allow Deleuze's

ideas to develop beyond some of the fo rms with which he was

familiar. The aim of this app roach i s not that we should s ay what
this or that philosophical idea means, but that we should provide
ways for new thinkers to see an idea in new cre ative form s , even
as the idea changes and generates anew. We have chosen examples
to illustrate Deleuze's writing, but also his ideas and their
afterlife , as they are taken up by others or a s they form a
constellation with philos ophies p a s t and present. In many of the
chapters we h ave tried to give a sense of the wider histories and
deb ates that our case studies have , informed at every stage by our
Deleuzian analysis. Most important of all, we have trie d to u s e
examples of h o w

as individuals , as a s ociety, as culture

we

demons trate concepts to ours elves . W e often u s e the visual arts

to tell s torie s , of course, but it is easy to forget that they are a l s o
employed to conceive, elab orate and discuss fundamental aspects
of living: our relationship to s ociety and meaning, our relationship
to growth a n d subj e ctivity, our relationship to time and the
immensity of duration. We have reframed many of Deleuze's ideas
so that the np.w reader and new thinker will have the courage and
tenacity to 1

.k up Deleuze's books and s e e new iterations of, and

challenges to, his conceptual project i n the visual arts .

P art One

Introduction

What is a rhizome?

In literal term s , the word ' rhizome ' refers to a plant stem that
grows horizontally underground, s ending out roots and shoots.
Many grasses are rhizomati.c, as are any number of common plants
found in our diet s , including asparagu s , ginger and the p otato .
When Deleuze and Guattari used the term in their intro ductory
chapter to A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia
( 1 980), however, they did so to describ e a certain way of thinking .'
The image of roots and shoots emerging from a horizontal stem
encapsulated a manner of thinking that they favoured over the
dominant thought process of Western philos ophy. Dating b a ck to
the ancient Greeks Plato and Aristotle, thi s dominant Western
model is caus a l , hi erarchical, and structured by binaries (one/
many, us/them, m an/woman, etc . ) , and has been the dominant
form of thinking in Western s ociety for s everal thousand years .
Due to its emphasis on cause and effect and the creation of
hierarchies, Deleuze and Guattari comp ared the dominant Western
model of thinking to the tre e . This image refers not only to the
literal shape of a tree (the seed is the cause, the tree the effect) , but
also

for instance

to the genealogical lineage attributed to

ancestry in the family tree . In a family tree there is an obvious

causal relationship between a single p oint of origin (the father)
and his offspring. Thus the image of the tree expresses how the
dominant model of Western thinking creates a single version of the
truth (one tre e , seemingly living in isolation

or, if you like , one

father and one family) , from which the 'Other' is then defined

the

space around the tre e , or that which is 'not tree'. Thi s typ e of
binary thinking has a long tradition and i s still dominant today,
although in the late nineteenth c entury the German philos opher
Nietzs che ( 1 844-1 900) began to point the way toward another way
of thinking . Gre a tly influ enced by Nietz s che (Del e u z e wrote

Nietzsche and Philosophy in 1 9 6 2 ) , Deleuze developed the idea of

the rhizome with c o -writer Guattari .
D eleuze and Guattari did not establish rhizomatic thinking
in opp o sition to the dominant We stern mo del. however. It is not
exactly a case of tree versus rhizome. Such a move would have
recreated a b inary opp osition (in thi s case, b etween right and
wrong ways of thinking) . consistent with the dominant Western
model of thought that Deleuze and Guattari were attempting to
rethink. Rather, they felt that we should reconsider how we think.
In a s e n s e , the image of the rhizome was supposed to ' s upplant ' ,
i f you c a n forgive the p u n , the image of the tree . Rather than a n
oppositional model of thought, Deleuze a n d Guattari attempted to
show that the previous model did not provide the whole picture .
This difference is p erhaps easiest to understand if we consider the
image of the tree in the c o ntext of a forest. In the forest there i s
n o single truth, n o singular cause a n d effect, no o n e ' true' tree .
Rather, the forest i s a single entity made u p of numerous trees , or,
numerous 'truths ' . It is also impos sible to posit one origin to a
forest, and not s imply because you c annot tell which tree came
first. Any one tree i s a pro duct of an ass emblage, of water, sunlight
and soil, without which there would be no tree s at all, regardl e s s
o f whether a seed exists or not. To consider a tree i n isolation, then,
i s erroneous , b e c au s e everything i s i n fa ct the product of an
a s s emblage with various different elements , and i s not s imply
attributable to one cause. Everything is, in this s ense, rhizomatic ,
and t o think in t h e manner of the tree i s only t o u s e o n e aspect
of the rhizome .
For Deleuze and Guattari, when thinking we should not always
re duce things to ' one thing and its Others ' , one true way of thinking

and its competitors , but, rather, consi der that every thing always
contains many truth s . For thi s reason they attempted to disc ard
the hierarchical image of thought of the tree as somewhat illuso ry,
and replace it with the horizontal image of the rhi zome. Instead
of tree , rhizome. Instead of one , one as m any. Not one and its
multiple Others , but a singular multiplicity. Like a forest, then,
for Deleuze and Guattari the rhizome 'has neither beginning nor
end, but always a mi ddle (milieu) from which it grows and which
it overspill s ' .'
Some concrete examples can help us understand the broader
ramifications of the rhizome and rhizomatic ways of thinking.
Deleuze and Guattari used the rhizome to des cribe living entities
(pack animal s such as rats and wolves) but a l s o geographi c a l
entities s uch a s b urrow s , 'in all of their functions of shelter,
supply, movement, evasion and breakout' .' In the case of p ack
animals , the moving masses continually form and re-form a single
shape, a fluid entity that i s at once one and many. This i s a clear
examp le of a rhizome - a herd of wild hors e s , a wheeling flock of
birds, etc. The idea of the burrow, however, p rovi des a more
interesting angle from which to consider the rhizome. C onsider
the guerrilla war o f attrition that the Vietnamese Vi etcong fought
against the overwhelmingly superior technology of the US military
in the 1 960s and e arly 1 970s . As p art and p arcel of this s truggle
they utili sed an e l ab orate tunnel sys tem which enabled them to
evade the US military's land and air force s , s tore and move arms
and supplies , build up numbers for ambushes and surprise attacks,
and quickly dis a p p e ar again once overwhelmed. The rhizome as
burrow, then, is a way of describing an underground political
movement, both literally, as in this case, and figuratively. As a
further, figurative example, undergro und prote s t movements
are now also a b l e to gather s trength and support among
geographically disp arate members using the rhizomatic networks
enabled by the Internet. The rhizome, then, has many applications,
one of which is i n the political realm.

Deterritoria lisation/ reterritorialisation

At thi s stage a note of warning i s needed. Whenever we expl ore

thought (or, indeed, anything else) rhizomatically, there is always a
deep ambiguity involved. The rhizome has the potential to produce
great change, or, to u s e a word that Deleuze deployed in A Thousand

Pla teaus, to deterritorialise. There is a l s o a complementary

m ovement that is always involved, however, a force that attempts
to recreate stability and order, to reterri torialise. As a shifting
p attern (be it the rapidly shifting flo cking of birds o r the slow
spread of a forest), the rhizome is constantly creating a new 'line of
flight" that enables it to deterritoriali s e . Along thi s line of flight
i t has the p otenti al to move into (and onto) new territori e s . Lines
of flight are created at the edge of the rhizomatic formation, where
the multi p licity experiences an outs i d e , and tra n s forms and
changes . At thi s border there is a doubl e becoming that changes
both the rhizome and that which it encounters (which is always, in
fa ct, the e dge of another rhizome) . Deleuze and Guattari explain
this pro c e s s using the examp le of a wasp pollinating an orchid:
How c o u l d move m e nts of d ete rritori alisation a n d processes of
rete rritoria lisation not be relative , a lways connected, ca ught up i n
one another? The orchid deterritorialises by forming a n i m a g e , a
tracing of a wasp; b u t the wasp reterritorialises on that i m a ge. The
wasp is nevert h e l ess deterrito ria l ised , b e c o ming a piece i n the
orchid's rep roductive a p paratus. But it reterritorialises the orchid by
transportin g

its p o l l e n .

Wasp

and

o rc h i d , a s h eterogeneous

elements , form a r h izome.s

Thi s exampl e illustrates that with every deterritorialisation

there i s an accomp anying reterritorialis ation. The orchid ceases to
be entirely orchid as it encounters the wasp. It deterritori alises (a
process of becoming wasp ) , but, as its p ollen is move d els ewhere
by the wasp, the orchid is also reterritori alised. The opp osite is
a l s o true for the w a s p . As Deleuze a n d Guattari have it, '[A]
b e coming wasp of the orchid and a becoming orchid of the wasp.

E ach of the se becomings brings about the deterritorialisation of

one term and the reterritorialis ation of the other." A s with all
s u ch encounters there is an a s s emblage create d , and a double
becoming between b oth aspects of the a s s emblage.
What thi s examp l e does not immediately show, h owever, is
the p ower imb alance that usually accomp ani e s such encounters .
For

clearer example of the amb iguiti es that surround de and

reterritorialisation it is worth consi dering humanity's most violent

and influential form of de and reterritorialis ation: colonisation.
When the ' New Wo rld' of the Ameri c a s was first officially
'discovered' by Europeans (not to mention Australia, New Zealand
and s o on) . their coastlines were mapp ed by the first s ailors . As
the s e lands were gradually occupied by E urop ean settlers a
colonial mapping of thes e lands also took place. These acts of
mapping were at once a deterritorialis ation of European identities
a s they exp l o r e d new territori e s outside Euro p e

and a

reterritorialis ation, as they began to s ettle new lands. This process

of mapping contained a mutual pro c e s s of b ecoming, as the
colonis ers adapted to their new lands, and the new lands to their
colonisers. Through contact with a new land and its peoples
the values and pra ctic e s of th e s e European cultures were
deterritorialised, transformed, and ultimately reterritorialised in
a new form. Similarly, the native peoples of these lands (and, indeed,
the l ands thems elves) were deterritorialised and reterritorialised
into new forms due to the app e arance of thes e strangers .
The history of colonialism is one of unequal reterritorialisation,
however, in which the dominant Europ e an cultures

for all that

they did adapt on encountering new l ands and new peoples

ultimately came to impose their culture upon the New Worl d. It
would be euphemi stic to suggest that war, massacre, geno cide,
slavery, concentration camp s , taxes, land c learances, disease and
numerous other such abus e s were simply 'reterritorialis ations ' .
While a dominant colonial power will often change a s its rhizome
comes into contact with another, the other, weaker rhizome is

often absorbe , or forcefully reterritorialised by its culture. Thus,

although the rhizome provi des a new way of thinking , due to this
imb alance in the process of mutual becoming other that i s de
and reterritorialisation, the rhiz ome should not necess arily be
c elebrated as the answer to all problems encountered when
thinking in the manner of the tre e .
Rhizomes in context

Finally, it is worth considering the context from which the idea of

the rhizome emerged. In May 1 968 there was an enormous popular
uprising throughout France, beginning with a mass s tudent strike
in Pari s , whi ch was soon joined by workers all over the country.
Not long after thi s , in 1 97 2 , D eleuze and Guattari wrote their first
book together, An ti Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. A

Tho usand Plateaus was originally publi shed as the s e quel to

Anti-Oedipus, and the idea of the rhizome is clearly a development
of ideas found in thi s original text. Anti-Oedip us is a dens e book
that rails against psychoanalysis for attempting to ' cure' non
conforming desires by reducing them to the familial, O e dipal
triangle of ' daddy mummy me ' . ' Deleuze and Guattari consider
psychoanalysts as modern day priests,' charged with placing the
origin, or root, of all psychological issues in the bourgeois family
home. Psychoanalysi s , then, functions by perpetually imposing the
image of thought of the tre e . If you have a s exual 'problem' , this
i s because you did not develop correctly as a child. You did not
develop into a healthy tree because your roots were not given the
proper nourishment as a s apling. In fact, in chapter 2 of A

Tho usand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari return to psychoanalysi s

to reiterate t h i s point in relation to the idea of the rhi zome, which
they introduce in chapter 1 .
In contrast to p s ychoanalysis , and p erhap s as a consequence of
exp eriencing the uprisings of 1 968,' Deleuze and Guattari felt that
humanity had more chance of developing if it looked le s s at the
family as origin, and more at the rhizomatic p atterns of everyday

life in which we are intera ct with others. Humans are p a ck

anima l s , and, although society structures our activiti es through
institutions that are hierarchical (that function as tre e s ) , there is
alway s the p o s s ibility of a rhizomatic gra s s ro ots (1) revolution
emerging from the interaction of people. For this reason they
p referred schiz o analysis to p sycho analysi s , a practice of finding
ours elves by exploring our identities as pack animals

or, rather,

as a p a ck of animals . Instead of seeing the unc onscious as a dark

and forbidding place in which desire is buri e d , for Del euze and
Guattari the unc onscious is a place of underground passageways
or rhizomatic burrows through which desire moves like a guerrilla
fighter, ready to spring up when we least exp ect it.

Chapte r 1

Gaming in the labyrinth

David Martin Jones

Thi s chap ter examines the vi deo game as i llu strative of the
rhizome, and the problems of de

and reterritorialis ati on that

occur when we try to unders tand the effect of games on garners.

It begins with an analysis of the way many video games are
structured around a process of mapping that implies pos sible de
and reterritoriali s ations within the p articular game world . It then
explores some of the broader ways in which garners are de and
reterritori a li s e d during the p ro c e s s of p l aying. Although the
academic study of the vi deo game is a very recent phenomenon,
numerous attempts have already been made to theorise what video
games mean, and the effects they have on the people who use
them. This s ection thus summarises many of these debate s , noting
their significance in terms of the concept of a pos sible rhizomatic
gamer identity. Finally, the chapter concludes with an analysis of
the first three versions of the controversial game Grand ThejtAuto
( 1 998 1, as an example of the way gaming c an be viewe d as either
a de or reterritori alising of identity.
A brief history of video games

The history of the development of the video game is well known

and well documented. Without going into any great detail, the first
games were constructed in the 1 950s and 1 9 60s , and are usually
considered t o b e Alexander D o uglas's c omputeri sed noughts
and crosses (also known as Tic Tac Toe) created at C ambridge
University in 1 95 2 ; William Higinbotham's very basic tennis game

(a precursor to Pong) designed as a visitor attraction fo r the

Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States (a government
nuclear research facility) in 19 58; and, most sophisti c ated of all,

Spacewar, developed by Steve Russ ell and other res earchers at the
Mas s achusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1 9 62 . In the 1970s
video games b egan to b e p layed in the home, with the Magnavox
Ody s s ey, quickly followed by the Atari games console and now
classic game s s uch as Pong, Space Invaders and Pac Man. This
perio d also s aw the flourishing of video games in the arcade. The
1980s brought home computers such as the Sinclair Spectrum, and
from Jap an b oth Nintendo and SEGA emerged as major players in
the glob al market for video games. Finally, in the 1 9 90s and 2000s
the home video game market really took off with the c ompetition
between the short lived SEGA Dreamcast, the S ony Playstation,
Micros oft's Xbox and the Nintendo GameCube.1 Moreover, although
there have b een forms of online gaming since as e arly as 19 69, this
practice h as also b lo s s omed more recently with the global spread
of the Internet.' MUD (multi user dungeon) and , more recently,
MMORPGs (massive multiplayer online role p laying games) now
bring t o g ether thous ands of garners in virtu al c ommuniti e s to
interact with each other in the process of playing a game. This b rief
and rap i d history has already seen one major boom and bust in the
video games industry, during the 1980s, and, although video games
are now a multi million dollar industry, at different times their
incepti on and development have been variously due to the efforts
of computer enthusiasts such as Russ ell and his colleagu e s at
MIT, energetic entrepreneurs such as Ralph Baer of the mili tary
electronics comp any S anders Associ ates , and Nolan Bushnell, the
founder of Atari , as well as the university s ector and the military
as research environments.'
C orres p ondingly, although it is als o still relatively young,
the field of video game study is one of the most rapidly exp anding
of all a c a d emic discipline s . The m ajor b arrier that it fac e s i s
overco ming t h e prej u dice that v i d e o games ( a m a s s medium

a s s o ciated with lei sure tim e , and often with the 'wa s ting' of time
in general) are s omehow not worthy of study, no matter how
p opular they might b e. This is a bias that Andreas Huy s s en has
des crib e d in a much b r o a d e r context as forming p art of the
fe minis ation of m a s s culture that has o ccurred throughout
modernity, and it can al s o be applied to the s tu dy of pulp
literature, radi o , film, television and so on.' Despite this barrier
to its development, since the late 1 990s the field o f video game
s tudies has produced numerou s b ooks and antho logies , and in
2 00 1 the first online journal dedicated to video garne s , Game

Studies.' As many of the people to write on the video g ame are

g arners thems el ve s , and due t o the number of different gam e s
th at exi s t , there a r e numerous take s on t h e effe c t the g aming
experience has o n the garner. In the s ections that follow I dis cus s
the s e theories to s ee whether they suggest that a de

or

reterritoriali s ation of the g arner is p o s sible, as p art of a larger

di scussion of the rhizomatic potential of the video game.
Pac Man: mapping space i n the video game

In Cinema 2 (I 985) , Deleuze notes that certain European films that

emerged after World War II displayed a view of time s imilar to
that of the labyrinthine m odel of time found in the writings of
twentieth century Argentine author Jorge Lui s B o r g e s . ' In
chapter 5 , this typ e of cinematic construction of time i s discus sed
in more detail. In relation to computer games thi s concept is also
us eful . The rhi zome can also b e considered a labyrinth , a lthough
this must be understood a s an ever exp anding labyrinth without
res trictive points of acc e s s or defined centre . As we s aw in the
intro duction to Part One , a rhi zome grows from its middle. As s o
much g aming i s concerned with the traversing, inves tigation,
mapping and controlling of s p ace, thi s idea of the rhiz ome a s
labyrinth can also b e applied to video games .
C onsider a very early game such as Pac Man . The space o f the
game is laid out as a single level , on a single screen, s een from an

aeri al point of view. This space is constructed rather like a maze,

or s imple labyrinth, with p artitioning walls and channels along
which the Pac Man can run. This s p ace is not a rhizome per se,
as the l ayout is that of a fixed space that does not contain the
po s sibility of change due to the actions of the gamer. It is not
poss ible, s ay, to build a new wall. Nonethele s s , the gamer's actions
controlling the Pac Man can be considered as a reterritorialising of
this space. The Pac Man can b e consi dered an explorer who moves
through the labyrinth, consuming everything in his way

from the

ub i quitous pills to the cherri e s , orang e s , s trawb erri e s , a p p l e s ,

grap e s , b ananas a n d other fruits that appear a s bonuse s , and
even to the blue gho sts that appear when the Pac Man b e comes
supercharged. This type of reading of the game is in line with that
of s everal commentators who consi der the act of gaming to b e
rather like that of colonisation. A s James Newman summari s e s
i n Videogames:
Typically, videogames create ' worlds' , 'lands', or 'environments' for
p l a ye rs to

exp l o re , traverse , c o nq u e r o r even

dyna m i c a l l y

manipUlate a n d transform in some cases", sites" , i n which play i s

at least p a rtly a n o c t of c o l o n ization a n d t h e enactment of
transform ations upon the spa ce,'

Similarly, B arry Atkins in More than a Game (2003) discusses

the colonial undercurrents of recent games such as Tomb Raider,
in which the aristocrat Lara Croft j ourneys through foreign lands
using her ' s u perior technology' to dish out violence against mute
repres entatives of the indigenous popUlation, who s e artefacts
she steals for herself.s In respect o f this type of rea ding, Pac Man
appears to be the ultimate coloni ser, someone who se only goal in
life is to consume a s much as possible, l aying to waste the
ground he covers in the proce s s .
A s we s aw in the intro ductio n to this p art, when s p a c e i s
reterritorialis e d i n this way, as

a colonising action, there is

a lway s

an une qual power b i a s involved. Thu s , when viewe d in thi s light,

video games appear extremely cons ervative, at least at the level of

content. There is a chink of light. however, here for people who do
not want to simply damn all video games as b eing as conservative
as their 'stories ' often are . Another way of viewing Pac Man is that
it represents a deterritorialising of space. As the above quote from
Newman shows , there is some ambiguity over whether playing a
game is always an act of colonisation, or whether it might b e
b etter understo o d as a n attempt t o ' dynamically manipulate and
transform' space. Admittedly, the Pac Man cannot control the shape
of the space he moves within, but his m ovements themselves can
b e said to trans form it. While mapping the enclo s e d space in
which he is contained, the Pac Man must avoi d b eing stopped
(literally reterritorialised) by the ghosts that control the space.
If he i s caught at any point then he i s killed. In many resp ects ,
then, Pac Man might be considered les s a game about colonisation

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than it i s a game about impris onment and escape. C ertainly, the

.2

sirens that s ound as the Pac Man nears es cape suggest as much.

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As the Pac Man eats each of the little pills he creates a cleared

en
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channel. and the more channels he clears the closer he is to

escaping from the maze. In fact, the only way for the Pac Man to

(!)

deterritoriali s e

to literally move on from this s p ace

is to

continually move in different direction s , hide , avoid the gho sts as

much as possible, and use the supercharge to ambush them as they
converge on him. In this respect, Pac Man can be considered les s a
representation of the process of colonis ation than a representation
of the process of perpetual evasion and deterritorialised movement
deployed in order to combat colonisation. To return to our example
from the intro duction to thi s p art, the movements of the Pac Man
are a little like that of the Vietcong in their tunnels . His constant
shifting of direction traces the trajectory of hit and run guerrilla
warfare . Thus , although the s tatic space through which the Pac
Man m oves is n o t rhizomati c , his m ovements are rhi zomati c ,
because they deterritoriali s e and transform the sp ace through
which he move s . In addition to the textual level. though , what

II

potenti al i s there for de

or reterritorialis ation of the gamer's

identity while playing video games?

The ga ming experience: de- and reterritoria lisations

Several theories exist that view the gaming process as offering the
p otential for the gamer to deterritori alise his or her identity. Most
obviously, gaming i s a form of play, an action in which people
tradition ally 'l o s e themselves'. When playing a game the gamer
usually experience s the game world through an avatar. An avatar
is a character in the game world that stands in for the gamer.
S ome c la s s ic examples of avatars would include Pac Man (and,
indeed, Ms Pac Man) , or Mario from Donkey Ko ng and the Super

Mario game s . More recent examp les would include third person
shooters , such a s Lara C roft in Tomb Raider and Solid Snake in
"tl

tl)

Metal Gear Solid, characters in first person shooters , such as the

anonymo u s space marine in Doom, or Gordon Freeman in Half

Life, the various family members that garners give their own names
to in The Sims, and so on. At its most b asic level, then, the presence

!:l

of the avatar means that, once immers e d in a video game , the

gamer c an literally become another p erson for a while . Moreover,

(!)

-0

in first and third person shooters it is not uncommon for a m ap

indent als o to appear in the c o mer of the s creen, requiring the
gamer t o maintain a rather s ophisticated visual overview of the
game world, noting the p osition of his/her avatar on the m ain
s creen and on the map in the corner. Here the gamer is further
deterritorialised from his/her own identity, controlling an avatar
that is at once visibly 'here' and 'there ' , at once both T and 'he/she'.
More over, each time we play a vi deo game the experience is
different. As we learn to play games more and more effectively we
transfo rm ourselves , the development of the avatar's progre s s
within the game mirroring the improvement of our skills a s
garners

improving o u r knowledge a n d exp ertis e i n the pro c e s s .

Thi s c o u l d b e considered a form of deterritoriali s ation of the

gamer that is built into the computer game . Gonzalo Fras ca, for

instance , argues that some games are less interested in p roviding

the gamer with a s e t goal to reach ( a s first

and third person

sho oters generally dol than with enabling the gamer to explore
multiple creative possibilities. Frasca cites SimCity as an example
of this type , a s it has the p otential to b e noticeably different every
time the gamer constructs a new city." In s u ch games there is an
open ended p otential for the gamer to deterritori ali s e his/her
identity. Thi s p o tential is multiplied again in multiplayer game s
such as Quake, The Thing and Half Life: Counter Strike, where
there are more possibiliti e s for new experiences each time the
game is p l ayed, because different players will react differently
both to events in the game world and to the pres ence of each other.
The most p o sitive take on this form of immersion is that it
has the p otential to lib erate garners from their u s ual identity. It
enables them to act in ways they never would normally in reality.
Viewed in this way, video games are s o cial s afety valve s . They let
people experiment with their identiti e s , imagine ideal identiti e s ,
o r simply let off steam by breaking rules a n d destroying things
they would u s ually have to respect. On the other hand, some critics
of video games see this a s a dangerous illusion that can lead to
s erious anti s o cial b ehaviour. More to the p o int, the i d e a that
garners deterritori alise their identity and b e come other people
when immers e d in the game is easily criticised. For many people
the exp erience may feel no different from that of playing with a
doll or an action figure as a child. Why should we necess arily
believe that, when g aming, we h ave left our own b o di e s and

become Pac Man, Mari o , Lara C roft or Solid Snake? After all,
although frus trating, it i s unusual to feel physical pain when Pac
Man is eaten by Pinky the little pink gho s t.
MMORPGs, mods a nd the rhizome

A more sophisticated way of consi dering the way games enable

garners to deterritorialise their identities is through the creation of
virtual gaming communities .lO Indee d , drawing on Deleuze and

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Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, Miroslaw Filiciak has noted that

gaming communities can enable rhizomatic i dentities to emerge."
One example of this typ e of rhizomatic interaction would b e a
LAN party, where garners congregate to interact virtually over a
local area network, or LAN. For the peri o d of the game these
garners form a c ommunity, sharing a set of rules established by
the game that is p l ayed. After the game the garners disp ers e again,
their temporary group identity illustrating how a rhizome i s formed
by

shifting mass of deterritorialised individuals who meet and

temporarily reterritoriali s e , only to di s p ers e (deterritori alisel

once again. I '
Further exampl e s of this typ e o f rhi z o m e are found in
MMORPGs such a s EverQ uest, Star Wars Galaxies, WarCraft
and Ultima Online. When p laying these games the garners may
never physically me et, but there may be thous ands of online
us ers involved simultaneously, interacting in the s ame virtual
environment. E ac h user creates his/her own avatar or avatars,
which can b e considered virtual versions of the user's self, through
which they c an experiment with their identity. Filiciak state s :
In t h e case o f MMORPGs, there i s no need for strict diets , exha usting
exercise program mes , or cosmetic surgeries

a dozen o r so m ouse

clicks is enough to adapt one's 'self to expectations . Thus, we have

an opportu n i ty to p a i n l essly manipulate o u r i d entity . . . 13

Through interaction with other online users, us ers in these

virtu al gaming c o mmunities are then a b le to exp eriment by
u s ing the s e other, virtu a l s e lve s to interact with others .
This exp erimentation with identity c a n be unders tood a s
deterritoriali s ing in numerous ways , b u t , just as o n e s imple
example . let us c onsider gendered identity. Although a male gamer
may only try on the identity of a virtual female character for a few
hours (or vic e vers a) , there is no doubting that in some ways this
experience becomes a p art of his 'real life ' exp e rience , a p art of
his identity. If any proof of this were nee ded, EverQuest a lone is

reported to have 'generated a (real world) economy c omparable to

that of a medium sized country', with one third of its adult us ers
s pending longer in the game than they do in work. I.
In addition to this deterritorialisatio n of the user's or gamer's
self, some video games enable the gamer to adapt or construct
his/her own game environment, to create modifications, or 'mods ' .
Above a n d b eyond the choosing or adapting of 'skin s ' for avatars
(turning the avatar into a character of the gamer's choice) , in
certain games the gamer has the option of creating his/her own
characters and leve l s . This potential for video games to enable
garners to adapt their game world was app arent once Doom 's
source code was released to the general public, allowing its users
to adapt the game environment. I S Nowadays games such as Quake

and HalfLife similarly allow the gamer to create his/her own

mods . I ' In the s e instances, rather than characters exploring an

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environment of the game designer's invention, the gamer is able (to

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a certain extent) to play God. This practice ensures that the g amer

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- rather than c o n s t antly running for his/her life in o rder to

til

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deterritorialise the s p ace of the game world (like Pac Man or Lara

Croft)

(!)

can deterritori ali se the very maze in which he/she runs.

Now the game environment itself becomes

an

adaptable rhizome.

Garners effectively become producers of the game, not just because

they interact with the game world (design and build a city, kill the
zombies, etc . ) and therefore 'design' the narrative of their g ame
exp eri ence , but a l s o because they c an , quite literally, help to
design the world in which they play. I7 Here the space of the game
becomes rhizomatic. If we return to the example of Pac Man and
its correlation with guerrilla warfare, it is a s though the gamer
- rather like the Vietcong

is now able to dig his/her own tunnels,

to increase the p o s s ibilities of surprising his /her opp onent s , and

of influencing the o utcome of the gam e .
However, it i s always worth rememb e ring that, even in
MMORP Gs

where there seem to be almost infinite p o s s ibilities

for rhizomes to d evelop

there is a strong reterrito rialising

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influence exerted by the virtual gaming community. As Sue Morris

docum ents , in multiplayer games s o c i al rul e s s o o n develop
among the garners involved: 'C ertain actions are considered to be
unsporting or forms of cheating even though they are well within
the p o s sibilities of the game . " Where such norms appear it i s
evident that the rhizomatic pos sibilities offered by thi s particular
grouping of g arners is in the proce ss of reterritorialising.
Video games a re bad?

One question arises from this analysis of the p otential for identity
deterritoriali s ation offered by the video game. If video games
offer so many p o s s ib ilities for p o tenti ally lib erating i dentity
exploration, why are they regarded with suspicion by the general
public and the media? The most obvious answer is that no one can
really explain the allure of video game violence, a violence in which
the gamer willingly p articip ate s. In 2 002 a l awsuit filed against
the m anufacturers of video games by p arents of s choolchildren
killed in the C ol umbine mass acre in 1 99 9 was dismi s s ed. Many
people accordingly hold the view that video games in isolation
could not caus e a m a s s acre such a s C o lumbine . " E ven so, the
debate continu e s . The question th at D e l e u z e 's idea of the
rhizome enab l e s u s to ask of this debate is: does this violence
enable a deterritori alis ation of the g amer's identity, or i s it
s omehow reterritorialising?
F urthermore , video games are also regarde d with suspicion
by some theori s t s , but for a very different reason. To consider the
extent to which video games also reterritorialise the gamer we
mus t consider the related question of ideology

or, put another

way, the p olitics of the v i d e o game . Here again, Deleuze and

Guattari's concept of the rhizome is extremely helpful.
For s ome criti c s , video games can be l o o s ely interpreted as
practice for c ap it a li s m . They expre s s the i d e o l o gy of market
c apitalism, which is transmitted to the psyche of the gamer under
the cover of a s eemingly innocent game. Leaving aside the fact that

very few games are actually innocent, Pac Man again offers a clear
examp le of thi s working o f ideology. In Trigger Happy, Steven
Poole notes how the Pac Man is the 'pure consumer' , only happy
when he i s eating, and never fini s h e d eatin g . 20 In s hort, he i s a
repres entative of consumer capitalism, and the gamer who
contro l s him is simply p e rforming the logic of c o n sumpti on.
C onsume and you will be rewarded with p oints (consume and you
will b e p aid) , cons ume and you will be temp orarily freed . . . and
then returned to the s ame environment in order to consume some
more . Indeed, Pac Man i s far from the only such example, as very
many video games revolve around completing jobs or tasks and
collecting p oints as a reward.
Thus there is a general feeling that video games are dangerous,
either because they are too viol ent, or because they are so much
'c apitalist brainwashing' .21 C ombining the s e two approaches , in
some cases they are regarded with suspicion b e c ause they u s e
violence as p art of this brainwashing. This feeling i s exacerbated
by the development and use of video games by the military. Not
only were the first games developed by workers in the military
sector ( such as Higinbotham and E aerl , but so too has military
investment in arcade technology
Lockheed Martin

for instanc e , on behalf of

advanced its development." The very existence

of the flight s imulator as b oth video game and tool for combat
training reinforces awarene s s of the link b etween video games
and the dominance of the military industrial c omplex under
market capitalism.
For thi s reason, Poole initially begins by celebrating the free
circulation of the original source code for Spacewar, calling it a
'b enign virus . . . eating up time all over the world on government,
military and scientific mainframes ' ." Once such a commo dity
has been appropri ated by major corporations and has become a
saleable product, however, thi s idea that it is somehow a benign
virus is o ften replaced with the notion that it has b een
reterritori a l i s e d and i s a commo dity that s erve s the needs of

capitalism. We might be forgiven for wondering how such a

product can be potentially deterrito rialising for its consumer.
Surely it must expre s s a very reterritori alising agenda?
In answer to thes e questions , the fact is that whether video
games are viewed a s de

or reterritoriali sing i s a m atter of

perspe ctive. For every argument that the video game is

reterritori ali s ing there is a counter argument that the use of the
game is p otenti ally deterritorialising. As Po o le also notes of Pac

Man, its popularity with female garners may have been due to its
unb ridled celebration of consumption in a very literal sens e . In
a world where there i s peer pressure to remain slim, Pac Man
offers an opportunity for its us ers to embrace virtual e ating. Far
from a s u b liminal trick encouraging p e o p le to be more avi d
consumers (an ideological reterritorialisation of the gamer), in this
instance Pac Man offers lib eration from the pressures of the cult
of the ideal s lim b o dy.24 Research into the effect of video games on
the gamer h a s failed to provide conclu s ive proof either way, with
various writers in the 1 980s concluding that video games either
c orrelate d with aggre s s i o n among u s e r s , o r worked to calm
them." Thu s , while D erek A. Burrill convincingly argues (in 2002)
that video games b as e d on James B ond films ins cribe a certain
typ e of mas culine b ehaviour on the gamer characterised by a
' s tealthy, violent s exism'," Mia C ons alvo just a s convincingly
argues (in 2 003) that The Sims offers the gamer numero us
p o s s ibilities for trying out new gendered and s exual identities."
The final s ection of this chapter examines how this ambiguity i s
evident i n the first three versions of Grand Theft Auto.
Grand Theft Auto

The original Grand Theft A u to (hereafter G TA) is a crime spree

game, in which the gamer has an aerial view of the activitie s of
h i s /her avatar a s h e/she travels around the maze like roads of
'Liberty C ity ' . The avatar i s guided by an arrow that leads him/
h e r to phone b o oths . On answering the p h one , mob jobs are

outlined in text on the screen. The arrow then leads to the job .
Once the job is compl e ted (often the removal or retrieval of a
vehicle ) another job become s available, and so on. The purpose of
the game is to complete the jobs, and in o rder to do so the gamer is
required to steal cars , motorbike s , bus e s , or trucks, develop s ome
proficiency in driving these different vehicles, and avoid the police.
On route to jobs he/she i s also able to kill pass ers by, gangs ters
or p olice, either with his/her vehicle or the various weapons left
in crates scattered about the city. Grand Theft Auto 2 (GTA2) was
somewhat simil ar, except that the game environment was more
deadly due t o the controlling presence of s everal warring gangs.
In GTA2 it i s p o s s ible to get mugged or killed simply by s tanding
s till for too long in the wrong are a , the traffic is more aggres sive
generally, and after capture the police unceremoniously dump
the avatar on the road from a m oving s quad car.
The aerial view of the avatar in the first two versions of GTA
provides the garner with a somewhat similar experience to that of

Pac Man , only o n this occasion there is o nly ever a small section
of the city visible at any one time. GTA therefore contains more
sudden surpri s e s , as the police may arrive on s c reen from any
directi on. It is also more difficult always to know where you are
going. The arrow points in the general direction of the job, but the
roads themselves may wind away from the direction of the arrow,
making the inexperienced garner take a circuitous route. More
experienced garners , however, will have explored short cuts acro s s
the city's various p arks and half completed bridges , and so will get
there more quickly. In terms of mapping, then, the exp erience of
playing GTA is one of constant exploration. As with Pac Man ,
although this could b e considered to be i n line with the notion that
the gamer colonises the space of the game world, the constant
uncertainty over direction, the danger of imminent capture and
the perpetual unfol ding o f off s creen s p ace all ensure that the
gaming experience is more one of deterritorialisation than of
reterritoriali s ation. As each of the games also includes a p aper

fold out map of the city, should a gamer wish to learn the space in
a more c alculated manner this is also pos sible, but the expe rience
of gaming is in effect one o f exploration, p roviding therefore the
usual ambiguity a s to how capable the gamer is of reterritorialising
(colonising) the s p ace, and how much he/she must manoeuvre
(deterri toriali s e ) to avoi d b eing reterritori a l i s e d (captured or
killed) by the game.
In terms of ideology, in spite of the emphasis on criminality,

GTA initially app e ars to conform exactly to the idea that video
g ames are practi c e for capitalism. Most obviously, the game is
s tructured around a s eries of jobs completed for a p oints reward.
Admittedly, the s e are all c riminal activiti e s , but, even s o , the
argument remains valid. After all, who would buy a game in which
the jobs the gamer had to complete were photocopying or filing?
Moreover, tapping into ideas of individual freedom prevalent b oth
in the United States and more generally under market capitalism,

GTA is built upon the p remise that you are 'free ' (this is Liberty
City, after all) to steal a car if you so desire. In fact, as m oving
around the city without wheels is so time consuming that it often
negates any pleasures the game offers , stealing a c ar is practically
e s s ential. Here the game expre s s e s the ideology of automobile
freedom on which the United State s built its Fordi st economy in
the early twentieth century. Finally, although the game s e ems to
celebrate criminal activity, a s the g amer i s p erpetually at risk of
imprisonment by the police, GTA actually shows how diffi cult it
i s to make crime p ay.
The above notwithstanding, there is debate as to whether GTA ,
and the public controversy surrounding it, necessarily imply that
it is reterritorialising of the identity of the gamer. Taking the view

that the violence of the game leads to violence in the gamer, the
British Police Fe deration condemned GTA as ' sick, deluded and
b en e ath contemp t ' . S urpris ingly, h owever, the New York Police
D e p artment t o o k the o p p o s ite view of G TA2, s tating tha t th ey
would rather have such criminal activity take place in a game than

on the streets .'S C ontrary to the idea that game violence breeds
real violence, the p ositi on of the New York Police expresses the
notion that the g ame p rovi des a s afety valve mechanism that
allows p e ople to l o s e themselves (deterritori alise) fo r a while
in a new i dentity, getting fe elings of rep re s s e d violence out of
their sys tem.
More imp ortantly, p erhap s , all the G TA game s , and esp eci ally

Grand Theft Auto 3 (GTA3) , enable further deterritorialisation of

the gamer from the goal oriented ideology of the marketplace. By
the time of GTA 3 ( 2 002) the graphics had changed considerably,
and, rather than an aerial view of the city, the game is constructed
as a 3D environment with a third-person avatar seen from eye
level. as in games such as Tomb Raider. The choice of vehicles to
steal has risen to include SUVs , s tation wagons and even b o ats ,
and now cut s cenes (small s ections of movie like footage) are used
to intro duce mob characters and the jobs they offer. Along with
this revamping of the graphics come even greater free doms for
garners , who can s imply ignore the tasks they have b e en s et, and
expl ore the city. Garners can ab andon cars altogether, take the
train or the subway, or s imply enjoy exploring the city on fo ot. In
this way, not only can a jog through the p ark be rewarding in terms
of the graphics experienced ( s omething it would have b e en fairly
difficult to argue of GTA or G TA2) , but so too only in this way can
many hi dden p a ckages and weapons be fo und. The incre a s e d
pos sib ilities for activitie s b eyond the goal oriented c ompleting
of tasks has led one commentator to comp are GTA3 with a flight
simulator, where the plea sure was in experimenting in a simulated
environment, rather than succes sfully completing the game . '9
Admittedly, thi s experimentation can involve such activities a s
carjacking, causing car crashe s , mugging, running down, shooting
or violently b e ating p a s s ers by to death, and stealing. The p oint
remains that the GTA games are concerned with o p ening up a
s p a c e for exp e rimentati o n , an arena th at is
deterritorialising of the gamer's identity.

p o tenti ally

In term s of offering a deterritorialised identity to the gamer,

GTA3 also g o e s much further than its predeces sors in certain other
respects. It c ontains a ' radar' , a small map inset in the b ottom
l eft-hand c o rner of the screen, enabling g arners to chart their
position in the city a s b o th big screen and map ind ent. Garners
experience Liberty C ity from both 'here' and ' there ' , as both ' I '
a n d 'them'. T h i s schizophrenic experience of b eing b o th pres ent i n
t h e game w o r l d and a b l e t o watch yourself from afar is enhanced
by the vario u s different camera angle s that can b e cho sen from
which to view the avatar (including the traditional aerial view of
the first two games but also the avatar's first person p oint of
vi ew) , and g arners ' ability to change radio s tations in the c ars ,
which also changes the s oundtrack to the game they are playing.
C learly, GTA3 aims to give garners the opportunity to blur the
b o undary b etween 'real life' exp erience and the game.
Like Pac Man, then, the GTA games are all confined within an
app arently labyrinthine space, but the limits to the city are clearly
defined. The one thing the avatar cannot do is swim away from
Lib erty C i ty, s o , as in Pac Man, there is no e s c ape from its
impris oning labyrinth. Thus the mapping of the city's streets in the
process of p l aying the game may appear to repres ent a colonial
c onque s t o f s p a c e (reterritorialis ation) , but from another
p erspective the game i s forever creating a rhizome, forever
deterritorialising as the avatar moves into unknown territory.
Moreover, b eyond the level of the game world its elf, garners have
the potential to deterritoriali se their usual identity as they explore
the pos sibilities of a criminal life that is not normally available
to them, o r s imply ignore crime and enjoy travelling around the
city, creating a deterritorialising rhizome as they do s o .

Chapter 2

Virtual structu res of

the I nte rnet
Damian Sutton

It is p erhaps no acci dent that the mid 1 9 90s re s urgence in

Deleuzian thinking and deb ate coincided with the first few years of
the Internet boom. By the time that the Internet had p as s ed from
being a wholly academi c or military affair to a commercial and
cultural space b eyond the ivory o r s tone towers , terms such a s
'rhizome' were b eing u s e d not only a s a theorem but as a rallying
cry. Now it c an s ometimes s eem difficult to move intellectually
because of the sheer agglomeration of D eleuzian commentary on
the Internet. To think of the Internet as oI).ly a carrier of D eleuzian
thought, however, is to m i s understand the influence that
'rhizomatic' o r 'rhizomorphic' thinking had on the Internet's very
etho s - an influence that continues to be felt even as we enter the
days of Web 2 . 0 , an ethically inspired attempt to wrest control of
the ether away from corporations and conglomerates , and leave
it in the hands of the people. The rhiz ome, as a theorem, a way of
moving, and a way of connecting, allows us to understand not only
some of the p olitics of the Internet, but also the laws of connection
and movement that give tho s e politics shape and colour.
The simplest picture we can draw of Internet p olitics is one
of ' Jeffersonian democracy ' , named after the United States ' third
president, a champion of local, individual and state rights over
big government and federalism. At the heart of this was the
individual's right to make money in a free market (that i s , an
individual who was white, male and who owned land) . The idea is
a curious mixture of politi c s , and n o t wholly suitable for to day's

political liberalism, which s ees the championing of the free market

and the right to make money as s omething that multinational
corp orations do. N evertheless, the compari s on i s strangely easy to
draw between the exp ansion of the New World and the s ettling of
the wide open spaces of the Internet: individuals in a new terrain,
s taking out their land, their place, b attling against centralised
government ( e spe cially when it is repres ented by taxes or the
forces of order) , s p e aking a language of lib erty and social equality,
yet ready to cl aim their right to make a profit. And yet we need a
strange comparison because of the strange p olitics of the Internet
that exists, an intens ely charged political space in which the rights
of free speech and free will are championed by commentators on
all sides, provided they have money to inves t in the equipment.
We also need a strange comparison because of the ways in which
"tI

the Internet dis p l ays that most strange of chara cteristics in the

rh i z o m e ,

E
G:i

reterritoriali s ation, for open, non linear, deconstructions of the

IX

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the

c a p acity for deterritori a l i s ation to b e c o m e

c apitalist hierarchy to be turned into an obs cene imitation of the

very thing that it aims to decompose. The Internet is significant not
simply because it has p ervaded our lives to such an extent, but
b ecause in so doing it is a s o cially structured space that reflects
the s ame formati ons we walk through and drive through in real
life , the virtual counterp arts of the shopping and leisure centres,
financial centre s , cafeteri a s , l ecture theatres and libraries. New
s o cial areas of interaction, such as photo and video sharing sites
s uch as Yo uTube, are incorporeal or virtual spaces hosting the
s ame kinds of s o cial interaction as do the dorm room, TV ro om,
book club or film club.
The immanent I nternet

The best place to start is by describing what the Internet is made

of, and the Internet is made of immanenc e .
Well, almo st. Ordinarily, we c an't see immanence, we c a n only
sup p o s e that it's there. All we ever see is the shape that it leaves

in the matter around us. The Internet helps here because we can
easily unders tand that it has form and shape that is substantially
different from the matter with which we encounter it. If you were
to read this b o ok online, you would be able to turn pages (by
scrolling or clicking) , read the lines , even perhap s mark the 'page',
but you would still not be interacting with the 'matter' of the b ook
in any way. You woul d b e using a mouse or keybo ard. You would
have the idea o f the b ook in mind, however, and that idea would
have a shape that you give it or perhap s the shape that is suggested
by the computer (images of page s , for instance) . Where the s e two
shapes inters ect is the cl o s e s t thing we ' l l get to a phy s i c a l
manifestation of immanence

t h e plane o f immanence. It i s the

plane, the intersection or c o a l e s c ence of the material and

immaterial, that matters .
At first glance, we can understand that we have a general
sense that everything we see around us has form or shape, from
the materi al world to l arger s ets o f force s and pressure s . For
instance, we can eas ily obs erve that the lecture hall we enter has
rows o f s eats , a lectern, a data proj ector, a microphone, that thes e
are in p l a c e f o r a reason: a l l t h e s eats , for instance, a r e b anked
to face the lectern; the le ctern may even be on a dais or platform.
We might a l s o be aware that thi s organis ation of the material
corresponds to larger, more intangible forces and organis ation: the
education system, its theories and methods , the wealth or poverty
of the college and so on. Thes e levels of organis ation operate
together, and are mutually dep endent. To peel them away might
des troy other layers . In this sense, the layers of organi s ation are
like strata, in that they are both integral components, and fault
line s , o f the l arger structure.
The whole, the larger substance, is what Deleuze and Guattari
call the 'plane of organi sation ' , the materi al intersection of all
forms, subjects , organs and functions . Deleuze and Gu attari are
doing more than simply describing social or cultural formations in
a novel manner, however. Instead, they want to ask: what happens

when you remove all form, all the strata? Is there anything left?
The answer is 'yes ' , since there would be forces and energies that
remain, that never go away: 'Pure relations of speed and s lowness
betwee n particles imply movements of deterritorialis ation, just as
pure effects imply an enterpris e of desubjectification . " This is the
pl ane of consistency, the plane of immanence. So, while we might
n ever be able to remove all form, what D eleuze and Gu attari are
sugges ting is that to di s m a ntle p art of it
stratum , to reduce a function

to p eel away a

is to let s ome of those forces loose,

to b egin the pro c e s s of dete rritorialis ation. For D eleuze and

Guattari , to think immanence i s the greatest challenge; that is why
it is the ultimate task of the philos opher: 'We will s ay that THE
p lane of immanence i s , at the s ame time, that which must b e
thought but which cannot b e thought. I t i s the non thought within
thought. " Even after thi s there is a greater calling , however. A
detached observer might watch for the p l ane to break free, might
be able to talk about its existence, but the real task is to provoke
the p rocess of deterritori alis ation in others . ' Perhaps this i s the
supreme act of philos ophy: not so much to think THE plane of
immanence as to show it is there . "
So the Internet immediately offers its elf as something within
which to glimp se immanence. It is a virtual reflection of the real
world, but one that b oth mimic s and is clearly different from the
real spaces it reflects . The Internet is les s a s eries of o bj ects and
sp aces than a s eries of movements between them. Thi s movement
can be in 'logical' linear s e quence

from b ank account to online

shop - or it can take new pathways linked only by the random

thoughts of the surfer. Indeed, movement through the Internet can
s eem sep arate from the us er, in that the user rides the movement,
rides the wave : henc e 'to s u rf ' . The Internet therefo re already
b egins to peel away the s tratum that forms society, since that
s tratum relies on clear conne ctions of obj e cts and space s ,
connected broken a n d reconnected i n new formation s . N o matter
how m any new c onnecti o n s are made , whatever formatio n ,

what is constant is the movement, no matter how quick or

how slow.
The real boom time for the Internet came in the mid 1 990s, when
it flowered from a largely academic and business medium into one
of social interaction. The Internet started as a military application,
ARPANET, designed in the 1 960s as a network of computers that
would survive even if one or more were destroye d, as in a nuclear
attack. By 1 989 the population of Internet users in the United States,
its largest community, stood at about 400,000, mostly academic and
research users . This was the year that the first commercial Internet
service providers commenced op eration, some of them already
existing companie s such as C ompuServe. By 1 994 C o mpuS erve ,
America Online and Prodigy shared eight million subscribers in the
United States" This period of growth was further accelerated in the
late 1 990s by the falling price of personal computers (PC s ) . This
included the widespread manufacture of comp onents for us ers
to build p e s at home, as well as the introduction of models such
as the bubble shaped Apple iMac G3 in 1 99 8 .
The Internet thus quickly b ecame interesting as a s o cial
medium, to the amateur user as much as the scholar. There are few
web logs that do not, at some stage, reflect upon the very ability of
the Internet to traffic their thoughts and ideas acro s s the world,
producing the exact same data in different countries and contexts
seemingly indep endent of the equipment it is s e en on. Even now
it is often the medium of the Internet that is discuss ed, rather than
the content per s e , and, in dis cussi ons (as we have s e en) about
MMORP G s such as Ultima Online and Seco n d Life, it is not
so much the us ers or the game itself that i s discu s s e d but the
difference b etween the life of one and the life of the other. What
is discussed is the deterritorialisation immanent in the difference
b etween one's home in real life and one's home online.
Some of the first s tudies of the Internet, such as tho s e by
Arturo E s cob ar, recognis ed this as 'technosociality'

sociocultural

construction according to technology.' Life begins to move to new

beats and rhythms, to a p oint of irreversibility, when it is realised

that there i s no g o in g b ack. Furthermore, the b e at of the Internet

d rum wa s marking time for the politics of the media, which, for
many, h a d until then been c o nfine d to the p ag e s of a c a demic
studies

or liberal and radical new s p a p ers . The Internet's

technos o ci ality is not connection (it rides on the back of the

telephone network), even though the study of the Internet is turning

toward thi s . Its techno sociality is not information (it op erates

like any other d atab a s e , only on a vast s c ale) . The Internet's

te chno s o ci ality is in its fl ows of information and the control of

those flows; hence the p o litics of the hacker culture that grew up
in tho s e first few years of the Internet's boom

the s ame few years

of that tremendou s resurgence in interest in Deleuze and Guattari.

Thi s was a p oliti c s of deterritorialisati o n , for which the cry was
"CI

'Information wants to be free', and in which it was realis e d that it

was i d e a s , rather than objects , that would b e the g o o d s of

I:

'truth in reality ' , as Tim Jordan observe s : a strange c ombination

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c ommerce. Not o nly that, but a free market of ideas would enable
of laissez-faire e conomy and left wing media activism.

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A geology of hacktivism

'Hacktivism', a s an oppositional strategy o f political resistance to

state control or global corporatism, is made of an older stone, one
that has been recut or carved again. This is the hard, sandy stone of
Marxis m , form e d in the writings of Karl Marx a s a sediment that
would be revealed (when the tide of C ommunism had begun to roll
b ack from left wing intellectual writings) in some of the best media
analy s i s to emerge fro m the l ate 1 9 6 0 s and e arly 1 9 7 0 s . The
s andstone is now weathered and eroded, repointed by new media
theory. If we look at some of its most vivid thinkers , however, then
the s tone, like the blondest s andstone , s till h a s luxurious and
colourful strata.
On e key thinker fro m that early period was Hans Magnus
Enzensb erger, who, like others , s aw that the telecommuni cations

medium was linear and centralised, that it was a one way flow of
information from the centre to the periphery. Viewers , listeners and
readers were reliant upon this s ervice, alienated or es tranged from
the source and from each other, since this one way communication
precluded contact with the community in any meaningful, mediated
way: 'The distinctions between receivers and transmitters reflects
the social divis i o n o f l ab o ur into pro ducers and consumers . " Of
course, this notion of alienation or estrangement was profoundly
influenced by Marx and his identification of estranged or alienated
labour. In mass manufacturing, workers are far removed from the
final object of p ro duction, in which they have o nly a contributing
hand. They are paid directly for their labour, and the commodity
value of the pro duct is far removed from them and their own
Iwhich is only the direct value of their work, for which, as labourers,
they are practic ally interchangeable ) .
What excited Enzensberger at the time, however, was the
burgeoning growth of video and other media technologies, such as
wireless radi o , for instance, that were p otentially available to new
communitie s . What he s aw was the p o s sibility of media control
wrested fro m c entral i s e d , state owned organis ati o n s

and

corporations and put into the hands of workers' communiti e s ,

because thi s technology could b e situated in the h o m e or the
workplace and u s e d to broadcast across the p athways of s ocial
interaction. Thi s would be a social formation used to transmit
news, which normally comes from the authoritarian centre, that
would have new agency because it would be free of state b i a s .
The idea of video technology within the h o m e , expre s s e d by
Enzensb erger in 1 970, still carries vital relevance to new models
of news and information s ervices . He imagines

(n) etworklike c o m m u nications m o d e ls b u i l t o n the p r i n c i p l e o f

reversibility o f circuits . . . a mass newspaper, written and distributed b y
its rea ders, a v i d e o n etwork of politically active g roups .s

'0

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..,
..,

The c ontemporary realis ation of this kind of network can b e

s een i n collab orativ'i' news networks such as Indymedia, a n d even
in the princip l e of wiki and the development of Wikipedia. Where

Indymedia is a news s ervi ce that is cons ciously opp o s itional. its

real political p ower i s in the connections it cre ates between l o cal.
amateur news gatherers that would not have b een created by
normal, centralised, broadcast news coverage by televi sion and
radio corporati ons . This is a public vo ice create d by s hared ideas
and the u s a b ility of the technol ogy, rather than th e combined
reception of the s ame mes s age. Indeed, what can often happen is
that p olitical i s s ues are rai s e d on a global scale because of the
connections, rather than shared political i deals . Thi s is reflected in
the growth of Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia that is created by
the contributions of us ers , and which e s chews the clearly defined
'authoritative' voices of academia or commerce, for instance, which
are s een to reflect centralised and dry accounts of the worl d , its
s ocieties and histories. Instead, contributors come from the b o dy of
users , often with no recognised authority (indeed, it is possible to be
virtually anonymous) . and the shared knowledge can be constantly
edited by others . Thus the knowledge deposited for reference in

Wikipedia, which often tops any online s earch for information on a

given topic, is created through contestation and debate. The
veracity of this knowledge is often at stake, and pages devoted to
c o ntroversi a l s u bje c ts such as politicians and p o litical i s s u e s ,
celebrities, a n d even sports teams , often have

large discus sion

forum and a long history of editing and counter editing. It is even

possible to e dit one's own entry, and there is no guarantee that any
entry is written by an authoritative contributor or edited by a genuine
p eer. Wikipedia therefore b alances the weakness of inexactitu de
and inaccuracy against the p owerful connections it make s between
us ers and the ability it has to become, through a genuine notion
of common sense, the authoritative voice on a s ubject.
Web sites such as Indymedia and Wikipedia can therefore be
seen as p owerful agents for deterritori ali sation, de stabilising the

social forces of the state, which are inve sted as much in cultural
formations as they are in the government, or law and order.
The connections are no longer made between the centre and a
disp arate community of is olated users, but across u s ers and
b etween each other, and the ' c entre' (the news corporations, for
example, on the lookout for gra s s roots news) i s left following in
the fo otstep s of a new, emancip ated p opulation.
Nonetheles s , Enzensberger's enthusiasm for the media a s a
technology of emancip ation w a s couched within an imp o rtant
warning against the ever more p owerful culture industry, which
seeks to create new u s e r s , viewers and particip ants who will
continue to consume. Mo st importantly, it will look for any way to
do this , and the very means of resistance are a p rize target. Much
of the content of Enzensberger's e s s ays echo e s the work of his
contemp oraries , p arti cul arly, perhap s , in thi s respect the work
of Louis Althus s er, who wrote of how the state app aratuses of
repre s sion, such as l aw and order, are joined by ideo logical
apparatu s e s such as the school, the C hurch or even the family.
These are app aratuses whose role is to reproduce 'the relations of
production, i.e. of capitalist relations of exploitation'.' Effectively,
we as subjects

as learners, users , viewers , consumers

are called

into b eing by the systems within which we grow up, and which
give us our ideology. No matter how independent we think we
are, no matter how much we resist what we see as the cultural
mains tre am, we will eventu ally b e c ome a p art of it. We will
eventually b ecome good little capitalists , because even the means
of resis tance involves consumption.
What does this mean for Enzensb erger? First, he s aw that it
was too easy for new u s ers to b ecome detached from culture, or in
a nihilistic fashion b e come reduced to 'is olate d tinkering' . 10 Such
users might s peak out against consumerism or state p ower, but
eventually their anger dissipates or i s turned inwards. We can see
this in websites such a s C harlie B rooker's TV Go Home (www.tvgo
home.com), which introduced British culture to his sharp criticism

of the m e dia e c o n o my. Real and fictional characters were

developed over a series of spoof pages from the B B C 's televi sion
guide the Radio Times, which placed them in o d d juxtap o s ition,
lamp ooning celebrity culture and its trivialisatio n of p olitical and
s o ci al i s s ue s . This included the ficti onal character of Nathan
Barl ey, who eventually became the subject of his own televi sion
seri e s . Ironically, however, Brooker's own trajectory with TV

Home

Go

was predicted in s ome of the acid attacks in the Nathan

B arley column on the ways in which media creatives are constantly

trying to capture the contemp orary mood or zeitgeist, often with
the l atest technology, in order to market it b ack to the mainstream:
Playing table football i n a Hoxton juice bar, Nathan Barley and three
near-Iookalikes decked out in regulation Carha rt u niforms excitedly
discuss their plans for a five-minute Real Player comedy sketch
destined for an a bsurdly over-designed online entertainment ' porta l '
r u n by one of t h e i r o w n schoolfriends, w h o h a s c o m missioned them
to d eliver six comedic ' webisodes' despite the fact that none of them
can write , perfo r m , or be trusted to deliver the goods on time, and
that even the fastest a n d smoothest of RealPlayer video streams is
basically fucking unwatc h a b le . "

The fact that streaming video and 'web i s o d e s ' later b e c ame a
major p art of Internet media content for busines s es and amateurs
alike is perhap s also illustrative of Enzensberger's second concern:
that capital reco gni s e s the power o f new technologies and the
attractivene s s of cultural re sistance, but ' only so as to trap them
and rob them of their explosive force' . 1 2 New cultural formations
created and enhanced by new technologies are not only us eful in
their attractivene s s to youth markets , but any effectiveness can be
dissipated as they are made more mainstream and a bigger part of
wider consumer culture. Businesses, especially thos e appealing
to young people with disp o s able income , are constantly on the
l ookout for new avenues for marketing.

For example, in 200 1 a new type of graffiti began to appear in the

United Kingdom on electric junction boxe s , rubb i s h bins and
boarded up shop s : a black stencilled image of a baby's face, tightly
cropp ed in a four inch square. The appe arance of thi s image
immediately echoed the already wi despread images of Andre the
Giant, the French wrestler. He has become something of a poster boy
of cultural resis tance as the fac e of the ' O b ey Giant' street art
campaign (www. obeygiant. coml . the work of arti st Shepard Fairey.
Indeed, as with the ' Obey Giant' campaign, the b aby p ictures were
accompanied by an amateur website, dedicated to investigating the
phenomenon of the se slightly unsettling images of a b aby a s
' B i g Brother' , a n d mirroring the multiple sites devoted to Fairey
and his work. The now defunct investigative amateur web site
www.whois lupo .com had crude graphics, a weblog and links to
'si ster' site s , one of which was the Jap ane s e site for the auto
manufacturer Volkswagen.
As cultural commentators , s u ch as Need to Know (www.
ntk.netl , quickly pointed out, the ' s treet art' was, in fact, p art of
a teaser c amp aign for Volkswagen's new mo del, the Lup o , which
had at that time just b e e n rel e a s e d in Jap a n . 1 3 The viral
marketing involved mimicking the ways in which word of
mouth, and now new media networking, creates a 'buzz' within
which to l aunch marketing camp aigns . The quick adoption of a
new phenomenon of cultural commentary, s uch as street art, by
adverti sing companies h a s made it difficult fo r the l atter to
maintain its grass roots , p opuli s t image. Even Need to Know
acknowledged the Lupo teaser camp aign a s 'Nathan e s que'. The
episode casts a harsh light on the activities of cultural resistance
group s that appeal to youth markets , exchange art

s cho o l

trained personnel a n d enrol followers through t h e consumption

of T shirt s , music and collectibles . The effect can b e seen in the
widespre a d adoption of s o cialist o r communi s t revolutionary
imagery by high street stores that m arket politi c al resis tance as
a commo dity.

New class structu res

While Enzensberger was enthused by the new technologies of

video, what was really imp ortant to him was the connections such
technologies offered. Later theorists, esp ecially tho s e who have
fo cused on the p olitical p otenti al of new medi a , have taken thi s
c riti que in a new directi on. They have acknowledged that what
u l timately deterritoriali s e s is c apital i t s e l f, and i t is the
indep endent control of c apital by the indivi dua l . as a process of
s e lf- determination, that leads to true political emancip ation. This
is the idea that media theorists such as McKenzie Wark have put
forward, p articularly in rel ation to his argument that a new
c l a s s system has developed through new medi a . Where once was
discuss ed a s chism between the labouring c l a s s and the state or
corporate clas s , there now exists a new division between massive
media conglomerates and an ' underclas s ' of s o cial activists as
h ackers . Thi s i s a s ituation created by the new production of
immaterial g o o d s in to day's new media econ omy. The mo dern
worker in the We stern world is less likely to create objects, and
more likely to create knowledge, informati on, concepts, and the
means of c ommunicating them. These might be s ervices offered at
a call centre, or an artwork sold in order to enhance the emotional
response to an office s p a c e . Even if the new We s tern worker
creates things, they are not as important as the immaterial value
that such things accrue. This means that, for Wark, the two new
c l a s s e s that h ave emerged are the hacker class, whi ch ' ari ses out
of the transformation of information into property, in the form of
intellectual property' , and the vectoralist class, which controls 'the
vectors along which information circulates ' . Most imp ortantly,
Wark al s o notes that 'the vectoralist class goes out of its way to
c ourt the hacker class ideologically' . 1 4 Hacking as a practice of
resistance is always on the verge of co option into the mainstream.
Wark is p rofoundly influenced by Michael H ardt and Antonio
Negri , economic philosophers who were thems elves inspired by
D eleuze and Guattari . It is thi s influence that can be traced to

Wark's unders tanding of the vectoralist class . C apital. suggest

Hardt and Ne gri , ' op erates on the plane of immanenc e ' , relying
on the e quival ence of money to bring all values to gether in

' quantifiable, commensurable relations ' . The rh i z om o rp hi c spaces

of the Internet, which allow for the fre e flow o f information a s a

commo dity, create an ideal place for capital to flourish because, as

they make clear, cap ital 'tends toward a smo oth space defined by

unco ded flows, flexibility, continual modulation, and tendential

equalization' . " C apitalism a s a c o m m ercial force needs to
deterritorialise, to create smooth, unhindered space, in order to
reterritorialise and create new money making formati ons .
This can be seen in the example of media conglomerates such as
Sony C orp oration. In 2004, as p art of a consortium, Sony bought
legendary Hollywo o d studio Metro Goldwyn M ayer (MGM) for a
reported $5 billion. This included the rights to the James Bond
franchise, produced by EON Productions , with which it had already
established connections for the last Pierce Brosnan film in the
series ,

Die A nother Day (2002 ) . The purch a s e of MGM, however,

allowed Sony to fully exploit the franchise for the ' reboot' of B ond
with D aniel C raig in the role for Casino Royale (2006) . The film was
made by C olumbi a Pictures and MGM, b o th now p art of Sony
Pictures Entertainment, who would go on to distribute the DVD.

The music, by David Arnold, would be distributed by Sony's joint

owned subsi diary, S ony BMG. Arnold had p reviously produced his
own interpretation of Bond themes for East West Records,

Shaken

and Stirred ( 1 997), before coming into the Sony fold after he had
worked on the Warner Brothers distributed music for previous
Bond films . This me ant that, for Sony, any arti s tic decisions they
made on the film could refer back to the Bond b ack catalogue with

impunity, since there would be no 'rival' comp any or artist with

intellectual property rights . At the s ame time a massive multimedia
camp aign wa s launched, which included silver special edition
models of the S ony Ericsson K800 and K790 Cyb er shot mobile
phones , designed to evoke the vintage Aston Martin DB5 that C raig

drives in the film in homage to p revious Bond incarnation S e an

C o nnery. The Bond 'pro duct' for S o ny was not so much the film
but a notion around which to orient an array of products that
u s e d the fre e fl ow of S ony's internal organis ati on to create a
network of franchi s e opportunitie s linked by the film's web site.
To draw a picture of vectoralism as entirely mainstream, as Wark
tends to do, would be inaccurate , however. The penetration of these
umbrella corporations into 'grass roots ' or cult forms, such as comic
b ooks , means that they are able to successfully tap new emerging
you th m arkets, especially when they s e em to b e in oppos ition to
mainstream modes of authorship. Eileen Meehan had very quickly
noted this in her analy s i s of the Batman ( 1 9 8 9 ) film and
merchandising phenomenon, whereby Warner C ommunications Inc.
were s e en to 'cash in' on the succes s of the graphic novels that
reanimated the sup erhero 's career. In fact, as owners of DC comics
from 1 9 7 1 , Warner i s s u e d the graphic novel The Dark Kn ight

Returns a s p art of their own marketing strategy to create a buzz i n

t h e run up to releasing t h e movie. Warner's inves tment built the
'basic infrastructure' " for future franchising, a model to which
can be added information technology and the Internet. In 2002 Sony
released Spider man, with a major webs ite that acted a s the hub
for a fan network, and allowed them to 'pre s ell' the movie by
encouraging fan art and fan fiction.
What this means is that resistant objects and practices, such
as comic b o ok s , culture j amming, viral art , o r h a ckin g , which
deconstruct capitalism'S old hierarchie s , can therefore be seen to

assist in its new formations . The clearest illustration of this i s the

confu s e d m e s s age of lib ertarianism put forward by Wark, who
campaigns intellectually for an exploited undercla s s , the hackers
who produce intelle ctual p rop erty that will be exploited by
c apitalism's facele s s and soull e s s c orp orations. Wark asks us to
sympathi s e with in divi duals who are unab le to a s s ert their
intellectual prop erty rights in online gaming, who labour within
new 'life ' games such a s Ultima Online to create the world that

Electronic Arts (the game's owner) will exp loit. Wark and other
new media p ro ducers in the hacker classes are really a middle
class of wo rke r s , however; an aspirational new c l a s s that has
managed to ri s e above the conditions of manual toil in order to
become an emp owered p art of the new economy. A s a middle
clas s , tho ugh, they exp l o i t in their own turn the l a b ourers in
China, Mexico and other countries, many of them women, who
manufacture the equipment (the latest P C , the l atest Apple) with
which hackers create the new intellectual property. This is the real
divide between the clas s e s in the new media economy, a global
structure m aintained by the virtual structures of the Internet, in
which capital deterritorialises and reterritorialises the economy.
This is where Deleuz e, Guattari and the politics of connection
come in. For E nzensb erg er, it was important that p o litical
empowerment comes not from the complete deconstruction of the
apparatuses of ideology, but from an effort to realis e the promises
that their technologies make. This involves new connections and
new types of s ocial interaction, and also involves recognising their
power before the state d o e s , b efore capital does . In this s ense it
invo lves s e eing the immanent p ower of the technologies of
connection quickly enough to take control in such a manner that
they can no l onger be c o opted. Thi s is why p roj e cts such as

Wikipedia, for all their factual inaccuracie s , have the great

potential they do. In making the access to information free, or as
free a s the a c c e s s to a comp uter entai l s , they take away the
investment of money and commerce that normally flows in the
free s p a c e of the new connecti ons . All that is l eft is the
connection itself. In thi s way one need only be watchful against
reterritori ali s ation. Wikipedia needs to b e a contested space in
order to prevent it settling into a se dimentary rock of white,
We stern i d e o l ogy, in order to prevent a p articular way of writing
history and re cording knowledge from starting to lead or create
that knowl edge. It needs to be a contested space in order to resist
reterritorialis ation, in order to fulfil

one day, p erhaps

its

potential to host the knowledge of a truly worldwide community.

Part Two

Introduction

What is beco m i n g ?

One o f the sens ations any rea der might exp ect from reading
Deleuze, especially from reading the work with Guattari, i s an
overwhelming sense of restles sness, p a rticularly when i dentity is
concerned. Not only is the issue of identity an urgent one for them
as philosophers , but their style makes it a recurrent subject around
which they orient much of their philo s o p hy. Inde e d , this is s o
becau s e , for D e l e u z e , identity itself i s always in motion: the
identity of the individual subj ect, pre s s ur e d from all s i d e s by
forces that will make him or her, articulate him/her, o rgani s e
him/her; but als o the collective subject, p u s h e d together through
environmental, governmental, o r s ocial forces, or coming together
in a resi stance to the s e . This restles s n e s s creates the s ubj ect
through coalescence, co agulation and co ordination, here moving
swiftly, there moving slowly. Identity i s always in motion, no
matter how rooted it seems or how fixed. Not only that, but all
identifications are in motion, since any fixed s tate of an object is
merely a stage of app arent rest before another change . If we pick
up a c offee mug and look at it, we can have n o doubt that it is a
fixe d o bject in time and space. It i s , in fact, fixed to the extent of
being brittl e . It will smash if we drop it, and its 'es sential ' identity
would be at an end. What we are really lo oking at, however, is a
moment (no matter how long) of apparent rest in the life of its
molecules and atom s . It was once wet clay, formed and shaped,
glazed and fired under pressure. It continues to change, cracks and
fissures forming on its surfa c e , until we b reak it, when it will b e

tossed asi de as rubbish, returning it to the earth. This 'fixed' o bject

in s p a ce is also a fixed o bject i n time (Deleuze c alled thi s an
' o bjectile" ) o nly ina smuch as we i s o l ate it in our minds from the
continual change of the universe .
This p l a c e s D e l eu z e 's phil o s ophy at odds with any other
phil o s o phy that focuses on 'being' and what it is ' t o b e ' . Ins tead,
if i dentit y i s always in motion, it i s always coming into being, a
never ending project of becoming. It is the simple fact of becoming
th at i s b e h ind the creati o n of the rhizome, since the rhi z o m e
exploits and enjoys continual change and connection, rather than
s e eking t o fix or prevent it. Simil a rly, as we shall s ee, it i s this
continual coming into being of all things that is the only thing we
can rely on, the o nly thing that allows us to mark time against the
sheer vas tness of eternity. B ecoming, then, i s perhaps the single
contribution around which all Deleuze and Guattari's philosophy
revolves

the keystone of their philos ophy of life itself. For this

last reason, becoming i s b o th a guiding principle for the analysis

of culture , and an ethical call for a different way of being ( o r
b e coming ! ) . The ideas they develop from this central discovery
b e c o ming wom an, b e coming animal, becoming imperceptibl e
have become currency in an array of ethical debates including
femini s m and p o s t femini sm , enviro nmentali s m and p olitical
scien c e . ' This has o c curred through the philos ophy's central
u s efuln e s s as an interpre tive strategy
u n d e rstand how hierarchies

its abili ty to help us

of i d entity and e s s ence are

constructed and resisted. To appreciate becoming a s a fact of life,

a s tage of critical s elf awarenes s , o r even an ethical response i s to
a p p r e ciate how i dentity its elf is formed through opposition,
alterity and difference.
Deleuze and Guattari note that culture o rgani s e s itself along
principles of 'propo rtionality', in that, within a symbolic structure
where an equivalence of terms is reached, a hierarchy of relations
is created as a ' s erializ atio n o f res emblances with a structuration
o f difference s ' .3 This i s a rationalis ation of culture made in order

to understand it

as much by sociologists as by ourselve s . The

problem here is that the p rincipal identity against which thi s

proportionality is measured is man, as the s creen upon which all
identities are p rojected and found different. The ethical p o s ition
that Deleuz e and Guattari take relies upon the realis ation of this
principle of difference, even for thos e who are 'naturally' relegated
to a p o s ition of sub ordination. Deleuze and Guattari replace the
binary structure with one based on a kind of substantial quality :
instead of the binary structure of man woman, for instance, they
suggest that man is the maj o r or molar entity, against which
woman is minor. As with much of Deleuze and Gu attari's
philo sophy, h owever, it is never as simple as that. To truly b egin
to dismantle and rebuild the hierarchies created by culture's
p atriarchy, one has not only to confront and p a s s through the
p o s ition of the minor, but to appreci ate thi s as a becoming ,
rather than e s s ential and fixed. Put another way, in order to
dismantle a p rejudiced system based on s ex, gender or race, one
has to understand from within the things that make differences

different. A woman cannot s imply b e different, she has to pass

through this difference, she has to appreci ate this difference as
being at once symb olic and artificial . Difference has to b e felt as a
construction rather than as an essence. The s ame situation o btains
for any minority, and, indeed, the collective term that Deleuze and
Guattari u s e is becoming minoritarian . The p o s ition becoming
woman take s in this ethic al p ro ces s i s s ignificant, since it is the
p rincipal bin ary organi s ation that culture adopts . Simp l e
oppo sition t o the patriarchal hierarchy is n o t a n option, though;
the ethical p ath is not to be different , but to be imp erceptib l e .
This h a s caused femini st phil o s ophers , s u c h as Rosi Braidotti, to
criticise Deleuze and Guattari for suggesting that women give up
the only weapon they have, the only agency they p o s s e s s , in the
struggle against discriminatio n

their femininity.'

Fundamental to Deleuze and Guattari's phil o s ophy, however,

is the fact that i dentity is created not by any kind of essential or

material b eing, but only by re acti ons by others to what are s een as
characteri stics . B ecomings are made up of a variety of these th at
act as markers , or comp ositional elements. Any e s s ential i dentity,
no m atter how different from man, would s imply be another
molar one . True becomings are mol ecular, since they are made up
of elements and chara cteristics that m ay at any time change and
reform. For this re a s o n the notion of contagion and cro s s

contamin ati on becomes e s s enti al to understanding identity as

contingent, to create a sense of s elf awarenes s and empowerment.
When a man turns into a wolf in horror fiction he does not become
just another wolf, he is infected with the characteristics of the wolf
(as we have seen, the wolf is a co nstant pres ence in A Thousand

Platea us) . Simil arly, t h e soldier w h o dres ses a s a woman i n o rder

to escap e , or even in order to entertain other s o l diers, does not
imitate a woman, nor b ecome a woman, b ut unders tands
suddenly the struggle that women fa ce when reduced to their
ess ential characteristics .
It help s , here, if we use an example that illustrates not just

becoming woman, but also the wider aspect of identity spread

through contagion

thi s time in the wartime concert party. This

has b een a staple of Briti sh culture for many years , perhaps having
its m o st famous manifestation in the B B e TV show It Ain 't Hal/Hot

Mum ( 1 974-8 1 ) . The s how followed the exploits of a Briti sh army

concert p arty stationed in Burma during World War II, with
epi s o des that often revolve d around the staging of the shows to
tro o p s , and i n which the s o l diers p l ay b oth male and female
ch aracters . While some of the s o l diers, especially Bombardier
B eaumont (Melvyn H ayes) , are p l ayed along the lines of lower
middl e c l a s s high camp, it is o ften the burlier characters ,
M a ckinto s h ( S t u art M c G u g a n)

and Evans

(Mike K i n s ey) ,

representing working class backgrounds from provincial Britain,

who get the b est laugh s . It is when the se men complain of the
impracticality of wearing women's underwear, rather than the
o stensibly homo s exual B e aumont, that we see the s o l dier as

becoming-woman. This is b ecause their b ecoming woman occurs

not through sexuality but, instead, toward affinity : it allows them
to engage in the kind of social bonding and subsequent loyalty
that is normally off limits to men but expected in women , and
seen as a sign o f their social difference and inferiority. Becoming
is an operation of the social a s well as p ersonal identity, in that
the collective i dentity of groups also works through contagion.
It help s here if we continue to think of the group of soldiers who

are brought together by circumstance (often hardship, catastrophe)

and who form a collective b ond. As Deleuze and Guattari describ e :
'Bands , human or animal . proliferate by contagion, epidemi c s ,
battlefields, a n d catastroph es . " Their multiplicity i s a n e s s ential
part of the war machine, the unit being made up not only of
gunners and bombardiers, but also of piani s t s , s ingers, dancers .
We understand them as having a filial bond even though they are
brought together by events and kept together by camaraderie. Jus t

...
Ol
c:

o
o

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as when King Henry, in Shakespeare's Henry V, describes h i s 'band

of brothers ' , we recognis e that it i s a shared i dentity of affinity,

rather than blood connecti on, that is exp erienced by this b and of
brothers in the jungle . They share a becoming animal in living in
trenches and especi ally 'foxhol e s ' , but, most importantly, their
affinity is created by shared humour in the fac e of adversity
humour that is the contagion that connects them all. This is what
we mean when we s ay that 'l aughter is infectiou s ' .
S o how, then, d o e s o n e locate oneself within thi s dizzying
multip licity of becoming, this restless change of identity? Deleuze
and Guattari's answer i s that we repres ent intersections of time
and p l a c e , coordinates within social s tru cture s . They u s e the
analogy of longitude and l atitude. The geographical metaphor i s
succinct: culture i s dizzying, i t i s easy to g e t l o s t , a n d what we
need is a kind of GPS (Global Posi tioning System) device that will
pinpoint us and our identity. The metaphor doesn't res t there ,
however, even though Deleuze and Guattari were writing long
before hand held devices and global s atellite surveillanc e .

:I
"0
o
.;:

E:

Latitude, for them, is a way of des cribing the accidental genesis

of our identi ty - it i s an accident of b irth that we might b e white
or s o uth Asian, that we might be male or female. Intersecting
this is the s p ecific materi ality of our own b o die s , longitude, and
together they create only an intersection of degrees, what Deleuze
and Guattari call

'haecceity' .' The metaphor is app osite, though :

what you get at the intersection is a point, a location, which tells

us very little until it move s . It might be an accidental genesis that
gave us our p oint on a cultural , societal map, but it's up to us how
we use our potential becoming, up to us how we move. After ali, a s
Deleuze and Gu attari s ay: 'We know nothing about a b o dy until
we know what it can do . "

Chapter 3

M i no r c i n emas
David Martin Jones

Deleuze and Guattari's c oncept of the minor is an extremely

useful way of understanding p ower relations in to day's world, in
particular in contexts where i ssues such as p o st colonialism and
globali s ation influence how people conceive of their i dentities .
This chapter first describ es the origins o f the term . I t then briefly
dis cus s e s s everal of the different ways in which it has b e en
applied to cinema , creating the concept of a minor cinema. Finally,
the American indep endent film Mysterious Skin (2004) , by cult
director Gregg Araki , i s analy s e d as a work of minor cinema.

Mysterious Skin i s a work of minor cinema created outside the

mains tre am and d e signed to que stion the 'norm s ' of i dentity
usually prop agated by Hollywo o d . It suggests the p o s s ibility of
various different typ es of minoritarian American i dentity by
examining s exual desire in the contemporary United States .
What does 'minor' mean?
In 1 975 Deleuze and Guattari introduced the idea of the minor in a

book on Franz Kafka, Kafk a: Toward a minor literature. In 1 9aO

they developed the idea in A Thousand Plateaus. In Kafka, Deleuze
and Guattari argue d that, as a C z ech Jew living in Prague but
writing in German, Kafka's work c ould be considered an example
of minor literature . For Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka took the major,
or dominant language that spoke for the various countries in the
Austro Hungarian Empire (i . e . German), and made this official or
'paper language'!

which was not sp oken by the majority of Czechs

speak in a minor way. In p olitical terms, Kafka's grotesque,

surreal and bizarre world could b e interpreted a s a pro duct of the
colonial s ituation in which he wrote, as the C ze chs s truggled for
independence from the Austro Hungarian Empire. ' In A Thousand

Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari note that to make a major language

s p eak in a minor way i s to make it stutter, stammer or even wail .'
Thus a minor language is not establi shed in oppo sition to a major
language. After all , Kafka did not use the C zech l anguage to oppose
German. Instead a minor langu age, takes a major language, and ,
b y deterritori ali s ing i t , forces it t o become s omething else.
At the extreme end of this pro c e s s of becoming, Deleuze and
Gu attari des crib e the deterritorialis ation of a major language as
its transfo rmation into s omething more like mus ic.' The terms
' m ajor' and 'minor' , they exp lain, can be understood a s musical
terms . A minor language p l ay s the s ame tune a s the maj o r
language, it just plays it i n a minor key.' For instance, a C aribbean
C reole might jumble together a colonial European language and an
Afri can language derived from a slave community's country of
origin. It thereby makes a major E urop ean voice s ound in a minor
key. Alternatively, the rhythmical rhyming of rap or hip hop can
be considered minor when used to express a different typ e of
i dentity

such a s that of African Americans , or France's different

ethnic and racial minoritie s

from that usually s poken by the

dominant l anguage of the s e countri e s .

It mu s t b e unders tood, however, that 'minor' d o e s n o t always
e qual 'minority ' . While Kafka was a C zech Jew subject to a
colonial s ituation, and in that s ense in the minority, he was al s o
a wealthy member o f the bourgeoisie who spoke German as his
first language. To work in a minor way, then, is not necessarily to
b e a 'minority' in the way this term i s u s ually deploye d , with all
its negative c onnotati ons of economi c , gender, racial and ethnic
s tatu s . To b e minor is to take a major voice, and speak it in a way
that expresses your preferred identity. This political aspect of the
minor is cruci al, for minor practices (art, literature, language) have

the potenti al to destabilise the normal conventions of the major

voice of a s o ciety. To act in a minor way, then , i s not to opp o s e a
dominant p olitical system, but to inhabit the system and change it
from within. Thu s , although Deleuze and Guattari's work on Kafka
was originally fo c u s e d on the way a minor language could b e
created i n literature, their idea o f the minor c a n be app lied to
any numb er of contexts , including cinema.
Modern pol itical cinema

Deleuze and Guattari did not define clearly how their idea of the
minor could be appli e d to cinem a . Rather, it was in the second
volume of D eleuze's solo work on cinema, Cinema 2 ( 1 985), that he
began to illustrate how the minor could exist in cinema. In Cinema

2, Deleuze returned to the idea of the minor under a different name.

Discussing what he now called 'modern political cinema',' D eleuze
draws parallels b etween certain filmmakers and his earlier ideas
concerning Kafka . ' Initially he mentions several French directors ,
such as Alain Resnai s , Jean Rouch and Jean Marie Straub, but

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before long his work fo c u s e s on more globally marginali s e d

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filmmake r s , such as Yilmaz Guney, You s s ef C h ahine, Glauber

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Rocha, Pierre Perrault and Ousmane Sembene. The works of these

directors

from Tu rkey, E gyp t , Brazi l , Quebec ( C anada) and

Senegal respectively

more clearly illustrate what i s at stake in the

notion of modern political cinema. The films of these directors

contrast the output of the mainstream film industries in their
countries of origin, as many of them have renounced commercial
gain and attemp ted to use cinema to create new i dentities under
difficult p olitical circums tanc e s .
I n a l l these instance s t h e countries i n question were facing
political turmoi l . For instance: S embene's Senegal was a n ewly
post colonial country; Rocha's Brazil was under military rule, a s
was Guney's Turkey (whose population w a s a l s o divi ded over the
issue of Kurdis h i dentity in Turkey) ; Perrault's Quebec struggled
for independence from C anada; and so on. At one point Deleuze

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points out that it was much easier for such filmmakers to see
that the p e ople were mi ssing 'in the third world, where oppre s s ed
and exploited nations remained in a state of p erpetual minorities,
in a c ollective i dentity crisi s ' .s Mo dern p olitical cinema, then, was
mo s tly likely to be found in the Third World, a s it was concerned
with the creation of new identiti e s , of a people who are 'mi s s ing'
or yet 'to come ' "
Effectively, modern p olitical cinema is minor cinema. In Cinema
2, D e l euze only slightly adapts the three characteri stics of minor

literature found in chapter 3 of Kafka (,What is Minor Literature? ' )

t o create the i d e a of a modern political cinema. Firstly, he notes how
modem p olitical cinema attempts to create a new sense of identity
for the future, or a people yet to come. Thi s he does by contras ting
it w i th the unp roblematic conception of ' the p eo p l e ' fo und in
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clas s i cal cinema s , such as the films of Frank C apra in the United

States (think of Christmas time classics such as It's a Wonderful Life

Sergei E i s enstein, who s e ' O d e s s a Step s ' sequence in Battleship

Potemkin ( 1 9 2 5 ) is one of the most famous in cinema history. In

United States , or the Soviet people, already exist. For the filmmaker

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( 1 94 6 ) ) , an d the m o s t distinctive of the Soviet Montage directors ,

the s e clas sical cinemas it is taken as read that the p eople of the
it i s s imply a question of shaping the identity of that p eople. In
C apra's cinema this is often done by evoking the righteousness of
democrati c, small town family values in the Unite d States or, in
Eis enstein, the revolutionary potenti al of the proletari at in the
Soviet Union. In the works of the directors of modem political
cinema, however, the p eople do not exist in a readily acces sible
ma s s . Rather, the s e films show the people s truggling to emerge
under political conditions that would deny their different identities.
S e con dly, D eleuze discu s s e s the eradication of the divi sion
between public and p rivate spaces in modem p olitical cinema,
noting how this makes all personal actions inherently p olitical.
Protagonists in these cinemas do not have the luxury of a s ecure,
distinctive space of the family. Rather, characters often inhabit the

'cramp e d s p ac e s ' of s o ciety's margin s , spaces that are too easily

invaded by the official forces of the public realm. iO For this reason
it is not p o s sible for minor characters to transfer a certain set of
value s learned in the home to their public live s , as private acts
quickly become public acts due to the monitoring of the lives of
minor characters by the controlling forces o f s o ciety.
For a concrete filmic example of this type of existence, consider
the French film La Raine ( 1 9 9 5 ) . Set in the Pari sian banlieue (the
run down housing proj ects on the outskirts of Paris) . La Raine
follows the adventure s of three unemp l oyed teenagers , Vinz
(Vin cent C a s s ell) , Hub ert (Hub ert Kounde) . and SaId (S aId
Taghm a o u i ) . With France's manufacturing indus try in decline,
the male p opulation of the banlieue finds itself redun dant, and
violent clashes with the police soon follow. The three post colonial
youths find their cramped home lives cons tantly invaded and
monitored by the p o lice and the media. Practic ally every action
they take therefore has a political edge, as is seen most clearly in
the desire of Vinz to take revenge for the murder of their friend at
the hands of the riot police. Under such circumstances, whenever
and however the individual acts , he or s h e makes a p olitical
statement that resonates within the public sphere. Although this
is a rather negative s ituation to exi s t in, it a l s o contains the
potenti al for minor actions to imp act directly upon society.
Finally, Deleuze argues that modern political cinema is marked
by a refu s a l either to repro duce negative stereotyp e s , or to
oppo s e such typ es with 'positive ' stereotype s . For D eleuze, either
practice creates a colonising (or in s ome c a s e s a neo colonising)
image of the people. Rather than enabling the creation of a new
people, this practice fixes one image of the p eople in place,
thereby halting their transformation into s om ething els e in the
future. Instead, mo dern political cinema multiplies characters ,
to illustrate how the identity of the p eople to come will never
stop transfo rming. As p art and p arcel of thi s proces s , directors
of mo dern p olitical cinema often b ase stori es around characters

involve d in creating s tories of their own identity. In this way

the films thems elves refu s e to establish one singl e , authori al
p oint of vi ew. After all, to posit one authoritarian view on a
p o l itical s i tuation is not a minor action, it is an o p p o sition.
Instea d , minor films o ften enter into a dialogue over which
fiction (that of the film, o r the stories told within the film) c an
best estab l i sh a new i dentity for a people yet to come. For this
r e a s o n minor cinema can at times appear self c onsciously
s tyl i s e d . D i r e c tors of minor film do n o t create a s o l i d image of
a new identity s o much a s question the manner in which
i dentities are usually constructed in mains tre am cinema. In this
way, the m ajor voice of cinema b e gins to stutter, stammer or
wail, with o ut to o quickly reterritori alising ' the p e o p l e ' into a
new stere o typ e .
Neverth ele s s Deleu z e 's theory o f m o d e rn po litical cinema is
in many ways quite vague. He never really gives concrete examples
of exactly how it takes the dominant language of classical cinema
and makes it speak in a minor voic e . His ideas are practic ally
imp o s s ible to grasp unless you have s een the films he briefly
reference s , and even then his lack of sustained concrete
analysis erects further b arriers to our understanding. Fortunately,
several schol ars have taken his i d e a s and applied them with
rig our to vari ous cinemas. Let us now turn to a few of them
to enhance our unders tanding of m o d ern p o liti c a l cinem a , o r,
minor cinema.
M i nor cinema

Probably the first person to coin the phra s e 'minor cinema ' in
English was D. N. R o dowick, in Gilles Deleuze 's Time Machine
( 1 9 9 7 ) . 1 1 R o d owick d i s cu s s e d how p o st col onial west Afric an
nations, such as Senegal in the 1 9 6 0 s , used cinema to rethink
their identity after an extensive period of occup ation by the French.
Previously, cinema h a d b een used by the French to repres ent the
native west Africans . French cinema was a m ajor voice that very

often rep res ented west African identity in a negative m anner, as

a primitive culture. For this reason west African filmmakers had to
struggle against not only the dominant language of the colonis er,
French, its elf, but also French cinema when it p o sitioned west
African people as colonial subjects.
Rodowick analys es Ousmane Sembene's Borom Sarret ( 1 963) as
a work of minor cinem a . " O ften consi dered the first indigenous
African film, Borom Sarret is the story of a taxi driver (with a horse
drawn cart) from a poor dis trict of Dakar, the capital of Sene g a l .
Ro dowick comments in p articular on Sembene 's utilis ation of
African oral storytelling traditions to make a minor use of the norms
of Western cinematic representation. R odowick demonstrates how
the sound recording of the film gives it the feel of a story told
verbally, as though in the African oral tradition. The s ound is
deliberately non naturalistic (Le. it does not always match the
image) , and many of the characters ' voices are spoken by Sembene
himself. This has a peculiar effect on the spectator, who is used to
seeing images constructed to appear 'naturali stic ' , or as though

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they obj ectively reflect reality. In the case of French cinema's

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previous representation of west Africans , this naturalism was used

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as a disguis e b ehind which to propagate the negative image of

west African culture as essentially primitive. By contrast, S embene
creates a film in which images and soundtrack are di slocated, and
the normal experience of watching a story unfold in cinematic
images suddenly appears to stutter, due to the minor actions of the
filmmaker. Instead, the film appears rather like a story addressed
to the various types of native Senegalese people that it depicts ,
asking them to que stion how they c an create a new coll ective,
how they can become a people of the future. Since Ro dowick's
intercession a number of works have emerged that des cribe how
minor cinemas are created in different contexts, from small national
cinemas, to exiled and diasporic cinemas, to women's cinema . 13 As
one illustrative examp le, let us now consider the US independent
film Mysterious Skin.

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A m e rican i ndependent c i n e m a as m i n o r cinema:

Gregg Ara ki

The films of iconoclastic director Gregg Araki b elong to a long

tradition of queer American indep endent cinema that includes
s uch notab l e directors as Kenneth Anger, John Waters and Andy
Warhol. As queer cinema is usually created outside the mainstream
it very often has the p otential to be minor, although it is often more
o p p ositional than minor. O n the other hand, in The Celluloid

Closet ( 1 987), Vito Russo has exhaustively charted the long history
of m ainstream Hollywo o d fil m s that were queered in a minor
way by writers , directors or actors willing to slip a queer theme
o r sub text into a m ainstream film. Here we see a far more minor
queering of the accepted norms of the mainstream. Araki 's films
are p art of a movement that developed in the 1 990s calle d N ew
Queer Cinema, and as such they often straddle these two worlds . "
Many o f h i s films are independent films with queer subject s , and
as such are perfect for creating minor cinema. In addition, though,
they very often attempt a degree of crossover into the mainstream
by utilising established genres or styles, even while queering
them, and making them speak in a minor way. Thus it is primarily
through his fo cus on queer s exualities (be they homos exual or
otherwise ' devi ant' from the established heteros exual norm) that
Araki is able to que s tion various d ominant norms of US identity.
Mysterious Skin

(2004)

Mysterious Skin i s the story of two young teenagers , Neil

McC o rmick (Jo s e p h Gordon L evitt) and Brian La ckey ( B r a dy
Corb etl , living in the small town of Hutchinson, Kans as. B oth b oys
were s exually abused by the local Little League baseball co ach
(Bill Sage) when they were eight years old. Brian is now a sad teen,
troubled by traumatic memories for which he has no rational
explanation. Inste ad, he concocts theories of alien abduction to
explain his b l a ckouts and lost memories. Neil, on the other hand,
had his heart b roken at eight by the co ach (who disapp e ared

suddenly) . and has since become a rent boy with a nihilistic,

even s elf destructive approach to life . When Brian seeks out Neil
looking for answers Neil takes him to the co ach's old house and
reve als the truth to him .

Mysterious Skin clearly conforms to the three characteristics of

a work of minor cinema . Firstly, its teenaged p rotagonists create

a biz arre a s s emblage that deterritorialises stan dard norms of

behaviour, suggesting

new mo del for a people yet to come . Neil's

homosexuality ensures that Wendy (Michelle Tra chtenb erg) and

he, although friends since chil dhood, do not b e c ome lovers . The
protagonist's romance with the 'girl next door' s een in s o much
US suburban drama is thus unavailable to them. B rian, for his p art,
is so traumatised by his p artial memories of abuse that he has
become, as Neil's friend Eric (Jeffrey Licon) describes him, 'weirdly
as exual ' . When fellow alien nutcase Avalyn Friesen (Mary Lynn
Rajskub) attempts to s e duce him, B rian is unable to reciprocate.

1 . Mysterious
Skin (2004).

Thus Araki 's qu eer p o liti c s deterritorialises the heterosexual

coupling typ ical of the us teen film .
I f there i s a people yet t o come in this film it i s clear that i t
will have t o emerge from the wounded teens who have spent their
lives having their expectations of what life ' should' b e like (which
they have learned from the movies) dashed by reality. Thus Wendy
often performs the role of caring mother to Neil , and Neil and Eric
take turn s caring for the traumati s e d Brian. Unlike the teens in
typical teen movies there is no romantic resolution for any of these
characters. Instead , they all learn to face the uncertain future and
to try and support each other. The c asting of Jos eph Gordon Levitt
as the teen hustler Neil is key in this respect, as he is well known
for playing wholesome hetero teens who do get the girl in b oth the
TV s erie s Third Rock from the Sun ( 1 9 96 2 00 1 ) and the teen flick

10 Things I Hate About You

( 1 99 9 ) . Audience expectations are

rocked by his p e rform a n c e , a s Araki p l ays out our normal

exp e ctati ons in

a minor key, forcing us to

co nfront the

p o s s ibility that the normative representation that we are u s e d to

may require deterritorialising if a new identity i s to be created.
Indeed, it was undoubtedly this uncharacteristic performance that
enabled Gordon Levitt to cro s s over into the US independent
s e ctor and then s e cure the lead in the teen noir Brick (2006).
The second criterion for a work of minor cinema is also met, a s
t h e film eradicates the b o undary b etween political and private
spaces. As a hustler, Neil inhabits marginal space s , such as motel
rooms , cars , bus terminal toil ets and the chil dren's playground
where he waits for client s . Through Neil's illicit sexual a ctivities
we witn e s s a life live d aimle s s ly in p ublic p l a c e s . In fact, it
transpires that Neil 's relationship with the private sphere was
a dversely affected when he was a chi l d . His first ej aculation
o ccurred when he was just a small boy, watching his mother give
her latest boyfriend a blow job on the la dder of his garden swing
set. Here the public sphere inva ded his childhood s anctuary, and
it is no accident that, as a teenage hustler Neil hangs around a

public children's playground ( c o mplete with swings and slide) .

waiting for clients. Public and p rivate have b ecome one and the
same for Neil, who associates sex with symbols of childhood that
for him have lost their usual connotations of innocent play. In
fact, as his mother is fre quently drunk or absent, Neil effectively
functions without the p rivacy of a secure home. For this reason
he falls for the co ach, who stocks his house with foo d and games
appealing to young chil dren, and generally p erforms the role of
Neil's ab s ent father by giving him l ifts home after b a s eb all
practice. The invasion of sex into Neil's fractured home life , and
the false security offered by the co ach's house (where his surrogate
father sexually abus es him) , have destroyed Neil's access to a
private life , and as a teenager he lives his life entirely in public
s p a c e s . The sanctuary of white suburbia usu ally uph e l d by
Hollywoo d (again, think no further than It 's a Wonderful Life) is
here shown to b e a lie.
Fulfilling the third criterion of a work of minor cinema , Araki's
s elf c onscious cinematic style is u s e d to ins ert the film into a

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dialogue between filmmaker, fictional story and audience, in a

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similar manner to that which Ro dowick describes in Semb ene's

Borom Sarret. In doing so he avoids the creation of new, 'positive'

queer stereotypes, preferring instead to proliferate the possibilities
of divers e teenage identities. Part and p arcel of this approach is
a self conscious exploration of style.
As numerous critics have noted, Araki's films stand out from
the mainstream due to his incorporation of asp ects of the avant
garde . l5 As opposed to the transp arency of fo rm adopted by
Hollywo o d (which attempts to suck the viewer into its fictional
world and avoids drawing attentio n to its constructed nature at
all costs) . the avant garde foregrounds the fictional status of the
film, asking the viewer to think about how the world is 'normally '
repre sented to them by film. In Mysterious Skin the effect of
distancing the spectator from the story is achieve d by stylistic ally
inhabiting the Hollywo o d norm and using it to tell a story that

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questions the u s ual s exual identity of the Hollywood teen film,

while self cons c iously referencing previous famous Hollywo o d
productions ab o ut small town life. I n this way Mysterious Skin
appears as though a story told in cinematic quotation mark s . The
viewer is confronted with numerou s images that seem familiar, but
have b een ' queered' to such an extent that they can only question
our p erception of what i s normal.
E arly on in the film Wendy and Neil stand in a d e s erted
drive in, and fant a s i s e about how their lives might look if they
were in a film. As they listen to the 'voice of God' through the
sp eaker it b egins to snow. Neil and Wendy look up to the heavens .
A revers e shot then follows , taken from a crane l o oking directly
down on them, s howing them looking up as the snow fall s . This
i s in fac t a direct cinematic reference to the op ening of Frank
C apra's tale of s mall town American life, It 's a Wonderful Life. In
the earlier film a shot/reverse shot s e quence is u s e d to create a
dialogue b etween a family praying for their father George B ailey
(Jam e s Stewart) in the s mall American town of B e dford Fall s and
an answering d i s cus sion between angels in heave n . " We literally
fo llow the p r ayers a s they fly t o h e aven , and witne s s a
convers ation b etween angels as they decide how to respond. In

Mysterio us Skin, however, a shot of the heavens s een from the

p oint of view of the characters on e arth is a b s ent. Even though
the characters claim to hear the voice of God from the silent
drive in movie s p eakers , their view of heaven i s not shown to the
s p ectator, and there i s no convers ation between protective angels .
In fact, a s the impassive camera's aerial stare suggests , heaven has

abandoned the s e characters , just a s both Neil and Brian's fathers

have ab andoned them to the care of their working mothers . The
effe c t of thi s s e eming renunci ation of all p atriarchal values ,
whether religious or familial, is c o mp ounded when teenage Neil
gets drunk one night and visits the coach's old house. C onfronting
this closed door to the past, he mutters bitterly that the co ach, his
s urrogate father figure, had once referred to him as his 'angel ' . The

film uses the notion of abandoned souls to suggest that, for Wendy
and Neil, the heavenly redemption available to George Bailey in the
small American town of Bedford Falls in It 's a Wonderful L ife is
not available. Their identity i s no longer that o f the whol e s ome,
' s aved' America of the immediate p ost war years .
Thi s replaying of Hollyw o o d myths in a minor way o c curs
several times in the film. When Neil and Wendy are in New York ,
Wendy warns Neil to be c areful by referencing Dorothy in The

Wizard of Oz ( 1 9 3 9 ) , s aying: 'We 're not in Kansas anymore . ' This

time, however, unlike Doro thy, the s e characters have no utopian
family home to return to by clicking their heel s . More obviously,
during the film's Halloween s e quence

the

s afe sub urb an

excitement of H alloween seen in Hollyw o o d classics of the past

such a s Meet Me in St. Louis ( 1 944) and E. T. : The Extra Terrestrial
( 1 982) is made to s tutter when Neil physically and s exually abuses
a disabled boy in the manner he has learned from the coach, and
when B ri an is once again sexually abus ed by the coach.
Finally, Araki's decision to shoot the scenes of child abuse in a

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manner that did not traumati s e the child actors creates a further

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minor effect. For the abu s e s e quences Araki filmed the chil dren

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and the coach sep arately, as though they were rea cting to each
other, although in reality the o ther party was absent. He then
edited the shots together, creating the illusion that both p arties
were present at the s ame time . 1 7 This technique is called the
Kuleshov effect after the S oviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov who , in
the l ate 1 9 1 0 s , dis covered that audiences would infer that shots
filmed s ep arately belonged to the same s p a c e and time. In
Hollywo o d cinema the Kuleshov effect is typically used to bolster
the illusion that the fictional world of the film is 'real ' , and not a
created fiction. It furthers the aim of Ho llywo o d cinema, to suck
th e viewer into an unquestioning relationship with the n arrative
world. For instance, the Kuleshov effect is often used to make
spectacular stunts appear real in acti on p acked blockbu s ters . A
shot of an explosion may be followed by a shot of an actor reacting

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to it, even though he or she is nowhere near the actual event. In

this instanc e , however, a technique usually deployed to make the
audi ence feel unquestioningly s ecure in their relati o nship with
the film (even as it constructs ideological norm s , such as that of
heterosexual primacy) actually makes the viewer feel extremely
unea sy. The s cenes look so real that they are twi ce as frightening,
e s pe cially when we are placed in the p o sition of the children,
l o oking up fro m their p oint of view, at c l o s e ups of huge adu l t
fa c e s that fill the screen. The spectator's desire to believe that
fictional images are real is purposefully played upon, the illusion
of re ality that n o rmally enhances n aturali s m here m aking us
s quirm, as it p o s itions u s in the role of abus e d chil d . Replaying
this major technique in a minor way renders literal the way this
proce dure usually makes us, a s spectators , subject to a p otentially
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abus ive ideology.

In the final s cene, Mysterious Skin provides some respite for its

characters , as Neil and Brian break into the co ach's old house, and
Neil helps Brian come to terms with what happened to them when
they were eight. In one respect, then, the film finally recoups the
s uburban home as a place of s anctuary and healing. This private
s p a c e is only a temporary sp ace for thes e characters , however,
who will ultimately have to leave it again to get on with their live s .
On c e again , t h e film plays t h e accepted image o f t h e suburb an
home in a minor key, and it does s o to suggest that a p eople of
the future can b e created only by excavating the dark and hidden
p a s t s ob s cured by thi s homely image s o often p eddled by
Hollywoo d, just as Neil and Brian are 'healed' by their final
encounter with it. In this way the film refuses to prop agate either
exis ting s tereotypes of homos exuality or hetero s exuality, and
instead develops the narratives of s everal damaged teens , who s e
identities a r e constantly in t h e proce s s of renegoti ation in the
narrative

a process that is mirrore d in the film's renegotiation

of Hollywo o d myth s .

Chapter 4

Becom i n g a rt
Damian Sutton

What does it mean, for Deleuze and Guattari, to be an artist?

Deleuze and Guattari consider artists almo s t within the s ame
breath as philos ophers, in the sense that arti sts have glimps ed
something of the immanence that holds the universe together in its
tremendous forces and flow s : ' They have s e en s omething in life
that is too much for anyone, too much for themselves . ' l This idea
of the arti st a s a kind of philosopher i s attractive , but we might
struggle if we attach it to any artist, or any artwork. Art can be a
kind of philosophy, but this is not the same thing as saying that art
is philosophy. The idea of the artist as philos opher sounds us eful
when attache d to Pablo Picasso, and the notion can even seem to
elevate your p ractice or ours as artists . What happens, however,
when we attach the term ' art' in this context to Thomas Kinkade or
Jack Vettriano? Is the artist a philos opher then? Perhap s this is
why, for D e l e u z e and Gu attari , art i s one s tep remov e d from
philo sophy. Art is, as Gregg Lambert has sugge sted, a kind of
'non philos ophy ' , an approach that cannot b e philosophy, but
which ultimately has the cap acity to enliven philosophy. For
instance, the philosopher has a responsibility to knowledge that
the artis t d o e s not, that of the creation of concepts . L amb ert
suggests , however, that 'it is only in its encounters with non
philosophy that, following Deleuze's assertion, the task of concept
creati on can b e proposed anew'.' Art exists to reveal and give
shap e to the prob lems and concepts with which phil o s o phy
grapp les. When philosophy grows tired, or reaches an imp asse, it

is the arti s tic event that throws up new challenge s as it pres ents
tho s e concepts and problems afres h .
What, then, d o e s art d o , i f i t cannot b e philosophy? For Deleuze
and Guattari, thi s i s very clear. Only philosophy can supp ose the
plane of immanence, the non organ i c life that run s thro ugh the
univers e , giving it shape and form. Art can sup p o s e the shap e s
themselves , however, and can give us

a glimp s e o f that immanence.

It does this by creating p ure s en s ations that exi s t b eyond

parti cul ar readings; Deleuze and Guattari call these percepts, and
call the p ure responses that exi s t b eyond p articular meaning

affects. In so doing, art is able to do more than simply illus trate

the problems and concepts with which philosophy works: it is able
to ask some of the same questions of culture that philos ophy does ,
even if it g ets different kinds of answers .

Q;
c<

al

:g

Why is there no becoming-man?3

In a black and white photograph from 1 98 8 , an ageing, elegantly

p r e s ented man s t a r e s out at the c amera from a deep b l a ck
b a ckground. He is o u t of fo c u s , and the camera instead h a s
brought into sharp cl arity the s kull that decorate s the walking
cane that he holds in his hand. This is one of the last photographs
that the a rti s t Rob ert Mapplethorp e took of hims elf before his
death, and it s eems to repres ent the intersection of a body of work
with the b o dy of the artis t hims elf, as the art world s ought to
create the arti s t who was Mappl ethorp e.
This Ameri c an artist/photographer p a s s e d away fro m an
AIDS /HIV-related infection in March 1 9 8 9 . At the time, a major
retro spective of Mapplethorpe's work, The Perfect Moment, was
on a tour of the United States that was to include Philadelphia,
B o ston, Hartford and Washington D C . The work included still life
photographs of flowers and s tatues and images of the bodybuilder
Lisa Lyons , as well a s many of his s elf portraits . The exhibition
al s o included the 'x' p ortfoli o , a s eri e s of images of g ay
s adomasochism, the 'Y' portfolio of flowers , and the '2' portfolio

of black male nudes . Finally, the exhibit included images of the

children of Mapplethorp e's fri ends. His photography represented
exp erimental and oppositional sexuality, in direct confrontation
with the a c a d e my, and in the tra dition of nineteenth century
painters

G u s tave C o urbet and E d o u ard Manet, who h a d

confronted the s exualised g a z e of art in their own time. A t the

same time, the aesthetic strictnes s of Mapplethorpe's approach
tightly comp o s e d , clas sical, highly fini shed photographic prints
demons trated what Kobena Mercer has called a 'fundamental
cons ervati s m ' , implicating him in the very culture of sexual
obje ctifi c a t i o n he seemed to rej e c t . ' The s e lf p o rtrait o f
Mappletho rpe therefo re s e ems a l s o to embody thi s kind o f
dicho tomy : t h e more h e s e e m s to o p p o s e the mainstream,
hetero sexual and cons ervative ideas

of art, the more his

oppo sition help s substantiate the mainstream. This is app arent

in the circums tances s urro unding The Perfect Mo ment, and
the aftermath o f Mapplethorp e's death

circumstance s that

reterritorialis e the queer look of his photography.

Even at the moment of his death, Mappl ethorpe became a
standard bearer, willing or not, for a numb er of political is sues
including the right to free speech

that were seen to b e under

attack as the American right gathered its fo rces as p art of what

became known a s 'the culture wars ' . Thes e forces had a s their
figurehe a d the Repub l i c an senator fo r North C arolin a , Jes s e
Helms . Helms had previously lobbied against the federal funding
of health programmes to promote s afe s ex and AID S education,
and, for writers such as Richard Meyer and Steven C . Dubin, it was
Helms in p articular who would come to stand for the p olitical
right's o p p o s ition to Mapplethorp e and his work.' In so doing,
Helms w o u l d in fac t b e the p rinci p a l a gent in creating
Mapplethorp e the artist, who s e work has a particular set of
meanings . The Perfect Moment was on show at the Mus eum of
Contemporary Art, Chicago, without much incident, when the news
came of Mapplethorpe's death. The artist's battle with AIDS related

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infection, a n d the

subj e c t matter o f s o m e of h i s m o s t

confrontational photography, made the final connection for Helms

between homos exuality and disease. The show was due to go to the
C orcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC in July, and would be
within a city bl ock of the White House and down the Mall from the
S enate. For Helm s , thi s meant that his intervention woul d s eem
p r ovidenti a l : he would have an opp ortunity to s afeguard the
n ation's morals and b e given license by circumstance to do it in
the C apitol its elf. The director of the C orcoran, C hri stina Orr
C ahall, cancelled the s how, citing the p o litical climate, and it at
once p olarised the two camp s , even uniting group s of arti sts who
had p reviously had different op inions over the work. C ritics of
Mapplethorp e's work, such as Mercer, had cited the objectification
of black men in his work, which at best reduced them to s exual
stereo typ e s and at worst recalled the days of slavery and the
traffic in the b l ack male b o dy. Now, however, they were united in
their belief that the work should b e shown, and demonstrate d thi s
in a mass rally outside the C orcoran, proj ecting images from the
show onto the building and making the c overs of several m ajor
magazine s . Another gallery, the Washington Project for the Art s ,
picked up t h e show, a n d O rr C ahall l ater resigned.
In the meantime, Helms had lobbied for an amendment that
would restrict the use of federal funds, s p e cifically the National
Endowment for Arts , for art that included obs cene or indecent
materials . C rucially, this included depictions of sadomasochism,
homoerotici s m and the exploitation of children: Helms would
once again equate homo sexuality with obscenity and illegality in
the public mind, and in p articular equate homosexuality with the
abuse of chil dren

and the diverse work of Mapp lethorp e would

illustrate this . Helms used four photographs from the exhibit,

including two unclothed photographs of children, when lobbying .
The other two images were of men with their genitals exp o s ed ,
p erhap s t h e most famous of thes e images b eing Man in Polyester

Suit ( 1 980} ' in which a black man in a suit is photographed from

the chest down , his penis exp o s e d . The amendment, which was
eventu ally p a s s e d by C ongres s , would therefore also reconn ect
black sexuality with indecency ap.d fear, in a manner that recalled
once again the era of slavery.
When the exhibition removed to C incinnati, Ohio, similar events
unfolded on a more local scale. Here, the Contemporary Arts Center
put the s how on, only for director D ennis Barrie to find himself in
court for p andering obscenity after a sustained c ampaign by a
coalition of conservative pre s sure groups. Here, the defence argued
for Barrie that the definition of obscenity had three criteri a b a s ed
on a previous landmark case (Miller vs State of California, 1 9 7 3) :
the average pers o n mus t obs erve a p rurient interest in s e x in the
work taken as a whole; the work must depict sexual conduct
defined by the host state as p atently offensive; and the work must
lack serious literary, artistic, historic or s cientific value . 7 B arri e's
defence counsel was able to argue, successfully, that the c a s e for
the work lacking s erious value could not b e proven, and all three
necess ary criteri a were not met. Thi s was helped by affidavits
from the p arents of the children involved, as well as testimonies
from art profession als that acted as ' crash courses in aesthetics'
for the jurors . As Dubin further note s , this was intended to ' deflect
attention away from the difficult subject matter of the photographs,
onto formalist considerations such as composition'.' Even the term
'taken as a whole' was a challenge for the system, however, with
different me anings understo o d by all parti e s . The judge and jury
agreed that this meant individual images, rather than the whole
exhibit, as the p r o s ecution's c a s e suggested. Nonethel e s s , even
within the successful defence of B arrie there was the development
of a particular, unified identity to Mapplethorpe's work. For, while
only three of the photogra p h s were cite d , it was cle arly the
whole show that was on tri al, and the whole show stoo d for
Mapplethorpe (as retrospectives are intended) . At stake, then, was
the reputation and insistent m eaning behind Mapplethorpe 's life
and career, bound up with his development as a p erson.

Mapp l e th orp e was reduced to p articular characteri s tics

that stand for his work , bec oming a concept for critics of all
typ es. In thi s way, the polishing of Mapplethorp e's c areer in the
retrosp ective , and the controversy that surrounded it, acted in
much the s ame way as Mapplethorp e's images of black men that
Mercer had criticised. Mercer fo cused on the ways in which the
photograph s re duce the b l ack male to the level of the flowers or
statues , as things . The images of black male nudes simply replaced
one system of sexuali s e d repres entation in art with another:
'Substituting the s oci ally inferi or subj ect, black/man for the
conventional ideal of the (white)/woman, Mapplethorp e draws on
the codes of the genre to frame his way of s eeing b lack male
b o dies a s " b e autiful thing s " , erotic and a e s thetic obj e c ts . " The
trials of Robert Mapp l e thorp e , first in the Senate and later in
C incinnati, served to highlight the growing problem of AIDS/HIV
and s timulated awaren e s s among liberals and cons ervatives
alike. Helms and o thers had unwittingly provi ded opportunities
for camp a i gners against homophob i a , and the record bre aking
attendance at the galleries that showed the work help ed
strengthen AIDS awarene s s campaigns . These were a by pro duct,
however, of the creation, in social, cultural and legal terms, of the
artist and his body of work, to the extent that his very image comes
to stand for it. Moreover, at the same time, so Mercer's argument
runs , thi s b o dy of work h a d re e s tablished the principles of
difference in rep res entation in s lightly new lines only: the black
man's b o dy ' inve sted with what the white male s ubj ect wants
to see' . 1 0
A woman has t o become-woman . . .

At first glance the question 'Why is there no b ecoming man?' seems

straightforward enough to answer: becoming deterritorialises man
from his position as the molar entity around which all o thers are
s tructured (capitalism , p atri archy) . ' [Ml an is majoritarian p ar
excellence . . . the determination of a state of standard: Deleuze and

Guattari prop o s e . " Artists work to rais e this as a twofold is s u e

of experience. On the one hand , there are different experiences of
the world from that of man, and p artic ularly white men. On the
other hand, tho s e different experiences are al so experiences of
difference its elf. As we fin d with the work of Mapplethorp e ,
artworks that highlight difference, especially within the aesthetic
or formal constraints of art practice, often recreate the systems of
difference. This illustrates the power of the p atriarchal system that
has man as its s tandard

it even c onstructs the very terms of

oppo sition, the terms of difference its elf.

We might see this in the way that, in art his tory, a canon of
male arti sts has b e en created, to the exclusion of women artists as
well as arti sts of colour. For this reason, artists have developed
their work to o p p o s e this canon. Some , such as the arti s ts '
collective the Guerilla Girl s , directly challenge the established
histories through publishing and protest. Others , s uch as Judy
Chicago, have sought to create artworks that highlight a forgotten
canon of imp ortant women writers and arti sts . 'The Dinner Party'
(1974-9), Chicago's most famous work, is an installation of a huge
triangular b anqueting tab l e , set for thirty nine inspirational
women from history, in which e ach is represented by a ceramic
plate decorated with vulvar and flower fo rm s . The s etting also
includes the names of 999 other important women, and the whole
is finished with e l aborate gold and white decoration s . Thu s
Chicago sets her canon of women in opposition to the male canon,
within a s o cial context that invokes domes tic labour and s ocial
propriety. Dinner p a rties are traditionally the responsibility of the
woman as homemaker, and involve couples in an iteration of the
hetero sexual, patriarchal order. The extra dimension is given by the
place settings them selves , however, which evoke the female s exual
organs and s e rve to remind us that it is only this basic difference
that s eparates one canon from the other.
Nevertheless, the highlighting of 'man' as the majoritarian form
that leads to social inequality represents only one dimension to the

..
..

concept that Deleuze and Guattari wanted to create. They wanted

to go further, and attack the very principle of difference its elf. This
is what they mean by effectively asking the question, 'Why is there
no b e c oming man? ' It allows them to di s c u s s the problem of
s etting up

o p p ositi ons . To create an altern ative c anon is

problemati c , since it manage s to keep in place the very situation

of differenc e it app ears to deconstruct. New canons of women
artists are in danger of a kind of ghettoisation:
It is i m portant not to confuse ' m i norita ria n : as a becoming or
process , with a ' m i n o rity: as a n a ggreg ate o r state . Jews , Gypsies,
etc . , may constitute minorities u n d e r certain c o nditions, but that in
itself does not m a ke them beco mi n gs . One rete rritorial izes, or
a l l ows o n es e lf to be rete rritoria lized , on a m i n ority as a state; but i n
a becom i n g , o n e is d eterritori a l ized . '2

S o , for Deleuze and Guattari , it is not a physical or e s s ential

identity that initiates or gives dynamic power to b ecoming, but
instead it i s p rovoked by the so cial op eration of difference . In a
sense, this means that a woman even has to distance herself from
her difference, to see it anew, and regain some of the agency that
thi s offers her. She does not automatically have it, but it is created
for her by her difference from the majority/standard (man) and
it ri s e s up fro m her minority (woman as domesti c , as weak, as
dis enfranchis e d ) . This is what gives contemp orary performance
art s uch extraordin ary p otenti al. not j u s t a s an illus trative
mechanism ( a s in fiction) but as one of exp eri ence for the
perfonner, p articip ant and viewer. One of the clearest examples can
be s een in the installation/perfonnance 'Dolores from l Oh to 2 2h'
by N ew York based artists C oco Fusco and Ricardo Dominguez.
'Dolores from l Oh to 22h' was staged in 200 1 at the Kiasma
Mus eum of C ontemp orary Art, Helsinki, Finland, and broadcast
simultaneously in galleries in Los Angeles, London, and Ljubjlana
in S l oveni a . The p e rformance 'recreated' the c a s e of D elfin a
Ro drigu e z , a worker at a maquiladora , or assembly factory, in

Tijuana, Mexico, who was the subject of intimidation and abuse

by her employers after attemp ting to uni oni s e with her fellow
workers . The install ation was staged in real time, and broadcast
using surveillance style cameras set up a s if by the employers .
Fus co, playing the worker, was not allowed to leave the room,
and the situation of intimi dati on was played out as Dominguez
entered as the employer. Dominguez was ab le to plan his acti o n s ,
although o n l i n e v i ewers were g i v e n a c h a n c e to
suggestions

make

s ome of which demonstrate d , as t h e performance

p rogres s e d , viewers ' eagerne s s to see Fusco, the 'employe e ' ,

abused a n d humiliated.
The conceptual foc al point fo r the p i ece i s the act of
combination

the willingness of the workers to unioni s e and

create an identity that supersedes all of them and acts as a block

of b ecoming, or haecceity. This need o nly be a desire , and Fusco
needed only to have that fact related in the convers ations that
stru ctur e d the twelve hour p erfo rmance. Nonethel e s s , the
performance itself relied on very specific forces being aligned,
coming together in thi s block, in order to work. At the heart of this
was Fusco's own identity, her own becoming woman . She does not
imitate Rodriguez, but instead she remains Coco Fusco throughout,
at least in the eyes of viewers and online viewer/participant s .
This is crucial t o much o f the arti st's work, esp ecially i n h e r later
explorations of the role of women in the War on Terror. The s e
works have s e e n h e r take o n the role of interrogator, including a
video made of her ' training' as a recruit by ex special forc e s
interrogation experts . The work relies as much o n h e r abilities as a
college professor (who s e p edagogic role is clearly defined) as it
does her abilities as an actre s s (to disappear as a p erson into the
role, or to follow orders ) . Added to thi s i s the industry in which
Fus c o p ortrays the s ituation of exploitation i n the maquil adora.
The performance was billed by Fusco and Kiasma as dealing with
some of the is sues of s urveillance that entered into the public eye
with television game shows such as Survivor and Big Brother, both

of which involved twenty four hour coverage of contestants living

together and p erforming tasks . 1 3 The performance moved b eyond
zeitgeist i s s u e s of surveillance to engage with wider issues such
as the exploitation of maquiladora workers , and this is where
the l onger lasting impact o f the installation is clear.
The issue of l abour and wealth continues to be a problem, and
one m a d e wo r s e by the c ontinue d exp ansion of info rmation
technology in the office and in the home

as p art of work and

leisure . In repres enting the assembly line workers in Mexico and

acros s the worl d , and by extending the p erformance to include
online p articip ation, Fusco implicated ( and still implicates) the
user of technology into the very system that exploits the workers .
This counts as much for viewers in the gallery in Helsinki (one of
the world's fi r s t 'wireles s ' citi e s ) as it d o e s fo r v i ewers on the
Internet. Every time we upgrade our computer, television s et, DVD
player or games console, we particip ate in a system that is only
p o s sible through the exploitation of these workers , and a system
that is thre a t e n e d by a c t s of combinati o n such as that of
Rodriguez. To h e ar this in a lecture from Fusco as an art p rofessor
would seem p atronising, since her position is far removed from
that of Rodriguez and other maquiladora workers

it is privileged,

even. As a performance , however, it uses the contradiction that

e x i s t s in the technology, the very fact of her own p o s ition as a
privileged woman, in order to work. B eing a woman is not enough;
F u s c o must b e come woman by entering into the s itu ati o n of
Rodriguez and o thers , with the baiting of viewers reflecting the
b aiting of employers in Tijuana.

The immanence of art

The examples of Mapplethorpe and of Fusco both suggest that it is
the p articular time and place of the artworks , in inters ection with
the specifi c histories of maker or context, that give the art its
i denti ty. Artworks , then, are the constructions of much l arger
forces than one single artis t or even one historical trajectory, and

so we need a way of unders tanding them that expre s s e s this

larger agglomerati on. Deleuze and Guattari, for instance, pick out
in their own work key artists who work with a medium to produce
crucial effects

Paul Klee, Was s ily Kandinsky and C l aude Monet

with c o lour, for example

yet in fact their philos ophy of art s uits

artists for whom the slightest of interventions has b een enough

to create monumental works . The arti st might be an intelligent,
skilful and articul ate individual. but it is all too easy to adopt a
molar p o siti o n . In fact, the artist's role is one of a s s emblage, or
of putting things together: ' C ompo sition, comp osition is the sole
definition o f art. C omp o s ition is a e s theti c , and what i s not
comp o s e d i s not a work of art. ' 1 4 The first p o s ition seems fixed in
the practice of privileging an artist and his/her particular medium,
the second s e ems to account only for s ituationist practic e , o r for
the technique of the

etants donnees,

the ready made.

In fact, D eleuze and Guattari have a remarkably consistent

theory of art that takes into account b oth p o sitions , and rages
against cliche: 'In no way do we believe in a fine arts system; we
believe in very diverse problems whose solutions are found in
heterogene o u s arts . To us, Art is a fal s e concept . . . ' 1 5 What gives
art practi c e its constituency, and what gives it a purp o s e , i s thi s
range of problems addre s s e d by art as a multiplicity of methods .
What Deleuze and Guattari try to develop is a theory of art that can
comprehend its ability to have historical and contextual agency
to have an effec t in time and space. This agency is not limited to a
particular moment or medium, but is something that they all share.
To start, we can say that art involves simple modulations of
form

decisions to put this p aint here in this manner, to make that

mark there, to divide objects or put them together. As

percepts,

these do more than repres ent a decision, however, and D e l e u z e

a n d Guattari s ubtract (or ab s tract) t h e arti stic intenti o n . T h e
modulations a r e much more important than the decisions , since
they reveal the forces ' that p o p ulate the w o r l d , that affect u s ,
that make us b ecome ' . When Kandinsky achieves this b y 'linear

"tensions" ' , for example, it means that in drawing a s traight line to

rep res ent

the b o un dary b etween c o l ours he expre s s e s the

extra ordina ry fo rc e s involved in creating any s traight line:

physical forces s u c h a s gravity, physical ten s i o n s such as
mus cularity, cultural forces from art history and visual culture
(even the force of thos e critics in Kandinsky's mind that must have
s a i d that his intenti o n was r a d i c a l , antithe tical, or n o t proper
artistic

expression) . ! G

O n the other hand, there are share d,

inarticulate feelings that we all seem to know are important, that

we feel before we begin to express them. They might account for
the fact that, if we strip away culture, history

patriarchy

from

so many artworks , they remain great, emotive, extraordinary. Thes e

affects

exi s t before articulation, yet they are what we describe and

share through the exchange of l anguage and ideas ; they are what
we cling to create our own identity ('We are not in the world, we
become with the world; we b ecome by contemplating it. ' !') even
though they are s omehow indep endent of us .
The artist may make decisions , may deal with the forces and
materials (percepts) , but the inters ection with sens ation (affects)
may never occur or, most importantly, may o ccur in s pite of the
arti st's efforts . Artworks rely upon the conjunctio n of percept
and affect, when the material ' p a s s e s into sensatio n ' , and until
then they are just cliches o r ruminations of the materi a l . ! Arti s t s
therefore a r e given s omething of a choice, a n d their subsequent
curi os ity i s what they b ring to the conversation. They can work
with the materi a l s and l e t the inters ection o c c u r in its own
interval , or they can intervene , often by giving up the materi al
itself and relying only on the movement of forc e s . Thi s i s what
conceptual art reli e s on at its best, especially in p e rformance or
situation, s ince the minimum physical limit of effort i s reached
just as the maximum conceptual effect i s achieved .
I n this respect Nicholas B ourriaud, for example, s e e s the artist
as the kind of 'tenant

of culture'

observed by anthrop ologists s uch

as Michel de C erteau. ! 9 For the arti st, the social situation becomes

2. Rachel Whiteread ,
House ( 1 993).

an e s s ential p art of the practice of art, including the p o litical or

everyd ay lives of the arti st, the gallery and the s tudi o , the lecture
hall and the bar. The artis t i s a s o cial engineer, trying to foster the
situation that will create the event that will in tum produce what
Bourri aud calls a 'lasting' artwork . 20 Influenced by Deleuze and
Guattari, B o urri aud s e e s art in the inters ection of the material
and the cultural , which i s almost the same thing for him (but not
quite) as p ercept and affe c t : 'Art keeps tog ether moments of
subj e ctivity a s s o ciated with s ingular experiences . ' ' ' B ourriaud
accepts that this gives the artis t an extraordinary p olitical and
so c i a l agency, t o create and fo ster new relationship s , to b ring
situations together or tear them ap art, to intervene in a p o liti cal,
even milit ary, way into

world

s ituati o n s . The

arti s t n ow

' determines the relationship that will be struck up with his [sic]
work ' , and the relations 'between people and world' ." This places
second, however, the movement of materials , the practice its elf,
and invites the i d e a that to be an arti s t o n e has simply

to be

an artist.
Perhap s a better p rop o s al i s to suggest, as critic historian
Jacques Ranciere d o e s , that the arti st's practices are "'ways of
doing and making" that intervene in the general distribution of
ways o f doing and making' .23 The arti stic intervenes in the s o c i al
situati on, but art practice itself is a p art of that. Artistic practice
might invo lve m ateri a l d e c i s i on s
shaping

but

aesthetic

mark marking , framing,

p r a ctice is an intervention into these

decisi ons as well as their s ocial condition. An artwork must

intervene in art as well a s s oci ety, it must question the use of
materials as well as the culture and situation of the work.
If we look for a good example of this we can find one in Rachel
Whiteread's 'Hous e ' , which was p art of her Thrner Prize winning
e ntry in 1 9 9 3 . As a s c ulpt o r, Whiteread's w o rk is fo c u s e d o n
p ercepts , and a t that t i m e h e r work m o s tly invo lve d c a s ting
domestic objects (mattres s e s , furniture) . Situated in the East End
of London, 'House' was a c a s t in concrete of the interior o f a

typical Victorian suburban house, which was revealed when the

house was demolished (along with the rest of the neighbouring
estate) . Standing for only a matter of months , it was the subject of
b oth praise and deri s i o n , as an arti s ti c interventi on into the
changing landscape o f London and as a social intervention into
the diminishing memory of a way of life. The shape and texture of
the interio r of each room could b e seen in fine detail, as had been
the case with Whiteread's other work s , such as ' Ghost'

(I 990) , the

cast of a sitting room. This meant that the sculpture had the s ame
effect a s a photograph o r home movie, in that viewers were given
the s e n s ation of d i z z ying memory from an almo s t literal
transfiguration of the p ast onto a s olid obj e ct. The cast rooms
expressed the movements of all the people who have lived in such
house s , following and p robing the occup ation of space simply by
filling it up. To touch the c oncrete was to touch the impression left
by the hands of children , adults, workmen, builders, and to touch
the traces l eft from l overs sitting on the window ledge, letters
thrown into the fire, of tears at a windowpane.
It was also to touch the experience of Londoners , of Britons ,
who se lives were given shape b y the ' suburban semi ' . This i s
similar t o the effect that Whiteread was able t o create i n her
'Holocaust Memorial (Nameless Library) ' for Vienna's Judenplatz
in 2000. The negative c a s t of b ooks can do what few photographs
are able to (and there are many photographs of the Holocaust) : it
can suggest the enormity of the catastrophe by turning lives into
books , into novel s and the like, whose pages (rather than spines)
have left an imprint in the concrete. Whiteread's s culpture , in
focusing on the p hy s i c al sha dows left by mundane p er s o n a l
existences, w a s able to addre s s i ssues that affected millions.
'House' at first sight might appear to represent monumentality in
art as a cliche of s culpture in stone and concrete. Its 'cliche' makes
it a u s eful obj e ct, however, with which to inve s tigate the
monumentality of artworks : what it is that makes them last in
Deleuze and Guattari's terms .

At first glance , their theory of art is expre s sible in the idea

of blocks of sensation

p ercepts and affects coming together as an

inters ection created by p articular conditions. These are reliant

upon the spectator, viewer, critic and maker, in that they reveal the
p l ane of o rgani s ation (the movement of materials) . What they are
really suggesting, however, is that there may be an art that reveals
the plane of immanence , the forces themselves whose traces we
normally see in the movement of materi als. This is when the arti s t
c o m e s c l o s e s t to the p r oj e c t of the philosoph er. Ju st a s the
philos o p her's

task

is

to remove the

s trata

to

appreciate

immane n c e , the fo r c e s of life , s o arti sts mu st remove the

contingent or reliant. When Whiteread p eeled away the walls of the
house that she cast, what was revealed was the space between
the cast and the wall s ; not an o p en space of material s but the
time and space that had been literally ins crib e d by occupations ,
by life its elf. This is art that is m o numental , figuratively and
literally. As Deleuze and Guattari relate, art is monumental when
i t releases us from its formal prioritie s , including the substance
of its m aking and the social situation within which it sits, and
yet simultaneou sly reve als a truth (p olitical, aestheti c) within
the inter s e ction of tho s e thing s .
Art undoes the tri ple organisation of perceptio ns, affections, a n d
opinions i n o r d e r to substitute a m o n u m ent com posed of percepts ,
affects , a n d blocs of sensations that take the place of language

. . .

A m o n ument does not commemorate or celebrate something that

happened but confi d es to the ear of the future the persistent
sensations that embody the event."

E ffectively, true artworks are tho s e that remain, that will

s p e ak to the future, s p e ak b eyond their own time and p l a c e . This
i s why, for examp le, Whiteread's 'House' c ontinues to exist even
though i t has been torn down like the houses around it. Indeed,
that i s the p o int of h i s torical irony, whereby truths remain to be
reve ale d , rep eated o r mirrored. Time will tell whether 'House'

has the real m onumentality of an artwork; not the simple

monumentality of s cale but that of confiding to the future. The
fact that some artworks remain current, no matter how hoary o r
' lived in' they s e e m , i s b ec au se they a r e s till c onfi ding in the
future, or perhap s they hold a truth still waiting to b e heard.
Such artworks are monumental in the s ame way that a village war
memori al or a city's H o l o c a u s t memorial i s monumenta l : not
because they are large but because they reveal the enormity of a
parti cul ar truth that will continue to be current .

P art Three

Introduction

What is d u rati o n ?

It would b e fair t o say that we all have a p retty good idea what
time is. For most of us, time i s the way we measure the passing of
our live s . Our everyday life is measured in temporal cycles. There
are sixty se conds in a minute, s ixty minutes in an hour, twenty
four hours in a day, s even d ays in a week and s o on. With thi s
knowledge we are able to get up e ach morning , calculate how
long it will take us to get to scho o l , university o r work, usually
arrive just a little too late, c ount the minutes until lunch and so
on. The s e cycles are accumul ative , with s even days in a week
building up to fifty two weeks in a year, which in turn builds up
in time as every ten years sees the p a s s ing of a decade, etc. Fo r
most p e o p l e , then, the exp erien c e of time p a s sing is of a

progression

linear

through time . This i s most obviously so becaus e , each

birthday, our age increases by one year, and b e c ause every so often
we catch a glimp s e of a slightly o lder face in the mirror, or realis e
that the once easy jog to the dep arting b u s has b ecome a hell
for l e ather sprint. Even s o , whil e the a b ove all seems fairly
straightforward, Deleuze's view of time is slightly different, due to
the influen c e of French philo sopher Henri B ergson ( 1 859 1 94 1 )
o n Deleuze's conception o f time. I t was from B ergson's notion of
duration that Deleuze's work on time in the cinema developed.
B ergs on's concept of duration refers t o our understanding of
tim e , but not exactly in the usual way. In everyday use we might
say that if we went to a football m atch and stayed until the final
whistle then we were ' there for the duratio n ' . 'Duration' is thus

a word we use for a dis crete meas ure of time, and therefore can
also h ave the implied meaning that we are doing s omething for
an ino rdinately l engthy peri o d of time . For instan c e , if we were
trapped in an elevator with s omeone who we found rather b oring,
then we might sigh to ours elves , and again acknowledge that we
were 'there fo r the durati o n ' . In B ergson's c a s e , h owever, the
concept of duration refers to time a s an open and expanding
who l e , that i s only understo o d by humans usually once it h a s
b e en sp atiali s e d , o n c e t h e flux of time h a s b e e n fixed into four
dimensional coordinate s . When this idea was adopted and adapted
by D eleuze it led to some s tartling conclusions as to the way in
which time can be repres ented in cinema.
B efore we jump to the conclusion that French phi l o s ophers
B ergs o n and Del euze simply had too much time o n their hands
and set about overc omplic ating matters for the s ake of it, it is
worth b earing i n mind that D eleuz e's conclusions were drawn
from his observation of the way cinema rep resented time after
Wo rl d War II. Deleuze was not arguing that our usual perception
of time was 'wrong' but, rather, that certain films were suggesting

another way of thinking

about time that had huge ramifications

for, among other thing s , the way in which we i m a gine our

everyday i dentiti e s .

Bergson a n d Deleuze
B ergson believed that time was a virtual and ever-expanding whole
that he c alled ' duration' . The major works that defined thi s concept
were

Time and Free Will ( 1 889), Matter and Memory ( 1 896),

Creative Evolution ( 1 907), a n d Duration and Simultaneity ( 1 92 1 ) . '

B ergs o n's philo s ophy i s b ro a d ranging and extremely complex,
making it difficult to examine any one of his ideas without op ening
up numerous other huge cans of worms . In b rief terms , however,
let us now s ummarise Bergson's view of time and duration.
To begin with, let us focus on the p ast. In Matter

and Memory,

B ergs on argues that memori es are not stored in our brains but,

rather, that the past is a virtual store of time. When we remember

events from our past, he argues , we travel virtually within this
massive virtual vault of p a s t time s , s eeking out memories and
recollections . At the time o f its publication Bergson's work was
extremely influential, especi ally in artistic circles . Evidence of
the imp act of his ideas can b e seen in the writings of various
authors from around the worl d , the most prominent of whom
was the French author Marcel Proust. Proust's magnum opus,

In Search of Lost Time 0 9 1 3 2 7)

b oth utili s e d and devel o p e d

Bergs on's ideas t o explore t h e life of its narrator, Marcel (a

character modelled on the author) and his life in France b efore
and after World War 1. Proust's novel takes Bergson's ideas a step
further, a n d shows how involuntary memory can facilitate a
sudden, unexpected leap b a ck into the virtual p a s t . Proust
demonstrates how recollections can b e brought involuntarily on by
smells , s ounds , tastes or b o dily posture s , and uses the example of
the taste of a c ake, called

madeleine, which

suddenly transports

the narrator b ack in time to memories of his childhood. The

continue d impact of B ergs on's ideas on the literary mind is
evi dent to d ay, with Ian McEwan's

A tonement ( 2 0 0 1 )

clearly

showing evidence of a B ergsonian view of time . In fact, although

the idea th at we are all time travellers within a giant virtual
memory b ank was most e asily transferred to literature during
Bergs on's lifetime, with the growth of the visual media during
the twentieth century the m o s t obvious place to look for arti stic
rep r e s entations of duratio n are now cinema, television and
vari ous new media (e.g. the Internet and computer games) . For
instance , during a flashb a ck in film, television or even a video
game, the viewer or gamer i s transp orted into the virtual past of
the narrative , often

as we shall see further in Part Three

in a

Bergsonian manner.
Let us p rovi de some more depth to B ergson's view of time .
Bergson theorised that the virtual p a s t was ever exp anding. At
each moment in time there was a divi s ion of time into what

Deleuze would later c o m e to call ' a present which is p a s sing and

a p a s t that is p res erve d ' . ' The present moment is exp eri enced by
us i n the actual day t o day things we do. The p a s t i s an image of
the s e day to d ay actions , which i s stored in its virtual form. At
every moment in time, then, there is an actual and a virtual version
of everything we do . When we try and remember the p a s t it i s
a m o n g the stored virtual images of the past that w e s eek. When
the p a s t interrupts our daily life unb idden, for instance when
invo luntary memory ' fl a s h e s ' us b ac k to the p a s t , it i s often
b e c au s e our a ctual p res ent ( a taste, a s ound, a smell , a phys ical
p o sture) matches a virtual image stored somewhere in our virtual
past. It is, therefore, to this p art of the virtual p a s t (which B ergson
imagined to be s h a p e d like a h u g e c one') to which we are
transported. The sense of a continuous present, on the other hand,
occurs because we are conscious of the actual version of our
activities that occurs in the pres ent. It is here, in space as much
as in time , that we normally p erceive the linear progress ion of
time p a s sing.
In

Creative Evolution B ergson

develops upon his notion of the

p a s t and argues that the whole univers e is constantly expanding.

As B ergson p uts it: ' The truth is that we change without ceasing . '4
C orrespondingly, as the universe exi sts in time, time is a l s o an
ever exp anding who l e : duration. The following quote summarises
his stance:
Dur a t i o n is the contin u o u s progress of the past which gnaws into
the futu re and which swells as it adva n c es. And as the past grows
without ceasin g so there is no limit to its preservatio n . Memory . . . is
not a faculty of putti ng away reco l l ections in a d rawer, or of
inscri b i n g them in a register. . . . (I) n rea l i ty the past is p reserved by
itself, a utomatically.5

For B ergs o n , then, the past i s pres erved virtu ally, constantly
being added to as each moment in time creates a new 'image' t o be
added t o the s to re o f the p a s t , or rememb ered , ' automati c a lly' .

More over, the weight of the virtual past is constantly p u s hing

time onward into the present, e a ch new image that is added to
the p ast, building up the momentum that enables time to ' gn aw'
into the future .
Observing time from thi s point of view, B ergson concluded
that when we obs erve change, w e u sually do so by measuring the
difference b etween a present and a past s tate . This i s easy to
imagine if we take

common example. Looking b a ck at photos of

ourselves as children, we c an imme diately see the difference

b etween ourselves then and ours elves now. C hange is e asy to
s e e , then, when we compare actual states . It i s much harder to
capture and measure the continuo u s proce s s of change, however.
In

effect,

when

we m e a s ure

time's p a s sing we

s p ati a l i s e

duration, creating ' cut out- and kee p ' images that w e c a n compare
in order to conceive of change . Even so, B ergson maintained that
there was a continuous process of change taking place in the
time b etween thes e app arently m e asurable s tates . Thu s what we
p erceive as actual re ality is really a snap shot or freeze frame of
the perp etual process of virtual b ecoming that is duration. We
measure time by spatialising it.
In

Cinema 1 ( 1 983)

and

Cinema 2 ( 1 98 5 ) , Deleuze

develops his

work on B ergson. Put briefly, unlike B ergs o n , who was s ceptical

about cinema's abili ty to render visible durati o n , D e l e u z e fe els
th at c ertain films are able to render visual the p a s s ing of time of
durati on; th e s e he calls 'tim e i m a ge s ' . O n the o ther hand, he
argu e s , there exi s t 'movement i m a ge s ' . T h e s e are also a b l e to
record the p a s s ing of time, but only by sp atialising it into b l ocks
of s p a c e time . The time-image is a glimp s e of time in and for
its elf, of durati on. The movement i mage, on the other han d , helps
u s understand how the virtual whole of time i s spatia l i s e d by
consciousness as we attemp t to m ake sense of our daily live s .

Chapter 5

M ovem ent-i m a ges , t i m e - i m a g es

a n d hybrid-i m a g es i n c i n e m a
David Martin Jones

In his cinema texts

Cinema 1 ( 1 983)

and

Cinema 2 ( 1 985),

Deleuze

uses cinema to argue that our conception of time changed in the

twentieth century, particularly after World War II. To illustrate this
shift in thinking, he identifies two broad c ategories of image, the
time image and the movement image. In this chapter I first
intro duce each of thes e categories of image using well-known
examples . I then analyse a recent film,

The Cell ( 2000) ,

to briefly

show how and why these two categories h ave increasingly b egun
to intertwine since the end of the twentieth c entury.

Movement-image
In

Cinema 1 ,

Deleuze argue d that c ertain typ es of films existed

that could be classified as movement images. He identified several

different types of movement image, from France, the Soviet Union
and Germany, but the most typical was the action image of the
cla s s i c al Hollywo o d film. I focus on thi s type of movement image
from now on, as it p rovides the clearest example of Deleuze's i deas .
Deleuze chos e the term 'movement image' to des cri b e films
in which time was sub ordinate to movement. In this s tyle of
filmmaking, time was ren dered indirectly. Put another way,
time w a s edited to fit the s t o ry. Now, it d o e s not take
fam o u s

philosopher

to

o b s erve

that,

in

cinema,

time

is

conden s e d . A s viewers , w e expect the events of s everal days ,

weeks or years to be rendered in a recognisable time span:
ninety minutes for a mainstream film, two hours for an art film,

and three to fo ur for a B ollywo o d film. There is more to it than

thi s , though .
For Deleuze, the pas sing of time in the movement image i s
focus e d around t h e movement of t h e protagoni s t , a n d b e c o m e s
spatialised in t h e proces s . This i s because, in the movement-image,
rendering visual the passing of time is a secondary concern to the
telling of the s t o ry. As an exampl e , consider

Hard

Die Hard ( 1 988) . Die

d epicts one hellish night i n the life o f New York C ity cop

John M c C lane a s he b attl e s armed robb ers i n the N akatomi

Building, Los Angel e s . Thi s night i s reduc e d to the len gth o f an
easily digestibl e feature film, a s time is edited to fit the story. The
story fo cuses o n M c C l ane's activiti e s , linear temp oral c ontinuity
being maintained by this focus o n the protagonist. No matter how
many different s paces McClane variously runs , jumps and explo des
through (from bullet strafed offices , to cramp e d air ducts , to
perilous lift shafts, to de ath defying leaps from the roof of the
s ky s c r a p er) , the s tory remains fo c u s e d o n M c C lane , and the
pas sing of the night i s rendered vi sible by his incre asingly
b attered physique.
Thu s , although the movement image appears to provide the
m o s t c ommon s e n s i c a l , dire ct image of tim e , in actual fact it
p rovides an indirect expression of time . Time in the movement
image is not o nly conden s e d , i t is also sp ati a l i s e d , rendered
visible only as a product of the time it takes for a protagonist to
act. Indeed, it i s the ability of the protagonist to act that facilitates
the p a s s ing of time in the movement image . When protagonists of
a movement-image encounter a s ituation that necessitates that
they a c t , they are able to do s o , and through their actions the
situation is resolve d . In Die Hard, McClane uses his police training,
death d efying c ourage and brute mas culinity to overcome the
threat of the technologically superior robbers . Thus the trajectory
of the movement image is typically from situation, through action,
to changed situ ati o n , a trajectory that is propelled by the ability
of protagonists to act upon what they see. The movement image,

then, is characterised by action b a s e d around p rotagonists whose

sens ory-motor continuity (their ability to act upon what they see)
is unbroken. This facilitates the construction of a linear story that
c a n traverse any number of varied s p a c e s , with continuity b eing
p rovided by the protagonists ' active pres ence.

Time-image

In contrast to the movement image, Deleuze offers the time image.

He argues that certain film s , especially several that emerged from
western Europe after Worl d War II, p rovide evi dence that our
conception of time is changing. In the films of art cinema directors
of the 1 9 6 0 s and 1 97 0 s

such as Alain R e s n a i s and Jean Luc

G o dard from Fra n c e , o r Federi c o Fellini and Michelangelo

Antonioni from Italy

D eleuze detects a new a n d diffe rent

c o nception of time.
In the time image, the p a s s ing o f time i s depicted in its own
right. It provides a direct image of time. At the most extreme l evel,
we could consider a film such as Andy Warhol's

Empire ( 1 9 64) ,

which depicts the E mpire State Building in a static shot over the
c o urse of eight hours . Here the action is not condensed in any way,
a n d the p atient viewer is able to exp erience the p a s s ing of time ,
as it were , in 'real tim e ' . This is an extreme examp l e , however. For
D e l e u z e , the emergence o f the time image b e g a n in p o s t war
E urop ean cinemas, like that of Italian Neorealism in the late 1 940s.
O n the first p age of

Cinema 2,

Deleuze p rovi des a p rime example

in a famous scene from Vittorio de Sica's

Umberto D ( 1 95 2 ) . This

scene has been variously discus sed by critics as diverse as Andre

B azin in 1 95 3 and D avid B ordwell and Kristin Thompson in 2003 . 1
I n this p arti cular s cene, Maria, a pregnant maid, wearily trudges
through her daily chore s , including lighting the stove and
m aking coffe e . ' In a Hollywo od film thi s typ e o f scene would
probably never be shot, but even if it were the moments of 'dead
time' , in which Maria sits and contemplates her p regnancy, would
most likely hit the cutting room fl o o r. Here , then, i s an excellent

example of the way time images record the pas sing of time
in and for its elf, rather than e diting out moments of time
deemed ext r a n e o u s t o the d eve l o p m ent o f the n arrative of
heroic indiv i duals.
On another level , the time image i s able to represent the virtual
whole o f time found in B erg son's duration. In

Cinema 2,

Deleuze

combines B e rgson's m o d el of the virtua l whol e of time with the

concept of the labyrinth of time found in the fictional writings of
Argentine author Jorge Luis B orge s . ' The resulting model i s that
of a labyrinth of virtual p athways through time. A s individuals
we only ever know the one p athway that we live, the one that
solidifi e s and b ecomes actual around us. An infinite numb er of
other p o ssible timelines exist in a virtual state, however, and each
one becomes actual elsewhere

or, rather, ' e l s ewhen ' . Nowadays

thi s mo del o f time is well known t o fan s of sci ence fi cti o n ,

p arallel univers e s b e i n g a staple of television s erie s such as

Star

Trek: The Next Generation ( 1 987 94) .

For Deleuze, this model of time was typically manifest in two
ways, which he c alled ' Peaks of Pres ent' and ' Sheets of Past' . Films
that delve into the past in a B ergsoni an/Deleuzian manner include

Citizen Kane ( 1 94 1 ) , and numerous films by Fe derico Fellini

as 8 Ih

( 1 963), Roma ( 1 972), Amarcord ( 1 973)

As a more contemporary example, in

Ruiz m a de a film of Proust's

1 999

and Intervista

such

( 1 987).

Chile an director Raoul

Time Rega ined

in whi c h the

protagonist, Proust the author, lying dying in bed, moves virtually

thro u g h the s tored p a s t in s e arch of l o s t memori e s . Here the
time image i s clearly seen, as an incap acitated p rotagonist (unable
to act decisively and affect his situation for the b etter) instead
travels b etween the sheets o f the p ast, enabl ing the viewer to
c atch a glimp s e of the virtual who l e of time.
On the other hand Deleuze o b s erved the existence of time
images that also capture the virtual existence of duration directly,
but do so by focusing on the moment in the present when time
splits . Here the definitive exampl e i s Alain Resnais 's

Last Year at

Marienbad ( 1 9 6 1 ) , a film that repl ays a meeting b e tween a man

and a woman that takes p l a c e during a dinner p a rty.' Vari o u s
contemp orary films c an also b e viewed i n this way, including the
German hit Run Lola Run ( 1 998). Run Lola Run rep l ays the s ame
story three times (that of its protagoni st's desperate attem p t to
obtain DM l O O . OO in twenty minutes flat in order to s ave her
boyfriend's life ) , each time with a different conclusion. In this
sense it p erfectly exp resses the notion that the s ame event takes
place an infinite number of times in infinite parallel univers e s . In
Deleuze's words, it evokes the ' simultaneity of presents in different
worl d s ' that exi st if we conceive of time as a virtual labyrinth . '
I n the time image w e encounter a fundamental confusion over
the truth. Take the flashback, for instance. In the movement image,
flashbacks often appear in order to provide an answer as t o why
events in the present are taking shape in certain ways . It i s not
uncommon fo r this typ e of fl ashb ack to b e u s e d to reve a l

psychological trauma from the p as t , which c a n exp l a i n

character's motivati on in the present. The clas sic examp l e s of

this typ e of fl ashb ack can be found in Alfred Hitchcock's films ,
such as Spellbound ( 1 945) and Mamie ( 1 964) . In the movement
image fl ashb acks m ake clear the causal link between the p a s t
and t h e present. They reaffirm a straightforward view of t i m e a s
a singl e, linear trajectory. In t h e time image, b y contrast, delving
into the p a s t often causes greater confusion. In Citizen Ka ne, for
ins tanc e , different p erspectives are offered on the life of Kane ,
illustrating the subjective nature of truth. He was different
things to different p eople. Similarly, in Fellini's films the p a s t is
rarely a place where solutions are found. Rather, exploratio n s of
the p a s t demonstrate how many contradictory or confu s ing
versions of the past exist in the virtual labyrinth of time . As Anna
Powell has recently p ointed out, this typ e of confu sion b etween
past and present is often deployed to terrifying effect in horror
films , especially in h aunted house movies such as The Shining

( 1 980) , The Haunting ( 1 999) and The Others (200 1 ) , where different

layers of the p a s t c o exist with, and continue to influ e n c e ,

the p resent.' Accordi ngly, editing in the time image i s often
discontinuous, linking together unconnected spaces or regions o f
the p ast in a way that delib erately creates confusion in t h e m i n d
of the spectator. In t h e time image, then, o u r certainty as to the
truth of what has happened in the p a s t , what i s happening in the
pres ent and what will happen in the future i s always questioned.

Hybrid-images
Deleuze's categoris ation of images poses one imp ortant question:
exactly why are some films movement imag e s , and some time
image s ? At the b e ginning of

Cinema 2

Deleuze mentions World

War II as a dividing line b etween the ' classical' conception of time

found in the movement image and the 'modern' vision of time of
the time imag e . H e d o e s not elab orate on why World War II
marked this break in any great detail, however. At this stage,
then, let us briefly consider some of the p o s sible re asons for the
emergen ce of time images and movement images at different
time s in the last c entury.
At an industrial level. the reason for this division appears fairly
clear. The rules for continuity e diting created and refined by the
Hollywoo d studio system in the early decades of the twentieth
century were designed to ensure complete clarity of narrative
for the vi ewer. For this re a s o n , the movement image b e c a m e
dominant, as t h e 'reality' of time's p a s s ing w a s sub ordinated to
the telling of the story. On the other hand, since the end of World
War I the European film i n d u s tri e s have attemp ted to create
dis tinctive cinematic s tyles that can compete
audiences

albeit with niche

in a m arketplace dominated by the universal appe al

of the Hollywoo d pro duct. To do so they often utilise a s p e cts of

avant g arde mo dern i s t arti s t i c traditi o n s peculiar to certain
European

c o untri e s ,

s everal

o f whi ch,

including

cub i s m ,

s urre a l i s m a n d expre s sioni s m , experimented with time i n a

vari ety of way s . In the aftermath of Wo rld War II, then, the

emergence of time images in the art cinemas of E urop e an

countries such as Italy and France can be interpreted as attempts
to create a different typ e of narrative fro m the H o l lywo o d
movement image. This i s certainly one rea s on why t h e time
image was b o rn .
A n indus trial dimension is never enough on its own, h owever.
Like all films , movement and time images can be interpreted in
any number of other ways . Wh at about their content? Deleuze
notes that post war Europe was marked by a proliferation of what
he calls the ' any spac e whatever', spaces where people no longer
knew how to react to their situation.' Although he never s aid so
particul arly directly, Deleuze s aw the effect of the war on Europe
reflected in the inability of pro tagonists of the time image to
influence their situation positively. By contrast, the cinema of
the now triumphant sup erp ower the United States had no s u ch
problem; hence the Hollywo o d movement image was popul ated
by individualistic hero e s who had no difficulty reacting t o their
circumstance s . We are now getting closer to understanding why
time images and movement images appeared where and when
they did. Put in simplistic term s , many Europ ean countri e s were
damaged by the war, not only economically and physically, but
al so p s ychological ly. The primacy of the c o l onialist c entral
European nations on the global stage was suddenly supers e de d
by the emergence o f two sup erp owers (the S oviet Union a n d the
United State s ) in the ens uing Cold War. Time images emerged in
these nations as they lo oked back into their pasts, questioning the
truth of their identities a s they b egan to rebuild after the war.
Why, then, are there s o many hybrid images now? Why are
there s o many films that contain asp ects of b oth movement image
and time image? Again, the most obvious place to look is the
marketp l a c e . With an incre a singly glob al m arket to aim at,
national film industries , film studios and independent filmmakers
know that films that can cro s s over b etween mainstream and
niche markets (such as the art cinema distribution network) can

make a gre a t deal of p rofit. S ome high p rofile examples of this

approach include Groundhog Day ( 1 9 9 3 ) , Pulp Fiction ( 1 994) ,

Sliding Doors ( I 9 9 7 ) , Run Lola Run ( 1 9 9 8 ) , Being John Malkovich

( 1 999) , Mem ento (2000) , Irreversible (200 2 ) , Eternal Sunshine of the

Sp o tless Mi n d ( 2 004) and 50 First D ates ( 2 0 04) . All the s e films

contain the basic elements of the movement image, but have also
incorporated aspects of the time image (most usually in the form
of a rep eated, jumb l e d or otherwi s e disrupted narrative time
s cheme) , therefore guaranteeing maximum market appeal. They
use clearly defined genres and recogni sable stars to appeal to
mass markets, but also exp eriment with narrative time in o rder
also to appeal to a more ' intellectual' art cinema crowd.
Once again, however, there is more to this than money, a s at
least two critics have noted. Patricia Pisters ' The Matrix of Visual

Culture ( 2 0 0 3 ) examines films with characteristics of both time

and movement image as expressions of a new age, where ' a new
camera c o n s c i o u s n e s s makes clear dis tincti on b etween the
subj ective and the objective imp o s sible; [andl the past and the
present, the virtual and the actual have become indistinguishable' ."
For Pisters , thes e hyb rid films are evi dence of a broader historical
shift. As c ontemporary popular culture becomes increasingly
image oriente d , even Madonna's music videos (Pisters analyses

Don 't Tell Me) b egin to represent what Deleuze called ' the crystal of
time' , the indi s tinguishable existence of time as both virtual and
actual image s . '
David Martin-Jones takes a slightly different tack i n Deleuze,

Cinema and National Identity ( 2 006) , interpreting films such as

Sliding Doors, Run Lola R u n , Memento and Eternal Sunshine
of the Spo tless Mind a s expre s s i o n s of national i dentity. For
Martin Jones , the fractured temporal narratives of these films
visualise recent disruptions to the narrative of national identity,
a process that the films then attemp t to work through to find the
most p rofitable trajectory available to both the film's narrative and
that of national identity.

For the remainder of this chapter I examine one hyb rid

film, The Cell ( 2 000) , which p rovi des evi dence of all three of
the above r e a sons behind the prol iferation of the new hyb rid
image. The s e are seen in its use of movement and time image to
appeal to l arger markets , its acknowl edgement of a new era of
' c amera consciousn e s s ' in which actual and virtual become
indis tinguishable, and its subtle examinati on of the effect of
this new era on questions of national identity.
The Cell

(2000)

The Cell is a mixture of science fiction film and serial killer thriller.
It fo cus e s on experimental p sychoanalyst C atherine D e a n e
(Jennifer Lopez) , who i s p art of a t e a m of US scientists attempting
to explore the human mind. D eane is intro duce d in a s equence that
appe ars to h ave the logic of a dre am, in which she talks to a

3. The Cell
(2000) ,

troubled chil d . It soon transpires that D e ane's body is actu ally

wrapp e d in a s exy, space age, red rubber virtual reality suit with a
' neurol ogical syn aptic transfer system' face veil, and suspended
fro m h ooks in the ceiling in a laboratory alongside the comato s e
b o dy of the b oy. Through unspecified high techery the neurological
synaptic transfer system enables her to tune into the mind of
another. Her cons ciousness is thereby able to travel into the b oy's
mind. When the s tory of the FBI hunt for a disturbed s erial killer
C arl Rudolph Stargher (Vincent D ' Onofrio) is introduced it is only
a m atter of time before Deane is hooked up to the mind of the
killer, exploring his mind for clues a s to where his final victim is
b eing held. S targher is a schiz ophrenic who was violently abused
by his father when a chil d, an d who has consequently devel oped
into a pathological killer. H e ki dnaps women, drowns them,
b l e aches them to look like doll s , and then susp ends himself over
their corpses by metal chains attached to hooks in his fl e s h in
order to derive auto erotic p l e asure . When the FBI catch him,
h owever, he has already slipped into a coma, and the only w ay of
s aving the final girl he has kidnap p e d is for D eane to enter his
deranged mind.
Throughout The Cell there i s a clear distinction drawn b etween
the p hysical worl d , which is conventi onally ren dered as a
movement image, and the mental world, which follows the unusual
logic of the time image. Like any Hollywood thriller it has a clearly
define d dea dline (in this instance, the need to save the trapped
girl before she drown s ) , it fo cus e s on the actions of its active
mas culine protagonists

especially the bodies of well trained

FBI agents breaking down doors, examining crime scenes, driving

cars, and flying in p lanes and helic opters

and the editing is

conventional in its manipulation of time to suit the bodies of

thes e men as they rush to meet their deadline. On the other hand,
the film also contains numerous aspects of the time image. D eane
and her p atients are physically suspended so that they cannot act,
allowing D eane to travel virtually within the minds of others . On

entering the mind the editing suddenly becomes discontinuo u s ,

a s a range of biz arre lands capes are introduced to repres ent the
workings of the mind. Here we have obviously moved from
movement image to time image. In this respect, The Cell illustrates
the way in which the movement and time image typically interact
in contemp orary cinem a . Although both typ es of image appear in
the s ame film, the time image is used to explore the inside of the
mind , while the movement image is equated with the activity of
the b o dy. Other examples of this type of hybrid include The Matrix

( 1 99 9 ) , Bei ng John Malkovich , Mulholland Dr. (200 1 ) , Identity

(2003) ' Gothika (2003), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and
The Jacket (2005) .
In terms of its market o rientation, the film could be des crib ed
as an MTV inspired Silence of the Lambs ( 1 99 1 ) . It takes the serial
killer genre into new territory by employing the time image in a
manner that is similar to the MTV music video . Once inside the
mind of the serial killer the imagery becomes all important, as we
are given clues to the p sychological rea sons for the killer's actions
through dis turbing tableaux: of a horse standing in a room that
is suddenly di s sected by a falling glass cage; various imprisoned
dolls , women and doll women; p eople in water tanks; me dieval
torture s cenes; impres sive throne rooms and b edchamb ers; . and
the recurring image of the young Stargher's b aptism from which
his s chiz ophrenia stemmed. In this respect the film is akin to
music videos that use striking images to accomp any a song. Thus
the film uses its hybrid format to reach a broad audience of both
serial killer fans and the bigger teen market of the MTV generation.
Similarly, the casting of its major star, Jennifer Lopez, i s a strategic
ploy, as she was well known as a pop star b efore she turned to
acting. When watching her in the mind of the serial killer it i s
almost a s though w e are watching a music video

as her b o dy i s

variously impri soned in a small g l a s s box at t h e top of a p erilous

tower, catapulted upwards only to hang suspended by a rope
around her ankl e s , falls into a slow motion dive, is brought t o

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rest, suspended in mid air with dark hair billowing as she

telep athically c ommunicates with an albino Als atian dog

all the

time effortle s s ly changing costume, from everyday casual dres s, to

flowing red robes, to elegantly p atterned transp arent bl ack dres s .
The choice o f Tarsem Singh a s director i s telling i n thi s respect.
His p revi ous c redits included director of the music video for
R.E.M. 's hit s o ng, Losing My Religion. In the R . E .M. video, shots of
the b and are p unctuated by tableaux depicting figures in ' exoti c '
histori cal c o stumes drawn from artistic a n d b iblical s ources, and
impri s o ned a n d b o und b o di e s , including S aint S e b a s tian tied
half naked to a tree and p enetrated by arrows . At times the images
in The Cell s e em extremely similar, as though Tarsem has rem ade
this p articular vi deo in order to fit the major themes of thi s
fe ature fil m , and with a much l arger b u d g e t . Finally, in an
attempt to appeal to this broad demographic, the theatrical trailer
for the film makes excessive use of the most striking images from
the time image s ections, focusing especially on J Lo in her various
costumes and b i z arre s ettings . Much a s a music vi deo can he
consi dered a p romotional shop window for a s ong that a record
comp any i s s elling, s o too here does the film's incorpo ration of
the time i m a g e

in this instance deploy e d in ways that are

remini scent o f a music video

also function as eye c atching

advertising for the film.

The Cell also illustrates very clearly Pisters ' contention that
we now exi s t in an era marked by a camera consciousnes s , most
clearly because the workings of the human mind are depicted
exactly in the m anner of an MTV music vide o . Pisters argues that
in the slightly e arlier film Strange Days ( 1 995)

where people are

able to enter the recorde d memories of others through a virtual

reality device called a 's quid'

'the brain has literally b ecome the

s creen' on which it is imp o s sible to tell reality from illusion. J O In

The Cell, once inside the schizophrenic mind of the comato se

Stargher it i s similarly imp o ssible to distinguish between fantasy
and reality, past and present (Stargher's childhood exists alongside

his murdero us adulthoo d ) , and virtual and actual. This hybrid

image, like tho se that Pisters discu s s e s , is also evi dence that we
live in what she calls the 'matrix of visual culture ' , an image
oriented world where our exi stence is increasingly determined
by the reality of image s , or, rather, the indisc ernib ility between
reality and images .
Finally The Cell demonstrates Martin Jon e s ' o b s e rvations
concerning the way in which s uch hybrid films use a disrupted
narrative time scheme to negotiate transformations t o national
identity. In thi s film the increasing intrusion of scientifically
constructed surveillance into contemporary US s ociety is made
to app e a r r e a s s uringly ' s afe ' through the story of a caring
psycho analy s t who willingly enters the minds of others in order
to help them. Emerging in 2 0 00

noticeab ly b efore 91 1 1 raised

the issue of homeland se curity as a major concern in the United

States

The Cell shows a combined team o f FBI and top

scientists , u s ing equipment that effectively has the p ower to

control p e o ple's minds . Significantly, The Cell shows this
technology b eing used only for ' good ' . Unlike the damning portrayal
of the way the media manipulates people's minds seen in Strange

Days, The Cell suggests that p o werful companies p ursuing

scientific r e s earch into various ways of controlling thought, and
state run institutions such as the FBI, are all part of the s ame
protective milieu.
In The Cell, the time image i s very much 'contained ' within
the film, u s e d only to show the 'illogical' workings of the mind.
The discontinuous spaces of the killer's mind are mapp e d by the
psycho analy s t Deane, and eventually a l s o by FBI agent Peter
Novak (Vince Vaughn) , in order to s ave the killer's last victim.
The se two characters from the 'real' world of the movement image
are thus able to triumph over the 'chao s ' repres ented by the time
image, ensuring that the movement image, which still dominates
the US mainstream, retains its normative status . The spatialised
view of time s een typic ally in the movement image is finally

transcendent over a p o tentially destabilising rendering of time

in its pure state, of the confusing l ayers of time of durati on.
Del euze situate d the app earance of the time image in the
peri o d immediately after World War II. This suggests that it was a
form of exp ression in E uropean countries whose p revious sense of
a c ontinuo u s nati o n a l i dentity had b e en interrupted by the
war, their disrupted narratives almost literally repre senting the
suddenly disrupted national narrative of these nations . Throughout
th e C o l d War, and as the Unite d States m aintained and then
strengthened its glob al dominance after World War II, Hollywood
has retaine d the movement image as its dominant form, even
tho ugh the time image occas ionally appears in avant g arde or
independent films . Thu s , when the time image does b egin to
app ear more in films such as The Cell, it is intere sting to see
that it remains a controlled instance of the time image, rather
than a force with the potential to disrupt the overarching linearity
of the film. The time image is intro duced to show how effectively
the Unite d States (through its industry and its security p ers onnel)
c an c o ntrol any threat to disrupt its

dominant image of

national identity.
The fact that Deane's body, with a little help from FBI agent
Novak, is able to map the spaces of the time image is signific ant.
Even in the movement image, discontinuous sp aces appe ar, as in

Die Hard, but the consistent appe arance of the p rotagoni st helps
the viewer map thes e s p aces by fo cusing attention on his/her
ab ility to act. Even when it veers into the territory of the time
image, then, The Cell retains a role for the character from the
movement-im a g e , who g u i d e s

the

sp e c t a t o r through the

d i s c ontinu o u s s p a c e s of the killer's mind. With the p o s sible

exception o f Eternal Sunshin e of the Sp o tless Min d , o f all the
films mentioned ab ove that repres ent the actual world with the
m ovement image and the mental world with the time image, few
feel s e cure enough to allow free reign to the confusion that can
be cau s e d by the time image .

Desp ite the se three m ajor ways in which we can understand

the incre a s e d appe arance of images that contain aspects o f b o th
time image and movement image , a word of caution is necess ary.
B oth Pisters and Martin Jones a cknowl e d g e the dangers of
as suming that all s uch films are equal. In fact, even during the
most bizarre moments when we travel through a killer's mind in

The Cell, the

time-image is constraine d to ensure that it does not

endanger the legitimacy of the m ovement image as the dominant

form of image;

most

o b vi o u s ly,

when

the

time - i m a g e

is

incorporated it is u s e d to repres ent the workings of an ill or

deranged mind. This is an extremely conventional construction for
Hollywood, where a confus ing or frightening mental state is often
intro duced using a cinematic style that c ontrasts with that of the
movement imag e . Thi s was the c a s e , for instan c e , in Hitchcock's

Spellbound ( 1 945) ,

which contained a s urreal dream s e quence

o riginally d e signed by S alvador Dali . ! ! It is n o coincidence that

Stargher's comato s e state i s describ e d as 'like having a dream
and never waking up ' .
In

The Cell,

the final dea dline for s aving the girl retains the

linear p ro gres sion of sp atialised time of the movement image,

while the direct image of time of the time -image is deployed a s a
moment of spectacle within an o therwise conventional narrative.
As D eleuze noted of Fellini's films , in the time-image the child and
the man exi s t contemp oraneously a s the p rotagonist s e arches
through the different l ayers o f his p as t . For D el e u z e thi s
coexistence entailed the possibility of eternal rejuvenation, as 'the
p a s t which i s pres erved takes on all the virtue s of beginning and
beginning again ' . ! 2 In

The Cell,

by contrast, D e ane discovers the

chil d and the man c oexisting in the killer's mind, but is abl e to
' cure' S targher by helping the b oy. After D e ane wounds the
monstrous a dult Stargher, the b oy S targher l e a d s her to the
imprisoned girl, and (after she allows Stargher to visit her in her
mind) when Deane cures the little boy Stargher in a baptism ritual
the mons trous adult side dies for ever. Rather than the p otentia l

for endless change offered by the virtual c oexistence of child and

man in duration envisioned by B ergson, Proust, Deleuze , Ruiz (etc.)
in the time image,

The Cell

reterritorialis e s time into a straight

line by pos iting a p sycho analytic a l origin for the killer's pres ent
s tate in the p a s t . By helping the b oy, D e ane effectively realigns
time into a linear continuum that is rendered as though it were a
cure. This suggests that there is only one 'right' version of the p ast,
and destroys any confusion b etween c o existing p ast and pres ent
(child and manl . and any further potential for change .

Chapter 6

T i m e (a nd) travel
i n televis i o n
Damian Sutton

Up to this p o int, we have l o oked in p a rticular at the plasti city of

representations of time in cinema
of time

cre a t e d

through

the

formations or structurations

fi lmmaking

pro c e s s

and

its

devel opmental history. Even now, with the a dvent o f split s creen
television and film, and with ever more s ophisticated methods of
film narratio n , the idea of time as a logical. linear progre s sion is
hard to res i s t . Indee d , Briti sh TV shows such as the B B C 's

(2004 ).

or the hugely succes sful US Fox show

Hustle

24 (200 1 ).

h ave

gone a long way to repres ent a s ingul ar, fixed, contemporaneous

time through which we all live. When we see slow mo event s , or
actions c ro s s ing each other in split s creen, th e simultaneity
expressed reveals one world, one narrative ,

one ti me .

On the other

hand, flashba cks and non sequential narratives have remained

a s c ontemp o rary staples of cinema and, e s p eci ally, televi s i o n .
Television shows s u c h as C B S 's

Crime Scene Investigation (200 1 )

in the Unit e d States are predicated on flashbacks to reconstruct

the various theories of the p olice investigations , as is the c a s e with
many detective show s . Similarly, Warner Bros' presi denti al drama

The West Wing ( 1 9 99 2006)

often u s e d dis continuous narrative

to develop the backs tory to each character's history of involvement

with the incumbent president, often at times of national cris i s , or
to give analy s i s to a complex political mano euvre .
S o , if television shows carefully develop a clear sense of time a s
a linear progression, even to t h e extent o f following a p articular
day p er epi s o d e

(The West Wing)

or even a day per season

(24) . how

do they succe s s fully maintain a sense of p a s t and future that is

able to interru p t and even inform present actions? Perhaps the
answer lies in D eleuze's ideas ab out our experience of time itself,
and in p articular his reliance on Bergsonian ideas of memory as a
kind of s en s ati o n of time. Deleuze was perhap s m o s t influenced
by Dutch p h i l." s opher B enedictus de Spinoza

( 1 63 2 77) ,

though

the legacy of his work on B ergson can b e seen in so much of his

p hilos o p hy, especially in trying to understand how i t i s that we
c oncep tu alise the continuously changing situati on in which we
l ive. For while Spinoz a gives Deleuze the notion of immanence, it
is B ergs o n 's i d e a of duration that effectively sp arks in him the
d evel opment of a philo s ophy of time . The debt to B ergson is so
s trong that Hardt has suggested that Deleuze's dealing with
Berg s o n really b egan his ' apprenti c eship in philosophy ' . l
First, however, w e need t o consider how w e organis e time . For
Deleuze, the kin d of time that we turn into history does not exi st.
Inde e d , we can only ever live in the p res ent, the infinite simally
small moment that divi des past and future . There is no 'real' past
into which we can travel.

Even to read the last sentence a second

time would n o t give us again the exact experience

we have

chan g e d irreversibly even in the small time it takes for all the
electron s in all the atoms in all our molecules to achieve one
rotatio n . S o , if we do not live in the kind of time that we imagine
as linear and s equenti al, then what do we live in and why do we

create time a s its image? TV shows s uch a s Lost and the recently
revived B B C show

Doctor Who ( 1 963 89, 2005 )

have very different

approaches to thi s , taken from different p oints of view of our

construction of time . For the characters in the US show Lost, there
is a collective here and now with pressing need and demand s ,
which i s informed b y the p ersonal p ast of each individual. They
will illustrate for us the p a s t as memory in a virtual c o existen c e .
For t h e characters i n t h e B B C 's long-running

Doctor Who, however,

it i s time on a fun damental level and on a grand s c a l e that

they exp l o r e .

Doctor Who 's body without organs

C onsi der w h a t it means to o rgani s e our time . We create organs
out of elements of our lives, like organs in a bo dy, which work and
function together. For instance: we make a list of things to do this
day, giving it a logical and reward ing internal structure. This relies
on a given set of situations , however, based on agreement as much
as nature . S o , a unit o f time we c al l a ' day ' requires a night
b eforehand and afterwards : the turning of the E arth and the
rotation around the Sun. It a l s o relies on a certain amount of o u r
o wn wilful ignorance : to m a k e s e n s e of o u r day w e n e e d to ignore
the fact that at midday in London it is already late afternoon in
B aghdad, e arly morning in Washington D C .
This organis ation o f time is ess enti al t o time travel narratives ,
s u c h a s tho s e i n

Doctor Who .

F o r ins tanc e , the travell e r s '

technology i s often o u t of p l a c e , such a s the ghetto b l aster that

turns up in 1 9 63 in 'Remembrance of the D aleks ' ( 1 989). In this c a s e
w e a r e remind e d that, no matter how f a r the Doctor travels, h e i s
always i n our present, and the ability for past, pres ent and future
to c oexist is e s tablished with consi derable e a s e . In other cas e s ,
i t is alien technology that appears futuristic t o u s , when i t i s
transplanted into Victorian London in 'Evil o f the Dalek s ' ( 1 9 6 7 ) ,
Restoration London i n 'The Visitation' ( 1 982), or 1 930s New York i n
'The Daleks i n Manhattan ' (2007). With time mea sured b y culture
and s o ciety, in the univers e of

Doctor Who

we have to rememb e r

that at midday on E a rth it is early m o rning on t h e planet Skaro

and l ate afternoon on the p l anet Tel o s .
If we

return t o o u r regular E arth d ay, p erhaps

most

signifi cantly, t h e day we p l an requires a whole system of lab our

exchange to turn our effort into qu antifiable study or quantifi able
work , into eight hours of labour that will 'earn' us five hours of
free time b efore the day i s out. This i s a 'd ay' that gives figural
shap e to tim e , an organ within a b o dy of organs (days weeks
months, years decades centuries) that i s time as we understand
it. If we took all this away, we would h ave chao s .

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Or would we? In an episode of the 2007 season of Doctor

Who,

' B link' , the Doctor (David Tennant) is a s k e d t o explain time a n d how

it work s . This is b ecause he has recorded a mes s age in the p a s t to
S ally Sp arrow (C arey Mulligan), a person in the present, via a video
playb ack that a p pears to b e 'live ' . What should happen i s that
the m e s s age be sent (like a m e s s a g e in a b ottle) in a one way
directio n, since it is not p o s sible for us to interact with a video
playback. The D octor s eems to interact with S ally as if answering
questions , though. In fact, a transcript of the conversation will be
given to the D o c tor in the future (he i s , of course, a time traveller)
in the knowledge that he will become trapp ed in the p a s t while
trying to defeat a group of monsters called 'the weeping angel s ' ,
living statues w h o kill b y touching people and throwing them b a ck
in time to live in the p as t . The 'D octor's metho d of escape (and the
d efeat of the angel s ) is therefore to set in motion the events that
lead up to Sally di scovering the video disc and thus the m e s sage,
often by contacting people she knows have disappeared. They relay
instructions to her when they meet her as o l d p e o p l e . This piece
o f time travel fantasy appears , from the outset, to have a neat
circular logic, yet what has happened is that the limits that we set
on our organi s e d time have been broken. A d i s tinct s en s e o f the
p a s t (the video m e s s age) exi s t s , but b e c omes indistinguishable
from the present, which i s the future of the Doctor from a p o s ition
that he knows is the p a s t for Sally. What thi s illustrates i s that,
when w e take away organis ation, we are not left with a chaotic
s tructure but, inste a d , one that actually allows a remarkably
smo oth transiti o n from p a s t to pres ent and b ack again. All the
aspects of time

p ast, present and future

are revealed as one time:

The Doctor: People assume that time is a strict progression of ca use to

effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's
more l i ke a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey " . stuff.'

This idea of time a s a 'non linear, non subjective' entity i s what

Deleuze and Guattari would call a b o dy without organs , or B w O .

Introduced in

Anti Oedip us,

the BwO could be s een as Deleuze

and Gu attari 's way of understanding pure sub stance, such as the
human b o dy (the person who b e comes a s ubject) as well as the
collective body of society, the

socius, which b ecomes

a people.3 The

principle is the starting p oint for understanding the personal and

social s ubject. The metho d of analysis they call schizoanaly s i s ,
which understands the individual

or social subject

as

collections

or aggregates , s tems from the BwO.

The BwO i s , for Deleuze and Guattari , a pres u p p o s ition of
identity. Famously, Deleuze and Guattari 's task, spread acro s s the
mammoth two volume work of

Capitalism and Schizophrenia, is

to p rovide an alternative, dynamic way of understanding identity

that resists the rigi d Oedipal structure of p sychoan alysi s . Where
psycho analysis begins with the binary linear relationship of child
and p arent, D eleuze and Guattari uncover a third p osition
BwO

th e

that exists in triangulation. This is the b o dy that will

b e c o m e i d entity, waiting to b e created a s a b o dy over time,

coagul ating and shifting only a s a kind of inevitable ' glacial
reality ' : ' You will b e organized, you will b e an organism, you will
articulate your body . . . " The subject i s forme d over time, and the
impression of s elf a s fixed (as one's true s elf, for instance) i s in
fact a misunderstanding of the way that the subject exi sts and
changes in an awes omely slow path through time.
As a p resupposition, the BwO exists b efore organisation, and
the immediate tendency is to think of it as chaotic or even a s an
empty space. This could not b e further from the truth, however, and
it remains filled with energie s and forces , along with the matter.
The B w O is thus b o th desire and p o tenti ality, an
Furthermore, it i s p redestined t o organis ation
shap e s

awaiting .

i t coalesces into

and s o the b e s t way to unders tand it in its purest

exi stence is as

smooth

at b o th b e ginning and final state .

Political/economic s tructure s , for exampl e , organi s e the b o dy of

the s o cius in order to create their own smooth shap e s : capitalism,
for exampl e, i s a system that tri e s to convert all value into an

exchangeab l e c urrency that can be moved a n d r e d e p l oyed at

will. In o ur lives we are p a i d for our labour in money that can b e
c o nverted t o any currency, that c a n buy objects created b y others ,
and can even buy the value of others ' labour: ' C apital is indeed the
b o dy without organs of the c apitalist, or rather of the capitalist
b eing . "

As we found earlier, the economic philosophers Hardt

and N e g ri h ave l i nke d the smo othing effe c t of c a p ital to the

development of

worl dwi de economy. For them, the 'general

e quivalence of money brings all elements together in quantifiable,

c ommensurable relations . . . C apital tends toward a smooth space
defined by unco d e d flows , flexibility, c ontinual mo dulation, and
tendential equalizatio n . "
The b o dy without organs i s a presupp o s i tion o f form and
meaning , and thus the c l o s e s t Deleuze ever comes to a figural
description of immanence. A smo oth space of p ure movement and
transition, it is imp o s s ible to conceive of without the process of
o rganis ation that will create shapes from it: the smooth space of
the BwO is its elf irresistible. What matters then is its relationship
to organisation, b oth of the p ersonal and s o c i al b o d i e s , and time
i s mark e d out by the machine like creation of a b o dy or a s o cial
s ystem. This is why Deleuze and Guattari are also drawn to the
machine from the very first p ages of

A nti-Oedipus,

since the

machine is an a s s emblage of p arts , an o rganis ation of the b ody,

which p r o d u c e s its own p r o d u c tion as much a s it p r o d u c e s
movement o r o bjects. (Humans a r e not m a d e up of b o dies a n d
m i n d s but are d e s iring machine s . ) T h e p rinciple o f the machine
is what throws the socius toward a smo oth state of the p oliti c a l
s y s t e m , f o r examp le, which remakes i t s e l f after every c ataclysm.
This i s what h a p p ens in an epi s o de of

Doctor Who ,

'The Girl in

the Firep l ac e ' , in which the D o ctor and his c omp anions Rose
(Billie Piper) a n d Mickey ( N o el C l arke) fin d thems elves on a
s p a c e ship that h a s opened a time window to eighteenth c entury
France. Here, the sequentiality of time its elf is b roken as bulkheads
reve al various p oints in the life of one person, the real Madame

de Pompadour (Sophia Myles). C l o ckwork robots service the station

after it is ne arly destroyed in an ion storm, and they repair the
station u s i n g the real organs o f the i nj u r e d c rew (an eye for a
c amera lens , a he art as an electrical relay) . They are awaiting the
moment when Reinette, Madame de Pomp adour, reaches a c ertain
age in order to use her brain a s the station's central computer. The
story is fantasti c , and held together by the D octor and Reinette a s
eventual lovers meeting throughout her life , a s he steps in a n d out
of the station's bulkhead s . As with 'Blink ' , which shared the same
writer Steven Moffat, the tragedy of the s t o ry i s provided by the
varying s p e ed s of the two ' p r e s e nt s ' . In ' B link' victims were
thrown b ac k through time to meet 'young' old fri ends when
thems elve s old and dying, whereas here the D o ctor steps b ack into
the station for a moment only to return after Reinette's death.
The two tim e s s lide uneasily alongside each other, like strata of
differing thicknesses in the same rock.

4. Doctor
Who (2007).

Doctor Who 's

a dventures in the development and evoluti on of

humanity provide a rich example of a television show playing with,

if not actually doing, phil o s ophy. Many of the stories, for instance,
illustrate the varying organis ations of the BwO that Deleuze and
Guattari outline, the ' doubl e s ' that the n a scent BwO might turn
into . The clockwork robots , for example, in reconditioning the
s p aceship, create a

cancerous body that relies

on rote repetition of

form. Thi s is the b o dy that becomes a despotic, totali s ing b o dy,

well represented in

Doctor Who's

m o s t fam o u s monsters , the

D aleks . The b a cks tory given to the D a l eks i n ' Ge n e s i s o f the

D aleks '

( 1 97 5 ) ,

in the middle of the s eries '

1 963 89

first run, has

them a s the product of a fascist style government b ent on b o th

the eradication of the impure and the has tening of their own
evoluti o n . Other a dventures in

Doctor Who

i l l u s trate similarly

c ancerous s o cial b o dies , such as the C yb ermen, who similarly

crave a kind of purity through an absurd renewal of the b o dy. At
first this is pres ented as a willing s o ci etal choice in 'The Tenth
Planet'

( 1 966),

but by the time of the show's revival the Cybermen

firmly demonstrate a horrific physical co option as their primary

method of s ocial growth . The BwO is therefore best explored in

Doctor Who

a s a mirroring of p ers onal and s oc i a l , or, rather,

through a p ersonal b o dy that h a s a responsibility to the social.

O n the other hand, the show often pres ents a full (fulfilled) b o dy,
such as when the D o ctor sp arks revolution by s p e aking directly to
ins ignifi c ant citi z ens in 'The S unmakers '

( 1 978)

or by hastening

their p hysical evolution in ' The Mutants'

( 1 972) .

Finally it i s the

e mp ty o r

vitreo us

B w O , a s a shell rather than s p a c e o f ful l

p otenti ality, t h a t i s pre s ented in t h e two part story 'Human

Nature/Family of B l o o d '

(2007) .

Here ' the family' are formle s s

entitie s w h o inhabit t h e b o dies of others , including s c arecrow s .

They pursue the Doctor, who , i n s etting a trap for them, ironically
does so by using a fantastic device to 'decant' his personality into
a s afe place while his human alter ego, John Smith, b attles against
the alien s . Once revived, however, and understanding that he will

effectively widow Smith's lover, he takes her hand, and together

they fil l the moment (as a BwO in its elf) with the happy life they
would otherwise have had, leading to his own happy, natural death.
At the heart of D eleuze and Gu attari's later treatment of the
b o dy without organs is a philosophy of an ethical life . The key to
this , they suggest, i s ' knowing whether we have it in our means
to make the selection, to distinguish the BwO from its double s :
empty vitreous b o dies , cancerous bodies, totalitarian and fas cist:7
This relies on the continual testing of ideas and futures , o f guesses
made a s to how humanity might turn out, and the presentation
of moral and ethical dilemm a s .

Doctor Who,

like all good s c i ence

fi cti o n , manages thi s through the principal n arrati on of time

travel, in which the past, pres ent and future fill up the b o dy

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without organs .

Getting lost

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Let us assume that in real life we don't have a time travel machine.

If time i s a b o dy without organs in a s tate of full potentiality, then

how i s it that we create the progres sion that we find so nec e s s ary
to unders tand time, to create an image of it with which we are
c omfo rt a b l e ? For D e l e u z e , the answer c a n be fo u n d in the
philos ophy of Berg s o n , and in p articular his work on memory,
and the TV show

Lost

Lost

provid e s a u s eful illustration.

i s a prim e time show made by ABC for US televi s i o n ,

syndicated around t h e worl d , about a group of survivors from

the crash of a pass enger airliner on a Pacific i s l and. The first two
s e a s ons in particular are interesting, since they deal with the
c l a s s i c 'Robinson C ru s o e ' scenari o . They are about the s urvivors
having to come to terms with the crash at first, then with survival,
then with the hope for rescue, and finally with the realis atio n that
res c u e is unlikely. In addition , all the appropriate nightmares of
d e s ert i s l an d life are in p l ay : mysteri o u s monsters and wild
beasts, other shipwreck survivors and res tl e s s natives (here an
unidentifi e d group of white p e o p l e , who may or may not be the

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descendants of shipwrecked convicts ) . When the existence of a

research statio n is discovered, the season's themes begin to include
issues of surveillance, control, spirituality and predestination. In
later seasons the existence of 'Others ' , as well as another island, is
developed, new characters are introduced, and a complex b attle
of wits between new and old inhabi tants ensues. In the first two

seasons , however, the survivors exi st mo stly with their fears and
their memori e s . This i s where the initial success of the show l ay.
For many of the ep i s o d e s , a p articular character is the fo cus ,
and events o n the island are presented i n p arallel with scenes from
their life b efo rehan d. This often includes key moments in their
lives : moments of trauma , moments of happin e s s and moments
of choice. The character Sayid (Naveen Andrews) , for instance, is
an ex Repub lican Guardsman from Ira q , whose involvement on
the is land with rival S awyer (Jo sh Holloway) and later ' o ther'
inhabitant Ben (Michael Emerson) brings b ack traumatic memories
of his days l e arning to torture susp ects , first for the Iraqis and
later for the co aliti on forces after the Iraq War

a story develop e d

over a numb er of episodes.

As survivors o f a plane crash, their memories as emotional
b aggage therefore substitute for their real lost baggage, and only
a few are able to retrieve much of what they travelled with except
for these memories . Occasionally, however, such as when Kate
(Evangeline Lilly) and S awyer appropriate each other's belongings,
it becomes clear that they often share each other's memori e s
because their lives are all already intertwined. Thus the creators o f

Lost hit on a n ideal format t o develop dramatic narrative through

the deve l o p m ent of character s ' b a ckgroun d s , while drawing
out an initially simple des ert i s l an d c oncept. Indeed, for many
ep i s o d e s , very little actually happens on the island, while small
or otherwise insignificant events open up a rich b ackstory.
In many ways the show's episodes run along the lines of
normal flashback s , and characters l earn from their memori e s
much more than facts or faces, a n d instead moral , intellectual or

even spiritual lessons. Thes e are lived memories that unfold when
needed. Only o c c a s i onally do characters seem actually to be
daydreaming in the show, yet the memori e s are deep, clear and
take time. E ach is e s sentially a fulsome illustration of B ergson and
Deleuze's appre ci ation of our existence in duration, an exis tence
given sub stance by memory. Firstly, like B ergson, Deleuze s ees
duration as the b a ckground o r presuppo sition of time. Our actual
time of the present, however, Deleuze recogni s e s as much more
complex. On the one hand the present is always passing, yet on the
other hand it always s e p arates our sense of p a s t and future. In
fac t , i f w e tri e d to divide p a s t from future to fin d the p r e s e n t
m o m e n t we c o u l d never achieve i t , since t h e divi sion w o u l d g e t
s m a l l e r and smaller infinitely. T h i s is b e c a u s e time is not made
u p o f instants in progre s s i o n but i s itself indivisible a s a s ingle
presuppos ition: duration.
What we call the instant, then, i s in fact p sychologically felt as
we try to make sense of the time that will come and the time we
have been through. The instant is a kind of pure subjectivity called

affection,

often misunderst o o d as p ercep tion." Affection divi des

the p a st and the future b e c a u s e it a l s o divi des matter and

intention, cau s e and effe c t , as a series of s ubj e ctiviti e s , as
impuriti e s ' alloye d ' to p erception. Here, D e l e u z e i s relying on
B ergs on's interest in our a b s olutely basic existence as b o dies in
time. Matter, the material world, cre ate s needs or choices upon
which we act. An example of this i s hunger as a

need subjectivity,

which makes a ' h o l e in th e c ontinuity of thing s ' ! We m i s s

s o m ething, we fe el a bit remote or l o s t , a bit empty, and w e
reali s e

(brain subjectivi ty)

(affection-subjectivity) .

w h e r e this ' h o l e ' i s . We 're hungry

We h ave a think and, rememb ering that

there is a fridge in the other room

(recollection subjectivity) ,

we

think to put our book down and go to get s omething tasty from
it

(contraction subjectivity) .

Affe ction is therefore an impurity,

b e c a u s e it is b oth a fe eling and a memory, mixing with o u r

pe rceptions . I n between matter and memory, then, is affection

here

the pang of hunger. For Deleuze , however, the most signific ant
ro l e taken in this s e ries is that of memory, which i s always with
u s , and without which we would not be able to pass from need,
through brain and affection, to contraction. We therefore live
constantly within the 'cerebral interval ' , the gap between affection
and contraction, and that gap is filled to bursting with memory. 10
For Deleuze, then, the usefulness in B ergs on's work is demonstrated
in the realis ation that no t only are we constantly living in memory,

but also that memory itself is the past that we carry with us as a
living present: memory as virtual coexistence.
What thi s means for Lost is that the s eries i s potentially
endless . E ach character's memory is inexhaustible since it is
b rimful of the past, simply waiting to b e oriente d toward the
p resent. Thi s is because each character, as with us all, is living in
a constant p a s s age of affection, is always in a cerebral interval, so
that the smallest and most insignificant 'hole in continuity' has the
p otenti al to provi de an hour of television. Hunger, for instance,
ari ses at first in dis cussions about the airline foo d running out,
or how to c atch fish, but develops into a wider story about s ocial
responsibility and guilt through the character of Hurley (Jorge
Garcia) . An obese, fa st food employee, Hurley is wracked with
guilt ab out an accidental death p o s sibly caused by his weight. In
the episode ' E veryb o dy Hates Hugo ' , he is put in charge of a fo o d
lo cker found in a res earch station, a situation that causes h i m t o
remember h i s past a n d the day h e w o n the lottery. This w a s also a
situation of potential change and personal or s ocial responsibility,
and the epi s o de p l ays out his anxieties via his dreams as well as
his fl ashb ack s . In a l ater ep i s o d e , ' D ave ' , after Hurley has
eventually dis tributed the food, a ration crate i s parachuted onto
the i s l and, this time causing him to remember his period in a
ment al instituti on as a result of his guilt and conse qu ent
overe ating. In s u m , Hurley's guilt ab out this accident, his
overwhelming worries about social responsibility, tinged also
with guilt about survival (he is often the one to conduct the eulogy

over dead comrades) , are lived through as memories , bundled with

real needs in the present s ituati o n .
If we live in memory, how do we go a b o u t s electing the
c o rrect memori e s for the p r e s e n t situ ati on? F urthermore, if
memory i s a virtual coexis tenc e , then from where do we get the
impression of going b a ck i n time? What makes a fl a shback s e em
like a fl ash

back?

For instance ,

Lost

uses very limited on s creen

i n d i c ations of memory, often with the simp l est indic ation that
the a ction is off the island. O therwise, many epi s o des start with a
character lo oking directly in the air, although this may or may not
b e in that character's past. Nonetheles s , when watching television
shows such as Lost, as with our own memories , we immediately get
a s en s e of pastnes s , even b efore plotlines b ecome clear. This i s
b e c ause, as Bergson and Deleuze note, w e leap into memory, rather
than recompo sing the p a s t : 'We place ours elves at once in the
element of sense, then in a region of this element . ' l l So memory
i s , in a s ense, like getting l o s t in an unfamiliar forest, as so many
of Lost's characters do. At first we s e n s e s imple difference
different place

b efore getting our bearings as we receive more

information. The perio d of disorientati on that many of the

characters exp erience in e p i s o d e s b eginning in flashb ack is an
i l l u s tration of thi s , but thi s

is

a l s o reflected in our own

dis orientation as we try to make s ense o f the story unfolding as

m o re and more snippets of fl a s hb ack are revealed. We get l o s t in
their memories , and gradually get our b earings . This is especi ally
the c a s e with the chara cter of L o cke ( Terry O ' Quinn) , who s e
intermittent p araplegia m e a n s that h i s fl ashbacks a r e the m o s t
d i s o ri enting, making h i s p sychological development in the series
p erhaps the most complex. A similar situation obtains with Korean
couple Sun (Daniel Dae Kim) and Jin (Yunjin Kim) , who se memories
e a ch n arrate two very different a s p ects of the s ame story, often
with the who le of previous ep i s o d e s given new meaning as each
o f the troubled lovers ' memories are s h own to us. While this
emp hasises ab ove all the p ersonal and unreliable nature o f all

memory, in p a rtic u l ar it demonstrates how memory is cho sen

b ecau s e of its us efulness to the present. When, in fla shback, Sun is
ab out to leave her relationship with Jin by l e aving him boarding

the doomed flight at the airport, it is her memori e s we see when

she needs them to inform her present situation on the island. Later
it becomes c l e ar that we have not s een all that occurs at the
airport

that Jin, a mob enforcer for Sun's father, has been m a d e

aware of her affair a n d h e r plan to escap e . This awareness prompts

from him the first of a series of attempts at reconciliation that will

c ontinue o n the island as they b ecome a s tronger coup l e .
While s o m e of the e arly ep i s o d e s might h ave c entred on
o therwis e mino r 'holes in continuity' for the characters , such a s
hunger, a continue d focus on the s eemingly insignificant would b e
dizzyingly boring. As would be expected, many o f the flashb acks i n

Lost are increasingly

oriented toward graver and graver situations,

entailing new moments of choice, new happiness, new trauma, and

the interweaving lives of the passengers is revealed in more detail.
We have to understand this orientation of the memory toward the
present s ituation as one of us efulness

a literal orientation, in

fact. Memori e s are required to inform the present, and so reveal

new ideas, new p aths to take . This i s the case for drug lord Mr
Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaj e ) , who s e memory quite literally
s p e aks to him via the app arition of his brother Yemi. B e c ause we
already live in memory, it is recollection that is directing o r
g u i ding p er c e p ti o n . When we a r e troub l e d we ' appeal

to

recollection' to inform us . 1 2 Memory responds in two movements :

' [Olne of translation, by which it moves in its e ntirety to meet
exp erience, thus c ontracting more o r less . . . a n d the other of
rotation upon its elf, by which it turns toward the s ituation of the
moment, pres enting to it that side of its elf which may prove to b e
the most useful . ' " Memory therefore app ears t o act i n the manner
of an old jukebox, or in the s ame way that we might choose o l d
rec ords on a gramophone . W e make a s election (app eal to the past),
the machine picks the record, turns it over s o the correct side

faces u s , and p l ays us what we want to hear. Indeed, the research

station that the survivors find in season two of Lost has an o l d
record player, who se accomp anying collection o f records from the
1 960s and 1 970s suggests that the station is long abandoned. Jus t
like B ergson a n d Deleuze's jukebox memory, however, this record
player i s a red herring: the station has been manned throughout
the intervening period, with new pers onnel arriving within the
l ast few years . We need to remember the sp atial description of
memory. We get lost ( a p p e al ) , but b egin to understand our
surroundings (translation, contraction) and cho o s e which way to
explore (rotation/orientation) . It is we who orient ourselves toward
memory, within memory, not the other way around.
The characters ' memories therefore mark out their time on the
island, and the only clock available is a countdown mechanism set
at the o d d interval of 108 minutes, which requires res etting by
entering a code into a computer in the research station. For Locke ,
Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and Mr Eko, the choice to p ress the
button is one that arises from their memories, which inform their
decisions . Perhaps the most brutal sense of memory's usefulness is
in the case of Sayid. His memory of learning to commit acts of torture
do not so much create new trauma for him as remind him how to do
it

taking him through the same choices, the s ame personal p ains ,

the same urgency that he faces in the present: to extract information

through violence in order to save other lives. It is from memory that
he perceives the opportunity and necessity to carry it out, however.
The example of Sun and Jin simil arly demons trates that the
usefulness of memory is based on present action, rather than
objective truth , and, as viewers , we are asked to as sume that their
memories are not complicated by illne s s , for example, as Hurley's
are . Nevertheles s , the show's relatively flat depiction of flashback
leads us to assume a presupposed subjective truth, which is affect.
In watching Lost it is not necess arily important to know th at we
are seeing the whole past, but simply that we understand why
the se characters are searching for these memories in the fores t .

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Conclusion : Reframing D eleuze

Ultimately, Deleuze's is a

productive phil o s ophy, o n e that

should

engender creative thought. For that rea s o n , Deleuze has become

p o p u l a r with arti s t s e s p e c i ally, and with cre ative in divi duals
more generally. As authors we think, for instance, that D eleuze i s
indi s p en s able t o t h e creative indivi dual . Thi s d o e s not m e a n that
every creative act can b e phil o s o phical, however, o r even that we
will know it to be able to create it. If it did, then we would end up
like Ranciere's aimle s s artists , endlessly pushing the m aterials
around, endlessly making only material decisions in the vain hope
that one day we might break the cliche. We might imagine that we
can create concept s , but in fact we would have given up aesthetic
thought. If we try to endles sly create , endles sly repeat creation,
then we will not be the engineers of situations we need to b e in
order t o really create the conditions from which a new concept
will ari s e . How, then , can D eleuze's philosophy b e truly us eful?
Deleuze's is a philos ophy of the s o ci ety yet to come, and it
starts with a philosophy of life itself. This is the p owerful life
that exists under the skin of things, the very principle of substance.
Throughout Deleuze's philos ophy there is a s trange insistence, a
thunderous heartb eat who s e throbs are felt in the philos ophy of
b e coming, of duration, and the instant, and in the inevitability of
deterritorialis ation and reterritorialis ation. This is the sound
m a d e by Deleuze's thinking on immanence

thinking it for u s ,

gra sping it a s a fact s o that w e might glimp s e it a s he doe s .

Deleu z e 's philos ophy i s marked b y the fact that life i s happening,
life simply

is,

and this should stiffen our resolve to cre ate a better

formati o n . It requires being watchful and c areful in a creative

s ort of way.
We started here by l o o king at the rhizome as a principle of
organi s ation as well a s a p rincip le of action. Through D eleuze's
philosophy we s aw how the p atterns o f s o c i ety emerge a s
arb ore s c e n t fo rms

based

on

simp l e , l i n e a r hierarchi e s

transfonnations of a principle of difference into structure . We also

cons idere d the powers of deterritorialis ation that exist in cultural
activity and formati on, res i s tant p owers that have the ability to
di s a ssemble hierarchie s . We were also forced t o cons ider the
in evitab i lity o f reterrito rialisation, however, the p owers that
m o l ar formations

capitalist p atriarchy, for instance

h ave in

recuperating or co opting tho se p owers of deterritorialisation. It is

all too e a s y for resistance and opposition to become p art of the
mainstream. We looked at thi s first in video games and the logic of
achievement that trains the gamer for capitalism, and then in the
structures of the Internet, which foster a s ense of resistance that can
s o easily b ecome p art of c apitalist culture o r insidious nihili sm.
The p owers of deterritorialisation still exist, however, and
s o , as a p o liti cal philos o p hy, Deleuze and Guattari's rhizomatic
thinking requires effort and watchfulnes s , and most of all an
awarenes s of the continu al change that supplies the imp etus for
growth fo r th e rhizome or the tre e . This growth is the trace of
insistent change, the constant coming into being, o r becoming. We
l o oked at this from the p o int of view of the artwork, illustrating,
for instance, the creation of canonical 'molar' artworks and artists
from even the most exciting of p otential resistance . We also looked
at the ways in which filmmakers , for examp l e , disassemble from
within the majoritarian language with which they work, by making
cinema stutter and stammer. In the end we demonstrated how
the s e practi c e s

require

the

engineering of situati ons , the

c oordination of the material (film, concrete, found objects) and the

contingent (l anguage, me aning, s ocial interacti on) , in order to
create artworks that last the test of time. These practices make use

of b e coming itself, the insis tent change that offers the p ot enti al
for p olitical change , for examp l e , in playing film l angu a g e in

minor key, subtly affecting and reforming it from within. The key
to creating lasting artworks and films is to realis e that sensational
effect n ever actually l a s t s , and n ever actually sp eaks t o new
situati o n s , and instead to reali s e the need t o address the very
change in situati ons themselve s .
This l e d us o n t o deal with the thundering insistence that gives
change itself substance , the impetus of life . D eleuze identified
thi s as immanen c e , a b out which w e c an know but never think ,
never give a repre s entation. We can experience it only through the
open-ended durati on in which we exist. Thi s immanenc e is the
sub stance o f durati o n itself, and duration i s thus the trace in
thought left by the knowledge of immanence. We found that w e use
time to make sense of immanence, to give it some sort of shape in
our lives . We found this when l o o king at televi s i on's depictio n of
time, whether exp eri enced o n a grand scale a s history or s en s ed
as the p astne s s of memory and refl e ction. Tim e travel narratives
dismantle the b o undaries of p ast and pres ent to reve al the
smo oth immensity o f duration. Thriller narratives , on the other
hand, reveal how our lives are experienced through memory, which
orients u s to the p re s s ing matters at hand. We also encountered
this notion of 'making s en s e of time' in Deleuze's brilli ant analysis
of cinema and its two images of time. One, the movement-image, is
b a s e d on the movement of objects in space to create a narrati on
system of caus e and effect. The other, the time image, offers u s the
virtual whole of time, exp erienced through the collapse of p a s t and
present, o r through the unfolding of a moment to reveal multiple
p aths and labyrinthine p o s s ibilities . We found, however, that the
time image had develo p e d from industrial and cultural situations
in oppositi on to Hollywoo d's main stream filmmaking ( a n d its
reliance

upon the

movement image) ,

and

was

a d o p t e d by

mainstream filmmakers to present within narratives now ' c l a s s i c '

ideas of subj ective o r ab errant time i n cinema's hybrid image s .

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Once again, Deleuze's phil o s o p hy requires a watchful eye toward

the p owers of reterritorialis ation.
Overall, we have trie d to demonstrate how vis u al culture , in
particular media forms such as video g ame s , the Internet, cinema,
television and art, frame our world for us . Media forms help us
make sense of some of our m o s t b asic intuitions

that we are in

time, that we are in s ociety, that we form an i dentity, and that we

change and are a p art of change. The greatest valu e in Deleuze 's
phil o s ophy is that it provides us with analytical and conceptual
tools to see and understand this framing of our world through
visual culture .
S o , finally, how c a n we go ab out p utting D eleuze's philo s op hy
to new work? We have attempted in this guide to illustrate some of
Deleuze's key ideas in a manner that will allow them to continue to
be us eful for the new thinkers who will be b rought into being by
the new social, political and arti stic situations that occur. We have
written this to app e al to the new thinker who refuses to just p l ay
a video game, who refuses to just surf the net, and who refu s e s to
sit b ack and simply watch. We have written this als o , however, to
appeal to the thinker who is not satisfied with mere resistance and
opp o sition to what he or she sees as s ocial inequality or inequity,
s i n c e mere

o p p o sition

can

only

res tate

the

p rincip l e s

of

difference themselves . W e have written this to appeal t o the artist

who does not want simply to make phil o s o phical art, but who
wants to engineer the conditions of the situation and the material
so that the artwork will create resonances with philos ophy and be
truly monumental .
D eleuze's is a pro ductive phil o s ophy, and to b e truly creative
the new thinker n e e d s to adopt some of the tacti c s that D eleuze
himself adopted: go to the s ources , keep asking questions , look for
new concepts and i d e a s in the m aterial. The new thinker mus t
l o o k for n e w formations and n e w organi s ations, within which t o
p l ay in a minor key. Deleuze's phil o s o phy i s kept current b y h i s
interaction w i t h p h i l o s ophers fro m k e y p oints in intellectual

history, and this accounts for his crucial p o s i t i o n in the

intersection o f visual culture with a new and emergent society
of the image. His work promises fruitful new collaborations and
relationships with contemporary phil osophers and other cre ative
individual s . His ideas are there to be developed by other thinkers
who wish to engage them with similar precision and integrity, as
he himself engaged others with both verve and diligence. Deleuze's
work is tes tament to philos ophy as a conversation in progre s s ,

discussion in which ideas are c ontinually reframed, retested and

questioned anew. This means that we feel it is important to keep
returning to D eleuze, to develop his philosophy and to continue to
encounter it anew. This is at the core of his relationship with
B ergson, for instance, or in his working collaboration with Guattari .
Working with Deleuze is an exp erience that is never the s ame
twi c e , b e c au s e D e l euze's philos ophy informs fo r situ ations in
continual change, and in fact helps express and understand that
change in itself. As authors, for instance, we have so much more to
do, and the task that we have given ourselves (in our own projects
a s well as ones such as this) is an ongoing one. One aim is to l o ok
at new configurations of Deleuze and other thinkers , past and
future. Another is to look at new creative forms and other creative
medi a , considering the ways in which they give ri s e to new
concepts , or how they reconfigure exis ting ones in new situations .
To do this we need to go to the s o urces , reading tho se we haven't
read b efore, trying new ones that app ear as exciting new thinkers
encounter Deleuze for the first time. We aim, above all, to make full
use of Deleuze's productive and creative philosophy. C are to join us?

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Notes

Foreword

Ian Buchanan, Intro duction to A Deleuzian Century?, special issue,

South Atlantic Q uarterly, vol. 96, no. 3 ( 1 997 ) , 389.
Gi l le s Deleuze and Felix Gu attari , What Is Philosop hy?, tran s .
Graham B urchell a n d H u g h Tom l i n s o n (New York, NY: C o lumb i a
University Pres s , 1 994) .

John Rajchman,

The Deleuze Connections

( C ambri dge, MA:

MIT

Pre s s , 2000). 1 1 5 .
4

Ibid.

Pa rt One: I ntrodu ction

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A

schizophrenia,
2

Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and

trans . B rian Mass umi, 3rd edn (London: Athlone, 1 99 6 ) .

Ibi d . , 2 1 .

Ibi d . , 6 7 .

I b i d . , 9.

Ibid . , l O .

Ihid.

G i l l e s Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A n ti Oedipus: Cap italism a n d

schizophrenia (Milleap olis, MN: University o f Minnesota Press, 1 983). 5 1 .

Ib i d . , l l 2 .

For a fuller discus sion of the influence of May 1 96 8 on D eleuze's

thought, see D. N. Rodowick,

Reading the Figural, or Philosophy after

the New Media (Durham, NC:

Duke University Pres s , 200 1 ) . 1 70 202 . For

a more general discussion of this time period on Deleuze and Guattari's

thought, see Michel Fouc ault's introduction to

Anti Oedipus,

xi xiv.

Cha pter 1
Much of this is a summary of information contained in Steven Poole,

Trigger Happy (New York, NY: Arcade, 2000); Steven L. Kent, The Ultimate
History of Video Games (New York, NY: Three Rivers Pres s , 200 1 ) ; Mark

J. P. Wolf and B e rnard Perron (edsl.

The Video Game Theory Reader

Videogames ( L o n d o n :

(London: Routledge, 2 0 0 3 ) ; James Newman,

Routledge, 2 004); a n d John Kirriemuir, ' A History of Digital Game s ' , i n

Understanding Digital Games, eds J a s o n Rutter and J o Bryce (London:

S age, 2006), 2 1 3 5 .
2

Kirriemuir, 'A His tory of Digital Game s ' , 2 3 .

Poole,

Andreas Huy s s e n ,

ww. gamestudi e s . org.

Trigger Happy, 1 8 2 0 .
After the Great Divide: Modernism, mass culture
and postmodernism (London: Macmillan, 1 9 86), 44 6 2 .
Gill e s Deleuze,

Cinema 2: The time image

( 1 9 8 5 l . tran s . Hugh

Tomlinson and R o b ert Galeta , 2nd edn (London: Athlone, 1 9 94), 1 3 1 ;

Jorg e Louis B o r g e s , 'The Garden of Forking Path s ' , in

Labyrin ths

(London: Penguin , 1 96 2 ) , 44-54.

7

Newman,

B arry Atkins , More

Videogames, 1 08 9 .
than a Game (Manchester:

Manchester University

Pres s , 2003), 59 60.

'0
(I)

E
2
Qj

Gonzalo Fras c a , 'Simulation versu s Narrative' , in Wolf and Perron

(eds),

10

The Video Game Theory Reader,

221 35.

There has b een s ome very justifiable criticism of t h e i d e a that garners

actually create a 'community' as such, b ecause communities usu ally

a:
(I)
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h ave ' ethical dimensions' rather than simply b e ing a group o f people
who communicate virtually, as is the case in gaming communities. For
a fuller discussion of this deb ate, see Martin Hand and Karenza Moore,

Gi

Q
0
..,

' G aming , I dentity and Digital G arn e s ' , in Rutter and B ryce ( e d s ) ,

Understanding Digital Games,

11

1 66 82, 1 73.

Miroslaw Filiciak, ' Hyp eridentities ' , in Wolf a n d Perron (edsl.

Game Theory Reader,

The Video

87 1 0 2 , 9 7 .

1 2 F o r a more in depth examination of LAN parties, see H a n d a n d Moore,

' G aming, I dentity and Digital Games ' , 1 68 6 9 .
13

Filiciak, ' Hyp eri dentiti e s ' , 9 0 .

1 4 Kirriemuir, ' A History o f Digital Game s ' , 3 3 .

15

J o Bryce a n d Jason Rutter, 'Sp ectacle of the Deathmatch', i n ScreenPlay:

Cinema, videogames, interfaces, eds

Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska

(London: Wallflower, 2002) , 6 6 80, 6 9 .

16

B ryce a n d Rutter, ' S p ectacle of t h e Deathmatch' , 7 5 .

1 7 F o r a fuller analysis of this argument, see S u e Morri s , 'First person

Shoo ters

A Game Apparatus ' , in King and Krzywinska ( e ds ) ,

ScreenPlay: Cinema, videogames, interfaces,

8 1 97.

18

Morri s , ' First person Shooters

19

Jo Bryce and Jas o n Rutter, 'Digital Games and the Violence Debate' , in
Rutter and B ryce (eds),

A Game Apparatu s ' , 94.

Understanding Digital Games, 2 05

22, 207 1 1 .

20

Poole,

21

Ibi d . , 2 3 5 .

22

Ibi d . , 208 9 .

23

Ibid . , 1 7 .

Trigger Happy,

177.

24

Ibid . , 1 80- 1 .

25

Bryce and Rutter, 'Digital Games and the Violence Debate ' , 2 0 8 .

26

D erek A. Burrill, 'ah, Grow U p 0 0 7 ' , i n King a n d Krzywinska ( e d s ) ,

ScreenPlay: Cinema, videogames,

27

interfaces,

1 8 1 93, 1 82 .

Mia C onsalvo, 'Hot Dates and Fairy tale Romances' , i n Wolf and
(eds ) , The Video Game Theory R eader,

28

Po ole,

29

Gonzalo Frasca, 'Sim Sin City : Some thoughts about Grand

Trigger Happy,

Perron

1 7 1 94, 1 8 8 .

208 1 1 .

Th eft Auto

3', Game Studies, vol . 3, no. 2 (2003): www.gamestudies. org/0302/frasca

(acce s s e d 26/6/200 6 ) .

Chapter

Deleuze and Guattari ,

A Thousand Plateaus, 2 7 0 .

Deleuze and Gu attari ,

Wh a t Is

Ibid.

Gisle Hannemyr, 'The Internet as Hyp erb o l e : A critical examination of

Arturo E scob ar, 'Welcome to Cyberia: Notes on the anthropology of

Tim Jordan, 'Language and Libertarianism: The p olitics o f cyberculture

adoption rate s ' ,

cyb erculture',

Philosophy?, 5 9 .

The Information Society,

Current A n thropology,

and the culture of cyberpolitic s ' ,

vol . 1 9 (2003). 1 1 4-- 1 5 .

vol . 3 5 , no. 3 ( 1 9 94). 2 1 4 .

Sociological

Review, vol . 49, n o . 1

(200 1 ) , 9.
7

Hans Magnus Enzensb erger, ' C onstituents of a Theory of the Media

( 1 9 7 0) ' , in

Raids and R econstructions

(London: Pluto Pres s , 1 9 7 6 ) .

2 0 53 , 2 2 .
8
9

Ibi d . , 34-5 .
Louis Althu s s e r, 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatu s e s (Notes
towards an Inves tig ation) ( 1 9 6 9) ' , in

Lenin and Philosophy, trans.

B en

Brews ter (London: New Left Books, 1 9 7 1 1 . 1 2 7 88, 1 4 6 .

1 0 Enzensberger, ' C onstituents of a Theory o f t h e Media' , 3 2 .

11

Charlie Brooker,

TV Go Home,

1 4 July 2000, www.tvgohom e . com/

1 40 7 2000.html (accessed 2 0 / 1 0/2006 ) .

12

Enzensb erger, ' C onstituents of a Theory o f t h e Media' , 3 7 .

13

.http: //www.whoislupo. com/

almost an object lesson i n how n o t to

do thi s ' , Need to Know, 16 N ovember 2 00 1 , ww.ntk. net/200 1 l 1 1 1 l 6

(accessed 2011 0/200 6 ) .
14

McKenzie Wark, 'Information Wants to be Free ( B u t is Everywhere i n

Chains)"

Cultural Studies,

vol. 20, nos 2 3 (2006) , 1 6 5 83, 1 7 2 .

o
z

15

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire ( C ambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 2 00 1 ) , 3 26 7 .

16

E i l een R. Meehan, "'H o ly C ommodity Feti sh, B a tman ! " : The p o litical
economy of a commercial intertext' , in Rob erta Pearson and William
Uricchi o , The Many Lives of the Batman (eds), (London: Routledge/
British Film Institute , 1 9 9 1 ) , 47 6 5 , 54.

Pa rt Two: Introduction
Gilles Deleuze, T h e Fold: Leibniz and t h e baroque, trans. Tom C onley
(London: Athlone, 1 99 3 ) , 1 9 .
Thousand Plateaus, 232 309.

Deleuze and Guattari,

Ibi d . , 2 3 6 .

R o s i B r a i d o tti, Patterns of Dissona nce: A s t u dy of wo men in

contemporary philosophy, trans. Elizabeth Guild (London: Polity Pres s ,

1 99 1 ) . 1 2 1 .
5

Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 24 l .

Ibi d . , 2 5 3 .

Ib i d . , 2 5 7 .

Cha pter 3
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a minor literat ure
(Minneapoli s , MN: University of Minnesota Pre s s , 1 9 8 6 ) , 1 6 .
2

Ibid., 24 5 .

Deleuze and Guattari , A Tho usand Plateaus, 1 04 .

Ibid.

Ibid.

Deleuze, Cinema

Ibid., 2 1 5 24.

Ib i d . , 2 1 7 .

Ib i d . , 2 1 5 1 6 .

2, 2 1 8 .

10

Deleuze a n d Guattari, Kafka, 1 7 .

11

D . N. Rodowick, Gilles Deleuz e 's Ti m e Mach in e (Durham, N C : Duke

University Pres s , 1 9 9 7 ) . 1 53 .

12
13

Ibi d . , 1 6 2 9 .
Mette Hjort, Small Nation: Global cinema (Minne apolis, MN: University
of Minnesota Pres s , 2005); D avid Martin Jon e s , ' O rphans, a Work of
Minor C inema from Post devolutionary Scotland ' , Jo urnal of British
Cinema and Television, vol. 1 , no. 2 ( 2 004) . 2 2 6 4 1 ; B i l l Marshall,
Q uebec National Cinema (Montreal: McGill Queen's University Pre s s ,
200 1 ) ; H a m i d Naficy, A n A ccented Cinema : Exilic a n d diasporic
filmmaking (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Pre s s , 200 1 ) ; Laura U.

Marks, The Skin of the Film: Intercultural cin ema, embodiment and

the senses (Durham, N C : Duke University Press, 2000); Meaghan Mo rris ,

Too Soon Too Late: History in popular culture (B loomington : Indi a n a
University Press, 1998); Alison Butler, Women 's Cinema: The contested
screen (London: Wallflower, 200 2 ) ; Belen Vidal, 'Playing in a Minor Key',
in Books in Motion: Adaptation, intertextuality, authorship, ed. Mireia
Aragay (Amsterdam: Rodolphi, 2005) .
14

Geoff King, American

Independent Cinema

(London: I.E. Tauri s , 2005),

2 22 49; Glyn Davi s , ' C amp and Queer and the New Queer Director:
C as e study

Gregg Araki ' , in

New Q ueer Cinema: A Critical Reader,

e d . Michele Aaron (E dinburgh: E dinburgh Univers i ty Pres s , 2 0 0 4 ) ,

53 6 7 .
15

King,

A merican Independent Cinema, 8 3 , 23 5 6; Katie

The R o a d Movie Book, e d .

' R evitalizing the R o a d Movi e ' , in

Mills,
Steven

C ohan and Ina Rae Hark (London: Routledge, 1 99 7 ) , 308 13; James

M.

Moran, ' Gregg Araki: Guerrilla film maker for a queer generation', Film

Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 1 (19 9 6 ) , 1 8 26 , 1 9 2 0; Kylo Patrick R. H a rt,

"'Auteur/Bricoleur/Provocateur": Gregg Araki and postpunk style in the
Doom Generation', Journal ofFilm

and Video, vol. 55, no. 1 (2003) 3 0

Film Comment, vo l .

3 3 ; and Chris Chang , 'Ab sorbing Alternative' ,

8,
3,

n o . 5 . 47 53 , 5 3 .
16
17

F o r a fu ll d i s c u s s i o n of thi s s e quen c e , see Kaja Si lverm a n ,

Male
Subjectivities at the Margins (London: Routledge, 19 92) , 90 1 06 .
S . F . S a i d , ' C l o s e Encounters ' , Sight and Sound, vol. 1 5, no. 6 (2005), 3 2 .

Cha pter

Deleuze and Guattari,

Gregg Lamb ert,

What Is Philosophy?, 1 7 2 .
The Non philosophy of Gilles Deleuze

..,
..,

(Lo n d o n :

C ontinuum, 2002) , 152 .

A Thousand Plateaus, 2 9 1 .

Deleuze and Guattari,

Kobena Mercer, 'Imaging the Black Man's S ex', in

1tvo,

PhotographylPolitics

ed. Patricia Holland, Simon Watney and Jo Spence (London:

C omedia, 1 9 8 6 ) , 6 1 .
5

Richard Meyer, 'The Jes s e Helms Theory of Art' ,

(200 3 ) , 13 1 -48 , Steven C. Dubin,

uncivil action

October, no. 1 04
Arresting Images: Impolitic art and

(London: Routledge, 1 9 9 2 ) .

Meyer, 'The Jesse Helms Theory of Art' , 1 4 2 .

Dubin,

Ib i d . , 1 8 8.

Mercer, 'Imaging the B lack Man's Sex ' , 6 3 .

10

Ib i d .

Arresting Images,

11 D eleuze a n d Guattari ,
12

Ib i d .

II

187

A Thousand Plateaus, 2 9 1 .

13

Juha Pekka Vanhatalo , 'Coco Fusco

Magazine,

Life under Surveillance ' ,

Kiasma

no. 12 (200 1 ) , ww.kiasma.fi/index.php?id= I 7 2&FL= I &L= 1

(accessed 2 3 /0 1 /2007) .
14

Del euze and Guattari ,

15

Deleuze and Guattari,

16 Del euze and

What Is Philosophy?, 1 9 l .
A Thousand Plateaus, 300.
Guattari, What Is Philosophy?, 1 8 2 .

17

Ib i d . , 1 6 9 .

18

Ibi d . ,

19

Nicholas B o urriaud,

193.

Relational Aesthetics

(Paris: Les pres s e s d u reel,

200 2 ) , 14.
20

Ibi d . , 1 9 .

21

Ibi d . , 2 0 .

22

Ibi d. , 4 l .

23

Jacques Ranciere ,

sensible,
24

The Politics of Aesthetics: The distribution of the

tran s . Gabriel Rockhill (London: C ontinuum, 2004) , 1 3 .

Deleuze and Guattari,

What Is Philosophy?,

1 76.

Pa rt Three: I ntro d u ction

See Henri B ergson,

Time and Free Will: An essay on the immediate

data of consciousness ( 1 8 8 9 ) , trans . F. L. Pog s on (Mineola, NY: Dover,
200 1 ); Matter and Memory ( 1 8 9 6 ) , trans. N ancy Margaret Paul and W.
Scott Palmer, 5th edn (New York, NY: Zone, 1 996); Creative Evolution
( 1 907). trans . Arthur Mitchell (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1 9 98); and
Duration and Simultaneity ( 1 92 1 ) . trans. Robin Durie and Mark Lewis
(Manchester: C linamen Pres s , 1 9 9 9 ) .

Cinema 2, 274.
Matter and Memory, 1 6 2.
B ergson, Creative Evolution, 2 .

Ibid, 4 5 .

Deleuze,

Bergson,

Cha pter 5
Andre B azin,

What is Cinem a ?,

vol. II, trans. Hugh Gray, 2nd e dn

(Berkeley, C A : University of California Press, 1 9 7 1 ) , 76 7; David Bordwell

and Kristin Thompson, Film History: An

introduction, 2nd edn (Boston,

MA: Mc Graw Hill , 2003), 364.

Cinema 2, l .
Cinema 2, 1 3 1 ; B org es, 'The Garden of Forking Path s ' , 44 54.
Cinema 2, 1 0 1 ; Ro dowick, Gilles Deleuze 's Time Machine,

Deleuze,

D eleuze,

Deleuze,

Deleuze,

Anna Powell,

1 00 8 .

Cinema 2, 1 03 .
Deleuze a n d Horror Film

University Pres s , 2005) .

(E dinburgh: E dinburgh

Deleuze,

Patricia Pisters , The Matrix of Visual Culture: Working with Deleuze

Ibi d . , 3 4. For a detailed exp l anation of the c rystal of time s e e ,

in film

Cinema

2, xi.

th eory ( S tanfo r d ,

Deleuze,

Cinema

CA: Stanford Un ive rs i ty Pres s , 2003) 43-4.

2, 6S 9 7 .

10

Pisters , The Matrix of Visual Culture, 44.

11

For a greater discussion of Spellbound and several other famous dream

lZ

Deleuze,

s e quenc e s , s e e Deleuze , Cinema 2, 57 S.

Cinema

2, 92.

Cha pter 6
Michael Hardt,

Gilles Deleuze: An apprenticeship in philosophy

(Minneapolis , University of Minnesota Press, 1 99 3 ) .

2

A later

p art of the convers ation rep eats : Sally: 'Let me get my head

round this: you're reading aloud from a transcript of a conversation

you're still having?' The Do ctor: 'Uh . . . wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . :
3

Deleuze and G uattari ,

Dele.uze and Guattari ,

Ibid.

Hardt and Negri ,

Deleuze and Guattari ,

Anti Oedipus, 1 0 .
A Thousand Plateaus,

1 59 .

Empire, 3 2 7 .
A Thousand Plateaus, 1 65 .
Bergson, Matter and Memory, 5 8 .
Gilles Deleuze, Bergsonism ( 1 966), tran s . Hugh Tomlinson

10

Ibi d . , 5 3 .

11

Ibi d . , 5 7 .

lZ

Ibi d . , 6 3 .

13

Bergson,

Habb erjam (New York, NY: Zone, 1 99 7 ) , 5 Z .

and B arb ara

'"
<D

15
z

."
..,

Matter and Memory,

1 68 9.

S elect bibliography

When we have made reference to works by Deleuze we have used the

imprint we have to hand. For this bibliography we have put Deleuze's
major work in chronological order, with each book's year indicated.
By Gilles Deleuze

Empiricism and Subjectivity: An essay on Hume's theory of human nature,

1 953, trans. Constantin V. B oundas New York, NY: Columbia University

Pres s , 1 9 9 1 .
1 9 6 2 , tra n s .

Nietzsche a n d Philosophy,

Hugh Tomlinson, London:

Athlone, 1 9 83,

Kan t 's Critical Philosophy: The doctrine of the faculties,

1 963, trans. Hugh

Tomlinson and Barbara Habb erjam, London: Athlone, 1 9 9 5 ,

Proust and Signs,

Bergsonism,

1 964, trans. Richard Howard, New York,

NY: Braziller, 1 972.

1 9 66, trans . Hugh Tomlinson and B a rbara Habb erjam, New

York, NY: Zone, 1 9 9 7 .

Difference and Repetition,

1 9 6 8 , tran s , Paul Patton , 2 n d e dn, London:

Athlone, 1 9 9 7 ,

The Logic of Sense,

1 9 6 9 , trans , Mark L e s t e r a n d C harles Stivale, London:

Athlone, 1 9 90,

Expression i n Philosophy: Spinoza,

1 9 7 0 , trans . Martin Joughin, 2nd edn,

New York, NY: Zone, 1 9 9 2 .

Francis Bacon: The logic of sensation,

1 98 1 , trans . Daniel W. Smith, London :

C ontinuum, 2005,

Cinema 1: The movement image,

1 9 8 3 , trans . Hugh Tomlinson and

Barbara Habberjam, 2nd edn, London: Athlone, 1 9 9 7 .

Cinema 2: The time image,

1 9 8 5 , tran s , Hugh Tomlinson a n d Robert

G aleta, 2nd edn, London: Athlone, 1 994.

Foucault, 1 9 8 6 , trans , Sean Hand, London: Athlone 1 98 8 ,

The Fold: Leibniz and the baroque, 1 9 8 8 , tran s . Tom C o nley,
,

Athlone, 1 993,

London:

Essays Critical and Clinical, 1 9 9 3 , trans . Daniel W. Smith and Michael

Greco, Minneapol i s , MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1 9 9 7 .

A.

See a lso

Dialogues

(with C l aire Parnet) , 1 9 7 7 , tran s . Hugh Tomlinson and B arb ara

H abb erj am, London: Athlone, 1 9 8 7 .

1 9 9 3 , e d . C o n s tantin V. B o u n d a s , New York, NY:

The Deleuze Reader,

C olumbia University Pre s s , 1 9 9 3 .

Neg o t iations, 1 9 72 90,

1 9 9 5 , tran s . Martin Jo ughin, New York, NY:

C olumbia University Pres s , 1 9 9 5 .

Pure Immanence: Essays on a life, e d . John Rajchman, tran s . Anne Boyman,

N ew York, NY: Zone, 200 1 .

By Deleuze a n d Guattari

Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia,

1 97 2 , trans . Robert Hurley,

Mark S e em, and Helen R. Lane, London: Athlone, 1 984.

"CI
Q)

E
E
Qi

c:
(\)
N

Q)

Qi

Q
co
..,

Kafka: Toward a minor literature,

1 9 7 5 , trans . Dana Polan, Minne apolis,

MN: Universi ty o f Minnesota Pres s , 1 98 6 .

A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia,

1 980, trans . B rian

Massumi , 3rd edn, London: Athlone, 1 9 96.

Nom adology: The war machine,

1 9 86, trans . Brian Mas sumi, New York,

NY: S emiotext(E ) , 1 9 8 6 .

Wha t Is Philosophy?,

1 9 94, trans . Graham Burchell a n d Hugh Tomlinson,

New York, NY: C olumbia University Pres s , 1 9 94 .

Useful commenta ries

Alliez, Eric,

The Signature of the World, or What Is Deleuze and Guattari 's

Philosophy?,

tra n s . Eliot Ross Alb ert and Alb erto Toscano, London:

C ontinuum, 2004.
Ans ell Pearson, Keith,

Deleuze,

Germinal Life: The difference and repetition of

London : Routledge, 1 9 9 9 .

B a di o u , Alain,

Deleuze:

The

clamor of being,

tran s . Loui s e Burch i l l ,

Minneap olis, MN: University of Minne sota Pres s , 2 0 0 0 .

B oundas, C onstantin V. , e d . Deleuze

and Philosophy, E dinburgh:

E dinburgh

University Pres s , 2006.

Boundas, C onstantin V. and Dorothea O lkowski, e d s ,

Gilles Deleuze and

the Theatre of Philosophy, London: Routledge, 1 99 3 .

Buchanan, Ian, Deleuzism: A metacommentary, E dinburgh:
Univers ity Pres s , 2000.

E dinburgh

ed. ,
Pre s s ,

A Deleuzian Century? ,

Durham, N C : Duke University

1 99 9 .

Buchanan, I a n a n d Adri an Parr,

Deleuze and the Contemporary World,

E dinburgh: E dinburgh University Pres s , 2006 .

C olebrook, C l aire,

Gilles Deleuze, London: R o utledge, 2 0 0 2 .

Out of this World: Deleuze and the philosophy of creation,

Hallward, Peter,

London: Vers o , 2006.

Hardt, Michael,

Gilles Deleuze: An apprenticeship in philosophy, London:

Routl edge, 1 9 93.

Gro s z , E l i zab eth , ed.,

futures,

Ithaca,

Rajchman, John,

Becomings: Explorations in time, memory, and

NY: C ornell University Pres s , 1 9 9 9 .

The Deleuze Connections, C ambridge, MA: MIT Press , 2000 .

The Two-fold Thought of Deleuze and Guattari:

Stival e , C h a rle s ,

Intersections and animations,

ZElek,

Slavoj,

London: Guil dford Pres s , 1 9 9 9 .

Organs without Bodies: Deleuze and consequences,

London:

Routledge, 2003.

Deleuze i n the arts

Bogue, Ronald,
,

Deleuze on Cinema,

London: Routledge, 2 0 0 3 .

Deleuze on L iterature, London: Routledge, 2 0 0 3 .

, Deleuze on Music, Painting, and the A rts,

London:

Routledge, 2003.
Bryden, Mary,

Gilles Deleuze: Travels in literature,

Bas ingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2 0 0 7 .
Buchanan, Ian and Marcel Swib o d a ,

Deleuze and Music,

E dinburgh:

Deleuze and Space,

E dinburgh:

E dinburgh University Pres s , 2 004.

Buchanan, Ian and Gregg Lambert,
E dinburgh University Pre s s , 2005.
Flaxman, Gregory,

cinema,

The Brain Is the Screen: Deleuze and the philosophy of

Minneapolis, MN: University of Minne sota, 2000.

Kennedy, B ar b a r a ,

Deleuze and Cinema: The aesthetics of sensatio n ,

E dinburgh: E dinburgh University Pres s , 2002.

L a m b ert,

Gregg,

The No n philosophy of Gilles Deleuze,

London :

C ontinuum , 2002.
Marks,

L aura U. , The Skin of the Film: In tercultural cinema,

embo d i m e n t and the senses, Durh a m , N C : D u k e University

Pres s , 2000.
Martin Jon e s , D avid,

Deleuze, Cinema and National Identity, E dinburgh :

E dinburgh University Pre s s , 2 0 0 6 .

M a s s umi, Bri an, e d . ,

Guattari,

A Shock to Thought: Exp ression after Deleuze and

L ondon: Routle dge, 2 0 0 2 .

Olkowski, Dorothea ,

Gilles Deleuze and the Ruin of Representation,

B erkeley, C A : University of C alifornia Pres s , 1 9 99.

O ' Sullivan, S imon,

A rt Encounters Deleuze and Guattari,

B a s in g stoke:

Palgrave M a cmillan, 2006 .

Pisters, Patrici a ,

Film Theory,

The Matrix of Visual Culture: Working with Deleuze in

Stanford, CA: Stanford University Pre s s , 2003.

e d . , Micropolitics of Media Culture: Reading the rhizomes of

Deleuze and Guattari, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press , 200 1 .
,

Powell , Anna, Deleuze

and Horror Film, E dinburgh:

E dinburgh University

Press, 2005.
Ro dowick, D . N.,

Gilles Deleuze's Time Machine,

Durh a m , N C : Duke

Univers ity Pre s s , 1 9 9 7 .

,

ed.,

The Afterimage of Gilles Deleuze 's Film Philosophy,

Minneap o l i s , MN: Univers ity of Minnesota Pres s , 2008.

Sutton, Damian,

Photography, Cinema, Memory: The Crystal Image of Time,

Minneap o l i s , MN: Univers ity of Minn esota Pres s, 2009.

Zepke, Stephen,

Art as Abstract Machine: Ontology and aesthetics in

Deleuze and Guattari,

London: Routledge, 2006.

Online resou rces

A/V - Actual/Virtual, Deleuze journal:
Deleuze at G reenwich, a c a d em i c

www. erLmmu . a c . uk/deleuze/

blog:

http ://deleuze atgreenwich.

blogspot . c o m l

Film-philosophy. com,

International Salon Journal: www.film philos ophy

. c oml

Offscreen,

film criticism with D eleuze page: www.offs cree n . com/b iblio/

lib/catldeleuzel

Rhizome,

artb a s e and resource : www.rhizom e . o rg/

Rhizomes, online journal: www. rhizomes .netl

Spoon collective, Deleuze Guattari List: www3.iath.virginia.edu/spoons/d
g_htmllindex.html
Stivale, Charles, Deleuze and

Guattari Web Resources: www.langlab.wayne.

e du/C StivalelD GI

WebDeleuze

French online res ource (in French) : www.web deleuz e . c om/

php/index.html

Gloss ary

Throughout his career Deleuze developed a number of key i deas and

concepts , many of which are discussed in Deleuze Reframed. This glossary
provides simple definitions of these tenus as they relate to Deleuze's work
and our discussion, and evidence of how we have worked with Deleuzian
concepts . Some of the ideas took Deleuze many years to develop, and many
of the terms continue to b e res o lved and understood anew by scholars of
philo sophy and visual c ulture. These definiti on s , then , repre sent our
present understanding of these complex term s .

A pure subjectivity as the experience o f feeling in the instant. It

affection

is 'alloye d' to other subjectivities

need, brain, recollection and contraction

as we understand what we feel and act upon it. Since these feelings
overl ap, we l ive in affection and create a gap, or

cerebral interval,

when

we need to make s ense of it.

affects

The pure resp onse to an artwork that is articulated through the

empl oyment of language and shared c ultural meaning. Together with

percepts they constitute

becoming

blocs of sensation.

The ongoing process whereby the world is always coming into

being , which we see in relation and proportionality. In terms of identity,

b e c o ming explains how i dentity is formed through exp erience and th e
reflexive understanding of opp osition, alterity and difference.

becorning animal

A process of identity whereby the individual is returned,

or returns to, the state of animal in order to achieve further self awarenes s .
that o n e i s reduced t o living like a n animal in o rder to survive.

becoming imperceptible

The absolute elimination of identity as a goal of

self awarene s s and resi stance to processes and hierarchies of domination.

becoming-minoritarian

The principle of becoming experienced through

collective resistance to a dominating majority, p ursued by employing the

language and culture of the majority. Minor cinemas, for example, explore
emergent i dentities ( e . g . cultures affected by post colonial nationalism) or

i d entities problemati s e d by society (e.g. queer cinema) through the use and
subversion o f mains tream cinematic storytelling.

becoming-woman

The reflexive experience of femininity as a signifier of

difference, i n relation to man as the

molar identity

against which identity

its elf is m e a s ured. S ince it is an experience o f identity, rather than an

es sence, it can be felt by anyone

male or female

as an awakening to

social structures based on difference.

Body without Organs (BwO)

Pure substance as it exists before organisation

and which allows p a s s age

of ideas, o r i dentities, of time

through its

completely smooth structure . The BwO is experienced when organisation

b reaks down o r is reve aled to b e arbitr ary o r c ulturally determined. The
BwO is organised and filled by the desire in order to create structure, but
can also, as a smooth substance, be a tool of transferability (e.g. capital ) . The
BwO therefore has multiple potential destinations: empty, full or cancerous.

deterritorialisation

The bre aking up of order, boundaries and form to

produce movement and growth, especially where this involves the survival
or the creation of new life ( L e . in nature) o r the disturb ance of arbitrary
or s ocial rules empl oyed in repres sion.

duration

The p ure change of the worl d , which we organi s e into

chronology as the pas sing of time. Duration is experienced as an irreducible

progre s s of varying speeds and can unfo l d to accomm o d ate the m o s t
intricate of thoughts a n d memories .

haecceity

The intersection of bo dily materiality and social circumstance;

the conditions of our identity.

immanence

The ab s o lute b ackground of life expre s s e d o nly in th e

inters ection of form, subject, organ and function. Thi s inters ection is the

plane of immanence, which is

memory

given shape in objects and their organis ation .

The past experienced in the present, and c alled up or appeale d

to by p resent situations. We appeal to memory in order to understand the

present, and explore it i n order to provide s olutions to current p roblem s ,
i deas a n d des ires .

movement image

The image of time devel o p e d in cinema

as

chronology s p atiali s e d through editing and montage. For Deleuze, the

movement image is the adoption of the technology of cinema as a p rincip l e
of narration

frames c reate shots create montage

which is exp l o red and

a dopted by Hollywo o d and other mainstream cinemas . The movement

i m a g e both relies upon and enforces t h e chronolo gical image of time and
the progression of cause and effect in culture.

obj ectile

An identity that exists in time, rather than in space, and whi ch

is fixed for a while from becoming the ongoing change of becoming.

percepts

Pure sensations in art that are articulated by the manipulation

of m a teri a l s into language and exp r e s s i on. Tog ether with affe cts t h ey
cons titute

blocs of sensation.

psychoanalysis

The exploration of identity through its devel opment in

childhood a s a unitary p ersona in which the unconscious is repressed.

For Deleuze and Guattari, p sychoanaly s i s i s a tool of territori a l i s ati o n
or reterri torialisation , as m u c h forming t h e chi l d 's i dentity a c cording
to s o c i ety's norms a s deducing when the child's development dep a rts
fro m i t and when the unconscious re emerges through illnes s , malady
or trauma.

reterritorialisation

The re e stabli shment of o rder, b o undaries and

forms to pro duce stable embodiments or static identities. This might also
include the incorporation of radical ideas or practices into domin ant
s o c i al form ation s .

rhizome

A plant stem that grows horizontally, such as a tuber. The term

is also u s e d by Deleuze and Guattari to refer to rootless p l ants that spread

hori zonta lly rather than setting in deeply

such as couch grass. Something

that exhibits in shape o r activity the attributes of horizontality

o r lateral

growth, a s in a rhizome, might b e c a l l e d rhizomatic, a s o p p o s e d to

arborescent or tree like. Something that exhibits in its information the same
attribute s , in order to produce a rhizome, might b e called rhizomorphic.

schizoanalysis

The exploration of identity as a collective persona i n order

to unders tand g rowth and development that employs a multipli city of

character traits, and which makes use of the uncons cious as repre s s e d
memori e s a n d desire s .

strata

T h e formation of immanence into objects a n d organis ations a s

effects u p o n each other a n d which make up the consistency o f the world

in which we live . Looking at s o c iallcultural life in thi s way is therefore a
kind of geology. Not only do strata add layer upon layer of meaning to our
daily interactions, but it is often possible to differentiate b etween strata
only if they appear different, and so

strata refers

as much to the difference

as to the l ayers .

time image

The glimpse of duration that o c curs when the logic of the

movement image i s disrupted. This can b e p rovoked by the disruption or

or breaking of film l a n g u a g e ( l ong take s , s t i l l l ife c o m p o s i t i o n s , direct
address to c ame ra) or by the use of rep etition, reflection, metaphor and
other poetic devices . Hi stori c ally, the time i mage i s a pro duct o f cinema s
that had to rebuild after World War II ( e . g . in Italy) o r that opp o s e d
mainstream domina n c e ( e . g . in France) . Later cinema practices adopted
some a s p e cts of time - i m a g e cinema within the mainstream, creating
hybrid images and dis turbing the politic a l p ower of the time image.

Index

B ergs on, Henri xi, xiii, 85-9, 94,

8 1 /2 94
9 1 1 1 terrorist attacks 1 03

1 0 6 , 1 0 8 , 1 1 5 , 1 1 7- 1 9 , 1 2 1

l a Things I Hate A b o u t Yo u 6 0

Big Brother 7 3

24 (Fox) 1 07

B ordwell, David 93

50 First Da tes 9 8

B orges , Jorge Luis 13

Borom Sarret 5 7 , 61

AIDS/HIV 66 7, 7 0

Bourriaud, Nicholas 7 6 , 7 8

Akinnuoye Agbaje, Adewale

Brazil (and minor cinema) 5 3

Brick 6 0

1 20

Althusser, Louis 3 5

British Police Federation 2 4

Alquie, Ferdinand xi

Brookhaven National Laboratory 1 2

Amarcord 94

Brosnan, Pierce 39

Ameri ca Online 31

Bushnell, Nolan 12

Andre the Giant 3 7

Andrews , Naveen 1 1 6

C apra, Frank 54, 62

Anger, Kenneth 5 8

Casi n o Royale 39

Antonioni, Michelangelo 93

C a s s e l l , Vincent 5 5

Apple 3 1 , 4 1

Cell, The viii, i x , 9 1 , 9 9- 1 06

iMac G 3 3 1

Celluloid Closet, The 5 8

Araki, Gregg 5 1 , 58, 6 0- 1 , 63

C erteau, Michel d e 7 6

Aristotle 3

C hahine, Youssef 53

Arnol d, David 39

Chic ago, Judy 7 1

ARPANET 3 1

Citizen Kane 94-5

Atari 1 2

Clarke, Noel 1 1 2

A tonement (novel) 8 7

C o l d War, the 9 7 , 1 04

Austro Hungarian Empire 5 2

C o lumbine high scho ol m a s s acre

Badiou, Alain xii

C ommunism 32

Baer, Ralph 1 2 , 2 1

C ompu Serve 3 1

B arrie , Dennis 6 9

C o nnery, Sean 40

Batman ( I 9 8 9 movie) 40

C ontemporary Arts C enter,

20

Battleship Po temkin 54

Cincinnati 69

B audrillard, Jean xi

C orb et, Brady 58

B a zin, Andre 93

C orcoran Gallery of Art,

Being Joh n Malkovich 98

Washington DC 68

C ourbet, Gustave 67

Electronic Arts (EA) Games 40 1

C raig, Daniel 39 40

Emers on, Michael 1 1 6

C reole (language) 52

Empire S tate Building, the 93

CSI: Crime Scene Inves tiga tion

Empire 93

(CBS) 107
C usick, Henry Ian 1 2 1

Enzensberger, Hand Magnus 32 3,

3 5 , 38, 4 1
E O N Productions 3 9

D ' Onofrio , Vincent 1 00

D ae Kim, D aniel 1 1 9
D ali , Salvador 1 05
Dark

Knight Returns, The

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless

Mind

98, 1 0 1 , 1 04

European colonialism 7,

97

EverQ u e s t 18

(graphic novel) 40
DC C omics 40

Fairey, Shepard 37

Die Ano ther Day 3 9

Fellini, Federico 93 5, 1 05

D i e Hard 9 2 , 1 04

Fluss er, Vilem xii

'Dinner Party, The' (Judy Chicago)

Foucault, Michel xi
France (and classical cinema) 9 1

71
Doctor Who ( B B C TV) 1 08- 1 5

Fusco, C o c o 72-4

' B link' 1 1 0, 1 1 3
' The Daleks i n

Game Studies (journal) 1 3

Manhattan 1 09

Garcia, Jorge 1 1 8

'Evil of the Daleks' 1 09

Germany (and classical cinema) 9 1

' Genesis of the Daleks '

'Ghost' (Rachel Whi teread) 7 9

1 14

Godard, Jean-Luc 93

' The Girl in the

Gordon-Levitt, Joseph 58 60

Fireplace' 1 1 2 1 3 , 1 1 3

Gothika 1 0 1

'Human Nature/Family

Gra n d Theft A u to (video game

of Blood' 1 1 4

franchise) 1 1 , 22-6

'The Mutant s ' 1 1 4

Groundhog Day 98

' Remembrance of the

Guattari, Felix xi xii , 4, 46, 1 2 7

Daleks' 1 09

Guerilla Girls 7 1

' The Sunmakers' 1 1 4

Guney, Yilmaz 5 3

' The Tenth Planet' 1 1 4

' The Vi sitation' 1 09
' D o lores from 1 0h to
2 2 h ' ( C o c o Fusco) 72
Dominguez, Ricardo 72 3
'Don't Tell Me' (Madonna) 98

Half-L ife 1 6 , 1 9

Gordon Freeman
(character) 1 6
Half Life: Co un ter
Strike 1 7

Donkey Kong 1 6

Hardt, Michael xii

Doom (video game) 1 6 , 1 9

Haunti ng, The 95

D ougl a s , Alexander 1 1

Haye s , Melvyn 48

E. T. (The Extra Terrestrial! 6 3

Henry V (play) 49

East Wes t Records 39

Higinbotham, William 1 2 , 2 1

Helm s , Jesse (Senator, R-NC) 67 8

Egypt (and minor c inema) 53

Hitchcock, Alfred 9 5 , 1 0 5

Eisenstein, Sergei 54

Holloway, Josh 1 1 6

Hollywood (as classical cinema! 6 1 ,

96 7 ,

1 04-5 ,

1 25

'Losing My Religion' ( R . E . M! 1 02
Lost (AB C ! ! O8, 1 1 5-2 1

'Holocaust Memorial (Nameless

'Everybody Hates Hugo '

118

LibraryI ' 79

'D ave' 1 1 8

'House' (Rachel Whiteread! 77, 78 8 1

Hume, Davi d xi

Lyons, Lisa 66

Hustle (B B C TV! 1 0 7

Lyotard, Jean Fran90is xi

Hyppolite, Jean x i
Madame de Pompadour

1 1 2- 1 3

In Search oj Lost Time (novel) 8 7

Madonna 9 8

Indymedia 3 4

Magnavox O dyssey 1 2

Internet, t h e xiv, xiv, 1 2 , 27-41 , 8 7 ,

'Man in Polyester Suit' (Robert

Mapplethorpe! 6 8

1 24, 1 2 6
virtu al communiti es

Manet, E douard 6 7

1 8 19, 31

Mapplethorp e, R o b e r t x i i i , 66 7 1 ,
74

Intervista 94

95

Irreversible 98

Mamie

It A i n 't Half Hot Mum ( B B C TV! 48

Marx, Karl 32 3

It 's a Won derful Life

54, 6 1 -3

Italian Neorealism 93

Massachusetts Institute of

12

Technology
Matrix, The 1 0 1

Jacket, The 1 0 1

May 1 968 (political upheavall 8

James Bond (franchise! 2 2 , 39 40

McEwan, Ian 87

Jefferson, Thomas (US President! 27

McGugan, Stu art

48

Meet Me i n St. L o u i s 6 3

Kafka, Franz xv, 5 1 -4

Memento 9 8

Kandinsky, Was sily 75 6

Mercer, Kobena 67 8, 7 0

Kant, Immanuel xi

Metal G e a r Solid 1 6

Solid Snake (character!

Kiasma Museum of Contemp orary

Art, Helsinki 7 2 3
Kim, Yunjin 1 1 9

17
Metro Goldwyn Mayer 3 9

12

Kinkad e , Thomas 65

Microsoft Xbox

Kinsey, Mike 48

Miller vs State of California 6 9

Klee, Paul xiii

Kounde, Hubert

MMORPGs (massive multiplayer

55

Kuleshov, Lev 63 4
Kurdish identity (and cinema! 53

online role-playing games! 1 2,

1 7 20
Moffat, Steven
Monet, Claude

113
75

La Haine 5 5

MT V 1 0 1 2

Last Yea r a t Marienbad 94-5

MUDs (multi user dungeons! 1 2

Latour, B runo xii

Mulholland Dr. 1 0 1

Leibniz, Gottfried xi

Mulligan, C arey

Licon, Jeffrey 59

Museum o f C ontemp orary Art,

110

Lilly, E vangeline 1 1 6

Chicago 67

Lockheed M artin 2 1

Myles, Sophia 1 1 3

Lopez, Jennifer 99, 1 0 1 2

Mys terious Skin 5 1 , 57 64

National Endowment for the Arts 68

Rocha, Glauber 5 3

Need to Know 3 7

R o driguez, Delfina 7 2 -4

Negri , Antonio xi i

Roma 9 4

New Queer C inema 5 8

R o u c h , Jean 5 3

New Worl d, t h e 7 , 2 8

R u i z , Raoul 9 4 , 1 06

the Americas 7

R un Lola R u n 9 5 , 9 8

Aus tralia, New Zealand

Russel l , Steve 1 2

New York Police Department 24 5

S age, B i l l 58

Nietzs che, Fri e drich xi, 4

S anders Associates 12

Nintendo GameCube 1 2

Sebastian, S aint 1 02

Noughts and crosses (Ti c - Tac Toe)

Second Life 3 1

SEGA Dreamcast 1 2

II

Sembene, Ousmane 5 3 , 5 7 , 6 1
Q ' Quinn, Terry l l 9
'Obey Giant' ( S hepard Fairey)
37

Senegal (and minor cinema) xv, 5 3 ,

56 7

Shaken and Stirred (album) 39

Orr- C ahall, Chri stina 68

Shining, The 9 5

Others, The 95

S i c a , Vittorio de 9 3

Pac Man 1 2- 1 3 , 1 5 , 1 9 , 2 1 -3 , 26

Sims, The 1 6 , 22

Silence of t h e Lambs 1 0 1

Pac Man (character) 1

4- 1 7 , 1 9

SimCity 1 7

Sinclair Spectrum 1 2

M s Pac Man 1 6

Sin g h , Tarsem 1 02

Pinky 1 7

Sliding Doors 9 8

Perfect Moment, The 6 6 9

Sony C o rporati o n 3 9

Perrault, Pierre 53

Sony Pictures

Picasso, Pab l o 65

Entertainment 39

Pip er, Billie 1 1 2

Sony BMG 3 9

Plato xiv, 3

S ony Ericsson 3 9

Pong 1 2

Prodigy (internet servic e provider)

31

Proust, Marcel 87, 94, 1 06

Pulp Fiction 9 8

S o ny Playstation 1 2
S oviet Union (and cinema) 54
Space Invaders 1 2
Spacewar 1 2 , 2 1
Spellbound 9 5 , 1 0 5 , n 1 3 5
Spider man (2002 movie) 40

xi,

Q uake 1 7 , 1 9

Spinoza, B aruch (Beneructus)

Quebec land minor cinema) xv, 5 3

Star Trek: The Next Generation 94

R . E . M . I 02

Stewart, James 6 2

1 08

Star Wars Galaxies (video game) 1 8

R a d io Times 36

Strange Days 1 02 3

Rajskub, Mary Lynn 5 9

Super Mario Bros (video game

R anciere, Jacques 7 8 , 1 2 3
RealPlayer 3 6
Re sna is, Alain 5 3 , 93 4
'Robinson Crusoe' (scenario) l l 5

franchise) 1 6
Mario ( character)
1 6- 1 7

Survivor 7 3

Taghmaoui, SaId 55

Vau g hn , Vince 1 03

Tennant, David 1 1 0

Vettriano, Jack 6 5

Thing, The 1 7

Vietcong 5 , 1 5 , 1 9

Third Rock from the Sun 6 0

Volkswagen Lupo 3 7

Third World (and cinema) 54

Thomp son, Kris tin 93
Tic Tac Toe (nou ghts and cro s ses)
11

War o n Terror 7 3
Warcraft 1 8

Warhol, A n dy 58, 93

Time Regained 94

W ark, Mackenzie 38--41

Tomb Raider (video game franchise)

Warner Brothers 3 9 , 1 07
as part of Warner

1 4 , 1 6 25

C ommuni cations 40

Lara C roft (character)

1 6- 1 7 , 1 9

Washin g ton Project for the Arts 68

Trachtenberg, Michelle 5 9

Waters , J o hn 58

Turkey (and minor cinema) xv, 53

Web 2 , 0 27

Turner Prize, the 78

West Wing, The (Warner B ros) 1 07

TV Go Home 3 5-6

Whiteread, Rachel 77 80

Nathan Barley
(character) 36 7

Wikipedia 34, 41
Wizard of Oz, The 63

Worl d War 1 87, 96

Ultima Online 1 8 , 3 1 , 40

World War II 1 3 , 48, 8 6 , 9 3 , 9 6 , 1 04

Umberto D 93

United States ( and minor cinema)

xv, 60

YouThbe 28

Zi z ek, S lavoj xi