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    Guattari - Cracks in The Street - The Aesthetic Rupture of Discursivity Is Never Passively E PDF

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    Guattari - Cracks in The Street - The Aesthetic Rupture of Discursivity Is Never Passively E PDF

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    Guattari - Cracks in The Street - The Aesthetic Rupture of Discursivity Is Never Passively E PDF

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    CRACKS IN THE STREET ‘THE AESTHETIC RUPTURE OF DISCURSIVITY IS NEVER PASSIVELY EXPERIENCED, IT LEADS TO HETEROGENEOUS LEVELS WHICH MUST BE RELATED TO A HETEROGENESIS, Replying to your invitation to this symposium, I thought { would entitle my paper: The existentalizing function of di Course. But after having crossed the Atlan- tic, this proposition changed to Cracks in the text of the State, This is already food for though. L was told later on that for a ‘meeting taking place under the patronage ofthe M.L.A. it would be more relevant to stick tothe concept ofthe text.O.K.! Butas fa matter of fact, when I talk about dis- course itis only incidentally that “text” or even “language” are mentioned. Discourse and discursivity primarily involve for me the idea of flow, for instance: the wander- ing of Lenz reconstructed by Buchner through the secret life of forms, the meeting with the souls of minerals, metals, water and plants ...! Orit would be the immobile wanderingiina Zen garden until perception reaches the total presence of Saton and becomes impervious to communication ? Another illustration would be Renaud Vic- to¥’s movie, Ce gamin-l, dealing with the ‘work of Fernand Delighy, where one sees BRON hii is os. course HomA NEW YORK 2 Fashart FELIX GUATTARI ‘an autistic child who is fascinated by the slow formation ofa drop of water and who greets its endlessly repeated fall with the same burst of pleasure and bliss, But some people might ask: "What would this discursivty be outside the text if it was recreated through Buchner’s literary formulations, sustained by Buddhist seri tures or by the poetico-philosophicalread- ing produced by a Mr. Deligny?” Of course itis not my aim to reduce the text land the writing machine inthe initiating of the silent redundancies and the developing of the universes of virtuality conveyed by them. Moreover the non-verbal modes of semiotization are today obviously bound to coexist symbiotically not only with the speech and writing but also with the assist- ance of computers. Lets say that all these things work together without priority or the encroachment of one field upon another. So I'l say okay for Cracks in the ext, which you suggested to me and for the different textual modalities of disconti- ‘uity listed in your invitation letter: gaps, breaks, cracks, slippings, margins, crises, liminal periods, peripheries, frames and silences, .. lagreetoall this, provided that it won't be used as pre-text to definitively silence the remaining forms of discursvity sill inhabiting our world. (Cracks in the street. The suggested title stirs up the composite memory of three paintings by Balthus about street life in Vieux Paris, between Place St. Germain and Place St. Michel In the 1929 painting we see a dozen ‘persons going quietly about their affairs, and inthe background, harnessed horse is looking to the left. In the foreground round-faced young man, hs right hand on his heart, is staring at the viewer. We'd better say he seems to be staring, fr in fact his astonished eyes remain withdrawn inside himself, Les say his look is termed toward us who are watching him. There is no horse in the 1933 version, The urban setting is stylized and the per- spective unbalanced. The canvas is larger and the characters standing infront of the soene are sturdier, The round-faced boy stil has his hand on bs heart but is now in the middle ground. His eft shoulder is con- cealed by the dark back profile of a woman whose headdress stands out against the frame ofa shop in the background like a red Chinese ideogram. The woman stretches ‘outher right area toward the pavement asi ‘etching the wind or paddling the rear end ‘of another woman seen from behind, walk- ing away; she seems to carry in her arms ‘wenty-year-old baby dressed in a sailor's suit In spite of the discrepancy resulting from the perspedive, the posturing of the rman and posturing of the wornan of each ‘couple respond to each other frontally, fus- ing together like the heads and tails of a now androgynal race. We should make clear that this strange coupling produces only two cases among many which could be pointed out on this canvas. Like the Pieces of chess game which has been ightly jostled, gestures, poses, profiles, facial features, and folds in the clothing of all the characters are turned away from their “natural” pastion and then reorient~ ated s0 a8 to respond in an enigmatic cot respondence, of which one of the main key resides in the strategy of the gaze servers haven't failed to notice the empty, “disconnected” nature of these eye positions, Yet the essential points not so uch in this as in the systematic occupa- tion of space resulting from their rediste- bution ina scanning movement which calls tomind the hegemony ofa looking without subject, without object, without finality. A Sort of panoptical Superego all the more puzzling because it occurs in an atmos- phere comparable to the Commedia elt Aste “These trumpet calle worthy of Janacek or Stravinsky have been omitted from Le Passage du Commerce Si. André, the third ‘ersion, which came to light twenty years later. The bright surface and colour asso« ations, the dance of looks generating a s¥s tematic disturbance of our every day refer- ence points (a systematic disturbance shedding & new light on this world in order totake us back to it) are replaced by 2 new ‘and more Molecular treatment of the visual ‘components. Ths is something involving @ soft topology, with subliminal gradations of intensity Which nevertheless propel us into an irreversible mutation of each uni- verse of reference. The action of breaking and setting adrift no longer rests on bru: tally made discernable entities but on the whole painting of which each piece, like a holographic image, conveys the whole With the painting's height now being greater than its width, and three times the sizeof the first version, shecharacters' scale bas become comparatively small. There are only eight characters left, and an added doll. Like players directed by Robert Wi son, they move around a white dog stand- ing in the centre, turned toward the right and possibly resembling a lamb. Yes, pet- hhaps itis @ theatre, since vhe main facade hhas come down like a backdrop and the side walls are built up ona false perspective, like wing (rames. But it might also be an urban Zen composition, combining ani- mate and lifeless forms. Now the eyes are blurred; the gaze seems to have emigrated into the blind windows surrounding the scene from all sides. From one of them, the round face of a child comes rising up like a cartesian doll. From another one, on the fight hand above—the only one with shutters—a white jacket sleeve, hanging by Image, emerges in & hardly credible Thave dwelled on these three paintings because 'm going to use them to illustrate the three sets of ideas that I'd like to submit to you. ‘The first idea reasserts the irreducible olyvocity of the expressive components Concurring in she production of an aes- thetic effect: those bearing and conveying “recognizable” forms, those conveying his- tory and cultural messages, and those Which are noresignifying, based onthe play fine and colour effecs, No hermeneutic, no structural overcoding ould jeopardize the heterogeneity andthe funcional auto- omy of these components puarantecing the processial opening of the work. No Sientving operation could “sor out” the intertwined paths ofthe aedhete discur oy. Before came othe States fiends had warned me: "Fist and foremost don't guerre! as you usually do with struct iim and. postmodernism! You probably Know that even when they are noisy and fashionable, these thing are never taken too seriously in the Stes But what can weds! Comparable tothe myxomatosis of European rabbis, the "Signifier pagu disappearingand reappearing under fe ent avatars has so devastated our bumaa Scinoes and literature these past few decades that I have trouble geting vid of ny distrust. Tl give you an istration, thing the frst version of Larueby Balthus My wshistodemorstate thatthe signified and the later ean just a wel become the Snastr trump, AS we knov, one of the expressive peacedores sed by Baths isto paint inthe tanner ofthe allan Primi tives. This particular panting, could be compared with two works of Piero dela Francesca: The Legend of the Cross and Prophecy of the Queen of Sheba, which canbe seenin the church of San Francesco inArezro) Howeveritcomes tight clear. iy and dstinetly or through blared intl ligibiliy, this cultural connotation ‘per- ‘des the whole set of expressive compo nts with an ara of areas which has 8 determining role forthe avakening of @ certain ype of effect. But one wonders ow to find in these conditions a signifying break producing meaning. Would it bein the things which aresad oin he way they ae aig Inthe figures of content orf he discursive chains of Expression? This isa falseilemma, forthe real processual split stands inthe capacity ofuteranc te Keep apart the Expression and Content fune- tons and. to make them work together without the primacy of some over he oh brs This sted because they all para of the same deterritoralized formalism, a8 had been postulated bythe Danish ings Louis Heise “This brings me to my second series of reflections. The aestheticrupture of dscur- Siviy is never passively experienced. I leads to heterogeneous levels which must te related toa heterogenesis This rupture i induceé by operators which I will call concrete machines Taeserachines both disassociate and gather up the expresive matter, “polyphonize™ tha (a Bekitine Would sa), They transverslze ther, that $tosaysthey makeformsand deteriora: ited provers, which Iwill cll abstracted machines, move through their diferent levels. Ina commentary amply dedieated these paltings, Balhus’ brother, Pere Klossowski, pointed out the essentially productive nature, the existentializing funtion of such anaesthetic suspension of the “meaningful” word: "A mode of non discursive expression, the picture does not duplicate but suppreses the word which Tigh against oblivion. For while the word returns numerous things to oblivion so a8 toactualze others, the content of heimaBe isthe forgotten existence isl. Te ignores the devouring and distancing time, The past existence remains omnipresent ini that’s why the painted perspective gives 2s ‘much importance tothe distant objec aso the close one, foreground and background being only a dividing ofthe same surface Lats put aside Klossowski's_non- discursive qualification of the pictorial expression. In my opinion, itis onlya mat- ter of terminology: on tesideofuterance, theapprehension of paintings discursive, whereas on the side of the content it happens that it ceases to be. The whole point is to define the concrete operators enabling ustogo from oneto the othe. For the time being we'll only retain from what Klossowski said the possibleaccess through pining to a memory of being, escaping from space and time coasdinates; thats €0 say an_ impossible aporetical memary. Martin Heidegger wrote that any attempt to think about being urns it into an ex ent being-fact and abolishes its very essence. Accordingto himsucha dead-end Would mean that, “we should not think any more about solutions but setle down in this so-called dead-end, instead of running alter the usual prospects Existence not tobetaken for granted, tisnotan acquired benefit. tisrathera contingent and repeat- edly challenged production. Iisa rapture ‘ofequilibrium, a ight ahead developingin adelensive mode oF na regime of prolifer- ation in reaction to the eracks, gaps and ‘breaks In the second version of La rue one picks up two other major characteristics of this-exitemiatzing function at the time ‘when itis organized in assthetic arrange- rents. eisalves fist what Iwill call, fol lowing Jakobson, a phatic operation. Through it, some ruptures of form, some disintegrations of pre-established percep- tive pattems, some distortions of meaning are converte in support of new circum scriptions of utterance. This is ilutrated here with the extavagentgestculation of certain characters and with the “patch- ‘work” aspect of their outline. Once tora favay from the internal logic of the “sub- jet” ofthe panting, these significant pla ticcomponents beginto gesiculate, waving to the spectator and calling him out. In be 1929 painting, the foreground character looked at us without watching, tried to set ‘upa complicity between the spectator and ‘the scene taking place inthe street, a8 if he FlashArt 83 SALTHUS Lf PASSAGE OU COMMERCE SAINTANDM, 1554 wanted to take us in, In the 1933 version this link lost its tension, for the look ofthe character now standing in the middle- ground has become totaly depersonalized, But the spectator’ participation is no less required, and far from being weakened itis intensified to the point thatthe scene itself ‘now conveys some som of substantified secing-act going right through us and dis- turbing us in our deepest parts, Our own Took is no longer contemplative; i is cap- ‘ured, fascinated and functions henoeforth, like & conveyor belt between an eye: machine in action on the canvas and the "unconscious processes released by it within us. A strange relationship of transhuman and transmachine subjectivity has been created, Let's underline that the plastic ‘components sustaining this phatic function are the concern ofthe formal expressions ‘wellas ofthe significant contents thatthe harmonics of lines, form and colour are consequently as telling as the marks and symbols carrying messages in a conspicu- ‘ous way, The second characteristic of existential function is particularly accentuated in the 1933 version. It refers to the threatening tone that I already mentioned as a trait of the Supergo affecting the panoptical and phatic circumscription of utterance. This Stems from the fact that the inescapable precariousness of the mechanism which is set up echoes our own ancestral fright before spitting up and dismembering. The crack in the meaning structures enclosed on themselves, the breaking away and the ‘autonomization of a plastic composition call us and “pluck” our sleeve, and as a ‘consequence the painting takes this fear ‘upon itself, soaks it up lke a blotting paper, and throws it back {0 us under a farm which both intimidates and wards off ill- fortune, We wonder about what is demanded of us by this look and this voice 84 Fushart now unlocatable, But fragility, uncertainty, ‘emptiness and aporia reveal themseives to be guarantees of existential consistency ‘The Kierkegaardian splinter, the ultimate points of singularity become crystals cata- Iyzing the unfolding of new universes of reference, The paradox of Tertulien echoes ‘back to us: ~The son of God is dead: this is completely believable because it is non- sense, Once buried, he is risen from the dead: itis certain because impossible." At ‘his point, we should elucidate the specific part played in literature by this function of existential collapse, How it promotes refrains of complexity breaking away from

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