'The Grid', Axiomatic Earth, Tecnosphere Issue, Anthropocene Curriculum & Campus, House of World

Cultures (HKW), On-line at http://www.anthropocene-curriculum.org/pages/root/campus-

2016/axiomatic-earth/the-grid/

THE GRID
Susana Caló

I donʼt see a contradiction between institutionalization and creative capacity.

1
– Félix Guattari

There is a speed of subjugation that is opposed to the coefficients of transversality.

2
– Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari

La Borde Clinique holds an important place in the history of French psychiatry because of its

primary role in what came to be known as the institutional psychotherapy movement. It was
3
established in 1952 by Jean Oury, who was joined soon after by Félix Guattari . Oury

considered that psychiatric institutions were ill and that it was necessary to treat them in order

to treat the patients. This pathogenic effect of the environment was called “pathoplastic”

(pathoplastique). Hence the famous expression: “To treat the ill without treating the hospital is

madness!” This meant considering the hospital in its social and political dimensions.

A series of organizational protocols were set in place at La Borde with the primary

goal of stimulating patientsʼ autonomy, allowing them to regain a sense of responsibility and

“re-appropriate the meaning of their existence in an ethical and no longer technocratic

                                                                                                               
1
Félix Guattari and Suely Rolnik, Molecular Revolution in Brazil, tr. Karel Clapshow and Brian
Holmes. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2008 [orig. 1986, Micropolítica: Cartografias do Desejo],
p. 169. A more direct translation of the title of the original book would be “Micropolitics:
Cartographies of Desire.”
2
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, tr. Brian
Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004 [orig. 1972], p. 349.
3
The founding figure of institutional psychotherapy is François Tosquelles, a Catalan
psychiatrist working at Saint Alban hospital, during the German Occupation of France, and
where the first experiment in institutional psychotherapy took place.
 4
perspective.” A new spatial dynamics was also implemented to prevent the reinforcement of

power structures. To give a few examples, patients had the freedom to walk wherever they

wished and the spaces associated with medical functions had to rotate. Equally, it was

considered that medication should not be given always by the same person. With these

measures the scope of analysis was no longer limited to the privacy of the consulting room

but was extended to the whole of the institution. For Oury and Guattari, the fabric of La

Bordeʼs daily-life dynamics was thought to offer analytic opportunities of diverse kinds.

Out of this series of experimental organizational protocols developed at La Borde,

one in particular merits our attention—“the grid”—as it exemplifies the emancipatory potential

of institutional processes.

THE PROTOCOL

The grid was a rotational work schedule, divided by tasks and activities. It had the names of

people rotating and the amount of time each person would spend on each task or activity per

week. Visually it consisted of two axes—a vertical axis with a list of the names of the people

in charge of specific tasks or activities and a horizontal axis to measure time, from 8 a.m. to 9

p.m. (Figure 1).

5
Emerging around 1957, the grid arose from the need to “frame the deregulation”

(Guattariʼs words) while at the same time attempting to preserve the amicable atmosphere of

the clinic (in its early years, La Borde was largely self-managed and spontaneously

organized). A sample grid from the 1960s includes in the list of tasks dishwashing,

housecleaning, kitchen and night shift duties, waiting at table, and many others. Activities

were things such as the clubs, the journal, or the laundry.

                                                                                                               
4
Guattari, “La Borde,” p. 191.
5
See Félix Guattari, “La ʻGrille,ʼ” Chimères, vol. 34, Autumn (1998): p. 1; also online
<http://www.revue-chimeres.fr/drupal_chimeres/files/34chi01.pdf>. This is a typescript of a
presentation given by Guattari in 1987 at La Borde and later published in Chimères with the
same title.
 6
Tasks and activities were distributed according to their degree of agreeability. The

tasks were associated with “disagreeability” and the activities with “agreeability.” Tasks ought

to be shared by everyone given that they assured the minimal daily functioning of the clinic

and thus were deemed everyoneʼs responsibility. For each task there were points relative to

the value of the task and relative to the number of times a person performed that task

(frequency). Points were accumulated and could be used to bargain when discussing the

daily grid. (Figure 2).

In this manner, the definition of tasks and activities worked as an indicator of what the

majority of people inhabiting the institution deemed more or less pleasant. An example of this

was the laundry, which several texts refer to as being one task that everyone wished to

perform. From the perspective of institutional analysis, this apparently unimportant aspect

could open a window into something else—something that would otherwise go unnoticed. As

such, the grid allowed mutations of desire and subjective investments to be traced, insofar as

these were expressed at the level of institutional dynamics. At the same time, as an

organizational protocol it made power relations visible—in particular, all those aspects left

outside the traditional doctor–patient relation. It also brought to the forefront relationships

existing in the background: the institutional context, its constraints, organization, specific

practices, and so on. Each institutional event, material or immaterial, discursive or non-
7
discursive, was given expressive potential.

In this view institutional analysis is fundamentally collective. This is not just because,

in its strict meaning, analysis is no longer a privilege of the therapist only but is collectivized—

i.e., it takes place collectively (in group sessions, discussion, etc.). But, in a more important

sense, it is collective because it is impacted by spatial dispositions, linguistic and signifying

                                                                                                               
6
See “Histoires de La Borde: 10 ans de psychothérapie institutionnelle à la clinique de Cour-
Cheverny 1953–1963,” Recherches, vol. 21, March–April (1976). Also see the detailed study
by CERFI of the work developed at La Borde in the monograph CERFI, LʼInstitutionalisation
des collectifs de travail. Monographie sur la clinique de La Borde. Paris: Centre dʼétudes, de
recherches et de formation institutionnelles, 1974.
7
In this regard, Guattari refers to Claude Poncin, who put forward the concept of “situèmes”
to refer to the institutional relations in the context of La Borde (in reference to the idea of
phonemes in language, the basic structures of language)—“situèmes” would thus constitute
the basic “unit of language” at La Borde. See Guattari, “La ʻGrille,ʼ” p. 5.
dimensions, technical, economic, and sociological factors, rather than purely by personal,

individual dispositions.

Guattariʼs conceptual elaboration of the grid gives an insight into what was at stake

with such a simple protocol of organization and quantification. In the text “La ʻGrille,ʼ” Guattari

refers to the grid as an “articulatory system” whose goal was “rendering articulable the workʼs

organization with the subjective dimensions, so as to allow for certain things to come into the
8
daylight, to allow certain surfaces of inscription to exist.” Take as an example the

composition of the team managing the grid (the grilleuses). This team, itself rotating, was not

to be composed of doctors so as to prevent the division of labor and daily structuring of the

clinic to be congealed around the same medical structure. The measure did not aim to deny

medical expertise but to impose limits on the organization of work coming from one single

source: in other words, to allow for the framing of the organization or structure to come from

multiple sources on the ground rather than from one overarching source.

It comes as no surprise, then, to read about the conflict to which the creation of the
9
managing team (grilleuses) or the putting up of the daily grid was subject. Constant

processes of collective negotiation and discussion took place. Nonetheless, conflict was vital

in exposing dominant frameworks and making visible the power structures in play.

LOCAL LANGUAGE AND NONREDUCTIVE SEMIOTICS

On this basis, it was paramount that the grid was discussed and negotiated among those

affected by it. As Guattari comments, “it is useless to parachute someone into a task—

especially if this is strategic—without his/her consent, without knowing how it is for him/her at

that moment of the day in relation to the rest of his/her employment of time, and above all
10
compared to what he/she would really like to be doing.”

It is evident that the grid, described by Guattari as a “collective analytic discursivity,”

                                                                                                               
8
Guattari, “La ʻGrille,ʼ” p. 12.
9
A special issue of Recherches titled “La Borde: 10 ans de psychothérapie institutionnelle à
la clinique de Cour-Cheverny 1953–1963,” conducted by researchers of CERFI (Centre
dʼétudes, de recherches et de formation institutionnelles), provides an impressive account of
the complexity involved in the process of making the grid. See “Histoires de La Borde.”
10
Guattari, “La ʻGrille,ʼ” p. 8 (tr. Susana Caló).
was much more than a mere rotational schedule. As the attribution of tasks and the rotation

were subject to feedback and review, the grid itself shaped and systematically revealed the

institutional processes that unfolded. In this manner, through changing and constituting the

institution at the same time as in an evolving organigram, the grid was an instrument of

collective institutional design. In essence, it had the virtue of singularizing the very trajectory

of the institution with the ones of those living in it.

Guattari further suggests that associated with the grid is the emergence of what he

describes as a vibrant language, a language that would allow for the expression of the

problems of the institution. As Guattari states: “[T]his system is connected with the invention

of a language, with its own particular mode of naming different tasks, and a rhetoric that is
11
particular to it, and that is the only way to treat certain problems […].” The fact that language

played a crucial role in the institutional collective only makes sense if we understand how it

served more than a mere technocratic function. By giving itself to the discussion of everyday

life, language revealed in a pragmatic gesture its territories of conflict and production. This

happens when the statement refers to more than itself, when it reveals the how, the where,

and the why—or, to put it differently, its politics.

In this regard, there are indeed references to the emergence of what is described as
12
a “local language” in La Borde developing from the interchange of material and social tasks,

technical and specialized knowledge, a collective learning of psychopathology. For instance,

the use of psychiatric terms was adjusted and reviewed according to local use and the

collective learning of psychopathology. There was also La Borde jargon (S.C.A.J. or

Souscommission dʼAnimation de la Journée and B.C.M. or Bureau de Coordination Médicale

are examples of this). This contrasts with the adoption of general semiologies and diagnostic
13
manuals such as DSM, to give an example, which exemplify what could be described as a

                                                                                                               
11
Guattari, “La ʻGrille,ʼ” pp. 12–13 (tr. Susana Caló).
12
Guattari, “La ʻGrille,ʼ”, p. 8 (tr. Susana Caló).
13
American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM), Washinton, Dc: American Psychiatric Association, 1952 (first edition). The DSM is
currently in its fifth edition, published in 2013.
 14
semiological axiomatization of the multiplicity of the mental and whose utility is hardly

justifiable in terms of therapeutics. But this is just a part. Because, as I contended earlier, the
15
successes of this specific form of “invention of a language,” as Guattari calls it, have little to

do with language itself. Rather, they are to do with the fact that this is a particular mode of

semiotization that is collective in nature and returns language back to the conditions of its

existence in the first place. Language is cut open to dispute as part of a concrete existential

situation that forces it to deal with broader pragmatics that exceed it.

In this sense, the relegation of the figure of the expert in institutional analysis is

precisely an effort to stimulate a production of semiotization in relation to immediate and

concrete problems. What was crucial was not the invention of a language but the creation of

semiotization forums, as collective creations that could influence the transformation of the

institution itself. Ultimately, it is important to draw attention to the articulation between

collective discursivity and the organizational process—how the gridʼs constant review would

feed back to the institution itself.

THE GRID AS THE INSTITUTION

Indeed, the grid was a formal organizational protocol that made use of a very basic and poor

mechanism of quantification. The method itself was very minimal. As Guattari affirmed: “[T]he
16
grid employs time inscribed on a piece of paper.” And yet it was a means to collectively

create an institution. Rather than imposing a congealment of the creative ethos of the

institution, the grid was an expressive formalization of this collective agency in time. In turn,

this formalization acted on the institutional matter—that is, transforming it in a reciprocal

presupposition.

                                                                                                               
14
This was the argument of my presentation at the Axiomatic Earth seminar, titled “The
Financialization of the Mental,” during the Technosphere issue, Anthropocene Curriculum and
Campus, House of World Cultures (HKW), Berlin, April 19, 2016.
15
Guattari, “La ʻGrille,ʼ” pp. 12–13 (tr. Susana Caló).
16
Félix Guattari, La Révolution Moléculaire. Fontenau-sous-Bois: Éditions Recherches, 1977,
p. 271 (tr. Susana Caló).
 This is where a function of collective semiotization enters—one that can be described

as a semiotic praxis by groups and individuals; one that serves not a general axiomatization

of problems of existence but a nonreductive formalization of collective life. For this to be so, it

is critical that the meaning extracted from the gridʼs quantification system is the responsibility

of the collective forum that first set it up. To go a bit further, this capacity to self-guide

semiotization processes is vital to the autonomy of the institutional collective. This fits

Guattariʼs description of a-signifying semiotics, which prescribes a type of relation between

signs and things, by which the semiotic and the material connect diagrammatically, involving

an existential production of the referent. Take the example of theoretical physics and musical

notation. Here, signs are part of the material production and are in opposition to semiological

redundancies that represent and offer “equivalents” of realities. In that sense, the grid can be

understood as an essentially a-signifying protocol.

17
As such, rather than casting pessimism into institutional processes, Guattari and

Oury put forward an invaluable recasting of social and institutional practices. “A discussion of

the process of institutionalisation has nothing to do with pre-established organisation charts

and regulations,” Guattari writes: “[I]t has to do with the possibilities for change inherent in

collective trajectories—evolutionary attitudes, self-organisation, and the assumption of

18
responsibilities.”

Such an understanding of the formal mechanisms and institutional processes that

affirm the possibility of their nonreductivity and constitutive potential (one that does not

subtract the multiplicity of the collective from its formalization) is still extremely relevant today.

Much has been written about the mechanisms of reductive axiomatization and semiotization.

But less has been said about how formalization processes—which are not an end in

themselves—can be used to inform collective institutional processes that are not reductive in

nature and can thus be openers and markers of important social and political change.

                                                                                                               
17
As Andrey Goffey importantly points out, the meaning of the word “institution” in French is
not negative as it is in the English language. It essentially refers to a process of instituting and
therefore creating. See Andrew Goffey, “Guattari and Transversality: Institutions, analysis and
experimentation,” Radical Philosophy, vol. 195 (2016): pp. 38–47.
18
Guattari and Rolnik, Molecular Revolution in Brazil, p. 376.
 Figure 1. Sample grid from the 1960s. Source: “Histoires de La Borde: 10 ans de

psychothérapie institutionnelle à la clinique de Cour-Cheverny 1953–1963,” Recherches, vol.

21, March–April (1976).

 Figure 2. System of points for tasks and activities. Source: “Histoires de La Borde: 10

ans de psychothérapie institutionnelle à la clinique de Cour-Cheverny 1953–1963,”

Recherches, vol. 21, March–April (1976).

Figure 3. La Borde ou le droit à la folie (1977), Igor Barrère, film still.