PathicTransferencesand

ContemporaryJapaneseArt
by Gary Genosko

In order to understand Felix Guattari's sense of pathic transfer-

enceas it appears in his final book Chaosmosis,I will look back
at a work from the late 70s, The MachinicUnconsdous- Guattari's
workbook for A Thousand Plateaus- and in his functional and
diagrammaticdeployment of the concept in the most elaborate
systematicand formal expression of his analytic position in S chi-
zoanafytic Cartographies;this latter work is the foundation for the
more popular exposition in Chaosmosis.My work will be initially
expository and may be contextualized in terms of how it con-
tributesto a critical appreciation of his deployment of the pathic
as a key concept extracted from phenomenological psychiatry.
I am interested in developing the importance, for Guattari, of
the thought of Viktor von Weizsacker's theorization of pathic
vitality.I am in this regard following a trail opened by Peter Pal
~elbart in recognizing that the pathic dimension is a mode of
~vedexperimentation intimately connected with the self-found-
ing and self-moving Guattarian subject living "more on the
1
modalities of 'existensifying' than on ontic determu:ia~on~."
Throughthis insight Pelbart introduces a fundament~ di~tmct1on
forvon Weizsacker between pathic and on tic determinations and
---------
1d.
PeterPal Palbert, ''The Deterritorialized Unconscious," in The GuattariEffect,
e s.E· Alliez and A. Goffey (London: Continuum,
· 2011), P· 7 5·

119
 ., turn in"vard in relation to this dichoto
Guattart s some of the un d ertra, e le cl pa thwaysrny. In shOtt
want to ma P . . a1ong th· , 1
f influence and deviation. ts tr~;,
system o
of this ssay
·
is to
·
integrate
1
10\v pathic u d
........
The go al . . . n erst .
. Guattan's inter st in a nu1n 6 er of conternp atldino
aPp
lies to .
. t including dancer fin Tanaka painters Ya .
. orary Japa~..
nese artts s . l. ~l . T yo1l<us
and Toshimit u Imat and ar 11t t 11n akamatsu. al?J.a

DiscourseIs Not the Enemy

. schizoanalytic cartography is built around four

G uattan . di . . onto-
•ca1function . One of the maJor visions of these fun .
Iogt . th . di . . Ctlons
i drawn bet:W"eena domam _at1s scursive, in~olving actualiza-
tion on the plane of expression, and one that 1s non-discurive
that is, virtualization on the content plane. The two function~
associated with the discursive order are the fluxes and machin-
ic phylum. Both of ~ese are so~rces or roots of expressions
like machinic propositions of logic or computer code. Impor-
tantly, machinic propositions are not easily tied down to discur-
sive coordinates of structuralist interpretations, including bina-
ry value-giving axes and the presupposition of differential and
oppositional relations, because the machine for Guattari eludes
structure; whereas existential territories and incorporeal univers-
es belong to the non-discursive domain. Non-discursivity is by
definition pathic. Pathic apprehension of being-in-the-world is
not primarily discursive (neither located spatio-temporally nor
describable as such) but it is inevitab/ydiscursive; that is, not ul-
timately, not for ever so, but secondarily so. This is a complex
relationship. Readers of A ThousandPlateauswill recall that the
discursive is already in the body-without-organs,2 which is basi-
cally non-discursive, that is, non-interpretive, and that discourse
introduces significance, and subjectivation, both kept in "small
supplies." Similarly, he positions the infinite speeds of the vir-
tual as already loaded (pregnant or inhabited) with finite speeds3

2-1?ele1:12eand Guattari, A ThousandPlateaus,trans. B. Massumi (Minneapolis:

University_of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 160.
3· G~attan, Chaosmosis, trans. P. Bains. and J.Pefanis (Bloomington: Indiana Uni-
versityPress, 1995), p. 112.

120
~1\
t1~
'
\
qtl.
1
:ws down, orgaruzes, crystallizes)4 th .
, (I~ 1
. _,.1 (so
. . fini us, grasp 111
-~\ ~heac~ 'ble only if an m ty upon expulsion fr . g
~tL', f v• ossl d d) th · om its do
o . -'yris P ality(reduce spee at is graspable. Lik . -
:::~p~a~t~
\~ ,,

\ ~ 601rv a qu di . hi ewise the

~\~~;~ i::~!:ste::,s:ed
~sc~
11

i:, by
o~~e#ga ,.~na rualpenchant for delimiting non-discurs;vi.ty espth1te
,ov 's ev"' h ldin th . as e
di~~e becomes a o g - e consistency harden d
~ tJli11gup ...~tlons with assurances of its soundne tbs an
(flll ts seP&'.LJ-" • f• th ss rough
0 tlfl
: f11 the superionty o its me od or types of evid
it botlt f di . . ence.
d~s a d as markers o scurs1vity, such ''small su li ,,
l)nde~:~~n the domains of flux (fluctuations) and pphples
de \\7lu1.1>... ) . . 1 . yum
ifldu . n of fluxes extrinsic e ements of discursive d
forrnaoo h . or er-
(tbe ferences) sue as space-nme coordinates and the lin-
. (~o-re d £ . f
111g. c rnation and e ormat1on o unformed matters that •
·socior . fl . . , is,
gut c n"lations of contingent uxes into possible occurrences
.-i11s1orlJ.... . d th · ·
ll-'w machines) an eir expression as concrete machines.
(abstract · · ·
aridefines discurs1V1ty th "
as e synonym of sequential order
Guatt£ renced to Energetico-Space-Time (EST) coordinates"6 in
eio~ree . f hi
'th rnachinic expressions o r zomes (knots and squares) or
1
~ er chains Oevels and thresholds).
}inear ·
In an interview near th e en d o f hi s Ii£e, G uattan · explained
· that
discoursewas no_t ~e e~em!. ~ther,_ o~y dis:ourse that con-
tributesto capitalistic subJect1vat1on - its 1ntens1ve, subsumptive,
expansion in immaterial labor rendered perilously precarious -
is the enemy because the more it proliferates in the spread of
information, the further it diminishes and slows down enuncia-
tivecapacity by making it less collective, more standardized, and
exchangeist.7 Guattari invokes mythical narratives like Freudian
psychoanalysis that allow fluxes to come to expression and to
flowthrough them, only to rather "insidiously" trap them 8; con-
versely,Freudian psychoanalysis promotes and supports the pas-
sagesof universes of reference and gives them consistency, as in

4. Onthispoint see Simon O'Sullivan, On theProduction of Subjectivity:

FiveDiagrams
oftheFinite-Infinite
"Relation(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 99-100.
5· Guattari,Schizoanafytic Cartographies,
trans. A. Gofffey (London: Bloomsbury,
2013),p.131.
6.Guatt'lt-tS h. ,t., . C . p. 70.
G ~: c. tzoanayltc artographzes, .
7
. uatt:an,"The Vertigo of Immanence: Interview with John Johnston," m The
GUafta · E1+.
8_G rz ~ect~ndon: Continuum, 2011), p. 36.
uattan,Schzzoana!Jtic p. 43.
Cartouaphies,

121
 ,, •-positiY-ist' theory of jokes or in the lapsus.9 D·
the .<l ann_ _ pporr in . d1scern1
. ·1Jt·1· . non- <l"
1z1ng . virtu•~coUts~
1scurs1ve
ro,-i es su . . . al e
P. . .. rent. Guartan de. en 6 cs t 11c promise of this nun..
ciao\ e con . ,~10 support
"diversion of narration. . as
a Guartan
.... . \\""JS· fascinate<l
'· .
\\'1th the Jarat cse resin01,1 .
, . · o~ anz ·
f arc u.rectl i r'"'l s"·lc cs1 cc1allv the ,vork of Shtn Takl'}rna ts Aatton
l H • l -' • • Cl
0 ''tl ird \Y'l\'" bcnvcen a context scnstive Le C bu that
opens a l , , . l ti l . . or u .
. lf housc-1nacl11ncs c111 ct uc<. 1n highly r<'.I • s1an
mo<lcnusrn l · . '"-C\tlonali·
d lanned urban tissu ·s, and deta he l obJcct~ c~f Micsian fuzed
a_n P. _ his ,, -icings on archttcctural enunciation and nc,
nona 11~n1.1t1 • 1 ' 1 1·1 tnach·
. b ntln~ in Takamatsn s ' or ·s I (CA RI< <lcntal clinic (19 in.
tc eco .. l\~)k ·s "the position of a Butoh dancer like Min...,., ),
83
GJuattan u . d d h i anak
. ll folded into h1s O\-Vtl bo y an , owever, hypersensi . a,
rot.i ~
y
. f h . ,,11 , ttve to
rions emananog rom t e enVIronment. Sum"'"' ..
all perce
H--W,. P ' .
aro-nn1 en t, the beconung mac · e of ARK displ
hin ~uanzino
~
G ual"' ti-- . d . ays a
uman subjecthood an enunciates 6y means of segme
no nh . th . di "d al cl 11 . nts of
human subjectivauon, bo m V1 :1 an co ecnve, with which
it \\'Orks.Some of these segments like ?cular s~uctures, involv-in
cialityeffects, as deployed by the architect, atta.in a certain de g
f:a . r G . kin gree
o f autonomy. ARK . achieves, 1or
. . th uattan,
. a d of enunciau·:ve
autonomy at a certain pomt m e creat1v:e process of the project,
and once detached from its author (architect and builder), cau
contextual mutations in !ts ?eighb?rh~od, which in turn reco:~
poses the existential t~r:1tones of 1ts viewers, who. enter into the
heterogeneous enunoauve asse1?,blages o_f c?llect1ve subjectiva...
tion. A key elemei:~ of Guattan s aes~etlcs. 1s a de-centering or
perhaps decompos1non of the ~uman, either m the direction of an
autonomization of a proto-subJect, or through the loss of anthro-
pocentric perception thro~h an ~~ or :eg~table becoming.In...
deed, this is what Guattan 1s getting at m his dialogue with Tanaka
''Body-Assemblage" (included for the first time in English trans~
lation in ~s volume) 12 abou~ the strategy of dan_cin?horizontally
and creepmg on the ground, m the process deterntonalizing his vi-
sual and auditory senses, and those of the audience as well. Howev-
er, Tanaka insists upon fluctuation from the horizontal, and refuses
the ''horizontal" and "vertical" as standards, preferring the slanted,
p. 26.
9. Guattari, Chaosmos-is,
p. 61.
10. Guattari, Chaosmosis,
11.Guattari,"The ArchitecturalMachinesof Shin Takamatsu,»in this volume,p.80
12.Guattari,"Body-Assemblage: Dialoguewith :MinTanaka,''in thisvolume,p.46-47.

122
 . tent with this, Guattari argues that transver al-
oil'g;c00;:iJnple horizont~ty (field of distributions) and
~ csb<:rh
.i,J ·enirchical-pyrarrud~) ~o~ ~e sake of a dynamic
.. ce~.-11otlitY
i<1 ,v---..
(ht, vision of be.coming
,.,,a){as f . 1s . insistently
. dynamic d
, an
,,Jir' ., 1J1.v· it may carry o mntatton (facile non-h
1 ..,ctJJ• sense f h uman
\bl#.=-et5~y cfullittlshmento c ange. Tanaka's hypersensitivity
t1'ct·,~~), or components of the th atrical assemblage brin
~"\ltl oon-ht1flla.tl 0
int of distinguishingbetween a representationgals
dtt
".' .-ri to
thePble consisttng ·
o f space, ttme,
· and. body as well as
t-'[\iv- en~ern . al d .
t~""-vrsi~ ..iv-enon-repres~ntatl.on oma.m :'71thouta substan-
Jt. 0..JiscUCStha body-without-organs that 1s unorganized but
• oo ra er, . E . .
o,lt,odY - that swarm over 1t. xistence 1s produced at a pivot _
~cts au:xes elarivel unformed fluxes of sensible and semiot-
alv.. \...prween r . .thin th . . I

p0itltLI" th t are 111stanttate ett own domain by mod- I

ictnarte!S a(hizomes) an given territorial substance (not fully
uiarscreens r . . )
b proto-enunc1at1ve, an
d th en turne d back partially
formed,utxpressiveassemblages for a machinic possibilization,
fo~edase anexplorationof the potentta· li·tles o fth eir · most deterrito-
tha~ is, d highlycharged components, their molecular elements;
:Ali7ed an h . . . th
~ een fluxes and p y1a via terntones ere is a triangle of
thus,be~rm and substance. These have polysemiotic matters of
matter, •ion mediatedby any site . w here a T anaka dance occurs let's
express10 , b . k h .di '
sa the shoreline,water, reezes, s y, unu ty, etc., the so-called
,~ds" of matter-fluxes of dance as he performs an improvisa-
~ rional body-wea ther.14 . . . . . .
Guattari'sTanaka 1s wrapped-up like a building m machin-
ic becoming,yet open to the diverse "winds" that are formed
byfluctuatingmatters. in relation to which the dancer himself
isdecenteredand into whose shifting relations viewers enter; as
Tanaka puts it, the "event that happens outside of me" but with
which he fuses. Moreover, Tanaka's closedness remains open like
aTakamatsubuilding because it contains more than itself, its po-
tentialconnections,what Brian Massumi refers to as the "body's
vitalself-abstraction"in performance understood as an unfurling
diagram of its potentialities. 15 The discursive and non-discursive

~; Guattari,Psychana/yse
et transversalite(Paris: Editions Franc;ois Maspero /La
ecouverte,1972/2003), p. 79.
14.Guattan,·
. «n
outo h" m
• thi s volume, p. 43.
15
b :dMassurru,
Semblanceand Event:Activist Phiiosopl[y and the OccurentArts (Cam-
n ge,MA:The MIT Press, 2011), p. 140.

123
 dotnains \,·hich uattari is describing in terms 0 f b' .
spccLIs (\\·tth
· tjualtfications)
·
· . c. . 1-dtr ·
interfaces at 1nnn1te betw ectionaJ
ple. actu.ali7ed flu.x s and h)11crcon11 le~ chaosrnic Te :en _corn,
,,·ell as ,,rtual Univ "tscs and the 1na h1ni Phylu rtttones, as
. lc, as stat J 111
. C1Jaost1Jos/r.
..1 rn, un<leli
basic prin tp r ncs a

... \vhat gi s consistency to [.. -1discursive syste

·
thoriz ~ t
h · f · · ms,what
r ctlon o en~nc1attve ~onads should be s au.
on the s1d of Content; that1s, on the side of this exist . · ought
· w h'1ch , ta king support from certain· discursive link
non enuaI.func-
c
them rrom th eir · ·fying, d enotanonal
· s1gru · and propo · s,. diverts
. sittona} ·
cidences, making them play the role of a refrain of ontol .in-
affirmation.16 °gica}

There is a diversion of discursivity from its significational e

ment in denotational and connotational semiological strat:~-
17
Bar~es's staggered systems ) b~ the insur~ent forces of chaos~
mos1s that lead them, perhaps ride them, mto richer and m
. . . th d ore
heterogenetlc enunc1at1on~ at o not get stuck in the linear dis-
cursivity - a good Guattanan example of slowing down _ of th
syntagm, but can themselves receive grafts that highlight enrich~
ing "wild flight~:, and m~e "new ~harges of complexity.',18
Hence, Guattans language of 1nterface is also a negotiation.

PathicSubjectivation

Guattari posed the following semiotic question and placed it at

the heart of his conception of subjectivation: "How do certain
semiotic segments achieve their autonomy, start to work for
themselves and to secrete new fields of ref erence?,, 19 This is a
basic question firstly about how such segments escape beingre-
ductively beholden to structural organi2ation and the linguistic
signifier. But, secondly, it is also a question about autonomisa:
ti.on in an aesthetic sense. Mixing conceptual languages Guattan

16. Guattari, Chaosmosis,p. 60. .

trans. A. Lavers and C. Smith (New York:Hill
17. Barthes, Elementsof Semiology,
and Wang, 1967), p. 89f£
18. Guattari, Chaosmosis,p. 111.
19. Guattari, Chaosmosis,p. 13.

124
 .
·al enunctator " to express how a f
0
n ••parttbecornes detached from its expr ra?ment of a
--'td';
coflcent by a ''creative
. ~ ._ d upo O
subjectivity',
ltl. ethssivematerial
e proc f
,,,.,-~c.eize. lf _ a process that involves enterin ess 0
1
J 1. • . 1rse al • . g a new uni
,-, .. 1bliog_. corpore as 1t comes into existence S h .-
-.t.,1 is 1fl . . G . uc a um
,~-e chat , re-e,dst entry into it. uattari borrows an -
,,..~ Joesn t P of content from Bakhtin's . example
,..r.:efragment " ana 1ys1s of poetr
' . this ~ ling of movement such as rhythtni 1 Y
l,t ,•theiee " th d . ca e1ernents
·here ctors at sen processes of subJecu· .
,, ''attra b k vauon dow
._~1(lle th rather than ac to pre-established c din n
V'-'"' _J pa s ". . li oor ates
\l\{fiev . of movement 1s a vita ty affect in the 1 t ·
t ''feeling ' . 1 £ . a e psycho-
11lis . D,..n1elSterns ternuno ogy, a eeling unanchor d
1st '1-l~ • d ) 20 F e to a
t1teraP f rllotion
alO e.1.J.... (1.e.,
. ue to anger
, • . . or Guattari , the deta ch ed
sign mnentof semionc cor:t~nt is adptho1ntof origin that effects a
fraE,-. . tential catalysis towar e emergence of "nu 1 • f
nc-exis li . c e1o
''po~ . tion" and is not pecu ar to either creator or audie
bJeco-va h . ll th nee,
su th is ''quasi-sync roruca y e enunciative crystallizati
b; tthera e.r, d th d . on
creator, interpreter an e _a rrurer _of the work of art."21
0
ari underscores the dynarruc affective relations bet\veen
Guartfigures and how they are put to work creating a "new exis-
these ,,zz
tentiale ce.difi ,v, . .. k .
'fhe figure of von we1zsac er ~ppears in a footnote in The
Machinic Unconsdous ~a~ wa:ns a?amst the tendency to fall back
on hard and fast dist1nct1ons like those between "pathic" and
up
''onric,"or the persona 1-vita · 1- fluctuat1ons · and the physical-objec-
tiveworld of causal relations and quantities, to which Guattari
himselfis sometimes prone, he readily admits. "Certain distinc-
tionsthat seem relevant in a given context can function elsewhere
[whenthey are imported from the sciences] as concepts that bi-
narizethe assemblages while aborifying the problems." 23 This is
to be avoided, and one of the functions of the molar-molecu-
lar dyad, without privileging either term, is to prevent harden-
ingfrom occurring that drains away all interaction. An additional
pointfor Guattari is that the reuse of imported concepts from
sciencecannot preserve the heterogeneity, that is, the "machinic

pp. 52-3.
20.Genosko,AberrantIntroduction,
p. 19.
;L Guatta~Chaosmosis,
2· Guattan,Chaosmosis,
p. 20. .
23· TheMachinic
Unconscious trans T Adkins (Los Angeles: Sem1otext(e), ZOll),
p.149. ' . .

125
L
creationism" that he finds at every level of the cosmos. 24 Guattari
regains the pathic fron1 Yon \ cizs~ichcr's opposition, and finds it
at \vork in all processes of suhjcctivation. ·rhus, by the period of
Chaosmosis, 1uattari restates his position in this way: rationaHst
and capitalist suhjcctivations ·an rowd out pathic knowledge by
''bracketing" it as in s icntifi n1odcling. 25 I-le doesn't call these
ontic dctcrn1inations of pathic knowledge, but they perform in
\vays sitnilar to impositions of objective measures on self-found.
ing such as causes and effects.
A productively self-positing process is performed relational-
ly in terms of points of reference like the body and the social
group, and is also shaped by multiple alterities and the transit
of autonomous affects and social constructions that outline con-
straints such as models of identity, and redundancies that define
various kinds of competences. This is where the fragments of
content do their work against the dampening chains of redun-
dancies or, more interestingly, by performing the operation upon
fragments of them, by extracting and then converting these to
partial enunciators by "refraining" as Guattari suggests. 26 This
holds them together and permits a process of subjectivation to
get ahold of them for existential instantiations and incorporeal
flights. The material at issue here ranges widely and Guattari gives
examples from repetitive music (minimalism), Butoh dance, and
Duchamp's reliance on the spectator's refinement of a work, in
addition to the examples from poetics he began with. Guattari's
appeal to a-signifying existential functions, indeed, to an entire
"regime" of a-signification, in virtue of their relative autonomy
from meaning, is less organic, and more purely informatic, than
his construction of them in The MachinicUnconscious, where such
functions grow like "microscopic parasites" on the "manure"
of signification, conscientialization and modes of capitalistic
27
subjectivation. A-signifying semiotics that do not require pas-
sage through, and are not bound to meaning, encourage such
mushrooming. Of course, any fragment can become enslaved
cybernetically through semiotic standardization at the level of
expression or suffer semiological subjection at the hands of
p. 155.
24. Guattari, MachinicUnconscious,
p. 26.
25. Guattari, Chaosmosis,
p. 20.
26. Guattari, Chaosmosis,
p. 51.
27. Guattari, TheMachinicUnconscio11S,

126
 tive redundancies at the content 1
opera . . . eve1 Gua tt .
. vs rec . uJ·eirnslev m requ1.t1ng a-signifyin h ·. an
.JlrtO r r\015 .1.J. all c d g c at.ns to b
~,.,.o,vSj..l'-' f scientific y i?rme matters, but not lin i . e
tollposed O
ri's construction of an a-signifying s . ~ s~cally
,of11d Guatta . 'fyin . 1 . enuoucs is not
- f1le. t of s1gru g setruo ogies of langua b
to~:..-tioishfl1learnger scheme of "decentering." That sfe ut ra?1er
aJlll..,.,. f a . • · 1 cl . gn machines
·~ part o ''directly within mater1a an social machin .
1• · n • ·c · es without
~,,,ctJO. . 11of sign1ncat1ve processes of sub).ectivati· ,,28 .
iv-· diattO . . f th h on is a
the me . of enunciation rom e uman subJ'ect to hi
Jeeentef1Ilg an assem bl ages o f enunciation. • .
Decenterin h
mac n-
n-htUJl ak f hini. g uman
ic,no . . for the s e o mac c proto-sub1· ectifi.cau· .
· cttVlty . f th ,...,....
1- • ons 1s
5ub)e th theoret1ca 1 goa 1s o e 1. oe MachznicUnconsci, F
of e . .fi . b ous. or
one . the field of a-s1gru cation ecomes that of non-h
ttaf1, hini. uman
Gua .. in and among mac c systems: strictly speakin
00
unc1at1 hi h . th g,
en . sand plans w c enunciate e machine and make it a t
''equaoon . h . 1 c
. di ranunatic capacity on tee n1ca and experimental appa-
in a a~29 This vast region includes the fetch-and-execute cycles
rawses. . b' .
hine language, system 1nteropera ility at different levels of
of rnac . 1d b . .
nge and mult1-leve e cy ernetlc loops, which are scientifi-
e:x:c ha ' . . d
formed by computer scientists an systems engineers. Enun-
call Y machinlc
. tive ·· su b stances syn th es1z1ng .. h eterogeneous qualities
etaanalso be from non- h uman species . like b'1tds (the Brown Stage-
~aker example 3°) or, as he announced in The MachinicUnconscious,
computers can become more bound up with enunciation (think
of Apple's "Siri") thereby blurring the distinction between "hu-
man creativity and machinic invention." 31 The convergence of
a-signification and a-subjectification is achieved most clearly in
the critique of anthropocentrism through technology but also
through ethology. And with this comes an emphasis on ani-
mism (Guattari notes the animal-animist connective tissue in his
conversation with Tanaka and elsewhere) through the example
of self-enunciative machines at the interfaces of the discursive
and non-discursive domains. 32 This, for Guattari, is the artist's
contribution: extracting a fragment from the real that functions

,'
28.Jbid.,p. 68.
I

;6· p. 36.
Guattari,Chaosmosis,
· Deleuz~and Guattari, A ThousandPlateaus,p. 331.
31
32·tattan,
s.· .
p. 103.
TheMachinicUnconscious, Ii
gela Melitopoulos and Maurizio Lazzara to, "Machinic Aninusm, De euze
. . ,,

6.2 (2012):224.
ludzes

127
 as a partial enunciator for creator, vie\.ver, and user: 'What is ·
portant is to know if a work leads effectively to a mutant prod un-
. · ,,33 ,v,1 G •c d Uc-
tion of enu?,c1at:1on. . vv_1at uattar~ 1oun compelling in the
"rich affects of the pa1nt:1ngsof Yayo1 I(usama was their capa . (
ty to "guide us in the exp(ora_ti'.m,~,; vcge_taland _vegetative
alities that haunt ou~ s~1bJect1v1ty._· Wnung against the grain of
vir~: I'

'

typical psychoanal tic 1nterprctat1011s of her work, and even h

. . d . G er
own self-analys so f narc1ss1sm an autism, uattari refocuses on
her "d composition of 1natters, forms, colors and signification
up to a nee ssary and sufficient point from which she will the~
recompose vectors of sensibility and of sense of a much greater
cope than those with which she initially began." While Kusa-
ma has advertised her artistic process as one of self-obliteration
through the proliferation of polka dots and tiny brush strokes, at
the same time she has complained of the uselessness of Freudian
'i
/
analysts. The play of indifferentiation and subsequent elabora-
tion underlines the controlled character of I(usama's chaoticiza-
tions toward the production of "hypercompex affects." These
affects are not describable as "undifferentiated energy" or "brute
unformed matter," but instead emerge from their non-discursive
domain bearing "infinite" riches of potentiality; indeed, this is
Kusama's language as well as Guattari's, the former using polka
dots, and latter using speeds. I(usama's paintings have the pow-
er, for Guattari, in snatching materials from an otherwise trivial
consumer culture, in combination with some of the traditions
of Japanese painting, to "re-enchant our world." Having lived
through the "creations-destructions" of the Beat Generation and
surviving the phallocratic world of abstract expressionism, Kusa-
ma's triumph as a contemporary artist is precisely in her mastery
of the entities that take shape with the slowing down of the in-
finite speeds of a pre-objectal entity through its re-entry into the
discursive atmosphere, as it were, with exquisite control over the
components of a pulverized matter, which in their turn provide
viewers with "new existential supports" for auto-productive sub-
. . .
Jectiva ttons.
The most compelling implication of decentering is that it
permits "enunciation [to] become correlative not only to the
emergence of a logic of non-discursive intensities, but equally to
p. 131.
33. Guattari, Chaosmosis,
34. Guattari, "The Rich Affects of Madam Yayoi Kusama," in this volume, P· 75.

128
 f'11ora t1.on-agglomeration
., .
of these
vector 0 f
. iJlCO>-r-,,35 Guatta.t1 s shift to the non-disc . par-
tl11c.¢tY . . buil ur ive not 1
'pi b)ectl 1~of subjectivity. t upon discursive lo . .on.Y
~ stJs p1oded ersonhood, but pushes past the s b' gics, .tndi-
,so1P:ot:1, an Pdrawing upon both phenomenal u Ject-object
•Jvjv . yet . c f · . ogy and p
,1 itto!l· ttari looks 1or us1ons of subJect-ob· sy-
os . Gua " di
p,.(laiys1s, sitlvism" or non- scursive transitivi· ,, s ill Ject pole ·
oP
_hOLI>' • rran
D· bJ·eettv-f 'de of some re 1atlon to
· th .
e discursiv b
sm that d
o
•'~v \lts1 c th e, ut are n
~ ~~st O ..rl'h1ng else ior at matter. Discu • . . ot
tlot it or a 0 Yv~- 'th d rs1v1ty1s not
~ _-1bY d ne away W1 once an for all _ it is pr .
t1$ev y o . ec1se1y thi
·"' eoePl . ,...ng that Guattar1 wants to avoid. Guatt . . s
u,e f thJ.n~"" . . an lnstead
,.;(ldo the pathic knowledge of non-discursive .
t-V' on b . experience
foeuses tions briefly may e seen m hypnosis and in th
e .tJlen . th .th . e expe-
tbath f duration m e encounter W1 nuclei of subJ·ecti .
eo . b. . . .. vation
0eocree:xis . t the subJect-o Ject re 1atlona 1div1s1on.SubJ'ecu· .
. b' . vation
thatP esto e~1 "" st alongside the . su Ject-obJect . . relation in due course
cot:1it attern
pts to self-actualise. To do this 1t needs spatio-temp _
. . di . . o
as dinates and semiotic me anons, namely, discursive op-
ralcoorBut Guattar1. notes t h at thi s recourse to discourse has a
erators. . 1th h . all
eculiar character since a o~g 1: o':~ for the apprehension
Pf bjectivity's auto-formatl.on, it additionally reveals an ele-
o s; of pseudo-discursivity and pseudo-mediation installed at
::nfoundation of the subject-~bject relationship. 36 The paradox,
ashe callsit, is that the foundation o~ all modes of subjectivation
is the pathic, even though the pathic tends to be squeezed out
of discourse,especially by reductionistic sciences and rationalist
subjectivities, even by badly botched narrative refrains like those
of consumerculture; yet Guattari's insight is that discourse rests
uponthe very thing it attempts to evacuate, namely, non-discur-
sivity. And conversely, the non-discursive requires discursivityin
makinglines of heterogeneity discernible.
Non-discursiveuniverses of reference are virtual: deterritorial-
izedand incorporeal. The virtual (complex incorporeal Universes)
?~gs about actualization (real chaosmic existential Territorial-
tzatlons)by finding an interface (a complex, heterogenetic refrain,
that.is limitless). The operator between these two orders, that is,
terntoryand universe is called "pathic" - its role is to translate,
~ and forth, their' endo-references to existential and virtual
35 Gu t ·
36·. lb.; tan, Chaosmosis,
p. 22.
l •, p.26.

129
 triation and in so doing mix them (i.e., mix speeds); where
as,
the "onoc. operator '' h.1nges.Aux an d .p hyl um \vtt· h exo-referen ced
coordinates that generate tntermct 11ary mixtures of consist
.. 11· <l
cie including rcgu lanttes 010 <.1ng, an processual elements
en...
r l . f . . .
well. 17The searc l1 1or nu · ct o cnunct, ttvc con~1stency invol
as
. . . (' ves
a "di rting" Jep loyn1 ·nt o t Its ur~1v1 1.e., using narrativet
establish compl . r fr, ins as < Pl < sc<l t<'.of'.cring explanations~
Pathic kn~)\Vl·dg' locs nc t g ncrat_' obJccttve descriptions and
circun1s rib~ :ftld~ c f rcfcrc_n '~ wtth regard ~o exte~nal objects,
For Guattan patlu e.,press1on 1s not placed in relations of dis-
cursi succ ssion in order to situate the object in the basis of
a cl arly delimited referent. Here we are in a register of co-ex-
i tence, of crystallization of intensity." 38 Pathic relationships are
not fixed by signification, structural coordinates, or metaphysical
dualisms. A virtual universe cannot be only identified in its exis-
tential incarnation; it cannot solely be described in the discursive
register it deploys, fixed by its referents. The deployment of dis-
cursivity against its tendency to evacuate pathic knowledge gives
to it~ cert~ ag~nst the ~ra~n texturality as ~~rrative, especially
mythic theories like Freudiarusm, or those delirious narratives of
psychotic patients, that can become the existential supports for
intensive refrains and thus for mutant subjectivations. N everthe-
less, in directing pathic intensity toward a distinctly formed and
fixed entity, it may be converted into a functional anchor likea
category (an abstract affect tied to a specific emotion). Guattari
thinks this is the main failure of the Lacanian signifier, which
inherits linearity and misapplies it in a homogenizing manner to
the "pathic, non-discursive, autopoetic character of partial nuclei
of enunciation," 39 reducing the diverse components of any as-
semblage by means of structural logic and limiting subjectivation
under the crushing weight of the symbolic order.
How does awareness of partial enunciators arise? Pathic con-
sistencies are becomings. They are not apprehended through
representation but through affect and a constantly changing field
of forces that display various degrees of differentiation: "They
start to exist in you, in spite of you." They transport, that is,
sweep you away, Guattari thinks, into a universe of reference:
37. Guattari, Schizoana!Jtic p. 112.
Cartographies,
p. 30.
38. Guattari, Chaosmosis,
39. Ibid., p. 72.

130
 z

ansported into a Debussyst Universe ,,40 .

ttiY5elft! ously, before the traits of the affect···· ~his
·•I6flds siJ1lultail;scourse. The "transversal flash" acr~enter ~to
,,pPell llcitiooal ribed by Guattari in terms of the " sslsubJect
l' i:ese · desc • . . " agg omera-
t'rJ obJ·ect 1s before representation - it 1s existence''
ffects ration beco1nes some thing of a tech pure and
,fl ,, of a . 1
· ,11 glorne . th • . ru.ca terrn
cJl le,Ag . ·1t specifies e amassing 1n a ·1umbled
-.it11P s,s as . , non-se-
: Cbaosff/O of cornpon~nts mto assemblages of subjectivation
ill 0ual waYthe aesthetic example of the fragment of ·
q\te . to . d ilin' content
~g li r there 1s a oveta g of the transversal fl h
tte dear e '
.i;scusse. i.;ch such a ragment
f "' k
ta es possession of th
as and
~- 111wui . d f . e au-
_,,anne! der a certain mo e o aesthet1c enunciation "41 Th
"' ' engen 1 f . . e
thO! to sal flash is a comp e;:. re r~ ~~t has multiple powers:
t(Pls-ve:,, (into sadness) or unploding (personality).
''plll11ging

Transitivist
and Fusional

,-v,· sacker explains his conception of the pathic in terms

Vonvve12 . . . d
of fivecategories const1tut1nhgll~~P1nthite~
epen~ent pentagram of
. may can will,must, s a . a c expenence finds expres-
bs.
-ver , ' .
. through the categones modeled on verbs. The expression is
sion . hi h W . .. h d
fixedbyverb categories w .c von eizsac . er ~scribes as akin
to cagesin which the passion~ h.ave been unpn~on~d. Noting,
however, their abstractness, he insists that such fixity 1s not to the
exclusionof fluidity (after all, verbs can be conjugated and qual-
ifiedby auxiliaries), but that "the imprisoned bird can take flight
withits cage or the cage can take flight with the bird." 43 Path-
ic becoming stands against ontic givenness-ordinariness. This
becomingdefined by cagey verbs indicates a volitional striving,
thatis, drive-based categories; whereas Guattari abandoned the
drivesfor machines, and rejected the nosological categories of
psychoanalysis,as well as the aforementioned affective categories
f?r amodals. It is not hard to imagine Guattari's further objec-
tionsto these statements: both the construction of a grammatical
40·Guattari,Chaosmosis,
p. 93.
41.Ibid.,p. 14ff.
42.VonWi· "ck M Led0 ux B
Maebe trans. J. de Bis~chop,-~· Ge~~t,
C eizsa. er, Pathosophie, ·
43.V~n· ~~er, A-M Norgeu (Grenoble: MillonJerome Editions),2011,P·
54_·
Weizsacker,Pathosophie,p. 55.

131

, ...
.,
 "axiomatic" for pathic intensity and the definition of pathi .
st
· b ase d on lack, for \.Vhatis not (yet): "on ne peut vc Inv.-
· t h at 1s
1ng
. , "44 d .1 . ou 01r
que ce qui nest pas, enounceo 1n a global refusal in An{.Q
1
dip11s-."nothing can b defined as a la k.' ii; For von Weizsak t~
. . . .fi <l c er
pat h1c 1nten 1ty appears to 6 strati c grammatically in wh· h'
· are " coagu late d .ab stra t:J.ons
t h e categories · " ~t(i' t~at are on)y fluid
Jc

as encumber d hol s (th· flight f th· bird tn its cage). Th

five cat gories ar ~ to th logic of language what the axioms a e
to g on1 tr .,,47 Th s m1ot1c • • overco cl'1ng at work here takes lare _
guag a th dominant model of realization, and the postulat:
can only flow as wholes and in accordance with existing rules 0 ;
combination, in other words, with the imperatives of grammar as I,
.'
a model of subjectivation beginning in childhood. In fact, Guar- ,J,
tari states that the pathic categories "mask one another by mutual j .I
48
disguise," yet he considers Von Weizsacher an inspiration for his r!
. '
own theorization.
.jr
Despite these clifferences, von Weizsacker's thinking of the
pa thic is indexed to becoming. In Cyclede la structure,he advances
a number of remarkable definitions of pathic becoming as po-
tential: "The being in a state of crisis is nothing at the moment,
but everything in potential." 49 Reading this in a Guattarian way,
the emphasis is on passage and controlled proliferation. Inten-
sive movements of the pathic erase the ontic: "The pathic state
is basically a synonym for disappearance of the ontic; the crisis
of transformation reveals the struggle to the death engaged in
between pathic and ontic attributes." 50 This disappearance is for
von Weizsacker indicative of the non-translatibility of the pathic
experience into those of the antic, like space, time and causality.51
Put differently, it is not possible to resolve categories of desire
and obligation in ontic motivations or causes. Guattari rejects
this and other typical antagonisms (pathic/ ontic; eros/thanatos)
44. Von Weizsacker, Pathosophie,
p. 65.
45. Deleuze and Guattari,Anti-Oedipus,trans. R Hurley et al (New York: Viking,
1977), p. 60.
46. Deleuze and Guattari, A ThousandPlateaus,p. 144.
47. Von Weizsacker, Pathosophie,p. 54.
48. Guattari, Schizoana/ytic
Cartographies,p.109.
49. Von Weizsacker, Le Cyclede la Stn1cture,trans. M. Foucault and D. Rocher
(Bruges: Desclee de Brouwer, 1958), p. 220.
50. Ibid.
51. Von Weizsacker, Le Cyclede la Structure,p. 222.

132
 d O rnainwith "ontic" attributes in hi
sa h · lin
Je\TeloPpelbart emp as1zes a k between the
s carto h
grap y.
~d ~1spart, Weizsacker and Guattari's sens f erasure of
iv . -von . . e o a "d .
fa! "tic iJl h osmotic unmanence that exists b r e-dif-
OJ.> d'' c a . . etore s0 ll
tlte tiite ,, ntic'' attributes like space and tun· 52 S -ca ed
_rell · g o . e. ubrn ·
ft:v.1;r1atiJl t1'c state - described as a pathol . .ers1on
o!W' srn° • . ogica1 sp
~o a cha~. luding psychosis, autism, mania epil ectrurn
ll1'.°Glllltta11
~e painting of Imai - is experie~cedeisy~~ut al~o
b}¢!1ls ofb orption" into agglomerated undiffer Y_ pathic,
\tl riala s <<· • • 1 ' enuated trait
~stefl blishes that in cr1t1ca moments [crisi ] li£ s.
~elbattethsta,_ it resurges from the depths."53 The ~~pthegoes.to
'd1e dep s ' ecific no d es G ua t tar1. calls "umbilical"
.. d share in-
. d at sp . . • , an t ese are
bib1te . tential terntones are incarnated and incorp .
e eZ1S b' . . b . orea1uni-
\Vher constituted as su Ject1v1ty egins to be establi h d .
es are " . f . .fi . s e 1n
\fers d these pomts o 1ntens1 cation" as it re-em
d aroun . . erges.54
an d pth has 1ts own specific texture, and every inhabit ti'
-every e dd d ,,55 a on
D . .,,~n "signed an
1 ate event. Indeed a Tanaka da .
haS1ts Ow . '. nee 1S
e same, as the dancer does not own 1tlike a property b
rnuc h th .fi . . , ut
. . rristeredat a spec1 c site at a particular time: "I don't need
1t1sreo- , thin . .
, Own dance. Is there any g as such? I can livewithout it or
rny
canrem.am ·
a dancer W1. th . B thi s ~ody 1s
. out it. ut
· me, and dancing
1
iswhatthisbody an~ nund do, so I say my dance.' But it is not
, y dance'as a proprietary property. One may just say 'the dance
m suchand sueh a d ate.'" 56 F ur th er, I mai .'s works from a number
of
of periodsexemp~fied for Guattari tl_iepainting of chaosmosis:
"Chaoticplunge mto matter, osmosis between the gesture of
abolitionand complexity regained. From his period of gestural
abstractionto his Ka-chofu-getsuturn, Imai has affirmed himself
asa painter of chaosmosis." 57 The categories of von Weizsacker
may"modulate the pathic subject"; whereas a more orthodox an-
alysts'sso-called objective view would reaffirm the ontic. This is
quiteunlikea schizoanalyst, who lives pathicallywith his patients'

52.Guattari,Chaosmosis, p. 80.
53. Schottequoted in Pelbart, "Deterritorialized Unconscious," P·75.
54· Guattari,Chaosmosis, pp. 80 and 82.
55. ~uattari,Ibid.,p. 81.
56· Jt.aeKim and Min Tanaka "Min Tanaka's Butoh: An Interview," Theme7
2o06). http://www.them~magazine.com/stories/min-tanaka/
ra11
''Im at:· p a.mter
7.Guatt-:ir1
~~
. of Chaosmosis,' , m
• thi s vo 1ume, p· 71 ·

133
 ..._.
- .....,

p s.. 1nt \,. rld-makin 0 and by subm rsion into the

o- ,
laim padu a ss t th chaos1n.ic thing." 58 rncan

Concluding Remarks

--0 m f th b ~st f th fe\; hara t riz, tions of schizo l

T • ana Y-
i that ~·ist ar fr m t l1 s .,apan s artists promoted by G
tari. uattari p~-ais <l I-usama t r "bre~lcing thro:,igh the
,rry ia rn , , JU·t as h · tolled Imru s plung into the depth
wa:
f hao:m tic int nsity and return from his encounters with • s
. di 10-
finity. ~ Cha s1no is o f t l1e 1mm~ ate, sensual, sexual, gesture
that e.1z the can as. Chaosmos1s of the mute expectation of
'dripping,' which evokes the performance of traditional Chinese
painting ,vhen the watercolor vigorously reaches the delimita-
59
tion of tache-territory." Imai's artistic practice faces both direc-
tions between discursive complexity and non-discursive chaos
and "clearly concatenates" their relations. This is living in depth:
plunge into chaos and reemerge with the complexity already stir-
ring there and, as its surfaces, find ways to enrich it with "mu-
tant intensities" while paying attention to the chaos rebounding
on it. And back again, to and fro. An architect like Takamatsu
was able to originate pathic transferences through the singular-
ities of his works' components, and these, once they achieved a
machinic self-sufficiency, served as partial enunciators of aesthet-
ic apprehension. The simplest path.ic knowledge of a spatial pro-
to-enunciation is that of an ambience, Guattari thought, which
is without mediation and without reference to distinct, parceled
information. This apprehension may result in a fantasy (outdat-
ed futurism of Takamatsu's machinism with its toy profiles (i.e.,
Syntax) or precipitate a depressive subjectivation (sensing the an-
guish oozing from the walls of a barracks-style primary school).
Exterior discursive and immanent pathic affects interface and
engage processes that can conduct the existential territories
of those involved, not toward a pre-determined harmonious-
ness, and without mutilating promising singularities. What hap-
pens when these variations and access points to infinity are
captured and beholden to interpretive schemas? Post-Lacanian
58. Guattari, Chaosmosis,p. 86.
59. Guattari, "Imai: Painter of Chaosmosis," in this volume, p. 71.

134
 v ama's work, consonant with
f ~us fi . . . uattari b
,~,s o er early in ru~ net _prunttngs and later ~ erva-
~~ ~ther hand installation pieces in rder to !olka <l.twaU,
(1(1":,f111aO'e;of the controlled marks and object a~pha 12 the
rrft ,J spaC~.. .-insferences
t,~ft. 11one u.c;µ• .
across the artist-vie
d .
bd how path-
wer ord
~ -i,i<l~• ~formation an co-emergence _ ''fl h'' erspac ,
." . , tJ1UlL 60 as - th h
"' \l(\)IJ . • . tions.
crtl roug
',tf11
l1' .. f<\J
bJe<.:tt
Vn

(111P•
r'

I
•'
J,

) 60.SeeBracha Lichtenberg-Ettinger, "Trans-Subjective Transferential Border-

space,"in A Shockto Thought,ed. B. Massumi (London: Routledge,2002), PP·
~~?;
227 and Izumi Nakajima, "Yayoi Kusama between abstraction at:d pathol-
ogy,ll1 Psychoana/ysis
and the Image:Transdisciplinary
Perspectives,"
ed. Gnselda Pol-
lock(Oxford: Blackwell/Wiley, 2006), p. 154.

135