Rosi Braidotti, Metamorphosis:
towards a materialist theory of becoming, Polity press ‘prologue, pp 1-10
This text
asks:
·
How can difference be cleansed of this negative charge?
·
What conditions facilitate positive difference?
·
How can we celebrate difference?
·
Philosophical nomadism asks us to see power relations not as a
remarkable social collective desire, but a process that flows between and
interconnects internal and external forces.
·
How can we become a more human-cantered world?
·
Can I reconfigure a theoretical style that reflects my own practice.
·
Requests for a renewal of the language of academic writing and public
political discussions.
·
Finding value in multiple modes of theory as a style and political
understanding.
·
To freely explore and take risks, to grow together and apart in ways
that are not linear and allow strange things to happen, In an art and writing
context.
·
Liberating thinking outside band terms.
·
What can nomadism offer?
French
philosophy pushes the mind of human society towards thinking through a process
of subjectivity-feelings, tastes, opinions based on personal judgement to
mobilize the self and flow in-between interconnections, to move against the
settled and conventional, to challenge the domination of conscious rationality
and urges a deeper engagement and re-imagining of how human society can
co-exist where being different is not a toxin or inferior.
Nomadic figuration:
is a way of inhabiting deal and the beach as an ‘outsider within’. Ie
critically with deeper engagement imaginatively, to mark my situation and
existance as an artist. The artwork I make is the evidence of my ‘nomadic
becomings’ and quest for my own style and way of exsisting with the self and
others as a realistic whole..
Becoming: is about repetition, but also about memories of
the non-dominant kind. It is about affinities and the capacity both to sustain
and generate inter-connectedness. My art
sustains my soul and connects me to the external world.
Deterritorialisation:
my logocentric text is undoing or de-articulating traditional structures of
literature. It is a movement towards
change – perhaps Deal beach is becoming deterratorialised, in the sense that it
is changing use, to become a new territory for something else – art.
Theoretical nomadism:
balancing duality of opposites, working with and cross referencing the for and
against of something in a non judgemental way. Braidotti suggests Theoretical
nomadism is a gesture of rejection of the competitive, judgemental moralizing
traditional academic mind set. It is valueing multiple modes of theory as a
style for political understanding. Attacks dogmatic visions.
The loss of coherence can be compensated for by an inspirational
force and an energizing pull away from binary schemes, judgemental postures and
the temptation of nostalgia. Braidotti says its better to propel into multi
directions for an extra-textual experience, as we live in a multi directional
life now full of variations anyway. Life is not linear or set or has a known
path, life is full of explorations and risks, and is strange. So why can’t
theory be the same? Or artists function in the same way….differently?
Becoming machine
Philosophical nomadism
In between interconnectedness
‘I am rooted but I
flow’ Virginia woolf, the waves.
Working with accelerating change
‘Mood’ of being rather than ‘mode’ of being- experiencial
Nomadic complexities
Materialism of flesh - Acknowledgement of the body.
Radical immanence – thinking through the body.
Nomadic becoming’s
Possibilities and diversities
Cartographic gesture process V concept
The body as a living map
The natural and the manufactured
an allegorical text: something that has a hidden meaning
metaphorical text:
that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on some
point of comparison, the same as another otherwise unrelated object. It is, put
simply a figure of speech that compares two unlike things without using like or
as.
Nomadic text: involving more than two things, cross
referencing without taking sides, fluid-in-between experience and
information.
challenges the separation of reason from imagination. An energising pull away from binary schemes,
judgement towards the refusal to separate reason from imagination. ‘Post
personal’ that allows connections to be drawn from the authors intentions and
the readers who will process and transform
the authors text into insights and new and wider interconnections, blurring
hegemonic distinctions of class, culture, race, sexual practice and others.
Counter-split’:
all or nothing thinking comes from, it is the failure to bring together both
positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a realistic whole,
someone or something with no middle ground of opinions, for example Male and
female views.
Binary thinking:
relating to, composed of, involving two things, a sense of duality.
De-territorialize:a
coming undone, disarticulation of the English language (logocentrism) a
movement producing change, to free up fixed relations, the possibility of
change to a given territory.
Exegetical:
exegesis, a critical explanation or interpretation of text, a study of the
cultural background rather than its origins.
Logocentrism:
authors own linguistic terminology ie Barthes ‘Punkton’.
Nomadic subject:
To move against the settled and conventional nature of something, a cross
reference to the hidden face of Western philosophy to its anti-logocentric
undercurrents.
Nomadic thought:
(Deleuze) as a decent of classic hegemony. Relocated from philosophy to
relationships between mind and matter, fact and value, nature and reality. It is A perspective of seeing relationships
between positive and negative, self and others as a realistic whole. This is
possibly described in the psychoanalytic term ‘counter-split’ where all or
nothing thinking comes from, it is the failure to bring together both positive
and negative qualities of the self and others into a realistic whole, someone
or something with no middle ground of opinions, for example Male and female
views.
The book as a zigzag
trail.
Neutrality: as
apposed to subjective
Pseudo:
pretentious
Despotic: a cruel
ruler
Nomos: Nomadic
spaces
Lucy Irigory
(1930-) Is a cultural theorist who argues the phallic economy places women
alongside signs and currencies, “women on the market” text.
Theoretical
nomadism: Balancing dualities and opposites harmoniously? / cross
referencing the for and against of something without taking sides. It is a
rejection of competitiveness and judgement, ie working with mass culture in a
wholesome way.
Working with the simultaneous occurrence of contradictory
effects of life, and the fast-moving changes that intensify to the point of
implosion. It breaks the hegemonic hold
over our thinking. It thinks through flows of interconnections, the
fluid-in-between experience and information.
‘It flows against the fixity and lethal inertia of conceptual thinking’
(Irigary 1997). It flows against sameness, molar, sedentary, majority. the quest for alternative figurations to
express creativity has already become in the social and symbolic locations we
inhabit. Recombining forms of thinking challenges the separation of reason from
imagination.
What is the difference between this
and a holistic approach?
Nomadic style: is
integral component of the concept of ‘becoming’.
What is it asking
me:
How can a different use of the beach be taken seriously and
critically and what conditions do I need to take, to make a positive transition
and celebrate it? Open studios showcasing all the work we have done on the
beach and with the fishermen?
A solution to
reconsider linearity and binary thinking – by putting a slant on ideas rather
than parallels to reject dualism of content and form and write about something
that has a hidden meaning (an allegorical text). How can I think about the
meaning ‘community art’ in a different way?
How can I explore the notion of documentary and archive in nomadic terms
– space and flow? Perhaps in the process of mutating/reconfiguring and
exploration. My essay could just open up
general possibilities instead of strongly supported arguments. The winch box
could be described as a tool for change and creating a sense of place – what is
the place becoming? A positive
de-schooling mechanism?
Engine = power
Winch- pull up and draw towards and outwards.
Box= protection
Could my essay be the winch trail pulling in concepts
reeling them in from outside, bringing in the prosperous catch?
Linear thought is
limiting. This is asking me to think nomadically in order to think differently
and this process needs to be valued greater.
What has this text
liberated me from:
Looking at new configurations and alternative uses for the beach to
become. Mapping a new cartography of the beach through art based projects. By
providing an alternative account of location through an artistic dimension,
that has the gesture to empower and affirm this location situated in a
contemporary perspective. The beach is a
multi layered changing entity. It has given fishermen their identity yet
technology and mass industry has made them invisible. Like the sea we are in
permanent process of transition, hybridization and nomadism and the in between
states, these liminal spaces between the tide and the shore are nomadic. This
tidal liminal space is also a socio-economic and symbolic location and sites of
history. What is our current history of this location? The shores edge is
non-linearity, constantly reconfiguring.
Braidotti is exploring the possibility that power is provisional and
can change, this becomes a fascinating way to think about ideas to challenge
and expand us and allow us to think for think sake.
…The concept of difference has been poisoned and has become the
equivalent of inferiority: to be different from means to be worth less than.
