Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Visual Art

The concept of schizoanalysis is Deleuze and Guattari's fusion of psychoanalytic-inspired theories of the self, the libido and desire with Marx-inspired theories of the economy, history and society. Schizoanalysis holds that art's function is both political and aesthetic - it changes perception. If one cannot change perception, then, one cannot change anything politically. This is why Deleuze and Guattari always insist that artists operate at the level of the real (not the imaginary or the symbolic). Ultimately, they argue, there is no necessary distinction to be made between aesthetics and politics. They are simply two sides of the same coin, both concerned with the formation and transformation of social and cultural norms. Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Visual Art explores how every artist, good or bad, contributes to the structure and nature of society because their work either reinforces social norms, or challenges them. From this point of view we are all artists, we all have the potential to exercise what might be called a 'aesthetico-political function' and change the world around us; or, conversely, we can not only let the status quo endure, but fight to preserve it as though it were freedom itself.Edited by one of the world's leading scholars in Deleuze Studies and an accomplished artist, curator and critic, this impressive collection of writings by both academics and practicing artists is an exciting imaginative tool for a upper level students and academics researching and studying visual arts, critical theory, continental philosophy, and media.

List of contents

Notes on Contributors
List of Illustrations
Introduction, Ian Buchanan and Lorna Collins
Part I: Genealogy of Art and Schizoanalysis
1. The Clutter Assemblage, Ian Buchanan (Director for the Institute for Social Transformation Research, University of Wollongong, Australia)
2. Schizo-Revolutionary Art; Deleuze, Guattari and Communisation Theory, Stephen Zepke (author of Sublime Art)
Part II: Raw Data for Schizoanalysis: Outsider Art
3. Pragmatics of Raw Art (For the Post-Autonomy Paradigm), Alexander Wilson (media artist, musician, theatre director and theorist)
4. Passional Bodies: The Interstitial Force of Artaud’s Drawings, Anna Powell (Reader in Film and English at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
5. Art, Therapy and the Schizophrenic, Lorna Collins (artist, poet and critical theorist)
Part III: Art as an Abstract Machine
6. The Audience and the Art Machine: Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s Opera for a Small Room, Susan Ballard (School of the Arts, English and Media, University of Wollongong)
7. 1780 and 1945: An Avant-Garde Without Authority, Addressing the Anthropocene, jan jagodzinski (University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada)
8. Strategies of Camouflage: Depersonalisation, Schizoanalysis and Contemporary Photography, Ayelet Zohar (transdisciplinary artist, curator and Lecturer, Tel Aviv University, Israel)
Part IV: Mobilizing Schizoanalysis: Collaborative Art Practice
9. The Event of Painting, Andrea Eckersley (artist)
10. In Response to the ‘Indiscreet Questioner’, Jac Saorsa (Cardiff University, Wales)
11. The Sinthome/Z-point Relation or Art as Non-Schizoanalysis, David Burrows and Simon O’Sullivan (Plastique Fantastique) (Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, UK and Goldsmiths College, University of London)
12. Art as Schizoanalysis: Creative Place-Making in South Asia, Leon Tan (Independent scholar)
Index

About the author

Ian Buchanan is Professor of Critical and Cultural Theory at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He is the author of A Dictionary of Critical Theory (2nd edition, 2018) and the founding editor of the international journal Deleuze and Guattari Studies.Lorna Collins is an artist, critic and arts educator based in Cambridge, where she completed her PhD as a Foundation Scholar in French Philosophy, at Jesus College. She was the founder and co-organiser/curator of the trans-disciplinary Making Sense colloquia and co-editor of the series of Making Sense books. She is also the co-editor of Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Visual Art. Her provocative practice as an artist (in paint, film, installation and performance) drives the motor that lies behind all her existential and epistemological (philosophical) enquiries.

Summary

The concept of schizoanalysis is Deleuze and Guattari’s fusion of psychoanalytic-inspired theories of the self, the libido and desire with Marx-inspired theories of the economy, history and society. Schizoanalysis holds that art’s function is both political and aesthetic – it changes perception. If one cannot change perception, then, one cannot change anything politically. This is why Deleuze and Guattari always insist that artists operate at the level of the real (not the imaginary or the symbolic). Ultimately, they argue, there is no necessary distinction to be made between aesthetics and politics. They are simply two sides of the same coin, both concerned with the formation and transformation of social and cultural norms. Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Visual Art explores how every artist, good or bad, contributes to the structure and nature of society because their work either reinforces social norms, or challenges them. From this point of view we are all artists, we all have the potential to exercise what might be called a ‘aesthetico-political function’ and change the world around us; or, conversely, we can not only let the status quo endure, but fight to preserve it as though it were freedom itself.

Edited by one of the world's leading scholars in Deleuze Studies and an accomplished artist, curator and critic, this impressive collection of writings by both academics and practicing artists is an exciting imaginative tool for a upper level students and academics researching and studying visual arts, critical theory, continental philosophy, and media.

Product details

• Authors: Ian Buchanan, Buchanan Ian, Lorna Collins
• Assisted by: Ian Buchanan (Editor), Buchanan Ian (Editor), Lorna Collins (Editor), Collins Lorna (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.07.2014
• EAN: 9781472524621
• ISBN: 978-1-4725-2462-1
• No. of pages: 320
• Series: Schizoanalytic Applications; Schizoanalytic Applications
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / Modern, PHILOSOPHY / Aesthetics, Philosophy: aesthetics, Western philosophy from c 1800, Western Philosophy, From C 1900 -