DELEUZE (AND GUATTARI): A DYNAMIC INTERACTIVE ONTOLOGY THE SCIENCES OF RHYTHM AND THE POLITICS OF ENTRAINMENT John Protevi www.protevi.com/john [email protected] Outline of the talk •  Dynamic interacRve ontology –  Difference and Repe--on –  A Thousand Plateaus •  The sciences of rhythm –  Bio-­‐cultural evoluRon –  Infant development •  PoliRcs of entrainment –  Ancient •  War dances •  Rowers and the Athenian democraRc empire –  Contemporary •  Military training •  OWS and the “human microphone” Dynamic interacRve ontology I Difference and Repe--on 4-­‐fold “ontological difference •  Virtual “differenRaRon” –  Changeable pa\erns and thresholds –  Change via “counter-­‐effectuaRon” •  Intensive “individuaRon – dramaRzaRon” –  Metastable fields or “eggs” –  Dynamic processes or dramaRzaRon •  Actual “differenciaRon” –  ClassificaRon via “extensive” properRes or habits –  SubstanRalized or reified view Examples of intensive individuaRon CrystallizaRon Lightning Hurricanes DifferenRal elements: wind / water currents (from differences in temperature / pressure gradients) DifferenRal relaRons: linked rates of change of those currents SingulariRes: (e.g., 80 degree water temperature; various points in relaRon of wind / water Hurricane as intensive process actualizing the virtual Idea “The world is an egg” Organic space-­‐Rme is rhythmic •  AcRve synthesis (memory as recollecRon and thought as representaRon synthesizing percepRons) •  Passive syntheses (contracRon or habit producing a living present) –  Perceptual synthesis (imaginaRon synthesizing sensaRon) –  Organic syntheses (metabolism synthesizing ma\er) Organic spaRo-­‐temporality: The living present •  Each organism, in its “viscera” (that is, its metabolism), is a “sum of contracRons, of retenRons and expectaRons” (DR 99 / 73) •  Living present of retenRon and expectaRon –  retenRon = “cellular heritage" of history of life –  expectaRon = "faith" that things will repeat •  Simondon and the membrane –  “the present is that metastability of the relaRon between interior and exterior, past and future.” –  “Topology and chronology are not a priori forms of sensibility, but the very dimensionality of the living being as it individuates itself” Dynamic interacRve ontology II A Thousand Plateaus Differences between DR and ATP •  DR is verRcal : individuaRon as –  IntegraRon of differenRal field –  Egg as pre-­‐individual –  Embryo as mulRple intensive process –  Producing organisms •  ATP is horizontal : individuaRon as –  Meshing different rhythms of intensive processes –  Producing haecceiRes or assemblages Dynamic interacRve haecceiRes Inorganic straRficaRon Organic straRficaRon: organs put to work to make an organism Social straRficaRon Milieus •  Milieus: vibratory / rhythmic / coded material field for bodies (strata) and territories (assemblages) •  4 milieus for each body or territory –  Exterior –  Interior –  Intermediary –  Annexed (or associated )
Rhythms and codes •  Codes determine order – Rhythmic repeRRon in a milieu – Materials entering a body (content / expression) •  Rhythm is “transcoding” or the difference between codes Territories •  TerritorializaRon is an act affecRng mulRple milieus and rhythms •  Territories intensify relaRon of organism and its milieu, allowing for faster evoluRon •  territorializaRon … lodges on margins of code … and gives the [species] the possibility of differenciaRng itself (322 / 396) Geo-­‐bio-­‐poliRcs •  A naturalist context that shows interlocking physical, biological, and alloplasRc systems •  Working at all spaRal-­‐organizaRonal and temporal-­‐processual scales of all interlocking, self-­‐organizing geo-­‐bio-­‐poliRcal systems •  Rhythm is the key to the meshing of processes to form assemblages Musicality and the sciences of rhythm NEMT: New Evo-­‐Music Theory •  Cambridge School: Ian Cross, John Bispham •  Neither a spandrel, nor just sexual selecRon •  Bispham: –  constellaRon of concurrently operaRng, hierarchically organized, subskills –  overlapping internal oscillatory mechanisms –  exapRvely evolved from fundamental kinestheRc abiliRes •  Group dancing and singing, not listening EvoluRonary dance OntogeneRc dance: Primary intersubjecRvity •  Trevarthen: corporeal rhythmic interchange of infant and caregiver CollecRve Joy: Dancing in the Street Entrainment: the dark side Dance and drill in human history Infantry drill Harvester Vase work rhythms Rice planRng at the end of Seven Samurai Case studies in the poliRcs of entrainment •  Ancient –  War dances and hill runners in 1200 BCE –  Phalanx at Marathon and triremes at Salamis –  Geo-­‐bio-­‐techno-­‐poliRcs of the Athenian empire •  Contemporary –  Military training –  OWS and the human microphone Robert Drews Early massed plains fighRng Stele of the Vultures Ancient chariot warfare Hill runners (shown: Gaelic warrior) War dances to provoke berserker frenzy (John Williams, New Zealand, 1859) Fleet-­‐footed Achilles vs Hector, breaker of horses Achilles (here slaying Penthesilea) Hoplites in the phalanx (with piper marking Rme) Spartan marching •  When they were drawn up in ba\le array and the enemy was at hand, the king … ordered the strains of the hymn to Castor; •  It was a sight equally grand and terrifying when they marched in step with the rhythm of the flute, without any gap in their line of ba\le, and with no confusion in their souls, but calmly and cheerfully moving with their hymn into the deadly fight. •  Neither fear nor excessive fury is likely to possess men so disposed, (Plutarch, Lycurgus, 21-­‐22). Ba\le of Marathon heroes Ba\le of Salamis Trireme rowers Plato s Laws: Geo-­‐bio-­‐social-­‐techno-­‐affecRve agencements •  It is agreeable enough to have the sea at one s door in daily life, but, for all that, it is, in very truth, a briny and bi\er neighbor. It fills a city with wholesale traffic and retail huckstering, breeds shity and distrusuul habits of soul, and so makes a society distrusuul and unfriendly within itself as well as toward mankind at large (Laws 4: 705a). •  It would have been be\er for them to lose many Rmes seven youths than to convert themselves from steady infantrymen into marines, with their tricks of repeated descents followed by a helter-­‐skelter retreat to the boats… (706b-­‐c). •  And yet sir, it was the sea fight at Salamis … which was the salvaRon of Hellas (707b). •  To be sure that is what mankind at large say … but we … insist that the deliverance of Hellas was begun by one engagement on land, … Marathon, and completed … at Plataea. Moreover, these victories made be\er men of the Hellenes, whereas [Salamis] did not … •  In our invesRgaRons into topography [chōras phusin] and legislaRon [nomōn taxin] [we focus on] the moral worth of a social system [politeias aretēn] (707c-­‐d). Geo-­‐bio-­‐techno-­‐poliRcs: Athenian Empire 431 BCE Solar energy and the water cycle Solar energy cycles: ocean currents Solar energy cycles photosynthesis InteracRve cycles GEM de Ste. Croix Geo-­‐bio-­‐techno-­‐poliRcs: above the subject •  "Athens' whole way of life was involved; and what is so oten denounced, as if it were sheer greed and a lust for dominaRon on her part, by modern scholars whose anRpathy to Athens is sharpened by [its] promoRon of democraRc regimes … was in reality an almost inevitable consequence of that way of life" (Ste. Croix, 1981, 293; emphasis added). Above the subject: Athenian Empire 431 BCE Below the subject •  "the Athenian fleet developed muscular bonding among a larger proporRon of the total populaRon than ever fought in Sparta's phalanx" (McNeill 1995, 117). •  Furthermore, "feelings aroused by moving together in unison undergirded the ideals of freedom and equality under the law. . . . •  The muscular basis of such senRments also explains why the rights of free and equal ciRzens were limited to the militarily acRve segment of the populaRon" (118). Trireme rowers Alongside the subject: “the man-­‐driven torpedo” •  Rower-­‐powered war ships had a much shorter range than sail-­‐driven merchant ships, which are able to capture solar energy in form of wind power •  generated from a mulRplicity of temperature differenRals of land mass / sea / water currents producing wind currents. •  Athenian democrats needed a network of friendly regimes whose ports could provide food and rest for the rowers of their triremes. •  That is, to replenish the biological solar energy conversion units of the triremes qua "man-­‐driven torpedo[es]" (Gabrielsen 2001, 73). “Man-­‐driven torpedo” Contemporary cases •  Military training •  OWS and the “human microphone” Two modes of contemporary military training •  AffecRve –  Physical entrainment •  Group drills: marching, running •  Chants: semanRc content plus physical entrainment –  SemanRc dehumanizaRon of the enemy •  Chants, slang, euphemisms •  CogniRve –  Reflexes (aimed at bypassing subject) –  Time-­‐pressured decisions (threshold of subject) Time-­‐pressured decisions: shoot / no shoot •  SimulaRon training –  Digital –  Live acRon video w/ CGI background •  RecogniRon of key elements in a Gestalt –  At the edge of conscious awareness –  Correll et al (2006), Event-­‐related potenRals and the decision to shoot: The role of threat percepRon and cogniRve control, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Shoot / no shoot training US ARMY PEO-­‐STRI: PROGRAM EXECUTIVE OFFICE for SIMULATION, TRAINING, & INSTRUMENTATION Network-­‐Centric Warfare (NCW) Australian Cyborg RetrospecRve Agency, or the “My God, What Have I Done” effect •  Even when pracRcal agent is group with de-­‐
subjecRfied / borderline conscious agents •  Many soldiers take moral responsibility even in this situaRon of distributed agency •  Against bad faith : many cling to guilt: they could have done something •  The centripetal subject: irresponsible in taking upon itself this responsibility? OWS and the “human microphone” SemanRc, pragmaRc, and affecRve •  The semanRc cannot be reduced to the corporeal; the message is not dissolved into the medium. •  But with the human microphone the message (enact the phrase "We the People" [Butler 2011a]) is resonant with and amplified by the medium (collecRve rhythm). •  The material dimension of the resonaRng bodies reinforces the semanRc content and pragmaRc implicaRons of this chant in an inter-­‐modal (semanRc, pragmaRc, affecRve) resonance.