Event overview
A limited attendance workshop on Felix Guattari, led by Prof Brian Massumi and Dr Erin Manning and chaired by Dr Luciana Parisi
The Society of Molecules
'I believe there exists a multiple people, a mutant people, a people of potential that appears and disappears, embodied in social events, literary events, musical events. I can see it, perhaps I'm delirious, but I think we're in a period of absolutely fantastic production, creation, and revolution with regard to the emergence of a people. This is what I mean by molecular revolution: it's not a slogan, it's not a program, it's something I feel, something I live through in encounters, in institutions, in affect, and as well as in certain reflections.'
This is how Félix Guattari, speaking in 1982, described his experience of Brazil, a country he saw as a laboratory for what he believed the future held generally in store with the rise of what he was calling at the time Worldwide Integrated Capitalism or what two decades later would burst on the scene under the moniker globalisation. What emergences can we feel today (are we delirious yet)? We propose a discussion around Guattari's concepts of molecular politics, group subjectivity and institutional analysis, starting from the same ground he signposted lived relation and the politics of affect, along with modes of reflection adapted to them. We propose to reapproach the question of micopolitics drawing on certain concepts of A.N Whitehead, while extending it to the problem of preemption, arguably a macro-regime of globalised power capable of appropriating molecular becomings at their point of emergence. What 'elbow room' (Whitehead) remains for 'a people of potential'?
Erin Manning is assistant professor in studio art and film studies at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada) as well as director of The Sense Lab, a laboratory that explores the intersections between art practice and philosophy through the matrix of the sensing body in movement. In her art practice she works between painting, fabric and sculpture. Her current project entitled Folds to Infinity is an experimental fabric collection composed of cuts that connect in an infinity of ways, folding into clothing and out into environmental architectures. Her dance background includes classical ballet, contemporary dance and Argentine tango. She has also developed and written about a movement practice called Relational Movement. Publications include Politics of Touch: Sense, Movement, Sovereignty (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2006) and Ephemeral Territories: Representing Nation, Home and Identity in Canada (Minnesota University Press, 2003). Her current book-project is called Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy (in press, MIT) and deals with movement, art and techniques of relation.
Brian Massumi specializes in philosophy of embodied experience, media theory, and political philosophy. His current research is two-fold the experience of movement and the interrelations between the senses, in particular in the context of new media art and technology; and emergent modes of power associated with the globalization of capitalism and the rise of preemptive politics. He is currently preparing two book projects. Architectures of the Unforeseen: Arts of Relation which addresses these issues through detailied analyses of the work of selected architects and artists (forthcoming MIT Press). Empire of Emotion studies affective politics, in the Bush administration and beyond. His earlier works include Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation (Duke University Press, 2002), A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari (MIT Press, 1992), and First and Last Emperors: The Absolute State and the Body of the Despot (with Kenneth Dean; Autonomedia, 1993). He is editor of The Politics of Everyday Fear (University of Minnesota Press, 1993) and A Shock to Thought: Expression After Deleuze and Guattari (Routledge, 2002). His translations from the French include Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari"s A Thousand Plateaus. He teaches in the Communication Department of the Université de Montréal, where he directs the Workshop in Radical Empiricism. Website: http://www.brianmassumi.com.
Events at the Centre for Cultural Studies
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 21 Apr 2008 | 1:00pm - 4:00pm |
Accessibility
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