diagrams and the incorporeal of experience
We had some discussion about Guattari’s diagrams in the last meeting and Brett mentioned a piece Charles Stivale had written about this…which was? I do know of this interview Stivale did with Guattari, which I think is really good for unfolding some of the complexities that come up in Chaosmosis. In particular, there’s a section on ‘speculative cartography’ where he talks about what he is trying to do with diagrams. Interestingly enough, Stivale translates ‘incorporeal’ as ‘a-corporeal’…I’m not sure if I would agree with that translation as it seems to relegate the incorporeal to something outside of or beyond the sensate and I think it is diagramatically connected to the sensate. It’s that element of experience that is in experience reaching beyond its immediacy to something molar, collective and virtual/potential…the potential of experience to become more than it is, more than ‘given’…
I was thinking of the talk by Stivale on Deleuze’s diagrams at the 2005 ASCP conference. I can’t remember that well … must have been drummed down by three days of talks. Tried to check the site but the program is no longer there. Perhaps Catherine has details as she was one of the organisers.
Have spent my day emailing with various activists in Melbourne over the taxi driver strike. They’re doing a zine, organising meetings with the cabbies, looking for leads on literature about ethnic disciplining in transnational labour regimes, etc.
So my head has been out of Guattari … but Anna’s post throws it back.
I’m intrigued by this quote from Inspector Steve Beith of the Victoria Police (reported in the Times of India): “There doesn’t appear to be any structure or organizers. Every time we try to speak to anybody the shouting and the chants start. It’s very difficult to hear what they’re trying to say. There appears to be different groups with different organisers of those groups. It’s very hard to work out who’s who.” Or this from Victorian transport minister Lynne Kosky (repoted on ABC News website) re the attempts to set up negotiations: “They’re not an organised group, which is actually very difficult.”
This seems to me to have something to do with the ways in which experience can acquire political form. As Anna says above, reaching beyond immediacy (or spontaneity as it might more usually be called in the context of labour struggles) to something collective and more than given. More than organised, I might add. Dissensual metamodelization, anyone?
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