Creative Assemblages

As one of the most important terms in Gilles Deleuze’s oeuvre,“assemblage ”refers to the territory of an object along with its own regime of signs and pragmatic system. Yet assemblage also refers to the forces of deterritorialization underlying the structure which enable the formation of new connections. In other words, the Deleuzian assemblage is not only a territorial gesture, framing its own territory, but also a performative practice of carving out new routes of thinking. Most important, Deleuze and Guattari emphasize the epistemological sparks emanating from creative interventions in the continual process of territorialization, deterritorialization and reterritorialization of assemblages.

Assemblages are everywhere: human beings, as centers of indetermination, are assemblages of images, as Deleuze makes clear when he “assembles” the brain with the screen, the world with film, as elements of a philosophy of time. Even virtual assemblages on digital networks (email, facebook, twitter) in our quotidian life can be regarded as assemblages. Assemblages are also practical and political as well as theoretical. In this light, to what extent can Deleuze’s philosophical thinking assist us in canvassing various prospective assemblages, and what is the retrospective assemblage between us and Deleuze? Is it possible for us to theorize the new informatics sensibilia by formulating the dispositif of the horizontal/ rhizomatic assemblages? And apart from the superficial/superfluous assemblages, is it possible to build any vertical yet not arborescent assemblages?

Situating this concept in the contemporary world, we are seeking to form transdisciplinary assemblages in order to respond to and have dialogues with present predicaments. Possible topics for papers may include but are not limited to:

1. Connections between Deleuze and Guattari’s work;
2. Connections among all the different arts, including literature, film, music, architecture, etc.
3. Deleuze-Asian Assemblages;
4. Affect and Asian Aesthetics;
5. Image and Thought;
6. Deleuze and Gender;
7. Psychoanalysis and Schizoanalysis;
8. Creative Betrayal of Deleuze;
9. Pros and Cons of Deleuze;
10. Ecology with/without Guattari;
11. Digital Folds;
12. Translation as Expression.

Deleuze and Design is the first book to interrogate the theory and practice of design throughthe thought of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Beginning with an investigation of how the field ofdesign is currently mutating, this book suggests an open-ended definition of design reflectingdesign’s own entanglement with the practice of ‘making worlds’, thus to create futures. Taken as aforce, a disruption, and a process, design is here taken as the embodiment of possible worlds.

Whether products or scenarios, packaging or experiences, objects or digital platforms,services or territories, organizations or methodologies, design is here taken in its broadest sense asa profoundly innovative and disruptive force, constituted in the multiform entanglement of practices,discourses, industry agendas, lifestyles and behaviours, thus optimally positioned to offer a stringentcritique of how the emergence of complex relationships between human and non human agencieselicit affects, tells stories and ultimately make us think by doing.

To design means always to engage with what is not-yet but could be. To design means toengage with the new, the possible, the potential. Design is not however a mere matter of future-forecasting or problem-solving. Rather, it is about turning imagination into reality. Thus, the presentemerges as the embodiment of a thought. Design possesses an extraordinary quality: it is projectthat keeps on designing, it keeps on giving visible, tangible shape to the material world we inhabit.Every designed object contains in itself the seeds of future practices and future behaviours.

Can we investigate and reconceptualise design’s own prehension into the future withDeleuze’s theoretical corpus? What are the tensions between a creative philosophy intended as thepractice of creating new concepts and the practice, discourse and theory of design as the field notsimply of innovation but of the creation of the future?

Deleuze’s formidable thought can be taken on board by design, not as a fulminous theoreticalfad to be shortly outmoded, but as a slow releasing arsenal of tools to think with, and to inform, theprocess of thing-making. Ideas on the relations between the actual and the virtual, the becomingelse of matter and the affects elicited by the utterly relational kinship of bodies and objects, all canbenefit by a reconceptualization based on Deleuze’s philosophy.

In particular, Deleuze’s idea that philosophy is creative and revolutionary precisely because itis always creating new concepts deeply resonates with the demands and the agenda of design,always engaged with thinking about the not-yet. Even more pertinent to design is Deleuze’saffirmation that new concepts should be both necessary and unfamiliar, as well as being a responseto real problems.

If to design means always to engage with the making of the new, design then is a powerfulperspective on the future, a lens through which we can catch a glimpse of what is not-yet but might,could be. Indeed, for some design theorists we have a future only by design (Fry 2009). But design isnot only a reality-building, world-making project. It is also a vector intersecting a multiplicity of otherforces – political, economical, social, cultural, experiential, institutional – and as a force it participatesto the construction of the future. It is not the future in itself but participates to its creation; it is not anevent in itself but participates to its generation.

A (by no means) exhaustive list of possible topics:

• Designing systems
• Designing experiences
• Design as social innovation/social enterprise
• A Deleuzian take on critical/speculative design
• Relationship with objects/status of object? assemblage
• Ethology/affect/encounters/affordance…
• Deleuze and design research
• Design and the future
• Design and becoming/the becoming of design
• A Deleuzian account of prototypying
• The ethic role of designers
• Design as social practice
• Design and sustainability
• Design and…and…and.. a new paradigm to think at design with
• Design of embodiment
• Design of subjectivity
• Conceptual design. Design thinking
• Design as a political agenda
• Design as posthumanism, a new paradigm to think things with
• Design and circulation, monitoring and capture of affect
• Design and control
• Design pedagogy
• Design and inter/trans/infradisciplinarity

Paper proposals may be submitted to
Betti Marenko b.marenko@csm.arts.ac.uk by March the 23rd.

Proposals should include CV, contact information, and a preliminary abstract of 300 words orless.

Full papers by August the 23rd

CALL FOR PAPERS

Aesthetics in the 21st Century

University of Basel September 13-15, 2012

Confirmed Speakers: Graham Harman, Iain Hamilton Grant, N. Katherine Hayles

Zum CfP (PDF)

2012 Kaifeng International Deleuze Conference
May 18, 2012–May 21, 2012
Henan University,
Kaifeng, Henan, China

Keynote Speakers

Anne Sauvagnargues (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre, France)
Ronald Bogue (University of Georgia, USA)
Rosi Braidotti (Utrecht University, Netherlands)
Brian Massumi (Université de Montréal)

Invited Speakers

Paul Patton (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Daniel W. Smith (Purdue University, USA)
Patricia Pisters (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Ian Buchanan (University of Wollongong, Australia)
Manola Antonioli (École Supérieure d’Art et de Design de Valenciennes, France)
Kim Sang-Hwan (Seoul National University, South Korea)
Chan-Woong Lee (Ewha Womans University, South Korea)
Timothy O’Leary (Hong Kong University)
Gao Jihai (Henan University, China)
Du Xiaozhen (Peking University, China)
Wang Minan (Beijing Foreign Languages University, China)
Jiang Yuhui (East China Normal University, China)

2012 Kaifeng International Deleuze Conference, hosted by College of Foreign Languages, Henan University, will be held in Kaifeng City, a famous ancient capital city of seven dynasties. We invite participation by Chinese and international scholars. This conference will provide an opportunity for Chinese and international scholars to exchange ideas around the work of Gilles Deleuze. Topics include:

1. Interpretation of important Deleuzian concepts;
2. Deleuze and cinema, art, philosophy, painting, literature, politics, music, religion, architecture, etc.;
3. Deleuze and other poststructuralist philosophers such as Derrida, Foucault, etc.;
4. Deleuze and psychoanalysis: Freud, Lacan, Guattari;
5. Developing and transcending Deleuze: the application of Deleuzian ideas in Arts and Humanities disciplines in China and throughout the world.

We welcome individual abstracts as well as panel proposals from scholars both at home and abroad. An English version of the abstract is required for domestic scholars and scholars from other non-English speaking countries: it should be between 300 to 500 words. Keynote speeches (40-55 minutes) will be in English and Chinese with simultaneous translation. Those interested in participating in the conference should send a title, keywords and abstract to 2012kdic@gmail.com before October, 31, 2011. Those interested in proposing panel topics should send panel proposals to 2012kdic@gmail.com before October 31, 2011. Attendance at the conference will be limited so a selection will be made on the basis of abstracts submitted. Papers selected will be notified by December 1st 2011. The deadline for full conference papers (20-25 minutes) is March 15, 2012.

Conference fee: 150€, with half discount for MA and PhD candidates. Early birds will enjoy a 20% discount if paid before December 31, 2011. The conference fee will include meals, but not accommodation and other individual expenses. Excursions to Shaolin Temple will cost another 30€, and visits to Kaifeng City another 10€.

Conference Schedule:

Registration: May 18, 2012 (8 a.m.-8 p.m.);

Conference Sessions: May 19 until May 20 or 21 (depending on the number of participants), 2012;

Tours around Kaifeng City and excursions to Shaolin Temple will be available during the last two days.

Information on Shaolin Temple is available at:

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/henan/luoyang/songshan_shaolin.htm .

Accommodation: We have arranged for discounted offers at Zhongzhou International Jinming Hotel, which is within Jinming Campus of Henan University:

Standard room (two persons) costs 20€ each per night (including breakfast)
Small suite costs 50€ per night (including breakfast)
Luxurious suite costs 80€ per night (including breakfast)

The rooms will be arranged by Henan University.

The Board of Organizing Committee:

Chairman: Prof. Paul Patton (University of New South Wales, Australia);
Vice Chairmen: Prof. Chen Yongguo (Tsinghua Univerisity, China) and Prof. Gao Jihai (Henan University) ;
Executive Assistants: Dr. Yin Jing, Dr. Zhang Jinghui, (Henan University).

For further inquiries, please contact

Dr. Yin Jing,
College of Foreign Languages
Henan University
85 Minglun Street,
Kaifeng, Henan, 475001, P. R. China.

Email: 2012kdic@gmail.com (preferred)

For further information, please contact Yin Jing at: 2012kdic@gmail.com, or visit the conference website which will be available shortly.

College of Foreign Languages, Henan University

People’s Republic of China

July 18, 2011

Download full PDF: Deleuze liest Nietzsche

What distinguishes Lingis’ phenomenology is his resistance both to the theoretical bias of phenomenology’s Husserlian roots and to the pragmatic bias of phenomenology’s Heideggerian developments. His ambition, as he puts it, is to “elaborate a phenomenology of the levels upon which things take form, the kinds of space, the sensuous elements, and the night.†(The Imperative 1998, p. 5)  This is another phenomenology.  A phenomenology that resists the pragmatic reading of our experience that we owe to Heidegger and to many of his American interpreters trained by Hubert Dreyfus.  The sensuous elements of the earth beckon us to sensual arousal.  They draw us from the comfortable worlds organized by our practical posture to the dangers and delights of the sensual earth revealed to a dissolute posture.

Lingis moves toward the sensual earth along two not quiet differentiable dimensions, which might once have been called the phenomenologies of the body and of language.  Along both dimensions Lingis’ other phenomenology explores the earth in advance of its organization by the practical purposes of our linguistic and perceptual lives.  The sensual elements of the earth should not be confused with Heidegger’s dark romantic earth, twinned as it is with the world, nor should it be confused with potting soil.  Lingis’ earth is alive with the activity of sensual elements.  What Levinas called the elemental.

This other phenomenology is a phenomenology of levels, and what the more familiar phenomenology recognizes as the lived body is here presented simply as how our worlds organize when our sensory-motor activities follow the directives of the beckoning level.  Lingis is interested in something else: “we set out to recover a substantive conception of our bodies given to excitement and lust.†(Sensation, 1996, p. x)  As Lingis tells the story, we can enjoy our bodies in this other way when we move levels, the passage between the levels.  It is at this point that Lingis’ work resonates with what Deleuze, in his appreciation of Francis Bacon, called the logic of sensation.

What are levels? Levels are understood in terms of relations of forces and qualities that emanate from things, as imperatives or directives. This helps to initiate an aesthetics, ‘beauty is imperative’, and an ethics, ‘emotions are also forces’, forces of the earth or the sensuous. (Trust 2004: 111; Dangerous Emotions 2000: 16) Furthermore, it points in the direction of a philosophy of nature congruent with the insight, which we owe to Deleuze and Guattari, that the true nature is unnatural.  The unnatural here figuring itself as the trans-substantiating passage between levels.

Lingis’ well-known itinerancy, his wandering wonders, are not, therefore, ancillary to, but a condition of, his philosophy. ‘The nomad is summoned not by distant things fixed on one equator, but by multiple spaces, multiple ordinances.’ (The Imperative, 1998: 116) Lingis writes, as a philosopher, from the earth he explores. His descriptions, the simple cadence of his prose, attest to his corporeal encounters, encounters that traverse philosophy itself. In the conclusion to Gilles Deleuze’s short presentation at Cerisy-la-Salle, Nomadic Thought, Deleuze inspires ‘who are today’s nomads, who are today’s Nietzscheans?’ (Desert Islands and Other Texts, 2004: 260) Our response is direct: Alphonso Lingis.

We imagine an issue of Singularum provoking, at last, an attempt to understand Lingis’ difference in phenomenology, and the difference this phenomenology of levels makes to Lingis’ appreciation of aesthetics, education, ethics, ontology, and perception.
Please send your submissions, due August 1st, to: hello@singularum.com

http://singularum.com/

Vendredi 29 avril à l’ENS-Ulm

Matin: salle Jules Ferry

9h45: ouverture

10h00 – 10h45: Chantal Jaquet (Paris 1) : « “Un balai de sorcière” (Deleuze et la lecture de l’Ethique de Spinoza) ».

10h45 – 11h30: Pierre Zaoui (Paris 7): « L’immanence spinoziste: un coup de force deleuzien? ».

11h30 – 11h45 : pause

11h45 – 12h30: Laurent Bove (Université de Picardie Jules Verne) : « Spinoza-Deleuze et la question d’Autrui »


Après-midi: Amphi Rataud

14h30-15h15:  Ariel Suhamy (La Vie des Idées): « Le cheval de labour et le cheval de course ».

15h15-16h00: Vincent Jacques (ENSAV): « De Différence et répétition à Mille plateaux, métamorphose du système à l’aune de deux lectures de Spinoza ».

16h00 – 16h15: pause

16h15 – 17h00: Pascal Sévérac (Collège International de Philosophie): « La sensation chez Spinoza et Deleuze: percept et affect ».

Samedi 30 avril à l’Université de Paris 1

Matin: salle Cavaillès

10h00 – 10h45: Charles Ramond (Paris 8 / LLCP): « Deleuze lecteur de Spinoza : la tentation de l’impératif ».

10h45 – 11h30: Antonio Negri: « Spinoza et Deleuze: le moment propice ».

11h30-11h45: pause

11h45 – 12h30: Anne Sauvagnargues (Paris 10): « De l’interprétation à l’éthologie : les deux lectures de Spinoza par Deleuze ».

Après-midi: salle Cavaillès

14h30 – 15h15: Kim Sang Ong-Van-Cung (Université de Poitiers): « Le pouvoir d’être affecté – Modes spinozistes et singularités chez Deleuze ».

15h15 – 16h00: Thomas Kisser (Université de Munich) : « La réalité du penser. L’interprétation de Spinoza par Deleuze ».

16h00-16h15: pause

16h15 – 17h00: Igor Krtolica (ENS de Lyon): « Deleuze, Spinoza et les signes ».

Deleuze Camp

Preceding the conference students and scholars interested in the work
of Gilles Deleuze are welcome to participate in Deleuze Camp 6 which
will take place on 18-22 June 2012 in New Orleans. This venue will
provide an opportunity for participants to engage with experienced
scholars from different fields in readings of Deleuze’s texts. The
Deleuze camp will also include a student forum where participants can
present their own work and ideas.  Spaces are limited.

More Information: https://conference.cbs.dk/index.php/deleuze/conf

May 4-6, 2012

King’s University College and The University of Western Ontario

London, Ontario, Canada

INVITED SPEAKERS

Constantin Boundas (Trent University)
Dorothea Olkowski (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs)
Jay Lampert (University of Guelph)
More to be announced….

The Centre for Advanced Research in European Philosophy, King’s University College, along with the McIntosh Gallery at the University of Western Ontario invite proposals and submissions for a conference focusing on the intersection of the work of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and the arts. We seek to explore:

1.      Critical assessments of Deleuze and Guattari’s aesthetic theory
2.      The legacy of and contemporary engagement with key themes and concepts of the Deleuzo-Guattarian philosophical framework as they come to bear upon and are influenced by the arts, including literature, film, poetry, music, dance, aesthetic theory, visual and media arts, painting and sculpture. Art here is broadly understood.
3.       The connection between Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy and art, and how they may be used to further discussion of contemporary issues in politics, economics, environmental studies, social theory and philosophy.

We welcome proposals for papers, panels, and performance pieces.  Abstracts should be between 500-750 words.

Please send all abstracts and inquiries to:

Antonio Calcagno, PhD
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
King’s University College
266 Epworth Avenue
London, ON  N6A 2M3
CANADA

acalcagn@uwo.ca (Email preferred)

Tel: 519-433-3491 x 4533
Fax: 519-433-0353

DEADLINE: December 15, 2011

Copenhagen Business School

Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts

Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture

Call for Papers

The fourth annual International Deleuze Studies Conference intends to explore current conditions for creative critiques. In the searchlight are potentialities for responding to a seemingly permanent, yet persistently mutating crisis. The conference intends to assemble ways of conceiving the current plurality of crises – financial, ecological, political, existential, aesthetic – letting their bindings show, analyzing their displacements and their disguises, exacerbating them, perhaps indeed taking us deeper into them. A micropolitics of global society is in need of articulation; this makes us desire philosophy as ever before.

The texts of Gilles Deleuze, once restricted to specialists, the French public, and tenants of radical politics, are now being put to work everywhere, and seem far from having lost their momentum. His readers – whether they be academic scholars, activists, architects, artists, designers, managers, workers or just marginalized – face a world that beckons comprehensive recompositions through inventive action.

The current situation calls for a renewed critique, but also for something more. It calls for a creativity in questioning the world, in the position and solution of its problems. The very scope of the difficulties calls for transdisciplinary awareness and attention to disparaties. The multiple lines connecting heterogeneous systems articulate as many virtual passages between (to name but the most apparent) the ecological, educational, financial and political crises which play together with the crises particular to the arts, to architecture, and to design. This is why Copenhagen Business School, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture and School of Visual Arts have joined forces in searching for a recomposition of the reception and application of Deleuze’s work.

Possible topics for papers may include but are not limited to:

-           Aesthetics inside and outside art

-           Urban planning and architecture

-           Social science and organizational practice

-           Creative Philosophy

-           Capitalism and its continuous crises

-           Nomadic politics and Social Sustainability

-           Neuroscience and Culture

-           Aesthetics of Life Sciences

-           Methodological interfaces between science and the Humanities

-           Gender and becoming

Length of presentations: max. 20 minutes. We welcome panel proposals.

Please submit your abstract (max. 200 words) and a short bio at www.deleuze-copenhagen.cbs.dk before the 1^st of February, 2011.

All kinds of academics, non-academics, artists, workers, salespeople and freelancers should join up for this event, a philosophical Copenhagen Summit.

Confirmation of acceptance will be emailed before March 15^th, 2011.  Selections will take place on the basis of the number of panel presentations.

Deleuze Camp 5
Creative Critiques

Preceding the conference, students can participate in a summer school: The Deleuze Camp 5 ‘Creative Critiques’. The camp will take place from 20-24 June 2011 in Copenhagen. Places are limited.

For conference and/or camp registration and further information, please refer to our website, which also hosts a list of confirmed Plenary Speakers: www.deleuze-copenhagen.cbs.dk