Deleuze and Art: An Introduction

As scarred by horrors that shame the notion of humanity, the twentieth century and first moments of the twenty-first encompass years and decades during which, as Giorgio Agamben argues, death becomes inaccessible and ‘men do not die, but are instead produced as corpses’ (Agamben 1999: 75). Art's relation, and more specifically photographic and cinematographic relations to such violence, suffering and its survival remain enigmatic as proliferating debates persist pertaining to the possibilities and effects of art in the duration and aftermath of devastating events. Of the competing discourses, contemporary literary trauma theory has become a foremost perspective; such theorists address a ‘crisis’ that paradoxically ‘defies and demands’ verbalisation and witness (Caruth 1996: 5). However, the resultant fetishisation of traumatic event and subject through circular considerations of wars, destruction and traumas both private and universal arguably stupefies thought, pre-empting opportunities for productive life practices.

In contrast to the ‘absolutely accurate and precise’ traumatic flashback or re-enactment as sustained by theories of identity and representation (Caruth 1995: 151–3), the philosophy of Deleuze promotes difference and its affirmation in thought. Whereas the notion of an experiencing human subject and her traumatic repetitions fortify several theoretical discourses as spawned from Freudian psychoanalysis, Deleuze and Guattari propose a schizoanalysis.