Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 15:35:48 -0500 (EST)
From: malgosia askanas <ma-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re:  Communicating Imagination/ Everything, Everywhere, All At Once


Joseph wrote:

> What connection do you see between the avant-garde, techno culture and
> post-structuralist theory m?

Well, this question contains 3 words whose meanings I find quite  
uncertain: "avant-garde", "techno-culture" and "post-structuralist". 
I guess that can already be thought to be a connection of sorts. 

But since your question was posed in the context of Deleuze, let's
talk about Deleuze to begin with.  I think that Deleuze has no use
for the concept of "avant-garde".  In the Cinema books he talks in the
same breath about Griffth and Michael Snow, and in the Refrain plateau
he talks in the same breath about Beethoven and Cage.  The Refrain
plateau ends with the sentence "Schumann."  These are not coincidences;
they are part of his aesthetic program, just like it is part of his
aesthetic program to unwedge aesthetics from consideration of psychology, 
intentionality and reception theory. 

Secondly, Deleuze is very concerned with what he calls "minor" things:
"minor" literature, "minor" science, and -- I don't know whether explicitly 
or by extension -- "minor" art; as opposed to "royal" literature, "royal"
science and "royal" art.  When you talk about techno-culture and its
relationship to the avant-garde, you seem to me to be operating within
a very "royal" discourse -- which is what I was trying to point out with
my talk about gutter, the military, and the Delauzian call for caution.
I am not sure that the categories you think in are very mappable into
Deleuzian concerns.  But maybe that's just me. 

-m 


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