File spoon-archives/deleuze-guattari.archive/deleuze-guattari_1998/deleuze-guattari.9810, message 98


Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 22:27:13 +0000
From: Chris <christopher.mcmahon-AT-jcu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Burroughs,P. Orridge, ontology


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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Dear Robert Orpheus,

The Junkie is right. The brain can't do what scissors can. The whole idea is to
put the mind out of the picture, mechanically, to open the text to an objective
event so that radically unconcious content jumps forth. The mind can't do this
by itself - repression.... The real Q. is not whether the cut-up can be bypassed
with self-control or drugs etc., but whether even after the cut-up, the reader
can't help but still repress - whether the cut-up makes unconscious material
available or not. Of course Burroughs faked it. But I think he also used it from
time to time. It's prime function is to cause writers to incriminate themselves.
By the way, I have taught the cut-up method to students on many occasions. They
almost universally hate it, don't get it, etc.

- Chris

LORD, Robert wrote:

> Orpheus wrote:
>
> The Burroughs cut-up
> >technique and the fold-in [variants more or less of the permuation system
> >he devised along with Brion Gysin] I admire greatly but do not actually
> >use myself. I have always found it either not fast enough, or not really
> >productive for my purposes
>
> Yes, I also admire the works of Burroughs, but I also recognise your
> difficulty with adopting their technique as they describe it.  I've always
> been a tinge doubtful if Burroughs really did write those books with the
> method of cut-ups used in the way he explicitly describes, ie actually
> having to cut and fold the pages up... for why can't you do it in your head!
>  But they are quite explicit about this, "You cannot cut up in your head any
> more than I can paint in my head.  Whatever you do in your head bears the
> prerecorded pattern of your head" (Third Mind P 44)  It is interesting that
> Burroughs can't actually remember writing the early books, it would also
> seem to me that the influence of psychedelic drugs would be the exact
> conditions which would put your head in a state whereby you could do cut-ups
> in your head.  I don't know, just having read those books I still find it
> difficult conceptualising them being produced in that method as he
> describes, it's just too slow, and if done absolutely randomly would require
> a long process of  filtering out all the good montages/conjugations, it's
> also less fun.
>
> Unleesh wrote,
>
> >Genesis P. Orridge on his albums often puts Instructions for Listening :
> >Listen to the album while the T.V. set is on turned to no channel, watching
> >the white noise. Take notes on how it affects you. Or better, have three
> >television sets so (de)tuned.
>
> "...turn the television to a channel without a programme and the screen will
> be filled with 'snow', as its called.  Turn the brightness and contrast up
> full.  The best time to do this is between 1 am and 6 am, as we are trained
> through social conditioning to be most neutral at this time - therefore the
> most receptive.  Now get close to the screen, switch off all other lights
> sources and stare at the screen.  First try and focus on the tiny dots that
> will be careering about the screen like micro-organisms.  You'll find it
> very hard to focus - just keep on trying.  Suddenly time will alter along
> with your perceptions and you will hit a period of trance where the
> conscious and subconscious mind are triggered in unison by the mantic
> vibrations of the myriad dots." ("Tape Delay" ed C Neal, 31-31)  It is
> interesting in that it bears some similarity to Gysin's Dream Machine, in
> its pulsating and flickering light, desiring machines, modern magik ritual
> machine techniques...
>
> Stephen Arnott wrote:
>
> >In his review of 'Logique et Existence' Deleuze makes this claim:
> >"Philosophy must be ontology, it cannot be anything else; but there is no
> >ontology of essence, there is only ontology of sense."
> >What does anyone make of this?
>
> I've not come across it before but its a fantastic little nutshell.  It
> seems clear to me that Deleuze never went down the Foucaultian path in a
> denial of any kind of ontology, but while Maintaining an ontology, he also
> desires to distance himself form any essentialised ontology which the
> Foucaultians were right in attacking.  It is an ontology of sense, in the
> sense that ontology is constructed, connected to, plugged into, moved
> over... An ontology of sense is not a singular ontology, but a
> multi-ontology, not an invariant static essence but an ontology of flux,
> that functions according to becomings and degrees of intensity.  We move
> back and forth between the plane of organisation and the plane of
> consistency.  The plane of organisation somewhat stratifies us, whereas the
> plane of consistency enables us to encounter more destratified rhizomatic
> segments of ontology.  But we will only suffer if we obliterate our plane of
> organisation, for we always need a body and some firm ground to come back
> to.  An ontology of sense elicits an indiscernibility, a space of molecular
> imperceptibility, that is not a bounded system with limits, but opens out
> onto a cosmos.  It is where thought and expression are inseparable from an
> ontological milieu, in this way it is not an ontology of what it is, but in
> what it does, it's sense and its performativity.
>
> Robert.



HTML VERSION:

Dear Robert Orpheus,

The Junkie is right. The brain can't do what scissors can. The whole idea is to put the mind out of the picture, mechanically, to open the text to an objective event so that radically unconcious content jumps forth. The mind can't do this by itself - repression.... The real Q. is not whether the cut-up can be bypassed with self-control or drugs etc., but whether even after the cut-up, the reader can't help but still repress - whether the cut-up makes unconscious material available or not. Of course Burroughs faked it. But I think he also used it from time to time. It's prime function is to cause writers to incriminate themselves. By the way, I have taught the cut-up method to students on many occasions. They almost universally hate it, don't get it, etc.

- Chris

LORD, Robert wrote:

Orpheus wrote:

The Burroughs cut-up
>technique and the fold-in [variants more or less of the permuation system
>he devised along with Brion Gysin] I admire greatly but do not actually
>use myself. I have always found it either not fast enough, or not really
>productive for my purposes

Yes, I also admire the works of Burroughs, but I also recognise your
difficulty with adopting their technique as they describe it.  I've always
been a tinge doubtful if Burroughs really did write those books with the
method of cut-ups used in the way he explicitly describes, ie actually
having to cut and fold the pages up... for why can't you do it in your head!
 But they are quite explicit about this, "You cannot cut up in your head any
more than I can paint in my head.  Whatever you do in your head bears the
prerecorded pattern of your head" (Third Mind P 44)  It is interesting that
Burroughs can't actually remember writing the early books, it would also
seem to me that the influence of psychedelic drugs would be the exact
conditions which would put your head in a state whereby you could do cut-ups
in your head.  I don't know, just having read those books I still find it
difficult conceptualising them being produced in that method as he
describes, it's just too slow, and if done absolutely randomly would require
a long process of  filtering out all the good montages/conjugations, it's
also less fun.

Unleesh wrote,

>Genesis P. Orridge on his albums often puts Instructions for Listening :
>Listen to the album while the T.V. set is on turned to no channel, watching
>the white noise. Take notes on how it affects you. Or better, have three
>television sets so (de)tuned.

"...turn the television to a channel without a programme and the screen will
be filled with 'snow', as its called.  Turn the brightness and contrast up
full.  The best time to do this is between 1 am and 6 am, as we are trained
through social conditioning to be most neutral at this time - therefore the
most receptive.  Now get close to the screen, switch off all other lights
sources and stare at the screen.  First try and focus on the tiny dots that
will be careering about the screen like micro-organisms.  You'll find it
very hard to focus - just keep on trying.  Suddenly time will alter along
with your perceptions and you will hit a period of trance where the
conscious and subconscious mind are triggered in unison by the mantic
vibrations of the myriad dots." ("Tape Delay" ed C Neal, 31-31)  It is
interesting in that it bears some similarity to Gysin's Dream Machine, in
its pulsating and flickering light, desiring machines, modern magik ritual
machine techniques...

Stephen Arnott wrote:

>In his review of 'Logique et Existence' Deleuze makes this claim:
>"Philosophy must be ontology, it cannot be anything else; but there is no
>ontology of essence, there is only ontology of sense."
>What does anyone make of this?

I've not come across it before but its a fantastic little nutshell.  It
seems clear to me that Deleuze never went down the Foucaultian path in a
denial of any kind of ontology, but while Maintaining an ontology, he also
desires to distance himself form any essentialised ontology which the
Foucaultians were right in attacking.  It is an ontology of sense, in the
sense that ontology is constructed, connected to, plugged into, moved
over... An ontology of sense is not a singular ontology, but a
multi-ontology, not an invariant static essence but an ontology of flux,
that functions according to becomings and degrees of intensity.  We move
back and forth between the plane of organisation and the plane of
consistency.  The plane of organisation somewhat stratifies us, whereas the
plane of consistency enables us to encounter more destratified rhizomatic
segments of ontology.  But we will only suffer if we obliterate our plane of
organisation, for we always need a body and some firm ground to come back
to.  An ontology of sense elicits an indiscernibility, a space of molecular
imperceptibility, that is not a bounded system with limits, but opens out
onto a cosmos.  It is where thought and expression are inseparable from an
ontological milieu, in this way it is not an ontology of what it is, but in
what it does, it's sense and its performativity.

Robert.

  --------------B483B0B5A6231E6284BC521B Content-Description: Card for Chris McMahon begin: vcard fn: Chris McMahon n: McMahon;Chris email;internet: christopher.mcmahon-AT-jcu.edu.au title: Mr note: Check out my homepage at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/5598/ x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version: 2.1 end: vcard --------------B483B0B5A6231E6284BC521B--

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