From: "fuller" <fuller-AT-bekkers.com.au>
Subject: Re: Give me some milk or else go home
Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 14:37:37 +0800


Hey Eric,

> As I understand it, the book makes a distinction between reading and
> seeing, discourse and figure. The figural (which includes both perception
> and libidinal drives) acts as a kind of limit to discourse. This would
> relate, I think, to your notion of the skin as both a boundary and an
> opening. In this book, Lyotard also discusses poetics in relation to the
> figural, centering upon some writing of Mallarme.
> "Libidinal Economy", Lyotard's self-proclaimed 'evil' book is one you
mightalso find useful. The opening section alone, with its description of
the
> flesh as a kind of moebius strip is particularly insightful. He then goes
> on to discuss how the libidinal set-up or dispositif acts goad and
> resistance to libidinal exchange. This book has some similarities with
> "Anti-Oedipus."

Just a short note...  I found the "description of flesh as a kind of
moebious strip" very interesting as it fits in with the way I think about
the relationships in libidinal workings as a kind of analogue vs digital
type relationship, sort of playing with the notion of an inifinite number of
points along any length, feeling thought and thinking feeling.
Also in relation to the Badiou "Ethics" discussion of earlier, having the
'figural' as a limit to discourse could also work in a way to rework at
least the authority of particular discourses, when these limits are
transgressed.

Glen.