The following is adapted (for my own use) from the chapter entitled "Geophilosophy", in "What Is Philosophy", by Gilles Deleuze/Felix Guattari (Columbia University Press, NYC, 1994):
Picking a point upon any surface, we experience the visual possibilities of that surface as a compilation of all of the collected directions away from the specific point we have selected. These possibilities exceed the chosen point, in an extending-away that culminates upon the edge of the surface. This is to say, the visual possibilities of a surface exceed any point upon that surface; and such excessive possibilities are collected at, are contained within and defined by, the edge of the surface.It is at the edge of a surface that the visual possibilities of the surface are realized, through the absence of any specific actuality. And from here, we realize that these possibilities can only be actualized by a return to the surface, from the edge: a return that again localizes extension, re-introduces extension to the surface as an expression of the edge, and which defines the surface in terms which are characteristic of the edge. The possibilities of a visual surface are only realized when that surface has been abandoned, or is in some way separated from; the farthest point of this abandonment is the edge of the surface: but whatever possibilities are realized of a visual surface, they can only be actualized by a return to that surface. Returning a surface's edge to the body of the surface proper striates that surface: it defines its possibilities in terms of separation and so divides the surface up into characteristicly metrical features. This is true in creating perspectives (which link visual occurrences together in a shared commonality of display); or in applying paradigms onto conceptual planes (which relativizes events to a dominant interpretive model); or in localizing generalized forms as specific instances of occurrence (which preferences occurrences of "the same", of recognition, over occurrences of the unique, and of difference); or when interpreting symbolic forms through any assumed context supplied by representational display (it is all too easy to "recognize" a 'symbol'; but far more difficult to define the nature of its occurrence without evoking representational traits determined from the context of its recognition). The edge of a surface, re-introduced as the striations through which characterizations then proceed, imparts an essential quality of separation into any space that it defines. The characteristics of particular forms of metrical striation produce distinct and distinguishable characterizations; and the discrete, interpreted characters which are so formed owe more of their existence to the mechanisms of their interpretation, than they do to the nature of their existence. Connectivity is subsumed by such divisionings, and any inherent texture of the visual surface is thus obscured. Since communication occurs with connectivity; with decenterings of "self" (and thus continuity, rather than separation); with differential textures, and with a whole range of concepts associated with indeterminacy and indiscernibility, a perspectival approach to non-metrical image writing simply will not function in a way that is adequate to the task presented to it.
2) Event Horizons: Smooth space, non-metrical features, and continuous multiplicities.
Let us again pick a point upon a visual surface. But instead of looking toward 'extension away' from our point as the definition for the possibilities of this visual surface, let's approach this point until we can no longer separate it from this surface. Let's find its zones of indiscernibility, where whatever makes this point what it is, appears and disappears. Let's find the indeterminacy of this point, where its actuality empties to the point of its non-being. Let's look for where this point is fused to the surface; for where we can no longer distinguish and separate this point from the surface.Let us look for ways in which this point is fused together, where we can not remove any components from this point without this point ceasing to be distinct and distinguishable. That is the edge of this point's very existence: here, we can no longer separate the distinguishing features within this point that characterize the point. We have arrived at a condition of singularity which characterizes this point's essential nature, the point's very being. If we extend such a point of singularity back into the visual surface upon which it occurs, we encounter not the possibilities of the surface, but rather the virtuality of the surface as it is expressed through the indiscernibility of the point's singularity. We encounter this surface as its inseparability from this point: the surface's virtuality is expressed through the point's actuality. The point's indiscernibility actualizes the surface. Now, we have a visual surface that is defined upon a horizon produced from the event of the point's existence, rather than by perspective. Everything we encounter upon this visual surface is defined by indiscernibility, by a tentative connectivity to that point. The point is not completely separable from the virtual positions of other locations, which are also actualized through an indiscernibility from, and so an inseparability from, the visual surface and (as well) our original point. We are suddenly dealing with non-metrical multiplicities of fusion, through a multiple, definitional connectivity. The singularity the initial point chosen is now defined by the event(s) of its connectivity: by the extension of its existence as a fusion with the surface upon which it occurs; and in a connectivity to the virtuality (the ability to support any such point) of other loci on the visual surface: the inherent indiscernibility of the point's constituent elements renders indeterminate its separability from other points upon the visual surface. (Here, other factors related to such a point's endo- and exo-consistency come into play but, we'll look at such aspects of analysis a little later). When such a texture of connectivity is defined, a characteristic virtuality of the conceptual is realized through the localized extension of event horizons, and actualized from the singularities thus presented through zones of indiscernibility. The productive capability of the visual surface, as a mediating substrate, supplies definitional parameters that are sufficient to allow for the reconstruction of assemblages that are linked through the conditions of their production, rather than through an imposed interpretive matrix. Although this demands that the non-metrical assemblages encountered must first be deconstructed in order to establish the range of productive mechanisms holding between the virtual state of an essentially random, metric substrate and the actualized expression of the non-metrical composites that the substrate (visual surface) supports, much more information can be obtained through this approach than one would ever expect to access from interpretive approaches derived from perspectival horizons.
Back to "What Is Non-Metrical Image Writing? Back to "An Analysis of Non-Metrical Image Writing: The Three Feather Chief |
