My Father was accustomed to say, “we must
begin by the beginning.” So, I must begin this lecture about the subject of art
by its beginning. But, what is this beginning? I think we have to begin with
the oldest question—the question of being, the question of being as being, of
being qua being. What is being? What are we saying when we say something is,
something of art is…? Something of art is a joy forever, for example. What are
we saying? I begin by a fundamental distinction between three levels of the
signification of being.
First, when I say something is, I just say
something is a pure multiplicity. ‘Something is’ and ‘something is a
multiplicity’ is the same sentence. So, it’s a level of being qua being. Being
as such is pure multiplicity. And the thinking of a pure multiplicity is finally
mathematics.
The second level is when we are saying
something exists. It is the question of existence as a distinct question of the
question of being as such. When we are saying something exists we are not
speaking of a pure multiplicity. We are speaking of something which is here,
which is in a world. So existence is being in a world, being here or, if you
want, appearing, really appearing in a concrete situation. That is ‘something
exists.’
And finally, the third level is when we are
saying that something happens. When something happens we are not only saying
that it is a multiplicity—a pure multiplicity, and we are not only saying that
it is something in a world—something which exists here and now. ‘Something
happens’ is something like a cut in the continuum of the world, something which
is new, something also which disappears—which appears, but also which
disappears. Because happening is when appearing is the same thing as
disappearing.
And so we have to understand the relation
between the three levels, the relation between being qua being (pure
multiplicity), existence (multiplicity but in a world, here and now), and
happening or event. And so we can see that in a concrete situation we have,
finally, two terms: first, a world, a world situation—something where all
things exist; and after that, an event, sometimes, an event—which is something
which happens for this world, not in this world, but for this world. And I call
a subject ‘a relation between an event and the world.’ Subject is exactly what
happens when as the consequence of an event in a world we have a creation, a
new process, the event of something. And so we have something like that. It’s
something like in a protest…
The point is that the relation, the
subjective relation between an event and the world cannot be a direct relation.
Why? Because an event disappears on one side, and on the other side we never
have a relation with the totality of the world. So when I say that the subject
is a relation between an event and the world we have to understand that as an
indirect relation between something of the event and something of the world.
The relation, finally, is between a trace and the body. I call trace ‘what
subsists in the world when the event disappears.’ It’s something of the event,
but not the event as such; it is the trace, a mark, a symptom. And on the other
side, the support of the subject—the reality of the subject in the world—I call
‘a new body.’ So we can say that the subject is always a new relation between a
trace and a body. It is the construction in a world, of a new body, and
jurisdiction—the commitment of a trace; and the process of the relationship
between the trace and the body is, properly, the new subject.
So when you have to speak of the subject of
art you have to speak about a lot of things. First, what is a world of art?
What is a world for artistic creation? It’s not the world in general. It is a
specific world for the artistic creation… ah! the police. So this is the first
question. The second question is—what is an artistic event? What is the new
singularity in the development of the art world? Third, what is a trace? What
is the trace of an event in the art field? And after all that—what is the
construction of the new art body?
But before all that, I want to clarify by
some examples the question of the subject as a relation between trace of an
event and construction of the body in a concrete world. And I want to refer to
our situation today—to our world today—because I think that there are today two
subjective paradigms. I can propose that the concrete situation of our world
today is something like a war between two subjective paradigms, two norms of
what is a subject. The first one is a strictly materialist and monist
philosophy of the subject. And what is, finally, a monist philosophy of the
subject? It is the affirmation that there is no distinction, no real
distinction between the subject and the body. If you want, in the first
paradigm, I show… (drawing figure). The first paradigm… the subject is
something which is finally identified to the body as such. So the subjective
creation as a sort of paradigm is only experimentation of the limits of the
body. The subject is something like an experience of its proper limits, an
experience of finitude, an experience of the limits of the concrete unity of
the body. But finally, what is a limit of the body, a limit of the living body?
The strongest limit of the living body is death. So we can say that in the form
of the subjective paradigm the subject is experimentation of death as final
limit of the body. And I think, for example, that there is something like that
in the extremist form of body art. Body art is experimentation, direct
experimentation of the limits of the body as exposition of itself. But, in
fact, the absolute limit of something like body art is experimentation of death
as such; and the real and final experimentation in the field of body art can be
to commit suicide in public. And it’s a philosophical determination, because a
long time ago Heidegger said that finally Dasein or subject is a subject for
death. I can name, in general, the subjective paradigm which is experimentation
of the limits of the body something like enjoyment because enjoyment is the
name of experimentation of death in life, experimentation of the big thing (das
Ding) as death in life itself. So we can say that the first paradigm of
subjectivity in our world is the paradigm of subjectivity as enjoyment. But in
enjoyment we have to hear the French jouissance—that is exactly the same word.
And the definition of enjoyment is experimentation of death in life with
experimentation of the limits of the body. And naturally enjoyment is beyond
pleasure. Pleasure is something like experimentation of life in life, but
enjoyment is beyond pleasure because it’s experimentation of the limit of the
body as death. So we can say that the sort of subjectivity, the paradigm of
subjectivity is a subject for enjoyment. And I think it is the Western paradigm
today; it is, in fact, our paradigm—subject for enjoyment and the
experimentation of the limits of the body.
The second one, the second paradigm is an
idealistic, theological, metaphysical philosophy of the subject. The subject
can be completely separated from its body. In the first paradigm the subject is
finally the body itself. In the second paradigm, the subject is completely
separated from its body; it is against the subject as subject for enjoyment,
the revival of a profound desire of separation, the desire of existence of the
subject as separated of its body. The goal is to find—in life, in action—the
point where the body is only the instrument of the new separation. And you see,
it is not experimentation of death in life as in enjoyment, but it’s assumption
of a new subjective life by the mean of death itself. So we can say that that
sort of subjective paradigm is experience of life in death, which is opposed to
the experience of death in life. And we can name sacrifice that sort of
subjective experience of life in death.
And the contemporary world is a war between
enjoyment and sacrifice. And the war against terrorism is, finally the war
between enjoyment and sacrifice. But in this war there is something in common.
There is something in common between the two paradigms. What is common to
enjoyment and to sacrifice, finally, what is common is the power of death, the
power of death as experimentation of the limits of the body on one side but
experimentation of death as the means for a new life on the other side. So with
the war between enjoyment and sacrifice, we have finally confronted the power
of death. And there is no real place for artistic creation in that sort of
war—I am convinced of this point—neither on the side of the power of death as
enjoyment neither on the side of the power of death as sacrifice. There is no
real opening for new artistic creation. So we have to find a third possibility,
a third paradigm. We have to propose something as a new subjective paradigm
which is outside the power of death—which is neither enjoyment (that is
pleasure beyond pleasure and limits of the body) nor satisfaction in the
sacrifice (that is enjoyment in another world, of pleasure beyond suffering).
We can say that—neither pleasure beyond pleasure nor pleasure beyond suffering,
neither enjoyment nor sacrifice. In a much more theoretical framework we can
say something like that.
We have three possibilities of relation
between a subject and its body. Three possibilities. And so, we have three
possibilities for a subjective paradigm. The first one—reducibility. Reducibility.
The subject can be reduced to its body. We can say that we have, in that case,
an immanent identity of the subject, immanent identity because there is no
separation at all, but complete identification between the process of the
subject and the becoming of its body. In that case the norm—the final norm is
enjoyment, the experimentation of death in life. The second is separability.
Separability… The subject can be separated completely from its body. There is,
in that case, transcendent difference, transcendent difference because the
subject experiments itself in the transcendent world and not in the sacrifice
of its proper world. The third possibility that I propose is something like
immanent difference, not immanent identity, not transcendent difference, but
immanent difference. In that case, the subject is not reducible to its body, so
there is something like an independent subjective process. There really is a
creation, which is not reducible to the experimentation of the limits of the
body. But it’s impossible that there exists some separation between the subject
and its body. So there is neither separation nor reducibility. And that is the
situation of the subject when we can understand it as a process of creation, a
process of production, a process, which really organizes the relation between
the trace of an event and the construction of a new body in the world. And so
we have to find something which is not in the field of the contemporary war
between enjoyment and sacrifice. And I think the question of the subject of art
is today this question—to find something like a new subjective paradigm, which
is outside the contemporary war between enjoyment and sacrifice. And we have a
lot of problems to organize in this new paradigm—a new paradigm, which has to
understand completely how a new body can be oriented by a subjective process
without separation and without identification. So we have to maintain the
distance between the trace of an event and the construction of the body.
I show you once more my revendication which
is, you can understand now, is a revendification of a new subjective paradigm.
Give me a new subjective paradigm. And so you can see that if the subject is
completely an identity with the body there is no real difference between the
trace and the body. And so, finally, the subject is completely in the world. If
you have a complete separation between the subject and the body, the subject is
completely on the side of the trace, and so it is completely dependent on the
event as an absolute event, an event which is outside the world. So on one
side, the subject is completely in the world and it is an experimentation of
the limit of the world, and on the other side, it is completely outside the
world and so it is on the side of something like an absolute event, and so
something as god, like god. Can you understand? So in the two subjective
paradigms of the contemporary war we find the subjective process as a complete
immanent situation and in distinction with the world, or complete separation
and in distinction with the radical absolute event. We can see in the two
paradigms that we cannot have something like a real process of production
without experimentation of the limits, finally, of death in the life of the
world, or you have something like transcendency and religious determination. So
the question of the subject of art is really to maintain the distinction
between the body on one side and the trace of the event on the other side. And
so we have, I think, to solve something like five problems. So it’s a criterium
of size that I give to you to solve five problems.
First one, first problem—if really the
subjective process as a process of creation is in the field of a distance (but
an un-separated distance) between the trace and the body we have to interpret
the event as an affirmative one and not as a purely disappearing or
transcendent thing. If really the trace of the event is in the constitution of
the subject, but not reducible to the body, we have to understand that an
event, a real event is something affirmative. And it’s a complex question
because certainly there is a sort of disappearing of the event, and event is a
split, a break of the law of the world. So what is the relation in a real event
between the negative dimension—rupture, break, split, as you want—and the
affirmative necessity if really an event is not absolute and real event? So we
have to think of an event, and for example, of an artistic event, as something
like an affirmative split. It’s the first problem.
The second problem is the very nature of
the trace—the trace of an event if an event is something like an affirmative
split. What is a trace? And it is a very complex distinction because a trace
has to be in the world. The event is not exactly in the world, but the trace
has to be in the world. And so, what is the trace? What is the real trace,
which is in the world but which is in relation with the event as affirmative
split? It’s the second big problem.
The third problem is—what is the
constitution of the new body? Because naturally we have in the case of the
subjective process something like the new body. Only a new body is in the
possible disposition to have something new in the creation in relation to the
trace of the event. The trace of the event is not reducible to the body, but
the body is not reducible to the world. Once more, once more. (showing figure)
You can see that if the subjective process is really in the distance of the
trace and the body, we have to interpret the construction of the body as the
new body because if the body is not the new body it is completely in the world
and it’s not in relation, in complete relation to the trace of the event as an
affirmative split in direction of the world. So the third problem is—what is a
new body in the world? What is a new composition of multiplicities? What is
really something, which is the support of the subjective process, the support
of a trace? That is the third problem.
The fourth problem is the question of
consequences. We have a new body. We have a relation to the trace of an event,
so we have something which is materialist creation, the process of materialist
creation of something new. What are the consequences of all that and how can we
be in the discipline of the consequences? Because naturally, if there is something
new in the subjective process we have to accept the incorporation in the new
body and so the discipline of the consequences, of the practical consequences
of the new body.
And the final problem is to find something
like an immanent infinity because if the subjective process is something like a
new creation in the world we have an infinity of consequences. We cannot have
an experimentation of the limits, precisely. We are not in the first paradigm
which is experimentation of the limits. In fact, there are no limits. There are
potentially—virtually (to speak as Deleuze)—we have virtually an infinity of
consequences. But this infinity is not a transcendent one; it’s an immanent
infinity. It is the infinity of the body itself in relation to the trace. So we
have to understand what is an immanent infinity and not a transcendent
infinity.
So our five problems are: event as an
affirmative split. What is exactly the trace of an event? What does the
constitution in the world of the new body mean? How can we accept the
discipline of consequences? And what is an immanent infinity? And that is the
questions we have to solve to say something about the artistic subject.
So I have to solve the five problems. Or I
have to say something about the possibility of solving the five problems, but
in the artistic field, not in general—not in general since the problem is
absolute… It concerns all types of subjective processes. But what is the
question in the artistic field? (drawing diagram)…
First, we have to say what is an artistic
world. What is a world of art? Something like that is our first question, our
preliminary question. I propose to say that a world is an artistic one, a
situation of art, a world of art when it proposes to us a relation between
chaotic disposition of sensibility and what is acceptable as a form. So an
artistic situation, in general, is always something like relation between a
chaotic disposition of sensibility in general (what is in the physical, what is
in the audible, and in general) and what is a form. So it’s a relation (an
artistic world) between sensibility and form. And it’s finally a proposition
between the split of sensibility, between what is formalism—what can be
formalized of the sensibility—and what cannot. So, it’s something like that.
(drawing diagram) ‘S’ is sensibility, ‘F’ is form, so the general formula for
an artistic world is sensibility in the disposition of relation between what is
a form and what is not a form. So something like that, very simple. So when we
have something like an experimentation of relation of that type between
sensibility and form we have something like general artistic situation. It’s a
completely abstract definition, but you can see the nature of the definition.
So, if you want, the state of affairs in the artistic world is always a
relation between something like our experimentation of chaotic sensibility in
general, and the distinction, which is a moving distinction, between form and
inform, or something like that. And so we experiment with an artistic situation
when we experiment with something which is in the relation between sensibility,
form, and inform.
But if this is true, what is an artistic
event? What is the general formula for an artistic event? We can say that,
generally speaking, an artistic event, a real artistic event is a change in the
formula of the world. So it’s a fundamental transformation of that sort of
formula. So it’s something like the becoming formal of something which was not.
It’s the emergence of a new possibility of formalization, or if you want, it’s
an acceptance like form of something which was inform. It’s the becoming form
of something which was not a form. And so it’s a new current in the chaotic
sensibility. It’s a new disposition of the immanent relation between chaotic sensibility
and formalization. And we can have something like that, which is, if you want,
the event—the artistic event as an affirmative split. (drawing figure) This
time, ‘S’ is always sensibility, ‘F’ is form and ‘F1‘ is the new disponibilité
of the formalization. And so you have something like that when you have an
artistic event. Sensibility is organized in a new way because something which
was inform—that is, a symbol of negation, we have negation (drawing)
yeah?—something which was inform, or no formalization is accepted as a new
form. So we have here the becoming of inform in something which is formalism
and the split is with the new negation of form, which is the negation of F1. So
that is exactly the general form of an artistic event as an affirmative split.
Why is it an affirmative split? It’s a
split because we always have relation between affirmative form and negative
one. What is formalist—what is accepted as a form and what is not accepted as a
form. So it’s a split in the chaotic sensibility between form and inform, but
it’s a new determination of the split, affirmative split, because something
which was in negation is in affirmation. Something which was not a form becomes
something like a form. So we are really in an artistic event. Something
(showing diagram)… so we can see the affirmative idea of the split is when
something which was in the negation, part of the formalist impossibility,
becomes affirmative possibility. So we can say that in the field of artistic
creation the affirmative split is finally something like a new disposition
between what is a form and what is not. And the becoming in a positive form of
something which was not a form is the affirmative dimension of an artistic
event.
What is a body? What is the construction of
a new body? A new body in the artistic field is something like a real concrete
creation—a work of art, performances, all that you want—but which are in
relation with the trace of the event. The trace of the event is something like
that—the declaration always that something really is a form, that something new
of the dignity of the work of art—and that is the trace. The trace is something
like a manifesto, if you want, something like a new declaration, something
which says, “this was not a form and it’s really now a form.” That is the
declaration, so the trace of the event. And a new body is something like a work
of art, which is in relation with that sort of trace. And often in the field of
artistic creation is a new school, a new tendency. There is, generally speaking,
some names—names of a school, names of a tendency, names of a new fashion as a
dimension of artistic creation—and that is a new body. It’s a new body, which
is in the world, in the artistic world, in the new artistic world. It’s the
creation of something new in the artistic world in correlation to the trace.
And we understand what is the discipline of consequences in the artistic
field—discipline of consequences is a new subjective process, is something like
really a new experimentation, a new experimentation of the forms, a new
experimentation of the relation between the forms and chaotic sensibility. And
so it’s the same of the new school, of the new tendency, of the new forms of
creation, of artistic creation.
And the very interesting problem is the
final problem: what is, in all that, the immanent infinity? What is the
creation, in an artistic subjective field, of a new existence of infinite? I
think in the artistic field the immanent infinity is finally something like the
infinity of the form itself. And what is infinity of the form itself? It’s the
possibility that the new form—the new possibility of the form—is in relation,
in direct relation with the chaotic sensibility. And a new form is always a new
access, a new manner, a new entry, a new access in the chaotic of sensibility.
And so we can say that in the artistic field the creation of forms is really
the movement of immanent infinity, is really an access of the infinity of the
world as such. And so we are really in the development of a new tendency, so,
of a new body in the artistic field, something like a new development of
immanent infinity. It’s not only something else; it’s a new manner of thinking
of the infinite itself. And it is why it is very important today to have
something like new artistic experimentation because I think that the political
question today is very obscure. I was saying that our problem is to find
something which is not in the field of the war between enjoyment and sacrifice,
to find something which is really a third subjective paradigm. I think that is
the specific responsibility of artistic creation—this search—because often when
political determination are obscure artistic determinations clarify the
situation. And so as a philosopher, I can say to you (and I think a number of
you have a relation to the artistic world, the artistic field) there really is
today a specific responsibility of artistic creation, which is to help humanity
to find the new subjective paradigm. So the subject of art is not only the
creation of a new process in its proper field, but it’s also a question of war
and peace, because if we don’t find the new paradigm—the new subjective
paradigm—the war will be endless. And if we want peace—real peace—we have to
find the possibility that subjectivity is really in infinite creation, infinite
development, and not in the terrible choice between one form of the power of
death (experimentation of the limits of pleasure) and another form of the power
of death (which is sacrifice for an idea, for an abstract idea). That is I
think, the contemporary responsibility of artistic creation. Thank you.
