A Moleskine Notebook >>> ‘A s y m b o l of Contemporary Nomadism.’
2. + 3. 2. The symbol of contemporary nomadism + 3. Contemporary Nomadism | Borders
2.
The Moleskine Notebook | the symbol of contemporary nomadism
In brief, the Moleskine Notebook is a symbol of contemporary Nomadism.9 Its modern, sleek exterior encapsulates the essence of its owner; the educated, design savvy, creative individuals.10 Between the pages, the notebook exemplifies the ideologies of Chatwin and the dreaming of the archetypal nomads in which his writings investigate.
The Moleskine notebook presents itself in our contemporary condition of design as an, assemblage and “abstract machine” through the Deleuzian concept of deterritorialization.11 Deleuze expands on the concepts of territorialization, deterritorialization and reterritorialization, which provide an alternative thought to the theory that a territory is merely a bounded entity contained by borders. Instead, a territory, whether that be social, political, conceptual or spatial is seen as an ever changing configuration of interrelated “assemblages.” 12 These assemblages can be defined as objects, expressions or affects that connect due to the condition of varying factors such as power, resistance and desire.13 In the Deleuzian sense, once a territory is formed it is decontextualized to the extent in which particular elements or attributes are taken and resituated somewhere else, thus deterritorialized through the process coined, ‘Lines of Flight’. When these attributes are taken from their existing territory and liberated from their original function it becomes something else. It is a
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Moleskine official website, assessed 2012.09.25
10
Moleskine Official Website. 2012.10.01
11
Erik Werner Peterson, “Design as Seven Steps of Deterritorialization”!In: In the making: Conference Proceedings. Santa
Anna IT Research Institute AB, 2005. Assessed: 2012.09.26 12
Peterson, “Design as Seven Steps of Deterritorialization”
13
“Deterritorialization” http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/deterritorialization/, assessed 2012.10.05
procedure through subtraction in order to create a new entity, not, a resemblance. A ‘line of flight’ can, and in this condition, results in nomadic subjectivity.14 All deterritorializations carry a sense of nomadism in the way in which they can be momentary, perhaps inconsequential and at other times; substantial or life changing in respect to our human condition.
It is important to point out the difference between relative and absolute deterritorialization as this difference paves the interesting path of Nomadology. The former reassures the relationship between a person and their environment, however thought provoking or vigorous it is movements of relative deterritorialization that are components of our existence. They are commonplace, part of the unfolding of our presence. For example, the relationship between sickness and mortality; environmental factors that lead to a change in behavior, similar to where by an illness or incidences can force a person to adapt and exploit unused potentials15. However life provoking or extreme these cases can be, they rarely conform to the notion of an absolute, ‘line of flight’. This, is for the later, an exemplar in the Deleuzian sense of Nomadism.
The opposing is henceforth, a metaphor. The term, Nomad coins the analogy of those who create their own path, following the contours of the land, drawing significance of places, not by there attractions or urbanity but by their implication to ones self, how individual or relative, in a consumerist sense. In Nomadic cultures, the land is not driven into partition or divides. The concept of a ‘border’ does not exist an enclosure is trivial. The Nomadic space is ‘smooth’. The spirit of the land is as essential to one self as the spirit of the mind and the soul. The Nomadic foundation unlike that of the migrant or refugee does not move because of hostility or social obligations, rather they wander; adhering to the land as its spirit is undifferentiated from that of their own.
In the Deleuzian sense, Nomadology is an alternative approach to understanding the history and ramifications of Globalization16. Traditionally, history is written from the perspective of the Western thought; Globalization, Capitalism and Consumerism are elements assisting in the fabrication of our contemporary culture. These manifestations shape the way in which we act, develop and spatially shift throughout our creation. Laws govern the way in which we must act, converse with and drift through the land. History is written from the viewpoint of the collective thought and thus seen as the official doctrine. In contrast, Nomadology portrays the uninterrupted sequence of deterritorialization. ‘Lines of flight’ are established away from territories or borders creating a continuation of processes, opposing the fixed perspective of western doctrines.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 14 “Nomadology”!http://devenirnomada.blogspot.ca/2005/03/nomadic-subject-and-nomadology.html, assessed
2012.10.01
15
http://devenirnomada.blogspot.ca/2005/03/nomadic-subject-and-nomadology.html, assessed 2012.10.01
16
Robert Deuchars, “Creating Lines of Flight and Activating Resistance: Deleuze and Guattari’s War Machine”, in
AntePodium, Victoria University Wellington, 2011
For Indigenous Australians, the contours of the land and the cave dot paintings embodied their social and cultural implications towards their belief in the Dreamtime. Songlines are derived from the knowledge of the land. They create a map of the physical landscape through rhythm, tone and pitch. These unerringly verbal maps of the landscape can run hundreds of kilometres. In essence, to a sing the Songlines is to map the physical and spiritual properties of the landscape. Whenever they are sung, they will guide you through the land. They are descriptions of paths, taken by ancestral spirits when they arrived in the Dreamtime and their interactions with each other through this mythical land17. The unparalleled sensitivity to the effects of words that resonate from the heart and the chest, showcase the intimate knowledge and respect of the land, to sing the Songlines wrong is a detriment to your good health. Songlines reinforced their unity with the land, they sing into being, every living and non-living thing in the world. This Nomadic model transcends into modern, western ways of thought as a viable alternative to Globalization. In a sense, Nomadism is paramount to the concept of absolute deterritorialization, making transversals with no fixed territories. Instead, nomadism is retained by its inner destabilizing intensities; as an ever changing, adaptable process.18
.
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Norman Allan, Youtube video on Bruce Chatwin’s, ‘Songlines’, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zEo279akKs, assessed
2012.10.07! 18
Gil-Manuel Hernàndez i Martí , “The deterritorialization of cultural heritage” Transfer: Journal of Contemporary Culture, 2006
01, assessed 2012.09.29
3.
My Proposal | Contemporary Nomadism | Borders
I propose an investigation into the theoretical status of Borders and their connection with the social and economic stratification in which Deleuzian’s, ‘Nomad’ obstructs. In postmodern theory there is a philosophical thought that a border exemplifies political control and surveillance19. It goes beyond the notion of a threshold or instrument of demarcation. Instead, it is now a crucial zone in which political, social and cultural formulations negotiate with each other. The concept and process of bordering can be understood as an event of, ‘becoming’20 as it opposes all structures of organization and produces an escape from institutionalization. The deterritorialization that is produced brings forth socio-spatial complexities, which oppose the division of States.
Areas of specific concern that I can investigate are still up for discussion. However my main interest lies in the conceptual ‘wall’ of the Australian ‘border’. With this in mind, it is paramount that I address new ways of thinking about socio-spatial demarcations and address the way this border varies in its structure and complexities as opposed to a land border.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 19 !Antke Engel, “Deterritorialization, Reterritorialization, and Lines of Flight” (Institute for Queer Theory, Berlin) Work Group 1: Borders Nicosia (The University of Manchester) 14-15 April, 2009 20
Keith Woodward and John Paul Jones III, On the Border with Deleuze and Guattari, Chapter 15 pp. 235 – 247
geography.arizona.edu/, assessed 2012.09.29
In addition, with assistance from Globalized Capitalism, the notion of deterritorialization; flows and creates networks across national borders. This idea can be investigated through the notion of Nomadic subjectivity creating flexible citizenship. This would bring about a new form of citizenship, delinking the connections between ethnic origins, nationality and citizenship. Instead, citizenship would be connected to participation and belonging, thus we would see a shift from striated; abstracted citizenship based on nationality to a Nomadic citizenship21. As a result, legal documents and passports would be less able to regulate our movements across borders.
In both examples, there is the possibility to have a new take on immigration. At present, immigration is often seen in a negative light. As such, I approach my thesis with the intent to see immigration as a fact of Globalization and not merely a problem. It is important to understand that the world will never be solely culturally and ethically divided. This is a past thought that has no merit in contemporary society in which Globalization and Capitalism are paramount.
Therefore it is my aim to create nomadic space for free thought, to act outside the control of the State and to un-map the borders in the world22. In addition to this I want to analyze the way in which we can, through design, disrupt the state territorialization of subjectivity. Thus, ‘smoothing’ the border, by reducing exclusivist nationalism and creating a new typology of being, that of a new body that does not identify or affiliate with the State23.
The idea of, ‘Trans-nation neoliberalism’ is when borders are viewed from the perspective of social transformations rather than from a political perspective24. In the 2008 book, Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the 21st Century by Dimitris Papadopoulos, Niamh Stephenson and Vassilis, the authors analyze the technologized forms of mobility control, where borders are no longer limits between political control, rather these forms are established in order to organize social space and political governance 25 . An investigation into their research is at the forefront of my continuing research. What is interesting is that the authors argue that electronic and administrative policing procedures are the new means of control and take place at strategic locations; such as train stations and mobile police patrols26. It is as a response to Globalization that these new forms of control are in place as well as the increase in hostility towards warfare and attacks.
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Sara Saleri, “On nomadism: Interview with Rosi Braidotti” http://www.euroalter.com/2010/on-nomadism-interview-with-rosi-
braidotti, assessed 2012.09.21 22
Antke Engel, “Deterritorialization, Reterritorialization, and Lines of Flight,” p. 24
23
Keith Woodward and John Paul Jones III, On the Border with Deleuze and Guattari, p. 240
24
Dimitris Papadopoulos, Niamh Stephenson and Vassilis, “Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the 21st Century”,
(London, Pluto Press 2008) 25
Antke Engel, “Deterritorialization, Reterritorialization, and Lines of Flight,” p. 26
26
Dimitris Papadopoulos, Niamh Stephenson and Vassilis, Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the 21st Century !
Bibliography | investigation + research
Antke Engel, “Deterritorialization, Reterritorialization, and Lines of Flight” (Institute for Queer Theory, Berlin) Work Group 1: Borders Nicosia (The University of Manchester) 14-15 April, 2009
Bruce Chatwin, The Songline, (United Kingdom: Franklin Press 1986)
Erik Werner Peterson, “Design as Seven Steps of Deterritorialization”!In: In the making: Conference Proceedings. Santa Anna IT Research Institute AB, 2005. Assessed: 2012.09.26
Gil-Manuel Hernàndez i Martí , “The deterritorialization of cultural heritage” Transfer: Journal of Contemporary Culture, 2006 01, assessed 2012.09.29
Dimitris Papadopoulos, Niamh Stephenson and Vassilis, “Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the 21st Century”, (London, Pluto Press 2008)
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A thousand Plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1987) English translation
Jonathan Cape, Chatwin, Bruce (2010), “Under the sun: the letters of Bruce Chatwin”
Keith Woodward and John Paul Jones III, On the Border with Deleuze and Guattari, Chapter 15 pp. 235 – 247 geography.arizona.edu/, assessed 2012.09.29
Robert Deuchars, “Creating Lines of Flight and Activating Resistance: Deleuze and Guattari’s War Machine”, in AntePodium, Victoria University Wellington, 2011
Robert Sinnerbrink, Nomadology or Ideology? Zizek’s Critique of Deleuze1, PARRHESIA NUMBER 1 • 2006 • 62 – 87
Özbay, Müge;; Eviner, İnci;; Akgün, Tevfik, “Aesthetics Bridging Cultures” Deterritorialization, Performative Identity and Uncanny Representation of Woman’s, Body in the Works of Ana Mendieta. Yıldız Technical University, Istanbul ( International Congress of Aesthetics 2007)
Sara Saleri, “On nomadism: Interview with Rosi Braidotti” http://www.euroalter.com/2010/on-nomadisminterview-with-rosi-braidotti, assessed 2012.09.21
Websites | References
“Bruce Chatwin” Norman Allan, Youtube video on Bruce Chatwin’s, ‘Songlines’, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zEo279akKs, assessed 2012.10.07
“Deterritorialization” http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/deterritorialization/, assessed 2012.10.05!
“Moleskine Facts”!http://everythingishistory.com/5-random-things-about-moleskine-0174, assessed 2012.09.19
“Nomadology” http://devenirnomada.blogspot.ca/2005/03/nomadic-subject-and-nomadology.html, assessed 2012.10.01
“Official Moleskine website” http://www.moleskine.com/web/us/, assessed on 2012.09.09 onwards
“The Moleskine Notebook” www.skteching.cc/articles/moleskine.html, assessed 2012.09.11 onwards
“The Moleskine Notebook” http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/moleskine-a-pageout-of-altered-history-7870099.html#, accessed 2012.09.17
“The Moleskine: Facts and Figures” http://itotd.com/articles/565/moleskine-notebooks/, assessed 2012.09.11 onwards
“The Moleskine Notebook” http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/moleskine-a-pageout-of-altered-history-7870099.html#, accessed 2012.09.17