Paris, Poetry & Penises Not All Theorists Wear Black
Contents My body without organs, my space with organs. Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari “How Do You Make Yourself A Body without Organs?’
Buy your milk at the hypermilkbar. Elizabeth Grosz: ‘Architecture from the Outside’
The write site. Jane Rendell, ‘Site-Writing’
In 1839 it was considered elegant to take a tortoise out walking. Walter Benjamin ‘The Arcades Project’
Tableaux parisiens. Charles Baudelaire, ‘Fleurs du Mal’ (The Flowers of Evil)
My Body without Organs, My Space with Organs A Reading of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s ‘How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs?’
“The body is now nothing more than a set of valves, locks, floodgates…a Metropolis that has to be managed with a whip.”1 The Body without Organs (BwO) is a way in which we can understand how the individual might embody the spaces around them. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari define the Body without Organs as being something that is simultaneously removed from the body and its surroundings but also a production of it, and consequently connected to it. The Body without Organs is the vessel in which desire is produced and pleasure executed within. It is the self that is not confined by the physical (hence it is without organs) but shaped by it and its surroundings. It is the thing that controls the physical self (with a whip), the Metropolis that is the body. The Body without Organs is a separate thing, but interrelated, never totally removed from the strata: organism (body), significance (angle of interpretation and perception, meaningfulness) and subjectification (what we are perceived – ‘nailed down’ – as). 2 One of the most important points that Deleuze and Guattari make about this when they describe the power of the individual to cultivate their own Body without Organs. Unlike pure Psychoanalytical theory, Deleuze and Guattari argue for the Anti-Oedipus, the emphasis must shift from interpretation of ‘phantasy’ to the construction of a ‘program’3 this is taking the powerlessness away from the individual – which is largely the focus in Freudian psychoanalytical theory – and instead shifts the emphasis onto the individual’s choices in relation to their own conscious creation of desire and fulfilment of pleasure. They use the Masochist as an example of this creation of program: 1 G. Deleuze, F. Guattari. How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs?. P 153 2 G. Deleuze, F. Guattari. How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs?. P 159 3 G. Deleuze, F. Guattari. How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs? P 151
“The “master,” or rather the mistress-rider, the equestrian, ensures the conversion of forces and the inversion of signs. The masochist constructs an entire assemblage that simultaneously draws and fills the field of immanence of desire; he constitutes a body without organs or a plane of consistency using himself, the horse, and the mistress.”4 The Body without Organs is about experiencing the potential that lingers beneath the surface, these form our ‘desires’. Desire is ‘defined as a process of production, without any reference to exterior agency, wether it be a lack that hollows it out or a pleasure that fills it.’5 What we see is the masochist taking the role of the horse as submissive, it is a conscious transmission of signifieds, not from ‘lack’ as much as it is the masochist creating the scenario in order to obtain pleasure. This becomes relevant to the embodiment of space specifically because Deleuze and Guattari are defining a theory in which embodiment occurs in relation to the individual, and a place or scenario. They specifically describe how the body not only relates to our perception, but also the outside world. They also outline a theory on which we apply our own transmissions of power into public space. This can be directly seen in the uniformed use of body language, whether we take on a submissive or assertive role in public, also the way in which we create and interpret our own public space and cityscape. The way in which we choose to engage or embody the city depends on how and why we produce our own relationship with public space. This can depend on variables, the ‘strata’ that cling to the body without organs (organism, significance and subjectification), which help shape and tie it to a reality (in this case the reality is ‘public space’). 4 G. Deleuze, F. Guattari. How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs?. P 156 5 G. Deleuze, F. Guattari. How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs?. P 154
The Write Site (Don’t judge, I couldn’t resist) Jane Rendell and the writing of a Spatial Critique
Site Writing examines at the role of the Art Critic and the very practice of criticism itself. Jane Rendell, puts forward the notion of a criticism that is spatial in nature. According to her, there lie the possibilities within the critical framework for there to be a space created within the process of critique. The ‘boundaries between subjects and objects [as] more porous and arguments are not only made directly, but indirectly, through association and implication.’1 The space that Rendell talks about is the space that the critic has or ‘performs with’ that is the critique itself. Rendell suggests that it is the way in which the critic approaches the artwork and the political, social, psychological backgrounds of the critic – allows the critic to be situated, in other words, a ‘site’ is formed in which the critic is free to perform. What I like about Rendell’s approach to criticism is the potential freedom of expression that the critic has. Essentially, Rendell calls for the embodiment of the critique, given that a fundamental part of being a critic is the need to relate to an ‘other’ – the object. By being invited to participate within the work, the critic is given to a certain extent the freedom to interpret the work within relation to himself or herself more honestly. It is this honesty that interests me in relation to exploring the ‘embodying’ flâneur. Rendell states ‘the practice of “site-writing”, traces and constructs a series of interlocking sites, relating, on the one hand, critic, work and artist, and on the other, critic, text and reader.’2 Here, I could state that the practice of embodiment within public space is essentially an interchange of words: individual, city (public space) and embodiment, and individual, behaviour and action. In terms of the role of the 1 Rendell, J. Site Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism. (2010) p.2 2 Rendell, J. Site Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism. (2010) p.14
flâneur as being a ‘critic’ of the city, both removed and immersed, seeing and being seen, we can view the flânerie as the critique of the city. Therefore, within a context of ‘site-writing’ the flâneur’s engagement with the ‘other’ (city) is not removed completely, it is the flânerie that then becomes the ‘site’. The flâneur’s traditional role then, is to accept the invitation from the city to participate within its world, which if we then talk of the individual within Public Space during their day-to-day vernacular, is the world of the flâneur themselves. (Not himself, the flâneur, like the critic is genderless.) Because the city is the immersive context, in this way it is unlike an artwork.
Buy your milk at the hypermilkbar The rise of the hyperhood A response to Elizabeth Grosz ‘Architecture from the Outside’
Elizabeth Grosz outlines the various ways in which the concepts of embodiment and technology – in particular cyberspace – can be applied to the discipline of Architecture, and their particular flaws and issues surrounding the application of such ideas. In particular, Grosz outlines the relationship of dynamic and shifting communities or modes of inhabitation within a static architectural structure. There are obvious issues with the continuation of static architectural forms, (what have effectively become shells) and the changing practices, communities and demographics that inhabit the structure. When talking about this she uses queer spaces as an example of how an undercurrent (closet) subverts the norm, in this case the heterocentric city. She claims the idea that a space is as much the product of a community as it is the product of a designer.1 There is equal power to the individual, who is the inhabitant of the space as there is to the designer. Grosz claims that ‘Space is the ongoing possibility of a different inhabitation. The more one disinvests one’s own body from the from the space, the less able one is to effectively inhabit that space as one’s own.’2 Objectivity is not an option. Grosz uses the idea of a ghetto to define communities, the queer communities containment in a particular area – ‘a very large closet’ – which is a site of hetero-centric containment and a safe space for the cultivation of subcultures (gay culture). In this way, Grosz defines the gay community as an ‘other’ that is separate from the hetronormative cityscape. This other ‘chooses sexual pleasure over conformity.’3 1 Grosz, E. Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space. Ch. 1. “Embodying Space: An Interview” p. 8. 2 Grosz, E. Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space. Ch. 1. “Embodying Space: An Interview” p. 9. 3 Grosz, E. Architecture from the Outside:
The ‘ghetto’ is something that is not necessarily as tightly defined by geographical boundaries anymore, and this is an exciting thing. If we continue with the example of queer communities then Northcote, Collingwood and Prahan are not the only hubs of queer culture. Increased communication has allowed communities to become more fluid in how they might inhabit the city, and the world. Butt Magazine’s ‘Fag’ maps are perhaps an explicit example of this new hyperreal community. Brought together by ‘sexual pleasure over conformity’ (I suppose), Butt magazine produces both a physical publication and virtual mappings of ‘places’ ‘icons’ within a section of the queer community. It is this play between the physical place and the virtual community that could be the future of cities? In a city where a community has the potential to be liberated from a physical area, where it has the power of choice, this comes back to the way in which spaces are inhabited or embodied by the communities themselves and people within them, Grosz’s notion of investing one’s body in a space to make it one’s own as something far more potent. As the static space shifts and changes more frequently, the city will become a more dynamic place, and public space will transfigure entirely. This may not necessarily result in a city that is ghetto-free, but rather a more rapid movement of communities through the cityscape. From the hyperhood, peace.
Essays on Virtual and Real Space. Ch. 1. “Embodying Space: An Interview” p. 10.
In 1839 it was considered elegant to take a tortoise out walking. Walter Benjamin and ‘The Arcades Project’
Walter Benjamin describes, not the concrete flâneur, but a series of attributes, (some conflicting) that we can describe as being part of the flâneur’s character. The flâneur as person no longer exists, it can’t. The flâneur as persona, as sign, as tool transcends Paris, poetry and penis to move into the Metropolis of the twenty-first century, perhaps fractured but never onedimensional. Benjamin makes it clear that ‘Paris created the type of the flâneur’1. The character of the flâneur is then to an extent assumed to be site-specific. The city becomes instrumental in the shaping of relationships of the individual. For Benjamin, the flâneur’s relationship with Paris is intimate and domestic. Parisians had a habit of using the streets as an interior2 and subsequently, the flâneur’s relationship with the city is an intimate one, yet at the same time this relationship is then exposed, the romantic notion of taking Paris as a domestic interior is a loaded one: the flâneur’s privacy is negated and made public. This is the polemic state of the flâneur. Perhaps this is the first breakdown between public and private space? The flâneur may have been born in Paris, but need not linger there, the city has become globalised, the arcades and railway stations of which Benjamin talks about have transformed into the nonplaces and junkspace of today: they can be found everywhere. The flâneur’s perception of the space is that of the space as whole, the space ‘winks at the flâneur’.3 Benjamin describes this as ‘illustrative seeing’.4 1 Benjamin, Walter. “M The Flâneur” The Arcades Project. (Harvard University Press: 1999) p.417 2 Benjamin, Walter. “M The Flâneur” The Arcades Project. (Harvard University Press: 1999) p.421 3 Benjamin, Walter. “M The Flâneur” The Arcades Project. (Harvard University Press: 1999) p.41819 4 Benjamin, Walter. “M The Flâneur” The Arcades Project. (Harvard University Press: 1999) p.419
The use of the term ‘wink’ alludes to some kind of desire and flirtation, an intimacy. The space becomes sexualised and immediately erotic. The flâneur’s relationship with a space is the relationship between themselves and the physical space around them, a relationship based on illustrative seeing (read: desire) and experience, but an intimate relationship that is conscious. The flâneur is aware of their surroundings, their vernacular terrain in ways that the ‘public’ (read: collective, in particular collective norms) is not, but can also see the potentials of that space. Their bedroom can transform into spaces unknown, never seen before as Benjamin describes in Johannes’ flânerie: ‘Off they went, then, right out the front entrance, out to a neighbouring estate or to a seashore, or simply through the streets, exactly as Johannes could have wished;’5 We construct our identity and play a role (like Johannes) on a daily basis; we flirt back with the space that ‘winks’ at us, we perform for it and others using signs. Once again, the relationship between the intimacy of self and the exposed public realm emerge. The emphasis becomes interpellation and fetishisation of public space (and people). The persona of flâneur was born in a time where commodity fetishisation became key in forming relationships with others. The flâneur, Benjamin argues, mixes their life and work together in the ‘social base [of] journalism.’6 The flâneur’s commodity is their lifestyle. This is something that has carried through time today. Our lives, and the way we live them can be seen as commodities in the production and occupation of public space.
5 Benjamin, Walter. “M The Flâneur” The Arcades Project. (Harvard University Press: 1999) p.421 6 Benjamin, Walter. “M The Flâneur” The Arcades Project. (Harvard University Press: 1999) p.446
Tableaux parisiens Charles Baudelaire et ‘Fleurs du Mal’
A scene is a space within which events unfold. The scene is something more than just a set of objects or Cartesian space, by its very nature of display, it plays with and influences the way events unfold and throb beneath the framed surface. Paris is never exposed, always shrouded in veils. Baudelaire uses desire and tension to build Paris and construct a scene for the reader, a context as viewed through himself. There are two ways in which Baudelaire conveys a place, by describing intimately what Paris is, and allowing us to indulge in the possibilities of a place, encounter or moment. Baudelaire frames the picturesque and suggests the erotic, thus breathing life into the city, the paved inert spaces in which he wanders. Paris is much like any other person; complex, layered and secretive yet open. There is a scene (display), feeling and desire. These are always alluded to; the scene of Paris is the aesthetic frame in which he places the reader: the ‘chimney-pipes, the steeples, all of the city’s masts, the great inspiring skies, magnificent and vast.’1 The feeling is the possibility of the image to transfigure its original purpose, the way we (and the poet) view the framed scene. Baudelaire eludes to the city as something else, a series of dynamic ‘masts’ something that has the ‘vast’ potential to be explored.
other, open, obvious and septic. One is considered respect of beauty whilst the other is the profiteering decomposition of it. Beauty, then, is also about who embodies the spaces of Paris and when, which ties back into the poetic ‘framing’ of Paris, that Baudelaire uses, and then the relationship turns back on itself again. It is not simply about a visual frame, but a relational one too. Aesthetics is a very old chestnut, and a complicated one to crack. However, I think the point here is that Baudelaire is questioning the very need to even crack it. Why do we need to? He seems to suggest that beauty is best left to the imagination. The serendipitous possibilities of Paris (lets say Melbourne too) are what make spaces beautiful or ugly, poetic or banal. To exist in a space and to be taken somewhere else, within a split second for maybe only a fraction of another.
Now to consider the flâneur. The city is a scene of which relational possibilities and formal aesthetics play. We need to define now what an ‘aesthetic’ is. Baudelaire implies that the aesthetic is not what is visually in front of you, but also the way in which these things are eluded to. What we see, and what we think impacts our understanding of what beauty is. Our relationship with a place or person – however brief – dictates how we view our surroundings, our impressions of it. Fleurs du mal is published around the same time that artists like Van Gough, Monet The erotic is one potential within the performance, it and Matisse are producing paintings that do not is something that is implied, but never exposed, for simply represent the Cartesian space before them, to tear the erotic completely away from the mystique but also the emotion and passion that is embedded that surrounds it is to add certain violence, a blatant in the scene, the ‘impression’ of what is before uneasiness and vulgarity. This is the difference them. The painter and the poet have something in between the ‘loosened ribbons, then, unveil us for common. Baudelaire, the dandy, the art critic and the our sins, [with] two breasts as undisguised and flâneur explores and exposes Paris by living in Paris. bright as eyes’2 and ‘Old Prostitution [blazing] in the Baudelaire’s existence is an aesthetic one; but an 3 streets; [Who] opens up her nest-of-ants retreat’ . aesthetic that is half grounded in relations. His poetry One is suggesting a scandalous immorality, the is commodifiable proof of the aesthetic and the city and how they come together. Much like the beauty 1 Baudelaire, C. “Landscape” Fleurs du Mal. of a flower (Fleurs), but with the understanding that (Oxford University Press: 2008) p.167 this flower is also a sexual organ and will bloom and 2 Baudelaire, C. “To a Red-Haired Beggar Girl” die (du Mal). Fleurs du Mal. (Oxford University Press: 2008) p.171 3 Baudelaire, C. “Dusk” Fleurs du Mal. (Oxford University Press: 2008) p.193
Bibliography Baudelaire, Charles. Fleurs du Mal [The Flowers of Evil]. Oxford, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Benjamin, Walter. “M The Flâneur.” In The Arcades Project, by Walter Benjamin. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1999. Deleuze, Gilles. & Guattari, Félix. “How Do You Make Yourself A Body without Organs?” In A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, by Gilles & Guattari, Félix. Deleuze, 149-166. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Grosz, Elizabeth. Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001. Rendell, Jane. Site Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism. “Prologue PrePositions”. J.B.Tauris & Co. New York: 2010 References: “About Butt Magazine” Butt Magazine http://www.buttmagazine.com/information/ [Accessed On: September 20th, 2011]
The Technology of Thinking Embodied Public Space, Berlin/Wismar/Melbourne Nick Rebstadt S3281933