We initiated the collaboration, not just between us, but with a host of voices and perspectives, if you like. Our primary resources, however, are D&G’s A Thousand Plateaus, next to scholarly interpretations of the latter and writings by philosophers whose practice is deeply informed by the Deleuzo-Guattarian approach; I refer here to Erin Manning and Brian Massumi. Pablo and I connected regularly online to talk about the texts we had set out to read and spent several sessions alone on the rhizome. I might say we sifted through passages searching for inklings that would speak back to us – trying to discern some vague signal that would open up to a methodological pathway – magically transposing abstract ideas into sensible creative procedures – maybe, in time.
To keep track of our dialogues, we recorded and transcribed them (leaving the last task to artificial intelligence, which gave us cryptic insights and laughs; indeed, digital glitches, as seen in the screenshot above, produce a certain Dada sense). Next, we combed through the transcripts for ‘conceptual gems’, as I like to call them, a tedious but necessary process. Here are some of the keywords, phrases or themes we identified that defined our subsequent steps: schizoanalytic podcast → hyperlink fiction → networked format; spiritual exercise → activate concepts → sound-thinking-doing; sound as vector → metaphor → ecological thinking; sound as data → digital sound ecosystem → material conditions of platforms; format and content → it doesn’t have to look like a rhizome to be a rhizome → keep it simple, flat, enjoyable, accessible → give instructions, how much?
Schedules and other commitments required us to forge a plan in which we divided the work, in part, by interest and skill set. Our conversations showed that the podcast should assume a networked form and, following my concern, create a kind of sonic narrative, a rhizomatic fiction at best that would trigger (‘dividual’) associations. We determined four thematic threads (or menu links), two of which I explored further through art writing as well as sound design and composition. Meanwhile, Pablo wanted to build a digital infrastructure that would technically implement our ideas.