T H E  D A R K

P R E C U R S O R

International Conference on Deleuze and Artistic Research

DARE 2015 | Orpheus Institute | Ghent | Belgium | 9-11 November 2015



O P E N - A C C E S S   R I C H - M E D I A  P R O C E E D I N G S

Edited by Paulo de Assis and Paolo Giudici

Erin Manning

 

Concordia University, Montreal, CA

 

 

In the Act: The Shape of Precarity

 

Day 1, 9 November, De Bijloke Kraakhuis, 11:00–12:00

 

 

Thunderbolts explode between different intensities, but they are preceded by an invisible, imperceptible dark precursor, which determines their path in advance but in reverse, as though intagliated.

Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, London and New York: Continuum, 1994, 119.

 

The problem is determined by singular points which correspond to series, but the question, by an aleatory point which corresponds to an empty square on the mobile element.

Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990, 56.

 

The possible implies becoming—the passage from one to the other takes place in the infra-thin.

Marcel Duchamp, Notes. Edited and translated by Paul Matisse. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1983, 22.

 

In this paper, I will explore the force of seriality of the “infrathin,” a concept brought forth by Marcel Duchamp, in light of the notions of both the dark precursor and the aleatory point. Considering the complex durations at the heart of activist practice (from the emergency of the moment to the deadlock of burnout and depression), I will inquire into the ways in which an ethico-aesthetic practice can reorient the thought of the political at the heart of the act.

 


Erin Manning holds a University Research Chair in Relational Art and Philosophy in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada). She is also the director of the SenseLab, a laboratory that explores the intersections between art practice and philosophy through the matrix of the sensing body in movement. Her current art practice is centred on large-scale participatory installations that facilitate emergent collectivities. Current art projects are focused around the concept of minor gestures in relation to colour, movement, and participation. Publications include Always More Than One: Individuation’s Dance (Duke UP, 2013), Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 2009), and, with Brian Massumi, Thought in the Act: Passages in the Ecology of Experience (Minnesota UP, 2014). Forthcoming book projects include a translation of Fernand Deligny’s Les détours de l’agir ou le moindre geste (Duke UP) and a monograph entitled The Minor Gesture (Duke UP).

Web: senselab.ca; erinmovement.com