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
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
Radek Przedpełski
Trinity College Dublin, IE
Mouldworks: An Art Rhizomatic Inquiry into Haecceities in Material (and) Thought
Day 1, 9 November, De Bijloke Rotonde, 12:00-13:00 and 17:30-18:30 (repeat)
Conducting an art-philosophical inquiry into the Polish neo-avant-garde artist Marek Konieczny and his mobilisation of Polish Baroque, I have embarked on what Simon O’Sullivan calls “art rhizomatics.” O’Sullivan (2006, 36–37) defines “a rhizomatics of art” as a mode of art writing that attends to the researcher’s particular enfoldment in the world and resonates with the art objects themselves. My art rhizomatics is an immanent research practice that generates new worlds parallel to Konieczny’s artworks themselves. For “Dark Precursor” I would like to extend this practice further to include experimentation with Deleuze-Guattarian thought, namely the concept of haecceity.
Mouldworks seeks to explore the resonance between haecceity and the materiality of mould as it emerges from my particular experience of living as an immigrant in a Dublin bedsit and researching the art of the 1970s and the Baroque amid Ireland’s newly resurgent property bubble and its attendant vectors of gentrification, the debate about the shape of the new multicultural Ireland, and the influx of refugees.
Deleuze and Guattari (2005, 261) define haecceity as “a mode of individuation distinct from that of a thing or a subject” epitomised by “a season.” They posit haecceities as a set of coordinates, “the sum total of the material elements belonging [to a body] under given relations of movement and rest, speed and slowness (longitude); the sum total of the intensive affects it is capable of . . . (latitude).” Many commentators have emphasised the individual, yet impersonal nature of haecceities (Young 2013, 153).
Mouldworks explores migrating mould colonies as a diagram of heterogeneous force relations penetrating both the molecular and the social planes. Notoriously unwieldy—in a state of constant asexual reproduction and vibrating across diverse milieus—mould spores affect in unpredictable ways, secreting diverse colours, textures, and distribution patterns. Therefore, they can be considered haecceities.
Rather than develop gigantic land art projects like those by Robert Smithson, my particular longitude offers the infinitesimal realm of mould as my field of operation. Inhaling Dublin mould every day, I think about the iconic photography of Roman Vishniac who turned away from the documentation of diaspora cultures to embrace photomicroscopy, therefore revealing diaspora as a haecceity.
Mouldworks attempts to register the diasporic haecceities by putting into mutual resonance a series of staged photographic images of humanoid figures draped in black velvet, set against Dublin’s iconic open-sea bathing places, and a video documentation of a mould removal procedure performed with a silicon cutter. The Baroque drapery with its many folds introduces perceptual instability associated with haecceities, whereas the sea is haunted by the threat of migrant invasions as well as waterborne powers of contamination.
References
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 2005. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.
O’Sullivan, Simon. 2006. Art Encounters Deleuze and Guattari: Thought Beyond Representation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Young, Eugene B. 2013 “Haecceity.” In The Deleuze and Guattari Dictionary, edited by Eugene B. Young with Gary Genosko and Janell Watson, 153. New York: Bloomsbury.
Radek Przedpełski is a doctoral student in the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultural Studies at Trinity College Dublin, researching Polish conceptual and performance art of the 1970s. His other research interests include performances of virtuality in new Polish-Jewish music and Polish-Tatar poetry. Radek is also a part of the interdisciplinary Digital Arts and Humanities PhD programme run jointly by four Irish universities. He firmly believes theory-based research into art can/should be performed via artistic praxis. He is a freelance photographer and sound artist. Radek holds an MA degree in digital media from Dublin Institute of Technology (specialisation in sound design) and an MA in English language and culture from Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland (specialisation in critical theory and postcolonial studies).
Email: przedper@tcd.ie