IS THERE A DELEUZIAN AESTHETICS?
acques ancre
The esent aicle will not sek to situae a Deleuzian aesthetics within a geneal faewok that would e Deleuze's thoght The eason fo this is sile: sile: do not quite know wht Deluze's thought is a still looking fo it His socalled aesthtic texts ae, fo e, a eans of aoaching it Apoaching, howve, is an ioe te Utndng tn n t ount to coincidin with s cete On t contay, to undestan a thinke is to dislace , to lea him on a tajectoy whee s aticulations coe udone an leae oo fo lay Only the s t ossile to efi ue [d-figj s thout n oe to efue t eetly, to ste outside of te constants of s wods a eess s thouht that foeign foeign language that Deleuz, ae oust, ade the ask of te wte Hee, aesthetics ill e a eans of loosening that Deleuzian tangle, which leaes so lile oo fo the iution of anothe lan guge, in ode to take hi on the tajectoy of a question The esent atcle will not seek to stuate Deleuzes dis couse on at withi te faewok of aesthetics undestood as a disciline having its own ojects, ethods and schools Fo e, the te thti does not efe to disciline t does not esinate c of losoy o kowlege of woks of at Aesthetics s an iea of thought, oe of tougt tt ufols aout woks of t, tki t s wtsss t questo questio tat eas Qui Pre Vo No pngmm
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on the sensle and on the owe that nhats the sensle o to thouht, as the unthouht n thouht wll theefoe attet to show how the ojects and odes of Deleuze's desctons and concetualzatons lead us towad the cente of what eans to e thouht unde ths nae, aleady centennal and stll so oscue, of aesthetcs wll take as y ont of deatue two Deleuzan foula tons whose dstance fo one anothe sees to aly fx the aaently antagonstc oles of Deleuze's thought on the wok of at The fst stateent s found n Wh Phooh? The wok of at s a en of sensaton and nothn else t exsts n tself The atst ceates locks of ecets and afects, ut the oly law of ceaton s that the cooun ust stand u on ts own"2 The sec ond aeas n Fnc con ogc of Snon Wth ant ng, hystea ecoes art O athe, wth the ante, hystea ecoes antn"3 At fst lance the fst st at nt xp wt seems t e the equste of any aesthetcs undestood as dscouse on at: the wok of at has a sefc ode of en The wok of at s such that t stans u on ts own t s the oect that s efoe us, that does not nee us ut essts y tue of ts own unfyn aw of fo an atte of ats and the asseae he wok of at can theefoe e taey as Astole efnes t the cal deal of the Geek statue n Heels wok Flauets noel aout nothn that ests on the shee foce of style o the flat suface of coloed lotches, as Mauce Dens defnes antng etc Accodnly Deleuze sees to n us face to face wth the wok of at n the fo of a hee s what thee s" "vo c qu ] The exe lay descton of what one of acons antns esents to the sectato ens n ths way: A oun aea oen delts te lce whee the eson that s to say the Fgue s seated" , A ound aea an oal aea, cces, astc ocedues a we delted and chaactezed sace ths s how Deleuze eses what thee s" [c qu ] n font of us on the lat and autonoous suface of the wok of at And what thee s" ay e exlaned n the tes of a ceran aa o fos The suface
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of Baco's painting ay be dscribed as the sile cobiation of tw ors, both dentified by the histrians ad theoreticians of art. First and foreot, the coexstene on the surfce of the canvas of the figure, the field of color that functios as background, and the rounded for or contour that at oce unites and separtes the, is the reestablishmet of a haptc space: a space connectig sight and toch n a snge plane. Accordng to Regl, t s this spce that characterizes the Egptan basrele. n tat space, hweer, the contour has the uctn f essentializng te igure that it encr cles. The probl faced s thus ne f defnng a space that would have haptic planarity, ut that would e freed frm this ssentializ ing function. This prolem is ormally resolved by an operation focusin on the contour. n Bacon's work, Dleuze identifies the contour with another line that adheres to the logic of another form: Worrnger's nrthern Gothic lne, the line that urvs n, breaks, fades, changes directon. Ths norganc ne disoranzes the essentalizng contur; t plunges t nto the wrld f the accden al by rendering t a space tenson, confrontaton, an deforma tion of ot lmnt e surace acn's antn s thus defned as a specc cmnatn f the llwn ors: Regl's haptc Egyptan sace dsoranzed te entcatin ts cn tour wt Wrrner's nrtrn lne. A orula or the antn can there e deined n a ener al gramar ors. Yet, w would ths arrgeent planes and lines dened y stylst crtera take the name o a enal ll ness: hystera? say ental llness," ut there s an entre tradtion of thought tht does nt cnsder hysteria to e just any llness. Hystera s precsely the ness that pposes tsel to the process o creating the work of art, that revents the work of rt ro existing as an autonomous entty, while retainng mprsoned within the artst's body the powers that should objectify the work of art and ake it autonoous. Here am thnking o what Flaubert said of hs Sin Anoin the power that should have shaped the wok of art lke a blck marle reersed its rectn. nstead of actn utward, t acted nward, and whle on nwar, t delquesced.
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It lowed wthn Flaubet lk a nevous malady. It s n ths way that hystea s pecsely the antwok. It s the nevus euson o pas son that opposes the athletc and sculptual powe o uscles. How then can the atstc maxm acdng to whch the wok o at must stnd up on ts wn" [ ni n oi] be dented wth hystea? ets etun t the st nes o Fnci con ogic of Snion o u answe. The ounded om the va the paalelepped have n act, a wedened unctn. They solate the gue, not n ode to essentaze t ke an Egyptan contou, not n ode to sptualze t ke the yzantne mande, but n ode to pevent t om comng nto contact wth the othe gues om becomng an eement n a stoy. And th ae wo ways o becomng an eement n a sty. Th s th extenal eatnsp esembance, the eatonsp the gu pesentd to wht t epesnts. The ae as th conctns mntaned by t gu to othe gues n th vy sc o the pantng. T u dn w nt ascts a sng d: Astotes epesn tatve mod s t was estbs s Poic epsettn, n act, mans t tngs. Fst, t ns tt ·a s th taton an cton. y ts sbn t ms cognza s tng that xsts outsd t. cn, t s t ctn stg. t s t sst kd squnc ts, t aangement o pts tht o tmsvs ccodng t dned mode: the unctona ngmnt t ts n ogan sm. T ok at, s s t s as, s v. Tat s to say tt t oks cn s n t mag nt, n t ma o the ow that nds ts umnt t vng gansm n gn a, and n the human gansm n tcu. The cssc mode o t tonomus wok o at conssts n dssoctng th Astotan o n d t pay t wks gn nsn st ts t nc, natu s t ow o t k gnst at s t m gua. A v tb ton t tus suss t dsttn ths gnct tt s t sc stt. T stcz" t t, t t st, s u
DELEUZ SCS?
ing that oanicity that is lent in the vey dfinition of he atonoos" wok of at. It ns nding ll that natue which has ogan atonoy as its telos. he pictial wok will conse ently have to be thouh as an illess of oganic nate and of the figation that iitates is powe. The eleens of the pevios ly evked foal aa in fact constitute the sickness of a natue and lead to its disinteation. They designate the scene of cobat o cisis. Bacon's contou is thus a ing a tack a gynast's flo. It is the place of coat beeen painting and figation. Deleuze just as well caefully twists the eleents of the foal cde" in ode to oganize this ing. Conside the anne in which he changes the eanig ofoinge's analysis whee the line was ideality the powe o ode. Even the Gothic line had a twfold fnction. It conveyed an anuish ad a disode but it also co ectd the by anisting an idal vital powe. In Deleuze's wok on the conta the line becoes the powe of chaos that caies away all fom the pwe of becominganimal that undoes the huan figue the catastope of the figuative space. The contou theeby encicles a clsed field in the cente o a wofold pessue an it te an the owes of chaos against the figue the nonhman nonoganic oces th nonoganic life of things that come o lash out at the igue. Within the field' inteio the igue seek to ecape itself to disoganize ielf to empy itself though it hea a t ecome a ody with out ogan and theey etun nonganic life. The Apollonian maxim tand up on its own" is athe Dionysian hyteia: it is not te low of the wok's foces in the body f the aist u the low within the wok of the figuative givns that the wok must undo. The hysteia" of the wok of a deines the task of defigua tion paicula to he wok within a wofold opposition. It xplicit ly opposes an oganic aesthetics the eautiful. Howeve th point is not to eplace this oganic aesthetics with a negative aes thetics of the sublime o the infeioity of the sensible to the Idea. Wha this cobat engages via the desciption of the wok of at is the tatus o thought in eneal It engages what is shown by he othe name Deleuze gives to the hysteical" comat of defigua
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on: juse To juse self, he ges a new name: he alls dese The fh hape of Francis Bacon: e Lgic of Sensaion aordngly desrbes he end of he moemen by whh he fg ue esapes owad he moleula sruure o mae: I s hs exeme pon ha wll have o be eahed, n order o gve egn o a juse ha wll no longe be anyhng bu Colo o Lgh, a spae ha wll no longe be anyhng bu he Sahaa" (F, 2). The wok of ar admnses juse, and juse ognaes n a spef plae Even f he assoaon beween juse and he deser evokes fs of all Hldeln's Angone, seems o me possble no o hea hee he eho of anohe dsouse on juse and s lous I am eferng o Plao and Book VII of e Repubic. Wha does admn seng juse amoun o n Deleuze as well as n Plao? One may answer: o he sensble as suh I amouns o ellng s rue mea sue In Plo's wok, he u measue s alled he Idea, and he dea has an enemy: doxai Doxa s he juse ha he sensbl adm t rn rr hs I s hereore neessary o leave he ae, oxa, he sensble, n oer o reah he plae fom whh he sensble eees s measue, een he sensble wll vansh no Now, n Deleuze, juse also has ene mes: doxa, opnon, fguao No more han he soul n Plao, a paners anvas s no a blank slae wang or somehn o ll Te anvas s ovepopulae oerd by e urav gvens" ["donns figuraive]; ha s o say, no smply overe by he poal fguave odes, bu y lhs, dox, he wol o shad ows on he wall Wha ae guave gns" or oxa? Tey are he manngful sensoymoo delmaon of e perpual wol as he human anmal oganzes when makes slf he ene of he wold, when ransoms s poson of mage among mages no cogio, no he ene from whh delms mages of he wold The fuae gvens" ae als he delmaon of he vsble, of he meanngul, o h edl, su as ems organz hem, emes onsdeed as olle aualzaons he sujes mpealsm The ask of ar s uno he world o uraon or o doxa, o depopulae ha world, o lear e rran, swe away all a s already on e anvs, on eey sreen eaa
IR A DLU STICS
thoe iage in oe to put in thei ple Sahaa. To go towad jui i o go towad that whih give the tue eaue of the enible the wol of the Ida. And of ue fo eleuze tuth i not n idea bhind o above the enible. Tuth i he pue enible the unnditiod enible tht oppe te idea of doxa. It i the unoditioned nible that i alle ju tie o deet. Th wok of a i a ah ino the deet. Howeve on the deet qua dipene of jute i ehed te ed of the wok of at boe the abene of he wok of at adne. Thi extee point will have to be eahed ay Deleuze. Yet in tuh what peent itelf when the jutieadminiteing dee the end of the wok of at i eahed i the abene of the wok of at mane. Thi extee poit will have to be eahed but the wok of a would only be able to eh that poin at the xene o annulling itelf. The theate of the wok of a i onequently one o a ovemnt etaind n it plae of a tenion and a ta tion in the ene a well in whih one peak of the Station of the Co. The wk o at i theay of the Co f figuation that manifet the lahed fiue a a dihonoed Chit. Yet the wok pey in ple te le tt ant to lip awa. The wok of a a tation on the ay to a nveon. It hytea i hizophena kept withn the ramewo hee it eate again and again the k o t and the aleo or the tak of podu ng the ok o a In a n the book on aon pely a vat alegoy fo the tak o podng the wok of at. The pivilege ganted to Baon the pivileging of expeioni in a boad ene n Deleuzian pitoial aetheti eve to how and to allegoize th oent of etaophoi to how at in th idt of aking ielf hyteially in it ombat with the figuative given. Fo Deleuz the wok of at i fit and foeot allegoy of the wok of at. It peent it to t moveent and it etaint. The fig ue fo hi i at one the foula fo a tanfoation and it alle go. And hi judgment on the fige i linkd to the figue apa ty to beme fomula and eg that mutaneoul opeate and allegoze the movement of retained flight.
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Deleuze's books on cnema may be evoked here specfcally the way n whch the lmt of the movementmage and the geness of the tmemage are emblematzed n two eges t female faces two madwomen" the face of the woman n Htchcock's The Wrong Man, played by Vera Mles and the face of Irene n Rosselln's Europa 51, played by Ingrd Bergman. Both faces test fy to the transton from doxa to dese the wfe of the wng man who snks nto schzophrena followng th unjust nculpaton of her husband and the grande bourgeose n Europa 1 who becomes mad n the eyes of the world that she deserts for the work ers and prosttutes. Both faces wthdraw from the unverse of doxa and justce. They go toward the other justce the justce of the deser of Antgone of petrfaton and nterment. Only tchcock the Arstotelan evades ths cossng to the other sde that engulfs the beautful edfce of the movementmage and the wellcon structed fable. Rosselln takes the leap and makes the knd of cn ema ha h fa all . Yet how does Deleue ark ths transton? By makng Irene an allegorcal egy. The whole power of the egy rests n the words that Irene pronounces whle reurnng from the fatory thought I saw the condemned." he hereby beomes the allegory of the arts the one who has gone to the desert the one who has seen the too strong unbearable vson an wo wll heneforth never be n harmony wth the world of representaton. Deleuze does not show us the tmemage he draws for us a face that allegorzes what t sg nfes te dsjuncton the saord of the sensble gven. Everythng happens as f the more art approaches ts own truth the more t becomes an allegory o tself and the more the nterpreta ton of t becomes allegoral. Eveythng happens as f the specfc purpose of art s to allegorze th crossng toward the true n the sen sble toward the pure sprtual the landscape tha sees the land sape before man presely ta w an annot desre. At ths pont t s possble o stuate Deleuze's thought wthn the destny of aesthetcs as a fgure of thought. It s possble o brng back hs crtque of fguraton and of organcty to the meanng of aesthetcs. Yet what does aesthets" mean n the sudden appear
ance of ha noion, as i was eeuaed beween he end of he eigheenh ad he begiig f he nineeenh cenury? Nega ively, i indicaes firs and foreos he collapse of poeics. Poeics was he mde of ruh governing works of ar in he univere of rep resenaion. The universe of rpresenaion is overned by he dual impulse of he mimeic principle evoed earlier: he work of ar produces a reselance, bu also, he work of ar is iself a dynam ic resemblance in so far as i consiues an organism, a logos, a livin beauy" [un beau vivan] The wor's echn exends naure, he phusis, he movemen ha brings abou life in an organ ism. The echn is a producion reguaed by ha oher producion ha is he phusis, he common ower of life, organism, and work of a. n conras o oecs, aeshecs no onger places he work of ar a he cener, bu he aisheon, subjecive feeings. Whence he paradox ha seems orignally o mark aesheics. While he co lapse of he norms of represenaio opes principle he regn of he work of ar and is power, aesheics, een by is very name, drowns he work of ar i hough abou he sensibl, privieging he ec, and an aec ha belongs o he receiver or specaor. I h H eres on Aesheics He declare he or cery correc, berin he mark f as eoc: he me f urke Hume whc works of ar were exane y emprc ycoogy of sensaion. Sil, regardless of is org, he r eere o use, use wihou probem o esgae he heor f fe ar. Ye, hi is e o ke here. The word is no an anachronism or an mroprey. Wha aeshecs indiaes is a chane in perspecive: a change occurring when hough abu he work of ar no longer refers o an idea of he rules of is producion, bu is subsumed under oher hings: he dea of a paricular sensi ble form, he presence wihin he sensible of a power ha exceeds is normal regime, ha s and s no hough, ha s a hough become oher han self, a produc ha equaes isef wih he nn roduc, conscousness ha equaes iself wih he unconscious. Aesheics makes he work of io he nermien manifesaion of he ower of conrdicry iri. Kan's heory of genius
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defines it as a power that cannot accunt for what it produces. Schelling's System of Transcendenta Ideaism fixes the pardigm of the product that renders the conscious and unconscious equiva lent. Hgel makes the work of art a station f the spirit outside of itself, where the spirit is presented as the vitality of the canvas, or the smile of the God of stone. The work of art is a sensile form sep arated from the ordinary connections of the sensile that hence forth has value as a manifestation of the spirit, ut the spirit in so far as it does not know itself Aesthetics is orn as a mode of thought when the work of art is susumed uner the category of a greater, heterogeneous form of the sensile, or the idea that there is a zone of the sensile that distinguishes itself from the ordinary laws of the sensile universe, and testifies to the presence of anoth er power. t is this other power the power of that which, coex tensive with the sensile, knows without knowing that may e named the spirit, or as Deeuze named it, the spiritua. t is impssible t give it etemintins r precse tan te olow ing the idea f a ne f the sensile qualified y the ctin f hetereneus pwer that chnes ts reime, that maes it s that the sensile is more than the sensile, so that it elongs to thught, ut thouht in a singular regime a thught other than itself, a pathos that elongs to loos, consciousness that equates itself with the uncnscious, a product that equates itsel with the nnprduct. Aesthetics is the mode of thought that sumits the consideration of works of art to the idea of this heterogeneous power, the power of the spirit as a flame that equally illuminates and burns everything. From wha has een seen, this power in the sensile of a form of thought that does not thin may e understood according to two alternative schemas. The first highlights the immanence of logos in pathos, of thought within that which does not think. Thought is emodied, lets itself e rea in the sensile. t is the omantic mdel of touht that es frm stone an desert t the spirit, frm thought aready present withn the very texture f thins, inscried in the strata of rock or shell, nd rising tward even mre explicit forms of manifestation. The second schema on the other hand seizes the spirit at that pint of arrest where the imae ecomes
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petrified and reurns the spirit to its eset. It emphaes he ia nence of paths in loos, he ianence in toght of an eleent that does not think Schopenauer's thing in ielf, the botto lessness, the undierentiated or the obscure in preindiidual life. As much as eelian aesthetics tried to ark its dstance from the Romantc geology of the pirt, it did not fal to illustrate the older oement in an exmplary anner: there the work of art is a statio of the spirit otside of itself; the spirit that loses itself in exteriority, but that in losing itself aes the success of the work; fro the pyraid that seeks vainly to contain it, t the poe that takes it to the limit of all sensible esentaion, eanwhile passing by the acme of Greek art, where it acquires ts adequate sensile fiure. Aesthetics is the history of the various fors in which the space of artistic representation has coincided with the space of the spirit's presentation of ielf to itself in the sensible. he death of art arks the oent when the spirit no longer needs to present itself to itself n external forms of representation. What does it becoe then? It becomes an iage f the world, Plato's doxa or Flaubert' stupidty [btiej The question of an aesthetic modeity, that of art ft t t of t, tu fomult n tm of n mton
of he power of artistic presentati aaist eresentative oxa, the power of the spirit that equates itsf wih its other nature, the unconscious, utism under the coditios of a race against those doxa machines, those machines i the iage of the worl, which made Apollo, already in the time of Herlin, the god of jouralists; those machines caled media or televiion. Te aesthet ic program of art will thus ea: reerse the direction of the spirit that goes from art to doxa, ake the work of art the reconquest of the spirtual lost in this ovement, render the spiritual the inerse of the classical power of incarnation and indiidualiation. The destiny of the work of ar is the suspended from the other figur of the spiritual: the ianence in thought of an element that does not think, the bottomlessness of the undirentiated, non individual life, the dust of atos or grains of sand; the pathic beneath the loical; the pathic at its poit of rest, of apathy [d'a-pathie]
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The project of equating the power of the work of art with te power of a pure, asignifying sensile, thus emerges in the form f a task or a comat. The process of defiguration analyzed y Deleuze in Bacon's painting s identical to Flaue's clearing of the terrain, which undoes, line aer line, the grammatical conjunctions and semantic inferences that make up the ordinary sustance of a story, thought or sentiment. This clearing of the terrain has the pre cise purpose of equating the power of the phrase with the power of a sensiility that is no longer the sensiility of the man of represen tation, ut the sensiility of the contemplator ecome oject of his own contemplation: foam, pele or grain of sand. This clearng of the terrain replaces ne stupidty (the oversignifcation of doxa that adds up to nothing) with another stupidity: the asignification of the void, of the infinite, the great indierent tide that displaces and mixes atoms. n the same wa, Proust inks the power of the work of art to the experience of a ensile removed from its conditions, to that moment when two worlds reunie nd ll c ons shater h w o h u sene, the sensil ned y stones, tres, ancapes or te moment of the ay. The iea ook dreamed of y the young Prust s familiar: the ook made of the sustance f a few nstants arranged in tme, the ook made of tastes f ight," o the sustance ur mst eautifu moments. The plem s that a o s t written wth ths athc su stance. A ook must e compse with the construction f an ana logic fale, a fale constructed to elcit the same aect as the aect of the pure sensile, which may think, ut certainy des nt write. Flauert's nve is the ntentna construction of a nature that is identica to the uncreated nature that des nt arise from any inten tion. The Proustian ook is th cnstruction f an organic plot that encloses moments of epiphan: a fale of the discovery of truth of truth thought according to the dern mdel f truth fxed nce an for all y H6derlin, truth as the evolutin f error. The modern work o art takes the figure o a aradoxcal ject. t is the inclu sion of an aesthetic truth, of a truth f the pure sensie, f the het erogeneous sensil in an Arioteian etics: the pt f change in knowedge and frtune that asses y pereteia and rcgniton.
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Poust's bo pesents tis exply tht inle Shoen hu's udeting the seng o he old o eeseion in n Aistoelioegeli plot o tuh s e eoled. Deleue's nlysis is thus insbe in the deiny of esthet is s ode of thought, i te dstin of the en o of t tied to tht pue sensible, exeeding the shes of the epesen ttie dox. t estblishes itself in te ones hee pity, tht is to sy sypthy with nonindiidul le, bodes on folly, on the loss of the entie wold Deleuze is ed with the moden o s the contditoy wok hee the pthic elemnt, the thoughttee o the thoughtpebble, has undne the oder o oxa, but whe this pthic eleent is itself included, recuperate in a new type o ogniity nd logos. He deunes this compoise he tepts to nnul it, to eonstut the oen wok of t so tht it obeys single logi o ntilogi. His enggeent with the Poustin o pus is exemply in this egd, beuse it gives his boo ontin ution, nd ontinution of the ontinution, s i it ee neces sy to inessntly bing Poust bk to the puity of n ntiogn ic model. We seach Pousts wok in vain o pltitudes on the wok of at as an ganic totality,"4 Dluz tll u. W may ch
or them in vain but we will suel in the. Deleuze wante to know nothig o the insistent orgaicit o the Proustian shema. H wante to know nothing o the evolution o erro, o the inal reunion o sies an the equilibrium o arcs. He retuns a secon time to Poust as i to estro what he le to subsist, to constuct the model o the Proustian antilogos: the wok o at mde o ssem bled piees, o noncommunicting boxes n sides. n sum, it suf ice o Deleuze to rende the Proustian wok coheent, to ende the moden wok o at, the wok o the age o aesthetics, coheent with itsel. From thee stems the combt with the wok o at, which is emblemtized in the representtion o the wok o at as cobat. Deleuze ulille the destiny o esthetics by suspending the entie power o the wok o at to the pue" sensible. He achieves the coheene o his antilogical tun. Yet, there remains one question: achieving the estiny o aesthetics, renering coheent the ino herent moden wok, is this not estroying its vey substnce? s it
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not aking it into a sipe station on the way to a conversion a sipe aegory for the destiny of aesthetics? And woudn't the para dox of this iitant thought of ianence consist in incessanty ringing the sustance of ocks of pecepts and aects ack to the interinae task of depicting the iage of thought? Transated y adia Djordjevic
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Tnslatr's no: dr and dguon a trnslad as dfigure and de-fig ution ( oped diigur and disguration) in order to pr Rancie's n phenation as well as his ce the pctice figution or figurative pention. Gilles Deleuze, Wat is Pilhy?, trans Hugh Tomlinson and Gham Buhell (N York: Columbia Univity Prss, ), Gilles Deleuze, Fncis Ban: Lic of Snon, trans Daniel W Smith (Minneaolis: Univrsity of Min Pess, 3), Hear cid as FB. Gilles Deleuze, ust l signe (ris: s Univeiies de France, ), 3