Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 17

Mapping in the Folds: Deleuze "Cartographe" Author(s): Tom Conley Source: Discourse, Vol. 20, No.

3, Gilles Deleuze: Areason to Believe in this World (Fall 1998), pp. 123-138 Published by: Wayne State University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41389502 . Accessed: 18/08/2013 02:16
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Wayne State University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Discourse.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Mapping Deleuze

in the Folds: Cartographe

Tom Conley

At the end of "Un nouveau cartographe?," an essay on Michel in his 1985 monographon thewriter Foucault reprinted who died theyearbefore,GillesDeleuze declaresthattheauthorofDiscipline andPunishis lessa historian ofmentalities thana cartographer. The of Deleuze 's style of readdialogue withFoucault is representative of the conceptual operationsand theirexpressions ing. The study in Foucault is so intenseand detailed thatthe one author becomes the other.Foucauls signature is retracedbut in the movement of the retracing some differences emerge.So too does a latentimage of a "newcartographer" in the name of Deleuze. What,we can ask, is the natureof the cartography thatis born of the reading?How does it inflectthe art and science of maps? In his gloss Deleuze and fashionof spatialand plots the conceptual ground fora style mobile writing endowed withindissociably aestheticand political elements. Now Deleuze's contributions to philosophy, filmstudies,muand social issues are well knownand have sicologa literary theory, become thetopicofa growing of research about their transverbody sal virtue.They appeal to givendisciplines while theyoffer potent the stakesof giventraditions. In a minorarea, waysof rethinking Deleuze's writings remainto be considered, cartographical theory, no doubt forthereason thatthefielditself is subaltern or a narrow of the science of institutional or tributary space,lacking disciplinary Fall 1998 State 123-138. Discourse, 20.3, 1998, Press, pp. Copyright by Wayne University 48201-1309. Detroit, Michigan 123

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

124

Discourse 20.3

or perhapsbecause it findsitsadepts along the disciframeworks, the finearts,and political literature, plinaryedges of geography, science.Nonethelesscartographical likewhatDeleuze says theory, of "minori tarian"writing, is an emergentfieldthatfollows attracin theways itineraries itcrisscrosses boththehuman transverse tively sciencesand thehumanities. The modestaim ofthisoverbrief essay is to look at some of Deleuze' s laterworkin viewof cartographical theoryand, in the givencontext,to assess itsoveralleffectiveness or agencywithin the scope of thatfield. Cartographical theoryhas become visibleto the anglophone world in at least three places. First,economic geographyhas its authorof TheCondition celebratedspokesmanin David Harvey, of Basil whomthespatial Blackwell, (London: 1989) ,for Post-Modernity is a viablewayof pitting of class conflict and contradiction history in Marxiancorrectives the effects of economic against development human relations the era of transnational The of history capitalism. withspace, he argues in homage to the workof Henri Lefebvre (such as The Production of Space), betraysa patternof increased and acceleration. Since the beginningof the early compression of the modern age, a timedefinedand launched bythe invention has artificial and oceanic the West travel, printing press, perspective, thathas reached speeds thatresemble witnessed economic growth The world has become so the order of logarithmic progression. consumedbycapitaldevelopment thatitcan be said to be in a state If,he argues,we studyhow hoveringabout collapse and disaster. and cover the conquest globe as theysimultaneously expansion colonize the body (no matterwhat maybe its race, gender,age, it is easy to see how the loose webbing of or national identity), "flexible"capitalismhas come to be associated with totalitarian democracy.Harvey has implied that a societyof control (what and in Michael Hardt elsewheretakesup in thisissue of Discourse co-authored Toni book on the with a topic Empire, forthcoming The that of or statist has despotic "discipline." Negri) supplanted like the but the of the lethal of world, magic shrinkage space talismanin Balzac's Peau de chagrin [The WildAss's Skin], is the on the imminenceof control of whose economy depends product itsliterally going out of control. The conclusions that Harvey obtains throughthe marriage in a somewhatdifferent of economy and space are ratified way, second, in the labors of geographersof experience.In theirview and can sensation ofspace tellsmuchaboutitshistory thesubjective to timeand tolanguage.ForYi-Fu ofitsrelation lead tofresh analysis andHearth(Minneapolis:U ofMinnesotaP, Tuan, authorof Cosmos 1996), space is above all coded by the way it is felt,or the way

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Fall 1998

125

the human subjectgains a consciousnessof how he or she moves throughit or becomes affectedby its presence (or, as Marxians would attest,the contemporary subject tends to crumple under . In the same lightthe late Paul Zumthor, the pressureit exerts) in La mesure du monde(Paris: Seuil, 1993), has shown how the attraction thatstudentsof the tnedievalworldhave forits history and itsliterature is based on a desireto findother places in whichto in our that have no worldor thatare burrow, identity topicalplaces riddled withrich and opaque languages that stillresistconquest that can be translated into capital. or reductionto fetish-objects Some of Zumthor'sconclusionsare centered on what he sees as the eradicationof forests fromthe surfaceof the globe. Already strippedaway along many of the major trade routes in Europe by the year 800, similarto what is takingplace in the Brazilian in Europe itwas eventually cut through rain forest withnew today, The almost invaded. trailsand, by the twelfth century, completely from at the end of near-total of the forest the disappearance globe indicatesthatvirtual fieldsof experience and mental our century are shrunken and contaminated movement bycapitaldevelopment. that offer lossofbearings, ofrclusionand of disorientation, Spaces meditation become harderand harderto find.The eradicationof theexperienceof theforest is in factwhatYi-FuTuan impliedto be theoutcomeofa two-dimensionalization ofthecosmosin mapping that science with at the end of the techniques aligned cartography in factbetrayed sixteenth New of the world century. ways mapping a register of experiencethathas continuedto followa parabola of of sensationand perceptionin the biosphere. impoverishment Added to economic geographyand the geographyof experience in mappingis the study of cartography As Deleuze and power. noted in his essay of 1985 on Michel Foucault, its most cogent etpunir ( Discipline and Punish), in expressionis found in Surveiller whichconceptssuch as the "form of the content"of social institutions,or the waysthathuman experience is spatializedaccording to strategic operations,can be studiedover and above the history of what a societyproduces or "does" in the conscious register of its activities. theHere, a thirdarea of concern: in cartographical ory in anglophone circlesFoucauls workfound a crucial adept inj. Brian Harley,a trainedhistorianof medieval mapping,who shifted his fieldof specializationfromstudyof representations of regional space to the more delicate and ineffable-but no less overdetermined-syntheses of statecraft and designs of power in His work has the mapping. changed shape of cartography bymovattention from the historical of the transformation ing away study of maps in theirstatesand stages to the "hidden agendas" that

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

126

Discourse 20.3

rule theiruse. One of the keenest applicationsof Harley'swork in the wake of Foucault and Harleyis MatthewEdney's Mapping an Empire : TheGeographical Construction India ( 1765-1843 ) ofBritish (Chicago, 1997). In the phrasingof Edney's project,in indirect affiliation with the theoriesestablishedin Disdplineand Punish , we read: " 'Cartographicculture' encompassesnot materialmapartifacts but the understandingof the practicesof cartography which a societypossesses,the formsof representation employed to experienceand explore the world,and the means whereby the social order permeates those representations in order to recast and recreateitself'(36). His cue is takenfromRaymond Williams [New York,1982]) but, in its articulation {The Sociology ofCulture which leads Edney to conclude thathe is studying "the creation of a legitimating conception of empire,of politicaland territory and rationalconstruction hegemony, mapped out in a scientistic of space" (56), Foucaldian echoes resound.The map is allied with and control. power,discipline, Where does Deleuze figurein thismatrixof economic geogof power? raphy,the experience of space, and the cartography Some indications of cartographic and are theory practice foundin Foucault(1985) and in Le pli (1988). In theformer book Deleuze's with Foucault on the same dialogue opens ground shared with and but leads to the and Harley Edney beginningsof a different definition of seen inthe lenses of startling cartography through and The rudiments of a emanate from tensity becoming. theory thereadingofdiscursive and visible in Surveiller formations et punir. Herein theconceptofthediagram is introduced. The diagramtakes the shape of a generalizedmap thatis not so much an avatarof the notion of the chartas a formof lcationalimaging contemporary as an "abstract machine" thatbecomes visibleon the but, rather, horizon at the of the FrenchRevolution. time The map European becomes a machinethat"doubles," that folds and creases replicates, theexperienceofsubjectivity intocollective form. Forcesinsideare turned outward,and vice-versa, in accord withmechanismsthat the character of the modern produce body and the soul that it in dominate two the "dominations directions, imprisons. Diagrams of othersbeing exceeded by a dominationof the self.Obligatory rulesofpower [thatis,understoodcollectively, ofmaps] are byway needed to mirror therelation withtheself."1 Circumstances ofconflict to and modes requirenew maps to be crafted according styles of control.In modern times, new diagramsresultfrominnovation in mensuration and surveying thatcame withthe use of decimals, Cassini survey, and the triangulation begun in 1691 withthe first multifarious in laborsof the Ecole des Pontset Chausses initiated

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Fall 1998

127

1740.2In the contextof Foucault's study of spatialreorganization of hospitals,prisons,military and schools, it barracks,factories, to a but indistinction betweenthings pertains strange onlyapparent discursive and things visible: The diagram is no longer theauditive orvisual archive butthemap, is coextensive with theentire social field. It is an abstract cartography, of machine. Defined andabstract itis unaware material, byfunctions formal distinction between a content andanexpression, between a any discursive formation anda non-discursive formation. Itisalmost a mute itmakes seen andblind machine itself andheard. (42) although In otherwords,a diagramis an agent thatgridslifeaccording to the force-patterns it imposes on social bodies. It produces subit can but jectivity, according change itswebbingand itsmovement to theflowofcircumstance in orderto shift emphasisin itsrelation withthe social order it is designing.3 It is composed of formations at once pertaining to language and to visual configurations. It articulateslanguage and space by offering a model thatdistributes functionsand energies in different places and in various ways. Its innovationcan be attributed to the factthat it is not entirely of a preexisting world.As in patternedaccordingto the tradition theutopievisionoftheRevolution, it"producesa newtype ofreality, a new model of truth," by plotting waysof livingand doing- i.e., habitus- in fashionsthatare connected to the future bywayof its of unexpeced conjunctions, "pointsof emergenceor of creativity, of improbablecontinuums"(. Foucault 42-43). Even thoughDeleuze follows Foucault at thefootof the letter, the reader ascertains an ostensive shift of inflection awayfromthe carcerealworldof a prison,or the fantasy of a three-dimensional map that blends Piranesi's Prisonswith the panoptical ideal of Bentham.Deleuze pushestheinterpretation ofthediagram Jeremy in the directionof a map of possiblebecomingsand of intensities thatcan findplaces in a social construct forthe good reason that theydo notsum up past behaviorand waysof living. They emerge fromsomewhere outsideor places unknownto thegivenlanguage of the nation.Unrelatedto a historical or archival the difunction, is a loose-clad of social and agram configuration spatialpossibilities thatincludeareas ofillegalism or transgression, whatperhapsmight be "other ofliving social patterns withaffirmatively silentbut ways" no less creativetacticalmeans.4In thisconfiguration the relation of force between a controllingorder and its subjectsseems less hermeticor deterministic thanwhatis givenin Foucault's history. Even thoughthe latterunderscoresthe mobility and adapatability of the diagramas a containerand a formulation of space through

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

128

Discourse 20.3

activities thattakeplace within itsconfines, thereremains, affirms molecular" (45) Deleuze, "potential, virtual, unstable,vanishing, relations offorceor powerthatescape the macroscopicpurview of a dominantor enclosing order.The differences obtained in the gap opened between the visible and the discursivecomponents of the diagram affectthe possibility of creativity and change by whichknowledge(savoir)works within and through a givenorder of power- simply because of the shifting ground betweenthings In thisway, seen and things uttered. since "allknowledge goes from visibleto somethingutterable, and inversely" (46-47), something a map , because it is a heteromorphous object made of schematic iconic shapes,drawnlines,and printedor drawnlanguage, forms, can be a machine of "becoming"in the hands of a user who will redirect the meaningsitseems to inspire withitscompositestyle of spatialrepresentation.5 A diagramis a dividedcreationthatbetrays farmore mobility thanwhatis givento be seen on cursory view.Further, itis a "cause in actualized its that is in thatis its effect, effect, being integrated in its effect. differentiated Or ratherthe immanentcause is that whose effect actualizesit,integrates it" (44) . it,and differentiates The ternary ofthetwosentences articulation reveals howDeleuze is a diagram:Deleuze definesthemap accordingto a visibledefining discursive scheme in which a triangulated relationsof forcesare in into view the Causes all at once 1) actualized, are brought syntax. and differentiated in their effects. The conception 2) integrated, 3) in theexpression isbased on a forcethat exists bothwithin and as the structure of the formulation. The least insofar as it very diagram(at is describedhere byDeleuze's sentence-diagram) therefore cannot a schematichistory. It merelyrepresent givenspace or constitute actualizesforcein thespatialand discursive effects thatare integral to itswillto power,thatis, itsinherentmeans thatseek to control to mapoutactivities and behaviors within itspurview. and, literally But a vitaldistinction is added about how the power of the map is obtained throughthe differentials at workin its play of visual and linguistic form.6 It constitutes and institutes visualand verbal differences as the verylaw of its own formation. It endlessly measures "the mixtures, captures,and interceptions among elements or segmentsof the twoforms, althoughthe latterare and remain irreducibleand heteromorphous" (46) . The mechanismis a "stew thatmixesthevisibleand the utterable"(46). An abstract diagram wouldbe a sanctioneddistribution ofimagesand wordsthatdefine A concretediagram socialspace and itsactivities. wouldbe a physical manifestation of the same in an architectural a city-view, blueprint,

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Fall 1998

129

the groundplan*of or,in the contextof Michel Foucauls writings, a future prisonor factory. The idea complicates to the author'sobsessive when,referring use of the substantive , a termthatis ubiqui( quadrillage "gridding" tous in Surveiller etpunirand thatalso translates the checkerboard a social space is designofequipollentmaps),whatis excluded from enclosedwithin it.On theone hand,itis impliedthat paradoxically of social conflict sharesanalogywithphyspsychicinternalization ical incarceration. What was deemed unlawfulor other,formerly shipped outsideof thesocial compact,is enclosed in secretpockets withinit. On the other hand, gridding, the process thatis at the basisofthemappingofthemodernworld, wasalso a cartographical schemethatat thetimeoftheFrenchRevolution conveyed together the almostoppositevalencesof utopia and rationality. Subtending the studyof the birth of the prison is the famous outline that Robertde Hesseln designedforFrance in Septemberof 1789. The cartographer imposeda checkerboard gridoverthenationin order to turnthediocesan division ofterritory thatprevailedin the anden into a rationaland willfully secularpictureof administrative rgime du territoire de la France" was an squares. The "Chassisfiguratif outline thatidealized but also determinedmuch of the reshaping ofthenationintodepartments.7 A "diagram" resulted from thegrid ofspace superimposed upon themap ofFrance.A newarticulation was announced; newmodes ofmensuration werebrought forward; newvisionsofdecentralization and separationof thestatefrom the church were entertained.But the diagram met the resistanceof entrenchedpracticesand geographicaldivisions owingto geology and otherphysical factors thatresisted schematic modification. The laborsofrevolutionary reflect the involved cartographers struggles in the shift fromarchiveto diagramand the internalization of selfschemes. excluding ofFrance Bearingin mind the dilemmathatmarksthe history at the timeof the Revolutionwhile telescopingDeleuze' s gloss of Surveiller et thereaderdiscernsthatwhenitseeksto formalize punir, and to channel activity, a diagrambecomes a map, but a map of an organismquite unlike what is given in many accepted cartoof the term.Nothing,Deleuze asserts, is ever graphicaldefinitions enclosed or interiorized without there various totally being present avenues of escape or change. Thehistory offorms, the isexceeded a becoming offorces, archive, by a diagram. Itisbecause forces inevery relation ofonepoint to appear another: a diagram isa map a superimposition ofmaps. or, rather, And,

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

130

Discourse 20.3 from onediagram tothe new aredrawn. Thus no diagram next, maps exists that does not next tothe itconnects, free include, points relatively orunbound ofcreativity, resistance. mutation, (51) points, points

In a nutshell, Deleuze is "drawing" his affirmative map of multiple intensities and affirmation over Foucault's enclosingparadigmof carcerealpractices.Historyor archiveis replaced by diagramsor mappingsthatseek to controlbut whose outline can be redrawn and transformed by human agency.The triadicturnof Deleuze' s the expressive formof the phrasingonce again betrays elegantly definition a an ofplace which affirmative sense by diagraminspires and space in theworld,the "topophilia" of all creativity, whichprecedes a critical act ofmutation ofmappings leadingnot to synthesis but to resistance in of their view authority. put resist: the processdescribesthe diagrammatic Create,mutate, transfer thatis characterized and theirepochal "styles" bystruggles or waysof doing things.In the sentencesthatimmediately follow Deleuze inverts the order of the quasi-dialectic mention through of the "lignede dehors," the line fromthe outside thatis infinitely thatbends about like a Moebius strip, thathas the look of singular, in the of the number that marks the decade of infinity shape eight 1789 and the struggles of May 1968.8 Whence,he concludes,"the definition ofwriting: towrite is to struggle, towrite is to resist; triple " towrite is tobecome; towrite is toplotmaps,'I am a cartographer.' to regridthe triadicgroupingsin order to project (51) It suffices how cartographical is being mobilized. writing create ^.resist

mutate resls*

become

) -plot maps (cartographier

The same definition recursin a lateressay, also in Foucault , in which the diagramcarriesfourvirtues: a presentation of the relationsof forcethatbelong to a givenformation; a distribution of powersto affect and to be affected; the mix of purelyabstract functions and rawmaterials; "an emission, also, mostimportant, pure,unformed a distribution ofsingularities. Atonce local, unstable, and diffused, the relationsof power do not emanate froma centralpoint or a

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Fall 1998

131

but more perpetually 'fromone point unique focusof sovereignty, to another' on a field of forces,markinginflexions, turnabouts, resistances" returns, (80) . They conspirals,changes of direction, in thateach escape or reformulation stitute a strategy takesplace in new shifts betweentheforms of things visibleand utterable. The modularquality thatinvites transformation showsus how "diagrams are distinguished fromarchives"(80) . clearthatDeleuze further "cracks Bynowitis abundantly open" the Foucaldian concept of the diagram in order to transform it into a forceof agencyavailable fordifferent users. Here Deleuze summonsa minoritarian The politicsin the name of cartography.9 of maps thatestablishwaysof living(that can include rethinking musicalauditions, classes,subway rides) is accomplished university by drawingnew itineraries throughgiven procedures. Mapping inherited archival material beginswithrewriting maps,or byturning into new and different forcesthatinvest form withmovement. To see how it is done it suffices to witnessthe way Deleuze recastsand rearticulates the incipientcartography in Foucaultin the neo-Baroque space developed in Le pli: Leibniz etleBaroque. In thatstudy he arguesthatthe modernage beginswiththe scientific formations that take place in the wake of the Council of Trent, and thattheirqualification as "Baroque" extendsinto the present If a is expressive of thegivenspan of time, age.10 singlephilosophy he says,it belongs to Leibniz and his commentators or avatars as Alfred North . In its elemental (such Whitehead) expressionthe is characterized an in the sense understood inflexion, Baroque by of calculus,as a turning line definedbythe patternof singularities tracedbetweenmaximaland minimal values.It can be figured thus

in order to graph the patternof an initial perception of a distinction and of a problematization. The bends it drawsdemarcate an inside and an outside more readilythan an orthogonalline because the space above or below the curvatureis embraced by the inflexion at eitherextremity. It is an "active" line or a point in a "promenadefora promenade,withouta particular movement, but mostof all goal."11It pertainsto mappingin multifarious ways, whenunderstoodin itsconcurrently mathematical and topological dimensions. Deleuze 's source is Bernard Cache, who "definesinflection, or the point of inflexion,as an intrinsic singularity. Contraryto

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

132

Discourse 20.3

'extrema' (maximaand minima),it does not refer to coordinates: itis neither norleft, neither a regresabove norbelow,neither right sion nor a progression"(20). It appeals to "thepure Event" (21), no doubt because it tiesthe experienceof space to themappingof sensation.Comparisonof Deleuze to Cache's textmakesthe point clearer.Cache notes: which isintrinsic contrasts with those Inflection, singularity, singularities that canonly be specified after thedetermination ofa vector. These latter arethe said tobeextrema: the maxima andthe singularities points minima. In ourdaily confronted weareconstantly with extrema: lives, the law ofmaximum the maximization ofprofit, the shortest slope, way, the least the ofstress, etc. itwould seem that effort, Indeed, minimizing weseenothing but for isentirely these our oriented extrema, perception inthis inthese identification: Orientation, selection, way. ways perception ismaximized best tothe Itisnot that else according response. nothing ispossible, but that allthat ispossible isreduced tothat which ischosen inrelation tothe best. Leibniz hadsaid soinhisday: it's the law ofthe universe.12 The "pure Event"of which Deleuze writesmightbe said to fold maxima and minima withinits own possibility. Something that cannot "take place" in reality, it can be effectuated as virtuality. is "not in the world: it is the World itself, Inflexion-as-Event or ratheritsbeginning," an eventthatmightbe the "anticipation of an event" (21) in the condition of perception in both singular and infinitizing terms. It findsitsdiagrammatical in an correlative In variable curve.13 the of it beckons infinitely history cartography the paradoxical stateof the atlas in the Baroque age, a folio-book thatreplaceswallsor publicsurfaces on whichmapsweredisplayed withfoldedpages ofmaps thatare bound to createa miniature but world from its form. Leibniz's own of the monad totalizing theory as an enclosed and darkened space traversed by "folds"appears to be inflected the that comes withthe by imaginary cosmogenesis "theatrum orbisterrarum," theprivate convoked space bythesocial conditionsdemanded bythe book-atlas, a creationthathad taken hold by the timeLeibniz wrotehis MonadologyM The world seen as a virtual within the monad withthe initial map begs comparison movement of the inflected line or the fold thatdevelopsfromthe formof the atlas. Deleuze sums up the attributes of the fold in fourways.The and that Baroque is characterizedby folds that lead to infinity formin generalas an "infinite line ofinflexion, a curve inaugurate with a unique variable" (48-49). The bent line puts an outside in and an inside out, separatingthe one fromthe other as it sidifferentiates them.Baroque space is one of a clear multaneously

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Fall 1998

133

ofhabitusa lower, separation.In Leibnizianphilosophy publicarea is distinguished froma higher, interior decor (like thatof a private and darkenedroomin whichatlasescan be consulted)byvirtue ofa fold."Pleatsof matter in the conditionof extremity, distinguishing foldsin thesoul in theconditionofclosure We movefrom matter to manner,fromgrounds and terrainsto habitatsand drawing rooms" (49-50). The "unfold"( dpli ), whichwould unite separate to the fold,but an effect thatturnsthe areas, is not the contrary It is characterized sensationof depth into one of dphered surfaces. of space of painting, no longer a "window on by the new function theworld"as itwasin theRenaissance,but nowan "opaque tableof on whicha cipheredlineis drawn"(38) . In otherwords, information "thesystem of thewindow-countryside is opposed bythe coupling of information The of folds and (38). table-city" Baroque system unfolds the attributes a of surface, gathers cartographical especially to the degree thattheyare textured and contoured,in the fashion ofan orography, thatdetermine 'cohesion' " thanks to the by"strata illusionof depth obtained in trompe l'oeilstrategies, contourrelief, texturedarticulations, and camouflage.Deleuze calls thisprocess a , dazzle, the "perpetualdisplacementof fourmillementswarming contour" that originatesin the projectionof somethingspiritual into matter, the "fantasmagoria of the order of thinking" (52). If the symbolic effectiveness of the map as a diagramis recalledfrom Foucault theBaroque foldhas an aesthetic status cor,we nowsee why to the virtue of and Creative responding thinking politicalpower. agencycomes withthe splash of multiple"little hallucinatory perof concealed and veiled spaces" ceptionsin the micro-experience all over a givensurfacein the formof (52). Perceptionsmultiply differentiations reminiscent of whatcharacterized the diagramas a set of causes actualized,integrated, and differentiated within their effects. In thisdefinition of the Baroque builtupon the geometry of inflexionDeleuze is implicitly some elements of cartooffering In place ofmoreextensive treatment ofthetheme, graphicaltheory. some tentative conclusionscan be setforward. he impliesthat First, a map can be takenfrom almostanyobjectbecause ofitscomposite natureas something havingboth visibleand lexical qualities.It is seen and touched,it is caressedwiththe eye,but it is also riddled withlanguage.15It is alwaysbeing self-differentiating in the way thatcollectively "visible" and "discursive" formations are invested into it beyondthe controlof a givenauthor.Cartography, a mixed because itconstantly shifts to and from each of medium,is dynamic itsdifferent because of the of the Second, registers. history implementationof itscompositequalitiesin specificcircumstances, the

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

134

Discourse 20.3

horizonwhenitisused as a diagram. By map emergeson thewestern is meanta mechanism tradition that thelatter replacingthearchival classifies and historicizes information witha processthatplotsout ofinternalizing, ofthinking and ofprojecting about,ofliving, ways an order of the world.The momentis inauguratedwithwhathas been called the "visibilization" oftheworldin diagrammatical logic ofthecosmosto a "world-picture," butreachesa or theassimilation reactsagainstthe different whenLeibnizianphilosophy expression reductive rectitude of the cartesianprocess.16 in thewaythatDeleuze uses But a vitaltrait is perceived, third, and writing to pry open the a cartographical"style" of thinking ideological agendas of maps. He turnsthem in the directionof are used in tactical Tactics events thatcan takeplace whenthey ways. intendedend, inclusion can include their deployment againsttheir or ofchangeor transformative willyield"new" agentsthat diagrams, in different sensorialor affective uses ofschematic that objects ways meld aesthetics withpraxis.17 Deleuze projectsthe diagramin the ofbecoming.Fourth, mostimportant, and as a preface for direction moreextensive it can be said that Deleuze 's is research, cartography inflexions that are seen and felt as one that draws of intensities. maps The maps he createsare not as stableas whatmight be foundin the of an a or a route pertinent aspects equipollent, center-enhancing, His are not but that modulate map.18 maps objects, "objectiles" theirformthrough multifarious forcesinforming them.Machines offorce,they are appoximations of "events" whenprojectedonto a of on which their or multiplepoints plane becoming, singularities ofinflection the and ofinfinities. The anticipate folding unfolding as an becomes the release from the field of "event" map constraining a perceptualgridor a webbingthatorganizessensation. The event ofthemap becomes a virtual a perceptionofdetailto passagefrom that moves and folds. Deleuze callsit with infinity through projective in which a "chaosmos"in theline ofJoyce, or Gombrowicz, Borges, a pointofan originofcreation becomespureprocessthatis defined In thiscontinuum surface. bymultiple pointsthatriddlea tensional in all directions. Felt and perceived perceptions continually diverge is a worldof "captures rather thanclosures."19 Hence a cartography of intensities and of affective charge.When,at the end of Le pli,he concludes thatwe lead our perpetually Baroque livesin a process of "folding, he varieson the ongoing (189), unfolding, refolding" as wasearlierseen,is composedof"resisting, that, processofwriting Deleuze, althoughneverformulating becoming,mapping."Clearly a philosophy of cartography, indeed developsthe componentof a witheconomic theoryand practice.It sharestraits cartographical the geographyof experience,and the studyof power geography,

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Fall 1998

135

but it also aims cartographical as a mode of spatialrepresentation, imagesin the directionof change,becoming,and intensity. Notes 1 Gilles Minuit, Deleuze,Foucault 1985) 108.Alltranslations (Paris: aremy from hereand elsewhere theFrench responsibility. 2 The history 1747to 1830,roughly of theSchoolfrom matching etpunir in Foucault's Surveiller of timestudied theduration , is outlined and 1660-1848 : Sdence, inJosef inFrance, Konvi tz,Cartography Engineering, curricuU ofChicago P, 1988) 135-39."Theschool's Statecraft (Chicago: and practical was studies, lum,basedon a judiciousblendoftheoretical in the incivil as providing thebesttraining engineering widely recognized but constructed shookthis world. edifice, (...) The Revolution carefuly itsurvived intact" likea well-designed with a generous safety margin, bridge (136). 3 Itslawis thusnotsomething as a permanent rulebutis imposed Deleuzewilldefine theBaroqueage in Lepli through normative. flexibly thatcan be not an object, but a functionality reference to the objectile, modern "AsBernard Cache shows, it is a very declinedin a serial way. of no more to the of the It refers object. beginnings technological concept still helda semblance theindustrial erainwhich theidea ofthestandard ofessenceand imposed a lawofconstancy (theobjectproduced byand ofthe forthemasses) but to our current when the fluctuation , situation, of the normreplacesthe permanance of a law. (...) The newstatus no longer thelatter toa spatial that of refers mould, is,toa relation object that a continuous butto a temporal modulation form-and-matter, implies of ofvariation ofmatter as muchas a continous development placement form" (Le pli 26). See note 10 belowand pointfourof theconcluding remarks above. 4 On this score Deleuze 'sremarks areclosetowhat Michel de Certeau calledthe"invention" ofeveryday lifeor manners ofpluralizing activities in ways such thatgivencodes and lawsare beingbentor transgressed in theformulation becausethe overriding includes of itslaws diagram in Arts an "integration ofillegalisms" is developed de work (45). Certeau's 1: L'invention duquotidien rditions Gallimard, (Paris: 1990).Recent faire ofLa prise de aupluriel Seuil,1993)andLa culture Seuil, (Paris: (Paris: parole that Certeau's nascent theories also archbackto 1994) indicate political theimage where forthefirst time a newfuture wasassociated with 1789, ofa pageready tobe filled with a diagram. 5 Theapproach taken todefine a mapinthese pagesdiffers markedly inmost In hisclassic from thedefinitions tendered manuals. cartographical Maps and Civilization (Chicago:U of ChicagoP, 1996), Norman J. W. Thrower relies on etymology: "Thewords and chart map appearto derive

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

136

Discourse 20.3

on parchdenotes a formal document word carta from materials: theLatin to introduction cloth" and mappa indicates ment orpaper, (3). In therich notes that Christian Albin cartes des Michel, 1993), (Paris: Jacob L'empire Both in prehistory. material owe muchto contingency mapsand their is the theearliest ofall great andJacobimply that Thrower power-maps inNorthern Itcanbe seenas a manifestation atBedolina Italy. petroglyph have inthesense that Foucault andHarley ofpower andcontrol developed. 6 Cartographical historians have tendedto definethevisualand A cosmogdifferences. in mapsin terms ofquantifiable lexicaltensions an atlas ofsurrounding inwhich is a work text; mapsarea function raphy material to textual to themapin respect orprecedence equivalence gives atlases on a quire. French totheverso sideofa folio limited pagemounted middle ofthe with the from when, years beginning develop cosmographies "The ofthemapis celebrated. thescientific seventeenth power century, ofabstraction a habit and an effort ofa mapeffectively requires reading centuries were and seventeenth ofthesixteenth ofwhich notall readers of thisera,on theone at thebeginning capable.Thuscan be observed an inrespect tomapsand,on theother, ofviews thepredominance hand, in which areinserted, thetext thetext ofmapsfrom they indissociability that isgazed an image tothemap:themapisstill notalways really referring in theintroduction Pastoureau notes Mireille uponmorethanitis read," sicles to herLesAtlas nationale, , XVIe-XVIIe (Paris: Bibliothque franais andreading isa guiding distinction ofseeing 1984:5) . Foucauls principle in this definition. 7 Themapisillustrated observations inKonvitz (44,fig. 7) . Foucauls ofrethinking national about thestakes bythecartographspaceareratified boundaries wasof course of administrative ical historian. "The revision the the Revolution made with of the break past.Byremolding symbolic references to to morerational thecountry criteria, including according inthe that tied thegovernment nature, up reforms hopedtocuttheknots intheearly months ofthe reforms themany Old Regime. proposed Among to modernize the measurement two related era, revolutionary projectsin a cadasterwereconspicuously and to establish cartogaphic system nature" 43-44). (Konvitz 8 Or eventhenumber in "Diagramme etlettre: sur ofthis footnote: in this I tried dedehors toshow howtheligne la Piazzade Melville," passage in ofvisibility) traits ofFoucault wasrelated to figurative (the elements Therein therelation ofthe"8"of1968toinfinite Melville's fiction. struggle del'image is taken tellani, ed., La pense [Paris: up (in GisleMathieu-Cas Presses de l'Universit de Paris-VTII, 1994]142). 9 Minori inhisKaflia area principal tarian andits topic writing politics invisual inL'image-temps terms ,butitresurfaces Minuit, (Paris: 1975) (Paris: from to themovement inwhich a trajectory Minuit, 1985),280ff, parallel shift from thewillto raise to diagram is seenin thefilmmaker's archive ofthepublic oftheinvention ofa given theconsciousness publicto that The 'archival' cineast would of media. means of creative use given by

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Fall 1998

137

be JohnFord,and the 'diagrammatical' wouldbe Glauber counterpart Rocha. 10 Cf. the remarks the Councilof Trentand sexuality concerning in elsewhere Foucault that much about Foucault's 61) (e.g., explain project for a history ofsexuality. 11 Lepli:Leibniz etleBaroque Minuit, (Paris: 1988) 21.Alltranslations from theFrench aremine. Further references tothis edition will be made in thetext above. 12Earth Moves: The trans. AnneBoyman Territories, (CamFurnishing of MIT in 1988,Cache's 35-36. When Le was P, 1995) bridge: pli published work hadnotyet inFrench orinEnglish. Deleuzestated that the appeared Ameublement duterritoire, ofgeographical andarchitec,a work forthcoming tural for work on mobilier "essential for allfold-theory" ,appeared inspiration (22 n3). 13 Deleuzerefers to RenThorn's theories ofcatastrophe and morin order todescribe theseven "events oftopology, phogenesis elementary first andforemost ofwhich is thefold" (23nl). 14Thewatershed dateofthefirst atlas is1570, the when Abraham year Ortelius the first of editions of his Theatrum orbis published many ensuing terrarum. 15 In bothL 'image-mouvement Minuit, (Paris: 1983) and L'image-temps Deleuzereiterates howmuch cinema isa medium seen and simultaneously L 'image-mouvement: read. "From either or saturation, the side,rarefaction frame teaches us thattheimageis notmerely givento be seen.It is as as itisvisible" : "There theinversion that (24). L'image-temps legible appears tends to be produced in soundfilms in respect in to thesilent tradition: of an seen and of the act of becomes read, place image speech speech visible at thesametime that itbecomes butso toothevisual heard, image becomes inwhich insofar as itis a visual theactofspeechis legible image as a component ofit"(303). beinginserted part 16Walter on visibility inRamist schmas ofrhetoJ.Ong'shypotheses ricarewellknown inRamus andthe Harvard Decay of Dialogue (Cambridge: U P reprt., work on Descartes takesup the "world1983). Heidegger's a broadly conceived term that cannot failto refer to maps, and picture," as somecommentators haveshown, isdecisive for Foucault's research that, on theearly modern age. 17 Deleuze'swork on cinemaavers to be a sensuous of cartography theimage. The samecanbe saidfor thestyle of"reading" Francis Bacon's in Logique dela sensation Editions de la Diffrence, (Paris: 1981), paintings of is which the of this analysis beyond scope paper. 18 In "Roger Bacon'sTerrestrial Coordinate Annals System," ofthe Association American 80.1 (1990): 109-22,DavidWoodward of Geographers notes that these three sincetheMiddle Anequipollent types prevail Ages. value to all The mapassigns equal points represented. center-enhancing

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

138

Discourse 20.3

theroute-enhancing theeyetoa focal whereas area, mappulls mapdraws be Deleuze'smapwould across thesurface. theeyealonga lineofpassage be inflected strata. Itwould and simultaneously one ofintensities ofrelief in be or that values would to an abstract equipollent painting comparable offorce at different and altitudes butthey wouldyield "all-over," depths theinflections would The points that determine change according points. as A map of inflexion wouldbe orographic, ofviewing. to thevagaries in theearly Moves. Cachenotes pagesofEarth 19 Lepli 111.

This content downloaded from 129.15.131.233 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:16:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi