Deleuze and Asia

Deleuze and Asia

Edited by

Ronald Bogue, Hanping Chiu

and Yu-lin Lee

Deleuze and Asia,

Edited by Ronald Bogue, Hanping Chiu and Yu-lin Lee
This book first published 2014
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright 2014 by Ronald Bogue, Hanping Chiu, Yu-lin Lee and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-6399-8, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-6399-5

CONTENTS

Introduction ............................................................................................... vii

Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1
Becoming Butterfly: Power of the False, Crystal Image and Taoist
Onto-Aesthetics
Sebastian Hsien-hao Liao
Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 29
Deleuze and Mahyna Buddhism: Immanence and Original
Enlightenment Thought
Tony See
Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 48
Deleuzes Strange Affinity with the Kyoto School:
Deleuze and Kitaro Nishida
Tatsuya Higaki
Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 60
Theatrum Philosophicum Asiaticum
Ronald Bogue
Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 73
Sacred Listening in a Folding Space: Le Pli and Ancient Chinese
Philosophy of Listening
Yuhui Jiang
Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 99
Hokusai, Deleuze and the Baroque
Mark Donoghue
Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 121
Machinic Dopamine Junkies and the (Im)Mobile Walk(Less)MAN
Joff Bradley

vi

Contents

Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 144

East Asian Faces and Global Wonder
Hsiao-hung Chang
Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 163
Body/Space and Affirmation/Negation in the Films of Lou Ye
and Wong Kar-wai
Xiong Ying
Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 182
In Search of a People: Wei Te-shengs Seediq Bale and Taiwans
Postcolonial Condition
Yu-lin Lee
Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 197
Writing Herstory: Nu Shu as Cartography of Empowerment
Amy Kit-sze Chan
Chapter Twelve .........................................................................................211
Toward a Regional Literature in East Asia
Hanping Chiu
Contributors ............................................................................................. 232

INTRODUCTION

During the last twenty years, interest in the French philosopher Gilles
Deleuze has increased exponentially. Over three hundred books on
Deleuze and his frequent collaborator, Flix Guattari, are now available in
English. Since, 2007, the journal Deleuze Studies has published over one
hundred essays on Deleuze, while sponsoring international conferences in
Cardiff, Cologne, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, New Orleans and Lisbon,
each meeting drawing 200-300 scholars from around the world. During the
last decade, interest in Deleuze has grown even more markedly in Asia, as
was evident at the First International Deleuze Studies in Asia Conference,
held at Tamkang University in Taipei, Taiwan, May 31-June 2, 2013.
Here, participants from Taiwan, the Peoples Republic of China, Hong
Kong, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, India
and Pakistan met with scholars from Australia, the United States, the
United Kingdom, Canada, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany,
Austria, Finland, Lithuania and Turkey to seek a broader perspective on
the significance of Deleuzes work for a global audience.
Especially evident at the Taipei meeting was the emergence of a focus
in Deleuze studies on the relevance of his thought for understanding Asian
culturea focus not limited to Asians alone, but shared by many of the
Western participants. The Taipei conference, in short, brought to light a
new, rapidly expanding area of researchwhat might be called Asian
Deleuze Studies. The essays in this volume, generated by the Taipei
conference, represent the first publication dedicated to this exciting,
emergent field of study.
The Taipei Conference topic was Creative Assemblages. In the Call
for Papers, participants were invited to reflect on Deleuzes concept of the
assemblage and the ways in which it might foster new lines of research.
The word assemblage, or agencement in French, denotes both an
arrangement of entities and the process of forming such an arrangement
both an assemblage and an assembling, as it were. Assemblages bring
together heterogeneous elements that cohere without constituting a whole.
They form irreducible multiplicities, which coalesce, mutate, disaggregate
and open toward new configurations as they change. Given that the
essence of the assemblage is one of metamorphic and unrestricted
connection, the concept lends itself to interdisciplinary work, and

viii

Introduction

conference participants were asked to test the concepts potential as an

analytic tool for studying interdisciplinary connections and as a generative
force for creating new connections that might reshape contemporary
configurations of practice and thought. The essays collected here fulfill the
spirit of the conference topic, establishing connections across fields
ranging from philosophy and religion to new media studies, cultural
studies, theater, architecture, painting, film and literature.
The first three essays address conceptual parallels between Deleuzian
thought and Asian philosophical and religious traditions. Liaos paper
explores the onto-aesthetics of Deleuzes philosophy and the Taoist
worldview enunciated in Zhuangzis well-known reflection on his dream
of a butterfly (who is dreaming of whom, the butterfly or I?). Rather than
interpreting Zhuangzis dream as a simple meditation on illusion and
reality, Liao reads it as an expression of the concept of you, which he
translates as roam-revel. You, Liao demonstrates, provides a Chinese
counterpart to Deleuzes atheistic mysticism, one that views the cosmos
as simultaneously an ontological and an aesthetic domain of thought,
action and feeling. Sees contribution likewise investigates Deleuzes
ontology, in this case via the concept of immanence. Through a detailed
tracing of Deleuzes remarks on immanence in Scotus, Spinoza and
Nietzsche, See argues that Deleuzian univocity of being bears remarkable
similarity to the teachings of Mahyna Buddhism, especially that of the
Original Enlightenment Thought promulgated by Nichiren, Saich and
their successors. Higaki also touches on ontological questions in his essay,
but his attention is drawn to the important twentieth-century Japanese
philosopher Nishida and the similarities between Deleuzes and Nishidas
engagements with Leibniz, Bergson and Neo-Kantian philosophers.
Leibnizian monadism, Bergsonian becoming, and the logic of the
predicate, Higaki shows, play essential roles in the development of the
thought of Deleuze and Nishida. Nishida, unlike Deleuze, draws on Asian
as well as Western metaphysical traditions, yet ultimately Deleuze and
Nishida are both modernists who embrace a mode of Natural thought
that stresses becoming and poiesis.
The next three essays approach Deleuze via the arts of theater,
architecture and painting. Bogues concern is that of Deleuzes thought as
theater and Deleuzes thought about theater. After sketching the theater
Deleuze envisions as a model for thought and as an exemplary practice,
Bogue shows that the Asian theaters of Beijing Opera, Kathakali Dance
Drama and N Drama resemble Deleuzes ideal theater much more closely
than do traditional Western dramatic forms. He argues further that these
Asian theaters offer exemplary instances of the Deleuzian distinction

Deleuze and Asia

ix

between emotion and affect, and that the theoretical texts that inform the
practices of Kathakali and N may help to extend Deleuzes investigations
of emotions/affects and of the relationship between theater and thought.
Jiangs interest is in the aesthetics of space enunciated by Deleuze in The
Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (1989). Jiang notes the visual orientation of
Deleuzes notion of the Baroque fold, and the way in which that visual
aesthetic shapes Deleuzes remarks on architecture. Jiang argues, however,
that implicit in Deleuzes thought is an aural dimension to the fold, and
that such aurality may be brought to bear on contemporary architectural
theorys concern with the affective dimension of space. In Jiangs view,
the fold as affective concept is given its most powerful expression in the
sacred spaces of Chinese temples, which in traditional Buddhist practice
are treated as sonic spaces of disciplined chanting and listening. In the
third essay of this cluster, Donoghue gives another reading of the
Deleuzian fold, in this case as a means of exploring the space rendered
in Hokusais Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji. Donoghue argues that
Hokusai deliberately presents irreconcilable spatial systems in his art, and
that Hokusais object is to disclose a world replete with multiple
perspectives. In this regard, Hokusais aesthetic is close to that of the
Western Baroque, Donoghue shows, and Deleuzes concept of the fold
provides the most direct means of demonstrating this parallel between
Eastern and Western art.
The next two studies offer insightful contributions to contemporary
media studies. Bradleys meditation on the Walkman as motif in Deleuze,
Guattari and other French philosophers, and as quintessentially Japanese
cultural object, draws out the tensions inherent in global informationculture, while at the same time elucidating the dynamics of Japanese
anomie. Rather than simply condemning the effects of technology,
however, Bradley offers cautious guidance toward a positive utilization of
such forces. Chang takes a similar stance in her analysis of the manipulation
of the face through plastic surgery, cosmetics and digital tools such as
Photoshop. Focusing on a specific internet event involving Korean beauty
contestants, Chang goes beyond the usual critiques of the event in terms of
capitalism, standardization, commodification, and so on, asserting instead
that all the modifications and manipulations of the face exemplified in this
internet phenomenon are symptomatic of a global uneasiness over the
reproducibility and malleability of the face and the body that transcends its
Korean context.
Yings and Lees essays are devoted to film, Yings to the cinema of
Lou Ye and Wong Kar-wai, and Lees to the Taiwanese blockbuster
Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (2011). Yings study uncovers the

Introduction

motif of wind in the films of Lou Ye, which Ying ties to the Deleuzian
concepts of affect and haecceities, and then shows that the fragmented
spaces of Wong Kar-wais films may likewise be seen as domains of affect
and haecceities, albeit with decidedly different tonality in Wong than in
Ye. Lees paper uses Deleuzes concept of a people to come to consider
the issues of ethnicity and nationality raised in Warriors of the Rainbow.
Lee argues that the films depiction of Taiwanese Aboriginals fighting
Japanese forces during the colonial occupation of Taiwan, although easily
assimilated within the categories of postcolonial theory, is in fact more
complex than that theory would allow, and that the notion of a people to
come discloses elements of the film that offer potentials for political
action that go beyond those of postcolonial struggle.
Chans essay on the Nu Shu writing system, like Lees study of
Warriors of the Rainbow, is concerned with a people to comein this
case, with efforts to form a female collectivity that escapes traditional
patriarchal institutions. The Nu Shu writing system, first brought to public
attention in the 1980s, is the worlds only writing system developed
exclusively by women for communication among themselves. In existence
for over a thousand years, it recorded a female dialect and functioned as a
mode of performance in various ceremonies, thereby forming the
foundation for a collective practice that made possible the conception of a
future community of gender equality. Chius closing essay also examines
the theme of collective identity, and like Chan, he finds in the Deleuzian
concept of minor literature a useful means of thinking about language
and social action. Chiu proposes that contemporary debates about
globalization and nationalism in Asian literature need to be rearticulated in
terms of regional literatures, which may be both sub-national and supranational. Much of contemporary Asian literature, he shows, is best
understood as regional literature, and the diverse regional literatures of
Asia are manifestations of the mechanisms of deterritorialization and
reterritorialization characteristic of Deleuzian minor literature.
The assemblages traced in these essays forge connections between
Deleuze and Asia that are intended to initiate fresh lines of inquiry rather
than delineate a specific field of study. The authors aim is not to apply
Deleuze to Asia, but to use Deleuze as a generative force of inquiry in
Asian contexts, and to use Asian culture and thought as a means of
probing and testing the viability of Deleuzes own philosophy. Our hope is
that these essays will foster multiple connections and assemblages in
future research that will continue to bring Deleuze into Asia and Asia into
Deleuze.

CHAPTER ONE
BECOMING BUTTERFLY:
POWER OF THE FALSE, CRYSTAL IMAGE
AND TAOIST ONTO-AESTHETICS
SEBASTIAN HSIEN-HAO LIAO

For no reason the zither has fifty strings

Each string and each fret recall a lost year
Scholar Zhuang was lost in the butterfly he had become in a pre-dawn
dream
Emperor Wang entrusted his springtime heart to a cuckoo bird
In the blue sea under the bright moon, the pearls shed tears
In Azure Fields in warm sunlight, the jade mine evaporates into steam
This feeling could have become a life-long memory
But at the moment it was already impenetrable
Li Shang-yin, The Brocaded Zither
Existing not as a subject but as a work of art. . . .
Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations

I. Two Dreams in Zhuangzi

Two of the most famous episodes about dreaming in Zhuangzi1 seem to
work together toward a moral. The first is a Borgesian dream:
One night, a man dreamed of himself drinking and was so happy, but in the
morning, he found that he could not help but cry [over a disaster]. Another
night, he dreamed of himself crying [over a disaster], but in the morning,
he went out hunting [and had a great time]. When one was dreaming, one
did not know he was. And in that dream, one had another dream and
actually tried to divine from that dream what omen it represented. But
when one woke up from the dream, one realized that it was but a dream.
And there were people who eventually had a big awakening and realized
that they had been in a big dream whereas fools believed that they had

Chapter One
woken up and were proud that they had. But Kings and Peasants,
Confucius and you, are all but in a dream. I am telling you this, but in fact I
am also in dream. (On Equaling All Things)

A few passages later, there appears another dream episode, which sums
up this chapter on equaling all things. This is the well-known episode
about the author himself having had a dream in which he had become a
butterfly and woke to wonder which was the dreamer and which the
dreamed:
Once upon a time, Zhuang Zhou dreamed that he had become a butterfly; he
felt so real as a butterfly. And he felt he was quite happy with it and had
forgotten that he was Zhuang Zhou. All of a sudden, he woke up and was
amazed with wide eyes that he was Zhuang Zhou again. He did not know
whether it was he who had dreamed of becoming the butterfly or it was the
butterfly that had dreamed of becoming him. And yet we cannot say there is
no longer any difference between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly. And this is
what I call becoming things/things becoming (wu-hua). (On Equaling
All Things)

This butterfly dream seems to provide just the antidote to the doubt
aroused by the mise en abme from that Chinese-boxes dream structure. In
Deleuzian parlance, it could be interpreted as: on the molecular level, there
is no distinction between truth and fiction, reality and dream. But this
interpretation is not Deleuzian enough. The Big Awakening mentioned in
the first dream refers to the initiation into the truth of life, which is the Tao.
From the perspective of Zhuangzi, however, the Tao is often obfuscated by
the commonsensical discourse about life, which is here compared to a big
dream. Thus, awakening does not initiate the awakened into reality as
we live it, but into the Tao, which is hidden from us by our reality. As it
turns out, these two episodes do not form a relativist interpretation of
human existence, but rather a contemplation on ontology, on what
substantiates the world. That is, on the Tao. But the butterfly dream not
only serves as a response to the Chinese-boxes dream but actually has a
larger, even central, role to play in Zhuangzi. While it is indeed a
contemplation on ontology, it is also, and probably more importantly, a
crystallization of an onto-aesthetics that laid down the cornerstone for
traditional Chinese aesthetics as well as poetics.2 Before we embark on an
exploration of the butterfly dream in terms of its onto-aesthetic
implications, let us first re-visit onto-aesthetics as Deleuze (and Guattari)
understand it.

Becoming Butterfly

II. Deleuzian Onto-aesthetics

Following Alliez, Stephen Zepke defines the Deleuzian conception of
art as both constructing and expressing Life (5). On that score, Zepke sees
Deleuzes contribution to aesthetics as an ontological transvaluation of
aesthetics (28). By characterizing Deleuzes philosophy as a philosophy
of creation, Peter Hallward goes even further, suggesting that the whole
of Deleuzes philosophy revolves around an onto-aesthetics since he
presumes that being is creativity (1).
Indeed, creativity seems to be the keyword to understand Deleuzes
philosophy precisely because Deleuze's ontology is meant to revitalise or
re-energise being, to endow it with a primary and irreducible dynamism
(Hallward 13). Everything I've written, writes Deleuze, is vitalistic, at
least I hope it is (Negotiations 143). Indeed, many critics have pointed to
creativity or creation as the central motif of Deleuzes philosophy. Bogue,
for instance, observes that
Deleuze, like Bergson, sees artistic invention as a manifestation of a general
process of cosmic creation, and he also views genuine artistic creativity as
an affective activity, desire and desiring production functioning in
Deleuzes treatments of the arts as rough counterparts of Bergsons
creative emotion. (Deleuze's Way 96)

Jeffrey Bell also argues that It is to the restoration of this creativity

that Deleuzes micropolitics is directed (14). Similarly, OSullivan asserts
that Deleuze and Guattaris collaborative projects, and their single
authored works, offer us a new image of thought, one in which process
and becoming, invention and creativity, are privileged over stasis, identity
and recognition (2).
But being can create not because it is something transcendent and
produces according to pre-estabished plans. It is rather an immanence,
or as Deleuze terms it in his last work, Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life,
a Life, (pure immanence . . . is A LIFE, and nothing else) (27). For
Deleuze, the difference between true philosophy and the traditional kind of
philosophy seduced by religion can be summarized in the opposition
between love of immanence and devotion to transcendence or vertical
Being (Pearson 141). It is precisely this reclamation of immanence that
enables philosophy to rid itself of religious contaminations and return to
real thinking. For the concept of immanence no longer posits a being that
is conceived as given once and for all, complete and perfect but unfolds
the open whose nature is to constantly change and to give rise to the
new (Pearson 146-47).

Chapter One

Immanence or a life is a world of pre-individual, impersonal

singularities (Deleuze, Desert 142). It appears, writes Deleuze,
therefore as a pure stream of a-subjective consciousness, a pre-reflexive
impersonal consciousness, a qualitative duration of consciousness without
a self (Pure Immanence 25). Thus, a life or immanence is very much like
Bergsonian Time, which is in essence invention (Bergson 361), or
Prigoginean Nature, which is change, the continual elaboration of the
new, a totality being created in an essentially open process of development
without any preestablished model (Prigogine and Stengers 92).
But a lifes creativity is guaranteed by an inherent dynamic. Again,
like Bergsonian Time, which is affirmative and vitalist, this a life, also
called Life or desire (Bogue, Aesthetics 259-60) is an explosive
force that serves as the vehicle of a continuous creativity (Hallward
14-15). Thus, the artist-thinkers job is to do two things. On the one hand,
he is embarked on a counter-actualising movement (Deleuze and
Guattari, What Is Philosophy? 159-60; Deleuze, The Logic of Sense 161)
or in Keith Wylie Faulkners words a return journey (52), which takes us
back to the complicated state of original time (52) and constructs the
virtual and infinite world anew (Zepke 225). 3 It is in and through the
reversal of the actual that we return to the virtual, to an intensified,
transformed, redeemed or converted virtual, one restored to its full creative
potential (Hallward 65). What counter-actualization ultimately achieves,
observes Deleuze, is the only subjectivity called time: non-chronological
time grasped in its foundation . . . Subjectivity is never ours, it is time, that
is, the soul or the spirit, the virtual (Cinema 2 82-83). In a word, what the
artist does with his art work is to make patent an experience of the body
that lead[s] one beyond the phenomenological lived body to the chaotic
body without organs (Bogue, Aesthetics 260) where the body
resonates with a non-organic life, a Power more profound than the
lived body and almost unlivable (Deleuze, Francis Bacon 33); or
simply, hurls you into direct contact with the anonymous expanse of
creation as a whole (Hallward 109). And this is what Deleuze means by
saying any work of art points a way through for life (Negotiations 145).
On the other hand, in order to execute the counter-actualizing
movement, the artist-thinker, as Deleuze says of Bacons art, must make
visible invisible forces, thereby addressing a problem common to all the
arts (Bogue, Aesthetics 264-65), not that of reproducing or inventing
forms, but that of harnessing forces(Francis Bacon 39), meaning to
harness that which sensation gives us forces that are not given and to
make sensate the forces that are non-sensate (Bogue, Aesthetics 260).
Hence, Hallwards observation that there can be no counter-actualisation

Becoming Butterfly

that is not accompanied by forms of re-actualisation (35). In the art work,

which is apparently individualized and actual, the artist creates the finite
that restores the infinite (Zepke 173).
Understood as forces, immanence (Zepke 156) constantly differs/
becomes and therefore creates the new; this creativity is without doubt
absolute or unlimited, saturat[ing] the whole of being with no
remainder (Hallward 6). All in all, being and differing are one and the
same (Hallward 13).4

III. The power of the false

But what is the goal of such a vitalistic and immanent and therefore
creationist philosophy? Like Bergsons The Creative Mind: An Introduction
to Metaphysics, Deleuzes philosophy of creation is above all meant to
posit an art of living (Herzog 5). For, among other reasons, in capitalist
society, where our daily life appears standardized, stereotyped and
subject to an accelerated reproduction of objects of consumption, there is
an urgent need to instill art into everyday life (Bell 17). Our task,
observes Deleuze, is nothing less than to develop mechanisms 'that
liberate man from the plane or level that is proper to him, in order to make
him a creator, adequate to the whole movement of creation' (Bergsonism
111). Based on this concept of onto-aesthetics, one that eventually would
make everyone a creator, Deleuze develops the concept of art that can
exercise its power to bring man into contact with an otherwise blocked
immanence.
Without thinking, however, there is no art. Thinking is how
creation brought forth by immanence manifests itself. For Life activates
thought, and thought in turn affirms life (Deleuze, Pure Immanence 66).
Immanence is not Law or some superegoic commandment but the outside
and inside of thought, as the not-external outside and the not-internal
inside (Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy? 59-60); it makes itself
felt only when we are made to truly think. Thus, thinking or thought,
which takes place in terms of a move from the actual to the virtual, that is,
in the opposite direction to natural perception (Pearson 149), is
necessarily creative and therefore synonymous with art. And the power
Deleuze mentions that can compel people to think is called the power of
the false.
A concept adopted from Nietzsche, the power of the false replaces
and dethrones the form of truth, since it poses the simultaneity of
incompossible presents or the coexistence of not-necessarily true pasts
(Deleuze, Cinema 2 131); it is a power of becoming, of metamorphosis

Chapter One

and transformations that renders fixed, stable, true identities perpetually

false (Bogue, Deleuze on Cinema 149). Associated with values such as
Indiscernibility, inexplicability, undecidability, and incompossibility, it
is brought forth in artistic products such as Chronosigns and falsifying
narration that augment our powers of life by affirming change and by
creating images of thought that put us in direct contact with change and
becoming as fundamental forces (Rodowick 137). And it is the
Nietzschean will to power, which is an artistic will that would turn a
will to deception into a superior, creative will (Bogue, Deleuze and
Guattari 18), that substitutes the power of the false for the form of the
true, and resolves the crisis of truth . . . in favour of the false and its artistic,
creative power (Deleuze, Cinema 2 131). In other words, the will to
power realized in art . . . is the power of the false (Rodowick 138).
But for art to truly bring forth the power of the false, it must first
become a simulacrum itself. Simulacra, in Deleuzes definition, refers to
those systems in which different relates to different by means of
difference itself. What is essential is that we find in these systems no prior
identity, no internal resemblance (Difference and Repetition 299). A new
name for art given by Deleuze (Zepke 25), the simulacrum is the
affirmation of a power that escapes the Idea, and embodies Nietzsches
explicit attempt to reverse Platonisms philosophy of representation
(Zepke 26). In other words, Deleuze has turned Platos negative concept of
simulacrum into a positive (affirmative) one that wields the power of the
false, one that can unsettle all fixed identities and truths.
For Deleuze, everything has to become its own simulacrum
(Difference and Repetition 67) so that it would no longer be bound to a
fixed identity and therefore be free to create. That is, for anything to be
adequate to its own inherent force or energy, it has to become art first
since, for Deleuze, as for Nietzsche, the highest powers of the false are
realized in the work of art (Flaxman xx). When art sets in motion the
power of the false, it produces a crystalline regime, which transvalues
all the organic regimes that try to adhere to and defend commonsense
identities and truths (Rodowick 85-86). With art understood as simulacrum,
the world is constantly being created anew (Zepke 28). Or as Bonta and
Protevi have it: art tries to keep the intensive far-from-equilibrium
processes from congealing (16). Thus, the nature of such an art is
ontological as well as ethical: to affirm life and to rejoice in life, or as
Deleuze puts it, to regain belief in the world5: This is the art of politics
in the most creative sense, where lyingas artis the ethical practice of
affirmation, the affirmation of life (Zepke 27).
But art as simulacrum exercises the power of the false through

Becoming Butterfly

uniquely artistic ways. The creative artist who takes the power of the
false to a degree which is realized, not in form, but in transformation, is a
creator of truth, because truth is not to be achieved, formed, or
reproduced; it has to be created (Deleuze, Cinema 2 146). But to create is
to create signs (Flaxman 183). Deleuze sees signs, not as semiotic tropes,
but as forces of encounter, or objects of fundamental encounter (Kennedy
109; Smith 30). In his definition, the sign is a paradox: not a sensible
being but the being of the sensible (Difference and Repetition 139-40).
Unrecognizable except when being sensed, a sign moves the soul,
perplexes itin other words, forces it to pose a problem . . . (Deleuze,
Difference and Repetition 139-40). A sign is therefore an enigma or
intensity that deterritorializes (Smith, Deleuzes 39; Osullivan 20) and
thus produces thought, instigates interpretation, which in turn produces
apersonal points of view from which truths emerge (Bogue, Deleuze on
Literature 52). Thus, a sign is a foregrounding of arts asignifying potential
(OSullivan 38), a trigger point for movement of thought (20).

IV. Art as Crystal Image

The kind of art that wields the power of the false may be most
beautifully and conveniently epitomized in the crystal image that
Deleuze posits in Cinema 2. The crystal image is the central figure
informing Deleuzes nondialectical metaphysics of becoming; it holds
the secret of Deleuzes superior empiricism and embodies the Deleuzean
demand for pure immanence (Moulard-Leonard 116). While time-images
are often manifested as opsigns and sonsigns, that is, images cut off from
[their] motor extension, their heart is the crystal image. When the
actual optical image crystallizes with its own virtual image then we have
the true genetic element of these isolated imagesthe crystal image
(Deleuze, Cinema 2 69). What characterizes a crystal image is the
indiscernibility of the real and the imaginary, or of the present and the
past, of the actual and the virtual (Deleuze, Cinema 2 69).
Since the crystal constantly exchanges the two distinct images which
constitute it, the actual image of the present which passes and the virtual
image of the past which is preserved: distinct and yet indiscernible (81),
it creates a mise en abme through the formation of a hall of mirrors
(Bogue, Deleuze on Cinema 122-23, 125) in which there is no distinction
between the original and the copy; everything is a simulacrum pregnant
with the power of the false, which is able to falsif[y] the truths of
commonsense space and time (Bogue, Deleuze on Cinema 148).
According to Deleuze, the above-mentioned exchange and indiscernibility

Chapter One

follow each other in three ways in the crystalline circuit: the actual and
the virtual (or the two mirrors face to face); the limpid and the opaque; the
seed and the environment (Cinema 2 71). The third modality actually
elaborates on how this indiscernibility leads to an epiphanic moment
where the crystal image becomes the seed that transforms the universe
(Cinema 2 108). In this light, the crystal-image has the following two
aspects:
internal limit of all the relative circuits, but also outer-most, variable and
reshapable envelope, at the edges of the world, beyond even moments of
world. The little crystalline seed and the vast crystallisable universe:
everything is included in the capacity for expansion of the collection
constituted by the seed and the universe. (Cinema 2 80-1)

The fact that the crystal image may serve as a seed crystal, that is, may
be considered the most powerful time-image, arises from its being a sign.
The indiscernibility created by the crystal image ultimately reveals what
Deleuze identifies as the gap, the irrational cut, between the actual and the
virtual (Bogue, Deleuze on Cinema 172; Mullarkey 96), that which allows
the internal outside to be accessed through the interstice (Zepke 105;
Bogue 173). The result of this confusion or alteration of the one with
the other is that we are enabled to see Time in the crystal (Deleuze,
Cinema 2 81). Thus, writes Deleuze, what constitutes the crystal-image is
the most fundamental operation of time: since the past is constituted not
after the present that it was but at the same time, time has to split itself in
two at each moment as present and past (Cinema 2 81). The time we see
in the crystal thus is no longer any ordinary sequential time, but the
perpetual foundation of time, nonchronological time, Cronos and not
Chronos . . . the powerful, non-organic Life which grips the world
(Cinema 2 81). In other words, the real time glimpsed in the crystal image
is a life or immanence. But, as mentioned earlier, time, being immanence
itself, is also force (Rodowick 131). A counter-actualizing movement from
actualizations necessarily induces more becomings because the force of
time is itself change or pure becoming (Cinema 2 81). As Deleuze
himself has stressed, The formation of the crystal, the force of time and
the power of the false are strictly complementary, and constantly imply
each other as the new co-ordinates of the image (Cinema 2 132).
All in all, Deleuzes philosophy necessarily posits an onto-aesthetics.
Thinking, best manifested in art, produces the power of the false by
harnessing force from Time or immanence or Life (Smith 43; Bogue,
Aesthetics 257; 264-65) in order to [transvalue] truth (Zepke 30) or
[put] truth into crisis (Rodowick 137) so that a counter-actualizing

Becoming Butterfly

movement will occur and more becomings will follow from this access to
Time, immanence or Life. But the power is most effectively produced
through the crystal image, in which one sees Time directly.

V. Zhuangzian Onto-Aesthetics
Neither Tao-te-ching nor Zhuangzi,6 the two founding Taoist texts, deal
directly with aesthetics, even though Taoism as a whole, as mentioned
earlier, has consistently inspired traditional Chinese aesthetics and poetics.
The two texts, however, do talk about beauty both in the phenomenological
and non-phenomenological senses. Zhuangzi for instance mentions
beauty (mei) a few times in the context of critiquing the perception of it
as relativistic.7 But Zhuangzi devotes most of its discussion to absolute
beauty (da-mei: grand beauty; zhi-mei: absolute beauty), which is always
associated with absolute truth.8 And Zhuangzis aesthetics is closely
connected to how this absolute truth explicates itself from its
complicated state and back again. For his philosophy is firmly rooted in
the Tao, which creates the myriad things and keeps becoming and making
them become. In other words, it is due to the fact that the Tao is creativity
that Zhuangzis philosophy may be considered an onto-aesthetics. The Tao
is at once the highest goal for philosophical contemplation and what
saturates and transforms the myriad things (Tang 136). A powerful
immanence, the Tao can create precisely because it is univocal rather than
analogical, immanent rather than transcendent, and becoming rather than
being.9 It was first adumbrated in the Tao-te-ching, Zhuangzi's predecessor,
as a will-less primordial force that gives birth to the world and its myriad
things (The myriad things in the world were born from there-being [you]
and there-being was born from there-being-not [wu] [ch. 40]), as well
as permeates and affirms them (The great Tao permeates the world and is
found in everything and everywhere. It nourishes the myriad things but
does not own them, so it can be called small; the myriad things return to it
but it does not own them, so it can be called great. It does not consider
itself great and therefore it is great [ch. 34]).10
In Zhuangzi, the Tao is further elaborated and has undergone a
democratizing change. As in Tao-te-ching, it is infinite either temporally
or spatially. The most powerful portrayal of the Tao comes from the
chapter of The Grand Master:
The Tao is itself the foundation and the roots. It has existed since before
there were heaven and earth. It gave birth to spirits and kings, heaven and
earth. It has existed since before Tai-ji and should not be considered high; it
has existed beneath the six ends and not considered deep; it was born before

10

Chapter One
heaven and earth and not considered long; it has grown since the antiquity
and not considered old. (The Grand Master)

In a word, It is infinity, but people think it has an end; it cannot be

measured, but people think it has boundaries (Being Free and
Accommodating). But this infinity is univocal, its actualization being the
same as creation itself except that it possesses infinite virtuality or
potentiality. Having that potentiality, the Tao does not create the world
only once. The creation process is a non-stop, continuous process which
constantly produces the new (Han 13).11 That the Tao constantly changes
and becomes is its most outstanding characteristic. Whereas in
Tao-te-ching, the Tao basically serves a political or ethical function, that is,
to make the people become on their own (zi-hua) (ch. 57) through
influential people who have grasped the Tao, in Zhuangzi, the Tao may be
re-discovered by any individuals. Once one succeeds in becoming one
with the Tao, one is able to become on ones own as well as make others
become.12 Making oneself and others become continuously is the sole
purpose of explicating the Tao from its original complicated state.13 And
this alone proves that for Taoism, especially Zhuangzi, being is becoming
and therefore creativity.
But how does one cultivate the ability to become? And what would be
the state in which one may be considered successfully becoming? We have
to first examine the relationship between the Tao and the qi or vital force.
The qi is an ancient Chinese concept that has been appropriated both by
Taoism and Confucianism, but in Taoism, it is used in a much more radical
way.14 The qi or vital force is not a purely metaphysical state of being
(Zhong 117), nor is it a purely material power (128). It is instead the root
(ben-gen) of the myriad things, that is, another way of saying the Tao
(130).15 According to Taoism, things are made of the qi (What unites the
world is but one qi [Mr. Zhi Roams Northward]), which is fluid and
always becoming (Now it seems indiscernible and therefore non-existent,
but it persists; now it surges forward with no form, but it functions
miraculously [Mr. Zhi Roams Northward]). When the qi is collected
or enfolded [ju], there is life; when the collected or enfolded qi is
dispersed [san], there is death (Mr. Zhi Roams Northward). But human
perception of things turns everything into fixed and isolated objects and
beings, what is described in Zhuangzi as being tethered to things [i.e., qi
being congealed] [wu-you-jie-zhi] (The Grand Master).16 And the goal
of Taoism is to de-congeal (jie) the congealed qi in us so that we are no
longer enslaved by things (we should respond to becoming and be
released [jie] from things [Under the Heaven]) and to make all things
mutually interpenetrating and nourishing again.17 We see very clearly how

Becoming Butterfly

11

this argument against the congealing of vital forces is echoed in Deleuze.18

The qi can be felt and as a result affect us, which is its substantial or
actual (shi) dimension, but it is also empty or virtual (xu) in the sense that
it is from a transcendental plane of immanence and therefore is fluid and
ungraspable (Zhong 128-30). When Zhuangzi recommends that one
empty up (xu) ones qi, it does not mean one should evacuate ones qi
but rather one should de-congeal ones fixed identity and organization and
embark on a return journey from ones social body through ones lived
body to ones qi body, which is the matrix of the Tao (Zhong 114-15).19
To be able to de-congeal the mind and release the qi (Being Free and
Accommodating), then, means to resonate with the Tao because now one
has become completely still as if you had no soul (Being Free and
Accommodating).
And the way we attain to being at one with the Tao and regain the
ability to become is through revealing the nature of becoming inherent in
all things. That has to begin with changing our perception of the world.
That is, denuding ourselves of human perception and attaining to the
perspective of the Tao. Zhuangzi variously describes this process of
denuding as sitting into oblivion (zuo-wang) (The Grand Master),
fasting the mind (xin-zhai) (In the Human World), and I abandoning
self (wu-sang-wo) (On Equaling All Things).20 A typical process may
be found, for instance, in the description of fasting the mind:
Do not listen with your ears, but listen with your mind; do not listen with
your mind but listen with the qi. All the ear can do is listen to the sound and
all the mind can do is find correspondences. But the qi enables an
emptying-up (xu) to await the thing [itself]. The Tao collects at the
emptied-up places. This emptying-up is called fasting the mind. (In the
Human World)

And a mind in fasting or emptied-up mind is a subject with no self and

thus is no longer trammeled by mundane binary oppositions but becomes/
transforms along with the Tao. What to do? What not to do? Just
transform/become with the Tao that by nature transforms/becomes (The
Floods of Autumn).
When one has returned to the Tao, one is able to transcend ones
human perception and look at things from the perspective of the Tao. As
Fang Dong-mei has observed, one is able to transcend ones body . . . and
raise oneself into the great emptiness (tai-xu; i.e., the qi or the Tao) and
become things while not limited by them (wu-wu er bu wu-yu-wu)
(307). In Zhuangzis own words, this is also called viewing things from
the [perspective of the] Tao (yi dao guan zhi), as opposed to viewing

12

Chapter One

things from [the perspective of] things (yi-wu guan zhi) (The Floods of
Autumn). As Zhuangzi argues, If one views things from the [perspective
of the] Tao, there is no distinction between the worthy and the worthless.
But if one views things from the perspective of things, then one tends to
consider oneself worthy and the others worthless (The Floods of
Autumn).
This ultimate state of becoming with the Tao is what is called in
Zhuangzi roam-reveling (you).21 But despite the fact that true man
(zhen-ren) who has attained to the perspective of the Tao is time and again
said to roam-revel outside the world, he in fact never really leaves the
world. On the contrary, to have de-congealed or reconnected with the qi is
to have learned to become and also help other people and for that matter
the myriad things become (Zhong 138). This is best expressed in the
Zhuangzian concept of both work (liang-xing) (On Equaling All
Things), which means to live double-visionedly in the mundane world.22
A different way of saying this is constant alternation (fan-yan) (The
Floods of Autumn), meaning to constantly exchange the two extremes of
a binary opposition.23
Since the Tao permeates all things, they then all have their own raison
dtre. The univocal Being/Becoming can be said of everything and
therefore everything should be equally appreciated no matter whether it is
a grass stem or a pillar of a house, a loathsome mangy woman or a beauty
like Xi-shianything strange and bizarre is threaded through by The Tao
(On Equaling All Things); each and every one of them is the Tao in its
microcosmic form. But what is common to the myriad things is not a static
essence but what is natural (zi-ran) or change itself (Life/the Tao is
sometimes empty while other times full; it does not have a fixed shape
[The Floods of Autumn]) because Once things were born [from the
Tao], they gallop like a horse and rumble on like a chariot; there is no
movement without becoming, nor is there passing of time without change
(The Floods of Autumn). But as long as things follow their natural
course, they are grounded ontologically and therefore are true becomings.
As the central concern of Zhuangzi is how one can become one with
the Tao in order to make oneself become and thereby also to make others
and for that matter the whole world become, it is a philosophy of creation
through and through. But like immanence in Deleuze, the Tao does not
create following a pre-established plan or model. It itself is Nature and its
workings natural or spontaneous. The fact that the qi is understood as
both the actual and virtual dimensions of the Tao prompts some critics to
compare the Tao to Time (Zhao, Zhuangzi 93). In fact, the Tao does bear a
strong resemblance to Absolute Time, with all the potentiality in its

Becoming Butterfly

13

complicated state. And like absolute Time too, it explicates and is

manifested in all becomings and creations. That is, creativity is compelled
by the vital force of the Tao the same way creativity in Deleuze is
compelled by the force of Time.24 That is why things are marked by life
and death whereas the Tao has no beginning and no end (The Floods
of Autumn); it is expressed and constructed by the myriad things that
it constantly creates and that constantly transform/become much in the
same way Life in Deleuze is expressed and constructed by art, which
crystalizes the most living and thinking state.25 Consequently, the Tao is
creativity. That explains why it has been argued that in Zhuangzi, the
grand beauty is the same as the grand truth (the Tao) (Hsu 49-51; Xu 213;
Liu 66).

VI. The Power of falsifying language

In the previous section, we have pointed out a Zhuangzian way to
attain to being at one with the Tao by means of a special kind of
cultivation (gong-fu), one that may be summarily termed cultivation of
no self, in that it purges our organized mind (cheng-xin) (On Equaling
All Things) of the sense of self. Language actually is another important
way to achieve the same goal. Despite the fact that in popular
understanding language is deeply distrusted both by Tao-te-ching and
Zhuangzi in discoursing about the Tao,26 neither of them believes human
beings must or can abandon language in approaching the Tao. In fact, in
order to reveal the Tao, Zhuangzi adopts a uniquely creative or aesthetic
way of using language. What Zhuangzi does is very similar to what
Bergson or Deleuze suggests: use a minor language, one that explodes
commonsense modes of meaning production in order to prove that the Tao,
like Bergsonian Time or Deleuzian immanence, carr[ies] with it events
and singularities (Pure Immanence 29).27 I call this unique use of
language falsifying language, one that relies very much on word play
that as it were pulls the rug out from under conventional ideas and reveals
their repressive nature.
These minor uses of language are focused on the unreliability of
ordinary language or conventional discursive practices. It is by means of a
combined use of these minor linguistic strategies and the cultivation of no
self that Zhuangzi adumbrates a powerful onto-aesthetics. In Deleuzian
terms, what is important about these strategies is how Zhuangzi thereby
disrupts the form of the true, and replaces it with the power of the
false (Cinema 2 131) in order to disclose the eclipsed immanent Tao.
In the second chapter of Zhuangzi, a most unconventional theory of

14

Chapter One

language is laid out where commonsense language is completely turned

upside down and inside out:
But speech is not like the blowing of the wind; the speaker has a meaning to
express. But, as whatever he says cannot measure up to an absolute criterion,
does he then really speak or not? He thinks that his words are different from
the chirpings of fledgelings; but is there truly any distinction between them
or not? But how can the Tao be so obscured that there should be a True
and a False in it? How can speech be so obscured that there should be
the Right and the Wrong about them? Where does the Tao go to that it
ends up not being found? Where is speech found that it ends up being
considered inappropriate? The Tao becomes obscured through small
successes, and speech becomes opaque through over-embellishments. So it
is that we have the contentions between the Confucians and the Mohists, the
one side affirming what the other denies, and vice versa. If we get caught up
in such a vain project, there is no better way out than reflect on things with
the thus-ness of our mind. (On Equaling All Things)

This is no doubt a language pregnant with the power of the false, for its
deployment challenges and upsets all existent categories and beliefs. Due
to its fluid, intoxicating and dizzying characteristics, this special use of
language has been compared to Nietszches Dionysian language (Zhao,
The Art 39) and with good reason. In Zhuangzi, this falsifying language
is referred to in three ways: parabolic words (yu-yan), weighty words
(zhong-yan), and decentering words (zhi-yan) (Under the Heaven). The
first is the easiest to understand: words that present a parable. The second
refers to words that are put into the mouth of sages and other important
people to underscore their weightiness. The third is the most obscure.
Traditionally there are at least three interpretations of zhi-yan: changing
language, drinking language and decentering language.28 But the authors
own summary of the kind of language he uses in the last chapter of
Zhuangzi may best help us understand zhi-yan:
Employing far-fetching discourses, unbounded words, and ungrounded
rhetoric, I give free rein to my thoughts without having prejudices and
seeing the world from one single angle. (Under the Heaven)

In light of this passage, zhi-yan seems to be a kind of paradoxical language,

one that he elsewhere actually names paradoxical: I say you are
dreaming. But I may be doing this in a dream. This kind of language I call
paradoxical language (On Equaling All Things). Given this supporting
evidence, the meaning of decentering language or language that
decenters seems to fit best here. And some would even argue that all three
kinds of linguistic strategy used in Zhuangzi may be subsumed under this

Becoming Butterfly

15

one since all of them aim to transvalue fixed beliefs and cliches.29
A proper grasp of the true function of this paradoxical language or
de-centering language depends on how we understand the kind of
commonsensical thoughts that they try to debunk (Xiao 118). This is
typical of Taoist thought: If the whole world recognizes something as
beautiful, then we should be disgusted with it (Tao-te-ching, ch. 2). As
zhi-yan invariably speaks from an unusual angle and explores terra
incognita underneath conventional thinking, every use of decentering
language creates a simulacrum that has no precedent and therefore copies
no original. Take the following passage:
To use a finger to judge other fingers as non-fingers is not as good as to use
a non-finger to judge other fingers as non-fingers; to use a horse to judge
other horses as non-horse is not as good as to use a non-horse to judge other
horses as non-horse. Heaven and earth can be dealt with as the fingers are
and the myriad things can be dealt with as the horses are. It works because it
works and it does not work because it does not. A path is formed because of
being constantly treaded on; a thing exists because of its being constantly
called a name. Why is it such? Because it is such from being such. Why is it
not such? Because it is not such from being not such. Everything has its
own suchness and has its workability. Nothing does not have its suchness or
its workability. No matter whether it is a grass stem or a pillar of a house, a
loathsome mangy woman or a beauty like Xi-shianything strange and
bizarre is threaded through by The Tao. (On Equaling All Things)

This is simulacrum in its most elaborate form. But the purpose of such
a strategy is not simply to create aporia while avoiding ontology as the
deconstructionist does. In other words, while at first look, zhi-yan may
seem to be merely a form of illogical language, in fact, like a Deleuzian
simulacrum, it is meant to bring out the power of the false to give the lie to
commonsense so that the Tao may be revealed; it makes detours to the
round, which is another name for the Tao. As the whole book relies on
such a language strategy, it itself is an artwork that resonates with cosmic
creation by the Tao. Without the least doubt, falsifying language is an apt
means to initiate a return journey back to the Tao.
Making a return journey or counter-actualization to the Tao is in
fact one of the most prominent themes in Zhuangzi as well as in its
predecessor Tao-te-ching. See for instance: While often indulging in
carving and polishing, one should eventually return to the crude
(Mountain Woods) or Being crude and unembellished, one has no rival
under heaven with regard to his beauty (The Way of Heaven).30 This
return journey counter-actualizes from mundane beauty back to the
unspeaking (unarticulating) grand beauty, from sensuous pleasures back to

16

Chapter One

the grand happiness, from small intricacies back to the grand craft that
creates the world (Hsu 49-51).31
Ultimately, the counter-actualizing move follows the natural (zi-ran,)
path: The sage is he who traces from the beauty of heaven and earth back
to the Principle of the myriad things. Thus, the perfect man (zhi-ren) does
nothing and the greatest sage (sheng-ren) initiates nothing; rather, all they
need to do is observe [the model of] heaven and earth (Mr. Zhi Roams
Northward).32 By embracing the natural and abandoning the artificial
([rules of] Heaven rather than [rules of] man),33 Taoist thought does not,
however, attempt to return to a static natural state, but rather advocates
becoming as what unites the myriad things both by speaking a
paradoxical language and letting go of an organized self. To use Deleuzian
parlance, it is through becoming a crystalline regime that Zhuangzi
becomes art. By either cultivating no self or using falsifying language, one
learns from the Tao: to affirm Nature or Life by counter-actualizing and at
the same time creating more becomings.
When the artist grasps the truth in him, he can bring to life this spirit
externally . . . the beauty of perfection does not have any man-made
traces (The Fisherman). Using the Zhuangzian onto-aesthetic way of
looking at things, they no longer are objects outside of us. For, as
mentioned earlier, now we are no longer viewing things from me, not
even from things themselves, but from the Tao.34 Like Time in Deleuze,
the Tao is also the only subjectivity in Zhuangzi. For those who have
succeeded in participating in the ever becoming Tao, being and creativity
are one and the same. Therefore the sagely man roam-revels in that from
which nothing will be lost, and in which all things come into existence
(The Grand Master).
All told, as a book, Zhuangzi itself demonstrates how art should be
produced by exploiting the power of the false. But of all the three
language strategies it uses, the decentering language, with its unique
topology, may be the most intricate in its ruses and therefore most
powerful in terms of disrupting the commonsense identities and
organizations. And this particular strategy may in fact be summarized by
the butterfly dream, which is very much like a Deleuzian crystal image.

VII. The Crystalline Butterfly Dream

Lets look again at how Deleuze defines the crystal image:
As the crystal constantly exchanges the two distinct images which constitute
it, the actual image of the present which passes and the virtual image of the
past which is preserved: distinct and yet indiscernible, and all the more

Becoming Butterfly

17

indiscernible because distinct, because we do not know which is one and

which is the other. (Cinema 2 81)

This is exactly how Zhuang Zhou feels when he wakes up from the
butterfly dream. He does not know how to distinguish the actual image of
the present (himself as Zhuang Zhou) and the virtual image of the past (the
butterfly).
In other words, the butterfly dream may be considered a crystal image,
which, being the most powerful device in expressing and constructing Life,
is paradigmatic of an onto-aesthetics in Deleuze. As the linguistic strategy
of zhi-yan or decentering language also has as its main function that of
bringing about an indiscernibility or alternation between the two extremes
of a binary opposition, it may be construed as a non-imagistic crystal
image. And it is not without reason that the butterfly dream occurs at the
end of the On Equaling All Things chapter, throughout which one finds
the zhi-yan strategy. This dream is used to illustrate becoming
things/things becoming (wu-hua,) a concept that means that since all
things are equal on account of their being rooted in their common
foundation, the Tao, they can transform into each other when the
circumstances are right. By concluding this chapter, this dream allows us
to see the Tao through this alteration of the actual and the virtual and
thereby sums up the chapter in the manner of an event, a scandalizing
episode that aims to produce a crystal image.
Being a crystal image, the power of this dream in offering access to the
Tao is derived from its connection not to the Freudian unconscious but to
the Deleuzian one, which, being the home of the work of art, Deleuze
and Guattari argues, is a questioning and problematizing force (What Is
Philosophy? 108). For this unconscious is Time itself, the matrix of
multiplicities and forces.35 Nor is becoming butterfly merely another
becoming animal, for the dream context has made it something else, even
though becoming butterfly does share something with becoming animal at
its root. Unlike a typical becoming animal, becoming butterfly in the
dream relies on the unique characteristics of the crystal image to undo
confining molar identities.36
And the liminality of dreams provides the dreamer with a lot more
potential to move back and forth between the actual present and the virtual
past than the usual crystal image. This explains why becoming in a
dream may serve as the paradigmatic metaphor for art defined in an
onto-aesthetic way. First, in a dream, becomings are felt as less certain
than that which happens in broad daylight and therefore may enhance
the sense of becomings not being becoming anything in particular. In
recollection, a butterfly is not clearly and necessarily re-membered as a

18

Chapter One

butterfly. As the dream is recalled in memory, it becomes a blurry,

impoverished object, one that is deprived of the characteristics that
might make it a complete, understandable entity. But at the same time, it
is also an object full of potentially noteworthy characteristics to it, an
arresting palpability because, being somehow strange and unreal,
dreamlike, hallucinatory (Bogue, Deleuze on Cinema 114), it calls for
Bergsonian attentive recognition and automatically becomes a
Deleuzian opsign (Bogue, Deleuze on Cinema 108-20). For when we
recall having a dream of some kind, we are no longer in a dream, nor are
we yet in an actual memory. The liminality of the dream prolongs the
threshold experience resultant from the tension between the present and
the dream and thereby causes the recollection of it to alternate between
what Bergson proposes to be the two ends of a continuum, one being the
actual memory and the other the past, through which we encounter the
virtual past (Bogue, Deleuze on Cinema 116).
And, more importantly, all this happens within the context of two types
of related mise en abme. First of all, the author who is recalling this
particular dream creates a mise en abme through the forming of a hall of
mirrors (Bogue, Deleuze on Cinema 122-23; 125)by the famous
question Zhuang Zhou the dreamer poses after he wakes up from the
dream: who is the dreamer and who the dreamed (I wonder if it was Zhou
who dreamt of himself being butterfly or it was the butterfly who dreamt
of being Zhou [On Equaling All Things])in which the images reflect
one another ad infinitum. But there is also another kind of mise en abme
that concretizes what Bergson portrays as how perception and memory
work together. This mise en abme is not exactly a hall of mirrors but a
kind of hall of receding images, a kind of retreat into virtuality, during
which objects keep fading into objects in contiguity while expanding the
memory circuit: the author who is dreaming of having become a butterfly
and the butterfly, the butterfly and all the virtual butterflies that could be in
its position, the butterflies and all the other living things that fly, all the
things that fly and all the things that float in the air, and so forth. In both
mise en abme, then, there is no distinction between the original and the
copy. As a result, both become a simulacrum pregnant with the power of
the false, which is intended to falsif[y] the truths of commonsense space
and time (Bogue, Deleuze on Cinema 148).
Thus, being emblematic of a joyous affirmation of life as manifested
by you or roam-reveling, the butterfly dream as crystal image helps us see
through the dream content to the dream-work, that is, it compels a
Deleuzian attention to the irrational cut, or the interstice, between the
dreamer and the dreamed, and thereby allows one to reach unto the Tao, or

Becoming Butterfly

19

the internal outside/external inside, once the aforementioned famous

question is posed. When this question is posed, it presupposes a puzzling
dream, an unanalyzable dream, an enigmatic dream, that is, a pure dream
that alerts us to the Outside behind and beneath both dream and reality.
To the extent that the butterfly dream image scrambles the boundaries
between the actual and the virtual in order to hint at the Tao, it is also the
seed crystal that transforms the universe (Cinema 2 108) by what Zhuangzi
emphasizes as becoming and making become through you. Thus, like
Deleuzian onto-aesthetics, Zhuangzian onto-aesthetics is also ethical. It is
not, as many believe, a philosophy that is centered on personal salvation,
but one that, following the Tao-te-ching, aims also at transforming the
world. That being the case, we may perhaps argue that all art aspires to
become a butterfly dream, though not every art is able to do so; that is, to
create a crystal image, a simulacrum with the power of the false.
Deleuzes seeing time in the crystal and therefore restoring a
connection with pure immanence is about assuming a new perspective.
That perspective, one from the vantage of pure immanence, has been
compared to an inhuman third eye (Cinema 2 18). Likewise, as
mentioned earlier, the Zhuangzian becoming one with the Tao through the
crystal enables one to attain to a perspective from the Tao. But for neither
of them is this attainment of a transhuman perspective an end in itself. The
affirmation of Life is the true goal of both forms of onto-aesthetics. For
Deleuze, the affirmation of Life is embodied in reclaiming a belief in the
world, whereas for Zhuangzi, it is manifested in being able to you or
roam-revel under any circumstances. But it cannot be overemphasized that
this you or roam-reveling does not refer to living beyond the mundane
world but living double-visionedly, as borne out by Zhuangzis insistence
on the necessity of liang-xing (On Equaling All Things) and fan-yan
(The Floods of Autumn), both of which mean to have a balanced view
of both sides of a binary opposition and most fundamentally of both living
in the world and living beyond this world. I alone communicate with the
spirit of Heaven and Earth but do not condescend toward the myriad
things. I do not bother about right or wrong and mingle with the common
people (Under the Heaven).
Thus, what happens to the dreamer Zhuang Zhou is not a complete
merger with the dream content. That is why Zhuangzi says, And yet we
cannot say there is no longer any difference between Zhuang zhou and the
butterfly (On Equaling All Things). For one thing, the dream content
itself is not the Tao, but the beginning phase of the expanding virtual past
in the Bergsonian memory diagram. Instead, it is the indiscernibility
between the dreamer and the dreamed that matters. Thus, it is rather the

20

Chapter One

merger with the Tao, not things, that this dream affords us. This merger in
fact not only enhances ones belief in the world but also makes one a
double-visioned seer. What that means is that a Zhuangzian true man
(perfect man or sage) attains to a kind of ultimate state of becoming, a
supreme art of living, where one prolongs ones threshold experience so
that one can simultaneously maintain a mundane and yet creative
existence.37 Let me quote Zhuangzi one more time to end this essay:
Heaven and earth grow together with me and the myriad things become at
one with me (On Equaling All Things).

Notes
1. The book was presumed to have been written by Zhuang Zhou, also called
Zhuangzi. (ca 369-286 BC). Despite the fact that the authorship is not absolutely
certain, for the purpose of discussion, we will refer to him as the author. Also, in
our discussion the texts cited from Zhuangzi will be identified only by their chapter
titles in English translation.
2. Even though Confucian and Buddhist (mainly Chan Buddhist) influences on
traditional Chinese art are also conspicuous, their influences are often indirectly
derived from Taoism. Theories of painting and poetry were overwhelmingly
derived from Taoist thinking. In his The Spirit of Chinese Art, for instance, Hsu
Fu-kuan posits that while traditional Chinese art was both influenced by
Confucianism and Taoism, the latters role was predominant. He devotes nine out
of the ten chapters of this book to elaborate on how Taoism became the main staple
of Chinese painting as well as poetry. Other literary critics such as James J. Y. Liu
(1975) and Wai-lim Yip (1980) also consider Taoism the main theoretical support
of Traditional Chinese poetics. See also Liu Shao-jin (79-92, 146-50) for an
overview of this line of argument.
3. To explain his immanent creationism, Deleuze borrowed the Neoplatonist
concepts of complication, explication, and implication through Spinoza (Bogue,
Deleuze on Cinema 27).
4. However, reading Deleuze too dualistically, Hallward misrepresents his
philosophy as presupposing an opposition between the human creative becoming
and the created being/creature (Crockett 16). The following quote, for instance,
indirectly refutes this humanist labeling of Deleuze by a posthumanist description
of Deleuzian creationism: [Deleuze and Guattari] refuse to mystify this creativity
as something essentially human and therefore non-natural. For them, the creativity
of consistencies is not only natural, but also extends far beyond the human realm.
Thus not just the creative work of territorial animals on the alloplastic stratum
they share with humans (i.e. precisely, their deterritorialization) but also the
creativity of nonorganic life . . . would always outflank any form of hermeneutic
or existentialist humanism (Bonta and Protevi 5).
5. Arguing that The link between man and the world is broken (Cinema 2 171),
Deleuze urges us to reclaim the belief in the world. But to do so requires not a
blind attachment to the world striated by organization and institutionalization but a

Becoming Butterfly

21

decisive flight from the Socius, which has stifled Life and becoming and taken the
world away from us, as well as an intense investment in what is. What this
entails is discovering a different mode of existence, one that is truly rooted in our
plane of immanence (Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy? 74-75). As
Bogue argues, the belief in this world is in fact in this world seen and thought
otherwise (Deleuze on Cinema 180).
6. Alternatively entitled Laozi, Tao-te-ching was presumed to have been written by
Li Er, also called Laozi (ca. 571-471 BC). However, the authorship is far from
certain. In our discussion, the texts cited from Tao-te-ching will be identified only
by their chapter numbers.
7. In the Mountain Woods chapter, for instance, by giving the example of
someone who cherishes his ugly concubine rather than the beautiful one, the author
argues that beauty and ugliness depend on the perceiver. And more radically in the
On Equaling All Things chapter, he even suggests by the example of fish and
birds that are scared away by a beautiful woman that beauty is actually an
anthropocentric idea.
8. See for example the following: Theres grand beauty inherent in heaven and
earth but it does not speak; there is transparent law in the four seasons but it does
not argue; there is an established principle in the myriad things but it does not
articulate (Mr. Zhi Roams Northward).
9. Daniel W. Smith succinctly defines as follows the doctrine of univocity
formulated by Scotus and adopted by Deleuze: In an immanent ontology, not only
is Being equal in itself, it is equally and immediately present in all beings, without
mediation or intermediary (174). This description may be applied to the Tao
without modification.
10. Even though here the Tao is personified as if it had a will, in fact this is just a
metaphorical way of describing how the will-less Tao creates and how it relates to
its creation. Obviously, it does not exist beyond its creation as does a transcendent
will.
11. Evidence may be found for instance in the following passage in Tao-te-ching:
The myriad things are born from [the Tao] and yet it does not discontinue the
process (chapter 34).
12. See for instance the following passage from the In the Human World chapter:
If you turn your ears and eyes outside in and your mind inside out, both ghosts
and gods will come and take up residence, not to mention the humans. This is how
the myriad things become. . . .
13. For the assumption of its original complicated state, see for instance the
following passage in Tao-te-ching: There was a formless thing. It came before
heaven and earth. . . I dont know its name. Call it the Tao (chapter 25).
14. Taoisms use of the idea of the qi is more radical in the sense that it sees the
individual body as a temporary concentration of the qi and promulgates the need to
dissolve the conception of self. See Yang Ru-bin, Introduction, The Theory of the
qi and the Body in Ancient Chinese Thought, 21-22.
15. Zhong disagrees with all three existent interpretations of the qi, those who see
the qi as the internalized Tao (such as Chen Gu-ying), those who see it as born
from the Tao (such as Wu Ru-jun and Liu Xiao-gan), and those who see it as

22

Chapter One

merely material (such as Mou Zong-san). Zhongs own argument is that the qi is
both the actual and virtual dimensions of the Tao; therefore, it is at once material
and metaphysical (Zhong 130).
16. For Zhuangzi considers the categories of things the result of a progressive
denying of the undifferentiated state of the world. See the following passage in the
On Equaling All Things chapter: The ancient [wise] mans intelligence was the
best. Why so? Because they believed there were no things in the beginning then
there were those who believed there were things but not boundaries. . . then there
were those who believed there were boundaries but not right and wrong. . . .
17. To congeal (jie) and to de-congeal (jie) sound exactly the same in
romanization and can be distinguished only by their different tones in modern
Mandarin. But in southern dialects, which remain close to the archaic forms of
Chinese pronunciation, they sound very different.
18. The prime function incumbent upon the socius, Deleuze and Guattari
observe in Anti-Oedipus, has always been to codify the flows of desire, to inscribe
them, to record them, to see that no flow exists that is not properly dammed up,
channeled, regulated (33). And it is precisely this codification or regulation of
desire or vital force that Deleuze and Guattari consider inimical to human
existence. And the importance of schizoanalysis is to help deterritorialize the
desiring machine so that it can escape being appropriated by capitalism.
19. The Zhuangzian counter-actualization requires one to chop off limbs, shut
off eyes and ears, abandon the body and relinquish intelligence, in order to merge
with the Great Undifferentiated (The Grand Master). This demonstrates how
one becomes one with the Tao by becoming a body without organs.
20. All three may be said to be derived from this well-known line from
Tao-te-ching: To pursue the Tao, one keeps reducing ones formed knowledge
daily (ch. 48).
21. The idea of you is one of the central motifs in Zhuangzi. The word you
basically has two related meaningsto revel in fun or pleasure and to roam in an
untrammeled spiritso I translate it as roam-reveling. In the first chapter of
Zhuangzi, Untrammeled Roam-reveling, where its author Zhuang Zhou is trying
to formulate a seminal thesis about the ultimate ideal a man should strive after, he
presents us with the first description of you: If one is able to ride on the nature
(zheng) of things between heaven and earth and follow the becomings (bian) of the
six vital forces to roam-revel (you) the Infinite (wu-qiong), what else does he have
to rely on? This short passage reveals among other things that you is understood
in terms of its being in full resonance with the Tao; roam-reveling therefore is by
definition roam-reveling in the Tao, and this argument is reiterated throughout the
book. For a more detailed discussion of the concept you, see my article
Becoming God, and Dog: Taoist You, Deleuzian Nomadism and God, Man, Dog.
22. Liang-xing (On Equaling All Things) means the imperative to treat all
opposites as equal. But the most fundamental opposition is that of living beyond
the mundane world and living in it. To treat the two as one manifests the ability to
live double-visionedly.
23. This is from a passage similar to one quoted earlier about the difference
between viewing things from the Tao and viewing things from things: If one

Becoming Butterfly

23

views things from [the perspective of] the Tao, there is no distinction between the
worthy and the worthless. This is called constant alternation . . . (The Floods of
Autumn).
24. In the Ultimate Happiness chapter, the Tao is compared to a Great Machinery.
The myriad things are produced depending on the circumstances under which the
seeds from the machinery (i.e., the qi) are found. They can be anything and
constantly become each other. They are born from the Great Machinery and
eventually all return to it (Ultimate Happiness).
25. Referred to as the thing-makers (zao-wu-zhe) or becoming-makers
(zao-hua or zao-hua-zhe) (see The Grand Master,) the Tao not only constantly
creates the new, but also itself becomes in the process; its creation is manifested in
its becomings. Therefore, it is also sometimes called by later Taoist adherents The
Great Transforming or The Great Becoming (da-hua,) and a theory of The
Great Becoming Endlessly Transforms (da-hua-liu-xing) was formulated and has
since become almost the standard way of describing Zhuangzis philosophy. See
for instance Fang Dong-mei.
26. Already in Tao-te-ching, the issue of language is conspicuously noted in the
first sentence of the book. The Tao defies any language that tries to represent it
because, being a becoming immanence rather than a static transcendent being, the
Tao cannot be represented. Not only are we not able to talk about it but it does not
talk about itself. (Tao could be talked about but not in the usual way, chapter 1.)
Zhuangzi also has a similar statement: The Tao cannot be verbalized; once
verbalized, it is not the Tao (Mr. Zhi Roams Northward). Like the Deleuzian
re-invention of Spinozean Life, the Tao simply expresses itself by differing and
creating.
27. The Deleuzian minor use of language, possibly influenced by Bergsons idea of
do[ing] violence to words and strain[ing] them in order to forge new concepts and
new modes of sensibility (Bogue, Deleuzes Way 96), is one of the most
important Deleuzian ways to muster the power of the false. For, argues Deleuze,
[c]reating has always been something different from communicating. The key
thing may be to create vacuoles of noncommunication, circuit breakers, so we can
elude control (Negotiations 175).
28. The changing language interpretation is derived from the fact that the
original meaning of zhi means a kind of wine vessel that changes its position
according to the amount of wine it contains; hence zhi-yan is taken to mean a kind
of language that changes with the circumstances. The drinking language
interpretation, also seizing on zhis meaning as wine vessel, understands it as the
kind of language that is used in a topsy-turvy manner. The decentering language
interpretation argues that since the word zhi could be taken to mean zhi
(fragmented or fragmenting), zhi-yan should mean fragmented and center-less
language (zhi-li-wu-shou). See Yang Ru-bin, On Zhiyan. However, I re-name
the fragmented and center-less language decentering language because that is
what it is employed to do. Yangs own interpretation, though quite creative, does
not seem to apply as he has conflated language as means and the goal that this
language helps us to reach: the Tao. He sees zhi-yan as a different category from
the other two. While the latter two are merely techniques, the former embodies a

24

Chapter One

mode of existence, a different plane created by language. But his understanding of

zhi-yan as rounded language that mimics the round center or the Tao
(huan-zhong) conflates language with the ontological substance, the kind of
mistake against which both Tao-te-ching and Zhuangzi try hard to warn us.
29. Wang Fu-zhi, for example, treats zhi-yan as the basis that unites all three
strategies. So does Zhang Mo-sheng (Xiao 111).
30. In Tao-te-ching, the word crude appears eight times. It refers either to the
fundamental attribute of the Tao or the Tao itself.
31. The two ways of counter-actualizationcultivation toward a non-self or
dis-organized self and the use of falsifying languageseem a bit contradictory to
each other in terms of agency. One is inward-going and seemingly involves
minimal agency whereas the other is outward-going and seems replete with agency.
But in Zhuangzis system, there need not be any contradiction between the two.
For in the first case while it is indeed a kind of letting go, it requires a
tremendous amount of strenuous cultivation in order to clear up our mental
stubbornness, that is, our attachment to established world views. And in the second
case, falsifying language is not uttered with a combative spirit but remains in full
accord with the spirit of you or Zhuangzian nomadism which both exults in living
every minute of life.
32. See for instance the following passage: The sage is he who traces from the
beauty of heaven and earth back to the Principle of the myriad things. Thus, the
perfect man [zhi-ren] does nothing and the greatest sage [sheng-ren] initiates
nothing; rather, all they need to do is observe [the model of] heaven and earth
(Mr. Zhi Roams Northward).
33. When heaven is used in the singular, it always means what is natural, that
is, what conforms to the Tao (see for instance Xu 217).
34. While some critics have understood Zhuangzis conception of the ideal way of
cognition as viewing things from the perspective of things (yi-wu-guan-wu), as
opposed to the egoistic way of viewing things from the perspective of the self
(yi-wo-guan-wu) (see for instance Wai-lim Yip, Drinking from Taihe or Liu
Shao-jin, Zhuangzi and Chinese Philosophy), this obviously contradicts Zhuangzis
repeated emphasis on viewing things from the perspective of the Tao, as opposed
to viewing things from the perspective of things and its teaching of becoming
things while not limited by them (wu-wu er bu wu-yu-wu). According to
Zhuangzi, as already mentioned, things do not have either fixed identity or essence;
everything is a temporary collecting or enfolding of the qi. Thus, viewing things
from the Tao allows us to appreciate the uniqueness of all things but not to be
subject to any of their perspectives.
35. For the importance of the unconscious in Deleuze and Guattari, see for instance
the following quotes: The coextension of man and nature [is] a circular movement
by which the unconscious, always remaining subject, produces and reproduces
itself [. . .]. The sole subject of reproduction is the unconscious itself (Deleuze
and Guattari, Anti-Oedipus 107-08), or multiplicities as formations of the
unconscious (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus 32).
36. For the meaning of becoming animal, see for instance Bogues succinct
account: [Deleuze] is not speaking of a mimetic relationship between man and

Becoming Butterfly

25

animal, but of a zone of indiscernibility, of undecidability, between man and

animal (Bogue, Aesthetics 261-62). Thus, like becoming animal of any kind,
becoming butterfly is not becoming a butterfly look-alike. It is rather to loosen the
grip of those great molar identities which otherwise define and confine you
(Hallward 61).
37. Various critics have understood Zhuangzi as a book on the art of living. It has
almost become a clich. But to make the link between ontology and aesthetics in
order to produce an onto-aesthetics that provides a solid foundation for arguing for
an art of living, Hsu Fu-kuan was among the first, if not the very first.

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Chapter One

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CHAPTER TWO
DELEUZE AND MAHYNA BUDDHISM:
IMMANENCE AND ORIGINAL
ENLIGHTENMENT THOUGHT
TONY SEE

Introduction
In Expressionism in Philosophy (1990), Gilles Deleuze analyzed
Baruch Spinozas concept of expression in terms of a substance
consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an
eternal and infinite essence (13). This infinite essence or substance,
lest we forget, is none other than God. While Spinozas concept of God is
subject to dispute, because it does not resemble what we normally
understand to be by the same term, it is at least clear that in Spinoza, God
and his expressions are not separable. Although Deleuze has
consistently referred to theological and religious themes throughout his
philosophical career, there is a relative lack of attention towards this aspect
of his thought. Scholars doing research on Deleuze seem to be more
interested in a Deleuze who has been cleansed of his religious influences.
The spectre of the divine, however, haunts Deleuzian thought. This is why
the publication of Deleuze and Religion (2001), a volume edited by Mary
Bryden, comes as a welcome surprise to Deleuzian scholarship at the turn
of the century. The wind also seems to be reversing its course in recent
years, with the appearance of new works dedicated to the relationship
between Deleuze and the religious such as Joshua Rameys The Hermetic
Deleuze (2012), Christopher Ben Simpsons Deleuze and Theology (2012)
and Kristien Justaerts Theology After Deleuze (2012). These works
promise to open up hitherto unexplored dimensions in Deleuzian thought
which will certainly inform all aspects of Deleuzes thought.
Although there are now more studies that are oriented towards the

30

Chapter Two

religious dimension of Deleuzes work, there is still a relative lack of

research on how Deleuzes ideas may be relevant to the religious and
philosophical traditions of Asia, although Deleuzes works are littered with
innumerable references to the Buddha and his philosophy. In A Thousand
Plateaus (1987), for instance, Deleuze and Guattari refer to the Buddha
when explaining the concept of rhizome and the different conceptions of
flow and power in an eastern and western setting (19). This paper seeks to
make a contribution to this area by exploring the relationship between
Deleuzes notion of immanence and the idea of original enlightenment
(: hongaku) in Mahyna Buddhism. I will argue that when the
fundamental orientation of Deleuzes thought towards immanence is
considered in the light of its religious background, deep resonances
between immanence and the idea of original enlightenment in Mahyna
Buddhism will be discovered. While Deleuzian philosophy resists
transcendence in favour of immanence, Mahyna Buddhism also resists
privileging other-worldliness in favour of a transformed and affirmative
this-worldliness.
One may question this interpretation because of Deleuzes seemingly
negative portrayal of Buddhism. In Nietzsche and Philosophy (2006),
Deleuze interprets the Buddha to be advocating a form of passive
nihilism. This is in the context of a discussion of different kinds of
nihilismBuddhism is here seen as a form of passive nihilism, albeit a
form of nihilism that is superior to the reactive nihilism of Christian
teachings (155). This negative view of Buddhism strengthens the
impression that Buddhist teachings, which are nihilistic in essence, are not
compatible with Deleuzian affirmation. In reply to this objection, we may
be reminded of the fact that Deleuzes representation of Buddhism is based
on accounts given by Nietzsche, and Nietzsche we know, was dealing with
a particular nihilistic branch of Buddhism instead of Mahyna Buddhism.
It will become clear in this paper that while this critique may be applicable
to certain forms of Buddhist thought, it is not applicable to the ideas of
Mahyna Buddhism.
This research is interested in how two distinct forms of thought,
working within vastly different cultural, historical and philosophical
contexts, can resonate so deeply with each other. Having an assemblage is
one thing, but having an assemblage that resembles another is another
story. In order to accomplish this task, we will revisit three lengthy
discussions. On the one hand, we will examine how Deleuze constructed
an alternative metaphysics of immanence on the basis of religious and
theological ideas advanced by Duns Scotus, Spinoza and Nietzsche. On
the other hand, we will also examine the idea of original enlightenment

Deleuze and Mahyna Buddhism

31

in Mahyna Buddhism by seeing how it developed at the hands of three

Mahyna Buddhist thinkers by the name of Zhiyi, Saicho and Nichiren.
In our study, we hope to demonstrate that Deleuzian philosophy and
Mahyna Buddhism share an elective affinity in the sense that they both
resist transcendence in favour of immanence, although there appear to be
some differences in terms of their conception of ethics and practice. In the
third and final section, we will examine the difference between
immanence and original enlightenment in terms of their conception of
ethics and especially in terms of their practice.

Deleuze and Immanence

The centrality of immanence in Deleuzes philosophy is the focus of a
recent work by Miguel de Beistegui (Beistegui 2010). Based on a careful
reading of some of Deleuzes key writings, the work examines the
relationship between Deleuzes ontogenesis and truth in the Heideggerian
vein. Immanence is also linked to the notion of subjectivity, mediated
through the Deleuzian notion of Transcendental Empiricism, as reflected
in a recent study by Levi R. Bryant (Bryant 2008). In fact, Daniel Smith
would even go to the extent of maintaining that Deleuzes resistance to
transcendence in favour of immanence can be found throughout his
philosophical career. If there were indeed two distinct trajectories in
French thought, Deleuze stands invariably on the side of immanence
(Deleuze and Derrida 46). If the centrality of immanence to Deleuzian
thought is unquestionable, however, we also need to examine the
theological contexts within which Deleuze formulated his ontology.
Smiths examination of the way in which Deleuze appropriated the
medieval concept of univocity serves to remind us that Deleuze did not
work within a philosophical vacuum but within a Christian theological
tradition, one which is usually regarded as unorthodox (The Doctrine
of Univocity 168). This section will trace the development of Deleuzes
idea of immanence on the basis of the ideas of thinkers such as Duns
Scotus, Spinoza and Nietzsche. In addition to this, it will also clarify the
idea of immanence and explore some of its ethical implications. This will
be of use when we compare it with the idea of original enlightenment in
the second section.
Immanence is usually opposed to transcendence in Deleuzes
philosophy. The term transcendence refers to an ontology that is based
on the belief that there is a transcendent and universal Being that stands
over and above particular beings. One instance of this is Platos Idea.
According to Plato, there must be a universal and immutable Idea that

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Chapter Two

stands over and above the world of particular and mutable beings in order
for things to make sense. Another instance of this may be found in the
theological notion of a perfect and uncreated God, understood as a perfect
Being towering high above his created beings. The ethical implication
for accepting transcendence is clear. In the Platonic instance, beings are
now seen as mere imperfect copies and approximations of this Idea. Their
value now lies in their relative proximity to or distance from this Idea. In
the theological instance, in the face of a perfect and almighty Being, the
imperfect beings have no hope of finding salvation except by participating
more fully in his perfection, either by way of cooperating with grace, or by
faith. In other words, transcendence implies that beings are now organized
into a hierarchy, within which they must each strive to realize their
potential. Deleuze resists transcendence in favour of immanence because
he believes that accepting transcendence would only result in our
impotence and powerlessness. When transcendence is accepted, the
imposed hierarchy means that we are separated from our capabilities and
capacities; in other words, we are separated from our power to act. This
would only render us impotent and powerless. Deleuze maintains that if
we are to restore our power to act, we must have an ontology that affirms
immanence.
In developing an ontology of immanence, Deleuze appropriated the
medieval concept of univocity. According to Daniel Smith, the doctrine of
univocity was an ontological theory developed in the thirteenth century by
Duns Scotus, following Henry of Ghent, in his magnum opus Opus
Oxoniense (The Doctrine of Univocity 168). The doctrine of univocity
basically says that there is a univocal relation between Gods existence
and mans existence, between Gods is-ness and mans is-ness. This
doctrine was formulated within the context of a medieval debate regarding
the relationship between God and mans existenceif God is a being
and his created creatures also have being, then in what sense are they
said to have being? Do they have being in the same sense? The
medieval philosophers in general held that the relationship between God
and man was either equivocal or analogical. Those who held that God
shares being with man in the equivocal sense are committed to the view
that where the same word being is used, it can have two entirely
different senses when it is applied to God and when it is applied to man.
Scotus found this position problematic because if Gods existence and
mans existence are merely equivocal, then it would imply that Gods
being is inaccessible to us. Those who held that the relationship was an
analogical one, on the other hand, maintain that they share being in the
sense that they share similar qualities. This position was also problematic,

Deleuze and Mahyna Buddhism

33

however, because once we accept that Gods being and mans being
are merely analogical, we also discover that God is unknowable. In
order to preserve the possibility of knowing God, Scotus maintained that
being must be used univocallyGods being and mans being must
have something in common. According to Daniel Smith, to say that Being
is univocal implies that Being has only one sense, and it is said in one and
the same sense of everything of which it is said (The Doctrine of
Univocity 169). Scotus affirmation of univocity seems to lead to the
scandalous conclusion that there is a radical continuity between God and
man, and between God and his creations. Thus, Deleuze maintains that
although Scotus provided a conceptual groundwork for an ontology of
immanence, he did not go far enough because the apparent difference
between beings remained unexplained.
Deleuze believes that Spinozas ontology represents a significant
advance over that of Scotus. Deleuze argues that Spinoza did not merely
passively accept the idea of univocity but also developed it further in the
direction of immanence (Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, 63). According to
Smith, Spinoza made a three-fold distinction between the univocity of
attributes, the univocity of modality and the univocity of cause (The
Doctrine of Univocity 170). In terms of the univocity of cause, there are
three types of causes: a transitive cause, an emanative cause and an
immanent cause. A transitive cause is a cause that leaves itself in order to
produce an effect, and this effect is outside itself. In the theological
framework, if God created the world, then the world is in a sense other
than God. This is why God is not conceived as being identical with the
world. An emanative cause is a cause whose effect is exterior to it; here
the One is the cause of Being, but the cause (the One) beyond its effect
(Being). This is seen in Plotinus notion of the gift: Being is the gift or
donation of the One, but the One remains necessarily beyond Being.
Ontologically the universe remains hierarchicalbeings have more or
less reality depending on their distance from or proximity to the One as the
transcendent first principle. The upside to this is that from a moral
standpoint, Being may be judged because there is an authority higher than
Being itself. An immanent cause, finally, is a cause that only remains
within itself in order to produce, but one whose produced effect also
remains within it. This is the concept of causation held by Spinoza (The
Doctrine of Univocity 170-74). Deleuze follows Spinozas path in
holding on to an immanent causality, one where the cause remains in itself,
but its effect remains immanate within it, rather than emanating away
from it. The effect (mode) remains in its cause no less than the cause
remains in itself (substance). This partly explains Deleuzes conception of

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Chapter Two

expression as all things present to God, who complicates them, and God
is present to all things, which explicate and implicate him (The
Doctrine of Univocity 174). In an immanent ontology, Being necessarily
becomes univocal: not only is Being equal to itself, it is also equally and
immediately present in all things, without mediation or intermediary.
There is no distance or hierarchy in this conception, but rather an equality,
or even anarchy, of beings within Being. Deleuze states: The rock, the lily,
the beast, the human equally sing the glory of God in a kind of crowned
anarchy (Difference and Repetition 278). The univocity of causation,
together with the other two univocities of attributes and of modality, bring
about what Deleuze calls a pure ontology, that is, an ontology in which
there is nothing beyond or outside or superior to Being. In this pure
ontology, being is identified with Being. The advantage of this ontology is
that here the modes become expressive and affirmative of the being that
is none other than their power. This new Spinozist immanence, however, is
always in danger of being replaced by a new dependence on substance.
Deleuze notes that Spinozas affirmation of expressive modes indeed
represents a significant advance over Scotus notion of the univocity of
being; however, as modes they are still modifications of substance, and
this implies that the danger of becoming dependent on substance remains.
In Difference and Repetition (1994), Deleuze relies on Nietzsches
eternal return as a way of affirming immanence without falling into a
new dependence on substance. Nietzsches idea of eternal return is
usually regarded in the cosmological sense to refer to the return of
identical things, again and again in a cyclical form of existence. Here,
Deleuze reinterprets Nietzsches idea of eternal return to mean, not the
return of identical things, but an affirmation of the returning itself.
Instead of identity and sameness, what is returned is only difference.
This transcendental reading of eternal return also allowed Deleuze to
dispense with the need of having a first substance. If a series of conditions
are subject to eternal recurrence, without identity, there is no necessity for
a first term or a first substance to serve as a basis for the recurrence of
subsequent terms. There is no need for an original One for the infinite
series. Deleuze states this clearly in Difference and Repetition:
Eternal return cannot mean the return of the Identical because it
presupposes a world (that of the will to power) in which all previous
identities have been abolished and dissolved. Returning is being, but only
the being of becoming. The eternal return does not bring back the same,
but returning constitutes the only Same of that which becomes. Returning
is the becoming-identical of becoming itself. Returning is thus the only
identity, but identity as a secondary power; the identity of difference, the

Deleuze and Mahyna Buddhism

35

identical which belongs to the different, or turns around the different. Such
an identity, produced by difference, is determined as repetition.
Repetition in the eternal return, therefore, consists in conceiving the same
on the basis of the different. (41)

As Deleuze sees it, Nietzsches ontology offers a significant advantage

over that of other thinkers, for in the idea of eternal return, nothing is
needed to ground repetition itself, as there is only a pure repetition of
difference. Deleuze believes that this thought liberates beings from their
dependence on the One. Here, eternal return is the being of an immanent
cause and becoming is its mode of being (41). This understanding of
Nietzsche allows Deleuze to affirm the presence of existence without any
foundation-ground. Instead of having such a ground, which will
invariably return to the state of transcendence, there is now a movement
that can completely shatter the need for such a ground. Passages in
Difference and Repetition make it clear that:
For eternal return, affirmed in all its power, allows no installation of a
foundation-ground. On the contrary, it swallows up or destroys every
ground which would function as an instance responsible for the difference
between the original and the derived, between things and simulacra. It
makes us party to a universal ungrounding. By ungrounding we should
understand the freedom of the unmediated ground, the discovery of a
ground behind every other ground, the relation between the groundless and
the ungrounded, the immediate reflection of the formless and the superior
form which constitutes eternal return. Every thing, animal or being,
assumes the status of simulacrum; so that the thinker of eternal
returnwho indeed refuses to be drawn out of the cave, finding instead
another cave beyond, always another in which to hidecan rightly say that
he is himself burdened with the superior form of everything that is, like the
poet burdened with humanity, even that of the animals (Deleuze 67).

In On the Will to Power and the Eternal Return, a paper published in

the volume Desert Islands (2004), Deleuze links Nietzsches eternal
return to the idea of Will to Power. Deleuze argues that although
Nietzsches eternal return is one of his most significant concepts, he
only prepared the revelation but did not actually have the time to reveal
it, at least not in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. What we know in this text is
what eternal return is not. It is very clear that eternal return does not
refer to a cycle, it does not presuppose the One, the Same, the Equal or
Equilibrium. It is not the return of All, nor the return of the Same. This
makes it exceedingly clear that Deleuze does not interpret Nietzsches
eternal return in the usual cosmological sense (Deleuze 123). In what

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Chapter Two

sense, then, does Deleuze read the eternal return? In Desert Islands,
Deleuze states:
Essentially, the unequal, the different is the true rationale for the eternal
return. It is because nothing is equal, or the same, that it comes back. In
other words, the eternal return is predicated only of becoming and the
multiple. It is the law of a world without being, without unity, without
identity. Far from presupposing the One, or the Same, the eternal return
constitutes the only unity of the multiple as such, the only identity of what
differs: coming back is the only being of becoming. Consequently, the
function of the eternal return as Being is never to identify, but to
authenticate. This explains why, each in his own way, Mr. Lwith, Wahl
and Klossowski alluded to the selective signification of the eternal return.
(124)

What Deleuze refers to, therefore, is an affirmation of life without

ground or identity. This positive approach to life does not even shun the
negative in life. He states:
The eternal return is indeed the category of the ordeal, and we must
understand, as such, of events, of everything that happens. Misfortune,
sickness, madness, even the approach of death have two aspects: in one
sense, they separate me from my power; in another sense they endow me
with a strange power, as though I possessed a dangerous means of
exploration, which is also a terrifying realm to explore. (125)

It is towards the end of the paper that Deleuze relates the eternal
return to the will to power. He states that the eternal return is the
instrument and the expression of the will to power. This is because It
raises each thing to its superior form, that is, its nth power (125). What
Deleuze had in mind is an affirmation of life that overcomes even
misfortune, sickness and madeness without pity, an affirmation that alone
brings forth the power of immanence.

Mahyna Buddhism and Original Enlightenment

Thought
What is the relationship between Deleuzes idea of immanence and
original enlightenment thought (in Japanese, hongaku shis: )
in Mahyna Buddhism? The doctrine basically suggests that the state of
Buddhahood is not something that is added from the outside as a result
of ones practice, but can be found innate within ones being and in ones
original nature. In general, this emphasis on an enlightenment that is

Deleuze and Mahyna Buddhism

37

innate or immanent sets Mahyna Buddhist thought apart from

nonMahyna Buddhist teachings, which assume that Buddhahood is not
something that can be readily found in ones being, but something that
appears towards the end of ones practice. According to Jacqueline Stone,
original enlightenment thought emerged in medieval Japanese Tendai
Buddhism in the latter part of the Heian period in Japan (794-1185 AD)
(Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese
Buddhism 3-5). Although the formulation of this doctrine is completed in
Japan, there are clear antecedents in the Buddhist traditions in Asia. Early
references to original enlightenment (put in Chinese, pen-cheh: )
can in fact be found in Indian and Chinese sources. Here, the main
intellectual influences and developments of original enlightenment
thought from India, China and Japan will be outlined. Specifically, we
will examine the source of original enlightenment thought in
Ngrjunas thought, before seeing how it is developed by three key
thinkers in original enlightenment thought in East Asian Buddhism,
namely, Zhiyi Saich and Nichiren. We will find that all three thinkers
have in common a philosophical ethos that is directed against
transcendence and a common affirmation of immanence.
The philosophical basis for this doctrine original enlightenment is
beautifully expressed by Ngrjuna, the medieval Buddhist philosopher
who lived in India around the first to third century. In response to the
non-Mahyna Buddhist philosophical systems which taught that there is a
radical duality between this world (sasra) and the other world
(nirva), and that the role of the Buddhist practitioner is none other than
to gain freedom from this world of sasra and to enter into the other
world of nirva, Ngrjuna basically argued for the identity of sasra
and nirva (Siderits and Katura 302). In his seminal work entitled Verses
on the Middle Way (Madhyamakakrik), a treatise dedicated to the
doctrine of emptiness (nyat) in Mahyna Buddhism, Ngrjuna states:
There is no distinction whatsoever between sasra from nirva.
There is no distinction whatsoever between nirva from sasra.
(Madhyamaka krik 25. 19)

Ngrjunas statement on the non-duality of sasra and nirva

suggests that there is no difference between this world and the other
world. This implies that Buddhist meditative practices cannot be
conceived as an escape into another world. Instead, meditative practices
are meant to be techniques for bringing forth ones innate enlightened state.
This implies that early Mahyna Buddhism does not merely aim at
transcendence but affirms the importance of immanence.

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Chapter Two

In the history of original enlightenment thought, three thinkers figure

prominently in East Asian Buddhism. The first is Zhiyi () (538597
CE), the founder of the Tientai school of Buddhism () in China.
Zhiyi is known for systematizing the Buddhist texts and developing the
teachings of the Lotus Stra. His three principal texts are the Great
Calming and Concentration (in Chinese, Mohe Zhiguan, ), the
Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra (Fahua Wenzju, ), and
Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra (in Chinese, Fahua Xuanyi,
). According to Brook Ziporyn, Zhiyis contribution to the
systematization of Mahyna Buddhist philosophy in China can be found
in his development of the doctrine of Three thousand worlds in one
mind () (Evil and/ or/ as the Good 138). The term one mind
( ) basically refers to one moment of thought in Buddhist
phenomenology and the phrase three thousand () refers to three
thousand possible states that this one moment of thought may be
experiencing. The basic idea is that each thought contains possible worlds
numbering in the thousands. The critical point here is that within the
schematics of the three thousand worlds there is no distinction between
the world of Buddhahood and the world of ordinary beingsthese two
worlds interpenetrate each other. There is no Buddhahood apart from
sasra, there is no transcendence but only immanence. In fact, Brook
Ziporyn would even go to the extent of maintaining that there is no
difference between good and evil in Tientai philosophy (Evil and/or/as the
Good 2000).
Zhiyis idea of Three thousand worlds in one mind was transmitted
to Japan by the medieval Japanese monk Saich () (767-822 AD).
Saich spent years studying in China before founding the Tendai School of
Buddhism in Japan. Saich did not merely transmit the teachings, however,
but also made important doctrinal innovations. One of his most important
teachings was the doctrine of attaining Buddhahood in ones present
form (sokushin jbutsu). This doctrine developed in the context of a
complex medieval debate regarding the question of whether one is able to
attain Buddhahood in ones present form. While other Buddhist schools
maintained that we can only attain Buddhahood in the afterlife or in
another body, Saich argued that we can attain Buddhahood in our present
form and in this life. Based on Zhiyis idea of Three thousand worlds in
one mind, Tendai teachings reasoned that if the state of Buddhahood and
the state of the common mortal must interpenetrate each other, then it only
makes sense to say that this Buddhahood is situated in some other life or
in some other forms, but is readily accessible in this life (Groner 1989).

Deleuze and Mahyna Buddhism

39

Nichiren, the 13th century Buddhist reformer in Kamakura Japan,

worked against the background of original enlightenment thought and
made further innovations. Although he accepted Zhiyis idea of Three
thousand worlds in one mind, and Saichs theory of the possibility of
attaining Buddhahood in ones present form, he also argued that these
must be realized in practice. He maintained that although Zhiyis idea of
original enlightenment is basically correct, it is merely a theoretical
() teaching whereas his own original enlightenment is practical and
in the realm of concrete reality () (Medieval Tendai Hongaku
Thought and the New Kamakura Buddhism 22). There are a number of
practical consequences that may arise from Nichirens conception of
original enlightenment, one of which led him to engage in polemical
criticism of other Buddhist schools during his time that stressed
transcendence over immanence. Nichirens emphasis on self-power (
: jiriki) led him to criticize Hnen, an important Pure Land master,
because he taught an exclusive reliance on Amida Buddha for salvation
and emphasized other-dependence (: ta-riki). Nichiren rejected
Hnens emphasis on transcendence and instead advocated the power of
immanence and the possibility of attaining Buddhahood in this lifetime
(When Disobedience is Filial 264).
Another consequence of Nichirens conception of original
enlightenment is that it led him to maintain that the Lotus Stra is a
nation protecting stra (chingo kokka ky). According to Jacqueline
Stone, Unquestionably the single most influential figure in that strand of
interpretation associating the Lotus Stra with the Buddhahood of the land
is Nichiren (AD 1222-1282) (Realizing This World as the Buddha Land
220). Nichiren states, When we attain the awakening of the Lotus Stra,
our own personcomposed of body and mind, and subject to birth and
extinctionis precisely unborn and perishing. And the land is also thus.
[When we so awaken,] the oxen, horses and six kinds of domestic animals
in this land are all Buddhas, and the grasses and trees, sun and moon, are
all sage beings (Stone 2009, 220-21). The idea that this world is not to be
shunned but affirmed is likewise expressed in his On the Contemplation of
the Mind and the Object of Worship (Kanjin honzon sh), where he states:
The Sah World of the present moment, which is the original time [of
Shakyamuni Buddhas enlightenment in the most remote past], is the
constantly abiding pure land, separated from the three disasters and
beyond [the cycle of] the four kalpas. . . . This [world] is none other than
the three realms, which encompass the three thousand realms of ones
mind. Nichirens emphasis on enlightenment in this world culminated in
the treatise On Bringing Peace to the Land by Establishing the True

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Dharma (Rissh ankoku ron), which he submitted to the government,

rebuking the government for its support of monks who transmitted
teachings that are essentially detrimental teachings to the well-being of the
state (Realizing This World as the Buddha Land 221-22).
If our analysis is correct, then the doctrine of original enlightenment
in Mahyna philosophy resonates with Deleuzes idea of immanenceboth
resist transcendence and affirm immanence. In the case of Mahyna
philosophy, we see this affirmation being pushed to its limits, into an
affirmation of the land and the creatures that live on this land itself. This is
consistent with Spinozas insistence that even though Being is One, its
modes are expressive of the One in a way that is not lesser than the One
itself. In addition to this, we also see both philosophies developing an
ontology of immanence within their respective traditions and
philosophical contexts. Deleuze persistently refers to concepts that have
religious origins, and to thinkers such as Duns Scotus, Spinoza, Bergson
and Nietzsche, while Nichiren refers to Mahyna Buddhist philosophers
such as Zhiyi and Saicho who privileged the Lotus Stra in their discourse.
This does not mean, as we shall see in the next section, that they are
identical in all aspects, for they have vastly different conceptions when it
comes to the issue of ethical practice, in other words, when it comes to the
question of how this immanence may be realized in the concrete.

The Ethics of Immanence

Although there are similarities between Deleuzes philosophy of
immanence and the idea of original enlightenment, there are
nevertheless important differences in terms of ethics. One of the
implications of accepting Deleuzes immanence is that, first of all, it
transforms the orientation of ethics, from one that is fundamentally
concerned with the question of What must I do? to the question of
What can I do? Accepting Deleuzian immanence, as Daniel Smith
would suggest, means a decisive shift from what is fundamentally a
question of morality, into a question of ethics (The Place of Ethics in
Deleuzes Philosophy 251). While morality refers to a set of constraining
rules that consists in judging actions and intentions by relating them to
transcendent values, ethics is a set of facilitative (facultative) rules that
evaluates what we do, according to an immanent mode of existence. The
immanent thinker no longer thinks in a transcendent manner and lives in
accordance with a universal standard. Instead, he asks a different sort of
question: given my powers, what are my capacities? How can I come to
possess my power actively? How can I extend the limits of what I can

Deleuze and Mahyna Buddhism

41

do? How can I intensify my life? In asking such questions, one no longer
relies on the exclusive power of a transcendent Being or the ethical
standards of another world, but on the immanent expressions of power.
Deleuze calls this the method of dramatizationactions dramatize the
mode of existence of the speaker (The Place of Ethics in Deleuzes
Philosophy 252).
This conception of ethics raises a number of questions. The first
question concerns how one can evaluate modes of existence when there
are no transcendent criteria. Or, how can one evaluate actions based on
immanent criteria? In other words, what is the nature of an immanent
ethics? Daniel Smith has discussed this at length (Deleuze and the
Question of Desire 66). Deleuze believes that a mode of existence can be
evaluated by the immanent criteria of its power (puissance), that is, by the
manner in which it actively deploys its power by going to the limit of what
it can do. Deleuze expresses this in various formulas throughout his
philosophical career; modes of existence are evaluated according to their
tenor in possibilities, in freedom, in creativity (The Place of Ethics in
Deleuzes Philosophy 252), and by the manner in which the existing
thing is filled with immanence. In other words, modes of existence must
be evaluated according to purely intensive criteria of power. In order to
explain how this can take place, Deleuze relies on Spinozas description of
two different types of affect: on the one hand, we have passive affections
which originate outside the individual and separate it from its power of
acting, and on the other hand, we have active affections, which are explained
by the nature of the affected individual itself, by the degree to which it
comes to possess the power of acting (The Place of Ethics in Deleuzes
Philosophy 262-63). Here, modes of existence are no longer judged
according to their degree of proximity or distance from an external principle,
but are evaluated in terms of the manner by which they occupy their
existence, the intensity of their power. There is no other criterion for a mode
of existence except in the intensification of life (Deleuze and Guattari,
What is Philosophy? 74). This is why they believe that Spinoza is one of the
most important philosophers who brought back the dignity of immanence. In
What is Philosophy? Deleuze and Guattari state:
Spinoza was the philosopher who knew full well that immanence was only
immanent to itself and therefore that it was a plane traversed by
movements of the infinite, filled with intensive ordinates. He is therefore
the prince of philosophers. Perhaps he is the only philosopher never to
have compromised with transcendence and to have hunted it down
everywhere. . . . He discovered that freedom exists only within immanence.
He fulfilled philosophy because he satisfied its prephilosophical

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presupposition. Immanence does not refer back to the Spinozist substance
and modes but, on the contrary, the Spinozist concepts of substance and
modes refer back to the plane of immanence as their presupposition. (What
is Philosophy? 48)

This passage leaves us without any doubt as to the centrality of

Spinoza to Deleuzes thought of immanence. This is why in What is
Philosophy? Deleuze claims that Spinoza is the vertigo of immanence
from which so many philosophers try in vain to escape (48).
A second question that immanence raises is how this dramatization
or transmutation can take place in ones being (Smith, The Place of
Ethics in Deleuzes Philosophy 263). Smith suggests that the way to
self-transformation, or the conditions for auto-affection may be found in
some of Spinozas ideas of common notions and in the final chapter of
Nietzsche and Philosophy, where Deleuze charts out the transvaluation of
the negative into the affirmative, and of the reactive into the active (The
Place of Ethics in Deleuzes Philosophy 263). In Nietzsche and
Philosophy, transmutation refers to the point of conversion of the
negative into a positive, from ressentiment into affirmation. The negative
here loses its power as it is turned into a simple mode of affirming (191).
How can this be done? Deleuze is somewhat vague about this in
Nietzsche and Philosophy. He merely states that what is required is that
one engage in two forms of the negative so as to turn a negative thought
into an affirmationthe negation of a negation is an affirmation
(Nietzsche and Philosophy 180). Although Anti-Oedipus makes explicit
the link between immanence and ethics, it does not advocate any one form
of life that could be regarded as the practice of immanenceDeleuzian
philosophy is conceived as a toolbox of concepts that enable us to do
battle with transcendence. If it is important to resist transcendence in
favour of immanence, however, Deleuzian multiplicity can be bewildering.
He gives you a box of tools, but does not tell you which tool is appropriate.
You must try using each tool yourself and find the right one on an
experimental basis. This may be partly due to Deleuzes conception of
philosophy. In What is Philosophy? Deleuze and Guattari define
philosophy as a way of creating concepts instead of finding a transcendent
truth. Likewise, philosophy does not merely reveal one single plane but a
multiplicity of planes. In order for the philosopher to think, therefore, he
has to think differently. Difference precedes identity. This is the reason
why Deleuze says we cannot imagine a great philosopher of whom it
could not be said that he has changed what it means to think; he has
thought differently (as Foucault puts it) (What is Philosophy? 51).
Thinking of the same plane of immanence but in a different way, we seem

Deleuze and Mahyna Buddhism

43

to be committed to a difference in method. The plane of immanence

obtains, from chaos, the determinations to make its movements. However,
each plane has its own way of constructing immanence based on its own
selection, and given that this selection varies from one philosopher to
another, it seems to mean that there cannot be one ethics. Deleuze appears,
at times, to be committed to the idea of a multiplicity of ethics.
Although the idea of original enlightenment in Mahyna Buddhism
shares with Deleuze a similar commitment towards immanence, it does not
advocate a multiplicity of ethics but an ethics that is based more or less on
the primacy of meditative practices. In this regard, the ethics of original
enlightenment displays a continuity that seems to be lacking in Deleuze.
To a large extent, the continuity is based on an accepted tradition of
meditative practices. In the case of Zhiyi and Saich, even as they
advocate a variety of different meditative practices, these are centred
around the need to achieve concentration and insight into the
interpenetration of the sacred and profane. The ethical ideal remains the
same. Nichiren, in turn, advocated the sole practice of the Daimoku, the
recitation of the title of the Lotus Strathe five characters of Namu-Myoh
renge ky, facing the Gohonzon, which is the visual representation of the
state of Buddhahood itself. This meditative practice is seen as the sole
means of bringing forth ones innate Buddhahood and it has been the focus
of Stones studies on Nichirens thought (Chanting the August Title of the
Lotus Sutra). If there is less variety in terms of methods in Nichirens
conception, a large part has to do with his working within the context of
Mahyna Buddhist philosophy, which possesses a well-defined tradition of
ontology and practices transmitted through the ages.
Despite these differences, however, we must focus on their similarity
in terms of their basic orientation towards immanence. For, there is a
certain beauty when two distinct philosophies, working largely in two
different cultural, historical and philosophical settings, come to share a
common vision. Let us conclude this discussion with a consideration of
Nichirens advice for those aspiring to bring forth their immanent and
original enlightenment. In The Real Aspect of the Gohonzon, Nichiren
reminds his students that even as they must recite the Daimoku facing the
Gohonzon, they must not regard the Gohonzon as something that is
external and transcendent to themselves. Nichiren writes:
Never seek this Gohonzon outside yourself. The Gohonzon exists only
within the mortal flesh of us ordinary people who embrace the Lotus Stra
and chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. The body is the palace of the ninth
consciousness, the unchanging reality which reigns over all lifes functions.
To be endowed with the Ten Worlds means that all the Ten Worlds

44

Chapter Two
without exception are contained in the one world of Buddhahood. That is
why the Gohonzon is called a mandala. Mandala is a Sanskrit word
meaning perfectly endowed or cluster of blessings. This Gohonzon is
found in faith alone. As the stra states, Only with faith can one enter
Buddhahood. (The Letters of Nichiren 328)

Conclusion
Deleuzes notion of immanence has a strong resonance with the idea of
original enlightenment in Mahyna Buddhismboth are engaged in an
active resistance to transcendence in favour of an affirmative and positive
immanence. In the language of religious thought, they both reject an
other-worldliness in favour of a creative this-worldliness. In
theological terms, this is not meant to imply that there is no longer any
divine, as opposed to the mundane. Rather, the message is that daily life,
the mundane and the everyday are already divine in some sense. In this
respect, Deleuzian immanence and original enlightenent thought both
have something vital in commonthey are both opposed to the dominant
transcendent philosophies of the day. There are important differences
between the two to be surewhile Deleuze provided a multiplicity of
methods in a variety of texts discussing various mediums by which to
transform transcendence into immanence, in the case of the original
enlightenment thinkers, they are more consistent in terms of their
emphasis on meditative practice as a means of bringing forth the power of
this immanence. In the case of Nichiren, this is especially clear when he
reduced meditative practices into the sole practice of the Daimoku as a
means of attaining Buddhahood. Reflecting on these two philosophies, one
cannot help but marvel at the way in which both arrived at similar
conclusions despite the vast differences between the two in terms of their
cultural and philosophical contexts. As it is, this paper is merely a
preliminary study of the basic orientation of both Deleuzes thought and
Mahyna Buddhism in the direction of immanence; much more needs to
be done. This calls for a fundamental rethinking of the usual categories
under which we examine east-west dialogue, which are largely based on
worldviews instead of thinking in the Heideggerian fashion, as well as
further research into other areas of resonance between Deleuzian
metaphysics and assemblages and other systems of thought in Asia. The
chasm between East and West may seem to be unbridgeable at times, but
we now have immanence and original enlightenment to think about.

Deleuze and Mahyna Buddhism

45

Works Cited
Beistegui, Miguel de. Immanence: Deleuze and Philosophy. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh UP, 2010. Print.
Bryant, Levi R. Difference and Givenness: Deleuzes Transcendental
Empiricism and the Ontology of Immanence. Evanston: Northwestern
UP, 2008. Print.
Bryden, Mary, ed. Deleuze and Religion. London: Routledge, 2001.
Print.
Deleuze, Gilles. Desert Islands and Other Texts: 1953-1974. David
Lapoujade, ed. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2004. Print.
. Difference and Repetition. Trans. Paul Patton. London: Athlone P,
1994. Print.
. Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. Trans. Martin Joughin. New
York: Zone Books, 1990. Print.
. Nietzsche and Philosophy. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson. New York:
Columbia UP, 2006. Print.
. Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life. Trans. Anne Boyman. New York:
Zone Books, 2001. Print.
. Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. Trans. Robert Hurley. San
Francisco: City Lights Books, 1988. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Flix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P,
1987. Print.
. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley,
Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. New York: Viking, 1977. Print.
. What is Philosophy? Trans. Hugh Tomlinson & Graham Burchell.
New York: Columbia UP, 1994. Print.
Groner, Paul. The Lotus Sutra and Saichos Interpretation of the
Realization of Buddhahood with This Very Body. The Lotus Sutra in
Japanese Culture. Ed. George J. Tanabe and Willa Jane Tanabe.
Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1989. 53-74. Print.
Jones, Graham, and Jon Roffe, ed. Deleuzes Philosophical Lineage.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009. Print.
Justaert, Kristien. Theology After Deleuze. London: Continuum, 2012.
Print.
. The Lotus Sutra. Trans. Burton Watson. New York: Columbia UP, 1993.
Print.
Nichiren. The Letters of Nichiren. Trans. Burton Watson. Ed. Philip
Yampolsky. New York: Columbia UP, 1996. Print.
Pearson, Keith Ansell. Pure Reserve: Deleuze, Philosophy, and

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Chapter Two

Immanence. Deleuze and Religion. Ed. Mary Bryden. London:

Routledge, 2001. 141-55. Print.
Ramey, Joshua. The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal.
Durham: Duke UP, 2012. Print.
Reat, Noble Ross. Buddhism: A History. Berkeley: Asian Humanities P,
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Siderits, Mark, and Shry Katsura. Ngrjunas Middle Way. Boston:
Wisdom Publications, 2013. Print.
Simpson, Christopher Ben. Deleuze and Theology. London: Bloomsbury,
2012. Print.
Smith, Daniel W. Deleuze and Derrida, Immanence and Transcendence:
Two Directions in Recent French Thought. Between Deleuze and
Derrida. Ed. Paul Patton & John Protevi. London: Continuum, 2003.
46-66. Print.
. Deleuze and the Question of Desire: Toward An Immanent Theory of
Ethics. Parrhesia 2 (2007): 66-78. Print.
. The Place of Ethics in Deleuzes Philosophy: Three Questions of
Immanence. Deleuze and Guattari: New Mappings in Politics,
Philosophy and Culture. Ed. Eleanor Kaufman and Kevin Jon Heller.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1998. 251-69. Print.
. The Doctrine of Univocity: Deleuzes Ontology of Immanence.
Deleuze and Religion. Ed. Mary Bryden. London: Routledge, 2001.
167-83. Print.
Stone, Jacqueline. Chanting the August Title of the Lotus Sutra: Daimoku
Practices in Classical and Medieval Japan. Original Enlightenment
and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: U
of Hawaii P, 1999. 116-66. Print.
. Medieval Tendai Hongaku Thought and the New Kamakura
Buddhism. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 22.1-2 (1995):
17-48. Print.
. Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese
Buddhism. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1999. Print.
. Realizing This World as the Buddha Land. Readings of the Lotus
Sutra. Ed. Stephen F. Teiser and Jacqueline Stone. New York:
Columbia UP, 2009. 209-36. Print.
. When Disobedience is Filial and Resistance is Loyal: The Lotus Sutra
and Social Obligations in the Medieval Nichiren Tradition.
Philosophical Reflection (2002): 261-81. Print.
Tanabe, George J., and Willa Jane Tanabe, ed. The Lotus Sutra in Japanese
Culture. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1989. Print.

Deleuze and Mahyna Buddhism

47

Ziporyn, Brook. Evil and/or/as the Good: Omnicentrism, Intersubjectivity,

and Value Paradox in Tiantai Buddhist Thought. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard U Asia Center, 2000. Print.

CHAPTER THREE
DELEUZES STRANGE AFFINITY
WITH THE KYOTO SCHOOL:
DELEUZE AND KITARO NISHIDA
TATSUYA HIGAKI

Introduction: Bergsonian and Monadic Influence

The suggestion that there exists a deep or at least a transversal
relationship between the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and the Kyoto
School may seem strange at first. It is true that these two philosophies
come from very different backgrounds, in regard to both time and place,
and that the political stances they have taken are considered at opposite
poles. (Although there are, in fact, many Marxists in the Kyoto School, the
schools dominant political attitude has often been criticized as
traditionalist in that they stress the significance of Eastern in contrast to
Western culture.) But at the same time, it seems necessary to me to make
clear the affinity that lies between them. My goal is not so much to engage
in a cultural comparison between these two philosophies as to highlight an
important but minor line of thought that runs through the 20th century, and
which appears in these two philosophies in a different form, even though
the two have had no direct relationship with each other.
On the one hand, we must inquire into the historically broad roots of
Deleuzian philosophy. Of course, one may cite the names of Spinoza,
Nietzsche, and Hume, who are all very important thinkers regarding the
genesis of Deleuzes philosophy. However, we should not forget the name
of Bergson. The concepts of Bergsonism are widely adopted throughout
Deleuzian philosophy: virtuality, actuality, and multiplicity, to mention
just a few. But what we should note is the emphasis placed by Bergsonism
upon the ideas of becoming and positivity. These ideas play a crucial role
in Deleuzian philosophy as well, which we may interpret as a philosophy
of Nature. While it is true that Deleuze has criticized Bergsons philosophy

Deleuzes Strange Affinity with the Kyoto School

49

in many ways, and has revised his concepts in many directions, the latters
influence is nonetheless considerable.
On the other hand, we must inquire into the philosophical roots of the
Kyoto School, especially those of Kitaro Nishida, the schools founder. He
too was greatly influenced by Bergson. In his first book, An Inquiry into
the Good, Nishida presents the concept of pure experience. While the
direct model of this concept comes from William James, Nishida himself
is well aware of its affinity with Bergsons idea of pure duration.
Needless to say, Nishida and other philosophers of the Kyoto School
(such as Tetsuro Watsuji, Shuzo Kuki, Hajime Tanabe, Kiyoshi Miki, and
so on) have also been heavily influenced by Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, and
other phenomenological philosophers. But my point is that it is more
important to examine the Bergsonian connection, or rather, the connection
with a kind of natural philosophy. This is because the thought of the Kyoto
School, like Bergsonism, is founded upon Nature, rather than upon
Consciousness, as is true of many phenomenologists.
It may be contended that this is unsurprising, for it is characterstic of
Eastern thought to esteem the value of Nature, as Asian culture had no
notion of subjectivity before its modernization or Europeanization. In one
respect, this is doubtlessly true. But in order to understand the
cosmopolitan nature of the Kyoto School, we must re-think the matter
from another point of view.
Allow me to indicate some further points to illustrate the affinity
between Deleuze and Nishida. Deleuze, for his part, doesnt adopt
Bergsons concepts directly. Rather, he criticizes them from the standpoint
that the latter fails to sufficiently emphasize the importance of space (cf.
the concept of spatium in Difference and Repetition). This theme is related
to the instance of death (cf. CsO). Similarly, Nishida, in his middle period
work, scathingly criticizes the theory of duration, and insists on the
necessity of taking into consideration the problem of the rupture of
duration, space, death, and Nothingness. As we will discuss below, he
thinks that it is not enough to deepen life; we should also search for
ruptures in the stream of time in each moment. He believes that we must
take into consideration the existence of the Other, who is just another
subject but at the same time another subject like myself. The Other is also
the moment that brings about the rupture in the duration of time. For
Nishida, these ideas are crucial in contemplating Becoming (Poiesis) in its
own nature. Nishida and Deleuze thus share objectives. Their common
objective is to overcome Bergsonism: not to reject it, but to extend the
possibility of the ontology of Becoming, while also taking into account
space, rupture, and Otherness.

50

Chapter Three

Finally, these two philosophers hold in high esteem a kind of

Monadism. It is true that this Monadism is not just that of Leibniz. Rather,
it is that stream of Monadic thought that runs through the 19th century, for
example that of Gabriel Tarde, and the differential thought of
Neo-Kantianism, with its ideas of possible worlds, convergences, and
divergences. (We should note that Deleuze cites many Neo-Kantian
philosophers in Difference and Repetition, particularly in order to
scrutinize his own differential philosophy, and that many Kyoto School
philosophers have learned Western philosophy directly from the
Neo-Kantians.) This stream of Neo-Monadism is significant in the history
of philosophy in that it is Anti-Hegelian. While it is true that Nishida,
unlike Deleuze, uses the term dialectic in his theory, we should note that
Nishidas dialectic is an original concept and his use of the term is
unique (similar to Walter Benjamins Dialectic in Stillness). Nishidas
dialectic is closely related to his concept of Absolute Contradictory
Self-Identity, which means that contradiction is not a notion that
overcomes two opposite instances, but a notion that links two things that
are simply incompossible in the same place at the same time. This idea is
akin to how Deleuze employs Leibnizs concepts without surrendering his
theory of the divergence of worlds to Leibnizs convergence theory. (Here,
too, the relationship with Benjamins concept is very important, for, from
the Introduction to his first book, The Origin of the German Tragedy, to
his last essay, On the Concept of History, he writes consistently that the
Idea is the Monad.) Deleuze and Nishida (and the philosophers of the
Kyoto School who have been deeply inspired by Nishidas thought)
belong to the same strandor at least parallel strandsof thought: a
thought founded on a kind of Natural Philosophy running through the 19th
and 20th centuries. This strand of thought relies heavily on the philosophies
of Bergson and Neo-Monadism, which take a stand of Anti-Hegelianism
and avoid centralizing consciousness. Furthermore, Deleuze and Nishida
both attempt to overcome the Bergsonian or Leibnizian way of thinking by
introducing the notion of the instance of death or rupture, and by
describing the divergence or contradiction in the Monad itself.
In order to explicate these points, I would like to take up two topics in
this paper. The first is the Logic of the Predicate, which displays an
alternative possibility to the Logic of the Subject (or the Logic of
consciousness). This topic deals with the issue of Individualitythe
search for an Individuality that is not the transcendental ego, nor the center
of consciousness, but rather the movement of self-division in relation to
the Environment, Others, and the Universal. It is Nishida who emphasized
this point, and while his conception is a bit different from Deleuzes, the

Deleuzes Strange Affinity with the Kyoto School

51

way he understood the subject of the self-limitation of place is, in its

nature, not so different from Deleuzian thought.
The second topic I would like to take up is the System of Becoming
(Deleuze), or Poiesis (Nishida), which encompasses and emphasizes both
death and birth. Rejection of the transcendental ego leads to the theme of
Becoming on both sides of the Self and the Environment (World).
Thereupon, the rupture, as well as the reconnection, of the relation is
crucial in expressing something new, at the level of consciousness, body,
and material.
In the concluding section, I would like to indicate some directions in
which the philosophy of Nature may be extended in the 21st century, in
both Western and Eastern cultures, by briefly examining other Kyoto
School thinkers who succeeded Nishida and developed his thought in
diverse directions.

The Logic of the Predicate

In his later period work, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, Deleuze
insists on the importance of Leibnizs philosophy, especially his concept of
possible worlds, as he also does in Cinema 2, where he describes the
time-image, which bifurcates itself infinitely. It must be pointed out that
the idea of possible worlds, and the Monadism involved in differential
philosophy, is a very important theme in his early books as well, such as
The Logic of Sense. But in his works in the 1960s, he deals mainly with
the genesis of the individual, or in other words, the problem of how
diverse worlds can converge in a single subjectthe static genesis.
Of course, in these discussions, the regime of possible worlds is
complex and contains many contradictions. However, Deleuze intends to
link these incompossible worlds within the region of the Predicate, which
implicates many possibilities within the same plane. For example, there is
a world in which Caesar crosses the Rubicon River, and at the same time,
there is a world in which he doesnt. But in the region of the Predicate,
these possibilities do not indicate a contradiction. This is because
contradiction appears only in the actualized (subjectified) world, not in the
virtual world of the Predicate.
In The Fold, citing Whiteheads philosophy as an instance of the
Neo-Baroque (and therefore of Neo-Monadism), Deleuze writes that
Predicates are merely the Eventness in which the subject (or, in
Whiteheads terminology, the Super-jet) appears. The regime of the
Predicate, together with the incompossible and virtual states that it
encompasses, forms a complex of Eventness, which precedes, and

52

Chapter Three

ultimately gives rise to, the Subject itself. Consequently, the Subject never
occupies a central position; it is merely a form in which many events
converge.
It should also be noted that the motivation behind Cinema 2 is to find a
way to see this Eventness directly. In Deleuzes description of the
crystal-image, we find the notion that the virtual and actual are
indiscernible. In order to examine this idea, he analyzes the complex
situation of what happened and what didnt happen. To see these instances
directly means also to see the world of the Predicate without any centrality.
It corresponds to the place of the predicate in the Logic of Nishida.

Nishidas Logic of Place

Next, I would like to take up a theory developed in Nishidas middle
period. In his book Intuition and Reflection in Self-Awareness he examines
how pure experience, which is completely impersonal, can become the
experience of the Self. In order to contemplate this, Nishida employs a
method called Self-Awareness, which is simply a way of limiting ones
experience. What we should note, however, is that it is the act of limitation
that produces the Self, and not the other way around. This idea resembles
the convergence of possible worlds in the Monad that Deleuze describes in
The Fold, for in Deleuzes account, the clear and distinct part of the
Monad can be called the Self only as a result of that Monads own
movement, rather than by the action of the Self. Conversely, the Self is
merely a result of the Monads complex movement, and within this
movement the Subject is like an automaton, which is at its foundation
passive. Likewise, for Nishida, Awareness is the Awareness of the World
itself. Or to put it differently, the Self and World are always aware of
themselves at the same time and place.
After dealing with the theme of Self-Awareness, Nishida discusses the
idea of place. The place serves as a ground for Awareness. It is in this
context that he begins to talk about the Logic of the Predicate.
In his book entitled From the Thing Which Acts to the Thing Which
Contemplates, Nishida adopts the Logic of the Predicate as a crucial factor
in examining his theory of place. He thinks that the place is a multi-folded
entity that exists virtually under the Subject, and gives rise to (impersonal)
experiences themselves. Therefore, in order to inquire into the mechanism
of Awareness, it is indispensable to search this multi-folded place by
following its own nature. While the outermost surface of this multi-folded
place is articulated as language, the deepest part is simply said to be the
Place of Nothingness. (It is here that he finally discusses The Absolute

Deleuzes Strange Affinity with the Kyoto School

53

Nothingness, which is a notion very close to Deleuzes CsOa point that

deserves further explication elsewhere.) Between these two extremes there
are various other kinds of places, each representing experience in
accordance with their own nature, such as the field of judgment, the field
of consciousness, and the field of the intellect. For Nishidas theory, the
Logic of the Predicate is fundamental in understanding these multi-folded
places.
He writes:
If consciousness in generalwhich is thought to be the subject of an
objective worldis consciousness as well, this consciousness must be
thought of as something other than the object of the consciousness.
Therefore, from the standpoint of judgment, one must say that it is where
the object is situated, that is, the predicative. In this manner the
consciousness of judgment is formed. Defined from the standpoint of
judgment, one can say that consciousness is the predicate through and
through, and never the subject. The category of consciousness consists in
the predicative. (Nishida, Zensh Vol. 3 468-469)
Though the self is commonly thought of as the subjective unification of
various properties, just like a thing, it cannot be such a subjective
unification; it must be a predicative unification. The self must not be a
point, but a circle; not a thing, but a place. (Nishida, Zensh Vol. 3 469)

For Nishida, the Subject is not the center of the world. It is merely the
place where many predicates converge. To use an expression of Deleuzes,
it is the place where many events take place without being actualized. For
Deleuze, a thing or subject is something that is completely actualized, but
such a thing cannot exist in reality. What really exists can never be
actualized; it always remains in the state of the virtual. If one wishes to
describe this field using terminology of the logic of language, one should
follow Nishida and say that this is the field of the Predicate without the
Subject. It has no center of unification; it consists only of Predicates. If all
of these Predicates were to arise in the Subject at the same time, it would
look paradoxical (or a little schizophrenic, as modern cinema forces us to
see).
It is true that Deleuze doesnt concern himself as much with the
formation of the subject as does Nishida (except in some series of The
Logic of Sense, where he discusses in detail the genesis of the centrality of
the subject using Leibnizs logic of possible worlds). Nor does he want to
construe the field of consciousness positively. Yet what he says about the
field of virtuality is quite similar to Nishidas concept of place, in that both
are fields of the Predicate with no centrality. In The Fold, Deleuze

54

Chapter Three

describes, again using Leibnizs theory, the problem of the Predicate, and
links it to his own theory of Becoming. Citing Whiteheads concept of
Eventness, he describes this field as a place where things arise in a
paradoxical manner.
Yet for these two philosophers, how can this field clarify the system of
Becoming, or in Nishidas terminology, the System of Poiesis (an
expression he borrows from Greek philosophy)? In order to examine this
theme, we must consider the problem of paradox, vice-diction (Deleuze),
and Nishidas concept of Absolute Contradictory Self-Identity, a concept
that does not submit to the theory of the Dialectic in the Hegelian sense.
For these two philosophers, contradiction does not express Becoming or
Poiesis. Rather, they develop an alternative way of establishing such a
system of Poiesis, without employing the concept of contradiction. How
are they able to do so?

The System of Becoming, the System of Poiesis

Deleuze employs various expressions in order to describe the system of
Becoming, such as counter-effectuation, the idea of paradox, and so forth.
However, in this paper I would like to focus on his concept of vice-diction.
Deleuze uses this concept, which has its origins in Leibniz, in many of
his works. First, in Difference and Repetition and The Logic of Sense, he
uses this term as a key concept to describe the system of individuation
from the realm of the Idea. In his later works, such as The Fold and
What is Philosophy? he uses this concept to clarify the ideas of Monadism
and Eventness.
In The Fold, he uses the concept of vice-diction in the same context as
the imcompossibility of possible worlds. For Deleuze, the vague basis of
the Monad (which corresponds to the Idea in Difference and Repetition)
is the place where possible worlds coexist. These possible worlds are, in
themselves, incompossible. Reiterating the example I gave before, there is
a world in which Caesar crosses the Rubicon, and a world in which he
doesnt. Since these two possible worlds cannot actualize themselves at
the same time, there is a kind of convergence within the Monad. But for
Deleuze, the real world is none other than the world of imcompossibility
(just as the real world is the world of the Predicate or place for Nishida).
In other words, while it should be the case that one possible world is
actualized and the other worlds are not when something happens or
something actually arises, the world that is actualized cannot be the real
world. Becoming doesnt take place in this sphere. It is under this
actualized world that there exists the world of the virtual, and it is in the

Deleuzes Strange Affinity with the Kyoto School

55

latter that the aforementioned convergences take place, not by

contradiction, but by vice-diction.
When one talks about contradiction, many possibilities lose their
reality through Aufheben. However, in vice-diction, since only the
convergence is important, the other possibilities do not lose their reality.
They stay in the phase of virtuality.
The same issue arises when Nishida discusses Self-Awareness.
Self-Awareness is the Self-limitation of pure experience, which is
completely impersonal and virtual. Methods that employ the notion of
contradiction thus lose their value, for what is important here is not the
choice, but the limitation, or in other words, the focalization of experience.
This focalization is multi-folded, and encompasses the incompossibles.
In his later works, after having discussed the ideas of place and
Absolute Nothingness, the latter being the bottom without bottom, Nishida
writes about the Absolute Contradictive Self-Identity. This concept seems
enigmatic and religious. While this is to some extent true, Nishida didnt
want this concept to imply religious experience. Rather, what he tried to
express by this phrase was the Sameness and One-time-ness of the actual
world of the Subject on one hand, and the virtual but real world of the
Predicate on the other.
Explaining this notion, Nishida writes:
The World of Contradictive Identity . . . must be thought of as a world that
goes from present to present. The actual world has form, and that which is
actual must be predetermined through and through . . . but predetermined
as Contradictory Self-Identity, it must become actual in virtue of the
contradiction contained within itself. (Zensh Vol. 8 370)

Furthermore, he writes that this movement from the present to present

is in itself the principle of Poiesis=Becoming.
While it is true that Nishida, unlike Deleuze, emphasizes the idea of an
Identity that encompasses contradiction, this contradiction, which takes
place in the sphere of the virtual, and which makes Becoming possible, is
not contradiction in the Hegelian sense. Rather, it is akin to what Deleuze
says without using the concept of the dialectic.
Again, it is true that the model of Becoming or Poiesis is different in
these two philosophers. In his earlier works, Deleuze stresses the role of
body art, such as pantomiming, theater art involving the body, and so on.
The idea of the double or shadow of the Self plays a crucial role when
Deleuze considers a Becoming that can never be actualized, but that is just
the creative regime.
In the case of Nishida, by contrast, the topic of discussion is the

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creation of tools, which have a historical background, and which are the
extension of the body. Therefore it must be admitted that a difference
exists between the two philosophers, and that this difference reflects the
distinct status that they confer on the notion of the body. But it must also
be emphasized that they share a keen interest in the biological body, which
is ultimately dismantled into tiny cells, or pure materiality. These instances,
which are the limit of intensities, lead to the Corps sans Organes in the
case of Deleuze, and to the Absolute Nothingness in the case of Nishida.
By way of these instances of materiality itself, they are able to discuss the
creation of the body. While the directionality of expression is not exactly
the same between these two philosophers, the emphasis on the idea of the
biological power of creation is common to both.
Furthermore, it may be argued that these two philosophers were able to
attain such a style of thinking precisely because they both criticized and
overcamein a very modern waythe thought of Bergson and Leibniz, a
strand of thought that represents a sort of Natural philosophy.

Conclusion and Other Kyoto School Thinkers

In conclusion I would like to make the following two points.
The first is that there exists a global-scale connection between the
philosophies of Deleuze and Nishida, although their backgrounds are
totally different. This connection indicates the existence of a common
stream of thought in modern philosophy, and at least one of the directions
in which Natural philosophy may be developed in the 21st century.
The second is that the relationship between these two philosophers
may serve as a model for the cross-breeding of a new kind of thought.
Some thinkers in the Kyoto School who succeeded Nishida may also be
seen as partaking in the aforementioned stream, albeit in their own ways. I
believe that the unique character of Asian thought should not be stressed
much in this context. Nonetheless, it is true that a kind of creation occurs
at the junction point where two different thoughts meet.
Allow me to elaborate on the first point.
While Deleuze and Nishida come from very different locations and
generations, they may both be situated within the same line of 20th-century
Natural philosophy. This stream of thought is a minor one, and is opposed
to mainstream currents, such as the Kant-Hegel-Husserl line, which
enshrine the self and its consciousness at the center of philosophy. This
minor stream concurs in many respects with Monadic thought, which
embraces the Ego, Body, Others, the Environment, and the Universal in its
Natural History. Without positing the centrality of the ego, they discuss the

Deleuzes Strange Affinity with the Kyoto School

57

continuity of the Ego, Body, and Nature, and the separation of these at the
same time.
Therefore, in comparing the philosophies of Deleuze and Nishida, the
difference between Western and Eastern culture is of little significance.
While it is true that Nishida and the successors of the Kyoto School share
a background in many Asian religions (such as Zen Buddhism), they are
fundamentally modernists. Thus, what we should consider is how this
minor stream of Natural thought, which ran through the 20th century, could
have bifurcated into such vast areas. (In addition to Deleuze and Nishida,
it seems to me that Whitehead, Peirce, and Benjamin also belong to a
similar strand.) This kind of thought has diffused in diverse directions; I,
as a Japanese philosopher, want to situate the Philosophy of Nishida in that
global context, and thereupon examine, for example, the characteristics of
the grammar of the Japanese language that have some kind of relationship
with the thought of Nishida. The Japanese language apparently functions
without a subject, and the role of the predicate is thus very important. It
may be an overstatement to say that it lacks a subject (indeed, the subject
is implicitly indicated), but some linguists, such as Motoki Tokieda, who
have analyzed this feature of Japanese grammar, under the influence of
Western linguistics, have pursued this line of argument.
Next I would like to move on to the second point, namely, the thought
of the Kyoto School as a junction point of ideas, and the scene of the
creation of new forms of thinking.
In my opinion, the philosophies of Tetsuro Watsuji, Hajime Tanabe,
Shuzo Kuki, and Kiyoshi Miki, who succeeded Nishida, are also useful
models to see how Western thought was directly adopted in an Asian
language. However, their desire to overcome modern thought links with
the mindset of many minor philosophies, among whom Deleuze himself is
an example.
I believe the hybridity of this strand of Japanese philosophy provides a
foundation from which we may further take up many alternative styles of
thinking.
I would like to give a brief outline of the expansion of the Kyoto
School, focusing on three thinkers: Watsuji, Tanabe, and Miki. (On the
philosophy of Kuki, I have already written an article entitled Deleuze and
Kuki in Deleuze Studies, 2014-1.)
Tetsuro Watsuji is a philosopher who studied under Nishida and
Heidegger. Since he became a professor at Tokyo University, his
relationship with Nishida has not been so evident. His main book is Fu-do,
translated into English as Climate and Culture. In a European context,
Augustin Berque has discussed the significance of this book as a

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philosophy of the Ecosystem. In this work, Watsuji criticizes Heideggers

attitude towards temporality. Believing that the idea of space is just as
important as that of time, Watsuji describes the structure of existence as
Being-in-the-Environment. In one respect his thought is a philosophy of
culture, but his concept of Fu-do is heavily influenced by Nishidas
notion of place, and the way he criticizes the thought of Heidegger is
parallel to Nishidas attitude towards Bergson. Needless to say, Nishida
also makes clear that the overemphasis of time in Bergson brings about
difficulties in contemplating Becoming in itself. Watsujis thought is
perhaps more phenomenological than Nishidas, but the attempt to
overcome Western thought by simultaneously employing and applying the
concepts of Western thought is a characteristic method of the Kyoto school.
Watsujis attempt is thus an outstanding example of Japanese philosophy.
Next, I would like to take up the philosophy of Hajime Tanabe. He was
a logician who was interested in the philosophy of mathematics and
physics, but after returning from Germany, he began an attempt to
overcome the philosophy of Heidegger by initiating his own philosophy of
species. He became vice-professor of Nishida at Kyoto University, but
he thought that Nishidas philosophy was too mystical, and that it must
thus be founded on the logical faculties.
In his later years, however, he took an interest in the poems of Paul
Valry and Stphane Mallarm, and began discussing the dialectic of life
and death. He analyzed the poem Un coup de ds, from which he picked
up the idea of original contingency. Tanabe believed that it was upon this
idea that the dialectic of life and death should be formed. It may be said
that he added the theme of original contingency to Nishidas theory. This
is a very interesting fact, because the theme of un coup de ds is also a
crucial concept in Deleuzes Difference and Repetition. This is one
example of the hybridity of thought.
Lastly I would like to mention Kiyoshi Miki, who was a Marxist and
died in prison just after the Second World War. Like many scholars of the
Kyoto school, he studied in Germany and introduced existentialism into
Japanese culture, but his original objective was to create a new philosophy
of institution by employing the Logic of Einbildungskraft
(imagination) and thereby go beyond Nishidas Logic of Poiesis. He
discussed myth, tools, and technology, and how an institutional world
(which contains the Nation) is created. Although he was a Marxist, he
considered Buddhism (for example that of Shinran) an important element
in his thought. His attempt is, therefore, also an experimental synthesis of
Eastern and Western thought, based on the philosophies of Nishida and
Heidegger.

Deleuzes Strange Affinity with the Kyoto School

59

These are only examples. But the attempts of these Japanese

philosophers in the early modern age, including Nishida himself, are
excellent models of the creation of a hybrid thought, which goes beyond
the dichotomy of East and West. Of course, this is not due to a feature
unique to Japanese philosophy. It is due to an age in which the
modernization of Japanese culture happened to overlap with a great
conflict between major and minor streams of philosophy in Europe, as
well as to the fact that the Asian way of thinking is in some ways
sympathetic to the latter. From such examples, in a process of trial and
error, we must extend our understanding of the crossing of thought and the
creation of new arrangements of thinking, regardless of time or place.

Works Cited
Kitar, Nishida. Nishida Kitar Zensh [Complete Works]. Vol. 8. Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten, 2003. Print.
. Nishida Kitar Zensh [Complete Works]. Vol. 3. Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 2003. Print.
. Zen no Kenkyu [Inquiry into the Good]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2012.
Print.
. An Inquiry into the Good. New Haven: Yale UP, 1992. Print.

Acknowledgement
I would like to express my indebtedness to Mr. Jimmy Aames, who
took the labor of proofreading my English.

CHAPTER FOUR
THEATRUM PHILOSOPHICUM ASIATICUM
RONALD BOGUE

My purpose is to stage an East-West juxtaposition of the concepts and

practices of theater and thought. On the western side of the stage is
Deleuze in a two-fold role: as advocate of thought as theater and as author
of thought about theater. On the eastern side are ensembles of players
representing three different theatrical practices and theoretical traditions:
those of Beijing opera from China, Kathakali Dance Drama from the
Kerala region of India, and N Drama from Japan. The juxtaposition is
perhaps analogous to the irrational cut of modern cinema, in that Deleuze
never speaks of these Asian forms of theater, and the Asian practitioners
undoubtedly have no awareness of Deleuze, but my hope is that this
juxtapositions creation of an unmotivated gap between entities will
produce something not simply unexpected but worth contemplating.
Foucault, in Theatrum Philosophicum, his well-known essay review
of The Logic of Sense and Difference and Repetition, brings a minor
Deleuzian theme to center stagethat of philosophy as theater. A new
kind of thought is present in Deleuzes texts, says Foucault, springing
forth, dancing before us, in our midst; genital thought, intensive thought,
affirmative thought, acategorical thought [. . .] This is philosophy not as
thought, but as theater: a theater of mime with multiple, fugitive, and
instantaneous scenes in which blind gestures signal to one another (196).
Aside from Deleuzes recurrent references to simulacra and a one-paragraph
analysis of the actor in The Logic of Sense (150), Foucaults sole
inspiration for this rhapsodic characterization of Deleuze is Difference and
Repetitions six-page description of the theater of repetition of
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Pguy (5-11). Deleuze says that theatre is real
movement, and it extracts real movement from all the arts it employs (10).
Since Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Pguy want to put metaphysics in
motion, in action (8), Deleuze finds congenial the adoption of theater as a
model for their thought, a thought that aims at producing within the work

Theatrum Philosophicum Asiaticum

61

a movement capable of affecting the mind outside of all representation . . .

making movement itself a work, without interposition . . . substituting
direct signs for mediate representations . . . inventing vibrations, rotations,
whirlings, gravitations, dances or leaps which directly touch the mind. . . .
They no longer reflect on the theater in the Hegelian manner. Neither do
they set up a philosophical theatre. They invent an incredible equivalent of
theatre within philosophy (8). In their theater of repetition, Deleuze
concludes, we experience pure forces, dynamic lines in space which act
without intermediary upon the spirit, and link it directly with nature and
history, with a language which speaks before words, with gestures which
develop before organised bodies, with masks before faces, with spectres
and phantoms before charactersthe whole apparatus of repetition as a
terrible power (10).
Clearly, Foucault is correct in finding the elements of Deleuzes own
thought in this theater of repetition, and we might argue that aspects of the
theatrical model, most notably that of movement in thought, remain
evident in his subsequent writings, despite Anti-Oedipuss rejection of the
theater in favor of the factory as a figure for the desiring-production of
thought. This, then, is Deleuzes notion of philosophy as theatera
thought-theater of movement, vibrations, rotations, whirlings, gravitations,
dances or leaps which directly touch the mind/spirit [esprit], pure forces,
dynamic lines in space, and paradoxical words before words, gestures
before organized bodies, masks before faces, and phantoms before
characters.
What of Deleuzes thought about theater? The seminal text is One
Manifesto Less, Deleuzes commentary on Carmelo Benes Richard III,
published in Superpositions (1979). Here Deleuze brings together several
themes from Kafka and A Thousand Plateaus, including those of minor
literature, language as subset of a general pragmatics, and speeds,
intensities and affects as primary components of the arts. Benes minor
theater sets in continuous variation not only all linguistic components
(phonological, syntactic, semantic or even stylistic) and sonic elements
of speech, but also music, sound, gesture, costume and setting, thereby
inducing a kind of generalized chromaticism. This, adds Deleuze, is
theater itself, or spectacle (209). Bene stages a theater of
difformation, a term Deleuze borrows from Nicholas Oresme, whose
fourteenth-century geometry of forms and qualities was, in Deleuzes
words, based on the distribution of speeds between different points of a
moving object, or the distribution of intensities between different points of
a subject (215). Such difformation involves both deformation of the
conventions of theater and transformation of the remaining elements into

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something new. In this regard, Bene is for Deleuze an exemplary artist,

since, he says, the subordination of form to speed, to variation in speed,
the subordination of the subject to intensity or affect, to the intensive
variation of affects: these are, it seems to us, two essential goals to achieve
in the arts (215).
Deleuzes thought as theater and thought about theater, then, stress
movement, force, speed, intensity, affect, direct contact with the
mind/spirit, and the difformation of words, bodies, faces, characters,
sounds and sights in the comprehensive spectacle of a general
chromaticism.
And now to the eastern side of my stage. Let me stress first the
fundamental difference between Bene and Deleuzes minor theater and the
theaters of Beijing opera, Kathakali and N. Minor theater is a continuation
of avant-garde movements in its creative subversion of traditional
dramatic conventions, whereas the Asian theaters I cite are steeped in
traditions maintained through centuries of training, theorization and
performance. Nonetheless, if we take difformation in Nicolas Oresmes
sense as simply the continuous change of forms and qualities at varying
velocities, we may see within these Asian theatrical traditions the
difformations of a general chromaticism. Further, I argue that the
traditional nature of these dramas itself generates the high levels of
stylization that differentiate them from the western theater and make them
worth considering from a Deleuzian perspective.
First, Beijing opera, many of whose characteristics will be paradigmatic
of all the Asian theaters I consider. Unlike Kathakali and N, Beijing
opera has no central texts that detail its practices and theories, its traditions
being conveyed directly through training and performance (something that
is also true of Kathakali and N). Hence, I will base my remarks on
Elizabeth Wichmanns Listening to Theatre, which offers a formal and
theoretical analysis of the genre drawn from her years of study and
training in a Beijing opera company. More so even than western opera,
Beijing opera is a Gesamtkunstwerk, a total art work, integrating dance,
music, sound, speech, song, costume and makeup in a single spectacle.
(The only theatrical element missing in Beijing opera, as in Kathakali and
N, is that of elaborate sets.) Wichmann identifies the fundamental
aesthetic principles of Beijing Opera as those of synthesis, stylization and
conventions, all guided by a pursuit of the beautiful (mi). Synthesis
entails a constant assimilation of various modalities with one another, such
that sound, sight and body are never considered in isolation. Stylization
informs all aspects of the drama, in each case involving a modification of
the mundanehence the elaborate costumes, mask-like makeup (as well

Theatrum Philosophicum Asiaticum

63

as use of actual masks), rhymed speech, delivery in song, choreography of

all bodily movement, and so on. Notable especially is the pervasive
presentation of a three-dimensional network of circles, arcs, and curved
lines (Wichmann 1991: 4), every movement, individual and collective,
and every linguistic and melodic line, being conceived in terms of curves.
Such stylization heightens and idealizes the real world, but also separates
the performance world from the outside. Through its conventions, which
have no iconic or indexical relation to the mundane world, the existential
quiddity of the theatrical realm of Beijing opera is further stressed.
Beijing operas generally enact a corpus of well-known stories,
enumerated at 1,389 plots in a 1980 compilation of all the genres recorded
synopses. According to the scholar Hwang Mei-shu, one-third of the plots
come from just thirteen novels, the remainder having sources in history,
true stories, sketches, notebooks, legends, {other} novels, and earlier
plays (cited in Wichmann 12-3). Plot, however, is not the central focus
of the genre. Rather, it is emotion. Each song, each scene, and each
sequence of scenes is shaped by the progression of a series of emotional
states, each the reaction of the major character(s) to developments in the
basic situation (20). Music plays a leading role in conveying emotions,
for which reason it is central to the artform itself, as is evident in the fact
that attending a Beijing opera performance is traditionally referred to as
listening to theatre (tingxi) and acting in a play is termed singing theatre
(changxi) (1). Performers are admired for their virtuosic mastery of
various skills in speech and song, but the major aim of the display of skill
[. . .] is the expression of emotion (269).
The musical system of Beijing opera, known as pihuang, renders
audible subtle emotional states through conventions inaccessible to
untrained ears. The basic units of the system are melodic-phrases (qiang),
metrical types (banshi), modes (diaoshi) and modal systems (shengqiang
xitong) (53). The specific emotions of individual melodic-phrases, the
smallest unit of the musical system, are shaped by tendencies in meters
and modes. The basic meters and their emotional correlatives are as
follows: primary-meter (yuanban): relatively unemotional presentation of
facts and narration; slow-meter (manban): peaceful, introspective
situations; fast-meter (kuaiban): situations of excitement or anticipation;
fast-three-eyes (kuaisanyan): introspective, relatively unemotional, but in
males it often gives the impression of strength (63); two-six-meter:
straightforward situations but with a sense of excitement or anticipation
(65); flowing-water-meter (liushuiban): excitement or anticipation
approaching (but not quite reaching) (65); dispersed-meter (sanban):
gentle emotions; lead-in meter (daoban), often followed by undulating-dragon

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meter (huilong): sudden grief, extreme unhappy surprise, and other

intense, unexpected emotions (69); and shaking-meter (yaoban): exterior
calm and interior tension (70). Modes and modal systems constitute the
largest unit of the musical system. Each mode has its mode nature
(diaoshixing) and its characteristic atmosphere (qifen). The primary modes
are xipi and erhuang, xipis atmosphere being sprightly, bright and clear,
energetic, forceful, and purposeful, and erhuangs relatively dark, deep
and profound, heavy and meticulous (85). The nanbangzi mode, used
only for female melodic-passages, expresses smooth and exquisite or
happy sentiments, as well as meditation and silent thought (116). The
Sipingdiao mode, related to erhuang, is flexible in atmosphere, expressing
emotions associated with relaxed lightness, remembrance, impelling
indignation, and sorrowful desolation (121). The gaobozi mode,
developed in other musical forms and only recently adopted by Beijing
opera, expresses indignant grief (128).
The specific nuances of emotion arise from a conjunction of song and
text within dramatic situations, but what I want to stress is that Beijing opera,
besides being a multimodal spectacle of stylized and conventionally-coded
visual, sonic and corporeal movement, is above all a theater of musical
affect, in which each melodic phrase is shaped by flexible yet emotionally
appropriate meters and the broad atmospheric qualities of the modes. Text
and plot mediate emotion, but the conventions of the musical system
render those emotions both immediate, directly touching the mind/spirit/
body below the level of linguistic cognition, and abstract, in that they are
generated within a self-enclosed musical system. What music does, in
short, is to convert ordinary emotions into affects, in the strictly Deleuzian
sense of the term.
Something similar occurs in Kathakali drama, although the emphasis in
this theater is on dance rather than music. Like Beijing opera, Kathakali is
a multimodal spectacle, involving a synthesis of word, sound, music,
costume, makeup, gesture, and dance, high stylization of the realm of
mundane experience and conventions specific to the artworld of Kathakali.
Its plots and texts are traditional, but the focus of Kathakali, like that of
Beijing opera, is on emotion. Kathakali is a descendant of traditional
Sanskrit drama, and its practice is informed by Sanskrit dramas central
theoretical text, the 850-page Ntyatra (circa 200 CE), traditionally
attributed to Barata Muni. Barata Muni treats all aspects of performance,
paying special attention to the dramas evocation of emotions. He
distinguishes states (bhvas) from sentiments (rasas), the latter being the
ultimate object of the performances evocation and the audiences
reception. Bhvas are of three kinds: dominant, transitory and temperamental

Theatrum Philosophicum Asiaticum

65

(or involuntary). The eight dominant bhvas are love, mirth, sorrow, anger,
energy, terror, disgust and astonishment. The thirty-three transitory bhvas
are discouragement, weakness, apprehension, envy, intoxication, weariness,
indolence, depression, anxiety, distraction, recollection, contentment, shame,
inconstancy, joy, agitation, stupor, arrogance, despair, impatience, sleep,
epilepsy, dreaming, awakening, indignation, dissimulation, cruelty,
assurance, sickness, insanity, death, fright and deliberation. The eight
temperamental bhvas are paralysis, perspiration, horripilation, change of
voice, trembling, change of color, weeping and fainting. The eight rasas
are the erotic, the comic, the furious, the pathetic, the heroic, the terrible,
the odious and the marvelous. Of these rasas, four are original and four
derivative, the erotic giving rise to the comic, the furious to the pathetic,
the heroic to the marvelous, and the odious to the terrible.
In Kathakali performance practice, the bhvas and their related rasas
are represented in various ways, including the nine basic facial expressions
(navarasas) and the twenty-four basic hand-gestures (mudras). The nine
facial expressions correspond to the eight traditional rasas and a ninth
rasa of peace or at-onement. These I would classify as stylized elements.
The hand gestures, by contrast, are strictly conventional. Although they
serve multiple purposes (signing words, miming objects, providing
asymbolic ornaments in the dance), they cluster in fields associated with
the bhvas and their corresponding rasas.
Rasa literally means taste, and Barata Muni repeatedly explains the
relationship between bhvas and rasas in terms of cooked food (bhvas)
and its taste (rasas). Just as a combination of spices and vegetables
imparts good taste to the food cooked, so the States [bhvas] and the
Sentiments [rasas] cause one another to originate (107). Bhvas produce
rasas, and hence there can be no rasas prior to bhvas, but there are no
bhvas devoid of rasas. The rasas are generated by the actors and
consumed by the audience, providing a common medium for the
production and reception of the drama. In this theory of bhvas and rasas I
find a lucid analysis of the relationship between affections and affects in
Deleuze. Rasas form an olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and nonverbal
atmosphere, a haecceity, common to performers and audience. The rasas
emerge in the performance event and attain an impersonal existence. Their
stylized and conventional presentation emphasizes their autonomous mode
of existence within the performance event as a world distinct from, yet
connected to, the outside world.
Ultimately, its devotees see the aesthetic experience of the rasas as one
that extends into the realm of the mystical. In their book on Kathakali
drama, Nair and Paniker argue that Kathakali, more so than any of the

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performing arts in Indian, and perhaps, even the world, is one that is
farthest from earthly reality and humanism. There is no attempt at
representing the mundane world in any mannerwhether by imitation or
otherwise. Only epic, non-human beings are chosen for the re-creation of a
story for presentation on the stage (x). As a result, for the enlightened
connoisseur of Kathakali, the drama takes the connoisseur away from the
transient worldly experience of pleasure to one of transcendental
entrancement, thereby allowing the connoisseur to experience bliss
which is non-dual, at which level there is no difference between beauty
and ugliness, a bliss that is also the level of divine artthat is, art
beyond art (4). It is only through a painstaking process of spiritual
discipline that the spectator may eventually attain the status of true
connoisseurship. As a neophyte, the would-be connoisseur attends only to
the most basic physical and emotional elements of the drama, but through
repeated exposure to performances, coupled with education and training
under the supervision of advanced connoisseurs of the art form, the
individual is able to reach an elevated level of awareness beyond that of
simple absorption of plot, movement and spectacle. And it is only the rare
individual, only a tattwabhinivesi (philosophically-oriented person),
who will be able to savor the essence of a Kathakali performance.
Ultimately, such a philosophically oriented individual, claim Nair and
Paniker, will exhibit a sensibility above that of the performer. While the
actor puts to conscious use his innate skill which is enhanced by constant
practice, the connoisseur engages in the super-conscious act of receiving
and appreciating every single aspect of the performance. He is therefore
superior to the performing artiste (16-17). When, for example, the
phenomenon of eklochana, the expression of two different rasas in two
eyes that appears to be simultaneous, is made manifest on the stage, it is
the connoisseur alone who brings full realization to the phenomenon. The
artiste, with continuous movements and regular practice, makes such an
action possible, but it requires the supreme imagination of the spectator to
visualize these eye movements as simultaneous. The Kathakali eklochana
is thus meaningful only when its reach extends to the learned connoisseur
(17).
Much of what Ive said about Beijing opera and Kathakali also pertains
to N dramaa multimodal spectacle that synthesizes textual, sonic,
visual and corporeal elements within a stylized and convention-laden
artworld, with emphasis not on its traditional plots but its lyrical elements,
both poetic and musical, its affective dimensions, its displays of
performance virtuosity and its elicitation of enlightened responses among
the cognoscenti. The extraordinary treatises of Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443),

Theatrum Philosophicum Asiaticum

67

a master actor and leader of his familys N company, offer insight into the
world of N in all these regards, but what I want to stress is the extent to
which Zeamis teachings about the theory and practice of N reflect a
general mental and spiritual discipline and worldview.
Zeami identifies the fundamentals of N acting as the Two Basic Arts
of chant and dance and the Three Role Types (santai) of old person,
woman and warrior. Proper training in these basics allows the actor to
create the specifics of any particular role (65). The actors implementation
of these skills produces what Zeami calls the actors Flower, and
mastery of these skills eventuates in the attainment of the supreme goal of
Grace (ygen). Zeami differentiates nine levels in the advancement of the
actors development, the last three being the Flower of Tranquillity, the
Flower of Profundity, and the highest, the Flower of Peerless Charm (my).
Peerless Charm, says Zeami, is summed up in the Zen phrase, In Silla, in
the dead of night, the sun shines brightly. Peerless Charm surpasses any
explanation in words and lies beyond the workings of consciousness [. . .]
in a realm beyond logical explanation (120). It manifests Perfect Freedom
(taketaru kurai) and Perfect Fluency (yasuki kurai) that transcend
consciousness, skill or intention (136). When an actor exhibits Peerless
Charm in a performance, the audience reacts with a gasp of astonishment,
experiencing the Fascination (omoshiroki) of Feeling that Transcends
Consciousness (mushinkan) (138, 133). To explain the Fulfillment (jju)
of an ideal performance, Zeami refers to a tale in which the goddess
Amaterasu had shut the great stone door, bringing darkness to the world,
and then opened the door such that light suddenly appeared, bringing
unreflecting joy to all creatures. In an ideal performance, he says,
Peerless Charm that transcends words corresponds to the moment when
the world was plunged into darkness; the sudden brightness to the
actors Flower; and the experience of that brightness to the audiences
Fascination of Feeling that Transcends Consciousness (133).
This reference to cosmic events is not ancillary to Zeamis thought, but
indicative of the conceptual framework informing his remarks. Peerless
Charm is represented by darkness because it is invisible. Its essence is
spirit and a true enlightenment established through art (90). Audiences
often remark that the highest moment in a performance comes when the
actor does nothing, in an interval which exists between two physical
actions. In such a moment, the actor must rise to a selfless level of art,
imbued with a concentration that transcends his own consciousness, so
that he can bind together the moments before and after that instant when
nothing happens. Such a process constitutes that inner force that can be
termed connecting all the arts through one intensity of mind (96-7).

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Zeami relates Peerless Charm to the Buddhist doctrine of Being and

Non-Being, remarking that Being might be said to represent an external
manifestation that can be seen with the eyes. Non-Being can be said to
represent the hidden fundamental readiness of mind that signifies the
vessel of all art [since a vessel is empty]. It is the fundamental Non-Being
that gives rise to the outward sense of Being [in the n]. The actors
vessel of Non-Being is one with the cosmos, for The world of nature is
the vessel that gives birth to all things, alive and inert alike [. . .] To make
this multitude of things an adornment for our art, an actor must become
one in spirit with the vessel of nature and achieve in the depths of the art
of the n an ease of spirit that can be compared to the boundlessness of
that nature itself, thus to achieve at last the Art of the Flower of Peerless
Charm (118-9). In a similar vein, after detailing the three principles of jo
(gentle beginning), ha (dramatic development), and ky (rapid finish),
which should shape every element of n, from the smallest bodily
movement, poetic phrase or melodic line, to individual scenes, entire plays
and sequence of plays, Zeami adds, in thinking over the matter carefully,
it may be said that all things in the universe, good and bad, large and small,
with life and without, all partake of the process of jo, ha, and ky (137).
In N drama, then, we find all the features of Beijing opera and
Kathakalithe multimodal synthesis of the arts, stylization and
convention, the evocation of affect and creation of an atmospheric
haecceity common to performers and audiencebut also a theory of
dramatic performance and reception that emphasizes emotional, mental
and spiritual experience beyond cognition. That theory is grounded in the
thought and practice of Buddhism, from which Zeami draws many of his
terms, and it is evident that for Zeami, N is a corporeal, mental and
spiritual discipline whose aim is to attain and promote enlightenment in
performers and audience alike. Zeamis frequent allusions to Zen make it
clear that N is a way (do in Japanese, dao in Chinese), and hence like
the art of archery (kyudo), the art of writing (shodo), or the art of tea
(chado), one of the many means whereby one may reach enlightenment
and thereby grasp the fundamentals of cosmic truth. Thus, his theater is
finally a way of living, focused on dramatic performance, but grounded in
an all-encompassing worldview.
So what may be gained from this juxtaposition of Deleuze and Asian
theater? First, Deleuzes theater as thought, with its vibrations, rotations,
whirlings, gravitations, dances or leaps which directly touch the
mind/spirit [esprit], pure forces, dynamic lines in space, and
paradoxical words before words, gestures before organized bodies, masks
before faces, and phantoms before characters, finds a much more

Theatrum Philosophicum Asiaticum

69

congenial dramatic analog in Beijing opera, Kathakali and N than in most

forms of Western drama. The Western theatrical tradition, as many
commentators on Eastern drama note, has been dominated by Aristotles
Poetics, directly in tragedy and indirectly in comedy. Although ancient
Greek tragedy involved singing and dancing, Aristotle subordinated these
elements to action, character, thought and diction, calling action the soul
of a tragedy, since the incidents and the plot are the end of a tragedy;
and the end is the chief thing of all. He deemed music an
embellishment, and he dismissed spectacle as the least artistic of the
elements of tragedy because it is connected least with the art of poetry
(Aristotle 27, 29). When Deleuze says of Benes generalized
chromaticism, which sets all the elements of drama in continuous
variation, that This is theater itself, or spectacle (209), he is
deliberately opposing Benes avant-garde practice to the norms of
conventional Western drama. Had Deleuze been addressing the audiences
of Beijing Opera, Kathakali and N, such a statement would have been
received as unexceptional. His anti-mimetic approach to the theater would
likewise have met with general assent, since plot is subordinate to emotion
and thought in these Eastern dramatic forms, as would his enthusiasm for
dance, movement, dynamic forces and a direct, nonrational connection
between the spectacle and the esprit.
Second, the fact that Deleuzes characterization of minor theaters
general chromaticism aptly describes many features of Beijing opera,
Kathakali and N suggests that traditional as well as avant-garde dramatic
practices may fulfill the aims of a deterritorializing difformation that
generates differential speeds and intensive affects. The highly stylized
elements of Beijing opera, Kathakali and Nthe predominance of the
curve, circle and arc in Beijing Opera, the exaggerated facial expressions
of Kathakali, the ceremonial chant of N, for exampleand their purely
conventional elementsBeijing Operas musical modal system,
Kathakalis complex of hand gestures, Ns interplay between chant and
percussive punctuationall defamiliarize the mimetic elements of the
dramas and thereby open the theatrical spectacle to the evocation and
reception of modes of experience independent of plot. The stylizations and
conventions of Beijing opera, Kathakali and N do not lead to an empty
formalism, but instead make possible a theater of affect and thought, one
removed from ordinary reality but simultaneously intensely engaged with
the nonrational dimensions of corporeal and mental life. The implications
of this isomorphism between Western avant-garde theater, as represented
by Bene, and the traditional Eastern dramatic forms of Beijing opera,
Kathakali and N, might well guide an exploration of the broad

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Chapter Four

differences in Western and Eastern traditions and mentalities, something

Deleuze and Guattari attempt in a rough, schematic fashion in their
opposition of Western arborescence and Eastern rhizomatics in the
opening plateau of A Thousand Plateaus.
Third, Beijing Operas pihuang musical system and the Ntyatras
theory of bhvas and rasas offer a much more detailed analyses of
emotions, affects and their interrelationship than we find in Deleuze, and
ones whose taxonomies of feeling delineate intriguing associations (at
least to a Westerner, such as I). The pihuang meters have a certain intuitive
logica calm meter for narration (yuanban), one for introspection
(manban), one for excitement or anticipation (erliuban) and one for
intense emotions (huilong)but why should there be two meters for
introspection (manban and kuaisanyan), one of which in males often
gives the impression of strength (kuaisanyan), and why three meters for
excitement or anticipation (kuaiban, erliuban and liushuiban), one of
which involves straightforward situations (erliuban) and another
excitement or anticipation approaching (but not quite reaching)
(liushuiban)? The basic modes likewise seem to conform to commonsense
categoriesone for positive emotions (xipi), one for negative
(erhuang)but why should erhuang be described as heavy and
meticulous, and why would the flexible sipingdiao mode bring together
relaxed lightness, remembrance, impelling indignation, and sorrowful
desolation? It would seem that each meter and each mode invokes an
atmosphere (qifen) that defies ready verbal articulation, and that the
pihuang system as a whole is a means of producing haecceities that remap
the commonsense coordinates of the emotions.
The Ntyatras taxonomy of bhvas and rasas makes much finer
distinctions among feelings than does that of Beijing Opera, enumerating
forty-nine bhvas and eight rasas, but like Beijing Operas pihuang
musical system, Kathakalis system of bhvas and rasas invite rethinking
of (at least Western) categories of emotion, first in the specifics of the
differentiation and identification of dominant, transitory and
temperamental (or involuntary) emotions, and then in the discrimination of
thirty-three transitory states, which not only subdivides emotions into
minute categories but also conjoin them with states of consciousness and
their attendant physiological causes (intoxication, stupor, sickness, sleep,
epilepsy, dreaming, awakening, insanity and death). Most important,
however, is that the distinction between bhvas and rasas parallels the
Deleuzian differentiation of emotions from affects, providing not only a
classification of affects into the categories of four primary and four
secondary rasas, but also a metaphorical basis for conceptualizing

Theatrum Philosophicum Asiaticum

71

emotions and affects (foods and tastes) and a metaphysical framework for
relating emotions to affects (the spiritual discipline that leads connoisseurs
from crude corporeal appreciation to enlightened comprehension).
Fourth, Barata Munis and Zeamis theories of drama provide a means
of understanding the nature of audience response in a theater of affect,
something that Deleuze does not directly address. The Ntyatras
differentiation of bhvas and rasas not only separates common emotions
from affects but also identifies affects as the atmospheric medium in which
performers and audience undergo a collective theatrical event. The
Kathakali tradition of connoisseurship as a spiritual discipline with finely
articulated nuances of appreciation (the simultaneity of two rasas
expressed in the eyes of the performer, for example) suggests the
possibility of developing a taxonomy of affective reception that would
enrich the Deleuzian concepts of aesthetic affects and percept. And
Zeamis treatment of actors, audiences and emotional, mental and spiritual
states beyond cognition provides an extended meditation on the questions
raised by Deleuzes brief remarks about thought and theaters direct,
unmediated contact with the mind/spirit, a meditation that might be
extended to Deleuzes remarks on other arts (such as painting, which in the
case of Francis Bacon, according to Deleuze, attempts to bypass the brain
and directly touch the nerves).
Finally, in Zeamis theory and practice of N, I believe we have a
means of bringing thought and theater together in a suggestive zone of
indiscernibility. For Zeami, N is a Buddhist way of living, the do of N,
we might say, and as such the theater of N is both practice and thought.
That thought-practice itself is informed by a comprehensive view of the
cosmos. For Deleuze, philosophy, too, is a way of living, something he
and Guattari make explicit in What Is Philosophy? when they stress the
importance of inventing new possibilities of life and new modes of
existence, a possibility of life being evaluated in itself in the
movements it lays out and the intensities it creates on a plane of
immanence, and a mode of existence being measured solely by the
criteria of the tenor of existence, the intensification of life (74). The
cosmic dimension of such thought is evident when Deleuze and Guattari
speak of absolute deterritorialization in philosophy as the moment when
the earth passes into the pure plane of immanence of a Being-thought, of a
Nature-thought of infinite diagrammatic movements, which in turn
reterritorializes itself as the creation of a future new earth (88). In
Deleuze, then, we may say that the exoteric aspect of philosophy as a way
of living is its textual, expository form, and its esoteric dimension is that
of the broader range of practices within the cosmic theater of life.

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Conversely, the exoteric manifestation of N is its theatrical performance,

and its esoteric element is the invisible thought-practice of Buddhism that
informs every element of the drama. (Zeamis descendants preserved his
writings as a closely guarded secret, the first full publication of his
writings only appearing in the 1940s.) One would never mistake a text of
Deleuze for a N drama, but perhaps we might find a means of thinking
them together as different ways of living that meet on the pure plane of
immanence of a Being-thought, of a Nature-thought of infinite diagrammatic
movements.

Works Cited
Aristotle. The Poetics of Aristotle, 3rd ed. rev. Trans. S.H. Butcher. London:
Macmillan, 1902. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition. Trans. Paul Patton. New York:
Columbia UP, 1994. Print.
. The Logic of Sense. Trans. Mark Lester, with Charles Stivale. Ed.
Constantin V. Boundas. New York: Columbia UP, 1990. Print.
. One Manifesto Less. Trans. Alan Orenstein. The Deleuze Reader. Ed.
and intro. Constantin V. Boundas. New York: Columbia UP, 1993.
Print.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Flix Guattari. What Is Philosophy? Trans. Hugh
Tomlinson and Graham Burchell. New York: Columbia UP, 1994.
Print.
Foucault, Michel. Theatrum Philosophicum. Language, Countery-Memory,
Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ed. and trans. Donald F.
Bouchard. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977. Print.
Ghosh, Manomhan, trans. The Ntratra ascribed to Bharati-Muni. Vol.
1. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1951. Print.
Nair, D. Appukuttan, and K. Ayyappa Paniker, eds. Kathakali: The Art of
the Non-Worldly. Bombay: Marg, 1993. Print.
Rimer, J. Thomas, andYamazaki Masakazu, trans. On the Art of the N
Drama: The Treatises of Zeami. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984. Print.
Wichmann, Elizabeth. Listening to Theatre: The Aural Dimension of
Beijing Opera. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1991. Print.
Zarrilli, Phillip B. Kathakali Dance-Drama: Where Gods and Demons
Come to Play. London: Routledge, 2000. Print.

CHAPTER FIVE
SACRED LISTENING IN A FOLDING SPACE:
LE PLI AND ANCIENT CHINESE PHILOSOPHY
OF LISTENING
YUHUI JIANG

By listening closely, the incipient subject opens up and moves towards a

particular mood in which it can perceive what is its own with wonderful
clarity.
Peter Sloterdijk, Bubbles

After Mille Plateaux, Deleuze returned to the re-explanation of the

history of philosophy. The main result was his solo project Le Pli. In this
seminal work, via the key concept of the fold (pli), Deleuze tries to
re-address the problem of subjectivation within a different context.
Leibnizs monadology might seem to belong to old-school metaphysics,
but once examined from this new point of view, it radiates a uniquely
gorgeous light. Monads have no windows (La Monadologie, 7).
Though this abstruse proposition has initiated many different or even
conflicting explanations, at least one key point is clear: the subject has an
irreducible interiority, which will serve as the starting point of our
discussions about becoming-subject (devenir-sujet). However, interiority
has never been a popular topic among contemporary philosophers. In fact,
many of them (especially Wittgenstein, in his Philosophical Investigations)
have firmly repudiated this deep-rooted myth of traditional
epistemology: within the contemporary humanities as over the last fifty
years or so . . . a massive commitment has been made to deny, deconstruct
or obliterate any concept of subject and interiority (Bains 102). If so,
then what is the point of reviving such a worn-out concept at the turn of
the century? A detailed and adequate response should be based on a careful
reading of Deleuzes texts.

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Chapter Five

Prehension
Before we delve into the details of Deleuzes explanations of La
Monadologie, it might be helpful to bring up some preliminary comments
on the so-called folding architecture, which has been one of the most
influential trends in the last ten or twenty years.
Though the major advocates of this trend (such as Greg Lynn and
Bernard Cache) have learned much from Le Pli, the inner representation
of the monad (point of view) has been totally ignored in their designs.
One might get the impression that these folding spaces often look quite
superficial or even vacuous. This is because they lack an inner world, a
soul (in Leibnizian sense). In fact, Lynn talks a lot about inner/outer,
which might even be considered one of his major concerns, but the term
inner in his glossary refers only to a sub-division of objective space (an
enfolded part), just like the outer.
By contrast, though Deleuze has repeatedly stressed that the duality of
inner/outer is one of the prominent features of Baroque architecture, the
deep meaning of his comments should never be confined only within
objective architectural space. For this reason Deleuze adds to the caption
of his sketch of La maison baroque the parenthetic allgorie. Put
succinctly, the interiority could be depicted as a dim dormitory without
windows, but in fact, it is not a room (or any kind of objective space) at
all.
Now let us turn to Deleuzes own arguments and attempt to understand
this interiority of soul. Reading or even explaining Le Pli is no simple
task, so we should first establish a focal point.
In her Leibnizs Combinatorial Art of Synthesis and the Temporal
Interval of the Fold, Niamh McDonnell has reasonably emphasized one of
Deleuzes key concepts guiding his re-explanation of Leibniz:
prehension. Though borrowed from Whitehead, this concept fits
perfectly into Leibnizs system. One of its major functions is to reveal the
essential feature of the monads representation: at once passive (affected
by its own body) and active (the subject actively prehends the datum
[The Fold 78]). As Deleuze argues, the soul emerges from a process of
enveloping (envelopper) (Multiple into One), but this process cant be
reduced to a kind of enfolding of organism which only tends toward an
interiority of space (The Fold 8). This internalized outside (as Greg
Lynn has described) might anticipate psychic life (The Fold 78), but the
soul always forms around an authentic interiority, or more exactly, an
interiority of its own:
The vector of prehension moves from the world to the subject, from the

Sacred Listening in a Folding Space

75

prehended datum to the prehending one (a superject); thus the data of a

prehension are public elements, while the subject is the intimate or private
element that expresses immediacy, individuality, and novelty. (The Fold
78)

Here, by virtue of this prehension, three major aspects of the soul

(subject-interiority-event) are closely related to each other: interiority is
the pre-condition for the emergence of subject (a vector towards an
inside); subject is the immanent unity of this interiority, realized mainly
by its perceptions and appetites (two basic and interrelated internal
principles [Rutherford 134]), that is, a unity that can be interior to
movement, or a unity of change that can be active (The Fold 55); and
event is the proliferating movements of a monad along its two correlated
aspects (public/private, actual/virtual, subjective/objective).
Among the three basic features of prehension, the second one
(temporality) is pivotal. Ultimately, the subject is a unity realized
through the ever-changing flow of a monads inner life. This is also
McDonnells main idea. By carefully reading Leibnizs On the Art of
Combinations, she attempts to obtain a deep understanding of the idea of
the temporal interval. Leibniz defines his innovative method of
combinations as follows: parts assumed to be the smallest (that is, the
unities) in relation to each other and the whole (as that which) can itself
also be varied (qtd. in McDonnell 76). Evidently this is not just a logical
or mathematical method, but more importantly an appropriate approach to
describe the emergence of the subject from infinite petite perceptions
(The task of perception entails pulverizing the world, but also one of
spiritualizing its dust, Deleuze, The Fold 87). Put differently, the inner
unity of the monad is nothing like the Cartesian centralized Cogito, nor
does it need anything like Kants transcendental apperception. Rather, its
emergence follows a distributive dynamic of the synthesis of parts
(McDonnell 77), so that the point de vue through which the soul projects
itself outward may also be understood in this manner: the affection of the
whole through the internal variation of parts, whereby the difference in
scale is the site of the projection of an external view (McDonnell 78).
Hence, the internalization of soul cannot be simply reduced to a kind
of morphological transformation of space (as in the case of Greg Lynn),
but rather must be seen as a complex process (becoming-subject)
traversing different scales and dimensions: from the cosmological to the
microscopic, but also from the microscopic to the macroscopic (Deleuze,
The Fold 87). Without a proper method to delve into the micro, the essence
of interiority (especially the active nature of subjective prehension) cannot
be truly grasped.

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However, one might well object: Hasnt Deleuze himself implicitly

posited this tendency of de-subjectivation? For instance, near the end of his
book, Deleuze explicitly states: the upper is folded over the lower, such that
we can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins, or where the
sensible ends and the intelligible begins (The Fold 119). Does this suggest
the possibility of the souls being enfolded back into body? In response to
such a misreading, we hold that this sentence (or similar ones) should be
elucidated within a larger context. Never forget the basic doctrines. This
kind of de-subjectivition is apparently in opposition to one of Leibnizs basic
rules: the irreducible parallelism between inner/outer, soul/body. In short,
no matter how flexible or obscure the limit might be, a typical Baroque
house is always composed of two distinct floors. We should always be on
alert for the potential crisis of the complete collapse of the higher floor.
Then how may we effectively sustain this flexible limit, instead of
blurring or even effacing it? The basic strategy we find in Le Pli is that of
Leibnizian Baroque mathematics: Macroperception is the product of
differential relations that are established among microperceptions (The
Fold 95). McDonnell further distinguishes between the physical calculus
and psychological calculus. But for us, it would still be necessary to make
a further inquiry into other alternatives.
Art seems to be such a field of burgeoning new directions. Actually,
science and art are the two major resources that nourish interdisciplinary
experimentation in Le Pli. But in turning to art for inspiration, we do not
actually narrow down the possibilities. From architecture to painting, from
literature to history, Deleuze has presented us with so many exciting
choices, but which one shall we take?
Specifically, we think that the art of sound, music and listening might
be a decisive clue. First, there are many explicit or implicit indications
concerning this clue throughout the whole book. Though we can only
mention a few of them here, their pivotal importance shouldn not be
underrated. The first (or perhaps the most important) acoustic metaphor
appears at the very beginning of the book where Deleuze presents a vivid
image of his Baroque house: as if it were a musical salon translating the
visible movements below into sounds up above (The Fold 4). Here lie the
deepest secrets of Le Pli (the confusing but enlightening term
translating, the special acoustics of this echo chamber, etc.), which
will be unraveled little by little in what follows. Later, this small, dark
chamber is extended to become a grand music hall where the event of a
concert is happening (The Fold 80). Near the end of the book, Deleuze
returns once again to the metaphor of the echo. This time, he places it in
an even larger context and summarizes the development of Leibnizs

Sacred Listening in a Folding Space

77

monadology (from the parallelism of body/soul to the harmony between

monads) as a passage from optics to acoustics, or from the individual
mirror to the collective echo (The Fold 112). This conclusion apparently
echoes the above-mentioned image. From the beginning to the end, a
guiding line has been drawn.
In reading these passages, we cannot help recalling that Leibnizs
primary illustration of the petite perception is precisely that of listening to
waves. Deleuze makes a similar reference, saying that the world is a
lapping of waves, a rumor, a fog, or a mass of dancing particles of dust
(The Fold 86). Following Leibnizs lead, Deleuze also presents readers
with a variety of vivid examples concerning this particular petite listening
to the minute noises of the World. Among them, the most breathtaking
must be the citation of De Quinceys psychedelic descriptions of When a
herd or an army approaches (The Fold 94). Actually, we dont listen to
the sound, but breathe it in and out like air.
Are these obvious connections between sound metaphors and
philosophical argument only contingent? Put differently, has Deleuze or
Leibniz conceived of these metaphors only as a kind of exemplification?
This point needs further elaboration. First, even if we only treat them as
metaphors, this does not mean that they are merely trivial rhetoric effects.
In ancient religious classics, metaphors have always served as the essential
approach to enlightment. And in the realm of everyday life, many
philosophers have also eloquently demonstrated the key role of metaphor:
We have found . . . that metaphor is persuasive in everyday life, not just
in language but in thought and action (Lakoff 3).
Returning to the basic problems of Leibnizs system, we may uncover
the deepest relationship between sound and space, listening and interiority.
As many thinkers and scholars have pointed out, Leibnizs new system
begins with an attempt to rethink the fundamental problem of substance.
According to Leibniz, extension signifies only a repetition or continual
multiplication of that which is extended, a plurality, continuity and
coexistence of parts (qtd. in Russell 119), which also means a physical
entity is nothing but a multiple, or more exactly an aggregate (an amas
or aggregatum, see Leibniz, La Monadologie 2). Since this aggregate
would finally fall into the bad infinity (Hegel) of mechanical repetition
(labyrinth of the continuum [Russell]), Deleuze reexplains the continuity
and unity of matter based on Leibnizs conception of the fold. The
multiple is not only what has many parts but also is folded (pli) in many
ways (The Fold 3). Hence, the unity of matter should not be reduced to
its tendency to be infinitely divided into smaller and smaller parts, but
should be seen in all kinds of minimal cohesions between these

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Chapter Five

innumerable parts (The Fold 6). Sound seems to be the perfect instance of
this cohesion: though it tends to proliferate into smaller and smaller
fragments (through complicated spatial acoustics: reflection, echo,
reverberation, resonance, masking, and so on), all those tiny pieces of
sounds finally merge into one continuous flow. For instance, imagine a
simple case of echo (sound folded back from space): the audible intervals
do not really separate different sounds, but always function as the
overlapping zones that finally allow them to blend together. As the
echoing continues, more and more larger or smaller fragments are folded
back and they also tend to interfere with one another (and with space) via
all kinds of folding, refolding, and enfolding. This time, the overlapping
zones themselves are repeatedly overlapped in various ways, and so the
regular echo finally becomes a chaotic and immersive reverberation. As a
result, sound and space merge into a multiple but continuous aggregate.
Leibnizs argument finally leads to the definition of soul as the genuine
substance (monad). When we follow this clue and enter the inner space
of a single monad, sound is still essential to properly understand the
parallelism between soul and body. The main reason Leibniz chose such
a troublesome model is that to some extent parallelism can effectively
preclude any linear and diachronic causal relations by pre-establishing an
irreducible distance between independent series. For instance, if we adhere
to causal determinism, we might depict the process of listening as follows:
sound as a kind of physical motion (sound wave) first emanates from an
object, then travels through space and body so as to finally find a way into
our mind. According to this folk acoustics, the body first hears the sound
and then transmits the affections to the mind. However, according to
Leibniz, reexplained by Deleuze, the sound can never be reduced to this
rather dubious duality of inner/outer, but has always been folded
simultaneously along those double dimensions. Of course the re-folding
and en-folding of sounds in physical space are quite different from the
enveloping of petite listening within interiority. The former tendency is
always towards the formation of more and more complex agglomerations
or conglomerations; in contrast, as mentioned above, the latter tendency is
basically a kind of internalization already rehearsed in the enfoldings of
organisms and finally converging inward to form a pure interiority.
Though we are still unable to fully understand this internalization (to be
further explained in the next section) at this stage, a basic principle should
be kept in mind, that is, only through an intricate inner acoustics can we
really sustain the parallelism between the two distinct floors. This is why
Gregg Lambert has insightfully depicted the translation happening in the
echo chamber mainly as a process of resonating (Lambert 50).

Sacred Listening in a Folding Space

79

Inner Voice
Despite the influential morphological experiments of folding architecture,
more and more people have come to realize the essential importance of the
affective relationships between human and space.
One of the major advocates of this rising trend is Juhani Pallasmaa. At
the beginning of his poetic and concise book The Eyes of the Skin, he
explicitly asserts that sensory and sensual qualities (10) should be the
first priority when we set about designing a building. Of course this does
not mean that these basic qualities have been totally neglected in
traditional architecture theories. His real intention is simply to challenge
the central position of form and vision so as to unveil those implicit
potentialities of spatial affections.
For Pallasmaa, touching is more fundamental than vision. Here,
touching is not just one of the five senses, but refers to the existential
inhabitation in space through the entire body. Between subject, body and
space, an open loop (enveloping spatiality, interiority and hapticity, 13)
is formed. Touching opens up a meaningful affective space that reveals
itself as having a material, embodied and spiritual essence (12). The
material, embodied essence is easily understood, but how should we
properly elucidate the spiritual essence of architecture? There are
various ways to clarify this key point. First, generally speaking, there is
always some primordial spiritual intimacy between spaces as shelters in
which the dwellers are protected. The shelter is like a cradle for a sleeping
baby (Bachelard), or a bubble for a fetus (Sloterdijk). More specifically,
a building is also a space of memories where the spiritual traces of the past
and/or present inhabitants have been preserved in some way. Needless to
say, the spiritual atmosphere can also be strongly felt in a sacred space
such as a church or temple. Here, the temporary dimension (memory,
history, past generations) is not so conspicuous as that of the eternal and
transcendental divinity. We will return to this key issue later, but only after
we understand the corporeal bond between inner and outer.
On this topic, one clue implied in Pallasmaas text is the concept of
body-image (40). The body as the mediating membrane between
inner/outer, self/world is one of the essential ideas in Le Pli. Since the
other side (the interior) of this membrane has been totally ignored in
those folding architectures, here it seems advisable to read carefully the
original text of La Monadologie and attempt to understand how the body
can provide an access to interiority:
62 Thus, although each created monad represents the whole universe, it
represents more distinctly the body which is particularly assigned to it, and

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of which it forms the entelechy. And as that body expresses the whole
universe through the interconnection of all matter in the plenum, the soul
also represents the entire universe by representing the body which
particularly belongs to it. (276-277)

From the above passage, several key points should be noted. First, the
bodys expression of the whole universe is the outer aspect of the monad,
but it is also the intermediate link through which the soul is able to
represent the world. In transmitting affections from the outside to the soul,
the body affects the soul in various ways. However, the soul is not only
affected by the body, but also actively prehends the latter as its own. But
there is a confusing point here. According to Leibniz, the monads
representation is double: it is certainly the representation of the world, but
at the same time it is also the representation of its own body. Furthermore,
the former aspect can be possible only through its close relations to the
latter. Since the two aspects are obviously not the same (this is why
aesthesis has raised so many difficulties for philosophers as well as
scientists), how should one properly explain this close relationship
between them?
The body-image is the key to solving this problem.1 For Leibniz,
however, this is not a real difficulty at all, for he could have replaced the
confusing terms expression, representation or assigned to with the
more precise and complex terms of differential calculus. But we still need
to find another way around. Actually, there is a reasonable solution within
the system of monadology: the monads that ground the reality of a soul's
organic body will be those whose bodies are represented (by themselves
and by the soul) as the functional components of the soul's body
(Rutherford 151). Here, the representation of the souls organic body
may be properly considered a kind of body-image; because it is different
from those representations of the distinct components, it serves as the
panorama of the whole body. This also means that it can never really
become objective, but only function as the hidden horizon for all actual
and possible partial representations.2 If so, then why do we still call it an
image? The only reason is that no matter how obscure this image might
be, it is still the souls inner representation of its own body. Hence, it can
be viewed as the innermost link between the soul and the body. When
Pallasmaa coins the phrase opaque interiority of the body (42), he
expresses a similar idea: body also has an interiority that cannot be clearly
and distinctly perceived by itself, but can only be internally represented by
the soul. In this sense, this interiority is literally opaque.
It is evident that a very important clue has been indicated here.
Body-image may actually be an essential approach to depict the

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emergence of the subject from petite perceptions. In a sense, the

body-image is precisely the initial stage (germ) of the micro-process of
becoming-subject, for it opens up an inward dimension through a
preliminary synthesis of all those petite partial representations.
Here we need to go into further detail. There have been many studies
on the body-image in recent years. However, most of the researchers and
scholars focus only on such cases as kinesthesia or senses of orientation
that should be properly termed corporeal senses, for actually they are no
more than the bodys perceptions of itself. There is nothing like opaque
interiority here. Perhaps we should return to Pallasmmas text for further
clues. Listening may well be one of them.
Pallasmaa quotes one of the most beautiful passages from Kakuzo
Okakuras The Book of Tea, which immerses us in a dense atmosphere of
sounds (Pallasmaa 45). In this acoustic poetry, the singing of the boiling
kettle unfolds before us the soundscape of the whole universe: Sky and
Earth, Mountain and Sea. Here, the double aspects (actual and virtual) of
listening have already been indicated. What matters is still the body which
is not a mere physical entity; it is enriched by both memory and dream,
past and future (Pallasmaa 45). When you are listening to the World, you
are also listening to yourself at the same time. Listening has these two
synchronous dimensions because the body has two correlated aspects: as
a mere physical entity, it is involved in a variety of affective relations
(folding, refolding) with other bodies and environment; at the same time, it
also duplicates or even multiplies itself (enriching) around an opaque
interiority. Re-folding of the bodies and enveloping of the soul are two
faces of Janus.
Should we not follow a profound poets instruction and learn to listen
well . . . to the tumult that rages in your body when you listen to yourself
(Ren Daumal, qtd. in Bachelard 182)?
Inner voice or inner speech (their difference will be clarified below)
has always been a mysterious and perplexing puzzle. In contemporary
philosophy, it is Derrida who has made a very inspiring analysis of this
phenomenon (La Voix et le Phnomne). Unfortunately, his idiosyncratic
style has also made it almost impossible for others to further pursue this
clue. Among those who have pursued this phenomenological direction,
Don Ihde seems the only one who has really taken a step beyond. In
Listening and Voice, the three chapters of Part III are devoted directly or
indirectly to this topic.
Inner speech might be the most characteristic form of polyphonic
listening in a particularly Bachelardian sense: I hear not only the voices
of the World, in some sense I hear myself or from myself (Ihde 117).

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Here, echo-resonance as one of our key points has emerged clearly: there
is always an inner voice resonating with the primary echo between the self
and the World. It is this inner echoing that may therefore provide access to
the opaque interiority hidden beneath our ordinary intentional relations
to the World.
However, as an imaginary variation of actual speech, inner speech is
quite different from the various other ways to presentify the inner self, for
it is experienced as occurring in and from ones own body, while
others are objectified in that they place themselves out there apart from
their sense of body (Ihde 120). For example, I can imagine myself
speaking to a friend. But here, I dont really hear my voice. On the
contrary, when I speak only to myself, I hear the unique inner voice
(unlike any other voices or sounds inside my mind) at the same time, or
even feel the sounds not only in my mind, but actually in my head. More
precisely, by speaking to myself, I can feel that the voices, the sounds are
resonating with and inside my own body: I feel my voice resonate
throughout at least the upper part of my body. I feel my whole head
sounding in what I take to be sonoric resonance (Ihde 136).
In this sense, inner speech also cannot be identified with objectified
self-listening, for instance, listening to my voice from a tape recorder. In
the latter case, I also feel my voice with my body, but it sounds strange
because it has lost the feeling of intimacy. This is not only because there is
an obvious temporal gap between the original sound and the derived one,
but because I feel that the sound has fled away from me towards the
outside before it returns to me once again. It is still my own voice, but I do
not own it any more. By contrast, when I speak to myself, the voice is
always confined inside me. With this inner resonance, everything is pulled
inward. But the voices do not converge on a real inner center. Actually,
there is nothing located at the center but an inner Void around which the
echoing sound storm has been revolving. Put differently, by speaking to
myself, I cannot really conjure up another me (as the object) who has
been lurking somewhere, neither can I get closer to a reflective Cogito (a
Cartesian spectator) who has been watching over everything just to
maintain a rational order. In this dim echo chamber, there only exists a
sound whirlpool.
Paul Bains insightfully points out that Deleuze and Guattaris
subjectivity emerges as a self-referential existential Territory:
Auto-affection. A self-feeling unicity. A real space (Bains 105). And we
may say that the inner echo is precisely such a direct, real and affective
self-referential interiority. Or following Deleuzes own indications, we
tend to view echoing as a relation which force has with itself, a power to

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83

affect itself, an affect of self on self (Foucault 101). Paralleling the

Greeks reinvention of the subject, here we also wish to redescribe the
emergence of the subject in terms of acoustic metaphors, especially those
of echo and resonance.
However, this does not mean that by inner speech, I have completely
isolated myself from the whole World. This inner echo is always echoing
the outside space. How is this twofold echoing possible? At first, there
seems to be no difficulty here. There can always be an inner voice
accompanying almost all of my perceptions, thinkings and actions (an
almost constant copresence with outer experiencing, Ihde 142). And yet,
the inner voice does not always function as a background. I can also shift
the focus back to myself and let the outside World echo with me only in a
low-frequency drone. I find I can easily retire into my thinking self and
allow the floating perceptual presence to recede from focal awareness
(Ihde 132). Obviously, the proper environment (the acoustic atmosphere)
is essential for such an authentic inner listening. In a crowded street, my
inner voice will be completely submerged by the penetrating noises.
However, a beautiful melody may also easily intrude into my interiority or
even take me out of myself (Ihde 132).
Then in what kind of space could the echoing between inner and outer
be effectively sustained instead of being disturbed or even eliminated? It
may well be a folding space, as discussed in the last section. To be exact,
what is important is not only the sound, but the way the sound is folded,
refolded or enfolded (with other bodies and within space). Sound is a
medium whose real function is to bring self, body and the World into
intimacy.
Weve seen that the outer echo (re-folding) and the inner resonance
(enveloping) are simply different means of folding. Pallasmma writes
about this key point in a no less poetic way: The space traced by the ear
in the darkness becomes a cavity sculpted directly in the interior of the
mind (50). In a large, enclosed space (usually a sacred place, like a
cathedral), even a single tiny sound from my body extends itself until it
fills the whole space (reverberation). It is reflected, scattered, folded back
from every corner, every surface, and finally creates an immense and
immersive aura or atmosphere3 that can be described as either
millions of sonic reflections or millions of resonances (Blesser 247).
Echoing with this external echoing, an interiority is also being deepened
and widened. This interiority not only results from dreaming (as
Pallasmaa has mentioned) or imagination (as Husserl or Ihde has
insisted), but finally refers to the authentic emergence of the subject from
those innumerable dusts of sound. When this ocean of sounds washes over

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the outside of my body, a unique voice also resonates within the inner
space. It is not one of the minute voices or whispers translated from the
lower floor, nor is it an inner center (my voice) on which all these tiny
sounds tend to converge, but actually an inner Void (a cavity) where
they can echo with each other while echoing with the body and space. This
Void, however, is not an empty hole, just as the diffusing darkness in the
outside space is not a complete blackness. As a resonating cavity hidden
inside my body, it also opens up the essential dimensions of interiority:
silence, intervals, and variation. All these will become the main topics of
our following discussions.
But why have we termed it a body image? Is it not in fact an image of
actual speech? Here we touch upon another key point. It is Husserl who
first defines inner speech (soliloquy) as a mere representation of actual
speech: In solitary mental life we no longer use real (wirklich) words,
but only imagined (vorgestellt) words (Derrida 43). The reason is also
obvious: In inward speech, I communicate nothing to myself, I indicate
nothing to myself (Derrida 48). Put succinctly, it seems that Im speaking
to myself, but actually I just pretend to do so. As such a fictive or even
distorted representation, inner speech does not make much sense for
Husserl. Derrida is not really interested in inner speech, either. The only
reason he employs it as the main thread of his critique is that it serves as a
perfect entry to deconstructing the hierarchy of actuality/representation
(real/imagination, or ultimately presence/absence) inherent in Husserls
whole system. But these deconstructive strategies do not make much sense
for us. What really matters is not the conceptual structure, but the inner
speech considered as a type of auditory imagination (Ihde 134). This
auditory aspect is important because it is hidden beneath our everyday
experiences: in speaking, what is ordinarily focal is what I am talking
about rather than the singing of the speech as a textured auditory
appearance (Ihde 138). This is why I would rather redefine it as a
body-image, or sonorous corporeality. This is also why I prefer inner
voice to inner speech.

Ascesis of Listening
Pallasmaas poetic descriptions have guided us into a sacred folding
space. But first we need to raise a major question: Why is sacred space so
important for our current discussions? One of the main reasons is obvious.
In the typical spaces where we now live, the merging of inner and outer is
a primary tendency. But this does not mean that we have finally found a
way to sustain the parallelism between subject and object, but only

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85

indicates a simple fact: outside space is becoming more and more intrusive
or even dominant. It is always an outside space that demands to be
internalized. This threat becomes even more apparent when we think
about sound and space: one risks being overwhelmed by acoustic attacks
(Teyssot 274). Endlessly penetrated by surrounding noises (mainly
electronic signals nowadays), we are almost destined to lose interiority
forever. This might also explain the popularity of headphones. Headphones
have created a private auditory universe in which sound literally moves
through the body (Teyssot 274). But as we discussed in the last section,
the sounds (even my own voice) from the headphone may never really
create an inner echo, even if they might be penetrating and echoing with
my own body (but only the outside of my body). When you glue your
ears to the headphone and become obsessed by this artificial interiority,
you also have to accept the sad truth that there is no longer real space
(auto-affection) inside you.
Perhaps that is why there has been a boom in so-called new spiritual
architecture in recent years. What people are really looking for are not
just the quiet places far from noisy and crowded cities, but more
importantly the proper spaces where they can begin to listen to themselves.
Thus, we should also shift our main focus from the echoing among self,
body and space to the one between different subjects.
What is so special about being listened to by others? To be brief,
self-listening refers to a pure interiority, whereas co-listening already
unveils a potential dimension of variation. Inner speech/voice as a
typical body-image leads to inner echoing, which does not result from an
actual center, but points to an opaque cavity, an inner Void. This also
indicates that there might already be a core of silence inside a monad:
Listening begins in a void, in dispossession (Chretien 12). Yet, this does
not mean that we should first keep silent, simply in order to begin to listen
or prepare to be listened to. The silence is already here, inside my mind. I
should learn to listen to it.
In this sense, while what is echoing inside is a unique voice, what is
echoing between different monads might be this mutual silence. Even if I
cannot hear your inner voice, it is still possible for me to feel your
innermost silence. This is not mere empathy, nor is it any kind of
mysterious experience. Rather, it is a real, enveloping acoustic atmosphere
created by me and thee.
But how can silences echo with each other? Are they completely
soundless?
As indicated above, this inner core is not a full presence, nor is it a
complete negation (absolutely nothing), but rather a plentiful void. Here,

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it seems that we are closer to the time-honored wisdom of Taoism: What

is most full seems empty; yet its use will never fail (The Book of Tao and
Teh, Chapter 45, Arthur Waleys translation). It is evident that seems is
the key word. The Void just seems to be empty, which means that it is not
completely empty like a vacant space, but neither is it completely filled.
It is always in-between. The Way is like an empty vessel / That yet may
be drawn from / Without ever needing to be filled (The Book of Tao and
Teh, Chapter 4).
Yet this kind of Oriental dialectics has been too popular among
scholars to stimulate any further inspiration. So why not see it anew
through a different lensHere, Leibnizs Combinatorial Art might be
helpful. The void is in-between, which may also mean that it is not a
determinate phase (McDonnell), but always a transient or temporary
event tending towards one or the other extreme simultaneously. The
tendency toward complete emptiness (Zero) emerges at those critical
moments of disintegration, for example, the moments of radical change,
being born anew and starting over again (Chretien 12); while the
tendency toward utter fullness (One) refers to the plentiful potentialities as
well as the traversal inner unity realized through this process of becoming.
In this sense, the inner Void is precisely a passage of variation. An event.
In other words, while inner voice leads to the inner self-presence
accompanying all outer perceptions (listening to the world while listening
to self), inner silence refers exactly to the void of the temporal interval
(appetite) traversing different phases of perceptions and opening up the
potentialities of being born anew. Hence, Chretien concludes: Listening
is a truly palpitating activity, it can happen only with this heart that beats,
this air breathed in and breathed out, this patient activity of the entire
body (Chretien 15). The palpitating heart (breathing in/out,
silence/voice) is the internal rhythm of the monad. The echoing or
resonance of different rhythms is the symphony of the Cosmos. It is
evident that this universal harmony should not be reduced to an ultimate
homogenization, but stems from the primary and irreducible differences
between subjects. That is why we need to listen to each other, or more
exactly to feel the difference between us. Chretien repeatedly stresses that
we should listen only to and towards the impossible (Chretien 13) or the
unheard of, because what I am really eager to hear are never those
familiar words (clichs), but rather the ones leading in a new direction.
To listen is to make a difference, or pry open new potential intervals.
It is still up to us to effectively establish a transversal communication
between these different types of sacred spaces. In principle, there are
two major approaches to properly thinking of the sacredness of such a

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87

space. One might consider this feature ultimately as a transcendental

dimension beyond the place (mystery) or hidden behind it (secrecy); or
one could also depict this space in an immanent way by shifting the focus
to those primordial phenomena and concrete practices, just as Deleuze and
Guattari have pointed out: The multiple must be made, not by always
adding a higher dimension, but rather in the simplest of ways, . . . always
n-1 (A Thousand Plateaus 6). Buber begins from the primary relationship
of I-Thou, Chretien commences with the initial stage of listening, so first
of all we should also return to the immanent plane of echo and resonance.
Concerning this, a very important clue is provided in one of Foucaults
major lecture courses in Collge de France later published as The
Hermeneutics of the Subject.4 The theme of this course is one of his
lifelong concerns, that of subjectivation. But here, the relevant
discussion is developed within a different context. The main problem
becomes: What is the price I have to pay for access to the truth? . . . what
fashioning of myself must I undertake, what modification of being must I
carry out to be able to have access to the truth? (189). Truth is closely
linked to the practices of pursuing Truth, and the latter finally refer to the
subjects art of living (205). Through detailed comparison among three
main categories of truth-pursuing practices, Foucault places great
importance on the culture de soi in the Hellenistic and Roman periods
which takes place in the immanence of the world (210), in order to
establish a complete, perfect, and adequate relationship of self to self
(210). This relationship should be viewed not only as a reflective
self-knowledge (in Socratess sense, for instance), but also as a movement
of the whole being (213), or more exactly a series of practices involving
soul and body, as well as all kinds of environmental elements (physical,
social, cultural, and so on). All these essential features clearly resemble
motifs in Chinese native religions, which also focus on immanence and an
art of living instead of transcendence and self-negation.5
If we follow Foucault a bit further, we notice other similarities between
this asksis philosophias and our previous discussions. For instance, in his
careful reading of Marcus Aureliuss The Meditations, Foucault highlights
his spiritual exercises (292), one of whose major steps is very close to
Leibnizs petite perception: in it, the meditator plunges into this world, . . .
down to its smallest details, as if to focus the gaze of a near-sighted person
onto the finest grain of things (290). Yet, the most crucial clue must be
Foucaults explicit confirmation of listening as the very first step of
asksis philosophias: listening as ascetic practice, understood as
subjectivation of the true (334). Following his detailed analyses of the
essential features of this ascesis of listening, we will find new ways to

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properly understand listening practices in Chinese sacred places.

Through a careful reading of Plutarch, Foucault comes to a basic
definition of the ambiguous nature of audition: in audition, more than
with any other sense, the soul is passive with regard to the external world
and exposed to all the events that come from the outside world (334-335).
Similar discussions also abound in ancient Chinese philosophy. Many
great thinkers are clearly aware of the great impact sounds have on our
perceptions, emotions, thinking, and almost all activities in everyday life.
For instance, Lao tzu mentions a common phenomenon: the five colours
confuse the eye. The five sounds dull the ear. The five tastes spoil the
palate (The Book of Tao and Teh, Chapter 12). But what he really wants
to show us is the palpable destructive effects of those excessive
sensations deranging the boundary between inner and outer or even
intruding into interiority. Foucault also mentions this point: the sense of
hearing is more than any other sense capable of bewitching the soul (335).
Facing this potential risk inherent in listening, we should learn to make use
of this affective faculty in a more healthy way.
These considerations direct us to one of the basic doctrines of ancient
Chinese philosophy of listening, sound and music (Yue). Confucius asserts
that education of the character is completed by the study of music (The
Analects, Chapter VIII, translated by Gu Hong-ming). The main reason
music plays such an important role in moral education is that it is basically
nothing but a composite of harmonious and orderly sounds. Confucius
once described vividly the harmonious movement of music: At first, the
full volume of sound in the piece should be heard. Then, as you proceed,
you must pay attention to and bring out each note of the piece, distinct and
clear, but flowing, as it were, without break or interval,thus to the end
(The Analects, Chapter III). Viewed this way, music can even be regarded
as the perfect embodiment of the most universal order of the whole
Cosmos, including Nature and human society. That is why music has often
been employed to cultivate (if not impose) an inner harmony of human
mind.
But how may we properly foster such an inner order? Or following
Foucaults phrase, how may we purify logical listening in the practice of
the self (340)? This might proceed via three major stages.
The initial stage is precisely silence. Based on a careful reading of
ancient texts, Foucault points out that silence is so important or even a
prerequisite for asksis philosophias, because only silence can establish
direct communication between sound and soul, whereas the ears of a
talkative chatterbox are not connected directly with his soul, but rather
with his tongue (342). This is also a key point for Chinese philosophers.

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89

Among them, Chuang tzu must be considered the first that described in
great detail the practice of keeping silent.
Lao tzu emphasizes the ontological importance of silence, and as one
of his prominent followers, Chuang tzu developed a whole set of practices
of keeping health. Unlike Greek philosophers, who only listen to the
Logos, or Confucianists, who prefer listening to harmonious Yue, Taoists
divert listening away from its ordinary path. Lao tzu refers to another
possibility of listening, when he suggests that one should listen to those
almost inaudible sounds of the ultimate Being (Tao). How different the
words that Tao gives forth! So thin, so flavourless! If one looks for Tao,
there is nothing solid to see; if one listens for it, there is nothing loud
enough to hear. Yet if one uses it, it is inexhaustible (The Book of Tao and
Teh, Chapter 35). Obviously, no matter how important music may be for
moral education or national governance, Lao tzu strongly recommends
that we refrain from listening to it. This certainly does not mean that one
should completely stop listening, which is impossible (just think about the
deep-rooted passivity and affectivity of listening). Nor does it mean that
one should learn to deliberately control oneself. By contrast, Taoist
listening requires a conversion of the natural attitude: sound is no longer
a physical object located within metric space-time, nor even (on the
contrary) a kind of sense qualia floating rootlessly in the inner world, but
rather, based on ontological reason, a micro-atmosphere (re-)connecting
mind, body and World. Just as Chretien indicated, we do not listen only
with the ear, but actually with the entire body. Or as we have mentioned
above, we do not really listen to sound, but breathe it in and out. As an
omnipresent medium, this inaudible atmosphere is flavourless. It may
not have a strong allure for sense organs, but it does envelop our corporeal
being like air or ocean: we experience reverberation aurally as an
enveloping environment where we find ourselves within it (Blesser 62).
Here, it might be helpful to introduce one of the most profound concepts
of Deleuze and Guattari, and conclude that by petite listening, we are
becoming-imperceptible. Great music has the faintest notes, / The Great
Form is without shape (The Book of Tao and Teh, Chapter 41). This petite
listening is precisely the quintessence of the asksis philosophias of
Chinese religions.
Based on Lao tzus ontology of Void and Quietness, Chuang tzu
further proposes a series of practices of petite listening. His conception also
parallels Foucaults second stage, that is, maintaining a proper corporeal
status in accordance with attentive listening: if the soul must be
completely pure and undisturbed to listen to the speech addressed to it,
then the body must stay absolutely calm (Foucault 343). However, this

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stage should not be identified with futile attempts to remain motionless, or

to completely prevent the body from being affected. Actually, this state of
calmness or quietness can only be reached and sustained by a series of
bodily trainings (as proposed and practised by Yogacara, for instance).
Chuang tzus well-known fasting of the mind is precisely such a form of
training:
Maintaining the unity of your will, listen not with your ears but with your
mind. Listen not with your mind but with your primal breath. The ears are
limited to listening, the mind is limited to signifying. The primal breath,
however, awaits things emptily. It is only through the Way that one can
gather emptiness, and emptiness is the fasting of the mind. (The Human
World. Following Zhong Tai, I have changed tallying to signifying)

This concise yet abstruse paragraph should definitely be venerated as

the First Principle of ancient Chinese practices of listening. Some further
explanation is still necessary here. First, the initial stage of the fasting of
the mind refers to an extremely attentive state of the listening mind (also
quite close to Foucaults relevant discussions): maintain the unity. To
reach this state, the body should transform itself through three correlated
stages: from corporeal listening (with ears) through symbolic listening
(with language and concepts), and finally to petite listening (with primal
breath).6 These three stages are not independent of each other, but
inherently linked by the final one.
Its evident that there is a problem here. The passage from sensation
(the first stage) to understanding (the next one) is quite clear, but how to
properly understand the listening with primal breath has aroused
seemingly endless arguments and disputes. All these controversies focus
on one major point: the inherent duality of subjective/objective of this
primal breath. If we view it as merely a form of matter (for example, air),
then how can this objective entity start to listen? But if we consider it as
merely an inner state of mind, then in what manner can we finally avoid
reducing it to a mysterious experience? Based on the discussions above,
however, this dilemma is not so hard to overcome. By introducing petite
perception and the ontological category of atmosphere, we may clarify
the implications of this primal breath as follows. First, it is definitely a
physical being, but it only appears and moves in a micro way, just like the
air which is invisible, inaudible, flavourless, but still essential for life.
Furthermore, it is not only a material entity, but also an enveloping
permeation blurring the boundary between inner and outer. This does
not mean that it also intrudes into or even suffocates interiority like
excessive affections. Actually, it stirs up innumerable dusts of petite

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91

perceptions, which lead precisely to the initial stage of becoming-subject.

That is why breath is such a perfect translation7. As we have seen, it is a
seamless blending of these two closely correlated aspects: we breathe
in/out the air, but at the same time, breathing is also a micro and delicate
inner experience: let your senses communicate within and rid yourself of
the machinations of the mind (Chuang tzu 33).

Echo of Memories
However, no matter how profound and influential the Taoist
philosophy of listening might have been, a major point still seems to be
missing here, that is, listening to or with others. Lao tzu seldom mentions
the sounds of human beings. For him, listening to the Tao or Nature is far
more important. Chuang tzu clearly distinguishes among three basic kinds
of sounds: the pipes of man, the pipes of earth, and the pipes of
heaven (Chuang tzu, On the Equality of Things 10-12). Being two
main categories of the sound of Nature, the pipes of earth and heaven
apparently rank much higher than the sounds of mankind.
But it would be unwise to immediately jump from this initial
impression to a final conclusion. Many further indications concerning the
problem of the Other may be noted if we very carefully read Chuang tzus
original texts. For instance, the context in which he proposes the training
of the fasting of the mind is that of strategically offering critical advice
to a dictatorial Lord. This specific problem can reasonably lead to a more
general one: how to properly listen to others or make them listen to you.
From this deduction, we can further infer that the fasting of the mind is
precisely one of Chuang tzus major responses to the ultimate problem of
how we can live together. After all, one should not ignore the basic fact
that the title of the whole chapter is The Human World. Here, the inner
echo engendered by listening with primal breath also echoes with other
(actual or virtual) co-listeners.
How to properly listen to each other or ultimately how to effectively
create the harmonious resonance between different individuals through the
practices of listening is also a crucial problem in traditional Chinese
culture. Yet, unlike the meditative spaces of ancient Greece or the holy
spaces of Christianity, a typical Chinese sacred space is actually a
gathering place where the Other appears not as a transcendent God or an
authoritative philosopher/master, but always as an Elder, no matter
whether he is a Lord (in the Court), a Father (in the Family), or even an
Ancestor (in the Temple).

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Hence, when music is performed within the ancestral temple, lord and
subject, high and low, listen to the music together and are united in feelings
of reverence. When music is played in the private quarters of the home,
father and son, elder and young brother, listen to it together and are united
in feelings of kinship. When it is played in village meetings or clan halls,
old and young listen to the music together and are joined in obedience.
(Xun Zi, Discourse on Music, translated by John Knoblock)

Since temporality is one of the primary characteristics of co-listening,

as discussed above (variation and becoming of appetite through temporal
intervals), we will follow this lead closely to better understand one
typical kind of Chinese sacred spacethe ancestral temple.
The temporality of ancestral temple is immediately apparent. In the
past, people built such a place mainly to preserve and pass down their
memories of the ancestors glorious history as well as deep-rooted
traditional conventions. In a word, it is precisely a space of Memories.
This naturally leads us to Foucaults final step referring also to the
practices of remembering. To listen properly, merely keeping attentive or
silent is never enough. If by listening we finally attempt to perform a
harmonious resonance with others, then a key priority should be to grasp
what is said (Foucault 349). More exactly, by attentive and quiet listening,
the Truth itself (Gods words, Masters lessons, or the Elders ethical
guidance) must be taken in, understood, firmly grasped by the mind, so
that it does not immediately escape (Foucault 350). It will be
demonstrated that listening to remember or Remembering while listening
should be considered the most crucial step leading to the emergence and
becoming of the subject, just as Deleuze concisely writes when he also
talks about Foucault: Memory is the real name of the relation to oneself,
or the affect on self by self (Foucault 107).
The central role of remembrance in constructing or justifying the inner
identity of Self has aroused much criticism and disputation in the history
of Western philosophy. How to justify this inner identity basically via an
inner faculty? Put differently, I rely on my own memories to prove my
identity, but at the same time, I also need to prove that they belong to me,
or they are mine. St. Augustines argumentation in Confessions and
Wittgensteins skepticism in Philosophical Investigations might be two
typical examples of this vicious circle. However, this would not be such
a difficult problem for us. Based on our discussions above, remembrance
is not a mere inner faculty, but actually a whole set of practices involving
soul, body and environment. We help it to be established in the body, to
become a kind of habit for the body, or at any rate a physical virtuality
(Foucault 359). Only considered from this point of view can it really

Sacred Listening in a Folding Space

93

provide the basis for establishing the internal relationship between inner
and outer.
Can we also discover similar clues concerning a typical Chinese
ancestral temple? But first we must ask, why is such a space so important
for our current project? Before we set about unfolding philosophical
arguments, some explanation based on archaeology and anthropology is
also necessary. The earliest ancestral temples can be traced back to the
Three Dynasties. It is this indubitable antiquity as well as its lasting
vitality that leads us to reasonably treat it as the prototype of Chinese
sacred spaces: it not only provided the setting for the rituals but was also
a symbol in itself, as the center of rituals and of state affairs (Chang 37).
Ritual is a complicated assemblage involving all kinds of subjective and
objective elements (discourse, gestures, instruments, spatial order, and so
on), but basically speaking, it is nothing but a spiritual and corporeal
training of remembering, or more precisely, a full set of practices utilized
to impress rules or regulations deep into body and soul. Put succinctly, it is
the center where the habits of remembering first come into being.
The importance of music and listening in carrying out this training has
also been explicitly asserted. This is also why music was first created:
The sages of old composed music to eulogize virtues and offered it to the
Lord of Heaven with the spirits of their ancestors on sacrificial
ceremonies (The Zhou Book of Change, the image of the sixteenth
hexagram Yu, translated by Fu Hui-sheng). In the previous section, we
introduced the concept of Harmony as the ultimate ideal of music (Yue).
Here another primary character of this ideal should be noted. First we
should read very carefully this crucial paragraph in The Commentary of
Zuo:
The ancient kings indicate by their music how all other things should be
regulated. Hence there are the five regular intervals. Or slow or quick,
from beginning to end, they blend in one another. Each note rests in the
exact intermediate place; and when the five are thus determined, no further
exercise on the instrument is permitted. Thus the superior man does not
listen to music where the hands work on with licentious notes, pleasing the
ears but injurious to the mind, where the rules of equable harmony are
forgotten. (DUKE CHOU, First Year, James Legges translation)

Obviously the key word here is regulated, for it refers to a major

point: only knowing how to compose or play a piece of harmonious music
is never enough. The most important is to learn (through practices, of
course, especially those of remembering) when and where to stop listening,
that is, to keep silent and return to the innermost Void.

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This will also prove to be a decisive turning point. Even if one might
denounce the ideal of Harmony as a political tool, the deeper implications
of the practices of keeping silent still need to be unraveled. Put succinctly,
the intervals are not only the ones between different notes, but more
essentially the temporal intervals of the subjects inner life. To be exact,
the interval is the moment imbued with potentialities of being reborn or
starting over again. It is these intervals that finally engender an inner
rhythm of variation. It is the essential nature of music to seek to exhaust
the root of things and to carry change to its highest degree (Xun Zi,
Discourse on Music).
I stop listening not because the music has stopped or (even worse) I
feel bored or tired, but because I have trained myself to stop at the proper
moments. Hence, the real aim of the ascesis of listening is to learn to
pause on ones own initiative instead of being stopped. Obviously this also
concerns the essential temporality of an inner subject, just as Deleuze has
summarized: the subjective aim assures the passage from one datum to
another in a prehension, or from one prehension to another in a becoming.
And places the past in a present portending the future (The Fold 78). The
silent interval is exactly a moment of prehension.
But what happens in this interval? Even if we are not familiar with
Husserls meticulous analyses of the consciousness of internal time, it will
not be so hard to understand this basic fact: after the music stops, the
sound does not stop instantly and continues as an echo for a while; in the
same way, after I stop listening, my inner consciousness does not stop
immediately and lingers in memory for some time. Here, the intertwining
of echo and memory is precisely what is happening in this very interval.
Memory (or the retention of consciousness) is pushing my inner life
forward with a refreshing energy, in order to direct it towards a continuous
resonance with the outer echoing of body and space.
Now we may return to the sacred space of the ancestral temple and
begin to feel its particular acoustic atmosphere.
In The Temple of Memories: History, Power, and Morality in a Chinese
Village, Jing Jun has dramatically and poignantly demonstrated the deep
relationship between sacred place (an ancestral temple as the spiritual
center of villagers) and memory (mainly the habitual collective memories
embodied in practices). Though listening has never been a focal point, we
can still clearly see that this solemn historical drama is interspersed with
many unforgettable scenes of sacred listening. Even if you are not one of
the villagers, all these vivid descriptions still immerse you in the acoustic
atmosphere of real scenes. A ritual is also an ocean of sounds. You can
hear all kinds of sounds there and feel intensively the innumerable effects

Sacred Listening in a Folding Space

95

of echoing, reverberating, masking, permeating, and so on. To mention just

a few of them: the murmurs of people, the resounding bell, the rumbling
footsteps, the heart-warming old melodies, or even the sound of wind.
Every sound has its singularity, but they all also merge into One and
finally create a harmonious symphony. Of course, occasionally there might
also be some discordant sounds: for example, some mysterious incantation.
Another circle formed around a middle-aged woman whose body jerked
spasmodically and who mumbled what sounded like poems as if in a
trance (Jing Jun 155). Someone may think that there is no discordance
here. Should we not consider mystery, magic or even sorcery essential
features in such a typical ritual of ancestor worship? Yet, actually this
discordance is too conspicuous to be ignored or denied. How can we
properly account for this stark contrast?
An incantation or spell is always supposed to serve as a pathway
leading to another world, no matter whether it is a better world or an evil
one. As discussed in the previous section, there is nothing really
mysterious or transcendental in the typical sacred spaces of Chinese native
religions. When someone is uttering an incantation, he is also separating
himself from the people around him and striving to (or partially pretending
to) be a controlling power beyond them. But in a typical ritual of ancestor
worship, everything and everyone are merging into a Unity. This Unity is
Harmony without Assent, because it has been realized and sustained
mainly through the acoustic atmosphere. Only by petite listening and inner
voice can we really begin to return to the interiority and initiate the
dynamic process of becoming-subject. Only through the echoing of mutual
silence can different individuals effectively sustain the parallelism or
indivisible relations of distance (The Fold 20) between each other.
Finally, only through the practices of remembering can we really push
forward the inner lives and then converge into a mighty current that is
History. The ultimate aim of such a ritual is simply to be together. Yet,
does there still remain a vestige of mystery in such a perplexing scene?
In the annual ceremony for the worship of Confucius and the local
founding ancestors, the reading of memorial elegies was based on stylized
speech. For one thing, the elegies were chanted in an unnatural falsetto.
The rise and fall of chanted words was punctuated by rhythmic pulses and
protracted syllables. Most people attending the ceremony could not
understand the chanted elegies because of the artificially high pitch, the
tonal changes, and the rhythmic alterations, not to mention that the
meaning of the chanted elegies was already obscure because they were
written in wen yan. Despite this, the leading liturgists pressed on and
nobody seemed to mind. (Jing Jun 109)

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Indeed, there is nothing mysterious for us. Though the elegies are
ambiguous and abstruse, they still cannot be identified with incantations,
because they do not really direct the people towards another world, but
rather keep them even closer to each other within this World. Confucius
and the local founding ancestors are not transcendental deities, but the
heroes who have created the History in which we all belong. These elegies
should not be regarded as a kind of secret code, either, because even if the
elegy does have some profound hidden meaning, nobody seemed to
mind. Only sounds matter. The chant, which had such a musical and
acoustic beauty, emanated from the elders body and echoed around this
narrow and dim place covered with the heavy dust of History. All these
sound fragments gradually condensed into an atmosphere denser than
blood. Immersed in this ocean of sounds, through the age-old practices of
listening and remembering passed down across the generations, we finally
begin to feel that deepest bond between us. This world is the best world.8
Through all these inflections and detours, we also come to understand
this most profound proposition of Leibniz.

Notes
1. Among contemporary French philosophers, Bergson and Merleau-Ponty have
elaborated on this concept in the greatest depth. Despite the major differences
concerning philosophical backgrounds, they share some perspectives with Leibniz.
For instance, for Bergson (Matter and Memory), the body-image is also a
mediating link between inner and outer, that is, a material site of the relationship
between internal aspects of the body (i.e., the mind) and the external world
(matter) (Rawes 129). In contrast, for Merleau-Ponty, the body-image is first of
all a major target of his critique (see particularly Phenomenology of Perception,
Part 1, Chapter 3). However, based on our discussions concerning the body-image,
those defects he has pointed out can be partially overcome. For instance, the
body-image in the Leibnizian sense cannot be reduced to any single aspect of
content/form.
2. Once again, we hear enlightening echoes in Gregg Lamberts brilliant work:
this would be a body without faade; that is, without ob-jectum, which bears no
relation to the body that can become object (55).
3. Here we prefer Peter Zumthors atmosphere to Benjamins aura. Aura is
still a concept imbued with mysterious implications or visual indications (see
Leslie 122-125), whereas atmosphere vividly reveals the multiple affective
relationships between space and subject.
4. Actually, Deleuze has already discovered folds and doublings in Foucaults
late works (especially Histoire de la sexualit). So it would not be surprising to
find further clues in Foucaults other relevant works.
5. That is also why the culture de soi can be perfectly translated into Chinese
without losing its deep implications.

Sacred Listening in a Folding Space

97

6. If we do not stick to the details, we realize that the parallelism among these three
stages and the three kinds of listening (causal listening, semantic listening, and
reductive listening) first proposed by Pierre Schaeffer (further developed by
Michel Chion) is quite stunning.
7. Actually this is not an unfounded translation. Later in history, someone did carry
out Chuang tzus doctrine by the practice of listening to ones own breathing.
8. As Weber has asserted, this proposition should also be considered one of the
basic principles of Confucianism. See Weber 227.

Works Cited
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Trans. Maria Jolas. New York:
Orion P, 1964. Print.
Bains, Paul. Subjectless Subjectivities. A Shock to Thought: Expression
after Deleuze and Guattari. Ed. Brian Massumi. London: Routledge,
2002. 101-116. Print.
Blesser, Barry, and Linda-Ruth Salter. Space Speak, Are You Listening?
Experiencing Aural Architecture. Cambridge: MIT P, 2007. Print.
Chang, K.C. Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in
Ancient China. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983. Print.
Chretien, Jean-Louis. The Ark of Speech. Trans. Andrew Brown. London:
Routledge, 2004. Print.
Chuang tzu. Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of
Chuang Tzu. Trans. Victor H. Mair. New York: Bantam Books, 1994.
Print.
The Chun Tsew with the Tso Chuen (The Commentary of Zuo). Trans.
James Legge. Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP, 1960. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles. Foucault. Trans. Sean Hand. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota
P, 1988. Print.
---. The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. Trans. Tom Conley. Minneapolis:
U of Minnesota P, 1993. Print.
Deleuze, Giles, and Guattari Felix. A Thousand Plateaus. Trans. Brian
Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987. Print.
Derrida, Jacques. Speech and Phenomena: And Other Essays on Husserls
Theory of Signs. Trans. David B. Allison. Evanston: Northwestern UP,
1973. Print.
The Discourses and Saying of Confucius (The Analects). Trans. Gu
Hongming. Kunming: Yunnan Peoples Publishing House, 2011. Print.
Foucault, Michel. The Hermeneutics of the Subject. Trans. Graham
Burchell. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Print.
Ihde, Don. Listening and Voice. 2nd ed. New York: State U of New York P,
2007. Print.

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Jing Jun. The Temple of Memories: History, Power, and Morality in a

Chinese Village. Palo Alto: Stanford UP, 1996. Print.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: U of
Chicago P, 1980. Print.
Lambert, Gregg. The Non-Philosophy of Giles Deleuze. New York:
Continuum, 2002. Print.
Laozi. The Book of Tao and Teh. Trans. Arthur Waley. Changsha: Hunan
Peoples Publishing House, 1999. Print.
Leibniz, Gottfried W. La Monadologie. Paris: Libraire Victor Lecoffre,
1900. Print.
---. Philosophical Texts. Trans. Richard Francks and R. S. Woolhouse.
Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.
Leslie, Esther. Walter Benjamin. Edinburgh: Reaktion Books, 2007. Print.
McDonnell, Niamh. Leibnizs Combinatorial Art of Synthesis and the
Temporal Interval of the Fold. Deleuze and The Fold: A Critical
Reader. Ed. Sjoerd van Tuinen and Niamh McDonnell. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 65-88. Print.
Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses.
Chichester: Wiley-Academy, 2005. Print.
Rawes, Peg. Space, Geometry, and Aesthetics:Through Kant and Towards
Deleuze. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print.
Russell, Bertrand. A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz.
London: Routledge, 1992. Print.
Rutherford, Donald. Metaphysics: The late period. The Cambridge
Companion to Leibniz. Ed. Nicolas Jolley. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1994. Print.
Teyssot, George. A Topology of Everyday Constellations. Cambridge: MIT
P, 2013. Print.
Weber, Max. The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism. Trans.
Hans H. Gerth. Glencoe: Free P, 1951. Print.
Xunzi. Trans. John Knoblock. Changsha: Hunan Peoples Publishing
House, 1999. Print.
The Zhou Book of Change. Trans. Fu Hui-sheng. Changsha: Hunan
Peoples Publishing House, 2008. Print

CHAPTER SIX
HOKUSAI, DELEUZE AND THE BAROQUE
MARK DONOGHUE

Introduction
The Baroque is a tricky concept to pin down. Historically the Baroque
refers to the period in Europe roughly between the late 1500s and the mid
1700s. The art of the Baroque is often characterized using well-known
platitudes such as irregular, incomplete or asymmetrical. This is usually in
contrast to the order and harmony of the Renaissance and Neoclassical
periods that precede and succeed the Baroque. But should we be satisfied
relegating the Baroque to a specific period and place; do the well-known
Baroque characteristics of irregularity and asymmetry exist in other
periods and places? Can we legitimately describe art that exhibits these
characteristics, but falls outside the standard historical definitions based
around Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as Baroque?
I believe the work of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese
artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) exhibits this Baroque character.
Hokusai's reputation is hugely indebted to the renown of his landmark
landscape print series the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji1. Printed in the
1830s, this series includes the most recognizable image from Japanese art,
The Great Wave2. The reputation of this series is so great that it has
become the quintessential representative of Japanese woodblock prints in
general, despite landscape print being a relatively late coming genre. The
series is composed of forty-six prints (ten were added due to demand)
featuring Mount Fuji in differing contexts. Sometimes Fuji is the subject
of the image and sometimes it is merely the backdrop for some human
drama. Although Fuji had been the subject of many images before, the
mid-nineteenth century saw a boom in the subject and combined with the
development of print, the number of Fuji images produced around that
period must have exceeded the total number produced up to that time
(Clark 20). Of these images, Hokusais are undoubtedly the most lauded.

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Hokusai was able to draw on techniques from both Japanese and

Western pictorial traditions when he composed his prints. I believe it is
Hokusai's virtuoso ability to assimilate these techniques, specifically
modes of depicting space, that lent the images from the Thirty-six Views a
Baroque incomplete and irregular quality. Hokusai was able to integrate
antithetical modes of spatial depiction to create images imbued with
tension and dynamism. Given the important role the Baroque plays in
Deleuzes The Fold, if Hokusais work does indeed have a Baroque quality,
studying Hokusais images in light of The Fold should prove insightful.

Deleuze and The Fold

Before launching into Hokusais work, a brief overview of The Fold is
required. Deleuze here is greatly indebted to Leibnizs paramount
achievement, differential calculus. Differental calculus refers to the study
of change and, in particular, the instantaneous rate of change. Suppose a
car travels seventy kilometres in one hour. The car could maintain a
constant 70 kph speed over the whole duration, or it could travel slower at
the start and faster at the end with the average being 70 kph. In the case of
a changing speed over the duration, how could the speed be determined at
a specific instant? Leibnizs differential calculus provides the tool to do
this.
Leibnizs method involved finding the gradient of a point on a curve
(the curve representing the speed of the car and the gradient of a point the
instantaneous speed in this case) by finding the average gradient in
increasingly smaller ranges approaching zero. For Leibniz, the ontological
implication of this was the existence of an infinitesimally small rate of
change, or differential (Duffy 95). Deleuze inherits this ontological
concept in the form of the virtual and references Leibnizs conjoined
triangles diagram to demonstrate this (18). The two triangles have an equal
ratio (change in y/change in x) and this will be maintained when the
hypotenuses are moved horizontally. If the hypotenuses are shifted so far
that the opposite edge becomes zero, one of the triangles effectively
disappears. Deleuze argues that the triangle has not vanished but has
become virtual, that is, it has become unassignable but completely
determined, and there is a continuity between this virtual unassigned
triangle and the actualized assigned triangle (Duffy 94). As with Leibnizs
differential, the ratio of the virtual triangle has become an infinitesimal
differential relationship. In other words, this virtual differential
relationship becomes a productive determiner of identity, as all possible
triangles of the same ratio will maintain this relationship with the virtual

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triangle (Smith 149).

We may consider the virtual triangle as a singularity that determines all
the possible triangles of the same ratio, but these actual triangles do not
resemble the singularity or virtual triangle. Singularities determine the
characteristics of a function while remaining undefined themselves. If we
consider a more complex system, singularities determine the space of
possibilities for the system, acting as attractors for a systems state but, as
with the triangles, the state of the system does not resemble the singularity,
although it is determined by it. Rather, the singularity is a tendency that is
approached but never reached. For example, no matter how small a
triangle is, it will never duplicate the infinitesimal virtual one.
At this point it may be useful to distinguish between the principle of
causality (everything has a cause) and the principle of sufficient reason
(everything has a reason). The principle of causality is a chain of causal
states; for example, state A causes state B, state B causes state C and so
forth. However, there is no limit to this causal chain and can be continually
extended to incorporate the whole universe. By contrast, the principle of
sufficient reason expresses the relations between these states. As Smith
states, Sufficient reason expresses the relation of the thing with its own
concept, whereas causality expresses the relations of the thing with
something else (143). In other words, singularities, by determining this
relation of a thing to its concept, generate the identity of a thing but this is
only actualized through material causal processes that relate a thing to
other things. As these material causal processes can be extended to include
the whole universe, the concept of a thing includes the whole universe, but
only a limited area of this concept is distinct. This consistency of material
processes forms a monadic subject that avoids a distinction between
matter and identity since potential identities subsist virtually in matter.
Deleuze raises the paradox of Theseus's ship to demonstrate this point
(110). Because the Athenians had pledged to maintain the ship of Theseus,
slayer of the Minotaur, they continuously replaced the deteriorated timbers
with new ones. This raises the problem of identity. If the Athenians are
constantly replacing the timbers, is there a point at which it is no longer
Theseus's ship? The identity of the ship is not reducible to the individual
components, but rather the material is continuously processed in such a
consistent way as to maintain its identity. In the same manner that the
virtual triangle determines all possible triangles of the same ratio, the
monad determines all possible Theseuss ships. In this way, the ship
constitutes a sort of stable system in which variation can occur.
Matter is imbued with the infinite potential for new subjects that
subsist merely virtually unless matter is folded in a manner to give

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consistency and actualize the object. This allows for variation in the object,
and there are many potential enfoldings of Theseuss ships. As Deleuze
states, The new status of the object no longer refers its condition to a
spatial mold . . . but to a temporal modulation that implies as much the
beginnings of a continuous variation (19). Theseuss ship, although it
may appear an immutable object, is undergoing continuous variation. As
long as this variation is within a certain threshold of the monadic subject,
the ship remains Theseuss ship. The Athenians can continue to maintain
the ship by replacing the timbers but should it undergo a drastic change,
such as being consumed by fire, it is no longer within the threshold of the
monadic subject.
The universe is composed of an infinity of these monads, nested in one
another. For example, the monad that determines all possible Theseuss
ships would be nested in a monad that determines all possible ships. They
are not eternal and unchanging since interactions with other monads could
modify possible variations. As new materials become available, this could
result in new possible ships, for example.
These infinite possible states lead to the feasibility of alternative
worlds. At this point introducing the concepts of compossible and
incompossible should be useful. Deleuze states,
Compossibles can be called (1) the totality of converging and extensive
series that constitute the world, (2) the totality of monads that convey the
same world (Adam the sinner. Caesar the emperor. Christ the savior . . .).
Incompossibles can be called (1) the series that diverge, and that from then
on belong to two possible worlds, and (2) monads of which each expresses
a world different from the other (Caesar the emperor and Adam the
nonsinner). (60)

A Caesar who does not cross the Rubicon is a possibility but the
Caesar who crosses the Rubicon and the Caesar who does not cross the
Rubicon are mutually exclusive as only one can be actualized in this
world. They are incompossible with one another, their series are divergent,
but the Caesar who crossed the Rubicon is compossible with other series
that converge to constitute this world. Returning to Theseuss ship,
although we can imagine many possible variations of Theseuss ship, only
one is compossible with this universe.
For Leibniz, in order to avoid an infinity of possible worlds, God
selects the best of all possible worlds, which is the world within which we
exist (Deleuze 60). As far as Leibniz is concerned all series that constitute
this world converge on a dominant God monad.
Where Deleuze differs is in the absence of this God guaranteeing the

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best possible world. Rather, the world is a chaosmos without any

pre-established harmony. This actual world is a result of a constant
bifurcation of series or processes that are composed in a dynamic, fluid
world. For Deleuze, difference is not a negation between these divergent
incompossible series; rather, difference is the bifurcation that constantly
actualizes this world out of the virtual continuum of possible worlds (150).

The Baroque Point of View

The key point regarding the Baroque is that the monad forms a sort of
point of view through which variation is apprehended. Deleuze writes,
The point of view is not what varies with the subject . . . it is . . . the
condition in which an eventual subject apprehends a variation
(metamorphosis) . . . the condition in which the truth of a variation appears
to the subject. This is the very idea of Baroque perspective. (20)

The monad here is like a camera obscura. It offers a view on the world
but it is still a thing of the world. Rather than consider the image on the
inside of the camera as a representation of the world outside, the image is
merely a product of the material conditions or folding of the camera to
filter certain information. Likewise the monadic camera filters possibilities
and apprehends the variation of the monads subject.
For Deleuze, this variation is vital to the mutability of the Baroque and
distinguishes it from the essentialism of Classicism (56). This is evident in
Deleuzes analogy of the Baroque house. The bottom floor is the realm of
matter, which has the potential for an unlimited number of potential
enfoldings to engender the upper floor of the soul. The soul or subject is
not divorced from the realm of matter; rather, these souls are potentials
encapsulated in matter but this matter has to be folded in a specific way to
give consistency to this subject. Although the Baroque house may be
interpreted as an analogy for the generation of individual subjectivity, as
Deleuze draws no distinctions between organic and inorganic matter, this
also leads to a potential inorganic subjectivity (7). In this sense,
architecture and art are freed from a teleological ultimate state and are
always open to transformation (Frichot 63). This openness of form seems
to permeate the various artistic forms of the Baroque. Architecture
becomes painterly through an indistinctness of form, and painting often
appears unconcluded but animated (Harbison 1-32). It is as if the material
of the Baroque strives to overcome any enclosure and Deleuze picks up on
this when he quotes Henrich Wlfflin stating the Baroque underlines
matter: either the frame disappears totally, or else it remains, but, despite

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the rough sketch, it does not suffice to contain the mass that spills over and
passes up above (Deleuze 123).
Maravall shows how this incompleteness or irregularity engenders an
intense sensation of suspense when the observer is compelled to engage
with the work as it eludes full comprehension (218). This suspense may be
observed in the concept of anamorphosis. Anamorphosis derives from the
Greek ana meaning again and morphosis meaning shaping; hence,
anamorphosis could be translated as reshaping or reconstructing.
Generally, anamorphosis refers to an image created through a distorted or
inconsistent projection. Maravall describes anamorphosis as a process
whereby with a play of reshaping and distortions performed upon the
object one strives to make that object, at first glance, disappear or, better,
to make it approximate in appearance or resemble a very different thing
(223). In this way, anamorphosis illustrates matters infinite capacity for
the generation of form seen in The Fold by attempting to conjure several
forms simultaneously and thus render the chaosmos of infinite variation.
The most famous example of anamorphosis is Hans Holbeins The
Ambassadors (1533)3. The painter has included a skull in the image that,
although extremely distorted when the painting is viewed from the
conventional position, can only be seen undistorted when viewed from an
extremely oblique angle. Likewise, this anamorphism can be observed in
illusionistic trompe l'oeil Baroque ceilings, which, from the correct
viewpoint, dissolve the boundary between architecture and painted
decoration and transform a confined interior space into an open form.
Anamorphosis appeals to the Baroques concern with matters capacity
for form and it is this that Deleuze picks up on. Anamorphosis exposes the
mutability of form by attempting to create a fractured image through
distortion or inconsistency. It is not a case of it representing the virtual
realm from which form is generated; rather, it induces an awareness of this
virtual space by animating a static artwork through an amorphous plastic
form. I would suggest that Hokusai also creates engaging and dynamic
images through a form of anamorphosis.

Hokusai's Pictorial Space

If the aim in such art is to maximize variation in a static artwork and
thereby render these variable, divergent monadic points of view and
expose the deeper difference beyond extensive appearances, I believe this
aim is achieved in Hokusais images through pictorial tensionprimarily
that between two-dimensional and three-dimensional space. It is this
structural tension between shallow and deep space, I would argue, that

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enables Hokusai to create dynamism in a static image (Bell, Hokusais

Project 47). This constant fluctuation between recession into pictorial
space and withdrawal onto the surface produces a dynamic force that pulls
the image apart only to have it reform again. This dynamic tension renders
the image constitutively incomplete, and in this regard, Hokusais images
have a strongly Baroque character. It is this indeterminate incompleteness
that offers an awareness of the virtual realm that determines this world. I
believe Hokusais images do this by integrating spatial depiction
techniques that are fundamentally antithetical to one another. In varying
degrees they employ orthographic, axonometric and linear perspective
spaces, that is, they attempt to fuse 2D, 2.5D and 3D space. These are
irreconcilable with one another and it is impossible to create a stable
pictorial space when these are juxtaposed (Kalkofen). Incompleteness and
suspension here represent not merely a momentary pause but a
fundamental fissure that prevents the image from ever achieving a
coherent space. However, this is the power of Hokusais images: they
strive to be visually incompossible, that is, they include more than one
point of view by integrating these divergent spatial techniques.
Hokusai was able to acquire the spatial techniques to make these
images by drawing on various resources available at that time, during
which there were many art academies with differing styles and
considerable interchange between them. In addition, Hokusais own
restless character no doubt played a part in his ability to draw on a wide
variety of artistic techniques and styles (Bell, Hokusais Project 21).
However, Hokusais position as primarily a print artist probably also
encouraged his exploration of such innovative techniques, since print
artists were engaged in a market driven in large part by novelty rather than
stylistic orthodoxy.
There are three basic systems for organizing space in Hokusais prints:
the two-dimensional stacked space of the Kan academy that was derived
from Chinese monochrome ink-wash painting; axonometric projection of
the Tosa academy that was derived from Japanese court painting
(yamato-e); and linear perspective imported from the West along with
landscape prints (Bell, Explaining Ukiyo-E 150).
The Kan academy developed out of the ink-wash paintings that
decorated the interiors of Zen monasteries and the residences of feudal
lords. The school was founded by Kan Masanobu (1434-1530) and is
indebted to the monochrome ink painting that travelled to Japan with the
china in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The austere Zen aesthetic,
with its large scale and dynamic brushwork, was popular with warlord
elites who decorated their castles in this style. This patronage continued

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into Hokusais time and the Kan academy formed the official Shogunate
style.
The technique, based on the application of ink washes, naturally leads
to a very flat style, although there is still a definite sense of depth in the
picture. Generally, the point of view is located in a high position so the
surface of the image suggests an empty receding ground plane. Formally,
the technique consists of two-dimensional orthographic projections that
are stacked on top of each other. The sense of depth is created through the
placement of the layers and object occlusion. The nature of ink washes is
also ideal for atmospheric perspective effects. These features convey depth,
despite the planar nature of ink-washes. Since the image is a
two-dimensional parallel projection, there is no distortion based on viewer
position, that is, the viewer is not encoded into the image and the eye is
free to wander over the surface. This wandering eye is vital in traditional
Asian paintings since they are composed, for the most part, on scrolls or
screens, and hence a free viewpoint is essential to allow the observer to
wander across the picture space.
Although some have tried to link Hokusai formally to the Kan
academy, there is no real evidence to support this hypothesis (Bell,
Hokusais Project 46-47), yet no such formal connection need be posited.
Since Kan was the orthodox art-style of the period, there was no doubt
ample opportunity in Edo4 for Hokusai to become acquainted with it.
Rather, Hokusai's first formal artistic education was in the studio of the
ukiyo-e artist Katsukawa Shunsh (1726-93).5 The economy of the Kan
compositions can be seen in both Shunshs and Hokusais work. Take for
example The Lake of Hakone in Sagami Province6 from the Thirty-six
Views. The image is constructed from stacked planes giving the image a
flat appearance. The planes seem to float on top of one another instilling in
the image a certain spatial indeterminacy. Space constructed from planes
was readily applicable to prints and it could be translated from wash
drawings to prints without much difficulty. This legacy of two-dimensional
stacked space is evident in most woodblock ukiyo-e prints but this was
complemented by other spatial techniques.
Another spatial technique in Hokusai's images that complemented the
Kan-style flat space was the axonometric projection derived from the
Tosa academy. The Tosa academy developed out of the yamato-e court
painting of the 9th to 12th centuries. The distinguishing spatial mode of
yamato-e that was continued through the Tosa academy down to Hokusais
time was axonometric projection. Axonometric (literally measurement
along axis) projection is a technique for drawing using three dimensions.
Unlike orthographic projection, which only shows one face of an object,

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axonometric projection can render two or, more usually, three faces.
However, like orthographic projection, it is a parallel projection technique,
so it does not produce distortion due to depth. Because of the inclusion of
three dimensions but the lack of depth, it is sometimes referred to as 2.5D.
The result is that, as in the previous Kan-style flat space, the observers
eye is able to float over the surface of the image. This is useful in scroll
and screen painting and is why axonometric projection remained the
primary method for illustrating three dimensions in traditional Chinese
(and by extension Japanese) painting (Dubery and Willats 33-34; Willats
241; Krikke). Although it does render three dimensions, it tends to impose
a grid on the surface of an image and this combined with the lack of depth
distortion tempers the images three-dimensional quality. The result is that
Tosa-style space is more defined than the Kan-style but it shares the
disembodied view that floats over the surface.
Hokusai was not formally connected to the Tosa academy, although as
with the Kan academy, there were no doubt many opportunities for his
contact with that style in Edo. But Hokusai may have had a formal
connection with the Rimpa academy of Tawaraya Sori. Rimpa was
founded in part by Tawaraya Statsu (early 17th century) who took
inspiration from the earlier yamato-e painting. As a result, Rimpa shares
Tosas spatial aesthetic, although somewhat less delineated in character
(Bell, Hokusais Project 37). This axonometric space features in many of
the Thirty-six Views including the Tea House at Koishikawa7. The teahouse
and buildings in the foreground and mid-ground are rendered in
axonometric projection. As axonometric projection clearly delineates three
dimensions, it is easily applicable to drawing architecture. The lack of
distortion can delineate structural features unambiguously and even today
axonometric projection is used by architects or engineers. Axonometric
projection remained Hokusais principal technique for depicting
architectural space, despite his proven ability with linear perspective (Bell,
Hokusais Project 48). However, axonometric projection is not the only
spatial mode in this image. We may still detect elements of Kan-style
stacked space in the clouds and the impression of the mid and foreground
floating over the background. The horizon is low, which gives the
impression the rear of the teahouse is floating in mid-air. At first this
seems like a strange choice but having a low horizon allows for a deeper
recession into the pictorial space. Kan-style and Tosa-style images
typically had high horizons so it could be argued this low horizon is
evidence of the influence of linear perspective.
Unlike the other spatial techniques that were ultimately derived from
classical painting styles, the introduction of linear perspective in Japan

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came primarily through Western art.8 Despite the supposedly closed nature
of Japan during this period, there was plenty of opportunity for exposure
to images of Western art. Artists could study perspective from the
numerous copperplate Western landscape prints (veduta) that were being
imported during this period through the Dutch trade at Nagasaki (Screech
94132). Sometimes these took the form of vue doptique (perspective
view) prints designed to be viewed through a lens-based device called a
zograscope to enhance the three-dimensional effect. Dutch books on art
technique were also being imported, but artists are more likely to have
studied the technique through Chinese translations of Western technical art
manuals (which would have been understandable to someone adequately
literate in Chinese characters), rather than directly studying the original
Dutch texts (Little 78). In addition, optical devices, such as telescopes or
microscopes, were making their way into Japan during this period. These
devices and prints constituted a new regime of viewing that would
supplement the existing pictorial traditions (Screech 94).
The novelty of linear perspective crossed from copperplate landscape
prints to woodblock prints in the form of uki-e (floating prints). The
primary attraction of these prints was the novelty of linear perspective.
These generally took the form of interior views, a theme for which linear
perspective was ideally suited. The introduction of linear perspective to
ukiyo-e around 1730 is generally credited to Okumura Masanobu
(1686-1764). These early uki-e often do not apply the rules of perspective
consistently, since in many cases they include several vanishing points.
Such inconsistency could evidence a misunderstanding of technique, and
one should bear in mind that linear perspective in Japan in this period was
a purely artistic technique. It was not underpinned by empirical philosophy
or mathematics as in the West, so artists were free to deploy it in whatever
manner they wished. Hokusai's Thirty-Six Views were printed around one
hundred years after the introduction of linear perspective, but if we
examine Sazai hall - Temple of Five Hundred Rakan9 we find similar
perspective inconsistencies. Although the glaring inconsistencies of earlier
uki-e are gone, the orthogonals (receding lines that converge on the
vanishing point) do not converge on a single vanishing point but merely
approximate convergence on the horizon line. This is not a case of
Hokusai misunderstanding the technique, since he demonstrates this
idiosyncratic perspective technique in his manga.10 Rather, I would
suggest this perspectival inconsistency is an attempt to integrate
perspective with the Kan-style and Tosa-style modes of space by
flattening out the effect of recession.
It is unclear whether Hokusai had any formal training in Western art

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techniques. It has been suggested that Hokusai trained with Shiba Kkan
(17471818), the most prominent Japanese native Western-style artist, but
this claim is unsubstantiated (Bell, Hokusais Project 51). Nonetheless, his
interest in Western art is clear in his oeuvre. Earlier in his career he
produced a set of landscape prints in a Western style and even attempted to
replicate the tonal nature of Western copperplate engravings in woodcut.
There is nothing unique about Hokusais use of Western perspective.
Contemporaries such as Utagawa Toyoharu (1735-1814) routinely created
perspective images. What does distinguish Hokusai, however, is his
virtuoso handling of the technique in conjunction with other spatial modes
to create dynamic images.
The key point of difference between linear perspective, and the
Kan-style and Tosa-style spatial systems discussed previously, is that in
linear perspective projection rays are convergent, whereas in the others
they are parallel. In other words, perspective images include depth
distortion depending on the viewpoint. Images in perspective include a
viewer encoded into the image with the eye fixed in one spot according to
the vanishing point, whereas in parallel projection the eye is free to
wander over the surface, as in Kan-style and Tosa-style images. The
impression of being in a space that is produced through linear perspective
was very useful in the case of the Thirty-six Views, since these were
landscape prints of purportedly actual locations, and although they are not
topographically accurate, perspective allows the use of a visual grammar
of fidelity.
These techniques are not exclusive categories, and in Hokusai's time
there was a large amount of interchange between artistic styles. Rather, the
Kan-style two-dimensional stacked flat space, the Tosa-style axonometric
space and linear perspective are tendencies for spatial arrangement. These
axioms form a monadic point of view, in the sense that they provide a
continuity in the arrangement of matter. As Deleuze remarks,
That is the very condition of compossibility, in a manner of
reconstituting over and again one and the same, infinitely infinite,
converging series, the World, made of all series, its curvature having a
unique variable . . . a law of order or continuity that classifies limits or
transforms series into a totality (the presently infinite totality of the
world, or the transfinite). (60)

Each method forms a totality of space in which objects can be arranged

according to a consistent principle of spatial convergence that expresses
the world from a point of view.
However, many of Hokusais images are not consistent and merge

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several of these spatial methods together. It is impossible to create a

homogeneous convergent space through mixing these different techniques
since these systems are fundamentally antithetical. As seen previously in
the Tea House at Koishikawa11 the spatial peculiarity is a product of the
combination of axonometric projection with a perspective-like low
horizon. The axis of the image shifts in the space, thereby distorting it. Or
in the Sazai hall - Temple of Five Hundred Rakan12 the deep recession of
perspective is warped to flatten the space and combine it with a flat
background. Again a perspective-like low horizon is used, but although
Hokusai is using the visual grammar of perspective, he is breaking with its
conventions.
These irreconcilable images do not provide a totalizing system of
reference. Totality is replaced by divergence that affirms a world of
incompossible monads by negotiating continually bifurcating series. It is
this incompossibility that is vital to the Baroque. As Deleuze writes,
We can better understand in what way the Baroque is a transition. Classical
reason toppled under the force of divergences, incompossibilities, discords,
dissonances. But the Baroque represents the ultimate attempt to
reconstitute a classical reason by dividing divergences into as many worlds
as possible, and by taking from incompossibilities as many possible
borders between worlds. (81)

By creating images that fuse these antithetical spatial systems, Hokusai

visually assembles divergent worlds. It is this discord, a world in which
Caesar does and does not cross the Rubicon, a world in which multiple
Theseuss ships coexist, that is the vital Baroque quality that Hokusai
engenders through these incompossible divergent spaces.

Heinrich Wlfflin and Hokusai

The Swiss art historian Heinrich Wlfflin (1864-1945) focuses on the
shift between Renaissance and Baroque form in his seminal works,
Renaissance and Baroque and The Principles of Art History. Although
Deleuze references Renaissance and Baroque in The Fold, it is the more
formal The Principles of Art History I am interested in here, as I believe
the categories Wlfflin devises in this text may be used to examine
Hokusais work. Broadly, Wlfflin detects a shift between form based on a
perfect proportion of parts brought together to form a harmonious whole in
the Renaissance, to a form that is always attempting to exceed this whole
through tension, excess, and rupture in the Baroque. For Deleuze, these
trends mirror the tendencies towards either convergence or divergence.

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Wlfflin describes the development from the Renaissance to the Baroque

as a shift from the linear to the painterly, as a shift from the planar to the
recessional, as a shift from tectonic to a-tectonic form, as a shift from
multiple unity to unified unity, and as a shift from absolute to relative
clarity (Wlfflin 14-16). These are not exclusive categories but are virtual
tendencies, one towards completeness, harmony and stability, the other
towards incompleteness, and flux (Ionescu 54). If we are to attribute a
Baroque character to Hokusais images, can these shifts from the
Renaissance to the Baroque identified by Wlfflin be observed in
Hokusais work?
First there is the shift from the linear to the painterly. Given the nature
of woodblock prints, in which colour is applied with printing blocks rather
than brushes, a shift to the painterly seems implausible. This is a feature of
the medium that ensures the images remain linear, composed of distinct
contours and blocks of colour. Although there was considerable
development of woodblock printing in Japan in fact in some respects
Hokusai's era represents the zenith of Edo-period (1603-1867) printing
this did not change the fundamentally linear character of images.
Therefore, I will not consider this here.
Second is the shift from the planar to the recessional. Before
considering Hokusai, lets see how this is handled in an acknowledged
Baroque image. In El Grecos The Burial of the Count of Orgaz13, an
image Delezue mentions in The Fold, this shift from plane to recession
may be observed in a single composition (30). The image contrasts the
lower planar terrestrial realm with the upper recessional celestial realm. In
the lower half the mourners are arranged in a horizontal flat composition
in which the figures are depicted at approximately the same scale, lending
the image a confined and flat impression. The upper celestial realm, in
which the deceased is being received into heaven, by contrast is extremely
recessional. The figures are depicted at different scales around a triangular
composition that gives a strong sense of convergence on Christ that
produces a powerful impression of recession.
As for Hokusai's work, there are compositions in the Thirty-six Views
that are extremely planar, the famous Red Fuji14 for example, and this is
no doubt a continuing legacy of the spatial styles derived from classical
painting modes, such as the Kan-style ink-wash landscapes. But there are
many recessional compositions too, for example Sazai hall - Temple of
Five Hundred Rakan. This image, like El Grecos, tries to integrate planar
and recessional movements. There is an obvious overlap between the
two-dimensional and three-dimensional tension described in the previous
section and Wlfflins shift from plane to recession. Although much work

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on Japanese woodblocks emphasizes their planar quality, this is in large

part due to the nature of the medium and its application of colour in large
blocks. However, this emphasis on planarity tends to obscure the
intentions of ukiyo-e artists. Compared to Western paintings they may
seem flat, but compared to the more traditional Japanese painting schools
they are, on many occasions, extremely recessional. A full range of
compositional depths may be observed in the Thirty-six Views, but the
majority engenders tension through an integration of the planar and the
recessional in some form.
Next is the shift from tectonic to a-tectonic form. Wlfflins architectural
metaphors are insightful here when he states,
The final notion of tectonic style is to be sought in a regularity which can
only be partially apprehended as geometry, but which speaks very clearly
from the line, lighting, perspective gradations, etc., as an underlying law.
The a-tectonic style does not fall into lawlessness, but the order on which it
is based is so much freer that we may well speak of a general contrast of
law and freedom. (135)

Deleuze speaks of the worlds composition in a compossible

architectonic totality (66). So in this sense the tectonic is a tendency
towards compossibility and convergence, and the a-techtonic is a tendency
towards incompossibility and divergence. I believe we can see this shift
towards the a-techtonic in the Hokusai prints already mentioned. Each of
the techniques for arranging space is constructed from underlying
architectural principles, whether they be those of pictorial space
constructed from layers, those of axonometric perspective, or those of
linear perspective. The combination of these systems, however, results in
an a-tectonic pictorial space that is not a completely lawless disorder. The
images still maintain a structured interior beyond the surface of the image,
but it is a space with a degree of indeterminacy and openness.
How does El Greco handle this shift between tectonic to a-tectonic
form in The Burial of the Count of Orgaz? Again the shift is evident in the
contrast between the images terrestrial lower half and celestial upper half.
The lower tectonic half is restrained and ordered with the figures neatly
arranged horizontally. By contrast, the upper a-techtonic half is far more
fluid and open. The sense of muted order has been replaced by an
exuberant free-flowing movement towards Christ. The sombre mood has
been replaced by a euphoric feeling through a much more varied and
bright palette emphasising this upward flow.
A good example of this shift from tectonic to a-tectonic form in the
Thirty-six Views is Under Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa15. At first glance it

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seems like a regular perspective view of a bridge with Fuji visible through
the bridge supports. The use of perspective lends it a tectonic quality, but
if we inspect it more closely we find that, as in the Sazai hall - Temple of
Five Hundred Rakan, Hokusai is willing to break the rules of perspective,
lending the image a conflicting inconsistent a-tectonic quality. The space
is given an indefinite quality by the use of different vanishing points. If we
examine the structures on either side of the bridge, it is apparent the lines
do not converge on the visible horizon but somewhere below it. Similarly,
recessional orthogonal lines on the bridge do not converge on a single
point, although there is approximate convergence. This gives the bridge a
warped appearance. Hokusai has probably engaged these strategies to
reduce the area of the bridges underside that would be visible had he
strictly followed the conventions of linear perspective. Doing so gives a
better view of Fuji without the bridges underside distracting the viewer.
Overall, as with the Sazai hall - Temple of Five Hundred Rakan, this
flattening of the perspective space allows for the impression of recession
while integrating it with a flat two-dimensional background. Again
Hokusai is able to twist perspective to create tense compositions that
harness divergent tendencies, here in terms of tectonic to a-tectonic form.
The image creates the sense of a pictorial interior but one that may
disassemble itself before our eyes.
Next is the shift from multiple unity to unified unity.16 What Wlfflin
means here is the contrast between an image consisting of distinct parts in
clear relation with one another, and an image that negates these distinct
parts in favour of an overall effect or total movement. In regard to Deleuze,
multiple unity is a framing generating a totality out of convergent series,
producing structure and order within an enveloping scheme, whereas
unified unity is a conceptual unity of divergent series out of which order
and structure emerge and dissipate (124). Let us briefly return to El
Grecos The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. Again the contrast between the
terrestrial lower half and the celestial upper half is key. The lower half of
the image is created according to multiple unity, with the unity of the
composition being constructed from discreet figures incorporated into a
containing space. By contrast, the upper half creates a unified unity by
lessening the discreet elements in favour of an encompassing vertical
thrust that attempts to overcome the enclosure of the space and provide a
conceptual unity through an overall movement, rather than the assemblage
of individual components.
This multiple unity, in which images are constituted through discreet
components in relationship with one another within a totality, has much in
common with the classical Kan-style and Tosa-style space. As these are

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parallel projection techniques, they allow motifs to be slid over the surface
of the image. The surface is a ground on which motifs can be arranged and,
as a result, the placement of these motifs and the relationships between
them become the fundamental compositional issue (Bell, Explaining
Ukiyo-E 153). Take for example Mount Fuji Reflects in Lake Kawaguchi.17
Due to the flat stacked nature of the space, the picture elements could be
moved horizontally or vertically without distorting the space, although
such movement might compromise the composition. The small island,
boat and banks seem to float on top of the lake rather than intersecting
with it. Because these elements have no fixed relationship to the
background of the lake, their placement clearly serves the larger end of
focusing the observer on Fuji, the main feature of the image.
In contrast, unified unity images have more in common with linear
perspective-style images. There is less emphasis on the spatial relationships
between motifs, and although the placement of motifs is still an issue, due
to the constraints of linear perspective, artists are less free to shift the
motifs wherever they please. However, linear perspective does create a
unified unity by depicting the space between picture elements, not only
their spatial relationship on the surface. For example, in Mount Fuji
Reflects in Lake Kawaguchi there is no sense of space between the layers;
they just appear stacked. The stacking and occlusion do generate depth but
it is extremely muted. By contrast, in Yoshida at Tkaid18 there is a clear
sense that the characters are inhabiting a three-dimensional space, not just
floating on top of an under-layer. This effect is created by the application
of recession through perspective but, as might be expected, Hokusai has
tempered the depth effect by inconsistencies in the perspective space. In
addition, due to the linear nature of the images, the figures are quite flat
and delineated although they appear arranged in a three-dimensional space.
In this manner Hokusai is able to generate a tension between this multiple
unity and unified unity.
The last of Wlfflins historical transformations involves the shift from
absolute to relative clarity, that is, the representation of things as they
are...and the representation of things as they look (Wlfflin 15). Briefly
returning to The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, we see that El Greco
satisfies this absolute clarity in the terrestrial lower half through the clear
articulation of the figures. In the lower half there is relatively little
foreshortening, the faces are in positions that are easily recognizable and
the detail is relatively uniform. By contrast, the upper half depicts figures
foreshortened, faces at obscure angels and individuals in varying scales.
Absolute clarity is replaced by relative clarity to intentionally focus the
observer on important features of the image, in this case, the deceased

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being received by Christ.

The representation of things as they are could be considered
object-centred depictions because they eliminate shape distortion
dependent on the viewing position (Marr 317-18; Willats 48). An ideal
example of these sorts of views would be plans or engineering diagrams,
which convey information unambiguously about the shape of an object to
scale. Parallel projection systems, such as those used in the flat
two-dimensional stacked space of the Kan-style and the axonometric
projection of the Tosa-style, are examples of these object-centred views
since the projection rays do not converge, and thus do not distort an
objects shape depending on view-point. By contrast, the representation
of things as they look may be considered a viewer-centred description
that takes into account a viewer and distorts the shape of the objects
accordingly (Marr 317-318; Willats 20). Such a viewer-centred description
is inherent in perspective images, since the orthogonals converging on the
vanishing point simulate light rays converging through our pupils onto our
retina. Therefore the use of object-centred orthographic projections
together with the use of viewer-centred linear perspective in Hokusai's
Thirty-six Views mirror this tension between absolute and relative clarity in
the Baroque.
Let us examine The Mitsui Shop in Suruga in Edo19 to illustrate this
tension between absolute and relative clarity. The buildings are drawn in a
very unusual perspective with the vanishing point below the bottom edge
of the image to create an unnatural view looking upwards. The point of
view does not make sense spatially, since the viewer would have to be
practically lying on the ground to see the building from such an angle.
This is why the vanishing point is usually near the centre of an image,
since placing it near or outside the edges creates images that do not accord
with the observers ordinary viewing position. Again Hokusai twists the
rules of perspective by including a background horizon much higher than
it should be. In a strict sense, we should not be able to see a horizon at all,
since the vanishing point is outside the image; the background should only
be sky. But by including Fuji in the background, in a space that should be
sky, the image emphasizes the grandeur of Fuji. Hokusai has depicted Fuji
as object-centred, that is, as an ideal triangular shape floating in the
background that does not take the viewers position into account at all.
Hokusai cleverly integrates these two spaces by repeating the shape of Fuji
in the gable end of the building, and by mirroring one slope of Fuji in the
kite string. In this way, Hokusai is able to synthesize the absolute clarity of
Fuji and the relative clarity of the street scene.
The parallels between Wlfflins categories and Hokusais practice

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should now be apparent. Renaissance style images tend to be linear, planar,

tectonic, multiple and absolutely clear, whereas Baroque images tend to be
painterly, recessional, a-tectonic, unified and relatively clear. In Hokusai's
work, the spaces influenced by the classical Kan-style and Tosa-style
exhibit tendencies similar to those of Renaissance style images, and linear
perspective style images have tendencies similar to those of Baroque
images. This is not to play down the difference in cultural context between
Japan and Europe, but since the world is constantly becoming through
converging and diverging processes, it is to be expected that parallels may
be observed in various artworks from different periods and places. So in a
sense the tension between the Renaissance and Baroque is being played
out in Hokusais woodcuts around one hundred years after the end of the
Baroque period in Europe. I do not mean to suggest one tendency is
superior to the other. Rather, as in The Fold where unified subjects are
constantly converging out of a chaos, only to be scattered and dispelled by
divergent processes, in the same fashion the tension between these two
movements is reflected in the tension between the Renaissance and the
Baroque. It is this tension that Hokusai is able to evoke in his images and
by harnessing incompossible spaces that expose the chaosmos out of
which extensive space and objects are generated.

Conclusion
In the conclusion of The Fold Deleuze describes how the Baroque
forms a series of interlocking frames that wrestles to form matter but is
constantly hampered by matters infinite power for metamorphosis:
The world as cone brings into coexistence, for the arts themselves, the
highest inner unity and the broadest unity of extension. It is because the
former could not exist without the latter. For some time now the idea of an
infinite universe has been hypothesized, a universe that has lost all center
as well as any figure that could be attributed to it; but the essence of the
Baroque is that it is given unity, through a projection that emanates from a
summit as a point of view. (124-25)

It is through creating anamorphic visually incompossible images, in the

sense that they utilize divergent irreconcilable spatial methods to produce
a heterogeneous pictorial space, that Hokusai is able to picture this
center-less universe. Each of these spatial methods forms a projection on
the world, but by including contravening projections his artworks prevent
the formation of a fully enclosed pictorial space.
Deleuze writes,

Hokusai, Deleuze and the Baroque

117

when the monad is in tune with divergent series that belong to

incompossible monads, then the other condition is what disappears: it
could be said that the monad, astraddle over several worlds, is kept half
open as if by a pair of pliers. (137)

It is exactly this straddling of several worlds through incompleteness

and disruption that the Baroque evokes. This play of perspective through
anamorphosis was enabled by increasing knowledge of perspective, along
with the ability to apply it to produce complicated manifestations of the
precepts of difficulty (Maravall 220-23). This anamorphosis demands that
observers invest themselves in the work. But this situation is similar to that
of Hokusai. Increasing knowledge of perspective, rather than ensuring
more realistic images, enabled Hokusai to combine perspective with the
flat, floating field spatial mode of the Kan school and the axonometric
projection of the Tosa school to create anamorphic images that are
dynamic and engaging in their manifestation of these precepts of
difficulty. By doing so Hokusai is also able to straddle several worlds and
through his visually incompossible images lay claim to being a most
unconventional Baroque master.

Notes
1. I have refrained from including illustrations here as the whole set is easily
accessible on Wikipedia as high resolution images. I have included the url for each
image but it is probably easier to navigate to the individual images from the main
Wikipedia entry for the series.
The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (/Fugaku Sanjrokkei)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-six_Views_of_Mount_Fuji>.
2.The Great Wave of Kanagawa (/Kanagawa oki nami ura)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa2.jpg>.
3. The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_(Holbein).
4. Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868 following the Meiji Restoration.
5. Hokusai previously trained for a short period as a woodblock cutter but since
this is not strictly artistic training, I am not considering it here.
6.Hakone Lake in Sagami Province (/Soshu Hakone kosui)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_lake_of_Hakone_in_the_Segami_province.
jpg>.
7.Tea house at Koishikawa. The morning after a snowfall (
/Koishikawa yuki no ashita)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tea_house_at_Koishikawa._The_morning_after
_a_snowfall.jpg>.
8. There is some evidence that in China there were some movements towards

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linear perspective but Western perspective in Japan is overwhelmingly derived

form Western art (Tyler and Chen).
9. Sazai hall - Temple of Five Hundred Rakan (
/Gohyaku-rakanji Sazaid)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sazai_hall_-_500_Rakan_temples.jpg>.
10. Hokusais mangas were training manuals and copy books for amateur artists.
Volume 3, published in 1815, included several perspective examples.
11. Tea house at Koishikawa. The morning after a snowfall (
/Koishikawa yuki no ashita)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tea_house_at_Koishikawa._The_morning_after
_a_snowfall.jpg>.
12. Sazai hall - Temple of Five Hundred Rakan (
/Gohyaku-rakanji Sazaid)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sazai_hall_-_500_Rakan_temples.jpg>.
13. The Burial of the Count of Orgaz by El Greco
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:El_Greco_-_The_Burial_of_the_Count_
of_Orgaz.JPG>.
14. South Wind, Clear Sky (a.k.a Red Fuji) (/Gaif kaisei)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Red_Fuji_southern_wind_clear_morning.jpg>.
15. Under Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa (/Fukagawa Mannen-bashi
shita)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fuji_seen_through_the_Mannen_bridge_at_Fuk
agawa.jpg>.
16. Wlfflin also describes this as multiplicity and unity but Wlfflins use of
multiplicity is different from Deleuzes. Therefore to avoid confusion I use
Wlfflin 's alternatives of multiple unity and unified unity instead.
17. Mount Fuji reflects in Lake Kawaguchi, seen from the Misaka Pass in Kai
Province (/Ksh Misaka suimen)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Fuji_reflects_in_Lake_Kawaguchi,_seen_f
rom_the_Misaka_pass_in_the_Kai_province.jpg>.
18. Yoshida on the Tokaido (/ Tkaid Yoshida)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yoshida_at_Tokaido.jpg>.
19. A sketch of the Mitsui shop in Suruga in Edo (/Kto
Suruga-cho Mitsui Miseryakuzu)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A_sketch_of_the_Mitsui_shop_in_Suruga_stree
t_in_Edo.jpg>.

Works Cited
Bell, David. Explaining Ukiyo-E. U of Otago, 2004. Web. 19 Feb. 2012.
<http://otago.ourarchive.ac.nz/handle/10523/598>.
. Hokusais Project: The Articulation of Pictorial Space. Folkestone:
Global Oriental, 2007. Print.
Clark, Timothy. 100 Views of Mount Fuji. Trumbull: Weatherhill, Inc. in

Hokusai, Deleuze and the Baroque

119

cooperation with the British Museum P, 2001. Print.

Deleuze, Gilles. The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. Trans. Tom Conley.
London: Athlone P, 1993. Print.
Dubery, Fred, and John Willats. Perspective and Other Drawing Systems.
Revised. London: Herbert P, 1983. Print.
Duffy, Simon. Leibniz, Mathematics and the Monad. Deleuze and The
Fold: A Critical Reader. Ed. Sjoerd van Tuinen and Niamh McDonnell.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 89111. Print.
Frichot, Helene. Stealing into Gilles Deleuzes Baroque House. Deleuze
and Space. Ed. G. Lambert and I. Buchanan.Toronto: U of Toronto P,
2005. 6179. Print.
Harbison, Robert. Reflections on Baroque. London: Reaktion Books, 2010.
Print.
Ionescu, Vlad. Deleuzes Tensive Notion of Painting in the Light of Riegl,
Wlfflin and Worringer. Deleuze Studies 5.1 (2011): 52-62. Web. 6
Jan. 2014. <http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/dls.2011.0006>.
Kalkofen, Hermann. Irreconcilable Views. Looking Into Pictures: An
Interdisciplinary Approach to Pictorial Space. Ed. Heiko Hecht,
Robert Schwartz, and Margaret Atherton. Cambridge: MIT P, 2003.
355-78. Print.
Krikke, Jan. A Chinese Perspective for Cyberspace? International
Institute for Asian Studies. N.p., 1996. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
<http://www.iias.nl/iiasn/iiasn9/eastasia/krikke.html>.
Little, Stephen. The Lure of the West: European Elements in the Art of
the Floating World. Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 22.1
(1996): 7496. Print.
Maravall, Jos Antonio. Culture of the Baroque: Analysis of a Historical
Structure. Trans. Terry Cochran. Minneapolis: U of Minesota P, 1986.
Print.
Marr, D. Vision: A Computational Investigation Into the Human
Representation and Processing of Visual Information. San Francisco:
Henry Holt and Company, 1982. Print.
Screech, Timon. The Lens Within the Heart: The Western Scientific Gaze
and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan. 2nd ed. Richmond: Curzon,
2002. Print.
Smith, Daniel W. Genesis and Difference: Deleuze, Mamon, and the
Post-Kantian Reading of Leibniz. Deleuze and The Fold: A Critical
Reader. Ed. Sjoerd van Tuinen and Niamh McDonnell. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 13254. Print.
Tyler, Christopher W, and Chien-Chung Chen. Chinese Perspective as a
Rational System: Relationship to Panofskys Symbolic Form. Chinese

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Journal of Psychology 53.4 (2011): 37191. Print.

Willats, John. Art and Representation: New Principles in the Analysis of
Pictures. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1997. Print.
Wlfflin, Heinrich. Principles of Art History: The Problem of the
Development of Style in Later Art. New York: Dover, 1950. Internet
Archive.10 Mar. 2001. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.
<http://archive.org/details/princarth00wlff>.

CHAPTER SEVEN
MACHINIC DOPAMINE JUNKIES
AND THE (IM)MOBILE WALK(LESS)MAN
JOFF BRADLEY

As part of a schizoanalytic critique of what one might call the (im)mobile

walk(less)man, this paper considers Gilles Deleuzes interpretation of Louis
Wolfson, Paul Virilios idea of piloting devices, and Flix Guattaris
conception of miniaturization in relation to the refrain or ritournelle to
uncover possible escape routes from so-called deadly cycles of repetition.
As the Sony Walkman was first manufactured in Japan, I shall focus on
Tokyo. Responding to the aforementioned perspectives on an everyday
object such as the Walkman (the headphone-stereo) and its more
contemporary instantiationsthe iPod or smartphoneI shall scrutinize
interpersonal communication or the absence thereof in urban technopoles.
The psychopathological effects of the Walkman on the populace will be
examined with especial focus on disaffected youth in particular.
It is the morning of October 4th, 2012. The news on the radio leaves
me cold. I hear that a teenage girl has jumped to her death from a train
platform at Gotanda station in Tokyo. Euphemistically designated as yet
jinshin jiko

another body accident ()! The news is all the more dispiriting
as the night before a man in his 30s was killed instantly after he too leapt
off the platform at Shinjuku station into the path of an incoming train.
Both stations are on the same Yamanote line loop. I am accustomed to
hearing the stories as they are the background noise of a disordered system
that is the Tokyo metropolitan underground. Selfishly I thought about the
train delays and my wait inside the train. Inside the jam-packed train, I
considered the bout of suicides and they brought flashbacks of Sion Sonos
S u i ci d e

C l u b

horror film which, along with more recent disturbing

social critiques in the films such as Gus Van Sants Elephant and Steve
McQueens Shame, acts as an allegory of deathly noncommunication with

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keitai

transcendental subjects (Kogawa), like the mobile phone or

s m a r t p h o n e

. For Kogawa, the mobile phone is a substitutable

otherness, a form of hibernation from an otherwise severer form of
confrontation with people. On top of this, I had also been reading a very
one-sided anthropological analysis of Japans current woes by Anne
Allison entitled Ordinary Refugees: Social Precarity and Soul in 21st
Century Japan, which listed the social, economic, political and spiritual
problems currently assailing Japanese youth. In this 2012 paper for the
Anthropological Quarterly, Allison describes how Japan is plagued with a
depressing and mounting catalogue of social ills. Her theoretical guides for
this observation are, among others, Franco Berardi in Precarious
Rhapsody who claims young and old people are suffering from a
generalized anomie, a sense of hopelessness and futurelessness (a precarity
of soul). He insists 1977 was the year when modernity moved beyond
itself, chiefly because of the spate of suicides by primary school children
in Japan. On Allisons account, Japan is witnessing a growing army of
bullying

hikikomori or social recluses, frequent cases of , and the rise of

desperately lonely people. Utilizing Berardis notion of social precarity,
here one can update and extend Deleuze and Guattaris ideas on the
philosophy of desire, the unconscious and the machine in A Thousand
Plateaus and align it with Virilio's idea of the suicidal state in L'inscurit
du territoire. These events are what prompted me to think about the
humble Sony Walkman.

Deleuze and the Walkman

In Essays Critical and Clinical, Deleuze credits schizophrenic Louis
Wolfson, author of the untranslatable Le schizo et les langues, with
W a l k m a n

inventing the prototype of the . Deleuze identifies Wolfson,

a native of the Big Apple, as the devices true inventor, a few years
before Nobutoshi Kihara designed the aural device for Sony president
Akio Morita in 1978 (Chambers 49)principally so that Morita could
explore New York while listening to music. A year later, the first cassette
Walkman TPS-L2 was introduced by Sonywe are still reeling from its
insidious effects. The contraption, engineered from a tape recorder and
stethoscope, allowed Wolfson to make a linguistic barrier between
himself and the possibility of hearing his mother tongue (Fuller
38)Englishas words caused him quasi-physical, psychosomatic pain.

Machinic Dopamine Junkies and the (Im)Mobile Walk(Less)MAN

123

Tormented, he protects himself from this outer chaos of naked words by

translating them into several foreign tongues, increasing the amplitude of
the radio, playing a music symphony, or listening to incomprehensible
languages in the immense cosmopolitan city of New York (Wolfson 33).
According to Deleuze (Essays Critical and Clinical 19), Wolfson creates
breath-words by transforming the literal syllabic values of words into tonic
values. The schizos defense against naked words is not to restore a lost
plenitude of meaning but to destroy words themselves, for they torment
the schizo. The schizo asks how to stop words from wounding. Moreover,
according to Deleuze and Guattari (A Thousand Plateaus 311), this closing
off of the outside acts as a kind of sound wall between his world and the
outside. The Walkman, the radio, television are embedded in existential
territories.
Wolfson's linguistic procedureor transduction methodinvolves
substituting fragments of foreign words for the original English. He writes
in French to ward off an allergic linguistic reaction to his mothers
oppressive language. This in some ways exhibits a connection between the
affective body and the materiality of performative utterances because
Wolfson thinks of language as a site for the deployment of material forces
or sound particles. As an affective orifice of the body, the mouth is sewn up,
blocked from transmitting meaning. Wolfson goes hermetic; he cuts
himself off from the world. Utterances are rendered opaque through their
transformation into several tongues, by forging an anti-language. This
logophilia or language of schizophrenia scrambles the codes. Living
precariously in the interstices, in an interlingual space, Wolfson stutters a
code between languages, in an impossible non-place. His glossolalic
babble is performed in the third person, in a space between himself and
himself (Lecercle, Deleuze and Language). He constructs his own little
schizo machines, molecular machinesa process of becoming-foreign
but this is de-plugged from other collective machines. It seems he is
trapped in a thousand little monomanias (Deleuze and Guattari, A
Thousand Plateaus 228).
Writing at a time before the advent of the iPod or tablet PC, Deleuze
describes Wolfsons makeshift schizophrenic object as a prototype of an
apparatus that will spread across the entire planet. Presciently, Deleuze
says Wolfsons contraption will schizophrenize entire peoples and
generations (Deleuze, Essays Critical and Clinical 13). On this reading,
if you use a Walkman, iPod, mobile phone, smartphone, you go schizo! By
plugging into the machinic phylum (technological lineage or internal
dynamics), schizos avoid the constant existential headache and exhaustion
of forming a relation with alterity. This is a retreat to the botched body

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without organs (BwO), a closing off of the demands of the other; a kind of
machinic autism. The retreat to the BwO is what one might call the
Zerrissenheit of subjectivity, the tearing away of the real. On this point, in
A Thousand Plateaus (160), Deleuze and Guattari inquire into how it is
possible to unhook ourselves from the points of subjectification that
secure us, nail us down to a dominant reality. They invoke the notion of
tearing to spell out the task ahead for schizoanalysis:
Tearing the conscious away from the subject in order to make it a means of
exploration, tearing the unconscious away from significance and
interpretation in order to make it a veritable production: this is assuredly no
more or less difficult than tearing the body away from the organism. (A
Thousand Plateaus 177)

Pharmacologically, while the Walkman qua schizoid contraption is

designed to enhance the world through music, for the schizophrenic it
contrives to expunge communication; it numbs the pain emanating from
linguistic utterances. In not hearing what his mother says or shouts, in not
reading the road signs when he goes for a stroll, in contending with the
horror of the English language found in inscriptions of food packaging
pies, cakes, shrimps, French fries, ice cream and so on (Wolfson 51)
Wolfson goes hermetic and blocks out the outside. So we have a pincer
movement: a tearing away from the real and a transhumant
becoming-hikikomori (social recluse)a formation of a paranoiac
machine. Literally hikikomori means a pulling away, a tearing away of
consciousness from social life (Sait, Hikikomori bunkaron). Saito
estimates the number of hikikomori in Japan stands at around one million.
Other accounts put the figure closer to 1.6 million. But who really knows!
Japanese government figures put the number of hikikomori at around
700,000, with an additional 1.55 million so-called semi-hikikomori.
Moreover, it is estimated that there were about 847,000 NEETs (the
acronymthe believed coinage of former British prime minister Tony
Blairstands for Not in Education, Employment, or Training) in 2006
(Yomiuri Shimbun). Contrary to Scott Wilsons (Braindance of the
Hikikomori 392) definition of hikikomori as middle-class Japanese youth,
I do not limit the phenomenon to a single class designation for it is quite
clear that it has permeated all strata of Japanese society.
Here Wolfson is similar to Kenzaburo Oes haunting and hideous
figure of a paternal certain party. In Oe's novel Teach Us to Outgrow Our
Madness, the headphone-clad, underwater-goggle-wearing, taciturn father,
whose name the narrator dare not utter, goes mad and locks himself away
to commune with a radio. This becoming-radiothe refrain turned

Machinic Dopamine Junkies and the (Im)Mobile Walk(Less)MAN

125

deadly and repetitiousis evidence of axiomatic stupidity, an ever-present

schizo threat. However, a question arises: if there is a blocking off of the
real, then what do we make of Deleuze and Guattaris famous exhortation
in Anti-Oedipus? In contesting the orthodoxies of Freudo-Lacanian
psychoanalysis, Deleuze and Guattari suggest that the schizo out for a
walka schizo strolltraversing a deterritorialized circuit through
unplanned dlirea much better model of health than the neurotic patient
lying on the doctors couch. As they say, it is in walking and connections
with things and other people that one finds a breath of fresh air, a
relationship with the outside. Indeed, Deleuze and Guattari cite the strolls
of Henry Miller, a writer who knows how to leave, to scramble the codes,
to cause flows to circulate, to traverse the body without organs
(Anti-Oedipus 132-133), as a fine example of a nomadic, intensive
trajectory:
Henry Miller in Clichy or Brooklyn is a nomadic transit in smooth space;
he makes the city disgorge a patchwork, differentials of speed, delays and
accelerations, changes in orientation, continuous variations. (Deleuze and
Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus 482)

The schizo goes walkabout, in a kind of surreal wandering to work

things out: a way for the mentally ill to lose their institutional bearings.
Deleuze and Guattari claim that the schizophrenic stroll operates through
laws of boundary and territory quite alien to other people. Confronted with
chaos, the schizo sketches or maps a temporary, a portable territory, an
existential refrain. Continuing, Deleuze and Guattari explicate the relation
between chaos, the refrain and territory through tracings of bodily
comportment: If need be, Ill put my territory on my own body, Ill
territorialize my body: the house of the tortoise, the hermitage of the crab,
but also tattoos that make the body a territory (A Thousand Plateaus 320).
The conjunction of the schizo to the world is read through the
omnipresence of machines: Everything is a machine. Celestial machines,
the stars or rainbows in the sky, alpine machines all of them connected to
those of his body. The continual whirr of machines (Deleuze and Guattari,
Anti-Oedipus 2).
Yet, the Walkman qua schizoid device interrupts fluxes and flows and
challenges the principles of nomadic transversality. It jams flows,
interrupts connections and conjunctions. There is the blotting out of the
outside as a means to ward off the pain and onslaught of alien tongues. It
would seem such contraptions make us madder, axiomatically dumber,
more addicted to schizoid playthings, like smart-(less)-phones. On this
point Deleuze and Guattari say this is because the production of

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knowledge and information capital requires machinery for the production

of stupidity, to absorb surplus knowledge and ensure the integration or
control, of groups and individuals. It is not so much that people are duped
into becoming addicted to mobile phones and the like but that such
technologies function as a structure of disavowal. We know we are being
conned but we love it all the same: we desire our own repression.

Veering Off Course in Japan

Let
us
look
at
Virilios
dromological analysis where we find a
generally more pessimistic reading of
mans relation to portable technologies,
because it is from this analysis of
trajectories of the catastrophic that we
may understand how lines of flight
can escape and become imperiled. As
he says, attention is always elsewhere,
permanently veering off course.
Piloting devices are refrain devices. In
the case of the Walkman, it affords a
rhythm, a repetition that makes us feel
at home. It hooks us into the cosmos
for better or worse. Consider Tokyos
enormous network of railways and
subways. This vast metropolis offers a
spellbinding visual ethnography of
both nomadic and sedentary in-existence. Life in Japans capital is
dominated by a commuter train network that serves over twenty million
commuters a day. Each commuter is insinuated into the technological
apparatuss systemic (dys)-functioning. Every day, the same frenetic dance
to the point of collapse. The point is made very well by Michael Fisch in
his article "Tokyo's Commuter Train Suicides and the Society of
Emergence" who writes that the commuter train network is on the verge
of perpetual collapse (12). The point resonates with the dromology of
Virilio in Un accident intgral, as he increasingly views the accident as an
integral functioning of the system, insofar as suicidethe accident of all
accidentsis pre-programmed. It has a built-in excrescence, a necessary
accident of the process. In-existence is crystallized and miniaturized
through addiction to mobile phones. The veering off track of commuters
has become so widespread and a real, contemporary problem that in 2012,

Machinic Dopamine Junkies and the (Im)Mobile Walk(Less)MAN

127

in the Tokyo metropolitan area and beyond, railway companies joined

together to warn of the dangers of walking on train platforms while using
mobile phones or other portable devices. The campaign called
(Danger, refrain from using mobile phones on
the platform) continues to be featured on TV news bulletins, in
newspapers and posters in the Tokyo area.
Critical of communication prostheses like the mobile phone,
Virilios grey ecology thinks the adverse effects of information and
transportation technologies on human consciousness and the increasingly
sedentary body. His phenomenology of the body
critiques the pollution of time and the shrinking
of distances to disclose the effects of virtual
technologies on concrete communal and personal
relationships. His is the study of the pollution
that reduces to nothing the earths scale and size.
From this dromological perspective, he will say
that the political economy of the speed of time
has eclipsed space. In this he detects the
irrevocable disappearance of the city through the
implosion of urban space and the instantaneity
of time and speed. The peak of speed is the
extermination of space: time is outlandish, belonging to another order of
things. The world, hyper-mediated and subject to laws of accelerating
capital development, suffers the mental confusion of near and far, present
and future. Indeed, for Virilio in The Art of the Motor, what matters is the
speed of light and nothing else (35). It follows, according to Virilio, that
history, the overseer of the extension of territory, is inscribed within real
time, in the live moment. He goes so far as to say that we are no longer
concerned with real space as such.
A striking example of this becoming nomadic of the sedentary and the
becoming-immobile of the nomad is found in a recent news story about
Tom Stuker, a consultant for a car business, who became the first United
Airlines and United Express customer to fly one million miles in a
calendar year (Sharkey). Constantly on the go, he is also always at a
standstill (Virilio, Virilio Live 2). In a similar vein, we find Karl Marx in
the Grundrisse of 1857 presciently forecasting the annihilation of space
by time. Capital strives, on one hand, Marx insists, to tear down every
barrier and exchange to conquer the whole earth for its markets, and, on
the other, to annihilate this space with time (Marx, Grundrisse 539). In
Virilios language, geopolitics and geostrategy have been co-opted by
chronostrategy. Pessimistically, he compares the instantaneity of

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communication to death-in-itself because instantaneity and ubiquity

increasingly replace memory and history. For example, while instantaneity
provides contact with people at great distances through email and mobile
phones, this tears subjectivity from the life-world. This is the
Zerrissenheit of the I or the site of the disindividuated self, according to
Stieglers reworking of Simondon in Uncontrollable Societies of
Disaffected Individuals. As Virilio's phenomenology axiomatically
necessitates the primacy of subjective experience and its concrete relations
to the earth, it follows that technologies of instantaneous interactivity
detach the body from habitual experiences of time, space and the lived
environment (Virilio, Virilio Reader 129)from the phenomenological
world as such. Such technologies exile us from ourselves. Losing
control over its world, the human subject is reduced to a recording device
of a beholden sensorium, with the human body rendered a mere
functioning part in a dominant technological apparatus, a great refrain.
Adamantly materialist on this point, Virilio says the body is a vector of
speed, a metabolic vehicle overwhelmed by increased velocity. Speed
pulverizes the human sensorium. In City of Panic, Virilio says that
deterritorialization effectively erodes and erases peoples sense of place.
Transhuman(t), hyperactive commuters, caught in perpetual motion, lose a
sense of belonging to any particular locality. The result: the metropolis is
unliveable; without place, a non-place or non-lieu (Aug)or, put in
terms of the social anthropology of Anne Allison in her article "Ordinary
Refugees" without ibasho (a place where one feels at home, where you can
be yourself). Yet, and seemingly at odds with the remarks of Guattari in
terms of the potential of miniaturization processes, Virilio warns of a
twilight of place, a veritable collapse of the body. With being as such
assaulted from the instantaneity of events, in extremis, the body is
de-corporealized, torn apart. Critical of the perceived dissolution of the
cityscape, and with the advent of the mobile phone, Virilio claims cities
are now us. They have become something like a snail-shell on our
bodiesno longer our places or our homes. In occupying a temporary
dystemic place of residence, pedestrians are intoxicated with
acceleration to such an extent that they become accidental
choreographers of their own lives. On this point, in Speed and
Information: Cyberspace Alarm! Virilio proclaims mankind is heading
towards a fundamental loss of orientation and a duplication of sensible
reality.
Put another way, the flneur is torn away from a relation with the
immediate environs. And so is the schizo out for a walk. Described as
disabled or handicapped, pedestrians fail to see the city and other travelers.

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The model of this dys-(ex)topian vision is the equipped invalid, the model
of the healthy over-equipped individual (Conley 77). Suffering the
inertia of immobility, instantaneous interactivity exiles travelers from real
space, from contact with fellow commuters. In everyday life, other people
are nothing more than impediments. The hyperactive man, dependent on
artificial physiological stimulation, a veritable paragon consumer of
cognitive capitalism, is situated amid a population of incommunicable
sleepwalkers. Cities inhabit and live within us because we are absorbed in
audiovisual fantasies. Indeed, with photographer Raymond Depardon in
Native Land: Stop Eject, Virilio says sedentary people, armed with cell
phones or laptops, are at home wherever they go. Equally comfortable in
an elevator, plane or high-speed train, they differ from the nomad who is
someone never at home, anywhere. Transfixed by the spatiotemporal
realm of the audiovisible, the wanderer, the flneur, the voyeur-voyager,
the schizo out for a walk, suffers a disturbing loss of vision and is blind to
anything aheadmyopically adrift from the co-existence of others.
Disconnected from the immediate area and neglectful of life around them,
solitary, rambling pedestrians are engrossed in the collective imagination
of a far-away land. This leaves the I more and more disindividuated,
adrift and transfixed by industrial temporal objects (TV or Pachinko on
your mobile phone). The narcissistic I is burst asunder, annexed from its
immediate vicinityleft alone to endure a solitary inhumanity, to traverse
the striated space of control societies.
As disconnected pedestrians are deprived of shared encounters, the
result is that lonely individuals desert the immediacy of their
surroundings (Armitage, In the Cities of the Beyond). For Virilio, the
pedestrian scarcely sees in front of his nose (Armitage, Virilio and the
Media). Caught in an attractor beam emanating from a hallucinatory
utopia of communication technologies, the solitary I is at once
object-oriented and subject-disoriented. Weighed down with Walkmans,
iPods, and/or mobilesso-called technologies of separation (Bull
28)subjects retreat from urban space by neutralizing it. In veering
towards limit acts, Virilio insists, movement is transformed into its
opposite. In moving towards inertia, towards the sterility of movement,
acceleration slashes the expanse of the world. This is what we may call the
becoming-hikikomori of the hyperactive manthe man who suffers from
the exhaustion of modern life (Berardi, After the Future). Against the
omnipresence of the non-place without past or grounded identity, without
history or geography, Virilio is nostalgic for the worlds magnitude and
immensity. As he says in an interview with Armitage (Virilio Live 17),
Our embedding in our native soil, that element of hic et nunc (here and

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now), in situ . . . belongs, now, in a certain way, to the past. It has been
overtaken by the acceleration of history. Mourning the loss of the
grandeur of movement and distance, when the locomotive body is at a
standstill, Virilio offers a perspective similar to the schizoanalysis of
Deleuze and Guattari, who address how line of flights can sometimes turn
out badly, as there is a constant danger of veering toward destruction,
toward abolition (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus 299). For
Virilio (Armitage, In the Cities of the Beyond), the traveler is led on a
trajectory permanently veering off track, through a comportment of the
body described as a form of disorientated (dpaysement) funambulistic
postural drift, a disjointed, unbalanced style of walking.
To return to the mobile phone, it would seem such devices tear the user
outside his or her immediate vicinity, leading to a similar urban
displacement. For Virilio, in Polar Inertia, the Walkman and mobile
phones have created a simultaneity of place, a virtual omnipresence, that
has uprooted the phenomenology of the body from itself so that there is a
sense in which we are closer to what is far away than to what is just
beside us (83). As Virilio says, we are becoming progressively detached
from ourselves. Intoxicated and addicted to speed, the dromomaniac is
the deserter of the environment (83). Here Virilio forecasts a world
without cities, without sedentarity, where everything is in flight and
escapes. Life in terra nullius signifies a loss of belonging, a social
homelessness. The city as non-place is non-social. Contra the conventional
interpretations of the global city and conceptions of networks of global
finance capitalism (Sassen), Virilio finds in the landscape of speed, a
city-world. In Le Futurisme de linstant, he describes the nature of
acceleration in the cities of the beyond, where instantaneity, ubiquity
and immediacy of information and communications technologies are based
on electromagnetic waves. Cities of the beyond are meteo-political and
related to the immediacy, ubiquity and instantaneity of information and
communications technologies. This for him petrifies subjectivity.
Vision becomes cinematic. Other people are obstacles to avoid, to
circumvent. Upon invading our modicum of private space, we look
askance at the other, in disgust. Either as an adversary or competitor, the
other is someone that you only encounter once (Virilio The University of
Disaster 98). It is for this reason that the aesthetics of emptiness is found
in communion with the mobile phone, in the maddening buzz of Pachinko
balls and arcade centers, in the voyeurism of the city mediated by the
Walkman. The Walkman as prosthetic, Virilio claims, adds to humdrum
reality through a kind of cinematic derealisation. It grants pedestrians the
syncretic construction of their own outdoor realities. Videos and

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Walkmans are reality and appearance in kit form, [they] make us

directors of our own reality (Virilio, War and Cinema 66). Detailing a
bleak landscape of events, a kind of ersatz existence, Virilio says in
Landscape of Events that it is through the use of the Walkman that we
abandon our fellow man in the immediate life-world in favor of unknown
and distant beings who remain aloof, ghosts of no importance who
wont mess up our plans (62).
Considering the refrain, Virilio will say if there is no interruption in
consciousness, the subject will in some way hallucinate images. In
walking down the street staring at a screen, the addicted subject suffers an
attention disorder to the outside. Without external interruption the subject
in experiencing a trance-like state is unable to extricate himself or herself
from the dominant, petrifying refrain. You walk and walk with no reason
to raise your head. You circumnavigate the city by watching and dodging
the feet of others. As downcast eyes jitteringly survey the clutter of
transgressing feet, attention is always elsewhere. As images dominate the
sensorium from luminescent screens, the body is pulverized, forced into a
kind of polar inertia, a movement without telos or terminus. Machines of
mobility are transfigured into machines of inertiatheir immobility
sustained through the constant bombardment of luminous images, leading
to a loss of direction. The attention of the itinerant pedestrian is held by
phatic, luminous images exploding from portable piloting devices. For
Virilio a phatic image is a targeted image that forces you to look and
holds your attention (Virilio, The Vision Machine 14). The image is the
result of an ever-brighter illumination, of the intensity of its definition,
singling out only specific areas, the context mostly disappearing into a
blur.
In the overexposed city of Tokyo, a metropolis that burns ever
brighter, a city described as the embodiment of the futures future by
William Gibson, space is dominated by electronic screens. This is the
world of wall-to-wall TV: the city as one gigantic gambling casino. The
change in the perception of timewith a sense of the disappearance of
local or historical timeis consistent with the increasing dominance of
real, instantaneous time of the PC screenwith space dematerialized
through information technologies. The overexposed city is captured
photographically and spectrally at speed, in transit, on the move, on the
mobilein a constant blur. The morphogenetic form of the city is not
architectural as such but symbolic and hyperrealderived more from the
flow of images in permanent states of composition-decomposition. Virilio
says that in skirting surfaces of architecture, we decode an architexture
as architectonic technologies of space are crisscrossed by an

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architectronics of information time. Much as Ray Bradbury does in his

dystopic novel Fahrenheit 451, Virilio isolates the vanishing of walls and
gateways as technology becomes increasingly the true window to the
outside world. Urban boundaries and spaces are obliterated to make way
for an atopic cyberspace. As in Ridley Scotts movie Blade Runner,
Yrakuch

originally based on the futural atmosphere of in Tokyo, screens

function as posters and are incorporated into buildingsanimated faades
talk and display video. Subjective attention is momentarily drawn away
from the mobile screen to these billboards, TV screens, computer and
Video Walls. Bowed heads glance quickly as phatic images compete for
the capture of our ever-briefer attention. This new industrialization of
vision serves a veritable market of synthetic perception (Virilio, The
Vision Machine 59), in which neuroimaging techniques engender neural
excitation. Blinded by the luminescence of the screen, the subject suffers
from photosensitive inertia, an inertia that roots it to the spot. This
rooting tears us apart. If cities are indeed uninhabitable, more like
concentrations of trajectories, what fills the void is the insubstantiality of
screen culture.
With eyes focused on miniature screens, we can extend Depardon and
Virilios description of Tokyo in Manhattan Out as the capital of
indifference to foreigners to encapsulate the indifference to alterity in
general. Denizens resist exposure to alterity. Those who pass through
non-places do so by erasing the face of the other, presenting instead a cool
exterior and indifference. Others will quickly pass into and out of
consciousness. In the photography of Depardon, the voyeur engages in a
conspiracy of silence, with eyes watchful and vigilant. There is a
hyper-vigilance of the crowd who demand the right not to be interfered
with or interrupted. On this reading, amidst the hypercirculation of phatic
images the black hole of deadly refrains emerges. Staring obsessively at
luminous screens is a deadly refrain, infused with virtual affects that
deterritorialize oneself from the immediate environment. Without
interruption, the distinction between work, life and rest collapses:
continuous toil and the madhouse awaits! O! Despair!

Guattari on Japan
It is here that Guattaris ontological cartography becomes essential as it
illuminates the trajectories of machinic phyla and explores the existential
territories that have become portable and mobile. In Molecular Revolution
in Brazil, Guattari makes several observations regarding the advent of
portable listening devices. In particular, he discusses the Walkman in

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relation to music. The Walkman is not natural in any conventional sense,

he says, but what is important for the schizoanalyst is the invention of
musical universes. Forming part of the creative assemblages are new
couplings to musical objects or refrains that possess consistency. With
respect to personal identity, Guattaris view is at odds with Virilios
dromology, because he says the unity of identity can be sustained despite
the heterogenic diversity of components of subjectivation that pass
through the subject. For Guattari in Chaosmosis, a positive function of the
refrain is to maintain this existential consistency, because, for
schizoanalysis, the question is how to form mutant, molecular nuclei of
subjectivation to challenge dominant capitalist forms of subjectivization.
In Stieglerian terms, the Walkman can be read as pharmacological because
it is what Guattari calls a techno-aesthetic drug that can act as an
instrument for the subjection of young people to dominant forms of music
and technology. This is palpably the case in the frenzy that erupts when
new technologies become available on the market or when new pop bands
are marketed aggressivelylike the many J-pop band sensations in Japan.
Yet in Guattarian terms, the Walkman can form part of a machinic
agencement to invent hitherto unheard of musical and auditory perceptions.
Existential rhythm is a question of modulation: of how modules plug into
each other, of what fits, or what helps to form consistency out of the
chaosmosis. It is a question of how to use mobile devices, Walkmans,
radios and so on, of how to add style to ones gait, or produce new
enunciations that break away from deadening repetitions.
In terms of the revolutionary task of social mutation, collective
assemblages of enunciation can affirm, stimulate and sustain new
subjectivities to desire their own mutation, to desire their own production,
reproduction and replication. A case in point would be the Japanese
economic boom in the 1980s and 1990s (the bubble), which may be
represented as a subjective redeployment of all sorts of ambiguities and
reactionary structures. If machinic evolution cannot be read
unambiguously, as Guattari seems to argue, one must first of all situate the
problem within collective assemblages of enunciation. Communication
and information devices produce subjectivities on both a-signifying and
affective registers, form new means of expression, and engender new
universes of reference. Unprecedented plastic universes offer the
(pharmacological) possibility of new modes of living as well as more
dead-ends, more of the same from the steamroller of capitalistic
subjectivity (Guattari, Chaosmosis 91). The Walkman is theoretically
situated in terms of a complex assemblage of affect and the engineering of
new forms of subjectivity. And Japan for Guattari was a case in, albeit

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excrescent, point. Questioning Japans miracle cocktail of collective

subjectivity (Guattari, Schizoanalytic Cartographies 13), Guattari finds
subjectivity totally enslaved by machinic processes with a passion for
production among all strata of the workplacewhich borders on the
K a r o s h i

insane ( or death from overworksuicide by jumping onto the

train tracks is seen as one last act of defiance against an insatiable
system)with the molar production of subjectivity working in tandem
with molecular processesdesire desiring production and repression. In
this huge mechanosphere, a cyclotron for the production of mutant
subjectivities, Guattari, writing more than two decades ago, believed new
centers of extraordinary cultural change could appear. His appraisal of
Japans future envisaged the possibility of the formation of mutant
subjectivities to contest the one-dimensional subjectivity of an
Americanized Japan. Some years on now, with the economic bubble of the
1990s burst, what does this mean? For Guattari and Stiegler, this might
mean the hikikomori or otaku. Indeed, critical of several forms of modern
Japanese culturedescribed as the worst forms of mental pollution
(manga, Pocket Monsters, Pachinko). Writing in Le Monde in 1991,
Guattari also highlighted the psychopathological symptoms and the
emergence of groups of people he labeled the withdrawn clan
(hikikomori) and the clan de mure (the otaku). Guattari continues this
point in his Three Ecologies: We see it today, for example, in the
intensive commercial exploitation of scatological comic books aimed at
children (Guattari, Three Ecologies 39). On this reading, machinic
processes are seldom futile or innocent, as there is considerable stupidity
in Pachinko and video game addiction. Nevertheless, Guattari admits to
finding machinic doping or Eros ambiguousone could say, in Stieglerian
terms, pharmacological. Conjugating the monstrously archaicsuch as
the animist powers inherited from Japanese feudalismand the machinic
powers of modernity, Guattari was fascinated by the machinic madness of
the Japanese. He notes:
Overdriven Japanese youths commit suicide upon completing high school;
yes, millions of guys practice their golf swings in unison in concrete
parking lots at 6 AM yes, young workers live in dormitories and give up
their vacations. . . . They are machine-nuts. And yet, in Japan, there is a
kind of democracy of desire that extends into business. (Guattari, Soft
Subversions 159)

Interested in the ways in which the construction of assemblages

liberates or thwarts the production of the unconscious, schizoanalysis is

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focused on probing how subjectivity is effectively torn in different

directions, how it is reconstituted. It asks how the refrain can aid
existential consistency or lead to destructive behavior. It asks how in
Japan as a prototypical singularity machine can there be so many people
addicted to machines and crazy for a machinic buzz. The answer for
Guattari is situated at the level of the mechanospheric: it is a matter of
producing refrains creatively or destructively. And this brings us back to
the Walkman again. As he says, Japanese society sustains itself through
the proliferation and disorder of machines. In his article Japans Lost
Generation writer Ryu Murakami says much the same as he finds the
otaku tied to a disastrous existential refrain, slumped in front of
screensbound to a funk that can last for months. Similar warnings are
present throughout Deleuze and Guattaris corpus. In a discussion of
Andr Gorzs work in particular, they cite the nuclear engineer, who
returns home in the evening, and rediscovers his little desiring-machines
by tinkering with a television set (Deleuze and Guattari, Anti-Oedipus
236). Elsewhere Guattari writes: The person who comes home exhausted,
spent after a draining day, who automatically turns on his television,
evidences another personal reterritorialization by totally artificial means
(Guattari, Soft Subversions 101-105). We find a similar criticism in
Lazzaratos article The Machine in relation to the deadly refrain of TV
watching. He writes: The television-machine also acts as a device of
machinic enslavement by investing the basic functionality of perceptual,
sensory, affective, cognitive and linguistic behaviours, and so can work on
the most fundamental impulses of human activity and of life itself. Given
his abiding interest in Asia, Guattaris analysis of the emergence of
capitalist subjectivities in Japan remains timely. It is clear that his
schizoanalysis is onto something in noting the problems in the void
produced in a mass-mediatized and a deformed subjectless subjectivity.
For example, he says that cultural life and practices particular to
Japanfor example, the etiquette of social relations, the language of the
faceare perfectly integrated into the process of production of
capitalism. This is a point raised by iek in For a Leftist Appropriation
of the European Legacy who discusses the essential integration of
traditional cultural practices and ethics with lightning fast market
operations in Asian cities like Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Opposed to the mass medias infantalizing subjectivity, and to what
he termed the will to neuroleptize subjectivity (The Guattari Reader
215)to make subjectivity treatable by anti-psychotic drugsGuattari
questioned how the textuality of machinic ontology decenters the subject
with a sustainable existential consistency or tears it apart. Writing in the

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1980s and early 1990s, Guattari described childhood in Japan as a

torture given the state of insolvency in the education system. Endemic
institutional problems have led to disturbing instances of nervous
breakdown, suicide and aggression towards teachers. Guattari railed
against such a system that forced children to work under an unyielding
discipline without concern for their affective problems, their social
relations and creativity, their refrains with consistency. Without concern
for these problems, hyper-alienation ensues. In Chaosmosis, he speaks of
the relationship between desire and existential rhythm. It is in the
re-singularization of existential rhythm that one finds new ways of
breathing, striding, speaking, gesturing and synchronizing oneself with the
world. Again this is found in the schizophrenics relation to the outside. At
odds with Virilio, Guattari claims that the miniaturization of consumer
electronics can equip individuals with devices to manage perceptions. In
The Three Ecologies, there is enthusiasm for the transformation of the
mass media, miniaturization processes, the lowering of cost and the
resultant possibility of using them for non-capitalistic ends (65). Yet
Guattari warns that the age of planetary computerization (103) is
accelerating headlong into an era of a monstrous reinforcement of earlier
systems of alienation, an oppressive mass-media culture and an
infantalizing politics of consensus (50).
Critical of the acceleration of the rhythm of production, technology
and daily life, and wary of the vicious subjugation of life, wealth, and
pleasure to the financial abstraction of semiocapital, Berardi, in The
Future After the End of the Economy, isolates patterns of
psychopathologieswaves of fear, insecurity and panicand claims that
1977 (somewhat idiosyncratically perhaps) was a turning point in the
history of modernity. It was at this time that the passage to the post-human
appeared without mediation in Japan, as an unexplainable monstrosity
that quickly became an everyday, prevalent form of collective existence.
Japan was blighted by a disturbing increase in incomprehensible mass
youth suicide. In that year, Berardi explains, a spate of suicides by primary
school children arose primarily from affective disorders engendered by the
inhuman acceleration of productive and existential rhythms of daily life.
Berardi claims suicide is the pathology of the psychosocial system, with
despair the prevalent way of thinking about the future (Berardi,
Precarious Rhapsody 82). He explains suicide through the minds
reduction to productivity and the mutation of the cognitive and
psycho-social system (129). The collective psyche suffers from
competitive stress, which in turns fosters depression, panic and aggression.
Deterministically, it is the nature of our fanatically economic and

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137

competitive society that the behaviour of the stock exchange or the

markets can spark euphoria, panic or depression. This is consistent with
Deleuze and Guattaris notion of deterritorialization. While bemoaning the
loss of an intact organic mooring, Berardi envisions the possibility of
passing from a relationship of mere abstract conjunction between people
to one of connection and conjugation. His social critique of runaway
pathologies asks how to escape what he sees as widespread exhaustion and
despair.
In terms of the mobile phone and semiocapital, Berardi argues that the
mobile phone is a tool appendage that connects the needs of semiocapital
and the mobilization of the living labor of cyberspace (Berardi,
Precarious Rhapsody 33). In After the Future, Berardi claims that the
ringtone of the mobile phone calls workers to reconnect their abstract
time to the reticular flux. Noting the deleterious affective effects of
technological addiction, which include psychopathological types of panic,
Berardi picks up on the issue of cognitive overload, writing:
Individuals are not in a position to consciously process the immense and
always growing mass of information that enters their computers, their cell
phones, their television screens, their electronic diaries and their heads.
(Berardi, After the Future 41)

Elsewhere, Jodi Dean in Blog Theory argues that ceaseless, digital

communication addiction locks individuals into compulsive, repetitive
loops, which repress the futility of the process. And as Mark Fisher in
Capitalist Realism has argued, digital technologies are communicative
parasites that destroy other enjoyments. In our fanatically competitive
society the body works around the clock to make ends meet. In Flix
Guattari: Thought, Friendship and Visionary Cartography, Berardi
explains that the constant mobilization of energies produces a kind of
paralysis of the erotic body (28). The result is a cooling down of social
relations. As such, de-eroticized, people are increasingly transformed into
functional relations. Berardis antidote to the stifling repressions of the
everyday and the psychopathology of functional relations (Berardi,
Precarious Rhapsody 37), echoes Deleuze and Guattari, who suggest that
friendship, as a way of repelling depression, helps to develop a common
existential rhythm, a common refrain or ritournelle that possesses a
consistency to stave off the oppressive effects of abstract, semiotic
operators (126). Wistfully perhaps, Berardi calls for the creation of new
social zones of human resistance (After the Future 120) to restore a
sense of hope in the present and the future.

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A Contrary View
Joining the debate, with his do-it-yourself guide to re-interpreting the
nonrelation to the other, iek views being-at-a-distance at the core of the
very social texture of everyday life. As he says:
Even if I live side by side with others, in my normal state I ignore them. I
am allowed not to get too close to others. I move in a social space where I
interact with others obeying certain external mechanical rules, without
sharing their inner world. (Violence 51)

iek argues that alienation is not necessarily a problem but even a

solution: a dose of alienation is indispensable for peaceful coexistence.
For internal to the notion of multiculturalist tolerance is a violent
intolerance to every proximity of the other's enjoyment. Tolerance of the
other signifies: leave me alone, I don't want to be disturbed too much by
you. Much of this idea can be found in Richard Sennett, who has argued
that one carries the sense that strangers have no right to speak to each
other, that each individual possesses a public right to an invisible shield,
a right to be left alone (Sennett 27). Alterity becomes tolerable if the
others presence proves meddlesome, which is to say that the other seeks
to divest itself of othernessthe other intrudes. Conversely, toleration
towards the other signifies that one should not intrude into his/her space. I
should respect the others vigilant gaze, the others intolerance towards my
over-proximity. iek goes so far as to discern a human right in
late-capitalist society, a right not to be harassed, a right to be kept at a safe
distance from the others. In the interview Japan through a Slovenian
Looking Glass, comparing cities in the East and West, iek finds in
Japan an art of ignoring the other. In the interview he finds little
pressure and stress in being packed close to each other on trains and
subways. In Japan, he discerns an art of ignoring, which is conspicuously
absent on the New York subway. In New York, he remarks, [E]ven when
its half full, you would have this horrifying experience of the absolute
proximity of the Other.

Conclusion
Yet isnt there also a kind of looking, an art of seeing surreptitiously?
This is found in the photography of Momoko Allard. Allard says of her
work that she aimed to capture the muted atmosphere created by crowds of
lone travellers subdued by the days exhaustion and characteristic of
Tokyo-style indifference. If hell is others, she captures the way commuters

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look at strangers in close proximity as a sign that he or she has impudently

interrupted their quiet repose. In her photography exhibition Solitary
Crowding (2004-09), Allard expresses a feeling of numbness and
repressed time in Tokyo commuter trains at night. The window of the
commuting train is the screen for witnessing life in acceleration.
From Guattaris ethico-aesthetic perspective, we see that the refrain
can become neurotic, a mode of entrapment, impoverishment, and
catastrophe. It can take on reactive religious references or annihilate itself
in alcohol, drugs, Pachinko, TV, video games, or endless daily toil.
However, it can also make use of other procedures that are more collective,
social or political. From the vantage of the 21st century, Guattaris writings
are a cartography of, and a pragmatics for, contemporary subjectivity
understood as a material practice. They offer insights into the possibilities
of reconfiguration, of resingularization. Critical of the semiotic operations
of capital, which generate a flattening of subjectivity (laminage), his
perspective remains a thought-provoking critique of the obsession with
machinic funk among young people. While not dogmatically opposed to
the use of machines as such, Guattari would, if alive today, I think, be
wholeheartedly committed to curtailing the intoxication with technologies
and the becoming-otaku and becoming-hikikomori of youth. He would,
with Deleuze and Stielger, call for action against the intolerable and would
decry the mindlessness or btise of a youth turned to pulp (la loque).
It has been argued that the Walkman is a heuristic tool to think through
the notion of desublimation or the flattening of affective subjectivity
(laminage) by accelerating machinic processes, which engineer pulp
subjectivity. Its deleterious effects have raised the question of why such
dreary, flattened subjectivities and bodies are repeatedly turned to pulp. It
appears timely therefore to question the apparent cracking up of
disaffected youth through addiction to portable communication devices.
The notion of tearing in this paper has been used to rethink the risks
involved in the brutal deterritorialization of the self through addiction,
obsession and the fetishism of technology. Critique of the Walkman and
other industrial temporal objects is the start of an ethics of sorts. When
combined with Guattaris triadic ecology of the virtual, the grey ecology
of Viriliowhich calls for a new ethics of perception, a new ecology of
ideas and images, a noology of sortsand Stieglers industrial ecology of
the spirit, such critique might just be the beginning of the end of the
intolerable. It seems right therefore to write against the postural drift
towards non-communication, alienation, misery, exhaustion, and suicide. It
is also important to update Guattaris analysis of Japan. A contemporary
schizoanalysis of Japan ought to focus on the mental woes currently

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k i r e r u

i j i m e

assailing Japans youthcracking up (), bullying (), social

h i k i k o m o r i

withdrawal (), the life of otaku, drastic economic problems

faced by freeters and NEETs. It is hoped that this paper is a contribution to
the schizoanalysis of Japan. Not to consider such matters would be to fall
prey, to collude and to condone, the deadening spirit of our times.

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CHAPTER EIGHT
EAST ASIAN FACES AND GLOBAL WONDER
HSIAO-HUNG CHANG

Since Descartes, wonder has been taken as the first of all the
passions (Descartes 350). It manifests itself epistemologically in the stages
of wonder-curiosity-knowledge informing the thought of the
Enlightenment and modern science. It can also be seen politically as the
drive behind capitalism and imperialism that leads disastrously to control,
expansion and conquest. As one of the keywords in current (post)colonial
studies, it designates a crucial element of cultural encounters, as
demonstrated in Stephen Greenblatts book Marvelous Possession: The
Wonder of the New World or Homi Bhabhas famous essay Signs Taken
for Wonder, pointing to a passionate curiosity about cultural differences
that are somewhat unexpected but less threatening to both sides and help
to open up an in-between zone of hybridization and indeterminacy.
But is it still possible today to talk about wonder when there seems
to be almost no place in the world that is underexplored and no culture
that is unknown? Apart from the capitalized tourist gaze, is it possible to
create a philosophical and political space for the affect of wonder in the
era of globalization? To what extent may global wonder be approached
as molar and molecular, affect and geopolitics? The purpose of this essay
is to explore wonder not only as an emotional response to a certain
cultural phenomenon on a global scale but chiefly as a force of affectivity
that can trigger a process of deterritorialization and reterritorialization,
both global-local and molar-molecular, to destabilize systems of
signification and subjectification. The media controversy over the South
Korean beauty clone will be taken as a point of departure to map out a
creative assemblage of face, nation, gender, economy and technology
through which wonder is expressed in a non-subjective and impersonal
way. While a joint military exercise of South Korea and the United States
was about to take place in face of the upcoming missile launch threatened
by North Korea, a seemingly trivial but intensely amusing event took

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145

place in late April of 2013. Twenty photographs of the finalists from the
Daegu branch of the annual Miss Korea beauty pageant were released and
immediately attracted worldwide attention through their uncanny
resemblance: they seemed to have identical faces with only differences in
hairstyles and outfits. Bearing the sardonic caption, Koreans plastic
surgery mayhem is finally converging on the same face, these
photographs were first uploaded online in a Japanese blog that specialized
in translating Korean news. They immediately spread into English
cyberspace via the Reddit website, enhanced through eye-catching
animation created by image morphing techniques, and then widely
lampooned by the international press and digital media. The pageant
finalists were jokingly dubbed Samsung Robots or mocked as military
robots from North Korea.
In light of the global normalization of beauty standards through mass
media and the pervasiveness of cosmetic surgery, it almost becomes a
truism that nowadays most contestants in beauty pageants around the
world share a similar look; it is also well known that it becomes
increasingly difficult to differentiate the natural face of a beauty queen
from a face modified through plastic surgery or Botox. So why did a
group of twenty beauty pageant contestants pictures from South Korea
attract global attention and give rise to such intense yet transient wonder?
Is there anything peculiar in these pictures that arouses such wonder? It is
undeniable that people around the world expressed bewilderment at these
eerily identical faces with mixed feelings of amazement, surprise and
ridicule. Thousands of netizens joined online discussions to share their
opinions and devoted themselves to the heated debates over the merit of
cosmetic surgery, the cultural phenomenon of the so-called East Asian
Cosmetic Surgery Craze, the power of digital images, the uncanny
attractiveness of the facial animation, the significance of a national face,
the physiognomic undifferentiation of East Asians, and so on.
But when these twenty contestants were labeled clones and attacked
as cultural dupes, the discussions, comments and debates circulating on
the web and in print media brazenly demonstrated gender biases: it is
always the woman who becomes the laughing stock and the target of
sexual harassment; it is always the womans face that is the site for
negotiating and reinforcing national identity (the Korean face); it is
always women who are scapegoated since they are so easily brainwashed
and naively manipulated by the beauty industry under whose spell they are
willing to lose face (a pun pointing both to the literal disfiguration of
the Korean face and to the implied humiliation inflicted on the Korean
heritage). A faulty chain of reasoning instigated by the event ultimately

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was symptomatic of a basic anxiety over undifferentiation. All beauty

contestants are alike (a threat of undifferentiation blurring distinctions
among individuals) led to all (South) Korean women are alike (a threat
blurring the distinction between the beauty contestants and South Korean
women in general) and finally resulted in all Asians are alike (a threat
blurring not only the distinction between men and women but also the
distinction among ethnicities and nationalities in Asia).
Obviously gender is not the only concern foregrounded in this
historical, aesthetic and technological event, nor is wonder the mere
emotional reaction of surprise and amusement as initially expressed on the
website and connected eventually to an anxiety of undifferentiation.
Though the old discourses on ethnic cosmetic surgery and racial
physiognomy were immediately resurrected as explanations of the event,
they proved hopelessly inadequate to handle this new assemblage of face,
technology, economy and ethnicity. After reviewing the controversy over
these uncannily identical facial images, we clearly need a different
theorization and a theory of differing not only of the face but also of
wonder itself. Why and how were people around the world affected by
these facial images? To what extent could wonder be simultaneously
perceived as representational and felt as non-representational? How could
people be affected not only by these wonder faces from South Korea,
but also by a face beyond the cosmetic surgery controversy, beyond the
identification of South Korean or East Asian women, and even beyond the
dominant faciality machine of significations and subjectification? How
could we imagine a faceless face, a face of defaciality? To answer these
questions, I will first delineate a theoretical mapping of
wonder-affect-face in Deleuze, examining its historical antecedents in
Descartes and Spinoza. I will then explore wonder as an experimental
force of becoming-molecular that seems to sur-face constantly from the
molar forms of nationalism, regionalism, globalism, gender and ethnicity
that structure most of the intellectual responses and emotional reactions to
these widely circulated digital images. In a final section, I will focus on
the uncertain moment of defacialization that dismantles the ground of
ideological systems to highlight the power of becoming as the politics of
affect and the politics of difference, not only in our first encounter with
these eerily identical facial images, but also in our wondrous encounter
with the image of Firstness.

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147

Wonder, Affect and the Face

In The Passions of the Soul, Descartes describes wonder (admiratio)
as the first and primary emotion.
When our first encounter with some object surprises us and we find it
novel, or very different from what we formerly know or from what we
supposed it ought to be, this causes us to wonder and to be astonished at it.
Since all this may happen before we know whether or not the object is
beneficial to us, I regard wonder as the first of all the passions. (350)

The surprise and astonishment of wonder foreground a kind of

firstness in Descartes that points not only to the sequence in time and
order (as the object encountered for the very first time, as the primary
emotion preceding all other emotions), but also to the failure of
knowledge production since no pre-existing ideas or frameworks can help
to recognize or process this novelty.
Spinoza seems to follow Descartes in his early Short Treatise on God,
Man, and His Well-Being, identifying wonder along with joy, sadness and
desire as the primary affects, but in the Ethics he renounces the centrality
of wonder by treating it only as an intensifier that can be combined with
other affects (such as Consternation, Veneration, Horror, and so on) at any
indeterminate moment without adequate cause, a compound rather than a
primary affect. As he states in Book III of the Ethics, Wonder is an
imagination of a thing in which the mind remains fixed because this
singular imagination has no connection with the others (P52S). Since
Spinoza defines affections in the Ethics first as images and the
affection-images as the first level of knowledge, wonder becomes a kind
of affection-image whose representation finds no conjunction with
existing ideas and whose novelty can thus immobilize the mind.
It is not until Deleuzes theorization of the affection-image in
Cinema 1 that the conceptual links between wonder (Descartes
admiratio), affect (Spinozas affection-affect plus Begsonian affect) and
the face (cinematic close-up) are mapped out. First, the face, the close-up,
the affect and the affection-image are deemed interchangeable in Cinema I:
There is no close-up of the face, the face is in itself close-up, the close-up
is by itself face and both are affect, affection-image (88).1 According to
Deleuze, the affection-image of the face on the screen helps to destroy the
triple function of the face (individuation, socialization and communication)
by pushing the face to those regions where the principle of individuation
ceases to hold sway (Cinema I 100). It may be further classified into two
kinds in the history of the cinema: the intensive face at the pole of Power

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(as best exemplified in Sergei Eisenstein) and the reflexive face at the
opposing pole of Quality (as developed in D. W. Griffith). Whereas the
affect expressed by the intensive face is desire, that is, an impulsive
tendency to break free or to form an autonomous series to a greater or
lesser extent, wonder is the affect expressed by the reflexive face, an
affect Descartes called admiration, which marks a minimum of
movement for a maximum of unity, reflecting and reflected on the face
(Deleuze, Cinema I 88). In the examples of wonder given by Deleuze,
such as the wondering face of Lulu in Pabsts Lulu or the white wonder
face of the young girl in Sternbergs The Scarlet Express, wonder is
italicized and used in English in the French original to highlight the sense
of admiration or astonishment that the English word wonder has
preserved (Cinema I 88).
Accordingly, the substance of the
affection-image of the reflexive face is thus defined as the affect of
wonder, and that of the intensive face as desire.2
In this conceptualization of the affection-image, Deleuze maps the
Bergsonian notion of the affect as a motor tendency (the intensive face of
Power) on a sensitive nerve (the reflexive face of Quality) onto the
Spinozist notion of affect as Joy-Sadness (the increase-composition or
diminution-decomposition of the bodys capacity). Deleuze also brings
into his analysis Peirces classification of images into Firstness and
Secondness by associating the affection-image with the former and the
action-image with the latter. Two states of affects are thus differentiated:
Whatever their mutual involvements, we can therefore distinguish two
states of power-qualities, that is, of affects: as they are actualized in an
individuated state of things and in the corresponding real connections
(with a particular space-time, hic et nunc, particular characters, particular
roles, particular objects) and they are expressed for themselves, outside
spatio-temporal co-ordinates, with their own ideal singularities and their
virtual conjunction. (Deleuze, Cinema I 102)

The affection-image as the image of Firstness concerns only what is

new in experience and the newness is what is immediately felt rather
than (pre)conceived. Abstracted from spatio-temporal co-ordinates and
any individuated state of things, this Firstness belongs to the category of
the Possible, potentiality considered for itself as expressed (Deleuze,
Cinema I 98). By contrast, the action-image as the image of Secondness
refers to the category of the Real, in which power-qualities become
actualized in particular states of things, determinate space-times,
geographical and historical milieux, collective agents or individual
people (Deleuze, Cinema I 98).

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149

Accordingly, two states of wonder as affect may be differentiated here:

wonder as the affect of the reflexive face, of quality, and of the
affection-image of Firstness as expressed by a face, or a face-equivalent
of a proposition (virtual conjunction); and wonder as the affect of the
action-image of Secondness as actualized in a state of things (real
connection). In what follows, these two states will be termed respectively
the wonder of Firstness and the wonder of Secondness, or the wonder of
the virtual and the wonder of the actual. For the purpose of clarification,
they might be further differentiated as the wonder-affect of Firstness, as
the impersonal face in relation to any actualized, individuated face that
belongs to the wonder-emotion of Secondness.3 The theoretical efforts
attempted here thus move from the wonder of firstness defined in
Descartes as first-time-ness in time sequence and as primacy in
importance, to the wonder of firstness referring to the first level of
knowledge with inadequate or confused cause in Spinoza, and eventually
to the wonder of Firstness as the intensity and virtuality of the expressed
affect-face-close-up in Deleuze.4
This Firstness and its linkage to wonder and the face are further
complicated in Deleuze and Guattaris conceptualization of the faciality
machine in the chapter Year Zero: Faciality in A Thousand Plateaus, in
which wonder is the ultimate affect of becoming, the aspiration for new
combinations to be invented and the affirmation of the differing power of
the eternal return. Deleuze and Guattari start by situating the face at the
intersection of signification (white wall) and subjectification (black hole):
concrete faces are engendered by an abstract machine of faciality
(visagit), which produces them at the same time as it gives the signifier
its white wall and subjectivity its black hole (Deleuze and Guattari 168).
Instead of being a window to the soul or a signifier of an individuated
consciousness, the face is produced by this abstract machine of the white
wall/black hole system that operates not by resemblance but by an
assemblage of facial units and degree of divergence that distributes and
organizes the face. They then proceed to trace historically how the
despotic and authoritarian concrete assemblage of power triggered the
abstract machine of faciality and how the newly installed semiotic of the
holey surface of the face unrelentingly crushed all of the
heterogeneous, polyvocal, primitive semiotics and successfully displaced
the volume-cavity system of the head and the proprioceptive body
(Deleuze and Guattari 170-71, 180).
Therefore, how to break through the wall of the signifier, get out of the
black hole of subjectivity and find the road to the asignifying, asubjective
and faceless, becomes the major political agenda for Deleuze and

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Guattari in their fight against the horror story of the face. Their effort is to
make faciality traits themselves finally elude the organization of the
facefreckles dashing toward the horizon, hair carried off by the wind,
or to set faciality traits free like birds (Deleuze and Guattari 171, 189).
Dismantling the face thus discloses a politics of real becoming.
Beyond the face lies an altogether different inhumanity: no longer that of
the primitive head, but of probe-heads; here, cutting edges of
deterritorialization become operative and lines of deterritorialization
positive and absolute, forming strange new becoming, new polyvocalities.
Become clandestine, make rhizome everywhere, for the wonder of a
nonhuman life to be created. (Deleuze and Guattari 190-91)

Here wonder as affect is no longer limited to the reflexive face of Quality

delineated in Cinema I, but points not only to an image of firstness with
intensity and virtuality but also to the affect of the absolute
deterritorialization of the face, to an altogether different inhumanity to be
created.

Image Morphing and the Face of Firstness

After reviewing Descartes and Spinozas understanding of wonder
and its creative linkage with the affection-image (facial close-up) of
Firstness in Deleuzes Cinema I and with the positive deterritorialization
of the faciality machine in Deleuze and Guattaris A Thousand Plateaus,
we are prepared to re-enter the scene of the South Korean Beauty Clone
event by asking the following questions: if the circulated images are
actualized in an individuated state of things provided with the
corresponding real connections (the 2013 Daegu beauty pageant
finalists, the East Asian Cosmetic Craze, the dominance of beauty industry,
the competition among East Asian countries for the burgeoning industry of
medical tourism, the historical and economic outcomes of the Cold War
divide, the growing popularity of the Korean-(Gangnam-)Style around the
world, and so on), what would be the possible virtual conjunction of
these images outside these spatio-temporal co-ordinates that frame our
reaction to the event? How may we theorize a differentiation of the
wonder-affect of Firstness and the wonder-emotion of Secondness? Is it
possible to feel in this event the personal face as impersonal forces in
order to escape the faciality machine and open up a moment of the
asignifying, asubjective and the faceless?
Let us start with the two different kinds of visual images circulated in
this event. On one hand, we have the static juxtapositions of digital

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151

photos arranged in groups or in pairs, such as the photos of the total

twenty contestants in grid form or the side-by-side photo comparison of
before (right) and after (left) make-up or Photoshop touch-up. On the
other hand, we have the dynamic images created by computer softwares
that loop, whirlpool, swap, or melt the facial images all together. Among
the morphing animations, that of Jia-Bin Huang, a Taiwanese PhD student
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States,
stands out. Huangs short animation, in which contestants, one through
twenty, morph into one another in sequence, has attracted enormous
attention and heated online discussion. Through this animated GIF
(Graphics Interchange Format), which uses mathematical and
computational analysis to loop smoothly through the twenty photos,
Huang clearly aims to provide visual proof of how identical the facial
images of these women are.
Both the still-shots and the animations are digital images that are
characterized by their complete flexibility and accessibility via computer
technology. They are cropped from the website and manipulated by
netizens whose participation testifies again to the operationality of the
website as a new media platform on which the user can actively enter the
image (Manovich 167). But each of these two kinds of image
manipulation has a different logic: the former perpetuates a typological
form of resemblance and representation, in which the photos represent not
only real contestants (as the referents) but also resemble each other; the
latter, which tries to foreground the similarity of the contestants faces,
backfires, undermining the logic of resemblance itself and triggering
instead a topological force of affectivity that culminates in an unexpected
deterritorialization of the face. While the static set of photographs makes
thousands of netizens wonder at the eerily and strikingly similar faces, the
dynamic face morphing GIF makes the uncanny image itself wondrous:
the image points no longer to an identification among human faces and
not even to an identifiable human face; the image seems to stand
momentarily outside spatio-temporal co-ordinates and beyond the logic of
resemblance and representation.
How does this uncanny animation image work and how does it fill
viewers with the molecular affects of astonishment and surprise? The
force of affectivity comes not merely from the effects of digital imaging
technology itself. Initially a novelty used to demonstrate the radical
transferability of images through digitalization, image morphing
technology has developed significantly over the last two decades and is
now widely used not only in film and TV to create special effects on the
screen but also in common practices of photo-manipulation. We are now

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totally familiar with various computer-generated facial composites

crossing gender, race, age, species, and so on. It is easy to access an
animated facial transformation on YouTube; for example, one can see the
face of Angelina Jolie morph successively into other famous Hollywood
female superstars faces or even trans-sexually into the face of Brad Pitt.
There was even a successful TV commercial in Taiwan parodying the
morphing sequence at the end of Michael Jacksons music video Black or
White by shifting the focus from race to hair loss.
Therefore, the firstness comes not merely from the technical side of
the facial image, but from the image of Firstness that is created but not
limited or determined by the digital morphing technology. At first sight,
this animated image of face morphing, instead of reinforcing the
similitude of the twenty faces, discloses a disruptive moment of
indeterminacy: viewers are increasingly unable to tell whether it is twenty
different faces transforming smoothly and imperceptibly into each other or
one single face constantly changing its hairstyles and dresses. Yet, beyond
the question of whether there are many faces that resemble each other, or a
single face that dons many different outfits and hairstyles, there is
something else that is more intriguing and unsettling. As many bewildered
netizens have noted, the smoothly changing face seems to initiate a
relation of movement and rest, speed and slowness: the global outline
stands still while the local features move constantly; the smile stands
still while the eyebrows move up and down; the nose slightly moves while
the hairstyles and dresses change dramatically.5 It appears so weird that
the local traits seem to rebel against and try to break free from the global
outline while the global outline makes every effort to group the features
and to hold them together. Viewers are momentarily confused without
being able to tell whether it is the face de-facialized into a global-local
relation of movement and rest, or the hairstyles and dresses that are
facialized as the only marks left of individuation. Viewers are affected
by the mobile/immobile, local/global composition of the image at different
speeds and impressed by its constant digital sur-facing in tiny
micromovements, reminding us of Deleuzes elaboration of the reflexive
outline (the surface of faceification) and intensive features (changing traits
of faceicity) in his conceptualization of the affection-images of the facial
close-up in Cinema I.
Abstracted from spatio-temporal co-ordinates, the animated face is
deterritorialized as global/local composition of movement and rest
through which wonder as a pure affect is called forth, especially when the
moving eyebrows creepily turn out to be a non-formed, non-organized,
non-stratified Body without Organs. As many netizens have testified, the

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eyebrows that are constantly rising and lowering in slow motion seem to
be non-subjective and impersonal: Watch the eyebrows. Its creepy not
theirs, but automatic. As the Reddit user ricktencity has subtly observed,
But the eyebrows are kinda goin up and down, so hypnotic . . . like a
lavalamp. This weird movement of defacialization and refacialization,
deterritorialization and reterritorialization, reminds us of the tic that
constantly dismantles the face in A Thousand Plateaus:
What is a tic? It is precisely the continually refought battle between a
faciality trait that tries to escape the sovereign organization of the face and
the face itself, which clamps back down on the trait, takes hold of it again,
blocks its line of flight, and reimposes its organization upon it. (Deleuze
and Guattari 188)

Similarly, the hypnotic eyebrows floating like the glowing wax in a

lavalamp cannot be held by the organization of the face; no longer are
they able to be subsumed within and placed at the service of the faciality
machine of signification and subjectification. In a word, they are and are
not the eyebrows of a face.
Therefore, the animated facial morphing, defying the logic of
resemblance and representation as perpetuated in the static photos in grid
form or in pairs, has pushed the face itself to those regions where the triple
function of the face (individuation, socialization and communication)
ceases to hold sway. This singular operation of image morphing does not
divide one individual into many, any more than it unites many into one; it
suspends individuation and lets the virtual conjunction between singular
points of this entity (the smile, the nose, the contours, the eyebrows, the
hairstyle, the dress, and so on) be expressed and composed. It is the image
of Firstness immediately felt and momentarily affected that shakes up the
organization of the face upon which the whole media event of global
wonder was based. Globally speaking, this facial animation discloses
an image of Firstness that abstracts the face from the person(s) to which it
belongs in a state of things; it breaks away the white wall/black hole
system of signification and subjectification by turning the face into a
composition of movement and rest. Locally speaking, the non-personal,
mobile feature of the eyebrows moving automatically and weightlessly up
and down seems to break away uncannily from the immobile outline.
They are the running lines of asignificance that void all memory, all
return, all possible signification and interpretation (Deleuze and Guattari
189). This uncertain moment of defacialization suspends all individuations,
representations and resemblances by creating transformatively and
transgressively an altogether different inhumanity in the field of

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emergence, making possible what Deleuze and Guattari call in A

Thousand Plateaus the wonder of a nonhuman life to be created (191).

Facing the Creative, Defacing the Critical

However, as soon as we feel the slowly moving eyebrows abstracted
from the face as an image of Firstness, we instantaneously perceive and
cognize the image of Secondness as the facial organization structured in
its determinate space-time and geographical-historical milieu. It becomes
the South Korean Beauty Clone event, con-textualized geo-historically as
the East Asian Cosmetic Surgery Craze. The pure event of virtual
conjunction is actualized as a social and economic phenomenon ready for
ideological critique; wonder as an opening of affectivity is enclosed and
reduced to an emotional reaction combined with contempt, ridicule and
anxiety. The boom in cosmetic surgery was blamed for the production of
these apparently identical beauty clones, especially in light of South
Koreas having the worlds highest per capita rate of cosmetic surgery in
general, and in specific given the widespread use and even open
acknowledgement of cosmetic surgery among celebrities and stars in
South Korea, including the former Korean beauty queen Kim Yumi, who
was dubbed by netizens Miss Plastic 2012 when the photograph of her
schooldays was exposed on the internet immediately after the crowning
ceremony. Thousands of netizens joined in the heated debate on the merits
of cosmetic surgery, and some press media even invited cosmetic surgeons
to diagnose the mug shots of the finalists, the doctors concurring that all
twenty contestants had gone under the knife (especially considering the
un-Korean straight nose characteristic only of white Caucasians).
But while people were expressing their surprise and amazement at the
global homogeneity of the criteria of beauty and mocking the robot-like
uniform standard of attractiveness perpetuated in South Korea and East
Asia, a sudden reversal occurred when a new set of before makeup/after
makeup photographs was posted online that showed simultaneously how
different the contestants were in terms of facial features and how
astonishingly similar they became after applying makeup. The target of
blame then shifted from cosmetic surgery to makeup, and then even to the
Photoshop software: The assumption is now that the contestants wore
their make-up in a similar style and, more likely, the same person
Photoshopped the contestants. That would explain why all their smiles and
faces are incredibly similar (Ashcraft). Yet this discovery failed to stop
the events real connections linked to the old racist bias that all Asians
are alike, to the old obsession with national physiognomy, to the current

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worldwide boom of the South Korean cultural industry, to the competition

for the leading status in medical tourism among East Asian countries, and
so on.
Then the question is: how may the differentiation between the
wonder-affect of Firstness as the impersonal face and the wonder-emotion
of Secondness as the actualized, individuated face discussed in the first
section, and the analysis of the animated face morphing image abstracted
from spatio-temporal co-ordinates and deterritorialized as global/local
composition of movement and rest as elaborated in the second section,
help us to disrupt creatively the above ideological readings? This is not to
say that the ideological critique itself is not important. In Deleuze and
Guattaris mapping of the political and historical formation of the faciality
machine, they are not hesitant to criticize how concrete ethnic faces are
produced on the basis of binary facial units (white/non-white) and
evaluated by the machines computation of normalities: Racism operates
by the determination of degree of deviance in relation to the White-Man
face (Deleuze and Guattari 178). Rather, the point is that every
ideological reading must be re-enacted constantly by the politics of affect
and the politics of difference to keep it from being dried up and lapsing
into clichs of opinion.
Therefore, the question is no longer one of foregrounding either the
wonder-affect of Firstness or the wonder-emotion of Secondness, nor of
combining or contrasting them in a dialectical way. What matters, in
Deleuze and Guattaris words, is that Affects are becomings (256): If
the face is a politics, dismantling the face is also a politics involving real
becomings, an entire becomingclandestine (188). In what follows I will
consider three major ideological critiques upon which this event
centersthose of cosmetic surgery, of the national face, and of racial
physiognomyto show how the creative slips into the critical, how the
uncertain moment of defacialization lurks around every actualized (East
Asian) face, and how the wonder of a nonhuman life to be created can
emerge from the one-day wonder of this global media event.
As our first example, take the feminist and postcolonial critique of the
image circulation of beauty in the glamorous globalized mediascape. This
critical stance has long regarded cosmetic surgery as a willing or enforced
surrender to the beauty myth or more exactly to the white beauty
myth, and tends to read belpharoplasty (double eyelid surgery) and
rhinoplasty (nose elevation), two of the most popular cosmetic surgeries
in East Asia, as the ultimate promotion of Anglo-European beauty norms.6
However, this line of argument is affirmed and disrupted at the same time
by the 2013 South Korean beauty clone event. A continuum, instead of a

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disruption, of cosmetic surgery, make-up and Photoshop is created in the

subsequent development of the event by the digital technology of image
enhancement. It becomes pointless to verify the facial images of those
twenty beauty contestants as either cosmetically, photographically, or
Photoshoppically identical. Under the prevalence of digital image
processing, the cosmetic continuum of surgery-makeup-Photoshop has
already formed a zone of proximity and indeterminacy in which one is
unable to tell them apart. In the past, Photoshop and similar
image-processing softwares were used in cosmetic surgery chiefly as
visualization tools to process patients photos before and after the
operation, but Photoshop has now become a contemporary form of digital
cosmetic surgery itself, pointing to a face-off flexibility and image
malleability.
Under this continuum of image enhancement with different intensities
and speeds, one learns not only to see oneself photographically, but
Photoshopically. The intriguingly uncertain moment of the wonder-affect
of Firstness comes thus less from the undifferentiality of the individual
facial images, less from the undifferentiality of various means of image
enhancement as disclosed later, but more from an altogether different
faciality in which pixels displace the natural face and Photoshop files
banish the physical body: Bodies become one with the bitstream, as
easily morphed as a Photoshop file (McPherson). Cosmetic surgery is
never the real becoming, at best a negative deterritorialization in the strata;
the creative flight toward the realm of the asignifying, asubjective, and
faceless can only be marked by the positive deterritorializing power of
becoming-molecular that disrupts the natural face and the physical body,
long taken as the ground for the feminist and postcolonial critique of
cosmetic surgery.
Next, consider the controversy over the national physiognomy.
Looking at these womens eerily identical faces, many reviewers
expressed astonishment entwined with deep concern about the erasure of
the so-called Korean Face, which, in their judgment, should retain all
identifiable Korean ethnic features. As the Reddit user Forevertraveling
indignantly pointed out, I live in Korea and older women complain how
girls dont look Korean anymore because of all the plastic surgery. Yet,
the arguments were somewhat self-contradictory. On the individual level,
the emphasis was put on the diverse appearance of Korean women, who
could be easily told apart were it not for the standardization created
through cosmetic surgery; on the collective level, however, the efforts was
to essentialize Koreanness through the ideally projected Korean
National Face that is realized in every individual Korean face.

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The most intriguingly uncertain moment in the debates came from the
facial visualization of nationality redefined and calculated in terms of
mathematical averageness and computer (demo)graphics. The average
face as more attractive was initially introduced into discussion as an
explanation for the facial similarity of most beauty contestants in general
and for the Daegu event in particular. Though the averageness
hypothesis, which regarded the average face as easier for the brain to
process, had already been modified by new experiments and criticized as a
scientific neutralization of beauty with implied Darwinian aesthetics,
netizens expert in computer science were still eager to support their
argument by creating from these photos, via facial morphing software,
the attractive composite face or the average composite face. Linkages
to the websites of the Face of Tomorrow or World of Facial Averages
were also provided by others to demonstrate how the average faces of
different metropolitans and nationalities could be produced
mathematically. With the help of new composite technologies, national
facial identities on these linked websites were portrayed as quantifiably
transferable and thus radically unstable. Breaking away from the logic of
resemblance and representation, these virtual faces were simultaneously
facialized and defacialized as statistically averaged and visually merged.
The average looking Korean face, the average looking Chinese face, the
average looking Taiwanese face, and the average looking Japanese face
were all aligned with other average looking faces around the world in this
new assemblage of face, nationality, statistics, and image technology.7
The uncertain moment of sur-facing and de-facing that disrupts the
presumption of the natural face in feminist critique or that
de-essentializes the political appeal of the national facial identity appears
also in the critique of racial physiognomy. When the old racist assertion
that all Asians are alike upsurged among people stunned by the
unnerving similarity of these South Korean beauty contestants faces, the
label clone attached to the event triggered an altogether different
conceptualization of faciality that could be genetically composed and
decomposed. In the past, the studies of!racial physiognomy that began in
the late eighteenth century and climaxed in the nineteenth century
attempted to identify the common forms that organized the diversity of
facial appearance by dividing the human species into different racial types.
Under the ideology of white supremacy, this typology was built upon a
system of classification and implied racial hierarchy in which essentialist
binaries of similarity/difference were constructed to distinguish various
groups as culturally, ethnically and morally different. From John Caspar
Lavaters hand-drawn portraits of national physiognomy to Sir Francis

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Galtons composite photography of Jewish boys, from the pseudo-science

of phrenology to the essentialism of physical anthropology, this line of
typological thinking had long dominated discussions of race,
overshadowing the fact that the regime of physiognomic classification was
itself a historical configuration, a contingent assemblage of face, power,
knowledge and (pseudo)science.
But when the assertion All Asians are alike, which followed the
logic of racial classification and reproduced the pseudo-science of racial
physiognomy, was cited repetitively in this event and even endorsed by
self-acclaimed East Asians, it pointed no longer to the old stereotype of
East Asian faces: yellow skin pigmentation; straight, coarse black hair; a
flat face with high malar eminences; a broad flat nose; and narrow, slitlike
eyes with a characteristic epicanthal fold (McCurdy 3). Instead, the
allegedly faceless mass of East Asians with the same undistinguishable
features was re-imagined this time at the intersection of genetic cloning
science and image cloning technology. The label clone that was
originally used to describe the identical cosmetic code and the identical
racial stereotypes seemed ironically and simultaneously to project on the
face the most visible (the same identical face) and the most invisible (the
same identical genes), a face on which the force of de-facialization could
lead to a total ef-facement as the faceless portrait ofSt. John Edward
Sulston: A Genomic Portrait might suggest.8
Ideologically speaking, the wild imagination of!the self-spawning and
icon-animated South Korean beauty clone may be criticized as an
updated and combined version of the threat of racial others who all
look alike, the threat of the self-duplicating post-human image on the
screen, the threat of cosmetic surgery incessantly producing the same face,
and ultimately the threat of genetic engineering as a means of multiplying
organisms and producing deep copy in contemporary biocybernetics
(Mitchell 164). Yet affectively speaking, the new composition of genetic
cloning science and image cloning technology discloses an uncertain
moment of de-facialization in which the invisible genes emerge from the
visible face and the molecular emerges from the molar under the label of
clone. This becoming-clandestine points to an inorganic plane of
composition that might defeat the faciality machine of signification and
subjectification that operates chiefly on the visible characteristics of skin
colors, physiognomy and body morphology.9 Yet again this is not to
privilege contemporary technologies and advanced science studies over
the century-old model of identity and representation, but to privilege the
image of Firstness as ontogenetically different from the image of
Secondness, to map out the realm of the Possible that might help to break

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159

through the critical impasse of the current anti-patriarchal, anti-racist,

anti-imperialist counter-discourses, and to open up an altogether different
inhumanity (pixel-face, Photoshop body-files, mathematically averaged
face, faceless deep copy of genetics, and so on).
Nor is this to say that ideological counter-discourses or positionings
are not important; rather, any critical positioning needs to be constantly
rescued from lapsing into clichs of opinion, and it is always the virtual
conjunction (process) that constitutes the field of the emergence from
which real connections (positionings) are actualized and established. That
is why we urgently need the politics of affect and the politics of difference
in our encounter with the 2013 South Korean Beauty Clone event to make
it not merely a first-time encounter with some object that surprises us and
seems novel, but an encounter with Firstness, the uncertain moment at
which the white wall/black hole system itself becomes one with the act
of leaving it, breaking away from and crossing through it (Deleuze and
Guattari 189). The politics of affect thus helps us to dismantle the
ground of ideological critique by exploring a primary affective force of
creativity co-related to the secondary mode of the signifying regime of
ideological systems. That is why we shall never stop hunting for the
uncertain moment of defacialization in our encounter with the event
while criticizing how the faciality machine forces flows into significations
and subjectifications. East Asian Faces may thus be positively
deterritorialized and ceaselessly created through the force of differing,
faces not relatively different from the White Face or the faces of other
races and countries, but absolutely deterritorialized as an affective force of
Firstness when they are wondrously abstracted from spatio-temporal
co-ordinates. East Asian faces are facialized in real connections and
defacialized simultaneously as virtual conjunction, as power of
becoming, and ultimately as the wonder of a nonhuman life to be
created. As the South Korean Beauty Clone event has shown, they can
flee wondrously from the facial typology of resemblance and
representation to the facial topology of affectivity and morphogenesis.

Notes
1. Though the implication and explication of affection and affect is meticulously
mapped out by Deleuze in Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, the usage of affection
and affect becomes interchangeable in Cinema I with only a slightly different
emphasis: affection is more closely related to images and affect points more to the
modification of Power-Quality.
2. In Cinema I, Deleuze also discusses the affect of fear when the recognizable
face dissolves and disappears irrevocably, a fear as best exemplified in films by

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Ingmar Bergman when he pushes the nihilism of the face to the extreme limit of its
effacement. Different from the affect of fear that leads ultimately to an inevitable
effacement in nothingness, the affects of desire and wonder defined as the
substance of the affection-image are related instead to the face turning aside in the
open and in the flesh (Cinema I 100).
3. The two poles of Power-Quality and the two corresponding intensive-reflexive
types of facial close-up in Cinema I are chiefly conceptualized in the contexts of
cinematic images. There is no need to duplicate divisions strictly by limiting
wonder exclusively to the reflexive face on the pole of Quality. The affect of
wonder covers both the surface of faceification (the reflexive face) and the traits of
faceicity (the intensive face) in the following discussion of contemporary image
digitalization.
4. The difference between Firstness and Secondness may be conceptually grasped
more as an ontogenetic difference than one involving the order of a time sequence.
As Massumi points out, to say that passage and indeterminacy come first or are
primary is more a statement of ontological priority than the assertion of a time
sequence (8). Passage has ontological privilege of being first or primary only in
the sense that it constitutes the field of the emergence, while positionings are what
emerges (8).
5. The global/local usage is taken directly from Deleuze: The face is this
organ-carrying plate of nerves which has sacrificed most of its global mobility and
which gathers or expresses in a free way all kinds of tiny local movements which
the rest of the body usually keeps hidden (Cinema I 87-88, italics mine). As the
two poles of the face-close-up-affect, the global/local divide corresponds to the
surface of faceification (visagification)/traits of faceicity (visagit): one may
grasp the face globally as an outline by an encircling line which traces the nose,
the mouth, the edge of the eyelids or work locally through the fragmentary and
broken lines which indicate here the quivering of the lips, there the brilliance of a
look (Cinema I 88).
6. Take the double-eyelid surgery for example: some critics totally disagree with
the feminist counter-discourse by pointing out the fact that approximately half of
all Asians are born with a natural upper eyelid crease and this Oriental crease is
different from the Occidental crease in height, shape and depth. It is pointless, as
they assert, to take this quest for youth and vitality by widening the eye as
merely an imitation of the white face. Instead of a reinforcement of
defacialization, double-eyelid surgeries could be read as an innovative
experimentation with identity management (Miller 120), a demonstration of
economic affluence, or an internationalization of the neoliberal ideas of
commodified choice and freedom. The double eyelid surgery in China is even
interpreted as a new assertion of patriotic nationalism to participate in the global
economy of beauty (Brownwell 132). Though attempting to argue from different
perspectives or positionings, these counter-counterdiscourses still operate as
ideological critiques.
7. These computer-generated composite faces of nationality seem to be
value-neutral. They might even at first sight help to radically challenge any
essentialist notion of national physiognomy and to dismantle its inherited

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hierarchies. Race defined as blood, kinship, nation, language and culture seems to
be radically displaced at the same time by race as population group that is
relatively permeable through migration and intermarriage. In light of increasingly
intensive transnational flow, computer (demo)graphics has thus been regarded as
another form of digital cosmetic surgery. However, we should not forget to detect
the typological thinking of the face lurking behind this hi-tech computer
(demo)graphics which still attempts to find national and regional differences in
face shape, color and features, especially in light of the anti-miscegenation in the
past and various restrictions on immigration until now to control the racial/facial
profile of a nations population.
8. This portrait with no physical appearance was created by Marc Quinn in 2001 to
present St. John Edward Sulston, the leading scientist in mapping the human
genome in United Kingdom. Genomically speaking, this portrait can be regarded
as the most realist of works, completely breaking away from the old logic of
resemblance and representation in the art history of portrait-painting.
9. Again the new science of genomics per se is not regarded here as revolutionary,
nor is the new technology of image morphing discussed in the former section.
Genetic variance between populations can easily rebuild race as the old physical
anthropology had done and reactivate the old biological difference perpetuated by
scientific racism that took shape through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Works Cited
Ashcraft, Brian. Blame Photoshop for Korean Beauty Queen Clones?
Kotaku. N.p., 26 Apr. 2013 Web. 1 May 2013.
<http://kotaku.com/blame-photoshop-for-koreas-beauty-queen-clones482285894>
Brownwell, Susan. China Reconstructs: Cosmetic Surgery and
Nationalism in the Reform Era. Asian Medicine and Globalization.
Ed. Joseph S. Alter. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2005. 132150.
Print.
Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson
and Robert Galeta. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1986. Print.
. Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. Trans. Robert Hurley. San Francisco:
City Lights, 1988. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Flix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P,
1987. Print.
Descartes, R. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Vol. 1. Trans. J.
Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1985. Print.
Huang, Jia-Bin. Miss Daegu 2013 Contestants Face Morphing. Redefining
Open Minds. N.p., 25 Apr. 2013 Web. 15 Feb. 2014.

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<http://jbhuang0604.blogspot.tw/2013/04/miss-korea-2013-contestants
-face.html>
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge: MIT P, 2001.
Print.
Massumi, Brian. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation.
Durham: Duke UP, 2002. Print.
McCurdy, John A., and Samuel M. Lam. Cosmetic Surgery of the Asian
Face. New York: Thieme, 2005. Print.
McPherson, T. Transform Me, Please. Flow: A Critical Forum on
Television and Media Culture. WordPress & Mimbo Pro, 21 Jan. 2005
Web. 30 April 2013.
<http://flowtv.org/2005/01/transform-me-please%e2%80%a6/.
Accessed>.
Miller, Laura. Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body
Aesthetics. Berkeley: U of California P, 2006. Print.
Mitchell, W. J. T. Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present.
Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2011. Print.
Spinoza, Baruch. Ethics. Trans. Edwin Curley. New York: Penguin, 1996.
Print.

CHAPTER NINE
BODY/SPACE AND AFFIRMATION/NEGATION
IN THE FILMS OF LOU YE AND WONG KAR-WAI
XIONG YING

Deleuze made no mention of Chinese cinema in Cinema 1 or Cinema 2,

but this need not stop us from discussing Chinese films and directors in
terms of his concepts. Just as an artist can be a Spinozist without ever
having encountered Ethics, so Chinese directors can create films that
express Deleuzian or anti-Deleuzian ideas.
In this paper, I focus on two Chinese filmmakers: Lou Ye, one of the
most creative filmmakers in China today, and Wong Kar-wai, one of Hong
Kongs most renowned directors, now considered an auteur for his visually
unique and stylized works. In their films, the body is often a significant
factor, while space is reduced to mere fragments attached to the body. But
these commonalities do not indicate a perfect accordance between the two;
rather, this paper argues that the two filmmakers are very different. Is the
body an active or a passive one? Where does each filmmaker lay his
emphasis: on the present or the past, on forgetting or memory, on
affirmation or negation?

Lou Ye: A Combat between Body and Space at Close

Quarters
It is well known that Lou Ye has addressed subjects that are
controversial in China, including the June Fourth Incident in Summer
Palace (2006) and homosexuality in Spring Fever (2009). Of greater
significance, however, is the unique way in which his films express the
relationship between body and space.
In Summer Palace and Spring Fever, we find several motifs related to
body and space. The spaces in Lous films are seldom revealed completely,
as spacious ones in which characters act. Rather, they are reduced to only a

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few of their parts, or broken into fragments.

It is true that upon occasion Lou maintains a balance between the space
and the figures occupying it. In Summer Palace, for example, such balance
is observed when the heroine, Yu Hong (Hao Lei), who is staying in
Wuhan, and a besotted male colleague have their picture taken against the
backdrop of the Wuhan Bridge. However, this is one of only a few scenes
in which the body/space relation is balanced (another being the scene in
which a professor lectures on traditional Chinese poetry).
Much more common in Lous films are scenes that privilege the body
over space. Summer Palace, for example, opens with a close-up of a post
office sign. The camera then pans down and stops at another close-up, this
time showing the face of a young postman who is also Yu Hongs
boyfriend. In the next scene, the boyfriend comes to deliver a letter to Yu
Hong, but just moments after a fleeting long-shot has given us a glimpse
of the street, the camera zooms in on the figure of Yu Hong who is
carrying a box into her familys grocery store. The camera seldom reveals
details like what kind of street the post office is located on, what the post
office building looks like, or what kind of spatial relationship there is
between the street and the grocery store. In other words, the presentation
of spaces is minimized, leaving bodies to dominate the screen.
But this does not mean that bodies supplant spaces on screen. Rather,
we are prompted to notice the intimate connection between the bodies and
the spaces they occupy. The post office sign is not connected, as we might
expect, to the post office building, but rather to the face of the young
postman enjoying a cigarette. And, in the next scene, an immediate
association is made between the street view and Yu Hongs body. In this
way spaces and bodies are placed in close relation to each other.
In Cinema 1, Deleuze calls Bressons space a tactile space (112) and
the same may be said of space in Lous works. What the first scene of
Spring Fever gives us is a special spatial experience, one that delineates a
zone neighboring the bodies of two young men in motion. The trees and
sky, which constitute the spatial elements of this scene, appear as though
they are floating in a kaleidoscope, losing their geometric stability and
moving violently as if knocking against us. Or we could say that it is the
bodies themselves that seem to be knocking against the trees, sky and air,
or, in other scenes, against interior walls, bookstore shelves, or against
crowds in the street.
Although some might argue that these are point-of-view shots, the fact
that the characters also appear in most of these shots indicates that the
spatial elements and the figures are in fact intimately connected to one
another. Its almost as if eyes are not seeing but touching the space: as if

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165

eyes have become hands trying to feel space. Or even that every part of the
body has been fitted with an eye. In these images, space is not observed in
perspective but as if being touched by the body. The audience is shown the
zones neighboring spatial elements on one hand, and bodies on the other,
as if witnessing close-quarters combat between the two.
These shots are reminiscent of scenes from some of Bernardo
Bertoluccis early works, including The Grim Reaper (La commare secca,
1962) and Before the Revolution (Prima della rivoluzione, 1964). One
scene in The Grim Reaper shows a young man wandering around a Roman
park on the banks of the Tiber River where a prostitute had previously
been killed. In a tracking shot, the camera suddenly changes angle and
looks up to his head from a very low position, showing us a close-up of his
face against a background of moving clouds. Face and clouds merge at
close quarters. In Before the Revolution, Fabrizio meets his friend
Agostino, who is riding a bicycle down a narrow street in Parma. A
close-up tracking shot follows Agostino on his bike, showing him jerking
about and sometimes even falling off, with the result that we can hardly
distinguish between his moving figure and the things around him. Figure
and background are closely linked. These are more than tracking shots:
they are tracking close-ups. Lou replicates this technique in his works,
particularly in Summer Palace and Spring Fever.
So what happens when a close-up shot is not fixed in the conventional
way, but instead tracks a moving object? This technique gives rise to a
unique spatialityto a particular zone that is more than body and less than
space. It is nothing other than the fractal that Deleuze and Guattari
describe in Chapter 14 of A Thousand Plateaus. In a discussion of the
mathematical model of smooth space, the writers cite the Koch curve,
which is more than a line and less than a surface, as well as the Sierpinski
sponge, which is more than a surface and less than a volume, and then
comment:
(4) What defines smooth space, then, is that it does not have a dimension
higher than that which moves through it or is inscribed in it; in this sense it
is a flat multiplicity, for example, a line that fills a plane without ceasing to
be a line; (5) space and that which occupies space tend to become
identified, to have the same power, in an exact yet rigorous form of the
numbering or nonwhole number (occupy without counting); (6) a smooth,
amorphous space of this kind is constituted by an accumulation of
proximities, and each accumulation defines a zone of indiscernibility
proper to becoming (more than a line and less than a surface; less than a
volume and more than a surface). (537)

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We can apply these remarks directly to Lou Yes work (as well as to a
few of Bertoluccis early films), for he creates a certain zone in which
space and body (which occupies space) tend to become identified as
an accumulation of proximities. This is what I mean by a combat
between body and space at close quarters.

Consciousness/Body, Suffering/Acting
Images portraying tactile space abound in these two films, but the
meaning of these images has yet to be accounted for. Space does not
appear in its entirety but only in its parts, or as fragments sensed by the
eyes situated in the body, as if touched by the body. That is to say, space
is presented as a function of the body, which acts as the determining factor.
But what kind of a body is it?
Lets examine this process as it operates in these two films, starting
with Summer Palace. Whats wrong with you? Whats the matter?
Are you okay? Yu Hongs boyfriends, and her friends in Beijing and
Wuhan, are constantly asking her these questions. But she never asks the
same questions herself. Nor can she bring herself to answer calmly and
rationally. She just turns pale or shudders for some unstated reason. What
does this mean? It seems to signify that she feels something that her
boyfriends and friends dont. What is it that she feels? At the beginning of
Summer Palace, these lines are cited from Yu Hongs diary: Something
suddenly came over me like a wind blows in summer, and it caught me,
without being gone. I do not know what it is, for the time being I call it
love.
A wind or a breeze has blown into her body, giving her the power
of action, and thanks to it her body has become one capable of acting. We
do not even know what a body can do, as Deleuze often remarks, thereby
emphasizing the importance of the body over consciousnessand
needless to say, this body must be an acting one. So, in relation to the films
under discussion, we may ask: what can an acting body do?
We are now faced with two pairs of terms: consciousness/body, and
suffering/acting (or reactivity/activity):
In Nietzsche consciousness is always the consciousness of an inferior in
relation to a superior to which he is subordinated or into which he is
incorporated. Consciousness is never self-consciousness, but the
consciousness of ego in relation to a self that is not itself conscious. It is
not the masters consciousness but the slaves consciousness in relation to a
master who is not himself conscious. Consciousness usually only appears
when a whole wants to subordinate itself to a superior whole

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Consciousness is born in relation to a being of which we could be a

function (VP II 227). This is the servility of consciousness; it merely
testifies to the formation of a superior body. (Deleuze, Nietzsche and
Philosophy 39)

If a masteris not himself conscious as both Nietzsche and Deleuze

suggest, what is he? He is nothing other than the very body that is merely
enjoying the pleasure of acting. Conversely, consciousness is something
secondary and derivative, which suffers from the awareness of its distance
from the acting body. It is clear that to Nietzsche, consciousness is
inescapably servile, whereas the body belongs to the master and the noble.
Spinoza calls our attention to the body as a prodigious thing beyond
the reach of consciousness. He takes sleepwalkers as an example:
However, nobody as yet has determined the limits of the bodys
capabilities. . . . For nobody as yet knows the structure of the body so
accurately as to explain all its functions, not to mention . . . that
sleepwalkers do many things in their sleep that they would not dare when
awakeclear evidence that the body, solely from the laws of its own
nature, can do many things at which its mind is amazed. (Ethics 280)

When the body is acting, we may, just like a sleepwalker, not even be
aware that it is doing so. In other words, while acting only as a body we do
many things that we would not do when we are acting under the direction
of consciousness.
We might now understand why Deleuze tends to start with a Spinozist
statement whenever he takes up the subject of the body. As he states in
Cinema 2, We do not even know what a body can do: in its sleep, in its
drunkenness, in its efforts and resistances (182), he is undoubtedly
emphasizing the innocence and the nobility of the body, as well as of life
itself. In fact, the two pairs of consciousness/body and suffering/acting
body necessarily relate to each other. A suffering, reactive body, being
aware that it does not itself have what an acting body has, necessarily
takes on a slave-like consciousness, wanting to subordinate itself to this
superior, acting body. Furthermore, the reason why an acting, positive
body belongs to the noble is that in this body there is actually something
affirmative. In this regard, the following remark of Spinozas continues to
resound with us: The more essence a thing has, so much more has it also
of activity, and so much less of passivity. For it is certain that what is
active acts through what it has, and that the thing which is passive is
affected through what it has not (Short Treatise 100). To this Deleuze
adds the following (employing his oft-used term express):

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But our force of suffering is simply the imperfection, the finitude, the
limitation of our force of acting itself. Our force of suffering asserts
nothing, because it expresses nothing at all: it involves only our
impotence, that is to say, the limitation of our power of action.
(Expressionism in Philosophy 224)

We may now return to our examination of Lous films. I have already

mentioned Yu Hongs diary, in which she tells us that she feels something
like the wind blowing in summer, something she calls love. This is nothing
other than what was expressed in her. The Cinema 2 passage cited above
could have been written for Yu Hong. She sleeps with her boyfriends in
different periods of her life. She seeks out pleasure through relations with
them and sometimes drinks. She turns down an unpleasant admirer and
refuses to pay attention to a boring lecture on traditional Chinese poetry.
She never asks others about what they are thinking or feeling. If seen from
the perspective of the body, however, this does not signify selfishness or
lack of regard for others, but rather testifies to her nobleness.
The same approach to the body is evident in Lous Spring Fever. The
hero Jiang Cheng (Qin Hao) has relationships with two different men in a
row, and each of these men insists on introducing Jiang to his wife or
girlfriend, neither of whom accepts their homosexuality. In each instance,
the three-way relationship between Jiang Cheng, his lover, and the lovers
wife or girlfriend proceeds to go wrong. One of his homosexual partners
begs him to continue their relationship, and the other blames a trip they
took together for making his girlfriend leave him. Jiang Cheng responds
by breaking off the relationships once and for all. The actions and feelings
of Jiang Chengs lovers, whether those of introducing a third party into a
relationship, begging to stay together, or repenting having taken a trip,
demonstrate calculations of interest that arise not out of the body but out
of consciousness. They arise not out of a state of having something, but
one of losing something or worrying about its loss.
Jiang Cheng, by contrast, keeps on following the dictates of the body:
he follows what he has, as opposed to what he does not have. Even after
the wife of his first lover slashes his neck with a metal shard, he responds
by tattooing over the scars. Toward the end of the film we see him walking
in a dignified manner through the crowded marketplace with his tattooed
neck on display, as if he were exhibiting his toughness for everyone to see.
The innocence of the body is invincible.
The title Spring Fever is taken from the novel Night of Spring Fever
by Yu Dafu, a well-known modern Chinese writer. The film contains
several scenes showing two gay friends reading passages from that novel,
including In such a night when a kindly spring breeze blows. Wind is

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a central motif in both Summer Palace and Spring Fever. When the body,
which shares the force of the wind, is acting, the distance between space
and body, which is especially noticeable to servile consciousness,
disappears. In its place come fragments of space, along with a few parts of
the body. And what do these two things, a few parts of space and a few
parts of the body, constitute? They constitute the zones of neighboring
spaces and neighboring bodies as well, or those zones that could be
regarded as the betweennesses of bodies and spaces. This is what
characterizes the images in Lous works. We are reminded of Edmund
Carpenters description in Eskimo (1959) of ice landscape and igloos,
quoted by Deleuze and Guattari in Chapter 14 of A Thousand Plateaus:
There is no middle distance, no perspective, no outline, nothing the eye
can cling to except thousands of smoky plumes of snow (645). Suffice it
to say that Lou, through his images of the betweennesses of bodies and
spaces, gives us thousands of smoky plumes of positive forces, because
wind, as moving air, has never known what space is. And as for wind,
space is nothing but what it meets up with or knocks against while moving.
Owing to these combats at close quarters between space and body, it may
be best to describe these two works of Lous not as love stories or
melodramas but as action films.

Wong Kar-wai: Images of Time

So what about the portrayal of body and space in Wong Kar-wais
films? We easily discern two main characteristics in Wongs works, one of
which concerns space and the other time. Ackbar Abbas has pointed out
that Wongs films portray spatial ambiguities (which he also refers to as
blind space [32] or skewed space [54]). Referring to the slow motion
sequences in Wongs directorial debut, As Tears Go By (1988), Abbas
observes, The more slowly and carefully we look at something, the more
puzzlingly it looks back at us (34). He also mentions that in the opening
fight sequence of Ashes of Time (1994), it
is no longer a choreography of human bodies in motion that we see. . . .
Things have now been speeded up to such an extent that what we find is
only a composition of light and color in which all action has dissolveda
kind of abstract expressionism or acting painting. It is not possible,
therefore, to discern who is doing what to whom. (32)

Discussing Chungking Express (1994), Abbas argues, The images

have a special quality: they all give the impression of being throwaway
images. Thus in the first part of the film, images go by so quickly that we

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only catch glimpses of what is there (55). Referring to what he calls the
dj disparu (instead of dj vu), Abbas argues that Wongs works present
a reality that is always outpacing our awareness of it, a reality that the
film breathlessly tries to catch up with (35). He also suggests, if we
compare Wongs film to MTV, whereas visual overload in MTV usually
functions to hold an audiences attention, in Wongs film it functions to
suggest that attention itself cannot hold the dj disparu (36). Wong
exploits the blurred image as a key element in most of his films, where
blurring is produced either by rapid montage or by slow motion. This
sometimes causes his films to bear a resemblance to Lous, in so far as
both filmmakers are concerned with the fragmentation of images.
Wongs films are also characterized by a concern with time. In all his
well-known works, including Ashes of Time, In the Mood for Love (2000)
and 2046 (2004), he tirelessly grapples with the theme of the past, and
many critics have expressed their fascination for his stylized narrative of
the past as well as for how he creates narratives that blend past and present.
Takashi Kitakoji says that Wongs films manifest a unique sense of time:
time not in common sense (21-45), a time, Kitakoji claims, that projects
the future or present into the past and that also repeats itself. In his book
Cinema after Deleuze, Richard Rushton (45-49) identifies Wong as one of
several major contemporary filmmakers who create time-images.
I will first examine Wongs portrayal of time, showing that what Abbas
calls skewed space (also blind space or spatial ambiguities) actually
results from Wongs treatment of time, and I will also refute Rushtons
suggestion that Wong creates time-images.
Wong does produce images that relate to time. However, it has been
widely acknowledged that his films tend to equate time with the past. I
was once in love with a girl, is something that Wong Kar-wais heroes
often say to women theyve just met in the present, and his stories often
start with heroes who have lost their loves. Loss, Wong Kar-wais favorite
theme, to some extent means negation, signifying not that the heroes have
something but rather that they do not have something, at least not anymore.
There is in fact always one central point in his narratives, and this point is
nothing other than the past: a past love or a past woman. When the hero
falls in love, the object of his desire must reflect another girl or woman he
has loved and lost. In Chungking Express (1994), for instance, after the
hero is dropped by a stewardess, he encounters a new girl who eventually
becomes a stewardess herself. Other examples include a new woman who
has the same name as a woman from the heros past (2046, where Su
Lizhen, the gambler played by Gong Li, has the same name as the heroine
of In the Mood for Love, played by Maggie Cheung), or a young Japanese

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man (Takuya Kimura) who falls for an android (Faye Wang) who has the
same face as a girl he lost in Hong Kong in the 1960s (2046, these two
girls are played by the same actress).
Chungking Express provides us with another illustrative example. The
hero, a young police officer (Tony Leung), receives a letter from the
heroine, a stall worker (Faye Wang), who leaves him the letter instead of
going to the restaurant where they were supposed to meet. At first he
throws the unread letter into a trashcan, but after a while he changes his
mind, picks the rain-sodden letter out of the trash, and carefully dries it in
a microwave oven. Wong Kar-wai seems to be forcing these two
characters to miss out on the chance of love in the present, and at the same
time he makes the present the past. When they meet again one year later,
their conversation naturally revolves around why the police officer hadnt
read the letter when he first had the chance. This episode reveals Wong
Kar-wais narrative strategy. He first makes the present into the past. Then,
in a new present that is based upon a carefully constructed past, the man
and woman can finally begin to fall in love with each other. Without the
past there can be no love in the present. This is why the hero (Tony Leung)
of 2046, a freelance writer, cant bring himself to fall in love with the
beautiful cabaret girl (Zhang Ziyi) who lives at his hotel, despite the fact
that she has declared her love for him. Similarly, Faye Wangs return to
Tony Leung toward the end of Chungking Express implicates the past in
two ways. One is that, as I have already mentioned, they now share a
preciously constructed past, and the other is that Faye Wang returns to him
in an airline uniform, making her a shadow of the ex-girlfriend who left
him. Now that these two pasts are set in place he is finally free to fall for
her completely.
It might be objected that a few of Wongs films, such as In the Mood
for Love and Eros: The Hand (2004), portray no past or making the
present the past at all. But this omission guides us to another motif that
characterizes these works: fetishism. In the film In the Mood for Love, we
constantly see Maggie Cheung dressed in and changing into
much-fetishized Shanghai dresses, and in Eros: The Hand it is Gong Lis
hand that is the fetish object. As fixed points, these fetishes fulfill the
same function as the past does in works like 2046 and Chungking Express.
All of these demonstrate that what Wong Kar-wai gives us are not
time-images, but images of time. As we know, Deleuze draws a strict
distinction between the movement-image and the image in movement,
as well as between the time-image and the image of time. In the early
days of cinema the camera was immobile, and montage (the continuous
connecting of shots) had not yet been invented. The audience was thus

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presented with an indirect representation of movement, not movement that

was intrinsic to the image itself (Deleuze, Cinema 1 25-26). By contrast,
the movement-image is the shot where framing is its facet turned towards
objects, and montage is its other facet which constitutes the whole and
thus gives us the image of time. Because a montage links one
movement-image to another, the time flowing from a montage is not time
itself but is necessarily an indirect representation, not yet a direct
presentation of time (Deleuze, Cinema 2 33). But Deleuze does not even
conceive of recollection-images as being a type of time-image:
The virtual image (pure recollection) is not a psychological state or a
consciousness: it exists outside of consciousness, in time. . . . What causes
our mistake is that recollection-images, and even dream-images or
dreaming, haunt a consciousness which necessarily accords them a
capricious or intermittent allure, since they are actualized according to the
momentary needs of this consciousness. But, if we ask where
consciousness is going to look for these recollection-images and these
dream-images or this reverie that it evokes, according to its states, we are
led back to pure virtual images of which the latter are only modes or
degrees of actualization. (Cinema 2 77-78)

So recollection-images, which still retain some psychological state or

consciousness, are not the same as virtual /time-images, but are rather their
modes or degrees of actualization. Memory is not in us; it is we who
move in a Being-memory, a world-memory (95). Contrary to the
arguments of critics such as Richard Rushton, the time-image as conceived
by Alain Resnais is never presented in Wongs films (148-49). The most
important motifs in his works are the past, loss, and fetish, which function
as fixed points or centers and are merely a psychological state or a
consciousness. In this sense, what Wongs images suggest is not that we
move in a Being-memory, a world-memory, but rather that memory is
in us. How, then, can we possibly conceive of his images as time-images?
They are still images of time.
But the analysis must not stop here. We still need to find an alternative
model by which to evaluate these images. In Nietzsches On the
Genealogy of Morals, Deleuze identifies two fundamental formulas: when
the master says, I am good, therefore you are evil (affirmation
negation), the slave retorts with the opposite formula, You are evil,
therefore I am good (negation affirmation) (Nietzsche and Philosophy
119), and tells us that
The man of ressentiment needs to conceive of a non-ego, then to oppose
himself to this non-ego in order finally to posit himself as self. This is the

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strange syllogism of the slave: he needs two negations in order to produce

an appearance of affirmation. (121)

If this can be expressed as,

1) You are evil, and
2) I am the opposite of you, therefore
3) I am good,
We may assert that virtually the same syllogism informs Wongs
films:
1) You are not yourself, but a shadow or a reflection of another
woman, and
2) I lost her in the past, and the pain lingers as a bitter memory,
therefore
3) I may feel attracted to you, but this will merely be a result of the
fact that your existence reminds me of what I have lost, and awakes me
to the pain of this loss.
Doesnt Wong present us with two negations in order to produce an
appearance of affirmation: present through past, joyfulness through pain,
you through the one that I lost?
At this point, we should turn to the widely discussed question of
Godards alleged influence on Wong. Quentin Tarantino addressed this
question in a much-publicized commentary in which he said that Wongs
films, especially Chungking Express, mark the merging of Hong Kong
cinema and the Nouvelle Vague. It is indeed true that ten years after
Chungking Express, Wong started to include references to Godard in his
films. As has often been noted, in both 2046 and To Each His Own Cinema:
I Traveled 9,000 Km to Give It to You (2007), Wang makes references to
Godards 1965 film Alphaville: A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution
(Alphaville: une trange aventure de Lemmy Caution). The android in
2046 is similar to Natacha (Anna Karina) in Alphaville, and Wongs I
Traveled 9,000 Km to Give It to You, a short film that formed part of a
2007 French anthology commissioned for the 60th anniversary of the
Cannes Film Festival, presents a young mans encounter with a woman at
a movie theater where Alphaville is playing.
These two references to Godards work do not, however, constitute
proof that Wang is imitating Godard. In fact, while the android in 2046
may be an overt reference to Alphavilles Natacha, there is a fundamental
difference between how Godard treats Natacha and how Wong treats the

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android. The android that the young Japanese character Tak meets in a
huge railway network is just the mirror image of another girl whom he met
and lost in Hong Kong in the 1960s. Here, the past remains the central
point of the narrative (although this encounter actually takes place in the
fictional future as an episode in the novel that the protagonist Chow is
writing). But when Lemmy Caution meets Natacha in Alphaville, a city on
another planet, there is nothing from the past that connects them. Whether
or not the past exists as a central point that determines the course of the
narrative is of crucial importance. In this regard, it is worth recalling
Lemmy Cautions warning to Natacha while helping her escape Alphaville
toward the end of the film: Dont look back! This sentiment is precisely
what 2046 lacks. In fact, everything in 2046 points toward the opposite:
Just look back!
Wangs next reference to Alphaville in I Traveled 9,000 km to Give It to
You demonstrates yet another difference between Godard and Wong. We
are shown two spectators, a young man and a married woman, who are
apparently alone in a movie theater where Alphaville is showing. They are
attracted to each other and, giving in to their impulses, they start touching
each other passionately. Meanwhile, in the background, we hear the scene
from Alphaville in which Lemmy Caution meets Natacha for the first time
in a hotel room. Natacha asks him for a light, and while lighting her
cigarette he utters the line from which Wangs short film borrows its title:
I travelled 9,000 kilometers to give it to you.
This short film portrays a strong and bitter impulse, gratified desire,
and a feeling of loss that the subtitles inform us has seized the protagonist
for good. No such scene ever appears in Godards work, and as such I
cannot consider Wangs Godard reference to be a straightforward allusion
to a parallel scene. Here we are reminded of Carmen and Joseph, the two
protagonists of First Name: Carmen (Prnom Carmen, 1983). In the
well-known bathroom scene we see Joseph, whose penis is erect, wanting
to make love to Carmen. But Godard does not allow Josephs desire to be
gratified. Joseph has an erection, but his desire is frustrated. We may say
then that whereas Godard portrays a desire that is never gratified, Wong,
by contrast, portrays a desire that is satisfied and then lost. In other words,
Wong portrays a desire that is gratified and then lost, whereas Godard
portrays a desire that is never gratified. In Godards work desire is aroused
but is forced to linger unfulfilled. Godards images of unfulfilled desire
constitute a cinematic expression of what Deleuze calls irrational numbers
(as opposed to whole or rational numbers). In the world of irrational
numbers, whole or rational numbers are anomalies, but viewed from the
world of whole or rational numbers, irrational numbers are the puzzling

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remainder:
It is therefore true that God makes the world by calculating, but his
calculations never work out exactly (juste), and this inexactitude or
injustice in the result, this irreducible inequality, forms the condition of the
world. The world happens while God calculates; if the calculation were
exact, there would be no world. The world can be regarded as a
remainder, and the real in the world understood in terms of fractional or
even incommensurable numbers. (Deleuze, Difference and Repetition 280)

To borrow Deleuzes expression, we may say that Godards desire that

has been aroused and left to linger forms the condition of the world.
Wongs vision, by contrast, portrays either desires gratification (gaining
her in the past), or lack thereof (losing her in present). This implies that, in
the domain of whole or rational numbers, irrational numbers lurk as
troubling, incommensurable obstacles, whereas whole or rational numbers
take on the role of fetishes: a set of fixed points that are regarded as
perfect and eternal.
Rushton cites the key scenes of play-acting in which the heroine
imagines breaking up with her husband (In the Mood for Love) as being
exemplary time-images. This interpretation seems somewhat odd. When
Su (Maggie Cheung) begins to take the play-acting seriously and gets
upset, Chow (Tony Leung) reminds her that This is just a rehearsal.
This isnt real. Rushton explains that
We know that in his memory the man is regretting that this wasnt just a
rehearsal, all the while knowing all too well that these experiences were
real, indeed that their play-acting was real. And now, after this time, as he
looks back, he realizes that these memories are definitely real, even as they
are virtual. (149)

However, play-acting scenes like these should not be categorized as

time-images. Time-images of this sort Deleuze calls crystal-images, and
for Deleuze, Renoir is an exemplary creator of crystal-images. Characters
in Renoirs films are trapped in a world where they can hardly distinguish
life from theatre and theatre from life:
For Renoir, theatre is primary, but because life must emerge from it.
Theatre is valuable only as a search for an art of living; this is what the
disparate couple in Little Theatre learns. Where, then, does theatre finish
and life begin? remains the question always asked by Renoir. . . . In A Day
in the Country it is through the window that the two men observe the
family arriving, each of the two playing his role, one that of the cynic, the

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other that of the scrupulous sentimentalist. But, when the action develops
on the river, the test of life causes the roles to be dropped, and shows a
good sort in the cynic, while the sentimental one is revealed as an
unscrupulous seducer. (Deleuze, Cinema 2 84)

The point Deleuze makes in regard to A Day in the Country may also
be illustrated in Elena and Her Men (Elena et les hommes, 1956). Toward
the end of the film, the heroine Elena and Viscount Henry, who is dressed
up as General Rollan, play-act that Rollan and Elena are embracing and
kissing near the windows of the homestead in order to cover up Rollans
escape. Once Rollan has succeeded in escaping, Elena and Henrys
masquerade comes to an end, but they realize they have fallen in love with
each other. What had been theatre or rehearsal transforms into real-life.
Such is the nature of the Deleuzian crystal-image. But this is not what
we are shown in In the Mood for Love, where play-acting remains mere
theatre, never becoming life itself. Wangs characters are play-acting a life
unlived as a substitute for that life. As Chow observes, their interactions
are just a rehearsal, a scene imagined by the protagonists, one that is
delivered and simultaneously controlled by the protagonists consciousness.
Chow and Su know what they want before they play it out. In Renoirs
films, by contrast, the protagonists cant tell what they really want or what
will happen until they have acted it out as theatre. Hence, Renoir shows us
that theatre has the power to transform itself directly into real-life, whereas
Wong regards theatre as an imaginative expression of unfulfilled potentials
that in a certain sense stands in for life. In this sense, Wongs films should
not be called crystal-images but images of crystal.
If we compare Wong with Godard in this regard, we realize once again
how fundamentally the two filmmakers differ. In the last scene of My Life
to Live (Vivre sa vie, 1962), we see the prostitute Nana being traded by her
pimp to another man. The exchange goes wrong, and the handgun of one
of the men buying Nana malfunctions and fails to fire, while the pimp
selling Nana ends up shooting her by accident. Godard turns the scene into
a farce, showing us his take on the play-acting theme: life transforming
itself directly into theater.

The Technique of Beautifully Negating Life

And now to the question of fragmentation in Wongs film. I have
already mentioned this filmmakers use of blurred images. Another motif
characterizing his films is that of what we could call framed images.
Fragments of space and body are precisely arranged, often in relation to
multiple frames that shut some elements out of the screen while lifting

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others to positions of prominence (framing devices include physical

frames such as windows, mirrors, doors and corridors, and optical frames
such as figures placed against dark backgrounds). This kind of framing
differs from Lous delineation of zones of indiscernibility, which I have
identified as more than body, less than space (fractal). As a rule, in
Wong the elements placed in positions of prominence are things that are
connected with memories of past loves, such as a towel, a stuffed toy
animal, a room key, or the protagonists faces and parts of their bodies. For
the most part, however, these framed images, as well as the montages
made up of them, remain determined by a man who has lost his love.
Rushton is therefore missing something important when he writes the
following about In the Mood for Love:
These memory-images seem to float, as though they are freed from the
Earths gravity. The images are of a dream-like variety, a combination of
the acute angles, the cameras finding its way through partially blocked
windows and doorways, the saturated colours, the slow-motion effects and
the nostalgic soundtrack. (149)

What has to be added to his description is that, even though these

memory-images were freed from the Earths gravity, they are never freed
from the gravity of a man who is suffering from a broken heartor rather,
of a man who feels as if he must have lost something important to him,
even if he might actually have lost nothing at all.
Wongs use of blurring has also been widely misinterpreted. Abbas, for
example, says that, in the first part of Chungking Express, images go by
so quickly that we only catch glimpses of what is there (55). But we
should not forget the fact that, although the image is indeed blurred, when
the killer (Brigitte Lin) and the cop (Takeshi Kaneshiro) pass each other at
Chungking Mansions the audience is informed that they pass at a precise
distance of 0.01 cm. We are also provided with the specific time and date
of the encounter: 9:00 p.m. on April 28th. Three day later, May 1st, is the
deadline the cop has given himself to wait for the return of his girlfriend,
who had left him one month earlier, and it is also the expiration date of the
tins of pineapples he has been eating every day since they broke up. What
do these distinctly un-blurry numbers signify? They signify that Wongs
images are not intrinsically blurry: the protagonist clearly remembers
everything connected to his lost love. The films images are blurred not
because the hero has gained love, but rather because he has not. Or, even if
he has actually gained love, he treats it as something that he is destined to
lose. This reveals a sense of dj disparulove that has for the most part
been lostand the blurred images are an appropriate expression of this

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state of constantly losing love, or of constantly waiting for a love that will
be lost again.
I have demonstrated how Wongs use of the blurred image is entirely
different from Lous. In Lous work, blurriness results from the protagonist
having something, not the opposite. Therefore, while blurry images do
form special zones in the films of both filmmakers, in Lous case these are
pointless zones, those between body and space and those that are more
than body and less than space. Wong, by contrast, gives us zones that are
determined by a central point, that of a mans feelings connected with loss,
the past, and fetishes, and he uses framing and slow motion to cut instants
out of movement and time, and out of life. Briefly speaking, Lous images
produce the fuzzy aggregate, whereas from a central point Wong makes
an aggregate fuzzy (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus 379).
There is also something odd about Abbass admiration for Wongs
treatment of images like those in the fight sequence that opens Ashes of
Time, which he describes as being
no longer a choreography of human bodies in motion. . . . Things have now
been speeded up to such an extent that what we find is only a composition
of light and color in which all action has dissolveda kind of abstract
expressionism or acting painting. It is not possible, therefore, to discern
who is doing what to whom. (32)

With a little effort we can in fact discern who is doing what to whom,
but whether we do so or not actually makes very little difference. This is
because this kind of dissolution of action in a composition of light and
color can hardly be interpreted as being a particularly significant
cinematic effect. Action sequences often feature this obscuring effect,
largely to mask the fact that the actors do not actually know martial arts.
Hong Kongs kung fu filmmakers such as Tsui Hark have in fact long used
complicated special effects to produce spectacular sequences. Abbas
himself adds the qualification that, It soon becomes clear that both
heroism and special effects, as well as visuality itself, are being
reexamined and found wanting, and that if anything, Wongs rapid
sequences entail an excess of Tsui Hark-style special effects, such that
the kung fu genre self-destructs (32). We should therefore avoid reading
too much into these sped-up effects, in which neither Tsui Hark nor Wong
Kar-wai seeks to convey any intrinsic intensity. Id suggest that Wongs
beautiful and elegant depictions of ressentiment are much more worthy of
our consideration.
As Abbas has observed, feelings of ressentimentenvy, jealousy,
covetousness fill Ashes of Time (61), but this description is incomplete.

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179

Ressentiment exists not only in its raw state (Deleuze, Nietzsche and
Philosophy 124) but also in its aesthetic state, and Wongs ressentiment is
undoubtedly of the latter variety. There is an extremely perverse
connection between ressentiment on one hand and beauty and elegance on
the other. Deleuzes commentary on Nietzsche is instructive in this regard:
Ceasing to be acted, reactive forces project the inverted image. It is the
reactive projection that Nietzsche calls a fiction; the fiction of a
super-sensible world in opposition to this world, the fiction of a God in
contradiction to life. . . . Ressentiment still had to become genius. It was
still necessary to have an artist in fiction, capable of profiting from the
opportunity and of directing the projection, conducting the prosecution and
carrying out the reversal. We must not think that the transition from one
moment of ressentiment to the otherhowever swift and smoothcan be
reduced to a simple mechanical sequence. It needs the intervention of an
artist of genius. The Nietzschean question Which one? resounds more
loudly than ever. (Nietzsche and Philosophy 125-126)

Indeed, which one? Which artist hungers to present a vision of the

world in which every woman he meets is reduced to the shadow, reminder,
substitute, or inferior twin of the one he has lost (a woman who signifies
nothing but what he lacks in the present), and at the same time presents
these feelings of ressentiment and negativity with such beauty and
elegance? This must be a man who is unable to love, and unable to enjoy
life. He elaborately invents a fictional world in which having love now is
valued less than not having a love from the past, and in which the most
intense negations of life are portrayed with the most beauty and elegance.
He invents a techniquea unique style featuring framing and
blurrinesswith which to negate life beautifully, demonstrating that the
value of the living and dynamic world can never match that of the tiny
secret he has been closely guarding. Such a filmmaker can perhaps be
said to function as a priest-artist, as distinct from what Nietzsche and
Deleuze refer to as the artist-priest (Nietzsche 576; Deleuze, Nietzsche
and Philosophy 131). Are we not faced with an aesthetic, as opposed to a
religious, version of nihilism?
Watching the scene near the end of 2046 where Chow goes to Angkor
Wat to conceal his secret inside the big trunk of an old tree, we may
recall the following assertion from A Thousand Plateaus:
Some people can talk, hide nothing, not lie: they are secret by transparency,
as impenetrable as water, in truth incomprehensible. Whereas the others
have a secret that is always breached, even though they surround it with a
thick wall or elevate it to an infinite form. (320)

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We may say, then, that in Wongs films man has a secret, but whereas
for Deleuze and Guattari, man has no secret, but he himself is a secret.
I name you three metamorphoses of the spirit: how the spirit shall
become a camel, and the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child
(Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra 54). Wongs typical hero may be
prone to flirt with girls, but, in the absence of something in the past that
links them together, he never knows where to go from there. This hero is,
therefore, ultimately a kind of weight-bearing spirit (camel) who just
happens to behave as if he were a child. As the memories this
weight-bearing creature bears become too many and too weighty, he starts
using frames to surround and at the same time crop bodies and objects,
causing them to resemble a cinematized album of memories. As the camel
acts like a child, as if it were he who had the childs ability to enjoy true
freedom and dance with a light step, this cinematized album is enshrouded
in a blurred veil so as to make it seem as if he is dancing elegantly.

Supplement
Due to its recent release just a few months previously, in this paper I
was unable to deal with Wong Kar-wais latest film, Grand Master. It
seems to me that this film continues the traditional kung fu genre pattern
and does not create time-images.

Works Cited
Abbas, Ackbar. Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles. Nietzsche and Philosophy. Trans. H. Tomlinson. New
York: Continuum, (1962) 2002. Print.
. Difference and Repetition. Trans. P. Patton. New York: Continuum,
(1968) 2004. Print.
. Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. Trans. Martin Joughin. New
York: Zoon Books, (1968) 1990. Print.
. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. Trans. H. Tomlinson and B.
Habberjam. London: Continuum, (1983) 1997. Print.
. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Trans. H. Tomlinson and R. Galeta.
London: Continuum, (1985) 2000. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. Trans. Brian
Massumi. London: Continuum, (1980) 2004. Print.
Kitakoji, Takeshi. Love from Outer Space: Wong Kar-wai [].
Tokyo: INFAS, 2005. Print.

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181

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale.

London: Penguin Books, (1883) 1961. Print.
. On the Genealogy of Morals. Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Trans. and
Ed. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, (1887) 1968.
439-602. Print.
Rushton, Richard. Cinema after Deleuze. New York: Continuu, 2012.
Print.
Spinoza, Baruch. Ethics. In Spinoza Complete Works. Trans. Samuel
Shirley. Cambridge: Hackett, (c.1660-1677) 2005. 213-382. Print.
. Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being. In Spinoza Complete
Works. Trans. Samuel Shirley. Cambridge: Hackett, (c.1660-1677)
2005. 31-107. Print.
Tarantino, Quentin. Quentin Tarantino Wrap (Commentary). Chungking
Express, DVD. Dir. Wong Kar Wai. New York: Rolling Thunder
Pictures. 2002.

CHAPTER TEN
IN SEARCH OF A PEOPLE:
WEI TE-SHENGS SEEDIQ BALE
AND TAIWANS POSTCOLONIAL CONDITION
YU-LIN LEE

Introduction
Released in 2011, the Taiwanese movie Warriors of the Rainbow:
Seediq Bale by Wei Te-Sheng proved to be a blockbuster and became one
of the highest grossing domestic films in history. The huge success of this
film has great significance for Taiwans film industry. Its popularity
announces the emergence of the popular movie in the local film industry,
as Hollywood movies have dominated the local film market for decades.
This success at the box office may also provide incentives and
encouragement to young domestic filmmakers, especially when compared
with the production of New Taiwan Cinema over the last two decades that
only reached small numbers of local audiences. More significantly, the
movie emulates the Hollywood style of movie production, as nearly $25M
was spent on its production. This amount marked the largest investment in
the history of the Taiwan film industry. The film was also a product of
transnational cooperation; its production team was composed of many
international professional groups, including an art direction team from
Japan and an action choreography team from South Korea as well as many
technicians from China and Hong Kong.
Despite its box office success, however, even greater attention was
given to the subject matter of the film. The film addresses the 1930 Wushe
Incident, an aboriginal uprising organized by the Seediq tribes against
Japanese colonial oppression, in which about one thousand aboriginal
warriors participated, more than one hundred Japanese residents were
found decapitated and more than two hundred injured. This incident was
the most violent uprising during the Japanese colonial rule of Taiwan and

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183

forced the administration to adjust its colonial policy on the aboriginal

tribes. Accompanied by the boom in postcolonial discourses over the last
few decades, this movie, with its subject of anti-colonialist resistance and
its concern about colonial historiography and identity politics of the
marginalized, is readily recognized as a postcolonial film. Nonetheless, the
fact that this film takes the aboriginal minority (the Seediq tribe) as its
subject distinguishes it from most other Taiwanese postcolonial films that
have often ignored the aboriginal minorities in their accounts of colonial
historiography.
Despite its controversial use of the term postcolonial in the domestic
context, the discourse concerning the postcolonial issues still appears
extremely complex due to Taiwans troubled modern history and the status
of citizens from multiple ethnic groups. Simply put, different ethnic
groups may develop different ideas about their colonizers and accordingly
different concepts of the timeframe of colonial history. For example, Han
immigrants during the 17th and 18th centuries, mostly Min and Hakka
ethnic groups, tend to consider the Western powers and the Japanese as the
colonizers, whereas the aborigines often consider all other groups as
invaders since they have resided on the island for centuries. Of course,
this viewpoint became more complicated when Chiang Kai-sheks
nationalist government fled to Taiwan after World War II with two million
Chinese mainlanders (Liao 199-211). By recounting the history of the
aborigines, the presentation of the film Seediq Bale assumes the viewpoint
of the aborigines. However, given the fact that the film director is of Han
ancestry and accordingly regarded as one of the historys colonizers in the
eyes of the aborigines, the historical perspective represented by the film
has produced skepticism and created certain controversies surrounding the
actual definition and issue of colonial historiography.
That potential dispute has been further provoked by the films
reception in different regions of East Asian countries. As it claims to serve
as a supplement to mainstream colonial historiography, the presentation of
this film has inevitably received harsher criticism than it might otherwise,
especially from historical researchers and anthropologists. Specifically, the
film is accused on one hand of reinforcing the dualist opposition or the
colonial hierarchical power structure that reiterates the rhetoric of
domination; on the other hand, it is criticized for its promotion of capitalist
consumption that stereotypes the aborigines and eroticizes their culture as
only an exotic product (Lin 38-40). Primitive and bizarre rituals are
emphasized in the film, and many scenes of brutal violence are also
depicted in graphic cinematic fashion. Most of these scenes derive from
the directors subjective interpretation of Japanese colonial history and the

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public imagination of aboriginal culture without much solid historical

knowledge or cultural evidence.
Perhaps the director Wei Te-Shengs ambition to make a Hollywood-style
blockbuster was responsible for his approach to colonial historiography. He
changes many historical facts and adjusts their historical results to create a
more organic and unified narrative structure in the film. Our greater
concern here, however, is not the discrepancy between historical facts and
cinematic narrative, which is very common in film adaptations of history,
but rather the continual negotiations that occur between them.
The negotiations are reflected in many choices the director makes
regarding production designs. For example, Wei Te-Sheng insists on using
Seediq aborigines to play most of the roles in the movie, including the lead
actors and actresses; he also uses the Seediq language, which is almost
extinct and unknown to most contemporary audiences. These are
deviations from the conventions of a typical mainstream film, which
usually has an organic narrative structure and relies largely on the
reputations of actors and actresess to ensure its success. Of course, these
choices also risk esthetic failure. As film critics have pointed out, the
loosely organized and unbalanced narrative structure of this epic film, in
addition to many other problems, suggests that the film is a poor imitation
of a Hollywood movie (Dai).
Indeed, this film failed to make the final list of Oscar nominees for
Best Foreign Language Film, as the director and the Taiwanese public
hoped might happen. The failure may have resulted from Wei Te-shengs
greater concern with history and people. This film focuses on the
oppressed, like other postcolonial films or Third movies, despite the
controversies surrounding the term and its category (Guneratne 1-28).
With a population of less than ten thousand, the Seediq tribe is
undoubtedly a minority ethnic group in Taiwan. Even the name Seediq
is a recent anthropological invention inspired by the on-going cultural
heritage reconstruction movement that is so central to the postcolonial
project. However, when the film was released in 2011, many critics argued
that the production of the film was inappropriate and untimely because
the postcolonial emphasis on political resistance and its appeal to national
and cultural identities were no longer suitable topics to explain the
condition of contemporary Taiwan, especially in an era when transnational
cultural flows were intensifying. Yet the immense box office success of
this film, at least in Taiwan, speaks to the opposite viewpoint. The film
has attracted public attention mostly for the historical memories, political
resistance, and identity politics that are specific to postcolonial discourse,
both domestically and internationally.

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185

Seediq Bale and Minor Cinema

All these conflicts and controversies regarding the negotiation between
Wei Te-Shengs interest in colonial historiography and his attempt to
produce a film in Hollywood style inform the inquiry of this present paper.
One might ask, can Seediq Bale be considered a film, just like any other
postcolonial movie, that questions colonial identity and thereby constitutes
an alternative postcolonial historiography? Or, can it be regarded as
simply political cinema whose depiction of an aboriginal uprising suggests
a framework of political reversal by the oppressed? And what does the
popularity of this film suggest for Taiwanese audiences and their quest for
identity in the contemporary world?
Gilles Deleuzes concept of modern political cinema is helpful in
tackling these questions. In Cinema 2, Deleuze draws a sharp distinction
between classical and modern political cinema. Central to this distinction
is the assertion that in modern political cinema, there is no longer a united
or unified people that functions as the topic of cinema. Examples of
classical political cinema include the masses or the classes in American
and Soviet cinema; in contrast, in modern political cinema the people are
missing (216; Italics original). This idea of modern political cinema
parallels the concept of minor literature through which Deleuze and
Flix Guattari interpret Franz Kafkas literary works in terms of his
minority status as a Jewish Czech writing in German. Deleuze argues that
a Third World and a minority film director may be in a marginal situation
similar to that of a minor writer, namely, the impossibility of not writing,
the impossibility of writing in the dominant language, and the
impossibility of writing differently (Cinema 2 217). This situation of a
minority filmmaker is comparable to that of Wei Te-Sheng, especially
when he is determined to make a film with the Seediq people as its subject
and at the same time follow the Hollywood style of filmmaking. For
Deleuze, this particular condition becomes the basis for the production of
modern political cinema, which accordingly can then be regarded only as
minor cinema.
With such minor literature in mind, Deleuze describes a second
characteristic of modern political cinema, namely, the immediate
connection between the political and the private. The private affairs of a
minority people always involve the survival of an entire people.
Consequently, if a united or unified people no longer exists and the
protocol of political reversal is no longer possible, then modern political
cinema must be the vehicle to depict that fragmentation and the
break-up of the minority people, which Deleuze identifies as the third

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characteristic of minor cinema. By fragmentation and break-up, Deleuze

refers not merely to the exterior situation of the minority in a
socio-cultural context, but also to the interior condition of such minority
peoples: the shattered states of emotions and drives, expressible in pure
images and sounds (Cinema 2 220). Hence, modern political cinema asks
a question from the inside to those people who are breaking up into
minorities; they are missing, and accordingly, any individual then becomes
first and foremost a potential component of a people. Therefore, modern
political cinema becomes concerned with the invention of a people; that is
to say, the fragmentary individual, who is absent, who brings forth a
people that can be revealed through the artistic expression of the cinema.
With a constant reference to Kafka, Deleuze conceptualizes modern
political cinema from the standpoint of artistic creation. Like Kafka
writing in Prague German, the directors of modern political cinema break
up the condition of being colonized, both via the fixed patterns of stories
and the orthodox myths about these people. For lack of great talents or
superior masters in their own cultures and traditions, minor cinema
directors must discover their own language within the major language, that
is, enact a transformation of language by inducing the continuous lines of
variations immanent within the language itself. Hence, to avoid falling
into the dual dangers of inventing individual utterances (as major writers
do) and repeating collective memories (as ethnologists do), minor cinema
directors must occupy a rather marginal position and produce utterances
that are already collective, thereby voicing the people still to come. Such
an aesthetic and artistic performance, for Deleuze, is the fourth
characteristic of modern political cinema.
The characteristics Deleuze describes are seen in the film Seediq Bale.
The film features the uprising of the minority tribe against Japanese
colonial oppression and thus can be regarded as minor cinema. The
minority status of the Seediq people is dual. They are colonized by the
Japanese political power and suffer the dominant discourse of aboriginal
and colonial historiography as well. Needless to say, the protocol of
political reversal appears impossible, not only because the Seediq
aborigines are not united, but also because they are incapable of
overturning the political power structure.
In the cinematic presentation, the close tie between the private and the
political is also apparent. On many occasions, the private affair
immediately obtains political significance in terms of the survival of the
entire tribe. More intriguingly, the Seediq minorities are always divided
and fragmented, not only in the socio-cultural context, but also in terms of
their interior conditions. They are constantly caught between being

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187

modern Japanese imperial subjects and descendants of the true Seediq

spirits. As many critics have observed, in the films depiction of the inner
struggles of young Japanese-educated aboriginal police officers, the film
presents an excellent paradigm for the dilemma of colonial identity,
dramatizing as it does the agony of being loyal Japanese subjects for
colonized intellectuals and their ambivalence about Japanese colonization.
However, to characterize Seediq Bale as an instance of Deleuzian
modern political cinema may cause some confusion. The idea of missing
people seems difficult to grasp, especially when the Seediq aborigines are
actually the minority people and the subject of the political uprising
depicted in the movie. Their depiction seems to conform to that of
classical political cinema. A Deleuzian modern political cinema does not
depict an actual minority people as its very subject. This confusion is due
at least in part to Deleuzes special understanding of the minority people
and their minor status in his conception of both minor literature and minor
cinema.
Deleuze insists that the minor, as opposed to a minority class, never
specifies any minority groups or any particular form of expression,
although the two categories do indeed constantly overlap. Rather, it
indicates a process of becoming-people enacted by splintering into
minorities. Hence, what the missing people denotes is precisely the inside
status of the minority people that then serves as the fundamental condition
for the minor cinema director to invent the people still to come. By the
same token, identity politics, provoked by the question Who am I, by no
means seeks any fixed national and cultural identities, but instead
inaugurates a reconstitution of subjectivity through communication
between the inside and the outside, the private and the public, the I and the
world. It is also in this regard that the invention of a people has nothing to
do with personal and collective memories, not even the myths of that
people, but rather with an artistic performance that presents a speech-act
that embraces the past as a whole and the fate of an entire people.

Barbarism and Violence as the Minor Aesthetics

of the Seediq
These remarks on the Deleuzian minor cinema are a useful reference
for investigating the extent to which Seediq Bale functions as modern
political cinema in terms of its cinematic presentation and, even more
importantly, the significance of the people to come in postcolonial
Taiwan. As mentioned earlier, Seediq Bale deviates aesthetically from the
mainstream in terms of its narrative structure and cinematic design;

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however, the film also articulates a unique aesthetic expression of the

Deleuzian modern political cinema. The movie is an epic film that tells the
story of the heroic figure Mouna Rudo, the Chief of the Seediq tribe and
the leader of the political uprising against the Japanese colonial
administration. Enhanced through awesome natural landscapes, the
presentation enlarges the hero to represent the entire ethnic group, the
nation, and even the cosmos, as if this unique hero has become capable of
an action that makes him equal to the environment and thereby able to
re-establish order to a struggling society and its endangered civilization.
However, as the episodes of this story develop, Mounas heroism
diminishes and indeed vanishes in the end, and the ultimate goal of the
uprising fails. Unlike other Seediq warriors who fight to the death or
choose to commit suicide upon failure, Mouna escapes from the battle and
disappears into the deep forest. Mouna does not demonstrate heroic vigor
or deliberate craftiness, like such epic figures as Achilles, Odysseus, and
others. Eventually, the personal heroism of Mouna is replaced by the
heroism of the entire Seediq tribe; collectivity instead of individuality
dominates the film presentation and thus this collective value becomes the
true character of the movie.
In other words, the film portrays the collective people rather than any
particular individual figure and renders Mouna only as a representative of
that collectivity, who serves merely as the narrative agent of the Seediq
tribe. This tendency may explain why the movie has been criticized for its
failure to depict a heroic figure by splitting the narrative into too many
sub-narrative lines. Yet, as the title Seediq Bale is the name of the tribe
rather than the protagonist, so the movie is concerned more with the
people than with individual heroism.
One of the primary features of this film is its primitivism, the
expression of which is closely associated with barbarism and mysticism.
This tendency is particularly apparent in the depictions of tribal rituals and
routine ceremonial activities, where the Seediq tribe and its culture are
granted a sort of innocent barbarism and a mysterious exoticism. Indeed,
through this emphasis on primitivism and barbarism, the film is caught up
in a repeated dialectic between civilization and barbarism; the uprising of
the Seediq tribe against Japanese colonialism is accordingly understood
and portrayed in the film as the conflict between these two entities.
However, Wei Te-Sheng does not provide any dialectical synthesis for
these two contradicting forces, suggesting that the conflict between them
will never be resolved. Undoubtedly, the director expresses great
sympathy for the aboriginal tribe and considers the moral values of the
primitive society to be greater than those of the civilized world. Precisely

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189

for this reason, the film delivers a particular aesthetics regarding both
Seediq primitivism and barbarism, which then become one of the primary
concerns in the cinematic presentation and make it incomparable to other
Taiwanese postcolonial and mainstream movies.
It is not surprising that the expression of primitivism and barbarism is
constantly imbued with graphic violence in a film that treats such a brutal
uprising. In addition to the bloody scenes of rituals and ceremonial
activities, Seediq Bale depicts many violent battles, especially those
between the Seediq warriors and modern Japanese troops. By showing
these tragic battles and their stirring violence, Wei Te-Sheng apparently
seeks to evoke sympathy for the oppressed while accusing modern
civilization of its cruelty and brutality. Therefore, the expression of
primitive and barbaric violence should not be confused with any of the
other sorts of violence found in modern cinema, which appeals only to
visual excitement and audio enjoyment. In fact, the performance of
violence in this movie is often infused with moral, spiritual, and ethical
values rather than simply displaying gratuitous violent actions.
Violent actions, both in the rituals and the battles, are thus immediately
connected to a tribal heritage and, therefore, express significant moral and
spiritual values. These moral and spiritual dimensions of violence can be
best exemplified by the ceremonial practice of headhunting, understood as
blood sacrifice in the film. The Seediq blood sacrifice suggests a
reconciliation with the enemy while sacrificing the enemys blood to
ancestral spirits.
Headhunting functions as one way of practicing the traditional
principles of gaya, although anthropologists do insist that such an
understanding of headhunting as a means of spiritual redemption has no
reliable evidence in the Seediq tribal tradition. Considered from a moral
and spiritual aspect, violent actions, as a means of reconciliation with the
enemy and ancestral spirits, imply mercy and forgiveness rather than
hatred and retaliation. In this regard, these violent actions provide the
Seediq people with a rite of passage whereby they are able to transcend
personal feelings and judgment, and with the use of death as their vehicle
enter the sacred domain of eternal morality where the ancestral spirits
reside.
However, the moral and spiritual values of violence can be easily
confused in the movie with the godlike wrath of the ancestors, thus
assuming that punishment promises historical justice and merciful
redemption. In addition, substituting reconciliation and redemption for
violence may even conceal the true meaning of the Seediq violence. In fact,
the performance of violent actions in rituals and in battles always signals

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transformation, a process that derives from a communication that

resonates between the inside and outside worlds rather than an abrupt
intervention of just violence. Obeying the principle of nature constitutes
one of the primary Seediq doctrines of gaya, and Wei Te-Sheng makes an
effort to deliver this message in a profound and complicated, yet
sometimes puzzling and confusing manner.
In terms of gaya principles, the major massacre of the Japanese
residents, namely, the headhunting ritual performed on the elementary
school sports ground, is considered a profane sacrifice because that
action violates the principles of gaya and thus should be condemned. In its
cinematic presentation, the entire massacre is accompanied by off-screen
tribal songs that assume the voices of the ancestral spirits. Through ancient
melodies, the ancestral spirits rebuke their children, the Seediq warriors,
for offending the sacred spirits by violating gaya principles. As a result,
the movie offers a clear message, namely, confusing violence with
morality and spirituality can only result in devastating catastrophe.
Perhaps this message can be related to Wei Te-Shengs central opinion of
colonialism expressed through this movie; that is, mercy and hatred should
both be forgotten.
Insofar as moral and spiritual values are not the fundamental meaning
of the Seediq violent actions, these actions do in fact suggest an ethical
significance that is largely revealed through cinematic presentation. The
film offers breathtaking scenes of natural environments and extraordinary
landscapes where most of the battles take place. With primitive weapons
and battle skills, the Seediq warriors are portrayed as if they were animals
driven to vanquish or be vanquished and as if the environment and its
characters are now seized by an energetic dynamics that permeates the
very environment. This incredible energetic dynamics exposes the true
nature of violence, as embodied by the Seediq warriors struggle to fight,
to escape, to hide, and to die. In other words, there is an ongoing battle for
the entire people to survive. In this regard, violence is the will to power in
the Nietzschean sense and is thus devoid of all political, moral, and
spiritual implications.
More significantly, violence in the Seediq context creates an
indiscernible zone between the human and the animal, thereby presenting
a special world of violence where the relationship between nature and
history is staged as a necessary conflict between barbarism and civilization.
It is also in this regard that the Seediq violence with its close ties to
barbarism and primitivism makes manifest the most vigorous aesthetic and
indeed becomes the true cinematic invention of the movie.

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191

Fabulation and Its Free Indirect Style

Another way of viewing Seediq Bale as Deleuzian modern political
cinema is through its style of cinematic composition. Deleuze has
characterized modern political cinema as a time-image embodied by the
so-called free indirect style of narrative. As opposed to the movement
image in classical cinema, which indicates a spatial extension and
temporal duration in the image movement based on the sensory-motor
schema, the time-image points to the ruin of the sensory-motor schema
and suggests a purely cinematic sphere that is devoid of space-time
constraints. Seen in this light, its free indirect narrative may serve as an
exemplification of the time-image, especially in modern political cinema
(Cinema 2 215-224). The term free indirect narrative derives from the
Russian linguistic circle of the 1920s and indicates a confusion of the
reporter with what is reported (Pisters 179). Deleuze extends this view to
cinema to specify a style that tends to blur the distinction between a
subjective view presented by the characters and the more objective view
assumed by the camera. As a result, this style involves a double-becoming
between the director and the characters.
Using Pier Paolo Pasolinis method as an example, Deleuze describes
the fusion between the two traditional viewpoints of narrating a story:
The author takes a step towards his characters, but the characters take a
step towards the author (Cinema 2 222). More significantly, for Deleuze,
what is at stake in modern political cinema is its fabulation of a people
who are missing or are yet to come. Borrowed from Henri Bergson, the
term fabulation is used by Deleuze to describe the function of inventing
a people through the act of storytelling, and the term becomes charged
with political significance (Bogue 14). Herein, fabulation as a speech-act
is associated with Deleuzes understanding of modern political cinema as
an instrument of free indirect discourse.
With great enthusiasm in portraying the Seediq people and a
determination to reconstruct colonial historiography, Wei Te-Sheng
frequently adopts the free indirect style of narrative in his cinematic
presentation. Wei Te-Sheng never hesitates to intervene in the story by
offering his own interpretations of the particular Seediq tribal heritage and
his own opinions on specific historical developments that then become the
reasons that produced this political uprising. As a result, the audience is
frequently caught between the different viewpoints taken by the characters
and the director, and sometimes left perplexed by their contradicting or
complementary worlds. Except for the actual narrative structure, this
phenomenon is particularly evident in the artistic manipulation of the

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cinematic images.
Accompanied by many long shots, a great number of close-up shots of
faces and objects are used; these film shots frequently interrupt the flow of
images, creating intervals of time that give the audience a chance to gaze
more closely at what is happening. The audience is impressed by the
frequent exchanges of subjective and objective views, and accordingly, by
the constant mixture of a representation of events and the directors
commentaries on those occurring events.
As a result, the events that take place on the screen appear there less as
historical fact than as simulation. It is worth noting that the entire Wushe
village where the historical uprising occurs was reconstructed for the film
production; in addition, the construction, including village mapping,
architecture, settings, customs, tools, and weapons, etc., was reproduced
exactly as the original to try and render a more realistic and truthful
presentation of the historical event. However, such reconstruction is
precisely a simulation rather than an original, not to mention that the
village is reconstructed somewhere other than the actual historical site, and
many images of the events are in fact products of complex post-production
processes.
What is at issue here, however, is not the truthful representation that
prevents destroying the model of the truth, but rather the truthfulness of
the model in a cinematic presentation. In other words, what is of greater
concern is no longer, as Deleuze would put it, a cinema of truth, but instead
the truth of cinema (Cinema 2 151). When Wei Te-Sheng modifies actual
historical facts to render a more organic narrative structure and provides a
mixed world of subjective and objective viewpoints, he no doubt is
concerned more with the perceptual realism in his cinema than the
actual reality of history. As a result, a free, but indirect, narrative style
allows the director to fabricate an invented Seediq tribe by combining
invented fiction, legends, opinions, and comments, along with various film
shots taken from different perspectives including both those of the
characters and the camera.
This free indirect style of storytelling is best exemplified by the scene
in which the Seediq blood-sacrifice (headhunting) ritual is practiced.
This headhunting is of great significance in the historical uprising, and the
massacre scene on the elementary school sports ground where it takes
place becomes perhaps one of the major climaxes of the entire movie. Wei
Te-Sheng adds many fictional characters and provides imaginary details to
enhance the perceptual realism that he seeks for the filming of this
political event. The camera constantly shifts between subjective and
objective views, resulting in intertwined viewpoints of the event that is

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193

occurring on the screen. At the same time, high-angle and birds-eye-view

shots are added to present even more diverse aspects of the event. The
camera continues to shift between the various viewpoints of the characters
of different ethnic origins to try to include as many perspectives as
possible. In addition, a special arrangement of off-screen sound and music
multiplies and intensifies the existing perspectives, thereby complicating
the manifold significance of this historical event. The ancient melodies
and song lyrics in the voice of ancestral spirits speak to the Seediq
warriors who are killing Japanese in the name of gaya. It appears that the
off-screen sounds indicate an alternative world that is very distinct from
that of the filmed images, as though there are two separate worlds that are
isolated, but continue to communicate.
In a similar fashion, subjective and objective views are frequently
exchanged. Most strikingly, having seen the terrible aftermath of the
massacre, Mouna, sitting on the side of the flag base on the sports ground,
exchanges his sights with his ancestors by looking up into the sky while a
high-angle shot becomes the eyes of those ancestral spirits looking down
at him in return, after which appears a birds-eye view of the sports ground
now covered in decapitated bodies. Following the eye of the camera, the
audience views the event through not only the viewpoints of the characters
but also the viewpoints of the ancestral spirits; the boundaries become
blurred and are no longer discernible. As the on-screen and off-screen
sounds intertwine, the audio and the visual gradually become
indistinguishable, and the two worlds are blended, indeed welded, into one
single realm.
More significantly, the fusion of these sounds and the images
evidences the simultaneous appearance of several layers of time, namely,
the past and the future converging on the present time. In other words,
ancestral spirits in ancient times are now gazing at the event happening,
given the passage of time, in the present, a time when contemporary
audiences are watching the event appearing now on the screen. Audiences
are given the impression that these Seediq warriors who lost their lives in
battles in the historical past are now recounting their stories in the present.
Seen in this light, this style of storytelling is the embodiment of free
indirect discourse, neither entirely objective nor fully subjective, but a
combined discourse of both. Just as the ancestral voices are mixed with the
sounds of Seediq warriors from the remote past, the directors views and
opinions constantly intervene in the event in the present time as assumed
by the style of this cinematic presentation.
Indeed, Seediq Bale is a work of free indirect discourse. Seediq Bale is
a historical film about the Wushe Incident of 1930 when the Seediq tribe

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was under Japanese colonial rule. In his cinematic presentation, Wei

Te-Sheng blends history with legend and explains and comments on the
Incident by fictionalizing certain historical facts and adding imaginary
details. The use of mixed perspectives and the simultaneous presentation
of several layers of time are intended to blur the distinction between
subjective and objective, fact and fiction, present and past. More
significantly, this film presents a convergence of the past and the future in
the present. These characteristics explain why this film can be recognized
as an instance of modern political cinema and characterized as a time
image, the primary task of which is to invent the history of a people and
not simply relate it. In this regard, the entire film functions as a speech-act,
an act of fabulation that looks into the contradictions and conflicts that
may be found in the history of a minority people.
Hence, to argue that Seediq Bale invents a history of the Seediq
people is not to claim that this film represents their heroism during the
uprising and their tribal lives as guided by traditional moralities and values
and prescribed by the principles of gaya. Wei Te-Sheng rejects
investigating the protagonists interior world and turns instead to research
on the Seediq people and their history by blending fiction and history,
legends and myths. In doing so, the director breaks up the unity of the
human and nature, turning the individual and an entire people into
fragmentary minorities. As a result, what the film presents is neither a
psychological memory of Mouna, nor the collective memories of the
Seediq people, nor their myths and fables, but rather the strange faculty
which puts into immediate contact the outside and inside, the peoples
business and private business, the people and the I who is absent, a
membrane, a double becoming (Deleuze, Cinema 2 221). It is exactly
from this perspective that the production of this historical film may be
recognized as an act of fabulation that invents a missing people.

This Film and Us

This film was given a mysterious title, Seediq Bale. The Seediq word,
bale, literally means real man or real human. The movie probes the
question of who is a Seediq bale? or How can one become a Seediq
bale? The film seeks these answers by processing a complex dialectic
between barbarism and civilization, and through that research, transforms
the question from that of a historical investigation into a philosophical
inquiry. In other words, the question no longer concerns colonial
historiography, but instead, asks the question Who am I for every
character in the film as well as the director. The film thus breaks apart the

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195

unity of the human and the natural world, forcing every member of the
Seediq tribe to ask the I-Seediq question. This same question is asked
from both the inside and the outside, and is not simply a matter of personal
recollection or even a collective tribal memory, but rather a quest for the
survival of the entire people.
Who is Seediq Bale is also a question for contemporary Taiwanese
audiences. With its special arrangement of sounds and images, the film
presents several layers of time simultaneously within which audiences
partake in an invention of the history of the Seediq people and their
ancestral spirits. More significantly, the flux of images and sounds in the
film creates a surface of corporeal perceptions and sensational vibrations
that draw contemporary audiences into an affective engagement. As a
result, for those audiences, viewing the film becomes no longer simply an
experience of audio-visual excitement, even enjoyment, but rather, what
Barbara Kennedy calls an event wherein the audiences are engaged in a
becoming through co-vibrations of the flux of corporeal sensations (4). In
other words, the cinematic presentation of this film invites the audience to
participate in a process of becoming, namely, becoming-Seediq,
becoming-minor, and becoming-imperceptible.
It is also in this regard that we may argue that the film presents a
unique aesthetics that is distinct from mainstream cinema and thus
registers as modern political cinema, namely, a minor cinema that
discovers its own language to the advantage of a minor director who
occupies a marginal position. As a result, this film presents a fragmentary
and incomplete cinematic aesthetics that is characterized by both
primitivism and barbarism. In addition, this presentation of the entire
Seediq tribe fighting Japanese colonial oppression is not a demonstration
of colonial resistance that exemplifies the scheme of reversal.
By the same token, the story of the uprising is no simple memory of
the heroic Mouna, but instead an assemblage of collective enunciations
that belong to the entire Seediq tribe. That is to say, the private utterance
of Mouna immediately becomes a public enunciation of collectivity. With
its images of primitivism and barbarism, the film offers its audiences a
special world of violence, whose ethical significance, rather than the moral
and spiritual, pertains directly to Deleuzes concept of modern political
cinema.
The cinematic presentation of Seediq Bale should not be considered a
representation of political resistance actuated by a united people. Rather,
all the small movements and trivial activities of every Seediq individual
are connected to actions of resistance; as a result, private business
becomes immediately political. It appears that every detail of ordinary life

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has the potential to determine the fate of the entire Seediq tribe, and this
situation may relate to what Deleuze recognizes as the pragmatics of
micro-politics. Through his arrangement of images and sounds, Wei
Te-Sheng, like other minor writers and directors, describes the sensibility
of a missing people and also a coming community that is now open to the
future and is no longer bounded by race, language, history, and so on.
From this perspective, the film derives its most profound ethical-aesthetic
and socio-political significance as the double becoming of its characters,
the director, and its contemporary audiences; all participate in a process of
becoming-Seediq, becoming-minor, and becoming-imperceptible.

Works Cited
Bogue, Ronald. The Concept of Fabulation. Deleuzian Fabulation and
the Scars of History. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2010. 14-48. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and
Robert Galeta. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1989. Print.
Dei, Leo. What Are We Afraid of. Facebook. 25 Oct. 2010. Web. 23 Dec.
2013.
Guneratne, Anthony. Introduction: Rethinking Third Cinema. Rethinking
Third Cinema. Ed. Anthony Guneratne and Wimal Dissanayake. New
York: Routledge, 2003. 1-28. Print.
Kennedy, Barbara M. Deleuze and Cinema: The Aesthetics of Sensation.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2002. Print.
Liao, Ping-hui. Postcolonial Studies in Taiwan: Issues in Critical
Debates. Postcolonial Studies 2.2 (1999): 199-211. Print.
Lin, Kai-shi. A Few Thoughts after Watching Seediq Bale. Visions of
Anthropology 7 (Oct. 2011): 38-40. Web. 23 Dec. 2013.
Pisters, Patricia. Arresting the Flux of Images and Sounds: Free Indirect
Discourse and the Dialectics of Political Cinema. Deleuze and the
Contemporary World. Ed. Ian Buchanan and Adrian Parr. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh UP, 2006. 175-93. Print.
Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale. Dir. Te-Sheng Wei. Guozi, 2011.
Film.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
WRITING HERSTORY:
NU SHU AS CARTOGRAPHY OF EMPOWERMENT
AMY KIT-SZE CHAN

Introduction
According to Deleuze and Guattari in Kafka: Toward a Minor
Literature, minor literature has three characteristics: the deterritorialization
of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and
the collective assemblage of enunciation (18). This paper begins with an
introduction to Nu Shu [female writing], a language found in Hunan
Province, China, which was believed to have been invented by women and
passed on to women only. While French feminists Hlne Cixous and
Luce Irigaray invented criture feminine and parler-femme respectively,
Nu Shu is in fact the only female writing with a distinctive spoken and
written form that has a substantial body of literature.
Feminists such as Cixous, Irigaray and Donna Haraway have been
advocating a kind of writing that has a special significance for
marginalized groups (or the minoritarians, in Deleuzes term). According
to Irigaray, to create a female language with a totally different syntax and
grammar is essential for a radical transformation in the social and political
spheres. This paper proposes to analyse first the shape of the characters of
Nu Shu as collective assemblage of enunciation and its relationship with
weaving, then the content of these womens writings. It will be followed
by a discussion of how Nu Shu can act as a line of flight for women and
serve as a potential force for deterritorializing Chinese language and
literature. The thrust of the paper is to explore Nu Shus possible
contribution to constructing a nomadic theory that interconnects the
process of individuation to the immediacy of gender politics in literary and
cultural studies.

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Nu Shu, Female Writing

Nu Shu is a female dialect used in Jiang Yong County , Hunan
Province . The discovery of this female writing, made in the 1980s,
shocked the world and surprised feminists because to date it is the first and
only attempt made by females to create a language of their own. It is
believed that women in Jiang Yong have employed this dialect for at least
a thousand years. There are different views concerning the origin of this
writing system, but it is generally accepted that it was first created in the
Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE).1
The women in Jiang Yong called this writing system Nu Shu, as
opposed to the Han Chinese writing system, Nan Shu [male writing]. To
trace the origin of Nu Shu, we have to understand that even women living
in villages today may not be literate, not to mention the women back in the
Sung Dynasty, because men have always been given priority in being sent
to school. Being illiterate in Han writing, women devised their own
writing and passed it on to their daughters and granddaughters so that
women could communicate among themselves and write their own literary
works.

Nu Shu as Minor Literature

Deleuze and Guattari write in Kafka that, a minor literature doesnt
come from a minor language; it is rather that which a minority constructs
within a major language (16). Nu Shu, though translated as female
writing or womans writing, is not classified as a language; instead, it is
considered a script derived from the Han Chinese language. Besides Nu
Shu, there are more than 15 different types of writing scripts derived from
Han Chinese. The Han characters are primarily composed of vertical and
horizontal lines, generally shaped in a square. And most of the writing
scripts derived from the Han Chinese language look squarish, for example,
the Tangut language of the Western Xia Dynasty (1038-1227 A.D.) and the
Khitan language used by the now extinct Khitan people in the 10th 12th
centuries.2
If we compare the Tangut and Khitan writing scripts to the Han
Chinese language, we see that they are quite similar. Tangut is very
complicated and mainly made up of vertical, horizontal and slanting lines.
Most of its characters have more than 10 strokes. Khitan is even more
complicated. Most of the characters are made up of multiple component
parts. When these writing scripts were invented, they made reference to
and borrowed ideas from Han Chinese writing; however, they had to be

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199

different since one of the reasons for inventing their own writing scripts
was to create a unique identity for their tribes as independent from the Han
Chinese. While most of the writing systems derived from Han Chinese
writing are quite complicated, Nu Shu is relatively simple. The characters
are made up of dots, curves and slanting lines tilting to the left, and,
instead of forming a square, the characters are rhombus-shaped (Fig. 1).

Figure 1 Nu Shu

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Another interesting feature of Nu Shu is that it does not look like any
writing systems in Chinese history, including the Han writing systems and
all those of the minority groups. One of the traditional accounts of the
creation of Nu Shu traced its origin to the prehistoric inscriptions on
pottery, which explains why it was not influenced by any writing systems
existing in Chinese history.3 However, without archaeological findings, it
remains merely speculative.
Another hypothesis relates the creation of this writing to weaving. Nu
Shu was usually practiced by women of a minority group called Yao
in Hunan Province. The Yaos are famous for their weaving and embroidery.
Women in the past gathered and wove and embroidered together, and due
to the hardships in their married lives, they wanted to relate their
experience and sufferings to other women. However, since they were
illiterate, they embroidered symbols on the cloth as a mark or record. The
symbols were gradually developed into a writing system. If we look at
their embroidery, we see that the patterns are similar to those of Nu Shu.
Nu Shu is different from the Han Chinese language in another aspect as
well. Han Chinese writing is logographic whereas Nu Shu is syllabary.
According to The Great Compendium of Chinese Characters (Hanyu Da
Zidian ) published in 2010, there are a total of 60,370
Chinese characters. Nu Shu, by contrast, has only 2,000 characters of
which a mere 700 are used with any frequency. We may conclude that in
terms of the writing script and writing types, Nu Shus inventors intended
to simplify it for the sake of illiterate females. However, they only
borrowed some elements from Han Chinese writing scripts and created a
language with a different writing system and one with different
pronunciations.

Nu Shu as Political Enunciation

In Kafka, Deleuze and Guattari write that [t]he second characteristic
of minor literatures is that everything in them is political (17). The
contents of Nu Shu may be categorized into six areas: religious rites,
entertainment, communication, biography, recording history and rewriting
of folklores.4 The works in the last two categories are more relevant to the
politics and society in their times whereas the works of the other four
categories are more personal.
Anne McLaren claims that Nushu expressive culture was not
anti-male (394). I am inclined to agree; however, I would argue that Nu
Shu authors challenge patriarchy by writing their own versions of history
and rewriting traditional folk stories. History has always been the story of

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201

men, grand narratives, tales about battles and treaties. Women, if not
entirely invisible, are always under-represented in history. Herstory
records a different facet of historical events and focuses on small or local
narratives. For example, in the Nu Shu Song of the Sino-Japanese War
), the writer only mentions the fighting between the
Chinese and Japanese armies in a brief way: the Japanese flew in a plane
and bombarded the provincial and county offices. The main focus of the
song falls on how the men in her village were drafted into the army:
initially, if there were three men in the family, one of them would be
drafted; if there were four, then two would be drafted. Even after they
finished their term of service, they had to serve in the army again and
again until they passed middle age. Since all able-bodied men were
fighting in the war, the elderly, women and children were left on the
mountain to survive on their own.
Another Nu Shu literary work that records a historical event is Taiping
Rebellion Passed Through Yongming.5 The historical
context is a civil war during 1850-71 A.D. in the Qing Dynasty. The
Taiping Rebellion (Tai Ping Tian Guo ) is considered one of the
most devastating events in the history of China. We are familiar with
names such as Hong Xiuquan , Shi Dakai , Li Xiucheng
, and their stories, but we seldom learn about the commoners lives
under the rule of the Heavenly King, Hong Xiuquan. Taiping Rebellion
Passed through Yongming gives us a glimpse of the commoners attitude
towards the Taiping Rebellion army and how they survived the war. The
Taiping Rebellion passed through the Yongming County in 1855, and the
writer complains that the magistrate ran away with his soldiers before the
army of the Taiping Rebellion arrived. The ballad describes the hardships
of people in Yongming during the occupation, especially those of the
women. For example, the author laments that it was difficult for her
three-inch bounded feet to move, that many women were widowed,
that women without a husband could hardly farm. My family was very
poor and beset with difficulties, the author exclaims. So many heroes
were starved to death / Thousands and thousands of people died / When I
think about it now, there is no way to air my grievances / Telling my poor
situation to all people / It was such a pity that my whole family was
finished / It was such a pity that women did not make any
contribution. . . . The author sounds apologetic that women did not
contribute anything; however, if read in the context of the Taiping
Rebellion, the ballad is in fact an accusation against patriarchy. The
Taiping Rebellion was started by men, the magistrate who ran away with
his army was also male, and so was the official who came to their rescue at

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the end. Men fought in the war and were commended as heroes, but what
about women? When men were away fighting in the war, women had to
shoulder the responsibility of taking care of the elderly and the children
though they could hardly take care of themselves. And yet, when the war
was over, women were saidno doubt by malesto have made no
contribution.
Some of the literary works of Nu Shu are rewritings of traditional
folktales. The Flower Seller, one of the most famous literary pieces of
Nu Shu, is based on the story Judge Bao Furiously Executes Imperial
Clansman Cao . The original story focuses on the
intelligence and impartiality of Judge Bao; in the Nu Shu version, however,
the emphasis is placed on the female character, Lady Zhang. The story
goes like this: Lady Zhang was married to a wealthy man. Instead of
remaining helpless and passive, Lady Zhang offered to sell paper on the
street to support the family. One day, Clansman Cao, the emperors
father-in-law, saw her on the street and wanted to take her as his tenth
consort. She refused and cursed him: Your son-in-law at court may be
the Son of Heaven, / But the royal laws dont take relatives into account. /
I should report the matter to the golden palace hall / In order to ensure that
you will not live to old age (Idema 105).
Clansman Cao was furious and
had his men beat her to death and bury her in his garden. Lady Zhang, in
the form of a ghost, then reported the case to Judge Bao and he solved the
case with his wit. Judge Bao sentenced Clansman Cao to death. Even
when the empress came to his court to save her father, Judge Bao did not
waver. In the traditional folktale, Lady Zhang is a victim, who suffers pain
and submits herself first to her fate and then to the mercy of the high
official. In the Nu Shu version, she is the one who takes the initiative to
provide for the family and dares to stand up against Clansman Cao.
Moreover, she also seeks help from Judge Bao on her own. Though still a
victim of male brutality, Lady Zhang is at least given a voice and a role in
this recounting of the story.
Nu Shu, then, challenges patriarchy by rewriting history and folktales.
For the former, Nu Shus historical accounts are not merely complements
to the historical record. Rather, they challenge how patriarchy writes
history and how men suppress females voices and make them invisible in
human civilization and history. As for the folktales, they follow the pattern
of The Flower Seller, showing the violence with which men have treated
women throughout history. Considering the way the tale has been related
from one generation to another, we see that Lady Zhang was not only
treated badly by Clansman Cao (and the patriarchal power he represents),

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203

but also by the story-tellers. She is obviously the victim of the story but
she does not have a voice. All that the story cares about conveying is the
impartiality of Judge Bao. In this sense, the Nu Shu version functions as a
protest against the oppression of generations of women in folktales.

Nu Shu as Collective Enunciation

According to Deleuze and Guattari, [t]he third characteristic of minor
literature is that in it everything takes on a collective value . . . what each
author says individually already constitutes a common action, and what he
or she says or does is necessarily political (17). As discussed above, the
record of herstory or rewriting of legend is not only a translation of male
texts into female texts. The emphasis in female versions of history usually
falls on the emotional, affective and lived experience of women instead of
the facts of a given time. In this sense, female writing probably fulfils the
criterion the French feminists set down for a female languagethat is, a
new language derived from a different perception, experience and desire
(Sellers 96).
Let us look at a few lines of a Nu Shu version of a famous Chinese
folktale, The Butterfly Lovers, or Liang-Zhu :
Yingtai washed her face at the dressing table. She took a piece of soap and
cleaned her chest. A pair of breasts as white as snow was shown. Yingtai
told Liang Shanbo that, The one who is blessed has large breasts and one
who is unlucky has no breasts. A man with large breasts will become a high
official and a woman with large breasts will be lonely in her life. She was
able to convince Shanbo at that moment with these words. (Translation
mine)

Liang-Zhu is a Chinese legend of a tragic love story of a pair of

lovers, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai , whose family
names form the title of the story. The love story was recorded in official
records of the Tang Dynasty (618 907 AD), and it was only roughly 110
words in length. Later, however, it was adapted into stage plays, musicals
and operas, television drama and movies. Yet the Nu Shu version of the
story differs from many others in that it is more a rewriting than a retelling
of the story. The Nu Shu version of the legend focuses on Zhu Yingtai, and

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it includes descriptions of her female body, which is never even mentioned

in the Han Chinese version.
In general, the description of female body and sexuality is more open
and explicit in Nu Shu than in Han Chinese writing. Readers of Chinese
literary works are always made to forget that women have bodies as well
as sexual desires and fantasies. In the famous folktale The Maiden Meng
Jiang, , most of us remember Meng Jiang traveled great distances
to search for her husband, who had been summoned to build the Great
Wall. When she discovered that he had long been dead, she cried so loudly
that the Great Wall collapsed and she found her husbands carcass buried
under the wall. The Nu Shu version begins with the encounter between
Meng Jiang and her future husband. Meng Jiang was bathing in a lotus
pond. She took off all her clothes because she thought there was no one
around. Fan Qiling, her husband to be, was a fugitive running away from
the summons to build the Great Wall. He chanced to be hiding behind
some leaves beside the lotus pond. Both of them panicked. Meng Jiang
promptly started to put on her clothes, / But as she put on her clothes, she
watched the young man. / and while putting on her clothes, she told him, /
She immediately told him to go meet her parents! (Idema 87)
(
658) The reason why Meng decided to marry Fan is unclearit may
be due to her shame at being seen naked by a man, it may be due to his
good looks, but it is more likely due to her sexual desire. (It is suggested
earlier in the account that when she turned eighteen, her passion was
aroused and her love-longing stirred.) In the most popular Han Chinese
version of the story, it is said that after Meng Jiang discovered that a man
had seen her naked body, she was so ashamed that she had no choice but to
marry him. Also significant is that the Nu Shu version includes explicit
descriptions of the couples happy married life, which is omitted in the
Han Chinese version.
As the examples of Liang-Zhu and The Maiden of Meng Jiang
show, Nu Shu is an instance of collective as well as political enunciation. It
shows to the world of men that women do have sexual desires and needs,
which have been suppressed by the symbolic order and the moralistic
Confucian patriarchy.

Nu Shu as a Performance Art

The French feminist Hlne Cixous invented criture feminine and
produced over forty novels as instances of this form of writing. An early
novel, The Third Body (1970), offers an example of what criture feminine

Writing Herstory: Nu Shu as Cartography of Empowerment

205

looks like. The tactics she uses are to disrupt the syntactic structure of the
majoritarian language and its linear way of thinking. She destablizes the
perspective of the narrator by constantly changing the subject/object in a
paragraph. We, who are trained to read in a linear way, may find it hard to
read the novel; nevertheless, the novel is meant to be read as a text. Nu
Shu, by contrast, is not meant to be read but to be chanted with a melody.
One of the functions of Nu Shu is to serve as performance in
celebrations, for example, wedding ceremonies. There are many works
written for this purpose. For instance, the Crying Song for Getting
Married is to be composed and sung by the bride-to-be and her
friends three days before the wedding. According to the customs of the
Yao tribe, the celebration starts 40 days before the wedding. A group of
girl friends move into the house of the bride-to-be and accompany her
during this period. They spend the time cooking, weaving, writing and
chanting songs written in Nu Shu. Some are improvisations while others
are written down and presented to the bride as wedding gifts.6 Such a
gathering before the brides marriage (which usually entails her moving to
another village or town) affords an opportunity for friends to come
together, old enemies to resolve their differences, married women to
transmit rules and moral codes to the bride-to-be and so on. In this respect,
Nu Shu writings are meant to be performed, to be dramatized and to be
singularized by each chanting. We may approach this practice through
Deleuzes concept of dramatization, according to which, in James
Williams words, all of us are actors, replaying and replayed by the pure
past in novel dramatisations (13). Williams explains the relationship
between dramatization and singularity with an example of an actor
replaying a moment of humiliation:
So when actors replay a moment of humiliation, for instance, they are not
replaying any particular representation of it . . . but are instead trying to
express humiliation in a singular and new circumstance. . . . But even as
they enact the affect, the singular events are passing and fading away. . . .
They pass away exactly because any representation or repetition of them in
the same way fails to capture the first singularity. (13)

The affect created by this kind of singular event accordingly is ever

changing, and it is impossible to grasp the same affect no matter how hard
one tries. This may explain why Nu Shu writings are always cremated or
buried with the authorsno one can dramatize the events recorded in the
writings other than the writer herself. This is indeed one of the major
differences between Nu Shu and Han Chinese writings, which are meant to
be passed down from one generation to another in perpetuity.

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Whether it takes the form of communication between lotung (sworn

sisters), texts for religious rites, histories or biographies, all Nu Shu
writings are to be chanted, either in a gathering or in private. Nu Shu
writings adopt the rather rigid meter of Han Chinese written poetry, that is,
one of fixed-line lengths though with a varied number of lines. Most Nu
Shu works are written in seven-character verse , with a few
exceptions in five-character verse . While the Han Chinese poems are
succinct in their use of dictionpronouns, particles and empty words
are omitted and sometimes a word may serve simultaneously as verb and
adjective or noun and verb, and so onNu Shu writings always repeat the
words.

In the first month I went back to visit my father,

Father and mother asked me to stay for the New Year.
His family also had the New Year festival,
But it was nothing compared to my maiden time.
It was so pleasant to be a maiden,
Now a daughter-in-law, I cried out my eyes.

In a way, this poem is nothing but a refrain that keeps repeating with a
difference. By repeating words and even line structures with a difference,
Nu Shu deterritorializes the rigid metric structure of Han Chinese poems.
As Deleuze and Guattari write in A Thousand Plateaus,
Meter, whether regular or not, assumes a coded form whose unit of
measure may vary, but in a noncommunicating milieu, whereas rhythm is
the Unequal or the Incommensurable that is always undergoing transcoding.
Meter is dogmatic, but rhythm is critical; it ties together critical moments,
or ties itself together in passing from one milieu to another. It does not
operate in a homogeneous space-time, but by heterogeneous blocks. It
changes direction. (313)

Writing Herstory: Nu Shu as Cartography of Empowerment

207

After deterritorializing meter and diction, Nu Shu reterritorializes its

own milieu by chanting, by creating affects through sounds. But this
deterritorialization-reterritorialization process is ongoing since every
chanting of a poem written in Nu Shu is a resingularization of the poem.
As Deleuze and Guattari write in A Thousand Plateaus, Sonorous or
vocal components are very important. . . . A child hums to summon the
strength for the schoolwork she has to hand in. A housewife sings to
herself, or listens to the radio, as she marshals the antichaos forces of her
work (311). To that, I can add that women in Jiangyong chant to create
their sense of home, their own territory that is free from patriarchal
oppression and representation. This is probably what Deleuze and Guattari
call the territorial refrain (312). Amidst the chaos of life, hardships, and
bad treatment by in-laws families, chanting their sorrows, their stories,
their feelings, their lost loves in rhythmic refrains is probably their way of
territorializing a milieu for themselves, no matter how transient it may be.

Nu Shu as Cartography of Empowerment

In his essay He Stuttered, Deleuze suggests that the writer causes
language to stutter in the language system (langue). Although the language
system may seem to be in equilibrium, it is in fact in perpetual
disequilibrium, continually bifurcating and causing language itself to
vibrate and to stutter. It is only via such stuttering that desire may be
introduced into language. Writers who stutter in language minorize
languageinvent a minor use for the major language within which they
express themselves completely (109). Deleuze continues,
He is a foreigner in his own language: he does not mix another language
with his own language, he carves out a nonpreexistent foreign language
within his own language. He makes the language itself scream, stutter,
stammer, or murmur. (110)

When discussing discourse among women, Irigaray comments:

. . . she cannot specify exactly what she wants. Words begin to fail her. She
senses something remains to be said that resists all speech, that can at best
be stammered out. All the words are weak, worn out, unfit to translate
anything sensibly. For it is no longer a matter of longing for some
determinable attribute, some mode of essence, some face of presence.
What is expected is neither a this nor a that, not a here any more than a
there. No being, no places are designated. So the best plan is to abstain
from all discourse, to keep quiet, or else utter only a sound so inarticulate
that it barely forms a song. (193)

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It is true that most women in Chinese history have kept silent and have
abstained from all discourse, but women in Jiangyong sing songs as a kind
of empowerment. As one of their writings says, Sin-hua women read nu
shu / Not because of power or fame/ It is because women suffer all kinds
of bitterness / We can only tell people our feeling with nu shu

Song
of the Mosquito-like Words
What can literature do? What can Nu Shu writing do for women? In his
essay How Can Deleuze Help Us Make Literature Work? Bruce Baugh
provides an answer:
Perhaps this is the greatest thing that literature can do: release us from
tragic and finite linear time, and raise life to an infinite power, at least for a
moment. . . . Great works intensify life, and life is intensified in us when
we encounter them. No matter what your specific aims and purposes,
intensification of power and of a feeling of life will better equip you to
accomplish them, for power is a matter of being able, a capacity for
doing things. (52)

Notes
1. There are many different accounts of the origin of female writing and thus we
are unable to determine how long it has existed. The most commonly accepted
hypothesis has been that it was created in the Sung Dynasty, but some scholars
have recently suggested that it is at least 3000 years old.
2. There are two types of scripts in Khitan languagesmall script and large script.
What I show here is the small script. The large script borrows quite heavily from
Han Chinese writing.
3. For a detailed discussion of female writing and inscriptions on pottery, see Li
Jinglins Nu shu yu shi qian tao wen yan jiu [A Study of
The Female Writing and Prehistoric Inscriptions on Pottery] Zhuhai: Zhuhai chu
ban she [Zhuhai Publisher], 1995.
4. I have given a detailed description of each category in my article Writing,
Weaving and Technology, Science Fiction and the Prediction of the Future,
198-212. The contents of female writing may be categorized into six areas: 1)
Religious rites: women write down their prayers and wishes on a paper folding fan
and bring it to the temple for burning. 2) Entertainment: women have picnics
together and read or sing their own writings, which include folk songs, biographies,
letters, etc. 3) Communication: women in Jiang Yong like to make sworn sisters
with good friends (some of them have up to 6 sworn sisters and the age differences
of the sisters may vary) and they usually communicate with each other by letters. 4)
Biography: elderly women ask someone who is good at female writing to record
their life. 5) Record herstory: for example, there is a piece of writing recording
what happened to the women in Jiang Yong during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

Writing Herstory: Nu Shu as Cartography of Empowerment

209

(1853-1864) and another work concerned with the Sino-Japanese War

(1937-1945). 6) Rewriting of narrative poems: women choose poems that have
women as protagonists and translate them into female writing.
5. The Taiping Rebellion was a massive civil war in southern China against the
ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty from 1850 to 1864. At least twenty million
people died in this civil war.
6. For more detail, see Guizhong Qiji--Zhongguo nushu
[Miracle in the Chamber: Chinese Nushu]. Harbin: Heilongjiang Peoples
Publisher, 2005.

Works Cited
Baugh, Bruce. How Deleuze Can Help Us Make Literature Work.
Deleuze and Literature. Eds. Ian Buchanan and John Marks. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh UP, 2000. 34-56. Print.
Chan, Kit Sze Amy. Writing, Weaving and Technology. Science Fiction
and the Prediction of the Future. Eds. Gary Westfahl, Kin Yuen Wong
and Kat Ze Amy Chan. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. 198-212.
Print.
Cixous, Hlne. The Third Body. Trans. Keith Cohen. Evanston, IL:
Northwestern UP, 1999. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles. He Stuttered. Essays Critical and Clinical. Trans.
Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota
P, 1997. 107-14. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneaplois: U of Minnesota P,
2000. Print.
. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Trans. Dana Polan. Minneaplois: U
of Minnesota P, 1986. Print.
Gong, Zhebing. N shu: shi jie wei yi de n xing wen zi. [N shu: The
Only Female Language in the World]. Taipei: Publication Office of
Awakening Foundation , 1991.
Idema, Wilt L. Heroines of Jiangyong: Chinese Narrative Ballads in
Women's Script. Seattle: U of Washington P, 2009. Print.
Irigaray, Luce. La Mysterique. Speculum of the Other Woman. Trans.
Gillian C. Gill. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1974. 191-202. Print.
McLaren, Anne. Women's Voices and Textuality: Chastity and Abduction
in Chinese Nushu Writing. Modern China 22.4 (1996): 382-416.
Print.
Sellers, Suan. Language and Sexual Difference: Feminist Writing in
France. London: Macmillan, 1991. Print.
Williams, James. Gilles Deleuze's Philosophy of Time: A Critical

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Introduction and Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2011. Print.

Zhao, Liming. Zhongguo n shu ji cheng: yi zhong qi te de n xing wen zi
zi liao zong hui. [Collection of Chinese N shu: An Archive of a
Unique Female Language]. Beijing: Tsinghua UP, 1992.

CHAPTER TWELVE
TOWARD A REGIONAL LITERATURE
IN EAST ASIA
HANPING CHIU

Globalization and the Decline of National Literatures

National literatures are facing unprecedented challenges in the age of
globalization. In the past, they shaped value systems and cultural identity
within national boundaries. But as transnational cultural flows intensify,
competing cultures and values from around the globe undermine the
nation-states monopoly over the formation of national subjectivities and
ideologies. The special issues of PMLA in 2001 and 2002 on globalizing
literary studies testify to the sad plight of national literatures as they give
way to increasingly powerful global literatures. In Beyond Discipline?
Globalization and the Future of English in the January 2001 issue of
PMLA, Paul Jay states that global culture [is] characterized by the rapid
circulation of cultural commodities such as books, films, works in
electronic media, clothing, and food in a way that seems to overwhelm
local cultural forms and practices (32). He adds that [c]ulture is now
being defined in terms less of national interests than of a shared set of
global ones (32). Consequently, national literatures seem to yield their
place to global literature. With the alleged decline of national literatures,
what will become of literature? Shall all literatures inevitably become
global, after shaking off the yoke of a national framework? Or shall there
emerge regional literatures between global and national literatures or
simply below national literatures? As the instances of economic
globalization indicate, regional assemblages come into being above and
below the national level. In Globalization and Its Discontents, Saskia
Sassen asserts that the momentum of economic globalization links together
places belonging to different nation-states, paving the way for the emergence
of regionalization. Concepts of regionalization and regionalism, Aihwa

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Ong observes in The Chinese Axis: Zoning Technologies and Variegated

Sovereignty, have dominated discussions of emerging global orders
(69). Does the concept of regional literature become imaginable and viable
in an age of globalization, as national literature steadily loses ground?
How shall we approach or envision a regional literature in East Asia?
When we look closely for writers whose works reach beyond the border of
their nations, there emerges a growing list of authors who attract the wide
attention of readers in this region. In Japan, Haruki Murakami, Kuniko
Mukoda, and Banana Yoshimoto are often mentioned as among these
writers. In South Korea, they are Yi Munyol and Hwang Sok-yong; in
Taiwan, Luo Yijun. In China, Yu Hua and Mo Yan are clearly writers of
this stature, and as is Xi Xi (the pseudonym of the writer Zhang Yan) in
Hong Kong. If we look specifically at a more limited period of time, we
may find a different set of writers and writers of different nationalities in
different nations. Take book sale surveys across East Asia in 20061 for
instance. Japanese, Korean, and Hong Kong writers were on the top book
sale lists in Taiwan while only Japanese writers were found in South Korea.
In China, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong writers entered its
best-selling chart while in Japan no regional writer in East Asia appeared
on it. It must be noted that there were regional literary works making it on
Japans best-selling list, for example, Wolf Totem (2004) by the Chinese
writer Jiang Rong. Some of these writers, such as Murakami, have attained
world-class status or have produced works with regional singularity that
does not readily fit into national perspectives. There seems to exist a
regional literature in East Asia, marked by transnational cultural mobility
across the region.
What shall we make of this? Does the picture owe its surfacing to the
concepts of regionalization and regionalism that arrive with globalization?
As Naoki Sakai notes by way of a Foucauldian conception, It is not
because the objects of knowledge are preparatorily given that certain
disciplines are formed to investigate them; on the contrary, the objects are
engendered because the disciplines are in place (40-41). Or does it arise
from an emergent context of globalization that brings into contact what
had never been put together before or connects things in ways never seen
before, thus rendering perceptible what was formerly imperceptible?
Historically, East Asia has long been and still is the so-called cultural
sphere of Chinese characters, although English is now the global language.
Geopolitically, Japan was once the largest colonizing power in this part of
the world, having Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Manchuria, and a large
portion of China under its colonial rule for a period of time, while China
formerly dominated in this region and now does so once again. In the large

Toward a Regional Literature in East Asia

213

territories ruled by Japan, there was the so-called Greater East Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere during the Second Sino-Japanese War or Greater
East Asia War between 1937 and 1945, giving rise to a kind of regional
literature as Japanese authorities mobilized writers across the region to
write literatures that served the imperial cause. Since time immemorial,
there have been frequent contacts among governments and peoples from
various nations in this part of the world. The Japanese monk Kukai
(774-835 CE), for example, traveled to China in the Tang Dynasty
(618-907 CE), as part of a large-scale Sinonization campaign, to study
Buddhism and Chinese culture. Earlier, the Chinese Buddhist monk Ven.
Jian Zhen (688-763 CE), at the invitation of the Japanese emperor, went to
Japan six times, first in the winter of 742, to lay down a solid foundation
of Buddhism there. What would all of these, and others, contribute to the
conceptualization of a regional literature in East Asia?
This chapter aims to map an East Asian regional literature in the age of
globalization from the perspective of assemblages. The central issue to be
tackled boils down, first of all, to the sustainability of regional
singularities amid the deterritorializing forces of transnational flows of
commodities, capital, and personnel. There are scholars holding that
traditional values and structures may disintegrate under the buffeting
forces of the massive flows across borders. Paul Jay, for one, suggests that
national literatures yield to the increasingly powerful global literatures
while Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri say in their co-authored book
Empire that capital tends historically to destroy traditional social
boundaries, expanding across territories and enveloping always new
populations within its processes (326). With the possible dissolution of
existing boundaries, new constellations or assemblages emerge from
across nations. In the case of East Asia, what may become of the common
cultural heritage of Chinese characters, and Confucianism? The next issue,
emerging from the first but reaching far beyond, is over the contours of an
East Asian regional literature originating from the regions alleged
singularities but kept open for innovation by deterritorializing forces.
Convergent series grounded on regional singularities will be explored for
possible effects on the regional literature in East Asia.

Regionalization in East Asia

In her essay The Chinese Axis: Zoning Technologies and Variegated
Sovereignty, Aihwa Ong asserts, Concepts of regionalization and
regionalism have dominated discussions of emerging global orders (69).
Indeed, a multitude of publications on the topics of regionalization or

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regionalism have burst onto the scene. Among papers and books concerned
with the latest waves of regionalism in East Asia, a considerable number
are focused on cross-border economic collaborations in the mode of the
European Union (EU) or the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA). In ASEAN, AFTA and the New Regionalism, Paul Bowles,
starting with the forming of the ASEAN Free Trade Area in 1993, explores
possible modes of regional trading blocs in this region. Natasha
Hamilton-Hart, in her essay Asias New Regionalism: Government
Capacity and Cooperation in the Western Pacific, also touches upon
regional cooperation initiatives in Asia (for example, a 1997 Japanese
proposal for a regional support facility dubbed an Asian Monetary
Fund), but concentrates on the nature of governing systems in Asia. In
The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies, Kenichi
Ohmae spots the rise of cross-border regional economies linking different
sites and populations in the Asia-Pacific. Aihwa Ong dismisses the search
for regional forms in East Asia that may approximate the EU (69), citing
weak intergovernmental collaboration and various political obstacles. But
she seizes on the idea of economic flows across borders, seeing
significant regional alignments (69) as a potential result of such flows.
In a blueprint for such an idea, Ong pins her hope on what she calls an
emerging Chinese axis. Flexible Chinese state practices, she argues,
deploy zoning technologies for integrating distinct political entities such
as Hongkong and Macao, and even Taiwan and Singapore, into an
emerging Chinese axis (70). Ong obviously has in mind a greater China
embracing the Chinese-speaking populations in East Asia.
What does all this have to do with the project of envisioning a regional
literature in East Asia? To be more specific, what does it take for a
regional literature to emerge in this part of the world? An EU-type
regionalization, different sites and populations linked by cross-border
regional economies, or, one step further, a Chinese-speaking community
living in separate territories or nations? A well-integrated regional group
like the European Union might better facilitate the emergence of a regional
literature, as some may assume. But, given the absence of such an
organization in East Asia and the bleak prospect of having one like this, it
may do just as well to envision a regional literature in an environment
where transnational flows can go relatively unchecked. The idea of the
Chinese-speaking populations in East Asia, as Aihwa Ong suggests, has
the drawback, however, of excluding Japanese and Korean literatures, not
to mention that Taiwan or Singapore may object to a close association with
what looks like a Chinese national literature. To draw these two branches
of literature, Japanese and Korean, into the discussion of an East Asian

Toward a Regional Literature in East Asia

215

regional literature, we may take into consideration the so-called cultural

sphere of Chinese characters. Classical Chinese fictions, such as The
Romance of Three Kingdoms, Dream of the Red Chamber, and The
Journey to the West, have long attained the status of regional literature,
popularly received and culturally reproduced in this part of the world.
Historically, written Chinese has been intelligible to educated people in
Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, besides China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and
Taiwan. Michele Ruggieri (1543-1607) and Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), the
Jesuit missionaries to China in the late Ming Dynasty, made observations
to this effect in their writings (qtd. in Li 22). In Translation and
Subjectivity, Naoki Sakai notes that, in premodern East Asia, the ability to
read and write literary Chinese determines whether a person is literate (20).
Even now, the adoption of Chinese characters in the Japanese writing
system, although interspersed among the two Japanese alphabetical
systems, and the ubiquitous Chinese words in public and private spaces of
Korea, despite the fact that the Korean writing system almost excludes
Chinese in official documents and news reports, both combine to
demonstrate that these two countries are part of what Aihwa Ong calls the
Chinese axis. Coupled by many other similar cultural practices, the
literatures of these two countries are arguably predisposed to attract
common sensibilities of this region.
Some may object, though, to the inclusion of Japanese and Korean in
the so-called Chinese axis, on the ground that Japanese and Koren users of
Chinese characters may not communicate orally with those in Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and China. In fact, before the prevalence of Mandarin
Chinese over other dialects as the official language, people from different
parts of China might not understand one another in speech even though
they used the same writing system. In Zhongguo Wanming yu Ouzhou
Wenxue (Late Ming China and the European Literature), Sher-shiueh Li
argues that speech diversity has long existed in the history of China,
making it difficult for people from different areas to engage in
conversation (11-21). As a result, the Jesuit missionaries to China during
the period of late Ming and early Qing Dynasties2, such as Ruggieri and
Ricci, turned to books and pamphlets as means of teaching and spreading
the Christian faith. The independence of speech from writing in Chinese
characters, a phenomenon so different from the phonic systems of the
Western languages, creates an environment in which not only the different
Chinese dialects can find written expressions in it, but also Japanese and
Korean. As a writing system serving to unify a nation facing a great
multitude of dialects in China, Chinese characters have had, and still have,
the function of bridging the languages of Japanese and Korean, being

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intelligible to sizable portions of the populace of these two nations.

Chinese characters, thus, function as a common basis of the cultural
heritages of East Asia. Even after being replaced by the official Korean
language, the Chinese language still crops up on important occasions in
Korea. Dictee, by the Korean writer Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, for example,
has quite a few Chinese characters included in it to suggest that Korea is
within the axis of Chinese culture. More importantly, it could even be
argued that Chinese characters underlie the Korean language, to an extent
as they do with the various dialects in China.
What shall we make of the so-called cultural sphere of Chinese
characters in East Asia? Does it have traits in common that may come to
establish singularities for a regional literature?

The Impact of Global English and Globalization

What Gilles Deleuze calls the fold may offer the best vantage point
from which to address the issue of the cultural sphere of Chinese
characters. But in an age when English is the global language and
transnational cultural flows are at an all-time high, can a shared linguistic
heritage have significance in East Asia? In this section, Ill explore the
impact of English as a global language and the globalizing trend before
addressing in the next section the issue of how, in the fold as a convergent
series, Chinese characters may have a role in an East Asian regional
literature.
At the level of region-wide communication and as a medium of
knowledge production, preservation, and dissemination, English may
arguably rival, if not surpass, Chinese in East Asia. Globally, in terms of
uses and functions, there emerged a number of activities, movements, and
subjects that are carried out predominantly (though not exclusively) in
English across the world (Strevens 30). These are seen in the adoption of
English for air-traffic control, the use of English in the numerous United
Nations bodies providing international aid and administration, and the
dominance of English in the international media, radio and television,
magazines and newspapers, as well as the international pop-music industry
(Strevens 30-31). The global reach of the English language surely will
have or already has had an effect on the conventional role of Chinese in
East Asia. The widespread use of English seems to go hand in hand with a
worldwide trend that Anthony Giddens calls abstract system. Included in it
are two types of disembedding mechanisms that the renowned British
sociologist argues will undermine the sense of place and time. The first
type is termed symbolic tokens, that is, media of exchange which have

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217

standard value, and thus are interchangeable across a plurality of contexts

(18). The prime example Giddens gives is money. The second type is
called expert systems. Expert systems bracket time and space through
deploying modes of technical knowledge which have validity independent
of the practitioners and clients who make use of them (18). Together or
separately, these two types of disembedding mechanisms, according to
Giddens, usher in a situation in which time and space are emptied so as to
allow the lifting out of social relations from local contexts and their
rearticulation across indefinite tracts of time-space (18). The uncoupling
of social relations and their local contexts loosens up the grounding of
individuals in the conventional matrix of time and space, exposing them,
instead, to influences from everywhere in the world.
Arjun Appadurai, in his Modernity at Large, depicts a world that he
says has a general break with all sorts of the past (3) and relies on a
repertoire of images, scripts, models, and narratives that come through
mass mediation (6) for momentous decisions in the lives of individuals or
groups. In what he calls a theory of rupture, or a clear break with the past,
he takes media and migration as its two major, and interconnected,
diacritics and explores their joint effect on the work of the imagination as
a constitutive feature of modern subjectivity (3). The ubiquity of
electronic media, he argues, brings along images, scripts, and narratives of
all kinds from every corner of the world. People of all sorts in all kinds of
societies, Appadurai insists, may turn to these sources to experiment with
self-making. At the same time, mass migrations become so common and
so frequent that few people nowadays do not have a relative, a friend, or a
colleague who is either on the way abroad or coming back from a trip to
other countries, bringing back stories of new possibilities. Appadurai
attaches the significance of mass migrations to their juxtaposition with
electronic media:
As Turkish guest workers in Germany watch Turkish films in their German
flats, as Koreans in Philadelphia watch the 1988 Olympics in Seoul
through satellite feeds from Korea, and as Pakistani cabdrivers in Chicago
listen to cassettes of sermons recorded in mosques in Pakistan or Iran, we
see moving images meet deterritorialized viewers. (4)

The three cases given in the quoted passage show diasporic people
encountering video images or audio messages from their motherlands, thus
making it viable for these expatriates to steer clear of subjectification
attempts of the countries they are in. Juxtaposition of mass migrations
with electronic media challenges the existing views about spaces. Neither
images nor viewers fit into circuits or audiences that are easily bound

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within local, national, or regional spaces (4), Appadurai asserts. For their
sympathies may project well beyond these spaces. In Modernity at Large,
Appadurai cites the term community of sentiment from an earlier essay
of his, Topographies of the Self: Praise and Emotion in Hindu India, to
characterize the common aspirations of people scattered about in the world.
Groups of people never in face-to-face contact, he posits, may imagine
and feel things together (Modernity 8) because of collective experiences
made possible by the ubiquitous electronic media, coupled by large-scale
movements of people across borders for the sake of business, employment,
sight-seeing or other reasons. The significance of this phenomenon may be
explored via the sharp contrast it poses with the traditionally limited nature
of ones affection. Those whom we love, according to circumstances,
are, as Deleuze affirms in Empiricism and Subjectivity, those close to us,
our peers and our relatives (38).
There are a few things from the above discussions about English as the
global language, and the analyses of Giddens and Appadurai, that we can
draw on in the study of a possible role for Chinese characters in an East
Asian regional literature. The widespread use of English, the abstract
system as Giddens calls it, and media linked with migration as featured by
Appadurai, accentuate the growing insignificance of local contexts. But
does the entry of English into a linguistic context constituted of Chinese
characters and/or a national language like Japanese or Korean necessarily
lead to the loss of value of Chinese? By extension, does community of
sentiment, as coined by Appadurai, naturally connect people globally,
beyond a nation or a region? The answers to these two questions are not
definitely negative, which will be dealt with later on. Meanwhile, I will
look closely into a repertoire of images, scripts, models, and narratives
that come through mass mediation (6), over which an improvisation will
decide which to adopt for self-making. Noteworthy concerning what
archive to choose from is the total absence of anything related either to the
past or place of any sort. Relevant to the glaring lack of heritage and
geography is Appadurais statement that the work of imagination . . . is
neither purely emancipatory nor entirely disciplined but is a space of
contestation in which individuals and groups seek to annex the global into
their own practices of the modern (emphasis added, 4). No matter
whether purely emancipatory or entirely disciplined, each a type of
modernity, there emerges a context under which one either has to wake up
from the bondage of backward, irrational thoughts or be subjugated to
their value systems. By contrast, a space of contestation bespeaks a way of
life free from the restraints and constraints of the context within which one
finds oneself. Instead, all the momentous decisions in life are made, as

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Appadurai asserts, based on images, scripts, models, and narratives

collected from mass media and kept in the mind, in improvisation. Its
instinctual, even impulsive, and unpremeditated fashion, understandably,
helps keep at bay the possible influence of the local value system and
maximize susceptibility to the repertoire of images and others, with all
their glamorous sheen.
Appadurais model, and Giddens as well, may be convincing at first
sight, but only to an extent. Convincing because the onrush of the global
via electronic media and the two types of disembedding mechanisms,
indeed, considerably weaken the hold of a places convention, culture, and
value system. But a wholesale denial of its influence obviously goes too
far, not to mention the fact that the different stages of modernity in
different parts of the world allow conventional and local forces to exist in
various pockets or regions. Besides, community of sentiment, though
reaching beyond the boundary of a nation, does not necessarily go global
in all cases. It could be that people in a region often feel and imagine
together across national borders, for there are shared cultural heritages,
linguistic linkages, or other factors. As to the possible effect of the
widespread use of English on the status of Chinese as a regional language
in East Asia, it may happen that, between the global language of English
and the national language, for example, Japanese or Korean, the regional
language of Chinese finds itself embedded in the middle near their
brushing point. Ill argue that this position holds promises for innovative
changes, and thus has great significance for the production of a regional
literature. In affinity with this or as a follow-up, regional voices of the past
and singularities will be held as relevant to the emergence of a regional
literature. I will argue that upon the alleged decline of national literatures,
regional literatures are a terrain on which fragmented parts flowing out of
national borders may be regrouped or recreated, without all necessarily
winding up subsumed within global literature.
Appadurais model of images, scripts, models, and narratives (6)
constituting a repertoire from which individuals or groups draw for crucial
decisions in life provides a good starting point to explore what gets
integrated or restructured in a regional literature. The elements in
Appadurais archive come exclusively through mass mediation, with
nothing outside it coming directly from the home country. Ill argue for a
different set of elements, one in which mass mediated images, scripts,
models, and narratives may be included, but in which they do not figure
prominently. A convergent series grounded on the singularity of a region
may take center stage when it comes to a regional literature. Literature, to
be at its best, is not just about memories or things that come through

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electronic media. In fact, the artist, including the novelist, goes beyond
the perceptual states and affective transitions of the lived (Deleuze and
Guattari, What Is Philosophy? 171). The significance of extracting from
lived experiences something impersonal is brought home in What Is
Philosophy? where Deleuze and Guattari illustrate how, as beings kept in a
work of art, [p]ercepts are no longer perceptions; they are independent of
a state of those who experience them and [a]ffects are no longer feelings
or affections; they go beyond the strength of those who undergo them
(164). Percepts and affects, in their role of shaking off personal
experiences, recall Giddens disembedding mechanisms and Appadurais
repertoire of images, scripts, and so forth, although, on closer scrutiny,
there are major differences. This similarity, however, may partly explain
why Appadurais model of images, scripts, models, and narratives may
be borrowed and altered in a reconceptualization of a convergent series.

Fold as a Convergent Series

To conceive of the fold as a convergent series, one must start with the
monad. In The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, Deleuze follows Leibniz in
viewing a monad as infinitely divisible (Leibniz n. 65). As Deleuze
elaborates in this book, the infinite division of matter causes compressive
force to return all portions of matter to the surrounding areas, to the
neighboring parts that bathe and penetrate the given body, and that
determine its curvature (5). The curvature of a matter or monad is best
understood in terms of the fold, which may be viewed as an aggregate of
distinct but inseparable parts. As paraphrased by Deleuze in The Fold,
Leibniz holds that a flexible or an elastic body still has cohering parts that
form a fold, such that they are not separated into parts of parts but are
rather divided to infinity in smaller and smaller folds that always retain a
certain cohesion (6). Seen from the perspective of monadology, the
cohering force that holds the distinct, divided parts together comes from
the difference in quality of a monad which, as Leibniz says, must needs
have some qualities, otherwise they would not even be existences (n. 8).
To be more precise, [e]ach monad, indeed, must be different from every
other. For there are never in nature two beings which are exactly alike, and
in which it is not possible to find a difference either internal or based on an
intrinsic property (n. 9). The required, inevitable singularity of each
monad takes on tremendous significance when viewed from the aspect of a
fold holding together distinct but inseparable parts. A convergent series, a
sequence of numbers governed by a common trait, suggests an apt
illustration of an aggregate of the distinct and divided parts that together

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constitute a fold. A broader vision may open up if the number of the series
is replaced by or extended to components of cultural, literary or other
types of aggregate. In The Fold, Deleuze sees each convergent series
preceded and followed by a divergent series, thus putting the fold on a
circle marked by variation. The fold is Power, as we see in the irrational
number that appears by way of the relation of a magnitude and a power, as
a condition of variation (Deleuze, The Fold 18). Power, according to
Longman Dictionary, is the number of times a given number is (to be)
multiplied by itself while magnitude a degree formed by a fold on the
circle. In the quoted passage, it may be argued that Deleuze envisions the
start of a series of numbers with a common feature, to halt at the end
before crossing over into a divergent series.
The above formulation about the monad and the fold holds a key to the
cultural sphere of Chinese characters in East Asia. The conception of a
fold as a convergent series, on one hand, helps more clearly delineate the
contours of a group of East Asian nations sharing a use of Chinese
characters and a heritage centering on that language. This could mean a
return to the age when the Chinese writing system was intelligible to
intellectuals in this part of the world, besides being the medium of
knowledge, religious faiths, and cultural heritage throughout the region.
That age was a time when Confucianism was spread throughout East Asia,
acting as a lever of the regions political, cultural and value systems.
Buddhist Sutras translated into Chinese from Sanskrit or the Pali language
were and still are widely used in Buddhist rituals and studies in the region.
As a telling indicator of the influence of things Chinese in this part of the
world, St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552), one of the Jesuit missionaries who
entered Japan at the earliest stage, found that Japanese pagans often
evoked Chinese sources to defend their stand when cornered in debates (Li
21). As Li said in note n. 59 of the first chapter of Late Ming China and
the European Literature, the Jesuit missionaries later went to China to
preach their faith, since they discovered that the Japanese often looked to
the Chinese for authorities on knowledge. As Ruggieri and Ricci pointed
out respectively in their writings in Latin and Italian, in East Asia, not only
Japanese read Chinese writing system, but Koreans and Vietnamese also
did so as readily (qtd. in Li 22). Some literary works by non-Chinese East
Asian writers are found to have Chinese characters figuring prominently in
the text. In Theresa Hak Kyung Chas Dictee, for instance, Chinese
characters are included here and there to show that the origin of the
Korean language and culture is Chinese. Incidentally, the Chinese people
are held in high esteem in Chas English novel. You are not Chinese. You
are Korean. But your family moved here to escape the Japanese

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occupation. China is large. Larger than large. You tell me that the hearts of
the people are measured by the size of the land (45). Here, in taking in
her self-exiled Korean mother fleeing the Japanese colonization, the
narrator expresses admiration for the Chinese for being noble and
broad-minded, qualities allegedly characteristic of their landmass.
Seen in terms of a fold, there emerges on the scene a convergent series
that, arguably, constitutes the so-called cultural sphere of Chinese
characters. The European missionaries who observed and reported the
above phenomena may aptly be referred to as another fold marked by a
different singularity. They came to the Orient armed with modern
knowledge and vision. The encounter between two civilizations, that of the
East and that of the West, lends itself conveniently to an interpretation of a
fold touching another fold. According to Deleuze in The Fold, The
irrational number is the common limit of two convergent series, of which
one has no maximum and the other no minimum (17). The common limit
of two convergent series must be an irrational number because, no matter
how close one is to the other, there always remains the space for a new
folding, which is the descent of a circular arc on the straight line of a
rational point (17). Mathematically, a circular arc receives an irrational
number as it appears by way of an extraction from a root (18). As one
side of the common limit has no maximum while the other no
minimum, if seen from the perspective of a fold touching another, there
appears a scene in which movement stops at the end of one before starting
at the beginning of another.3 In the common flow-caesura format of the
monad, or fold, it is an irrational number that calls for an abrupt stop.
Deleuze follows Leibniz in viewing the caesura as occurring at the
moment a circular arc descends on a point of a line, giving the contact a
site where an irrational number touches a rational number, or two realms
of the wholly other brush against each other. In Theses on the Philosophy
of History, Walter Benjamin sees the caesura as a moment of illumination,
a moment when the voice buried behind history may be detected and
resurrected. Whether it is the descent of a circular arc on a point of a line,
the detection of something buried behind history, or a flash of illumination,
each points to an inevitable movement toward variation. Hence, although
the remarks made by Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth century on the
widespread use of Chinese in East Asia might indicate that they
recognized the reality of a freshly encountered world, it must be pointed
out that they failed to perceive the signs of a region struggling to modify,
or even alter, a perspective or culture dominated by Chinese.
One of the most prominent cases of this phenomenon was the
invention of the Korean language during the reign of King Sejong of

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223

Joseon in the fifteenth century. It is a linguistic system that Koreans feel

matches up with their spoken language more sensitively than the Chinese
writing system. A much earlier case was found in the creation of the
Japanese kana systems of hiragana by the Japanese Buddhist monk Kukai
in the ninth century, from which katakana4 developed. Compared with the
use of Chinese in the former days, the Japanese language thereafter,
composed of the two kana systems and Chinese characters, showed a
centrifugal force straining to deviate from the dominance of Chinese. In
Vietnam, modified Chinese characters were used when it was a province
of China, from the second century BCE until the tenth century CE. By the
end of the nineteenth century during the French colonization, Chinese
characters were replaced by a script system called chu nom. If viewed
from a long-term perspective of linguistic development, the past one
thousand years have witnessed the ancient Chinese language replaced by
one growing out of the dialects in northern China and Manchuria as the
official language. As Japanese and Korean have a close tie with the ancient
Chinese language, the Chinese characters used in these two languages
show a return to ancient expressions of Chinese. In an ironic twist, the old
Chinese expressions retained in Japanese and Korean come back to haunt
the contemporary Chinese language, presenting a weird map in which
alphabetic systems were coined in these two countries to assert their
identity but expressions recalling the past of Chinese are still kept in their
languages.
Variation has been raging on inexorably elsewhere. In China, a
simplified Chinese writing system was adopted in the 1950s by the newly
installed communist regime led by Mao Zedong, radically altering the
look of the traditional Chinese ideograms. Besides the language reform
pushed through in China, vocabularies of the working class were
introduced into the language in large number so as to effectively transform
the tone, expression, and syntax of Chinese. After fleeing to Taiwan from
China in1949, the Kuomintang government under the leadership of Chiang
Kai-shek declared that it represented the whole of China and, in a show of
its sharp difference from the communist regime led by Mao, Taiwan
continued to use traditional Chinese characters and embrace the Confucian
tradition when communist China launched a series of campaigns, one of
them being the cultural revolution (1966-1976), to eradicate traditional
culture and values. The Chinese writing system in Taiwan thus was
noticeably, if not totally, different from that in China, coupled by a life
style and value system that are a mixture of traditional Chinese, Western,
and Japanese culture, after fifty years of Japanese colonization
(1895-1945). Hong Kong had a different story. It became a British colony

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in 1841 and was returned to China in 1997. The long period of

colonization left a deep imprint on its written Chinese. Besides its peculiar
Chinese translations of English terms, weird perhaps to some Mandarin
Chinese speakers, the widespread use of the dialect Cantonese in Hong
Kong has done much to create a linguistic landscape where its Chinese
may be considered substandard by some non-Cantonese speakers. But to
Hong Kong residents, the outside perception of the Cantonese dialect as
less than standard Chinese is unacceptable, for the dialect they use now
was formerly the official language of China. Cantonese, together with the
Fukienese dialect, which the majority of Taiwanese use, was part of the
ancient official Chinese. (We might also observe that Fukienese is spoken
by a large population in southern China, Taiwan, and Singapore.) As
Japanese and Korean are also related to ancient Chinese, it is worth noting
that the Taiwanese dialect, as Fukienese is known in Taiwan, overlaps with
their languages to an extent. Certainly, fifty years of Japanese colonization
have contributed significantly to the circulation of some Japanese
expressions in the vocabulary of Taiwanese.
From the above study of the cultural sphere of Chinese characters
emerge several things that are relevant to a regional literature in East Asia.
The first concerns a convergent series centerng on the singularity of
Chinese characters and a cultural heritage related to the language. The
different nations of East Asia may each be seen as a constituent of the
convergent series that find something essential to hold them together. It
may also be envisioned globally, with the scale and frequency of people
moving around across borders. Individuals or groups with East Asian
origins scattered worldwide or those so disposed through education or
otherwise may be taken as potential candidates. Thus, a convergent series
may be understood not necessarily as geographically contiguous, but also
as capable of cohering across space globally. A fundamental question
about regional singularity, however, is still not fully answered, though
numerous instances, examples, and documents have been cited. What,
after all, is the singularity of Chinese characters and a cultural heritage
related to the language? What relationship exists between Chinese and
other East Asian languages? Is it a major language overshadowing minor
languages on the basis of regional situations?
Ill start the exploration with a question raised by Deleuze and Guattari
in A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia. Should we identify
major and minor languages on the basis of regional situations of
bilingualism or multilingualism including at least one dominant language
and one dominated language, or a world situation giving certain languages
an imperialist power over others . . .? (102). The first part of the question

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225

seems especially relevant to the linguistic status of Chinese in East Asia,

while the latter is explicitly about English as the global language. On
closer scrutiny, however, Chinese does not seem to fit into the initial
situation described by Deleuze and Guattari. From what has been earlier
discussed, it is clear that the Chinese writing system and that of Cantonese,
Taiwanese, Japanese, and Korean are more like various dialects of a
language vying for supremacy than different languages put side by side in
a region. But if there is no such thing as a domination of one language
over another in East Asia, what may the singularity of the region rest on?
What role do Chinese characters play in bringing out the regions
singularity? Ill argue that Chinese characters have the function of
providing what Deleuze and Guattari refer to in A Thousand Plateaus as a
fragile point as a center (312).
Deleuze and Guattari look at order as something to protect us from
chaos, to avoid such distressing things as a thought that escapes and
ideas that fly off, that disappear hardly formed, already eroded by
forgetfulness or precipitated into others that we no longer master (What Is
Philosophy? 201). In A Thousand Plateaus, they outline three means of
engaging chaotic forces. A first phase is something like a child walking in
the dark, singing on the way to assuage gripping fear. The song is like a
rough sketch of a calming and stability, calm and stable, center in the heart
of chaos (311). It is like a jump from chaos to the beginnings of order in
chaos and is in danger of breaking apart at any moment (311). As
stability strengthens, [t]he forces of chaos are kept outside as much as
possible, and the interior space protects the germinal forces of a task to
fulfill or a deed to do (311). An activity of selection, elimination, and
extraction is involved in the act of keeping the interior forces alive, and of
making them able to resist or to take something from chaos. Finally, one
opens the circle a crack, opens it all the way, lets someone in, calls
someone, or else goes out oneself, launches forth (311). Such an opening
is not on the side of the circle where the old forces of chaos press against it,
but in a region created by the circle itself that the crack opens. Noteworthy
is the fact that creation is bred on the basis of stability that develops into
the ground for further innovation, rather than digging in or stagnating.
Understandably the crack does not occur on the side of the circle where
old forces of chaos rage strong, for the whole terrain might otherwise
collapse into chaos. On the area where stability is ensured, there are sorties
into the open, allowing forces of chaos to be annexed while moving on to
another terrain. In the three chapters on assemblages in A Thousand
Plateaus,5 there are numerous passages about these movements toward
other terrains. In the chapter Of the Refrain, for example, milieus and

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rhythms are depicted as born of chaos. Every milieu is a block of

space-time constituted by the periodic repetition of the component (313),
which is seen as coded, a code being defined by periodic repetition. As
each code is in a perpetual state of transcoding or transduction, it brings
about a situation in which one milieu serves as the basis for another, or
conversely is established atop another milieu, dissipates in it or is
constituted in it (313). It leads to ideas like one assemblage atop another,
with stability and variation combined in the mode.
Seen in this light, Chinese characters may be said to have provided the
fragile stability over which the writing systems in East Asia could be
established, as there existed no other written languages in this region at
that time. As records show, writing came to Japan from China during the
fifth century CE. The first Japanese texts were written in Chinese
characters (kanji), a system called kanbun (which means Chinese
Writing). As the grammar of the Japanese language is substantially
different from Chinese, the solution to this problem was to keep the
Chinese characters but use Japanese grammar. If the original Chinese
writing is an assemblage, the Chinese characters arranged according to
Japanese grammar may be seen as another assemblage atop it. Variation
shows in the stable terrain composed of Chinese characters. The Korean
language made its first appearance in texts using Chinese characters in the
fourth century or earlier while phonological writing in idu script was
developed by the sixth century. The featural hangul script was introduced
only in the fifteenth century. Accommodation of Chinese words to the
Korean language posed a problem at first. Various systems were used,
starting with ad hoc approaches and gradually becoming codified in
the idu script. These were arrangements of Chinese characters to represent
the language phonetically, much as the way the Japanese treated the
transplanted Chinese script. But the case of Korean struggling with the
borrowed Chinese language did not stop there. The hangul script
developed in the fifteenth century replaced Chinese characters in the
twentieth century and thereafter, almost fully except for those used on
important occasions and displayed on historical buildings. Does this mean
that written Chinese no longer exists meaningfully in Korea? The answer
is obviously no.
Every Korean individual knows how their name is written in Chinese,
though it may be spelled in the hangul script on their name card. This,
together with its use on important occasions and inscribed on historical
buildings, shows that Chinese characters underlie the Korean language
spelled out in the hangul script. Their connection, however, hinges on a
historical source far deeper than that. If seen from the perspective of

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milieus born of chaos, written Chinese at first provided a fragile stability

to avoid such distressing things as a thought that escapes and ideas that
fly off, that disappear hardly formed, already eroded by forgetfulness or
precipitated into others that we no longer master (Deleuze and Guattari,
What Is Philosophy? 201). For writing has the function of prolonging
memories, not to mention helping fleeting or half-formed ideas emerge as
clear and distinct thoughts. A stable system thus established, which can be
a milieu according to Deleuze and Guattari, induces a transcoding or
transduction by which another milieu is established atop it. In the case of
the Korean language, there were arrangements of Chinese characters by
the sixth century to represent the language phonetically. The invention of
the hangul script in the fifteenth century and the scripts final replacement
of written Chinese in the twentieth century and thereafter, both being
arrangements to represent Korean phonetically, could be seen as another
milieu established atop the original milieu. Chinese characters clearly
underlie the Korean language in the hangul script.
If written Chinese may be shown to be the underlying ground of
Korean, it is even more evident that the Chinese script serves as the
fundamental ground of the Japanese writing system. The writing systems
used in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, though not all the same, may be
convincingly argued to be Chinese in their origin. How will a region using
Chinese characters or with Chinese characters figuring significantly in its
language or underlying its language produce its regional literature?

Between Globalization and Chinese Characters

Globalization touches off transnational flows of capital, personnel, and
cultural products, leading to far-reaching consequences. In Empire, Hardt
and Negri affirm: Traditional cultures and social organizations are
destroyed in capitals tireless march through the world to create the
networks and pathways of a single cultural and economic system of
production and circulation (326). Appadurai, Giddens, and Jay have
expressed ideas roughly to the same effect. In the age of globalization,
with tradition, the sense of place and time, and national interests allegedly
undermined, if not totally ruined, is there still a role for the region, if not
for the nation? To be more specific, does the cultural sphere of Chinese
characters still mean anything in the production of a regional literature in
East Asia? Even in the age when English reigns supreme as the global
language, written Chinese is still vibrant in East Asian languages, either as
the linguistic matrix of a certain script, or figuring significantly in a
writing system, or in its diverse forms of variation. How does a writing

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system like Chinese respond to an unprecedented tradition-shaking trend

such as globalization?
Depicting how tradition and place lose their hold in face of the
combined impact of ubiquitous electronic media and frequent flows of
immigrants across national borders, Appadurai raises the prospect of
improvisation over images, scripts, models, and narratives amassed in
the memory from electronic media. Interestingly, improvisation pops up
also in the talk of launching forth as Deleuze and Guattari elaborate on the
three ways of confronting chaotic forces. Improvisation occurs, in the case
of responding to chaos, at the moment when stability strengthens, making
it viable to sally forth into the open. Launching forth into the open, as
Deleuze and Guattari suggest in A Thousand Plateaus, one hazards an
improvisation (311) and, in so doing, joins with the world and melds with
it. If, as argued by Appadurai, improvisation causes convention and
existing values to fall away before the series of images, scripts, models
and narratives, Deleuze and Guattari view it differently from the aspect of
a transcoding or transduction by which a change of territory is achieved. In
other words, another milieu or assemblage is established atop the original
one. Improvisation, on one hand, generates new values on the ruin of the
existing domestic order, and, on the other hand, propels movement from
one territory to another. The former declares the demise of national
literatures while the latter ushers in regional literatures.
In the production of a regional literature, especially in East Asia, what
Appadurai calls a repertoire of images, scripts, models, and narratives
can go one step further to combine, selectively maybe, with a convergent
series centering on Chinese characters and the related regional cultural
heritage. If Chinese characters, as the first writing system in East Asia,
have provided stability for a milieu or assemblage to emerge out of chaos,
the various phases or modes of variation occurring in Korean, Japanese,
Taiwanese, the Cantonese dialect in Hong Kong, and even in Mandarin
Chinese, may be regarded as erupting out of the centrifugal forces of the
territory. In the deterritorialization and the following reterritorialization,
the convergent series have assimilated the chaotic forces. In the age of
globalization, however, the unprecedented scale and frequency of images,
scripts, and so on bring serious impacts to bear on such conventional
things as Chinese characters. These images, connected to the convergent
series featuring the regional singularity, expectedly can be the nourishing
power in the production of regional literature. If, as Appadurai argues, to
make momentous decisions for the lives of individuals or groups is to
improvise over a repertoire amassed from electronic media, then to write
in East Asia is to improvise over a convergent series coupled by images

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and other entities. It is a series mixed with images of space and time. What
should be noted here is that the interaction in the fermentation of ideas is
not necessarily performed consciously. I always depend on a molecular
assemblage of enunciation that is not given in my conscious mind, any
more than it depends solely on my apparent social determinations, which
combine many heterogeneous regimes of signs (A Thousand Plateaus 84).
An East Asian regional literature admittedly has or will have many
heterogeneous regimes of signs attached to its convergent series.
To illustrate the nature of regional literature in East Asia, we may turn
to two novels and a novella on the theme of the ancient capital. The Old
Capital (1962) by Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972), the first Japanese
novelist to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, was followed by The
Abandoned Capital by the Chinese novelist Jia Pingwa (1952- ) in 1993,
and then a novella entitled The Old Capital by the Taiwanese writer
Tien-hsin Chu (1958- ) in 1997. These three literary works evoke feelings
of the past, taking readers on a journey to a past associated with Chinese
characters and their related cultural heritage. But they are not exclusively
about memories of the past. They allow current events to seep in and color
the description of the past. What is particularly striking is the evocation in
one work after another of the theme of the ancient capital. More
impressively, they have all enjoyed a warm reception in this part of the
world. The tapping of topics of the Asian tradition by three prominent East
Asian writers and the warm responses from the reading public speak
volumes about their significance.
East Asian regional literature shows signs of reaching beyond national
borders, instead of finding itself retrenched within a place or a nation. It
has its anchor in regional singularity, marked by Chinese characters, while
remaining open to forces arriving from the entire globe. Noteworthy is the
transcoding mechanism of a milieu or assemblage, pushing another milieu
or assemblage to be established on top of it. A region, as it is larger than a
nation, provides the terrain to complete the ever-ongoing process of
moving beyond and retrenching or, in other words, deterritorialization and
reterritorialization. What is unique in this mechanism is its singularity kept
intact, instead of being inundated, as in a nation.

230

Chapter Twelve

Notes
1. The data about the book list in China is based on surveys made by Beijing Open
Book Information Corp. The data about the book list in Japan is based on surveys
made by Kinokuniya Bookstores while that in South Korea by Publication
Business Weekly. The data in Taiwan is based on surveys made by Kingstone
Bookstore. The information about Hong Kong is drawn on surveys made by
Sanlian Bookstore.
2. In the year 1644, Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty claimed his own life
in Beijing and Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty entered the imperial capital
city to ascend the throne of China. This year may give an idea about the period that
is being referred to in the text as the late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing
Dynasty.
3. One common limit having no maximum is referring to the smallest number of a
series. The other having no minimum suggests the largest number of a series.
4. Katakana was allegedly invented by the Japanese scholar Kibino Masabi. But
recent scholarship shows this view to be wrong.
5. These chapters are The Geology of Morals, Postulates of Linguistics, and
Of the Refrain.

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Benjamin, Walter. Theses on the Philosophy of History. Illuminations.
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. What Is Philosophy? Trans. Graham Burchell and Hugh Tomlinson.
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CONTRIBUTORS

Ronald Bogue is Distinguished Research Professor of Comparative

Literature at the University of Georgia. His books include Deleuze and
Guattari (1989), Deleuze on Literature (2003), Deleuze on Cinema (2003),
Deleuze on Music, Painting, and the Arts (2003), Deleuzes Wake (2004),
Deleuzes Way (2007), and Deleuzian Fabulation and the Scars of History
(2010).
Joff P.N. Bradley teaches in the faculty of language studies at Teikyo
University, Tokyo, Japan. Although a graduate of philosophy from half a
dozen universities in England, he is a resident of Japan and applies his
long-standing interest in schizoanalysis to the social and political problems
affecting his students.
Amy Kit-sze Chan is Associate Professor of Department of English
Language & Literature at Hong Kong Shue Yan University. She is also the
Director of the M.A. Programme in Interdisciplinary Studies and the
Associate Director of the Technoscience Culture Research and
Development Centre at HKSYU.
Hsiao-hung Chang is Distinguished Professor of Foreign Languages and
Literature at National Taiwan University. Her books include Gender
Crossing (1995), Queer Desire: Mapping Gender and Sexuality (1996),
Sexual Imperialism (1998), Queer Family Romance (2000), Encountering
a Wolf in the Department Store (2002) and Fake Globalization (2007).
Hanping Chiu is Professor of English at Tamkang University, Taiwan,
and concurrently president of Taiwans Comparative Literature
Association. Aside from publishing in fields of literary theory, cultural
studies, and translation studies, he has headed numerous academic
initiatives, the most recent one being the First International Deleuze
Studies in Asia Conference (2013).
Mark Donoghue is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of the Arts
London. His research involves comparing the pictorial space of the
nineteenth century Japanese landscape prints of Hokusai and Hiroshige,

Toward a Regional Literature in East Asia

233

with J.M.W. Turner's landscape prints of Scotland. Deleuze's philosophy

forms the theoretical underpinnings for this comparison.
Yuhui Jiang is Associate Professor of philosophy at East China Normal
University (Shanghai). He is the Chinese translator of Deleuze &
Guattari's Mille Plateaux. He is also the author of Deleuze's Aesthetics of
Body (2007) and Truth and Painting: Merleau Ponty and Chinese
Landscape Paintings (2013). He is currently working on a book entitled
Deleuze in Art.
Tatsuya Higaki is Professor at the University of Osaka, Faculty of Human
Sciences. His Japanese books include Deleuze (2002), The Philosophy of
Betting and Contingency (2008), Eternity and Instant, The Time Theory of
Gilles Deleuze (2010), Vita Technica, The Philosophy of Life and
Technology (2011).
Yu-lin Lee is Associate Professor of Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature
and Transnational Cultural Studies at National Chung Hsing University,
Taiwan. His books include Writing Taiwan: A Study of Taiwans Nativist
Literature (2008) and Liminality of Translation: Subjectivity, Ethics, and
Aesthetics (2009). He is also the Chinese translator of Ronald Bogues
Deleuze on Literature.
Sebastian Hsien-hao Liao is Professor of English at National Taiwan
University. His areas of research include: comparative poetics,
psychoanalysis, posthumanist thoughts, Taiwanese literature and culture. His
English articles have appeared in various journals such as American Journal
of Semiotics and in several collected volumes, including China and
Postmodernism (Duke) and Imaging and Imagining Taiwan (Harrassowitz).
Tony See has a PhD from the European Graduate School (EGS). He was a
student of Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt, Alain Badiou and Slavoj
Zizek, and he has a research interest in Deleuzian resistance, Buddhist
phenomenology and Asian Film Studies. He is currently appointed as
Senior Lecturer in Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore.
Xiong Ying is Professor of the Graduate School of Letters at Hokkaido
University, Japan. His research interests include film studies and Chinese
cinema. His recent publications include A View of Chinese Cinema (2010),
Toward Repetition without Double: Kiyoshi Kurosawas Doppelgnger
and Jean-Luc Godards Nouvelle Vague (2013).