“From the very beginning of this study, we have maintained both that social-production and desiring-production are one and the same, and that they have differing regimes, with the result that a social form of production exercises an essential repression of desiring-production, and also that desiring-production - “real” desire - is potentially capable of demolishing the social form. (116/138)” -Holland, Eugene W. (2002-01-04). Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis (p. 56). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
I would first point out that this is a quote from Anti-Oedipus extracted from Holland’s book.
That formality dealt with, this brings to mind a quote from Picasso (a connection that suggests (call it confirmation bias if you will (what I’ve always said about Deleuze: that the creative act is never that far from his mind. Anyway, Picasso said:
“Taste is the enemy of art.”
But I would humbly propose that this warrants revision. Picasso was a visual artist which commits him to feel over meaning. What Archibald MacLeish said about the poem:
“A poem should not mean but be.”
:holds even more true for the work of art. A work of art, much like a dream, gets most of its meaning from the discourse that goes on around it via the very network of desiring and social production that D & G describe. But Picasso being a visual artist, we can assume him to not be one to clearly define his terms. Philosophy, however, is defined by the attempt to do so –even if it is an often failed one or one, such as that of Derrida’s, that defies meaning for the sake of making meaning.
I would start with the term ‘art’. I would argue that art is, by definition, a social phenomenon defined by publically shared taste. This was, for instance, what Duchamp (as well the dada movement as a whole (was getting at when he hung a urinal in an art gallery to suggest that it became art by receiving the validation of the authority of the gallery or museum.
What I actually think Picasso was referring to was the creative act which is childlike, instinctive, and spontaneously private in nature. One only need experience the process by which the private act of improvisation (bricolage (becomes a work of art in order to get this. Therefore, I believe we can twist Picasso’s statement (in a strangely ironic way (to:
“Art is the enemy of the creative act.”
Unfortunately, in terms of D & G’s model of machinic production, this shows itself to be little more than a momentary stay against confusion: an arborescent calcification in the vast rhizomatic flux they ask us to immerse ourselves in. By their model, we can see, rather, a feedback-loop between the private and the public. While the creative act must begin in an act that any child could engage in and return to it frequently, it still has to engage in the discourse of the public: look what I’ve done, Mom!!!. And it is this discourse with the public that can lead to the blocks in the flows of energy that can deflect those flows into nomadic trajectories. Once again:
“From the very beginning of this study, we have maintained both that social-production and desiring-production are one and the same, and that they have differing regimes, with the result that a social form of production exercises an essential repression of desiring-production, and also that desiring-production - “real” desire - is potentially capable of demolishing the social form. (116/138)”