"The Smoothness of Virginity"
by Gregory Mihalcheon
Admiral Scott's attempt to be the first man to reach the South Pole at the turn of the 20th century is significant in relation to whiteness due to its usefulness in illustrating some general thoughts on man's tendency to undertake exhaustive exploits in order to define and quantify that which is virgin until explored. Following any such exploration, the resultant space takes on an additional condition, ancillary to any previous, uncharted, virginal, and most importantly, independent existence. It begins to exist as two types of space in mixture. Of great importance to my discussion in this essay are the definitions of these two types: smooth space and striated space. Deleuze and Guattari, throughout their book A Thousand Plateaus, enlighten us with an interwoven series of analogies which methodically lead the reader towards a complex synthesis of the concepts explored. But before embarking on a more in-depth description of these types of space, it is pertinent to take a closer look at the concept of Whiteness as an impetus for the following discussion.
The idea of Whiteness, as developed in Richard Dyer's book entitled, quite simply, "White" underlines a few key elements of what is conceivably a very broad topic of discussion. Firstly, one should consider Whiteness insofar as its relation to the race of humanity referred to as Caucasians- mythically the group of people descended from the Brahmins, and hailing from the upper caste of inhabitants from what is now known as India and Pakistan. Following their fabled traversing of the Caucasus mountains, they installed themselves across Europe-hence forming the foundation of what we now consider Western society.Indicative of this society is the historical process of development since the time of ancient Greece to the present. Inherent legacies intrinsic to our perception of Whiteness are characteristics as diverse as guilt, tightness, self-consciousness, far-sightedness, the ability to organise, and the endemic pressure to prioritise mind over body. Also of importance to the topic of Whiteness is how the European feeling for self and the world has been shaped by Christianity, a "religion whose sensibility is focused on the body,"1 and the preservation of its perfection and purity. Each of the preceding characteristics can be linked to an overall impression of what Dyer deems as a lack of satisfaction and fulfilment in Whites in general. According to his book, Whites have constructed for themselves "a dynamic of aspiration, of striving to be…in the face of the impossibility of transcendence."2
Nevertheless, the characteristics inherent to Whiteness have manifested themselves in the ability of the concept (in its greatest sense) to rise to the relative position of power it still embodies at the beginning of the 21st century. As relevant to the exploits of Scott, it is evident that "The history of (White controlled) colonialism as popularly imagined and promulgated could be conveyed in terms of the excitement of advance, of forward movement through time, and the conquest and control of space." 3 Whiteness has allowed man to manage his intrinsic fear of infinity, space, and the unknown. Mankind, in its development of Whiteness has employed various strategies in his attempts to tame the terrors of the realms of the unknown such as the creation of mythologies related to religion, deterministic attempts at mathematics, and more recently the acceptance and exploration of the principles of Chaos Theory. In short, he has created a myriad of attempts to rationalise the world around him in order to avoid the vanity-crushing acceptance of nature as infinite or indomitable. As indicated by the words of French enlightenment philosopher Pascal, it could be argued that he strikes a common chord in mankind with his statement, "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread."4
Indicative of man's attempts to avoid the space of the infinite is what, according to Deleuze and Guattari, is an extreme attempt to "isolate all operations from the conditions of intuition."5 Such attempts at rationalisation are inherent to most every form of human production. An example from the era of Pascal which is indicative of mankind's binary attempts to rationalise the fearsome struggle against the nature of space is encapsulated by the French formal gardens at Versailles. These gardens serve as a hyperbolised symbol of Whiteness's Cartesian tendency to rectify the tensions between closure and infinitude. Here, in the microcosm of the grounds of Louis XIV, are manifested both man's tendency to colonise and metricise the pure, white virginity that would otherwise be nature, with deterministic, rationalised attempts to embody not only the simplistic traits indicative of man's own ego, but also to dare to attempt a symbolisation of the magnificence of the complexities of nature and the divine. As designed by leNotre, the Sun King's gardens embodied a Cartesian need for order in the hyper-structuralised creation of a series of mini gardens and labyrinths within the greater scope of this manifestation of the apparatus of state power. The labyrinth symbolised one extreme of the system, that of the necessity for comprehension, and systemised closure, while perspective was alternately used to achieve optical and geometric effects focusing on "the vanishing point as an overture onto infinity."6 In this way, LeNotre managed to unite the desire for the stupefying illusion of infinity within the closure of the King's finite garden. Indeed the State (as in the French royal apparatus in the previous example) must be conscious of the needs of its power structure, as well as how to maintain this power structure-- for in the end, the State is no more or less than a system of organs which preserve, retain, and support the structure of the overall body. The body places demands on this power in addition to engendering its own effects and systems of control. The reference to the requirement of stupefaction within the domain of the Louis XIV's palace gardens is thus both a representation of the power structure whose vanity it serves and displays, as well as a self-necessitated requirement inherent to any apparatus of control. As evidenced by Feuerbach, in his preface to the Second Edition of The Essence of Christianity, with "the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness,"7 and one might add, control.
As implicitly evidenced by the example of the French manifestation of power from the 17th century as reflected in the composition of its palace gardens, one can begin to develop an impression of the binary relationship between the finite and the infinite inherent to many organised structures. Deleuze and Guattari develop this relationship in reference to two types of space which they call smooth and striated. It is their position that these two types of space inevitably exist in mixture. Let us, therefore, initiate our defining of these concepts of space by exploring how they differ from one another.
Smooth (vectoral, projective, or topological) space is defined as space that "is occupied without being counted" whereby striated (or metric) space "is counted in order to be occupied."8 In striated space, lines or trajectories tend to be subordinated to points. Destinations take precedence over the movement between those points. In smooth it is the opposite, with points being subordinated to the trajectory…the dwelling is subordinated to the journey.
In order to further develop this relationship, it is productive to compare the concepts to a technological model from the real world. In the first case, one could look at the example of fabric, as an example of the idea of striated space. This is a type of space which is delineated and metricised. It contains both vertical and horizontal elements, of which one element is fixed, the other mobile. Striated space can appear infinite in certain capacities, but not in all. For instance, as in the case of fabric, it could be more or less infinite in length (depending on raw materials available) but not in width, for width is derived from the frame of the warp. Its width is therefore defined by its human-imposed limits. Leroi Gourhan, in his book, L'homme et la matiere compared fabric to basketry, whereby the process of weaving defines the warp and the woof and gives the result its structure. It is due to this constructed nature that Plato used the model of weaving as the paradigm for the existence and structure of the political state. All elements involved in any state apparatus, be it royal lineage, institutionalised science, the art of governing people, or the operation of a military structure, can be compared to the concept of striated space. Striated space can be defined by areas, limits, and systems-it is homogeneous. Fabric, for example, is indicative of the parameters of the concept of striated space.
Felt, on the other hand, is the anti-fabric, and compares more specifically to the concept of smooth space. It has no separation of threads, no metered intertwining of elements. It exists only as an entanglement of fibres and relates more directly to what I will develop later as my idea of supermodern space. What becomes entangled in felt, are the microscales of the fibers-it is in no way homogeneous. It is in principle infinite, open, and unlimited, having neither top nor bottom nor centre. Even technologists give a hand to the nomads who invented felt-a splendid insulator for tents, clothes, armour etc. Felt, like patchwork, is an amorphous collection of juxtaposed pieces that can be joined together in an infinite number of ways. It can be seen to be representative of ultimate possibility, acceptance, the indefinite, and the uncharted. Nevertheless it remains productive, creative and independent in nature, in contrast to the defined, deterministic plan of fabric. Felt, like patchwork, migration, and nomadism, represents trajectories, and becomes inseparable from speed, or movement in undefined, open space.
To tie the above concepts together, and to underline their importance to the development of this essay over and above their relation to the film tracing Scott's exploration of the Antarctic, it is also relevant to refer to the importance of what Deleuze and Guattari develop as their concept of Nomadology and its adjunct, the War Machine. Nomadology could be alternatively defined as a condition of individualised independence from the solidifying tendencies of greater socio-economic, state-like structures as well as a naivety of approach in the confronting of uncharted, unmanageable, or otherwise generally unknowable environments. The "War Machine" is not actually a systematised structure for carrying out wars between peoples or ideologies, but, more pertinently, an intrinsic belief in the principles endemic to independence and free action in general. Nomads exhibit the traits of their namesake inhabitants of the smooth space of the desert, steppe, or arctic. Their actions are irreverent, and incalculable-empowering them with a elements of surprise, fierceness, and flexibility demanded by their chosen environments. Nomads exhibit strengths which enable them to conquer unfamiliar territory and to crumble ossified adversaries. Once successful, the only choice of the state, in confrontation with such ferociousness, is appropriation. The smooth cultural space of the nomad must be appropriated by the state if it is to survive. An analogical example of this relationship can be taken from A Thousand Plateaus wherein it is posited: "The State needs to subordinate hydraulic force to conduits, pipes, embankments, which prevent turbulence, which constrain movement to go from one point to another, and space itself to be striated and measured, which makes the fluid depend on the solid, and flows proceed by parallel, laminar layers. The hydraulic model of nomad science and the War Machine, on the other hand, consists in being distributed by turbulence across a smooth space, in producing a movement that holds space and simultaneously affects all of its points, instead of being held by space in a local movement from one specified point to another."9 The explanations of the concepts above now bring me to their relative importance in relation to the biographical movie about the great British explorer, Admiral Scott. Like a British version of an American Western movie, Scott is presented as a typical action hero. He is portrayed as the organised and rational conqueror of an unknown, virginal domain. Each scene is replete with vast, stunning landscapes, jubilant music, camaraderie among mates, and is chock-full of all the enterprise and imperialism that made many an American Western movie appealing. As developed by Jane Tompkins when describing the setting used in a Western, she uses the term tabula rasa to explain another relevant to the British film about Scott. She speaks of the "blankness of the plain", and how it: "implies - without ever stating - that this is a field where a certain kind of mastery is possible, where a person ( of a certain kind ) can remain alone and complete and in control of himself, while controlling the external world through physical strength and force of will."10 The vast blankness of the plain referred to by Tompkins is even more apropos in the case of Scott of the Antarctic, where Scott's journey is captured cinematographically with a most awe-inspiring emphasis on the grandeur of his topographic adversary. The whiteness and blankness of the scenes presented demand an encounter with the properties of the sublime in the same way that the Western portrays the visual qualities of the grandness of the American landscape. The vast, absent, oblivion portrayed visually in the film cannot help but conjure feelings of devastating awe and intimidation which are indicative of the nearness to the "limen" suggested by the word subliminal-- the moment when one is brought to the verge of absolute terror when confronted with the prospect of losing personal control. Consequent similarities in argument continue as Tompkins describes how: "The desert flatters the human figure by making it seem dominant and unique, dark against light, vertical against horizontal, solid against plain, detail against blankness. And the openness of the space means that domination can take place virtually though the act of opening one's eyes, through the act, even, of watching a representation of screen."11 Indeed there are many analogies to be drawn between Scott of the Antarctic, American Westerns, and any well-known action film. Like a gung-ho action hero (Rambo, Tarzan, et al.) Scott is portrayed as male, White, heterosexual, powerful, and industrious. He is a leader, and somewhat of a rebel. The commander turns his back on the comforts of civilised life available in his native England in order to conquer new territory. Nevertheless, it is arguable as to whether he is doing so for himself, or for the glory of his country. To a certain extent, one could maintain that in his desire to confront the uncharted smoothness of the virginal Antarctic, Scott acts as a nomad by deserting the striated, civilised state space that bore him. He turns his back on the comforts inherent to the lifestyle within his homeland, and breaks with tradition in order to set out to challenge unforeseeable dangers in the unknowable environment of the South Pole. Alternately, Scott could be seen as a functionary of his post-enlightenment, Cartesian upbringing. He invades the previously smooth space of Antarctica by daring to pierce the unknown challenges inherent to the world's southernmost continent, in order to metricise and delimit his enemy (nature) for the benefit and glory of the British Empire. In short, he could be said to be merely acting as an agent of the state apparatus which facilitated his expedition.
The most significant difference between the film about Scott's journey, and that of any generic Western, is that the adversary throughout the film is an inanimate one, Mother Nature. In any action or Western film, the plot structure is generally quite simple and requires a resolution between the hero of the story, and the assorted evil human adversaries (bad guys, natives, gods, etc). There is not usually a situation that a proper use of violence cannot sort out. But in this case, Scott's battle against the forces of nature is doomed to failure. During the course of the film, the Whiteness of Scott and his cohorts is continually debased as their faces become more and more black during their journey, and as the possibility of their survival looks less and less likely. Inevitably, like the White, Western Crusaders, who attempted to convert the Middle East to the ways of Christianity, Scott too fails against Mother Nature. The Crusaders were killed by Mother Nature's use of the malaria bacterium as inflicted upon the unsuspecting Europeans-analogously, Scott, despite his technically advanced approach to attacking the race to the South Pole, was a sad match for the powers of mother nature and her blinding, immobilising might.
It is interesting, too, to consider the term "Manifest Destiny" invented by John L. Sullivan in 1845, whereby it is implied that the White man is bound by conditions of his very nature to optimistically and energetically embrace the challenges of dominating an uncharted frontier. "The Western success myth (as does that of Scott of the Antarctic ) allows us to experience a sense of White historical mastery of time and space."12 Manifest Destiny is therefore a term which has both spatial and temporal qualities, substantiating white man's tendency to press ahead into new territories, for new colonisation and differentiation between established and un-established order-- and hence the conversion of smooth space to one that is striated.
The first territory conquered by man's striational obsessions was the sea, which provided the smooth adversary necessary for the development of a rationalist combination of Ptolomean geometry and trigonometric principles descended from Arabic mathematics. Distance, position, and form was determined in accordance to the striated space of the geographical coordinate system for navigating the world's oceans relative to longitude and latitude. This, in turn was made feasible by man's creative ability to fashion mechanisms to trace time, to calculate his position relative to the cosmos, and to plot his position on maps of his own making.
At the time of Scott's expedition, Antarctica may as well have been an ocean, as very little was known about the specifics of its terrain. For all intents and purposes, it embodied the elements of independence, mystery, and unpredictability endemic to any exemplar of smooth space. Although systems of navigation developed for the striation of the high seas had already pierced the virginity of the Antarctic well before any actual human could ever have hoped to set foot within it's domain, the Antarctic was still an amorphous, unknown territory that could only be attacked in a nomadic jaunt-- undefined, and dubious. The absence of today's airplanes and satellite photos required Scott to prepare himself for the unforeseen using all available "modern" contraptions within his grasp.Nevertheless, he was still required to plan his journey not by specific positions, but by the planned distances delineated by his efforts to deposit supplies. In this way, his journey can be seen as a striated, point to point attempt at penetration of the Antarctic.
Scott had to confront the difference between the theory of geographical striation and its practice. His goal was to translate the intensities of the Antarctic condition into extensive quantities. The Admiral had to metricise and neutralise his opponent, with drawings of his intricately planned, life-sustaining deposits, marked with dark-coloured flags against the formidable whiteness of his adversary. In reference to this approach one can consider Deleuze and Guattari's description of striated space as "termed metric, or arborescent, whose dimensions are independent of the situation and are expressed with the aid of units and points"13
Smooth space, alternately, is characterised not by positions and references, but by intensities. The smooth adversary confronted by Scott was a blinding maelstrom of wind and noise, forces and sonorous and tactile qualities-all of which can be said to be local operations in continuous variation. The film opens with sequences indicating the adversarial strengths of the Earth's southernmost content, and is interspersed with the confrontational howls of mother nature as conditions deteriorate.
Indeed the purpose of his journey is validated due to the desire of Scott, as well as that of those who funded him, to punctuate the virgin mass with a symbol of nationalism…the flag. It is the British flag (or maybe the symbol of the combined power of a group of people under one flag) that makes it not only possible, but necessary to striate a physical space as a representation of national assertiveness.
Although Scott's journey indicates a vagrant desire to striate Antarctica, it is, in itself, nonetheless an experience in Smooth space, due to its capacity (as defined by Deleuze and Guattari) for being "constructed by local operations involving changes in direction." Smooth space is directional rather than dimensional or metric, but I suppose it could be said that Scott's efforts lie somewhere between the two…nomadic and directional in his incognisance of the terrain confronting him, yet striated and metric insofar as their deposits of supplies were calculated and pre-determined.
During the obscurity of his return journey, Scott can no longer conjure a planar or otherwise spatial representation of his trajectory, but is reduced to a linear representation of the life-defining pit-stops quintessential to his survival. His representation of his surroundings (made in pencil by frozen fingers) now approaching, and rescinding to those of the Eskimo…the famous inhabitants of Antarctica's sister environment to the north.
The Eskimo has always accepted the smoothness of his surroundings. Nomadic in his methods of attaining food, and simplistic in his representations in art…he embraces his environment and works within nature as if he were a microfibre in the felt-like composition of his condition. He exists within a haptic reality-tactile and natural, as opposed to optical space indicative of industrialised, determinist, post-enlightenment man. As is indicated by his art, as well as by his lifestyle as a nomad of the north, let us consider the frequent visuality of his art wherein "animals have no land beneath them; the ground constantly changes direction, as in aerial acrobatics; the body is turned upside down; the 'monadological' points of view can be interlinked only on a nomad space; the whole and the parts give the eye that beholds them a function that is haptic rather than optical." Unconcerned by the preoccupations of striated space, independent of distant vision, the art of the Eskimo is unconcerned with horizon, for he represents thoughts and entities in free relation to one-another, rather than as opposed to a striated and pre-defined contextual setting of horizontals and verticals. It now becomes interesting to consider the relationship between the visual space of the nomad, and the ensuing political environment. "The space of nomad thought is qualitatively different from State space. Air against earth. State space is striated, or gridded. Movement in it is confined as by gravity to a horizontal plane, and limited by the order of that plane to preset paths between fixed and identifiable points. Nomad space is smooth, or open-ended. One can rise up at any point and move to any other. Its mode of distribution is the nomos: arraying oneself in an open space (hold the street), as opposed to the logos of entrenching oneself in a closed space ( hold the fort)."15
On a culture-wide level, the nomad approach is in strong opposition to that taken by the children of the enlightenment. Mesmerised and intoxicated with the ego-boosting promises rationalist thought, modernism bore striated space par excellence-systematising, defining, and optimising every process until held prisoner of the very tools it created. There is no direct reference to the profundity of Norway's success in arriving at the South pole before Britain, but the importance of Ahmenson's triumph by using dogs in comparison to Scott's failure and death due to his attempts to use machinery and domesticated ponies should not be overlooked. Notwithstanding, The prestige of being first, of achieving striation, and puncture is obvious in the structure of the film, and representative of the western mindset that created it.
In my reference to a culture-wide nomadic approach, what I mean is Eskimo culture in general embraces the nomadic, over the sedentary or state-like. This is not to say that Eskimo culture, or any other nomadic culture cannot have elements of striation, and visa versa. Here we come back to the concept of the "War Machine". According to Deleuze and Guattari, the War Machine could be summarised as a reverence of and adherence to the principles of Independence. It is both the belief of the value of independence and is the guarantor of that independence. Moses epitomises the ideals of the nomad when he decides to turn his back on the Egyptian State and heads into the desert to form his War Machine, learning from the trials of his ancestors-themselves nomads.
The idea of the desert in the previous example is of additional interest when thinking of the topographies of smooth space. As illustrated by the plains of the American Western movie, the terrain of Scott of the Antarctic, as well as by the topography of the desert, examples of smooth space do not always have to be as barren and daunting as those indicated by these specific citations, nor need they be uncluttered, or even physical whatsoever. The main importance of smooth space is that it be uncharted, and un-institutionalised…providing a refuge for those who don't fit into any system. It serves to weed out the nomads from what Gore Vidal would call the "funsters".
Nomads are representatives of "the War Machine", as are independent-minded thinkers within any apparatus, be it smooth or striated. In practice, a state apparatus is, in fact, dependent upon nomads and War Machines for growth. Like a necrotising bacterium, the "war machine takes shape against apparatuses that appropriate the machine…"16 Yet whether the confrontation between the State, and the War Machine comes from within the State; or from outside a State, but in confrontation to it-- is no matter. The State, if it is able to survive the confrontation, will appropriate the war machine with which it is confronted, and "striate" it into an apparatus for preservation of the organs of State control. As there exists the possibility of a War Machine, or a nomad, to exist within a state apparatus, it is conceivable that, whether knowingly or not, the efforts of the nomads within the structure of the State apparatus can be harnessed for growth of the striated whole. It may be, in fact, due to the Western, White relationship towards its elements of nomadic thought which facilitated the creation of the system of successful domination it has enjoyed for two thousand years. Western nations, as developed by the methodology of the White man, have struck a convenient and effective balance between freedom and enslavement. As explored by Manuel de Landa in his book A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History, there exist dangers when overemphasising the striated, to the detriment of the smooth-- as evidenced on a macro level by the stagnation and disappearance of China from the world stage when it dropped its smooth, networked, and sea-faring capital of Nanking for the fortified, internally focused, striated choice of Peking. "When, in 1421, the Ming rulers of China changed their capital city, leaving Nanking, and moving to Peking…the massive world-economy of China swung round for good, turning its back on a form of economic activity based on easy access to sea-borne trade. A new landlocked metropolis was now established deep in the interior and began to draw everything towards it…."17
How striated space once again creates smooth
Britain's attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole is an example of a national power structure defining its own validity through conquest of an emblematic territory challengeable only through the combined physical might necessary, and capable of a nation. Today, new virginal territories exist which are once again smooth and nomadic enough to require domination by the power structures responsible for their existence--but the rules have changed, and the new temptations for explorers are more individual than collective.
Like submarines, which rendered the striated environment of the navigated wavetops once again smooth by stealthily negotiating the space below the striated superterrain, so again man's creation and definition of an ultimately striated space created a new substrate or environment rife for smooth occupation. The forces at work within space continually striate it, but in turn, they create their own dimension for confrontation and , hence, creation of "the smooth"--as today we see the tools of modernism creating an environment which may contribute to its ultimate downfall. The digital era now created by Whiteness has established a new undersea of smoothness to be navigated by those invigorated by the principles of the War Machine and nomadic thought in general. Smooth space, be it the high seas before the mastery of navigation, the skies before flight, or any uncharted domain to be occupied, can be expressed as a state of statelessness. Deleuze and Guattari compare this space to a game of checkers. Unlike chess, which is a game wherein a state of stratified and policised relationships govern the possibilities of each piece's movement according to a hierarchy of functional possibilities, checkers places equal possibility in each piece's opportunity to create a dynamic space of combat. Its nomos is relative to the combined equivalent condition of possibility created by the positioning of all pieces present across the field of play at any one moment in time. In this way, each contender, each participant across the field is given equivalent value. If we relate this condition to the playing field of the internet, each person's login, and "click value" can be compared to a checker piece's position on a checkerboard. No longer is social position, income, education, or physicality a contributing factor to weight of opinion. Number, mass, and speed take precedence in value over indicators of qualitative merit. We have arrived at pure and utter democracy, void of value, and based on quantity rather than quality.
The new terrain of the smooth, this uncharted internet tool of communicative ubiquity could be compared to the market towns of medieval Europe. They functioned as accelerators of historical time, as commercial transactions spawned a necessity for homogenisation which has continued to develop into the free-trade world of international capitalism we know today. Today, mega-corporations act as anti-market nomads from within the remnants of socio-economic structure deposited by 19th century. These corporations race ahead in creating economies that can only maintain themselves if able to operate on a world-wide level. Corporations are now beginning to striate the smooth space of the internet, despite the efforts of parasitic operations performed by hackers and anti-capitalist lobbyists.
Despite its adversaries, Post-national supermodernism inherent to the internet is also evidenced by its ability to unite specific speeds of individuality independent of borders and time-zones. In the space of increasing homogenisation that exists first and foremost for economic reasons, there remains on explosion of heterogenous diversity. This diversity is exacerbated by the relatively inexpensive and immediate possibilities for communication over the web. The new public space for meeting and conferring remains an untilled substrate for nomadic enterprise and expression-- but the tools to govern this space are not cheap, and the striating grip of the state-like apparatuses that be is already daunting. Nevertheless, the exploration goes on. The new smooth space of supermodernism on the internet is there to be colonised by those with ambition and vision. The process will as exciting and dangerous as any other struggle to stake new territory; only now, one needn't raise an army or charter an ice cutter. Perspective nomads can now access smooth space from their cell phones, and soon enough from their clothing and their microwave ovens. The War Machine is now everywhere around us, like an ubiquitous Antarctic awaiting discovery. It is accessible from our laptops for individual exploration and population…to be defended from appropriation and ossification by the individual nomads that dare.
Endnotes
1. Richard Dyer, White (London, Routledge, 1997) p.15.
2. Ibid., p. 17.
3. Ibid., p. 31.
4. Allen S. Weiss, Mirrors of Infinity: The French Formal Garden and 17th-Century Metaphysics (New York, Princeton University Press, 1995) p. 77.
5. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (London, The Athlone Press, 1988) p. 373.
6. Weiss, op.cit., p.73.
7. Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Michigan, Black and Red, 1983) Chapter 1 titlepage.
8. Deleuze and Guattari, op.cit., p 362.
9. Deleuze and Guattari, op.cit., p 363.
10.Dyer, op.cit., p 34.
11. ibid., p. 34.
12. ibid., p. 36.
14. Deleuze and Guattari, op.cit., p. 370.
15. Deleuze and Guattari, op.cit., p. 494.
16. Deleuze and Guattari, op.cit., p. xiii.
17. Deleuze and Guattari, op.cit., p. 423.
18. Manuel De Landa, A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History(New York, Zone Books, 1997)p. 52.
copyright 2000© Gregory Mihalcheon and www.art-omma.org, design plex