E. H. Gombrich writes about illusion that “It consists”, “in the conviction that there is only one way of interpreting the visual pattern in front of us” 1 This applies to the external (in front of the body) visual patterns and the judgement of appearances of something placed “out there”. However, this body (observer) is not only “convinced” of a singular “point of view” but also recognises the effect (illusion) as such. Is it possible that perception and visual interpretations such as illusion could open the way for models, definitions and transcendental structures or textures? If we agree to M.M. Ponty’s formula of a phenomenological study on perception -“chiasma”- , then the “illusory” visual pattern consists in its multiplicity and the obverse- reverse chiasmic relation of see and being seen . 2

Deleuze would probably agree to the fact that perception is the “device”, which enables organic and inorganic systems to interfere mutually by defining and encoding data. “I have a body” is the consciousness of its transcendental condition - from the actual to the virtual. Given this transitional state, is it possible to re-shape our perception models when bodies become perception models themselves?  In order to investigate this possibility, we will focus on certain key “baroque” concepts, such as resemblance, texture and surface, to see how far we can go with Deleuze’s  “fold” and the “transparency effect”.

In the figure shown here, borrowed from G.Deleuze’s “The Fold, Leibniz and the Baroque” (p.111) bodies come as the result of an interaction between a dominant and a dominated in a flowing relationship of belonging. This condition could represent the basic model of distribution of power in simple relationships between  bodies, systems, subsystems, societies, of actual or virtual status.

Fig.1

G.Deleuze uses this figure to describe graphically the “vinculum”, in which monad exist within “a complex relation that comprises variable terms and one constant term” (The Fold, p.110/111). Once the vinculum represents established relations within systems, power emerges as the result of multi-layered vinculums (vincula) or strata (subsystems).

I will use “Neo-Baroque” as an a priori term, in an attempt to link concepts and bring together visual experiences. Key issues relevant to the Baroque, such as resemblance, texture and surface are equally important to the interpretation of data systems. These are stratified sub-systems formed by multi-layered information structures. Bodies are part of this textured surface and they manifest themselves as multiplicities within hierarchical networks, inaccessible information (encrypted data), passwords and missing links (URLs). Any user of networks is an impersonal, autonomous being, one of the millions virtual identities that interfere, dissolve and may disperse within the chaos of the hypertext society. However, it is possible that an http entity may lead to a certain autonomous permanent identity. 3 Abandoned web locations, not updated Urls and domain names are sedentary data similar to the sedentary state, described by Deleuze & Guattari in “A Thousand Plateaus”. 4 Therefore, surviving as data in flux within sedentary information and virtual social classes is possible only by assimilating functions, conditions and states of organic bodies.

How do you assimilate desire and instinct? How do you make yourself emotional data? Is it just by means of representation or description? Where does the metamorphosis begin?

Flows of data form textured layers of controlled information. It seems appropriate at this point to refer to Deleuze’s description of texture in “The Fold” (chapter 3: What is Baroque, p.36) as in figure 2.

Fig.2 

Deleuze draws texture as the cohesion of strata in a perpetual displacement of contour, determined by active and passive forces. 5 In a similar way, data form flows of info-strata determined by interactive relationships. Moreover, these info-strata form an epi-strata, as an extension or projection of the outer geological layer/surface. (fig.3)

Fig.3    

As a result of this, we experience the disappearance of the centre of a world in the process of metamorphosis. Physical bodies are displaced “out there” on the info-strata belonging to various invented communities (network neighbourhoods) within virtual states (network corporations). The “outer” or “projected” body appears as a congregate of transparent and opaque “data-membranes” or info-strata. The metamorphosis takes place here in a space where perspective becomes “tabulation, the grid on which lines, numbers, and changing characters are inscribed” 6           

 Choice and self-determination are typical of a democratic status. In the case of the projected power/state to the virtual information strata, democratic values are projected to the displaced -within the virtual state apparatus- and controlled society of networks. Nevertheless, the vinculum assumes the characteristics of a textured super structure in flux. (fig.4).

Fig.4           

When Gibson introduced the term “cyber”, he was fully aware of the forthcoming changes. 7 Cyber comes from the Greek word “kubernw”, which means “govern” by means of control. A dominata of fig.1 and a dominata as in fig.4, form a composite society of classes of data, as in World Wide Web, which can be manipulated by the user and monitored by the server.

Fig.5      

Networks are concentric aggregates of indexed data, as opposed to the World Wide Web that is made of de-centric flows of information and multiple entryways. These entryways are activated with the interaction of the user during the Log in and Log out. Hyper-textual multiple entryways monitor data that resemble the user (profile). 8 The notion of resemblance and the use of icons in the computer interface indicate a very important issue; the fact that we are not far from what constitutes the notion of Baroque. Giovanni Careri, in his study “Bernini, Flights of love, The Art of Devotion” explores resemblance as the main characteristic of Bernini’s sculpture and architecture. 9 There are numerous examples of baroque painting like  Andrea Pozzo’s “The Apotheosis of St Ignatius”, 1691, where painting resembles architecture and consequently physical space.

This equitation or rather the relation of resemblance could suggest the virtual space of computer interface (Windows, Icons). This can vary from the basic user interaction with a device, to the most sophisticated applications where an icon or window resemble space, objects, actions or even behaviours. I will borrow a quotation from Malcolm McCullough’s book “Abstracting Craft: the practical digital hand.” 10 In the chapter on interface he quotes AutoCad author John Walker from his essay “Through the looking glass”(1989).

“Today’s fascination with user interfaces is an artefact of how we currently operate computers-with screens, keyboards, and pointing devices. Earliest manipulations were direct: twiddling bit switches, dedicated use. Next came batch jobs: stacks of cards. Next conversational, interactive, time sharing. Next, text menu-driven. Next, graphical, object orientated, event driven. Barriers were: first, front panel; second, countertop; third, terminal; fourth, menu hierarchy; fifth, screen. What comes next is a cyberspace system that provides a three-dimensional interaction experience that includes the illusion that  one is inside a world rather than observing an image."

Under these conditions of computing interface, Baroque is finally realised within illusions, haptic visions and actualised phenomena. Power is not any longer a physical attribute to a vinculum, but its perception. And if this is the case, the interactive relationship between interfaces and multiple users is organised according to a certain hierarchy of accessible (transparent) and inaccessible (opaque) data. As concerns the distribution of power, this is a matter of hierarchical con-centric and opaque flows.

We have seen so far that resemblance (the condition of virtual), textures (the flows of information between networks) and layers (the hierarchical indexed stored data) constitute a new conceptual order and relationship between the actual and the virtual. The illusionary Baroque space became the theatre of data events where hierarchical  “opaque” systems of information of controlled URLs opposed to “transparent” hacked interfaces generating de-centric flows. Being within the info-strata might be the clue to the forthcoming visual experience. An altered missing self within a colonized screen. Power -or rather its manifestation- becomes the fragile appearance of an impenetrable centre that is impossible to locate, where “here and then” replaces the “here and now” as an asynchronous “allegorical” device.

1. See, p.210, E.H. Gombrich, (1996), Art&Illusion, study in the psychology of pictorial representation, London , Phaidon Press.

2. In G. Deleuze’s The fold, p.99 there is a similar “chiasmic” interpretation: “ The monad expresses the world “according to” its body, according to the organs of its body, according to the action of other bodies upon itself”.

See also Scott Bukatman’s comment on virtual reality in his book “Terminal Identity, The virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction”: “Virtual reality significantly extends the sensory address of existent media to provide an alternate and manipulable space. Multiple users can enter the same virtual reality and play virtual catch or otherwise interact on this virtual plane. They can appear to each other in different forms, or as different species or genders –a simulated, but powerful polymorphism is at work here. To be installed into such an apparatus would be to exist on two planes at once: while one’s objective body would remain in the real world, one’s phenomenal body would be projected into the terminal reality. In an ecstatic exaggeration of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological model, world and body comprise a continually modifying feedback loop, producing a terminal identity without the terminal – a cybersubject.”

3. See http://www.mouchette.org/ . Mouchette is a web location , as well as a ficticious being with her own fan club and she has enemies too the http://www.ihatemouchette.org/

4. See Deleuze,G. and Guattari, F. (1988). A Thousand Plateaus.  London:Athlone Press

5. For G. Deleuze’s description of texture see The fold p. 36

6. Deleuze refers to Leo Steinberg’s, (1972), “The flatbed Plan of the painting”, in Other Criteria, New York: Oxford University Press, commenting on Rauchenberg’s painting. 

7. See, Gibson, W.(1995). Neuromancher, Voyager

8. For a comprehensive introduction to Hypertext theories, see, Ray McAleese, (1999),”Hypertext, Theory into Practice”, Exeter: Intelect books

9. Deleuze refers constantly to resemblance in The fold and especially in Part III, Chapter 7, Perception in the Folds, p. 95-96.

10. See, Malcolm McCullough. (1998) “Abstracting Craft: the practical digital hand.”  CIT Press.

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This paper is an adapted version of an extract of the the author's ongoing thesis "Folds and Transparencies: essential elements for a contemporary discourse on Baroque". It was presented at the conference "Evil, Critical interventions: Obsene powers", John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, UK, 1999