Difference and Repetition, Introduction, Deleuze

“The subject dealt with here is manifestly in the air. The signs may be noted: Heidegger’s more and more pronounced orientation towards a philosophy of ontological Difference; the structuralist project, based upon a distribution of differential characters within a space of coexistence; the contemporary novelist’s art which revolves around difference and repetition, not only in its most abstract reflections but also in its effective techniques; the discovery in a variety of fields of a power peculiar to repetition, a power which also inhabits the unconscious, language and art. All these signs may be attributed to a generalized anti-Hegelianism: difference and repetition have taken the place of the identical and the negative, of identity and contradiction. For difference implies the negative, and allows itself to lead to contradiction, only to the extent that its subordination to the identical is maintained. The primacy of identity, however conceived, defines the world of representation. But modern thought is born of the failure of representation, of the loss of identities, and of the discovery of all the forces that act under the representation of the identical. The modern world is one of simulacra. Man did not survive God, nor did the identity of the subject survive that of substance. All identities are only simulated, produced as an optical ‘effect’ by the more profound game of difference and repetition. We propose to think difference in itself independently of the forms of representation which reduce it to the Same, and the relation of different to different independently of those forms which make them pass through the negative.”

Gilles Deleuze
Difference and Repetition
Translated by Paul Patton

Columbia University Press
New York, 1994

Pg 5 “Preface to the Original Edition”

Martin Arnold

Martin Arnold uses repetition as a device to convey multiple ideas and meanings across his work.Some of his pieces are driven by a desire to interrogate the construct and to challenge the grammar and mechanics of Hollywood film making. Others (such as the example here) seem to function as a means of bringing the subtext and the unconscious driving forces behind the situations and narratives in to the foreground. Generally however both of these interests are present and interrelated in the work of Martin Arnold.

His work is fundamentally a commentary on the mechanisation of urban living, and also an exploration of domestic space and the political/sexual tensions that charge and shape the material environment and of interpersonal relations within the ‘family unit’.

His work is of relevance to my present studies because of my interest in ‘cut and paste’ and ‘feedback’ .

‘Consider Pièce Touchée: a fifteen-minute recollection
of eighteen seconds; a man who appears as a father
(a kind of symbolic patriarch), struggles to pass
through a door, enter a living room, and kiss the assumed
mother. It is a child’s view, a primal movie scene
and an umbilicus to the imaginary. The insignificance
of the view is undermined by its fixation. The seemingly
innocent act that forms the nucleus of the scene-a
kiss-is reworked in the spectator’s imaginary into a
series of violent gestures and assaults.
Regarding the displacement of the scene from its
larger context or flow, Arnold confesses his indulgence
in the sampled fragment or excerpt. Passing the original
material of The Human Jungle through a computerdriven
analytic projector that could both decrease and
accelerate the time of projection, Arnold became fixed
on individual moments within the film. “At a projection
speed of four frames per second the event was
thrilling; every minimal movement was transformed into
a small concussion.”26 Those concussions, or traumas,
are a feature of Arnold’s own memories of a childhood
immersed in Hollywood: “In my childhood,” he writes,
“Hollywood’s love and crime stories instilled in me
great expectations of adulthood. I absolutely wanted to
be a part of that exciting world. When I grew up, I was tremendously disappointed.”.’

Akira M. Lippit
Martin Arnold«s Memory Machine. In: Afterimage.
The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism. Vol 24 No.6, Rochester, NY 1997, S. 8 – 10

This exert refers to the significance of memory within the work Pièce Touchée (embedded within this post)

Why I think this work has been compared to a memory process is because of the way that time and space are transfigured by memory, in perhaps a similar to way to how the preexisting footage is re-worked by Arnolds’ process’s which re-member the footage.

The result is a kind of implosion, the impressions embed themselves in the present and refuse to filter through into memory, and a kind of feedback ensues whereby the past and the present become entangled and the machine that regulates experience gets jammed. I find it quite useful to think of this work as a kind cinematic feedback, based on the principle of sonic feedback, whereby a loop is created between input and output. In the films of Martin Arnold a similar kind of loop is created between sensation and memory.

It is easy to contextualize this kind of repatitious implosive style of work as being charechterisitc of an advanced capitalist, postmodern culture, in a situation whereby the media mirrors life and life mirrors the media and a situation similar to sonic feedback has accured. However this work also has in it’s essence a methodology that is shared with much medidative and trancendental rituals and practices that follow a similar mechanism based on repatition and attempt to blur the boundries between experience and perception. Chanting is an example where the name and often the supposed charechteristics or vitues of a particular god, saint or deity are repeated again and again untill the workd lose meaning, take new meaning, re-invent themselves and re-afferm themselves, while the experince moves between discomfort and illease with the body and the immediate to a sense of dislocation from these notions.

Reflections on Mid-point review.

Found the mid point review encouraging. + it was fantastic to finally show some work in a critical environment

The main thing I took from the, discussion overall, was a sense that my ideas are starting to take form, and the most encouraging thing was the sense that my research interests are starting to become evident within in my work, which is a very nice feeling.
Apart from this I understand that my work could be even more focused, and that I need to start refining my projects into more sophisticated, meticulous products. The most profound criticisms were that my work, particularly Metro-Nome were in some respects seen as ‘a piss take’, or a ‘childish poke’, in other words slightly juvenile and unrefined. Very grateful for these points in particular because, I feel they confirm what I already felt which was that I need to focus and work more, and to craft my pieces more meticulously, I think this will eliminate these kind if reactions. However I do feel my work in general is playful and would like to be perceived as such, fun?. Though obviously the term ‘Childish Poke’ is entirely negative and not what I want to communicate so have to work more on getting the balance right. I generally though I feel encouraged by the proceedings of the mid point review and know that my work was received well and praised in many ways also, and that people were interested by the themes, ideas and methods that I am exploring. I feel both encouraged and motivated by the discussions in general.

It is always difficult to notate such a big discussion so I decided to record just the Key words from what was being discussed, I will list these now, and also use them as tags.
Interested to see what this does to the tag cloud on my blog.

Key words from mid point review in (un-ordered)

Performance Piece, Chuck Norris, Mid-point-review, Documentation of a performance, Andy Warhol, Heart of the City, Childish Poke, Greenwich, Non-Metronymic, How to Capture Performance, Containers, Anecdote, Heartbeat, Pyramid, Glowing, Introduction, Edge of the Abyss, Light in the Sea, Education, Walking, Abstract, Mythology, Meditation, Repetition, Multiple Buildings, Getting closer to something unreachable, Kenneth Anger, Heart, Tour Guide, Mars, Beats, Rhythms, Interpretations, Transformations, Taking the Piss, Expansible, A beam across time, Simplicity, Metronome, Unit, Law, Flashing, Otherness, Window, Faces, Drama, Motorway, Iain Sinclair, Failed Bypass, Disembodiment, Project as a whole, Mimicry, Sound, Claire Bishop participation, Relation Aesthetics.