User:Lbattich/th - rough sketches

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rough outlines

Initial draft project: Gilles Deleuze's theory of the proper name

This essay is concerned with critically examining the concept of the proper name as it is developed through the works of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, addressing this development, or rather trajectory, in particular texts from different periods, Nietzsche and Philosophy, A Thousand Plateaus and What is Philosophy?. The thesis will be concerned in elucidating a Deleuzian perspective on the theory of the signature and the proper name, in close relation to the work on authorship by thinkers as Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, commonly associated with the 1960s discourse of the ‘death of the author’. This discourse generally hinges on the trope of the author’s intention and its relevancy (or lack thereof). I will seek to examine the role of the proper name beyond the question of intentionality, and rather as a mediator in-between the physical person and its subjectivity, the author-function exercised by it, and the text or artwork where this function is manifest.

The philosophical position of Gilles Deleuze (and Feliz Guattari) provides a platform to approach this question. On one hand Deleuze provides the theoretical tools to examine the construction of identity through the encounters of underlying forces. On the other hand Deleuze's own remarks apropos the proper name point to a theory based not on representation, but rather on 'effects.' This paper will propose that, following Deleuze’s analyses, the proper name conveys an act of depersonalization, opening up different multiplicities that pervade the named author, and are only actualized depending on the conditions of the reader.

  • Key question:

How can Deleuze’s position assist in both elucidating and problematizing what the role of the proper name is in our relationship to a body of work or a set of concepts, as readers and authors, and how authorial subjectivities are constructed by the use of proper names?

[In a way, Deleuze is quite conservative on his approach to the use of proper names and authorial relevance, especially in What is Philosophy?...]

to do

Describe the initial arguments:

  • The notions and arguments on the notion of the conceptual personae, as explicated in What is Philosophy?
  • Deleuze's arguments on the proper name as focus of intensisties, and the signature as opening up different multiplicities that pervade the named author (as advanced in A Thausand Plateaus, especially Ch.1)


Alternative project: Nostalgia and strategies of appropriation

The question of appropriation in art and of plagiarism is usually framed through a discourse on authorship. In this project, however, my aim will be to explore the manner in which appropriation can operate as a symptom of cultural nostalgia. My investigation thus is not concerned directly with the question of "who is the author", and similar questions on copyright. These discourse are usually centered on the subject, (the author), even if subjecthood and identity is blurred and brought into critique. My investigation is not concerned so much with the individual producer, but with the cultural undercurrents that motivate practices of appropriation.

The first part os the essay would be to provide a historical background, considering various practices of appropriation art. The study would concentrate from the 1960s onwards, where practices of appropriation was developed as a particular artistic strategy of its own. This strategy peaked in the late 1980s, in the works of artists such as Sherry Levine and other associated with the 'Picture Generation.'

With the hindsight of historical distance, my approach to this practices is not concerned so much with the physical proprieties of appropriated artwork (the fact that appropriative works “look alike” the original material), but rather with the shift from the sensory qualities of a work of art to the conceptual register, and the specific agenda behind each artwork.

The project is informed by the position that in appropriative art of the 20th century, the modern notion of authorship was challenged, but not subverted.

This critical reading of the history of appropriation art in the second half of the 20th century provides a platform to consider contemporary practices of appropriation.

The main part of the thesis paper are centered in this area.

Key question: How can we conceptualize contemporary practices of appropriation under a framework other than such authorial discourse? My investigation would concentrate on contemporary practices of appropriation in relation to cultural nostalgia.

Case studies:

The conceptual framework would also be developed in conjunction with case studies. These would include, among other potential cases, the analysis of certain trends in what has been called 'conceptual writing', and more precisely 'uncreative writing' – with Kenneth Goldsmith being the central spokesperson of this practice – and certainly its most famous practitioner.

Annotations

Bibliography

compiled rough bilbiography (By default, this bibliography is incomplete in regards to material approached)

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