Clive Cazeaux

Clive Cazeaux |Cardiff Metropolitan University, Wales, UK Day 1, 9 November, De Bijloke Foyer, 14:00-16:00 This is not a formal academic paper but a seminar offered as an occasion where artists and philosophers can discuss the relationship between Deleuze and examples of artistic research, with a view to identifying some of the openings and obstacles created by the relationship. I am a philosopher based in an art school (in Cardiff, Wales, UK) interested in the philosophy of artistic research. I am not a Deleuzian but am interested in the reasons why Deleuze’s work has become so influential for artistic research. At the centre of my interest is how we think about producing, experiencing, and evaluating artistic research in Deleuzian terms. For it seems that three factors come into play at this point, but the way in which they interact is far from straightforward. Deleuze’s philosophy operates through an extensive vocabulary of technical terms that draw upon and take issue with the history of philosophy in the interests of defining an ontology. Art is assigned a specific power within the ontology. However, art is already determined by a large number of histories and theories, many of which have been absorbed as immediate, subjective responses—for example, ideas informed by representation, expression, metaphor. An account, such as Deleuze’s, that gives art a specific ontological status is going to be at odds with these. How do we produce, experience, describe, or evaluate a work of art when conflicting ontologies are at play? There is the question of art as research and the tensions that arise once the contest between art and knowledge is acknowledged. A Deleuzian framework might assist here, on account of its emphasis on art’s relationship with other domains and its metaphysics of becoming. But the question remains of how a theory of knowledge can be extracted from Deleuze, and how it differs from or goes beyond Nietzsche’s already iconoclastic epistemology and use of metaphor. The seminar will be devoted largely to discussion. I will give a ten-minute introduction in which I set out the questions above with reference to two or more pieces of research from artist-researchers who are exhibiting or performing at “The Dark Precursor.” Permission to discuss works will be sought from the artist-researchers concerned, but I shall also have representations of Deleuzian artistic research available as stand-by references. This means that the art-research works will supply the percepts and affects (and concepts too, arguably) that impinge upon the concepts used in philosophical discussion. The seminar is offered in the spirit of collaboration, and is motivated by the contention that there is not enough looking at art and artistic research in ontological terms. Due to philosophy’s reluctance to engage with the particularity of the senses (Deleuze might be an exception), and also because, as academics and artists, we increasingly see ourselves as “deliverers of content,” the value of listening, looking, responding, and drawing aesthetic judgement into philosophical thinking and attending to what emerges when one form collides with another is often overlooked.

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International Conference on Deleuze and Artistic Research

DARE 2015 | Orpheus Institute | Ghent | Belgium | 9-11 November 2015

O P E N - A C C E S S R I C H - M E D I A P R O C E E D I N G S

Edited by Paulo de Assis and Paolo Giudici

Cardiff Metropolitan University, Wales, UK

When Ontologies Collide in Artistic Research

Day 1, 9 November, De Bijloke Foyer, 14:00–16:00

This is not a formal academic paper but a seminar offered as an occasion where artists and philosophers can discuss the relationship between Deleuze and examples of artistic research, with a view to identifying some of the openings and obstacles created by the relationship. I am a philosopher based in an art school (in Cardiff, Wales, UK) interested in the philosophy of artistic research. I am not a Deleuzian but am interested in the reasons why Deleuze’s work has become so influential for artistic research. At the centre of my interest is how we think about producing, experiencing, and evaluating artistic research in Deleuzian terms. For it seems that three factors come into play at this point, but the way in which they interact is far from straightforward.

Deleuze’s philosophy operates through an extensive vocabulary of technical terms that draw upon and take issue with the history of philosophy in the interests of defining an ontology. Art is assigned a specific power within the ontology.

However, art is already determined by a large number of histories and theories, many of which have been absorbed as immediate, subjective responses—for example, ideas informed by representation, expression, metaphor. An account, such as Deleuze’s, that gives art a specific ontological status is going to be at odds with these. How do we produce, experience, describe, or evaluate a work of art when conflicting ontologies are at play?

There is the question of art as research and the tensions that arise once the contest between art and knowledge is acknowledged. A Deleuzian framework might assist here, on account of its emphasis on art’s relationship with other domains and its metaphysics of becoming. But the question remains of how a theory of knowledge can be extracted from Deleuze, and how it differs from or goes beyond Nietzsche’s already iconoclastic epistemology and use of metaphor.

The seminar will be devoted largely to discussion. I will give a ten-minute introduction in which I set out the questions above with reference to two or more pieces of research from artist-researchers who are exhibiting or performing at “The Dark Precursor.” Permission to discuss works will be sought from the artist-researchers concerned, but I shall also have representations of Deleuzian artistic research available as stand-by references. This means that the art-research works will supply the percepts and affects (and concepts too, arguably) that impinge upon the concepts used in philosophical discussion.

The seminar is offered in the spirit of collaboration, and is motivated by the contention that there is not enough looking at art and artistic research in ontological terms. Due to philosophy’s reluctance to engage with the particularity of the senses (Deleuze might be an exception), and also because, as academics and artists, we increasingly see ourselves as “deliverers of content,” the value of listening, looking, responding, and drawing aesthetic judgement into philosophical thinking and attending to what emerges when one form collides with another is often overlooked.

Clive Cazeaux is Professor of Aesthetics at Cardiff School of Art and Design, Wales, UK. He is the author of Metaphor and Continental Philosophy: From Kant to Derrida (Routledge 2007) and the editor of The Continental Aesthetics Reader (Routledge 2011). He is presently writing a book entitled Art, Research, Philosophy, due for publication by Routledge in 2016. He can be found online at the Art Philosophy Junction and contacted there.

Email: ccazeaux@cardiffmet.ac.uk

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Clive Cazeaux

When Ontologies Collide in Artistic Research