Project Ideas/Ideals (Part infinity)

Sigil

The diagrammatic as outlined by Deleuze and Guattari:

“The diagrammatic or abstract machine does not function to represent, even something real, but rather constructs a real that is yet to come, a new type of reality.” (A Thousand Plateaus 142)

“The third component is diagrammatic: it consists in taking regimes of signs or forms of expression and extracting from them particles-signs that are no longer formalized but instead constitute unformed traits capable of combining with one another.”

As I construct the various fragments which will  eventually compose larger diagrams, I return to chapter five of A Thousand Plateaus.  Specifically, I am considering this chapter from a structural perspective.  How while I form a diagram that is effective, imaginative, provocative, and, most significantly, useful?  Shouldn’t the text/images serve a purpose beyond the informative level?  The answer seems evident already, especially in light of the conversation Professor Pruchnic and I had concerning Foucault’s texts (“Pruchnic here.  Hello Pruchnic”).  In regards to Deleuze and Guattari it seems quite evident that the diagram is inherently “combinatory.”  Here, I mean that the various pictures/mini-diagrams can and will work in conjunction with each other.  Yet, despite what the diagram already functions to provide - a system by which unformed traits extracted from particles-signs readily combine with one another – it still seems significant to recall that the relationships existing between said unformed traits must be considered thoroughly.  It seems that it is not simply enough to allow the pictures to be placed on the page together.  Diagrams of particular interest connect meaningfully or usefully.  This is where the digital asserts its significance as medium.  Interesting digital diagrams provide fruitful/useful links between various portions of the text.  It seems obvious that this can be considered the “real that is yet to come.”  Possibly this is the future-language, as Rotman suggests, an early form of Imageology, an interesting intervention on older sources, or, the force.

“The force is strong with you…”

In any event, my efforts so far have led me to consider the opportunity for layering.  This works on several levels.  First, the images will be attributed a certain texture or depth, in that I will use super imposition, and I will attribute them a certain form of tag (semantic).  Moreover, I will also work to provide as many sub-windows as possible, so that one can move from image to image, from subset to subset.  This structure will resist conventional narrative progression, in that it will allow intensities instead of an ultimate or definitive climatic experience. 

In total, the digital provides fruitful opportunities for the pursuit of the diagrammatic.  Yet, as suggested previously, it remains necessary to remember that the continuum of intensities is not chaotic; it is not without planning:

“…Continuum of intensities, combined emission of particles or signs-particles, conjunction of deterritorialized flows: these are the three factos proper to the plane of consistency; they are brought about by the abstract machine and are constitutive of destratification.  Now there is no hint in all of this of a chaotic white night or an undifferentiated black night.  There are rules, rules of “plan(n)ing,” of diagramming, as we will see later on, or elsewhere.  The abstract machine is not random; the continuities, emissions and combinations, and conjunctions do not occur in just any fashion” (70-71)