While I always struggle with Deleuze, there are bits of his writings that resonate. In Marina Kassianidou's "Transferring Marks", she discusses one of the most interesting concepts of his and Guattari's work (that I have read so far). She writes:
Deleuze and Guattari insist that becoming is not the same as imitating or
identifying with something other.112 For them, imitation involves either resemblance of
terms or correspondence of relations.113 In both of these cases, difference is suppressed
as imitation replicates what already exists. It leads to more of the same and there is no
change, no creation.
This concept forms a neat intersection with my work in video and my research on the necessity of challenging movie experiences.
Regarding the former, examining otherness and metamorphosis or types of becoming has been a focal point for my work. In my current, ongoing project, tentatively called Gemini and comprised of two short films, I examine how technology inspires, creates or forces changes in our identities. The narratives are centered on an experimental teleportation technology and the scientists who develop and use it. Unbeknownst to the participants, the teleportation technology doesn't function as they expect it to, and in fact, functions as a kind of translator rather than teleporter. It's not clear whether the participant is split or transformed or perhaps even killed in a sense but what does become clear is that they are different than they were before they used the machine. Far from the usual "what happens when man plays god" anti-science motif that motivates most science fiction films, Gemini is meant to explore identity as a kind of product. That is to say, what is becoming if it stems from an act of interference or manipulation. Further, what is the self if the self does not create it? And how much must we retain of the pre-becoming self for the post-becoming self to be us? And if we enter Deleuze and Guattari's idea (as paraphrased by Kassianidou) that "difference is suppressed as imitation replicates what already exists", what might happen to a character that has used the teleporter and become something else, if that something else is an imitation of the them that already existed? This ties into one of the central questions in several of my works; what is the relationship between memory and the self? If the main character of Gemini uses the teleporter and is changed by that, losing some memories and finding new ones that she did not previously possess, is she no longer herself? What would we do if a loved one suddenly remembered events that we did not or had desires/beliefs that conflict with our understanding of them? Or if it became clear that they were only imitating certain behaviors in order to adhere to our conception of them? Mostly, I suppose, what happens when we become something else?
If only, I can become a version of myself that understands Deleuze.
This concept forms a neat intersection with my work in video and my research on the necessity of challenging movie experiences.
Regarding the former, examining otherness and metamorphosis or types of becoming has been a focal point for my work. In my current, ongoing project, tentatively called Gemini and comprised of two short films, I examine how technology inspires, creates or forces changes in our identities. The narratives are centered on an experimental teleportation technology and the scientists who develop and use it. Unbeknownst to the participants, the teleportation technology doesn't function as they expect it to, and in fact, functions as a kind of translator rather than teleporter. It's not clear whether the participant is split or transformed or perhaps even killed in a sense but what does become clear is that they are different than they were before they used the machine. Far from the usual "what happens when man plays god" anti-science motif that motivates most science fiction films, Gemini is meant to explore identity as a kind of product. That is to say, what is becoming if it stems from an act of interference or manipulation. Further, what is the self if the self does not create it? And how much must we retain of the pre-becoming self for the post-becoming self to be us? And if we enter Deleuze and Guattari's idea (as paraphrased by Kassianidou) that "difference is suppressed as imitation replicates what already exists", what might happen to a character that has used the teleporter and become something else, if that something else is an imitation of the them that already existed? This ties into one of the central questions in several of my works; what is the relationship between memory and the self? If the main character of Gemini uses the teleporter and is changed by that, losing some memories and finding new ones that she did not previously possess, is she no longer herself? What would we do if a loved one suddenly remembered events that we did not or had desires/beliefs that conflict with our understanding of them? Or if it became clear that they were only imitating certain behaviors in order to adhere to our conception of them? Mostly, I suppose, what happens when we become something else?
If only, I can become a version of myself that understands Deleuze.
There's this comment that Derrida made (and I'm afraid I can't remember where...I heard it in a lecture) which goes something like this: Whenever something dies (even a mosquito), the whole world dies. In other words, the world is no longer the same world because now it doesn't contain that little creature. There's a suggestion of constant regeneration and change that affects not only individual lives but the whole world. That might be another way to think of the issues you are dealing with...the self and the world are becoming together.
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