"1837: Of The Refrain" | The Cosmic and the Creative | Deleuze and Guattari's "A Thousand Plateaus"

[@a.smm100]

Thank you for posting this!

[@gavinyoung-philosophy]

@@a.smm100 Not a problem!

[@jero4059]

Very interesting. I recommend it for casual, amateur listener.

[@gavinyoung-philosophy]

Appreciate your time!

[@RolfGoebel]

An excellent exposition of Deleuze and Guattari! I was particularly interested in their references to sound and music, and it seems to me that sound is an especially good example of the notion of deterritorializing: On the one hand, sound co-defines the particular territory which it traverses, but in so doing, it always transgresses and dissolves that space's imaginary boundaries. The reason is that sound, in distinction from the heard edges of the visual, is always a flux, an inchoate dynamic from which particular instances--this ambulance siren or that musical composition--arise. The Romantic metaphysics of music expresses this idea very well when it postulates that listening to music is an act of transgressing the misery and banality of quotidian life (our customary territory) into a transcendent ("deterritorialized") realm of truth, beauty, and spiritual redemption. I also wonder if Deleuze and Guattari pay sufficient attention to the ontological and phenomenological difference between "live" sound and recorded sound. While the former co-defines territory through the co-presence of sound source (performing musicians) and audience, sound recording are predicated on the the non-simultaneity of sound source and its reception: Multiple listeners can listen to the same recording at different times and in different locations independent of the original performance site. I must admit that I haven't read "A Thousand Plateaus," but I wonder if Deleuze and Guattari's notions of the refrain and polyphony, which you explained very convincingly, are sufficient in accommodating these broader features of sound and music, as they are currently debated in sound studies.

[@gavinyoung-philosophy]

Such thoughtful additions! They don’t necessarily comment on live vs recorded music, but they do make frequent references to John Cage who is infamous for his use of recorded phenomena to creative a soundscape that maintains a certain “active” or “live” element by not perfectly delineating how a sound will play out in the composition. John Cage’s “City Life” I find to be an interesting element of this phenomenon whereby even recorded sounds signify the ambiguity and simultaneous vitality of daily life.

[@RolfGoebel]

@@gavinyoung-philosophy Interesting! I need to listen to "City Life". Incidentally, Cage's (in-)famous 4'33'' may be the most radically deterritorializing Avantgarde composition, as it literally creates a sonic non-space with the actual territory of the concert hall in which it is performed!

[@gavinyoung-philosophy]

@@RolfGoebel Ah yes! The ability of music to isolate the deterritorializing effects of space itself is fascinating!

[@Bfsti]

😮 lit

[@gavinyoung-philosophy]

Thanks