Motto: »One day the century may be Deleuzian.« [Michel Foucault]

Gilles Deleuze [1925-1995] was more than a university professor who read widely and wrote comparatively little. He was a philosopher who, as his life came to an end, asked: what is philosophy? In what respects does it differ from art and science? Is it an art in its own right that invents concepts?

Rhizomatics, nomadology, wishing machines, non-organic life, deterritorialisation, »agencement« [assemblage] are all terms that Deleuze coined. Or do they stem from his friend, Félix Guattari [1930-1992], who co-authored his key works?
Philosophy is friendship. Deleuze philosophises with friends and writes books with them and about them: Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Bergson, Foucault... But they don't have to be philosophers since he was just as fond of poets, composers and artists: Melville, Proust, Kafka, both the Lawrences, Carroll, Artaud, Beckett, Luca..., Bacon, Klee..., Godard, Resnais, Welles..., Boulez, Schumann, Berio.

It is astonishing just how much he assimilated and how precise he was in the process: mathematics, pop, psychoanalysis, film, electronic music... Those who pin their hopes on friendship also see themselves as opponents: anti-Oedipus, anti-Hegel, anti-Wittgenstein... Deleuze has a seductive way of philosophising, he straddles the boundaries of science, the university and academic style. He sympathises with the arts while at the same time making a major effort to renew philosophy and liberate it from the power of opinions, propositions and functions.

Art cannot be produced by means of neuroses, affections, perceptions and opinions. The artist is a doctor, not a patient.

Deleuze calls art a sensory block consisting of percepts and affects, and the arts he uses to illustrate this are literature, painting, music, film, theatre, opera, architecture and Beckett's television plays. While the book What is Philosophy? is motivated by a didactic Eros, his concern with arts is designed to benefit their poetics.
Peter Gente

This festival is the third event in the ZKM series on Art and Philosophy. The presentations given at last year's festival, »Michel Foucault and the Arts – Problems of a Genealogy«, will be published by Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt, in April 2004.
 

Program

Friday 24 October 2003

10:00 hrs
Peter Weibel, Peter Gente /Opening
Aide mémoire by Michel Tournier
11:00 hrs
Jean-Clet Martin De la dramatisation des images

12:00 hrs
Break

14:00 hrs
Clemens-Carl Härle Deleuze and the question: What does speaking mean?

15:00 hrs
Franco Berardi La schizoanalyse face à l'épidémie psychopatique actuelle dans le contexte de la société Sémiocapitaliste.
Un Hommage á Félix Guattari

16:00 hrs
Tom Holert A different policy of the popular?

17:00 hrs
Break

17:30 hrs
Thomas Hirschhorn The Deleuze-Monument

18:30 hrs
Break

19:00 hrs
Opening of the Exhibition

20:00 hrs
Walter Zimmermann: Kindheitsblock members of the ensemble recherche

20:30 hrs
Le Grand Escroc /Film [Director: Jean-Luc Godard, F 1964] (tbc)
 

Saturday 25 October 2003

10:00 hrs
Marcus SteinwegImmanence, sovereignty, affirmation and the good fortune not to be immortal. Deleuze with Blanchot
11:00 hrs
René Aguigah Ahat is a literary machine?

12:00 hrs
Break

14:00 hrs
Videos and lectures Samuel Beckett

16:00 hrs
Break

16:30 hrs
Danielle Cohen-Levinas Une philosophie de l´hyperbole est-elle possible en musicque: D´après une lecture de Deleuze

17:30 hrs
Matthieu Carièrre reads Deleuze

18:30 hrs
Break

20:00 hrs
Schatten der Engel/Film [Director: Daniel Schmid, CH 1976]

22:00 hrs
Deleuze Sound Night Live-Performances by Achim Szepanski [Mille Plateaux], Richard Pinhas and Gérôme Schmidt , Foyer

Sunday 26 October

10:00 hrs
Michaela Ott Virtuality in philosophy and Deleuze’s film theory

11:00 hrs
Raymond Bellour L'image de la pensée: art ou philosophie, ou au-delà?

12:00 hrs
Break

14:00 hrs
Hannes Böhringer On the Ritornell

15:00 hrs
Joseph Vogl What is an event?

16:00 hrs
Break

16:30 hrs
Robert Fleck talks about art

17:30 hrs
Henning Schmidgen On philosophy as the art of coining terms

18:30 hrs
Bernd Stiegler Book presentation: Gilles Deleuze: Die einsame Insel, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 2003

19:00 hrs
Break

20:00 hrs
Ein neues Leben [Peau neuve] /Film [Director: Emilie Deleuze, F 1999] (tbc)

Organization / Institution

ZKM