The Production of the New and the Care of the Self

O'Sullivan, Simon D.. 2008. The Production of the New and the Care of the Self. In: Simon D. O'Sullivan and Stephen Zepke, eds. Deleuze, Guattari and the Production of the New. London: Continuum, pp. 91-103. ISBN 0826499538 [Book Section]

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Abstract or Description

Thesis 1: The new does not arrive from some ‘other place’ (transcendence), but is produced from the very matter of the world, after all what else is there? And where else can the new come from? The new then involves a recombination of already existing elements in and of the world (a new dice throw as Deleuze might say). The new would then be a repetition, but with difference. As such the new must be distinguished from fashion, which involves a repetition of the same, that is, does not really involve a radical recombination of elements. However, the new is not opposed to fashion, but rather accelerates
certain of its operating logics, namely the production of difference. After all, there must be a certain amount of difference for fashion to be what it is. Fashion in this sense is the near enemy of art.

Here is my first question: is it enough to affirm a recombination of matter in order to produce something new? For example, a new art (or indeed a new subjectivity)? Would this not merely involve playing with that which is already here, already has reality as it were? Or, following Deleuze, would not such a recombination involve playing with that which is ‘possible’, the latter being a mirror-image or isotope of the real, in fact being the same, conceptually speaking, only lacking reality. Or to phrase this question in a slightly different manner: is there really such a difference between the new in art and the new in fashion? And if there is such a difference, as I think there is, then what else is needed to
produce the new?

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Book Section

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Visual Cultures

Dates:

DateEvent
2008Published

Item ID:

4175

Date Deposited:

18 Apr 2011 12:50

Last Modified:

07 Jul 2017 14:26

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/4175

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