reading and symbols

A thousand plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari reveals the complexity of connection and interaction and the difficulty in defining it through the rhizome. Things are connected not black and white, up and down, but rather to me anyway it’s more like a web. In a way, separation and categorization is denied at least in the linear or typical sense. Rhizome challenges the structures we follow that are not necessarily natural but somehow socially constructed. Rhizome connects power structures, language, art, science, etc in an endless web that intertwines all. Language though, is not ever alone but constructed from and embedded with everything else in life like power structures, social constructs, etc. Borges’ The Garden of Forking Paths is a perfect combination with the Deleuze and Guattari reading, because it further emphasizes the interconnectivity among everything, and it is those connections that create situations. Communication is taken to a level where we see that language, talking, or what we would typically think of as communication, is only a part of communication an not necessarily the most effective. Communication can take place in media even with the absence of spoken word, like when Tsun kills Albert to reveal the name of the city Germany was to attack.

History: I first thought of a talking book to embody the orality and literacy aspects of history. Then, I read the comment about the eyes and how history is how we perceive and adding the sun glasses adds the personalized aspect of history. This symbol would capture the complexity of the use of the senses in understanding, recognizing, or just viewing history.



Time: Telescope from the scientist's idea in Waking Life about the telescoping of time was my first thought, but then after doing the readings, I think a web would be a cool symbol for time representing Borjes and Dleuze and Guattari's angle on connectivity. And time is the greatest tool of connecting.