Completed Painting: '[dc]circuit 04/Deleuze'

 

'[dc]circuit 04/Deleuze', Acrylics, Mixed Media & Paper Collage on Panel,
600 mm x 400 mm, 2026

My set of five ‘[dc]circuit’ paintings have been complete for a little while now, although I’ve been a bit slow in compiling posts like this to accompany them. Let’s crack straight on then, with ‘[dc]circuit 04/Deleuze’. With this one, we arrive at a dedication to the presiding philosophical presence behind all of the work I’ve been producing lately under the ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ banner. To be scrupulously fair, it should probably be titled for Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari jointly, as the specific textual reference is to their co-authored book, ‘A Thousand Plateaus’ [1.], but that risks making an already abstruse title even more unwieldy. Let’s just take it as read that Guattari was a key player in the formation of what we now regard as Deleuzian thought, both through that key text, and its foundational predecessor, ‘Anti-Oedipus’ [2.]. 

The ideas that Deleuze formulated, both with Guattari and in his own right, can be seen as some of the most radical and potentially obscure contributions to the mid twentieth century, post-Marxist (French) canon, and I’m not going to claim to be any kind of expert - or that I fully comprehend half of what they wrote. Even if I was across it all, there’s far more there than any painting (or blog post) can fully encompass. What is true though, is that even at their most dense or confusing, ‘AO’ and ‘1000P’ can provide a thrilling read of the kind that makes even the act of mis-understanding stimulating - and an incentive to keep reaching for further illumination. For anyone keen to follow that path, I would recommend reading around the subject without embarrassment, as there are plenty of commentators out there equipped to interpret the work without quite the same delight in technical language or mischievous obfuscation as D&G often employ. It quickly becomes evident that, as well as operating at the highest intellectual levels (both were highly advanced within their respective fields of Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis), they never lost an all-important sense of play within their project to overturn massive chunks of established theory. Often, one is simply left astounded by the audacity of another massive leap of imagination on their part, even as one is hacking through the next baffling paragraph of ‘explanatory’ text. Inevitably, it’s the questions, not the answers, and a willingness to intuit rather than simplistically box-off the ideas on offer, that really matter. This stuff needs repeated visits before it really starts to uncoil itself. For anyone in need of non-printed insights, I would  recommend the YouTube channels of Acid Horizon and Gavin Young Philosophy, as possible ways in, although, to be honest, there’s a host of others on there equally prepared to smooth the way.

As far as my own paintings are concerned, it may be enough for now to recognise certain key principles within the corpus of Deleuzian thinking. One such is the idea of immanence - a sense of everything, including all physical phenomena as well as our perceptions and understanding of reality, as being in a constant state of ‘becoming’. Clearly, this puts D&G on the side of the creative angels, and it’s certainly the case that they see art activity and creative thinking in general as intrinsic to another central concept - that of ‘production’. From my perspective, the idea of continual immanence also reflects the ceaseless processes of transformation that characterise the urban environment - something I’ve been attending to in my work and banging on about for a long time. 

In cartographic terms, D&G distinguish between ‘drawing’ and ‘tracing’. They see a drawn map as being one which continually adapts to a mutable range of influences and conditions - producing itself in the moment rather than simply tracing-over or ‘reproducing’ a pre-existing schema within established boundaries. They’re talking about understanding and our intellectual/emotional interaction with reality here as much as about the simple charting of terrain. Hopefully though, you can see where all the fragmentation and reconfiguration of street plans in my own work might fit in. The use of quasi-geographical terminology is a commonplace throughout the Deleuzian world, with ‘planes of consistency' or ‘immanence’ and, most importantly, the notion of ‘territorialisation/deterritorialisation’ recurring throughout. Again, the latter term relates ideas and thought generally - the simplistic interpretation being the idea that we should be aspiring to continually formulate new territories of understanding or activity through the dismantling, abandonment, or migration from older ones. Nomadism is thus an important principle for them, not in the sense that we might never pause or establish any new structures/territories, but rather that we should always be looking for a new ‘line of flight’ to propel us on to the next. For them the impetus seems to be less toward cementation and increasing reinforcement of established structures of thought, and rather the ‘assemblage' of concepts and decisive actions, with all avenues of potential dismantling and re-assemblage left open (in all directions). This relationship between the geographic and mental worlds fascinates me, given that my own work aspires to map the territories I regularly inhabit, but also those related to in my reading, and indeed, the meditations they inspire, as I move through my own urban surroundings.

Fluid dynamics (or, ahem - currents) are always more important to D&G than strictly constrained routes (keep ripping up those maps), with a sense of the 'rhizome' (a tangled, if still discrete formation), being far superior to any hieratic formations around a central structure. If the electrons are forced to run around a printed circuit, with all its stops and junctures, the photons that result may scatter in all directions, reflecting back from each new configuration of surrounding objects in the process. They regard the less predictable sprouting of new growth seen in a plant species such as the potato, as being of more value than the mirroring of roots and branches within a tree. Their objection to the latter is that it is merely a reproduction of forms within monolithic constraints, limiting rather than facilitating the generation of anything genuinely new. For them, arborescence represents tradition, the reproduction of established memes, resort to inferior/superior hierarchies - and by negative extension, the potential for fascism as an ultimate conclusion. Oh, and then there’s the ‘Body Without Organs’, but perhaps we should leave that for another day.

If any of this makes any sense at all, I can only hope that some of it might be reflected - even if only to a small extent, in these ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ paintings. If nothing else, I think it’s possible to see some attempt to inject even greater degrees of organic tangle and flow into this Deleuze-dedicated one. And whilst Pollock-dribbles are admittedly, a pretty hackneyed trope by now, there’s still a case to be made for Jackson’s vast, spontaneously-generated networks of fluid enamel as being amongst the most Deleuzian mode of painting - in their mechanics, at least. If you don’t buy that, then maybe just remember that D&G repeatedly emphasised the importance of play - and squiggly drips remain among the most fun you can have with a pot of paint and a stick!

I’ll extend this (admittedly, dense) post with a little more insight into the alchemical theme that also runs through this ‘[dc]circuit’ suite of paintings. The alchemists’ desire to manufacture gold from base metals (typically, lead), has a long and complex history, intersecting with pre-scientific belief systems of many stripes. There are numerous traditions and historical flowerings of the ‘Art’, some going back as far as the ancient Egyptians. In fact, practitioners persist even to the present day, albeit inescapably informed by modern science and in the knowledge of the essential impossibility of the task, in any practical sense. In passing, it would seem that this was probably intuited by many, long before the advent of modern chemistry. Certainly, many deluded and/or opportunist rulers craved the idea of limitless finance to fund their bellicose ambitions or personal coffers down the centuries (plus ça change). However, the picturesque punishments prescribed for any charlatan promising what they could not deliver suggests an understanding that the likelihood of funding another elaborate scam or faux-magical fireworks spectacle was far greater than any serious pay day. However, we also need to allow that pre-Enlightenment thought, even at its most elevated, was far more accepting of the idea of mystical dimensions or hidden knowledge than we can now grasp.

What quickly becomes apparent is that the parallel symbolic, metaphorical and metaphysical dimensions of Alchemy are at least as significant as the physical ones. Down the centuries, many of those involved have come to see the reactive/chemical stages of a misplaced proto/pseudo-science as mapping symbolically onto a deeper quest for philosophical wisdom and/or spiritual enlightenment. This inevitably also ushers-in a left-turn towards alternative readings of religious doctrine, to ‘magic’, and to the occult generally. Dependant on which tradition or interpretation of Alchemy we might consult, we could find three, four, five, seven (or many more) stages described - each connecting a specific set of ingredients and physical actions with associated lexicon of symbolic imagery and identifying colours. These can be seen to correspond with progressive steps in a cyclical journey towards true wisdom or spiritual awakening. No wonder then, that even in our post-empirical era, and long after the entire physical world around us has been entirely reshaped by modern chemistry (and economics), the picturesque, mysterious aspects of Alchemy still hold a fascination in New-Agey circles, or amongst those simply looking for a less-orthodox explanation of existence.

One clearly needs to take all this with multiple pinches of salt (ironically, also one of the ingredients favoured by many alchemists), and I’m certainly not about to grow a long beard or start embroidering moons and planets on my robes any time soon. However, it does feel like the whole idea of combining base mineral ingredients, arcane (possibly counter-intuitive) processes, intuition, and a transcendence of mere practicalities - in pursuit of something enlightening or ‘enriching’, does seem to say something about the whole art-making malarkey too. If Alchemy has long been relegated to the status of pseudo-science in any practical sense, it may still retain considerable currency as a signifier of creative endeavour more generally. 

We should also pause to note that, however accidentally, many of the experiments of the alchemists would lead to genuine discoveries within modern chemistry, once they became over-coded with the scientific method. Notably, these include the development of reliable pigments, as Philip Ball [3.], amongst others, has outlined. Indeed, rather than simply replacing one world view with another, one Enlightenment morning, the process was quite naturally one of gradually applying newer empirical attitudes and methodology to the adaptation of older precepts. As is often cited, one of the founding fathers of modern science (or 'Natural Philosophy', as it was originally called), Isaac Newton, was himself a self-confessed alchemist. That's when he wasn’t also totally revolutionising our understanding of colour or, you know - pioneering mathematical calculus or laying the foundations of modern physics.

In terms of this particular panel, the red or red-purple, ‘Rubredo’ stage was generally regarded as the penultimate (and for many, the most significant) step in the alchemical process. This was the production of the mysterious ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ - a precious and elusive compound supposedly possessing numerous miraculous properties. The ability to release of gold from base matter was certainly important amongst these, but its potential function as a facilitator of metaphysical insight, or even immortality, were clearly of yet-greater significance for many. On reflection, any one of the three would be pretty cool - and maybe not so different from the  aspirations of various artists, stated or unstated, down the years!

There's a world of background information available for those keen to learn more about Alchemical tradition, in both printed and digital forms. Philip Ball's own book on the wider subject [4.] looks well worth a read, but I'll confess I haven't got to that one yet. Those less inclined to turn pages may find useful ways in at: 

https://www.alchemywebsite.com/ 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ__PGORcBKxjPgYQaK1DEi5TmPQVP9xC

If both imply a certain degree of 'buy-in', they also encompass plenty of academic-level research and bona-fide historical sources.

Anyway, I should tie-up this unusually lengthy diatribe by returning to the real matter in hand, i.e. the panel depicted here. As a highly-regarded  academic philosopher - with his own mission to deterritorialise or re-articulate certain accepted doctrines in search of new understandings of reality, Deleuze (and by extension, Guattari), feels like the obvious dedicatee for the red component in my own little moment of transformative, cod-alchemical production. I won’t make any grandiose claims for its ability to act as any kind of Philosopher’s Stone, but if even just a small quota of enlightenment was achieved in its emergence, the effort wasn’t totally misplaced.

[1.]:  Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, 'A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia', (Trans. Brian Massumi), London, Bloomsbury, 1987/2001.

[2.]:  Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, 'Anti-Oedipus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia' (Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem & Helen R. Lane), London, Bloomsbury, 1972/2021.

[3.]:  Philip Ball, 'Alchemy in the Colours of the Renaissance' (Article), London, University College London Chemistry Dept. Bulletin, 2002.

[4.]:  Philip Ball, 'Alchemy: An Illustrated History of Elixirs, Experiments and the Birth of Modern Science', New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2025.