Para el cómputo de los votos, se procedió a la realización de ejercicios y pruebas con el lector óptico que se utilizaría

Impotent signification

The unidimensional

signifier

1\

Process of the individuation of enunciation

The impossible

real

Forbidden

The partial

object

FIGURE 2.4 Abstract machinism of the involution of the semiological triangle.

Source:

Felix Guattari,

Llnconscient machinique,

of anxiety are hysterical, paranoid, schizoid, phobic, obsessive, and inter pretive redundancies. "The components of consciousness tum nothingness

[le neant]

in on itself and in so doing they exacerbate the process of subjec tivation, which likewise begins to tum in itself'

(IM 219) .

I would speculate that "anxiety" describes the disquieting sensations, even existential upheaval, produced by this churning of nothingness and subjectivation. This self devouring consciousness not only formalizes

all

modes of expression, it also centers them "over the

black hole

of signifying disempowerment"

(RM331 ) .

This centering is enabled by resonance, the same mechanism responsible for the "feeling of signification" which appears with the individuated sub ject and space of representation (Figure

2. 1 ) .

Consciousness components .

set off resonance effects that result in the appearance of a black hole which fatally attracts subjectivity. "A facialized consciousness thus constitutes itself as the center of resonance of the black holes that may arise out of various semiotic components. This consciousness operates a semiological capitali zation around an individuated subject of enunciation"

(IM 76) .

The subjective black hole itself is drawn by Guattari as a spiral in the center of yet another triangle, this one topped with "the binary castrated

The Cosmic Psyche

phallus" (Figure

2.4) .

Guattari labels this triangle "the abstract machinism of the involution of the semiological triangle," which implies that the black hole has pulled toward itself the subjective redundancies and redundancies of anxiety at the center of the previous two triangles (Figures

2.2

and 2.3) . This black hole triangle reminds me of Lacan's jouissance triangle, which I mentioned earlier (Lacan

1999: 90;

1989: 184) .

Although Guattari does not reference this illustration of Lacan's Real-Symbolic Imaginary triad, the resemblance to his own is so striking that I think it appropriate to compare the two. The point of Lacan's drawing is to differ entiate the "true" (the triangle's left side) from the "real" (its right side), and in so doing to demonstrate the relationship among these two terms and jouissance (in a litde circle in the triangle's center) . For example, when a witness is asked to tell "the whole truth about what he knows," what is really being asked is "that jouissance be avowed, precisely insofar as it may be unavowable" (Lacan

1999: 91, 92) .

Lacan places the Imaginary at the top angle, the Symbolic on the lower left, and the Real on the lower right. The sides are vectors that lead from the Imaginary to the Symbolic, from the Symbolic to the Real, and from the Real back to the Imaginary (note that the Symbolic leads to the Real, and not the other way around) . Lacan's tri angle can be plausibly read as isomorphic with Ogden and Richards's semi otic triangle: the Imaginary lines up with thought/reference, the Symbolic with symbol/signifier, and the Real with the referent. The left vector (I to S) is labeled both as the path of the "true" and of the mathemes for the signifier of a lack in the Other, S

c.t);

the right vector (R to I) as "reality" and as the symbolic phallus, <1>; the bottom vector (S to R) as "semblance" and the

objet petit " a."

In the center, the circle around the J for jouissance is surrounded by a squiggly open-ended elliptical figure opening onto the angle marked "Real." What interests me most about Lacan's triangle is not his claims regarding truth, but rather his placing ofjouissance within a cir cle surrounded by a squiggle pointing toward the Real. I sense an affinity between Lacan 's jouissance and Guattari's black hole and find it telling that these terms are placed at the centers of triangles. Lacan's appears in his seminar on feminine sexuality, in which jouissance figures prominendy. "What is jouissance? Here it amounts to no more than a negative instance. Jouissance is what serves no purpose." He provocatively adds that "The superego is the imperative ofjouissance-Enjoy!" (Lacan

1999: 3).

It is then a negative agency or formation

(instance

in French) , but it is also the super ego's command. Can it

be

a mere coincidence that Guattari places in the same position a black hole which attracts energy? Doesn't Lacan's jouis sance harbor the same capacity to disempower a subjectivity that comes too near?

Guattari:S Diagrammatic Thought

Guattari's black hole triangle shows the moment of subjectivity's involu tion into the central void (Figure

2.4) . As

already mentioned, the triangle's peak is labeled "the castrated binary phallus" and also "the process of the individuation of enunciation." The triangle's bottom, just opposite castra tion, is "the impossible real," flanked on either end by "the unidimensional signifier" (lower left angle) and "the partial object" (lower right angle) . I concede that compared with Lacan's triangle, Guattari reverses the posi tions of the real and of the partial object, or

objet

a, but this may be because Guattari does not share Lacan's definition of the real as impossible. For Guattari, the referent is real, as is the partial object-recall that the partial object corresponds to Guattari and Deleuze's desiring machine. The trian gle's left side is labeled "impotent signification" and the right side "forbid den representation." Guattari's choice of wording in the labels indicates the dismal state of affairs mapped by this drawing: castration, forbidden, impossible, impotent.

Guattari proposes a way out of the constraints imposed by capitalist con sciousness: a diagrammatic consciousness

(RM 329-331 ) .

Diagrammatic components can empty the triangle, allowing the semiological substances trapped in the black hole to follow vectors of deterritorialization (Figure

2.5).

Schizoanalysis evaluates each ritual, habit, or behavior on the basis of its capacity for acting diagrammatically, for transforming an assemblage

(1M

247) .

This means that approaching a black hole, which was produced by resonance and redundancy, can lead to two very different outcomes, one destructive, the other creative:

This black hole-effect is produced by the node of resonance that emerges with the constitution of a point of re-centering between semiological redundancies. It tends to attract, empty of their contents, and isolate from their substratum redundancies of all sorts. It constitutes a point of

semiological disempow

ermen

t,

as well as a point of

machinic superpower,

since

In document EXPEDIENTE: SDF-JDC-281/2011 (página 36-42)