Deleuze

Despite this reading being particularly dense I felt that this has immediate and interesting applications to my own practice more so than Heidegger. Deleuze in many ways is the opposite to Heidegger as he views things as not being but becoming. He introduces the concept of a becoming-animal, where a person can be becoming an animal and takes on some of its attributes. This isn't to say that a person actually becomes a dog as that would be being Deleuze suggests that we are in a constant state of becoming something else. From this I though the notion of a becoming-book could be particularly interesting.

This becoming is of course a process so within art for example seeing the artists hand in some work eg Cezanne would show this process. We know that the image is made out of paint yet we see that is a landscape. This relates to text on page also, we know that is made up of letters yet it becomes meaningful, the reading of it takes you elsewhere. The content of books themselves can also often be about becoming and the act of writing them. Deleuze references Virginia Woolf whose characters are often in a state of becoming.

Deleuze also writes about time, and how it never stops but just continues at different speeds. This sense of movement is apparent in the way in which we read, as our eyes move across a page and in the turning of a page. Also the way in which a book is published in editions, and that more versions are created also ties into this feeling of becoming. Again it seems to fit much better than a state of being books and their nature seem to always be moving.

The way in which the publishing industry as a whole is also in a state of becoming. The move into digital technology is particularly interesting as digital technology it is often seen as masculine. However I would argue that it feels more in a state of becoming than being and therefore more feminine. As like the feminist movement, it is questioning the established structure. Particularly in terms of the internet and new programs, devices like the i-pad being created. I am interested to see how books are almost in a state of becoming-digital. It appears to be an unhappy progression in the publishing industry as they are reacting quite painfully to the changes however change isn't often achieved smoothly.

It would be interesting to try and apply the becoming-animal to a book. Could a library be a pack? with its own outsiders and sorcerers to encounter? Each book certainly has an identity the physical quality of a book affects the way in which we interact with it. Also like Deleuze's Vampires infecting others as a way of procreating could we consider the act of reading as an infection of the mind? Could the act of reading and the implantation of ideas create in people a becoming-book?