Drawing a Thousand Plateaus
Original drawings, discussion, prints, posters, and a Patreon. Since 2010
These drawings are a methodical interpretation of the first three chapters of A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schzophrenia (Wikipedia link) by Gilles Delueze and Felix Guattari, translated by Brian Massumi, University of Minnesota Press, 1987.
They are created as a means of understanding the ideas being presented in the book. Each drawing is labeled by chapter and paragraph.
Drawings by Chapter
Drawings finished to date.
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Every month supporters get an intimate view inside the process of translating ideas from word to images.
Buy a Thousand Plateaus Original Drawing or Poster
All the illustrations drawn to date are available as original drawings or high quality poster reproductions.
The original drawings are drawn on paper sized 23cm x 30cm (9 x 12 inches). The poster prints are only slight enlargements of the original and aim to keep an intimate scale with the viewer.
The posters are printed on high quality, thick stock and with a matte texture, to best reproduce the look of the matt paper.
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The original drawings are redrawings by Marc of the original drawing, which is sometimes damaged during its making because the process is primarily for understanding the philosophy in the book and the art is somewhat secondary. So the original redrawings that are sent out are in immaculate condition and are accompanied by a very pretty certificate of authenticity.
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A Diagramatic Style for Drawing a Thousand Ideas
I was introduced to the book by a friend, Kevin Steltzer. I started to read his copy during the cottage weekend we were sharing and was instantly mesmerized by the language. I found the ideas quite elusive and felt compelled to make diagrams so that I could better understand and retain the ideas.
The writing in A Thousand Plateaus takes some time to adjust to. It is poetic and packed with images. I'll read a paragraph and then try to focus on one of the prominent images and then draw it out.
The drawing style is very immediate. It has evolved from an automatic style that I was experimenting with as a means of accessing sub conscious material. The drawings were produced quickly with very little left brain processing.
RNA Connective
This style was adapted from illustrations that were developed during my participation in RNA Connective, a Toronto group think collective that created many images and ideas for publication between 1999 and 2001 in collaboration with the Marshall McLuhan Institute at the University of Toronto.
RNA Connective was occupied with the burgeoning digital networked culture of the late 1990's and early 2000's and the drawings explored connected individuality. I found that a very simple diagrammatic style could be used to articulate fairly complex ideas about information, networks and the self.
The RNA drawing style was then adopted to make the visual interpretations of A Thousand Plateaus.
You can see the original RNA drawings here.
Thousand Plateaus Drawings in Exhibition and Print
The drawings have appeared in several international exhibitions and have been published in countless international philosophy publications, doctoral dissertations, and online journals.
Inflexions research journal
Marc sent these diagrams to Brian Massumi, the translator of A Thousand Plateaus into English, who is currently one of the editors of Inflexions, the online journal for research-creation. The first volume of the journal includes some of these diagrams in the Tangents section.
Deleuze and Artistic Research Conference (DARE) 2015, Ghent, Belgium
The drawings were exhibited in a historic library and Marc presented a talk about the process of developing a visual language to present the ideas in the book. Visit the conference archive.
Quantal Strife art exhibition
Many of these drawings were part of a group art show called Quantal Strife.
Using a Thousand Plateaus Drawings in your own work
All drawings are available for publication, both in print and digitally, and for purchase, either as original artworks or as open edition prints.
Interested in PUBLISHING a drawing?
Please contact us to obtain the correct publication permissions for academic or commercial use for paper or digital publishing.
Interested in PURCHASING a drawing?
All drawings are available for purchase as:
Thoughts?
Please do get in touch with any comments or questions.
Commissions and collaborations are welcome.
Thousand Plateaus on Instagram
1730 Paragraph 34
Panel 1
Children are Spinozists. When Little Hans talks about a"peepee-maker," he is referring not to an organ or an organic function but basically to a material, in other words, to an aggregate whose elements vary according to its connections, its relations of movement and rest, the different individuated assemblages it enters.
Lower panel
This is not at all because the organ is experienced as a part-object. It is because the organ is exactly what its elements make it according to their relation of movement or rest, and the way in which this relation combines with or splits off from that of neighboring elements. This is not animism, any more than it is mechanism; rather, it is universal machinism: a plane of consistency occupied by an immense abstract machine comprising an infinite number of assemblages…We call the longitude of a body the particle aggregates belonging to that body in a given relation; these aggregates are part of each other depending on the composition of the relation that defines the individuated assemblage of the body.
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#penandink
#watercolor
#ideas
Feb 12
1730 Paragraph 34
Panel 2
Does a girl have a peepee-maker? The boy says yes, and not by analogy, nor in order to
conjure away a fear of castration. It is obvious that girls have a peepee-maker because they effectively pee: a machinic functioning rather than an organic function. Quite simply, the same material has different connections, different relations of movement and rest, enters different assemblages in the case of the boy and the girl (a girl does not pee standing or into the distance).
Panel 3
Does a locomotive have a peepee-maker? Yes, in yet another machinic assemblage.
Lower panel
This is not at all because the organ is experienced as a part-object. It is because the organ is exactly what its elements make it according to their relation of movement or rest, and the way in which this relation combines with or splits off from that of neighboring elements. This is not animism, any more than it is mechanism; rather, it is universal machinism: a plane of consistency occupied by an immense abstract machine comprising an infinite number of assemblages…We call the longitude of a body the particle aggregates belonging to that body in a given relation; these aggregates are part of each other depending on the composition of the relation that defines the individuated assemblage of the body.
#chair
#drawingathousandplateaus
#deleuzeandguattari
#deleuze
#thousandplateaus
#athousandplateaus
#art
#drawing
#philosophy
#philosophyart
#diagram
#illustration
#penandink
#watercolor
#ideas
Feb 9
1730 paragraph 34
Panel 4
Chairs don`t have them: but that is because the elements of the chair were not able to integrate this material into their relations, or decomposed the relation with that material to the point that it yielded something else, a rung, for example.
Lower panel
This is not at all because the organ is experienced as a part-object. It is because the organ is exactly what its elements make it according to their relation of movement or rest, and the way in which this relation combines with or splits off from that of neighboring elements. This is not animism, any more than it is mechanism; rather, it is universal machinism: a plane of consistency occupied by an immense abstract machine comprising an infinite number of assemblages…We call the longitude of a body the particle aggregates belonging to that body in a given relation; these aggregates are part of each other depending on the composition of the relation that defines the individuated assemblage of the body.
#chair
#drawingathousandplateaus
#deleuzeandguattari
#deleuze
#thousandplateaus
#athousandplateaus
#art
#drawing
#philosophy
#philosophyart
#diagram
#illustration
#penandink
#watercolor
#ideas
Feb 8
"What Does It Mean To Decolonize Knowledge?" This diagram was created for Critical Visualization (Bloomsbury, 2022) by @davila_patricio and @peter.hall.
In Critical Visualization, Hall and Davila examine the ways data is produced and represented as knowledge. They describe how data visualizations are created by assemblages with inherent biases. These biases inform which data is recorded and how it is represented. This image illustrates a) how census data taken by the British in India became a decolonizing force; and b) how the practitioner of visualization can situate their practice, acknowledge their own inherent biases and work towards a more equitable representation of data.
Posters from this series are now available in our online shop. See link in bio for details.
#decolonisation
#knowledge
#data
#visualization
#census
#horizons
#relationality
#plurality
#engagement
#cooperation
Oct 28
"What Does It Mean To Decolonize Knowledge?" This diagram was created for Critical Visualization (Bloomsbury, 2022) by @davila_patricio and @peter.hall.
In Critical Visualization, Hall and Davila examine the ways data is produced and represented as knowledge. They describe how data visualizations are created by assemblages with inherent biases. These biases inform which data is recorded and how it is represented. This image illustrates a) how census data taken by the British in India became a decolonizing force; and b) how the practitioner of visualization can situate their practice, acknowledge their own inherent biases and work towards a more equitable representation of data.
Posters from this series are now available in our online shop. See link in bio for details.
#decolonisation
#knowledge
#data
#visualization
#census
#horizons
#relationality
#plurality
#engagement
#cooperation
Oct 27
"What Does It Mean To Decolonize Knowledge?" This diagram was created for Critical Visualization (Bloomsbury, 2022) by @davila_patricio and @peter.hall.
In Critical Visualization, Hall and Davila examine the ways data is produced and represented as knowledge. They describe how data visualizations are created by assemblages with inherent biases. These biases inform which data is recorded and how it is represented. This image illustrates a) how census data taken by the British in India became a decolonizing force; and b) how the practitioner of visualization can situate their practice, acknowledge their own inherent biases and work towards a more equitable representation of data.
Posters from this series are now available in our online shop. See link in bio for details.
#decolonisation
#knowledge
#data
#visualization
#census
#horizons
#relationality
#plurality
#engagement
#cooperation
Oct 24
"What Does It Mean To Decolonize Knowledge?" This diagram was created for Critical Visualization (Bloomsbury, 2022) by @davila_patricio and @peter.hall.
In Critical Visualization, Hall and Davila examine the ways data is produced and represented as knowledge. They describe how data visualizations are created by assemblages with inherent biases. These biases inform which data is recorded and how it is represented. This image illustrates a) how census data taken by the British in India became a decolonizing force; and b) how the practitioner of visualization can situate their practice, acknowledge their own inherent biases and work towards a more equitable representation of data.
Posters from this series are now available in our online shop. See link in bio for details.
#decolonisation
#knowledge
#data
#visualization
#census
#horizons
#relationality
#plurality
#engagement
#cooperation
Oct 19
"What Does It Mean To Decolonize Knowledge?" This diagram was created for Critical Visualization (Bloomsbury, 2022) by @davila_patricio and @peter.hall.
In Critical Visualization, Hall and Davila examine the ways data is produced and represented as knowledge. They describe how data visualizations are created by assemblages with inherent biases. These biases inform which data is recorded and how it is represented. This image illustrates a) how census data taken by the British in India became a decolonizing force; and b) how the practitioner of visualization can situate their practice, acknowledge their own inherent biases and work towards a more equitable representation of data.
Posters from this series are now available in our online shop. See link in bio for details.
#decolonisation
#knowledge
#data
#visualization
#census
#horizons
#relationality
#plurality
#engagement
#cooperation
Oct 18
"What Does It Mean To Decolonize Knowledge?" This diagram was created for Critical Visualization (Bloomsbury, 2022) by @davila_patricio and @peter.hall.
In Critical Visualization, Hall and Davila examine the ways data is produced and represented as knowledge. They describe how data visualizations are created by assemblages with inherent biases. These biases inform which data is recorded and how it is represented. This image illustrates a) how census data taken by the British in India became a decolonizing force; and b) how the practitioner of visualization can situate their practice, acknowledge their own inherent biases and work towards a more equitable representation of data.
Posters from this series are now available in our online shop. See link in bio for details.
#decolonisation
#knowledge
#data
#visualization
#census
#horizons
#relationality
#plurality
#engagement
#cooperation
Oct 18
