December 11, 1984

We seem to have fulfilled the classic image of the brain, which would consist of integration-differentiation by the centers, sensory-motor association, rational cutting. … If I tried to summarize what lived relationship we have with the brain, on the level of this image, it’s very simple, it is the brain tree, … that is, it’s a way of life, you have a tree in your head. This tree is this axis marked by rational points, rational breaks. And many people have lived with the idea and still live with the idea that their brain is a tree, that is, a centralized system, which means: center of integrations and differentiations, and sensorimotor associations, one expressing itself within the other and forming a circulation, a whole tree of the brain, a whole tree of the brain along these two axes. And, without wanting to analyze in detail at all, that poses all kinds of problems. I quote, for example, “What is the relationship between the centers and the elements? Assuming that the elements are brain cells, or nerve cells, the centers: what are these? Are they particular cells?” You sense here that there is a whole historical problem of localization exists – which I’m not pretending to address – of cerebral localization.

Seminar Introduction

As he starts the fourth year of his reflections on relations between cinema and philosophy, Deleuze explains that the method of thought has two aspects, temporal and spatial, presupposing an implicit image of thought, one that is variable, with history. He proposes the chronotope, as space-time, as the implicit image of thought, one riddled with philosophical cries, and that the problematic of this fourth seminar on cinema will be precisely the theme of “what is philosophy?’, undertaken from the perspective of this encounter between the image of thought and the cinematographic image.

For archival purposes, the English translations are based on the original transcripts from Paris 8, all of which have been revised with reference to the BNF recordings available thanks to Hidenobu Suzuki, and with the generous assistance of Marc Haas.

English Translation

Edited

 

Antonioni, The Girlfriends (1955)
Michelangelo Antonioni, Le amiche (The Girlfriends), 1955.

 

Discussing three viewpoints on the brain (brain biology; lived relations with the brain; the brain as cinema) from which brain transformations have occurred, he pursues the biological, scientific review, and then from the lived, experiential perspective, he considers the classical, arborescent model of the brain with numerous theoretical references (cf. Jakobson on types of aphasia) allowing Deleuze to raise complications posed by this model. Then, shifting to the lived, experiential point of view, Deleuze links the arborescent model to another model from a classic perspective, that of interior and exterior milieus with details drawn from Simondon’s L’individu et sa genèse physico-biologique. With Simondon, Deleuze considers the brain’s topological structure, particularly questions of outside-inside, and then links thought of the Outside to the complementary sensorimotor axis. After the break, Deleuze outlines four lines of research for understanding cerebral linkages: the mathematical concept of Markov chains and the study of semi-accidental phenomena and mixtures of dependence and uncertainty; a second research line, within cosmobiology, of understanding the amplified fluctuation of enzymes and proteins from the perspective of the genesis of life; a third line of research (cf. Prigogine and Stengers), the thresholds at which the amplified fluctuations can be maintained in an orderly fashion; finally, the constitution of an internal milieu as an amplified fluctuation allowing the living creature, and even the brain (through hypotheses) to enter into aleatory relations with an external milieu (cf. cybernetician Pierre Vendryes). Deleuze answers the final question — how transmission occurs within the brain — with relinkages in independent series, suggesting finally the possibility of understanding cinema no longer as linkages but relinkages of independent series.

 

Gilles Deleuze

Seminar on Cinema and Thought, 1984-1985

Lecture 06, 11 December 1984 (Cinema Course 72)

Transcription: La voix de Deleuze, Laura Cecilia Nicolas (Part 1), Guadalupe Deza; correction Anselme Chapoy-Favier (Part 2), Sabine Mazé (Part 3); additional revisions to the transcription and time stamp, Charles J. Stivale

English Translation Forthcoming

 

Deleuze Graph

 

Notes

For archival purposes, the augmented and new time stamped version of the complete transcription was completed in August 2021. Additional revisions were added in February 2024.

Lectures in this Seminar

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