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Getting Something Into One's Head

January 29, 2010, 7:00pm / Dexter Sinister presents Getting Something Into One’s Head at Fillip’s studio as part of the exhibition An Invitation to An Infiltration at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. To celebrate the publication of the Sternberg Press book Portable Document Format, we will screen excerpts from Gilles Deleuze’s ABCprimer with live approximate translation. This is the fourth of five consecutive evening events.

Details for each will be announced the night before together with a brief preparatory text:

In Abecedaire, a testimonial interview intended for posthumous screening on French TV, the philosopher Gilles Deleuze discusses his experiences as a teacher. In the first of three distinct moments of unscripted insight, he describes the enormous amount of preperation involved in “getting something into one’s head” just enough — to a teetering degree of comprehension — to be able to convey it with the inspiration of live realization in front of a class. The preparation, then, amounts to a kind of rehearsal for a performance, at best a form of planned improvisation. If the speaker doesn’t find what he’s saying of interest, no one else will, and so there must be an element of mutual education in which he (the teacher) is stimulated by learning something at the same time as conveying it. Deleuze insists this shouldn’t be mistaken for vanity: it’s not a case of finding oneself passionate and interesting, only the subject matter.

Later, Deleuze makes a distinction between schools and movements. A school is a negative force, he suggests, because it is heavy, fixed, and exclusive. It implies rules, leaders, administration, hierarchy, and bureaucracy. A movement by comparison is light, flexible, and open. Less easily defined, it is characterized more by intentions, attitudes, diversions, and the passage of ideas. He gives an example from art history: Surrealism as an example of a “school,” with Breton its headmaster imposing rules, excluding personnel, and settling scores, as opposed to Dada as a “movement,” a flow of ideas involving many people, places, and forms without apparent hierarchy.