At around quarter past one on the afternoon of the 25th of
June 1984 Michel Foucault died of an AIDS related illness. In
accordance with statutory requirements, the time, place and
cause of his death were officially certificated. Whilst
Foucault's legal status may have switched neatly and
instantaneously from living to deceased, the material of
Foucault's body was not so compliant. As the cardiograph
displayed the steady flat line of death, a host of alternative
connections detected variously abating and burgeoning
activity. Whilst Michel Foucault, the legal entity with the
capacity to enter into contractual agreements abruptly
ceased, his flesh, his estate, his ideas and his disease,
liberated from ownership, continued to operate within the
distributed machineries of autonomous economies.
Arterial pressure collapses as soon as the heart stops
beating, the still warm blood is suddenly able to explore new
routes and manoeuvres. Inspired by gravity, blood drains
quickly from the larger veins and settles in the lowermost
parts of the body where it stains the flesh a purple-red colour.
Primary flaccidity is shortly followed by rigor mortis. The skin
that reclines over protruding bones is fixed within hours by the
stiffening of muscles that starts around the eyes and neck
before spreading throughout the entire body. Somewhere
between two and four days later, depending on prevailing
weather conditions, secondary flaccidity shatters the fabled
still peace of death. As the body putrefies, turning first green
then purple then black, intestinal bacteria merge more closely
with their host in the massive production of rancid gases
which expand along veins and arteries bloating and rupturing
tissues and organs. Yards of tightly wound intestines distend
along routes of least resistance, often escaping through the
vagina or rectum. Whilst the human body displays immense
enthusiasm in its own decay, for as long as a year or so,
organs continue to decompose and liquefy at varying rates.
Death is not the discrete event suggested by its certification or
cardiographic record. The cells, tissues and resident parasites
which constitute a body do not compliantly turn off at the
appointed time. Skin, bone and muscle cells can continue to
live for several days after their host's heart has stopped
beating. Bacteria that normally inhabit the colon continue to
live not only in spite of their host's death, but because of it.
Whereas once they contributed greatly to the digestion of
food, they now contribute with equal devotion to the
decomposition of their colonic homes.
Death is therefore multiple, and dispersed in time: it is not that
absolute, privileged point at which time stops and moves
back; like disease itself, it has a teeming presence that
analysis may divide into time and space; gradually, here and
there, each of the knots breaks until organic life ceases, at
least in its major forms, since long after the death of the
individual, minuscule, partial deaths continue to dissociate the
islets of life that still subsist.1
Whilst there are no dead ends, there are restrictions,
inflexions, and critical points of bifurcation. Although the
visceral disturbances of both life and death share similar
micro-organic machinery and as such project innumerable
lines of continuity across the supposed life/death threshold,
the interaction of microbes both with each other and with
larger organisms and ecologies do suffer breakages and
1
The Birth of the Clinic - An Archaeology of Medical Perception, New
York: Vintage Books, 1994.p.142.
radical points of departure. Long after Foucault was declared
dead, his body continued to teem with life. However, as the
micro-organisms that inhabited that space before the 25th of
July tried to adapt to their dramatically changed
circumstances, new life and other opportunistic invaders
began to stake their economic claims on Foucault's carcass.
Beyond some critical point, the economic advantages of
incorporation fell behind the potential profits of a dramatic
demerger.
The human body is a site of extraordinary specialization.
Whilst certain cells contribute to the provision of sophisticated
transportation, communication or security systems, others,
relieved of the necessity to search out nutrition or defend
themselves, are able to perform specific localized functions
within, for example, the skin, the heart or the brain. The
human complex is determined and maintained by exactly
replicated genetic information contained within the millions of
cells which collectively constitute the body. Whilst the total
genetic information in each cell is identical, only a tiny
proportion of that information is ever used by any one cell.
The specific functional effect of the genetic information within
each cell is dependent on the position of that cell relative to
neighbouring cells. Due to their economic specialization,
multi-cellular organisms can cope easily with the odd
malfunctioning cell. If for example an individual cell within the
kidney develops more like an ear cell, due perhaps to some
incorrectly reproduced genetic software, then the incongruous
positioning of such an alien cell will normally be detected by
the network of cells adjoining it.
Towards the end of his life, Foucault's body became an
increasingly intricate ecology with the relationships between
cellular guests, hosts and viral intermediaries delicately
balanced. With an immune system diverted into the
production of Human Immunodeficiency Virus, the functional
advantages of maintaining the acutely specialized cellular
structures associated with humanity became increasingly
tenuous. Like huge industrial corporations that have become
ridden with bureaucratic entropy and dissonant management
styles, biological structures that have ceased to function
effectively as unitary organisms can disintegrate into smaller,
more efficient centres of production.
The human body, like any economy, is of course not a closed
system. Whilst its genetic makeup might provide an impetus,
constant interaction with other systems around it and within it
perpetually challenge and mediate the body's boundaries.
Just as each cell forms relative to its neighbouring cells, so
each body is continually reconstructed in relation to its
environment. The development of particular muscle groups,
the accumulation of plates of hardened skin or the curvature
of the spine are affected by terrain, climate, habitat and
occupation. Streams of carbohydrates, water, bacteria,
oxygen, proteins and information are constantly trapped,
bound and diverted through the networks of veins, ducts and
neurons.
In addition to environmental factors that are chemically
absorbed directly into its genetic structure, the human body
regularly encounters microbes which variously nestle within its
complex folds. Without becoming part of its innate genetic
structure, viruses, bacteria and other parasites successively
enter into a number of interesting arrangements within the
human body. On some occasions parasites are detected by
the immune system and immediately destroyed whilst on
other occasions a more elongated battle occurs during which
symptomatic disease may result in the host. Interlopers are
sometimes permanently accommodated within the body's
elaborate structures -occasionally the presence of aliens is
merely tolerated, at other times the introduction of additional
genetic information can be advantageous and is positively
welcomed. Viruses, in particular, achieve such a close
relationship to their host that drawing a distinction between
host and guest becomes impossible.
A virus is little more than a wandering capsule of genetic
code. Unlike bacterial parasites that can replicate, given the
right nutrients, outside a host, viruses can only replicate
through entering into a symbiotic relationship with a host cell.
Viruses are extremely efficient pieces of machinery that are
structurally pared down to a minimum. The genetic
information stored in strings of either deoxyribonucleic acid
(DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA) refers only to those vital
functions that cannot be performed by a host cell. Like
specialized pieces of software floating on the net, each virus
contains the critical information necessary to perform a
specific routine. In order to activate the virus's self replicating
program, the necessary genetic instructions must to be
imported into the appropriate hardware and accompanying
operating system. Once the virus, or at least its packaged
genetic code, has physically entered a suitable host cell, the
genetic software can effectively be unzipped and
subsequently installed into the cell's existing operating
system. Different viruses interact with their hosts in various
ways, ultimately however, they must all achieve a similar
programming feat. Viruses must effectively reprogram the
host cell's own replicating machinery and utilize its resources
in order to reproduce.
In the case of HIV, the appropriate hardware can be provided
by CD4 T-cells. CD4 T-cells are crucial to the human immune
system in that they play a dual role in the recognition and
eradication of both intracellular and extracellular invaders.
Through reprogramming one of the human body's chief
security agents, HIV performs an incredible pincer movement.
Not only is the virus provided with cells willing to become HIV
replication factories, but through corrupting key elements of
the body's immune system, HIV simultaneously reduces the
possibility of detection. HIV appears to be strategically astute,
after initial infection, the virus often maintains a low profile for
many years during which time, it gradually infiltrates its host
immune system and optimizes replication potential through
exploiting routes into other host bodies. The full implication of
HIV's painstaking work only becomes fully apparent when, at
some point in the future, a third party opportunistically utilizes
and develops the work already completed.
The body of Michel Foucault, which earlier appeared to have
such distinct insides and outsides, blurs in both directions.
HIV, having entered into partnership with the CD4 T-cells
which were formerly in alliance with his body's immune
system, systematically changed his genetic make-up. The
new function of these cells became the reproduction of HIV.
Similarly Foucault surreptitiously entered and infected some
of the crucial structures of his environment. Unlike other more
obvious foe that broadcast their malicious intent as they
embark on full frontal attack, Foucault negotiated his way into
centres of production through forming pragmatic relationships
in culturally sensitive zones.
Consider, for example, the discursive structures that produce
the author. Prior to infection they produced a broadly linear
model of authority where the ideas contained in a text, for
instance, were the unproblematic product of a particular
person. Foucault's interaction did not cease the production of
authors, but fundamentally changed the discursive
programming through which they were understood. By
reconstructing the author as a discursive product itself, the
Foucauldian infection did not destroy the text production
machinery, but instead repositioned the author as a function
of that machinery. Obviously, Foucault should not be thought
of here as the author of this change, but merely as one factor
amongst many which in combination proved sufficient to effect
a change. Similarly it is far from clear quite what role HIV has
in producing the syndrome of various diseases referred to
collectively as AIDS. Peter Duesburg maintains that no
relationship exists, others argue for a linear cause and effect
model. Given the weight of evidence pointing at some level of
connectivity, it seems likely that HIV is in some way complexly
related to the array of symptomatic conditions that become
diagnosed as AIDS.
During the second half of the 1940s, Foucault spent two or
three years at Sainte-Anne, a major psychiatric hospital in
central Paris. Foucault's accounts of the period of his life are,
according to David Macey, 'fairly vague, if not actually
misleading, and are the products of either hazy memory or a
reluctance to supply the information that would allow his
identity at any given moment to be established with too great
a precision'2..."nobody worried about what I should be doing; I
2
David Macey, The Lives of Michel Foucault, London: Vintage, 1994,
p.56.
was free to do anything. I was actually in a position between
the staff and the patients."3 Within the corridors, theatres,
arteries and chambers of the hospital, Foucault's own mental
instability was free to wander. Just as Foucault's body failed
to fully appreciate the lethal potential of HIV, so the
psychiatrists of Saint-Anne failed to recognize the potential
danger Foucault posed to their authority. Integrated with its
CD4 T-cell host, HIV occupies a truly ambivalent position,
neither host nor guest, this symbiotic alien passes as a
member of a distributed security system. Similarly Foucault,
dressed in a white coat, was neither staff nor patient, but
enjoying his ambiguous status, he was sufficiently able to
pass as an authority figure.
The protein coating that shields the nucleic-acid core of a
virus is constructed of successive chains of amino-acid that
geometrically lock together like ornate building blocks. It is the
intricate shape of the virus's outer shell that facilitates it's
initial attachment to a potential host cell. Although viruses are
often cell-specific, that is to say that they can only attach and
integrate successfully with one particular type of cell, they
have no means for actively searching out potential hosts. HIV,
for example, can only attach to the CD4 protein which is
present on just two types of blood cell. The HIV virus does not
exhibit intent, it does not have a pre-existing plan of attack,
instead it must rely on chance encounter. On being asked by
colleagues at Uppsala University whether he was aware of a
suitable candidate for the post of French assistant, Georges
Dumézil, with no personal knowledge of a suitable person,
he Minimalist Self, in Lawrence D. Kritzman, ed., Politics,
T
Phiosophy, Culture. Interviews and Other Writings 1977-1984, New
York and London: Routledge, 1988, p.6. - quoted in Macey, 1994,
p.56.
3
happened to mention the post to his archaeologist friend
Raoul Curiel. By coincidence Curiel had recently met Foucault
and had enjoyed a conversation with him about the uncertain
state of his career. Curiel's enthusiasm was sufficient to
encourage Dumézil to write inviting Foucault to apply for the
vacant post. In taking a job at Uppsala University, Foucault
was not enacting an elaborate plan that would eventually led
to the heart of the French academe, instead his moving to
Sweden in August 1955 was apparently the result of pure
chance.
Biographers, critics, opponents friends and other relatives of
Foucault have variously endeavoured to encapsulate his
major themes, thrusts and intentions. Whether as pathogen,
panacea or placebo, Foucault has commonly been positioned
as a political agent whose effects are a direct function of his
words.
I think I have in fact been situated in most of the squares on
the political checkerboard, one after another and sometimes
simultaneously: as anarchist, leftist, ostentatious or disguised
Marxist, nihilist, explicit or secret anti-Marxist, technocrat in
the service of Gaullism, new liberal, etc. An American
professor complained that a crypto-Marxist like me was
invited to the U.S.A., and I was denounced by the press in
Eastern European countries for being an accomplice of the
dissidents. None of these descriptions is important by itself;
taken together, on the other hand, they mean something. And
I must admit that I rather like what they mean.4
4
Polemics, Politics, and Problemizations : An Interview: Random
House Inc., 1984, in Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader - An
Introduction to Foucault's Thought, London: Penguin Books, 1991,
pp.383-4.
The history of human disease has, perhaps unsurprisingly,
usually been written from a human perspective. Viruses,
represented as pathogenic threats to be battled or better
eradicated, have often been named after the bodily symptoms
they induce. The conflation of virus with disease is an overly
simplistic reduction that crucially misunderstands the
mechanisms of both virus and disease. Symptoms can only
emerge through the combined efforts of both body and virus.
Beyond a host, viruses are closer to being abstractions of
information than abstractions of disease. It is not merely the
words, thoughts or actions of Foucault that produces bodily
effects, it is critically their interaction with the dynamic bodies
of knowledge and power that have symptomatic results.
Unlike the polemical who merely seeks to replace one
orthodoxy with another, the irritant problematizes both.
As evidenced by newly emergent diseases, the modern
development of vaccines designed to obstruct specific viruses
failed to anticipate their evolutionary potential. In privileging
genotypes over phenotypes, the rationale behind programmes
of mass vaccination overestimated the precision of viral
replication and hence underestimated the ability of viruses to
deal with changed circumstances. Evidence amassed through
trying to combat HIV has revealed threat massive levels of
replication combined with regular mutation allowed new
strains of virus to find routes around therapeutic obstacles. In
the leather bars of San Franscisco, Foucault discovered
similar mechanisms at play. Amongst the throng of sex, drugs
and men, new routes to pleasure emerged through the fluid
economies of power and identity. Within a context of moral,
religious and legal restriction, the repetition and mutation
encompassed by promiscuous sadomasochistic activities
operate, beyond the necessary intentions of practitioners, to
investigate the boundaries of prohibition.
The S/M game is very interesting...because it is a strategic
relation, but it is always fluid. Of course, there are roles, but
everybody knows very well that those roles can be reversed.
Sometimes the scene begins with the master and slave, and
at the end the slave has become the master. Or, even when
the roles are stabilized, you know very well that it is always a
game: either the rules are transgressed, or there is an
agreement, either explicit or tacit, that makes them aware of
certain boundaries. 5
The configurations of "self" encountered by Foucault in San
Francisco should not be mistaken for the other Californian
version. 'I don't think that this movement of sexual practices
has anything to do with the disclosure or the understanding of
S/M tendencies deep within our unconscious...I think that S/M
is much more than that: it's the real creation of new
possibilities of pleasure.'6 The intricately switching and
circuitous relationships between master and slave, pleasure
and pain, yearning and disgust, and sickness and health, do
not operate to reveal an essential identity, but actively
synthesize new identities. Ridden with contradictions,
discontinuities and strange connectivities, the temporary self
that emerges through S/M does not merely provide an
alternative to a properly constituted self, but through feeding
5
Bob Gallagher, An Interview: Sex, Power and the Politics of
Identity, in the Advocate, 9th October 1989 - quoted in James Miller,
The Passion of Michel Foucault, London: Flamingo, 1994, p.263.
6
Ibid
back into the productive machinery of identity, it
problematizes the very notion of a pre-existing unitary being.
During the second half of the 1970s, the concentration of gay
male populations in San Francisco and New York facilitated
ready access to seemingly endless disorganized pleasures. In
S/M bars and bath houses, anonymous bodies were
apparently free to mingle and combine, exchanging
information and bodily fluids. Within the opportunistic
economies of the dark room and the human body, where
complex pathways are casually explored, there are no
overarching schemata, no predetermined projects and no
ordained truth. Foucault's body, although never a closed
system, was enticed, by viruses, fists and other unanticipated
connectivities, along the dangerous path that hugs the edge
of bodily organization. Born into a genetic straitjacket, the
body gradually learns to get out of itself.
As for what motivated me, it is quite simple; I would hope that
in the eyes of some people it might suffice in itself. It was
curiosity - the only kind of curiosity, in any case, that is worth
acting upon with a degree of obstinacy: not the curiosity that
seeks to assimilate what it is proper for one to know, but that
which enables one to get free of oneself...People will say,
perhaps, that these games with oneself would better be left
backstage; or, at best, that they might properly form part of
those preliminary exercises that are forgotten once they have
served their purpose. But, then, what is philosophy today philosophical activity, I mean - if it is not the critical work that
thought brings to bear on itself? In what does it consist, if not
in the endeavor to know how and to what extent it might be
possible to think differently, instead of legitimating what is
already known?7
For Foucault, both writing and sadomasochism were
examples of limit-experience, both were material exercises in
the exploration of bodily boundaries. Whether they happen to
be bodies of power/knowledge, bodies of organizations or
organisms, bodies of cells or bodies of flesh, it is the limits
and edges of bodies that distinguish the zones of learning. It
is the act of pushing a little further, peering round dark corners
and searching out the invisible that produces the new
thoughts to which Foucault refers. Learning is not a conscious
process, it does not happen as a direct result of effort, rather it
is the apparent accident, the so-called mistake, the strange
coincidence of circumstance that produce unexpected effects
and syntheses.
New viral strains are not designed by some omnipotent force
to render vaccinations obsolete, viruses do not try to evolve
with a particular aim in mind, on the contrary, in accordance
with their genetic code they endeavour to replicate as
accurately as possible. Sometimes poor raw materials or
restricted physical circumstances can result in a "mistake",
instead of producing an exact replication of itself, the virus
produces a mutation. Usually these malformed replicants
perish quickly, unable to compete with their perfectly formed
kin. Occasionally, however, in specific circumstances and at a
particular time, a mutation may occur that is better suited to its
environment and is therefore more likely to survive and
replicate. In a vaccinated body, for example, a virus whose
outer shell has undergone some form of mutation, is less
7
The Use of Pleasure - The History of Sexuality: Volume Two,
London: Penguin Books, 1992, pp.8-9
likely to be recognized by that body's immune system and is
therefore more likely to be able to enter into successful
partnership with suitable host cells. Viral learning is neither a
matter of design nor simply a matter of chance, instead viral
learning is a complex function of constraint and opportunity.
Amongst the complexly interconnected neurons of Foucault's
brain, billions of negotiated boundaries learnt in response to
information flowing through and around his body. Although
hailed as one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, a
slice extracted from Foucault's brain would look
disappointingly much the same as a slice taken from any
other brain. The most powerful microscopes would reveal no
secrets, no insights and no thoughts. Had it been possible to
tag and follow a momentary sensation into the philosopher's
cortex, it would not have divulged an eventual resting place,
rather it would have been seen to split and dissipate around
various neural networks. A particular sensation or moment is
not so much stored by the brain as absorbed by it. Oblivious
to any discursively constructed meaning, parallel networks of
nerve cells are continuously and minutely tuned as electrical
excitations speed across them. In response to appropriate
stimuli, memories are literally re-membered as various
configurations of neurons are jolted into action.
In a short story entitled The Secrets of a Man, Hervé Guibert
describes the fascination of a neurosurgeon as he dissects
the brain of a famous philosopher, although the philosopher's
name is never mentioned, it is clear that Foucault was the
inspiration behind Guibert's work. As the surgeon digs deeper
he slowly reveals visceral traces of the memories, ideas and
passions of his subject. During the final weeks of his life,
Foucault spent a considerable amount of time in conversation
with Guibert. Unknown to Foucault, Guibert not only carefully
recorded their conversations, but also transcribed the details
of Foucault's delirium, his moods, attitudes and appearance.
As the fictional neurosurgeon scrutinizes the philosopher's
brain, he discovers three particularly deeply ingrained
memories. The first of these "terrible dioramas" tells of a
young boy who is forced to witness an amputation performed
by his father. The second describes a courtyard still
permeated with the presence of a woman imprisoned there for
decades. The third tells of an able student whose locally
celebrated position is threatened by a sudden influx of
talented intruders, it recalls how the child philosopher's wish
to be rid of the unwelcome competition is granted by the Nazi
extermination of the Jewish refugees.
In an interview on French television in 1990 Guibert was
accused of intruding on Foucault's private agonies and
exploiting them for his own selfish motives. Guibert attempted
to defend himself, but admitted that he thought Foucault
would have been furious had he known of the secret journal.
By 1984 Foucault's body was well accustomed to uninvited
intruders, any fury directed at Guibert should have been
reserved for a far less intelligent crime. The cerebral layers
that are painstakingly revealed by Guibert's neurosurgeon
owe nothing to the tangible neurological organization of
Foucault's brain. Through his deployment of a metaphorical
archaeology, Guibert not only drags Foucault's carcass back
to the 1960s, but denies his brain it's dynamic complexity. In
1971, Foucault contributed an essay entitled Nietzsche, La
Géneálogie, l'histoire to a collection of works published in
tribute to his mentor Jean Hyppolite. In this essay Foucault
recognizes the inherrent failings of an archeological analytics
and proposes that Nietzschean genealogy presents a more
interesting route of investigation.
The end of a genealogically directed history is not to
rediscover the roots of our identity but, on the contrary, to
strive to dissipate them; it does not attempt to locate the
unique home from whence we come, that first homeland to
which, the metaphysicians promise us, we will return; it
attempts to reveal all the discontinuities that traverse us.8
Drawing from Guibert's accounts of his final conversations
with Foucault, James Miller claims, 'The "obligation of truth," it
seems, really was Foucault's unavoidable fate - just as he
implied in his final lectures at the Collège de France. Try as
he might, the philosopher could not remain silent about who
he really was.'9 It is, of course, far from impossible that
Foucault may have eventually surrendered to the urge to
confess, he was, after all, intimately aware of the pervasive
machinery through which this impulse is propagated.
However, to equate the act of confession with the truth of the
man owes more to the words of the Pope than to the words of
Foucault. Although his work may have produced remarkable
insights into the economies of discourse, it should not be
assumed that his critique necessarily insulated his body from
the effects of discourse or any other economies.
The episodes of his life that Foucault shared with Guibert can
no more be equated with the "terrible dioramas" poetically
discovered by the scalpel of an imaginary surgeon than can
ietzsche, La Géneálogy, l'histoire, in Hommage à Jean Hyppolite,
N
Paris: PUF, 1971, p.169 - quoted in Macey, 1994, p.232.
8
9
Miller, 1994, p.372.
HIV be equated with the truth of his sexual desires.
Encounters with amputation, incarceration and HIV
undoubtedly influence the body, they induce reactions and
inspire chemical adjustments. Their effects, however, are not
laid down like slate on a riverbed, instead they are absorbed
and dissipated around complex networks. Whilst Guibert may
have been in no position to draw linear equations of cause
and effect between distant moments in Foucault's life, the
same must also be said of Foucault himself. The validity of
archaeological activity is not enhanced by the authority of the
archaeologist in charge of the dig. The process of excavation
does not uncover fundamental truths, but discursively
attaches historical significance to momentary abstractions. As
Foucault's body lay on the pathologist's slab, expert
observations revealed strange lesions chased across its
cerebral cortex, although these scars encapsulated no
"terrible dioramas", they were evidence of extraordinary
neural activity. Whilst Guibert was engaged in composing his
secret notes and constructing truths from Foucault's musings,
microscopic neurosurgeons were busy investigating the
neural pathways that twist around the crevices of a
philosopher's brain.
Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite that resides
relatively innocently in approximately half of the world's
human population. 50% to 60% of the inhabitants of the
United States are believed to be infected, in the United
Kingdom the figure is between 20% and 40% and in France it
is estimated that up to 90% of the population play host to the
tiny organism. In spite of pandemic distribution, its
symptomatic manifestation known as toxoplasmosis is
extremely rare. According to most medical texts , the only
statistically notable consequence had seemed to be amongst
foetuses whose mothers became newly infected during
pregnancy. During the early 1980s, however toxoplasmosis,
alongside Kaposi's sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii
pneumonia, was one of the extraordinarily rare diseases
which suddenly started to emerge amongst the concentrated
gay populations of New York and California. Drawing from
evidence of toxoplasmosis amongst organ transplant patients
whose immune systems are actively compromised to avoid
rejection, it appears that the "normal" asymptomatic
accommodation of Toxoplasma gondii is transformed by
immunosuppression. Given its corrupting effect on T4 cells,
HIV does present a logical accomplice for Toxoplasma
gondii's more adventurous ambitions.
The full life cycle of Toxoplasma gondii can only be sexually
completed in either wild or domestic cats. Following the fusion
of macro and micro gametes the resultant oocysts eventually
pass to intermediate hosts via the cat's faeces. Any warm
blooded animal including man can act as an intermediate
host. Following the ingestion of fertilized cysts, digestive
enzymes cause the cysts to rupture allowing rapidly
replicating tachyzoites to be distributed throughout the body
by the blood and lymphatic systems. Eventually numbers of
tachyzoites begin to cling together and form tissue cysts
commonly in the eye, skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle, and
frequently the brain of the secondary host. These cysts
usually then remain dormant within the tissues of the
intermediate host and are only reactivated once reintroduced
to the primary host through its eating infected flesh. Evidence
suggests that the dormant phase of the life cycle is ensured
by the immune system of the secondary host, it appears that
the Toxoplasma gondii protozoa find themselves unavoidably
detained.
Whilst Guibert studiously analyzed the surface effects that
rippled across Foucault's body, he was unaware of the
tangled economies that collectively contributed to each twitch
and every word. Alongside the cerebral structures of most of
his compatriots, Michel Foucault's brain, had operated as an
effective prison for Toxoplasma gondii. Prior to its relationship
with HIV, his immune system kept a careful watch over the
sleeping cysts. By June 1984, however, his depleted immune
system had all but lost the multiple battles it was having with a
number of opportunistic invaders. The encysted Toxoplasma
gondii protozoa seized an unexpected opportunity for further
replication. With insiders' information, the intracellular
parasites explored for further possibilities within Foucault's
brain. Oblivious to potential meanings discursively mapped
onto a distant surface, each parasitic organism minutely
analysed the material of Foucault's mind.
Death is the great analyst that shows the connexions by
unfolding them, and bursts open the wonders of genesis in
the rigour of decomposition. 10
In 1757, Damiens the regicide was sentenced to death. He
was to have the flesh torn from his chest, arms, thighs and
calves, his body was to be drawn and quartered, and his
limbs and trunk were to be reduced to ashes and thrown to
the winds. In spite of six horses and specifically manufactured
steel pincers, the body of Damiens displayed considerable
endurance. The tissues of his thighs and torso clung to their
bones with irritating resilience, his arms and legs defeated the
he Birth of the Clinic - An Archaeology of Medical Perception,
T
p.144
10
efforts of a team of horses and relinquished their bodily
attachment only after much of the connecting sinews and
muscles had been hacked away. The body of Damiens,
through its elongated decomposition, asserted a persistent
unity. Faced with many battles at multiple sites, the body, far
from disintegrating into composite parts, demonstrates its
obstinate, if short lived, integrity.
In 1984, the body of Foucault was engaged in numerous
struggles on various divergent fronts. Whilst his last two
books jostled with other publications for room in bookshops,
for critical evaluation and for their appropriate position within a
body of work, inherited and latterly acquired genetic
information competed for the control of blood cells, and
neurons fought with parasites for the space to think. Whilst
oxygen and mucus battled for time with his lungs and pain
killers grappled with neuro-transmitters, moralists defined the
cause of his body's disease and his friends deduced the
secrets of his soul. Like the body of Damiens, the body of
Foucault is not eradicated by the multitudinous machineries
that constantly challenge the boundaries of its existence.
Quite the reverse, the body of Foucault is constantly
reconstructed through the complex interplay of these
technologies of the body.
...this technology is diffuse, rarely formulated in continuous,
systematic discourse; it is often made up of bits and pieces; it
implements a disparate set of tools and methods. In spite of
the coherence of its results, it is generally no more than a
multiform instrumentation...the power exercised on the body is
conceived not as a property, but as a strategy, that its effects
of domination are attributed not to 'appropriation', but to
dispositions, manoeuvres, tactics, techniques, functionings;
that one should decipher in it a network of relations,
constantly in tension, in activity, rather than a privilege that
one might possess; that one should take as its model a
perpetual battle rather than a contract regulating a transaction
or the conquest of a territory.11
The diffused mechanisms immanent to Foucault's body were
neither its property nor devoted solely to its service. Each HIV
virus, whilst circulating through Foucault's veins, were also
intimately engaged elsewhere. As each virus contributed their
micro-effects to the 'dying body', they were simultaneously
woven into the fabric of a pandemic disease. Working in
symbiotic combination with blood cells, medical orthodoxy,
academic propriety and bacterial infection, the virus
manoeuvred into new positions and accommodations
dragging in its wake the fluid parameters of Foucault and
other bodies. For 57 years, a network of relations were held in
sufficient tension to produce an overall effect of a coherent
body, a persistent identity and an authoritative mind. The
body of Foucault as a discursive locus may have dissipated,
but the millions of traces left after this local decomposition
continue to circulate and replicate through related and
disconnected bodies. The organic death of this author enacts
the discursive death of the author. By leaving his "work"
obviously unfinished and by removing the corporeal remnants
of the "author", the viral machinery once associated with
Foucault is now able to replicate at speed, producing
thousands of mutations and adapting to changed
circumstances.
iscipline & Punish - The Birth of the Prison, New York: Vintage
D
Books, 1979
11