Welcome back to Lecture 3.2 on the Philosophy of the CCIU. And in this lecture, we are going to be talking about where we find the newness, which was hinted at at the end of Lecture 3.1. So to find this wellspring of newness, which is needed to develop the new futures, I turn to the Deleuze-Quartarian conception of the body without organs, or BWO for short. Now, this is perhaps one of, if not their most elusive term, and has been the brunt of various continental philosophy digs. With that said, I actually think the BWO is a relatively simple concept, and with a lot of Deleuze-Quartarian philosophy,
what's the simple form of the concept as understood? the complexities naturally fall into place and luckily in the previous lecture much of what is needed to understand the body without organs has already been explained the concept of the body without organs formulated by de l'eux and qatarie begins the theoretical construction of production in itself which resides or arguably is in the outside in short the body without organs is a void of atemporal virtualization. You remember the actual and the virtual? Not in relation to the pure past of the inside, but as a transcendental function of production and communication. It's the place, though no topological language makes sense here, where virtualities come from.
So when we're thinking of virtual, and when we think, well, okay, there's these things called virtuals which sort of reside behind the actual, these transferable attributes, that's all well and good, but where do they come from? They come from the body without organs. The body without organs is, according to Guattari, a blind, ineluctable recourse to machinism. And according to both Deleuze and Guattari, it's a smooth, slippery, opaque, taut surface as a barrier. In order to resist linked, connected, and interrupted flows, it sets up a counterflow of amorphous, undifferentiated fluid. The importance of the body without organs is not its status as a void, but its function or possibility as a functional place, or as a recording mechanism, as a recording surface, in the words of Deleuze and Qutari. In relation to
the transcendental dynamic of the inside and outside, then, the body without organs is a plane of generality. The body without organs is the general, undifferentiated record of the inside. It records the history, events, desires, happenings, ideas, abstractions, connections and communications of the inside onto its unbiased and undifferentiated surface of virtuality. Language such as surface or plane is used only as a metaphor to help understanding. No such material plane exists. It's entirely virtual. What exists as a whole is simply an undifferentiated mass of potential or potentiality as virtuality. as such the body without organs in its most general sense is titled by delloise and gutari
as the plane of consistency a functionally machinic plane of recording which holds all atomic connections as undifferentiated fluid however it begs clarity that the body without organs is not dissocius that is to say it's not society it's not our societal connections it is beyond this or is it it neither is it any form sort of material pick or mix of elements it is from the body without organs wherein the actuality as prior virtuals in the body without organs it's where the actuality of the socialist comes from or the actuality of ourselves comes from is where habits traits transferables come from the body without organs is where the possible futures are held. The clear point of division here is between the smoothness of the body without
organs and the striated nature of the socius. The former, the body without organs, holds virtuality as a free-flowing mass of atomic connections which still hold their potentiality, that is they're smooth, they're free. The latter, the socius, captures them, potentializes them into actualization and striates them into a structure, sort of solidifies them. A division which is key to the functional properties of the body without organs. So we can see the body without organs actually in two senses. Firstly, the body without organs of a single or actual body. The body without organs is the virtual dimension of that body or of that structure. And also everything has a body without organs. Institutions, people, items, objects, everything has its virtual dimension
and its own body without organs. And the actual body is the actualized or stratified, or you could even say captured potentiality of that body and potentiality of that body without organs. So the actual is the stratified version of the body without organs. The body without organs is the virtual side of anything or object which holds all its potentials. It holds its connections, habits, customs, movements, traits and effects. It holds all its virtual possibilities. In the second sense, the body without organs is still understood primarily in relation to the the Deleuzean notions of the actual and virtual, except in the second case, the body with the organs is understood in a theoretically extended sense as the virtual dimension of reality itself, which is often spoken of or written of as the plane of consistency or plane of imminence by
Deleuze and Qutari. We often think of the world, society, or material as a relatively stable collection of various bodies, which all affect each other in some manner and have material relations. The plane of imminence is the theorization of the virtual elements of those bodies, the virtual connections, routes, maps and relays between those bodies, and the withheld potentiality of those bodies, all of which are virtual. The way in which the CCRU utilize the body without organs is in both senses, but both are connected by their inherent virtuality. It's always very, very useful to remember virtuality as a connective idea. At its most versatile, the body without organs is the virtual dimension plane of reality with regard to production as output the general plane of consistency where all connections flows and fluxes of
simulative and computational utilization are held as virtualities as potential for the future the production of the new begins from the body without organs the body without organs therefore is the primary plane of production for the production in itself of the outside. It's the first port of call regarding creation of the future. That which is within the body without organs as virtual or as virtualities is already within the processes of the outside and as such the actualization via the synthesized reality of the inside is secondary to the workings of the body without organs and thus secondary to the production in itself the outside or in very short and very
key the processes and functions of the outside which includes the body without organs come before those of the inside man's entire nature here is secondary to outside forces now there's only one more deluso or tarian component needed for us to be able to form the full system which allows us to understand the CCR's used notion that everything is under production. Within this Deleuze-Quartarian framework, it should come as no surprise that man himself is theorized in an entirely different manner with regards to agency than any other philosophy I've come across. Under Deleuze and Quartarian's philosophy, man is understood as a desiring machine. Let's look at this idea. The conclusion of the psychoanalyzed with respect to Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis is one
made within their the psychoanalyst's own limits those who desire supposedly do so of their own accord this is what psychoanalyst would say to desire is to desire from one's self this is as anyone who's listening to this and reading this critically this is transcendentally incorrect this is transcendentally incorrect shorthand for man's false ability to attend to and to control that which is outside of him or it is a belief that one is master of their body without organs something that the ccriu do not agree with as i will show later to sense that which is transcendentally external to him classic desire is a mere anthropocentric error of placement an error regarding the very construction of reality itself in the leotardian sense who is
someone who's very influenced by deleurs in his book libidinal economy ian hamilton grant states everything psychoanalyst knows about desire it knows by injecting it into a certain schema called oedipus a closed familial circuit now this outline of desire is very helpful this outline of desire by grant within the introduction of libidinal economy which is another text which greatly influenced the ccou this pertains to desire in direct relation to critique wherein desire is actually just a representation desire is a mask over something larger it's a top libidinal intensity or force and we can actually understand these ideas as and these forces as forces of the outside classical psychoanalysis authority and as such the authority of multiple systems of the inside because psychoanalysis what they're doing is
from the inside and they're only dealing with things on the inside like they're only dealing with representation comes from its location on the inside folded into a complex web with other representations promoting an illusion of cosmic depth and worth. Existence within imminence disallows depth for man. This system of psychoanalysis is a system of representational self-indication. It is representations explaining further representations without ever questioning the reality as representation. Now why is this important? Well, following Antioedipus, which is the first volume of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, when we follow Antioedipus in this manner of sort of occulted critique, Leotardian desire theorises of the edible triad mother-father-child, which is the classical psychoanal analytical system, as part of the inside. All that is classically authoritative
is demoted by the transcendental. Even Leotardian intensities, which arguably toe the line of the inside and outside, are, to man, mere representations caught in a loop of their own presumptions. the effects emanating from the representations of the inside can never be understood in themselves this is i repeat a dog takes chasing its tail desire of the inside is a mere subordination of in leotard's words every intense emotion to a lack and every force to a finitude in being represented by the cognition of man the pure forms of intensity communicated from the outside virtualities are constricted into finality into the finality the inside they are
taken from smooth and they are striated they are constrained in much the same way that the virtualities of the outside are constricted once they become actualities on the inside to follow or direct oneself in relation to notions of originary classical or organic as if they hold any meaning is a recursion of nothingness it's to blindly follow representations of the inside as if in themselves they hold any meaning and it's the fate of those who are secure in their delusions that what's happening on the cti is actually what's happening and it's a maddening labyrinth where every exit is bricked up by nothing leotardian desire as posited within libidilon economy is an exemplary example of working through the process of drawing back the transcendental curtain
from the inside to always reveal an eternal nothingness except when you start working with things in the ctiu manner perhaps we can do something without nothingness so what then is it that man desires what is it that he is controlled by why am i talking about desire at all what is it he understands as that which is within him as the virtual well this is where the conception of the desiring machines come in as de leuze and qataris state on page 11 of anti-edipus everywhere it is machines, real ones, not figurative ones, machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections. This statement at the very beginning of capitalism and schizophrenia posits that everything has a machining nature. The way
we think of machines is incorrect. One should not think of machines when spoken about by Deleuze and Qatari in terms of actual machines, computers, etc. For to machinize is to virtually connect, intertwine, link, and most importantly, produce. Interconnected and networked production, this is machinization. Virtually interconnected, virtual connections, virtual networks, this is machinization. Deleuze and Qutari emphasize that these machinic processes are real. Such machinizations, due to their productive nature as virtual, are stereotypically deemed not real, surreal or unreal, largely because they're simply not material, they're not actual, they're
not representations. However, both the virtual and actual and thus machining processes are very real, real in the sense of transcendental effect, wherein both processes in their inherent capabilities cause alterations, and nothing is more real than change. Such confusion is once again created from a perspective of the inside, a reluctancy to admit that the outside is real too. The processes of machines the machinations of the entire are the production of reality production is the real what is happening here is that man on the inside is presuming his representational reality and its effects are the real man is assuming that the object of his desire the representation the actual
is the desire itself he believes it is not the outside force which controls him but his own material representational motivations and yet when one thinks on these things they find that behind everything are these virtual connections desires relays and communications which are both consumptive and productive frameworks let's begin to explain the whole system how is it that for the ccriu everything is under production man as desiring machine is imminent to a system of production he isn't some free agent who is loose from all virtuality he is not creating his desires nor maintaining them nor does he understand the origins of his desires man is always in the middle of some process which has a hold of him he is in the middle of production everything for deleuze
and qatari is production and consumption our machinations are virtual assemblages of connections and communications with other machines man is understood as a desiring machine no different from any other form of machine. Society can be understood as a social machine. Politics can be understood as a political machine. Each and every machine has its own body without organs, complete with systems of virtuality. Alongside being connected to the extended definition of the body without organs as the plane of imminence, that is to say, at a certain level, all virtuality is connected in the way that it is virtuality. In this way, there is potential for connection between almost everything there is potential for communication on the level of the virtual between everything and that includes the inside and the outside the question methodologies and aims
covertly of the ccriu then are to find the ways in which we can explain connect with and communicate with these potential virtual connections because in their place within the place of imminence virtualities are atemporal they are as virtualities as opposed to actualities not locked into the spatio-temporal synthesis of man mentioned in the first two lectures virtuality itself is in the outside in some sense but in a larger sense it is of the outside and is in part the outside itself that is to say that both definitions of the body without organs are the outside they already are us the outside already communicates the reality via conversion
from virtuality into actuality the outside is already communicating with us by the very fact that the outside is the transcendental self that i spoke of in the first lecture regarding the split of the subject in relation to Kantian synthesis. So when we talk about letting the outside in, we're really talking about letting our transcendental self, the one of virtuality, and the one of body without organs, and the one of the outside, taking the helm. This theorization and recontextualization of machine then posits two prescient points. One, all processes are imminent for all machinations are real in both actuality and virtuality and transcendental there
is no up and down there is the real and then there is the way in which man synthesizes it these are all imminent and two production fundamentally changes the process of machination of production in its transformation from material or determinist free will to transcendental force allowing an inherent alteration to production the process of the machine and of machinations in general is theoretically moved to the outside production no longer has any relation to the inside other than as a force of the outside within the desiring machine as seen from the inside is an empty domino contributing to the positive feedback loop of capitalism which again to the next lecture stood passively waiting to be possessed in its passing present on the inside that is to say
in the ccriu reading of de luce quattari in philosophy man as a desiring machine is simply being waited to be possessed by a force from the outside on page 15 of anti-odibus de luce quattari state production as process overtakes all idealistic categories and constitutes a cycle whose relationship to desire is that of an imminent principle. Production as process therefore allows a possible teleological direction of capitalism. The compounding of time and production begins. In a terminological reversion the desiring machine is imminent to machinic desire. Man as a mere agent of passive temporal process his time his indexed passing presence and desire
within capitalism are aimed solely at further production the retrieval of man's desire is a process of letting the outside in as the virtual becomes the actual it is retrieved at first from the fluidity of the virtual plane on the outside body without organs and actualized into the striated socius on the inside the socius little more than the great representation the quasi-illusion of production as opposed to its reality as the inside as product the productive acts are real but the productive forces and the production itself are only to be found on the outside and yet there is of course potential for the ccriu's undertaking of producing itself the ccriu are highly reliant on deleuze's third synthesis of time as a means to traffic with the virtual and continually reinvent itself or their selves. The third synthesis,
the cut upon the eternal return, the break in time which allows for a construction, of course allows for the construction of potential futures. The CCRU state the future is a fiction and this is because cuts in time are always happening. Cuts in time can be made possible. Cuts in time are tantamount to the potential for fictional futures. Cutting time is the way in which hyperstition is made possible. A cut is made by trafficking with the virtual, by abiding, by alternative, ulterior, outsider, stranger, weird, occult, esoteric, hermetic, cabalistic, and obscure methods of virtuality production, by slicing up one second synthesis and obliterating the narrative of linearity into a seizure of folds and crumples, by mixing atemporal virtualities into a future
assemblage of freedom. One will begin to see certain problems arise in relation to phenomena or representation. That is to say that our ability to interact with the world and thus find ways to cut up time are always inherently in relation to representation, as that is what we're always synthesising. And yet, as mentioned, there have been relatively clear methods of working with the outside that find communicative frameworks which can be used to alter one's relationship with the outside and thus traffic with a virtual. Burroughs' cut-up technique has of course already been mentioned, but when one begins to look at Burroughs' cut-up technique in relation to the Deleuzian virtual actuar, they realise that what Burroughs, or anyone undertaking that technique, or these alternative techniques, is doing is cutting into a presumed or assumed virtuality. They are making virtualities communicate with each other in different ways by slicing the entire virtuality
of narrative and plot into pieces. What happens when there's no longer a beginning, middle or end? Well, the virtualities behind that linear actuality are made to connect with each other in alternative ways. Moments and events and cuts in time happen via reordering and replacement of the virtual from the inside. This is why the numogram is so important. Kabbalah is inherently a numeric device for communicating and understanding the outside. The numogram is a chaotic, cybernetic rewiring of this cabala onto a post-modern framework however this lecture is simply expanding the framework used with these methods and not the methods themselves an in-depth look at the numagram and number is in the final lecture but we have one more to go until we get