Argument about death and life

The text that precedes this argument is guided by a dynamic closer to what could be understood as a class, as it is a transcription of the oral presentation made by Gilles Deleuze in a conference, rather than something written to be read. At first, this very designation of the communicative object already serves as an example of what is made explicit in the message. Deleuze here speaks to and to people and when he asks, however much the answer may have come out loud in the auditorium, his words soar in the air as much as his ideas – until such time as, as the philosopher himself says, “as the word rises in the air, what she tells us about sinks us into the earth.” (p.394). The silent treatise that permeates philosophy is unraveled in his speech. The same owner of human questioning is stripped of its until then primordial characteristic of talking about and answering about multiform issues and it no longer makes sense to approach it in the same way. Precisely, understanding the field about which one speaks and to whom one speaks is also the creative response of knowledge to the longings, which will not be resolved at all by the idea. The need for invention is the “I have something to say to someone” and this something is close to practically every human activity, beyond art, science, mathematics, cinema. As Deleuze points out: “a creator is not a being who works for pleasure. A breeder does only what he absolutely needs to do.” (p.391). As well as what is said, the way in which one chooses to say it is the medium and as important as it is, in such a way that it is impossible to dissociate the idea from its execution on the communicative level. By deepening the logic of communication, the informational process is introduced. Philosopher Byung-Chul Han (2019), for example, when proposing a relationship between the present and endless web of information and pornographic identification demonstrates:

The veiling also eroticizes the text. God darkens, says Augustine, the Holy Scripture on purpose with metaphors, with the figurative cloak to make it an object of covetousness. (...) Information cannot necessarily be hidden. They are transparent according to their essence. They simply must be present. In this way, they repel metaphor, the concealing garment. Speak directly. (HAN, 2019; p.46-48)

In any case, language and its encounter with content serve the human interest of communicating life. Deleuze, when stating that art is the resistance against death, reiterates something that in Portuguese was so well said by Ferreira Gullar (2013): “The rotting is sublime and terrible. But there are those that don't rot. Those who betray the only wonderful event of their existence. Listen: art is a betrayal.” (p.27) Still in time to process textual production and its relationship with my practice in painting, I hope the maxim is reiterated: “Let's not die as a challenge?” (LISPECTOR, 2019; p.93) and that the image is what the word cannot be, vice versa.

Reference: DELEUZE, Gilles. What is the act of creation? In: DUARTE, Rodrigo. (Org.). The autonomous beauty: classic aesthetic texts. Belo Horizonte: Authentic, 2012. p.387-398. GULLAR, Ferreira.1930- Chosen poems/ Ferreira Gullar; Walmir Ayala organization. Rio de Janeiro: New Frontier, 2013. HAN, Byung-Chul. The salvation of the beautiful. Petrópolis, RJ: Voices, 2019.