Squaring ecology: Félix Guattari’s schizoanalytic ecogram…
Hanjo Berressem
University of Cologne
Peer reviewed
Abstract:

This contribution puts forward the contention that Guattari’s book Schizoanalytic Cartographies is his most thorough and important contribution to ecological thought. Although Guattari mentions ecology only three times in this text, I maintain that it forms the central panel in a conceptual tryptich whose side panels are made up by Chaosmosis on the more conceptual side and The Three Ecologies on the other, more directly ecological side, both more accessible texts that have become, perhaps somewhat unfortunately, the default references for a Guattarian ecology. To no small degree, the reason for the book’s failure to engender academic analyses and to connect with a wider ecological discourse is the hyper-complexity of the diagram that forms its conceptual spine, which I argue is in fact an ecogram, and Guattari’s ecological thought in general.

Formally, this contribution makes use of Hyphen’s digital format to create a sort of interactive flipbook that combines visuals that consist mainly of variations on Guattari’s ecogram, with typographically organised blocks of text that provide commentaries on these visuals. Spatially and conceptually, these blocks are aligned with specific positions of the ecogram and the complex relations between them. This provides an experimental tool that functions as an easy-access, aesthetically interesting as well as conceptually innovative entry to that ecogram, to hopefully engender discussions of Guattari’s eco-cartographies that engage philosophical, cultural and aesthetic registers equally.


Note: for the best experience, view this in fullscreen mode. This will allow you to use keyboard shortcuts to help navigation.
When following links across the document, you can always go back to the previously viewed page by using:
Alt-left arrow (PC) | Command-left arrow (Mac)

Acknowledgements

This text is dedicated, with much gratitude, to Matthias Kispert, who I consider its co-author. He has guided this project through all kinds of technological and structural rapids with almost exasperating patience, clarity of vision, an unfailingly supportive spirit and tons of humor. Never did a project have a better pilot. I often felt that he knew the text better than I did, and I am quite sure he has worked on it as much as I have. If there are links in this text that lead nowhere, it is entirely my fault. In fact, without Matthias, there would be no links, and this text would never have made it from the subjunctive to the indicative. In our final email about the status of the text, we joked about puns. Here, as a final ‘thank you’, is a pun for you, Matthias, that superpositions structure and politics: „Immer mehr links und nie rechts“.


Biography:

Hanjo Berressem is Professor of American Studies at the University of Cologne. He has written books on Thomas Pynchon and Witold Gombrowicz and is the author of Eigenvalue: On the Gradual Contraction of Media in Movement (Bloomsbury 2018), and Gilles Deleuze’s Luminous Philosophy and Felix Guattari’s Schizoanalytic Ecology (both Edinburgh University Press 2019).