Erin Manning (b. 1969, Canada)
Brian Massumi (b. 1956, USA)
Thought in the Act, 2014

‘Every practice is mode of thought, already in the act. To dance: a thinking in movement. To paint: a thinking through colour. To perceive in the everyday: a thinking of the world’s varied ways of affording itself’ (Manning & Massumi 2014, vii).

‘Out goal: to experiment with the breach. Not to tell art how to think, or to tell dance how to understand itself. But to bring into relief techniques, in the painting, in the dancing, in the creation of events, from which a singular proposition may breach. For it is in the breaching that thought acts most intensely, in practices co-composing’ (ibid., viii).

That sounds as just what the doctor prescribed, but I have barely started reading, so it remains to be seen. There may be some toxic Deleuzian influence, too, it seems. Nevertheless, already these short quotes reflect some of my key attitudes – my arting is my way of thinking; and it is calculated breaches that tend to enrich my thinking the most. I am also curious what the outcome may be of Manning & Massumi’s attempts to create interference between art and philosophy, as I am playing with a number ideas of bringing art and theory closer together – and in radically different ways than simply letting art to illustrate science, as is often the case in interdisciplinary approaches.

Reference

Manning, Erin and Brian Massumi. 2014. Thought in the Act. Minneapolis / London: University of Minnesota Press.