Difference & Repetition

The head is the organ of exchange, but the heart is the amorous organ of repetition. The head is the organ of exchange, but the heart is the amorous organ of repetition. The head is the organ of exchange, but the heart is the amorous organ of repetition. The head is the organ of exchange, but the heart is the amorous organ of repetition. The head is the organ of exchange, but the heart is the amorous organ of repetition. The head is the organ of exchange, but the heart is the amorous organ of repetition. The head is the organ of exchange, but the heart is the amorous organ of repetition. 

(Deleuze)

In desire I become aware of myself.

Consciousness is inherently divided against itself, says Hegel.

Consciousness cannot define itself; it must hold to something other than itself. I cannot just think or feel, I must think or feel something.  

And at the same time, every thought or feeling can be also otherwise, or not to be at all; thus being its own negation. I'm not aware of things and feelings, but I'm aware that those things and feelings could be otherwise.

When I'm thirsty, my thirst is the contrast to my previous state of satisfaction. The difference between these two states is what Hegel calls desire.

In desire I become aware of myself.

There are two opposed modes of consciousness according to Hegel:

" The one is independent, and its essential nature is to be for itself (a master); the other is dependent and its essential nature is life or existence for another (servant)".*

What everyone wants to achieve is recognition and freedom (my consciousness is my freedom), while "solely by risking life freedom is obtained"*.

"The individual who has not staked his life may, no doubt, be recognized as a person; but he has not attained the truth of his recognition as an independent self-consciousness."*

The one who has proved his/ her independency by putting everything on stake, becomes a master. Thus the master gains recognition only from the servant, a dependent being. However paradoxically the master seeks for recognition from another independent being, which becomes impossible, and the never ending struggle starts over and over again. over and over again.

Notes based on Robert E. Wagoner's The Meaning Of Love

* Hegel: The Phenomenology of Mind

what a fool of heart!

The Girl with the Pre-Fabricated Heart

  

 Hans Richter, ironing a shirt in his studio, where the seven sequences of  Dreams That Money Can Buy (1943) was filmed. Image taken from the life magazine, 1946, December 2 issue:

"Producer of Dreams is Hans Richter, a painter and well-known figure in avant-garde artistic circles. Last year he introduced five surrealistic friends to dream up separate sequences which could be combined in a full-lenght movie. The contributors are Painters Max Ernst and Fernand Legerer, Photographer Man Ray, Sculptor Alexander Calder and Marcel Duchamp, painter of Nude Descending a Staircase, who forsook art for chess in 1921. To their ideas Richter added one of his own and then proceeded to film them all in Cinecolor. 

His studio was the back room of an old New York house. There, in a spac hardly large enough to park a car, Richter staged mob scenes, chases and dizzy falls, did his laundry and cooked lunch. For financial backing, he secured the assistance of Peggy Guggenheim, a copper heiress and art patron with openly Bohemian leanings. Dream s coct only $15,000 to make." 

Man Ray, Le Cadeau, 1921

  

Marcel Duchamp's sequence (Discs) with the original soundtrack by John Cage: