Semblance and Event

Activist Philosophy and the Occurrent Arts

Brian Massumi, Brian Massumi, Erin Manning (University Research Chair in the Faculty of Fine Arts; director of the Sense Lab, Concordia University)

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English

MIT Press
16 August 2013

Theory of art; Philosophy: aesthetics

Series: Technologies of Lived Abstraction

An investigation of the ""occurrent arts"" through the concepts of the ""semblance"" and ""lived abstraction.""Events are always passing; to experience an event is to experience the passing. But how do we perceive an experience that encompasses the just-was and the is-about-to-be as much as what is actually present? In Semblance and Event, Brian Massumi, drawing on the work of William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, and others, develops the concept of ""semblance"" as a way to approach this question.

It is, he argues, a question of abstraction, not as the opposite of the concrete but as a dimension of it- ""lived abstraction."" A semblance is a lived abstraction. Massumi uses the category of the semblance to investigate practices of art that are relational and event-oriented-variously known as interactive art, ephemeral art, performance art, art intervention-which he refers to collectively as the ""occurrent arts."" Each art practice invents its own kinds of relational events of lived abstraction, to produce a signature species of semblance. The artwork's relational engagement, Massumi continues, gives it a political valence just as necessary and immediate as the aesthetic dimension.

By: Brian Massumi
Series edited by: Brian Massumi, Erin Manning (University Research Chair in the Faculty of Fine Arts; director of the Sense Lab, Concordia University)
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: 1
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 14mm
Weight: 345g
ISBN: 9780262525367
ISBN 10: 0262525364
Series: Technologies of Lived Abstraction
Pages: 232
Publication Date: 16 August 2013
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Brian Massumi is Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences at the University of Montreal. He is the author of Parables for the Virtual- Movement, Affect, Sensation and A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia- Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari (MIT Press).