Architecture for a Free Subjectivity: Deleuze and Guattari at the Horizon of the Real

Architecture for a Free Subjectivity reformulates the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze's model of subjectivity for architecture, by surveying the prolific effects of architectural encounter, and the spaces that figure in them. For Deleuze and his Lacanian collaborator Félix Guattari, subjectivity does not refer to a person, but to the potential for and event of matter becoming subject, and the myriad ways for this to take place. By extension, this book theorizes architecture as a self-actuating or creative agency for the liberation of purely "impersonal effects." Imagine a chemical reaction, a riot in the banlieues, indeed a walk through a city. Simone Brott declares that the architectural object does not merely take part in the production of subjectivity, but that it constitutes its own. This book is to date the only attempt to develop Deleuze's philosophy of subjectivity in singularly architectural terms. Through a screening of modern and postmodern, American and European works, this provocative volume draws the reader into a close encounter with architectural interiors, film scenes, and other arrangements, while interrogating the discourses of subjectivity surrounding them, and the evacuation of the subject in the contemporary discussion. The impersonal effects of architecture radically changes the methodology, just as it reimagines architectural subjectivity for the twenty-first century.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Foreword; Introduction: subjectivization; Deleuze and 'the intercessors'; Impersonal effects; Impersonal effects 2; Guattari and the Japanese new wave; Shinohara and Takamatsu: objets verité; Architecture without qualities; Bibliography; Index.

About the Author :
Dr, Simone Brott is a Lecturer in Architecture at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Review :
'In a series of deeply thought, and entirely original chapters, the book explores the potentialities of Deleuze and Guattari's theories of impersonality and effects, and substitutes the idea of subjectivization for that of "the" subject. The book is expert in deploying its arguments towards a coherent and original conclusion, even as it admits of a wide range of philosophical and ideological positions as counterpoints.' Anthony Vidler,The Cooper Union, New York, USA 'In the last twenty years, the literature on Deleuze in art and architecture has mushroomed. In this book, Simone Brott not only shows a strong sense of development in this larger literature; she also defines a new workable position.' John Rajchman, Columbia University, USA