Dominic J Williams

This thesis investigates Interstitial and attempts to develop it as a concept beyond its basic use as an adjective qualifying space or time. While I accept that at an elementary level it can be understood as a gap between established series, it appears that the evental quality of art that is able to flourish in this gap is suggestive of an operation or process of Interstitial. I proceed here to accept this as axiomatic and explain a speculative method of thinking Interstitial as a verb and a noun. I proceed upon this conceptual construction in three movements. In Movement One I look at a way of thinking Interstitial as a noun without regarding it as an object or a thing. This involves a double process of accepting it as an individual in the sense of haecceity and preserving it as a non-static process. Following this, I proceed to present Interstitial using the DeleuzoGuattarian and Deleuzean machinic principle as a type of function it performs as a verb.
In Movement Two of this thesis I refine the concept of Interstitial with regards to the event. This involves modifying the Badiouan theses of the 'void' and the 'event' in order to instantiate the Deleuzean and DeleuzoGuattarian theses on imperceptibility, infinite, and the Event. This follows a decision to build a metaphysical image of reality that enables Interstitial a functional and processual nature between mostly finite series (disciplines, societies, etc). To do so, I have developed a composite of theory on event and Void between Deleuze, with and without Guattari, and Badiou. In Movement Two I claim that there are gaps in series, which can be understood as lacuna, and these gaps present a Void to the series. As such, I suggest that it is the Void that governs Interstitial rather than simply the gaps. Finally, I claim that Interstitial can be understood as the resonance of disjunctive elements on Void capable of producing creative novelty. This entails machining elements from a series and exiling them into Void to monitor how new configurations are produced.
In Movement Three of this thesis I deploy the theory of Interstitial I have created in the previous movements in an experimental and creative production. This is performed by machining elements from China Miéville's novel Embassytown and placing them into resonance with elements from Alain Badiou's works and the conceptual develops of this thesis. The result of this is what I call the Voidcraft. It is capable of interacting with worlds on Void and initially behaves as an aesthetic presentation of Interstitial. Beyond this elementary function, the Voidcraft demonstrates a way of thinking Interstitial between philosophy and speculative literature. The Voidcraft produces an affect, which can be identified in its primary series as a reading, through its resonance with Badiou's elements. Finally, I show how the Voidcraft and Interstitial can be re-deployed on Void in the production of creative novelties that attest to the possibility of infinite configurations beyond finite series.

It  is  my  claim  that  Gilles  Deleuze’s  expressionism  allows  for a new  theory  and  praxis  of  reading called  Immanent  Reading,  different  from  both  his  own  Schizoanalytic  praxis  and  the referential and  ontological  theories  informing  Literary  Theory.  Immanent  reading,  I  propose,  following Colebrook’s  readings  of  Deleuze,  offers  an  ethics  of  reading  emphasising  the  pure  immediacy  of relations,  including  those  expressed  by  life.  It  is  upon  this  primary  vector  that this  thesis progresses:  the  broad  articulation  and  creation  of  a theory  of Immanent  Reading.  To  achieve this,  I  claim  that  the  expressionist  metaphysics  exposed  by  Deleuze  in  Spinoza  and  Leibniz is altered  by  Deleuze  in  his  own  conceptual  creations  (as  with  becoming  and  immanence)  and persists  as  a properly  Deleuzian  expressionism.  The  degrees  of  expression  I  propose  belong  to immanent  reading  are,  without  necessary  order,  the written-body,  the  reader-body,  and  a milieu of  becoming that  composes  them  together and  transforms  their  affective  and  perceptive compositions.  The written-body  distinguishes  itself  as  a creation  of percepts  and  affects  in writing,  the  reader-body  through  its  involvement  of  pliable  perceptions  and  affections,  and becoming through  its  transformative capacity  on  these affective and  perceptive  complexes.  The concept  of  immanence  subtends  this  expressive  composition,  drawing reading into  pure immediacy  while  articulating  it  as  a process  of unnatural encounters  for  “a  Life”.  To  avoid representations  of  life in  demonstrating  the praxis,  this  thesis  engages  with  speculative literature.  Deleuze  has  made  use  of  speculative  writers,  such  as  Lovecraft  and  Asimov,  to  create his  (with  and  without  Guattari and  Parnet)  concept  of  becoming.  Here  I  engage  with  Le  Guin, McCarthy,  and  Stanley  Robinson  amongst  others.  The  consequence  of  composing  an  encounter with  speculative  literature  for immanent  reading  is  multi-fold,  with  this  thesis  theorising  an expressionist  logic  in  the  creation  of  speculative  sensations  and  the  becomings  they  herald.

Available on request