What is a rhizome?

I am going to be looking at a short section of a text we were given by our tutor Jane after the introduction of the Rhizome as our last ever module brief. The text is a section of a book titled Deleuze Reframed: Interpreting Key Thinkers for the Arts (Contemporary Thinkers reframed): A guide for Art Students. by D Sutton (2008). Further reading that we have also been asked to do is Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘A Thousand Plateaus’. My basic understanding of the Rhizome is linked greatly with the visual representation of roots; as an interconnecting, forever changing and never-ending web. I feel that the idea of the Rhizome is almost an ideal, something we should strive for, to be able to think in this way and to be this flexible in what exists around us.  

Our tutor questioned at the beginning of the text: ‘What counts as knowledge and how do we learn?’. Thinking about the idea of the Rhizome made me create a link between a text I have recently read by Heidegger, titled ‘The origin of the work of art’. Interestingly Heidegger talks of the way we associate objects with certain properties. He questions where these presumptions come from. ‘What seems natural to us is probably just something familiar in a long tradition that has forgotten the unfamiliar source from which it arose. And yet this unfamiliar source once struck a man as strange and caused him to think and wonder.’ (Heidegger, 1935) It was this question of knowledge that for me created this connection between these two ideas. How do we know that what we believe to be the properties of something are actually the properties of it? Why do we describe it as so? Do we compare it against others that are similar? These continuous connections remind me of the link that is made between the Rhizome and the family tree, the tree being a continuous hierarchal connection. How we define something due to similarity is a hierarchal thought, its difficult to question now whether this is true. Is there a deeper connection here between the Rhizome and an object? This is something that needs exploring in much greater detail. 

‘It is also impossible to posit one origin to a forest, and not simply because you cannot tell which tree came first. Any one tree is a product of an assemblage, of water, sunlight and soil, without which there would be no trees at all, regardless of whether a seed exists or not.’ Although I now see the connections this makes with the point above, I continue to regard this with interest. Jane mentioned this sentence in the discussion over the brief, and I felt that this description felt earthy and true. My dissertation considers the artists intention and how important a part this plays in understanding the work of art; looking at the roles of the viewer, the critic, the artwork and the artist. Each of these things has an input to the understanding and the making of a work of art, much like Deleuze suggests it’s a combination of all of these factors, as well as art history, theory, context and culture. Barthes writes in his essay ‘From Work to Text’ that a ‘text’ is similar in the way that there are many different combinations, and cultures and ideas that make up a text. Following this I have realised that I found an example of the Rhizome within my dissertation research. When considering the context of the publication of Barthes’ text ‘The Death of the Author’  (1967) further an essay by John Logie titled ‘1967: The birth of “The Death of the Author”’ stated: ‘The challenge scholars from the disciplines favouring this journal face is de-emphasising an understanding of ‘The Death of the Author’ as a participant in a lengthy diachronic tussle over how literary composers compose, and instead seeing in its synchronic moment, in a rhizomatic network with the other contributions to Aspen 5+6, and also with the contributors to prior work.’ He talks of how the text worked with the other elements in the publication of Aspen, and we need to see it as a part of this continuing network. My studio practice has often linked with my dissertation work, and finding the evidence of this within other research and establishing a much deeper connection between the two through an example like this is invigorating. It was in this moment that I realised that my dissertation topic is exactly what I should be looking into at this point in my practice, the link was just waiting to be found. 

Another question that was asked in relation to our own studio practice was whether or not we work in a hierarchy or whether we work in a rhizomatic way. I feel that this is quite a difficult question to answer. For me the rhizome is not a subject but a way of understanding how things connect and work around you; influences that lead you in certain directions. When looking at the idea from this perspective I consider the way that my practice develops and the path that an idea takes. There are a few different elements that I recognise that seep in and feed my ideas for the studio: other artist’s work, photographs, the people around me, and most importantly different texts . My dissertation has recently governed my studio work quite closely, causing me to engage more with the reception of a piece of work, and the role of the viewer in that interpretation. Contemporary Art and Memory: Images of recollection and remembrance by Joan Gibbons is a suggested publication that has encouraged the progress of the professional development of my practice that really begun to take shape towards the end of last semester. I continue to acknowledge this driving force behind my ideas, but perhaps need to consider the other elements that contribute. I would say that the way that I work is more hierarchal because of the lack of experimentation, an idea tends to naturally follow through as planned, by taking a moment to consider any other routes with an idea could benefit my studio practice. Since being introduced to this topic I hope that this will change, whilst still continuing to refine the work I am doing, for the final exhibition in particular I need to encourage different ways of how to present my work and then how in turn each of these will receive a separate interpretation from the viewer. 

The text talks of the way in which ‘rhizomatic networks are enabled by the Internet.’ Over Christmas I went to New York and visited MOMA, in which I saw an exciting exhibition titled: The forever now, contemporary painting in an atemporal world. It explored the use of internet and the clashing of times and cultures that this access to information caused, it challenged the mixing of timelines, questioning the given of art history. This was an example I thought of when going through this text, the show was more edgy than the rest of the work being exhibited in the massive space. Focusing more closely on the ideas of art institutions and the clash of various movements and influences, this exhibition visualised the very nature of the rhizome, looking for new and unexplored connections. The text speaks of the Rhizome having ‘the potential to move into (and onto) new territories.’ There is a connection with this idea in relation to studio work, there might be a few different ideas but there is always one that inches further than the others, that leads somewhere that you never expected. 

The example give of the wasp and the orchid is confusing, but from what I understand it is about balance, between change and conformity, stabilisation and growth. ‘Lines of flight are created at the edge of the rhizomatic formation, where the multiplicity experiences an outside, and transforms and changes. At this border there is a double becoming that changes both the rhizome and that which it encounters (which is always, in fact, the edge of another rhizome.)’ The text also mentions violence, and how it is this that tethers a path of a rhizome, an element of control that is thrust upon something that is unforgiving in its aim to develop and spread. The final element of the text that interested me was the negative slant it takes on Freud’s use of psychoanalysis and the insistence of blaming everything on your childhood. The emphasis on the ‘rhizomatic patterns of everyday life in which we are interact with others’ as a strong candidate for the explanation of how we develop as individuals questions Freud’s ideas: ‘You did not develop into a healthy tree because your roots were not given the proper nourishment as a sapling.’ Although I have also enjoyed researching and reading about Freud, I have never fully considered many of his ideas. His assertion that who we are and the problems we face are due to our childhood is something I have never been fully able to comprehend, the ideas outlined in this text were refreshing. 

It is clear why my tutor said for us to not get too caught up in what the Rhizome is. There are many different elements here that are just asking to be explored, however this was not the task we were set. It would be useful to research further into the Rhizome to understand more clearly some of the points mentioned in this text, however this is a topic that can most definitely absorb you. At this stage in the degree it is important not to stray from the individual paths we are on too much, however the Rhizome can suggest a way of thinking and interpreting ideas and influences that will benefit your work as a whole. What I have taken from this is that its important to consider things in a much wider context, question how you got to that stage, what really is important and why, there may be something that you have missed that could potentially stretch the work you are doing that step further. Consider the way the work will interact with the audience, what you are trying to get across with the piece, whether you are being successful, or if the format you are using works; I particularly will be taking these things into further consideration as I throw myself into this final semester.