Abstract Hélène Frichot

Keynote talk

Expressions of Joy and Sadness: On Planetary Repair

In fits and starts the world expresses itself. Expression is the movement that explicates, that animates, that unfurls myriad compositions. Expressionism, in Gilles Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza, articulates the relationship between substance, attributes and essence: “substance which expresses itself, attributes which are its expressions, and the essence which is expressed.” Deleuze stresses that “the essence of substance has no existence outside the attributes that express it”: expresses, expressions, expressed, expressionism appears to bind all things together, even as things are likely to fall apart, and generally do. Expression works in the sibling bond between forms of content and forms of expression. Expression differs in form from (artistic and political) representation, which Deleuze argues must envelop or enfold expression: a collective enunciation! Expression agitates mixtures of bodies entangled with aerial flights of thought, unfurling a fabric of immanence that sometimes shelters and sometimes exposes to inclement weather. Between sadnesses and joys, expressionism and its spectrum of changeable affects requires an ethico-aesthetics that can lend itself to situated acts of creative practice and creative resistance. On a planet suffering tremendous duress, as coral reefs collectively express their sadness though mass bleaching events, and lively urban compositions are razed to the ground, as the earth screams in pain, how might we learn with expressionism to undertake planetary repair?