On the Solar Tree & the Lunar Rhizome
The score of Piece Four for David Tudor by Sylvano Bussotti serves as a prefatory image to Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus. In essence, it’s a perfect image to “start off” the work (though there is really no beginning nor end) as Bussotti’s score could be seen as a microcosm of the work as a whole.
It functions so well as a prefatory image to this work because it merges the seen and the unseen; the known and the unknown. The existing framework of the piano score is key to the image’s success. Even someone who does not play the piano can understand that this is a creation birthed from the existing framework of a music score, since the graphic essence of a sheet of music is universally understood, even just as a graphic artifact.
Why should we care about this?
The ideas within Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus challenge traditional ways of understanding and organizing knowledge. They question linear, hierarchical structures that have dominated Western thought, suggesting these are too limiting to capture the complexity of reality. Bussoti’s diagram too is clearly challenging the existing framework and structure of music notation. He is quite literally breaking through the boundaries of the language of music in order to convey the music he really wills to produce, which is beyond the scope that ordinary musical notation can capture. According to Deleuze, a great writer always acts like a foreigner in the language in which they express themselves. Even if it’s their native tongue, they do not mix another language with their own; they must carve out another foreign language within their own. What does this mean? A great artist doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel; perhaps simply reframing the wheel in a new context. In Bussotti’s case, he is using the language of music and carving out his own space within it.
To dig into Bussotti’s diagram further, we should discuss two key ideas in A Thousand Plateaus: Deterritorialization and reterritorialization. Deterritorialization refers to the process of breaking away from or undermining traditional, often rigid, social, cultural, or intellectual boundaries. It involves the unraveling or deconstructing of established structures and relationships, leading to a fluidity and openness that inevitably challenges conventional norms and classifications. This process enables new connections, meanings, and identities to emerge, often in unexpected or non-linear ways.
Reterritorialization is the process that follows deterritorialization. It involves the formation of new structures, boundaries, and meanings as a response or adaptation to the disintegration caused by deterritorialization. This reconfiguration doesn't necessarily mean a return to previous states or structures; rather, it signifies the creation of new territories, systems of thought, or social relations that are influenced by the disruption of the old ones. The interplay of these two processes reflects the dynamic nature of social and cultural systems, where change is constant, and stability is often temporary. The concepts of deterritorialization and reterritorialization emphasize the fluidity of meaning and identity in a constantly shifting world, highlighting the transformative potential of disruption and change.
As Bussotti deterritorilizes the piano score, he is taking the entire language of music and subverting it’s existing structure to create something new. It is the past and present collapsing to create