Assemblage#
Origins with Deleuze and Guattari
- assemblage possibly better translated as "working arrangement" (Luik et al, 2018)
Luik et al (2018) identify two critical elements from Deleuze
- Heterogeneity of the parts
- interactions of those parts and their intensificiation of each other
Luik et al (2018)
...assemblage is not merely a form of content consisting of a collection of different objects, but a collection of interactions in their midst, evoking, as its form of expression, a new sythensised power greater than the sum of its parts (p. 1271)
Key concepts#
Formalisation#
a point of attention in using assemblage...is formalisation, which can be used to understand what keeps the assemblage intact and what can transform it. (Luik et al, 2018, p. 1271)
Two formalisations in Deluzian terms of assemblage. The assemblage is the productive intersection of them
- form of content - actions, bodies and things
- form of expression - affects, words, ideas
These are interdependent and irreducible. Content is not a thing, but a complex state of "things, bodies and action". Expression is not words, but "a set of statements, discources and ideas arising in the social field"
Configuration of bodies#
Assemblages include objects of all types. Human, object, and immaterial. It is not static. Composed of the relations amongst the capacities of the various components/parts.
Co-functioning#
Is what holds the assemblage together. It's only unity. A symbiosis or sympathy.
It's not formal or legal connections that are important. But the alliances, allows. It is changeable, fleshly, inconstant. Fluid, ephemeral and unpredictable.
Check out#
- sociotechnical assemblage [40]
- sociomaterial assemblage [36]
-
data assemblage [24]
References#
Luik, J., Ng, J., & Hook, J. (2018). "More than just Space": Designing to Support Assemblage in Virtual Creative Hubs. Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 1269--1281. https://doi.org/10.1145/3196709.3196758