[D-G] Carnival and Violence

Dylan Kerrigan rumagin at aol.com
Thu Aug 24 14:16:06 PDT 2006


Recently i have been studying Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago - its 
history since the late 1700s through the 19th century and emancipation 
when the streets became more violent into the 20th century where after a 
long creative period of design inspired by the birth of a new nation the 
profit motive swept in and transformed the festival into a highly 
sexualised and charged performance where the older ways have been 
forgotten and MTV is the preferred image to reproduce.

At the same time i was forced to note the excessive levels and crime 
experienced daily on such a small island. With a population of 
1.3million they have already had over 250 murders for the year so far. 
Guns are prevalent and some of the violence itself has borders on the 
performative - recently a body was found chop into various parts and 
buried in buckets.

How would Delueze and Guattari bring Carnival and Violence into 
conversation. Could they? What would their machines, there productive 
metaphors say about it. Perhaps that Carnival on the surface presents 
joviality and jouissance, but also hides the production of more violent 
undercurrents which at other times bubble to the surface and actually 
result in physical harm.

its just a thought im struggling with because i would like to pursue and 
research the conversation they have with each other, and i'd like to do 
it using a deleuzian attitude.

I lean toward thoughts of an intersection between capitalism and 
carnival  - i think to pursue once again and no doubt not for the last 
time Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Do others think this foolish. Im 
sorry if anyone feels this email is off point. That was not my 
intention. I would be interested to hear anyones thoughts on this or on 
Deleuze and Violence, Deleuze and Carnival more generally.

Thanks

rumagin



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