Schizoanalysis as Metamodeling

• Main Author: Janell Watson
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Open Humanities Press 2008-01-01
• Series: Fibreculture Journal
• Subjects: schizoanalysis; metamodelization; Guattari; Lacan
• Online Access: http://twelve.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-077-schizoanalysis-as-metamodeling/

Félix Guattari, writing both on his own and with philosopher Gilles Deleuze, developed the notion of schizoanalysis out of his frustration with what he saw as the shortcomings of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, namely the orientation toward neurosis, emphasis on language, and lack of socio-political engagement. Guattari was analyzed by Lacan, attended the seminars from the beginning, and remained a member of Lacan's school until his death in 1992. His unorthodox lacanism grew out of his clinical work with schizophrenics and involvement in militant politics. Paradoxically, even as he rebelled theoretically and practically against Lacan's 'mathemes of the unconscious' and topology of knots, Guattari ceaselessly drew diagrams and models. Deleuze once said of him that 'His ideas are drawings, or even diagrams.' Guattari's singled-authored books are filled with strange figures, which borrow from fields as diverse as linguistics, cultural anthropology, chaos theory, energetics, and non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Guattari himself declared schizoanalysis a 'metamodeling,' but at the same time insisted that his models were constructed aesthetically, not scientifically, despite his liberal borrowing of scientific terminology. The practice of schizoanalytic metamodeling is complicated by his and Deleuze's concept of the diagram, which they define as a way of thinking that bypasses language, as for example in musical notation or mathematical formulas. This article will explore Guattari's models, in relation to Freud, Lacan, C.S. Peirce, Louis Hjelmslev, Noam Chomsky, and Ilya Prigogine. I will also situate his drawings in relation to his work as a practicing clinician, political activist, and co-author of Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus.