17. Cf. Van Gelder & Davidts 2006: 16. 18. Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia, transl. by Brian Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987: 316. 19. Deleuze & Guattari 1987: 317. 20. Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, “Percept, Affect, and Concept,” What Is Philosophy? transl. by Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell, New York: Columbia University Press, 1991: 184. 21. Philippe Van Snick, ‘Brussel, 27 April 1993’, Witte de With – Cahier #1, October 1993, Dusseldorf: Richter Verlag, 1993: 146.
An element of Philippe Van Snick’s investigation of the instability of materials is a reflection on how, like a thief in the night, impurities sneak into the purity of materials. He aims to leave behind a penetrating visual impression of how stability subsides, how symmetry reshapes itself to asymmetry, to regain a balance. In this context, he speaks of “agency,” of the ordering or arranging of elements.17 With this he means the particular transformation of the many tiny connections in the world, which sometimes are barely noticeable to the naked eye but which may have large effects at all sorts of levels nonetheless. In this respect Van Snick has repeatedly voiced his fascination for what Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus (1987) describe as “the T factor” or the territorializing factor (facteur territorialisant).18 Social functions, Deleuze and Guattari argue, are organized by being turned into territorialized activities, such as hunting, sexuality, or home building. Similarly, that rhythms or melodies are expressed in features that belong to them, such as color, smell, sound, and silhouette, is also an instance of a territorialized event. This organization of functions with an eye to further developing a territory Deleuze and Guattari refer to as art. A well-organized territory, such as for instance a property, is the result of art, of a marking — they speak of a poster or placard — that develops into a more advanced organization. In this respect, it is possible, according to Deleuze and Guattari, to turn a color into one’s individual banner or placard.19 This is precisely what Philippe Van Snick has done. With colors he has staked out his territorial markings [232, p. 251; 235, p. 253; 261, p. 292; 265, p. 297]. In this way he came to develop his well-known ten color palette. Those colors have no symbolic level, but should be seen as an open, mobile signature, as well as an affirmation of his individuality as artist, much in the same way as birds cover a particular area [16, p. 38-39]. Such markings are no demarcations. On the contrary, as individual, expressive markings, they are there prior to a well-demarcated territory, or, in other words, an ordered society. At the same time they are capable of developing a territory and mold it in various ways, thus enabling transformations of demarcated territories to new constellations. Deleuze and Guattari refer to them as “blocks of sensations in the territory” (blocs de sensations dans le territoire).20 Many examples of such created ‘blocks of sensations’ can be found in Van Snicks oeuvre since the 1980s, such as Asymmetrisch Rood (1993), which he presented at Witte de With in Rotterdam. The work consisted of a glow of red and blue that could be noticed way into the other rooms [197, pp. 218-222]. As Van Snick has commented, one may look at it as a ‘blow-up’ of the Symmetrische en asymmetrische reeks (1987-88). It existed “first in [his] mind, where dimensions are relative and no materials are needed.”21 Next, the concrete dimension took shape in the confrontation and interaction with the actual spaces of Witte de With. To Van Snick, it involved a placing of “Red against
Hilde Van Gelder
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