PROCESSUALITY ACROSS THE POLYSEMIC URBAN FRINGE : DELEUZIAN LANDSCAPES OF IMMANENCE

Abstract

We often think of our lived environment on single dimension planes; as exemplified by concepts such as “Live, Work, and Play”. Whilst on the macro political urban planning level, it would seem that the lives of the typical working class in developed cities can neatly be categorized and compartmentalized into these three neat boxes, it is hardly the reality. According to the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, individuals or groups function along three transecting categories (segmentarity, molecularity, and flight), which he calls planes of existence. These planes intersect and intertwine, contradicting or aligning with others in a machinic assemblage. This constructs a dynamism to which contributes to the haecceity unique to the individual or community of people. This haecceity is processual and not pegged on closed ended transcendental definitions, but is instead an open ended process on which flows, rhythms and becomings take precedence. This dissertation attempts to understand the haecceity of urban slum dwellers, whose existences are often casted outside the fixed molar plane constituted from hegemonic ways of thinking. This is done through the web of connections drawn from the author’s firsthand experience, books and the viewed experience (as intended by authors, film and documentary producers). The film to begin this conversation is the much acclaimed “Slumdog Millionaire” along, and contrasted with the book it was based on; understanding of Deleuzian concepts is grounded upon the book “Deleuze and Cinema,” on which Deleuzian concepts are discussed with respect to the machinic assemblage constructed by the viewed experience of film.