Montage after Navigation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

To start with, I had accepted to be a peer-reviewer on the basis of the abstract. It mentioned three times Farocki (even though it was twice misspelled as 'Harocki'). It also mentioned Rancière, as well as the two cinema books by Deleuze. But in the end, the emphasis fell rather on Deleuze and Guattari, on Yuk Hui's Cosmotechnics, on (a map of the) Capitalocene. These names/terms were all mentioned in the abstract or as keywords, but I am less familiar with them than with Farocki and Rancière, to be honest. Nonetheless, I would like to make a few remarks. I did not really get the place of 'A Map of the Capitalocene' (the sixth heading in bold). Would it not make more sense to position this after either 3. Capitalocene or after 4. Cosmotechnics. One additional advantage is that the sections on The Movement-Image (now 5). and The Time-Image (now 7) follow one another. The current 6th section felt like a too lengthy detour. If section 5 ends with the disruptive function of montage (which I think is a key concern for the author), it did not strike me as logical that we then get an elaborate 'Map' with a number of sub-sections.

A restructuring might help to solve a difficulty I had in understanding Rancière's contribution to the overall argument. Currently, the lengthy section 6 is on A Map of the Capitalocene on the basis of Deleuze and Guattari. Then there is section 7 on Deleuze's Time-Image, and it only very briefly mentions Rancière (lines 335-337). So, if one of the (main) aims is to explain 'Rancierian (pluralising) constructions of multiplicity (line 402), the merit of Rancière seems addressed too obliquely. The idea of an 'undecidable interplay of Rancierian and Deleuzo-Guattarian modes of analysis' (promised as a seminal angle) has not become entirely clear to me.

The author has the habit of mentioning examples in passing. So, there are references to Deleuze's references to three films by Resnais (368-378). There are references to Deleuze's references to Godard (among others Slow Motion, originally Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie). By the way, three times in a row (313, 314 and 318), the name Godard is spelled Goddard. I can understand the brevity of the references, since Deleuze - as is one of the critiques levelled at Deleuze - also had the tendency to be brief in his references. But if the author then comes up with three examples of artists (Almarcegui, Villar Rojas, Vo), the descriptions are so brief that I do not have a clue how the examples relate to the arguments. I have no clue what their works entail. Either the author chooses to elaborate on these examples or the author uses the extra space to be explicit on the interplay between Deleuze/Guattari and Rancière.

Author Response

Feedback has been instructive and has spurred a re-edit of the text and a clarification of the argument that is aligned more closely to Hui’s argument in his book Recursivity and Contingency (2019).

• Re-written abstract
• Edited and embedded the Map of the Capitalocene into an expanded section on The Capitalocene
• Throughout, following Hui, the Capitalocene is framed as a cybernetic process.
• Routed the discussion (Capitalocene and Cosmotechnics sections) through an ontological analysis of cosmotechnics undertaken by Hui that invokes a discussion of contrasts between Deleuze and Meillassoux. Deleuze and Guattari are foregrounded as presenting a philosophy of machines in resonance against a backdrop of Meillassouxian construction of the real as hyper-chaos (this is consistent with Hui argument in Recursion and Contingency (2019).
• In Montage section and Rancièrian, Deleuzian and Farockian constructions of montage are presented as machines in resonance.
• Movement Image section sustains and develops these models
• Time Image section emphasises the function of montage after navigation belongs to a dissection and layout of media consistent with Deleuzian crystal image.
• Movement Image and Time-Image sections now both include examples of works by Farocki.
• Time Image section ends with a sustained examination of a Danh Vo installation.

Reviewer 2 Report

The essay eventually seems to argue, effectively, that montage can change the way that we think. This is not an original argument, but it is nicely done, and the engagement with Sauvignargues and others does make for a good contribution to the 'cause,' as it were. The essay might expand a bit upon its examples - it namedrops films, artists and art works without actually explaining them; and it is also pretty fast-paced in its engagement with the theories (indeed, Farocki is mentioned as being pretty integral in the abstract, but is only there pretty briefly in the essay itself). But it basically works (it assumes an advanced reader, but that is fine). There are some typos - especially with names (Godard, Farocki). And the abstract itself is almost misleading in its lack of clarity. Yuk Hui might also be more meaningfully introduced. So, overall, I'd recommend some rewrites to let the essay breathe a bit more...

Author Response

Feedback has been instructive and has spurred a re-edit of the text and a clarification of the argument that is aligned more closely to Hui’s argument in his book Recursivity and Contingency (2019).

• Re-written abstract
• Edited and embedded the Map of the Capitalocene into an expanded section on The Capitalocene
• Throughout, following Hui, the Capitalocene is framed as a cybernetic process.
• Routed the discussion (Capitalocene and Cosmotechnics sections) through an ontological analysis of cosmotechnics undertaken by Hui that invokes a discussion of contrasts between Deleuze and Meillassoux. Deleuze and Guattari are foregrounded as presenting a philosophy of machines in resonance against a backdrop of Meillassouxian construction of the real as hyper-chaos (this is consistent with Hui argument in Recursion and Contingency (2019).
• In Montage section and Rancièrian, Deleuzian and Farockian constructions of montage are presented as machines in resonance.
• Movement Image section sustains and develops these models
• Time Image section emphasises the function of montage after navigation belongs to a dissection and layout of media consistent with Deleuzian crystal image.
• Movement Image and Time-Image sections now both include examples of works by Farocki.
• Time Image section ends with a sustained examination of a Danh Vo installation.