mapping multiplicity--imagining rhizome

"There are no points or positions in a rhizome, such as those found in a structure, tree, or root. There are only lines. When Glenn Gould speeds up the performance of a piece, he is not just displaying virtuosity, he is transforming the musical points into lines, he is making the whole piece proliferate" (ATP 9).

My initial reactions to the Rhizome chapter are centered around this idea of a multiplicity constantly in flux without any root or foundation. The example of the puppet illustrates how each string, each line of connection is also a line of flight--the strings that control the puppets limbs connect to the puppeteer's--each multiplicity linking or branching out towards others. These ideas, or clusters of ideas begin to form structures; they may even become images or texts. This makes me think of all the diagrams in neuroscience that map out the complex pathways of hormones and neurotransmitters.



These multiplicities form maps, topographies that extend without roots anchoring it in the ground. In this way, I was reminded of Donna Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" when she talks about the cyborg as an entity that liberates itself from it's haunted roots, grounded in the structure of military innovation, in the mechanics of war. Coming back to the original quote, Glenn Gould multiplies these lines of flight as he intensifies the piece, forming rhizomes of point and counterpoint that may intertwine, expand, split, etc. Visually, it reminds me of a topo map--a map that uses lots of squiggly lines to show altitude, creating a landscape that divorces itself from the first-person perspective looking at the horizon to an omnicient view that comprises a multiplicity of information.