Dispositiv-Erkundungen / Exploring Dispositifs

As Gilles Deleuze has argued in 1988, [u]ntangling these lines within a social apparatus [dispositif] is, in each case, like drawing up a map, doing cartography, surveying unknown landscapes, and this is what he [Foucault] calls 'working on the ground.' This publication intends to provide a cartographic mapping of a complex, multi-branched, often obscure, sometimes inaccessible and overly encoded terrain. Such a mapping could and can lead to a further clarification of terms, concepts and modes of operation of that which is called art. This volume comprises 18 authors whose explorations of the dispositif have generated an anthology of select, distinct voices. Their texts are marked by multiple perspectives, they are disparate, forensic and complex, they are written in different languages, stem from different contexts and points in time, are endowed with different styles and, in some cases, also stand in close relationship with other, earlier publication contexts. This means that they are ideally positioned to unfold diverse spaces of thought, allowing them to differentiate between individual components of the dispositifs they discuss or dissect -- this may include individual operations, processes, procedures, glances, lacunae, splits, implications, preconditions, et cetera -- and allowing them, in a next step, to diagnose the strategic formations such heterogeneous ensembles might take. Beyond that, the texts assembled here allow us to discern the different variations, starting points, approaches and emphases as well as different styles of dispositif exploration.