Félix Guattari Machinic Heterogenesis
from Chaosmosis 1992
In Machinic Heterogenesis Félix Guattari takes the reader through an expansive and extending consideration of the 'Machinic' seeking to "....envisage machinism in its totality, in it's technological, social, semiotic and axiological avatars." The text leads us through simple technological systems such as a lock and key through to complex intersections of numerous 'machinic assemblages', such as Concorde.
Guattari broadens out and leads us to think about social structures as machines - 'urban State machines', 'royal machines', 'commercial and banking machines' and so forth - before leading us into a consideration of the possible application of the machinic to ethical and ontological investigations. He concludes with an examination of the machinic in relation to omnipresent homogenised capitalist exchange value.
Taken from Guattari's final book, Chaosmosis, the text also touches on examples of 'machines' found in his earlier writing - desiring machines, abstract machines and writing machines.
