Deleuze, Lévinas, and the Art of Perception


0.  Introduction: Ethics and Perception
0.1 Quest for ethical meaning
This paper is an attempt to establish a connection between
two major themes that seem to dominate today's scene of
thought including philosophy, art and science. This overly
general claim can by no means be justified here. The list
of core references and the most telling quotations would in
themselves fill a paper. Let us state most boldly instead
that the heterogeneity of the era commonly and most
intriguingly characterized  as post" (post-structural, post-
colonial, post-cultural, postmodern, post-postmodern, etc.)
has curiously unleashed a quest for ethical meaning, or in
other words, for a new rationality. As if, by the
(Hegelian) irony of fate, even after the decline of master
narratives we could, and in fact were prompted to, ask:
Whence this heterogeneity? Why this insistence on amassing
and juxtaposing the most disparate elements? What is their
ensemble supposed to constitute? What is this compilation a
compilation of? Or in more philosophical terms à la
Wittgenstein: what is the point of playing so many games at
the same time? Or à la Deleuze: whence this rhyzomatic
world of non-compossibles? Or most simply and
paradoxically: What is the congruity in this incongruity?
Is there a rationale for the irrational cut? Is there a
sense in non-sense, a significance in the a-signifying, a
unity in heterogeneity? And since intermediality is a form
of heterogeneity, today's art, if it is correct to use the
term to what encompasses the most extravagant and the most
banal forms of our life, cannot but raise such questions.
 After the debunking of the concept of representation the
turn toward ethics is even logical. Naturally, the call for
ethical meaning did not always imply anti-
representationalism. For long ethics meant morally
characterizable choices, i.e., it presupposed the existence
of norms or moral laws. Art appeared to be moral so far as
it represented or exemplified actions which are
universalizable as instances of acceptable norms. When we
witness the rise of ethics in relation to heterogeneity or
intermediality, however, the issue is no longer the
representation of morality but the conditions of ethics. It
is not the portrayal of situations which demand
specifically moral action but rather the genesis of
singular situations. Following authors like Emmanuel
Lévinas, Jean-Luc Marion and Schmuel Trigano, we would say
that basically these are situations which challenge all
knowledge the agent may have: they resist any kind of
conceptualization based on past experience. They are
singular precisely in the sense that they cannot be
universalized with respect to possible action.1 In them the
agent is singled out or is addressed in his or her
singularity. The prototype case is a love scene in which a
third party appears. The scene is ethical not because one
is obliged to follow pre-existing rules or norms (e.g.
faithfulness) but because one is directly addressed by the
 Other (his or her partner) in a way that displaces the
application of a comparison with respect to a third person
(or a neutral element) for it would imply that the Other is
exhaustible or reducible to knowable characteristics that
can be compared and evaluated according to some scale. The
Other would appear to be quantitatively, and not
qualitatively, different from another third person. To put
it another way, one is kept hostage by the Other and it is
this fact that prevents the intrusion of a third person. A
very similar point is being made in Deleuze's writings when
he speaks about the need to confront the radically new or
to think creatively. It can also be expressed in Lévinasian
terms as the non-substitutability of the agent: the
situation calls for an action such that the agent's
singularity is a constituent of it. We will not further
analyze the nature of such situations here; rather, our
concern is their conditions of possibility, i.e., how they
are generated. It is to answer this question that we
suggest we turn to the second major theme in current
thought.

0.2. The perceptible and the intelligible
The theme can be variously identified as the problem of
bridging the gap between the sensible or perceptible and
the intelligible. The has a strong Kantian reminiscence. As
well-known, he assigned this key role to intuition. It is
by intuition that the manifold of sensory experience (pure
percepts) get subsumed under the a priori categories of
understanding (concepts). But it also pertains to intuition
to find a sensible form to the product of (creative)
imagination. Yet, the reintroduction of the problem today
is due rather to the fact that after the linguistic turn
categorial understanding is taken to be essentially, if not
exclusively, linguistic. That is, concepts are regarded as
the product of  man's linguistic ability: they provide the
only means by which the world is accessible. This
conception, however, bypasses the fact gaining growing
emphasis these days that the linguistic categories are a
far cry from the achievements of human perceptual system:
the latter is extremely more fine-grained than what is
categorizable in and by language. It has also been shown
that perceptual discriminations predate the acquisition of
language. So, perception both structurally and
(onto)genetically overrides language. This idea culminates
in the debate about non-conceptual perceptual content in
philosophy as well as in recent scientific investigations
about the non-modular structure of human perceptual system,
the existence of contested modalities (e.g. vomeronasal)
and the lack of subjective experience (qualia).
 This theme highlights an important aspect of human
perception. Namely that there is proper part of the
manifold of experience that cannot be subsumed under any
known or a priori categories and thereby cannot be
individuated consistently as determinable objects of
experience. As Antonioli puts it, the sensible is opposed
to the model of recognition since it is not a component a
remembered, imagined or conceived object...". (Antonioli
1999: 85) It escapes or challenges all knowledge innate or
based on previous experience. In Kantian terms the sensible
introduces an essential discordance into the operation of
the faculties. In the sensible appears the radically new
that thought cannot think but at the expense of pulling
down or bypassing all its existing categories and concepts
and by creating new concepts. At least this is how Deleuze
conceives the task of philosophy. The challenge that the
singularity of the sensible presents for thought cannot be
overestimated. It constitutes a starting point, albeit
differently, for both the Lévinasian project of ethics as
first philosophy and Deleuzian creativity in thinking. It
is a stage punctuated by loss of (intending) subjectivity
and objecthood, viz. the perception of pure" qualities as
if detached from supporting substances.
 No doubt that the existence of such a perceptual state is
both ontologically and epistemologically hypothetical. At
the same time the theme of unstructured perception runs
through twentieth century art, art history, philosophy and
science. Examples from art history abound from the
extensively discussed Proustian text on the Venteuil sonata
(Fontanille 1987, Jaquemet 1991, Marks 1998) and Cézanne's
technique (Imdahl 1979, Groupe , 1992b) through Blanchot's
novels (Libertson 1982, Wahl 1997, Robbins 1999) and
American minimalist artist, Tony Smith's highway experience
(Fried 1967, Didi-Huberman 1992) to contemporary music.
Here are some excerpts from films. Detailed theoretical
discussions of these and like cases can be found in radical
phenomenology (Lévinas 1961, Merleau-Ponty 1964, Ouaknin
1992), visual hermeneutics (Boehm 1978), ontogenetic
semiotics (Fontanille et Zilberberg 1998), visual rhetoric
(Groupe  1992), and last but not least in Gilles Deleuze
entire work. Finally. the idea that the indentification of
objects and the conceptualization of scenes, viz.
hermeneutics, is late product of visual processing is
supported by recent findings in ecological and cognitive
psychology. Roughly the insight is that the analysis of
shape and form and the processing of motion are
accomplished by a bifurcating, and in may respects
independent, processing systems. For our argument here it
suffices to point out that the quest for ethical meaning
and the art of perception as a state that precedes
objectification or conceptualization are closely connected
in current thought. We would like to elaborate that
connection especially in Lévinasian and Deleuzian
philosophy and show its relevance to the understanding of
the moving image as an instance of intermediality.
 
1. The intransitivity of Perception
1.1 Non-conceptual perceptual content
In what follows we will refer to pre-conceptual perceptual
state as the intransitivity of perception. The essential
difference between perceptually made discriminations and
distinctions available in and through language has been
pointed out in relation to various sensory modalities. This
difference is two-tiered. On the one hand it seems to be an
established fact that there is always more to perceive than
meets the mind: [t]here are many more phenomenal
experiences than there are concepts of them." (Block 2002:
135). We are much better at distinguishing specific shades
of color, tones of sound, tastes of food, individual faces
and gaits than at categorizing and expressing this manifold
linguistically On the other hand, there is a smooth glide
from one sensation to another. The idea is commonly
associated with philosophers of passion, like Hume whose
theory of sympathy is based on the easiness of slipping
from one passion (affect) into another. (Cléro 2002: 241)
 But it is Leibniz who formulated a theory of small
perceptions" which establish an uninterrupted continuity
between the sensible and the intelligible" (Antonioli,
1999: 114) It is in his book on Leibniz where Deleuze
states most clearly how strongly micro-perception (the
sensible) and modulation (the intelligible) are
interrelated: objects are nothing but an infinity of small
folds, or points of inflexion (Deleuze 1965: 131), that is
a series of microscopic variations of matter and form. On
the other hand each point is but a singularity, a bubble of
event" that is pre-individual. It is a series of such
points that can individuate things or subjects as such.
Continuity and singularity appear to be the two sides of
the same coin: they are both constitutive of what Deleuze
calls intensive series or intensitivity. That there can be
divergence, or even an irrational interval, between
singularities within a series and that each point possesses
an infinite modulatory power do not constitute a
contradiction. We contend that they follow from the fact
that perception is always a perception of micro-movements,
or what comes to the same, a constant modulation of scene
(aspects or profiles). Micro-movements do not constitute
cuts in themselves. It is only when we inquire about the
condition of possibility of perception: the existence of an
exteriority from which an interiority (a monad or subject")
gets separated. Although the interval (cut) is what makes
perception possible, it is how exteriority (world) is
"represented within", or rather is expressed by, the
interior that cuts acquire sense. For it becomes clear that
what is subject to constant modulation and is structured
like a fold is the contingent unity of the interior. This
it could not do without being in permanent contact with the
world, viz. continuously perceiving it, modulation refers
not to what is being perceived (e.g. a changing scene), but
to the variable unity of often divergent series of pre-
individuals singularities making up the interior. Deleuze
reinterprets Bergson's idea of memory as modulation to
individuate this variable unity of non-compossible
singularities both pre-individual and pre-conceptual, and
he re-names them as open or changing Whole.
 While in Bergson memory (duration) is the condition of
possibility of perception (matter) which also immanent to
it, in fact, he introduces the term "image" precisely in
this double sense (the perceptible and the intelligible are
continuous), Deleuze seems to privilege memory over
perception. Perception becomes a reduced form of memory in
that it is based on a sensorimotor scheme of action and
reaction, that is, it singles out a particular relation,
whereas memory introduces the virtual, that is, the co-
existence of an infinite set of relation. We have, however,
noted that this infinity of the virtual is in fact the
exterior world as expressed by the interior. But Bergson
also talks about "pure perception" when ever more numerous
and distant points in space are brought into relation with
ever more complex motor responses. (Cf. Rodowick 1997: 87)
Thus, perception can as well serve as a figure for memory
or the virtual. Moreover, if there is pure" perception in
the above sense of intransitivity, then perception can
become memory. Not only memory is immanent to perception,
but vice versa, perception must be immanent to memory. It
is in this sense that micro-perceptions - by metonymic
transferal - become a pure perception of micro-movements.
Note Deleuze's use of the spatial metaphor of grid (crible)
which encompasses possible and actual (small) perceptions.
In the transferal, however, there is shift in meaning:
micro-perceptions is a sort of gliding" sensation, while a
perception of micro-movements foregrounds the transition or
the cut between independent points of inflexion, viz.
singularities: in favourite Deleuzian terms it is becoming
other where other means absolutely other.
 It is important to mention at this point that when
Deleuze talks about how the interior expresses the exterior
he uses terms like murmur" (rumeur), mist" (brouillard),
sleep" (sommeil), which are very close to how Lévinas
describes exteriority (il y a). They even have a common
reference: chaos in Blanchot. But it is more simple
terminological similarity. The underlying idea is that the
exterior can enter the interior only through perception
(sensibility) in a way that escapes and disrupts all fixed
forms of, transitive, intentional and representing,
consciousness. Exteriority arrives as if non-willed by
interiority, it arrives even against its will" (malgré
soi). The fierce critique that both Lévinas and Deleuze
level against classical concepts and representation has
been strongly criticized in turn. Many authors, even those
sympathetic with the project in question, have pointed out
that the concept of radical exteriority (altarity) and that
of a most passive subjectivity (interiority) dismissive of
all initiative are naive. They find the idea of pure
perception a mere fiction. Bypassing the details of their
arguments, let us make a kind of new start and see if the
Lévinasian and Deleuzian claims could be grounded.
 
1.2 The Art of Substance Relative Perception
For a possible ground we suggest we turn to the science of
perception. There are, however, two parts of a founding
argument. The first part is purely scientific, namely
physiological, while the second is open-ended, so we have
to round it up with our own conjecture. Let us recapitulate
briefly the first part.
 We take it to be uncontroversial that Nature exists" in
different types or patterns of energy like mechanical,
chemical, electromagnetic, kinesthetic, etc. It is the task
of physics to individuate these patterns. But physics also
teaches us that energy manifests itself, or appears", in
innumerably various forms of what we call matter". Matter
is structured forms of energy. These latter forms tend to
be unique and singular in that there are no two forms with
the same material structure: there are no two snowflakes,
crystals, eggs, or twins completely alike. These two
aspects, identifiable patterns (of energy) and variable
singular forms (of matter) are the two sides of the same
coin, viz. Nature. Organs with which a proper trade-off
between pattern and variability can be accomplished are
normally called `sense organs': they are said to be attuned
to particular types of energy, or `modalities'. The
variability of the physical substance that constitutes the
source of stimuli for any organism can is intrinsic in the
sense that energy tends to appear in ways which are never
physically completely alike. Organism can develop organs,
which are sensitive to different ranges of their
environment's physical diversity. They are 'avenues' into
the organism for information about the physical state of
the external world" (Keely 2002: 11), adding that only
those discriminations of the physical energy type
constitute a given modality for an organism which have a
particular function in the organism's behavior. Thus, human
sense organs are dedicated" to particular energy types
which influence man's actions.
 In surveying the operation of our senses we have already
noted the difference between the detection of great many of
the 1400 frequencies as colors and the number of available
concepts for them. The fine-grained structure of visual
discrimination may be seen as a simple by-product of human
vision, while those which are conceptualized play a proper
function.2 But if consider another modality like tasting,
the difference between sensory experience and conceptual
power becomes even more significant. While the language of
tasting allows for identification of the four basic tastes,
which can be correlated with adaptive behaviour,3 they are
not blendable. To claim that the four basic taste types mix
to make all the tastable flavours is to commit a category
mistake." In tasting the given qualities are not
represented, but presented as such. This presence is,
however, perceivable only if proper attention is paid to
it: attention to exemplified properties is attention to
directed to the object of perception via the taste
sensations that it is capable of delivering." (Korsmeyer
1999: 128) That is, any re-conceptualization of the (new)
object of perception is inseparable from the felt qualities
or the sensory experience. And this applies not
specifically to taste sensations, but to any kind of
experience. However, taste can provide us a neat example of
the intrinsic relation of physical substances and sensuous
qualities. For instance, salt as a substance is different
from salt as a category of taste, for it "usually enhances
sweetness, but may decrease it, depending on the substance
in question; sugars reduce the sourness of acids, but acids
do not reduce sugar tastes. Caffeine, rather than blending
its bitterness with sour substances, increases their
sourness. The alchemy of the mouth is unpredictable."
 (Kosmeyer 1999: 77 - italics ours) The lesson taught by
tasting is pure qualities are internally related to, or
dependent on, supporting physical substance. if there is
any aesthetics to it, it is due to the fact that particular
chemical substances produce flavors specific to them; to
categorize their flavors is to do away with their
singularity, which is to violate" them. In the art of the
kitchen different substances interact with each other in
qualitatively different ways. Salt as a substance is
different from salt as a category of taste, for it usually
enhances sweetness, but may decrease it, depending on the
substance in question; sugars reduce the sourness of acids,
but acids do not reduce sugar tastes. Caffeine, rather than
blending its bitterness with sour substances, increases
their sourness. The alchemy of the mouth is unpredictable."
(Kosmeyer 1999: 77 - italics ours) This unpredictable
alchemy applies to all kinds of sensation as long as they
are understood in terms of exemplification. It also points
to two important facts which anticipate our ideas
concerning the perception as an experience of the sublime.
Firstly, unpredictable" indicates that it brings real
challenge to the experiencer, since it cannot be
categorized. Secondly, alchemy" refers to the
ineliminability of "felt quality" or sensuousness: the free
play" of the imagination is intrinsically linked to the
sensory experience as such. Thus the perception of physical
qualities and/or substance is both richer and structurally
different from language (categories).
 
1.3 Narrativity and Specificity
The second part of the argument drawn from science is a
basic in ecological psychology propounded first by J.J.
Gibson and adapted to filmic experience in details by
Joseph D. Anderson as the ecological theory of film. The
core of the argument is that the perception of filmic
movement is analogous to the perception of real movement;
i.e. both are processed by the same visual system, which is
called the dorsal system and is opposed to the ventral. The
functional differentiation of the two visual systems has
quite a history, but their working, if  interrelated, and
if yes, to what degree, is extensively discussed these
days.4 The dorsal system is egocentric: it processes
movement in the first place. It can make very fine temporal
discriminations, and it operates very fast. It processes
absolute size and distance by comparing them to the body of
the actual subject. (Note that it is generally said to
process moving `blobs', rather than objects in the ordinary
sense.) The ventral system is allocentric: it processes
relative size, depth, colors, shapes, etc. It can also make
very fine spatial discriminations so that the perception
and categorization of objects belong here. It is however
relatively slow in operation. This is one of the major
reasons why certain scientists and philosophers associate
consciousness or reflexivity with ventral processing.
 Now, clearly, the dorsal system operates on a
sensorimotor basis. We assume that the ventral system
introduces a temporal gap within the sensorimotor scheme
 (between action and reaction) and leaves room for
deliberation. Although it may imply detailed observation of
target action, it is only for the sake of a better
reaction. It is in this purpose-centered sense that we
associate narrativity with the joint operation of the two
systems. It is important to note narrativity is dependent
on categorial perception and classification (sequential
ordering included, see narrative structure) for which the
ventral system is responsible. The capacity to categorize
and narrative understanding is in fact the same capacity:
they both make use of the sensorimotor scheme (Thomas 1999)
and subserve the same function.
 This idea of narrativity accords well with one of
Deleuze's key concepts: the center of indeterminacy which
he takes over, albeit in a reinterpreted form, from
Bergson. It can be defined as "a range of responses
available for selection as the appropriate response or
action with respect to an analyzed stimulus or perception".
(Rodowick, 1997: 87) Since, however,
 not any stimulus can be related to any action, the
crucial question (for Deleuze, as well) is what determines
reaction. The traditional answer is that with the ventral
system operating there opens up the way to construct an
allocentric system in which relevant distinctions (in the
perceived scene) are assessed relative to each other,
rather than relative to the ego. This seems to presuppose
the wielding of concepts, hence a linguistic
(propositional) ability. For a long time it was this aspect
that raised human knowledge above animal understanding
which operate according to inbuilt programs. We have seen,
however, that how perception distinguishes is different
from language. The best example is what is known as the
sorites-paradox. If it is applied to linguistic categories
induction generates a paradox (cf. how many grains make a
heap); if it is applied, however, to perceived
distinctions, it generates a glide. The question of
boundary simply does not arise.
 Now, we contend there is a tension in Deleuzian
philosophy when he tries to move from pure perception to
perception of movement, both sensorimotor and aberrant (as
a figure for time). For when he talks about micro-movements
as the result of micro-perceptions, he remains within the
sensible or perceptible; but when he argues for what he
calls the center of indeterminacy or the rhyzome (erratic
movement, irrational interval, etc.), he only generalizes
the sensorimotor relation to apply it to the creation of
new categories. That is he not only remains within the
intelligible, but he uses the so-called active perception
as a figure for what can be made intelligible. In fact,
there is no movement" from one plane (sensible) to another
(intelligible), but there is rather one plane, a plane of
immanence. Thus, Deleuze eliminates intuition in the
Kantian sense, or dissolves its function in the plane of
immanence. With this move, however, the sensible as
perceived quality loses its independence: it is only a
model for thought, even if it is non-classical. The
Deleuzian project for philosophy can be seen as a
questioning of its power or conceptual boundaries, but it
does not carry a radical questioning in the sense of
focusing on the gap between the sensible and the
intelligible.
 Cinema's task is conceived by Deleuze as to make time and
thought perceptible... visible and acoustical", that is it
showcases the role of intuition. (Rodowick 1997: 17-18)
Yet, we have stated that he privileges memory at the
expense of perception. Should he have not done so, he could
not have so easily justified neglecting, or downright
negating, the phenomenology of perception We suggest that
we take another route from pure perception. Instead of
constructing an allocentric (conceptual) system à la
Deleuze, we follow Merleau-Ponty in foregrounding
egocentric operation. In Merleau-Ponty it means first and
foremost orientation in physical space. Although in many
respects it implicates dorsal processing (cf. depth cues
like motion parallax, apparent size, occlusion), egocentric
in Merleau-Ponty highlights the perceiving subject as
constantly moving (cf. the concept of horizon), rather than
the perception of movement as canvassed in Gibsonian
ecological psychology. The application of Merleau-Ponty's
ideas to cinema has been subject to severe criticism.
Because the Deleuzian project is aimed at lower than basic
level of categorization, viz. attention is turned to the
perception of pure qualities, the loss of objecthood, etc.,
the end-orientation inherent in a phenomenological
enterprise à la Merleau-Ponty and related to basic level is
to be superseded. Yet, we would like to emphasize only one
aspect of his phenomenology here, namely the fact that the
viewer is always positioned by the filmic images, which is
often called orientation in fictional space. Such an
orientation requires the overcoming of the well-known
scene/surface ambiguity in favor of the first. In this, and
only this, respect, Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology is akin
to ecology. But while ecological film theory has no concern
at all for surface texture, Merleau-Ponty was first and
foremost concerned with fine arts, especially painting,
viz. the surface. We cannot elaborate a whole new
phenomenological approach to the filmic image here (indeed
we are more concerned with Deleuze), we cannot without
further ado get around the problem of seeing a scene in a
surface. The moving image and painting have often been
opposed in the sense that we seen the scene through the
surface in film, while we see the scene in the surface in
painting. (Wolheim 1980, Walton 1990) To our knowledge it
has never been proposed that there are cases when we see
the surface in the scene. What we are going to say in the
immediately following part can be understood in this
manner. So, let us clarify
 We have stated that narrativity is made possible by our
capacity to categorize. To that we now add that most often,
if not always, narrativity is achieved at a basic level of
categorization. By basic level we mean what E. Rosch and
her colleagues have made popular in cognitive science. (See
its application to film theory in Landau 1998) It has also
been claimed that the so-called American plan can be
equated with basic level categories, while close-ups and
panoramic views are to be located respectively at
subordinate and super-ordinate level. That narrativity is
understood at basic level does not imply, of course, that
the other two kinds of shot are entirely missing. (Note
that according to Deleuze the time-image is already
contained in the movement-image, and vice versa.) It means
only what David Bordwell theorized once as the
subordination of style to the understanding of the plot
(the sujet). Our argument runs exactly in the opposite
direction. We have asked: What is the function of non-
conceptualizable perceptual content? Now we claim that the
pure perception of visual and other qualities activate
another capacity that is orthogonal to narrative
understanding. Thus, it may even inhibit narrative
understanding. We have dubbed this capacity as the capacity
to recognize specificity. By specificity we that an
individual is individuated as an individual, and not as
member of a class, or as a co-specific of some species. In
brief, the individual cannot be reduced to categories. That
such a capacity has been playing an essential role in
establishing and maintaining communities was stated by many
scientists (first probably by Konrad Lorenz); but that this
capacity is parasitic on perceiving the unique and singular
properties of physical substances like food, sound and
visual texture, (voice, color, face) movement (gait), and
pheromones (vomeronasal "smell"). has received less
attention. So, when both Deleuze and Lévinas choose pure
perception or  sensory experience as their starting point
to deconstruct transitivity: the rigidity of concepts or
intentional consciousness, they highlight the operation of
a very important human capacity, which runs counter to
narrative understanding.
   The crucial point is however this: even if we allow
for specificity recognition in real life, how can we
project this experience to objects of art especially like
the moving image, which is most often classified as an
essentially narrative genre? Certainly, many theorists have
pointed at non-narrative elements in films. Even whole
films are classified as non-narrative. But this is a far
cry from saying that the non-narrative cannot be, in
principle, integrated into the narrative because they
trigger off in the viewer the capacity to recognize
specificity, which eo ipso the perceiving of physical
qualities, a capacity orthogonal to narrative
understanding. (Note this still does not imply that viewers
cannot by force integrate specificity into the narrative;
but they can do that only at the expense of reducing it to
categoriality. Still the question lingers on: what is the
object of such aesthetic experience, for it cannot be the
Other (individual or object) as in a real life situation?
 Now to answer that we have to turn how Deleuze and
Lévinas treat art in general, and how they conceive of the
relationship between immanence and transcendence in
particular.
 
2. From Sequencing or Narrativity: Time as Figural
Let us continue with a few examples which attest how micro-
movement or slow movement can inhibit narrative
understanding. Remember that sensorimotor responses are
based on categorial perception and thinking, whereas non
basic-level processing may interrupt the unfolding of the
narrative scheme. While a few close-ups or panoramas need
not inhibit narration, the cases where the two systems (the
dorsal and the ventral) are made to rival for dominance
(Mishkin et alii 2001) may well produce that effect.
 
The actual and the virtual
The contrast or orthogonality between sensorimotor scheme-
based processing (narrativity) and specificity recognition
is recurrent in several distinctions Deleuze makes
throughout his cinema books. Despite his emphasis on
multiplicity as the Open Whole, Deleuze makes ample use of
binary oppositions. Here are a few pairs. Firstly, he
distinguishes between two kinds of recollection: a habitual
kind, which is ends-directed or purpose-centered, and thus
it can be assigned to basic level, sensorimotor processing;
and another kind, which is turned inward, non-narrative,
and thus it occurs at a lower than basic level; it is here
where opsigns and sonsigns belong. Secondly, he keeps
talking about two kinds of description: an organic (again
akin to sensorimotor scheme) and a crystalline one when the
object is created anew. In the latter case it is an
associative kind of description, a recollection of forms,
the object can no longer be said to be same. (Deleuze 1985:
46) Since the object (like the subject) is never given, but
it is rather in the making, this case is close to what,
after Lévinas, we have called intransitivity. Now, maybe
the most important binary terms are the actual vis à vis
the virtual image. Although the actual image is rooted in
perception, while the virtual is correlated with
recollection, viz. memory, we also learn that the two may
well become indiscernible. At other places, however,
Deleuze talks about the "movement" to-and-fro between the
actual and the virtual image. This movement in turn
obliterates the simultaneity of the two images, and it
points to a sequence or series of images instead. In fact
the cut as the interval is introduced as a transition
between the two kinds of image. But we can give two
interpretations of the cut as a form of transition.
 To begin with, although we see first the one, and then
the other kind of image, it is only after this, ex post
facto, by means of a totalizing gesture that we fail to
distinguish them. But we might not always have to. It is an
equally open possibility. For instance, in Citizen Kane An
image is virtual for Leland, while actual for Bernstein.
(Deleuze 1985: 70, Rodowick 1997: 94) For what makes an
image actual? Is it that the distinction applies only for
someone? Or is it rather that it appears only in a
retrospective glance. But if so, the movement" inscribed in
the images must be represented in the head; it can at most
represent processing. That is it figures the temporality of
understanding, rather than being objective, a physical
point, an atom
 Well, this idea of movement as figural temporality runs
counter to what virtual and actual mean in physics, which
Deleuze himself often refers to. Yet, for Deleuze, as
Rodowick put is it the crystelline image is not actual,
then virtual [...] There is genuine chiasmus." (XXX)
Understood in this way, however, time becomes logical
paradox: logic is a figure of temporality. Thus, the
irrational intervals constitute a spatial complexity whose
discontinuity is the measure of time passing in the form of
fragmented and incompossible presents". (Rodowick 1997:
104) The term measure" indicates well the figural character
of time. Time is figured as the incompossible versions of
the same present wherein the récit is repeated". (Rodowick
1997: 107) Moreover, if it is admitted that time in itself,
as ratio essendi cannot be known" (Rodowick 1997: 103), it
cannot be presented en direct. But neither can we maintain
the identity of image as matter and image as memory.
Rather, images represent memory only in different -
sensorimotor and rhyzomatic - ways. That is, by applying
different types of logic.
 Yet, since the image-crystal unfolds in filmic images,
movement becomes a figure of temporality or simultaneity.
Time is the event, or movement" through regions, which
means that movement either totalizes or figures
temporality: it is said to be the same event" (Rodowick
1997: 94) liberated from the subjugation of the present.5
To say that the direct image gives access to a dimension in
which people and things occupy a place in time which is
incommensurable with the one they have in space", or to
speak of the same present" presupposes that we identify
that one" place both in space and time. Appealing to
contingency instead of historical necessity would not help.
The paradox of the naval battle turns on taking the future
as accomplished: for Deleuze wants, pace Leibniz, that
incompossibles can belong to the same world". (Rodowick
1997: 98) This again points to the fact that the film's
compositional logic models the workings of memory. (Cf.
Dennett's film/mind metaphor) It recalls the romantic
conception of the mind: the narrative is no longer a story
told, but rather a representation of the mental. Or as
Rodowick (1997, 108) puts it, the visualization of mental
functions."
 But there is another way to understand the cut as the
interval: an indiscernible transition between images, if we
treat images, like tastes, as the exemplification of
physical states or qualities. Then we may be able to avoid
that movement become a figure for temporality. But to
achieve this, we have to turn our eyes once again to how
processing of qualities is accomplished at levels lower
than basic. That is, we restore the autonomy of perception
vis à vis memory. The idea that a series of small movements
results in metamorphosis, a change in kind, or in Deleuzian
terms, a becoming other need not carry us over to
conceptual understanding. The smooth glide from one
sensation into another may lead to a disruption of all
identity or consciousness. It is however a most
controversial issue if becoming other can be treated at a
 purely phenomenological level. No wonder then that Deleuze
decided for merging" the sensible and the intelligible into
a plane of immanence. It is our main contention here that
the phenomenological can only be bought at the expense of
making room for the transcendental. This is in fact
Lévinas' solution" when he proposes to radicalize
phenomenology in the sense of emptying out intentionality,
or making consciousness intransitive. One of his key
expressions in this respect is the idea that the Other
pierces the form", in which it appears. It is thus that the
invisible becomes visible, or rather the visible gives way
for the invisible. When Lévinas defines the Other who
pierces his form as the Face, he emphasizes that the
invisible or the transcendental is not something behind or
beyond the visible: it is kept within the domain of the
visible or sensible. It is at this point that the most
important difference between Deleuze and Lévinas looms
large. Curiously enough, it still hides a lot of
commonality between the two projects. The gap opening up
between (Lévinasian) radical phenomenology and (Deleuze's)
radical immanence may turn out not to be that deep. To see
this, we have to turn to what we call the paradox of
expression and its ethical consequences.

3. The Diacritics of Expression: Mask vs Face
3.1 The Paradox of Expression
The paradox of expression is nothing but the phenomenology
of the invisible. It is to be found in both philosophers,
albeit in different terminology. In many respects, however,
even the terminologies are similar. Plastiticity, surface,
mask, face   these are three most common terms, through
which the paradox of expression announces itself.
 Deleuze in his book on Nietzsche and Kant criticizes all
kinds of thought (fundationalism, transcendentalism,
representationalism) that aspires to elevate the
conditioning force (principle) above the conditioned. He
coins the term subrepresentational concepts in that the
conditions that they formulate are not larger than what
they condition. Interestingly enough, he singles out the
plastic element as what determines or qualifies itself
every time it determines or qualifies (Rodowick 1997: 210).
Lévinas in turn goes as far as saying that the conditioning
and the conditioned coincides. And the place where this
coincidence happens is nothing but the Face in its plastic
manifestation (form). While Deleuze in his cinema books
specifies the plastic as the image on which he then models
thought as the geneology of concepts, Lévinas identifies
the way the Face presents - i.e. self-determines - itself
as Expression. He clarifies the way how the Face expresses
as follows: Expression renders present what is communicated
and who is communicating" (Lévinas 1987: 34) The Face has
an expression of its own (out of context): it means
kath'auto. He also distinguish the meaning of the Face
(signifiance) from semiotic meaning when the expressing and
the expressed does not coincide: he privileges meaning over
sign. More particularly, sign and meaning coincide in what
we would call the physiognomical, which plays very similar
role to the surface in Deleuze. Let us mark out this
principle of coincidence as a first premise of the Paradox
Expression:
 
 (T1) The (act of) expressing coincides with the expressed
(with what is meant).
 
 (T1) introduces a kind of plane of immanence or a non-
semiotic level of discourse. It must be admitted, however,
that many authors perceive a radical dissimilarity between
Deleuze and Lévinas in the way they use the respective
terms face, surface, mask, plastic form. They stress that
Lévinas severely criticizes anything that could be a mask
or pure surface in that it presupposes a meaning lying
behind or beyond it. Meaning is the immanent but only in
the sense of (T1), which foregrounds sensuousness. We will
see it is also transcendent in another sense. Moreover,
Lévinas' aversion to plastic art is grounded precisely in
this criticism. In contrast, we find in Deleuze not only a
preference for surface (possibly because its commonality
with plane), as well as an aversion toward face (Cf.
Deleuze  Guttari 1980). There are certain critics, however,
who try to span the gap between mask and face. Jill Robbins
for instance writes that "the mask is structured as a
necessary possibility of face." (Robbins 1997: 68)
 We agree wholeheartedly with her adding that the real
difference lies not in the phenomenology of the face but in
its interpretation. That is the distance Lévinas seems to
take with art is due to his strong anti-
representationalism: his concern is with the face-to-face
aspect, or the directness (droiture) of human relation, and
he is against anything, be it art, that could mediate
between the I and the You. But it is precisely at this
point, the interpretation of directness that the
commonality between Deleuze and Lévinas shines through. For
how is it that the Other that presents itself in the Face
is indeed the human (autrui)? How can it be that the Other
does not need any mediator, or using a Deleuzian term, an
interceptor? Or again, in our terminology, how can we
recognize the Other as absolutely Other, if we can at all?
   It is at this point that the phenomenology of the
visible or sensible becomes a phenomenology of the
invisible. For the visible is structured as the possibility
of the invisible: the Other pierces though its plastic
form". (Marion 1984) The transcendental is not behind or
beyond, but it is kept within the immanent. Yet, by calling
it forth, by locating the transcendental within immanence,
both Deleuze and Lévinas moves beyond pure sensory
experience. Thus the invisible is inscribed in the visible
in the sense that the finite, the visible, the immanent,
the interior contain the infinite, the invisible, the
transcendental and the exterior. The container-metaphor is
in fact a common figure throughout Lévinas (1961).
Interestingly enough it is the last pair of terms, the
interior/the exterior, in which the Deleuzian and the
Lévinasian projects most converge. While in Lévinas the
exterior becomes interior by the face-to-face relation, in
Deleuze the mind is nothing but the co-presence of an
interior deeper than any interiority and an exterior
farther than any exteriority. (Deleuze 1985: 275) The
convergence is thus accomplished in the event of becoming
other. Note also that in both philosophers the becoming is
non-willed.
 Naturally, this event can no longer be described in
purely phenomenological terms. In the light of the previous
discussion, however, the overcoming of the sensuous or
sensible always brings the risk of conceptualization, and
thus, violence. Note also the warning Merlau-Ponty makes
when he says: "In a cultural object, I feel the close
presence of the other behind the veil of anonymity." And
not only that. It mean that the transcendental becomes
figural, just like time does with the intuition of the
Whole. So, what we propose is still the same: not to
privilege memory to perception (Deleuze) or the general
Other to specificity (Lévinas).

4. The Ethics of the Face: Putting Oneself in Question
Our starting point is a reaffirmation of pure perception
but this time with the surplus condition that pure
perception is something that cannot be imagined, or into
which the subject cannot project himself/herself. The idea
is close to the Lévinasian idea of being exposed to
exteriority, the Face of the Other, and is diagonally
opposed to a basic condition of the Kantian sublime: viz.
sublime experience presupposes that the experiencer is
sheltered or is not exposed to imminent danger. We contend
that radical phenomenology, viz. the perception of pure
qualities is possible only with total exposure to incoming
stimuli. This is a logical consequence of the fact that the
feeling" of shelteredness is nothing but the conceptual
understanding of our position. It is not a bona fide
feeling. If such an understanding goes offline or is being
blocked, we are overcome by the sensuousness of felt
qualities: all attention is given, by default, to them.
 We cannot go into the possible neurobiology of such a
perceptual state, but we surmise that if lower than basic
level processing is mostly connected with dorsal processing
(as consciousness is with the ventral), its possibility
cannot be a priori excluded. The crucial question, however,
is not the partial independence of "pure" perception, but
the difference that the sensuousness of felt qualities make
with respect to concept-driven perception. It is with this
difference that we arrive at the second premise of the
Paradox of Expression.
 Remember that in the first premise a plane of immanence
is delineated: a coincidence of interiority and
exteriority. It was also mentioned that this coincidence
cannot be willed, in fact, it is accomplished despite one's
will (malgré moi). It is in the same vein that Art is said
both to enrapture (music is the image) us and to deprive of
selfhood, initiative, etc. But if we are deprived of all
(conceptual) initiative, we are eo ipso deprived of the
possibility to compare new stimuli to previous experience.
Intransitivity is at the door: the coincidence of
interiority and exteriority does not mean that the act of
perceiving and what is perceived coincides. On the
contrary. here is the second premise.
 
 (T2) There is a gap (écart) between perceiving and the
 perceived.
 
 The ethical turn of the perceiving subject is nothing but
the opening up of this gap within the plane of immanence.
In other words, the gap can be put down to the fact that
exteriority can ... not result from the interiority of the
I, but rather destabilize it, precede it instead of
following from it". (Marion 1984: 234) But the scission
intervening in the plane of immanence has a temporal
dimension:
 
 (T3) The gap temporalizes consciousness: it introduces a
 lapse or delay (dia-chronie) the act of perceiving and
 the perceived.
 
 It is this diachrony that evokes moral consciousness by
rendering the transcendental accessible in the immanent
(the sensible, the Face, etc.) by making the invisible
Other visible precisely at the place (the target of the
regard) which has been emptied out of all possible objects
(thus rendered intransitive) making room for the crossing
of regards. This is how J.-L- Marion defines love. It is
the paradox of love that two regards which are otherwise
invisible intercross, and thereby they renounce being seen.
Or: to see the invisible targeted object of my definitively
invisible regard which is otherwise exposed to another's
invisible regard; the two regards forever invisible are
exposed to each other in the intercrossing of their
mutually targeted objects." (Marion 1985: 236)
 
 (T4) To love consists not in seeing, or being seen,
 neither to desire, or to instigate desire, but in
 experiencing the crossing of regards in their targeted
 objects (visées).
 
 The paradox of love is a case of the paradox of
expression. In our opinion it opens up a way to deconstruct
the distinction between Art as surface (Deleuze) and Face
as human relationship (Lévinas) in that we can "give a face
to things" (visifier les choses). By assigning a partial
autonomy to pure perception, we can also reinstall art as
an authentic interceptor between the `I' and the `Other':
by experiencing art as a case of pure perception (viz. by
exposing ourselves to sublime experience), we also open up
our Self to exteriority irreducible to previous experience
or a priori given concepts.
 
Conclusion
 The ethical situation is born with the widening of the
range of indeterminacy (alternatives) in Deleuze, and with
the becoming other of the Self in Lévinas. There is no
conflict, however, if we understand the laws of thought as
machinic (in their own right): the interval measures our
freedom only in the sense that it renders our Self  other
than, strange to, itself; viz. it effects an internal
cleavage. Freedom is in how this cleavage is accomplished
(in its own right, or we only suffer it: passivity in
Lévinas, creativity in Deleuze). But freedom disappears as
soon as we turn to exteriority; viz. to action. For we are
not free to act" in that it is the Self become other than
itself that prescribes action; we are deprived of making a
choice (initiative), while choices there are internally, in
the virtual thought-machine.6
_______________________________
1 In what sense is "possible" meant here?
2 As Keely emphasizes, there are many modality-like
discriminations, like the ones made by the vestibular or
the vomeronasal system, which are not cognitively
penetrable, hence non-conceptualisable, and yet have a
proper function.
3 See. the distribution of taste buds in Korsmeyer [1999]
forming a gradual defensive line.
4
5 Confront this with the idea that an image is always
already past (Pasolini).
6 Confront the Deleuzian analysis of meta-choice in
Bresson.)