Deleuze and Guattari use the terms “deterritorialisation” and “reterritorialisation” (we know that the terms are annoying to pronounce) frequently in their book “A Thousand Plateaus.” The two writers use “soft” concepts in the book which allow the ideas to change with time and context.
For example, a child might have problems with reading and writing, but is very good at expressing herself by dancing. The reterritorialising powers want her to be like other children, but a pedagogue might develop deterritorialising methods so that she can express herself with dance in school instead of the normal reading and writing forms of expression.
The same child grows up and goes to study choreography and the reterritorialising powers want her to be like the other students. But rather than submitting to the norm, she develops deterritorialising methods so that she can express herself with dance in the way that fits her body, interests and personality. Our lives, nature and everything that surrounds us therefore move according to these two processes and something that is deterritorialising today can be reterritorialising tomorrow.
The softness of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation makes the concepts useful in many different disciplines. With the EEGsynth, we bring together musicians, visual artists and neuroscientist in order to create hybrid workshops that work in all three disciplines. When two musicians, artists or neuroscientists discuss, they take many things for granted and can use the accepted jargon of the discipline – but in front of people from other fields this becomes difficult and they are forced back to look at the most fundamental questions of their practice. We deliberately take professionals out of their comfort zones to challenge accepted ideas within each discipline – deterritorialising genres.
Both the brain’s functions and music are built on oscillations. They also use expectations/projections and the deliberate breaking of these. By breaking the silence and creating a sound, the musician deterritorialises the situation. If this sound is recurring, like a beat or a continuous note, it becomes reterritorialising. But by creating variations, off-beat or slightly disharmonious sounds we again deterritorialise the sound. Music is about constantly building up expectation and then breaking them. Similarly, the brain projects that everything will be as the moment before and then looks for deviations from this prediction. Both music and the brain are involved in an ongoing play of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation.
We want to use the EEGsynth to reflect on the complexity of the human nervous system and how music can be a key to unlock its mysteries. The EEGsynth allows the participants of our workshops to get a better understanding of the micro-processes of reterritorialisation and deterritorialisation in music, the brain as well as the macro-processes in music, art, science as well as in social, economic and political systems that surround us.