The Nomad Worm or The Nomadological Turn in Contemporary Art
Introduction This is a treatise on nomadology. Yet, often more than this it is a treatise on the rhizomatic influence Gilles Deleuze has had on contemporary art and – on a much wider scale – Western culture in general. It is only reasonable, then, that its structure should be nomadic in nature, fashioned as such more as a tool to illustrate this often problematic Deleuzian concept than as a homage to A Thousand Plateaus [1] , his and Felix Guattari’s magnum opus. Ours is an age when linearity is a matter of both personal interpretation and artist’s prerogative: from meta referentiality, disruptions in a given narrative order, prosopopoeia or a more time-honoured allegory. During the course of this dissertation I shall be using many of these devices, yet the most notable will be prosopopoeia in the form of Harry Irene, a fictitious art critic who will on occasion resemble Clement Greenberg, will sometimes reflect the mannerisms of John Berger or even unashamed