Rhizome II - on AsiaLife magazine

Rhizome is a philosophical concept developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972-1980) project. It is what Deleuze calls an "image of thought," based on the botanical rhizome, that apprehends multiplicities.

Rhizome as a mode of knowledge

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari used the term "rhizome" to describe theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation. In A Thousand Plateaus, they opposed it to an arborescent conception of knowledge, which worked with dualist categories and binary choices. A rhizome works with horizontal and trans-species connections, while an arborescent model works with vertical and linear connections. Their use of the "orchid and the wasp" was taken from the biological concept of mutualism, in which two different species interact together to form a multiplicity (i.e. a unity that is multiple in itself). Horizontal gene transfer would also be a good illustration.

Rhizome theory is also gaining currency in the educational field, as a means of framing knowledge creation and validation in the online era. In 'Innovate - Journal of Online Education, Vol. 4, Issue 5', Dave Cormier criticizes the limitations of the expert-centered pedagogical planning and publishing cycle and posits instead a rhizomatic model of learning. In this rhizomatic model, knowledge is negotiated, and the learning experience is a social as well as a personal knowledge creation process with mutable goals and constantly negotiated premises. The rhizome metaphor, which represents a critical leap in coping with the loss of a canon against which to compare, judge, and value knowledge, may be particularly apt as a model for disciplines on the bleeding edge where the canon is fluid and knowledge is a moving target.

This performance portrays human in its own rhizome, in the horizontal and vertical connections.

Location: AsiaLife October 2008 - Eden Mall, 104 Nguyen Hue Blvd, HCMC, Vietnam
Performed by Tran Huynh Trieu An
Photographed by Fred Wissink
Written by Tom DiChristopher