Creation and the function of art

This thesis returns to the Greek understanding of art to rethink its capacities. It focuses on the relationship between techné (which involves but is not limited to artistic practice) and phusis (or nature) and the role of the function in deviating or affecting phusis. The orthodox understanding of art that comes to us via Platonism exemplifies the degraded reality of the ideal. Aristotle proposes a different, though still problematic, approach to art. Aristotle presents a complex topos in which art, nature and creation are thought together. This allows for a power to affect what emerges from phusis. This deviation is techné, which involves intelligence coupled to action, and the work produced through it is art or poiesis. As such, art cannot be resolved via an ontological or epistemological problem, but rather constitutes an encounter with the problematic. Deleuze emphasises this distinction in his characterisation of two kinds of problems. In the first general form, problems are already coupled to solutions, while in the second form the problem is an irresolvable and creative generator of difference. Pure mathematics establishes itself through such an irreducibly problematic element – the function. This provides a new way to conceive of creation, so that it is no longer conflated with origins, but is instead understood as belonging to the particular. The thesis begins with the Greek topos, and turns to insights from philosophy, pure mathematics, psychoanalysis, and biology in an endeavour to clarify the role of the function within techné. That is, it examines the deviations at play within logical forms; the deviations within and around the subject; the deviations particular beings affect upon phusis; in order to better situate the role of the function in art. ACCESS RESTRICTED TO ABSTRACT ONL