ABSTRACT

Gilles Deleuze’s image of the crystalline brain raises an important question. Is madness a prerequisite for creative genius? Is it the case that the creation of new concepts or the creation of works of art that are original and exemplary benefits from madness? My reasons for asking this question are not only theoretical, that is, I want to understand Deleuze’s point, but they are also personal. My grandmother and aunt suffered from schizophrenia, and recently, I realized that the rules of our household when I was growing up resembled those “rules” that Alice encountered in Wonderland. This chapter examines the relationship between the organization of Wonderland and the schizophrenic creativity of Antonin Artaud in the context of Deleuze’s concept of the crystalline brain. Distinguishing between the doxa of ordinary perception and the acute state of Artaud’s creative brain implies that an ethics of creation is what Deleuze demands from philosophy, from cinema, and from art. Whether one can slip in and out of this state like Alice, or must remain embedded in it like Artaud, is the question this chapter explores.