ABSTRACT
Whatever accommodations affect theory may have made latterly in recognising the political uses of affect, its attachment to a specifically Spinozist Deleuze, and to the promise of affect in bringing forth “the new”, remain. For architecture theory especially, ever on the lookout for decisive “turns” through which to fashion and promote its own novelty, the appeal of siding with the promise of affect against the old theories – Marxist, critical, structuralist, and semiotic – has proven irresistible. This essay challenges both the promise of affect supposed to reside in its “autonomy”, and the distinction between concept and affect on which this promise rests. Drawing on José Antonio Maravall’s Culture of the Baroque: Analysis of a Historical Structure (1986), I argue that the uses of affect, especially within art and architecture, have a long history in being conceived and captured as a means of social control and manipulation, and that such uses extend up to our present moment and its neoliberal architecture. In respect of architecture theory’s engagement with Deleuze and Guattari, particularly around their apparent affirmation of affect, I conclude by drawing attention to a dimension of their thought at odds with the Spinozist gloss typically placed upon their thought. Here, I argue that the Deleuze and Guattari of Anti-Oedipus, drifting at times with the currents of contemporaneous Marxist thought, offer a critical, cautionary, and still timely perspective on the pursuit of concepts and practices promising escape.
