ABSTRACT
Deleuze’s philosophy explores the ways in which human worlds are traversed and shaped by other-than-human forces. In an early work, he explores this theme in relation to islands as these testify to the ongoing and unresolved “strife” of land and sea. In later writings, like his study of the painter Francis Bacon, he turns to consider art as a specific mode of engagement with the generativity of inhuman forces. It therefore seems singularly fitting to consider Deleuze’s thought in relation to an art festival held on an island. Accordingly, this essay places some of Deleuze’s concepts in dialogue with an ethnography of Papay Gyro Nights, a festival of contemporary and multimedia arts taking place annually from 2011 to 2017 on the island of Papa Westray in Orkney, Scotland, and taking its name and inspiration from a mythological giantess figure combining male and female, human and animal, marine and terrestrial features.
