Chaos, territory, art

"Instead of treating art as a uniquely human and cultural creation that requires reason and refined taste to appreciate, Elizabeth Grosz argues that art - specially architecture, music, and painting - is born from the disruptive forces of sexual selection. Approaching art as a form of erotic expression that connects sensory richness with primal desire, Grosz finds that the meaning of art comes from the intensities and sensations it inspires, not just its intention and aesthetic." "By regarding our most cultured human accomplishments as the result of the excessive, nonfunctional forces of sexual attraction and seduction, Grosz encourages us to see art as a kind of bodily enhancement or mode of sensation that enables living bodies to experience the universe. Art can be understood as a way for bodies to augment themselves and their capacity for perception and affection - a way to grow and evolve through sensation. Through this framework, which knits together the theories of Charles Darwin, Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, and Jacob von Uexkull we are able to grasp art's deep animal lineage. Art is not tied to the predictable and known but linked to new futures not contained in the present. Its animal affiliations ensure that art is intensely political and charged with the creation of new worlds and new forms of living. It is the way in which life experiments with materiality, or nature, in order to bring about change."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Philosophy. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.