‘Desire is a machine!’ When Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari made this bold claim in Anti-Oedipus (1972), it was a provocation against dominant intellectual frameworks like psychoanalysis, Marxism, and structuralism. Rather than rejecting these outright, they sought to reengineer them—merging their insights into a radical new method of thought: schizoanalysis.
In this lecture, cultural theorist Ian Buchanan will unpack the foundations of schizoanalysis and explore the machinic conception of desire at its core. Traversing both its clinical and socio-political implications, Buchanan will consider the enduring relevance of Deleuze and Guattari’s work today.
About the Speaker:
Ian Buchanan is the founding editor of Deleuze and Guattari Studies and the author of The Incomplete Project of Schizoanalysis. He has just completed a new book on the duo’s concept of affect.
This lecture is presented as part of the exhibition Desire Is a Machine, showing at the Institute of Modern Art until 20 September 2025.
Lecture: Sat, 9 Aug, 3pm – 5pm
Image credit:
Angela Melitopoulos & Maurizio Lazzarato, Assemblages, 2010. Installation view from Desire Is a Machine, Institute of Modern Art, 2025. Photo: Katy Bedford.
