Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
of matter) are combined into forms. The second
articulation creates stable forms in which these
processes of becoming are actualized. Each articu-
lation has a form component and a substance com-
ponent; it is the sum of the two articulations that
produces structure, or strata. De Landa asserted
that Deleuze introduced the concept of a process
of double articulation through which geological,
biological, and even social strata are formed. The
first articulation concerns the materiality of a stra-
tum: the selection of raw materials out of which
it will be synthesized (such as carbon, hydrogen,
nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur for biological strata)
as well as the process of giving populations of
these selected materials some statistical ordering.
The second articulation concerns the expressivity
of a stratum. The content has both a form and a
substance: for example, the form is a hospital and
the substance consists of patients hospitalized
there and receiving medical treatment.
strata come in at least pairs, one serving as the
sub-stratum for the other:
Double articulation is so extremely variable
that we cannot begin with a general model, only
a relatively simple case. The first articulation
chooses or deducts, from unstable particle-flows,
metastable molecular or quasi-molecular units
(substances) upon which it imposes a statistical
order of connections and successions (forms).
The second articulation establishes functional,
compact, stable structures (forms), and constructs
molar compounds in which these structures are
simultaneously actualised (substances). In a geo-
logical stratum, for example, the first articulation
is the process of 'sedimentation,' which deposits
units of cyclic sediment according to a statistical
order: flysch, with its succession of sandstone and
schist. The second articulation is the 'folding' that
sets up a stable functional structure and effects
the passage from sediment to sedimentary rock.
(Deleuze, Guattari, & Massumi, 1987, pp. 40-41)
What really matters is not to confuse the two
articulations with the distinction between form
and substance, since each articulation operates
through form and substance: the first selects only
some materials, out of a wider set of possibilities,
and gives them a statistical form; the second gives
these loosely ordered materials a more stable form
and produces a new, larger scale material entity…
the first articulation is called “territorialization”
and concerns formed materiality, the second one
“coding” and deals with a material expressivity.
(DeLanda 2010, pp. 32- 33)
Possibly, double articulation may be also seen
in a formation of protein molecules. Proteins are
large biological molecules consisting of a chain
(or more than one) chain of amino acids. A unique
amino acid sequence specific for each protein
depends on the genetic code - a three-nucleotide
combination called a codon, which determines
an amino acid according to the four-sign code
created by four nucleotides contained in a DNA
molecule. Nucleic acids contain four kinds of
basic amino acids joined in triplets; they code
for specific amino acids, which are the structural
units that make up a molecule of a protein. Four
bases assembled this way in groups of three in
each triplet make possible 64 different codings;
however, only 20 from about 500 known amino
acids (called standard amino acids) are encoded
this way by triplet codons into the genetic code.
A wide margin of coding possibilities makes the
code open, ambiguous, so more than one coding
is possible for the most of amino acids.
Deleuze, Guattari, & Massumi (1987) and then
Deleuze & Guattari (2009) apply the concept of
double articulation to their divagations related to
philosophy, psychology, politics, and semiotics
(among other themes). They pose that the strata,
which are formed by double articulation, make
things out of the formless masses. The existence
of one stratum causes that there must be another
to border it. Deleuze and Guattari conclude that
