Bacon and Beckett : the phenomenology of the picnoleptic

Abstract

The thesis explores the misplacement of Samuel Beckett and Francis Bacon within the historical stream of their time. This is shown through the manifestation of Deleuzes concept of repetition and difference in the works of Samuel Beckett and Francis Bacon. Specifically, the study centers on Play, Not I, Ghost Trio and Bacons triptychs. The first chapter studies the occurrence of repetition in several of the artists work, mainly contributing to the formulation of a language of exhaustion and blurring the lines between artistic mediums of expression. In the second chapter, painting and language are cast out onto the phenomenal field in which repeated moments are differentiated and actualized into space. Both artists tap into an unconscious reservoir of repetitive archetypal patterns from which their figures are constructed. The placement of difference as an essential element in the process reveals a tendency of both artists towards the Deleuzean mission of normalizing difference. The aim behind the normalization of difference is exemplified by and revealed through Paul Virilios views on the use of technology to manipulate the image which is a preoccupation of both artists. Their engagement, at their time, with technology and its relationship to perception confirms their proper placement in, what Virilio terms, Hypermodernism.