Full text loading...
Current trends in critical theory often rely on outdated conceptions of what it means to ‘create’. This article contributes to formulate new categories for a theory of creation that maintains a connection with human experience and praxis. To this purpose, it begins by criticizing two of the most influential theories of ontological creation of the past century: the one formulated by Gilbert Simondon in Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information (1958) and the one put forward by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus (1980). These two theories will be identified as symmetrical perspectives based on an opposite kind of relationism, yet connected by a persistent naturalism. An alternative will be searched in two cases from contemporary art, Neri Oxman’s device Mushtari and Pierre Huyghe’s installation Variants (2021–present), capable of suggesting new conceptual parameters for creation. In the last paragraph, I will focus on three creative principles stemming from the above-mentioned cases that can effectively overcome the ontogenetic conception of creation and address today’s need for political creativity and divergent praxis.