Valerie Drew / Smooth and striated spaces

A momentary interruption in the evening sky as the vapour trail of a transatlantic jet disrupts the apparently smooth space.  However whilst this may be the only visible line–this space is striated by the movement of aircraft , birds and even the changing weather patterns all leaving their traces.  Deleuze and Guattari (1987) suggest the sea is ‘ a smooth space par-excellence ‘  and  describe  how it is striated by bearings and maps which support navigation.  I watched ferries and other vessels leave their wake as they moved purposefully between the two promontories disrupting the surface of the water for a while. 

In contrast the Knoydart experience seemed to interrupt and disrupt my life, a highly striated space, and smooth my space for a time.

  • Posted: October 27, 2010 | Author: Valerie Drew
  • Tagged: disrupt , ferries , interrupt ,
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There are 2 comments on Smooth and striated spaces:

  1. Margaret Kerr :

    I’ve been thinking about surfaces and textures of things a lot recently… especially the texture of the emotional environment that holds us when we are infants – about how that can get scarred and torn and interrupted by trauma. And how those scars and tears can become fixed and projected onto the texture of the world even when we are adults. Reading your post helps me understand perhaps why the sea makes me feel peaceful. It is the ‘smooth surface par excellence’, and also, it’s not fixed. If it becomes rough, it settles back to smooth. Its basic state is smooth, and its texture is infinitely forgiving.

    October 31st, 2010 at 6:06 pm
  2. AMM :

    This is a wonderful blog and comment and they move me to respond given some of my own reflections recently…thank you!

    In thinking of ‘being’ could it be that the physical body is needed to ‘land’ the experience of aliveness and the grooves etched out by the ‘landing marks’ of that experience need to be restored time and again to a state of smoothness. Only in experiencing the grooves do we get a sense of or feel the smoothness. Perhaps it is in experiencing the smoothness we get a sense or feeling of the grooves? Like the infinitely forgiving nature of the sea we need to infinitely forgive ourselves for the grooves often carved out by other people and restore that balance as reflected also like a smooth mirror in the water?

    January 7th, 2011 at 8:56 pm

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