Spaces in-between: a transitional inquiry into transitionality

Abstract

Working between the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari and the psychoanalysis of Winnicott, through stories and creative writing, I create new concepts and understandings of the notion of assemblages. This thesis is a playful exploration of experiences, thinking with theory, making a creative-relational inquiry. Moving between the refrain and the transitional object, I work with the idea of a transitional inquiry: between the internal and external, between the conscious and unconscious, producing something-in-the-world. Even though it is personal, this type of inquiry de-centres the notion of the subject to include objects, machines, and the creation of territories as fundamental aspects to understand human processes. One of the main contributions of working with Deleuze, Guattari, and Winnicott is to think the transitional object together with the refrain and propose a holding-machine to help other machines develop and process assemblages. This concept emerges while working with stories of trauma, understanding them as moments where the subject cannot process events and affects. This exploration is about spaces in-between, spaces that are not entirely what they are, as they move between the created and the discovered, between the intensities and extensions, fantasy, and reality.