How does smooth and striated space inform each other? While much of Deleuze’s and Guattari’s writing focuses on the differences between these two elements of space; there are several passages that show the interconnected nature of smooth and striated space.
D&G citing Gerard Desargues discusses space in mathematical terms, “The constitution of a statistical space in which each variable has not an average value, but a probability of frequency that places it in continuous variation with the other variables” (p. 96). This made me think of a way to explain the relationship between smooth and striated space in statistical terms. Perhaps the best concrete example of their relationship is a basic statistical concept called kurtosis.
Kurtosis is a way to describe skewness or extremes in comparison to a normal distribution. While the data exists on the same plane, the mean of the distribution doesn’t bisect the data equally. When a researcher sees kurtosis they understand there is a high amount of variance within the data. Variance could be viewed as the tension between smooth and striated space, which only exists in extremes in comparison to each other. Just as machines and assemblages work to move the nomad to the sedentary, researchers also work to reduce variance within a give data set. Thus they deterritorialize any concept or meaning between the original data points.
Additionally, it could be argued that kurtosis could be an example of the holey space defined by D&G, “Holey space itself communicates with smooth space and striated space. . . it is not at all in the same way, and the two communications are not symmetrical” (p. 415). In serious cases of kurtosis that data will have not symmetrical shape or pattern. “The two segments cannot be separated,” the data or plain on which the space exists is a path that connects and adds an organic understanding of the relationship between the data or smooth and striated space.
While kurtosis adds a scientific element to the understanding of the relationship between the two types of space, perhaps a less ethereal connection could occur by exploring the relationship between the slow food movement and molecular gastronomy.
These two movements function as polar extremes in our understanding and concept of food. Slow food is an art form requiring a basic understanding of botany, gardening, cooking, canning, and storage; while molecular gastronomy requires an understand of physics, chemistry, and brings industrial efficacy to food.
The concept of the nomad which is closely related to smooth space would best fit someone who would be involved with the slow food movement. Growing, harvesting, and storing food would be in line with the definition of a nomadic science, which could also be categorized as an art form. “From the point of view of nomad science, which presents itself as an art as much as a technique” (p. 369). The ability to conform to the concept of slow food requires the learning of new techniques such as the growing, harvesting, and processing of food something that is often taught one generation to the next or is learned from experimentation.
Food has been a part of human existence from the beginning. For centuries people only had access to the food they could grow themselves or trade for to support themselves and their families. However as societies move from a largely agrarian to an industrial complex, the food systems also move in a similar direction.
Once we learned how to produce food using a lab we removed ourselves from understanding the nomadic science behind food. D&G discuss how we have moved from the nomad to the State, “State science retains of nomad science only what it can appropriate; it turns the rest into a set of strictly limited formulas without an real scientific status, or else simply represses and bans it” (p. 362). For me this is a perfect description of molecular gastronomy. Why make spaghetti sauce when you can buy a hundred varieties at any grocery store? Who needs to know how to cook food we you can simply put any kind of prepared meal into a microwave and enjoy within seconds? Why do we need to grow a tomato when we can make the flavor by combine chemicals in a lab? This is how the state has slowly appropriated a nomad science to become a State science.
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