New Materialist Pedagogy: A Deleuzo-Bergsonian Image of Thought

This paper explores themes of image, technology, temporality and becoming in a design-art pedagogical context. It considers Deleuzo-Bergsonian approaches to the concept of ‘image’ in the broadest sense of the term – firstly through an examination of Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson’s shared ontological depiction of the world as a matter-flow of images; secondly, through their collective veneration of art and artistic activity as a mode of becoming, and lastly through their respective critiques of representational images of thought. Ultimately, through an applied, comparative philosophical approach, it seeks to examine the significance of a Deleuzo-Bergsonian concept of the latent image from a pedagogical perspective, addressing the teaching of the visual arts in the context of the marketisation of education. As we shall see, Deleuze and Bergson’s conception of the latent-image emphasises both its connective and transformative potentials. As such, it can illuminate questions of disciplinarity, authorship, and the ethics of image creation in interesting ways - suggesting strategies for operating smoothly in increasingly striated educational environments.