Philosophical Times and Spaces

In luminist and cinematic registers, the chapter first explicates Deleuze’s complementary chronologics of Aion and Chronos. While durational Aion is the time of luminist glow, flickering Chronos is the time of strobe light: wave and particle. Shifting from time to space, the chapter then addresses Deleuze’s topologics. After introducing the notion of fractal space in terms of Deleuze’s notion of becoming-imperceptible, it delineates, via Leibniz’ images of the baroque house and the camera obscura, Deleuze’s transformation of the spatial dualism of light surface and dark depth into the luminous space of a fractal chiaroscuro, and it shows how Deleuze’s luminous philosophy resonates with Leibniz’ proposition that monads, as points or centres of light, have a luminous nature. After explicating the mathematical concept of the ‘real projective plane,’ the chapter argues that Deleuze’s shift from a Cartesian to a projective topology of thought is fundamental for an understanding of his philosophy.