Deleuze Reframed

Book excerpt: Are your students baffled by Baudrillard? Dazed by Deleuze? Confused by Kristeva? Other beginners' guides can feel as impenetrable as the original texts to students who 'think in images'. "Contemporary Thinkers Reframed" instead uses the language of the arts to explore the usefulness in practice of complex ideas.Short, contemporary and accessible, these lively books utilise actual examples of artworks, films, television shows, works of architecture, fashion and even computer games to explain and explore the work of the most commonly taught thinkers. Conceived specifically for the visually minded, the series will prove invaluable to students right across the visual arts. Deleuze disdains easy answers. Yet easy answers to Deleuze are what students need. Without reducing Deleuze's complex body of thought to simplistic solutions, this very contemporary guide leads the reader into the world of Deleuze's spiralling thought through concrete examples from art, film, TV and even computer games. From 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' and 'The Cell' to 'Pac Man' and 'Doom' and from the work of Matthew Barney and Helen Chadwick to 'Lost' and 'Doctor Who', this easily digestible introduction looks at the key ideas promoted by Deleuze, both in his own work and in his notoriously difficult collaborations with Felix Guattari, to make them both fresh and relevant to the visual arts today.