This was a rabbit hole I didn’t expect to spin off into when I work up this morning, a hole involving French philosophers, psychotherapy, capital, schizophrenia, Nietzsche, and music. Oh, and some gory photos from medical textbooks.
The through line here, as near as I can tell, is as follows. Philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, influenced in part by Friedrich Nietzsche’s (who needs no introduction) description of amor fati, a concept that translates roughly into “love of one’s fate”, arrived at the concept of the Body Without Organs1 (shortened to BwO) to explain, well…. stuff and things. After two hours of reading I’m still not entirely sure what BwO is about. What I do know, though, is that when people write about it online, others are quick to jump in and say “you have no idea what you’re talking about you big dummy”. Regardless, naming yourself Amor Fati as a performer (real name Amaury Perez) and releasing a debut album called Body W/O Organs is definitely the move of someone who spent way more time than I have making these connections.
This REcord is only an ACTuality/ACTion and I am much more than my actions and ONLY my ASpirations reVEAL my SPIRIT.. I am so much more than this… HA! NO-thing can stop me!
— Typed manifesto attached to the jacket reverse of Body W/O Organs
So what is the BwO? I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t ask. But here it goes, based on two hours of internetting. A “body” in Deleuze’s context is not limited to a human or animal physical body, but can include other objects that have organizational structures imposed on their constituent parts. An example might be an automobile – within it is an organized structure of parts that work together to allow it to function. A BwO isn’t necessarily a hollow one, a cavity with nothing in it, but instead one that has fully resisted the constraints of imposed organization of its organs, and therefore more free.
Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “what the fuck does that mean, and why as it important?” Those are great questions. And I feel the same way. While I’m glad we have philosophers in the world, when things start getting absurdly complex2 I start to wonder if they aren’t, as the British would say, taking the piss. Like, you guys can’t be serious with some of this stuff, right? But they are. I guess the BwO can also fall into one of three types – empty, full, and cancerous, though it’s not actually possible to attain the state of full BwO. And I haven’t even gotten to how the BwO interacts with the socius yet. What’s a socius, you ask? Oh good, an easy one. A socius is a transcendental principle that… well… it’s kinda like, you know how… it’s sort of a concept that broadly informs literally everything else, like a concept we live within that in and of itself gives meaning to and defines our actions. To make it even more complicated, Deleuze identifies three socius (sociuses… sociusi…?) – the earth, the tyrant, and capital. Does your head hurt yet? Because mine does.
The GOAL is to alienate all people. To make the withdraw – to find their own problem, their own solution. All creation should be aimed at ALIENATION of individuals from the MASSES!! ATTACK all security based on social norms. All modern IDEAS have lost there germination CENTER!
— Hand-written portion of one of the Body W/O Organs inserts
So, what about the music, you might be wondering. Let’s drop the needle. And… oh boy, here we go. This is best described as experimental, beats overlaid with sounds and audio clips. And that’s no insult – I like it’s weirdness. There music isn’t entirely devoid of structure – we’re not off into some kind of early Throbbing Gristle noise-fest, as the percussion provide a foundation, and some of the instrumentation can be described as musical. The final track, “Untimely Meditations”, showcases Amor Fati’s musical abilities – nothing experimental here, just a sweet and delicate lullaby-esque instrumental.
It is no longer enough to introduce NEW forms of music, what is NECESSARY is to REVEAl to PROCESS itself, make it RAW (work within my limits – economic, technological, etc.). The PROCESS of CREATING – that is what the form should REVEAl.
— Hand-written portion of one of the Body W/O Organs inserts
My copy of Body W/O Organs has a grotesque surgery photo taped to the jacket front, with a paper text collage glued to the reverse. According to Discogs there are two paper inserts. However, my copy has three inserts and a 16-page booklet, which is really just eight double-sided inserts folded over together. The inserts are a collage blend of medical book photos and drawings, typed passages (some attributed to others), and hand-written notes. We’re also treated to the image that was supposed to be on the A-side label (a picture of a vagina), but that the printing plant refused to attach on “moral grounds”, and it’s suggested we cut it out and attach it ourselves. We’re also given a lot of information about the equipment used on the album (“… a $15 Radio Shack slim-line mike [sic] was used…”) and a fairly detailed breakdown of the cost of releasing it on Amor Fati’s own label (“From tape to metal process – 360.00 $”), which also shares that 1,000 copies (and five test pressings, $50) were made, which seems like a pretty ambitious run given the almost adversarial approach to the cover and difficult nature or the music. But in providing all these details I believe Perez is telling the reader, look, I did this, and you can do it too. Here’s what I used and what it cost. It’s not insurmountable. So go forth and create.
This is the kind of release that continues to intrigue me – an artist with ideas way outside the mainstream who found a way to produce the thing they wanted to make, to embrace creation without concern for commercial viability. What drove Amaury Perez to go down this path? What external and internal forces combined to fuel his very particular vision? There are, of course, clues to be found in the inserts, and within his performance and album names, but how did all these things come together in time and space to yield this particular artistic endeavor? I’m certainly intrigued enough to dig a bit further – I also have his 1986 split album with Vandal X, Against ‘Nature’, and just recently I ordered the 2022 cassette Mai, Le Joli Mai, so I’ll be continuing down this path for a bit. I don’t expect to find any “answers”, but I’m very interested in pulling the threads a bit.
- Body without organs is typically shortened in the literature as BwO for good reason – it’s a lot shorter. But seeing it of course immediately created a connection in my pop-culture-addled mind of the nWo, the infamous 1990s professional wresting “team” founded by a trio of great philosophers Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall. I’m probably the only person to make this association, but I feel like there’s something there. If I ever try for a degree in philosophy, this is the paper I’m writing. ↩︎
- Ironic that this broader theory requires so much to organize it. Kinda sorta the antithesis of a BwO, isn’t it? ↩︎