The wasp and the orchid make a map in the heart of a rhizome: cartography and machines, reinterpreting Deleuze and Guattari

For almost a decade, we have been experiencing a continuous interest in cartography as a tool for the acquisition of critical knowledgement. From the use of hackitectura.net as an instrument, we have participated in this movement, producing several cartographic processes, especially the Critical Cartography of the Strait of Gibtaltar (2004), developed in collaboration with several social and artistic collective works which operate in that geopolitical territory. Since the beginning, our practice has been based on Felix Guattari's and Deleuze's ideas, proposing the principles of cartography and decalcomania to explain the rhizome concept. Even though we refer to the reticular territories more than to the rhizome, the connection that Guattari establishes between his concept of cartography and the concepts of agencing, machines and subjectivity production still draw a great deal of attention today. For Guattari, making maps, just as the orchid and the wasp do, is an action rather than representation. Rather than representing a pre-existing world, cartography implies the identification of new relations and territories, or new machines. This article presents a theoretical approach to Guattari's ideas, proved in many of his and other authors' works. It finally approaches, from a perspective based on our experience, the development and limitations that we perceive in the relation with those practices.

cartography; Guattari; Deleuze; machine