On stasiosemiotics and semiostasis: Deleuze, Guattari and the potential of group phantasms for radical politics

Stasiosemiotics merges the concepts of stasis (social division and temporal suspension) with semiotics to study sign systems whose meaning is deeply layered and temporally stratified. Although semiosis is inherently continuous and infinite, the paradoxical notion of semiostasis provides a method for examining complex objects like phantasms and political fictions, which Guattari calls 'group phantasms.' These act as meaning condensers involved in social subjectivation and alienation. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari's semiotics, political philosophy, anthropology, and poetics, stasis is understood politically as civil strife and aesthetically as ecstatic standstill. The approach aims to virtually suspend semiotic motion to investigate sign formation and operation, with ethical consequences for consciousness of habit and implications for radical politics.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Stasiosemiotics is made of two concepts: ‘stasis’ and ‘semiotics’. Stasis is a concept that refers to both the division of society and a suspension of time. As a branch of general semiotics, its specific focus, or object, is semiosis stasis, or semiostasis, which is technically impossible: by definition, semiosis is evergoing, continuous and infinite. Though paradoxical, semiostasis can nevertheless inspire a method to study sign systems and objects of which the meaning form is profound- ly intricate and temporally stratified. Among such inextricably complex objects shaping constellations of signs are phantasms and political fictions, or ‘group phantasms’ in Guattari’s terminology. Although on different levels, they both act as meaning condensers partaking in social subjectivation and alienation. Leaning on Deleuze and Guattari’s semiotics of phantasm, political philosophy and anthropology, and poetics, ‘stasis’ can be understood both in the political sense (civil strife, division of the political body) and in the aesthetical sense (standstill – as in ecstasy, ek-stasis: being out of oneself, out of ego, in suspended time). Stasiosemiotics aims to virtually suspend the motion of semiosis (or what Guattari calls ‘semiotic fluxes’) for the profit of an inquiry on the intricacies of signs formation and operation. The conclusion suggests ethical consequences regarding the consciousness of habit and implications for radical politics.