“The case of the concept of structure, that you also bring up, is certainly more ambiguous. Everything depends upon how one sets it to work. Like the concept of the sign - and therefore of semiology - it can simultaneously confirm and shake logocentric and ethnocentric assuredness. It is not a question of junking these concepts, nor do we have the means to do so. Doubtless it is more necessary, from within semiology, to transform concepts, to displace them, to turn them against their presuppositions, to reinscribe them in other chains, and little by little to modify the terrain of our work and thereby produce new configurations; I do not believe in decisive ruptures, in an unequivocal “epistemological break,” as it is called today. Breaks are always, and fatally, reinscribed in an old cloth that must continually, interminably be undone. This interminability is not an accident or contingency; it is essential, systematic, and theoretical. And this in no way minimizes the necessity and relative importance of certain breaks, of the appearance and definition of new structures…”
Jacques Derrida: “Positions”, Page 24.

1) The matter in which the sign is embodied.

Each of the four types of signs which Deleuze identifies within “In Search of Lost Time” (‘worldly signs’; ‘signs of love’; ‘sensuous signs’; and, ‘signs of art’) are further differentiated by the seven criteria he outlines. I would like to localize my analytic starting point precisely at the juxtaposition of Deleuze’s first criterion, and the ‘first world of signs’ he describes within Proust’s text. It is my intention to take Deleuze’s first criterion literally: and in doing so, to examine the physical substrates upon which the form of image writing I am examining, occur.

In his analysis of Proust’s masterwork, Deleuze notes that the first stage of the ‘apprenticeship of signs’ occurs with reference to what he terms “worldly signs”. This designation describes a productive sphere which defines a linguistic economy of surplus; and as such, we might expect it to be of great value to this interpretive project.

“The first world of the Search is the world of, precisely, worldliness. There is no milieu that emits and concentrates so many signs, in such reduced space, at so great a rate. It is true that these signs themselves are not homogeneous. At one and the same moment they are differentiated, not according to classes but according to even more fundamental “families of mind”. From one moment to the next, they evolve, crystallize, or give way to other signs.”

“Proust and Signs”, Page 5.

The idea that signs can be grouped into associated “families” (later conceived of as ‘neighborhoods of indeterminacy’, as ‘zones [upon a plane] of immanence’, as ‘indiscernible variations’) can be used to differentiate the types of signs found within the form of image writing I am presenting to you here. Specifically, I will attempt to show that such grouping patterns can be used to differentiate distinct epochs of productive practices within the historical development of this form of image writing.

The idea of ‘thought-groups’ carries through to the most recent work of Deleuze and Guattari, where it is used to define the relationships that co-define concepts which have been formed upon a common plane of consistency:

“Concepts that happen to populate a single plane, albeit at quite different times and with special connections, will be called concepts of the same group. Those concepts that refer back to different planes will not belong to the same group. There is a strict correspondence between the created concepts and the instituted plane, but this comes about through indirect relationships that are still to be determined.”

Gilles Deleuze/Felix Guattari, “What Is Philosophy”, translation copyright 1994 by Columbia University Press; page 58.

It is my intention to demonstrate how the use of specific kinds of material substrates supported the production of specific types of image patterns; and that, within the transitions between the use of different kinds of material substrates, it is possible to map the linguistic evolution of this form of image writing: from a very basic presentation of discretely delineated images (“signs”), to a remarkably complex texture of interrelated image elements (“concepts”). Indeed, it will be through an analysis of the “strict correspondence between the created concepts and the instituted plane” that we will be able to define the “indirect relationships” which, in any end analysis, must be held responsible for that properly linguistic texture, wherein, “From one moment to the next, they (signs) evolve, crystallize, or give way to other signs.”

The nature of the ‘indirect relationships’ (and interrelationships not specifically) mentioned above are quite complicated, as can be seen in the following description – which echoes that provided, in “Proust and Signs,” of ‘worldly signs’:

“In the literary machine that Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time” constitutes, we are struck by the fact that all the parts are produced as asymmetrical sections, paths that suddenly come to an end, hermetically sealed boxes, noncommunicating vessels, watertight compartments, in which there are gaps even between things that are contiguous, gaps that are affirmations, pieces of a puzzle belonging not to any one puzzle but to many, pieces assembled by forcing them into a certain place where they may or may not belong, their unmatched edges violently forced out of shape, forcibly made to fit together, to interlock, with a number of pieces always left over.”

Gilles Deleuze/Felix Guattari, “Anti-Oedipus”, English translation copyright 1977 by Viking Penguin Inc.; pages 42-43.

I would like to suggest here that the ‘sphere of signs’ associated by Deleuze with ‘worldliness’ in “Proust and Signs” is indeed as close as we shall ever find ourselves to encountering the primary concept presented within “Anti-Oedipus”: desiring-production. This being the case, we can expect to successfully make use of the insights contained in “Anti-Oedipus” during our analysis of  the form of image writing we are here considering; and in particular, we can expect the insights of “Anti-Oedipus” to be of use in defining the interrelationships between groups of signs that have formed within distinct “families of mind”.  

“In desiring machines everything functions at the same time, but amid hiatuses and ruptures, breakdowns and failures, stalling and short circuits, distances and fragmentations, within a sum that never succeeds in bringing its various parts together so as to form a whole… It is only the category of multiplicity, used as a substantive and going beyond both the One and the many, beyond the predicative relation of the One and the many, that can account for desiring-production: desiring-production is pure multiplicity, that is to say, an affirmation that is irreducible to any sort of unity.”

“Anti-Oedipus", page 42.

            It is only through the breaks, ruptures, stops, and starts which distinctly characterize the form of writing here being considered that we will be able to define the narrative structures this written form supports. These are the very interrelationships which allow us to determine both the relationships holding between substrate and image patterns, and between image patterns as grammatic structure. To this end, the concept of multiplicity will prove be of key importance as we examine how images articulate together in forming those narrative structures which are here characteristic of desiring production. For, it is precisely through an examination of the contingent interrelations presented through the grammatic structure inherent in this form of writing that we will be able to localize our analysis at the intersection of an exteriorized production and, of consciousness itself as that production which we call ‘desire’.

The ‘worldly sign’ is as distinctly a product of consciousness as it is a construct of desire; and the mode of its existence provides us with an important first step toward realizing the grammatic nature of the form of image writing being examined here:

“The worldly sign appears as the replacement of an action or thought. It stands for action and thought. It is therefore a sign that does not refer to something else, to a transcendental signification or to an ideal content, but has usurped the supposed value of its meaning.”

“Proust and Signs", Page 6.

            This determination will prove pivotal in any attempt to define the grammatological nature of the image writing here in question: for, only through establishing a sense of the interconnected exteriority of this form of writing can we decenter our linguistic analysis away from those concepts of expressive phonocentricism that currently dominate semiology:

         “(Saussure) accedes to the classical exigency of what I have proposed to call a “transcendental signified,” which in and of itself, in its essence, would refer to no signifier, would exceed the chain of signs, and would no longer itself function as a signifier. On the contrary, from the moment that one questions the possibility of such a transcendental signified, and that one recognizes that every signified is also in the position of a signifier, the distinction between signified and signifier becomes problematic at its root.”

“Positions”, pages 19-20.

            Indeed, we will eventually see that the process of “usurping the supposed value of meaning” is directly tied to the sort of multiplicity that characterizes desiring-production; and within those interrelationships which form of ‘families of mind’, we will find such multiplicity does indeed exceed the traditional semiological concepts associated with signifiers and signifieds. In doing so, such multiplicities produce grammatological textures which, in the functionality of their interrelations, are distinctly anasemantic.

Thus, in my analysis of the form of image writing in question, I will by necessity traverse that very broad post-structural field known as ‘material psychology’; and in doing so, I would here like to use Deleuze’s first criterion for sign differentiation to place us at once and directly at a position I suggest might best be described as “material narrative”. To this end, I will be considering precisely how different material substrates used by members of the First Nations in the production of images determined to some extent the types of images that were produced: I will be examining materially defined ‘families of signs’, rather than the “families of mind” noted by Deleuze in “Proust and Signs”. It is the interrelationships which form within these “families of signs” that will allow us to define the linguistic texture of this form of writing.

[ I should clarify that the concept of 'material narrative' which I am developing here has nothing whatsoever to do with Marshal McLuhan's banal platitude, "The medium is the message".

It will become very clear in subsequent sections of this web site that any competent analysis of this form of image writing must proceed through a thorough investigation of the temporal aspects inhered in its essential nature ("essential", derived from the word 'esse' or 'being', is most properly used in situations in which aspects of temporality are being considered).

Long before I encountered this form of writing (while still attending university; which is to say, before I was thrown out of university for studying what I felt to be of personal interest instead of the generic material which was being assigned for me to study... but hey, at least I managed to last through 4 years, with only the occasional trip away to Mexico's Yucatan and Canada's Northwest Territories), I had established to my own satisfaction that it is the deformation of mediating substrates which conveys information. This is why I place such an emphasis upon the concept of differentials in my research. Had I not begun my analysis from that starting point, I would not have been able to ascertain the nature of this form of image writing; nor would I have been able to map the communicative transformations of these material substrates into the temporally-defined differential textures that this form of writing presents. ]

Three Material Epochs

Let us begin to survey this position of ‘material narrative’ by considering how the physical substrates used in the form of image writing we are examining are related to the intended differences physically produced thereon by those members of the First Nations who used this form of writing. To this end, I have separated those examples of image writing that I have encountered into three broad groupings. It is my contention that each of these groups corresponds to a distinguishable period of material culture, during which specific forms of stone-based technology were developed. Each of these distinct approaches to making stone tools in turn influenced the production of image writing, allowing us to trace the development of image writing through a period of tens of thousands of years.

            Consider the following three groups of photographs; draw from the thousands of examples of image writing I have examined, each group presents a distinct and clearly distinguishable choice as to the nature of the material substrate used as a basis for the production of images.

First, the choice of stone used presents us with a commonality of color: reddish-brown. This color is consistent with the skin color of the people who worked these stones into the shapes they now to possess. The very few examples I have found from this, the earliest period of image production I have encountered, appear to have had their color modified through the application of iron oxide, blood, or some other reddish-brown substance. Remarkably (and not altogether unlike threading a needle in a haystack), these examples were found in an unweathered (and ever more precarious) state; which makes sense since, had they been exposed to the elements they would quite simply not have survived to be found at all.

Second, the material used in these examples - the physical nature of the stone itself - is quite homogenous. It is the sort of material of which flaked tools and weapons might have been made; and, what incursions there are in the homogeneity of these stones resemble the tendons and sinews of butchered flesh (and I don't necessarily mean freshly butchered flesh).

Third, each of these examples was given a distinct overall shape or, several distinguishable shapes which would most accurately be described as “sculpted.” This is consistent with that epoch’s preferred method of tool production, flaking into paradigmatic shapes. A certain consistency can be seen to hold between shaping a stone to match the mental template of a tool's shape, and shaping the surface of a stone to present the appearance of an identifiable image. It should be noted that the employment of dimensionality utilized here is very much the modification of a volume in space.

Fourth, the images upon each of these examples are in themselves somewhat discrete, and are at least somewhat ‘carved’ into the stone itself – a process consistent with the ‘sculpting’ exhibited on the overall form of the stones in question. This is a characteristic which will, over time, become less and less pronounced as the production of image writing becomes increasingly complex. Eventually, images will be produced as compositions of articulated diagrammatic features which only imply the virtuality of identifiable form.

Fifth, the “etching” of image outlines is also very apparent. Although such etching will (over time) become increasingly less apparent in the production of images, the basic technique - creating an image through the application of discrete productive techniques - will continue to develop and to be deployed an in increasingly complex manner. Indeed, it is the through the evolution of this basic technique, and its coupling with the next technique, which very much defines the second material epoch of image production.

Sixth, there is an obvious use of the stones’ sculpted relief to produce transient details composed of shadow. This is very much a feature of the first material epoch of image production; and it clearly indicates the degree to which the surfaces of stones were being examined, from all angles and with respect to the interaction of light with their surfaces. Although such shadow production is not as prevalent in subsequent material epochs as it is in the first, the concept of the discrete and distinct silhouette as an image in-itself comes to dominate image production as writing itself emerges.

These are the earliest, and rarest, examples of image production by members of the First Nations that I have found; and they are also among the most interesting since, these examples appear to pre-date the last ice age and, present a great number of images of North American hominid species in addition to the images of First Nations' members that one expects to see. There are many accurate images of things presented upon such examples of image writing that "are not suppose to have existed into historical times" in North America... and yet, obviously, they did.

            In the second set of photographs, an entirely different type of stone was used. The distinguishing feature that each example in the second set of photographs bears in common is a ‘layered’ composition of the stone. Correspondingly, the images produced upon these stones are very different in nature than those found upon the first set of examples: in the second set of examples, the images were also produced by a ‘carving into’ the stone, but, such acts of ‘carving’ were undertaken as much in deference to the physical nature of the stone’s layering as they were in reference to the images being produced. Although a clear continuity can be seen between the means by which the two types of images were produced, there is also a clear discontinuity in the nature of the images produced. The second set of examples are much more articulated than the first; at the same time, they are also more reductive in their presentation of features. Here, images are being created more as differential surfaces than as sculpted volumes. 

          Comparatively, one can note that:

First, the choice of stone used presents us with a commonality of composition or, to be more specific, a common variance within the stones’ composition. This stone was chosen for the production of images specifically because it is composed of internal layers. The preferential use of such a form of stone in the production of images most likely stems from a modification in the technical approach used for the production of paradigmatic stone tool shapes: at some point in time, someone realized that if they shaped a block of layered stone into that of a tool...

... then, they could simply separate the layers of the stone to create stone tool blanks - which only needed to be sharpened. This was a much more efficient way to make tools. The second characteristic of this type of stone's is its consistent variability. If one were to look for other naturally occurring substances with a similar structure, one would immediately find two very obvious candidates: shellfish, with the annual growth rings of their shells (which may have inspired the technological advancement leading to the utilization of this type of stone); and trees, with the layers of annual growth rings in their wood.

Third, although this second set of examples also exhibits an overall ‘shaping’, it is not an ‘entire’ shaping of a ‘whole’ image volume: it is, instead, the partial sculpting of an object which is presented as a separation from the specific place of its occurrence upon a substrate. In that the layers inherent in the stone are distinctly separate from each other, so too are the images formed from each such layer separable without having to be defined by a sculpting of their entirety. This utilization of layers within the stone for the production of images is a process that can be materially associated with yet another technological advance...

... the production of microblades (from obsidian ‘cores’) which, in turn, were used in the working and shaping of wood. Fourth, the images upon these particular stones are much more ‘integrated’ with each other than the images found upon of the first set of examples. Through accessing the common variance of the stone substrate’s layers, the image producers who used these stones have begun to integrate the images together. These images are much less discrete than those in the first set of examples…

... and yet, the images of this material epoch are no less detailed that those of the previous one: here, though, details are produced as features which are themselves each integral to more than one image, serving more than one diagrammatic function. Fifth, the ‘etching’ of images is even more pronounced here than in the first set of examples; and in fact, the use of shadow here goes well beyond the artistic and into the scientifically functional (more on this later). While there is also an obvious use of some relief-produced shadow here, it must be noted that:

Sixth, there is a tendency in the second set of examples for images to have been distinguished through the use of that color variance inherent between the different layers of stone which is so characteristic of the type of rock being used. As a result, we are here beginning to see the creation of small silhouette images; and this is something which was not particularly in evidence upon the first set of examples, because these silhouettes are conceptually localized at the intersection of shadows and layer edges.

In the third set of photographs, an entirely different type of stone is being used as a material substrate. Here, stone was being chosen for its generalized variation in natural grain patterns, and for the consistent randomness of that natural variation. The images produced upon this type of stone are very reductive in their features, but also highly articulated in their composition. The actual ‘sculpting’ localized upon the surface of the stone is very minimal; instead, the presentation of images is very much undertaken upon a common plane defined by the stones’ smooth, physical surface. Again, a very clear relationship can be seen between the general image types found upon the second set of examples and the third set of examples; however, any relationship between images in the first set of examples and the third set is not nearly as apparent.                  

We do, however, once again find a certain commonality in the composition of the stone used within this third set of examples.

First, this stone is much more durable in nature than those used in the preceding sets of examples: these types of solid igneous rock are not homogeneous in nature, and do not flake; nor do they have any layers, or any other sort of internal consistency. These stones are characterized by an entirely heterogeneous composition, and a completely random pattern of internal grain structure. Materially, the production of images using these stones as a material substrate corresponds to the creation of tools such as solid granite hand axes...

... tools that were cut and shaped from solid blocks of igneous rock using sandstone files (a process which was developed out of the use of microblade-toothed saws for cutting wood). Second, these types of stone do not appear to resemble anything except themselves: the criteria employed in their selection for use as image substrates is most likely related directly to the nature of the stone itself, rather than to something ‘other’ that it appears to resemble. Thus, the process of creating images has at this point in time become more a matter of expression, and less a matter of 'recognition'.

Third, while an overall ‘shaping’ of these example stones is again apparent, in the third set of examples that shaping occurs as the entirety of the stone’s overall form; and, such shaping often takes the form of a head. This is an example of a ‘partial’ object being produced, an occurence entirely consistent with the partiality of the diagrammatic features of which images are composed in this material epoch. This use of a 'sculpting' approach is the one aspect which seems to maintain a direct link between the first and third set of examples. Other common shapes utilized in this epoch (besides those of animals) are tongues; and, ears.

Fourth, one can’t help but notice that the images upon the third set of examples are so highly integrated between themselves that, their complexity is almost unfathomable. There are distinct images, yes, but for the most part all of the images share elements and/or are tightly integrated into other images. The degree of image detail found in the first set of examples is not as prevalent in the third set of examples, but, the integration of images in the third set of examples is far beyond anything seen in the first set of examples. This clearly indicates that an evolutionary process is involved in the development of image writing.

Fifth, the ‘etching’ of images and image elements is all but non-existent in the third set of examples. In the third material epoch, emphasis was primarily upon creating and presenting a surface, rather than creating a physical differentiation of depth in image composition. The use of ‘depth’ still occurs here but, in an entirely different fashion than a physical etching into stone: since random, individual grains of stone are used here in the production of images, the 'partiality' of such grains relative to a surface produces a fractional utilization of the stone's depth... and the creation of a compositionally fractal image surface.

Sixth, the creation of shadow images has all but disappeared from the surfaces of this third set of examples... although it has not disappeared completely, for the overall shapes of these stones can still throw very characteristic shadows. By way of contrast, it should be noted that the occurrence of ‘silhouette glyphs’ of a very simple, shadow-like outline-shape is quite common, even to the point of being prevalent. However, this reductive simplicity of image outline is matched with a corresponding complexity of inter-image articulation - that is, of composition (of co-occurrence; of co-positioning); and is accompanied by a distinctive narrative form which is essentially and inherently grammatological - not semiological- in nature: thus, by the third material epoch, the production of images upon stone substrates evolved into a distinct and distinguishable form of writing.
			(Of course, the image quality I have access to now is quite a bit better than what I could produce in 1995).

            Thus, a clear correlation can be demonstrated between the material substrates used in each set of image examples, and the nature of the images produced upon these substrates. It is my contention that this differential variance is in fact demonstrative of the historical development that the image writing used by the First Nations underwent in the course of its evolution into a definably systemized form of writing.