DOI: 10.4231/b7tp-8408
title: What Is A Creative Act? Lecture, 17 March 1987

description: &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Deleuze Seminars&lt;/em&gt; is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Deleuze&rsquo;s invited lecture at the FEMIS film school, March 17, 1987, takes place in the afternoon following the Leibniz and the Baroque seminar 13 (discussion of Whitehead and Leibniz), with material drawn from two years earlier, the Cinema IV seminar and the Foucault seminar as well as Deleuze&rsquo;s long-awaited project on &ldquo;what is philosophy?&rdquo;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Deleuze&rsquo;s opening question is: what does it mean to have an idea in cinema? This has a conjoined question: what does it mean to have an idea in philosophy? Through these questions, Deleuze explores the possibilities of creation as fundamental to philosophy and having an idea as fundamental to cinema. Deleuze also describes communication and information as forms of control, to which art stands as one of the only means of resistance.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset includes: a revised French transcription and new English translation of the video lecture in odt format. Please note that an edited transcription appears as &ldquo;Qu&rsquo;est-ce que l&rsquo;acte de cr&eacute;ation?&rdquo; in &lt;em&gt;Deux r&eacute;gimes de fous et autres textes, &lt;/em&gt;ed. David Lapoujade (Paris: Minuit, 2003), pp. 291-302, and an alternate translation appears in &lt;em&gt;Two Regimes of Madness&lt;/em&gt;, ed. David Lapoujade, trans. Ames Hodges and Mike Taormina (Cambridge, MA &amp; New York: MIT Press/Semiotext(e), 2006), pp. 312-324. The video is available on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9Rq4-d5Ies.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Les S&eacute;minaires de Deleuze sont une collection d&#39;enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents compl&eacute;mentaires des conf&eacute;rences que le philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Gilles Deleuze a donn&eacute; lors de sa carri&egrave;re &agrave; l&#39;Universit&eacute; de Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;La conf&eacute;rence de Deleuze &agrave; l&rsquo;&eacute;cole de cin&eacute;ma FEMIS, le 17 mars 1987, a lieu l&rsquo;apr&egrave;s-midi suivant le s&eacute;minaire Leibniz et le Baroque 13 (discussion sur Whitehead et Leibniz), avec des &eacute;l&eacute;ments tir&eacute;s de deux ans plus t&ocirc;t, du s&eacute;minaire Cin&eacute;ma IV et du s&eacute;minaire Foucault ainsi que du projet en d&eacute;veloppement de Deleuze et Guattari sur &laquo; Qu&rsquo;est-ce que la philosophie ? &raquo;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;La question d&rsquo;ouverture de Deleuze est : que signifie avoir une id&eacute;e au cin&eacute;ma ? Cela a une question connexe : que signifie avoir une id&eacute;e en philosophie ? &Agrave; travers ces questions, Deleuze explore les possibilit&eacute;s de cr&eacute;ation comme fondamentales pour la philosophie et d&rsquo;avoir une id&eacute;e comme fondamentales pour le cin&eacute;ma. Deleuze d&eacute;crit &eacute;galement la communication et l&rsquo;information comme des formes de contr&ocirc;le, auxquelles l&rsquo;art constitue l&rsquo;un des seuls moyens de r&eacute;sistance.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by Deleuze at the FEMIS film school on 17 March 1987, with revised French transcription and new English translation.