A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins

Hospitality and Recreation through

Deleuze's "Deserted Island"

Deniz Cetin
(11734718)

Technische Universität Wien

Institut für Architekturwissenschaften
Fachbereich Architekturtheorie und Technikphilosophie
Wahlseminar 2022S - Architekturtheorie

Univ.-Prof. Dr. phil. Vera Bühlmann

Guest Lecturer Jordi Vivaldi
A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 2

Abstract

What Deleuze's notion of deserted can offer to hospitality when the latter is conceived as an

alchemical transmutation? In the light of this question, the essay firstly explores the figures

related to hospitality in Deleuze's concept of deserted island. While trying to perceive how

both the host and the guest will be reborn, it examines this within the respect of hospitality.

“The deserted island is not creation but re-creation, not the beginning but a re-beginning that

takes place. The deserted island is the origin, but a second origin. From it everything begins

anew.”1

The hypothesis of the essay is to understand Deleuze's concept of deserted islands as a figure

of hospitality based on the idea of recreation. The article sees the law of repetition in the

paragraph in which Deleuze explains that the second origin is more fundamental than the

first, as a potential to recreate for both host and guest, and examines it as an idea of spirals of

rebirth. The sense of sequence and pleasure, the two main elements of re-creation, provide

guidance when describing this idea.

In the text, the second birth implied by the understanding of hospitality as an alchemical

transmutation is also explored in light of two novels, which are associated by Deleuze with a

second birth occurring in a deserted place: Suzanne and the Pacific and Robinson Crusoe.

Throughout the article, we will also go through the elements that can be drawn from these

novels to help us understand re-birth/second origin/re-creation and contribute to today's

hospitality.

Keywords

Hospitality, Re-creation, Deserted Island, Second-Birth, Movement, Transmutation, Origin

1
G. Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953-1974, page 12.
A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 3

Index

Introduction: Notion of Island………..………………………….…….…….……………..….4

Chapter 1: Alchemical Transmutation.………..………………………….…….…….…….….5

Chapter 2: Deserted Islands………..………….………….……………..…...….…….……….7

Chapter 3: A Spiral of Rebirths ………..…………..……..……………….……………….....10

Conclusion: Second Birth.………..……………………………...……….………..………....15

A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 4

Introduction: Notion of Island

The word island derives from old English igland and from ieg and is actually a cognate of

German Aue, and that is related to Latin aqua. In other words, the word island is derived

from the word water, which makes it an isolated habitat. When Deleuze talks of an island, he

treats the sea as an opening rather than a limit, which surrounds the island as a border. He

refuses to see this limit as a feature that separates the island from the mainland, keeps it away

from socio-economic developments and isolates it. For him, the sea, in another sense,

surrounds the island and in a way protects it but it is neither a wall for those who want to go

nor an obstacle for guests.

The notion of island, this special territory has been a recurring motif in many literature for

centuries. It is used to represent many concepts, refer to mythologies, embody the 'other',

longing for an ideal living space, also isolation and new beginnings. For this reason, the

concept of island has many meanings in both concrete and abstract terms, allowing us to see

it from many perspectives and this makes it a difficult motif to perceive. What has this

concept, which we all know very well now, served for centuries by using it in many ways?

The desire for perfection that we have felt since the beginning of humanity has led societies

to dream of an ‘other’ untouched place and most importantly to try to bring it to life. This

desire in them is probably misplaced, as none of them are perfect. In any case, this concept is

surprisingly attractive, deceptive with the appearance of a beautiful and simple way of

self-purification.

The concept of deserted islands, may although have the possibility of being a path to

isolation, to self-reflection, to merging with nature and to criticisms about society, it will be at

the forefront with its feature of being a new beginning and recreation in the essay. The notion

of recreation, which can be defined as the leitmotif of the article; examined in two main

divisions: Pleasure and Sequence.

A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 5

What is the pleasure in a new beginning and will a rebeginning transform a person? What

does the idea of the spiral of rebirths mean for the guest and the host? If the island is the host,

is the person the guest or can one be both the guest and the host (hôte)? The following pages

will approach these questions through the notion of second birth. Second birth will be split

into three headlines: (i) rebirth as a transformation, (ii) sequence and law of recreation and

(iii) pleasure of beginning anew.

In Chapter 1, the essay perceives alchemical transmutation as a form of reveal, while at the

same time identifying this with hospitality. In order to understand hospitality as a form of

transformation, we will delve deeper into the concept of deserted island in Chapter 2. The

essay will search for the inference of deserted and second birth in the concept of deserted

island and will try to examine it from Deleuze's line of vision. To understand the concept of

second birth in Chapter 3, we will take refuge on a deserted island, and several novels in the

Robinsonade genre will accompany us to give us a similar experience along the way. This

experiment will open new perspectives on hospitality and adapt to our time by creating

pleasurable sequences of origins. “Like the design of the shells, the spirals that swirl with a

continual, smooth transformation between what is inside and what is outside, suggests the

contemplation of our own bodies as intertwined with our surroundings.”2

Chapter 1: Alchemical Transmutation

An augur was also in the role of the shell that seamlessly brings the surroundings and society

together, whose main role was the practice of augury in the classical Roman world. He was a

priest and the highest representatives of the priestly magistracy. The augural ceremony was

central to any major undertaking in Roman society including all the public and private

matters such as war and religion. One of these divinations was to examine the stars in the sky

and mirror this image on the earth in the exact same way. The augur, the surveyor of the

celestial vault, first observed the sky by dividing it into sectors and projected the selected

2
S. Alaimo, Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times, 2013, page 172.
A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 6

zone of the sky onto the tract of land as a diagram by the ritual formula. “The purpose of

drawing the diagram was to set the general order of the sky in a particular place, with the

augur at the heart of it.” 3

The word projection derives from Late Latin projectare, meaning ‘to thrust forward’. In terms

of definition, it describes ‘cast forward’ both mentally and physically. Also, the Latin verb

acquires an architectural sense when used as ‘protrude beyond the adjacent parts’. In this

context, a sense that projection is closely related and most valuable to is alchemy. The

ultimate goal of Western alchemy was to transform an existing substance into something

more valuable through the projection method. The process is defined as casting a portion of

the Stone into a molten metal. The projection of the prophecies from the celestial to the

terrestrial can be described as alchemical rather than representational, since it is re-creating

something and refers to the transmutation in alchemy. When evaluated with respect to

alchemy, projection is in fact giving an existing thing the right to recreate, giving it a second

birth.

The reason behind the perception of the alchemical transformation as the manifestation or the

form of reveal of hospitality is that there is a recreation in every act of hospitality. For

instance, according to Moira Gatens, Spinoza's understanding of the human body is that

bodies are in constant interchange with their environment. The human body is radically open

to its surroundings and can be composed, recomposed and decomposed by other bodies.4 Our

bodies are adjusted accordingly. Although being a guest or a host can lead to different

nuances in the way of rebirth, recomposing is inevitable. Deleuze approaches this cogitation

in a very similar way. He thinks that “life does not stand still and that life is precisely the

process of composing and decomposing these relations”.5 The thought of our life being a

spiral of many chains of relationships and the way they recreate us over time can also be

3
J. Rykwert, The Idea of a Town, 2012, page 58.
4
S. Alaimo, Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times, 2016, page 37.
5
G. Deleuze, Seminar at the University of Paris / Lecture 6, 1981, page 24.
A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 7

frightening in a way. However, this allows us to perceive the alchemical transformation, a

figure of hospitality, as rebirth. Hospitality gives guests and hosts a direct chance to be

influenced by each other. The host should provide as good an environment as possible for the

guest, but should allow the guest's transformation and his own transformation, with the

openness to rebuild it left to the guest. Each transformation leads to a re-birth/a new origin.

The ideal is not to save the one from its old origin/-s, but to open and enrich a new, untrodden

path.

Chapter 2: Deserted Islands

The islands are as well divided into 2 categories according to their first or old origins, in other

words, according to their geographical features:

(i) the oceanic island, emerging from the sea and thus representing an absolute beginning.

(ii) the continental island, once a part of the continent and which can be interpreted as a

continent, thus representing a rebirth, a new beginning.

According to Deleuze; continental islands are accidental, derived islands that survive the

absorption of what once contained them and become islands, whereas oceanic islands are

original and essential islands that arise from underwater eruptions and bring to light of day a

movement from the deepest.6

Although these two types of islands have different forms of formation, they have the feature

of revealing a profound opposition. The way to achieve this is the sea that surrounds the

island and does not make people forget that they are not on the mainland. The common

denominator of both is also the distance from the mainland provided by the sea. However,

what is important here is not a simple way measured by kilometers, but isolation from social

norms and from the basic conveniences of living in society. In this context, people are not in

a position to feel comfortable. For the same reason, ‘it is philosophically normal to us that an

6
G. Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953-1974, page 9.
A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 8

island is deserted’. In order for people to live in peace in the struggle between earth and

water, ‘they must forget what the island represents’.7

Islands can represent distancing, being apart, getting lost, being alone, starting from scratch,

rebeginning, or recreating. These are actually the features that follow and support each other.

Distancing and loneliness can bring new beginnings. It may even be profitable to be alone for

a rebeginning. Therefore the island does not have to represent a single action, it is in any case

origin, radical and absolute8. However, in cases where the movement is many, there is

always a tendency towards one. Even if the movement is the same, the purpose is now

different. It is not only the island itself that has separated the continent and found a new life,

but also the people on this island who find themselves cut off from the world and society

itself. Thus people take over the movement of the island. What we find here is a new reason

why every island is deserted.

One of Deleuze's key approaches; An island doesn't stop being deserted simply because it is

inhabited9. The island can share its movement with the human, but it does not become less

deserted because there is a human on it. Because the movement of man towards or on the

island is absolutely different from the movement of the island itself. They cannot unite with

elan, which produced the island, and their presence actually spoils its desertness. An outside

movement, maybe a ship, should come in order to deteriorate the desertness of the island.

Thus, if the island meets a new creator, the creator's action can put an end to the island's

desertness. The creator introduces the island to his own dynamic image, and the island gives

him an open consciousness to be re-created and reproduced. This means a second birth for

both the island and the creator. However most of the time ‘humans do not put an end to

desertedness, raise it to the highest point, make it sacred’10.

7
G. Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953-1974, page 9.
8
G. Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953-1974, page 10.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 9

There are a few more things that can be said to explain when a deserted island will not be

deserted. For instance, an island doesn't have to be covered by a desert to be deserted.

However, if this desert is completely unsuitable for living conditions, it can make the island

deserted. So much so that even if an island has a habitable flora in it, it may be more deserted

than the desert. The key point here is that the island gives one a chance with its hospitality. In

this way, the person gets acquainted with his own limits and the pleasure of a new beginning.

Hospitality is associated not only with the natural vegetation or climate of the island, but also

with the viability of the new movement brought by the guest. The island must be able to keep

this movement alive. Thus, the guest will resonate with the island and be able to be ready for

his second birth and the next phase of the sequences of origins.

If we are to examine life and formation in two stages, this will be birth and rebirth, and in this

context the deserted island will represent rebirth. The island is a material that is necessary for

a new beginning and has completed its first origin. It is not enough for everything to just

begin, second birth awaits a disaster, a change of movement. Thus, coming to the end of the

first origin completely, a second origin is created. In this case the second origin is more

essential than the first. ‘In the ideal of beginning anew there is something that precedes the

beginning itself, that takes it up to deepen it and delay it in the passage of time. The desert

island is the material of this something immemorial, this something most profound.’11

The second birth of the desert island is entirely dependent on environmental conditions, in

fact, this proves to us that the uninhabited island is a figment of the imagination and not a

geographical island, and that it can be explained through literature in particular. Deleuze sees

the concept of deserted island as an inspiring motif, complaining that the concept has lost its

meaning and has become an excuse for the recreation of society. In fact, what Deleuze

laments about is true in a way. Because the idea of the deserted island being a new beginning

was never fully realized. Robinson and Suzanne, who will lead us in the rescue of the

11
G. Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953-1974, page 14.
A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 10

imaginary and mythological life of the island, will also try to prove at first hand that ‘the

deserted island is not a creation but a recreation, it is the origin, but a second origin and

from it everything begins anew’12.

Chapter 3: A Spiral of Rebirths

The mythological life of the islands, the alchemical transformation of hospitality, the deserted

islands of Deleuze; In order to explain how they came together around Suzanne and

Robinson, it is essential to understand the stories of the characters first. Literature is indeed

an interpretation of mythology and aims to make myths more relatable today. All

interpretations produced consciously and unconsciously while reinterpreting mythological

elements are included in this. Although Suzanne and the Pacific of Giraudoux and Robinson

Crusoe of Defoe are two novels written two hundred times apart, they have main characters

whose stories about landing on the deserted island are very similar. They both end up on an

island where they are completely alone after a shipwreck. These two islands have long been a

secluded home or a host for Suzanne and Robinson. But in this predicament, the experience

of the characters and the hospitality of the islands are completely different. Suzanne and the

Pacific; while emphasizing the separation of the islands - because Suzanne’s island is an

island community consisting of many small islands - and the separation of Suzanne from her

life; Robinson Crusoe emphasizes the re-beginning13 and the second birth.

At this stage, it should be noted that both novels mentioned at this stage prove the death of

mythology in Deleuze's point of view. According to Deleuze, the idea of a mythical

recreation of the world from the deserted island dies as the characters try to re-establish the

order they had in their first origin. He criticizes Robinson's completely proprietary worldview

and the fact that his perfect life on the island is completely indebted to the items he collected

from his sunk ship (Fig.1).

12
G. Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953-1974, page 13.
13
G. Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953-1974, page 12.
A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 11

Figure 1. Translated Vase, Sookyung Yee, 2007

Deleuze complains that Robinson did not invent anything on the island and believes that he

had everything from the very beginning, thanks to the sunken ship. Inconvincible with

Robinson Crusoe is that Robinson's survival and even his escape from the island is based on a

lot of pure luck or even impossible events. Perhaps the most important of these is cannibal

Friday's incredible sense of belonging to Robinson and not even thinking about eating him.

Friday is like Eve to Adam.

In the light of these thoughts of Deleuze, Robinson's chances of surviving without finding all

the gunpowder, weapons, necessary items to build his shelter, and seeds were negligible.

However, Robinson quickly accepted the island as his home, his kingdom, and the deep

despair and suicidal thoughts one would possibly expect from a normal person did not come

to his mind. Robinson tried to implement everything he knew from his first origin to the

deserted island and did his best to make himself comfortable and make the island less

deserted. He learned ways to put into practice on his own what he knew in theory. In this

process all he needed was time itself.

A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 12

But, as explained in detail in the previous chapters, the notion of deserted that Robinson

knew was not the same as Deleuze's deserted islands. The deserted island, while defining

transformation and rebirth, should have given the guest a second origin. Yet Robinson never

wanted to have a second origin here, he tried to bring his first origin to life and hoped to

return to it. He always tried to live according to the calendar he knew in his first origin,

counted the days, and read the Bible hundreds of times. In brief, he did his best not to

distance himself from the world he knew and the social norms he was accustomed to.

However, when Robinson met Friday, something unheard of in his 28-year exile happened,

he entered a spiral of relations. This enabled Robinson to make more ambitious and

enthusiastic decisions than he had thought, in other words, it brought a new movement to the

island and in a way, a new origin in the sequence of origins. Thanks to Friday, Robinson

remembered that it could be possible to return to the mainland. Thus the man who had

become the king of that island, took on a completely different self.

Suzanne is indeed much luckier than Robinson. She's landed on a very special island that

serves it all up on a golden platter (Fig.2). She doesn't need anything from her first origin

unlike Robinson. Since the island is rich in fantastic resources, she does not need to recreate

anything. The island’s vegetation provides everything for example coconut trees, a bread tree,

a milk tree, a meat tree. It is precisely because of this abundance that Deleuze says that

‘mythology dies in a particularly Parisian way in Suzanne's case’14.

14
G. Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953-1974, page 12.
A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 13

Figure 2. Sand/Fans, Alice Aycock, 1971

Suzanne can spend more time and effort interacting with the deserted island than Robinson,

because unlike Robinson, she does not have problems such as the struggle for survival. After

a while, Suzanne officially becomes a part of the island, physically mingling with the place.

She discovers the space by swimming and even develops her own language. While Suzanne

embodies that she has a guest on the island, she lets her intuition rule by the deserted island.

Not only the living conditions of Suzanne and Robinson, but also the way they perceive and

interpret the space are very different from each other. As can be understood, Suzanne's way

of holding on to her first origin in this abundance and spiritual life is different from

Robinson's.

In order not to lose her old memories in France, Suzanne transforms the map of the island

formally into a text, so she tries to map it out. She gives street names to trees, identifies flat

areas and reference points. Over time, the streets she used for naming the trees lose their

spiritual meaning. This situation strengthens Suzanne's feelings that she has become

estranged from her old life and completely lost her old origin. Converting the deserted island

into a text is not exactly the right way for her to stick to her first origin. But at one point

Suzanne finds the old belongings of a person who lived on the island before her, including a
A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 14

diary with the title Robinson Crusoe. Suzanne enters into an imaginary dialogue with this

man and learns that he discovered the island in 13 years. As she reads about Robinson's stable

and orderly life, she feels threatened and trapped by her own precarious life. This awareness

of Suzanne also brings a new movement to the island. Suzanne found herself in a spiral of

rebirths as a result of being overwhelmed with these bad feelings and imaginary dialogues.

This diary may not be a living person, but it is the purest memories of a person who walked

the same path as Suzanne, and this is proof that she is in a spiral of relationships.

According to Deleuze, there are a few clues that should be taken from the two novels in order

to preserve the mythological life of the deserted island.15

(i) Robinson needed capital from his old life to start a new life.

(ii) Suzanne was completely isolated from everything.

(iii) Neither of them was a part of a couple.

There are also some criteria in the approach of the guest. The first of these is that one is open

to existence completely independently of one's first origin. There should be a bond between

him and the past, but it should not be at a level that does not want to break away from it. This

makes the person dependent on their first origin and space cannot be provided for a second

one. Another of these criteria is that he wants to exist in a reality he has recreated, rather than

creating an exact copy. What overlooks this argument is how much spirals of relations help

people find a new origin. The guest before Suzanne may not have taken the island's

desertedness, but Suzanne has recreated a life thanks to him. Robinson may not have been

able to break the island's desertedness, but when he runs away and visits the island years

later, he will find it as a lively, dynamic, tiny village, which is all thanks to himself. By

ensuring all these factors the purity of the island can be obtained, mythological life of the

deserted island can be preserved and contribute to today's hospitality.

15
G. Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953-1974, page 13.
A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 15

Conclusion: Second Birth

It is possible to perceive the concept of today's hospitality in many ways and if all these

described islands and characters could be the figures of hospitality, it is thanks to our ability

to perceive hospitality as an alchemical transformation, a rebirth. Islands are the hosts who

have both defined and experienced re-creation. Suzanne and Robinson, who approached a

second birth even if they failed to take the island's desertedness, became at first guests and

then, according to their own claims, the owners of the island.

The fundamental here is not the occurrence of a second birth because there was a disaster. In

fact what essential is that there would be a disaster for an origin to end so that the

indispensable rebirth becomes possible. A deserted island struggles to reward its guests with

a second birth. Because there is a very powerful force given by rebirth and moving away

from the first origins. In the inevitable flow of life, rebirth, not birth, makes the difference.

Given today's hospitality, it can be assumed that the relationship between host and guest is at

a very different point than aiming for a second origin. Yet, whether this understanding is

written as a mythological story of a deserted island, with augur creating diagrams with

projections of celestial bodies, or whether it is the relationship of a guest and a host, it is

inevitable that they all eventually align with a new origin.

While the elements that emerged with the perception of hospitality as an alchemical

transformation invite us to a journey to a deserted island in this article, they also revealed

resonances that we did not know about the series of origins. The second birth of the guest is

not just a variation on himself, but also transforming the host with his new movement. The

pleasure of re-creation empowers the person to pursue the movement and the spiral of

relationships created by this new movement, in which re-births follow each other, leaves us

the pleasurable sequence of origins.

A Pleasurable Sequence of Origins 16

Bibliography

- Alaimo, S., Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times,

Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2016.

- Deleuze, G., Sur Spinoza, Cours Vincennes, 1991.

- Despret, V. “The Body We Care For: Figures for Anthropo-zoo-genesis”, Body and

Society, no. 10.3, 2014.

- Dolphijn, R., The Philosophy of Matter, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.

- Serres, M., The Parasite, University of Minnesota Press, 2007.

- Deleuze, G., Desert Islands and Other Texts, Semiotext(e), 1953-1974.

- Giraudoux J., Suzanne et le Pacifique, Nabu Press, 1921.

- Defoe, D., Robinson Crusoe, Great Britain, 1719.