Can Cinema be Thought?: Alain Badiou and the Artistic Condition‪.‬

ABSTRACT: Alain Badiou's philosophy is generally understood to be a fundamentally mathematical enterprise, his principle categories of being, appearing, and truth being themselves thought only though specific scientific events. However the event itself is contrarily thought not through mathematics but through art. And yet despite the fundamental role art plays in his philosophy Badiou's 'inaesthetic' writings seem unduly proscriptive, allowing room principally for the expressly 'literal' arts while eschewing for the most part those manifold arts which have little recourse to the letter. Badiou's polemical writings on cinema are both symptomatic and serve as the most extreme example of this position, his cinema being one which wavers precariously on the border of art and non-art. This paper accordingly questions whether cinema can truly occupy a place in Badiou's inaesthetics. Through a consideration of Badiou's writings on cinema I argue the hegemony of the letter in his inaesthetics to be both one of convenience and symptomatic of his mathematical leanings. I further argue that if cinematic truths are to be registered Badiou's understanding of cinema as (what I interpret to be) an art of dis-appearance must be rejected. I conclude by contending the oppressive literality of Badiou's philosophy results in his regrettably neglecting by and large those manifold illiterate arts that might otherwise serve to augment his thought. KEYWORDS: Badiou; Inaesthetics; Cinema; Idea; Letter; Matheme; Deleuze; Appearance; Movement