Abstract

This essay explores the concept of slowness in Deleuze’s work, in order to establish its autonomy in relation to speed. This pair of notions appears often as part of a formula: relations of movement and rest, of speed and slowness. Nevertheless, it’s not clear which the ontological status of slowness is. We would like to risk some propositions about it, taking into account Deleuze’s remarks on Spinoza and especially the political and anthropological analysis of these concepts made in A Thousand Plateaus with Félix Guattari. We propose that there is a difference of nature between slowness and speed, and that slowness could not be equalized with gravity. If speed fits with the way of life of nomadic people and gravity fits with the sedentary one, slowness could fit well in the way of life of the itinerant people, who inhabit holey spaces and forge tools and weapons for the other two. Finally, we apply those concepts to the analysis of rhythm, showing the intimate relationship between them.