Rhythm and Entropy: Territorial Repetition in Gilles Deleuze and Josef Jedlička

This paper focuses on the work of Czech aesthetician and ethnologist Josef Jedlička who describes ornament as a product of territorial rule. In his book The Ornament, Jedlička addresses the problem of ideological control of territorial repetition as an emergence of entropy. To understand Jedlička’s claims of entropic repetition, I propose introducing it in dialogue with Deleuze’s conception of repetition, in which differentiation is not an external but an internal rule of repetition. I argue that Jedlička’s conception of ornament as an externally imposed rule of senseless layering of imposed patterns allows us to understand the risk of social disconnection. In contrast, Deleuze’s account of territorial repetition as a production of erotic rhythm is based on the internal rule of differentiation, which allows us to see social connection as an ongoing variation assembled by desire. The philosophical consequences of these different approaches to repetition are further examined in their divergent readings of Franz Kafka’s work.