Blood and Convulsive Affect: Vectors of the Pulse as Sovereign Operations
This chapter conceptualises the vectors of the pulse as the quantities of magnitude and direction that communicate. The vector discloses the difficulty in isolating the place of the pulse, which in turn suggests the ‘putting at stake’ of self as a sovereign operation experienced in Georges Bataille’s general economy. This chapter analyses the vector in relation to the form of spectatorship that Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 film Possession gives rise to. The film is remarkable for the way it relates the magnitude and directional flow of blood to a frenzy of the body in a kind of convulsive affect. Blood points to the sacrificial expenditure, or dispossession, of the self, which nevertheless produces an intimate communication or communion between characters, film, and spectator.