Assemblage

Assemblage is defined by Deleuze and Guattari (1987) as a process of positioning multiple and heterogeneous elements in the service of establishing a territory. It is the mix of contingency and organization, such as the chance subcultural expressions that come from contingent historical/economic conditions which in turn express the strata of a particular social group (mods in London in the 1960s, for instance). Defined by their ability to coalesce singularities as they emerge from flows, assemblages congeal into constellations through the convergence and stratification of any possible number of traits, but their dominant characteristics remain those of malleability. Thus, synergies are productive in the sense that they gather any number of “things” (i.e. pieces or particles, moleculars) into a singular context, forging new meanings and possibilities.