A Reading of Enrique Oliveira’s “Trans-arquitetônica”, “Baitogogo” and “Tapumes” in Light of the Thought of Gilles Deleuze

Varmazyar, Zeinab; Ardalani, Hossein; Mehrpooya, Abbas; Golnaz Mantegi Fasaei, Zahra

doi:10.22034/ijumes.2025.738521

A Reading of Enrique Oliveira’s “Trans-arquitetônica”, “Baitogogo” and “Tapumes” in Light of the Thought of Gilles Deleuze

Document Type : Case Study

Authors

Zeinab Varmazyar ¹

Hossein Ardalani ¹

Abbas Mehrpooya ²

Zahra Golnaz Mantegi Fasaei ³

¹ Department of Philosophy of Art, Ha.C., Islamic Azad University, Hamedan, Iran

² Department of Foreign Languages, Ha.C., Islamic Azad University, Hamedan, Iran

³ Department of Dreama, CT.C., Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

10.22034/ijumes.2025.738521

Abstract

Gilles Deleuze was a philosopher who, with a creative and at the same time critical outlook, widened the boundaries of philosophy; his collaboration with Félix Guattari and the creation of key concepts such as openness, becoming, the rhizome and the body without organs exerted a profound influence on contemporary thought and offered new ways of perceiving the complex interactions between art and society. Among the outstanding figures of contemporary art is Enrique Oliveira, who, through a creative approach to installation and environmental art, fuses the boundaries of art, architecture and design. The aim of this article is to analyses three signal works by this artist and to read them in light of Deleuze’s thought, pursuing the main research question: what relationship connects Enrique Oliveira’s works to Deleuze’s ideas on the basis of components such as the rhizome, difference-in-repetition and the body without organs? The study proceeds by a descriptive–analytical method, drawing on library sources and content analysis to read three works by Oliveira against Deleuze’s concepts. The findings show that, through works built from a multi-layered system, Oliveira draws the viewer into discovering the hidden dimensions of his art, and that these works succeed in reflecting the concepts and ideas of Gilles Deleuze dissolving fixed form, center and hierarchy and staging becoming, rhizomatic connection and the body without organs. The study concludes that Oliveira’s installations materialize Deleuze’s thought and reframe art and architecture not as collections of fixed objects but as active, continually unfolding processes realized in the encounter with the viewer.

Graphical Abstract

A Reading of Enrique Oliveira’s “Trans-arquitetônica”, “Baitogogo” and “Tapumes” in Light of the Thought of Gilles Deleuze

Highlights

· The study reads three installations by Enrique Oliveira Baitogogo, Tapumes and Trans-arquitetônica through Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of becoming, the rhizome and the body without organs.

· Built from recycled timber, Oliveira’s forms remain suspended between growth and collapse, materializing the Deleuzian idea of “becoming” as an unfinished, transformative process.

· The works dissolve architectural order into organ-like masses defined by intensities and forces, staging the “body without organs” rather than fixed structure or function.

· Lacking centre, axis or linear path, the branching structures operate as rhizomes in which any point may connect to any other, offering the viewer a non-hierarchical, multi-directional experience.

· The analysis shows that Oliveira’s installations reframe art and architecture not as fixed objects but as active, continually unfolding processes realized in the encounter with the viewer.

Keywords

Becoming

body without organs

Enrique Oliveira

Gilles Deleuze

Rhizome

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