Assemblage

The word "assemblage" is an archeological term that concerns the way artifacts like tools and vessels are found together and are assumed to be related to each other (Lyon, 2007, p.4)

The term assemblage was popularized with Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guttari, and it revolves around the idea that information is fluid, changeable, and moveable. According to the University of Texas (n.d.), "Assemblages appear to be functioning as a whole, but are actually coherent bits of a system whose components can be “yanked” out of one system, “plugged” into another, and still work" ("Assemblage Theory"). Assemblage implies the "process of arranging, organizing, fitting together" (Wise, 2005, p. 77). It is not a random collection of things, but rather it is a group of things that "expresses some identity and claims a territory." Assemblage has connections to the idea of exteriority in that "a component part can be detached from one assemblage and plugged into another in which the part’s interactions are different" ("Assemblage Theory").

References

Lyon, D. Surveillance Studies: An Overview. (2007). Malden: Polity Press.

University of Texas at Austin. "Assemblage Theory." LAITS Site List. Retrieved 18 Apr. 2014 from http://wikis.la.utexas.edu/theory/page/assemblage-theory

Wise, J. Macgregor. "Assemblage." Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts. Ed. Charles J. Stivale. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2005. 77-87. Print.

Also see: Surveillant Assemblage