Summary

On repetition as a working method: why the same frame, phrase, or figure returns across a body of work, and what accumulates between returns.

Triggered by

Reading Deleuze on Bacon while rewatching Warhol screen tests on a train — two theories of repetition that refuse to meet.

Next move

The question drifts toward space — what buildings repeat without meaning to.

References

• Francis Bacon — triptychs painting
• Andy Warhol — Screen Tests film, 1964–66
• Gilles Deleuze — Logic of Sensation book, 1981

Still open

• Is a motif discovered or installed?
• Where seriality becomes mannerism
• Can a cut be honest?
• Virtuosity as a mask for doubt

Considered, rejected

• A Warhol-only episode — too safe, too single-artist
• A taxonomy of repetition types — felt like a filing system, not an argument

Also here

• Notes on Motifs
• On Standing Still
• Grain and Control