In a recent 6/20 paper on paraphilia [2], I claimed that desire needn't be constrained and shaped purely by our own human experience and capacity and that once desire is liberated, then we are free to love anything and everything and not just anyone - including animals, plants, and atypical objects of every description.
This is not, however, to posit a model of pansexualism: I'm not saying all is sex [3]. What I am suggesting, rather, is that an element of libidinal energy is invested in everything we do and that desire is what brings things "which otherwise are incommensurable" [4] into touch.
Desire, in other words - which has no fixed essence and therefore evades definition - can best be thought of in terms of how it functions as a "strange current of interchange" [5] flowing between bodies (including abstract, virtual, or artificial bodies).
As Deleuze and Guattari argue, if you examine the social field closely enough, you'll find that beneath the conscious investments of economic, political, and religious formations, "there are unconscious sexual investments, microinvestments that attest to the way in which desire is present" [6]
Thus, sexuality exists even in the way that a bureaucrat fondles his records [7] - or, we might add, in the strange manner that the periodic table exerts its allure upon a scientist.
II.
The periodic table is an ordered arrangement of chemical elements into rows and columns based on their assigned atomic number [8]. It's both a marvellous product of the scientific imagination and an iconic piece of graphic design [9].
Of course, I'm aware that one must exercise a certain degree of caution here; that the periodic table is first and foremost a visual record of scientific knowledge rather than a work of the artistic imagination. Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev was almost certainly more concerned with physics than aesthetics when he produced the first periodic table in 1869 [10] and, ultimately, it's determined by function rather than form.
Nevertheless, it relies heavily on certain design principles to do with layout and colour in order to translate highly complex scientific laws into a pleasing and accessible format and anyone who cannot see the elemental beauty in it must be blind.
And beauty, of course, isn't tied to truth or goodness, so much as to sex appeal. Thus, we can say that not only is its vertical and horizontal cross-referencing lovely to look at, it also communicates a sense of joy and warmth. My critics at the 6/20 may not like to admit the fact, but for certain men a body of knowledge is more seductive, and more arousing, than that of even the most comely young wench.
III.
To understand this allure, one might look past the design aesthetic and consider the libidinally material behaviour of the elements themselves. For the periodic table is perhaps best thought of as a map of highly eroticised intensities.
Take, for instance, the alkali metals sodium (Na), potassium (K), and caesium (Cs). Hyper-reactive and volatile, these elements are driven by a desperate, unstable promiscuity. They cannot bear to exist in isolation and will explosively couple with almost any partner in a flash of consummating heat.
At the opposite end of this behavioural spectrum lie the noble gases helium (He), neon (Ne), and argon (Ar). Embodying a mixture of coldness, cruelty and self-contained celibacy, they refuse to bond or even flirt with the rest of the chemical universe. Theirs is an erotics of absolute refusal and pristine isolation - until that is a sudden, intense electrical current causes them to glow with the ecstasy of one who has been ravished.
Between these extremes lie tactile and toxic temptations such as quicksilver (Hg) - a queer, elusive liquid metal that defies the standard boundaries of its state.
But of course, for me - as a writer and homotextual - the seduction of the periodic table lies more in the wonderfully evocative and allusive names of the elements that roll off the tongue with almost liturgical sensuality: from the dark gothic beauty of cobalt (Co) [11]; to the celestial beauty of selenium (Se) [12].
If, as Einstein once suggested, the mathematical formulations of science are the poetry of logical ideas, then to read the periodic table aloud is to recite a chant of desire; a
poetic incantation where language itself becomes a site of bliss.
So, when 6/20 regular Ian Buxton asks if the periodic table is sexy, the answer is obviously - and resoundingly - Yes! [13]
Notes
[1] Blair Bradshaw is a contemporary American artist known for his visually striking paintings of the periodic table of the elements. His work blends the scientific data with an aesthetic interpretation of human experience, thereby giving familiar elements whole new meaning (often of a whimsical character). Physically large in size, his pieces are created using diverse mediums, including oil on canvas, oil on paper, and wood.
For a discussion of Bradshaw's work, see the adapted extract from Tami I. Spector's article 'The Art of the Periodic Table', posted on The MIT website (4 Feb 2021): click here. The full piece can be found in Leonardo, Vol. 52, Issue 3 (June 2019).
In brief, Spector argues that the intersection of art and science has the potential to build new insights, ideas, and processes beneficial to both disciplines. She also makes the interesting observation that Bradshaw "elevates the iconography of the periodic table, using its form to create visual-linguistic connections and rearranging and isolating the elements into clever wordplay". In other words, for Bradshaw, it's the cultural associations and linguistic connotations that most excite about the periodic table.
[2] See the Events page on Torpedo the Ark for details of the paper: click here.
The 6/20 Club is a twice-monthly salon graciously hosted by Christian Michel at his west London home. Established for over twenty years, it has seen an impressive assortment of speakers present papers on a huge number of topics.
[3] D. H. Lawrence, '...... Love Was Once a Little Boy', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 339.
[4] The politics of desire is far more subtle and further reaching than a naive form of pansexualism. Lawrence was always insistent on this point. Thus, even if an element of sex enters every aspect of human life, this does not mean everything can or should be reduced to sex. Greater even than the sex impulse is the creative impulse; it is the latter - not the will to love - that is the world-forming drive.
See chapter IX of his Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele (CUP, 2004). And see chapter 11 of my Outside the Gate (Blind Cupid press, 2010), where I discuss this.
[5] D. H. Lawrence, 'Dana's Two Years Before the Mast', in Studies in Classic American Literature, ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey, and John Worthen (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 109.
[6] Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (The Athlone Press, 1994), p. 183.
[7] See Deleuze and Guattari writing in Anti-Oedipus ... p. 293. The passage reads: "The truth is sexuality is everywhere: the way a bureaucrat fondles his records, a judge administers justice, a business man causes money to circulate ..." D&G are also keen to emphasise that this is not merely a metaphor.
[8] Elements are organised in horizontal rows - known as periods - by their increasing atomic numbers. The vertical columns - or groups - represent elements with similar electronic structures and properties.
[9] For an interesting short piece discussing the periodic table by graphic designer and visual communications expert Tony Pritchard, see Eye, Vol. 20, Issue 78 (Winter, 2010), please click here.
[10] It might be noted that Mendeleev did not actually know about atomic numbers in 1869; he organised elements by atomic weight. The physical basis for atomic numbers was discovered by English physicist Henry Moseley in 1913.
Before Moseley's work, atomic numbers were simply a placeholder for an element's position on the periodic table. Moseley used X-ray spectroscopy to measure the characteristic wavelengths of various elements, revealing that the square root of an X-ray's frequency is directly proportional to its atomic number. This breakthrough - known as Moseley's Law - allowed him to reorganise the periodic table by atomic number rather than atomic weight, correcting long-standing inconsistencies in Mendeleev's original table.
[11] The word cobalt derives from the German word kobold, the name of evil underground goblins and given to the ore by medieval German miners because the rock was considered not only worthless, but emitted toxic fumes when smelted.
[12] The word selenium is from the Greek word selēnē [σελήνη], meaning moon (though this is not related to its silvery colour when existing in its most stable form).
[13] Ian Buxton mistakenly thought I wasn't being serious when I answered in the affirmative to his question 'Is there anything sexy about the periodic table?' Normally, I would let such a misunderstanding pass. But, just for once, I wanted to let it be known that while I might present my work in a relatively light-hearted manner, I do, as a matter of fact, take the ideas fairly seriously.
Similarly, if I choose not to discuss things at length or in depth at the 6/20, that's because I think of it not as an academic space, but as a forum in which speakers are invited to please their audiences by playing with ideas, rather than engage in an aggressive form of dialectics or intellectual sparring.
This post is for Christian and Jennifer (my co-presenter on the night) - and with special thanks to Maria, Dawn, Fatima, Ruth, Soko, and Rebecca.
