Narrative Catastrophe and its Aftermath: On the Potentiation of Notation as a Form of Negative Virtuality in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Work

From the 1960s and until his death Pier Paolo Pasolini elevated notation to his work’s central formal paradigm, with the aim of challenging and subverting the literary and cinematic conventions of European modernity. Taking its cue from the African American writer and thinker Frank B. Wilderson’s observations on narrative catastrophy, the article situates Pasolini’s use of notation within the broader framework of his reflection on the possibilities of narration in the age of decolonization and globalised late capitalism. It outlines the development of the note and its rise to prominence in Pasolini’s work as a way for the Western author to relinquish his authority and the exertion of narrative power. Crucially, the article illustrates how, in contrast to frequently held assumptions about notation as an unfinished form subordinated to a potentially finished product, Pasolini conceives and potentiates notation as a form of negative virtuality that does not abide by the logic of positive finality.