“For Deleuze, affect or emotion is a more effective trigger for profound thought because of the way in which it grasps us, forcing us to engage involuntarily… On this account, art is not conceptual in itself but rather an embodiment of sensation that stimulates thought… Art is thus not driven or enslaved by any particular understanding; it is always productive of ideas… The conjunction of affect and critical awareness may be understood to constitute the basis of an empathy grounded not in affinity (feeling for another insofar as we can imagine being that other) but on a feeling for another that entails an encounter with something irreducible and different, often inaccessible. Empathy, in this formulation, is characterized by a distinctive combination of affective and intellectual operations, but also by a dynamic oscillation, “a constant tension of going to and fro,” as Nikos Papastergiadis has put it, “of going closer to be able to see, but also never forgetting where you are coming from… empathy is about that process of surrender… but also the catch that transforms your perception”.”