Notes on : "Zizek, How to read Lacan"
Chapter 1. Empty Gestures and performatives, Lacan confronts the CIA plot.
Key words: Trojan horse, puppets, epiphenomena, symbolic, imaginary, real, symptom, "one", language, communication, "phatic communication", ambivalent, disintegration, dissolution, sociopath, "twofold moment", unsent letter, content, meta-choice, message, food, excrement, toilet, enunciated- enunciation, declaration, tacit agreement, Monster plot, deception, act, wheelbarrow.
Key-concepts: "big Other", "empty gestures", "symbolic order", "triad of human being's reality"
In this chapter Zizek disposes the groundwork for concepts like “The Triad of the Real,” “The Big Other” and “Empty Gestures.”
The "big Other"> According Lacan, the "big Other" (b.O) :
can be personified in a single agent: the "GOD" (someone who controls and direct above our heads) or the "Cause"( the reason for which we can sacrifice our lives).
must be always there.
exists in so far as subjects act if it is exists.
is fragile, insubstantial, properly virtual.
operates at a symbolic level.
witnesses
According Lacan, the "big Other", is this kind of virtual Master who regulates a social conversation and communication and in a certain extent defines and influence the construction of Self and determines the content of a message. The "big Other" has the power to permeate everywhere but at the same time is "fragile" because actually exists as long human beings exist. The lacanian idea of the b.O comes through the human interaction. The communication, understanding, interpretation, comprehension of others happen through the "b.O". Zizek's bring the example of the Mexican soap opera, where the actors learn how to act based on the instructions of what and how they have to do through tiny receivers in their ears. This image remind us the puppet and the master> "we talk and interact like puppets".
For Lacan the "big Other" operates in three intertwined levels:
Symbolic> the way of interacting with the others
Imaginary> the virtualization of the others.
Real> the circumstances, surrounding, ambient of the situation that can bring unexpected changes.
Example: Chess. Is it life a game, played as chess?
"big Other" and language.
"Every utterance not only transmit some content, but, simultaneously, conveys the way the subject relates to this content" (p.16).
It is the way and the intention behind words and actions that defines the relation between signifier and signified?
Enunciated content and act of enunciation. Zizek brings our attention to the gap existing between these two elements of human speech.
Language> an ambivalent gift. "Timeo Danaos, et dano ferentes"
The language is seen as an ambivalent gift that can also destroy.The gift is an offer. The acceptance or the rejection of the gift establish the link between giver and receiver. The way that the giver gives the gift is more important than the gift itself. The gifts are signifier of the pact between two parts.
“The symbolic order emerges from a gift, an offering, that marks its content as neutral in order to pose as a gift: when a gift is offered, what matters is not its content but the link between giver and receiver established when the receiver accepts the gift (p.12).”
"Walking Life" is a rotoscoped film, directed by Richard Linklater, about a young man who participates actively in philosophical discussion about free will, meaning of life, existentialism etc and who realize that he is living out a perpetual dream, broken up only by occasional false awakenings.
What is language?
Symbolic order.
The symbolic order works in tension with the Imaginary and the Real and is constituted by rules. Zizek elucidate the role of rules by saying that these rules (in relation to language- communication) can be divided at: a) rules (grammatical) that we follow blindly, but of which we can be partially aware, b) rules that we follow in ignorance (prohibitions) and c) rules that must not be seen to know of. The violation of these rules can bring : disintegration and chaos. They are taken in consideration because is what the "big Other" doesn't do.
Empty Gesture.
The "empty gesture" concept refers to > Gestures that have been created for us purely to keep the peace and as a result be “rejected” on purpose. When they are "accepted" chaos, dissolution and disintegration can be occurred> Interruption, confusion, break of "invisible rules".
THE SYMBOLISM OF TOILETS.
In accordance to the Levi-Straussian triangle of cooking > raw (Nature), boiled (mediation/process), baked (Culture), Zizek analyzes the 3 basic types of toilet-design on the West culture:
German toilet> structure where the shit first laid out for us to sniff and inspect traces of illness>reflective thoroughness>German Metaphysics/poetry>ambiguous contemplative fascination.
French Toilet>the shit dissapears as soon as possible>revolutionary hastiness>French politics>attempt to get rid of the unpleasant excess immediately.
American Toilet> mediation between the two opposed previous poles>moderate utilitarian pragmatism>economics>pragmatic approach to treat the excess as an ordinary object.
FREE CHOICE?
"Belonging to a society involves the paradoxical point at which each one of us is ordered to embrace freely...what is anyway is imposed on us" (p12)
A nice comment on free will comes again from the film "Walking Life"
"There is not a lot of room left for freedom" 0:55sec
Freud and Symptom> Freud argues that symptoms are a physical link to the experiences that have shaped our consciousness.
Zizek explains that from Freud's point of view the symptoms are actually coded messages about inner experiences, desires or traumas. The monster plot.
Was James Angleton paranoic?
"The deception resided in our failure to include in the list of suspects the very idea of (globalized) suspicion" (p.21)
details about monster plot> http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/spies/james_jesus_angleton/7.html
FIGURE OF A SOCIOPATH.
Zizek defines as sociopath as a person who "discern the mortal rules that regulate social interaction", "lacks the "gut feeling" of right or wrong", " practices the notion of morality developed by utilirianism". Sow e can say that sociopath is marked by the inability to get along with others or abide by societal rules.
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ARTISTS related to the chapter.
At my opinion some artist , whose work can have a link with the philosophical aspects and concepts that Zizek brings in light are>
Gerhard Richter is a German artist, whose work can be examined through the prism of Lacanian theory.
"In addition, both analyst and artist ask us to locate the ‘real’. The ‘real’ has different meanings for Lacan and for Richter. In Lacan the ‘real’ is an “unrent, undifferentiated fabric”; there are no divisions or gaps in his ‘real’ register as it belongs to the period before language and the ‘symbolic’ order, and equates to the time before the baby’s body was socialised and coaxed into compliance. The ‘real’ in that sense does not exist – it is “killed” by the letter of the ‘symbolic’ order which, as Bruce Fink puts it, “cuts into the smooth facade of the ‘real’, creating divisions, gaps and distinguishable entities... laying the ‘real’ to rest”. Lacan borrows from Heidegger when he says that the ‘real’ “ex-ists” outside of our reality; it only exists insofar as we use language to describe it and give it a sort of substance."
Lesley Marks "Situating the "Real," Discovering Desire". PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts. December 15, 2009. Available http://www.psyartjournal.com/article/show/marks-situating_the_real_discovering_desire.Accessed 03.o8.2013
Raul Ruiz> He is a chilean filmmaker; a poet of oneiric imagery and a fabulist of labyrinthine stories-within-stories whose films slip effortlessly from reality to imagination and back again. (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0749914/bio)
Juan Carlos Mendizabal>contemporary artist from Salvador. In his installation "Itzpapalotl: black Butterfly/Mariposa negra" for the SOMArts’ exhibition Mourning and Scars: 20 Years After the War he made a booth that- as he explains in an interview-represents the surface, the flesh, the social entity that is part of the symbolic order. Outside there is language, symbols and frozen images. Inside is the inner world of myths, dreams and direct perceptions.
http://www.somarts.org/mendizabal/
It comes in my mind the book of Orwell "1984", in which is described how people's thoughts are controlled to ensure purity of the oligarchical system in place. Figurehead of the system is the omnipresent Big Brother. After some years the "Big Brother" took form as a reality show where people were in 24/7 surveillance. This big eye that controls everything is happening. The "existence" and the idea of an external eye, that controls, was influencing and directing the behavior of who was inside that space. Taking in consideration the theories about the "big Other", it seems that since the beginning of the human civilization -the human beings co-exist with the "b.O".
-Is the big Other a social construction important for the function of a society?
-If the big Other is taking from us "freedom" to be who we are, how do we know that without it we would be "free"?
-Does exist "Self" without the "big Other"?if not why is needed to identify/recognize the existence of the "big Other"?
-Where my agency as individual starts and ends in relation to the "big Other"?
-How do we fight against the power of the big Other? One way is the radical opposition in cost of life. (Zizek in his book: "Live Theory", brings as example Antigone, who acted against the universality of the Power. She opposed the Power in the name of her Cause (justice for her brother).
Chapter 2 : The interpassive subject. Lacan Turns a prayer wheel
Key words: Chorus, weepers, prayer wheels, interact, new media, VCR, passive, active, “Oops”,obsessional neurotic, predestination, know, belief, Santa Claus, politeness, fetishist disavowal, Les non-dupes errent, symbolic castration, hysteria, phallus, hysterization, justice, virtual reality.
Key concepts: Interpassivity, Interactivity.
Chorus: is people whoa re moved. Lacan , speaking about the Chorus, refers to its function within the spectacle. Zizek explains that the Chorus acts in a way that deprives the audience to make their own emotional experience. Someone else comments the main theatrical action and the viewer watch in a passive mode. The comparison to Chorus is made with action of DELEGATION
“WEEPERS”> paid keening: a form of vocal lament associated with mourning that is traditional in Ireland, Scotland, and other cultures. The “keen” itself is thought to have been constituted of stock poetic elements (the listing of the genealogy of the deceased, praise for the deceased, emphasis on the woeful condition of those left behind etc.) set to vocal lament. While generally carried out by one or several women, a chorus may have been intoned by all present. Physical movements involving rocking, kneeling or clapping accompanied the keening woman (“bean caoinadh”) who was often paid for her services ( source: WIKIPEDIA)
SOMEONE ACTS ON MY PLACE: PASSIVITY VS ACTIVITY
Zizek argues that interpassivity is an opposed concept to interactivity.
Inter-active: new media. Break of the passive role of the viewer;active participation in the spectacle. Zizek says that there is a doubtful perception that every form of new media gives to the subject the sense of interactivity. In “Art, Power, and communication”(RHIZOME DIGEST: October 11, 1996. http://www.rhizome.com), Alexei Shulgin writes:
“Looking at very popular media art form such as “interactive installation” I always wonder how people (viewers) are exited about this new way of manipulation on them. It seems that manipulation is the only form of communication they know and can appreciate. They are happily following very few options given to them by artists: press left or right button, jump or sit. Their manipulators artists feel that and are using seduces of newest technologies (future now!) to involve people in their pseudo-interactive games obviously based on banal will for power. But what nice words you can hear around it: interaction, interface for self-expression, artificial intelligence, communication even. So, emergence of media art is characterised by transition from representation to manipulation”.
Inter-passivity
” I can remain passive, sitting confortably in the black-ground, while the Other does it for me” (p.25)
I am wondering how much we decide consciously being “passive” and delegate our actions/feelings to others.
´QUESTION- Is our passive behavior fault of the “big Other”?
Zizek´s intepassivity is based upon a situation where a persona feels active but is instead passive through the substitution of an activity to an other object. He clarifies intepassivity through the example where substitution takes place;
VCR: system to record movies.
exquisite art of far niente. (p.24)
watching them for me, in my place (p.24)
medium of symbolic registration that stands for the big Other
JOKES: The case of a tasteless joke , when no one laughs and the person laughs by himself and repeats “This it was funny”.: similar to canned laughter.
OOPS!!!!!
Also the social network can function as a system of substitution
Newsfeed “Facebook is known for its newsfeed system: a list of friends’ updates that displays on the main page. The newsfeed consist of updates by individual users who are aware that their friends may not even read their updates, because the newsfeed is time-bound. Besides, it’s very likely that the users do not have their Facebook startpage opened constantly, which means that they can easily miss messages. Weather you open the page or not, Facebook receives everybody’s status update for you and you’re able to read the updates later. Thus, the newsfeed system can be perceived as a symbolic registration system like the VCR used in Žižek’s example; as the user doesn’t read his friends’ updates, Facebook does.” “Facebook is able to enhance their social lifes by making it possible for other users to connect to them, while personally they’re not actively involved on Facebook at all.” MArc Stumpel
source: http://marcstumpel.wordpress.com/tag/interpassivity/
I am passive through the Other. This happens in the case of interpassivity, where, I give the permission to the Other to make my experience instead of me, while I am doing something else. Like in the case of the canned laughter: I am sitting in my sofa in front of the television watching a reality show and in the same time the TV audience laughs inside the screen at my place.
The false activity about which Zizek speaks , is this kind of action that prevents something from happening in order to not change something. This reminds the behavior of the obsessional neurotic, who talks constantly and tries to prevent things to happen. His uncontrollable obsession is expressed through anecdotes, dreams, insights . Behind this behavior is covered the anxiety and the fear that the truly matter can come out. In this case the action is more a pseudo-action. Be passive and withdraw could be preferable than being active and participate.
“do nothing” VS “do something”
Withdraw vs participate.
According Zizek the obsessive neurosis there is a resemblance between obsession neurosis and religious practices.
Example: The paradox of Predestination> all events have been willed by God.
God’s decision, assignment or declaration concerning the lot of people is conceived as occurring in some sense prior to the outcome, and
the decision is fully predictive of the outcome, and not merely probable.
people actions sustain the big Other.
Question: First I believe in God and then the proofs of the truth come. In this case how much capable is an individual to put in effect his/her desires?
The reversed order “first knows” and then proceed to collect proofs exists also in psychoanalysis and in the relationship between analyst. The a analyst is thought to know the secret meaning of patient’s words> transposition of patient’s unconscious knowledge to the analysts> transference of treatment.
FREUD and the case of Rat Man> Ratman was the nickname of Freud’s patient who had a lot of fantasies and obsessions.The Rat Man came to Freud because he felt overwhelmed by his obsessional thoughts. He accused himself of having an undesirable behavior. This may be the result of the obsessional ideas. Most of his obsessive thoughts included rats. For this reason Freud called the patient The Rat Man.
ARTIST:The Cambridge Experimental Theatre at 2008 made a project based on the Ratman analysis with Freud. A hybrid of various media: installation, extended voice composition, acting, discourses and readings.
http://www.insitutheatre.co.uk/rat-man-a-case-of-obsessional-neurosis-2008/
SUBJECT SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE.
The phenomenon of the subject is considered by Zizek as feature of the symbolic order.
” With regard to religion, we no longer “really believe”, we just follow (various) religious rituals and behaviors as part of a respect for the “life style” of the community we belong to” (p.30). I agree that this is one of the main characteristic of our times. I an observe this in my daily life when, including of course my self, we are doing things not because I believe in these but because I “have” to respect some rules and traditions of the society in which I live. Taking as example each time I return in Greece ( in 7 year of life in abroad/in different cultural contexts), I act in certain situations not completely based on my believes. The risk to behave differently hide the risk of be rejected and misunderstood; Of course this doesn’t exclude the opening of discussion regarding opposed opinion upon certain subjects but for sure I have to think twice before go against at the “general belief”.
Here enters also the issue of “politeness”, this enigmatic status, as Zizek explains where I perform through a mask (the false persona) and I construct a false image of myself which allows me to be part on the virtual community in which I participate. Maybe I do something without having the correspondent emotions. Although for Zizek somehow this kind of behavior is not simply false.: “although my true self does not feel them (emotions), they are nonetheless in a sense true.
Comparison of “reality TV shows – Life” and “coffee- decaf coffee).
In this point come into my mind the The film the Truman Show: The life of a man who is initially unaware that he is living in a constructed reality television show, broadcast around the clock to billions of people across the globe. But when Truman becomes suspicious of his perceived reality, embarks to discover the truth about his life. What is really true? It was not true his life before starting being suspicious?
On the other hand there are people who are aware to live in a “bubble” but they decide to keep believing that they are not living in a “bubble”. There are people who feels in a certain way but their actions are opposed to their owns feelings. An attitude that can bring an individual into different kinds of neurosis, depression and other clinical cases.
SYMBOLIC CASTRATION:
The fear of being degraded, dominated or made insignificant.
gap between who I am and the symbolic mask that makes the subject into something. The subject is thus castrated from the ‘real’ “I” by projecting something else.
You are what you are in relation to others; you yourself are self and other.
phallus as organ without a body.
castration-anxiety.
once you notice this castration, and do not feel comfortable with it, you might turn into a hysteric.
is the subject’s first perception of the Other.
When the body is submitted to castration, enjoyment is evacuated from it, the body survives as dismembered, mortified.
Question
In the Greek culture (which is familiar to me) is noticed the difficulty of certain profile- men (called macho-men)to accept and understand the existence of homosexuals/drag queen/transsexuals and in some cases their behavior or reactions are very negative and aggressive. I am wondering if this it happens because the figure of a Drag Queen represents for them the fear of Castration, the fear of dis-empowerment and loss of the established male role of power in the western culture.
Hysteria “Tell me! Answer me! Whatever you say I am!” Tell me … who I am? –> I am who you say. Tell me who I am? –> You are what I say.
As subject, the hysteric poses the question which causes speech; as object she is what knowledge must, but cannot, articulate.
http://www.lacan.com/hystericdiscf.htm
ARTIST: Ben Shih. Artist who through his performances attempts to externalize his social anxiety.
ARTIST: Zoe Belloff. Artist from Scotland. Her works cover a wide range of media including film, projection performance, installation and drawing. She considers herself a medium, an interface between the living and the dead, the real and the imaginary.
Beloff supplies her own private history of an obsession, the modern-day obsession with psychoanalysis. Her miniature theaters teem with ghosts. In the smaller models, translucent specters act out hysteria, as described around 1890 by Pierre Janet, a decade before Freud’s early work.
(source:http://www.haberarts.com/schneem.htm#beloff)
http://www.zoebeloff.com/pages/interactive.html
Chapter 3: FROM che vuoi? TO FANTASY: LACAN WITH EYES WIDE SHUT
Key words: “che vuoi?”, Judaism, performatives, desire, real, reality, dream, anti-humanism, rape, known, unknown, October revolution, paradox, feminism, neighbor, 10 Commandments, frog, beer, “fuck”, awaking.
What do you Want?
“REALITY IS FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT ENDURE THEIR DREAMS” (p.57)
In this chapter, Zizek treats basically the concept of desire and its interpretation through the lenses of fantasy. This analysis starts with question: “Che vuoi?” (What do you want?); a question that according Lacan “leads the subject to the path of his own desire”. So Zizek here tries to elucidate the lacanian formula of Fantasy. The basic thesis that comes out is that in opposition to the opposite elements of dream and reality, fantasy is closer to the reality. Fantasy is considered as a screen that protects us from the encounter with the Real. That mean that there is a distinction between reality and Real. Actually what Lacan says is that “reality” is a fantasy but this doesn´t mean that life is just an illusion or just a dream. Dream is actually is the way, the state that help us to approach the hard kernel of the Real. This means that what we approach in the dream is the fantasy-framework which determines our activity in reality.
Fantasy appears as the answer to the question “che vuoi?” and to the enigma of the desire of the Other. Zizek explains that the desire cannot be completely “subjective”, doesn´t belongs to the subject but actually is linked to Other´s desire, the desire of who is around me and, the desire of whom I interact with. The desire is constructed by the big Other, this unfathomable mechanism of the symbolic order. “What do I want” is the mask of “What the others want from me?”. So we could claim that the aim behind the question “What do I want” is to discover my desire and the fantasy is “the imagined scenario representing the realization of the desire”.
The concept of Man´s desire of the Other´s desire brings me in confrontation not only with the enigmatic desire of the Other but also with the fact that I don´t know what I really want. Enigma of the Other-Enigma of myself. In this Judaism´s contribution was the “love”for your neighbor who becomes a mirror- image and an inert , impenetrable, enigmatic presence that hystericizes me. Questions like “who counts as my neighbor?” “what exactly is meant by love?” and “how can I love my neighbor as myself?” has been emerged.
Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor [plesion] has fulfilled [plerow] the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up [anakephalaioutai] in this sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling [pleroma] of the law. (Romans 13:8-10) (source:http://www.soundandsignifier.com/research/Texts/Freud%20My%20Neighbor.html)
But Lacan speaks about the neighbor as the Thing (das Ding) that “beyond” of the pleasure principle whose unbearable, terrible Good is also an Evil. Thus, neighbor can be a negative and traumatic source. For this “Love” and be loved, as Zizek claims, is “so violent a discovery, even traumatic” . According this theory, the love expressed by the other can be perceived as something intrusive and obscene. Here it takes place the theory of performatives, “speech acts that accomplish in the very act of their enunciation the state of affairs that they declare”.
The terrifying role of the other as Thing arise the question of how we can avoid the the traumatic impact of being too much exposed to the tremendous abyss of the Other and how can we cope with Other´s desire. The answer again is FANTASY. Fantasy not only is conceived as a construction that allows to the subject to come to terms with its traumatic kernel (caused by the Other) but shows us how to desire and tells me how do we know what we desire.
Sexuality is the field where we come more close and we establish an intimate relationship with other individuals so that sexual relations, according Lacan, has to been screened through fantasy. Zizek brings different examples regarding the aspect of sexuality and fantasy. One of those examples regards to the rape and the fantasy to be raped. His point is rape fantasy is a fantasy but is rooted in the symbolic; what the “actual” rape contains is the sense of impossibility .No matter how wildly or not the perverse one’s fantasy may be, the point is that as an event, the violation of rape is a confrontation with impossibility and meaninglessness.
All this is linked with the binary relationship “know-unknown”. Donald Rumsfeld will speak about three possibilities within this relationship.
There are known knows.
There are known unknowns.
There are unknown unknowns.
And Zizek will add a 4th one: There are unknown knows. This means that there are things that we don´t know that we know. This lack of awareness of what we know determines our actions and feelings and also decentralize the subject. Lacan refers that the subject is always “decentred ” so that teh individual is deprived by his most intimate subjective experience that guarantees the core of who is. Even if ones claims that although unknown mechanism nobody can deprive him/her from the experience to feel and see, Lacan argue that the role of the psychoanalyst is to take away from the subject its fundamental fantasy that regulates the universe of his/her self experience.
Zizek will end this chapter with the reference to the film Eyes wide shut, a film that is a kind of doorway that bridging the gap between reality and fantasy. A story about the couple that “wakes up” and sees the social power structure as it is. Bu according Zizek we find in this film the manifestation of fantasies ambiguity, a paradigm of fantasy as a frame that protects us from the encounter with the Real. The awaking in the reality of the protagonists is an escape from the real encounter within their dreams.
In this chapter Zizek dealt with the terms of desire, fantasy, dreams, reality, Real in relation to the big Other and the symbolic order, with the aim to elucidate the “true awaking” from what control us.
MORPHEUS: “What is real? How do you define real? If you are talking about your senses, what you feel, taste, smell, or see, then all you’re talking about are electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”
Wachowski Brothers- MATRIX
I believe the film DOGTOOTH directed by Yorgos Lanthimos is a great example that could be analysed únder the lenses of Lacan´s theory. It is about a husband and wife who keep their children ignorant of the world outside their property well into adulthood. Construction of reality, Subjectivity, the big Other, Symbolic order and more can be traced within the film.
“A TALE ABOUT HOW TOYS CAN BECOME REAL. Always the fairy tales hide more deep meanings and maybe the children can capt the depth of them better that the adults
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/williams/rabbit/rabbit.html
QUESTIONs
Is it my ethical duty to confront you with the frog embracing the bottle of beer while in the daydream you are embracing your beloved;
As choreographer, whose desires I stage?mine?yours?Other´s?
Should I make art in order to wake up the others?
I came to dream with you.
I came to live the lie with you.
I came to lose myself with you rather to find my real “Self”.
Reality doesn´t exist. I don´t exist. But what do you see is real.
Chapter 4: Troubles with the Real. Lacan as viewer of Alien.
Key words: lamella, “manlet”, object a, partial object, libido, living dead, death drive, compulsion to repeat, immortal, alien, theory of trauma, theory of relativity, Imaginary, Real, horror, objectit petit a, melancholy, anamorphosis, shame, tics, monster, Einstein, social antagonism, hard sciences, borrowing and annihilation, Theory of everything, sinthome.
In this chapter Zizek comments and analyzes the mysterious notion of LAMELLA that Lacan introduces in his theory in relation to the Real and the Imaginary. But what Lacan reveals through this weird term? “Lamella” etymologically signifies a “thin layer.” It is used in biology and geology, to describe a plate-like structure. In zoology it can describe a gill; it can also refer to a layered material such as mica or graphite. Lastly, it can denote a portion of cortical bone, which is the hard, stacked osseous tissue that makes up thesurface of the skeleton. In the field of psychoanalysis, lamella is associated with the Freudian concept of “partial object”, this weird and autonomous organ that can survive without the Body. In the The Three Essays on Sexuality, Freud links the partial object with the breast, the faeces and the phallus.
According Lacan, lamella is this monstrous and unfathomable thing that is described as
amoeba like.
an imaginary bodily organ; l’hommelette
As the human being as pre-sexual, pre-subject substance, of a “life that has need of no organ”. Beyond the monstrosity of the Allien -lamella is hidden the postive obverse of “castration”. Zizek explains that lamella can be seen as the the partial object cut off from the rest of the Body caught in sexual difference- which is associated with the anatomical differences between the sexes. The Real of lamella is linked with the Real inscribed in the core of the human (a) sexuality.
libido.
organ without body.
an entity of pure surface, of pure semblance, that changes its form
something indivisible, immortal, indestructible, unreal.
something that does not exists but it insists
its status is phantasmatic
the monstrous alien in the film of Ridley Scott. Lacan myths of lamella has something terrifying that recalls in mind the horror film with Aliens, these nightmare, indestructible, invincible creatures that can be multiplied and change morph into a multiple of shapes. The description of ” an extra-flat thing that all of sudden flies up and envelops your face is” is depicted in Riddley Scott’s Alien
Also alien “is libido as pure life” (p.63). (Libido was introduced by Freud and uses the term to speak especially about sexual energy while Lacan uses the term to discuss sexuality in terms of desire and juissance and he locates it in the imaginary order.)
in the domain of Imaginary is a kind of image that endeavors to stretch the imagination the boundary of unrepresentative.
something between Imaginary and Real.
Zizek will describe the lamella as the image of the discordance between reality and the Real. The realm of Real is divided between the Real of the lamella-the Real in its imaginary dimension- and the scientific Real.
Zizek adds a third Real, the real of the object petit a which is this small feature that betrays the true nature of the things; Like in the movie “Invasion of the body Snatchers”, in order for someone to distinguish an alien from the a human being has to grasp the small detail that makes the difference. No matter how much some things try to look differently, the fact is that the object petit a reveal their true nature.
The object petit a is also related to the concept of desire. It can be seen as:
a) as object of desire
b) as object, the cause of desire> the feature of whose we account we desire the object. And as Zizek explains the statut of this case is the anamorphosis: A distorted or monstrous projection or representation of an image on a plane or curved surface, which, when viewed from a certain point, or as reflected from a curved mirror or through a polyhedron, appears regular and in proportion; a deformation of an image.
http://www.anamorphosis.com/what-is.html
Next to the object petit a we find the Object a: “the shadow of what it is not”, “ shadow of nothing”.
Lacan’s object a refers to the object-cause of desire: that which is in the object more than the object and which makes us desire it in the first place.Who starts to be aware to have lost his desire for the desired object, according to Freud, is the melancholic type. Melancholy occurs when finally we get the desired object but then we are disappointed; when we are thrown into a new environment with the feat to lose the attachment with the old environment.
Theory of trauma. Trauma is something that intrudes into the physical life and disturbs its balance.From this perspective, a brutal experience is inscribed in memory as an unclear event and elevated into a traumatic Real, in order to help the individual to cope with the enigma behind the traumatic experience.
Examples:
Case of “Wolf-man”
Zizek claims that there is a parallel between the theory of relativity and the Lacanian theory. Theory of relativity, gives account of how nature works at the macroscopic level. For example the light for the observer moves at the same speed. For Lacan the object of desire remains always at the same distance from the subject without matter how close it is.
Links: http://www.zizekstudies.org/index.php/ijzs/article/viewfile/368/424
http://nosubject.com/index.php?title=Lamella
http://www.rhul.ac.uk/dramaandtheatre/documents/pdf/platform/22/feelingtraumafinal.pdf
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While I was reading this chapter it came into my mind Kristeva and the theory regarding the abject.
Kristeva’s understanding of the “abject” provides a helpful term to contrast to Lacan’s “object of desire” or the “object petit a.”. Whereas the objet petit a allows a subject to coordinate his or her desires, thus allowing the symbolic order of meaning and intersubjective community to persist, the abject “is radically excluded and,” as Kristeva explains, “draws me toward the place where meaning collapses” . It is neither object nor subject; the abject is situated, rather, at a place before we entered into the symbolic order.
(Source: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/kristevaabject.html)
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FEELING PERFORMANCE REMEMBERING TRAUMA>
http://www.rhul.ac.uk/dramaandtheatre/documents/pdf/platform/22/feelingtraumafinal.pdf
Kira O’ Reilly : http://blip.tv/pacitti-company/kira-o-reilly-syncope-645999
Chapter 5: Ego Ideal and Superego: Lacan as viewer of Casablanca
KEY WORDS: juissance, enjoyment, pleasure, ethichally, superego, ideal ego, ego-ideal, Imaginary-Symbolic-Real, guilty, vengeful, agency, law of desire, Casablanca, ambiguous, 3 1/2 second shot, yes and no, fantasies, Hollywood, fundamental prohibition, Enjoy!, Hays Production Code, censorship, Realpolitik, Ulisses, inherent transgression, power, Guatanamo prisoners, homo sacer, living dead.
In this chapter Zizek deals with the triad structure model of personality: ego, id and superego. Freud was the one to introduced how the psyche is divided into these three agencies which later Lacan will revisit: ideal ego, ego-ideal and superego
or Id, Ego, Superego.
In order to simplify these terms we could say that Id is related to our desires; it contains the basic primitive impulses that demand satisfaction. It is the seat of our impulses. Something like the Mr. Hyde emerging from the restrained Dr. Jekyll.
The Ego negotiates with the id. Thus, its main function is to mediate between the id’s demands and the external world around us ;what we call reality. So, the ego tries to get what it wants without the risk to dissapoint the big Other.The ego functions in both the conscious, preconscious and unconscious mind. So, according Freud, the Psyche develops an Ego to assume the role of mediator , negotiating betwwen the Id and the Supere ego.
The Superego, internalizes moral standards and ideals based on right and wrong and provides guidelines for making judgments. It has a “vengeful, sadistic and punishing aspect”. It enjoys to observe out failure to meet our inner demands. It is insatiable, tries to make the subject to suppress its striving and desires. It is at one and the same time the law and its destruction. The law as such a symbolic structure regulates subjectivity but the Superego is more like the manifestation of a tyrannic law. The includes the rules and standards for good behaviors. These behaviors include those which are approved of by parental and other authority figures. Obeying these rules leads to feelings of pride, value and accomplishment.
From Lacan’s perspective, the ideal ego is located to the Imaginary. It stands for the idealized mirror image of the ego that Lacan calls also “small other”. The ideal ego is a modification of infantile narcissism and the omnipotence that accompanies it. The Ego -Ideal is located to the Symbolic and it stands for the a symbolic identification that seeks to impress the big Other who watch over the subject. And for last the Superego lies in the realm of the Real and it is the cruel anti -ethical agency that judge my desires ad actions.
Zizek in the documentary film, The Perverts Guide To Cinema, will try to elucidate the function of the trio Id, Ego, Superego and Superego through the paradigms that the cinema offers. For example he uses the example of the MARX BROTHERS where Hyper Groucho is the super-ego; rational Chico, the ego; and mute Harpo, the id.
Another example is the “Psycho” of Hitchcock where the Ego is at the ground floor of the Bates house where Norman always seems to behave perfectly normal;in the basement is located the Id where Norman psychically take over the role as his mother; and the top floor is the super-ego where Norman talks to his mothers corpse, she yells at him and behave in a very rude fashion.
Of course there are other examples of movies dealing with the same topic. One of this is the “Fight Club” in which Norton comes to realize that Tyler is actually him. He is figment of his imagination that he made up that represents everything he had always wanted to be himself; tough, good looking, carefree. Although both being the same person, are both representatives of these different theories of the mind and the constant conflict between the different forces.
The trio of Star Treck functions as a picture of a tripartite man. James Tiberius Kirk is the lion-like leader, stately and usually calm (Ego). Spock is his supremely rational, but somehow melancholy right-hand man (Super-ego). Then there was the volatile, emotional Doctor Leonard McCoy (Id).
Going back to Lacan, he will add also a forth ethical agency under the name of “law of desire”. The crucial point is that the Ego Ideal forces us to betray our desires and adapt what the big Other wants. Under this mechanism we don’t speak anymore about desires that will bring an enjoyment to the subject but desires that lead to the juissance, the traumatic and excessive pleasure that is more painful than joyful because it will never be fulfilled. For Lacan, superego is the vehicle of juissance. In fact there is a strong link between (unfulfilled) desires, sense of guilty and big Other in which the superego plays an important role.
Zizek refers to the 3 1/2 second shot in Casablanca in order to highlight the the ambiguity in which Hollywood relies on. He claims that the critical 3 1/2 seconds shot plays with the moral codes established by the big Other and opens the gate of spectator’s dirty phantasmatic imagination. So for the big Other the two protagonists “did not do it” but because of the ambiguous elements of the next scene the spectator is guided to fantasize that “they did it”. The fantasmatic supplement has the structure of the inherent transgression that Hollywood needs in order to function.
Fundamental Prohibition is another topic related to superego that Zizek brings into discussion. Prohibition can take the form of censorship which has an ambiguous role, like Hays Production Code of 1930s. For example, in accordance with the general principles of this Code :
1) No plot or theme should definitely side with evil and against good.
2) Comedies and farces should not make fun of good, innocence, morality or justice.
3) No plot should be constructed as to leave the question of right or wrong in doubt or fogged.
4) No plot should by its treatment throw the sympathy of the audience with sin, crime, wrong-doing or evil.
5) No plot should present evil alluringly.
(source: http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs/ProductionCode.htm
The fundamental prohibition, Zizek explains, is responsible for the excessive sexualization of the most common everyday events. Through the prohibition certain rules are created within the society. The individual tendency is to find ways to violate these oppressive rules.
Is it all this a game of power.
Zizek will speak at the end of this chapter about the power that the social system operates in ambiguous ways like in the case of the Gautanamo prison where the prisoners are in the position of “living dead”; they are alive but, in the eyes of the law, are already dead. Giorgio Agamben’s term is homo sacer.
LINKS: http://www.answers.com/topic/ego-ideal-ideal-ego#ixzz2bHGlZ4XI
http://www.academia.edu/531503/Lacans_Formation_of_the_Subject_and_Freuds_Development_of_the_Ego
Never fear, the Super ego is here!
http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://shiningstranger.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/superego.jpg&imgrefurl=http://shiningstranger.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/never-fear-the-superego-is-here/&h=400&w=313&sz=38&tbnid=R_T5hgn_nt8oUM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=78&zoom=1&usg=__ekMd9oCz-WSmkbrndGL8byQ46Xk%3D&docid=6a_Xl7Z-iLcB8M&hl=it&sa=X&ei=2nUCUsaoJci-PfWJgMAE&ved=0CE0Q9QEwBA
Chapter 6: God is Dead, but He Doesn’t Know It”: Lacan Plays with Bobok.
Key words: God, Atheism, father, unconscious, belief, faith, dead, commodity fetishism, Marx, prohibition, permition, magic object, Bobok, Gnosticism, externality of truth, Judaism-Christianity, cyberspace, cybersex, necrophilia, corpse, harassment, tolerance, proximity, narcissistic subjectivity, enjoyment, obsession, denegation, “saying it all”.
In this chapter, Zizek examines superego and the role of big Other in relation to Religion (Atheism-Judaism) versus Lacan’s thesis that “If God is dead but he doesn’t know it”, and to the Marxian theory about commodity.He will extend his analysis to the field of literature by taking as example Dostoevsky and Kafka. This discourse will be linked with the Cyberspace ideology and the Gnostic cyberspace dream, a space without constrains and where nobody is harassed. According Zizek, “harassment” has an ambiguous function; from one hand the fear of “harassment” brings the condemnation of brutal and violent actions against others and on the other hand encourage the distance from the others and the creation of prohibitions regarding risky enjoyments. As a result “Enjoy” becomes more a strange ethical duty and the individual feel guilty for not being able to enjoy. Therefore, psychoanalyst assumes the role to release the patient from this kind of pressure to enjoy.
“God is dead” claims the atheist but Lacan argues that this declaration doesn’t kill Him but he always survives in the unconscious and thus atheism is not operative. The fact that atheist reassert God’s death actually what they are doing is to reaffirming his existence. In the modern western society the subject is presented as a tolerant hedonist that express its doubts but his mind is full of repressed prohibitions. In that sense an atheist, Zizek claims, is unconsciously dominated by prohibitions that .There is also the thesis that if God exists then everything is permitted (religious fundamentalism) that apparently gives a sort of freedom to the subject but actually creates new prohibitions. The example of the old-authoritarian father and the post modern non authoritarian father who tries to convince the child to visit his grandmother even if he doesn’t want to, makes obvious that both of them act (directly or indirectly) trying to deprive the child from his inner freedom. But in a certain way it s more dangerous the implicit way of the postmodern father
The opinion that the atheist unconsciously believe in God but without knowing is linked with the paradigm on psychoanalysis and Marxian theory about commodity. The subject need to convince its own unconscious about the truth.
Marx uses fetishism to explain how commodity function in the modern society. Fetishism regards the belief of people that in the objects inhere magic powers. Even the people who claim that they don’t believe in that actually in their social reality they act and behave on the contrary. According Marx, commodity is not located to people’s mind but in the social reality itself. Commodity is a a social phenomenon and appears only within the social exchange of relations.
(source :http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/marxism/modules/marxfetishism.html)
In literature Kafka refers to the “magic” of the commodities and Dostoevsky provides an example of thee statement that “If there is no God, everything is permitted” in the weird story of Bobok:
The story of Ivan Ivanovitch who one day attends the funeral of a casual acquaintance and falls to contemplation in the graveyard. He hears the voices of the recently deceased and buried, and he listens to their conversation. They (un)deads discuss because the “inertia” of consciousness allows them to converse even while in the grave “for two or three months… sometimes even for half a year” . As the deceased prepare to entertain themselves by revealing all of the shameful details of their earthly lives, Ivan Ivanovitch sneezes. The dead are silent afterward. Ivan Ivanovitch leaves the graveyard distressed that depravity exists even in the grave, “the last moments of consciousness,” but hopeful that he may visit other cemeteries and finally have something to write about.
Source>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobok
This story expresses the motif that everything is permitted if there is no God and no immortality of the soul. The deceased are aware that they are dead that allow to them not be shamed. The talking corps experience is a proof that God exists: “God is here, keeping them alive after death, which is why can say everything”.
Zizek uses in his analysis the term Gnosticism > “externality of truth” and says that both Paganism and Gnosticism perceive the path toward the truth as the “inner journey” of spiritual self-purification.
Gnosticism is religious movement characterized by a belief in gnosis, through which the spiritual element in man could be released from its bondage in matter: regarded as a heresy by the Christian Church (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gnosticism). It is grounded in the human act of reflecting upon existence. The Gnostics are concerned with the basic questions of existence or “being-in-the-world” (Dasein)—that is:
who we are (as human beings),
where we have come from,
and where we are heading, historically and spiritually.
Gnostics of all kinds deny the idea that God directly created the material world, which they see as corrupt or fallen. Where Christianity and Gnosticism differ from Judaism is who or what created the Universe. Both reject the idea that God (the Jewish one) created the universe and claim other beings did it. In fact Gnostics believe the Law was given by lesser beings seeing the Hebrew God as a fallen angel or worse, the devil himself. Christianity claimed Jesus created the Universe before He became flesh. Gnostics differed claiming Jesus was a spirit.
From philosophical perspective according the Gnostics and Carl Jung the temporally constructed self is not the true self. The true self is the supreme consciousness existing and persisting beyond all space and time. Jung calls this the pure consciousness or Self, in contradistinction to the “ego consciousness” which is the temporally constructed and maintained form of a discrete existent (cf. C.G. Jung, “Gnostic Symbols of the Self,” in The Gnostic Jung 1992, pp. 55-92).
(source: http://www.sullivan-county.com/id2/gnosticism.htm)
http://www.iep.utm.edu/gnostic/#H1
Here Zizek uses the Gnosticism as the “externalization of the truth” and in relation to the Cyberspace ideology and he is wondering if if we are becoming more and more monadic (Leibnitz’ s “monadology”)with no direct windows onto reality, interacting alone with the PC screen, encountering only virtual simulacra, and yet immersed more than ever in a global network, synchronously communicating with the entire world. This reminds me the animation film WALL-E and the human passengers of the space-ship that “escaped” from the polluted Earth, who enclosed to the space of the spaceship interact with each other virtually completely unaware of the others presence
The cyberspace is this kind of space where the people are not interacting with each other but with machines or virtual people. This kind of space “saves” from any kind of “harassment”. The fear of harassment in the modern society has as consequence not only the condemnation of brutal actions against the other but also the distance between the individuals. To be tolerant means avoid to go close to the other for the fear to intrude his/her space. The obsession about the sexual harassment leads to a “narcissistic subjectivity” for which everything that the others do is seen as a threat. In this way new prohibitions are emerged to block the “risky” excessive desires for enjoyment. This prohibitions become obstacles that deprive the subject from access to sexual satisfaction and the enjoyment becomes an ethical duty. The psychoanalyst in that case assume the role to free the person from the duty to “Enjoy!”.
Question:
-Can be that: The big Other does exist, therefore is not all permitted or prohibited?
Chapter 7: The perverse subject of politics: Lacan viewer of Mohammad Bouyeri
Keywords: perversion, politics, totalitarianism, responsibility, dirty job, Nazi, Others’s will, ethical, religious fundamentalism, letter, sadomasochistic, fear, truthfulness, Foucault, truth, lie, conceal, deception, appearance, feign, Zeuxis and Parrhasions, illusion, doctor’s plot.
In this last chapter Zizek confront us with the perverse attitude of symbolic authorities and totalitarian politics-from fascism to stalinistic authoritarianism and explains how this perversion is identified into the subject which makes itself an instrument that follows the orders and the will of the big Other (where Other=God, Nation, Historical Necessity); a kind schizophrenic attitude driven by the formula: “I know well, but nevertheless…”; lack of coherence and dissociation of actions, feelings and rationalization. An example of this behavior is the Stalin-subject that claims that behind the cruel, dis-human action of murder lies the sense of duty and it becomes the instrument for he dark enjoyment of their God or leader. The same mechanism and behavior is noticed in the modern Greece, where the members of the fascist party , “Golden Dawn”, claim with conviction that their (atrocious) political (re)actions are motivated by their sense of national duty! This is supposed to justify the conversion of “Enjoy” to “Punish”, both anyway ordered by the big Other.
The flag and the country becomes the symbolization of the big Other:
“This is a battle for the flag, the country and for no other reason” (Ilias Kassiadis).
This perverse logic characterize also religion fundamentalism. Zizek uses as example the case of Mohammed Bouyeri, who murdered the Dutsch filmmaker Theo van Gogh (2004) and stabbed into his dead body a letter threatening Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The assassination becomes a public performance driven by Bouyeri’s political and religious convictions. In the letter, death is mentioned as the moment of the truth, the moment “at which every creature confronts its truth and is isolated from all its link”. His intention was to use the letter in order to challenge the “unbelieving extremist” (Hirsi Ali) to proof her truthfulness and at the same time to transmit her the fear of death: a fear induced by the confrontation with the omnipotent God, the divine big Other. This brings us to Lacan’s depiction of the pervert:” the pervert displaces division onto the Other” (p.110).
The only thing that can separate truth from lie is the readiness to die for your beliefs proving like that their truthfulness. But as Zizek writes, there is a falsity in pervert’s attitude, the fact that resides in his attachment on truth.
But where is the distinctive line between the lie and the truth? Shakespeare’s All’s Well that Ends Well gives an insight to the entanglement of truth and lie; a story, in which marriage (law), in order to be “asserted has to be consummated in the guise of an external marital affair” (p.113) . An affair that is not a sin but still a sinful act that involves a “cheating”. That is linked with Lacan’s paradox proposition: “There is no sexual relationship”- where Zizek will explain that the actual sex relationship has to be sustained bz the phantasmatic supplement.
The game of feigning to feign is related to Lacan’s appearance that occurs when we feign to be something that we are not, when we put this mask that conceals the Real behind creating a convincing illusion. An example is that of the painter Parrhasion who in competition with the painter Zeuxis who can paint the most convincing illusion, painted a curtain that symbolize the hidden truth. A strict parallel can be the fake pennis that a women wears, an action that represents of mimicry, an attempt to imitate something that reveals behind a hidden reality.
This bring us back to the concept of perversion, where Zizek add that the pervert contests that has a direct access to some figure of the big Other. (like the case of Osama bin Laden and President Bush who claim to be directed by the divine will).
The last reference of Zizek regards the case of Sophia Karpai as an example of opposition to Other’s will. Refusing to admit any guilty in relation to the “doctor’s plot), she contribute to be prevented another catastrophe in politics generally and to save the life of thousand of people. (http://ml-review.ca/aml/BLAND/DOCTORS_CASE_FINAL.htm)
This means that like for any rule there is an exception, also in Human history exists individuals able to resist in big Other and fight against its will.
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Additional material.
– Perversion is associated to sadomasochistic behavior.
[T]he S&M game is very interesting because it is a strategic relation, but it is always fluid. . . . Or, even when the roles are stabilized, you know very well that it is always a game. Either the rules are transgressed, or there is an agreement, either explicit or tacit, that makes them aware of certain boundaries. This strategic game as a source of bodily pleasure is very interesting. . . . It is an acting-out of power structures by a strategic game that is able to give sexual pleasure or bodily pleasure.
–Michel Foucault, Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth
ARTISTS
Toshio Saeki (佐伯俊男) is an illustrator from Japan, famous for his paintings and drawing focusing on erotica, violence, and perversion. It has been suggested that his highly original erotic creations have been influential on some of Japan’s most well known contemporary artists including Aida Makoto and Takashi Murakami
Vladimir Nabakov Lolita.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/nabokov-the-art-the-perverse
Martin O’ Brien
Martin O’Brien’s practice focuses on physical endurance and hardship in relation to the fact he suffers from cystic fibrosi. He was artist in residence at ]performance s p a c e[ London from January- June 2012 during which he realised the project ‘Regimes of Hardship’ consisting of three 12 hour performance installations, with the third a collaborative work with the legendary performance artist and dominatrix Sheree Rose.
martinobrienperformance.weebly.com
Mapplethorpe
By the mid-1970s, Mapplethorpe had acquired a medium format camera and began documenting New York’s gay S&M community.Mapplethorpe’s elegant prints representing portraits, nudes, flowers, and erotic and sadomasochistic subjects dominated photography in the late 20th century.
