| Lutecium a non-school of Lacanian/Freudian Psychoanalysis San Francisco, California |
| Frida Kahlo's self portraiture, Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, and the psychoanalytic production; The assurance of Narcissism through the wildly ranging "third." Workshop Description by Rebecca Bauknight, Ph.D., August 2008. |
Yet, this place was bound by a restricted identity and narrative that defined this genre of poets furthering their own descent into the
hell that their readers could "appreciate in a literary sense." Recognition for their brand of language may have in fact boxed them into
an identification towards death; suicide becoming their only exit out. After all how many words can spell death.
Following our exploration of the morbid representation of language, this workshop will look at the morbid representation of Frida
Kahlo, who painted her own physical woundings through an ornate primitive style of self portrait painting that details her bodily
suffering in literal and concrete forms. We will then move to Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle which he describes as self portraits of
a building, alluding to his productions as self referential products that mirror him through abstraction and surrealism. We wil then turn
the mirror on ourselves and question the repetition compulsion within the psychoanalytic production as emanating from a similar
narcissism of artists and writers.
In this workshop I would like to introduce the concept of a “third” that is more in keeping with the flexibility of a "literary third" which may
move from an omnipotent position of "authority" ,indicating an absolute knowledge transcending the subject, to the "witness" third,
which is representation that is much closer to the consciousness of someone. I would like to suggest that the third does not exist as
"truth," but merely as a "code" that Lacan emphasizes in Seminar 5 - a code that enables language to model social consensus
through a nexus of conventions that have consequences for social beings. The third in and of itself can easily be used as a recourse
to fictional/omnipotent authority; at times it speaks to an almost God like presence-typified by the omniscient "position" in writing that
generates the effect of convincing the reader of the absolute truth-value of text. This concept of the third needs much further
discussion regarding its relation to truth. As Lacan pointed out, in both fiction and reality the third can and does lie. This was Lacan's
issue with Descartes. I think, therefore I am... but I lie. In each project that we will look at, including Frida Kahlo and Matthew Barney
along with the analytic production, we will explore how the symptom is bound to representations that determine the outcome of our
productions.
We will understand the place of the repetition compulsion within concepts of sublimation laid out by Freud and Lacan's idea of
suppleance generated by Lacan's interest in James Joyce. Lacan's smaller movement from the death drive to production always
brings us back to the symptom/subjective rather than enlightenment/ego as catalyst. This allows us to relate all products, text,
representation to the symptom that makes us all so painfully human, lacking in absolutes, forever desiring truth. The desire that drives
culture, representation, art, psychoanalysis, civilization... forward.
Please see Frida Kahlo's exhibit at SFMOMA
hell that their readers could "appreciate in a literary sense." Recognition for their brand of language may have in fact boxed them into
an identification towards death; suicide becoming their only exit out. After all how many words can spell death.
Following our exploration of the morbid representation of language, this workshop will look at the morbid representation of Frida
Kahlo, who painted her own physical woundings through an ornate primitive style of self portrait painting that details her bodily
suffering in literal and concrete forms. We will then move to Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle which he describes as self portraits of
a building, alluding to his productions as self referential products that mirror him through abstraction and surrealism. We wil then turn
the mirror on ourselves and question the repetition compulsion within the psychoanalytic production as emanating from a similar
narcissism of artists and writers.
In this workshop I would like to introduce the concept of a “third” that is more in keeping with the flexibility of a "literary third" which may
move from an omnipotent position of "authority" ,indicating an absolute knowledge transcending the subject, to the "witness" third,
which is representation that is much closer to the consciousness of someone. I would like to suggest that the third does not exist as
"truth," but merely as a "code" that Lacan emphasizes in Seminar 5 - a code that enables language to model social consensus
through a nexus of conventions that have consequences for social beings. The third in and of itself can easily be used as a recourse
to fictional/omnipotent authority; at times it speaks to an almost God like presence-typified by the omniscient "position" in writing that
generates the effect of convincing the reader of the absolute truth-value of text. This concept of the third needs much further
discussion regarding its relation to truth. As Lacan pointed out, in both fiction and reality the third can and does lie. This was Lacan's
issue with Descartes. I think, therefore I am... but I lie. In each project that we will look at, including Frida Kahlo and Matthew Barney
along with the analytic production, we will explore how the symptom is bound to representations that determine the outcome of our
productions.
We will understand the place of the repetition compulsion within concepts of sublimation laid out by Freud and Lacan's idea of
suppleance generated by Lacan's interest in James Joyce. Lacan's smaller movement from the death drive to production always
brings us back to the symptom/subjective rather than enlightenment/ego as catalyst. This allows us to relate all products, text,
representation to the symptom that makes us all so painfully human, lacking in absolutes, forever desiring truth. The desire that drives
culture, representation, art, psychoanalysis, civilization... forward.
Please see Frida Kahlo's exhibit at SFMOMA
| This Workshop is offered Sunday, October 26, 10am - 2pm Flood Building, 870 Market Street, San Francisco |
In the last workshop we explored the collapse of the "I" with the certitude of
morbid language easily demonstrated within the confessional poet genre. We
used Ann Sexton's work to demonstrate the idea that the production of morbid
language as a public poetic identity led the confessional poets to suicide. The
poets’ fascination with morbid language, their attempt to use words to break
through the veil of the symbolic into the real, their frustration with the failure of
words to only trace the real led them to passage a l'acte. An act out of the
words, out of the symbolic through suicide. We looked at how the
confessional's celebrity and identity as poets rested on the public voyeurism
and fascination with their language and the complex relationship that bound
the poets own vulnerability to depression/despair/suicidal ideation and their
facile capacity to speak to these darker spaces not so easily accessed by
others. Their morbid confessions offered their work a definite place in the world.
morbid language easily demonstrated within the confessional poet genre. We
used Ann Sexton's work to demonstrate the idea that the production of morbid
language as a public poetic identity led the confessional poets to suicide. The
poets’ fascination with morbid language, their attempt to use words to break
through the veil of the symbolic into the real, their frustration with the failure of
words to only trace the real led them to passage a l'acte. An act out of the
words, out of the symbolic through suicide. We looked at how the
confessional's celebrity and identity as poets rested on the public voyeurism
and fascination with their language and the complex relationship that bound
the poets own vulnerability to depression/despair/suicidal ideation and their
facile capacity to speak to these darker spaces not so easily accessed by
others. Their morbid confessions offered their work a definite place in the world.
© Man Ray