The Self as Eye: Psychoanalysis, desire and the gaze

What is the gaze?}  They are theoretical concepts
What is desire?    }

Automatism - where the unconscious expresses itself in the absence of control.  Body takes over mind.  Meaningless scribble creates meaning.  The Surrealists played a game called Exquisite Corpse - a good example.

Rene Magritte - Reckless Sleeper 1928

Courtesy of Tate.

Portrays a man sleeping (in a coffin - sleep is a mini death) with the symbols of what is going on in his mind.  A tombstone depicts various censored symbolic forms that come together in an unrelated way in dreams - the candle and bowler hat represent male and female forms, the mirror may refer to Lacan and the mirror stage of development when an infant realises its own being exists.  Apple may refer to Eve.  There are many possible interpretations.  Magritte was aware of Freudian theories and Lacan.

Ego - constructed, self aware
Id - unconstructed, unconscious, … true?
Drives - Pleasure principle, reality drive
Sublimation - redirection of instinct - leads to art and culture.

Essentialists - use psychoanalytic theory
Constructionist - use critical theory
Feminist critique - considères identity construction.
Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex deals with the Other and Desire
The Self is constructed through relationships - i.e. the realisation that you are not "the only one".  The Self is shown by its difference to others.

Freud and Lacan only saw men in their theory.  They were at the beginning of psychology, and therefore were only able to consider from a male perspective, because gender had not been identified as influencing a difference to the brain/thought/behaviour.  Therefore their definition of the Unconscious, is the Male Unconscious.

We were asked to bring in a desired object:

A panel of Klein blue
Spindle - deemed to be phallic.  The female owner/class member was lovingly caressing it, and had it sat on her lap like a phallus.
Lamp - like a giant pearl - orb shaped. Symbolic of peace and very practical
Camera - Leica SLR.  Used for framing.  Caressed by owner.  Silent shutter. Old fashioned and high end.
Chocolate heart - appetite - desire grabs you - obsessive.

Gaze.  Men look at women, not with them.  Active/passive gaze.

Laura Mulvey.  Cinema, by men, trains the (female) audience to view women in film through a man's gaze.  Cinema constructs a version of woman to 'look' as if men are watching her, and to perform to please men.

We were set an exercise for homework to define creativity.

Creativity - a skill (from virtually any mental or physical discipline) to move an idea to a finished conceptual or actual object.  This may be about creating something new or original, or more frequently, something pleasing to the person/society in which it is made.  It may involve linking disparate ideas to create a previously unconsidered connection.