LECTURE ONE - psychoanalysis

simon_jones@leeds-art.ac.uk

- psyche from birth

- unconscious

- gender identity

- human subjectivity

- 'what is it to be human?' applies to us as designers

- form of therapy, theory of the mind that can be applied to objects and processes

- a way of categorising and understanding desire, motivation, dreams

- we're not entirely in control of what we do

SIGMUND FREUD

- conceived idea in late 1890s

- treated hysteria patients using psychoanalysis by guiding them to discover and accept repressed thoughts and events

- dreams: analysed his own and other in terms of their hidden associations and wish fulfillment

- observed infants in their habits and associations with parental figures

- established the pyscho

THE DYNAMIC UNCONSCIOUS

- created through infancy - protect our conscious selves that aren't acceptable to consciousness

- effects conscious in some ways

- chaotic, without order/language

- present through ticks, slips and symptoms

- fraud's hysteria patients developed debilitating symptoms as a results of experiences that were repressed

STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

- development into wilful conscious beings is full of confusing and contradictory thoughts/ideas

- attempt to make sense of biological/instinctual self and logical thinking self

- create associations and assumptions through sense data

- developing child stages:

ORAL

ANAL

PHALLIC

- child develops preconceptions that must be dealt with

PYSCHO-SEXUAL IDENTITY

- assumed identity through development in infancy

- oedipus complex: sexual/love feelings towards mother and resentment of father...through childhood dependence and self-centred world view

- feelings of love, rivalry, jealously

- 'to want' vs 'to be wanted'

- not bad incestual feelings BUT mixed feelings

- development of both masculine and feminine identities in relation to the penis/phallus 

CASTRATION COMPLEX - the boy fears castration while the girl accepts that she has already been castrated

PENIS ENVY - girl experiences this when she realises she doesn't have one - way of relating to father figure

- presence/absence - both create possible negative feelings

- boy fears castration, girl feels like she's missing something

PYSCO SEXUAL IDENTITY

- must experience and overcome their issues in order to gain sexual identity

THE UNCANNY

- 'unhomely'

- unnatural yet familiar

- supposed to remain hidden, which has come open

- boundary between fantasy and relaity breakdown

- experience it in uncomfortable fashion: can occure in horror films instead of "bad guys"

*sense of unease*

- unconscious and the uncanny psychology and aesthetics

- used by the surrealists

FREUDIAN MODEL

- ID, ego, superego

- unconscious, pre, conscious

>>iceberg metaphor<<

SUPEREGO

- slightly outside of ourselves

- part of ourselves in relation to others, social order and language

- not part of our own individuality

- placed on us by society and order

Models = information distributed into these spaces

JACQUES LACAN

- 60s and 70s

- own brand of psychoanalysis

- re conceptualised Freud's findings through theoretical model of structural linguistics

SIGNIFICATION

- development of psyche is entwined within structures of language

- language moulds us as much as we mould it

- suggests human life = contradictory

subjectivity = paradox

- claimed a 'return to Freud'

re conceptualises it in a new manner

>>structural linguistics, semiotics<<

*forms analogies*

- our adventure into subjectivity is inescapable

must be subordinate to language

THE MIRROR STAGE

- child's recognition of itself in reflection signifies a split or alienation - seen as both subject and other

- rivalry - child recognises own image but still limited in movement and dexterity

- results in formation of ego

- this aids a reconciliation of body and image

- captation: process of being absorbed and repelled by image of itself (specular image)

- personality and identity created

- who am i? do other people see me like this?

LACANIAN UNCONSCIOUS

- unconscious is structured like a language

- doesn't HAVE language BUT structured LIKE a language

- discourse of the Other (Superego)

- ways meaning is encoded within linguistic signs - written or spoken words

- unconscious details encoded in various ways as they slip into consciousness

METAPHOR/METONYMY

SYMPTOM 

- metaphor - displacement

- unconscious translated into psychical symptom

DESIRE

- metonymy

- desire for objects are displaced desire for what cannot be attained

LACANIAN PHALLUS

- not biological penis...symbol of power/order attained through its associated LACK

- masculinity/femininity - not biological definitions but symbolic

- provides a 'speaking position in culture' within 'symbolic order'

a) relating to signifying nature of language

b) our sexual identity informed through the phallus

- role is diverse and complex

LACAN'S ORDER OF REALITY

- THE REAL

- THE IMAGINARY

- THE SYMBOLIC

EDWARDS BERNAYS

- godfather of PR

- Freud's nephew

- applied psychoanalysis desire to advertising

- can sell stuff by selling a desire - selling a lifestyle

- manipulation techniques

- very sketchy character

- Freud didn't like anyone neither did rest of family

- case study = torches of freedom

MAX ERNST collages c1930

VICTOR BURGIN 'the bridge' 1984 sexual art

LOUISE BOURGEOIS 'spiral woman' 1952

CONCLUSION

- provides us with definition of unconscious

- definition of subject-hood outside of logic

- motivations and meanings of art works

- how art and design affects us and why