Funny, that. I just came back from my RF2 (PhD confirmation) presentation in Sheffield. It was very satisfactory, if only because some things were so surprising.I had all my psychoanalytic theory well tied together, even though the task of explaining Lacan’s Discourse of the Analyst in 3.5 minutes was not as easy as it may sound. The first set of questions following my presentation were very fair and valid. I expected them however. Marx, consumer culture, the roles of the seducer and seducee (active-passive). All was as expected apart from the fact that there were no questions about Lacan. There may have been two explanations for this: I may have been speaking pure Lacanese or everything may have made very good sense… But, as I was thinking this, the whole discussion changed. I must tell you that, in order to remind myself to talk about methodologies, I put a picture in my presentation. A picture where I am doing something, a picture I considered documentation more that output or outcome. After a fair amount of questions and discussion around this picture, the conclusion is –more or less– this: if I am capable of deciphering what goes on in that picture (what REALLY is going on), I may have cracked my PhD. I am puzzled. So near yet so far. I now have a mystery to resolve, a la Freud or Sherlock Holmes. I have evidence, I just have to decipher it. How do I do this? Well, my supervisors were, yet again, inspiring. “Relax” they told me, “yield, let things happen”. Have you hear of a tutor telling a student to relax? Yet, I know it is precisely what I need! To stop the rules, the stop the reading lists, the things well done, and to begin to create a methodology to trip myself up. Exciting, uh?

I am not sure what goes on in that picture. I am not even sure yet why it is so important but, suddenly, I can’t get it out of my head. I have to learn to read photos, now. For the last 2 years, I have only been reading Lacan. But Lacan, although an erudite, doesn’t quite know about my specific topic, does he? The photo knows. You may be asking, what the hell is that photo? Well, you have seen it in passing. Here it is again. Anyone up for having a go at deciphering?

I have submitted a complete first draft of my confirmation report to my supervisors. I think I now walk 4 inches taller!

A while ago, I reported on a change of direction in my PhD. It had been under my nose all this time but it is common knowledge in psychoanalysis that the most obvious tends to be the most invisible (see Lacan on Poe’sThe purloined letter). In my obsession with the scientific and the objective I somehow overlooked the fact that what I am talking about, from a practice point of view, is feminine seduction.

There is a split, a contradiction between thoughts and my actions. I want to think objective, but I act subjective. I am drawn to shoes, to pinks, to retail therapy, shopping sprees and tiaras. The problem came when I tried to present an image of unity, when I tried to argue that what I experienced as subjective was, in fact, universal. But subjective knowledge can, after all, constitute knowledge and I may be able to get my PhD in spite of this contradiction, right? Lacan’s Seminar XX (Encore: On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge) was helpful to put monsters at rest for a while. But I am a visual person, as I keep repeating to my psychoanalyst, images, colours, forms, are what stays with me. I discovered Silvie Fleury’s work while reading Stallabrass’s Art Incorporated. I did not like her then: although I thought her visuals were enticing, I felt there was something distrustful. A little like a Mantis Religiosa, I thought that, if I got too close, she would deceive me; so I kept my distance. But isn’t that what seduction is? Deception, in the best and worst sense, is what is at heart of it. See Valmont, Juicy Salif and Baudrillard. Once I could see that and decided I did want to be deceived (just for the pleasure [principle] of it), I saw myself reflected in her work.

Sylvie Fleury, Pleasures

Above: Sylvie Fleury, Prada Shoes, Courtesy of Art&Public

It is all gone quiet in my seduction world. I have been battling with issues of enjoyment, of desire; trying to understand where, if anywhere, the paths of seduction, perversion and fetishism cross; deciding what the picture frame and the frame of fantasy have in common; finding the key to the Lacanian universe; attempting to comprehend the limits between subjective and objective; listening to what the objects I have been creating have to tell me and how they challenge theories I have been reading about… All this, however, doesn’t make me feel I am any nearer to finding out why and how objects seduce.

But I am taking the wrong approach, aren’t I? I have finally realised that this (writing, blogging) is precisely what I should be doing. Let me tell you about my epiphany. I was watching Alan Yentob’s TV programme Imagine, which discussed the meaning of the internet in the context of cultural production, when something clicked. I tuned in mainly because my friends Pickwick and Dickon were to make an appearance in it. They are both talented bloggers, writers who have embraced new technologies and new ways of telling stories, of seeing and referring to the world. In Dickon’s journal, choosing a tie may be a matter of life and death. But Dickon and Pickwick did not get there in day or two. Dickon has been blogging since 1997, when this thing we are doing did not even have a name. His archive of events and thoughts is a testimony to what it is like to live in London in the 20th/21st Centuries. As such, it can also be contrasted with other accounts more or less amusing and well written. Dickon is building his socio-historico-anthropological account little by little, with a rendez-vous or a record release here, a TV appearance or a bad day there.

Now, this is how the epiphany took place: what I realised is that I want it all now. But the PhD is a 5 to 7 year process, one that will be arrived at by the day-to-day accumulation of experiments, data, thoughts, readings, conversations, objects, responses. Knowing about how fantasies relate to desire will not answer my research question; Dickon’s description of his suit on the 3 of August does not constitute social testimony. One has to be patient (How many times have I talked about commitment here?). One has to be systematic. Oh but don’t get me wrong, I am not talking about forgetting the aim of my quest; it needs to be there permanently, I need to think about it with every decision I make. As Malcolm said to me, a PhD is not a sprint. It’s a marathon. The aim, the distance to be ran is there. I cannot write a formulaic short story. You see? This PhD is really more like blogging. Every day a little step. A step about the minutiae of doing research, of thinking about desire, of being seduced, of finding something contradictory. In short, a process, rather than an output; answering rather than an answer. The latter will come, if it has to.

A PhD is a marathon and, with my PhD confirmation looming, I am just at the second water point.

Freud writes:

It is well known that no way has yet been found to embed the convictions that are gained through analysis within any account of the analysis itself. Certainly nothing would be gained by providing exhaustive minutes of what took place during analytic sessions; moreover, the techniques of the treatment preclude the production of any such minutes.”¹”

There are problems involved in writing a clinical diary of one’s own analysis, and these have been worrying me. They obviously tap into the objective-subjective dilemma I have been having of late. Let me summarize them: when I started this PhD, I was very keen on conducting an objective investigation into the causes and processes of object seduction, assuming this phenmenon operated a little like condensation of water in the form of clouds which then produces rain. In other words, cause and effect. Psychoanalysis has introduced two key ideas, disrupting my cozy but uninteristing thinking: the idea of practice and the idea of self.

In relation to writing, the latter has particular consequences. I find myself suffering the dilemma outlined by Freud in the opening quote of this post. There are, however, two added problems for me: (1) I am in the place of the analysand. Thus, I do most of the work in the analysis situation. Reflection and distance are sometimes made very difficult by the turmoil of feelings brought to bear by the couch. (2) I have to establish a complex relationship between my analysis and my PhD in art practice.

The first idea, that of practice, is proving a challenging and exciting way to resolve the latter. It also liberates me from the clutches of Lacan as a master. Understand psychoanalysis as a practices allows more of an intellectual space, without adopting a submissive position towards the literature, trying to make sense of something, building a philosophical edifice that may stand up, but may also be a mirage when it comes to seduction. See what Freud has to say about it:

[...] and he will assert that he does not see himself as possessing the astuteness necessary to concoct an event that could fulfill ll these requirements at a single stroke. Even this plea, however, will have no effect on the part of the population that has not itself had the experience of analysis. Sophisticated self-deception, some will say; others: an absence of discernment; and no veredict will be reached.”²”

As a practitioner, my intense throughts require a picture, just to be able to focus, to find a metaphor to speak from. This was provided to me on my last visit to Sheffield, whose streets are being opened by heavy machinery, the direction of its roads is being reconsidered and the dust created by all these roadworks gives headaches to its inhabitants. I think I feel like the city!

But let me finish again with Freud. You may begin to notice that it is only recently that I have discovered his writings. His contribution if phenomenal! I don’t seem to agree or see eye to eye with many of his assertions but one needs to remember the achievement of his thought, the graoundbreaking nature of his conclusions ‚Äîeven if they owe a great deal to Shopenhauer’s ode of the mind‚Äî, including the creation of a lexicon that has common usage today. My bugbear with him at the moment is around his input as an anlyst in the Wolfman’s case. I know he meant to use many of his interpretations as mere symptoms to bring what was becoming a stale analysis back into some kind of movement (he uses the execellent metaphor of his patient’s bowels for this). Still, I can’t help but feel I can’t quite follow. Still, as seen in the quote above, analysis is a practice and reporting on a practice that is itself filtered may bring this sort of shortcomings. One thing is clear to me, though. Freud’s writing is rounded, clear and beautiful, his narratives are well constructed in literary terms. I can’t help but think of links between Freud and Sherlock Holmes; and even Freud and Nabokov, even though the poor Russian enchanter (who called Freud “Vienese witch doctor”) will probably be turning in his grave. This paragraph may, however, appease his disapproval:

In this way the course of the treatment illustrated the dictum, long held to be true by the analytic technique, that the length of the road that the analysis must travel with the patient and the wealth of material that must be mastered on that road are as nothing compared to the resistance encountered during the work, and are only worthy of consideration in that they are necessarily proportional to that resistance. It is the same proces as when a hostile army takes weeks and months to cross a stretch of land that an express train could cover ina few hours in peace time, and that one’s own army had crossed in a matter of days a hort time before.”³”

1. Freud, S (2006 [1918]) History of an infantile neurosis [The 'Wolfman'] in Freud, S & Phillips, A (ed.) The Penguin Freud Reader. London: Penguin. p. 202 [back]
2. Freud, S (2006 [1918]) History of an infantile neurosis [The 'Wolfman'] in Freud, S & Phillips, A (ed.) The Penguin Freud Reader. London: Penguin. p. 241 [back]
3. Freud, S (2006 [1918]) History of an infantile neurosis [The 'Wolfman'] in Freud, S & Phillips, A (ed.) The Penguin Freud Reader. London: Penguin. p. 200 [back]

Today, I need a fair bit of cheering up and this almost did the trick for 3 minutes…

After that momentary ray of sun, I am black in Gloomy Blue. The [big] Other is already passing judgement in the form of split infinitives and what is generally considered good English. Don’t even have the energy to argue stylistic issues… I think I should try song writing and Morrisseyesque weird phrasings to counteract so much law and order…

Someone inadvertently reminded me today that I used to refer to my PhD as Humbert Humbert refers to his story in Lolita. I always wanted to say to my examination panel, while pointing at my voluminous thesis and looking at my seductive artworks:

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, look at this tangle of thorns.

A tangle of thorns it feels as I go beyond merely toying with ideas to starting building a framework, or something along those lines… Conversations help. I never realised how much of a PhD is actually sparked by other people. My acknowledgements list grows and grows; I am a grateful person and want everyone meaningful to be represented. Remainders of a Catholic upbringing, no doubt. As S–– says, why lead astray from right behaviour? What is right behaviour? Right behaviour according to whom? Morals, values and ethics (together with phantasies and desires) are back into the equation and I hope Forrester’s chapter “Rape, Seduction and Psychoanalysis” holds some pointers for me. Or maybe I will find what I am looking for in casual conversations. I joined a psychoanalysis message board on LJ but seem to be merely talking to myself there… The tangle is getting more and more knotted, the thorns start to pierce.

My desk, this morning

My files

My insipid attempts at undertanding Lacanian theory through explaining the Schemata to myself

The intensity of my last trip to Sheffield reflects the current state of my thinking. The conceptualisation of the problem is changing very rapidly and with it, both the context and the methodologies. What I thought was seduction might not be; what I was certain came from the appearance from an object might be incorrect; what I thought was going to veer towards social scientific methodologies might be an altogether philosophical problem; the amount of work I thought I would cover might only be a matter of definition.

The territory I am treading is unknown to me. The research question is asking me to go into phenomenology. What this means is that what I thought was objective and universal may be impossible. Instead, the problem is requiring an approach that looks into the relational aspects of this phenomena I shouldn’t call seduction just yet.

I am the sort of person who likes order and planning, needs to know what they are doing and where is that going to taken them. I have no idea where I am going and, if I am honest, I don’t like it. However, I think this feeling is more productive than that of control. I am thinking things I didn’t think I could think, making connections between concepts and ideas that may produce something more interesting than what carrying out an activity might. I am also exploring areas of knowledge that I either didn’t know about (Consumption Studies) or I resented due to previous patchy experience (Phenomenology).

Learning that phenomenology is not reduced to Bachelard (how erratic my knowledge is!) but that Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida are also phenomenologists gave me immense intellectual pleasure. Discovering the varied philosopher’s approaches and finding out that some of them are rigorous and systematic thinkers (they come from Kant) resolved many of my differences with them. Phenomenology also represents the link that will be able to relate my subject to something I could not satisfactorily bring into the equation before: Lacan’s concept of the Object Petit a. I had the intuition that Lacan was important to my study but often felt that my inclination was getting in the way of logic, not really making sense.

Going from one place to the other and learning how to deal with that unknown, that wilderness, is part of producing new knowledge. I am excited by the challenge that the Merleau-Ponty volume on my red desk represents. GU library seems to have a lot of resources that will help me make sense of it and thankfully, it belongs to the SCONUL network, which reconciles me with this sometimes difficult distance from Sheffield.

I am delighted to announce that the Leading Astray project will finally take place at Sheffield Hallam University. I couldn’t have hoped for a better home for it.