Notes about : Zizek. How to read Lacan.
Chapter: 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)
“PRAYING WHEELS”> The wheel that prays for me.
Delegation and Religion. I think that in many religions the pray works as delegation of own´s life responsibility to an external divine source.” Someone else”, my GOD, will take care about my misfortune and will resolve my problems. This create a relation between the person and the “divine” under the spectrum of intepassivity. DEUS EX MACHINA.
“Readymade laughter”>separate soundrack for a recorded comedy show containing the sound of audience laughter. In some productions the laughter is a live audience response; in the U.S., the term usually implies artificial laughter (canned laughter or fake laughter) made to be inserted into the show. This was invented by American sound engineer Charles Douglass. (source: WIKIPEDIA).
SOMEONE ACTS ON MY PLACE: PASSIVITY VS ACTIVITY.
INTERPASSIVITY.
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.
more info: http://freudpsychoanalysis.com/rat-man-case-study/
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.
WHO ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE?
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
