by Ferdy Marysse | Vol 21 (2) 2003
In the context of the debate on the art value of outsider art (in the two following senses: valuable art versus devalued art, and the value of outsider art for art history) the author investigates the central place of repetition for the artist in the creative process. Firstly, the surplus-aesthetic-value of an outsider-work-of-art is partly assigned to the manifest repetition that is found in this work. Support for a connection between aesthetics and repetition is found, on the one hand, in the work of established artists like Andy Warhol and, on the other, in Lacan’s seminar L’ éthique de la psychanalyse (1959-1960). Secondly, repetition, as it manifests itself in art, is interpreted as being the frame of the fantasy that protects the subject but that also simultaneously compels him or her. This compulsive repetition is often related to the signifier of the Name-of-the-Father as anchoring point for the fantasy in the work of outsider art artists. Different forms of the repetitive and compulsive appearance of the Name-of-the-Father are illustrated using short vignettes about outsider art artists. Thirdly, the fundamental importance stressed of the material that is repeatedly and compulsively incorporated as object a is established. It is proposed that this material, via association, can be transformed into an independent thinking language from which, via repetition, the master signifier and the signature of the artist develop.
by Veroniek Knockaert | Full text, Vol 21 (1) 2003
Lacan introduced the voice and the gaze as two new objects of the drive, besides the anal, oral and phallic object. In this article the author provides a brief overview of the conceptualisation of the voice and the invocative drive in Lacan’s seminars. This overview permits the characterization of the voice as a tension between sense and nonsense, between speech subjected to the Law on the one hand, and something of the real, the object a as that which should be situated beyond discourse on the other hand. Furthermore, the voice appears to be a special object in that it is not a partial sexual object but rather a subjectifying object. It is the voice of the mother, the mother’s sonata, that “sings a subject into being”. It transmits a certain dimension of the Law, but it also contains its transgression when it abolishes the discontinuities particular to speech. The first period of the invocative drive is the dynamic between the song of the mother and the cry of the child. The second period is that of the real privation of the mother. The Phallus names the mother’s absence in the third period and thus realizes a primordial repression. As a result of this the voice as object is lost between mother and infant. The question of a fourth period of the invocative drive is addressed in the last part of this paper and is related to sublimation on the one hand and the cure on the other.
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by Jochem Willemsen | Vol 22 (1) 2004
This article investigates the theoretical issue of whether the concept of repetition is applicable to psychosis. In the neurotic subject, repetition is a reaction to the lack in the Other. The subject is confronted with a lack, a chance event, a question to which he has no answer. As a consequence, the neurotic is passively subjected to the Other. A case study makes it clear that the psychotic reacts differently to the lack in the Other. On the one hand, the psychotic can find an answer in the jouissance of the father and this jouissance will repeat itself during the course of his or her life. This “repetition” can be traced back to the sinthome which is not the case in neurosis. On the other hand, some psychotics may be unable to find an answer to the lack in the Other and they will experience a return in the Real. In these patients, a repetition is traceable, but this time to the concept of le retour dans le réel. Therefore, it is concluded that the application of the concept of repetition is inadequate in terms of the psychotic structure.
