Lacan, J. (1994). Touché and Automaton. In J. Miller (Ed.), A. Sheridan (Tran.), The four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis (pp. 53-60). London, United Kingdom: Penguin.
In Section 2 on Touché and Automaton Lacan (1994, p. 56) considers the state between dream and awakening, between a sleeper’s state of dream consciousness and the plunge into reconstituted consciousness. The situation is illustrated by Lacan’s experience of being awoken from a short nap by the knocking at the door. He reflects: “I must question myself as to what I am at that moment” (ibid.).
This also poses important questions for my project that focuses on the borderland between reality and illusion, between the blurred frontier of wake consciousness and dream or hallucination. Lacan asks:
“How can we fail to see that awakening works in two directions–and that the awakening that re-situates us in a constituted and represented reality carries out two tasks? The real has to be sought beyond the dream” (ibid., p. 60).
If I was to transfer this to the borderland between reality and illusion both states can be seen as alternating in and out of consciousness. Dream consciousness is perceived as reality in the same way as wake consciousness for the period of the dream, but not in retrospective analysis. In the blurred borderland where reality and illusion merge it is not possible to distinguish between these two states. Lacan’s illustration is a vivid example. In my narrative I want to prolong the period that the protagonist spends between the two states. With his rational mind the character is aware that he is hallucinating but his perception makes reality and illusion undistinguishable. This forces him to take action and resolve the problem.
In my opinion Lacan seems to struggle to describe in words what lies beyond waking consciousness. This, I believe, signifies a limitation of language1. And it is hardly surprising as Lacan’s concept of the real signifies “that which is outside language, resisting symbolization2 absolutely” (“Jacques Lacan,” 2010).
If language is too limited to describe dream-like states then so are visual representations which form part of a language of codes and symbols. These visual representations are the centrepiece of my project. The limitation of language, however, does not need to be discouraging for me. I argue that it is not necessary to show the borderland between reality and illusion in visual accuracy which, as was pointed out above, is impossible. Similar to spiritual or religious experiences the unconscious cannot be communicated. To refer to the mythologist Joseph Campbell (1973) the best we can do is to apply “entertaining myths [to] transport the mind and spirit, not up to, but past them [the gods], into the yonder void” (ibid., p. 180).
In similar terms an old3 Buddhist text, the Lotus Sutra, declares: “This Law cannot be described. Words fall silent before it” (Watson, 1993, p. 25). Instead of trying to describe that which cannot be communicated the sutra makes use of expedient means, similes and parables. The text uses extremely visual and fantastic language to open up the reader’s mind beyond the ordinary so that the sutra can transport its unfathomable message. In order to translate this approach to my project I intend to create visually stimulating images in form of an (animated) short film to transport the viewer’s mind into the world of the protagonist that is located in the borderland between reality and illusion. Consequently the objective of my project is not to apply visual accuracy but coherent symbolic representation.
Footnotes
1 This is complicated further by the English translation of the French original of this text. The translator struggles at times with ambiguous meaning and declares a passage of the text as “strictly untranslatable” (Lacan, 1994, p. 56).
2 According to Lacan language itself represents a symbolisation: “It is the world of words that creates the world of things – the things originally confused in the hic et nunc [here and now] of the all in the process of coming-into-being” (Lacan, 2001, p. 49).
3 The earliest certain proof of existence is its first Chinese translation in 255 CE. (Watson, 1993, p. ix)
References
Campbell, J. (1973). The hero with a thousand faces (Second.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Jacques Lacan. (2010). Wikipedia. Retrieved May 31, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lacan
Lacan, J. (1994). Touché and Automaton. In J. Miller (Ed.), A. Sheridan (Tran.), The four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis (pp. 53-64). London, United Kingdom: Penguin.
Lacan, J. (2001). Écrits: a selection. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.
Watson, B. (1993). The lotus sutra. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
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