From Lacan by Lionel Bailly pg 49:
Rather than the topological representations used by Freud, one may think of the unconscious as the force field that orientates the molecules of a liquid crystal, where the molecules are the signifiers. The analogy of the liquid crystal is useful when describing the relation of signifiers inside the unconscious: they behave similarly to the molecules in the crystal, forming bonds between themselves, and under the influence of some energy-source, freely slide over one another to form different bonds with other molecules within the crystal. In the unconscious, signifiers develop the same type of relationship between themselves as they do in the conscious psyche: they form themselves into the ‘signifying chain’. The unconscious is not within the Subject’s control or even view, but it acts in spite of the ego, constantly throwing out signifiers that the Subject has repressed,
It’s a slightly different metaphor but it made me think of this visualisation of water turning to ice, as the lively interplay of the signifier-molecules condenses into a fixed set of interconnections, while retaining the capacity to melt back into their previous form. In this sense we could imagine the unconscious as the horizon of semiotic fixity, though I guess the Lacanian objection to this framing would be that it obscures the semiotic chains which form in the unconscious. But there’s something about this metaphor which I’m really taken by, much more so than Bailly’s even if reading this passage is what prompted this line of thought.
Mark Carrigan 