Raiding the inarticulate since 2010

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“Mummy, I done an album!”: the excremental character of creative production

The child is asked to hold in. He is made to hold in too long, to start to introduce excrement into the realm of what belongs to his body, and he starts to make it a part of his body, which is considered, at least for a while, as something not to be lost. Then, after that, he is told to let it out, again on demand. Demand has a decisive role here. This part, which all the same the subject has some apprehension over losing, now finds a moment’s acknowledgment. It is raised to a very special worth. It is at least given the value of providing the Other’s demand with its satisfaction, in addition to being accompanied by all the care and attention with which we are familiar. Not only does the Other approve and pay attention but it tacks on all these additional dimensions I needn’t mention – in other realms, this makes for funny psychics – the sniffing, the approval, even the wiping, whose erogenous effects everyone knows to be incontestable.

Anxiety: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book X, pg 301

I’m amazed that at no point in this (glorious) seminar by Lacan about shitting does he consider what seems to me like the obviously excremental character of creative production. The thing inside us we feel pressured to release, which we sometime withhold to frustrate the other, but which ultimately we find relieving to let go into the world. The creative output as “both him and not him”, released in response to a switching demand “keep it in / give it out” (pg 302) and which we hope wins us the acclaim of the other. Is this just me? 🤔

See also via James Waide (the reference, not the contents…):

Artist’s Shit (Italian: Merda d’artista) is a 1961 anti-artwork by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. The work consists of 90 tin cans, each reportedly filled with 30 grams (1.1 oz) of feces, and measuring 4.8 by 6.5 centimetres (1.9 in × 2.6 in), with a label in Italian, English, French, and German stating:

Artist’s Shit
Contents 30 gr net
Freshly preserved
Produced and tinned
in May 1961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist’s_Shit
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