VIDEOS published on YouTube have been ways of thinking through Lacanian theory using images and animations rather than strictly logical arguments. Like Lacan’s famous mi-dire technique of speaking and writing, they invite the viewer to develop an independent line of thinking in parallel. Graphic materials have been developed using Keynote and are fairly clunky, compared to the sophisticated videos that can be found on Veritassium, Numberphile, and even Lacanian instructional sites. The clunkiness is somewhat intentional however. Visualization is something that the viewer should do in tandem to any presentation. Not all that is shown is seen, and not all that can be imagined will be shown.
Thanks to Dr. Iradj Ismailpoor Ghoochani, an ethno-anthropologist and talented collaborator whose graphic skills are many times more sophisticated than this collection, selected videos are being translated into Farsi.
Inversion and Induction: A Geometric Cypher of Melancholy
This narrated presentation focuses on Lacan’s division of the subject and signifier as the basis of his topology, with the qualification that this topology is really about inversion and induction, two “pre-topological” forces that shape ethnological uses of space and time.
From Presentation to Demonstration: The Villarceau Key to Inversion
If there is a logic to the Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic, it is a cultural logic, with topology already present. Here, our excavations should supply a new vocabulary. We should see in the paralysis of Prometheus, the extensive practices of bodily ornamentation and costume, and the elaborate rituals of marriage, new grounds for proclaiming the radical value of psychoanalysis. If Freud says that psyche is extended but knows nothing of it, we should proclaim a new unconscious that is nothing less than the cultural collective. The Villarceau cut into the 3-d torus (presentation) reveals the 2-d structure (demonstration), and the structure of the void shows us how to relate to the demonstrations implicit within the subject (Lacan’s “between the two deaths”) and the signifier (Freud’s contronymic primal terms). For the amazing Farsi version narrated by Dr. Iraj Ghoochani, go to: https://youtu.be/ElJi9yoagjk.
The Villaraceau Cut: Lacan’s topology’s relations to inversion geometry and, hence, ETHNOLOGY
This silent video is a visual zairja to use when thinking of how Lacan’s topological thinking was evenly distributed across the broad expanse of his work, from 1935 to 1980. Add your own narrative as you loop this video to consider two of the most ethnological of Lacan’s and Freud’s ideas, “between the two deaths” (an interval common to all cultures) and the contronym (words combining opposite meanings, said to proliferate in early cultures. Both of these ideas are present in the Villarceau cut, which converts an ordinary 3-d torus (bagel, donut, bicycle tire) into a 2-d torus, thanks to its production of a cut shaped like two Euler circle in the relation of symmetrical difference.” Take this to other topological figures, beginning with the Möibius band, and re-think other critical ideas, such as the après coup and L-Schema. Oops! Don’t forget lalangue! Create your own “zairja” (personal thinking machine).
Mapping the Topology of Inversion to a Sphere
This silent video is a place-holder for review and comments before the narrated version is produced. It proposes to use a sphere to map relations of the viewer to the viewed, showing how the horizon creates an invisibility that is transferred to objects in the visible field. Suppression of this creates the double frame as a buffer to the inversive transfer of invisibility to ordinary objects, localizing the gaze and its inversive infinity.
Lacan’s Inversion Circle and the Cardano Cycloid
This is a silent video that suggests a way of using Lacan’s four discourses’ sequential order and internal “lacework” to find a new “cycloid” feature. This relates to Lacan’s project of reconciling the discourses to Aristotle’s square, leading to the “extraction” of a quarter turn. Thanks to graphic designer and Lacan enthusiast Ross Sokolovsky for the graphic of the discourse wheel, which suggests a different order from the standard Master, Hysteric, University, Analysis (Analysis and University switch places). The argument is that the 4-to-3 theme that pervades Freud’s work extends to Lacan’s deployment of inversive geometry. See Jean-Michel Vappereau, “La théorie de l’identification selon Freud,” pages 63 à 83 in his Topologie en extension, 1998, Paris.
Lacan’s inversive Geometry: Expanded and Improved Edition
This is an enlarged and corrected edition of a silent video prepared for a zoom seminar to be held December 15, 2024. New in this edition: a way to connect Lacan’s critique of Aristotle’s logical square to the inversion circle, interior-8, and torus! Not exactly for beginners; challenging for veterans. For more information go to https://boundarylanguage.psu.edu/lacan-toronto-seminar/. Please note that the new special term listed at point 1:14, “ausculatory,” should be “osculatory.”
Inversive Geometry for Lacan’s (Ethno-)Topology
This silent video collects examples of “inversive geometry,” the logic behind Lacan’s famous idea of “extimité” — the inside-out conversions that constitute the Real of the subject. Participants in the upcoming TorontoLacan lecture (December 15, 2024) will study selected images to talk about the use of the inversion circle idea to connect Lacan’s topology to ethnology. Supplementary materials can be found at https://boundarylanguage.psu.edu/lacan-toronto-seminar/.
The Orthographic Cut: An Ethno-topological Approach to Psychoanalysis
Inversive geometry has the ability to transform our view of Jaques Lacan’s topology, making it less a matter of pure mathematics and more a central feature of the psychoanalytic value of ethnology. In this presentation prepared for a zoom with Iranian psychoanalysts, we use the L-Schema, Dracula, Antonello da Messina’s painting of St. Jerome in his study, and Charlie Chaplin’s film “The Circus” to develop the idea of the inversion circle, which shows how Lacan’s “toroidal logic” applies to instances of non-orientation critical to cultural formations. There is a Farsi translation of the narrative for this video, thanks to Dr. Iraj Ghoochani: https://youtu.be/A34t2326Grc.