By: Michael Croft,
Collaborative Researcher
i2ADS Institute of Research in Art, Design & Society
Porto University, Portugal.
Abstract
The article presents an argument towards the adaptation and mapping of two tables by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in a context of consideration of oneself as subject within the activity of artistic research. The author argues the possibility from the viewpoint of his own experience as an artist. By implication, this may be of relevance to and confer with the experience of the article’s readers. The two tables are specifically Lacan’s Logical Square and the Hysteric’s Discourse—of Lacan’s four basic proposed discourses. Lacanian theory is referenced to the extent that it should be possible to comprehend not merely the tables’ adaptation, but that the latter is viable only through and as a manifestation of such theory. Given that his primary visual medium is drawing, the author begins and develops a small diagram by way of illustration, and in one section of the article demonstrates the Lacanian concept of jouissance through and as written language and how it can affect how one writes, both initiatives of which show oneself as subject situated within practice.
Keywords: Lacanian psychoanalytical theory, Logical Square, Hysteric’s Discourse, subject, artist, artistic research, diagram, language
To cite as: Croft, Michael. 2024, “Diagrammatic Formatting of the Human Subject in and as Artistic Research: Lacan’s Logical Square and Hysteric’s Discourse” PsyArt 28 (2024),
pp. 28-55.