The Blob and the Magic Lantern: On Subjectivity, Faciality and Projection

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Through an examination of Proust's ‘magic lantern’ scene from the opening of A la recherche du temps perdu, alongside the work of the contemporary installation artist Tony Oursler, this article takes projection as a means of exploring the relationship between subjectivity and embodiment. Reading them in conjunction with Deleuze and Guattari's concept of ‘faciality’, I argue that Oursler's installations, combining performance, sculpture and video art, explore the fate of the body subjected to signification and can be described as ‘tragedies of faciality’. At the same time, anchored as they are in material relations, they are unable to detach the subject from the limits of the body in the radical way Proust can, via a literary account of projection which is, I argue, doubly virtual.
Original languageEnglish
Article numberN/A
Pages (from-to)305-323
Number of pages18
JournalPARAGRAPH
Volume36
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2013

Keywords

  • Proust
  • Oursler
  • projection
  • Deleuze
  • video installation

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