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Psychoanalysis and Technology
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| This page is intended for students of sociology, psychology
and psychoanalysis, media and cultural studies, gender studies, communications
and related topics.
We are happy to discuss the provision of individual lectures
or the whole series with any reputed institution, and we can tailor to
the requirements of your undergraduate or postgraduate programme.
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| 1 |
Introduction |
| 2 |
Commodity & Availability - From Marx to Klein |
| 3 |
Architecture & Personal Space |
| 4 |
Technology & Identity |
| 5 |
Technology & Gender |
| 6 |
Authenticity - From Heidegger to Lacan |
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Background Objectives
We assume that the student has the following overall objectives:
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to be knowledgeable about the important theories of psychoanalysis, gender
and popular culture, and how these theories interrelate
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to be able to illustrate theory using individual works of popular culture
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to be able to carry out simple analyses of popular culture, using relevant
theoretical concepts
Relevance of technology to this context
This document is intended to explain and illustrate the importance of a
technology to
popular culture is dependent upon modern technology - especially but not
exclusively the technologies of mass communication
many of the basic themes of psychoanalysis (identity/self, desire/fantasy,
authenticity) are radically and fundamentally affected by the paradigms
of a man-made (sic) world
technology is a repressed subject, about which we usually only allow ourselves
certain limited discourses - much as sexuality (in Foucault’s account)
technology is symbolized by the phallus, and our intimate relationship
with it (and with the popular culture it brings us) is derived from this
symbolism
philosophical theories about technology (mostly deriving from Heidegger,
via such French disciples as Sartre, Lacan and Foucault) offer us a theoretical
bridge between psychoanalytic theory and the theory of popular culture
The main ideas of the lecture series are as follows:
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Our relationship with the man-made (sic?) world is dominated by the
paradigm of the device. This paradigm creates an illusory separation
between the technological means (the machinery, the medium) and the technological
ends (the commodity, the message). |
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We want maximum availability of the commodity. Technological
‘progress’ is generally devoted to increasing the availability of technological
goods, to make them everywhere available, instantly, without risk or hassle.
We demand this with an often irrational urgency. This has important
links with the infant’s demand for the breast, as discussed by Melanie
Klein and her followers. Our relationship with technology can thus
be seen in Kleinian terms. |
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At the same time, we want the machinery to become invisible.
For various reasons, we repress ourselves from seeing the machinery, and
our dependence upon it. Our conscious awareness focuses on the message,
and we refuse to acknowledge the medium. But the more we overlook
the medium and concentrate on the message, the more inseparable they become. |
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One way of analysing this is to think about those technological discourses
we allow ourselves to have, and those discourses we generally screen out
or avoid. Popular culture itself contains certain narrow/superficial
discourses about technology (notably science fiction), but a wider and
deeper discourse about technology is difficult even at an academic level. |
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Technology is an object of desire. It is repressed as it is desired,
and it is desired as it is repressed. Just as Foucault
drew interesting conclusions about identity and power from the modern ways
of talking about sex, so we can probably also draw interesting conclusions
about identity and power from the ways of technology. |
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Our perception of the world, and our place in it, are inextricably
mediated through technology and the device paradigm. Our discovery
of ourselves (identity) is technical and complicated. The post-modern
self is fragmented via technology. Our perceptions, dreams, symptoms,
even our fantasies are influenced by the device paradigm. Most fantasies
can be seen as a desire for some form of power, attention, security/possession
or excitement. Here too, we separate the means from the ends. |
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According to Heidegger and his followers, it is this separation of
means from ends that leaves us inauthentic. These inauthentic fantasies
and myths are reflected and reinforced by popular culture. |
Lecture 1: Introduction
Technology affects our thinking in numerous ways. But we refuse to
think about it. It is systematically deleted from our conscious minds.
So this systematic deletion itself becomes an important psychological fact.
Freud and his followers noticed that sex and death were systematically
deleted from consciousness. They speculated on the emotional pressures
that caused this deletion, and attributed various symptoms to the ‘repression’
of feelings about sex and/or death. Psychoanalysis techniques have
been developed to ‘surface’ and deal with repressed feelings about sex
and death.
However, technology has not been properly placed on the agenda of psychoanalysis
(although it perhaps relates to issues of patriarchy and rationality, which
have been explored by feminist psychoanalysts), and has therefore not been
systematically surfaced.
This lecture is therefore about the way people repress their awareness
of technology, and the impact this repression has on their thinking (and
thus on their lives). It concludes with some ideas for addressing
this repression, based on action at two levels: psychological and socio-technical.
Questions / Exercises
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How do you feel about the inclusion of technology in this course?
Where do these feelings come from? How do these feelings affect the
way you experience popular culture? |
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In what ways does popular culture contain hidden messages about the
modern world (including technology)? How is technology made visible
through popular culture? How is technology made invisible through
popular culture? What are the implications of this? |
Resources
Lecture 2: Commodity & Availability - From Marx to Klein
There is a constant pressure on the providers of technology to increase
their availability. People want to watch films on demand, not when
some TV scheduler decides to broadcast them. 24-hour broadcasting,
satellite TV, VCRs and video rental, these are all technological solutions
to our need for films on demand, rather than according to a timetable.
This is a psychological need, which can be easily understood on a Kleinian
model.
Borgmann shows that this is a standard pattern for technological development:
to increase availability of the technological satisfaction: converting
an unreliable or uncontrollable device into an invisible commodity.
Questions / Exercises
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Make a list of technologies that you would find it really hard to do
without. Include at least one that was always there when you were
growing up, and another that you have grown attached to more recently.
What happens to you when there is a temporary glitch in one of these technologies.
For example, your car won’t start, or there is a power cut. What
technologies are you prepared to do without when on holiday? How
does it feel to do without them? |
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Among your close friends and associates, can you identify technological
dependencies, where someone would suffer psychological distress if a given
technology was unavailable. (Please find something less obvious than
TV-addiction.) How conscious are they of their technological dependencies?
So how conscious are you of your technological dependencies? |
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Drawing from this personal experience/analysis, explore the relationship
between technology and demand, using appropriate psychoanalytical theoretical
constructs. |
Reading
Walter Benjamin
Albert Borgmann Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life
(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984)
Lecture 3: Architecture & Personal Space
Let’s start with two questions:
Which buildings have the greatest psychological impact on the person?
Your first idea in answer to this question may be some form of modern architecture,
especially the much-reviled concrete tower blocks of the 1960s. These
were initially thought to be exciting to live in - people volunteered to
take high-up flats in high-rise blocks, expecting to enjoy not only the
view but the feeling of superiority over those living at lower levels.
But many such blocks were built within a socio-economic system that prevented
adequate expenditure on the necessary machinery and services. So
the lifts were often out of action, the stairs filthy and ill-lit, the
walkways dangerous and the inhabitants violent, resulting in a space that
was far from pleasant to live in.
This effect was not consciously intended by the middle-class architects
and planners who designed these blocks, although they may well have been
unconsciously influenced by a false set of expectations about needs of
the working-class families for whom the blocks were designed.
Which buildings have been consciously designed to have the greatest psychological
impact?
If we turn our attention to this question, however, we can identify a very
different class of tall buildings: cathedrals. This is an art form
that reached its peak in the late middle ages, modern instances (such as
Coventry and Guildford notwithstanding). The cathedral is a machine
for generating awe. It expresses the spiritual and temporal power
of the Church. When you step inside, you cannot resist having certain
spiritual or quasi-spiritual affects. The cathedral has been designed
to force you to have these affects, so that you associate spiritual peace
with the institution that owns and operates the building. It therefore
reinforced not only the spiritual but also the temporal power of the institution.
Figure 1: Power relationships between dweller and architect
Questions / Exercises
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Find some buildings or spaces that you can psychoanalyse. Look
for architectural expressions of such affects as pain, anger or fear. Try
to think about the psychological consequences of dwelling in or near this
space. |
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Produce a short written analysis, with illustrations. (E.g. photos,
pictures from magazines, drawings.) Marks will be deducted
for obviousness. Don’t bother with phallic towers or alienating concrete
estates unless you really believe you can say something new and insightful.
This is an exercise in observation and analysis, not in the ability to
reproduce theory. Don’t just trot out the standard postmodern line.
Full marks can be gained without name-dropping anybody at all. |
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Angles: symbolic, sociological, … |
Reading
Lewis Mumford, Art and Technics (New York: Columbia University Press,
1952)
Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine (
Lecture 4: Technology & Identity
Fragmentation of body and mind, through the technologies of communication.
Hyperreality. Derrida, Foucault.
Reading
Marshall McLuhan
Mark Poster, The Mode of Information (Cambridge: Polity Press,
1990)
Michel Foucault et al, Technologies of the Self (London: Tavistock,
1988)
Lecture 5: Technology & Gender
Technological discourse as an alien (masculine) discourse, with which students
of the (feminine) humanities feel uncomfortable.
Two cultures debate.
Dora Russell (drawing on Lewis Mumford) divided technology into masculine
and feminine. She points out that most people, when asked to think
about technology, mostly think about the masculine technologies and ignore
the feminine ones.
Questions / Exercises
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Find a piece of technospeak text that you find off-putting. Think
deeply about your reaction: where does it come from? |
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Do you always have precisely this reaction to all difficult texts,
or do technological difficulties prompt a different reaction to other kinds
of textual difficulties? If the latter, can you identify past experiences
that taught you to react differently? And can you identify specifically
what it is in (or absent from) the text that prompts this reaction in you? |
Resources
| BOOK |
Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization
Dora Russell, The religion of the machine age (London: RKP, 1983) |
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Technology & Gender |
Lecture 6: Authenticity - From Heidegger to Lacan
Technology as Other
Gestell.
Reading
Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and other essays
(trans William Lovitt, New York: Harper & Row, 1977)
Jacques Lacan, Television
Books
General
Albert Borgmann Technology and the Character of Contemporary
Life (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984)
Lecture 1
Robert Romanyshyn, Technology as Symptom and Dream (London:
Routledge, 1989)
Lecture 2
Walter Benjamin
Lecture 3. Architecture and Personal Space
Lewis Mumford, Art and Technics (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1952)
Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine
Lecture 4. Technology and Identity
Marshall McLuhan
Mark Poster, The Mode of Information (Cambridge: Polity Press,
1990)
Michel Foucault et al, Technologies of the Self (London: Tavistock,
1988)
Lecture 5. Technology and Gender
Dora Russell, The religion of the machine age (London:
RKP, 1983)
Lecture 6. Authenticity From Heidegger to Lacan
Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and other
essays (trans William Lovitt, New York: Harper & Row, 1977)
Jacques Lacan, Television
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This page last updated on November 6th,
2001
Copyright © 2001 Veryard Projects Ltd
http://www.veryard.com/tcm/psychotechnic.htm
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