Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain

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Jamie Ruers is an art historian specialising in art and culture from Vienna 1900 and Surrealist art and film. She is a researcher and the events manager at the Freud Museum London. Stefan Marianski is the education manager at the Freud Museum London. He is also a member of the Psychosis Therapy Project, which provides low-cost psychoanalytic psychotherapy for people experiencing psychosis. Jamie Ruers is an Art Historian and a Researcher at the Freud Museum London. She has written and given talks on art history and psychoanalysis on subjects including Viennese Modernism and the French Surrealists. As the cinema foyer filled with the aromas of damn fine coffee, the animated discussions whirled before spilling out on to the street, so that passers-by catching a few fragments of conversation about the mysteries of Lumberton, the sinister underbelly of Twin Peaks, or the depravity of Bobby Peru could be forgiven for surmising that it was a convention of detectives (or perverts). Held on “Twin Peaks Day”, 24 February, we will transform the Freud Museum into an homage to Lynch’s cult TV series.

Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain - ed. by Jamie Ruers and

this collection raises several important questions, pertinent both to psychoanalysis and an appreciation of Lynch. What are the implications of trying to interrupt trauma? To what extent is Lynch’s oeuvre an attempt to confront the malevolence of the Other? At what point do hysteric representations begin to hystericize the spectator? Can the free association of psychoanalysis be reconciled with the free association of transcendental meditation? By exploring these questions, the reader can begin to peer behind the Lynchian curtain and will, most likely, see quite a bit more than they might have expected to. The collection feels fresh and unquestionably offers more than just a rehashing of the popular psychoanalytic readings of Lynch.’ How far down the Lost Highway can we get with psychoanalytic theory as our guide? In this talk I would like to take a look at some of the remarkable parallels between David Lynch’s masterpiece and Lacanian psychoanalysis. I hope to draw out some Lynchian lessons about the structure of desire and the function of the law, and to offer some psychoanalytic reflections on some of Lost Highway‘s many enigmas. 12. Richard Martin Jaice Sara Titus is a PhD candidate at Brunel University London researching improvisational comedy and its relation to philosophy, critical theory and psychoanalysis. Her project particularly explores how the structure of desire and jouissance are embedded in the dimension of play, freedom and laughter. Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain takes as its point of departure that Lynch’s work is not so much unintelligible as ‘uncanny,’ revealing what Todd McGowan has termed “the bizarre nature of normality” – and the everydayness of what we take to be strange. Lynch’s unwillingness – or inability – to openly discuss the meaning of his work has enticed and frustrated audiences and critical establishments alike since the emergence of ‘Eraserhead’ in 1977. Who or what exactly has Laura Palmer now become in ‘Twin Peaks’? Why won’t he tells us what’s really going on in ‘Lost Highway’? Why won’t he confirm or deny our own complex theories on the workings of ‘Mulholland Drive’? Why does he invite us into his own dreamscapes and then leave us to figure our own way out, with just a liberal scattering of clues to help? Does he even have the answers himself, or is he too just enjoying the mysteries contained in the dream? This session is about the gulf that exists between Lynch’s work and Lynch’s mouth – the sinkhole that can open up between intention and effect. This is about the man who brings new power to the phrase ‘tight-lipped’. 11. Stefan MarianskiFreud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain takes as its point of departure that Lynch’s work is not so much unintelligible as ‘uncanny,’ revealing what Todd McGowan has termed “the bizarre nature of normality” – and the everydayness of what we take to be strange. Allister Mactaggart, PhD, is a Lecturer in Media at Chesterfield College. He is the author of The Film Paintings of David Lynch: Challenging Film Theory (Intellect, 2010), in addition to which he has published on landscapes in Lynch’s work in relation to the legacy of the sublime in North American art, and on pop music and loss in Mulholland Drive. Allister has presented papers on Lynch’s work at conferences nationally and internationally, and was one of the guest speakers at the Conversations symposium held on conjunction with the David Lynch Naming exhibition at MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) in 2015. Courtesy of Channel Four, I was able to begin making documentaries in 1983 and have been an independent filmmaker ever since. In the intervening 35 years I have produced and/or directed over 80 arts documentaries for television and contributed to over a dozen documentary series. These include award-winning films on Andy Warhol and Johnny Cash, as well as the series ‘The Genius of Photography’ and ‘This is Modern Art’. I first worked with David Lynch in 1993 while making a documentary about American independent cinema. In 1996 we began working on the book Lynch on Lynch, which was published in 1997 and has since been updated. I also worked extensively with the director David Cronenberg, making two documentaries about his work (one in 1986 and one in 1992) and well as editing the book Cronenberg on Cronenberg, based on years of recorded interviews. Unlike David Lynch, I don’t paint any more. He told me off about that. Lynch, who once told an interviewer “I love dream logic,” would surely agree with Sigmund Freud’s famous claim that “before the problem of the creative artist, psychoanalysis must lay down its arms.” But what else do the two agree on?

Freud/Lynch book launch: A Twin Peaks Day event SOLD OUT Freud/Lynch book launch: A Twin Peaks Day event

This conference invites psychoanalysts, scholars and cinephiles to reflect on these Lynchian enigmas. What do we mean by ‘Lynchian’? Beyond the apparent incoherence of his films, are there hidden logics at play? Are Lynch and Freud in alignment? And what light can psychoanalysis shed on the Lynchian uncanny? Join us at the Freud Museum for an evening of Lynchian quirks in the former home of Sigmund Freud as we mark the launch of the new book: Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain (2022). Freud and Lynch are predestined to meet. Only through Freud can we discern in Lynch’s films an authentic effort of thought, not just a postmodern confusion. And only through Lynch’s films can we see how relevant Freud’s theory remains for grasping the crazy predicament we live in. Freud/Lynch is thus a collection of essays which was predestined to be written.Lynch, who once told an interviewer ‘I love dream logic’ would surely agree with Sigmund Freud’s famous claim that ‘before the problem of the creative artist, psychoanalysis must lay down its arms’. But what else might the two agree on? Here, they discuss the Freud Museum London conference which inspired their debut book, Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain , an edited collection which explores potential affinities and disjunctions between Lynch and Freud. Lynch’s unwillingness – or inability – to openly discuss the meaning of his work has enticed and frustrated audiences and critical establishments alike since the emergence of ‘Eraserhead’ in 1977. Who or what exactly has Laura Palmer now become in ‘Twin Peaks’? Why won’t he tells us what’s really going on in ‘Lost Highway’? Why won’t he confirm or deny our own complex theories on the workings of ‘Mulholland Drive’? Why does he invite us into his own dreamscapes and then leave us to figure our own way out, with just a liberal scattering of clues to help? Does he even have the answers himself, or is he too just enjoying the mysteries contained in the dream? This session is about the gulf that exists between Lynch’s work and Lynch’s mouth – the sinkhole that can open up between intention and effect. This is about the man who brings new power to the phrase ‘tight-lipped’.