Ruumiinkuvia! : Suomalainen performanssi- ja kehotaide 1980- ja1990-luvulla psykoanalyysin valossa

My PhD-thesis Body Images! Psychoanalytical Analysis of Finnish Performance and Body Art in the 1980s and 1990s considers Finnish performance and body art performed mainly by visual artists. In Part I, I chart the historical construction of performance art and its extension since the beginning of the 21st century. There are several wievs of the historical background of performance art. I introduce three different genealogies of performance art. One is Rose-Lee Goldberg s view. She connects performance art with the European avant-garde already at the beginning of the 20th century from futurists and dadaists to Russian avant-garde and the Bauhaus. I prefer to present performance art as contemporary art, which began to take shape in connection with visual arts in the 1950s and 1960s. The focus on the body is apparent in nearly all performance art. Nevertheless, throug the concept of body art I want to empasize the artist s body as the place of art. Body art (as part of performance art) functions as thematic and interpretive concept, which allows me to focus on performances where the questions of body image, narcissism, desire, language and pleasure are incorporated in particular intensive ways. In Part II, I explore the arrival of performance art in Finnish visual arts in the 1980s. I study the new generation s relation to earlier Finnish happenings (1960s) and performative actions in 1970 s. I briefly introduce performance groups of the 1980s art scene and consider their reception in media. The main focus is on the group Jack Helen Brut, in which I see many similarities to the so- called Theatre of Images. The goal of this part II is to provide historical context for the performance analysis that follows. In Part III, I develop the concept of body image which is my main theoretical term. The concept of body image is used according to Lacanian psychoanalytical theory, especially his considerations of mirror stages. My first mapping of body image, which I call imaginary body image, is based on Lacan s famous mirror stage article (1949). According to my reading, body image is narcistic and aggressive. The important concepts here are ego, imaginary, méconnaisance and alienation. In 1953 Lacan began to develop different version on mirror stage, in which he emphasized the primacy of symbolic dimension. It is not image, but language which constructs the foundations of body image. Central concepts in this chater are Other as language, ego-ideal, demand and desire. In the last chapter I connect the third version of the mirror stage to concepts of gaze, phantasy, real, jouissance and object a. In previous chapters I had considered body image in relation to ego. Now I explore it in relation to subject. In my reading the body image is fragile phenomen, which oscillates between yearning for coherence and phantasies of fragmented images. Part IV of the thesis begins with an introduction to the central concepts and debates in performace studies over the last few decades. Important concepts are presence, performativity and theatricality. The main substance of my thesis, however, is the performance analysis, which focuses on works by three Finnish artists and one Finnish group. The first analysis concerns the performance (1992) of Kimmo Schroderus. I discuss the relationship between narcissism and body art and the changes in demands projected on body images of men in recent decades in a Euro-American context. I also explore this performance in relation to the myth of Narcissus, which I reinterpret through Narcissus s aggression against his own body. The group Homo S is the main subject of the next analysis. I discuss the relationship between feminist art and performance art, especially in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. Homo S is different from this early performance art because of its anarchism, humor and rejection of all ideals. Homo S characterizes its performance Body Body (1983) as liberating vulgar feminism . Sociality and performance of erotic relations between women are central in Body Body. Pia Lindman s performances are the subjects of my third analysis. I study three of her performances: Olen muoto (1993), 17 and in love (1994) and Arranged views (1995). I interpret these performances as efforts to disperse the imaginary and symbolic structures of the body image. She constructs the peculiar object a and phantasy space of her own. In the last analysis I move from questions of image and gaze to a study of language, sound and jouissance. I discuss at a general level the performance of orality and helplesness (Hilflosigkeit) in body art. The central elements in Pentti Otto Koskinen s performances are the ear, listening and receptive gestures and postions. Perseveraatio (1998) can be understood representing as submission to the super-ego s power, which compels one to enjoy. I examine particularly closely the performance Maissi on hyvää ei missään nimessä maissia (1995), which I interpret as the return of a baby s body image to the liminal site of choice: language or jouissance?

Q-evankeliumi ja psykohistoria : Uuden testamentin eksegetiikan väitöskirja

In the course of my research for my thesis The Q Gospel and Psychohistory, I moved on from the accounts of the Cynics ideals to psychohistorical explanations. Studying the texts dealing with the Cynics and the Q Gospel, I was amazed by the fact that these texts actually portrayed people living in greater poverty than they had to. I paid particular attention to the fact that the Q Gospel was born in traumatising, warlike circumstances. Psychiatric traumatology helped me understand the Q Gospel and other ancient documents using historical approaches in a way that would comply with modern behavioural science. Even though I found some answers to the questions I had posed in my research, the main result of my research work is the justification of the question: Is it important to ask whether there is a connection between the ethos expressed by means of the religious language of the Q Gospel and the predominantly war-related life experiences typical to Palestine at the time. As has been convincingly revealed by a number of studies, traumatic events contribute to the development of psychotic experiences. I approached the problematic nature, significance and complexity of the ideal of poverty and this warlike environment by clarifying the history of psychohistorical literary research and the interpretative contexts associated with Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan and Melanie Klein. It is justifiable to question abnormal mentality, but there is no reliable return from the abnormal mentality described in any particular text to the only affecting factor. The popular research tendency based on the Oedipus complex is just as controversial as the Oedipus complex itself. The sociological frameworks concerning moral panics and political paranoia of an outer and inner danger fit quite well with the construction of the Q Gospel. Jerrold M. Post, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Political Psychology and Interna-tional Affairs at George Washington University, and founder and director of the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior for the Central Intelligence Agency, has focused on the role played by charisma in the attracting of followers and detailed the psychological styles of a "charismatic" leader. He wrote the books Political Paranoia and Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World: the Psychology of Political Behavior among others. His psychoanalytic vocabulary was useful for my understanding of the minds and motivations involved in the Q Gospel s formation. The Q sect began to live in a predestined future, with the reality and safety of this world having collapsed in both their experience and their fantasies. The deep and clear-cut divisions into good and evil that are expressed in the Q Gospel reveal the powerful nature of destructive impulses, envy and overwhelming anxiety. Responsible people who influenced the Q Gospel's origination tried to mount an ascetic defense against anxiety, denying their own needs, focusing their efforts on another objective (God s Kingdom) and a regressive, submissive earlier phase of development (a child s carelessness). This spiritual process was primarily an ecclesiastic or group-dynamical tactic to give support to the power of group leaders.

Zorros märke : Manligt identitetsbygge i Per Pettersons roman "Jeg forbanner tidens elv"

Avhandlingens syfte är att belysa hur porträtten av jagberättaren Arvid och hans mor växer fram i Per Pettersons roman Jeg forbanner tidens elv. Det paradigm jag utgår ifrån är det psykoanalytiska. Förutom texter av Sigmund Freud och Jacques Lacan stöder jag mig på texter av Peter Brooks och Terry Eagleton. För en tolkning av Arvids sätt att berätta sin historia använder jag mig av James Phelans tankar kring den opålitliga berättaren . Analysen bygger på en närläsning av romanen och några av de intertexter som förekommer i den. Av dessa är särskilt myten om kung Oidipus samt berättelsen om Zorro centrala för förståelsen av Arvids personlighet och hur den manliga identiteten byggs. Andra centrala intertexter som granskas närmare är Erich Maria Remarques roman Triumfbågen och Somerset Maughams roman Den vassa eggen. Porträttet av mor belyses indirekt via den funktion hon har i Arvids berättelse. Arvids porträtt analyseras ur två olika perspektiv. I uppsatsens första del, Romanbygget , undersöker jag hur romanen är uppbyggd och hur bilden av Arvid formas genom vad han berättar om sin mor, sitt liv, sin bakgrund och sina uppväxtår. Det perspektiv som Konung Oidipus i Freuds tolkning av det antika dramat ger, lyfter, som en nyckel in i romanen, fram dynamiken mellan Arvid, mor och den övriga familjen. I romanen dödas far i psykisk bemärkelse, han blir medvetet föraktad och förbisedd som manlig förebild och identifikationsobjekt. Arvids fixering vid mor gör att han ser sig själv med hennes ögon. Också bröderna får sin gestalt som rivaler i kampen om mor. I ljuset av den oidipala problematiken framhåller jag Arvids olösta relation till familjemedlemmarna som den avgörande orsaken till Arvids misslyckanden i livet och hans oförmåga att forma en fungerande och stabil vuxenidentitet. Men jag föreslår också en tidig, omedveten fadersidentifikation, symboliserad av Zorro och Zorros magiska märke, som i sublimeringen eventuellt finner sin lösning i en dröm om att bli författare. I uppsatsens andra del Berättarrösten undersöker jag Arvids sätt att berätta utgående ifrån Phelans tankar kring den opålitliga berättaren . Jag analyserar några centrala avsnitt i romanen med avseende på hur berättarröstens och den implicita författarens framställningar överensstämmer eller skiljer sig ifrån varandra. I min läsning är Arvid en komplext pålitlig och opålitlig berättare. Arvid framhåller i sin berättelse och i sina återblickar ett tillrättalagt och i någon mån förskönat porträtt av sig själv, en livslögn vars upplösning enligt min mening antyds i de avslutande kapitlen. För min förståelse av psykoanalysens teori och hur den kan tillämpas i litteraturforskningen är Ludwig Wittgensteins tankar om bildens användning centrala. I avsnittet om Zorro tar jag kortfattat upp frågan hur psykoanalytisk litteraturtolkning kan leda vilse i form av övertolkning, det vill säga att analysen övergår i fantasi. En annan möjlig felkälla som jag lyfter fram i analysen är att romanen tolkas av en svenskspråkig läsare som eventuellt läser in andra nyanser i den norska texten, än vad författaren avsett. Jag tar också upp frågan om Arvid i Pettersons tidigare produktion och huruvida det är frågan om en fortgående berättelse om Arvid Jansen under olika livsbetingelser. Mitt intryck är att det inte är fråga om ett enhetligt personporträtt utan olika frågeställningar som modelleras ur samma material.

Tiedostumaton nykytaiteessa : Katse, ääni ja aika vuosituhannen taitteen suomalaisessa nykytaiteessa

Leevi Haapala explores moving image works, sculptures and installations from a psychoanalytic perspective in his study The Unconscious in Contemporary Art. The Gaze, Voice and Time in Finnish Contemporary Art at the Turn of the Millennium . The artists included in the study are Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Hans-Christian Berg, Markus Copper, Liisa Lounila and Salla Tykkä. The theoretical framework includes different psychoanalytic readings of the concepts of the gaze, voice and temporality. The installations are based on spatiality and temporality, and their detailed reading emphasizes the medium-specific features of the works as well as their fragmentary nature, heterogeneity and affectivity. The study is cross-disciplinary in that it connects perspectives from the visual culture, new art history and theory to the interpretation of contemporary art. The most important concepts from psychoanalysis, affect theory and trauma discourse used in the study include affect, object a (objet petit a) as articulated by Jacques Lacan, Sigmund Freud s uncanny (das Unheimliche) and trauma. Das Unheimliche has been translated as uncanny in art history under the influence of Rosalind Krauss. The object of the study, the unconscious in contemporary art, is approached through these concepts. The study focuses on Lacan s additions to the list of partial drives: the gaze and voice as scopic and invocative drives and their interpretations in the studies of the moving image. The texts by the American film theorist and art historian Kaja Silverman are in crucial role. The study locates contemporary art as part of trauma culture, which has a tendency to define individual and historical experiences through trauma. Some of the art works point towards trauma, which may appear as a theoretic or fictitious construction. The study presents a comprehensive collection of different kinds of trauma discourse in the field of art research through the texts of Hal Foster, Cathy Caruth, Ruth Leys and Shoshana Felman. The study connects trauma theory with the theoretical analysis of the interference and discontinuity of the moving image in the readings by Susan Buck-Morss, Mary Ann Doane and Peter Osborn among others. The analysis emphasizes different ways of seeing and multisensoriality in the reception of contemporary art. With their reflections and inverse projections, the surprising mechanisms of Hans-Christian Berg s sculptures are connected with Lacan s views on the early mirroring and imitation attempts of the individual s body image. Salla Tykkä s film trilogy Cave invites one to contemplate the Lacanian theory of the gaze in relation to the experiences of being seen. The three oceanic sculpture installations by Markus Copper are studied through the vocality they create, often through an aggressive way of acting, as well as from the point of view of the functioning of an invocative drive. The study compares the work of fiction and Freud s texts on paranoia and psychosis to Eija-Liisa Ahtila s manuscripts and moving image installations about the same topic. The cinematic time in Liisa Lounila s time-slice video installations is approached through the theoretical study of the unconscious temporal structure. The viewer of the moving image is inside the work in an in-between state: in a space produced by the contents of the work and its technology. The installations of the moving image enable us to inhabit different kinds of virtual bodies or spaces, which do not correspond with our everyday experiences. Nevertheless, the works of art often try to deconstruct the identification to what has been shown on screen. This way, the viewer s attention can be fixed on his own unconscious experiences in parallel with the work s deconstructed nature as representation. The study shows that contemporary art is a central cultural practice, which allows us to discuss the unconscious in a meaningful way. The study suggests that the agency that is discursively diffuse and consists of several different praxes should be called the unconscious. The emergence of the unconscious can happen in two areas: in contemporary art through different senses and discursive elements, and in the study of contemporary art, which, being a linguistic activity is sensitive to the movements of the unconscious. One of the missions of art research is to build different kinds of articulated constructs and to open an interpretative space for the nature of art as an event.