'Television': Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

Subtitles adapted from the translation by Denis Hollier, Rosalind Krauss, and Annette Michelson in 'Television: A Challenge to the Psychoanalytic Establishment' - Jacques Lacan (Norton, London: 1990). Complete video (without subtitles) at ubuweb.com. There is no structure except through language. There is no sexual relation. "Every interview is a comedy, as is perhaps every bond built up by speech - including even analysis. [...] Lacan never shied away from theatrics - it goes hand in hand with the use of discourse. The bores reproached him for it; they reason badly. What we agreed upon beforehand was that I would converse with Lacan in front of the cameras. But that was not possibly for after every cut, when it was time to start up again, Lacan shifted a bit - in his discourse. Each time he gave an additional twist to his reflections which were unfolding there, under the spotlights, thwarting any chance of bridge-building. We stopped after two hours; I gave him in writing a list of questions; and he wrote this play, 'Television', in about two weeks time; I saw him every evening and he gave me the day's manuscript pages; then he read or acted out - with a few improvised variations - the written text you have before you. He made a spring-board of this false start.' J. A. Miller, 'Microscopia: An Introduction to the Reading of Television', (1987), trans. B. Fink (1990).