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States Of Exile
Presented by Professor Gill Straker
The notion of trauma is ubiquitous in the psychoanalytic cannon. Different definitions and paradigms pertain. Yet all would agree that there is an aspect of the experience that is beyond words. The artist Tracy Moffat, Australia’s representative at the 2017 Vienna biennale understands this exquisitely. Her work Night Cries is largely wordless and depicts multiple layers of trauma developmental, personal and political and she compels us to respond.
Yet we are caught in a paradox for to communicate about her work we speak in words and words are inadequate. Speaking from a Lacanian perspective the Real of trauma is always an excess, the beyond of words. This psychoanalytic truth is recognised by Moffat as her work speaks to many states of exile engendered by geographical isolation, cultural domination and hybridity, powerlessness and dependence as well as alienated states produced by everyday misattunements.
In this presentation we will view Moffat’s short film, and this will be followed by a close reading of the film. I will highlight how she deals with alienated and alienating self-states engendered in complex contexts of familial dependence that also reflect Australia’s history of colonial domination. In this reading Moffat’s call to move beyond binaries is heeded as she deals with affects of love and hate, tenderness and resentment in ways which refuse either being reductionist or moving to Kleinian splitting.
States of Exile
Thursday 9th May 8-9.30 p.m.
Live at Crows Nest Centre, 2 Ernest Place, Crows Nest, Sydney
Or via video conference
$80 incl. GST
Tea and coffee will be available after the lecture
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